#invertedau

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Not-Magic

A JSE Fanfic

Septics Inverted AU

First IRIS Chapter | Previous

(Heyyyy, what's upppp, it's meeee. Back with another chapter after so long. Seriously. So long. This has been the longest gap between IRIS Inverted chapters yet, I think. Tbh that's because I started writing Many Roads Diverge. A CYOA-style fic takes a LOT of work. But here we are now! Jackie and Frederick continue their investigation into IRIS by visiting other magicians. Meanwhile, Jack is having some trouble. Then Jackie makes a phone call. Enjoy!)

- - - - - - - - - -

Jackie couldn’t sit still for the rest of the car ride. He wanted to jump out and run until he found Chase. One of his best friends had just been basically kidnapped by a shady semi-magical organization, and he was just supposed to stay in the car after that? What the fuck? But Frederick was right, they had a limited window of time to meet up with the rest of the magicians. And Jackie needed more information about this IRIS, information that they could help him with.

The safe house was in Mirygale, which naturally made Jackie nervous. He was still technically a wanted criminal in this city. But he told himself that nobody would see him, as they were just going straight to the house. Not like they were walking around where a crowd of people could see his face. And even if they did, most people probably wouldn’t recognize Jackie, anyway. He’d changed a lot since his arrest and escape.

“Is this it?” Jackie asked as Frederick parked on the side of the road in a residential neighborhood. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“Good, that’s the point.” Frederick turned the car off. “We’re going in that one.” He pointed at a brown brick townhouse, identical to the rest of the brown brick townhouses around it.

“Alright, let’s go then.” The sooner they could talk to the magicians about IRIS, the sooner they could track them down, and the sooner Jackie could beat the shit out of them for taking Chase.

The two of them left the car behind and walked up the steps to the front door. Jackie hung back a bit, allowing Frederick to take the lead. Which he did, knocking on the door. And the door opened almost instantly. “Ah, I was wondering where you two were.”

“Hey, Eve.” Frederick grinned. “Sorry, we got, uh... delayed a bit.”

Jackie leaned around him. “Hi, Yvonne.”

“Hey, Jackie.” Yvonne gave him a nod. She was wearing a casual brown suit—dressed for work, clearly, as that wasn’t her usual style. But her hair was as vibrant as ever, cut short and dyed in blues and purples. “Come on in, Briony’s beside herself.”

Frederick sighed. “I know. Let’s go.”

The interior of the house was pretty normal. The front door led to a short hallway with a staircase for second-floor access. “That’s where we’re keeping all the magical stuff,” Yvonne said to Jackie, gesturing up the staircase. “But Briony and Nick are just in the living room here.”

“And it’s just them? I thought you guys had a whole team?” Jackie asked.

“Not everyone could make it right now,” Yvonne explained. “But the other four will be here later today if you want to hang around.”

“No, that’s fine.” Jackie shook his head.

“We do have a bit of a drive back,” Frederick added. “Let’s just... hurry along.”

Yvonne nodded. “Over here, then.” She walked over to an arch leading into a wide living room. “Hey guys, they’re here.”

Two others were in the living room. A dark-skinned man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a woman with blonde frizzy hair and glasses. He was sitting in the room’s singular armchair while she was pacing back and forth in front of the window. They both wore similar casual suits to Yvonne—the ABIM must’ve had a dress code. That certainly made Jackie feel self-conscious in his favorite hoodie (black with red patches, he’d had it for ages now.) Frederick wasn’t wearing this suit uniform either, but his usual way of dressing was nice enough that he didn’t look too out of place.

“There you are!” The pacing woman whirled around to see them. “I swear, Frederick, you’re never—oh my god!” Her eyes had locked onto Jackie. Specifically, Jackie’s face.

“Briony,” the man said in a warning tone.

Frederick casually took a step closer to Jackie. “Sorry about that,” he said quickly. “We got delayed for a bit, but we did find out something that... well, I don’t know if it will help with the investigation, but it is some new information. Briony, Nick, this is Jackie, I’ve told you about. Jackie, Briony and Nick.”

“Hi.” Jackie forced himself to smile.

“Lovely to meet you,” Nick said, standing up. “So sorry about Briony, she has no social tact.”

“Wh—hey!” Briony said, glaring at him. She turned back to Jackie with a guilty expression. “I’m so sorry about that, I just didn’t expect—I-I didn’t mean any offense. I’ve never seen—I’m so sorry. Truly.”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, but Jackie could get over it. His scars and eye-patch usually got stares. He looked at Frederick. “So, I’m guessing you didn’t tell them everything about me.”

“I told them everything important,” Frederick said. “And everything I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

“Hah.” Jackie gave him a small smile. “That’s, uh... yeah. Good.” He leaned a bit closer to him.

“Let’s not waste any time, shall we?” Yvonne said, hurriedly jumping in. “The camera we got is still in the detection box.”

“Right. Time to go take it out.” Nick checked a watch on his wrist. “Head on upstairs, everyone.”

The group left the living room and went up the stairs. And it’s here that the resemblance to a normal house faded away. There were symbols painted on the walls. Runes, drawn in lines, squares, and circles. Jackie vaguely recognized some of them. They were geared towards protection and containment. As they walked past, Briony tapped some of the runes, little zaps of mauve magic leaving her hands and causing the runes to glow the same color. Were these the wards?

“So, Jackie, Frederick said you met while on a case?” Nick asked, trying for some casual conversation.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. There was this guy I knew, he was a magician. A fucking evil one. H-he went all crazy one day and attacked me and my friends. Frederick and Yvonne were on that case, so they showed up to help us.”

“Then you guys stole my car,” Frederick added.

“You got it back eventually,” Jackie said defensively, making Frederick laugh.

“That’s the same guy who burned Frederick’s hand off, right?” Briony asked.

“Well that’s a light way of putting it,” Frederick said. “But yes.”

“That’s... where all this came from.” Jackie gestured at his face. “The magic lingered for a while until Frederick found me and healed me.” He shook his head. “So glad that guy’s in jail now. Hope he rots.”

The group walked into the last room down the hall, a medium-sized room that could’ve been a bedroom in an actual house, but was instead filled with tables that held all sorts of strange objects. Crystal spheres of many colors, mirrors and painting with abstract designs, feathers and bottles and thin wands of wood and metal. In the center of the room was a table with a box the size of a printer. The box was made of a silvery metal. Its surface shifted with faint designs, like sunlight passing through ocean waves.

Briony tapped the side of the silver box. The designs stopped, shifting to form a phrase: OBJECT READY. REMOVE OBJECT. “Right,” she said. “Nick?” Nick nodded and walked over to join her. Each of them put their hands on two corners of the box. They whispered something in unison, their eyes glowing together—Briony’s that same mauve color, Nick’s a brighter yellow-green—and then lifted the top of the box off. They set the lid on the table next to it and Nick reached inside, pulling out... another box. This one was made of a coppery metal instead of silver.

“So, I’m guessing that’s the detection box,” Jackie said, pointing at the big silver box. “What’s that, then? Doesn’t look like a camera.”

Briony smiled a little. “We keep unknown magical items in these. They muffle all magical waves and signals.”

“Here, come look,” Nick said, sitting the box on the table. Jackie hesitated, but when Frederick and Yvonne walked over he did as well.

The top of the box was transparent, like glass. Inside was what looked like an old-fashioned security camera made of white plastic and metal. On the side of the camera was a symbol in black. Like an eye with three pupils. “Hmm. Looks pretty normal,” Jackie said, aware of how unhelpful that was.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Yvonne agreed. “That’s what the detection box is for. Picking up stuff that is abnormal. Now where’re the results?”

“Briony puts the paper actually in the box, remember?” Frederick said.

“I don’t want to lose it!” Briony said defensively, already reaching back into the detection box. After a couple seconds, she pulled out an ordinary piece of printer paper and slapped it down on the table next to the camera. “Here we are.”

On the paper was silvery writing, like someone had used a metallic glitter pen to record the results. Magic signature detected, it said. Combat: none. Divination: none. Soul: none. Necromancy: none. Health: none. Transformation: none. Conjuration: none. Illusory: none. Mental: none. And it kept going like that. Jackie skimmed the list to the bottom, where something was finally different. Light magic object. Black magic object.

“That’s... weird,” Yvonne said.

“There are several things wrong with this,” Frederick agreed. Nick and Briony just looked concerned.

“And what are those several things?” Jackie asked.

“Well, it’s not supposed to list out every branch of magic like this,” Frederick explained. “It’s just supposed to tell you if the object is light magic or black magic, and what branch of magic it is, not all the ones it isn’t. And, of course, it’s supposed to tell you what the object can do.”

“So... the camera short-circuited your magical detection device,” Jackie summed up.

“Pretty much,” Nick agreed.

“Frederick, you didn’t mention this.” Briony pointed at the two phrases at the end. “It’s impossible for a single object to use both light and black magic.”

“What?” Jackie blinked, confused. “But... magicians can use light and black magic, can’t they? I mean, I’m told black magic has side effects, but using it doesn’t somehow close you off from using light magic. It’s like a spectrum, right?”

Frederick gave him a small, proud smile. “It is. But it’s different with objects. Objects can’t choose to use magic, they can only do what the person intended them to. And once you imbue an object with a purpose that leans more to the light or the dark, then any attempts to put the opposite end of the spectrum into the enchantment don’t work. They fizzle out if you’re lucky and literally blow up if you’re not.”

Jackie nodded slowly. “Alright. So that’s super weird for the camera, right?”

��So weird,” Nick muttered.

“What if you put something that’s not magic in the detection box?” Jackie asked. “Like... a regular pen or something.”

Briony shrugs. “Then the detection won’t work. The cycle will cut short if there’s no magical signature. And before you ask, the containment box is built to work with the detection, the detection will go right through it.”

Jackie went quiet for a moment. “What if it emits a different type of signature?”

Frederick tilted his head. “Like what?”

“I dunno. Radiation, or something.”

Yvonne raised an eyebrow. “Why and how would we have something radioactive to put in the detection box?”

“I don’t know! I’m just asking!” Jackie said defensively. “People are stupid and curious, surely someone in the history of magicians has tried to put fucking... plutonium or whatever into the magic box.”

Frederick leaned back against a nearby table. “Are you saying the camera is radioactive?”

“No, I’m just...” Jackie shook his head.

“No, keep going,” Frederick said. “I think I know where you’re going. It’s about the weird magical signature IRIS locations give off, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Jackie nodded, relieved. “What if that’s not really magic? But something else? Not radiation, obviously, otherwise people would know, but... something like it?”

Briony’s eyes lit up. “Something similar to magic that isn’t actually magic? That... that would make sense, actually. It’d be close enough that we can pick it up, but different enough that we couldn’t actually identify it.”

“If we’re opening up the possibility, what if IRIS has just invented a new branch of magic?” Nick asked.

“Well, we’d have to think about what IRIS could do with a new branch of magic,” Yvonne said. “This camera—it’s called a WTCHR camera, remember? And we’ve all read the description and instructions that came in the box.” As she said this, she walked over to a table by the door and picked up a manual, looking just like any other instruction booklet that came with any other electronic product. “Most of it is just a really good camera, but it claims it can identify emotions and whether or not someone’s telling the truth. That’s the odd part, and that could be accomplished with scrying magic or mental magic. IRIS wouldn’t need to invent something new.”

“But what if it’s not magic?” Frederick pointed out. 

“It would definitely explain why your fucking... magic box got error’ed out,” Jackie said.

Nick frowned, doubtful. “We can keep it in mind. Talk about it with the others. In the meantime, what do we do with the camera?”

In unison, they all looked at it. “I guess we just keep it,” Briony said. “Run it through a couple tests, maybe? I’m wondering if there are any other unusual properties it has.”

“What sort of tests?” Jackie asked, intrigued.

“Oh, you know. See how durable it is, see if it retains its weird magic signature after taking parts off, see if we can make it do stuff that it’s not supposed to.” Briony looked excited listing off these ideas.

“But, uh, we don’t need to be here for that,” Yvonne said. “Just the wizards. That’s... sort of their specialty. Learning about magic stuff.”

“Should we leave, then?” Frederick asked.

“Seems a waste to ask you guys to drive all the way out here and then send you right back,” Nick said. “Besides, didn’t you say something about new information, Rick?”

Frederick winced, irritated. “Frederick. Or Fengge.”

“Sorry.”

Frederick gave Jackie a long-suffering look that said this wasn’t the first time Nick had pulled something like that, then looked back at the others. “Yeah. We, uh... do you want to talk about it, Jackie?”

Jackie nodded. He and Frederick had discussed it in the car, and Jackie had agreed the others needed to know. He took a deep breath, preparing himself. “We’re, uh... We were... Part of the reason we were a bit late was because I wanted to go visit a friend of mine while I was already out. But when I got there, I was told that he was... moved somewhere else. Somewhere IRIS has control of.”

The others all instantly sharpened their attention. “You... you mean Chase, right?” Yvonne asked.

“Yeah.” Jackie asked.

“IRIS is kidnapping people?” Nick asked, shocked.

“Well, no, not—I mean, it is basically kidnapping, but...” Jackie paused, conjuring up his pre-prepared vague explanation. “Chase was living in a, uh, facility, of sorts. I-I don’t want to give out too many details if I don’t have to, it’s his business, but basically, it’s a place where it’s not weird to get transferred somewhere else. And they transferred him to IRIS.”

“A government-run facility?” Briony asked.

“...Basically.”

“Those are not good implications,” Nick said darkly.

“We know,” Frederick said. “It means that IRIS is able to freely contact the government and make demands of them. And it means that they want people for something.”

“Your friend... Chase, was it?” Nick asked. Jackie nodded to confirm his name. “Has he had any exposure to magic? Like you have?”

“Yeah, we both knew the same magician,” Jackie said. “Marvin Moore.”

“Moore hurt Chase, but his wounds were tended to immediately,” Frederick added. “There was no time for the magic to fester. But he spent a long time in contact with Moore. It’s possible that some magic traces linger. Very faint traces.”

Yvonne frowned. “I doubt that. It’s been, what, a year since those two had contact? I think the traces would’ve faded by now. Maybe... maybe IRIS grabbed Chase randomly.”

“If they were grabbing random people, they would’ve grabbed someone with no connections,” Jackie said. “Chase has connections. I visit him, his kids sometimes visit him, and people—people know who he is. They’d notice if he vanished. Case in point, I noticed when it happened! No, i-it has to be something else.”

“I suppose IRIS could’ve somehow... heard about Marvin Moore and realized Chase was connected,” Briony said reluctantly. “But that means that they were aware of us before we were aware of them.”

“It would also mean you could be in danger,” Nick said, looking at Jackie.

Frederick straightened. “They wouldn’t go for him. We live together. It’s too dangerous to try and grab him.” There was a hard edge to his voice that Jackie rarely heard but which made his face redden a little.

“Is there something special about Chase?” Yvonne asked. “Besides his location being easier to reach? Because I would argue that it would be quite difficult to get him out of there. Did Chase go through something you didn’t? Magically-related?”

Jackie thought about it. “Um... it’s not magic, but... he was in a coma for a while. About two months.”

Frederick’s eyes widened slightly. “Wait, if I’m remembering right, wasn’t that coma caused by Anti?”

Jackie gritted his teeth. “Yeah. It was.” Fucking bitch... you don’t just put people in comas no matter how much you hate them.

“You know... Anti isn’t magic,” Frederick said slowly. “But he can do things that seem like it.”

Jackie stared at him. “Are you saying... IRIS is like Anti?”

“Um...” Briony raised her hand. “Who’s Anti?”

Jackie sighed, already feeling exhausted at the idea of explaining all this. “Anti is Anti. He’s not human. He’s not a demon. He’s not a spirit. He’s something else. One of a kind.” He paused. “He’s also an asshole, but he’s not like... evil. He doesn’t hurt people.” Or at least, people who don’t deserve it.

“Didn’t you just say he caused your friend’s coma?” Briony asked.

“Long story. The point is Frederick thinks that IRIS’s not-magic could be like what Anti does.”

“Maybe not exactly, but it’s a good starting point,” Frederick said.

“Can you guys contact this... Anti?” Nick asked.

Jackie frowned. “I don’t know... It’s kind of hard to reach something like him. We could try to track down Jack—that’s a friend of his, he’s human. But, uh... don’t know if it would look that good coming from me. Jack and I... have a rough history.”

“Then we’ll do it,” Yvonne said, gesturing at herself and the other magicians. “We have ways of tracking down people.”

“You make it sound menacing when you say it like that, Eve,” Frederick said, a faint smile on his face.

“I... guess you guys can try,” Jackie said slowly. “Even just getting close to Jack will probably cause Anti to react. Jack is... sensitive.” That was a mild way of saying ‘traumatized by being kidnapped multiple times.’ “But I can’t be involved in this. Not until you explain the situation to Anti. We don’t exactly like each other.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be careful,” Yvonne assured him. 

“Please do be.” Jackie didn’t like the idea of Anti getting involved, but if he could help... Maybe he would recognize the greater evil of IRIS. An organization that secretly takes people couldn’t have good intentions, regardless of what those people had done.

- - - - - - - - - -

Jack pulled the blinds on the window back a little bit, looking down at the street below. It was empty. But he didn’t trust that.

Static fizzled next to his ear. “Are they gone?” Anti asked.

“I don’t see them anymore,” Jack said slowly. “But I don’t think they would’ve just left.” All morning, there’d been a white car parked on the street below. Not unusual in and of itself. But who would park in this tiny side street in between apartment buildings? Combined with IRIS’s repeated phone calls, it made Jack nervous.

Anti’s form fizzled a little bit. “They didn’t,” he reported. “I just checked the building’s security cameras. The car moved to the front. I don’t know if we’re still in range of their equipment, but they’re definitely not going anywhere.” When Jack had pointed out the car to Anti, he confirmed that—as normal as it looked from the outside—it belonged to IRIS. He could sense some of their equipment inside.

Jack shut the blinds. Sam flew over and nuzzled against his face, telling him not to worry. “No, I’m going to worry,” Jack said. “How the fuck am I supposed to not worry about this? People have never shown up at my house! Even the crazier fans haven’t gone that far yet. And even if they had, they’re just one or two people, not a whole fucking organization!”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Anti said firmly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Jack sighed, pressing his head against the window. “Do we have to move? I don’t want to move. I don’t want to go on the fucking run again.”

Anti hesitated. “I’m sorry. But... we might... have to.”

“It just... everything was finally working out,” Jack mumbled.

“I’m sorry,” Anti said quietly.

“No, don’t be, it’s not your fault.”

“It really is,” Anti admitted. “IRIS is after me. They’re only going after you to get to me. Maybe... maybe if I leave for a while—”

“No don’t!” Jack said hurriedly. Sam jumped up into the air, bobbing up and down in agreement with him. “I-I don’t—If something happens—B-besides, that’d just mean they win, wouldn’t it?”

Anti blinked. Then grinned. “I guess it would.”

“Y-yeah.” Jack gave him a weak smile. “Uh... I’m going to... try and keep my mind off this. Try and do something to relax. Maybe I have a game that I can... Uh, I-I’ll be in the other room. Tell me if anything happens with them.”

“I will,” Anti promised.

“Great.” Jack smiled again and turned around, heading deeper into the apartment.

Sam stayed where they were, watching him go. {Anti.}

Anti jumped a little. Even though Sam could talk to him, they usually didn’t, so it always surprised him when they decided to. “What is it?”

{You stay here.} Sam flew closer, pressing against his chest and looking up at him, pupil dilated wide. {Bad things might happen.}

Anti looked down at them. “Anything... specific?”

{No. But there’s a bad feeling. You should stay here. Don’t leave.}

“A bad feeling, huh?” Anti nodded slowly. He’d known Sam long enough to trust their feelings. They had an uncanny ability to know what people should and shouldn’t do. “Alright. I won’t leave. And I’ll... be prepared.” His hand glitched, turning into pixels, and he showed Sam the knife he’d conjured. “If you know what I mean.”

{Uh-huh.} Sam backed away, bobbing up and down in a nodding gesture. {Jack be safe.}

“He’ll be safe. I’m ready for anything.”

{Yay!} And with that, Sam bopped against his shoulder, then flew down the hallway after Jack.

Anti watched them go with a faint smile. Then he thought about IRIS again, and the smile faded. If he was stuck in Jack’s apartment, he wouldn’t be able to hack IRIS’s servers, backdoor or not. They were very secure, and he needed to be close by to access them. But... it was a small price to pay to keep Jack safe. And if disaster was averted, he might be able to return to the servers later.

He put the knife away, letting it vanish into pixels, and jumped back into the building’s outside security cameras. The car was still there.

And it would stay there for another hour before finally driving off.

- - - - - - - - - -

Dadalada-dadalada— “Hello?”

“Wait, you’re actually awake?! Isn’t it like five in the morning over there?!”

Schneep glanced out the bedroom window at the early morning sky. “The ringtone woke me up,” he lied.

“Mm-hmm.” Jackie hummed. “So if I FaceTime you, you’ll be in bed.”

“Absolutely.” Schneep hurriedly got up from the desk chair in the corner of his room and sat down on the bed instead.

“Okay, I’ll do it, then.”

“Fine, do it.”

Jackie hung up the call, but a few seconds later Schneep’s phone began ringing again—Dadalada-dadalada—with the Caller ID screen now identifying a video call. Schneep accepted it. Jackie was clearly in a car, as evident by the headrest and seat belt. There was afternoon light coming from the windows. “There you are,” Jackie said. He narrowed his eyes. “If I woke you up, why are you wearing your glasses?”

Shit. “I put them on when you said you would video call,” Schneep said.

“Oh, okay. And you combed your hair, too?”

Schneep hesitated. Then groaned. “God damn it, Jackie, how do you fucking know what my bed hair looks like?”

“We lived together for, like, four years! What do you mean ‘how do I know’? The question is how I wouldn’t. And why are you up at five in the morning?”

“Why are you calling me at five in the morning?”

“I didn’t think you would answer! I was going to leave a message!”

“Text me instead, you dunkoff.”

“Uh, can you two get back on track?” A voice called from off screen on Jackie’s end. “Don’t you have important stuff to talk about?”

“Hello Frederick,” Schneep said, giving a little wave as Jackie turned the phone to show Frederick in the driver’s seat of the car.

“Hi.” Frederick smiled at the screen, not taking his hands off the wheel as he drove.

“What sort of ‘important stuff’ are you two calling about?” Schneep asked.

“Uh, well...” Jackie hesitated, the worry clear on his face. “I went to see Chase today... You know what, I’ll work up to that. Start at the beginning. There’s a sort of investigation going on...”

As Jackie talked, Schneep sat there, eyes growing wider with every sentence. But he stayed quiet until the end. At which point, he immediately started shouting. “What the fuck do they want with Chase?! Chase has not done anything in his l—well, no, he has done quite a lot, but he was already where he should be! And where he wanted to be, I will add. What the fuck! They cannot just—just grab people! Especially not him!”

“Right? Right?!” Jackie cried. “What the fuck are they doing?!”

“Clearly nothing good!” Schneep growled, then took a moment to breathe, calming down. This was not the time to get carried away in anger. He punched the pillow a couple times and then was fine. “Jackie. I believe I have something relevant.”

“Oh?” Jackie asked, already intrigued.

“Anti was here yesterday,” Schneep said. 

“Last night, I was going to bed—”

“At what time?”

“A perfectly reasonable one, please not now.” It was 2 am. “But while I was heading there, the House did its twisty thing and I ended up somewhere else. Anti was speaking with Dark. I was curious why he was here, so I listened in. Your suspicion about Anti and IRIS is right; he has some sort of history with them. And now this organization is going after Jack. Possibly to get to Anti.”

Jackie’s expression hardened. “So they probably did take Chase because of Anti. What, does he still have traces of Anti’s power in his system after the coma?”

“It’s possible,” Frederick added. “I’m not sure how Anti’s power works in comparison to magic.”

“If you and your magicians are looking for Jack, you should keep that in mind,” Schneep continued. “You may have to beat IRIS to him.”

Jackie sighed. “This would’ve been good to know before we left the house.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to call your friend while we were there,” Frederick said calmly.

“I am, I just—ugh.”

“It’s okay, I’ll call Yvonne about it when we get home.”

“That’ll work. In the meantime,” Jackie turned his attention back to the call. “Schneep, seriously, why are you up at five am?”

Schneep sighed. “Because I still have fucking insomnia.”

“I thought you were going to ask about sleep aids.”

“I am, but it is hard to find ones that work with my other medications.” Schneep glanced at the collection of pill bottles on the nightstand. 

“Oh.” Jackie’s voice was soft. “Well... that sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, I am sure Peter can find something,” Schneep said, referring to his psychiatrist. “He is very good at what he does. I just have to wait until then. Is fine. I do not mind being up so late. I am not the only one awake in the House at night.”

“That sounds a bit ominous,” Jackie muttered.

“No, I find it comforting. Though if any of them tried to actually talk to me during this time, I am sure I would be annoyed the second it happens.”

Jackie laughed. “God, you would, wouldn’t you? Well... do you want me to stay and chat, or do you think that wouldn’t help?”

“In all honesty, it would not help,” Schneep said. “I have to be very awake to keep up with your energy, and this is not the time for that.”

“Alright, I’ll head off, then. Maybe I’ll call you later, when it’s evening here?”

“If you want. Or you could wait until tomorrow, that would be fine, too.”

“I’ll wait, then. See you, Schneep. Frederick, say goodbye to Schneep.”

“Bye, Henrik!” Frederick added.

“Goodbye, you two,” Schneep said, laughing a little.

“Bye!” Jackie waved for the camera. “Sleep well.” And with that, he ended the call. 

Schneep closed out of the video call app on his phone and instead returned to what he’d been doing before Jackie called. He re-opened the phone’s browser. It had a couple different tabs open... all relating to this IRIS organization. Their website, their social medias, any page or article he could find about them.

He’d been curious about them ever since he overheard Anti’s conversation. No, more than curious. If they were really looking for Jack, he wanted to at least know as much as he could. Even if Jack probably wouldn’t appreciate his help. But now it was different. Now IRIS had Chase. He couldn’t just sit by while Jackie and those magicians handled this! God damn it, Chase was his friend, too! Though, there wasn’t much he could do while he was halfway across the world...

Wasn’t IRIS an American company first?

Schneep went back to their website, scrolling around for information. Yes, this lists their “hometown”—the place they were founded—as somewhere called Kronolle, California. Yes, Anti mentioned that, too. With that established, Schneep closed the browser and opened the GPS, searching up the town. Yes, it was there. North of Los Angeles, with the driving time listed as 2-3 hours depending on traffic. That was a long way to go. Especially for someone who couldn’t drive.

...It was late. This wasn’t the time. Schneep sighed and turned off his phone. When it was this late, it was probably better to lie down and close your eyes. That was more restful than sitting up and doing stuff. He got up, closed the window’s blinds, and got ready to change for bed. He’d think more on this in the morning.

Maybe there was something he could do to help Chase even all the way out here.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

This is a follow up to the Swap Boys Crossovers I wrote! Check them out on the Inverted Masterlist here!

Continuity is a bit off from the main Inverted story for that reason :3c

Swap into the CrystalVerse Chapter 24: Inverted

Co-written with @crystalninjaphoenix 

Read Swapboys | Read Inverted | Read The InvertedSwap Crossover | AO3 Link

Prologue | Switch | Stitched | PNPT | Septicheroes | Fantasy Masks | Horror

Taglist: @brokentimewatch @di-diwata  

Magnificent falls for a second, and then lands somewhere completely different than where he left. This is the ground floor of a tall office building--an abandoned office building, judging by the broken windows and graffiti everywhere. The front doors are open, probably broken. Outside is an urban area at night. To the left is a set of elevators and an empty doorway leading to a stairwell. To the right and back are hallways leading deeper into the building. The fog from the previous universe is gone.

But, for a nanosecond, while he was falling in the dark place Mag could have sworn he heard a scream. Animistic and angry... and targeted at him. He should probably be sure to avoid that last world.

Magnificent falls into the new world and gasps for a second, panting slightly as he feels the connection with Cait Coill break. He allows himself to shudder for a second and then he pushes himself up, pushing all that fear away. ...never again.

He looks around the space and hums. This doesn't feel like home either. Might as well look around.

But he doesn't get a chance to look around. He only takes a few steps before he hears the fizzle of static to the right.

"Y̡o͢u͞!҉!" A voice gasps. Something flies through the air towards Mag.

A knife buries itself in Mag's right arm, close to the shoulder. When he turns around, he sees a man, glitching and translucent, with a white eye-patch covering his right eye and a green scarf around his neck--oh fuck. Magnificent knows this Anti. And he looks pissed.

Magnificent yells out in surprise and pain and stumbles back, gripping at his shoulder. He goes to snarl at whoever attacked him and then freezes. "...y-you-!" He gasps, stumbling back even more.

Anti growls, another knife appearing in his hand. "You're back?! Why now?! Fuck! I knew I should've killed you, no matter what They said!" He glitches forward and goes for an attack.

"L-Let me explain-!" Magnificent tries to shout, only to get stabbed again. He growls and throws out fire towards Anti and then tries to run.

Anti glitches out of the way of Mag's attack and reappears, blocking the front doors. "There's nothing to explain! You're going to fuck everything up and this is not a good time!" He throws the knife again.

This time, Magnificent just barely catches the knife and he throws it to the ground, "Believe me- if i had a fucking choice I wouldn’t have come here! For once, I actually miss my miserable excuse of a universe!"

"Then can you go back??? I'm sure the museum still has the doorway on display!" Anti laughs. "But even now, you're not going to, are you? That's just who you are." He conjured another knife. If Mag doesn't want to get stabbed again he better think fast.

"Unfortunately I need to find my pathetic cub for that to work!" Mag bites back. He then steps back and eyes the new knife and then glares at Anti before trying to teleport past the doors to get away.

As Mag teleports around him Anti spins around and throws the knife one last time, a last hurrah.

The knife sinks into Mag's back and he falls to the ground, scraping his face. He turns back to snarl at Anti. "Listen- I'm not here to get in your way, Glitch! Let me go, and I'll stay out of your hair!"

Anti laughs again, darkly. "I doubt that. But sure. You get one chance, Magnificent. After the chance I gave you last time, it's more than you deserve. Next time I see you, I will end you." And he fizzles away in a pop of static.

It's probably for the best, anyway. Magnificent implied that Alt was here, since he needed him to hop universes. Anti should find his other self before the magician did.

Magnificent glares at the spot Anti was as he painfully pulls himself up. Fucking shit... 3 new stab wounds and its only been 5 minutes. ... Mag isn't even sure he knows what to look for now- why did they have to come to a universe where he already failed? Best stick to the shadows for now... see what he can find... He slinks into the shadows and turns into his cat form, licking his wounds.

-----------

Alt appears in what looks like a normal living room. It's an open design, with the kitchen and dining room sharing the same space, but Alt appears in the living room area. There's a sofa and a beanbag and a TV and lots of plants. The windows outside show the night sky in a suburban area. And then-- WHAP! Something hits him in the head.

Alt shouts out and glitches backwards, wide eyes looking towards whoever attacked him. "H-Hey!"

He spins around to face a man, wearing a black hoodie with red patches on it. He holds a bo staff in his hands--clearly what he used to hit Alt--and isn't putting it down. Long hair is tied back in a braid, brown with some odd white streaks around the face. A face which is half-covered in what look like burn scars. A patch hides the man's left eye but his other eye narrows.

"Anti, this isn't the time for your bullshit!" he shouts. And then hesitates. He glances Alt over. "Wait. No. You're not--you're that other Anti. From the other universe."

Alt glitches back more, holding up his bandaged hands up towards the man. He freezes as the man says his name and he steps away, looking him over with a slight bit of fear. "I... I'm sorry do I- do I know you...?"

The man laughs, lowering the staff. "I guess I do look pretty different since you last saw me, huh? Fucking Marvin... It's Jackie. You and all your friends showed up in this universe about... a year ago? Ish? I've lost all sense of time. Oh uh... don't worry, I'm not planning on... doing anything. I-I'm trying to be better. And I don't live with the others anymore." He shivers.

Alt's eyes widen and he backs up more when he realizes who this is. "Y-You-!" But, he does relax a bit at hearing he's not with the others. Though, he still looks cautious and keeps his back against the wall. "... i-is that right?" He says, skeptically. But, his face does seem to soften as he takes in Jackie's appearance more. "...shit man... you look like you've been through hell..."

"You're one to talk," Jackie mutters. "What the fuck happened to you? Why are you here, anyway?" He pauses for a moment. "Oh, uh, do you... need anything? I can... make tea or something. I think. He said I could use his food..."

Alt looks down and grips at his arm, feeling the wounds underneath still aching with pain. "Uh... it's a... long long story..." He blinks up and actually laughs a bit, "...god tea sounds... really good actually... who's he, though?"

"Um... the guy whose house this is," Jackie says slowly. "H-he's out right now, I don't know when he gets back but hopefully it's soon. Uh... you sit down, I'll make the tea." He collapses the staff into a short stick and heads to the kitchen, talking as he gets out the tea and kettle.

Alt is hesitant but slowly he makes his way over to the couch, limping slightly. He sinks into it and looks around, taking in the place.

"Anyway. His name is Frederick. He's a magician. And he... saved me." If Alt looks over, he may be able to catch a glimpse of Jackie's face turning red. "Got himself hurt in the process but still lets me stay here... yeah. H-he's a good guy."

Alt blinks at Jackie and sees his red face and smirks slightly. "A magician, huh? ...is he the one helping you want to get... better, you said?"

That just makes Jackie's face get redder. "Partly. I think I also have some renewed... empathy, I guess? But then again, I could've easily got worse. So... yeah. He's a good influence."

Alt can't help but smile, "... he sounds like a great guy. And that's... good to hear, dude. I mean- major relief on my side too so-"

Jackie laughs. "Yeah. I can imagine. I'm glad I'm the one who you popped up next to, which... again, what are you doing here?" The kettle starts whistling so Jackie begins to prepare the tea, ready for Alt to explain.

"Well..." Alt starts, crossing his arms and idly fidgeting with his bandages. "It- started when Mag kidnapped me... made me use a freaky doorway- like the one that brought us here the first time actually. Managed to get me, Bro and him into another universe... again. But, this time it was- another group we've met. But, in their home dimension instead of ours. We found a device there called the TRVLR- made by some group called IRIS. It can help us travel to other dimensions... we just don't know which one is ours... they're all coded with these- numbers and symbols and I still don't really know what they mean." He sighs and feels his pocket to make sure its still there. "... god i've lost track of how many we've been to now... but- yeah... we're literally just trying to get home, but we keep choosing wrong."

By the time Alt is done talking, the tea is done. Jackie brings the cups over, handing one to Alt while keeping the other for himself. "That... fucking sucks, dude," he says, with a dark little laugh. "That really sucks. IRIS, huh...? I think we have that here, too, they make, like cameras and shit. I don't know anything about them and... TRVLR, was it? A dimension-hopping device? Weird... I didn't think we were at that point in our tech, if we were ever gonna get there." He shakes his head. "Sounds insane. I'm guessing you got really roughed up over time, then?"

Alt takes the tea gratefully and takes a sip- god, it felt really good to have just a good cup of tea. It made him miss Dr. J though. Tea was his first solution for everything. It was the pureblood Brit in him.

"It is insane, I'm still having trouble believing it if I'm honest," Alt laughs. But, then Jackie brings up his injuries and Alt goes quiet. He grips his cup a bit tighter and curls up some. "... kinda... but uh... it was mostly... t-the last place we were in..." He shudders.

"Really did a number on you, huh?" Jackie mutters. "Well... I think I get it. Maybe. I-I don't want to make any assumptions, but... I mean, look at my face." He gestures at it. "You think this shit happens by accident? I didn't fall into a barrel of acid." He takes a sip of his own tea.

Alt looks at his reflection in his tea, his voice small. "... I was taken by a... doctor. But, he wasn't human... but ... he was that universe's version of ... of Schneep. He was... a monster." His hands tremble now and his expression looks haunted.

"...oh, you mean that literally," Jackie says, eyes widening. "Literally an inhuman monster. Oh. That's... oh." He shakes his head slowly. "I'm... so sorry. I-I can't imagine... well, I can easily imagine how Schneep would become that. But I can't imagine what it would be like if he was a monster." He sighs. "Maybe you should just stay in this house, then. I don't know what Schneep is doing now, but he's in Mirygale--the, uh, city where you showed up last time where we all lived. Right now you're in a smaller town called Red's End. It's... far away. Like, an hour's drive. So the others won't get to you."

Alt finally looks up at Jackie, his eyebrows furrowing. "... you'd... really let me do that...?" He seems to be contemplating this before he sighs and takes another sip of his tea. "... as tempting as that is... I gotta find my brother... and Mag- before he fucks something up around here... again." Alt's shoulders slump, looking back down at his tea, the exhaustion on his face as heavy as the bags under his eyes.

Jackie pales a little bit. "God, I forgot that guy came with you. Fuck. Shit. We don't need two of them here." He rubs his temple like a headache is forming there, then drinks more tea. "Okay. Yeah. You guys tend to appear near people who are like you in your own world, right? I mean... Anti's not here right now--I think--" He glances around, but no, Anti would've shown himself by now if he was here. "--so maybe it's your counterpart or the counterpart of someone you know. Which... doesn't bode well for the other Chase or Magnificent. Or maybe that cat bitch would come out on top. Who knows? Your brother, though..."

Alt swallows nervously, looking pale himself, "Yeah... i... I gotta find him. But... fuck- if the others are an hour away." He groans, "That's gonna take sooo long! Why did I end up all the way out here!" He then grumpily drinks more of his tea, his shoulder glitching a bit.

"Ohhhh be glad you did end up all the way out here," Jackie says seriously. "Marvin's lost his fucking mind and he's taken Jameson and Schneep down with him. Jack's still with them, they still make him upload for some reason, but I don't know where Chase is and I honestly..." He swallows a lump in his throat, hiding it with more tea. "Anti probably would've been safe for you. But that's still a four out of five chance of running into those guys."

Alt's eyes widen and he looks at Jackie with horror. "oh... oh god-" Alt whispers. " I... o-okay yeah... its probably good im here... but it's not good for Chase!" He drinks the last of his tea and then gets an idea. "... do I still have Anti's number...? Maybe he can help me get back to Mirygale..."

"You have a phone number for him?" Jackie asks, surprised. "Well, by all means, then." He gestures in a 'go ahead' way.

Alt does indeed have the number Anti gives him. When he calls, it only gets through half a ring before the other end picks up. "It's you! Are you here? In my universe? I forgot I gave you a number. I saw Magnificent." Anti's voice fires off rapid statements one after another.

Alt blinks. "Oh shit getting right into it- uh yeah I'm here! I appeared by Jackie- he said we're an hour away... and he caught me up vaguely on what's happening. But, Mag and me aren't the only ones here- my brother is too! And it sounds like he could be running into some serious trouble."

"I'm coming there," Anti says. And Alt's phone starts gently fizzing with static. Green and black pixels shoot out of it, forming a person in the middle of the living room. Anti shivers--not in the way people do, in the way that lagging images on a computer do--and glances around.

Alt jumps and drops his phone, curling up his feet to his chest on the couch and covering himself with his arms for a second.

Anti’s eyes land on Jackie. "Hi."

"Hi." Jackie looks wary but not angry.

Alt blinks at Anti and then looks at the two, a bit confused by their reactions but- also relieved.

Then Anti looks at Alt. "You mean Chase, right? He's here? Yeah. He could probably be in some shit."

Alt lowers his arms and nods, "Y-Yeah... I-I gotta go find him- if Marvin's gone crazy I... I dunno why he'd wanna hurt Chase but... I-I don't want to risk it!" He pushes himself to stand up and winces a bit as he puts too much pressure on his bad leg but keeps standing, meeting Anti's eyes. "and... I dunno... m-maybe I can help? I've... I've gotten a lot better with my magic-"

"He'd want to hurt Chase because he's gone off the fucking deep end," Anti says bluntly. "He's--" Then he stops, noticing Alt's wince. "Are you... okay?" He glances him over, really looking. "No, you're not." His brows furrow. "There's not much in your universe that would do that, is there?"

"He's been hopping between worlds," Jackie explains. "The last one... fucked him up."

Anti nods slowly. He reaches out to Alt. "I might be able to help. I can't heal you, but it can help with the pain. Can I?"

Alt stiffens slightly and tries to wave it off before Anti calls his bluff. He purses his lips with a slight glare. But, he blinks as Anti offers his hand. ...He was an asshole the first time they met- and he still kinda is. But, now, Alt does trust him. How could he not? "Uh... sure-" He looks at Anti's hand like he's not really sure what to do though- "...how exactly can you do that?"

"I'm electric," Anti says simply. "You are too. More than most people. I can reach your nerves more easily."

Anti gently takes Alt's hand. The moment he does, Alt feels a tingling sensation spread from the point of contact all over his body. It's a little weird, but not painful. And when the feeling fades, nothing hurts--though he is still aware of his injuries.

"There. I don't think I'll be able to convince you to not search for your brother, so at least now it won't suck for you."

The sensation is strange- but also kinda nice. Alt shakes the feeling off and then clenches and unclenches his recently stabbed hand to see if it hurts. It doesn't. Alt grins, "Oh dude that's metal! Thanks!" He then looks back at Anti and nods in determination. "You're damned right, if Chase is in trouble, I'm gonna be there."

"Keep in mind this is temporary." Anti gestures vaguely at Alt. "If you start hurting again let me know."

Alt nods to Anti, "Right."

Then Anti looks at Jackie. "Well? Do you want your redemption?"

Jackie takes a drink of his tea. "Not if you're going to press gang me into it," he mutters.

"So you're going to let someone else possibly go through it, then," Anti says plainly.

Jackie flinches. "You're terrible at this." He rubs his eyes. "Look... you guys can teleport all over. I can't. I won't be much use for the actual search anyway. But... if you find something out, let me know. I can try to help."

Anti nods once. Then he turns to Alt. "How far can you glitch?"

Alt then looks between Anti and Jackie as they talk like he's watching a ping pong match. The younger glitch looks up and flushes slightly, "Uh- probably not too far right now... I'm kinda running close to empty... b-but I can try? To see how far? ...I dunno I don't really measure the kilos when I do it-" He mutters.

Anti nods. "That makes sense. However you got here, it probably used a lot of your energy. Look if absolutely necessary, we can... do you remember Amp?"

"Oh fuck!" Jackie shouts from the sofa. "I do!"

Alt stiffens a bit, "Uh... y-yeah- how could I forget?" He tries not to think about his last weird glitch fusion, but... that was more recent and weighing on his mind.

“Well he’d probably give us both a boost,” Anti says. “Might not be needed, though. Just bringing up the possibilities. I could also take you through a shortcut, but I don’t usually like to do that unless absolutely necessary. You want to try and head out by ourselves first?”

"I'll keep that in mind..." Alt grips at his arm and tries not show his discomfort. Amp would probably be useful... but that would also mean opening up his mind to Anti and- he can't do that right now. "Uh... what's wrong with using a shortcut? Is it dangerous?"

"For you guys," Anti says vaguely. "Come on. Once we're in Mirygale I'll explain the situation to you." He glitches, reappearing towards the door.

"Good luck you guys," Jackie says. "You know where I am. Or, Anti does. The Anti from here. Fuck. Just go, it's not cool anymore."

Alt looks back at Jackie and laughs. “yeah- maybe we’ll see you later. Thanks for the tea.” He glitches to meet Anti by the door then waves at Jackie.

"No problem." Jackie waves back at the two of them.

"Let's go," Anti says, and glitches outside.

Alt braces himself- hoping he has enough energy to keep up with Anti and not pass out on him. He glitches after him, hoping Chase is okay.

-----------

Bro appears in a hotel lobby. The decor and furniture is kind of old-fashioned, but with a modern flair and the colors are muted, mostly shades of blue. There are sofas, armchairs, a low table, a fireplace, and a long desk. A few doors are visible, one obviously leading outside.

Bro steadies himself then looks around at his surroundings. “Hmmm… this could be home- but I feel like I would know about a hotel like this by now.” He sighs and messes with his hair. “Just great alright… please be a kinder universe this time! Thank you!” He starts to look around, see if there’s anything of note around here. Or a sign of any of this universe’s thems-

He doesn't have to wait long. There's movement in the windows, and then the outside doors open. A man steps in, with messy brown hair and cracked glasses, carrying what look like grocery bags in one hand. He stops short when he sees Bro.

"Chase?" he asks. "What are you doing down here? Did something happen?"

Bro’s eyes widen. He recognizes this guy- from the first time they ever universe hopped! That crazy doctor- “Oh uh- hi Schneep?” He laughs nervously.

"Hallo," Schneep says, looking confused. "What are you doing down here?"

Bro looks even more confused, “Uh you know- just… hanging.” Oh shit he thinks he’s this universe’s Chase- shit shit shit. “Uhh what’re you doing?”

"Hanging?" Schneep only looks more confused. "Ah... I went to get groceries. I do not think I told you. Did you get worried? My apologies. Here, let us go upstairs and put them away together." He walks over and grabs Bro's arm, gently but with some force behind it, and starts walking towards one of the doors.

Bro gets grabbed and he tries to pull his arm out. Sounds like the actual chase is here and he does not want to mess with his doppelgänger right now! “Ah actually I was about to go for a walk! I think! L-Lovely day for one isn’t it?”

Schneep stares at him, blinking. "Walk?"

“Uh yeah- you know? The thing you do outside? In f-fresh air?” Bro laughs nervously. “The thing you just did- I’m assuming. For the groceries-“ Why does he feel like he’s just digging himself a really big grave?

"...you want... to go outside. For a walk for fun. At eight thirty at night." Schneep narrowed his eyes slightly. "Chase. Did something happen?"

They're near that long desk that hotels have. Schneep lets go of Bro's arm and walks around to the other side.

Fuck- it’s night. How did he not notice it’s night??

“No no just! You know- been… cooped up all day! Gotta get that blood flowing you know? It should be… fine- I can take care of myself!” He can’t remember what all these guys can do but Alt was scared of them for a long time- he doesn’t wanna expose himself and get into major trouble. All he has to do is convince Schneep to let him go outside and it’ll be fine!

"I know you can, I am not denying that," Schneep says. "It is just a bit unusual. You have not had a problem with the new, ah... what is the word? The new... place to stay... yet. Well, I suppose this is not a problem, but you do not go out much."

“Yeah you know- can only stay in once place for so long!” Chase says through a too big smile. “You should probably get those groceries up there! I’ll be back soon- yeah!” He gives a thumbs up.

"...okay." Schneep nods slowly. "I will do that."

“Sweet I’ll uh- see you in a bit then!” Bro starts to head back towards the doors-

The doors are locked.

“…shit.”

Schneep stares at Bro, something intense in his gaze. Like he's waiting for something.

“Uhhh is there a reason the d-door is locked, Schneep?” Bro turns back to ask nervously.

"We always lock the doors when we come back in," Schneep says in a dead, flat tone. "I do not think we've told you. You do not have a key."

That is not a question. That is a statement.

“Uh yeah- right…” Bro says slowly. “…c-can I have a key?” He tries to smile innocently. “Or can you unlock it?”

"No." Schneep folded his arms on the desk, leaning forward. "Why do you ask? For your walk? Why do you want to go outside, Chase?"

Bro sighs and then stands up straighter, cracking his neck and his eyes glow slightly. “You know I’m not your Chase, huh?”

"Oh!" Schneep jerks upright. "No, I did not, but that makes sense in retrospect." He laughs. "I was getting worried about you. Hmm, did I press the button for no reason, then? No, no, the others will want to see this."

“… double shit.” Chase curses under his breath. He then grins and holds up his hands. “theressss no reason to call the others!! I’m just- you know? Passing through! Don’t want to bother you all so uh- see ya!”

He tries to punch through the door.

Huh, that's weird. It's sturdier than it looks. As he punches the wood, it cracks a little, revealing that it's only a thin wooden cover over a metal door.

Bro cries out and shakes out his hand, stumbling away from the door. “What the fuck?! Ow!”

"It is a bit too late for that," Schneep says. "In fact--do you hear that?"

Footsteps. They're getting louder-- One of the doors bursts open and tendrils of violet-black magic fly towards Bro.

Bro’s stomach drops and he whips around and tries to get into the air before the tendrils grab him and painfully pull him back down. He screams and writhes in the magic, trying to get out of it.

Marvin is standing in the open doorway. This world's Marvin, not Magnificent. Bro recognizes him... but something's different. His eyes. They used to be normal blue, but now they're purple. Even the sclera are tinged a pale violet.

"No you don't, Chase," he says, grinning. That voice--it's different, too. An echoey tone follows the words, a hiss that lingers on the S in his name. "I thought we agreeeeeed you'll be staying. Though... that was a high jump there, wasn't it?"

"He said he is not our Chase," Schneep reports. "Do you remember those visitors from last year?"

Marvin laughs. "Oh yes! Theeeeyyy started this all, in a way. It's so nice to ssssee you again." The tendrils retract, pulling Bro along the floor closer to Marvin.

Bro tries to fight the tendrils- tries to dig his feet into the carpet or grab at something. But it’s too strong. He looks at Marvin with wide scared eyes. “W-well that’s… new-“ He half- whimpers. “W-what did we start e-exactly?”

Marvin crouches down on the ground next to him. The tendrils begin wrapping around Bro's limbs, pinning them together.

Bro shouts as his limbs are pinned together and he squirms in their painful grip.

"You all arrived here from sssssomewhere else," Marvin says. "Somewhere that I got curious about. And somewhere I'd like to go to pay back that other me. So IIIIII started doing some research. Days and days and weeks of research. I didn't find anything about other worlds, but I found so much more. And I realized that some things were holding... us... back." His smile widens. "And getting rid of those things did so much for me. For us. Just recently, actually, IIIII found my potential."

Bro smiles nervously at Marvin. “heyyy that’s- great? Happy for you bro?? T-this sounds like it had nothing to do with me though so m-maybe you can just?? Lemme go? Please??”

"No. Because IIIII just saw yoooouu try to fly away." Marvin flicks the rim of Bro's cap, knocking it off his head. "And I'm curious how you do that. On your own. With no spell. I'm sure Schneep over there is curious too." He looks up at him. "Do you have room for a group project?"

Schneep's expression brightens. It's sickening. "I always do."

"Lovely. I'll take him down to the practice room."

Bro feels his stomach drop and he fights more against the tendrils, trying to break out. “T-There’s nothing to get! I-it’s just super powers! No need for a group project!! Everyone hates group projects!” He tries to joke- but there’s definite panic in his voice.

"'Super powers' don't EXIST here," Marvin says impatiently. "And why not? Why couldn't we have ourselves mmmore powers?" He laughs. "Don't make a fussss about it." He turns and heads back through the door, taking Bro with him, but then stops. "Schneep, can you go check on our Chase, if this isn't ours? Mmmmaybe a doppelganger arrival disrupted something."

"Of course, I will make sure he's okay," Schneep says.

Marvin laughs again, like he's thinking of some private joke. "Yes. Make sure he's 'okay.' And if he's not, tell Jameson." And he resumes, magic tendrils tightening their grip on Bro as he struggles.

“My powers aren’t something you can just take, asshole! Mag’s already tried that!” Bro shouts in anger. He tries as hard as he can to break out as Marvin and Schneep talk, only to yell out in pain as the tendrils tighten. He tries to keep fighting though- always keep fighting…!

"I've heard thaaat before," Marvin says, almost teasingly. "We had someone show up here from nowhere just like you did. They said the same thing, something about light and dark being part of them. But we did it anyway." The hallway door slams shut, separating them from the lobby. "Now shut up or I'll burn out your vocal chords."

As Bro gets dragged down the hallway, the tendrils just tighten further. Marvin is not letting this one get away.

Bro swallows and shuts up like Marvin asks. But he can’t help but shake- fearing what’s coming.

[ask2pbakugou]

i AM TRYING TO DO LINELESS ART AND I DUNNo- like this one is only for practice and i decided to use inverted fem bakugou for this one so- wheeze

[soggymentos65]

au by: @/chicheesticks

human version by: @/InvertedAU

does jef have a hashtag lol

[bonniesband]

I was re-reading some InvertedAu stuff when I saw a picture of Pink Sun. I just think that he would be someone to make a sudden rain right after everyone has set up their things on the beach... something random I thought

Yes. But only rain on the beach :)

[crystalninjaphoenix]

OH MY GOD I DIDN’T GET THE @ FOR THIS

AAAAAAAAAA I’M DYING THIS IS AMAZING!!!

I really liked that crossover part so like

It's not great, but I made a thing?

I apologize for any details I got wrong. I can already tell I messed up a few things, but I don't feel like changing it right now, so I guess it's just stuck like that now. Oof.

I'm not good at making comics. Or art in general. But I really loved Mag's little monologue here and I really wanted to do a thing sooo

I was gonna do a little bit more but this took so long aaa

I was also gonna colour it properly but I hate colouring so nope

I should have made the panthers stand out a bit more, they're kinda hard to see, but oh well. It's done, I don't want to touch it anymore, I spent way too long on this.

I've drawn a lot of the swap boys before, but I've never drawn anyone from Inverted, so that was new.

Writing by @crystalninjaphoenix

Characters by @crystalninjaphoenix and @huffle-dork

I've drawn fanart for both of them before. They might remember me, they might not, idk. But they're super cool go read their stories please

If you can't read my handwriting, here was the original paragraph

[ask-thesepticsinverted]

is it possible for marvin to be... fixed, for lack of a better word? back to the way he was before the black magic corrupted him?

A: ...I don’t know. I’ve never seen it happen, but it might be possible. But I doubt he’d ever be the same, even if that happened.

[kidof]

Inverted Silver

So, this is the first drawing of 2017? Good.

Anyway, the original picture was by @its-one-of-the-cancor, I traced over it and shaded + coloured.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Crystal, I absolutely love your 'inverted Au' fiction, for God's sake, what incredible character development you have achieved and your way of narrating is absolutely magnificent! I have two questions for you, are you going to continue writing about this beautiful masterpiece?... And what are curious facts about the egos of this story? I want to read you talk about it from your thoughts! Best regards, dear Crystal <3

Oh, thank you so much anon! Inverted is my favorite of all the stuff I've written! I'm glad it's still getting love!

The main story of the AU, Septics Inverted, is actually completed! There are 283,000 words spread across 55 chapters, though, so it's very long. However there's the follow-up I've been working on, IRIS Inverted, which I am lagging behind in. By a few months. :( I was just so busy with other projects and life that it kind of fell behind, but this ask reminded me I should get back to that. Even so, you can read the main story without reading IRIS Inverted and still get a complete story!

As for curious facts, hmm... It's hard for me to remember what I've said about the Inverted guys and what I haven't XD Hmm... Jackie's favorite animals are wolves. Chase's favorite flavor is that artificial strawberry flavor. Schneep likes going to the beach, but he hasn't been able to in a long time. Marvin will never admit it, but he has a hard time sleeping and needs to take melatonin. Jameson liked to collect and resell items from the 1920s, partially for nostalgia's sake. Anti's top three time periods are the 500s, the 1830s, and the 1990s. There's some random stuff for you!

Again I'm so happy you're enjoying the Inverted AU! ^-^

[crystalninjaphoenix]

The Strangers

A JSE AU Fanfic

The apartment door was exceedingly average. Its dark wood, brass doorknob, and peephole were identical to the other doorways lining the hallway. A small plaque on the wall nearby identified this as “Flat 218.” A plaque that was also identical to all the others in the hall, save the number. Nothing stood out about this door at all.

And yet, the three strangers standing outside seemed very interested in it.

One of the strangers—a woman with chin-length red hair—walked up to the door and knocked. They all waited, but there was no response from behind the door. A minute later, she knocked again. And they waited. And she knocked again. She was about to knock for a fourth time when the sound of jingling keys came from inside the apartment. The doorknob twisted, and a small gap appeared as the door eased open. A man peered through it. He had brown hair, a beard, and bright blue eyes, and looked to be around thirty years old. “Hello?” he said.

“Hi, are you Mr. Jack McLoughlin?” the woman asked.

The man hesitated. “...No.”

“No? That’s strange.” The woman leaned over to one of the other strangers, a man with dark curly hair. “We definitely have the right address. Perhaps you think we’re fans? We’re not.” She laughed. “Oh, that came out wrong. I just meant we’re not here to ask you for your autograph or demand you play something on your YouTube channel. We’re here on other business.”

The door opened a little bit. “Like what?”

“Our organization aims to help people—”

“I’m sorry, i-if you’re looking for donations, I’d love to help, but I can’t right now,” Jack said.

“No, that’s not it,” the woman reassured him. “Let me explain on a more... personal level. We believe there might be something in your apartment. Something that can’t be seen. If we’re right, you could be in serious danger. Can we come in and look around?”

“Are you... do you have a warrant?”

“We’re not police, Mr. McLoughlin.” The woman smiles. “We don’t need a warrant, but you don’t have to let us in. I suggest you do, though. The longer this thing is in your apartment, the more risk there is to you.”

Jack paused. “I...don’t think there’s anything dangerous in my apartment. I appreciate your concern, but it’s not needed.”

“I’ll remind you, this is something that can’t be seen.” The woman’s expression is grave.

“Thanks. But it’s fine.” Jack slowly starts to close the door.

“Alright, sir. We’ll see you again soon.” The woman nods.

“Okay. Goodbye.”

After Jack closed the door, the woman and two other strangers stood outside for a couple minutes before leaving.

The next day, the strangers knocked on the door again. And again. And again. The door didn’t open, but there were the faint sounds of shuffling feet on the other side. The strangers stayed for a solid twenty minutes before they turned and left.

The day after, the woman knocked on the door once, and a minute later, Jack opened it. “Hello, Mr. McLoughlin.” The woman smiled. “I’m so sorry to bother you again. But we have to remind you that if we’re correct about this thing in your apartment, you are in serious danger. I ask you again to let us look through it.”

Jack hesitated. “...sssure,” he said, and reluctantly stepped aside.

“Oh!” The woman’s expression brightened in surprise and relief. “Thank you, sir.”

The strangers stepped through the doorway and into the apartment. One of them, a tall blonde man with a beard, was carrying a large black case. He set it on the coffee table in the living room and pulled out an unusual device. Like an old fashioned security camera, but completely wireless, mounted on a stick that the user could hold while the camera swiveled freely. He took out a second one. Then the woman walked over and pulled a laptop computer out of the case. A bulky white model that looked old-fashioned, but wasn’t actually old. When she booted it up, a white logo appeared on a black background.

Jack stood behind her. He glanced down at the screen just as the logo disappeared. Some sort of oval with three circles inside... it was then replaced with a desktop with a generic blue background. The woman glanced over her shoulder, and he looked away.

“Starting the scan now,” the woman said, using a wireless mouse to click open some programs on the laptop. “Go ahead.”

She sat on Jack’s sofa with the computer on her lap, while the two others took those strange wireless cameras and walked through the apartment. Jack hovered nearby, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, watching as the strangers opened his kitchen cabinets and went into his bathroom and bedroom. “What...is this supposed to do, anyway?” he asked.

“It’s a scan, Mr. McLoughlin,” the woman said. “We’re trying to see if what we’re looking for is here.”

“And what are you looking for?” Jack pressed. “It seems kind of...rude to ask me to let you in and not explain.”

“Well you let us in anyway,” the woman said.

“Because it seemed like you would keep coming back.”

“This is a most urgent matter, Mr. McLoughlin.” The woman didn’t look away from the computer screen as she talked. “You and your neighbors could be in danger.”

“From what?” Jack asked, exasperated.

“It’s a long story,” she said. “I’m not sure where to start. And if it turns out that it’s nothing, we’ll have worried you for no reason. Let’s at least finish the scan. If we find something, we’ll explain everything.”

Jack sighed, but he didn’t push anymore.

The strangers didn’t stay much longer. Only as long as it took to examine every inch of Jack’s apartment with their strange cameras. Only as long as it took to log every detail of Jack’s life. They didn’t touch anything, except to open drawers and cabinets. But those cameras recorded everything they saw, keeping it forever in their memory, until it was inevitably uploaded to somewhere else. Or maybe the footage was already being uploaded somewhere. The woman’s computer seemed connected to the cameras; Jack had seen two streams of video footage on the screen when he occasionally glanced at it, accompanied by words and numbers that he couldn’t get a good look at without catching the woman’s attention.

The strangers’ expressions didn’t change this whole time. Maybe there was nothing worth reacting to. Maybe they couldn’t hear the faint sound of static coming from the laptop and the cameras.

After what felt like an hour, but was only about fifteen minutes, the two strangers returned to the living room and waited. The woman scrolled the mouse wheel, and Jack glanced at the computer to see a page of text, white on a black screen. The results. Had the scan found what it was looking for?

“Hmm.” The woman pressed her lips together. Then she closed every program on the laptop and turned it off, holding the power button to make sure it fully shut down. “Well, Mr. McLoughlin, you are most likely safe,” she said as she stood.

“Most likely?” Jack repeated. “That’s a bit worrying, isn’t it?”

“A bit,” the woman agreed. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small business card. “Here.”

Jack took it. “What’s this for? Aren’t you going to explain what just happened?”

“It’s a complicated story,” the woman stated. “It would be easier to leave you be.”

“What if I don’t want to be let be?”

The woman chuckled. “I know, it’s confusing, and frustrating. Kinda sucks. But trust me, this will be easier for everyone. Though I will say this. There’s something I need you to do, Jack.” Her expression turned serious. “If you have any... strange experiences, we need you to contact us.”

Jack stared at her. “Strange... how?”

“Oh, you know. Seeing things that aren’t there, losing track of time, objects appearing out of nowhere, a lot of deja vu feelings. Mostly stuff that’s up here.” She tapped the side of her head. “But also any physical feelings of illness. Like headaches, or coughing up blood.”

“Are you saying this stuff would be caused by whatever might be in my apartment?” Jack asked. “Is there something radioactive in here? It’s pretty worrying to hear I might be coughing up blood.”

“You might not.”

“Should I move?”

The woman shook her head. “No, that probably wouldn’t help.”

Jack’s eyebrows flew upwards. “What do you mean by that?”

She just smiled. “Contact us if you feel off, Mr. McLoughlin. We’d be happy to help.” She placed the laptop in the black case it came from and put the two strange cameras on top of it. Then closed it with a sense of finality. The blonde stranger came over and picked up the case again. The woman gave one last smile to Jack, and added, “We hope to hear from you soon.”

Then, without waiting to see if Jack had anything more to say, the three of them left, shutting the apartment door firmly behind them.

Jack stood there silently for a moment, staring at the closed door. Then he looked down at the business card in his hand. It was entirely black, with text in white. One side had some information on it. A name—R. Prosopsi—and a phone number. The other side had that same logo that had briefly appeared on the laptop screen. It looked like an eye with three pupils. Curving beneath it was the word IRIS.

Jack slowly put the card in his pocket, then walked over to the window. He slid it open and stared out at the open air, wishing he had a view of the front of the building from here. Just to see if the strangers had really left. He took a deep breath. And said, “I think you can come inside now.”

There was a small ledge that poked out from this window. Somewhere you could hang a window box for flowers. Right now, it was empty.

Then, a flash of green, as something that had been hiding under the ledge—hidden from view to anyone inside the apartment—flew up and through the window. It bonked against the side of Jack’s head, and he laughed a little. “Glad they’re gone, Sam?”

The green flying object was an eyeball, glowing. Green except for the blue iris and black pupil. An optic nerve extending from the back like a little tail. Sam. They’d been having a bit of a growth spurt recently. A few months ago they were the size of a baseball, and Jack suspected they would be volleyball-size soon. Right now, though, they were somewhere halfway between those. Needing two hands to hold, but too small to wrap an arm around.

Sam was indeed glad the strangers were gone. They gave them a strange feeling.

“Well, I know to trust those feelings, don’t I?” Jack muttered. He closed the window and turned around to face the rest of the apartment. “Do you know what that was about?” he asked the empty space.

For a second, there was silence. And then a faint electric whine. The air in the middle of the living room shivered, and then broke, fracturing like a glitchy video. When it cleared, a man was standing there. He looked perfectly identical to Jack, except for what he wore. A pair of jeans, black combat boots, a black long-sleeved shirt with the phases of the moon in a line across the chest, a green scarf...and a square, white eye-patch over his right eye. “I have a vague idea,” he said.

“The card that lady gave me said IRIS.” Jack patted the pocket where he put said card. “You know what that is?”

The man hesitated.

“You do,” Jack realized. “You know, don’t you, Anti?”

“I’ve never encountered them personally, but I’ve heard of them,” Anti said. “They’re not magic. They’re... scientific. In a way that’s a lot more advanced than the rest of the world, to the point where it might as well be fucking magic. They look for strange things and take them away. For protection. Supposedly.”

Sam flicked their nerve-tail. They wanted to know if Anti got any information from the woman’s laptop.

“There wasn’t much stored on the laptop itself,” Anti explained. “Its only functions are to run programs that control those cameras. But it was connected to a larger network. I wasn’t able to get through their defenses—those were unusually good firewalls—but I know how to get to it now. I can work on that.” He paused. “What really concerned me was what that laptop could do with those cameras.”

“What?” Jack asked, dread touching the single word.

“They could take in so much data,” Anti said quietly. Almost in awe at the capabilities. “Things that aren’t supposed to be measured, not with the world’s technology as it is. Like emotions. They pointed the cameras at you, Jack, and it read your emotions.”

“What?!” Now the word was drenched in alarm. “Do you think they knew?! A-about you guys?”

Anti shook his head. “They were picking up strange energy readings, but I don’t think it was anything that could point to us existing. But they knew something was off about you, Jack. They read your emotions as nervous and secretive.”

“How?” Jack shook his head, disbelieving. “My poker face isn’t that bad.”

Sam didn’t think that the cameras were reading faces. They were reading emotions directly.

Jack shuddered. “That’s... that’s fucking creepy.”

Anti glared at the apartment door, as if he could see the strangers who’d left. “What worries me is how they knew there was something weird in your apartment,” he said. “And how they knew it was worth coming back to, worth getting inside to check for, despite your resistance.”

“Maybe they found the videos we’ve done together,” Jack suggested. “And they thought something was weird with you. Hell, maybe their weird equipment could pick up your weirdness even just through a video.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Anti muttered. “I’m going to get inside their network. Those special cameras of theirs are called WTCHRs. Maybe I can use the WTCHRs to watch them.”

Jack nods. “Be careful.”

Anti looks at him. “Only if you’re careful. Don’t call her. If she calls you, don’t pick up. I don’t trust any of this.”

“I don’t either.” Jack sighed. Sam tried to comfort him by sitting on his shoulder, but with how big they were getting, it was a bit too awkward. Jack let them do it anyway, despite how he had to lean his head to the side. “Things were starting to feel normal again. For the first time in, like, three years.”

Anti laughed. “Normal? When you have a telepathic eyeball and a living glitch living with you?”

“Normal for us,” Jack corrected. “Like...before them.”

“Hm.” Anti went silent. “Nothing’s going to happen to you again, Jack. I promise.”

“Thanks,” Jack said quietly. “Just, uh...don’t slit your throat with this promise, okay?”

Another laugh. “I won’t slit my throat.”

“Don’t slit anyone’s.”

“Well I can’t promise that. But I’ll promise to try.”

Despite the morbid turn of the conversation, Jack smiled.

“I’m going to try to get into IRIS’s network for a while,” Anti said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it first time, but might as well. I’ll be back around dinner.”

“Good luck,” Jack said. And Sam wished him luck as well.

“...thanks.” Anti nodded. “I’ll be seeing you.” And with that, he was gone, leaving only a whisper of a glitch in the air.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Guess who's figured out how to do polls? :D So of course the first question I ask is...

Just enough options ot over all of my AUs hdjfsklhjkl

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Assessing the Situation

A JSE Fanfic

Septics Inverted AU

First IRIS Chapter | Previous

(It’s back again! Time for part six! And with only two months since the last part XD We pick up with Chase where we left off, still stuck with IRIS. And then we check on what Anti has been up to. He’s found someone he hasn’t seen in a while. And meanwhile, Jackie has found out something as well. Happy reading :D)

A day must have passed. Chase had slept through most of it—or tried to, at least. It was difficult to sleep in this room when they wouldn’t turn the lights off. He managed to drift off eventually, only to be awakened by the loud CLUNK! of the door lock. He immediately sat up. The woman in the white coat from yesterday was back. Another man in a black uniform had come with her—not the same one from yesterday, but it was hard to figure out details beyond that. The woman sat down at the table. “Hello again, Mr. Brody,” she said with a smile.

Chase didn’t say anything. He glanced towards the door. Sure enough, it had already been closed and locked again. Damn it. He slowly stood up. “So... are you going to actually fucking explain things now?”

“First, we have to get through this assessment,” the woman said. Behind her, the man was resetting the camera, putting it back on the tripod after Chase had thrown it around yesterday. “This will all be better if you cooperate.”

“You say that, but I don’t know if I believe you,” Chase mumbled under his breath. Even so, he didn’t want to push IRIS’s limits. He still didn’t really know what they had planned for him. While the woman wrote something down on her clipboard, he walked over and sat at the other chair.

The woman glanced at the cameras in the room. No doubt double-checking if they were on and functional. “The date is August 14th, 2019, and we are interviewing Chase Brody again. Use of the Dr. Hopkins Assessment has been approved. Good morning, Mr. Brody.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “Is it?” He folded his arms.

“We are going to ask a series of questions to determine your state of mind,” the woman continued. “Now, keep in mind, we can detect if you’re lying, so please try to be truthful.”

Wait, they could? Did they know he’d been lying like a dog all through the ‘interview’ yesterday? He tried not to squirm self-consciously. Or, wait. Maybe they were lying about that? After all, he couldn’t see anything that could possibly be a lie detector in the room.

The woman looked up at him and smiled again. “Are you okay with this, Mr. Brody?”

Chase sighed. “Do I have a choice?”

She didn’t answer, just looked back down at the clipboard. “Is your name Chase Brody?”

Oh, they were starting now? Chase glanced around the room. “Wait, shouldn’t I be hooked up to some wires or something?” he asked, trying to gauge her reaction. Maybe he was calling their bluff on the lie detector.

“Don’t worry, our technology is quite capable,” the woman said in what was supposed to be a reassuring tone. “That won’t be necessary. Now, I will repeat the question. Is your name Chase Brody?”

Chase sighed. Might as well get this over with. “Yeah.”

“Are you 30 years old?”

“Yes.” He didn’t question how they knew that; they probably got his records somehow.

“Are you taking the Dr. Hopkins Assessment right now?” the woman asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“On a scale of one to ten, one being the lowest and ten being the highest, how would you describe your current mental state?”

Chase laughed dryly. “Thought you didn’t care about that.”

“Please just answer the questions, Mr. Brody.” The smiles and pleasant facade from earlier conversations were now gone. She was all business.

“I don’t know,” Chase said. “A... three.” He lowballed it a little on purpose.

“Have you ever felt an attack of fear or anxiety?” the woman asked.

“Yes, of course.” Didn’t everyone, at some point in time?

“Do you feel safe?”

Chase laughed again. “Right now? You fucking kidding me? No. I don’t know what you people want or why you illegally moved me here, because you definitely didn’t get any sort of government approval for—”

“Do you regret your decisions?” the woman interrupted.

He blinked. “...what?” His voice had gone quiet.

“Do you regret your decisions?” she repeated, eyes locked onto him.

He leaned back in the chair, metal creaking with the movement. Even though he wanted to say something about how this was a stupid question and it should be more specific... he couldn’t deny the answer he knew he had. “Yes,” he whispered.

The woman nodded once. “Do you know where you are?”

A few seconds passed while Chase collected himself. “I-I don’t know. Somewhere in IRIS.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“No, I keep telling you guys, I have no idea.” Chase shook his head. “I... you said something about helping people like me, but I don’t know what that means.” Especially with the way he’d been treated so far.

“Have you ever heard of ALTR 114209?” she asked.

“I heard of it yesterday, when you mentioned it,” Chase said. “Other than that? No.”

“When was the first time you came into contact with 114209?”

“Are you even listening?” Annoyance was now overriding any other feelings Chase had. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t know what the fuck that is? You said you would explain!”

“Alright, moving on, Mr. Brody,” the woman said, ignoring the noise of frustration Chase made. “How many pictures have been shown to you so far?”

“Pictures?” Chase glanced around the room, confused. “None.”

“How many sounds have been played for you?”

Again, he looked around the room. “None.” Was there supposed to be some sort of subliminal messaging going on?

“Are you easily startled?” the woman asked.

“No. I mean... maybe?” Chase answered distractedly, now keeping an eye and ear out for strange pictures or sounds. “Depends on the situation.”

“What’s the worst pain you’ve ever felt?”

“I don’t know, I can’t remember.” Maybe the one time Marvin went crazy and blasted him with that weird Void magic? He wasn’t really thinking too hard, still watching for anything suspicious.

“Do you believe in God?”

That snapped Chase’s attention back to the interview. “Bit of a loaded question, don’t you think?”

“Please just answer the question, Mr. Brody.” The woman sounded a bit tired.

“Well, uh... no.” He used to, but that was a long time ago. That belief came from a different person entirely.

“Do you believe in life after death?”

“Okay, no.” Chase shook his head. He shifted a little, ready to stand up at any moment. “This is ridiculous, I’m not doing this.”

“Ridiculous or not, Mr. Brody, please just try to answer the question truthfully,” the woman said firmly. “Do you believe in life after death?”

Chase sighed. He leaned forward onto the table and glared at the woman. “No.”

She was unintimidated, moving on. “Have you ever experienced a terrible occurrence that has impacted you significantly?”

“No,” he lied.

“Have you ever lost someone close to you?”

He stiffened, a visible reaction. “Lost in... what way? Like, death or just...” He trailed off. “Actually, you know what? No. We’re done here.”

“We are not done here, Mr. Brody,” the woman said firmly. “The assessment is not complete. Have you ever lost someone close to you?”

“I don’t care if we’re done or not, I’m not fucking answering any more questions without knowing why I’m here or what you people want!” Chase started to stand up. The black-uniformed man in the corner took a step forward. He stopped.

“Just answer the question, Mr. Brody,” the woman pressed. “Have you ever lost someone close t—”

Chase slammed his hands down on the table. “If I say yes will you stop fucking asking?!” he shouted. “Or does it not count if they’re dead?! Does it not count if they’re right?!” 

The woman stared at him. Chase stared back, breathing heavily. After a few seconds, without looking down, she wrote something on the clipboard. Then she smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Brody, this concludes our assessment.”

The sudden whiplash was enough to shock Chase out of the spiral the question had sent him into. “Wait, that's it?” 

The woman stood up, adjusted her coat, and walked towards the doorway.

“What was the point of all that?” Chase demanded. He stood up fully now. “When do I get some damn answers?!”

She didn’t look back, just opened the door—which had somehow been unlocked without Chase noticing. He started running after her, but just like yesterday, the man in the black uniform grabbed him and yanked him backwards. It was a bit rougher this time, and Chase staggered. By the time he regained his balance, they were both gone, leaving him alone again.

“You—you—fuck you!” he shouted at the closed door. He kicked the chair leg with enough force to send the whole chair spinning. It crashed against the concrete floor with a deafeningly loud clatter. Chase winced.

The silence after the sound was equally deafening. Chase turned his attention to the camera on the tripod. He was really tempted to throw it around again. His hand was already reaching out before his mind caught up and reminded him that this was probably not a good idea. He hesitated for a moment, then settled for picking the tripod up and turning it around so it was facing the wall. But there was nothing he could do about the camera in the ceiling,

He stared at it, dangling in the corner. “Is this fun for you?” he asked. “I don’t think you’re the type of people to have fun. But is it? I don’t know why else you would promise to explain, and then not tell me a damn thing. What sort of—of sick, twisted, fucking game are you playing?”

The camera didn’t react at all. Its red light continued to blink.

“I used to hang out with some terrible, terrible people,” Chase said. “And I can see them doing something like this. That’s how you know you’ve done something wrong. But then again, I guess you wouldn’t care, would you? They definitely wouldn’t have.”

Blink. Blink. Blink.

Chase stared at the camera for a moment more. Then sighed and walked back over to the bed. He climbed in and buried his face in the pillow. He needed some rest. If something happened, he didn’t want to go into it while exhausted. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that something would happen sooner or later.

- - - - - - - - - -

“No, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them before this.”

The House was unchanged since Anti had last been to visit. He paced back and forth across the entrance hall, occasionally glancing at the broken mirror. Dark leaned against the wall by the staircase, looking thoughtful. “Really?” Anti asked. “They’re a large organization. And they were founded in America, in this same state.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down as much as you think,” Dark said, slightly inclining their head. “California is a big state. It could qualify for its own country. Do you know where, exactly, this IRIS corporation came from?”

Anti’s form flickered slightly. “Their website lists a town called Kronolle.”

Dark shook their head. “I’ve never heard of it. At the very least, it’s not in the forbidden zone around Los Angeles. Perhaps it’s up north somewhere.”

“How old are you again?”

Dark smiled. “Old enough.”

“Very fucking helpful,” Anti grumbled.

“I know what you’re thinking. You think that, being around as long as I have, I should have at least heard of this IRIS. But I have not. If you want, I can ask G or his new friends to search the Internet.”

“Nah, that’s fine. Guy freaks me out.”

“Really?” Dark raised an eyebrow. “The great Antisepticeye? Freaked out by something?”

“Oh shut up.”

Dark’s lighthearted expression fell. “You’re even grumpier than usual. I haven’t seen you in months, and you come back twitching erratically and snapping at everything? What happened? Is this IRIS situation that worrying?”

Anti stopped pacing. He sighed. “I could deal with it,” he said quietly. “I’ve dealt with it before. But they’re bringing Jack and Sam into their bullshit, and I don’t like that.”

“Ah.” Dark nodded. “You’re scared something will happen to them.”

“Of course I fucking am! I hacked into their network. The files I saw—” Anti shuddered. “It’s been a while since I saw widespread horror on an organized level like that. If... if Jack was... subjected to that, I... I don’t know what I’d do. Nothing good.”

Dark stood up straight, now fully serious. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“I need more information on them,” Anti said. “Even their own network is vague on their origins and purpose. Maybe you could find something out, since you’re on their home turf.”

“Yes. Of course.” Dark nodded. “I can’t promise anything. We’re having problems ourselves. Which reminds me. Have you seen an elaborate box with a blue crystal on it anywhere? Or maybe just the crystal?”

“No. I can keep an eye out for it, if you want. What’s it do?”

“Well, that’s a bit compli—”

Thud. “Ow!”

Anti’s head immediately snapped towards the noise. It came from behind a door beneath the staircase. The door was labeled “Coat Hanger” but Anti knew that meant nothing with the strange, shifting layout of the House. He glitched over to the door and threw it open, revealing that there was, indeed, a hallway beyond that. And more importantly, revealing— “You!” he gasped. “What the fuck are you doing here?!”

Henrik von Schneeplestein stared back at him. It had been a long while since Anti had last seen him—about eight months or so. In some ways, he was the same. Bright blue eyes peering through rectangular glasses, slightly unkempt brown hair and beard, and the gray sweater he wore was something he would have worn before. But in other ways, he was different. There was more color in his face, his clothes had no stains, and he looked far more... alert than he ever had before. There was also a bruise forming on his forehead—the result of the thud a few seconds ago. Schneep blinked, then folded his arms. “I live here now,” he said defensively.

“Really?” Anti glanced back at Dark, who nodded and walked over to join the conversation. “Well, in that case, what the fuck are you doing right here while we’re talking? Listening?”

Schneep hesitated. “No.”

“Mm-hmm.” Anti glared at him suspiciously.

“Alright, perhaps I was, but I did not mean to come here!” Schneep protested. “You have been here before! You know about the twisty turny hallways and how nothing connects as it should!”

“In that case, the question is clearly why the House wanted you to be here.” Anti now directed his glare at the broken mirror. A vague shape moved in the reflection. It almost looked like a person shrugging. “He’s the last person I wanted here.” Anti huffed, and looked back at Schneep. “How much did you hear?”

Again, Schneep hesitated, clearly contemplating if he should tell the truth. “You were saying something about a TV store...”

“Oh for fuck’s—” Anti threw his hands in the air. He was glad Schneep hadn’t heard him telling Dark his personal experiences with IRIS. But that meant he’d heard his explanation of what IRIS was and him asking Dark for help.  “So you were just standing here eavesdropping for two minutes?”

“Henrik.” Dark folded his hands on top of his cane, looking disappointed.

“I—You—There—Was I just supposed to leave?!” Schneep stammered. “I hear Anti’s voice, I get curious! I wonder if this will involve me, because it seems like it always fucking does with him.”

“No, it doesn’t involve you,” Anti says firmly. “Or any of your friends. Are they here too?”

Schneep rolled his eyes. “You know what happened to Marvin and Jameson and Chase. And Jackie is still in England.”

“So why are you here?”

“I...” Schneep cleared his throat. “...thought it would be... good for me. They have... services here. Without judgment.”

Anti gave him a once-over. “You mean psychiatrists and stuff.”

“I—shut up.” Schneep looked away from him.

Dark put a hand on Anti’s shoulder, silently asking him to back down. Anti glanced back at him, then sighed. “Fine. It’s not my business.” Schneep did look much more... put-together. So that was good. Anti still didn’t trust him, though. Not everything Schneep did could be blamed on mental health issues. “Look, like I said, it doesn’t involve you. It won’t involve you. This is an entirely separate issue than everything between us. So just forget it.” He turned and started walking away.

“Is Jack going to be okay?” Schneep asked quietly.

Anti stopped. He turned back around. “He is. This is a problem, but I’ll take care of it.”

“It sounded like a very serious problem,” Schneep pointed out.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” The last thing Anti wanted was for Schneep to get involved with IRIS. A whole organization of advanced technology and questionable practices? He would probably jump at the chance to join them. And Anti knew he would do great in there. After all, Schneep had been the one to figure out magic combined with an EMP would briefly incapacitate Anti. He hated to think what he could do with more resources.

Schneep nodded. “Okay. Fine, then.”

Dark cleared his throat. “Are you alright, Henrik? I heard you shout a minute ago.”

“Is nothing. Embarrassing, really. I had my head up to the door and then I turned too fast and hit this.” Schneep patted the door frame. “Right on the corner. I am fine. But... thank you.”

“Alright. You can let Edward know if you need anything.”

Schneep rolled his eyes. “Right. I will definitely talk to him, definitely.” Clearly, he wasn’t getting along with Edward, the House’s resident doctor. Some things would never change.

Anti gave a little laugh. “I’m going to head out. Do some searching around, see if there’s any sign of anything... strange.” Double-check if IRIS really wasn’t in the area.

Dark nodded. “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out as well.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back later, just to... finish our conversation.” Anti gave Schneep one last glance. Then he dissolved into particles and disappeared.

- - - - - - - - - -

The car pulled into a spot near the visitors’ entrance. Jackie leaned forward, staring out the window, while Frederick parked. “This won’t take too long, will it?” he asked.

“Probably not,” Jackie said. “I just want to check in on things. If it takes too long I’ll just tell him where I’m going and that I’ll be back later.”

“Jackie,” Frederick said tiredly. “You’re not going to tell him about the IRIS situation, are you?”

“I mean, if he asks where I’ve been.”

Frederick leaned forward over the steering wheel, bonking his head on its rim. “Do you know how it’ll sound if I have to explain we were late because you had a sudden impulse to check on your friend in prison, and you just happened to tell him everything about this secret operation?”

“It’s not any more secret than the rest of the magician stuff, right?” Jackie insisted. “Chase already knows all about magic.”

“I know. But think of the context. We’re already a bit delayed. Nick and Briony are going to freak out if the wards are down for a minute longer than necessary, they won’t... react well to you if you say we were delayed because you wanted to visit a friend in jail.”

“Well maybe they shouldn’t be so judgemental about people in jail,” Jackie pointed out.

Frederick laughed. “I’d agree, but not in Chase’s case.”

Jackie slumped lower in his seat. Frederick had told him that morning that his magician group was willing to let Jackie into their safe house to look at the IRIS technology they had, but only if it happened today at noon. That proved a problem, because Jackie realized it had been a while since he’d seen Chase and wanted to visit him. Today. When visiting hours were from 10 to 12. And the prison was in the complete opposite direction of the safe house. There had been a brief argument before Frederick agreed they could stop by before the meeting if Jackie made sure to keep it brief. “You... Have you told these guys about... me?” he asked.

Frederick straightened up. “In what way?”

“I’m just saying, you’re really concerned about what they’d think of Chase if we told them about him. You must be extra-worried about what they’d think of me.” Jackie didn’t look directly at Frederick. “I was much worse.”

A moment passed in silence. “I thought I’d...” Frederick started, then trailed off. He shook his head. “You’re right. I’m being unfair to you and to Chase. I’m just... nervous.”

“Is being on time really that big a deal?”

“Maybe not in the grand scheme of things. But the whole situation has me on edge, so...” Again, he trailed off. “I haven’t told them about your... checkered past, by the way. Yvonne already knows, obviously, but the rest only know that you’re my boyfriend, because that’s all that matters to me.” Jackie gave a small smile at that. Frederick smiled back, and continued. “Of course, the past is a big thing. They might have to know. Hard to keep that a secret. But I’ll leave it up to you.”

Jackie thought about it. “I don’t really see myself getting to know these guys that well, y’know? I, uh... We’ll shelve that whole thing for now. If I see them more and more, I’ll... bring it up myself. But I’m not throwing Chase under the bus. If we’re late—which we won’t be, cause I’m keeping it short—we’ll just say I wanted to visit him and not mention where.”

Frederick nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Great.” Jackie opened the car door. “I don’t know how long the processing will take, but if I’m not back in thirty minutes, call me.”

“Thirty minutes?!” Frederick repeated, nervously glancing at the car’s dashboard clock.

“I don’t want it to take that long, but who knows? Red tape and shit.” Jackie shrugged. “We’ll still be able to make it on time. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll try.” Frederick sighed. “Good luck. Have fun.”

Jackie smiled. “I’ll try.” Then he stepped out of the car and walked up to the entrance.

Every time he walked in here, he couldn’t help but clutch the amulet around his neck. It was made to disguise his appearance from anyone he didn’t want to recognize him, including on recordings. Even though he knew it was an effective disguise, he still felt exposed strolling right into a police building like he wasn’t a wanted criminal. Just because it had been about a year since the Mirygale police had last seen him didn’t mean they weren’t still searching.

But, as it had been the last few times, there was no immediate reaction from anyone in the front hall. Jackie walked up to check-in—a booth protected by thick glass—and cleared his throat.

“Hello, how can I help you?” asked the woman behind the glass.

“I’m here to visit Chase Brody,” he said.

“Reason?”

“Social.” Jackie knew how this went. He’d done it dozens of times before.

“Right.” The woman swiveled over to a computer and began typing into it. Normally, this would only take a minute or two, and then the receptionist would say to sit down and wait. And five to twenty minutes later, a prison guard would appear and say he could come on back. But this time, the woman frowned. She turned back to look at him. “I’m sorry, he’s been transferred to a different facility.”

Jackie blinked. “What? Why?”

She glanced at the computer monitor. The screen was reflected in her glasses, and Jackie tried to read what she was reading. “It seems it was for security reasons.”

“What reasons?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to divulge prisoner information to a civilian.”

“Okay...” Jackie said slowly. “Can I at least know where he is now?”

“Hmm.” The woman paused. “North Point Prison. However, sir, it says here that they don’t allow visitors.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with their system. You’ll have to contact them for any future questions.”

“...Right.” Jackie nodded slowly. “Ah... thanks anyway.” And with that, he turned and left.

This didn’t make any sense. He’d never heard of North Point Prison before, and Jackie used to be very careful about knowing all the nearby prisons—as well as courthouses and police stations. And why didn’t it allow visitors? If Chase had been transferred somewhere else “for security reasons,” Jackie would have assumed his security was being downgraded for good behavior. But a place with no visitors allowed implied a higher security level.

He was quiet as he got back into the car. Frederick looked at him, concerned. “You’re back quick. Is everything alright?”

“They transferred Chase somewhere else,” Jackie said.

“What? Why? Where?”

“Said it was ‘for security reasons,’ but I don’t know if that adds up,” Jackie says. “Chase has been nothing but cooperative since the arrest. He admitted to everything and doesn’t cause trouble. Why would they move him somewhere with higher security?”

Frederick shook his head. “I don’t know. Are you sure it was a place with higher security?”

“That’s what was implied when the receptionist lady said the place didn’t allow visitors.” Jackie frowned. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. “I’m looking it up. Hey, by any chance, have you ever heard of North Point Prison?”

He didn’t expect a reaction, but Frederick gasped and went pale.

“What?” Jackie looked at him. “Is it... bad?” he asked worriedly.

“I think... i-if this is all correct, then it’s really bad,” Frederick said.

“Why?!”

“North Point is the old prison that IRIS converted to their headquarters.”

[crystalninjaphoenix]

An Interview

A JSE Fanfic

Septics Inverted AU

First IRIS Chapter | Previous

(I bet you guys thought I forgot about this. Nope, it’s just that MerMay took up a lot of my free writing time... and then like twenty more days passed in which I was busy XD But I’m back now! Let’s catch up on what’s happened to Chase since we’ve last seen him. And then we’ll peek in on Jackie and Frederick and their investigation. And yep. That’s the chapter ^-^)

Chase wasn’t sure how long he’d been stuck in here. The room had no windows or clocks, which made it hard to tell time, but he guessed it was at least a couple days. He had no real way to know. The lights didn’t turn off. He couldn’t even ask anyone for the date. Sure, there was a camera mounted in the corner of the room, watching him, but he hadn’t actually seen another human person since he woke up here.

If there was any doubt in his mind that IRIS was sketchy before, it was cleared now. It had to be illegal to transfer people to a different place while they were asleep. Yet that’s what they did. He went to bed, and when he next opened his eyes, he was stuck in a room that felt more like a cage than the literal prison cell he’d been in. At least in prison they let you leave the room a couple times a day.

That stupid camera was getting on his nerves. It just sat there, unchanging except for its blinking red light. He’d been lying on the bed in the room, but now he sat up and waved at it. “Hey. Having fun? You sick fucks. I know you’re watching.”

The camera, of course, didn’t answer.

Were they just going to keep him in here? That woman from IRIS said they wanted to help “people like him.” How was any of this helpful? If anything, it was the exact opposite.

Chase sighed. He stared at the camera in the corner for a moment more. Then idly scanned the room for the umpteenth time. The room was unremarkable on the surface. The walls were plain plaster—gray upper half, blue bottom half—and the floor was concrete. There was little furniture in the room. Just the bed and a table with two chairs. And the small alcove in the corner with a toilet and a sink, hidden by a curtain that looked recently installed. That was how Chase knew this was no ordinary room. This was designed to keep people in. Keep them for an extended period of time.

“Are you guys, like, a vigilante group or something?” Chase said, looking back up at the camera. “Is this a punishment? Cause I think I was being punished enough.” He paused. “No, wait, I got it. This is like some sort of human experimentation thing. You get people no one cares about to test your... whatever. Is that it?”

The camera still didn’t answer. Because it was an inanimate object. What was he expecting? Well, maybe there could have been an intercom in the room or something, but they probably would have used that earlier, when he tried to hit the camera in the corner with a pillow. He would’ve tried throwing the chair but he was worried about somehow hurting himself. That was a high distance to throw a heavy object.

Chase stopped staring at the camera and stared at the door instead. It was made of metal and looked heavy. There was a small gap in the bottom, with a flap like a main slot in the door, where someone outside—he didn’t know who, because they never answered him when he tried to talk—would slide trays of food, presumably every few hours. It wasn’t bad food. In fact, it was probably better than what he’d been eating for the past year or so. But he hated that he couldn’t leave to go get it himself. The door was locked tight. He’d tried.

But just as he was thinking about how secure the door was, he heard the distinct CLUNK! of a heavy lock turning, and the door swung open. Chase just about fell off the bed as he stood up as fast as possible.

A man walked into the room. He wore a black uniform of some kind, a uniform which vaguely reminded Chase of a security officer, but with the addition of a black mask covering the lower half of his face. The man also carried a black case, and he walked over to the table and opened it up. But Chase wasn’t paying attention to that. He was staring at the woman in the white coat that came into the room. It was the same woman who’d come to “let him know about the transfer” in prison. He recognized her short red hair. Another person in a black uniform waited outside, closing the room door as soon as the woman walked in. The lock turned again. Damn it.

“Hello Mr. Brody,” the woman said, and smiled.

Chase didn’t answer right away. He gave her a quick once-over, then looked back at the man in black. The woman only held a clipboard and pen, but the man had some sort of stick dangling from his belt. Definitely a weapon. Too securely attached to grab, though. Unless he was desperate.

“I hope you’ve found everything... adequate,” the woman said.

“I’m sorry? What the fuck? Do you think this—” Chase gestured at the room at large. “—is ‘adequate’?”

“Unfortunately, we have some safety measures that must be enforced,” the woman said. “Now. I’m here to talk to you, and I would appreciate it if this was easy for both of us.” She smiled again, but there was something tight about the expression this time.

Chase glanced again at the man in black. He’d finished what he was doing. There was now another camera set up on a tripod by the table.

The woman walked over to the table and sat down at one of the chairs. The camera was directed away from her, and towards the other chair. “Please take a seat, Mr. Brody,” she said, and began writing something on her clipboard. The man stood at attention behind her, out of view of the camera.

Chase really wanted to make this difficult for these people, but there was too much risk. He didn’t know what they wanted from him. Hell, they might just kill him if he resisted too much. So, as much as he didn’t want to listen, he reluctantly walked over and sat down in the other chair. He glared at the camera. Then directed that glare at the woman. “So, are you going to fucking explain what I’m doing here?”

“One second, Mr. Brody.” The woman glanced at the camera. A red light started blinking on it. She nodded. “The date is August 13th, 2019. We are interviewing... please state your name for the record.”

“Why? You know my name. You just said it.”

“It’s for the record, sir,” the woman said calmly.

Chase sighed. “Fine. My name’s Chase Brody.”

“Mr. Brody is a five-foot eight-inch white male in his early thirties. He has had contact with an individual who has been exposed to ALTR 114209, and has likely been exposed himself, though it’s unlikely that there has been exposure within the past twelve months. Mr. Brody, what do you know about this?”

Chase stared at the woman. “Uh... I’m sorry, that was a lot of words just now. Most of which I don’t understand. In this context, at least.”

“Ah, that’s understandable.” The woman nodded. “We’ll explain everything later. For now, we need to know if you’ve ever seen or experienced anything unusual?”

“I mean... define ‘unusual,’ I don’t think my life is ‘usual.’” Chase rolled his eyes.

“Anything that seems unnatural,” the woman explained. “Perhaps even supernatural.”

Chase’s heart stopped for a moment, though he maintained a neutral expression. Anything unnatural? Fuck, he’d have to narrow it down. IRIS was looking for the supernatural, then? That’s why they came after him. But that still didn’t explain what they wanted. And frankly, he wasn’t going to help them. Not after they’d shoved him in a room for a couple days and locked him in. “I dunno. I mean, everyone thinks they’ve seen something, right?”

The woman nodded, and wrote something down. “Alright. Mr. Brody, we know you lived with an individual named Jack McLoughlin for two years.”

Chase stiffened.

“Did you notice anything unusual about him in that time period?”

“Uh... I don’t know.” Chase stared at the woman, trying to figure out what she was getting at. But her face remained pleasantly calm. “Jack was a bit weird... He was, uh... f-f-forgetful... and spent... a lot of time, um... inside... a-and stuff.” He stumbled over his words as guilt curdled in his stomach. All of Jack’s ‘weirdness’ was his own fault, after all.

The woman flipped to something else on her clipboard. “While that is concerning, it is not considered unusual, since the cause of those behaviors are well-documented in police files, and has, in fact, been confessed to by yourself and your two companions.”

“...right.” Chase laughed nervously. He gripped the edge of the table tight.

“Was there anything unusual about Mr. McLoughlin besides those symptoms?”

There was a floating fucking eyeball and a living glitch. “N-no, not that I can think of.”

The woman nodded. She flipped back to the first page. “Do you recognize this facility?

“Uhhh...” Chase was about to instinctively deny it, but something stopped him. “Well, I don’t recognize you, but...” He glanced around the room again. There had been something about it... “This... building is familiar. It’s...” He paused, then hie nodded slightly as he put a name to it. “It’s like I’ve been here before.”

“Mr. Brody, I assure you, you’ve never been here before,” the woman said gently. “We have no records of you in this building before this.”

“No, it’s not like that, it’s...” Chase struggled with the words. “There’s... an energy here that I’ve felt before. But... it’s probably just deja vu or something.”

The woman’s eyes glanced sharply up. “Have you experienced instances of this before?”

“Like what? What do you mean?”

“Like... feelings of deja vu, like this has happened before,” she explained.

“Uh, yeah, of course. Everybody has.” Chase shrugged. “It’s just the mind playing tricks on you.”

“Have you had any similar experiences?” The woman asked. “Like, for example, seeing things that aren’t there, strange objects appearing out of nowhere, or losing track of time?”

Chase shook his head. “No, I’m not psychotic, if you’re asking.”

“That’s not what we were asking, it’s if you ever experienced occurrences like that,” the woman said.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. That’s such a vague series of shit, I’m sure that everyone would answer positively to something. Losing track of time? Really? Everyone’s gotten caught up in stuff.”

“Hmm.” The woman nodded vaguely. “Mr. Brody, I referenced ALTR 114209 earlier. Do you know what that is?”

“I’ve never heard that word and series of numbers before, no.”

“That’s not what I was asking, Mr. Brody, I asked you if you know what that is.”

Chase threw a hand up in the air. “That’s the same fucking thing. So no. I don’t know. What is it?”

“We’ll explain later, Mr. Brody,” the woman said, not even looking up from her clipboard.

“Fuck that!” Chase shouted. “I’ve been stuck in here for at least two days, if you’re being honest about the date, the least you can do is tell me what the hell’s going on!”

“This concludes our session—”

“Session?! It’s been like two minutes!”

“These sessions will not be long.” The woman stood up. “I’ll be back tomorrow to give you an assessment—”

“What, like a psychological assessment or a check-up at the doctor’s?” Chase interrupted.

“You’ll see. You just have to be a little bit patient.” The woman smiled.

“My patience is going to keep wearing thin for as long as you guys keep me in here.” Chase gestured at the room. “You had such a low bar to clear, and yet this is worse than being in prison. This has to be a war crime or something. What the fuck.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Brody, we know what we’re doing,” the woman said in what was supposed to be a reassuring tone, but which didn’t reassure Chase at all. “Try to get some rest, tomorrow will be a big day.” And then she started walking towards the door.

“Hey! You can’t just leave me in here!” Chase bolted to his feet and started running after her, but a hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He’d forgotten about the man in the black uniform.

The man roughly pushed him towards the bed, then followed the woman out of the room. Chase took a few steps forward. But he wasn’t fast enough. The two of them were out of the room. The door closed and locked behind them.

“Assholes!” Chase shouted. “You’re all fucking accessories in kidnapping! Trust me on that!” He sighed. They probably didn’t care. And he doubted they would answer for their crimes. If IRIS was able to make some kind of arrangement with the Mirygale prison system, an arrangement that let him just vanish into their care with no complaint, then they probably had enough power to avoid the consequences of all this.

He turned and started sitting down on the bed—not much to do but sleep in this room—but then he stopped. They’d left the camera on the tripod in the room. Was that on purpose? It had to be, right?

He stared at the camera for a while. Until he was pretty sure that anyone outside the room would have left. Then he stood up and walked over to the camera. “Hello there.” He waved. “So one wasn’t enough? You had to leave a second?” A pause. “Well I’m gonna say this is on you, then.”

And he reached out and took the camera off the tripod, turning it over in his hands. It looked normal. A bit old-fashioned in how bulky it was. The one weird thing was that there was no way to see the video the camera was recording. But he didn’t really care about any of this. He wasn’t really curious about the stupid camera anyway.

With one smooth motion, Chase threw the camera against the far wall, putting all his force into the throw. It flew through the air and crashed against the wall, falling to the floor. He walked over to check it out... but the camera was completely undamaged. Not a scratch on it.

“Fucking figures,” Chase muttered, picking it up again. He looked at the camera hanging from the ceiling. Taking careful aim, he threw this new tripod camera at it. SMACK! Metal clashed together. But the ceiling camera hadn’t so much as swiveled from its position, and the tripod camera was fine even as it landed hard on the concrete ground.

“What the fuck are these made of?!” Chase shouted. He walked over and kicked the camera on the ground, but that didn’t do anything.

He glared up at the corner camera, then at the door. He waited for someone to come in and tell him to stop it. But... nothing.

Unease creeped up on him. That... that probably hadn’t been a good idea. He’d let his frustration take hold, and had forgotten the fact that he was entirely at IRIS’s mercy. They could totally just leave him in here to starve to death. No one would ever know. Well... Jackie would probably know. Stacy and the kids would, too, even if he wasn’t sure Stacy would care. But the point was, they couldn’t stop it from happening.

Now thoroughly unnerved, Chase walked back to the bed and laid down, staring up at the ceiling. He wondered if people were noticing his absence now. If the story about the “transfer” was holding them over.

It didn’t matter. He doubted they could find him even if they knew about IRIS.

- - - - - - - - - -

“I want to come check it out.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Frederick looked up at Jackie, standing in the doorway of the bedroom. “Do you know how hard it’ll be to adjust the wards for you? There’s one designed to specifically keep out non-magicians.”

“Well that seems like discrimination, if you ask me,” Jackie said.

Frederick chuckled. “It’s helpful. We don’t want random people breaking into the building and finding out magic exists. Anyway. Can we discuss this in the morning and not when I’m about to go to bed?”

“I wake you up every time I go to bed, anyway.” Jackie shrugged.

“Not every time.” Frederick had been lying down on the bed, but now he sat up straight. “Alright, let’s talk about this. Are you sure? You’re the one concerned that IRIS put tracking devices in their tech.”

“And you’re the one who reassured me that your safe house has all sorts of magical protection.”

“I’m going to repeat what I said about it being hard to adjust the wards for you.”

“Well, you should’ve thought of that before you let me help.” Jackie folded his arms. “If you didn’t want me to come check out the fancy WTCHR camera your magic taskforce bought, you shouldn’t have told me you were buying one to check out in the first place.”

“Yeah, that’s on me, that’s fair.” Frederick nodded. “Look, I’ll have to talk to the others. It’s a group thing, after all.”

“Who’s in charge? Just ask them.”

“That’s not really how things work.”

“What d’you mean? Someone has to be in charge.”

“No, we’re all the same,” Frederick explained. “We’re all agents. There’s no ranking system. Sure, we have supervisors, and of course, the Magi is in charge of everyone, but it’s not like I’m a—a lieutenant and someone else is a captain. It’s all equal until someone’s promoted to supervisor, and none of us are.”

“Aren’t you and Yvonne like... special agents for tracking down black magic magicians or something?” Jackie asked.

“Yeah. So are all the others in the group. Except for Briony and Nick. They’re wizards, which are technically different, but it’s still about equal to an agent. Just with a different skill set. Anyway, that’s only two out of seven, so it really doesn’t matter.”

Jackie stared at him. “The ABIM is weird. Anyway, can I come look at the IRIS stuff you guys bought or not?”

“If the others will agree, yeah, of course.” Frederick nodded. “But I have to ask why you want to see it. Just curiosity?”

“I want to help,” Jackie insisted. “Have you guys done any magical experiments on it yet?”

“Briony’s kept it in a detection box since it arrived this morning. It has to run for a full day for us to get the results, so... not really.”

“Well, maybe once you’ve done those magical experiments, and maybe if you don’t find anything, my non-magic eyes will give you a new perspective,” Jackie said. He hesitated. “And... yeah, I’m a bit curious. I want to see what you guys are gonna do to examine it.”

Frederick smiled. “Alright, melon. I’ll try to convince them. Here, I’ll start right now.” He reached over and picked up his phone from the night stand nearby. “I’m messaging everyone.”

“Can’t believe the magicians have a regular-ass group chat,” Jackie muttered.

“It’s a Discord server, actually.”

“Holy shit that’s even more unbelievable!” Jackie gaped.

Frederick laughed. “C’mon, magicians have been able to protect their stuff online since the beginning of the Internet. You know this. It can’t be that hard to believe.”

“It’s just weird to hear you name-drop popular online stuff.”

“That’s fair.” Frederick went silent for a while, typing. Then he paused for a moment. “No immediate replies. I’ll check again this morning.” He looked up at Jackie. “Now can I go to bed?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jackie shrugged. “I’m gonna be here in like an hour, though, so don’t get too comfy.” That was a bit of a joke. He knew that Frederick fell asleep quickly; he would absolutely get comfy.

“Good night, Jackieboy.” Frederick set his phone back on the night stand. “Turn the light off, please.”

“Got it. Good night.” Jackie turned the light off and left the room, closing the door behind him.

He said he was going to go to sleep in an hour, but that didn’t happen. There was something bothering him. He wasn’t sure what it was. It was just a gut feeling that something was wrong. That he was being... watched. It made it hard to calm down, and he ended up staying up until three in the morning, trying to distract himself. But that didn’t fully work. He ended up switching from video game to video game, and nothing could immerse him enough to make him forget about that feeling.

Eventually, though, he had to try to sleep. He got changed, brushed his teeth, and walked into the dark bedroom, silently finding his way to the bed and climbing under the blankets. As he’d expected, Frederick’s breathing shifted, and he mumbled something in Chinese before rolling over. One arm draped over Jackie’s side and pulled him closer.

Jackie let out a breath. He felt a bit less uneasy now. A bit safer. But the feeling of being watched still didn’t disappear, not until he eventually drifted off to sleep.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Investigation

A JSE Fanfic

Septics Inverted AU

First IRIS Chapter | Previous

(Jackie and Frederick talk more about their investigation into IRIS. At the same time, in a different city, Anti returns to meet up with Jack again. And then, I’ll be honest: it ends with a cliffhanger for the next part. I want to keep these chapters short for once, okay?! XD)

Three days passed, and Jackie found almost no online information about IRIS. Something that was both frustrating and baffling. IRIS was supposed to be this big American company. There should be millions of people talking about it, journalists doing pieces on their practices and everyday citizens praising or complaining about their products. Yet there was almost nothing. No media coverage, save for a few stray articles on tech websites, and barely anyone mentioning it even in passing.

Most information was fairly neutral. People liked their products, but clearly not enough to rave about them. Any IRIS-related photos were of their buildings taken from a distance by people passing by. As far as he could tell, no one took pictures of the interior. Which was just... so hard to believe. If Jackie knew anything about people, it’s that someone would eventually be brave or stupid enough to try taking photos of restricted areas.

“It’s just not possible that there’d be so little about a corporation like this,” Jackie said to Frederick one evening over dinner. “If it was, like, a little start-up of some kind, it would be expected. But it’s not. It’s been around for ages.”

“If we’re to believe their website,” Frederick pointed out.

“Well, we don’t really have a choice but to believe their website. It’s one of three good sources we have. And the other two are Wikipedia and Twitter. Not exactly reliable.”

“Actually, Wikipedia is more reliable than most people think.” Frederick drummed his fingers on the table. His prosthetic fingers, which made a satisfying tapping sound on the wood. “They take vetting and verifying their sources quite seriously. Sure, they’re not perfect. But if you want another source, they provide links to where all their information came from.”

“Really? Huh.” Jackie paused, unsure what to say. He looked down at the ramen he was eating, twirling the noodles around his fork.

“I think we should buy one of their products,” Frederick said.

“What?!” Jackie’s head snapped up.

“Well, to be more exact, Briony brought up the idea at our last meeting, and I agreed,” Frederick explained.

“Who?”

“She’s also part of the investigation team Yvonne and I got assigned to. There’s also Nick, Harvey, Alena—”

“Okay, I get it,” Jackie cut him off. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? The whole reason for the investigation is that IRIS might be using dark magic. Do we want that in our house?”

“We’re not going to keep it in our house. The investigation has set up a little meeting building on the edge of town. We buy something, and put it in there.”

“What if IRIS can track their things?” Jackie asked. “They could figure out that we’re onto them.”

“The house has some of the best protection magic can set up,” Frederick said. “All sorts of wards. Even if they track their products, and even if that tracker can penetrate the warding, they couldn’t get in.”

Jackie hesitated. “But we don’t know anything about them. We don’t know their capabilities.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Frederick’s tone was genuine, not snarky like one might expect.

“We could find where their base of operations is,” Jackie suggested. “Wait. Does your team already know that?”

“Yeah, they’ve set a couple up. The nearest one is about an hour north of here.”

“Okay, then we stakeout their facility,” Jackie continued. “See if we can find anything out. Maybe, if we can figure out how to get in, there’ll be—”

“Well.” Frederick looked grim. “They’re not... their building isn’t exactly a normal office building.”

Jackie paused. “Explain?”

“It’s out in the middle of nowhere with high walls and barely any windows. Used to be an old prison that they’ve since converted. It looks like they’ve constructed two newer buildings next to it that are just as secure, and somehow managed to expand the wall around them.”

Jackie frowned. “Why would they take over an old prison building?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Frederick wondered.

“Okay. But you said they have multiple bases, right?” Jackie pressed. “If the nearest one is secure, then we can go to the next one.”

“...alright, I guess this is on me for not filling you in on everything.” Frederick reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He pushed aside his bowl of ramen and leaned across the table to show Jackie some pictures he opened up. “They have three facilities: north, west, and east. All of them were based off old buildings known for their security. Prisons to the north and east, and a disused military base to the west. Somehow, even though they haven’t been in the area that long, they’ve all expanded on the original design and made them even harder to get into. What’s more, it took us a while to even realize they were there. Somehow, there’s some mental barrier around each facility that convinces people there’s nothing there. ”

Jackie swiped through the pictures on Frederick’s phone. All of them taken from a distance, just like the ones he’d seen online. And the buildings didn’t look too different from those online photos, either. They were white and shining metal, with the eye-shaped IRIS logo plastered on one side. But the pictures online didn’t have the high walls these ones did. “Well. Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“You guys have magic, though?” Jackie insisted. “You could get in if you wanted!”

“Maybe,” Frederick said slowly. “But we’re not sure. Nobody wants to get too close to the strange energy the buildings are giving off. So, that’s why Briony suggested we get one of their products to examine it. Second best thing to actually going inside.”

Jackie leaned back in his chair. While it was frustrating that the literal magicians refused to use their magic to get into IRIS, he did understand where they were coming from. “Alright, fine, we won’t break in yet,” he said. “How did you get these pictures if you don’t want to get close?”

“Yvonne asked Heather to do it,” Frederick said. “Less suspicious for a journalist to be stalking around than a normal-looking person.”

“And she was okay with that?”

“She was excited to,” Frederick chuckled.

“Heh.” Jackie gave a little smile. “Yeah, I can see that. But so much driving. You said the nearest one was an hour away.”

“The farthest is only two hours.”

“Still.” Jackie paused. “Where are they, anyway? Exactly, I mean.”

Frederick narrowed his eyes. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing!” Jackie raised his hands defensively. “I just want to know.”

Frederick hesitated, then sighed. “If you do anything stupid I’m divorcing you,” he muttered, swiping through photos on his phone.

“We’re not married!”

“Metaphorically. The spirit of divorce will enter my body. Here.” Frederick showed Jackie the picture he’d found.

It was a screenshot of an online street map of the county. Someone had edited in three red Xs where the IRIS facilities were. Jackie leaned forward, scanning the map. Then he frowned.

“Notice something?” Frederick asked.

“These three locations form a triangle. Do you notice what city is in the middle of that triangle?” Jackie tapped the center of the photo. “Mirygale.”

“Huh.” Frederick took his phone back and stared at the map. “Your old haunt.”

“Might be worth checking it out,” Jackie muttered.

“Might be.” Frederick turned off his phone. “In the meantime, we’ll be ordering one of their products.”

“Alright, fine.” Jackie shrugged. “Just don’t expect me to pay for it.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Jack’s phone was ringing.

It was doing that a lot the past few days. Always a different number, none of them familiar. He wanted to believe that it was just normal spam calls... but they’d started not long after that IRIS group had visited him and scanned his apartment.

He waited for the ringing to stop, staring at the phone while it vibrated on the coffee table. Sam flew over and landed next to the phone, staring as well. Then it stopped. And Jack let out a sigh as a knot of anxiety unraveled in his chest. “What do you think?” he asked Sam.

Sam thought that he should never pick up phone calls ever again.

“I can’t do that. Maybe I should change my number?”

Sam said they would probably be able to figure out he did that. They would just keep calling.

“Yeah. I guess.” Jack rubbed his eyes. “I shouldn’t have let them in. I gave them an inch and they’re taking a mile.”

The energy in the air sharpened. The hair on the back of Jack’s neck stood up, and he looked up.

Anti glitched into the middle of the living room. He stumbled a bit, then glitched again, this time appearing on the sofa, half-lying down, half-leaning against the arm rest. “Hey.”

“Very casual about leaving for three days, huh?” Jack said, trying not to sound too bitter. Anti had left shortly after the first IRIS visit, popping back in sporadically for two days before completely disappearing.

“Sorry.” Anti wouldn’t make eye contact. “I didn’t realize how much time was passing.”

Jack sighed. “Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.” Anti glanced over at him. “What... have you been doing?”

“Reading.” Jack held up the book he was holding. He’d been sitting in the armchair for a while, completely engrossed in the story. “It’s been a while since I’ve read anything. I figured it would probably be good to have more hobbies, ones that aren’t based on screens.”

Anti raised an eyebrow. “Should I be offended?”

“Haha. You’re not just screen-based, either.” Jack slid a bookmark in between the pages. “It’s really good, though. It’s about a man who starts hearing disembodied voices, and that leads to this whole conspiracy about his best friend and twin sibling both disappearing, and it turns out there’s some weird scifi shit going on. The twin’s a superhero and the friend’s a scientist and they both get kidnapped by two different groups. Some of the characters actually remind me of, uh, people we both know.”

“...huh.” Anti frowned, then shook his head.

“Well, anyway.” Jack put the book down next to his phone. While his hand was there, Sam hopped onto his arm and slithered up to his shoulder, and then his head. “Oh! You’re getting a little big for that.” Jack laughed. It soon faded. “Anti. Did you manage to hack into this IRIS thing?”

Anti grimaced. “Yes. Eventually.”

“It really took you five days to do that?”

“No, it took three days. See, the thing is, every time I left to come back here, their firewalls would reset. I told you I’d be gone for a while the last time I saw you.”

“You didn’t mean days,” Jack muttered. “I was... I was worried.” Sam tapped the side of his head with their nerve-tail. “Alright, fine, I was a bit upset, too.”

“I really am sorry,” Anti said quietly.

“It’s fine now. Really,” Jack reassured him. “Just... tell me about IRIS. What do they want?”

Anti sat up straight. “They want to find weird things and take them away. That hasn’t changed.”

“But you must’ve found more once you got into their network,” Jack insisted.

“I didn’t look at too much. I was busy testing to make sure the hole I put in their firewall stayed there after I left the system.” Anti paused. “Once I... realized how much time had passed, I wanted to check on you. They haven’t been bothering you more, have they?”

“Just more phone calls,” Jack said. “It has to be them. Even if the number is different every time.”

Anti nodded. “Yeah. It’s not too hard to get a bunch of different numbers.”

“So... what did you look at?” Jack asked. “Before you came back.”

Anti sighed. “They’re after you. But not because of you. They... they’re after me. They know we’re connected.”

Jack stared at him. “Anti. How do you know IRIS?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have time. Right, Sam?” Jack reached up to touch them. Sam jumped down, landing in his lap. They agreed with him.

Anti paused. Then slumped a bit, relenting. “Alright. I’ll tell you about me and IRIS.”

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Impossible Sciences

A JSE Fanfic

Septics Inverted AU

Previous

(You guys really liked the last little part I wrote, so I’ve been motivated to write the next part sooner than I planned. :) This AU isn’t going to be back on a regular schedule, just when I get the time. For now, here’s this ^-^)

“Have you ever heard of a company called IRIS?”

Jackie looked up from his computer screen. His boyfriend, Frederick, had walked straight into the bedroom without even saying hi, and asked that bizarre question. “Good to see you too, welcome home,” Jackie said. “And, uh, no. Not off the top of my head. Why?”

Frederick crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway. “They’re under investigation.”

“For what?”

“For being suspiciously weird.”

Jackie blinked. “Okay.” He closed out of the game he was playing and opened up his browser, typing ‘iris company’ into the search bar on his homepage. “I’m gonna need more details. Are they, like, magic?”

“We don’t know. Alright, I’ll start from the beginning.” Frederick took a deep breath. “Me and Yvonne got assigned to this new investigation team. This IRIS? They’ve been setting up in the area, and their buildings are giving off strange energies. The Magi think it might be dark magic.”

“Why?” Jackie asked.

“Because we don’t recognize the energy signatures,” Frederick said. “That doesn’t happen. ABIM has some of the best magicians working for them, and the greatest collection of magical knowledge in the country. We don’t not recognize something.”

“Hmm.” Jackie clicked a few times, scanned information, and then said, “Well, according to Wikipedia, IRIS—or Inspiring Research of Impossible Sciences—is an American company that manufactures technology. Founded in 1920, in Kronolle, California. They have a website. And a Twitter. Huh.” He went back to the search results. “Yep, there they are.”

Frederick walked over to the desk where Jackie was sitting and leaned over his shoulder, looking at the monitor. “Look at the website. I want to know what stuff they make.”

Jackie clicked on the link, taking them to a sleek-looking site, monochrome in color except for some pictures and promotions. “Their breakout product looks like these cameras. Watcher. Or, actually, WTCHR.” He slurred the consonants together, pronouncing it as it was written. Frederick chuckled. “They look kind of old-fashioned, actually. But it claims that they’re really good. Look at this.” He circled the promotion for the WTCHR cameras with his mouse. “‘Advanced Motion Detection.’ So, it's for security and stuff.”

“No, I don’t think that’s quite it.” Frederick leaned closer. “It’s not ‘Motion Detection.’ It’s ‘eMotion Detection.’”

That sent a shiver down Jackie’s spine. “Do you think they can really do that?”

“Maybe. There are spells to pick up on others’ emotions, though I understand it can be overwhelming. If you could somehow put that spell into an object that can see, but not feel...like a camera attached to a computer...” Frederick trailed off. “Look, there’s a link up there for their products. Click it.”

Jackie did so. The page was arranged strangely, with a chronological list of all IRIS’s inventions from their founding onward, many of which had stopped being produced decades ago. But no matter what time period they were from, every invention seemed impossible. “Look at this shit,” Jackie muttered. “Infinity-color TV? What does that even mean?”

“I’m more interested in the Retrowave,” Frederick said. “It says it can restore meals to their ‘freshest’ state? I don’t like that, especially with that picture of the chicken dinner.” Said ‘chicken dinner’ was a live chicken on a plate, along with potatoes that had attached roots. “If it really works like that, that would mean they could somehow reverse the flow of time on an object, which should be impossible. Or at the very least, very, very difficult, even for magicians.”

“You think we’d have heard of these.” Jackie shook his head. “Something like that Lite-R device would’ve made construction so easy. It would’ve been all over. We’d be using those here.”

“Something’s definitely fishy with this company.” Frederick leaned back, standing up straight. “I think the ABIM is right to investigate them. Is there anywhere on the page that says where we can contact them?”

“Let’s see.” Jackie started scrolling. “Also, if you’re gonna lean over my shoulder, don’t do it in my blind spot. It freaks me out when you suddenly appear.”

“Ah. Sorry, Jackieboy.” Frederick shifts to Jackie’s right side—the side where his eye wasn’t covered by a patch. “Have I done that before?”

“A couple times. Don’t worry, though, just thought I’d mention it now. Anyway, I don’t see anything like that. Usually websites for an organization have a ‘Contact Us’ link somewhere, but not this time. Or at least a list of locations.” Jackie clicked into the website’s search bar at the top of the page and typed in ‘locations.’ No results came up. He tried again, with ‘contact information,’ ‘staff members,’ and ‘founder,’ but got nothing. “That’s weird.”

“Very weird,” Frederick muttered. “Oh! Didn’t you say they had a Twitter account?”

“Oh yeah! There was a link on the homepage, too, hang on.” Jackie went back to the website’s homepage and quickly found the link to IRIS’s Twitter. One simple click, and they were there. “Do you think it could be helpful?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s better than nothing.” Frederick stepped back. “Do you mind if I get a chair and sit with you while we do this?”

“I never mind when you sit close to me,” Jackie said impulsively. Then he coughed. “I mean, uh—”

Frederick laughed. “I’ll be right back, melon. Then we can focus and start the case together.”

Jackie nodded silently, face growing red. He watched Frederick leave, then, to take his mind off it, he turned his attention back to the computer screen.

Just when he thought things in his life were settling down...

- - - - - - - - - -

“Mr. Brody, have you ever heard of a company called IRIS?”

Chase thought that was an unusual question to ask. Especially in these circumstances. It wasn’t being asked by a friend as part of a casual conversation. He’d never even met the woman with short red hair sitting across from him. His first thought when he saw her in the visitor’s room was that she was a journalist. There were quite a few of those trying to get access to him now that his security level had been relaxed slightly. But a journalist wouldn’t ask a question like that.

“Uh...no,” Chase said slowly. He looked the woman up and down through the sheet of glass separating them. Maybe she was with the police? “Who starts a conversation like that?”

She laughed. “Oh dear. That was a bit blunt, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I just sat down.” He glanced over at the guard standing at attention on her side of the room. It looked like he wasn’t listening, but Chase had no doubt he could hear everything they were saying.

“I’m sorry. I had to get a baseline understanding of your familiarity.” The woman clasped her hands together on the table in front of her. “I am here representing IRIS, you see. We just started setting up in the UK, but you are from America originally, so I thought maybe you knew of us.”

“No, I’ve never heard of you,” Chase said. “What is it? And why are you here?”

“Well, IRIS partially sells consumer technology,” the woman says. “But more relevantly, IRIS is an organization that aims to help individuals such as yourself.”

Chase raises an eyebrow. “Do you mean depressed people or murderers?”

The woman laughed again. “You’re very funny, Mr. Brody. In any case, I’m here to let you know about the transfer.”

“Transfer?”

“We’ve made an arrangement with the Mirygale prison system,” the woman continued. “And due to your good behavior, they’re allowing us to take custody of you so you can complete your sentence with us.”

Chase blinked, confused. There was so much wrong with what the woman just said that he needed a second to process it. “Who did you bribe?” he asked.

“That’s a very serious accusation, Mr. Brody.”

“Well this can’t be legal,” Chase added. “You just said IRIS was a company. That’s like, a private thing, not a government thing. So there’s no way you’re doing it through official channels.”

“I assure you, everything has been arranged as it should be,” the woman said, her tone leaving no room for argument.

Chase’s eyes flicked over to the guard again, but he hadn’t reacted at all. “Also, what do you even want with me?”

“I just said that we aim to help people like you, Mr. Brody.”

“With what?”

“I’m not here to explain that. I don’t have the authorization, and I could get in serious trouble for sharing information without it.” The woman’s voice softened a little. “You don’t want that, do you?”

Frankly, Chase didn’t really care if she got in trouble. He cared that he was about to be taken away due to a dubiously legal exchange, for a purpose that was totally unknown and probably malicious. “I think I have the right to know,” he said in a low, somewhat threatening voice. He leaned forward onto the table, getting closer to the glass.

That got the guard to straighten to attention. Chase looked at him, then leaned back. Best not to cause trouble right now. Though, maybe if he did, it would stop the exchange with this... this ‘IRIS’ organization.

“You will know sooner rather than later,” the woman reassured him. “Just not until after the transfer. Which will take place on August 11th, at 8:00 am.”

“You’re only giving me two days of warning?” Chase exclaimed.

“That should be ample time to prepare, physically and mentally,” the woman said, standing up. “I have to leave now.”

“Leave?! You’re just going to leave without giving me any damn answers?!”

“Rest assured, Mr. Brody, we’ll see each other again.” The woman gave him one last smile, but there was no sincerity in it. “Thank you for your time.”

And before Chase could protest any more, she left the visitor’s room.

He sat there, staring at the door on the other side of the glass, for a solid couple minutes. Just trying to understand what happened. The conversation, and the mention of the upcoming transfer, was making his skin crawl with unease and fear. None of this was legal. It just couldn’t be. How did this IRIS company make it happen? Sure, Chase knew from experience that the city legal system wasn’t exactly honorable, but this was different. Considering how many people would be involved, as well as how high-profile his case had been, it would take a major cover-up to smooth this over. Was it really worth it, at that point?

The thought crossed his mind to try and stop the transfer. But... how? It wasn’t like he could run away, being in prison and all. He could try to break out, but he had no idea how to go about doing that. And if his efforts were discovered, things could go quite badly.

There was nothing to do about it. Nothing he could do. He just had to wait for those two days to pass, and brace himself for what was coming.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

ALTR 114209

A JSE Fanfic

Septics Inverted AU

First IRIS Chapter | Previous

(It feels like it’s been forever since I updated this. I think I was a bit intimidated by this new chapter. How does one cover the history of Anti and IRIS? In a chapter-long flashback spanning a couple decades but focusing on a couple key instances. That’s how. And that’s what this chapter is. It’s longer than the previous chapters of IRIS Inverted, but shorter than the rest of my recent work by about 2000 words. Have fun!)

One night, a television in a suburban home turned on all by itself. The screen flicked through channels, blasting fragments of audio into the empty living room before settling on the static of a lost signal. A shape seemed to move in the white noise. A person’s head and shoulders.

Anti wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he’d last been in the world. It had to be a while, just judging by the way technology had advanced. These boxes of coils that displayed images were new. They were all connected by cables and wires that beamed radiation. People had figured out how to combine radio and motion pictures. Fascinating.

Footsteps in the house. The television clicked off, just in time for a woman to look into the living room, confused. She walked up to the television and pressed some buttons on the box, turning some dials as well. Trying to figure out what was wrong. It got annoying after a while, so Anti shut down all signals going to and from the television, leaving it on static. The woman messed around some more, then sighed and left.

Anti leaned out from the static screen, his form nothing but flickering shadows, and watched her go. Once he was sure she was gone, he stepped out entirely. He was still a shadow. Now that he’d severed his connection with his host, he couldn’t take a solid form. That was the price he’d paid when he left.

Jameson was probably still alive. If Anti wanted, he could go find him. But he didn’t want that. Even after spending a couple decades cooling down, he was still angry with him. And... well, he didn’t know if he wanted to see what happened to Jameson. He could think of no good outcome there.

In fact, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to chance running into him. The world was a big place. And it was all connected through electricity now. Anti could go wherever he wanted.

And so he did.

He flitted around the world for a couple years before finally deciding to stay in America for a while—New York, to be exact. The city was a web of energy, giving him a lot of places to go and a lot of things to do. It was in this city—in the year 1953—that he first heard of IRIS.

Anti had taken to living in a skyscraper where they broadcasted television. He liked the connection he felt there, where the cameras beamed out to every CRT box in the nation. But his presence hadn’t gone unnoticed. Flickering lights, shadows of people film, the hum of static and the feeling of charged air right behind you. It wasn’t long before the TV studio employees began to whisper that the whole place was haunted. Anti would have felt bad, but it was sort of fun to frighten them. It wasn’t like he could stop the electrical problems anyway. He was pure energy without a host, and that was bound to affect the electricity whether he wanted to or not.

And the effect he had was bound to attract attention.

One day, a man came into the broadcast studio. He wore a blue jumpsuit and carried a black duffel bag, and wouldn’t have looked too different from any maintenance worker or janitor if it wasn’t for the logo on his lapel. A white outline of an eye, accompanied by the letters I.R.I.S. Back then, the eye only had one circle for an iris. They would change it eventually, as all companies do.

The man talked with the studio owner. Anti listened to their conversation from the overhead light. “There is a chance that something dangerous is in your building,” the man said. “We at IRIS are offering a free scan.”

“Dangerous? Dangerous how?” The studio owner asked.

“We are unsure at this time,” the man replied. “That is why the scan is free.”

“What if you find something? Are you about to charge me for getting rid of it?”

“It will be a small fee if something is found. Only one hundred dollars.”

The studio owner looked surprised. Anti didn’t really understand currency, but even he knew that was shockingly cheap. “Well if the scan is free...” The owner mused. “Go on ahead. Do I have to clear out a space for whatever scanning equipment you’re about to bring in?”

“Thank you, sir.” The man in the blue jumpsuit turned and started to leave. “Don’t worry about clearing a space. We at IRIS are very efficient.”

Anti followed the man as he walked through the studio hallways, causing the electric bulbs to flicker whenever he shifted to a different one. The man looked up, noticing this. He seemed concerned, but not worried. He walked until he was alone in a small hallway, home to some storage rooms. And then the man pulled something out of the duffel bag. A small... slab. Made of metal. With a screen. Anti could feel the buzz of electricity coming from it, but... it was so small. The man could hold it in two hands. What was it?

The screen turned on, a white grid on a black background. The man turned in a circle and the grid slowly filled in with more lines. It was an outline of the hallway, complete with rooms. A map. The man fiddled with some buttons at the edge of the screen—and then the device started making a beeping noise. Two dots appeared on the map: one yellow, and one red right behind it.

The man froze. He slowly raised his head and looked around. Anti understood what was happening. Somehow, that device knew where Anti was.

He didn’t like that.

The lights overhead flickered, going out for five seconds straight. Anti stepped out of the building’s wires and manifested behind the man, his shadowy form insubstantial. The beeping coming from the device rose in pitch, speed, and volume. “What the hell?” the man whispered. When the lights turned back on, the man spun around, only to freeze the moment he saw Anti there.

Anti drifted closer. The man remained frozen for a second more before suddenly pulling something out of the duffel bag: a metal rod similar in size and shape to a screwdriver, connected by a wire to something inside the bag. He jabbed it towards Anti’s form. The rod made an electronic whining noise as it passed through Anti’s shadowy chest, but nothing else happened.

The man went pale. His nose started to bleed. Anti drifted closer still, raising a hand and brushing it through the man’s arm. He yelped as a shock passed through his arm, making him drop the rod and the flat device. “G̸et ͟out͟,” Anti whispered. His voice buzzed and popped.

Instantly, the man ran, only sparing a moment to grab his things. Anti followed him through the lights, making their flickering follow him. He considered causing the elevator to stall when the man stepped inside, but decided against it. He wanted this man and his strange devices out. Stalling the elevator would just delay that.

Unfortunately, Anti left the building not long after the man did. He knew that there would be more people poking around, possibly with more strange devices. And he didn’t feel like dealing with that right now.

But he would have to deal with them eventually.

Over the next couple decades, Anti traveled gradually westward across America. And every year or two, the same thing would happen. He would take up residence in some building. At first he preferred commercial ones, since they used more electricity and connected to more places. But people in commercial buildings were more likely to check out the weird electrical problems. After all, it could interfere with business. And once someone decided to investigate the problems, inevitably, someone would show up in a blue jumpsuit with the IRIS logo on the chest.

He saw them as an inconvenience at first. Something that forced him to move location when he was just getting comfortable. But then they started getting smarter. They would stay outside the building in cars full of electrical devices, scanning the building from a distance. If Anti didn’t catch them in this phase (often by shorting out their devices and manifesting in front of them to scare them off), they would call for backup. Four or five others in black, with the same eye-shaped IRIS logo on the sleeve of their uniform, would show up, carrying more of those handheld devices, often armed with a handgun of some kind. And they were trouble. Because they refused to leave.

Anti was forced to get aggressive. Well... maybe not forced. But these IRIS guys in black got on his nerves easily. They brought with them strange equipment. Spheres that irritated the energy in the air, grids that set up invisible barriers of electricity, and cameras that could tell them where Anti was. None of it had any real effect on him. But it was annoying and uncomfortable. Like nails on a chalkboard. Like metal squeaking on ceramic.

So...he lashed out.

He never wanted to hurt them. Not permanently. Just scare them. And at first, he was able to. Shutting down the lights and all other electricity was bound to freak anyone out, and he would add sounds in the darkness to make the experience that much more unnerving. One of them would stand in the darkness, staring through their small camera that was their only way to see their surroundings, and then there would be the sound of hissed words right in their ear. They didn’t want to stay long after that.

But IRIS became bolder. They brought more equipment with them, bigger and bulkier... and more powerful. They did much of the same things, but stronger. And it started to affect Anti. Just barely. Just an annoyance. But now he was the one being unnerved. What was this? As far as he knew, only magic could affect him in this shadowy form, but this wasn’t magic.

So his attacks against them grew more aggressive. He didn’t just turn off the lights, he made them glow red. The whispers grew louder, and he let electricity fill the air, giving a few of these IRIS employees shocks. He manifested more and more, still unable to be physical, but certainly able to look frightening. He’d long ago figured out that humans didn’t like things that looked human, but had too-long proportions, or joints that bent the wrong way.

And yet, IRIS kept coming back. Anti picked up some information from their employees’ conversations. The people in black belonged to a division called C&C: an acronym he never heard fully explained. But he guessed it was something to do with “capture,” or maybe “containment,” because they always spoke about doing that. And they always used the word “ALTR” as well, something he would later find out was another acronym, though that was never explained either.

That’s what Anti was to them. An “ALTR.” One time, he heard one of their scouts in blue jumpsuits get on a radio channel to report a “possible ALTR 114209 sighting.” That was him, wasn’t it? So... they wanted to capture him, did they? They thought they could pull that off? Like hell they would.

Anti still remembered vividly the day he went a bit too far.

He was squatting in a suburban house at the time. Two stories tall with a basement, in a neighborhood of identically-built houses, right smack dab in the middle of the United States. No one was living there at the time. It was for sale by the previous owners, who had already moved out. They’d left a lot of their furniture behind, including their television and appliances. That was one of the reasons Anti had chosen to stay there.

He hadn’t even seen the blue-jumpsuit-wearing IRIS scout. There must have been one in the area, but they had managed to slip under his notice. Instead, the five-person C&C team in black had barged right into the house one day, carrying electronic boxes on their backs and handguns on their hips. It caught Anti off-guard, and he always wondered if that was one of the reasons he was so... aggressive... this time.

They left the front door open. But Anti had long since figured out that if you moved the charges in the air around, you could move certain light objects... like a door. It hadn’t slammed closed behind them, but one of them noticed something on his handheld device. He spun around quickly and grabbed the handle, only to cry out as it shocked him even through the thick fabric of his glove. “The door’s closed,” he said, taking a radio off his belt to report it to the others. “I think it’s trapped us in here.”

“Is it locked?” asked another IRIS agent. That one was in the kitchen, which Anti knew because the hoard of electronics these agents carried were beacons to him.

“Unconfirmed, but I didn’t hear the deadbolt. It did shock me when I touched the doorknob, though.”

“That’s fine. We can break the door down if we need to. Or get out through one of the windows. Just focus on finding the ALTR.”

The five of them spread out through the house. For once, Anti didn’t try any of his usual tricks, though he knew they were picking up on some signals on their devices. They could probably feel the static in the air, too. He could see some of their hair standing up a bit. The air in the house smelled of ozone.

“Nothing in the kitchen or dining room.”

“Living room is clear.”

“Hallway is clear.”

“Office is full of energy, but not more so than anywhere else.”

“Alright, we’ll have to check the other floors, then. The floor plans say they’re both smaller than this one, so we can split up—as long as we don’t let each other out of our sight. Tanner, Herrera, take the second floor. Jacobsen and Knight, you’re checking out the basement with me.”

Did they know that Anti could hear them? Were they aware that he didn’t need to choose which group to watch, that he could watch them both at once?

When the group of three went into the basement, he shut the door behind them and fried the light system down there, sending sparks flying from bare lightbulbs. Let them deal with the darkness for a while. He would keep an eye on them while he paid more attention to the pair upstairs. They were in different bedrooms now. He closed the door to each.

The lights turned red, and though the windows were open and it was daylight outside, barely any sun came in. “Herrera, do you hear that whispering?” one of them said through the radio. He didn’t let the signal go through. Instead, he went through the radio, coming out on the other side as static-filled laugher.

“Tanner, was that you?” the other one said into the radio. But of course, that didn’t go through, either. They were alone. Except for Anti. He manifested in front of them, shadows gathering into a semi-human form. The agent stepped back, looking afraid, but didn’t run. They reached back and turned on the electronic box on their back. It started to whine, and the strange energy caused Anti’s form to shiver, but didn’t dissipate.

“Th̷a҉t'͞s usèless͟,” he whispered, and raised a shadowy arm. The box began to smoke and its whine increased, and the agent actually started to panic. They scrambled to pull it off, throwing it to the ground as arcs of lightning scattered along the surface. Anti stepped closer. “Leave͢.̡ No̵w̛.”

The agent seemed frozen. Anti could see the fear in their eyes, but they didn’t back down. He walked closer still. “I ̷s͡a̴i͡d͝ l̸eáve,” he growled. “O̸r—”

And then the door burst open. The other agent, who he’d trapped in the other room, came screaming into this one. The doors didn’t have locks, after all. Anti turned to them, prepared to intimidate them as well, but instead they threw a strange box right at him—small enough to fit in one hand, with bulky bits sticking out. It passed right through Anti’s shadowy body

That’s when he felt it. A horrible pull, like the box had its own center of gravity. His visible form dissolved, but he was still there, fighting against that pull. The box began to beep, several lights turning on and glowing red and blue. It rapidly grew hot, and that pull increased. Anti fought against it. He struggled. It was like being sucked into a whirlpool. Like scrambling to hold onto the edge of a crumbling cliff, he was trying to dig his fingers in but the ground was caving beneath his weight.

His vision locked onto the agent who had thrown the box. Instantly, rage consumed him. He lunged forward, looking for something, anything to grab onto—yes! There! He could feel something solid! He surged forward—

And the pull stopped. He staggered backwards, feeling... heavy. Heavier than he had in a long, long time. The agent was staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. Good. How dare they?! How fucking dare they?! They deserved to be horrified. Snarling, he leaped forward.

Anti did not pass through the agent like he was expecting to. Instead, they made contact, rolling out through the open doorway into the hallway. That was odd, but he took the opportunity. How dare they?!

He had hands, and they wrapped around the agent’s neck as he stared into their eyes. “You made a terrible mistake,” he hissed. The words were also heavy in his mouth. “You made a mistake, and now you will pay.”

He truly didn’t want to hurt them. But his anger carried them away, and he squeezed. The agent gasped and began to choke, and for a moment, he wanted to go further.

And then he heard shouting from the radios hanging from their belts—both of theirs. And then he realized that the hands he had wrapped around the agent’s throat were wearing black gloves—like all the other agents wore. And then he realized why he’d felt so heavy, why he managed to collide solidly with something.

To escape the awful pull from that box, he’d grabbed onto the other agent in the room, possessing them.

The shock of that made him let go of the agent’s neck. He wasn’t supposed to do that. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do that. But here he was, staggering to his feet. No, not his feet. There was warm liquid on his face—not his face—running down from his eyes—not his eyes. Blood. Everyone responded differently to possession, and it seemed he’d grabbed hold of someone who reacted terribly. Unsure of what else to do, he stood there... and laughed.

There was shouting within earshot now. He turned his head—not his head—and saw a staircase. Unused to this physical body, he clumsily walked over to it, grasping the bannister and peering down the stairs to see the other three agents standing at the bottom. Their expressions were all the same. Confusion. And then fear. Deep, deep fear. And yet, despite that fear, they all started to move within a split second, reaching for items in pockets and switches on their electronic packs.

Anti laughed some more—did they think they could do anything to him while he was possessing somebody?! They would just hurt their fellow agent. “Be careful!” he shouted. “You might get someone hurt!” He screamed that last word. Then he screamed again, wordlessly, just to see them back away. And he stepped out of the agent’s body.

Not a good idea, as it turned out. Because he was leaning forward, down the stairs. He’d forgotten that a human doesn’t just stay where they were once the possession was over. Their body went limp. And that’s what happened this time. The agent’s eyes rolled back into the head, and as all their muscles released, they fell forward. They fell down.

The sound was awful, and so were the cries of the other agents as they watched their colleague fall towards them. But Anti couldn’t stay to see what happened next. He only hovered nearby long enough for them to gather around the fallen agent, laying them out on the floor. Only long enough for one to hold up a handheld device and seem to scan the now-unconscious agent, and announce “There’s a heartbeat!” Only long enough for that.

He had to leave. He had to get away. Otherwise... what was it for?

Anti jumped all the way across the country after that, wanting to get as far as possible from what happened in that house. He ended up in another big city, the first he’d been in for years. For three days exactly, he stayed in a shop that sold televisions (always more televisions nowadays) and caused a lot of frustration for the owner when their TVs would randomly stop receiving signals.

For three days exactly, he hid. Until... someone found him.

It was the middle of the night. The shop was closed, and the door should have been locked, but somehow the man walked in anyway. His hair was black, as was his suit, and he carried a cane. He looked around the shop, then leaned back against the counter, as if this was all perfectly normal.

Anti wanted to be left alone. He didn’t want to see anyone, so he reacted poorly. Specifically, by turning on all the televisions at once, filling the air with static that barely concealed his whisper of “L̢eav́e.”

The man was unphased. He glanced around with eyes that were pure black, not reflecting the new light, and said, “I certainly will not.”

How annoying. Anti had enough annoyance these days. He didn’t waste time at all, manifesting directly in front of the man. “Lea͝v͡e̷ ͢me̴ a̧lon̸e̸,” he hissed.

Now the man looked irritated. “It’s not a crime to loiter in this state.”

“You̢ d͠on͞'t̷ ̀ow̴ǹ ̛t̢hi̸ś pla̴ce̵. T͢respa͏ss̕e̕r.”

“Oh, and you’re saying you aren’t trespassing?” The man flicked his hand dismissively. “Being a disembodied entity doesn’t give you the right to go wherever you want.”

“A̡n͏d̕ ýou hav̵e th͢at r͢i̶ght͏,̡ dò you?̨” Anti manifested a smile on his shadow face. “Hyp̶oc̕rite.̡”

The man chuckled. “Perhaps you have a point. But I didn’t come here to argue.”

“Co̕uld̢'̴ve ͠f͡oǫĺe̢d me.” That piqued Anti’s curiosity—and dulled his hostility. “W̢ḩy͢ ͟di͏d ̀yo͝u cóm҉e ̵he͏re̢, ͞the̡n?”

“I was looking to see if the rumors were true, about there being some sort of spirit living in the televisions here,” the man said. “I thought that, perhaps... we may be able to help each other.”

Anti tilted his head. “Wh̨at̵ ͝do you̧ ͟w͠àn̶t?”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine and I believe your ability could help me find him. Do this for me, and I’m open to do... well, anything within reason for you, as long as it isn’t too immoral.”

Interesting. Maybe something like this could help get Anti’s mind off the recent events. “I̵'͡m̸ ͞li͡st̵e̕ning̵.͏"̶

- - - - - - - - - -

“I got a little off track there at the end, but that’s the whole story.” Anti propped his elbow on the sofa arm, resting his head in his hand. “I hadn’t even heard of IRIS again until all of this shit started up. Which is kind of amazing, if you really think of it. I tried to be more careful, but gods know I still did all sorts of weird shit, intentionally or unintentionally. I’m guessing they got busy with something else.”

“...Wow.” Jack wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He finally settled on, “I can’t believe I never knew this.”

“Should I have told you earlier?” Anti asked.

“No, it’s fine, I just... you think that would come up sooner.” Jack laughed tiredly. “We’ve known each other for a long time now.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it until now,” Anti said slowly. “It’s... not my proudest moment.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Jack said gently. “Clearly, these IRIS guys wanted something from you, and they weren’t about to stop. You freaked out a bit too much, yeah. But... you didn’t really... Once you got a hold of yourself you stopped. And I think that’s what matters.”

“Not to the guy who fell down the stairs.”

“Well, yeah, obviously. But that was a mistake. It’s fine.” Jack gave him a small smile. “Honestly, the only new information for me there was the IRIS stuff. I didn’t learn anything about you that I didn’t already know.”

Anti stared at him. “Thanks,” he said slowly.

“No problem.” Jack paused. “That man at the end was Dark, right?” Anti nodded. “Does he know about IRIS?”

“I never told him about them,” Anti said. “But I did some research, and California is where IRIS comes from. Maybe he already knew back then. Or maybe he’s found out in the time that’s passed. Do you think I should ask him?”

“Might be something worth checking out.” Jack shrugged, trying to appear casual. “If, uh, someone else could, you know, know about all this happening to us, then I think... that’d be good. Probably.”

“Just tell me you want me to talk to him, Jack.”

“Okay, fine, I want you to talk to him.”

Anti chuckled. “Alright. I can do that. But... tomorrow. I want... to stay here for now.” He shifted position, fully lying down. He didn’t look at Jack.

Jack had spent enough time around Anti to figure he felt bad about leaving for so long. “Yeah, hang out for a bit, chill,” he said casually. “I know you don’t sleep, but take a rest.”

“I’ll do that.” Anti sighed, and closed his eye.

“I’ll be here,” Jack said quietly.

“...I know,” Anti whispered. “Thank you.”