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vvatchword · 2 years ago

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Brother Jack

Delta knew right away that he couldn’t afford to stick to the forest behind the house. Eleanor would always find him. She could just appear at his side. He didn’t dare look at her mind straight-on, but he could feel her fury radiating out of the house. It was directed at the others now. She wasn’t thinking about him.

He had to take a chance.

He didn’t run for the woods, but for the road. He kept to a deer path in the trees until he got to the road—he didn’t want to chance the girls seeing him go, only to alert Eleanor—then turned toward town and ran for it.

He could run like hell. The sun beat down on him. He hadn’t gotten very far when he hit another small group of Sisters. These were Tenenbaum’s youngest. They shouted altogether when they saw him, but he didn’t stop. He just plunged past them at a full sprint.

He’d been engineered to carry a suit that weighed a full ton. He’d been given ungodly endurance. Every breath utilized oxygen more efficiently than a normal human being; every ounce of food he ate, more energy. He was a freight train given flesh and he flew.

He could tell that Eleanor was too far to suss him out by about the sixth mile. He only slowed down by the tenth, and by that time, he’d hit town.

He immediately felt like he’d made a mistake. Cars kept stopping in the street to gawk at him. Pedestrians crossed the road when they saw him, sometimes at a jog. He looked in a window at himself and shuddered. He was filthy from working in the yard all day, and he was wearing his old shoes with the holes in the sides. He was so tall, and he didn’t look right. There was a way to look and he didn’t have it anymore.

A black-and-white car marked with a seal drifted to a stop across the street, then pulled a U-turn and rolled up beside him. Delta hunched his shoulders, kept his eyes forward.

“Hey,” a man said. “You. Big guy.”

Delta looked over his shoulder. A man in a dark uniform and sunglasses was stepping out of the car. Another man in dark glasses sat at the steering wheel, holding a radio.

“Yeah, you,” the policeman said. “Come here.”

Delta shook his head.

“You keep walking, and I can arrest you for resistance,” said the cop. His hand rested on his weapon.

Delta hesitated. He wasn’t afraid of the policeman or his gun. For the first time in a long time, he thought about what it would mean to kill somebody. He could cross that gap between them in a second, and he could twist the cop’s head off in the next.

His hands twitched. He turned to face him, drawing upright. At his full height, he stood eight and a half feet tall. To the cop’s credit, he didn’t flinch, but he did unbutton his holster.

“You better not cause trouble,” said the cop. “I put in a call to the state hospital. They’ll pick you up in 30 minutes.”

“There you are,” a man said in a colorless voice. “Hey, thanks officer. I’ve been looking for this guy.”

Delta scanned the street. A big white guy in a Panama hat, long-sleeved shirt, and slacks was strolling up the sidewalk toward him. He wore aviator glasses. And hell, he was a lot bigger than most people. Delta’s eyes locked on him, wondering.

“This guy’s yours?” asked the cop. “I don’t recognize you. Are you from out of town?”

“Yep,” said the stranger.

Delta brought his hands up and started signing, hoping against hope. He didn’t dare make sounds. Making sounds would make it worse.

“Who are you?” he asked.

To his shock, the big guy signed back.

“A friend,” he said. “Hold still. Don’t scare the guy.”

“Okay.”

The cop relaxed and buttoned his gun. “Oh, I see. Deaf mute?”

“Just mute.” The guy’s voice was rough and grumbly like from cigarettes. “Don’t worry, his bark is worse than his bite.” He turned to Delta. A white man, probably. Looked old, perhaps in his sixties. “Come here, will you, buddy? You’re scaring the people out here.”

He also signed at him: “Don’t worry. We have to get you off the street.”

“What do you want?” Delta asked.

“I’ll tell you once I deal with the fuzz.”

“What’s he saying?” the cop said.

“That he got lost,” said the stranger. “He wondered where I’d gotten to.”

“Okay, okay. Just get that guy off the street,” the cop said, sliding back into the car. “He’s scaring people.”

With that, the stranger walked up to him—Delta had backed up under the awning of a sub shop—and held out his hand. There was a gap between cuff and arm. It was an old, wrinkled arm, liver spots on the hands. But once this close, Delta could see the faint traces of Plasmid scarring across the knuckles, down the arm, across the palms, like jags of lightning.

Delta rolled his arm and looked down. He had the same scarring, faint and shining in the sun. Suddenly he felt cold.

Delta shook his head “no.”

“Please go away,” he signed. “I don’t need help.”

“You’re going to get shot without me. Trust me.” The stranger set a hand on his wrist. His palm was rough.

“You’re from there,” Delta signed.

“Same as you,” the stranger signed back. “Come on. I’ve got a place for you to stay.”

“I already have a place,” Delta said.

“So why did you leave it?” asked the stranger, taking him by the elbow. He wasn’t signing anymore, but speaking aloud.

Delta found himself following. What else could he do? The idea of going back to the farmhouse closed his throat. He didn’t want to see Eleanor. He didn’t want to see anyone. He wanted to disappear.

It was astonishing for him to realize that he hadn’t suffered from an intrusive memory once since fleeing the house. He held himself a little straighter. He had a clearer head than he could remember since… well, the beginning. Thoughts seemed to be coming to him faster. That was a good sign, right?

“So where were you going?” asked the stranger. He directed him down a quiet side street. Delta followed.

“I don’t know.”

“A guy like you stands out. You aren’t safe here. Maybe you’d be safe in a big city. Maybe.” The stranger looked up at him, unsmiling. “There are people looking for you and your girls, you know. Powerful people.”

Delta stared down, eyes wide.

“Who?” he asked. “Why?”

“Can you imagine a whole military filled with people like you?” asked the man. “Big, powerful, always following orders?”

Delta shuddered. “But that would hurt them.”

“They don’t care.” The man smiled grimly. “Look, I need something from Dr. Tenenbaum.”

With that, the man whistled. From a side street, two skinny guys in bib overalls came running, both holding paper bags filled with groceries. They wore faded ballcaps and shoes that were just a little too big. Delta’s first thought was that they were mechanics.

They pattered up on either side, staring up unabashedly into Delta’s face, and the smell of them hit him like a brick. He stared back in shock. These weren’t guys—these were Sisters. There was the unnatural height, the unnatural slenderness, the strange eyes. Both were dark-skinned—one probably had parents from India; the other’s might have been from Mexico. They were cured Sisters, too. No fingers picked at his thoughts.

“Tell me,” said the stranger. “How close is too close for your Sister?”

“Six, maybe seven miles,” Delta said. “I need to get out of town.”

He couldn’t believe how easily it came out of his hands. The idea of leaving Eleanor filled him with an overwhelming relief.

“You want to leave your Sister?” asked one of the girls. Her eyes were huge.

“Yes.” Delta glanced aside into a storefront. “She…”

He couldn’t think of what to say. She told his secret to everybody? She wouldn’t listen to him when he said no? She didn’t care about his feelings? It all sounded so silly when he thought about it.

“Don’t know much about Alpha series,” said the stranger. “I never met one. But I heard they each only had one Sister. I’m guessing your Sister is the, ah… possessive type?”

It felt horrible to think it. Possessive—Eleanor, possessive. Admitting to it felt like name-calling, so Delta said nothing. He looked away.

“We have to assume she’s headed this way,” said the stranger. “So we do one of two things: we jump on a train or we get on a bus. What do you feel like doing, Mr. B?”

Delta rubbed his arms. “What’s fastest?”

“John Barton, there you are,” a familiar voice drawled out. “Now I know you aren’t heading off somewhere with strangers.”

Delta whirled. So did the stranger and the Sisters. Sinclair leaned out the window of his car, rolling a cigarette in his mouth.

“Augustus Sinclair,” said the stranger in a wondering voice. “I knew you were around here.”

“Who’s he?” asked one of the girls, signing.

“Oh, I’m just the friend of this big lug here,” said Sinclair, jerking his chin up at Delta. “Come on, big hoss. You’re coming back with me.”

Delta shook his head, backing into the wall.

Sinclair laughed.

“Some things never change,” he said. “Chief, what on Earth could possess you to come all the way out here? Those girls back home called me cryin’ up a storm.”

Sinclair was talking like they hadn’t kissed at all! Delta burned. Could no one hear him? Would no one take him seriously at all? Was he cursed to be shunted from one person to another for the rest of eternity?

“Looks like the big guy’s made up his mind,” said the stranger. “Gotta say I understand the sentiment.”

“I must admit, I’m at a bit of a loss,” said Sinclair, swinging his door open. “You know who I am, but I haven’t got a clue about you.” He pushed himself upright, balanced on the car. “Do give me the pleasure of your introduction.”

“Oh, we’ve never met.” The man took off his glasses and his hat and shook his hair out. He was gray-headed, had a short, scruffy beard. When he raised his head, he smiled. His irises glowed faintly gold. “The name is Jack Wynand. You knew my father.”

Sinclair’s smile never broke. He laughed and leaned back against his car.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “Must say, never thought I’d see you in the flesh. Tell me, what use do you have for an old Alpha model, anyway?”

Delta bristled. Sinclair wasn’t looking at him. Sinclair’s eyes were locked on Jack’s.

Jack bent his head. “It’s less about him and more about Tenenbaum,” he said. “If she can revert Big Daddies…”

“Now how’d you figure that out?” Sinclair asked.

“…then she can revert me.” Jack bent his head. “I want ADAM stripped from me. I don’t care what it does.”

The Sisters shrank at his sides, faces full of misgiving.

“With your luck, it’d shrink you to a fetus,” said Sinclair.

“Then that’s what I want,” Jack said.

“Well, son, you’re too late,” Sinclair said. “No ADAM left. Not a drop. Takes gallons for something like that, from what I understand.”

“And you?” asked Jack.

“Me?” Sinclair asked.

A car stopped behind Sinclair’s, honked, and then slowly pulled around them. Sinclair waved at them, gave them an apologetic grimace, turned back to Jack.

Jack spoke again. “So they saved you, and they saved Dr. Porter, but they didn’t save this man here.” Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Delta glanced down at the thumb, then at Sinclair. Sinclair didn’t skip a beat. His brows rose and he gave Jack a brilliant smile.

“I see you’ve done your homework!” he said.

“Answer me,” said Jack. “Why did they save one of the biggest sharks of Rapture before one of his victims?”

Sinclair’s smile was finally cooling. “Well, son, if you don’t know, then I don’t think you ought to.”

Delta felt the flicker at the edge of his mind a second too late.

The air shuddered. There was a tearing, popping sound. Suddenly Eleanor was directly behind him, pressed up against his back. Delta closed his eyes, shoulders sinking. The two Sisters whirled to face her, mouths agape. Jack turned slowly, fingers flexing. He dropped his cigarette. It fell from his fingers like he’d forgotten it.

“Oh, Eleanor,” said Sinclair. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. Your boy’s made a hell of a friend today.”

Big Sisters slowly stepped out of the alleys on either side of them, eyes locked on Jack. They were wearing slacks and jeans and what Tenenbaum called their “garden shoes.” Their fingers were curled into claws. There was a heaviness in the air that could not be explained by the weather.

“I think you better get moving, son,” said Sinclair, leaning back against the car.

“I’m going with him,” Delta signed.

Finally, a reaction. One of the Sisters gasped. Eleanor’s hand tightened on his wrist. Sinclair went white.

“Honey, you don’t want to do that,” he said.

“Nobody cares what I want,” Delta said.

“That’s not true!” Eleanor said. The words poured out of her so fast that at first they weren’t comprehensible.

“There are only two people here who know what it’s like to be us,” Jack said softly. His fingers were twitching, twitching, twitching. “Don’t you agree, Subject Delta?”

“I don’t want to fight,” Delta said quickly. “I just want to leave. I’ll go anywhere.”

“Daddy!” Eleanor said. “Don’t!”

Her voice was panicky. Delta savored it—until she pushed into his mind. She was simply there, effortlessly, and she could see everything, and she was crying, but he couldn’t push her out, he wasn’t equipped to push her out, they’d never made him as anything other than a gun she summoned at a whim.

He roared and twisted out of her grip. The Sisters all jumped, Sinclair twitched, and even Jack sprang back. Delta thrilled to it. Yes, jump! Good old Subject Delta! Good old chief! He’ll do anything you ask for a smile and a pat on the back!

“You all think I’m a child!” Delta said. “You all think I’m an idiot!”

“I don’t think that at all!” Eleanor said.

“Stop telling me what to do!” Delta said. “I’m tired!”

“Eleanor,” Sinclair said. “Maybe I should take over.”

She whirled on him, her mouth opening and shutting. Sinclair was white, and he was no longer smiling. His eyes locked on Delta’s.

“You know what you need, honey?” he asked. He held up a hand. “You need out of this sun.” He extended a finger. “You need a sit.” A second finger rose. “You need a cold drink.” A third finger. “And more than that, you need to get out of this little town before the sheriff shows up. Come on. I’ll take you to my place.”

Eleanor shook her head over and over, but the Sisters were moving in. One grabbed her arm. The others kept a healthy distance from Jack and his Sisters, both of whom had set their bags of groceries against the wall and shoved their hands into their pockets.

Jack hadn’t moved at all. He had watched. He had listened. His eyes were unnaturally bright.

“Delta,” he said, “if you come with me, I promise I’ll treat you like a person deserves.”

Eleanor sputtered, frozen between taking complete control of his body—forcing him back to the house—and letting go. Jack waited, only watching, only listening. Who knew what he wanted? But Delta was staring at Sinclair, swaying in place like one hypnotized.

Suddenly all of his memories seemed so foolish. How long ago had they been, anyway? Sinclair probably had a new boyfriend already. He probably got over Delta back when he died the first time. He’d locked him up in a room. What kind of guy locked people up in rooms?

“Are you going to lock me up?” Delta asked.

Now it was Sinclair’s turn to flinch. His eyes were wet.

“Oh, John,” he said.

He said it in such a defeated, quiet way.

Delta sighed. He sank down.

“I’m going with Sinclair,” he said. “Thanks, Jack.”

The Sisters relaxed. Eleanor’s mind grudgingly lifted from his. She rubbed her arm across her face.

Jack glanced up at him. “You’re making a mistake,” he said.

“I know,” Delta said, and stepped into the street.

UPRISING: BLACK SCRAPBOOK HUB

#bioshock #bioshock 2 #subject delta #topclair #augustus sinclair #jack wynand #eleanor lamb #fanfiction #writing #uprising #long brown evening #vvatchword #this particular part of the fanfic is not exactly no one dies everyone lives but it's also entirely that somehow #I think it'll end up very very different if l ever end up writing an epilogue #I just got hit with the brainworm and so this exists now #enjoy #or don't #there's more and it involves the feds and a GI being thrown against a courthouse wall and culminates in the assassination of Ronald Reagan #I should probably finish it only because it's batshit crazy

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waywardsalt · 2 years ago

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oh yeah i’ve got a bunch of loz aus that i haven’t really talked about. a few of them are listed and slightly explained in this poll and explanation reblog but i haven’t gone out of my way to actually list the aus i have and really explain them. so that’s what this post is for. here are some... decently simple explanations of my major aus and what they're generally about

i have two kinds of aus: original aus (loz aus that are set in their own kinds of worlds with their own stories and twists on character roles) and then crossover aus (we all know how this works i just mash loz and a thing i like together)

original aus: (many currently dont have actual titles, so the titles will often just be concept shorthand)

in the court of the crimson king/crimson king au: probably the most developed and closest to being written out. it's got one of the longer premises; set in a industrial-esque hyrule city, following linebeck as the main character, as the adoptive older brother of link and aryll, living with them and their grandmother as the only one able to reliably make money to pay for rent and food, leaving every other week to do jobs, but he moonlights as the 'demon of the gray moon', a masked persona he'd created as a child that had long since become a city-wide urban legend, anonymously taking unsavory jobs from whomever can contact him and offer pay, often working directly for bellum, a childhood friend, the one who enabled and trained him to become the demon, and one of five anonymous leaders of the city. linebeck effectively lives a double life, and tries to stay out of too much trouble to avoid drawing attention to himself or making his adoptive family worry, but he gets dragged into more and more danger as bellum becomes curious about the identities of the city's other leaders, and linebeck falls in love with a man named ganondorf, suspected to be one of those other city leaders. ive got a few posts related to it already: this one being another vague concept descriptor, this one being an actual scene i have written out.

'gimmick' au: i cannot explain the gimmick without spoiling the au. put simply, in this au, hyrule as a whole has been at war for ten years, every race and kingdom taking sides in a conflict that seems to be going nowhere. link joined the hylian army young, and has made his way up the ranks to become trusted by queen zelda herself, and things in the war take an interesting turn as he and zelda discover a new faction, unaligned with any particular kingdom and with unknown motives, and zelda decides to set out to the different parts of hyrule, link and a chosen group of trusted allies in tow, intending to try negotiation one more time before things take a turn for the worse.

sci-fi/space au: the fun one that probably would need to be done in a visual medium. it takes place in a solar system of a few planets, link growing up on the planet hyrule and occasionally traveling to the others as a knight specializing in investigating and taking down dangerous bounty hunters, working for zelda as a friend. he and zelda uncover a plot by the yiga clan to accumulate a number of highly dangerous research and weapons held by each species as they aim to resurrect a demon to wreck havoc on the solar system- the b plot being about the top bounty hunters in the solar system screwing around, eventually colliding with link and zelda's a plot as it begins to involve them.

murder mystery(?) au: one of the older ones, maybe one of the oldest that i still stick with. this might actually be one of the first ones i tried writing. the plot begins when zelda returns to hyrule city years after her father- the former mayor- was murdered, finding that he has been replaced by ganondorf and that while things seem fine enough on the surface, random and organized crime run the show, and she begins a private detective agency as 'sheik', a masked young man, and with the help of impa, and old friend and confidant, she moonlights as sheik and uses her daytime identity as zelda to help chip away at some of the city's biggest problems and finds herself drawn into a long string of murders that appear to be anything but random violence.

ruined hyrule 1: i have two au’s with the premise of hyrule being ruined. neither of them have more specific names yet. this one begins with the majority of greater hyrule's population having long since locked themselves in hyrule castle town in order to escape the increasingly dangerous wildlife. zelda, a young girl at the beginning, becomes curious about what lies beyond the city walls, and makes friends with many other children within this sheltered hyrule, and as they grow up together, aim to eventually venture out into the wilderness to see what may have caused the outside world to become so incredibly hostile.

ruined hyrule 2: the other ruined hyrule. set in a devastated hyrule, roughly ten years after the royal family was killed, link failing to save them or hyrule in the time since. he now resolves to set out and indiscriminately destroy every demon that plagues the ruined hyrule, meeting and bringing along various allies, each of which has been uniquely affected by and have different lived in this altered, dangerous shell of hyrule.

modern (school): i also have two modern aus. this one isn’t plot driven, just a concept i have, would work best as little vignettes or something. essentially just the idea of a group of loz characters hanging out together in a modern high school (or college?) setting.

modern: this is the one with an actual plot. follows the general idea of zelda characters living in a modern world only for the typical legends to begin resurfacing and heralding dark events. plot specifics are murky, but that's the general idea.

dark mage: this is the au that where the seas meet the sands takes place in. basically just ganondorf x linebeck shenanigans in this alternate hyrule while actual plot sneaks up on them. named 'dark mage' mostly because the initial idea behind this au was that linebeck would learn magic.

horror au: doesn't have the best name, and it's ended up just being a personal sandbox for me. constantly changing, with the cast and setting often altering if i find that something isn't working or sticking. it's an au i've considered (and even briefly tried) writing in the past, but it's still too fluid, and writing horror effectively is difficult. it's a fun au, though.

mecha au: spawned because i watched neon genesis evangelion. a lot of this au's basic concepts can be found here: x but the short version is that hyrule is being besiged by massive monsters, but each race has created their own mechs to combat them. link is just a farmer who happens to have a strange knack for being a mech user, so is brought in by zelda as a gamble to bolster their chances, and he is tasked with working with a new and less-than-trustworthy crew to help fight those monsters.

'amnesia link' au: an au that sprang up in about a day and hasn't gotten too far since. basic premise being that three years prior to the story, link and a group of allies has faced off against ganondorf and, despite their best efforts, lost, with link being presumed dead by their enemies. now, link has woken up from his coma, his memories gone and hyrule taken over, and, with guidance, must once again travel across hyrule, aiming to rediscover his allies and try to face ganondorf once more.

A quick list of crossovers: I won't explain these in length, since they can range from having their own plot to just being a fun mental concept. So, the things I have made crossover aus with are:

Warrior Cats

Batman

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Persona 5

Pokemon

(there are other, smaller ones, these are just the ones i consistently pay attention to)

So! These are the majority of my legend of zelda aus, some of which I may write, some of which just exist in my mind for fun, all of which I wouldn't mind talking more about if anyone is curious!

#i had to find an actual list i made to remember most of these tbh #salty’s loz aus #salty talks #lmk if any of the colored text on here is hard to read i can change it #for some of the duplicate name aus the colors help me remember which is which but ill change it if it makes it hard to read #this took absolute ages to finish partially bc i dont have much physical evidence of these aus. they live in my mind and my mind only #my favorite little tidbit is that in the space au linebeck is a bounty hunter known for being a really skilled sniper #and i did not. in fact. be inspired by sniper tf2. this au predates my knowing about tf2. space au linebeck is inspired by fuckin #ttgl yoko littner and sao (gags) sinon. this will always be funny to me. space au linebeck is probably one of my favorite au linebecks #fun fact also. counting the crossover aus linebeck plays an antagonistic role at some point in 10 of these aus #also anyways worth reminding that a lot of this shit isnt actually very developed. the murder mystery au does not have a lot of actual plot #most of the developed plot stuff in these aus tends to be directly connected to linebecks role in the story bc a lot of these aus happen to #exist bc one day i was like hm what if linebeck was in (hyperspecific situation that led to the creation of one of these aus)#gimmick au is a really good example of how a linebeck in xyz situation thought can spawn a huge fucking story #but i cant get too specific abt that without spoiling the fucking gimmick and ive already said too much #'dark mage' au is also called that bc i think it was REALLY inspired by me thinking abt linebeck in the fe awakening male dark mage outfit #this has been sitting in my drafts for. so long. and then in two days i slammed all of those out and bam. here we are #the crossover aus list is also a list of 'media that also gave me brainworms and therefore got the honor of meshing with the Big Interest'#im not even a big time batman fan i just saw the 2022 movie and scrolled through an entire blog dedicated to harvey dent #i know so fucking much about harvey dent. why is dc so fucking bad about him #anyways welcome to the bottom of the tags. hope you enjoyed your stay. these r my weird loz aus #post-ph isnt here cuz i dont consider it an au. its something else between ‘au’ and ‘speculative canon’

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