#my face looking distorted beyond what should be possible for a human

[spatteringstars]

My love language is collecting weird/embarrassing candids and bringing up those photos everyone I see them <3

[tawakkull]

ISLAM 101: Spirituality in Islam: Part 59

Wujud (Finding and Existence)

Part 3

The issues concerning God, the universe and humankind are obvious when looked at from a viewpoint of Qur’anic disciplines. However, a number of ignorant persons and a number of ones who are illintended have adopted deviant approaches, have tried to prove existence and to substitute the world for God. They have distorted the truth of Divinity or denied Him any attributes or regarded Him as a spirit that pervades existence. They have also offered views that God takes on bodily forms (incarnation) or that there is a created being that is united with God and becomes God (union). They have distorted the Divine truth in the ugliest way possible by claiming that the statement that “There is no deity but God” is the same as “There is no existent being save Him,” meaning that God is identical with the visible universe.

In my view, in this respect we should adopt an approach such that we regard the concept of the Unity of Being, which negates the existence of beings other than God, as being based on a state of spiritual pleasure and as arising from being over-powered by absorption and being lost in God’s Existence along with an inability to find the words to express this state. We cannot accept the philosophically speculative theory that existence comprises God and that His Existence consists of the existence of all beings. We must protect Muslim minds from such theories. We should also bear in mind that if the doctrine of the Unity of Being is not outlined by and kept within the essential principles of Islamic belief, it may lead to an incorrect conception of God, His Existence and His relation with the created. It is a only with a correct conception of Divine Unity that people can be favored with a special knowledge that stems from Him and in which they perceive the true character or reality of things and events. Then they turn away from these events to the Eternal Witness, and in indifference to His signs and the signposts that show the way to Him, become immersed in the lights of His absolute Existence and melt away with respect to their carnal self and ego. But to adopt speculative theories or views that ascribe divinity to things and events means the association of partners with God and this implies going beyond one’s limits of perception and knowledge. Such views or theories can even amount to the denial of God, the Truth, He Who is known by His Names and qualified with His eternal Attributes, and Who infinitely surrounds all things with His majestic Attributes such as Knowledge, Power and Will.

The two views or approaches mentioned here are worlds apart from each other. One is based on seeing everything, not excluding the human ego itself, as being, with respect to its existence and subsistence, absolutely dependent on the Divine Existence and Self-Subsistence. Those who adopt such an approach are annihilated in the Almighty and subsist by Him, believing that everything comes from Him. The other is the view of the self-conceited ones who are unaware of what a spiritual state is or what spiritual pleasures are. They speculate that all things, including themselves, are united with Divinity or with a part of it. While the former regard themselves in the face of the Divine Existence as a drop in the ocean or a particle in the sun, the latter consider that the ocean is the drop itself or the sun is the particle itself. They maintain that the universe is an appearance of Him. The former are self-possessed, always feeling in awe of Him and pursuing Him as the final goal. The latter are, on the other hand, loose, inattentive and lack any goal. The author of Mizan al-‘Irfan describes the former as follows:

Those who have reached the final point in their journey, Are all self-possessed and people of perfection. Their state is described as “finding,” And they have no interest in whether they exist or not. The voice cannot express their state, Only those who share their state can understand them. For they have reached annihilation in the Divine Being, Having been freed from their corporeal existence, Since they have been annihilated in the Existence of the Truth, Absorbed in states of exhilaration and ecstasy. They cannot see another existence save that of the Truth, His love invades through their hearts, Yet they are aware that still they are His servants. The states of others do not resemble theirs. These are the ones, O brother, who maintain Their relation with God as His servants; The one who writes about them no longer has any say.

According to these people, all things exist because the Necessarily Existent One exists. The relation of the Divine Being with things and events is that He brings them into existence and maintains and cares for them. But it is not possible for us to know the character of this relation, or how this relation takes place and is maintained. What we know is that it is He Who originates all things and maintains them. Nothing can “be” without Him; nothing can come into existence or maintain its existence without Him. For this reason, everything is from Him and it is He with all His Attributes of Perfection and Grace Who is the Originator of all things. In this approach, there is no room left for the duality of cause and source.

The prince of lovers (Jalal al-Din al-Rumi) says:

Certainly, there is no duality concerning the Almighty, I, We, You have nothing to do with that Holy Being. Incarnation and Union are inconceivable for Him. Thinking of duality for the Unique One is obviously an error.

There is a point to be mentioned here. The doctrine of the Unity of Being maintained by some Muslim Sufis as being based on a spiritual state of pleasures and absorption is not contrary to the Islamic belief of Divine Unity. However, we should admit that there are many utterances which have been made due to intoxication and immersion which are apparently incompatible with the principles of belief. What follows is one such utterance by an intoxicated one that suggests monism:

The Almighty has declared: “I am nearer to you than your jugular vein.” That is, the ocean and a drop it contains are the same. O human being, you have fallen away from your own self. If you but know, all are the same-the one who witnesses and the one witnessed, And the place where witnessing takes place; and also the same are The owner and protector and the one owned and protected. Though the universe is the result of the manifestation of God’s All-Beautiful Names, There is only one Greatest Name among those Names. O Lord! You are the One Who absolutely exists; as for other existing beings, They are no more than images or illusions. For this reason, whatever You create is one and the same. Though the beauty of all beautiful things is because of Your all-enchanting Beauty, Still there is only one uniquely Beautiful Being. Every sedition and seduction in the world is because of His love. It should be known that the chief cause of this sedition anddissension is the one and the same.

It is true that the style of these words is also seditious and seductive. Some have tried to comment on such words so as to make them compatible with the spirit of religion, while others have wandered in the pits of monism when interpreting them.

Like natural sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine, and the religious sciences, such as jurisprudence, Qur’anic interpretation, and Hadith, Islamic Sufism has some concepts peculiar to itself. Those who do not know the true meaning and contents of these concepts will never be saved from errors. It is not possible to know and understand Islamic Sufism correctly without knowing these concepts.

To sum up: the concept of the Unity of Being comes from a spiritual state marked by personal spiritual experiences and the pleasures and ecstasy that arise from an initiate’s knowledge of God and His Oneness. An initiate who has this degree of attainment feels inwardly that the truly existent one is the only True One, and regards all other beings as a shadow or as having an imaginary existence. The Muslim Sufis who possess this concept have experienced such a degree of knowledge of God in their hearts and have made it a dimension of their conscious nature, trying to express it in proportion to their power of expression. Their expressions concerning unity in multiplicity and multiplicity with respect to unity are the utterances of these inward feelings and experiences, based on the consideration that unity is the foundation and source of everything, while multiplicity is illusory. In fact, it is not possible for a hero of state and pleasure who witnesses the manifestations of His Names and Attributes in every thing and event to think or act otherwise. They feel the omnipresence of that All-Exalted Being far beyond the horizons that are within the reach of human reason and imagination. They feel that they are always in His company and they turn to that Being Who eternally exists and who cannot be known with respect to His Divine Essence. What follows is an excerpt from how they put their experiences into words:

The All-Beautiful One Who wills to see His Beauty through innumerable faces, Should be in innumerable parts, like mirrors broken.

As for another view of the Divine Being in His relation to the universe, which is known as the Unity of the Witnessed and which has become a separate school led by Imam Rabbani Ahmad Faruq al-Sarhandi,[7] although it is nearer to the thought of the Prophet’s Companions than the Unity of Being, it cannot be considered as being fully compatible with the consideration that is a way of perfect self-possession and complete wakefulness, because it also originates in a state of intoxication and absence and is combined with ecstasy and absorption. By contrast, those following the way of the Companions present to their audience their experiences, which even when experienced in a state of intoxication and absorption, with extraordinary self-possession, never falling into confusion.

The Unity of Being, which is known in the West as pantheism and, with its variations, monism, is a philosophical school. This approach, based on seeing the universe as God Himself or His appearance, cannot be reconciled with Islamic Sufism. Furthermore, it is impossible to reconcile it with any Islamic philosophical movement. As mentioned before, while those who share this approach have strayed from the right path by admitting a pervading divinity and sharing it among all things, the Muslim Sufis following the Prophetic way have always believed that everything is from Him, not that everything is He.

O God! Show us the truth as the truth and enable us with the observance of it, and show us the falsehood as falsehood and enable us with the avoidance of it.

And let God’s blessings be on our master Muhammad, who is the guide to the truth, and on his family and Companions, the noble, godly ones.

[wisdomrays]

WUJUD (Finding and Existence): Part 5

The issues concerning God, the universe and humankind are obvious when looked at from a viewpoint of Qur'anic disciplines. However, a number of ignorant persons and a number of ones who are illintended have adopted deviant approaches, have tried to prove existence and to substitute the world for God. They have distorted the truth of Divinity or denied Him any attributes or regarded Him as a spirit that pervades existence. They have also offered views that God takes on bodily forms (incarnation) or that there is a created being that is united with God and becomes God (union). They have distorted the Divine truth in the ugliest way possible by claiming that the statement that "There is no deity but God" is the same as "There is no existent being save Him," meaning that God is identical with the visible universe.

In my view, in this respect we should adopt an approach such that we regard the concept of the Unity of Being, which negates the existence of beings other than God, as being based on a state of spiritual pleasure and as arising from being over-powered by absorption and being lost in God's Existence along with an inability to find the words to express this state. We cannot accept the philosophically speculative theory that existence comprises God and that His Existence consists of the existence of all beings. We must protect Muslim minds from such theories. We should also bear in mind that if the doctrine of the Unity of Being is not outlined by and kept within the essential principles of Islamic belief, it may lead to an incorrect conception of God, His Existence and His relation with the created. It is a only with a correct conception of Divine Unity that people can be favored with a special knowledge that stems from Him and in which they perceive the true character or reality of things and events. Then they turn away from these events to the Eternal Witness, and in indifference to His signs and the signposts that show the way to Him, become immersed in the lights of His absolute Existence and melt away with respect to their carnal self and ego. But to adopt speculative theories or views that ascribe divinity to things and events means the association of partners with God and this implies going beyond one's limits of perception and knowledge. Such views or theories can even amount to the denial of God, the Truth, He Who is known by His Names and qualified with His eternal Attributes, and Who infinitely surrounds all things with His majestic Attributes such as Knowledge, Power and Will.

The two views or approaches mentioned here are worlds apart from each other. One is based on seeing everything, not excluding the human ego itself, as being, with respect to its existence and subsistence, absolutely dependent on the Divine Existence and Self-Subsistence. Those who adopt such an approach are annihilated in the Almighty and subsist by Him, believing that everything comes from Him. The other is the view of the self-conceited ones who are unaware of what a spiritual state is or what spiritual pleasures are. They speculate that all things, including themselves, are united with Divinity or with a part of it. While the former regard themselves in the face of the Divine Existence as a drop in the ocean or a particle in the sun, the latter consider that the ocean is the drop itself or the sun is the particle itself. They maintain that the universe is an appearance of Him. The former are self-possessed, always feeling in awe of Him and pursuing Him as the final goal. The latter are, on the other hand, loose, inattentive and lack any goal. The author of Mizan al-'Irfan describes the former as follows:

Those who have reached the final point in their journey,

Are all self-possessed and people of perfection.

Their state is described as "finding,"

And they have no interest in whether they exist or not.

The voice cannot express their state,

Only those who share their state can understand them.

For they have reached annihilation in the Divine Being,

Having been freed from their corporeal existence,

Since they have been annihilated in the Existence of the Truth,

Absorbed in states of exhilaration and ecstasy.

They cannot see another existence save that of the Truth,

His love invades through their hearts,

Yet they are aware that still they are His servants.

The states of others do not resemble theirs.

These are the ones, O brother, who maintain

Their relation with God as His servants;

The one who writes about them no longer has any say.

According to these people, all things exist because the Necessarily Existent One exists. The relation of the Divine Being with things and events is that He brings them into existence and maintains and cares for them. But it is not possible for us to know the character of this relation, or how this relation takes place and is maintained. What we know is that it is He Who originates all things and maintains them. Nothing can "be" without Him; nothing can come into existence or maintain its existence without Him. For this reason, everything is from Him and it is He with all His Attributes of Perfection and Grace Who is the Originator of all things. In this approach, there is no room left for the duality of cause and source.

The prince of lovers (Jalal al-Din al-Rumi) says:

Certainly, there is no duality concerning the Almighty,

I, We, You have nothing to do with that Holy Being.

Incarnation and Union are inconceivable for Him.

Thinking of duality for the Unique One is obviously an error.

There is a point to be mentioned here. The doctrine of the Unity of Being maintained by some Muslim Sufis as being based on a spiritual state of pleasures and absorption is not contrary to the Islamic belief of Divine Unity. However, we should admit that there are many utterances which have been made due to intoxication and immersion which are apparently incompatible with the principles of belief. What follows is one such utterance by an intoxicated one that suggests monism:

The Almighty has declared: "I am nearer to you than your jugular vein."

That is, the ocean and a drop it contains are the same.

O human being, you have fallen away from your own self.

If you but know, all are the same-the one who witnesses and the one witnessed,

And the place where witnessing takes place; and also the same are

The owner and protector and the one owned and protected.

Though the universe is the result of the manifestation of

God's All-Beautiful Names,

There is only one Greatest Name among those Names.

O Lord! You are the One Who absolutely exists; as for other existing beings,

They are no more than images or illusions.

For this reason, whatever You create is one and the same.

Though the beauty of all beautiful things is because of Your all-enchanting Beauty,

Still there is only one uniquely Beautiful Being.

Every sedition and seduction in the world is because of His love.

It should be known that the chief cause of this sedition anddissension is the one and the same.

It is true that the style of these words is also seditious and seductive. Some have tried to comment on such words so as to make them compatible with the spirit of religion, while others have wandered in the pits of monism when interpreting them.

Like natural sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine, and the religious sciences, such as jurisprudence, Qur'anic interpretation, and Hadith, Islamic Sufism has some concepts peculiar to itself. Those who do not know the true meaning and contents of these concepts will never be saved from errors. It is not possible to know and understand Islamic Sufism correctly without knowing these concepts.

To sum up: the concept of the Unity of Being comes from a spiritual state marked by personal spiritual experiences and the pleasures and ecstasy that arise from an initiate's knowledge of God and His Oneness. An initiate who has this degree of attainment feels inwardly that the truly existent one is the only True One, and regards all other beings as a shadow or as having an imaginary existence. The Muslim Sufis who possess this concept have experienced such a degree of knowledge of God in their hearts and have made it a dimension of their conscious nature, trying to express it in proportion to their power of expression. Their expressions concerning unity in multiplicity and multiplicity with respect to unity are the utterances of these inward feelings and experiences, based on the consideration that unity is the foundation and source of everything, while multiplicity is illusory. In fact, it is not possible for a hero of state and pleasure who witnesses the manifestations of His Names and Attributes in every thing and event to think or act otherwise. They feel the omnipresence of that All-Exalted Being far beyond the horizons that are within the reach of human reason and imagination. They feel that they are always in His company and they turn to that Being Who eternally exists and who cannot be known with respect to His Divine Essence. What follows is an excerpt from how they put their experiences into words:

The All-Beautiful One Who wills to see

His Beauty through innumerable faces,

Should be in innumerable parts, like mirrors broken.

As for another view of the Divine Being in His relation to the universe, which is known as the Unity of the Witnessed and which has become a separate school led by Imam Rabbani Ahmad Faruq al-Sarhandi,[7] although it is nearer to the thought of the Prophet's Companions than the Unity of Being, it cannot be considered as being fully compatible with the consideration that is a way of perfect self-possession and complete wakefulness, because it also originates in a state of intoxication and absence and is combined with ecstasy and absorption. By contrast, those following the way of the Companions present to their audience their experiences, which even when experienced in a state of intoxication and absorption, with extraordinary self-possession, never falling into confusion.

The Unity of Being, which is known in the West as pantheism and, with its variations, monism, is a philosophical school. This approach, based on seeing the universe as God Himself or His appearance, cannot be reconciled with Islamic Sufism. Furthermore, it is impossible to reconcile it with any Islamic philosophical movement. As mentioned before, while those who share this approach have strayed from the right path by admitting a pervading divinity and sharing it among all things, the Muslim Sufis following the Prophetic way have always believed that everything is from Him, not that everything is He.

O God! Show us the truth as the truth and enable us with the observance of it, and show us the falsehood as falsehood and enable us with the avoidance of it.

And let God's blessings be on our master Muhammad, who is the guide to the truth, and on his family and Companions, the noble, godly ones.

[dangercocktail]

Late Night Television

Tossing and turning for the better part of the night, Isaac glanced at his phone with the dryness of an insomniac’s eyes. Somewhere after 3 am and he was failing miserably to fall asleep. Sighing in annoyance mostly at himself for not taking edibles or something stronger before bed, he roused himself and threw a pair of basketball shorts over his underwear. Isaac wandered out of his bedroom to the rest of the house. 

Stopping briefly to grab a glass of water from the kitchen, Isaac scratched his relatively flat stomach as he made his way to the couch, scrolling through images on his phone. Flipping on the TV, he began highlighting his favorite streaming service when the screen distorted and the input changed. The television had switched to basic cable channels.

“These still exist?” Isaac thought as he took a sip of water. The flashing lights of the television illuminated the room in brightness that almost hurt Isaac’s eyes. On screen, a workout video demonstration was in progress as an extremely fit man insisted viewers call as soon as possible to order the program. 

“No thanks,” Isaac said out loud, pressing the input button on his remote. The flashing lights disappeared and the cool black of streaming channel icons returned. Guiding the remote’s button through them, he began to select one when the screen distorted again. The fitness instructor was back and the volume on his TV began climbing up on its own.

“You there at home!” the man bellowed. “You’re thinking to yourself, how did I get like this?”

Isaac looked at the remote in growing frustration and muttered, “No, I’m thinking what the fuck is wrong with my TV?”

“Well I’ll tell you, it’s because you’re always on that couch,” the television fitness instructor said. “Lazy, feet up, never going for the goals you know you should be!”

As the man said ‘feet up’, the recliner in Isaac’s couch sprang open, leaning Isaac back into the couch and suspending his feet in the air with such speed that it made him audibly gasp.

“The fuck?” Isaac uttered, slightly unnerved. He chalked most of the weirdness he was feeling to being exhausted. As he started to lean forward to push the leg rest down, he heard the man on screen continue.

“And that’s why you’re soft, you’re practically glued to that couch. You lack the discipline that my program can provide. Sure, sure, it started with a few pounds, some extra cookies here, another slice of pizza there, and you started getting soft in the stomach,”’ the man said as other fitness models behind him began doing pushups. Isaac stopped attempting to close the foot rest and immediately leaned back into the couch. It physically felt impossible to not do so. As he sank into the cushions under protest, his stomach began slowly swelling, starting with his lower belly pushing out then wrapping around his belly button like a doughnut. In the span of about ten seconds, he had gained fifteen pounds of belly fat. 

“What the hell?!” Isaac panicked, grabbing at the small ball of fat in his lap. The man on the screen continued.

“But it didn’t stop there, did it? Bad habits breed more bad habits, they’re like rabbits that way,” the man said, his onscreen fitness models moving into sit ups. “Those extra cookies and slices of pizza turn into daily routines; you found yourself seeking out the worst kinds of food that turned that initial fifteen pounds into fifty.”

While Isaac still marveled in shock at the small belly doughnut of fat in his hands, it began swelling through his fingers. The doughnut blossomed and spread around his sides as it moved like a bag filling with pudding. Love handles wobbled into existence and began inflating as the fat moved up his ribcage laying a foundation of frosting-like fat across his torso. It reached his chest where his nipples, tingling with the movement, widened slightly and became puffy. His chest itself developed a slight pudgy layer but then the growth stopped. 

“How is this happening…” Isaac murmured in mounting disbelief, looking down at his larger body. His legs and arms were slightly thicker and his belly now rested like an overinflated basketball in his lap. He grabbed his belly and shook it, the jiggle and wobble of it shaking his love handles and sending slight vibrations through his chest. He tried scooting forward with force to escape the couch but couldn’t get the momentum, his tubby belly making it harder than before to lean forward.

“And ladies and gentlemen, I know it didn’t stop there for you. It’s all too common. Once you’ve gotten a little weight on, you feel like the game is over. That you’ve lost. And that’s when you really binge, because why not? That’s when you become one of those sad people at the buffet, plate after plate after plate, because you’ve given up completely…”

“No…” Isaac uttered as he heard his stomach gurgle again. With a strain and then tear, he felt his ass inflate rapidly, ripping through his underwear and then his oversized basketball shorts. Isaac felt his body rise on the couch several inches as his butt grew, expanding beyond the expanse of the one cushion he was on and starting to lap onto either side, one cheek wedging up against the armrest. As he felt the growth of his behind begin to slow, the mammoth momentum picked up in other areas. 

Isaac’s belly began inflating again, his lower belly stretching and swelling as it began overlapping his crotch, deepening his belly button as it rounded further from Isaac’s view. As his midsection grew to the size of a bean bag chair, Isaac’s chest also began inflating, his nipples puffing up further and widening in a circular motion as his chest jiggled into their own bags of teardrop shaped pudding, rising in the air atop his belly and wrapping around under his armpits. Isaac frantically grabbed at all parts of his body in some vain attempt to hold the fat back but everything was growing unrestrained. As he grabbed and prodded, his own fingers swelled up, the knuckles and individual portions of his fingers disappearing into swollen hot dog like appendages. With a final glance before his belly swelled too big, he saw his feet begin taking on a bee stung appearance as they filled with fat as well.

As all the rest of his body settled into its now obese proportions, Isaac felt a heaviness enter his neck. 

“No no no…” he exclaimed, putting two fat hands on either side of his face. Isaac’s cheeks inflated with fat, merging with a roll that had already started on his neck. As he moved his hands all over his face, he could feel his jawline slowly disappearing as it officially merged with his still rounding neck roll.

The man on the TV continued.

“Now I don’t want to alarm anyone right now. But I seriously believe that if you don’t call this number right now and start this program, there’s no telling what your future may hold. You might end up one of these people so lazy and big they can’t get off their couch, a huge caricature of the potential they once had, a literal ball of fat,” the man said as Isaac looked on in horror. The man seemed to be staring directly at him through the TV screen.

Isaac scrambled to grab his cell phone and call the number. Casting about wildly with his eyes for his phone, he saw the edge of it wedged between his thigh and belly, almost completely obscured. With a heavy huff and a push of effort, Isaac leaned forward to grab it.

His hand fell over a foot short. Issac couldn’t reach the edge of his now massive belly nor touch his own belly button, much less the phone resting on his thigh. And that was when what the man had said fully sunk in. With another gurgling in his stomach, Isaac’s eyes went wide as his body began expanding again, the couch creaking under his massive form as he felt himself expanding in all directions, the fat of his neck melding into his shoulders as he began to grow into a human sphere. His thoughts turned quickly though, as his brain underwent its own change as his body inflated. The horror of his bodily change slowly drained from his mind as a new thought began to take over...‘I’m hungry.”

“So act fast folks, this offer won’t last….”. 

With that final statement, the TV clicked off.

[astermacguffin]

What if the Mark of Cain manifests differently when it's imprisoning God and not the Darkness? If the Darkness makes the Mark bearer go insane with unbridled want for destruction, then what does sealing God make you do?

An obsessive desire for creation? Creation to the point of corruption? (Think of the Shimmer from the film Annihilation. Continuous reproduction to the point of begetting alien, cancer-like entities. A refracted, distorted notion of creation.)

Okay, so canon divergence from The Trap. They successfully seal away Chuck, then Castiel bears the Mark. (Jack won't be back until later episodes, so he's not here yet.)

At first, they think he's fine. Cas says he's not feeling any bloodlust just yet. (He does feel a certain itch under his skin. Not a desire to murder, but a desire to do...something. He doesn't tell this to anyone.)

His grace is getting stronger, almost archangel-like (if not more). It's incredibly helpful for hunts, and Cas is happy to feel his wings healthy again after a long time. Sam is happy for him, but Dean is suspicious of things (especially since he's a previous Mark bearer).

After a while, Cas starts feeling...burdened, almost bloated by grace. (After all, he does have access to an infinite supply of it.) He needs to have an outlet for it.

Cas tells them so and Sam suggests healing people. Dean gives the green light on the condition that he remains invisible and he doesn't go Godstiel on them again.

It's a great outlet, and for the first few weeks they start feeling normal again. But unfortunately, healing stops being enough to relieve Cas of his excess grace anymore. The mass healings start to pile up all across the globe and it catches everyone's attention. Some think it's a blessed miracle, some think it's a sign of the end times. They make him slow down on the healings after that.

Without an outlet, however, Cas starts feeling antsy and pained. They brainstorm on possible alternatives. Cas suggests going to Heaven and saving it from collapse by healing his brethren's wings and creating more angels out of consenting souls in Heaven.

He explains Heaven's endangered and dwindling numbers. Sam agrees that it would hit two birds in one stone: relieve Cas from excess grace and prevent the extinction of angels. Dean doesn't like the idea of more winged dicks so he shoots down the idea. Eileen says that since Cas is the one in pain, he should be the one to decide.

Ultimately, Cas defers to Dean's judgment (as always). Sam protests, arguing that he can't just shoulder that pain. Cas replies: "I've suffered worse, Sam."

Cas doesn't complain about the pain for about a week, so for a while, everyone believes him when he said he can shoulder the pain. One day, Dean finds him outside the bunker, groaning in pain as he bleeds himself out, his grace pouring into the ground and sprouting plants. Dean sees this and is finally convinced to allow Cas to make more angels.

What follows then is a series of escalating events:

While Sam and Eileen are practicing their witchcraft for spell they need in a hunt, Cas suggests to enhance Sam's physical and magical abilities using his grace. "It will make the process faster and safer," he reasons. He agrees, but Dean eyes this suspiciously.

During one of their hunts, they encounter a young and freshly-turned vampire. The boy begs them not to kill him, and Cas gives him a proposal. "Promise not to feed on humans ever again and I shall cure you of your hungers and your pains. Pledge your allegiance to me and you shall never be afraid of yourself ever again." The boy agrees, and before Dean could even protest, Cas slices his palm and feeds the vampire his grace.

They argue about the grace-feeding in the Impala. Dean notices Sam's pointed lack of complaints and figures it out. "You're in on this, aren't you? How long has Cas been doing this? He's going Michael behind our backs and you're letting him?"

Sam argues that it's different because Cas isn't making super monsters; he's making them less "monstrous" (whatever that means). Sam's obsession with his own "purity" is key to understanding him here.

One time, Dean catches Cas in his "garden" ("forest" seems more apt with how lush the greens already are) creating butterflies and bees out of thin air using his grace alone.

Reports of the miraculously healed people suddenly gaining new abilities like increased strength, heightened senses, and prophecy start popping up. Some are experiencing phantom limbs, talking about their sprouting "wings."

Sam is becoming addicted to Cas' grace to the point that he willingly lets himself be hurt in hunts just so Cas can cure him. Dean confronts him about this, but Sam just argues that he's "never felt this pure before." Eileenn shares the same concern as Dean.

Hunts are becoming less frequent the more monsters are being "cleansed" by Cas. The world is becoming disconcertingly quiet.

Cas' "garden" is starting to emit this strange aura. The plants and creatures growing inside it are starting to look more...alien.

One of the original angels goes to Dean and tells him of Heaven's affairs. The Host is stable again, but the angels he created are...not exactly angels. They're graced up and they sustain Heaven, but their true forms are "horrifying and incomprehensible, even to an angel." The angel adds that more than 60% of Earth's creatures have already been touched by Cas' grace.

The final nail in the coffin is when Dean catches Cas in the garden fiddling with his angel blade. It's emitting a strange glow, vibrating a subtle hum and looking as if it's liquid, flowing and distorting here and there.

Dean asks him what he's holding. "Oh, this?" Cas responds. "This is the Last Blade. Last, not in terms of time but in concept, for no other blade shall ever compare to it. The spark of creation. Fiat lux."

Dean's heart sinks. Of course. The First and the Last, Alpha and Omega. "Cas...the Mark, I think i-it's scrambling your brain, man."

"I know," he replies, eyes wet and apologetic. It's a small moment of lucidity amidst weeks and months of...whatever that was.

"Okay, okay, so you're still you, that's... that's good. Okay." Dean doesn't know how to approach this. Give him a fight and he'll know what to do, but this? Watching his best friend, the love of his life, be distorted into something incomprehensible? Yeah, this is totally beyond him.

"You know, I used to hate Chuck," Cas says. "How could the Father of All Creation be this angry, petulant child? But," he continues, "knowing what I know now, it's either regressing into a petty child or being reduced to insanity."

"Cas...what are you talking about, man?"

"No mind should bear this burden, Dean. No matter how infinite they are," he says, voice trembling in exhaustion.

(more below the cut)

He continues. "The awareness of everything is the awareness of nothing at all. Imagine perceiving every possible piece of information about the world all at once. Seeing light in all its forms all at once: ultraviolet, infrared, etc. Sensing all the neutrinos zip by, sensing gravitational waves, sensing the slighest bit of seismic activity."

Dean doesn't know how to respond, so he lets him go on.

"Knowledge can only ever be a slice of the Totality of Truth. Truth is absolute chaos, and Knowledge is the partial ordering of this chaos. One can sanely approach Truth only through organized paritions of Totality. Why do you think Chuck is so obsessed with stories? Stories are linear and finite; they're sensible snippets of the endless sea of possible worlds."

"So, what? Are you trying to—"

"I'm not trying to justify Chuck's actions, Dean," he interrupts. "I just want to contextualize them. Chuck's simplistic and repetitive narratives are what they are: manifestations of a chaotic Totality, gone insane trying to understand itself. Looking for simple things to hold on to."

Cas takes a deep breath. He speaks with a shaky voice. "I'm barely holding myself together, Dean. I can feel the universe beneath my skin."

He doesn't know what possesses him to ask, but he does it anyway. "What are you holding on to?"

Cas smiles at that. "You."

They stare at each other for a while, frozen where they stand. Cas, with unrestrained affection in his face. Dean, struck by shock and indecision. It's Cas who first breaks the silence.

"I think we both know what needs to be done, while I'm still lucid enough." Cas slices his palm and lets his blood drip down the soil. He then thrusts the Last Blade into the ground, lifting it when the soil glows.

Dean stared in awe as the ground erupts and a familiar shape rises from the hollow. "Is that.."

"The Ma'Lak box, yes. I also enhanced it with the Blade to be able to house things as powerful as me."

"Cas, wait, maybe we can think of another way to—"

"Dean," he says, calmly. "You know there's no other way. I wouldn't ask this of you if there was."

In any other scenario, Dean would've kept arguing, but even he knows that they're running out of time. Sam's grace addiction is getting worse and all the creatures touched by Cas' grace are slowly mutating into eldritch horrors. Dean offers a shaky nod. "Okay."

Tension visibly releases from Cas' body. "Thank you, Dean." He opens the box and enters it with ease. "When you lock this, bury me with the garden's graced soil. Once I'm under, my influence over the world should dampen."

Dean gives a wordless nod. For a while, they just stared at each other, Cas lying down and Dean trying to memorize every inch of his face while he can.

Cas presses his hand into Dean's left shoulder where his mark used to dwell. "My untainted grace," he whisper gently. "Some of it is still inside you. That's probably why you're not as affected by me."

Dean wants to say, I'll always be affected by you, but he holds himself back.

He takes his hand back, a bloody handprint now on Dean's jacket. "I love you, Dean," he says, breathless.

"Cas..."

"I probably would've built up to that if we had more time but," he makes a surprised laugh, "I am, as you would say, already 'losing my marbles', so."

The air quotes would've been funny and endearing in any other scenario, but it just makes Dean's vision blur up with tears.

"Thank you for everything, Dean. I know we've done nothing but repeatedly hurt each other these past few years, but I don't want to spend a deathless eternity with that as my memory of you. I forgive you, even for the things you haven't forgiven yourself for yet. And I'm sorry for everything, especially for ending things like this."

He should probably wipe away his tears to clear his vision, but Dean can do nothing but stare at Cas in awe, in fear, in grief, in reverence. They're both fully crying now.

"Goodbye, Dean."

"Wait, Cas."

Cas looks at him, waiting.

"Can you...can you say it again?"

He doesn't need to clarify what 'it' means. They both know.

With one last mournful smile, Cas says: "I love you, Dean."

And with that, Dean finally gathers all the strength he needs to shut the lid and lock the box. He stares at it for a while, unblinking. He forgot to ask, Can you hear my prayers down there? But it's too late now to ask.

The box automatically lowers itself into the hole it arose from. Now all that's left to do is to cover it again with soil.

Dean doesn't bother with a shovel. He gently buries the box with his hands deep in the soil, some of it getting trapped under his nails. He continues the mindless task, whispering a tireless series of I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I hope you're okay I'm sorry, over and over between his quiet sobs. Cas is quiet inside the box. No screaming or crying. Dean doesn't know if that's better or worse.

When the final clump of soil is pressed into the mound, he suddenly feels it: a visceral shift that echoes throughout the world. The alien glimmer of the garden dims, and the world corrects its axis. Dean screams his agony into the air.

That's how Sam finds him: sprawled over a mound of soil, crying his heart out. Dean doesn't need to say anything: he knows what happened. He pulls his brother off the ground and brings him inside the bunker.

For the first two weeks, Dean cycles through drinking and passing out in various places in the bunker. If he's not wearing the jacket, he's holding it with close to him. Sam gives him a considerable space to grieve while he monitors the world grace problem with Eileen. The grace mutations have significantly dropped since then and everyone's going back to normal.

Unfortunately, that means monsters are getting hungry again. Sam doesn't want to leave his brother alone after going nonverbal with grief and dysfunctional due to alcohol. Eileen assures him that she can handle hunts on their own and that the hunter network that they're building will lessen the workload.

Sam's attempts to sober Dean up finally work, mostly due to the latter having very little strength to protest. Dean remains sober an entire day for the first time in weeks, and all he can think about is: I haven't prayed to Cas in a while. The longing might have reached him, but never a coherent prayer.

The first time he goes out of the bunker in a while, he heads straight to Cas' garden. Sam's glad that he's finally going out because "the sun is good for you" or something, but he's really only here for Cas. He kneels in front of the burial mound (where a patch of an unknown species of flowers is already growing).

The first prayer he says to him in a while is: I love you, Cas. I should've said it while you were still here. Not saying it out loud and just strongly thinking about the words somehow bolsters him to get the words through.

He's crying again, and he knows he's losing coherency. In his mind, he's explaining about his hangups and his regrets and his continuous denial of his own joy, but one constant remains: he's beaming all his love and affection into this prayer.

He's halfway through explaining all the traits that he finds endearing in Cas when suddenly, he feels it like a snap. If the glimmer dimmed when he buried Cas, now it's as if it was never there in the first place. With an unsettling amount of certainty, Dean just knows that Cas is gone. For real, this time.

"C-cas...?" It's the first thing he's said in a while and it sounds rough in his long unused voice.

"CAS! CAS!!! " He's now screaming, ripping away the flowerbed with his bare hands and scratching the soil away. Tears are obstructing his vision, but he has no time to wipe them away. He needs to make sure that is really gone. His hands are bleeding and he doesn't give a damn.

Eventually, Sam comes running towards him. "Dean! Dean, stop!"

He tries to hold his brother back, but Dean just keeps on clawing away soil. "Sammy, Sammy he's gone, he's not there anymore, Sammy I have to see, please, let me see Cas again, I need—" he breaks into sobs again, and like a puppet with its strings cut off, he slumps into Sam.

"Dean, it's okay, it's okay..." he says softly to his shaking brother.

Eventually, when Dean calms down, he looks at the carnage he's done and starts sobbing again. The flowers, his last evidence of Cas being here, are all destroyed. Now Cas truly is gone.

. . .

When Cas first heard Dean's confession prayer, he was overcome with joy. When he realized what that means, however, his stomach suddenly sinks.

He hears before he sees the Empty arrive, slithering like black goo.

"Wow, were you excited enough for eternal slumber that you wanted a preview?" The Shadow teases in Meg's voice.

At first, he was dreading the Empty, but now that he thinks of it, it's actually the perfect prison for him: a vast, endless nothingness for him to fill with his creations.

And if Jack wasn't in Heaven, that only means that he's in the Empty, and he can't wait to see his son again. Even when blinded by the madness of the universe, he can never forget the joy of being a father.

"Yes," he replies, "I'm actually glad you're here now."

. . .

Somewhere around the globe, Billie drops Jack back.

"Don't worry, kid. You'l reunite with your father very soon."

(to be continued)

[bored-storyteller]

Alternative version of this one shot (or part of it)

Warning: mention of blood and violence

67- Tokyo Ghoul, Uta x human!Reader

The smell of your blood was enough. This was enough, and the world around Uta had darkened and there was for him that dangerous red trail that led him to you. And even if his face seems calm and focused, the terror of never seeing you again grips him.

Why are you there in the first place? You don't have to be there, he warned you. He always warns you, to keep you safe - so you don't see.

It's hard for him to hold back when his mental state is in that situation. When he needs blood, fun and killing, and as much as he wants it, not even your presence can satisfy that need.

Indeed, you are a stimulus. Your eyes that silently scrutinize him from your hiding place are a charge for him to do better. To do more.

He never wanted to show you the monster. No, it's not just about something metaphorical and moral like the monstrosity of ghouls. His monstrous body, he never wanted to show it to you.

Yet now it's there massive and awful on his victim, and your attacker. And it’s precisely because you are there.

Uta from the fourth ward is not a ghoul that the others don't take seriously, it wouldn't need him to use his strength with a being as lowly as that, but he needs it.

He can still smell you. He knows exactly where you are and what you feel, he smells your fear, and he likes it.

Are you afraid of him? Are you afraid of what you see even though he is saving you?

"Where do you run chick."

Uta's laughter is chilling, transcendent, as the ghoul with your blood-stained hands whizzes by his side.

Your crouched form shrinks against your makeshift barrier to clear the way for the substitute victim before he overwhelms you.

You are so confused and afraid that what happens just slips before your eyes without really making sense. And when something rushes forward with a violent rush to capture the unfortunate ghoul, you have neither the ability nor the readiness to escape it.

The first thing you perceive is the heat that surrounds you and the light that dims.

Someone giggles and someone shouts.

You forget to breathe.

"Oops ..."

It's a voice you know all too well, it's a voice you hear every day, filling your life like color fills a blank canvas. Yet now you would swear you never heard it.

“How did you end up here, my beloved? Did your delicious smell make me catch you too? "

Beloved is not a word that flows often between you two, it is suspended in your gestures and in your looks, but it is truly exceptional that your lips pronounce it. Maybe that's why it now sounds so unreal from those lips you should have known for a long time.

Those lips that move threateningly beneath you and your tormentor, in the depths of that flesh so hot and so inhuman that surrounds you.

"Tell me, my love, what pains in hell do you want this toy to undergo?"

That word continues to resonate in those muscles along with the angry moans of the captured ghoul.

Love, love, love. Such a rare word, so unconventional. Yet he seems to like to say it as he prepares to kill.

It clashes like a broken bell, screeches against hearing like teeth in terror. But no, you can't say he's not being sincere.

Those red tentacles squeeze in on you, and you don't know if it's sadism or some other dark emotion he's feeling about holding you there.

You do not answer his smallest question and rather you turn around, clinging desperately to that merciless cocoon, looking for a way out.

Maybe it's still sadism, those noises you hear so visceral and close to you, while an unequal fight is taking place a few inches from your body. If not even the ghoul can escape the monster, how can you fragile human?

You don't want to see what's happening, what he's doing. You can't even imagine how the hell he can do to cause those screams of terror and that slaughterhouse noise of flesh and blood. The sound is already ignoble enough to make you squeeze against the viscous envelope, closing your eyes and pressing against those walls that you don't even know which area of his body they belong to.

Even when the disturbing silence falls on you, you don't move. The awareness of being alone there strangely makes things even more difficult.

"Don't you want to watch?" Uta's voice is still distorted by an unhealthy amusement "So weak ... there was no need to even fight him ..."

Your fingers cling to the tentacles as if they could protect you.

"Uta ..." his name sounds uncertain in that too narrow cave.

"Hm?" A light laugh, this time addressed only to you "are you afraid?"

He knows you're scared, terrified. He feels it in his lungs, the smell of your anguish mixes with that of your blood, of that wound you seem to have forgotten about.

And he keeps you there, because he knows that if he were to let you go, you would run away. The smell you have on you is that of the victims when they try in vain to escape the predator.

For a moment, a fleeting insane moment, he really thinks that the only solution is to devour you, that this is the only way to keep you there with him.

But that moment falls into his own horror when your question caresses him: "Can you come back please?"

Come back.

His heart stops for a moment.

Come back.

That scent of prey becomes your perfume again, which invades him like a raging river.

"But I ... I've always been here."

Now his voice is no longer scary, and although you still do not dare to look beyond your eyelids, you can finally feel the safety of that delicate and gentle tone.

"Uta?" You call him again, like you want to make sure it's him for real.

And he wonders what the hell he's doing. Because you are there, in the first place, in his trap.

Finally his shell opens, freeing you in the evening light, and all that grabs you are his hands, to bring you back to earth safely.

When you open your eyes, nothing is left of that cluster of tentacles and arms; all that is in front of you is that dear face that you have come to know so well. It's a blood mask that covers his chin to his nose, but at least you can see his eyes.

"It's me ..." the sweet note of his voice echoes in the calm after the storm "It's just me."

It's just him. No hero ready to save you, only Uta in his natural madness.

His instinct to grab you before you run away is contradicted by your sudden gesture pushing you against him.

"Uta!" Your arms surround his neck in a desperate attempt to hold him back as your head snuggles against his neck as if that were your only refuge.

"You never came back ... I came looking for you."

Your words are so docile and sincere that Uta almost doubts he has heard them.

He asked you, he asked you what you would do if he never came back. He hadn't believed you had taken his words to heart so much.

The imaginary of you, finally free human without him, dissolves in his mind with every particle of you that your body transmits to him.

It seems that nothing is wrong with you in any of this; neither the danger you ran, nor the wound on your shoulder, nor his inhuman violence. You seem to completely ignore the blood that covers him, which now dirties you too, and you are not bothered by the gaunt remains that surround you. You were looking for him. You were afraid that he would never come back to you, and you looked for him, as you said.

You did not remain silent and wait, you did not hope for a while to get rid of him, nor did you plan to remain without him. Instead those words of his had remained inside you to the point of putting you in danger.

"Forgive me." His voice is little more than a whisper as his palm gently rests on your head in a protective gesture "Does it hurt a lot?"

You shake your head in dissent as he leans over your wound to lick the blood away. Not a threatening gesture, but a cure, a desire to perceive you as close to him as possible.

You who sought him, you who did not run away, you who remain so calm in his hands.

"You won't go away, will you?"

Your question is innocent as you curl up in him, likewise seeking your presence.

His nose cuddles against your temple, continuing to perceive you with all possible senses.

"Not as long as you want me."

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Take Me to Your Leader.”

I hope you guys are all having a great week, and I hope you enjoy the read.

Captain Kell sat in his room's boots up on the small desk space as he watched the news report filtering in from over the feed.

“Early this morning the chairwoman of the UN has announced a state of emergency and launched a formal investigation into the attempted assassination of the GA’s Admiral Vir. This all comes in response to the announcement by UN president late last night  that they were unable to identify connections to any internal terrorist organizations after a woman was caught attempting to assassinate the Admiral during one of his speeches two months ago. The failed assassination was thanks to 25 year old marine Angle Ramirez who dove in front of the bullet for his commanding officer, and is now (as his family claims) fully healed and back to work. Since the incident, GA and UNSC leaders alike have encouraged Admiral Vir to stay away from earth as much as possible and remain on his ship until further notice.  At a request from one of our journalists yesterday morning, he agreed to a statement from his ship the Omen.”

There was a flickering on the screen as a face appeared  on the news feed. It was, somewhat from a distance, and the lens seems grainy from radiation interference, but the man seen was tall and blond and had one green eye though he was wearing an eyepatch. Captain kell thought he looked a little more lean than the admiral, but it was hard to tell with all the distortion.

When the man began to speak there was something missing in the voice as well, but it would hardly be noticeable.

There was a knock at his door and he quickly threw his feet down from the desk walking over to throw the door open and step outside into the hall. Angelo was waiting for him there and without saying a word the two of them walked down the long hallway and to the planning room.

Mace was still discussing with some of the other men and women there., and Geea and Beatrice were still loitering at the back.

Captain Kell couldn’t keep the distaste from his thoughts as he looked at the two of them. There was a prime example of toxic love if he had ever seen it. The two were clearly partnered or, at the very least, dating, but he had never seen two people who enjoyed pissing each other off as much as they did. WIth them there was plenty of jealousy and mistrust to go around. And as for Geea’s views on Drev religion, well they were backwards to say the least.

He had seem the same sort of fanaticism in certain shamed drev generals after the war, radical, and suicidal almost in nature.

She had no real idea what the meaning of the new law was.

As soon as he walked in the two women turned to look up at him, their arms crossed over their chests. Beatrice was playing with some big ass knives like that was likely to impress anyone, but really all he saw was some crazy asshole whose parents probably didn’t give her enough attention when she was a kid.

He sad down at the table.

Geea leaned forward expectantly.

“Setting course/”

He turned his head to look up at her, “Yes, setting course to whatever cesspit of corruption spawned you.”

Geea pulled back, “Excuse me, but we hired you for a job, not for insults.” One of her hands reached for the weapons on her belt, but Noble stepped forward spear at the ready. He was a good foot taller than she was, and he knew for a fact he was probably a better warrior. He had a natural talent for it.

He leaned back in his seat, “You hired me for a job and now expect me to fling my dead corpse at the Omen like my ship is going to be able to handle that.” he shook his head, “You hired me which means we are going to do this MY way, which means we are going to do it quiet, and we are going to do it proper. That means NONE of this comes back on me. If we show up at the omen right now and bust down their doors, we are going to get atomized by two platoons of marines and an entire clan of Drev. LEts not also forget that the Admiral Isn’t exactly going to be easy to just kill.” Captain Kell waved a hand wildly, “He has a fucking Drev SAINT on his crew, that is hardly something I think I want to deal with.” he shook his head, “No no, this is going to take me a lot longer to plan, and it is going to require a lot more material that I don’t already have.”

Geea bristled in impatience and indignation.

“I am not going to throw my life away for this mission, and if you want to push that, than I will throw you out of the airlock faster than you can say, “please captain, please I was just being a whiny little bitch.” The room was silent around Geaa’s seething, but he paid her no mind. She didn’t exactly scare him.

She was a minor player in the black market at best, and the way she moved told him she was no great shakes as a warrior either. Probably used to fighting humans so developed a habit of using brute force to overcome them with her height. As for Beatrice, he had a feeling that she made up for skill mostly in unpredictability and sheer fury.

Anyone can look scary if they scream real loud and flail their knives at you.

The way their crew behaved was enough to tell him as  much. No one on the ship really respected them, and Geea ruled mostly out of ear, her men were not as loyal to her as she thought they might be, and he had a feeling that, for the right price, he could buy them off if he wanted.

He rested his palms flat against the table before him, “You understand if I am going to do this I am going to need all the right equipment. You want the man gone but I want it to look like some freak disappearance The last thing my crew needs is the long arm of the GA down on our heads.” he shook his head, “No we need to do this strategically, and we need to do this quietly, and we are going to start by getting the tech we need to pull this off without being seen.”

He turned to look at the two of them, “I am assuming that you two know where I can get those sorts of things…. Under the radar.”

Geea crossed her arms over her chest, “And YOU don’t. You are a pirate after all.”

“Yeah, I generally tend to STEAL from other people and sell it to middle men. I don’t generally tend to buy any of the goods.”

Geea  stood, waiting for a long moment before finally uncurling her hands in annoyance, “Fine, Fine, but we make this quick.”

He nodded his head once and motioned her to continue on following her up and to the bridge where he watched her set a course.

He tried to make it look like he wasn’t watching her, but in the back of his mind he was quickly memorizing the coordinates that he saw appearing on screen. Granted he did have a bot installed that should copy it for him, but you can never trust technology to do exactly what you expect it to do.

When she was done, he moved forward and slid into the Captain’s chair, familiar with the machine as he prepared it for a warp sequence.

Despite him being very familiar with this ship, more than one time he found himself accidentally reaching for controls that weren’t there. He cursed his muscle memory, though he forced the ship into doing what he wanted, alerting the crew to the imminent warp before he could accidentally kill one of them by sheer freak accident.

Geea watched him from behind.

He knew she didn’t much like him.

That was fine by him. She wasn’t exactly the kind of person that he would want to be liked by.

They came out of warp a few moments later with a hard lurch through the internal dampeners were doing their job to avoid smearing him across the front windscreen like window pizza.

She walked up to stand beside him and rested her hand of the chair, the gesture reminded him of someone else, and it felt wrong to have her do it, though he tried not to show his discomfort.

“Just beyond that asteroid.”

Captain Kell raised an eyebrow. This was all very interesting. Here he was thinking they would end up back on Noctopolis, for he had been sure that that was the hub of all pirate activity in the universe, but he guessed not. As they came around another asteroid, his eyes fell on a large chunk of rock that must have been over ten miles wide in his shi[s estimation, and from here he could already see the hive of docking ports and extending protrusions built into the rock.

He blinked in awe at the glittering blue lights and the hive of activity surrounding the massive asteroid.

Ships flew in and out through open docking bays landing here and there on extending arms. Good were moved by silent crane arms through space as add ons were constantly being made by men in space suits scurrying over the rock. The palace was…. Amazing at the same time it was an absolute disaster of engineering. You would never see something like tat made by the GA or UNSC, but from here he could see plenty of influence from all parties.

As they flew closer, they were absolutely dwarfed by the massive rock, and it’s protruding arms. All around him he saw human building techniques, and Tesraki logos stamped on almost everything as they moved forward. Massive viewing screens were all around them doing advertisements on things would would never have seen on a location run by UNSC or GA interference.

The one to his right was some sort of bootleg pill for weightloss, while, on the other side, someone was advertising some kind of flamethrower. The screen above that was giving the specs for the newest design in railgun technology.

His eyes were wide as he stared at all of it, and his heart began to race fast inside his chest.

Now THIS was awesome.

Being a space pirate sure did have its perks.

Over the radio feed static rolled in and out as the broadcasts from the different advertisements tried to pick up his frequency.

But one voice came in clear and crisp above all others, “Unknown aircraft. Identify yourself.”

“This is the Infinity requesting docking.”

There was a momentary pause over the other end of the line, as their ship was likely scanned before, “Docking permission granted, please proceed to hanger E docking space 6.”

He did as ordered, flying his ship down to the entrance of the docking bay, where he was ordered to slow, and then a large mechanical hand grabbed them around the hull and pulled them further into the asteroid.

They were dragged inside a ways, though he could definitely have flown in himself, and eventually sat down on E6. 

There was a sharp jolt as they made connection with the airlock, and he stood rom his spot, turning and walking past Geea and towards the cargo bay where his men were waiting. He looked at them each in turn, making slow eye contact with them.

“You know what to do?”

There was a nod as they recognized the true words behind his eye contact, and they quickly moved into pairs of two discussing which piece of “equipment” they were looking for.  It likely wouldn’t take them long, but he didn’t expect that part of their mission to take that long anyway.

Following after them, he was accompanied by Geea, Beatrice and Noble as they walked out into the tube and finally, into the absolutely massive atrium of the hidden Pirate city.

He had to stop, he just couldn’t help it, it was like nothing he had ever seen before, and his mind just couldn’t wrap itself around the massive room full of people and billboards and holograms. There were railed transports on the floor, and there were vendors selling strange food at every turn. It might have been any normal metropolitan area if it weren’t for the sort of advertisements for weapons, and strange illegal creams.

There was one place that was advertising body modifications….. With a ten percent discount if you got the limb removed with them as well.

On another wall someone was advertising a new mechanical eye. The technology hadn’t been released to the public yet, but the features…. Well the features were amazing. He found himself dragged in and rendered mostly stunned. They had him hooked by the first demonstration.

He wanted a cool new mechanical eye.

But Geea grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him, “Aren’t we supposed to be doing something.”

Angrily he frowned and held up a hand turning on her with his eyes narrowed.

He prodded her in the chest in a show of dominance towards her. Letting her know that he wasn’t afraid of being insulted or intimidated by someone  like her. To him she was nothing.

“Look, I’m not stupid. I know that this genius little assasination attempt wasn’t your idea, so right here and right now, you better take me to the asshole who set you up for this is you can color me gone. I don’t work through third parties.” He prodded her in the chest again with one finer, “I don’t trust them.”

The Drev stared down at him with absolute rage and consternation.

“Don’t touch me.” She hissed.

He prodded her again, “Just try and stop me.”

She reached for his hand, but he caught her by the wrist and twisted it. He knew the way Drev joints worked, so he knew exactly what NOT to do. She howled in pain and Beatrice moved forward to help, but a spear to her throat by Noble was enough to stop her in her tracks.

“Show me your boss, or your girlfriend becomes a kabob, your choice.”

There was a sharp growl and finally Geea agreed, taking her hand back with some measure of pain and annoyance, “Fine, fine…. Follow me.”

She stalked away grumpily and Noble kept an eye on beatrice as the were led further into the station.

The captain kept his head turning this way and that distracted by the bright and colorful ads, advertising things that he wanted, and some things that he didn’t.

To his surprise, more than once he saw advertisements for Iron eye Knockoffs. He would have dared get a procedure done on this back alley asteroid, but it was still quite shocking. This air of shock continued along with him as he was led down through the darkness and into the tight passages and tunnels of the Asteroid.

Eventually Geea stopped in front of a door and knocked once.

The camera above the door whirred and looked down at them. Geea waved to it and with a hiss it finally opened.

They were led into a small waiting room with pristine little couches as if he was expecting to see a doctor at any moment, but after a few minutes of sitting another door opened and they were allowed through into the next room.

Geea told him to stay put as she was led behind yet another door.

Not to be left Behind, Beatrice followed after, giving him the opportunity to slip over to the door and quickly deploy a small circular camera which used technology unknown to him to see through the door. 

It streamed directly into his fake eye as he closed the real one, and glanced around the room.

He could hear voices, and enhanced the sound of his implants.

“Did you get the assassin.”

“Yes, but there have been some, hiccups.”

“What might that be?”

“He is insisting on meeting his employers.”

The voice seemed almost bored with the idiot pirates, “Then let him meet someone, he doesn’t have to know. Jerah over there will do just fine.”

He turned his fake eye towards the source of the voice falling on some sort of hologram. He quickly looked up just as Geea was turning back towards the door.

He managed to make it up to the person’s face, a Rundi, how str-

Then he froze in shock and disbelief.

Geea reached towards the door, and it was only with a swift movement he was able to pull his camera away in time an leap from the door as she stepped from the room.

He tried to keep the horror and shock on his face in check as he was led into the room to meet his “employer.”

He didn’t care though.

He knew the truth.

There was plenty of evidence on that camera. Evidence that the chairwoman of the GA had ordered his assassination.

[visionsofus]

angsty 29 please? :)

Hi anon! thank you for requesting some angst, I love writing it ☺️

I've done a longer sick fic and an injured fic too but I think it's about time I write another. Hmm, if anyone wants to send a more detailed sick fic prompt I'd be more than happy to provide the angst.

Also just while thinking about this prompt I had an idea for an ‘emergency contact’ fic but Wanda’s on the run and hasn’t seen Vis in a year? She gets into an accident and Vision arrives at the hospital all frantic? Maybe I could write that too.

29. How do they handle disasters or emergencies? Minor injuries? Sickness?

For now, a disaster fic in which the compound is victim of a cyber attack, Vision goes up against it and gets in trouble.

For a second Wanda thought that maybe the power had simply gone out, it was a plausible enough explanation for all the lights suddenly shutting off. But the compound was powered by arc reactors and Wanda knew enough about them to understand they wouldn’t be affected by a power outage.

“Friday?” Wanda called out to the air, suddenly feeling far more alone with the lights out. Tony’s AI did not respond.

Familiar enough with the layout of her room and relying on a shaft of moonlight from the open window, Wanda made it to her door and opened it.

Down the corridor she heard Sam’s door open and a distinct “What the fuck?” emerge. Wanda used the wall to reach him, touching his shoulder once she was near enough.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“I have no idea,” Wanda said and was just able to make out Sam fishing his phone from his jeans.

The screen should have lit up, but it didn’t. “It was fully charged,’ Sam said, confused. Wanda didn’t know what that meant but it certainly couldn’t be good. She raised a hand and summoned forth a ball of red energy, it cast a distorted red haze across the walls around them but was better than nothing.

Walking slowly, they made it down the stairs and into the living room to find that someone had lit some candles where their teammates had gathered together. Tony had a tablet in front of him, but its screen was dark just like Sam’s phone. Everyone was murmuring in concern, looking to Tony for direction.

“—this shouldn’t be happening, even I can’t hack our system, the firewalls are too tight—” Tony was speaking quickly and not acknowledging the concerned whispers of his friends, all attention directed at Vision.

Wanda released her powers and went to Vision’s side instantly. His posture was tight enough for Wanda to tell he was in some sort of pain. It took all her control not to take his hand and syphon that pain off onto herself.

“This is not generic hacking, it’s a targeted cyber-attack.”

Tony stood immediately, a new urgency about his face. Wanda had never seen him look startled, let alone scared. “Vision you have to cut yourself off now!”

But whatever risk Tony’s foresight had identified, it was too late. Vision went rigid and Wanda cried out in panic as she watched him fall to his knees, shoulders trembling as though under a great, invisible weight.

She didn’t hesitate now and threw herself to the floor beside him, both hands on his cheeks. “Vision!”

Every muscle appeared to have pulled taught and his vibranium turned to stone in response to whatever was going on within his mind. Wanda watched on in horror as Vision’s eyes went wide and then blank. Never before had she looked into the synthezoid’s eyes and not recognised him. The blue had gone cold and unwelcoming and it sent a chill down Wanda’s spine.

“Maximoff, get away from him,” Tony said urgently, gesturing for the rest of the team to back away “If they’ve compromised him, they can control him.”

“Bruce, how’s the back-up generator?” Tony cried into a radio.

Bruce Banner’s voice crackled over in response, “Almost done.”

“Wanda, please,” Nat said stepping forward and putting a hand on Wanda’s shoulder to draw her away. She shook it off in frustration and moved her hands higher, placing them at Vision’s temple.

Wanda had delved into Vision’s mind before but only with his permission. Her first few months at the compound, when her nightmares were particularly bad, a touch of the hand from Vision and he’d invite her into his tranquil brain to deter her terror. Occasionally, Vision preferred to use the telepathy rather than speaking aloud, he found it particularly useful when he couldn’t find the words to vocalise a certain feeling. Never before had Wanda been forced to intrude in this way. But as she pressed forward, she found little resistance.

In the real-world Wanda gasped, winded as she was abruptly dragged into Vision’s mind. He pulled her in desperately, only conscious enough to recognise her familiarity.

In her mind’s eye Wanda was in a small, cramped room. There was a window set into one wall with rain streaming down it, though she wasn’t sure how that was possible. Far above she heard the crackle of thunder and further away what might have been a fire alarm. Vision was tucked up on an old armchair, his head tilted to the side and his eyes closed. For a second Wanda’s heart stopped — but no there it was, the tell-tale rise and fall of his chest.

She reached his side instantaneously, her body not fully present. As she did, Vision’s eyes opened, at first panic stricken but relaxing when he saw her.

“Wanda, darling,” Vision said, holding a hand out for her. But Wanda wasn’t really there, and so couldn’t take it.

“Vision, we have to go, you need to wake up,” Wanda said desperately, not sure if she was thinking it or speaking aloud.

In the distance she heard Tony’s voice, but could barely make out what he was saying. You need to get him to go offline, Wanda.

In the seconds that it took her to divert her attention to Tony, she lost her grip with Vision. The space shifted around them and suddenly they were in another room. For a moment she didn’t recognise where they were, after all, she had only been in Avenger’s tower once, two years earlier. The room was frayed round the edges, like it had slipped Vision’s mind, but the centre scene was clear as it had been the night he was created.

Vision stood before his cradle.

“Vision?” Wanda asked hesitantly moving forward. “What’s going on?”

She recalled Tony’s warning.

“You have to go offline,” she said, hoping Vision would know what that meant.

“I cannot.” Vision’s voice echoed when he spoke, as though it were coming from all around her. “I cannot.”

“Why not?” Wanda asked, reaching out to touch him. Forgetting that she had no hand, that she was merely a presence within his head.

“I disconnect myself then that’s it…” Vision’s voice was growing quieter, and beyond it a loud alarm could be heard. “I am of no use without my mind.”

“That’s not true, Vision,” Wanda pleaded.

“Hurry up Maximoff!” Tony sounded fearful.

“Vision, please, switch it off!”

“I am nothing without this.” Vision looked intently at the cradle.

“You are not nothing!” Wanda yelled, her voice almost drowned out by the chorus of alarms now echoing in her head, uncertain if they were from the real world or a product of Vision’s mind. “You are you, even without a direct line to every piece of knowledge known to humanity!”

Certain that her words weren’t having an effect, Wanda reached deeper, beyond words and followed Vision’s example. She let him into her head. Dragged him into the intimate depths where she kept her fondest memories, guarded beyond steel walls so they might never be taken from her. She let him feel how she felt, let him see his friendships with their teammates from her perspective, she let him see exactly how extraordinary she thought him. And for added measure she let him taste the smallest touch of grief she might feel if he was ever taken from her.

Vision in the Avenger’s tower staggered towards the cradle even as Wanda was thrown from his mind. The last thing she saw was him gripping the power source of the cradle and ripping it out.

Back in the physical realm Wanda’s eyes locked on Vision’s, which were familiar once more. There were voices roiling around them as Tony talked about damage control and what they might have lost, but the lights were coming back on and Vision was here, so Wanda drowned it all out.

“It’s so quiet,” Vision whispered, his eyes were unfocused, “so, so quiet.”

“What do I do?” He whispered fearfully.

Wanda was ready when Vision fell forward, catching his shoulders and letting him lean against her. She caressed the back of his head comfortingly. “You’re ok, you’re here,” she whispered as he clung to her. “You’re safe, I’m here.”

I'm so sorry if this sucked I think I've lost all my words recently

(ask me a prompt from this list and I'll give you a drabble - we'll ignore that this was longer than your typical drabble)

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS | CHAPTER 5

Rating: Explicit.

‼️TW: Reader is EIGHTEEN! Recreational drug use, smoking and alcohol consumption, deeply internalised self-loathing, very questionable moral standards. Daddy kink taken half-seriously. BDSM themes in later chapters - explicit content will come with it's own TWs. FIRST PERSON POV.

Summary: You're Peter's classmate, a child of rich and famous but uncaring parents. Getting paired up for a lengthy project with the boy was an interesting turn of events and you don't know whether to feel blessed or cursed when you develop, seemingly, a perfectly normal, harmless crush on Tony Stark. Fueled by feelings of inadequacy and boredom, your life spirals out of control - and you're lucky your newfound friends are there to pick up the pieces even if you cannot find it in yourself to believe these amazing human (and not so human) beings voluntarily give you more than a fleeting glance and an offhanded thought. And they brought cake!

A/N: Revenge is sweet but a well-timed dick joke is sweeter. xoxo gossip girl. Please supervise one Bucky Barnes on the internet. Questionable music taste. Detention is the price we pay for justice. Bruce Banner is too precious for this world, too pure.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit​ @littlegasps​ @pilloclock​ @shereadsinquiet​ @downeyreads​ @hermione-grangers-wife​ @individualistfem​

Beta read by the lovely and patient @miscmarvelwritings ! 🎶🎵I love you biiitch ain't ever gonna stop loving you biiitch 🎵🎶

"Initiate phase one," I added a growly undertone to my whisper, holding my phone inconspicuously, as if I was making a simple phone call. There was no answer but I didn't expect one: I was testing the voice recorder app that I had downloaded for the sole purpose of documenting and relaying the inevitable fall of one Flash Thompson. 

Making my way through the crowd of students during the busiest time of the day, I made the most intrigued and outraged facial expression I possibly could. Spying my targets, I leaned against a nearby wall, putting a hand over my mouth in fake outrage, keeping my eyes wide and trained on the opposite wall. Just as I had predicted, the two sophomore girls started giving me side-eye by minute two of my staring and finally approached me as I contemplated the wall for whole five minutes.

"I'm sorry, are you okay?" The brunette asked, her blonde friend hanging a step back.

"Yeah, totally," I mumbled. "I'm, like, shook beyond imagination, but nothing, like, bad."

The girls traded a curious look, seemingly coming to some sort of conclusion. The greedy gleam in their eyes had me internally cheering. "What happened?" The blonde one asked, coming closer.

"I'm not sure if I should tell that to anyone," I stammered, watching them bodily move forward. "Well, okay, I can't keep quiet. But you must never, ever speak of it or I'll get expelled or something," I said nervously. They both nodded so rapidly it reminded me of Funko Pop figurines. "You know the senior guy, Flash? Brown hair, kinda hot?" Again, they both nodded, conspicuously grinning. "I think I just saw him in the closed girls bathroom on the third floor with, like, some brunette from Ms. Johnson's History class," They both gasped. Predictable. "But that's not the worst! They were like, y'know," I made an obscene gesture with my hand and they instantly covered their own mouths with their palms in shock. "And the chick was like 'is it in yet?' and he was like 'yah' and I just closed the door and ran, oh my god I hope they didn't hear me," I squealed at the end, playing the part of a mortified teenager.

All three of us giggled uncomfortably for a moment. The blonde girl stared at me suspiciously. "And what were you doing there?"

I faked a nervous stammer, looking around briefly and showing them my lighter for a moment. They both gasped and nodded in recognition. "Don't tell anybody or my mom is going to have kittens," I pleaded. Both of them nodded solemnly, noticing their own group of friends approach. I used the brief moment to get lost in the river of pupils and by the time they turned around to introduce me, I was already at the opposite part of the hallway.

For the time being, everything seemed peaceful. There were a few giggles and side-eyes directed towards Flash Thompson but nothing out of the ordinary. He was disliked by most of the student population even if nobody dared to admit it outright. I took care to walk around without my earbuds for the day and pulled out my phone to record the most interesting conversations around me whenever I caught the tell tale signs of a gossip mill beginning to run its course around the school.

"Oh my god, I heard about this girl that was caught fucking Flash in the girls bathroom and she literally said 'is it in yet', can you imagine the shock, jeez!"

"Some chick literally just rejected Flash because his dick was too small."

"Rebecca from AP chemistry told me someone saw Flash's micropenis. Poor guy!"

"I wonder if his girlfriend dumped him because he can't do shit, I mean, he doesn't look like the type to eat the kitty."

Those were just the highlights of the Friday afternoon. Come the weekend and the news of Flash's unfortunate condition will make the rounds through every single group chat that the school has and by the time Monday rolls around, nobody will have a clue who started the rumour in the first place. I had to carefully select the girls who were to distribute the rumour and I was happy with the outcome: Marissa and Layla with their squad of chatty, bored rich girls were the perfect choice. I thought they would jump at any opportunity to cause drama and I was right.

It was sufficient to say I was bristling with pride as I cut and compiled the audio track from today's school day before sending it to the group chat.

Clint, Peter and Natasha appeared online as soon as the message delivered and I was delighted at their response. Romanoff's kind words, specifically, made me all warm and mushy inside. I didn't resist the feeling, basked in it even as I did a happy dance around my room. Peter's nonsensical string of emojis was another point of laughter for me. 

It wasn't exactly the smartest way to go about killing Thompson's reputation... Alas, simplicity is the way to success when it comes to large crowds of teenagers. That tiny little vindictive part of me was very much looking forward to the weekend and the results of the inevitable distortion of the rumour I had started. Who knew, maybe by Monday Flash Thompson would not only have a micropenis but horns and hooves as well.

Near bedtime, I had all the avengers send me their regards and thumbs up. I answered the flurry of texts as quickly as I could but there was no point in keeping up with ten or so people constantly streaming their questions, opinions and comments. 

I settled on a single easiest response: pulling my dad's old uni sweatshirt over my tiny lacy pajamas to preserve some modesty, I settled in front of my mirror, turning on my Bluetooth speaker to play "Boss Ass Bitch". In true gen-z fashion, I put on my best resting witch face and solemnly lip-synced to the song's eponymous chorus. My eyeliner was sharp enough to cut paper and my prismatic highlighter glittered enigmatically in the cold light of my blue lava lamp.

The response was, once again, delightful and I genuinely belly-laughed at the adults' attempts to meme after Peter. His blushy face emoji started a whole nother conversation that I didn't participate in but watched from the sidelines with glee, snorting every time his friends and mentors gently teased him about the very obvious crush he harboured on me. 

Seeing Peter starting to go absolutely nuts, I interjected with an offer (more like a dare) of a lip sync battle. He jumped on the bandwagon, immediately going offline to undoubtedly film an epic video of what I thought would be dorky-dancing to some hipster song. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a pre-recorded tik tok video of him and Ned fighting with lightsabers while mouthing the words to Fergalicious that played over the Imperial March.

Weirdos. I still followed him on the app, though, it was pretty funny.

Bucky interjected with a very well executed rendition of "Bring Me to Life": he was wearing his full Winter Soldier get-up, complete with an AK-47, dramatically serenading Steve who looked seventeen shades of done with his partner's antics. Wanda's following twenty second voice message consisted of nothing but pure hysterical laughter, summing up everyone's reaction to the video. Bucky was going to go viral one of these days...

Obviously, I had good competition and nobody else seemed to want to participate so I rearranged my surroundings a little bit and stood up at my full height and swapped the old sweatshirt for a cute crop-top hoodie. My thigh-highs were on display and with my make-up, I looked like a proper internet e-girl. I leaned against the mirror as I mouthed along to the song with my best interpretation of the famous Lucifer smirk, seasoned with a tiny bit of angelic innocence: "Doctor, doctor, give me the news, I got a bad case of loving you..."

Needless to say, I won the competition. Eventually Wanda joined in, looking menacing and ominous with her dark clothes and Natasha's red hair flashing somewhere in the background; even Tony did a round (AC/DC as his soundtrack of course) with one of his Iron Man suits but nothing beat my stunt and the reaction that it caused.

I had accidentally called out Bruce with the choice of my song and his teammates gave both of us a lot of cheeky comments about it. We relented and flirted with each other a bit as the conversation flowed into more mundane discussion; I said my good nights somewhere between Tony's bitching about the hobbies of my generation and my nightly skincare routine. The little green heart that I'd become accustomed to over the past few weeks greeted me just as I was about to lock my phone.

Bruce was really too precious for this world. My crush on him was different than the one on Tony, it mellowed out in comparison. I wanted him to hold me, to stroke my hair, to call me his darling and wrap me up in one of those dorky button-ups that he insisted on wearing in spite of Tony's unwanted, however very valid, fashion advice.

For all that's worth, the scientist probably knew or at least suspected and had the good grace to play along just enough to satisfy my deep need for attention... Without crossing any actual lines. It was frustrating, it was disappointing but I had virtually nothing to complain about. Besides, I didn't want to lose the quirky friendship that we had. Banner was, probably, the least judgemental person I knew and I wasn't about to trade that for an awkwardly stolen kiss.

Monday and Tuesday passed in a flurry of giggling and snorting every time Flash walked by. His girlfriend broke up with him, very publicly, accusing him of cheating and he didn't even deny it - just insulted her and stormed off, leaving even his friends looking lost and clueless. I started dragging Peter and his two pet nerds along with me just about everywhere I went in case Thompson decided to do something stupid again. If judging only by the looks he was throwing our little company, he was on his way to figuring out who began nibbling at his reputation.

The week was coming to an end and the rumour began dying off, slowly. That just didn't sit with me, I wanted the fucker gone. Due to the obvious time constraints, I approached MJ regarding Peter - after a brief argument, we came to an agreement regarding Peter's safety should I need to leave him alone in the hallways or at lunch. 

I needed to do this alone so if I got caught, I won't drag them down with me. Granted, I would probably get something like a suspension and the school will attempt to call my mother (she never picks up) but that's about it. That's where her reputation comes in handy-people consciously avoid dealing with her, she can be that unbearable.

But first, I needed to get a teacher that's on my side. After carefully considering the candidates, I settled on my Social Studies professor - he taught the college-level classes and was overall a very chill, nice dude. And he disliked bullies with a flaming passion. So it didn't take me long to work him into a righteous fury - just a quick chat over a cup of tea in his homeroom and a few pictures of Peter's bruised face, complete with my own pleading puppy eyes. We agreed Mr Davies would "accidentally" leave the teacher's lounge unlocked during third period and I would sneak in. The plan wasn't foolproof but if it worked, not only Flash, but also his whole misogynistic, bigoted family would go down.

As I was leaving, Mr Davies looked up at me with a bright smile: "Give them Hell, alright?" And I suddenly noticed he was, in fact, very attractive. The smile brought out the fine wrinkles around his mouth, the crow's feet around his eyes - he smiled a lot. Silver strands mixed in with the wooden brown of his hair.

I let my eyes slide over him briefly before baring my teeth in return. "I owe you one," I don't know what possessed me to say that. My mouth really had a mind of its own sometimes. The room suddenly became hot.

"Sure," He replied, totally oblivious.

On Friday, I made myself a small nest in the empty classroom opposite the teacher's lounge and sat waiting for the signal from Mr Davies - he'd tap on the door once and I'd quietly go inside the teacher's lounge, retrieve Thompson's file and make my way back to the empty classroom to grab my backpack and carry the file to my locker for further examination. 

The first part went successfully and I managed to snag Thompson's file. It was heavy and hefty, all the evidence of his rowdiness compiled into one flimsy plastic folder. There were A LOT of pink slips and I rejoiced internally: at least there was a paper trail of his exploits. The principal didn't do anything about it which was... If not against the rules then at least frowned upon; the plan was to take copies and anonymously submit them to the school board prompting at least an investigation into the blatant disregard for Flash's immoral and illegal behaviour.

On my way back I stumbled upon the principal herself which got me not only a stern talking to, but a whole detention for skipping class. Whatever, I was too elated from potentially ruining the life of a dumb fuck who ruined my friend's face.

Surprise came in the face of Mr Davies, who, having heard the commotion in the hallway, stepped out of his class and saw me being lectured by the principal. 

"I'll take her for the detention," I heard the familiar voice behind me. The principal nodded solemnly and I had no choice but to sigh in resignation. "Three thirty, be here," He nodded to me, walking back, looking way too smug for his own good. So I wasn't the only one excited about the successful completion of stage two of my nefarious plan. Cue evil laughter.

[the-deep-fog]

The moon and sun have lost themselves to obscurity, and Fog descends. The environment is as classic a superpowered showdown setting one can get while still playing hospitality to a meandering mist that prefers uncountably many corners to hide itself in. One villain, a radioactive rebel holding to life like a weed that takes in pesticides for dessert, scouts the area, freshly healed and eager for a bout of vengeance. Another, the spitefully surviving embodiment of Harlan Ellison’s worst fears, calmly scours the playing field with no end of possible ending gambits stored in its motherboard/mind. Fully beknownst to their individual selves, whispered wonders and warnings reach them from unseen mouths yawning in the mist, subtly and ever so maddeningly guiding them further within the misty maze. Until, they meet. “Oh, Haricot,” CD crows, “back so soon? Why couldn’t you have stayed in the ground to rot a little longer? Are you that eager for another easy loss?” “Far from it, Chess,” returns Haricot. “Surely you don’t think I’d simply waste my time while relieved of your presence for ever so short a while?” It scoffs. “I should hope so, or else this will be over far too quickly to even be fun.” Ey smirk and start to reply, but cut emself off as the air between the two collects, gathers, and confuses into the outline of a figure sitting cross-legged with its chin resting in its hands. “Why, hello you two, Fancy meeting you here.” Both let off annoyed sighs (the similarities stopping there). CD speaks up. “Ugh, can’t you ever take this seriously?” “Yeah, way to kill the vibe,” Haricot follows up. Their complaints are met with only a grin. Suddenly directly in their faces, Fog actually replies, “So. I bet you’re wondering why I’m here.” The villainous duo look bemused, in a conniving sort of way. Haricot speaks first. “Believe it or not, I do know why you’re here- and Chess, trust me when I say it’s not a pleasant reason for you.” Incredulous, Chess replies, “Excuse me, but it’s not like I don’t know their reason for being here, and though your reaction seems improper it’s not like it matters that you think you know the situation, when in fact you’re in for...” “I didn’t lie, you know. To either of you.” Fog’s everlasting grin shifts slightly to a smirk, and the two rivals come to a realization at the same time. “Oh, you slippery little- “I knew that promise was too good to be true!” Well aware that riling up two of the biggest supervillains round the block leaves them in dire straits, the formless figure untangles their stature, giving off the appearance of taking a fighting stance. “Now, now, I’m not going back on my word at all! I shall deal as much damage as I can, just as promised. It’s only up to you whether to take advantage of the situation as it concerns your adamant adversary, or, yknow. Direct your avenging attention elsewhere.” Haricot reaches for a thorny beanstalk as they rise from the earth in numbers. “If you get dealt with permanently through all this, that’s one less thing getting in the way of me taking down Chess for good.” CD, in tandem, tessellates a jagged aspect of the ground and nods. “The less you bug me, Fog, the easier I’ll have it claiming victory over Haricot as well.” Zer smile grows even further, accompanied by the emergence of eyes from countless nooks and crannies in The Fog one could not imagine. For just because nobody could possibly know how one misty menace might pose a tangible threat, inflict damage of a directly mortal kind, it could be true all the same.

...

“Why are you doing this?” shouts Haricot, steadily growing a host of shrubs to shield emself with. “You must have a motive, nobody ever does stuff like this without a motive.” The Fog laughs, gleeful as ever, a booming sound that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. “You think I have a motive? That I am driven by anything to do what I do? Such things are the creations of you individuals; I have never had use for them. I go, and I act, and if that’s too much for you to comprehend then...” Though irradiating to demolition an eye that can hardly be described as there at all is a daunting task, Haricot pulls it off with determined flair. “Yeah, but you’re clearly going after me and Chess with some specificity- why go through all that extra effort? I know we’re not easy targets.” Fog lunges from & through nothing, resting in midair directly in front of them and looking at them intensely- less in a means of observation and more as mere eye contact for the first time they can think of. “Oh, the questions I ask have you asking questions in turn, what a wonderful relationship we have!” Haricot takes a step back, trying to develop personal space in a place where space itself can hardly be relied on, much less personhood, while Fog holds almost violently still amid the malevolent maelstrom. “I ask you this because you ask me the very same. Never has my question been, ‘why do you do this?’ because never have you, the one in my domain, done something humans don’t, and never has your question of ‘why’ been something I-” The ground beneath Haricot’s feet, steady as carbon-14, dissolves into murky air. Fog is torn to shreds above em as ey hurtle an unfathomable distance downward, till a web of vines and sludgy wood dense enough to support em forms. Though unclimbable walls extend around them, and depths great enough to distort the definitions of up and down yawn in every other direction, Fog reemerges from around a corner that cannot be found with an unprecedented frenzy in xer eyes. “You fight for your life, to survive, and I know how-why that happens. I know it,” they speak, with enough force to shatter a barometer. “Survival and curiosity are what motivates a human, but you two aren’t human, you reject it entirely, and you’re driven by more than this basic, primal duality, the intrinsic and extrinsic.” Can it yet be called an invasion of personal space when one has lost any sense of their body’s own position in space, and the other never had one to begin with? “You’re like me, and everybody questions me, and I too question everyone, but, I never- Sticks and stones degrade at the rotting hand of nuclear fusion. Haricot Heretic fights on.

...

Chess offenses, enacting gambit after glitchy gambit. “Damn you,” it mutters, then speaks more loudly into the stormy still. “What’s your goal in all this? Where are you trying to take this?” A cackle, harsh and untraceable, answers it at first. “Now, why would you assume I care for the results of my actions? That I aspire to achieve anything at all, beyond what you bear witness and contribute to as we speak?” Every word from The Fog’s mouths slithers through the air without discretion, almost as though it cares more about being heard than having its words said. The sharpness is turned down, resolution diminished, and threat put aside in a display of defensive tactics (though, how a cloud could ever be sharp enough to threaten in the first place remains bewilderingly unclear). “Look, you say you’ll never be satisfied, that it doesn’t matter if results are insubstantial- I don’t buy that. But you must know how we fight well enough to tell this won’t end well for you, so why devise all this in the first place?” CD asks again. It’s greeted by a face, ferocious and fanged, thrusting from the warring pixelation and obscurity besieging them. “I am transparent, you devil. You’re right, this is all futile, and for you to be correct at all shows my failure beautifully. I know not where this capacity for failure and determination in spite of such came from, because if I did, if my years spent interrogating the human race turn out to now have a tangible point, a lesson for me to learn, then-” Something or nothing or another scrapes hard against Chess’ horns, toppling it backwards into freefall. The ground, or whatever is passing for it, meets it immediately; jagged, hungry, & inviting. Something, many of it, planar and sharp enough to cut, is propelled or flung from the floor at it as it tries to pick itself up again. “You ask me questions I cannot, rather than will & would not answer, and I give you information I would & will not rather than can not.” Hir words seep through the condensation, slithering forward from behind its back just as easily as toothy mouths stretch as far as it can see in front of it. “You’re asking me questions none other have asked me- it should be inevitable. So why do I ask you, is it because you are different from any I have met before, or because I am different than-” The hard line between ones and zeroes forces separation and relief from the unclarity oppressing itself unto it. Checkmate is sought for ever longer. Checkered Devil fights on.

...

The fog is in no way noticed shifting, and yet Haricot & Chess find themselves in a clearing all the same. The two stand poised, not yet tired nor in peak form after all that has passed. Fog hangs in the air in front of them, not in form either. Sharp eyes, inhuman teeth, fill up space surrounding as they always have; a face, almost an outline, is arranged on Fog as it never has. It’s hesitant. Acting on impulse. Cowed and afraid. With all the cards in its hands. Ready to give up. Surely unstoppable. The target of infinite inquiries. Uncertain. “What do we have in common? Nothing of your motivation unites you with humanity- I am filled with questions, and that unites me with... them.” To Haricot and Chess, the sensation of eyes sliding their attention off them and onto another had never before been so very tangible. Nor had anything to do with Fog ever been tangible, though, only this far. “I know humanity when I see it- I don’t think these roles were meant to be reversed, okay?” they cut themself off, with their form almost seeming to be headed in a similar direction. Towards our villainous pair, a hand stretches forward. The wind picks up, drowning out sound & blurring vision, forcing the two to brace themselves; the only thing left clear in the maelstrom is a pair of eyes & a simple mouth- a face -and that hand, reaching, grasping, searching as far as it possibly can. “I am faced with the incomprehensible, filled to my limit with questions thanks to you two,” they yell, and scream, and whisper into the wind, “and it’s maddening. Every time i look at you two, it’s so, so, familiar it hurts

...

The sun rests comfortably in the sky. The moon, desaturated, finds a place above our villains’ heads as well. The Checkered Devil and Haricot Heretic stand, alone, on a simple grassy field. The air has cleared, only in a literal sense, and on the flat, clean, ground, rests a notebook, plain as can be.

...Does it get opened to the very first, or the very last page?

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

I HEARD A SCREAM...

… in the woods somewhere.

What do you know about the Walten Files?

Theater Ahead. I like a good dramatic show, so I’m going to add some flaire. Some will be references, some will be questions, some will just be me being weird. Its all good fun, I assure you. Stuff like this usually is. The song being referenced is Hozier’s “In the Woods”.

Horror Ahead. Do Not Consume after Dark. Do Not Consume until 18+. If you cannot stand blood, body horror, horror and terror, the dark, and murderous robots, this is your final warning. Turn away. For some things should remain in darkness, and we only have a lighter for company…

Spoilers Ahead. If you haven’t seen the Walten Files, I’d watch them. I’d recommend some theory videos then, to make some sense of what you saw. We’re plunging into the dark and the deep, and the story here has both a helpful narrative and a malicious one. Someone is trying to help us, but someone is trying to stop us…

 [Safety in Pills, Sophie]

A brief summary, the Walten Files (made by Martin Walls on Youtube) are a VHS style horror-mystery series on Youtube, taking inspiration from both the Lost VHS FNAF videos and FNAF itself.

Our (Main) Animatronics this time around are: - Bon, the Bonnie-inspired central character. Definitely, explicitly, implied to be possessed by one Jack Walten, who is the center of our supernatural stuff. Whatever is going on, it leads back to Jack. We have not seen Jack Walten’s death scene, and that’s one of our biggest mysteries. Bon is HOSTILE DO NOT TOUCH. - Bannie, a purple female bunny character. Explicitly implied to be possessed by one Susan Woodings. She have a lot of implication of her death, but nothing confirmed. - Boozoo, what appears to be a human(like) circus master looking character. Implied to be possessed by one Charles (Walten?); we have not had any scenes, as of this writing, on when or how Charles died, only implication that he is possessing Boozoo. - Sha, a white female Sheep character (too easily mistaken for a Poodle). We know she’s possessed by one Rosemary Walten. We watched it happen. - Billy, a Clown animatronic. Likely possessed by one Ashley P, as we got to listen to her death screams as Bon stuffed her into the animatronic. Billy the Clown has a list of names on a tape, overriding a birthday party song.

Now, I’m not gonna go through any Mass Story theories and I’m not going to make a timeline, but I am going to point out some things I saw and found. Minitheories, probably, lots of speculation, maybe, and mayhaps, we’ll get some stepping stones. [You do not have all the clues to solve this]

 0. DEATH OF THE AUTHOR (OF THE RECORDING) … I clutched my life, and wished it kept.

Notice how every File ends in a Death? Mostly the Deaths of the Employees who made the ending video? File 3 is going to be interesting…

CONSIDERATIONS: - If the 3D distorting face was Bon’s recognition software, does it also have something to do with why Brian’s face was beyond recognition? A horrifying turn of events, if Bon was actively trying to make his head as the 3D imaging was trying to make the Identification fit some sort of Criteria.

 1. CRYING ANIMATRONICS … I saw new eyes were watching me.

One thing that separates Bon’s Animatronics from FNAF’s is that these guys cry. When in cartoon form, they’ll do one of two kinds of crying: Actual sadness and tears, which is to be expected from cartoons, and the black stream, which is to be expected from horror.

But there is importance here.

For one thing, they only seem to do this (except in one case, but we’ll get to that) when encountering certain entities.

For example, our mystery sprite, which I’m dubbing the “Shadow With Eyes”.

In the cartoon, where Sha introduces us to the K9 Facility, the Shadow With Eyes appeared on the second time we entered the Basement, blocking the bottom doorway. [How odd, I remember we visited this room already]

When she finally appears on screen, Sha starts crying with tears. (Her poster has blacked out eyes). When she attempts to go down to the blocked doorway, either into or through the Shadow With Eyes, the scene glitches / crashes.

The poster is crying the dark streams, and so is Sha.

Not long after, we’re introduced to the story and death of Rosemary.

We are treated with the image of her cartoon dismembered corpse, and to Bon, with bloodied hands (and a bloodied leg?), as he stuffed the pieces into Sha. However… He’s caught in the act, as the screen turns from black to white (lights on?) and the Shadow With Eyes walks through the Employee’s Only door. Sha is distorted…

But Bon is crying Black Streams.

We have been introduced to this before. The first animatronic who “cried” was Bon from the first File, with the dark streams, implied to be blood. And when he did this, it was in the middle of Brian Stells’ video recording.

Is it possible that the Shadow With Eyes is an Employee? Perhaps even a Facility Caretaker? It does appear in the K9 Facility, and the purple uniform is shown being worn by an Employee in the Relocate Project video as they pack Billy into a moving Van.

But wait.

What about Bannie? She cries tears, then cries black streams / blood. But there doesn’t appear to be anyone around.

But her room was glitching too, wasn’t it? She couldn’t leave, the doorways kept her inside. She was trying to get out, trying to get the “Owner’s” attention.

Perhaps… She had a Witness who ignored her.

[There’s something missing here…]

QUESTIONS: - Who is the Shadow With Eyes? Are they a Facility Caretaker? - Who was the poor bastard who walked in on Rosemary’s murder? - Does this give reason why Bon attacked Brian?

 2. LOOKIN’ FOR FRIENDS … I called your name till the fever broke.

Bannie introduced us to the Animatronic expressions, and while it doesn’t appear to be relevant yet. I should note, that when Bon (or someone) called Rosemary backstage at Bon’s Burgers… His eyes were also in “LOOKING FOR FRIENDS” mode, before settling on Rosemary. The same mode Bannie was tested on, before settling on the Viewer / Recorder.

QUESTIONS: - The Mode was introduced by the Revisions, so how the Hell did Bon have it years before? - Bon talks?

3. BACKROOM … I turned and ran, to save a life I didn’t have.

In the introductory cartoon with Sha, Sha tries to explain what the three doors have. But when she gets to the third door [Oh what does it Hide], her face distorts. With small blank black eyes, and a mouth that was clearly edited to be upside down [make that smile turn into a frown].

We do see this later. With Ashley P’s portrait with her friends, as she is being murdered or worse by Bon… After going into the Backrooms.

Every Facility Caretaker (and Tech it seems) is given a small key, and that small key goes to the Backrooms.

The Backrooms hide something, and its possible that it hides Billy (an Animatronic implied to have been on Stage, but not stored with the other Stage Animatronics) and a tape with the names (A hitlist?). But the end text says that Ashley “Saw” something, not listened.

QUESTIONS: - Was the Third Door the Backroom as the editing Implies? - Why are the Main Animatronics stored separately from all the ones in the Backrooms? - If the Techs were supposed to repair the animatronics, why not just take the endoskeletons and other parts from the Backroom, and place them where they can be easily found and thus make things go faster? - What did Ashley see, if it wasn’t the tape? Was it Billy? Another strange animatronic? (the Gray Rabbit?) - If there is something in the Backrooms meant to be hidden, why give a Key to the Employees at all? Why not keep it with those who are “in the Know”? Its almost as if someone wants something to be found… Murderous Bunny notwithstanding.

4. NAMES ARE IMPORTANT ... I prayed my mind be good to me.

The names of the characters all have meanings, and some of them might be important: - JACK - Gracious; Supplanter; Man - WALTEN - Foreigner; Wood; Wall; Stream; Ruler - ROSEMARY - Rose + Mary - SUSAN - Lily Flower; Rose - WOODINGS - Wood Cutting; Mad (?) - CHARLES - Man; Free Man; Warrior; Army - BRIAN - High; Noble - STELLS - Stella? Star. - ASHLEY - Ash Meadow; Ash Tree Meadow - ANTHONY - Son of Herakles; Priceless One; Flower - FELIX - Lucky - KRANKEN - Suffer (... Now that’s an interesting last name) + MARY - Bitter; Beloved; Rebelliousness; Wished-For-Child; Marine; Drop of the Sea. + HERAKLES - Glory of Hera + HERA - Beloved; Air

- SOPHIE - SOPHIA. Wisedom; Skill; Cleverness; Intelligence [Be Wise] CONSIDERATIONS: There are themes of knowledge, light, darkness, blindness, and last I checked... We do have a “holy” entity, Sophia, from Gnosticism and Gnosticism deals in themes of Knowledge, Light, Darkness and Blindness. A demiurge that created a suffering world... A world in darkness... A world where man suffers...

Hm...

[... With knowledge but never with...]

5. Sy05 (?) [?] … I spoke no words, no sound he made.

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

 To be continued as the series continues.

How many years I’ll know I’ll bear I found something in the woods somewhere.

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 28: Fusion Frenzy (originally published on October 4, 2021)

AN: It's fusion time everyone! Last time, Black Rutile initiated Phase 2 of her new plan to eradicate her enemies by interrupting the President's emergency address and now, she's on her way to Beach City as we speak to begin Phase 3. Can the Crystal Gems stop this monster and save both Steven & the Earth? Find out today on Steven Universe Alternate Future!

Synopsis: Bluebird Azurite, Black Rutile & White Topaz return to capture Steven.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Monster Steven, Watermelon Stevens

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl, Volleyball, Mega Pearl

Grace Rolek as Connie/Future Connie

Tom Scharpling as Greg

Shelby Rabara as Peridot/Future Peridot

Jennifer Paz as Lapis

Uzo Aduba as Bismuth/Future Bismuth

Kimberly Brooks as Jasper

Noël Wells as Black Rutile/Future Black Rutile

Lauren Ash as White Topaz

Della Saba as Aquamarine

Charlyne Yi as Eyeball

Larissa Gallagher as Bluebird Azurite

Patti LuPone as Yellow Diamond

Lisa Hannigan as Blue Diamond

Christine Ebersole as White Diamond

Sarah Stiles as Spinel

Aparna Nancherla as Lemon Jade

Erica Luttrell as Future Sapphire

Lin-Manuel Miranda as President Eduardo Suarez

Wendie Malick as Vice President Theresa Maxwell

GZA as Major General Wade Grant

Aimee Mann as Opal

Billie Eilish as Turquoise

Esme Bianco as Malachite

Catherine Tate as Lepidolite

Toks Olagundoye as Nanafua

--

Closed off from the chaos outside, Jasper remained curled up in the bathtub, sobbing quietly over being rejected by her Diamond, over how nothing seemed to go right for her on Earth, and how she'd rather have gone back to Homeworld with the Diamonds rather than stay with all the other healed Gems. However, her misery wouldn't last any longer.

"Can you keep it down?! I'm trying to mope!" Jasper bellowed before she finally burst from the bathroom and marched on outside as she heard roaring from the beach. However, what she saw was a shocking sight. "What is that?"

"Is that you Jasper?" Lapis exclaimed as she hovered over to her orange frenemy. "Where have you been this whole time, you'd be pretty useful here but it seems like you don't want to!"

"I was busy being depressed, brat." Jasper snarled at Lapis. "Depressed over how my Diamond left me again. Now where is he? I want to give him a piece of my mind!"

"Funny you should mention that," Peridot replied loudly. "That monster thing is Steven!"

"You're kidding!" Jasper replied before she began sounding more insecure. "Please tell me you're kidding and that this isn't all my fault because he shattered me, I'm begging you guys!"

"Are you okay?" Pearl asked the big Quartz as Lapis brought Jasper over to the Gems. "You're sounding a bit more frantic than usual."

"Sorry," Jasper began, cringing at the thought of apologizing for something she did. "I just think this might be my fault, since because of me he went mad with power and shattered me."

"It's not your fault Jasper," Garnet said comfortingly. "I think we all might be to blame here. But it could be worse." The fusion followed up by kissing Jasper on the forehead, much to her disgust.

"Ew, what did you do to me?!" Jasper yelped in disgust as she harshly rubbed at her forehead before her vision began to distort. "Wait, what's-"

--

What Jasper then saw was not a beautiful seaside where a monster stormed about, but the remnants of Little Homeworld, now reduced to ruins in the middle of a desolate wasteland. As far as she could see, no life could be seen for miles, all except for a ragtag band of survivors finding their way in this apocalyptic future.

"Any sign of He Who Must Not Be Named yet?" the possible future version of Peridot, easily distinguished from her regular self through wearing Pearl's blazer, asked a young adult version of Connie.

"No, thankfully." Connie said as she looked through the skies with her binoculars. "But we gotta move at some point, he could be here at any moment now!"

"No, I say we stay and fight!" Bismuth declared. "I don't care if that's still Steven, you all seen what he did to our friends!" she added despondently. "Ruby, Amethyst, Pearl, Lapis, they're all gone now, all thanks to him!"

"Bismuth, you're being irrational." Sapphire calmed the blacksmith down. "But I do agree, there's no future I see where we calm Steven down and rebuild society."

"Well, let him come." Peridot stated tiredly. "Anything to be with Lapis again. I'm just so tired of fighting."

As the surviving Crystal Gems bowed their heads in shame of how powerless they were to save their loved ones, a hoarse, piercing laugh rang out, causing the four to take up arms against whatever foe crossed their path. That foe in question turned out to be Black Rutile, now without her cape and her visor showed many visible cracks.

"Ah, yes." Black Rutile said as her laughing turned into smirking. "Tired of something you barely even did to begin with. Maybe if you two weren't tossed to the side after the Cluster and reduced to a comic relief role, that little witch could've stood a better chance."

"Be very careful with what you say next." Connie threatened the Rutile by pointing her sword straight at her gem.

"Oh come now Mama-Say-Mama-Sah-Warren, I've lost people too." Black Rutile grinned while lowering the sword. "I've lost people too. Heck, you saw how Steven killed my old gang, and now he's after me too for all I've done."

"Well frankly, you had it coming for all that." Bismuth responded before turning her finger into a spike. "Now pipe down while I smash you to pieces."

"Bismuth, stop." Connie advised Bismuth. "I think she might be our best chance at surviving yet."

"Are you serious?!" Peridot shrieked in defiance. "It's all because of her that Steven went nuts, shattered Jasper, and then started rampaging across the planet and maybe beyond! All our friends and family are dead because of Black Rutile, and you think she might help us?!"

"We kept you around despite being a Homeworld loyalist." Sapphire told Peridot.

"So anyways, you might be our best chance at stopping Steven." Connie said to Black Rutile before sticking her hand out. "You in?"

"I'm going to assume that if I don't play by your rules, I'll pay with my life?" Black Rutile asked as she shook the human's hand.

"You bet." Connie answered. "When I found White Topaz before Steven shattered her, she begged me, with her last words that when I'd kill you, and make no mistake I will kill you, I'll give you the slowest and most painful death I can offer. And if you try and run away, I'm going to honor that promise."

As the handshake broke, Black Rutile was left completely speechless at both Connie's death threat and her late bodyguard having the audacity to wish death upon her. Before long, her silence was broken by another bout of maniacal laughter at Connie's expense. "Honor? Really kid?" Black Rutile declared. "You know we live in a society, or at least what's left of one, where honor is but a distant memory."

"You talk too much, you know that?" Sapphire snarked before she received another future vision, one that might spell their doom. "My stars, he's coming!"

While Connie, Peridot, Bismuth, and Sapphire prepared for the fight of their lives, Black Rutile looked up at the pink-colored sonic boom in the sky and laughed as a pink glowing figure landed on the ground in front of the rebels, the resulting impact causing more destruction to Little Homeworld.

Connie pointed her sword at their opponent, and her face softened upon discovering who it was. A pink, gargoyle-like monster whose size was equal to Bismuth's with massive horns on his head, scars on his chest forming a star, and a pink gem on his stomach.

"Steven?"

--

"So all that could've happened, because of me?" Jasper despaired as she was returned to the present day before dropping to her knees. "You were right, I am nothing but trouble."

"Okay, maybe you are, but you can still change." Amethyst rejected Jasper's notion. "And you can start by helping us stop him!" She then pointed to the pink monster, who took one look at Jasper and began to run away from her, no doubt the Steven inside it afraid to see Jasper again after killing her.

"Hey, get back here!" Jasper yelled as Steven tried to run straight towards Beach City.

"It's gonna smash Beach City!" Amethyst yelled. "We gotta stop him!" Without even a chance to be asked, Lapis summoned a water rope that she used to lasso Steven and drag him away from Beach City.

"So, is there any way to fix him?" Jasper asked.

"None that we know of so far." Garnet replied. "Not even the Diamonds could solve this problem."

"And now, I don't think there's anything we can do." Pearl declared.

"Anything, except surrender." Black Rutile declared as she, White Topaz, Aquamarine, and Eyeball dropped down from and stood before the group with an army of robots behind them. "Oh look, everyone is here! We got the insipid oppressors, their mindless sheep, and the sorry excuses for monarchs!"

"What's your game Black Rutile?" White Diamond angrily asked her former subordinate.

"It's quite simple really." Black Rutile replied. "Thanks to yours truly, all of you are now enemies of humanity for allowing this to happen!" She pointed at Steven. "And not just your little monster problem, but for all the horrible things you've done to this planet! And all while you were too busy crying like babies for the brat."

"Yeesh, someone likes to talk." Spinel murmured.

"Zip it, playmate!" Aquamarine declared. "Once all of you are out of the way, our master shall claim this galaxy as her own!"

"And maybe become one of the great Universal Lords!" Eyeball added.

--

All across the world, riots began breaking out over Black Rutile's broadcast. Picket signs were made, effigies were burned, and calls were made to eliminate the Crystal Gems' threat to humanity, even though not a single one of them knew of their existence before today.

In Washington, Theresa was showing Suarez a livestream on her phone of a group of people in Russia cursing in their native language of how the Gems deprived them of their ancestors' native land, leaving the president more depressed over the incident just as Wade strolled into the Oval Office.

"I just got off the phone with Prime Minister Sorayama." Major General Grant said. "He's saying the cabinet of Japan is ready to launch everything they've got against the monster and the Crystal Gems. They just need you to give the okay."

"No, we are not nuking anything!" Eduardo screamed, making the vice president and the major general jump a bit. "I know the Gems are good, kind people, but is it really true they're responsible for all that? And who's this Pink Diamond anyway?"

"I know they're your friends Mr. President, but what friends places the world in danger so many times, the only one to address that is another member of their species?" Grant asked. "It's your choice, sir. Your friends or your country?"

"He raises a pretty good point, sir." Theresa stated. "What's it gonna be?"

After wiping a few tears from his eyes, Eduardo turned to face the window behind him and made his decision. "Major General, tell Japan to call off the attack. Because we're doing it ourselves."

--

Back in Beach City, Black Rutile continued her speech to the Gems. "Look at all of this." She declared. "This is the chaos I've wanted to engender for so long. I wanted to build a new Homeworld order where you failed, but you chose Steven over your own people just because he's family." As Black Rutile continued speaking, she could feel her sanity begin to teeter off the edge more and more. "My purpose was to fight for the Gems, that is the sole purpose I was given. And now, I barely have any people left. That is what you have taken from me. That is what you have taken from EVERYONE!"

"That is where you're wrong!" Pearl boasted in reply. "You may think you're a misunderstood hero, but you're not! You're nothing more than a sociopathic, bloviating monster who only thinks that she's doing what's best for everyone! As actual heroes, we'll fight to stop you till our last breath, because we are the Crystal Gems and we'll always save the day!"

With that, Pearl took Amethyst's hand and the two merged into Opal, who pulled out her bow and fired an arrow at Black Rutile, who only moved her head an inch to the right to dodge it.

"Oh, fusions, eh?" Black Rutile snickered. "I guess we should even the odds then." She then turned to White Topaz. "Topaz, to me!"

"Right away my Rutile." White Topaz sadly complied and fused with Black Rutile to once again form Lepidolite.

"BEHOLD PEONS!" Lepidolite declared bombastically. "THE UNPARALLELED, UNIMAGINABLY ALMIGHTY LEPIDOLITE HAS FINALLY RETURNED!"

"Oh geez, she can fuse too?" Lapis snarled before turning to Jasper. "Hey Jasper, wanna join in?"

"Whatever." Jasper said and the two formed into the turquoise and gold-colored Malachite.

"Well, you know what to do Eyeball." Aquamarine said as she took the Ruby's hand and twirled in place before they formed Bluebird Azurite and unsheathed her ice cutlass & a flaming saber.

"Gems, now!" Garnet gave the order to attack and led the charge against the four rebels. However, Greg was feeling a little left out.

"Uh, what about me?" Greg asked as the battle began. "If only I could still make Steg." However, Greg quickly saw Lion rising beneath him and making the father ride on his back. "Oh, well that should suffice." Greg smiled before he made Lion gallop into combat. "WOLVERINES!"

--

Lepidolite roared as she threw a punch at Malachite, who caught it in one of her hands and fought back by launching a geyser at Lepidolite's face, sending her flying towards Peridot, who sent Bismuth soaring before the rainbow Gem smacked Lepidolite into the sand with her hammer.

"Feeling a little outmatched?" Malachite boasted with her arms folded.

"Child's play!" Lepidolite growled while summoning her claws and slashing Malachite in the torso. However, Malachite quickly grabbed Lepidolite by the arms and summoned Jasper's crash helmet to give her a nasty headbutt. "Topaz, what are you doing?" the Black Rutile half of Lepidolite asked. "Pull your weight and help me here!"

"But it's the four of us against all the Crystal Gems, the Diamonds, and even a Spinel!" the White Topaz half replied as Malachite began punching Lepidolite at rapid speed. "We're so outmatched here, let's just un-fuse and surrender so we won't have to risk our lives against such an unfair numbers advantage."

"Oh shut up!" Black Rutile yelled before Lepidolite received another punch to the face. However, Lepidolite just as quickly stabbed Malachite with her claws and slowly dragged them up her torso up to her face, hitting both Lapis & Jasper's gems and causing them to un-fuse.

"I got you guys!" Greg shouted as Lion leaped up and he caught the two Gems on his back. Lion then followed up with a roar aimed straight at Bluebird while she was fighting Opal, who was sent flying towards Spinel.

"Comin' at ya!" Spinel exclaimed before she began dribbling Bluebird like a basketball and flung her at some of Black Rutile's robot minions, who were firing at the Diamonds.

"Well, at least we tried with Malachite." Lapis said while getting up before she turned to Peridot. "Hey Peridot, wanna give it a shot!"

"Gladly!" Peridot exclaimed and raced over to her bestie.

"Wait, what?" Jasper asked as she watched her former cohorts fuse into Turquoise. "Since when can you do that?!"

"Don't ask, just fight!" Turquoise declared while forming a set of three swords out of liquid metal from the air to use, two in her hands and one between her teeth.

"Right." Jasper agreed as she prepared to charge. "Let's kill her properly this time."

--

Amid the chaos, Volleyball and Lemon Jade were left trying to escape harm with no idea what to do in battle, as they had never engaged in combat before.

"What are we going to do?!" Lemon Jade yelled while shaking Pink Pearl in her hands.

"I have no idea!" Volleyball replied. "I did fuse before, but it wasn't really for fighting an enemy." That was when she got an idea. "Wait, hold on!"

Volleyball ran towards Opal, who was busy shooting down Black Rutile's robots with her arrows when she felt something pulling down at her drape. "Oh, do you need something Volleyball?"

"Can I fuse with you Pearl so I can protect Jade?" Volleyball asked Opal.

"In the middle of something, but that's a definite possibility." Opal replied, unaware of the robot that was now hovering behind her.

"TARGET OPAL CONFIRMED. COMMENCE UN-FUSING." The robot droned and sent out an electric shock that forced Opal back into Pearl & Amethyst.

"Well ain't that a coincidence." Amethyst snarked as the two Pearls fused into Mega Pearl. "It's like she planned for this!"

"She planned for everything Amethyst." Mega Pearl responded before slashing away at robots that were cornering Lemon Jade.

--

Meanwhile, Turquoise was engaged in a swordfight against Bluebird Azurite, her metal katanas against Bluebird's ice and fire swords. "This is what you get for taking Steven and causing Lapis to leave me!" Turquoise yelled as she tried to stab Bluebird in any opening she could find.

"Oh, did kidnapping Steven hurt you that much?" Bluebird snickered. "I wouldn't have guessed judging by how you never show up." The smaller fusion quickly disarmed Turquoise and prepared to go in for the kill, but she had another thing coming.

"Got this from a manga." Turquoise grinned cheekily while cupping all four of her hands to her side and sticking them out, launching a torrent of water at Bluebird's face.

As for the Diamonds, they were busy protecting Steven from the robots by swatting them away. "These things are multiplying by the second!" Blue said while smashing drones to the ground so that the surviving Watermelon Stevens could dismantle them. "We have to get Steven somewhere safe so we can calm him down!"

"Everyone's trying their hardest, but Black Rutile just keeps coming back up." Yellow replied.

"Don't despair, we can win this!" White added, confident that they could still win the day somehow when she spotted something in the distance. "Wait, what are those?”

--

"Get a move on everyone, we're wasting daylight here!" Wade Grant barked to his men from his Humvee as the US Army advanced towards Beach City. As their goal was only to capture the Crystal Gems, they didn't need massive tanks, only jeeps, armored vans, and helicopters to get the job done. As the seaside town grew closer and closer, some of the army men felt the need to converse among themselves.

"So, do you think it might be sexist to capture a bunch of alien women?" one of the soldiers driving an armored van asked his companion.

"I'm not sure." The other soldier replied. "From what I've heard, they only look like women. They kinda don't have any gender since they're like, holograms projected by rocks. Holograms that happen to look female."

"Yeah but are there male Gems out there somewhere?" the first soldier continued. "How do they even procreate, if possible?"

"Beats me, they don't look like they have the goods, if you catch my drift." The second soldier wiggled his eyebrows. "Y'know, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!"

"Yes, I catch your drift, no need to reference old-timey British comedy." The first soldier groaned before turning on the radio. "Sir, we're nearing Beach City. Permission to be the first to step out?"

"Permission granted Private Eric." Wade accepted over the radio as the two soldiers' van rolled up to Beach City, where its citizens were already evacuating.

"Excuse me, we'd like a word with the mayor of this town." Private Eric said as he and his partner stepped out.

"That's me, Mayor Pizza." Nanafua declared as she walked up to the pair. "Now what brings the military here?"

"We're on official business here Mayor Pizza." Eric stated. "Are you aware you have been housing aliens that have been threatening your planet regularly?"

"Oh, the Gems? They're pretty harmless." Nanafua laughed. "Though that giant monster is a bit concerning."

"Everyone step aside, Black Rutile has convinced us those Gems need to be placed under arrest." Wade stepped forward and prepared a special anti-Gem weapon made from the remains of the Destiny Destroyer. "We won't use lethal force against you all, but we strongly urge you to let us through if you want your planet to live."

The armed forces began marching towards the pink monster menacing Beach City as the townsfolk nervously stepped aside to allow them to pass. Though they treasured the Gems, they couldn't bear to be victims of yet another incident relating to them.

--

"Get back here!" Lepidolite roared as she chased Connie around and clashed her claws with the girl's sword. "Don't think you've won yet just because you've trained with that rotten Pearl!"

"That's what you think!" Connie yelled before she slashed at Lepidolite's arm, causing the fusion to yell.

"How can we be hurt just like that?!" the Black Rutile half of Lepidolite muttered before looking accusingly at no one in particular while beginning to destabilize. "Seriously Topaz, why can't you contribute?!"

"Seriously, can't you read my lips?!" White Topaz yelled. "I want out!" Suddenly, the two Gems split apart and fell to the ground. Black Rutile fell face-first and spat out some sand before glaring daggers at her bodyguard.

"Does it look like I care?" Black Rutile said. "Besides, we should be getting some back up real soon."

"Wait, back up?" Mega Pearl wondered before she got shot down by a weapon resembling a Gem Destabilizer and forced back into Pearl & Volleyball.

"Fan out, take down anything with a star!" Wade Grant gave out orders while his men zapped the Crystal Gems with their Destabilizer-like weapons, managing to take down Turquoise, Garnet, Amethyst, Bismuth, and Jasper before forcing them into a truck.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Jasper roared as she was herded like cattle into the truck with the other Gems.

"You're finally getting the Earth justice you deserve." Black Rutile declared smugly. "When this planet's government learned of your exploits, the leader tried to make an address that I hacked into and used to expose you to the world. Hope you enjoy confinement!"

"You won't get away with this!" Pearl yelled rebelliously before she, Volleyball, and one of the Watermelon Stevens were forced into the truck as two of the soldiers looked up at Steven and the Diamonds.

"What do we do with them?" Private Eric wondered.

"No need, I got this." Black Rutile bragged, taking Aquamarine's wand and using it to imprison the three Diamonds in a forcefield.

"Hey, you let them go!" Spinel yelled before she found herself getting trapped in the bubble as well, along with Lemon Jade.

"Uh, what is going on?" Greg asked before the major general walked up to him.

"There is no need to panic sir, we are simply following orders." Wade answered calmly. "Alright, move out! We're bringing them to Area 42!"

"Area 42?!" Connie exclaimed. "What are you going to do with them there?!"

"Just gonna ask some questions followed by deciding their fates, no big." Wade responded as he hopped into his Humvee and drove off while turning on his radio. "Gems have been captured, I repeat, Gems have been captured. Requesting a lift to Area 42 in Calivada, over."

As the military drove away with the Gems in tow, Bluebird Azurite picked up Black Rutile & White Topaz before she flew them away from the beach, the combined weight of the Diamonds, Steven, Spinel, and Lemon Jade in the bubble having no effect on her.

"So Crystal Gems," Black Rutile laughed evilly. "Who are you going to believe in now?!"

--

With the Crystal Gems in government custody, Black Rutile is just a few steps closer to victory. But what plans does she have in store for the Diamonds, what fate shall await the Crystal Gems at Area 42, and do White Topaz's loyalties still lie with Black Rutile? You're just gonna have to wait and see.

[tawakkull]

ISLAM 101: Spirituality in Islam: Part 177

Wujud (Finding and Existence): Part 3

The issues concerning God, the universe and humankind are obvious when looked at from a viewpoint of Qur’anic disciplines. However, a number of ignorant persons and a number of ones who are illintended have adopted deviant approaches, have tried to prove existence and to substitute the world for God. They have distorted the truth of Divinity or denied Him any attributes or regarded Him as a spirit that pervades existence. They have also offered views that God takes on bodily forms (incarnation) or that there is a created being that is united with God and becomes God (union). They have distorted the Divine truth in the ugliest way possible by claiming that the statement that “There is no deity but God” is the same as “There is no existent being save Him,” meaning that God is identical with the visible universe.

In my view, in this respect we should adopt an approach such that we regard the concept of the Unity of Being, which negates the existence of beings other than God, as being based on a state of spiritual pleasure and as arising from being over-powered by absorption and being lost in God’s Existence along with an inability to find the words to express this state. We cannot accept the philosophically speculative theory that existence comprises God and that His Existence consists of the existence of all beings. We must protect Muslim minds from such theories. We should also bear in mind that if the doctrine of the Unity of Being is not outlined by and kept within the essential principles of Islamic belief, it may lead to an incorrect conception of God, His Existence and His relation with the created. It is a only with a correct conception of Divine Unity that people can be favored with a special knowledge that stems from Him and in which they perceive the true character or reality of things and events. Then they turn away from these events to the Eternal Witness, and in indifference to His signs and the signposts that show the way to Him, become immersed in the lights of His absolute Existence and melt away with respect to their carnal self and ego. But to adopt speculative theories or views that ascribe divinity to things and events means the association of partners with God and this implies going beyond one’s limits of perception and knowledge. Such views or theories can even amount to the denial of God, the Truth, He Who is known by His Names and qualified with His eternal Attributes, and Who infinitely surrounds all things with His majestic Attributes such as Knowledge, Power and Will.

The two views or approaches mentioned here are worlds apart from each other. One is based on seeing everything, not excluding the human ego itself, as being, with respect to its existence and subsistence, absolutely dependent on the Divine Existence and Self-Subsistence. Those who adopt such an approach are annihilated in the Almighty and subsist by Him, believing that everything comes from Him. The other is the view of the self-conceited ones who are unaware of what a spiritual state is or what spiritual pleasures are. They speculate that all things, including themselves, are united with Divinity or with a part of it. While the former regard themselves in the face of the Divine Existence as a drop in the ocean or a particle in the sun, the latter consider that the ocean is the drop itself or the sun is the particle itself. They maintain that the universe is an appearance of Him. The former are self-possessed, always feeling in awe of Him and pursuing Him as the final goal. The latter are, on the other hand, loose, inattentive and lack any goal. The author of Mizan al-‘Irfan describes the former as follows:

Those who have reached the final point in their journey, Are all self-possessed and people of perfection. Their state is described as “finding,” And they have no interest in whether they exist or not. The voice cannot express their state, Only those who share their state can understand them. For they have reached annihilation in the Divine Being, Having been freed from their corporeal existence, Since they have been annihilated in the Existence of the Truth, Absorbed in states of exhilaration and ecstasy. They cannot see another existence save that of the Truth, His love invades through their hearts, Yet they are aware that still they are His servants. The states of others do not resemble theirs. These are the ones, O brother, who maintain Their relation with God as His servants; The one who writes about them no longer has any say.

According to these people, all things exist because the Necessarily Existent One exists. The relation of the Divine Being with things and events is that He brings them into existence and maintains and cares for them. But it is not possible for us to know the character of this relation, or how this relation takes place and is maintained. What we know is that it is He Who originates all things and maintains them. Nothing can “be” without Him; nothing can come into existence or maintain its existence without Him. For this reason, everything is from Him and it is He with all His Attributes of Perfection and Grace Who is the Originator of all things. In this approach, there is no room left for the duality of cause and source.

The prince of lovers (Jalal al-Din al-Rumi) says:

Certainly, there is no duality concerning the Almighty, I, We, You have nothing to do with that Holy Being. Incarnation and Union are inconceivable for Him. Thinking of duality for the Unique One is obviously an error.

There is a point to be mentioned here. The doctrine of the Unity of Being maintained by some Muslim Sufis as being based on a spiritual state of pleasures and absorption is not contrary to the Islamic belief of Divine Unity. However, we should admit that there are many utterances which have been made due to intoxication and immersion which are apparently incompatible with the principles of belief. What follows is one such utterance by an intoxicated one that suggests monism:

The Almighty has declared: “I am nearer to you than your jugular vein.” That is, the ocean and a drop it contains are the same. O human being, you have fallen away from your own self. If you but know, all are the same-the one who witnesses and the one witnessed, And the place where witnessing takes place; and also the same are The owner and protector and the one owned and protected. Though the universe is the result of the manifestation of God’s All-Beautiful Names, There is only one Greatest Name among those Names. O Lord! You are the One Who absolutely exists; as for other existing beings, They are no more than images or illusions. For this reason, whatever You create is one and the same. Though the beauty of all beautiful things is because of Your all-enchanting Beauty, Still there is only one uniquely Beautiful Being. Every sedition and seduction in the world is because of His love. It should be known that the chief cause of this sedition anddissension is the one and the same.

It is true that the style of these words is also seditious and seductive. Some have tried to comment on such words so as to make them compatible with the spirit of religion, while others have wandered in the pits of monism when interpreting them.

Like natural sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine, and the religious sciences, such as jurisprudence, Qur’anic interpretation, and Hadith, Islamic Sufism has some concepts peculiar to itself. Those who do not know the true meaning and contents of these concepts will never be saved from errors. It is not possible to know and understand Islamic Sufism correctly without knowing these concepts.

To sum up: the concept of the Unity of Being comes from a spiritual state marked by personal spiritual experiences and the pleasures and ecstasy that arise from an initiate’s knowledge of God and His Oneness. An initiate who has this degree of attainment feels inwardly that the truly existent one is the only True One, and regards all other beings as a shadow or as having an imaginary existence. The Muslim Sufis who possess this concept have experienced such a degree of knowledge of God in their hearts and have made it a dimension of their conscious nature, trying to express it in proportion to their power of expression. Their expressions concerning unity in multiplicity and multiplicity with respect to unity are the utterances of these inward feelings and experiences, based on the consideration that unity is the foundation and source of everything, while multiplicity is illusory. In fact, it is not possible for a hero of state and pleasure who witnesses the manifestations of His Names and Attributes in every thing and event to think or act otherwise. They feel the omnipresence of that All-Exalted Being far beyond the horizons that are within the reach of human reason and imagination. They feel that they are always in His company and they turn to that Being Who eternally exists and who cannot be known with respect to His Divine Essence. What follows is an excerpt from how they put their experiences into words:

The All-Beautiful One Who wills to see His Beauty through innumerable faces, Should be in innumerable parts, like mirrors broken.

As for another view of the Divine Being in His relation to the universe, which is known as the Unity of the Witnessed and which has become a separate school led by Imam Rabbani Ahmad Faruq al-Sarhandi, although it is nearer to the thought of the Prophet’s Companions than the Unity of Being, it cannot be considered as being fully compatible with the consideration that is a way of perfect self-possession and complete wakefulness, because it also originates in a state of intoxication and absence and is combined with ecstasy and absorption. By contrast, those following the way of the Companions present to their audience their experiences, which even when experienced in a state of intoxication and absorption, with extraordinary self-possession, never falling into confusion.

The Unity of Being, which is known in the West as pantheism and, with its variations, monism, is a philosophical school. This approach, based on seeing the universe as God Himself or His appearance, cannot be reconciled with Islamic Sufism. Furthermore, it is impossible to reconcile it with any Islamic philosophical movement. As mentioned before, while those who share this approach have strayed from the right path by admitting a pervading divinity and sharing it among all things, the Muslim Sufis following the Prophetic way have always believed that everything is from Him, not that everything is He.

O God! Show us the truth as the truth and enable us with the observance of it, and show us the falsehood as falsehood and enable us with the avoidance of it.

And let God’s blessings be on our master Muhammad, who is the guide to the truth, and on his family and Companions, the noble, godly ones.

[voiceless-terror]

Going Back (The Magnus Archives)

Whumptober 2020 Day Thirty: Wound Reveal

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Characters: Jonathan Sims, Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood

Summary:

“I can’t even feel it anymore, really. She just liked to see what colors she could make me turn.”

Martin could’ve thrown up.

Jon returns from the Circus through Helen’s hallways. Martin and Tim see the aftermath.

The room wouldn’t stop spinning.

He kept it together just long enough to get Melanie out of Elias’s office. Jonathan Sims, Human Shield. Who would’ve thought it?

But now, stumbling down to the Archives, he wasn’t so sure. Everything was scrambled, neither here nor there. His arm throbbed and the hallway tilted, or perhaps he tilted. Wouldn’t that be funny? Just walking sideways down the hall while everyone stared. Don’t mind me! He let out an involuntary giggle- did it echo? Like Helen’s voice echoed? Like poor Michael’s? No, not ‘poor Michael.’ He tried to kill you!

Right, right. 

He was getting some looks. Jon was starting to get used to this whole ‘pariah’ business. He was never the most social person, but people would still greet him in the hallways. Now, though. Now they just stared and whispered. It’s not their fault, of course. He knows he doesn’t look good. Jon hadn’t seen a mirror in a good long while, but he certainly wasn’t feeling good, The Circus had done a number on him and it’s not like he had time to make himself presentable before going back to the office. The Distortion wouldn’t have allowed them to make pit stops. Be funny if it did, though.

He laughed again, stumbling into a wall. A woman looked as if she wanted to help, reaching out an arm that was slapped away by her companion. “Leave him,” the man whispered. He was right to. Jon was starting to think this whole avatar business was contagious. 

“Don’t worry,” he whispered back in an attempt to be reassuring. It probably would have come off better if his voice didn’t have the consistency of sandpaper. “I’ll be gone soon enough!” He smiled and they scurried off, looking horrified. Huh.

He didn’t know what he meant by ‘gone.’ Out of their hair, back in the Archives, dead in a hole somewhere. It was all the same to him. 

There was a song playing in his mind, an incessant, repetitive tune that should be cheerful but it was not. He hummed along with it.

Ten minutes or two days later, he stumbled through the door to the Archives, tripping down the stairs at a rate more like falling. No one was there to greet him, perhaps it was lunch time? Jon was very hungry. But that wasn’t a good indicator of time- Jon was always hungry now. For answers, for food, for someone to look at him without anger. Hungry hungry hungry.

Someone must have left a thing or two in the break room. Martin always had snacks lying about. Maybe he could have one of Tim’s protein bars? Melanie’s Gatorades? So many choices it almost made him weep. 

Elias was always saying he chose this. He’s starting to agree. He always wanted more- more answers, more information. The choice was always easy then- go wherever the knowledge takes you. So why was this one so goddamn hard? Just pick some food, any fucking food you’re so hungry-

It would be nice if someone picked for him. He hadn’t had to choose his own food for a while, but now the options were just overwhelming. Just let him have one more thing out of his control. He wasn’t ready to go back to normal, not just yet.

But they had to move forward, he knew that. Jon wanted answers and so did the rest of them. They never liked the answers he gave them. Is that Jon’s fault, really? Maybe. Everyone else seemed to think so. Elias didn’t tell them he’d been kidnapped, but he’d been gone all the same. It’s sad isn’t it, when you become a person no one will miss? Jon missed them. Jon missed everything that was real, flesh and blood and warm. Jon was selfish that way.

But now he had an answer. Something good that came out of all of this, a lead. Tim would be happy. He might even thank him.

The world tilted and Jon tilted with it.

________

“Hang on-is that Jon?”

Martin peered into the break room on his return from lunch; he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here. But there was a small figure there in the dark, swaying on their feet. He rushed over and flicked on the light switch- it was Jon! His excitement was dampened, however, when he got a good look at the man.

Jon looked bad. Martin didn’t think he could possibly look worse than he did after Daisy brought him back but no, this was definitely worse. At least then he’d been angry, rushing around and demanding answers from Elias. Now though, he was just...swaying, his eyes distant and cloudy, not even noticing the other occupant in the room. His hair was tangled and long, his face was gaunt. He was drowning in his clothes- clothes that were dirty and blood stained and torn as if he spent the last month living in the woods. “Jon?” he asked hesitantly, inching forward in the room like he was approaching a spooked animal. “Jon, are you alright?”

No answer. Jon was humming, a strange, childish tune like something from a music box or an ice cream truck. Tim was silent and still behind him; Martin wasn’t surprised he was unwilling to help. It was a horrifying picture, after all, and he and Jon weren’t on the best of terms. Martin managed to get close enough to venture a hand on Jon’s shoulder.

This seemingly broke him out of his fog and stopped that god-awful hum. His eyes cleared as he turned to Martin and smiled- Martin had always wanted Jon to smile at him but not like this, never like this. Happy and dreamy yet somehow manic. “Oh!” he croaked; he sounded as if his voice hadn’t been used in days. “M-Martin, you’re here!”

“Yes, I am,” he explained slowly, trying to match his smile if only to put him at ease. “Are- are you alright, Jon? We haven’t seen you for a while, and you look- well, not great.” That was an understatement. There was a strange, glowing sheen on his otherwise unhealthy frame, like a doll that’d been covered in greasepaint. It was unnerving, to say the least.

“Yes!” Jon said excitedly, grabbing at his arm with thin, spindly fingers. There was a desperate strength behind it. “Now that you’re here. Where’s Tim? I have to- I need to find Tim!”

That was not a good idea. “Erm, are you sure?” he hedged, trying to usher him into a seat but Jon was having none of it and pulling at his arm insistently. “Jon, I really think you should get to a doctor, I mean look at you-”

“Tim!” Jon called in that croaking, animated voice. The man in question looked irritated at first, and then clearly disturbed by the man in front of him. “Tim, I have news.”

Tim backed up as Jon approached and leaned forward on his desk as if imparting a secret. ‘I know where it’s going to be. The Unknowing.” Martin watched as Tim’s eyes lit up unwillingly and he grabbed at Jon, pushing him into his own desk chair. Easy, Martin wanted to chide, though he knew Tim wouldn’t heed it. He had a one-track mind when it came to dealing with the Circus.

“Where?” Tim asked urgently, his hands on Jon’s shoulders as if ready to shake him lest he gave the wrong answer. Martin noticed the way Jon leaned into the touch, threatening as it was. “Where?”

“A wax museum!” The words were...delighted. Jon was smiling like a child giving a teacher the correct answer and that strange, clouded look was coming back into his eyes. “I don’t know which one, though. They didn’t tell me that.” Who?

“Who?” Tim echoed his thoughts and pushed Jon up straight as he listed to the side. “Was this- was this one of your powers? How long have you known?”

“No, not this time,” Jon patiently explained. “I was there. I’ve known for- hm, Elias said - about a month!” What? Tim’s eyes narrowed and his hands gripped harder. Jon didn’t seem to notice. “I would’ve told you, but I was all tied up!” He reached his hands up imploringly, sleeves slipping down his arms to reveal wrists rubbed raw, clearly infected. Martin gasped and even Tim let up, looking nauseated. 

“Jon,” Martin kneeled by the chair, trying to meet his eyes. “Jon, what happened? Who did this to you?”

Without Tim’s help, Jon fell to the side of the chair, only supported by it’s arm. His shirt, worryingly baggy, slipped off his shoulder to reveal deeply bruised skin, blooming a purple and green that seemed to extend beyond what they could see. Jon must have noticed their horrified stares, for he rushed to reassure them. 

“I can’t even feel it anymore, really. She just liked to see what colors she could make me turn.”

Martin could’ve thrown up.

“Who’s she?” Tim stuttered out, horror rooting him in place though his hands twitched in what look liked an urge to help.

“The clown. Nikola. Needed- needed my skin for the dance. She couldn’t cut me up yet. I was almost-” Jon was no longer there with them, not anymore. “I was almost ready.” He pitched forward, eyes rolling back in his head and Martin rushed to grab him but Tim got there first, sweeping an arm under his chest and pulling him back up on the chair. There was a feral, unhinged look in the man’s eyes- anger, fear, and something he couldn’t name making his arms shake even as they kept Jon in a tight grip. 

“Should- should we get him to the hospital? This is bad, Tim.”

“No!” Jon shot up in the seat, arms flailing in a sudden panic. “No more- no more strange hands! I don’t w-want them touching me, please Martin, I don’t want to I don’t want to-”

“Shh,” it was Tim who hushed him, leaning Jon into his side and taking most of his weight. He was completely attentive now in an entirely different way- Martin would say it was protective if he didn’t know the man’s real feelings. “We won’t. How about we take you to the cot, have a rest, yeah?”

“Tim…” Shouldn’t they be doing more? A nap wouldn’t cure him- he needed real medical attention.

“Just for now,” he said and his tone didn’t leave room for any arguments. “He doesn’t want it. Not right now.” Martin wondered what made him suddenly attuned to Jon’s needs- as if a switch had been flipped at the mention of a clown. He followed behind like a lost puppy, watching as Tim took a still-murmuring Jon into Document Storage.

“Their hands, Tim. I don’t- too much touching-”

“I’ll let go of you as soon as you’re settled,” Tim promised, laying him down with the utmost care as Martin watched from the doorway. “I’m sorry-”

But Jon’s arm shot out and grabbed at Tim’s as he tried to walk away. “Not- not yours. I-I didn’t mean yours.”

And to Martin’s surprise Tim sat down, leaning back against the cot and entwining his hand with Jon’s. His eyes held that same far-away look as Jon’s, as if he were trapped in a memory and seeing something else entirely. Martin suddenly feels like he’s intruding.

He shuts the door and lets them be.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27285688

[remmushound]

Bay/rise 16! @errorfreak88 @brightlotusmoon

Cassandra was anxious. She had everything— her master had comeback at her side and was freed from the control of that monstrous spider demon. What was left of the Foot Clan was strong! She had the entire, empty city at her whim! But what good was the city if there were no people in it? Nobody to rule or protect or attack or make her life interesting. The turtles and their friends had disappeared into that rift and brought the city’s orb with them. Taken her masters Lou and Brute away from her, and took the rest of her foot clan away away too. Left her alone nothing but a few rouge mutants running amok, and the ruby ring on her finger that gave her control over The Shredder, What a waste…

She twisted the ruby ring on her finger. Like a puppet, Shredder twisted Big Mama harder into the ground under the immense weight of his armor. The Jorogumo screamed her anguish as the sounds of her body popping filled the air.

“I already told you, I don’t know where they went!” Big Mama wailed to the unmerciful duo.

“Why don’t I believe you?” Cass asked, climbing down from her throne made of mystic vines and leaning close to Big Mama’s face. “Where are my masters?”

“I don’t know!”

Another twist of the ring. Shredder grabbed one of Big Mama’s legs and started to twist it slowly backward.

“AH— I can’t tell you where they are! But I know who can and I’ll tell you where to find him if you just STOP!”

Shredder stopped twisting seconds before the limb would have come off. He let the leg fall back down, and it curled under the safety of Big Mama’s rotund belly.

“Then tell me.” It physically pained Cass to be so cruel. As violent and excitable as she was, the thought and action of this type of torturous interrogation wasn’t something she liked. She just wanted her family back. Her masters that had taught her well. Her fellow foot soldiers she had grown to respect. Her father— Her little sister…

Big Mama took a moment to catch a shaky breath. “W… when Yoshi tried to pull me through the portal I saw a little… glimsy-poo of where they were headed.”

“Go on.”

“The… rift stream did seem to… diverge a great bit, don't you know? I counted three separate eh… destinations.” She held up three claws, “And... on one of those little slipstreams I happened to catch sight of an Oni on the other side. Now, how to get to this Oni I… couldn’t tell you—“

Shredder started to crush her abdomen again and Big Mama’s words became frantic.

“But I know who can! Hueso Pirata— a calaca in the hidden city! He is skilled in all things mystic, and he can tell you where that rift went! And if he cannot, then Baron Draxum may be able to.”

Cassandra considered. “How do I get into the hidden city?”

“Why, you can use my charm of course! The spider emblem around my neck! In fact, there is a doorway to the Hidden City just outside this damned stadium— in the statue! I can take you to it!”

“No need.” Cass ripped the tag from Big Mama’s neck and turned it around in her hand. “I can do it myself.”

~~~

“Open!” Cass held the emblem out to the statue but nothing happened. She growled and went at it from several different angles. “Open! ¡Abierta! ¡Abierto! Aita! Ouvrir! I’m running out of languages! Abrir!”

She growled her frustration as the statue stayed a statue. She backed off and pulled out her Naginata.

“Wise guy, eh? GOONGALA GOONGALA!”

She charged the statue and hit it repeatedly, circling around it to strike it at every possible angle. All that served to do was tire her out and make her back up once more with a frustrated roar.

“WHY YOU LITTLE—“ She growled and started to spit off insults at the inanimate object and its dumb, inanimate face. “...pathetic excuse for a statue now OPEN SAYS-A-ME!”

The rift opened. Cass immediately settled and gave an excited squeak. “Oh. Yay!”

~~~

Hueso ran out of the kitchen at the first sign of a struggle. It took only a few seconds for him to locate the disturbance beside the bar and force his way between a startled and confused chupacabra and furious Kudan.

“Oye Oye, calmate! What is the issue?”

“I do not know!” The chupacabra answered in Spanish, cowering behind the calaca. “I sit here, I drink, and he got mad!”

Hueso glanced quickly between the two yokai, and then to the dish before the chupacabra before he quickly put a story together. 

Hueso turned to the kudan. “Ah— sir, you are upset of the Sangre De Cabra, yes?”

The goat snorted, muttering a few choice words in Japanese before switching to english. “Of course I am! He shouldn’t be allowed to drink that in public!”

“It is his nature, he does not understand why you yell at him.” Hueso turned back to the chupacabra and offered him some quick reassurance in spanish before gently guiding the kudan toward the back of the restaurant. “I will give you a private booth and take half off your order for the inconvenience, please no bad reviews.”

By the time Hueso finally got the furious yokai settled down, there came another disturbance in the dining area. This one went far beyond the normal customer disagreement. There were screams, and the sounds of tables being flipped and ceramic breaking. Heavy foot traffic as Yokai raced for escape.

Hueso didn't hesitate. He didn't freeze up or panic or try to run. In this area of the Hidden City, break ins were common, and with his background they weren’t much of a big deal. He could deal with the Mud Dogs like a mother scolding her misbehaving children, and he could send heinous green running for the hills with little difficulty. This was his shop, his livelihood, and nothing could take that.

“Por el amor de Dios, you chose a bad day to mess with me.” He growled and reached to unlatch the macuahuitl from his belt.

He backed up flat against the wall as his eye searched around the corner for the attacker, and found what appeared to be a human girl brandishing a bent naginata and an attitude that was bigger than she was. 

“HUESO PIRATA! I DEMAND RETRIBUTION!” She slammed her weapon into a series of decorations.

“No! My calaca art! So it’s a personal vendetta is it…?”

“SHOW YOURSELF!”

“You should tame your aggression, little girl.” Hueso finally stepped out into the open, holding his macuahuitl at his side. “It may get you in a world of trouble.”

“ARE YOU HUESO PIRATA?!” She pointed her weapon at him.

“Yes, I am, but please spare the decor! It wasn’t cheap.”

Her face remained furiously distorted a minute longer before she switched to an almost calm state as if flipping a switch.

“I understand. My father owns a store. Very proud of it. No more smashing.” She pointed the blade at Hueso again. “Unless it’s you!”

She screamed as she jumped from the table and charged Hueso. Hueso didn't move until the last minute, when he stepped out of the way and brought his club to strike the base of her skull. As she stumbled, she somehow managed to turn the assault into a counter attack, spinning and bringing her blade to swipe at Hueso. Hueso stepped back, though not fast enough, and the blade sliced through his shirt and what appeared thin air where his stomach should have been.

Hueso gave a shout and held up his club against the kunoichi’s blade to keep her from wounding him anymore. From the previous wound inflicted started to flow a type of blue substance, like blood but the wrong color. 

“Little girl—“

“The names Cassandra!” The human growled, finally getting strength enough over Hueso enough to shove him off of her and send him crashing into the wall.

“Cassandra.” Hueso corrected, taking a moment to collect himself while Cassandra circled for an opening. “Could I perhaps ask what fault you take with me to attack me on work hours? And could you not settle for a free appetizer and coupon?”

When the attackers only response was a furious growl, he charged a wide circle around Cass trying to get behind her while she spun on her heels to keep him from achieving such a feat.

“Grrrr hold still!” Cassandra shouted. “Stand still so I can hit you!”

Hueso charged her quite suddenly and landed a quick swipe at her arm, which promptly disarmed her of her weapon. She looked down at the weapon, up at Hueso, then back down and up again. The she gave a primal scream and charged Hueso full force, catching him off guard as she lifted him by his waist and slammed him hard onto the face of a table without giving so much as a flinch as he wailed his weapon against her back. The table gave way under their combined weights and Cass ended up landing on top of Hueso with her knee pressed firmly to his neckbone.

“Your times up, Hueso Pirata, and you’re coming with me…”

[volturialice]

me: i’m not gonna write any more of the drugged!human alice au

also me:

it has a title now too I guess. posting in a huge rush because I was supposed to be out the door ten minutes ago, so it’s even more unbeta’ed than usual. oh well

2,180 words

warnings: drugs, discussion of date rape, vomiting

rating: T

pairings: jalice

part 1 here

perihelion 2/?

It’s hard to tell visions from dreams. Sometimes, Alice doesn’t know which is which until a vision is coming true right in front of her, and then it’s like, okay, too late to do anything about this now. It means all of her dreams are high stakes—any nightmare could become a life-ruining disaster, any good dream could be made or unmade real by some hidden catalyst she doesn’t know about. She’s pretty sure she almost bombed the PSAT because she didn’t wear the blue top she had on in the dream where she scored a 189.

But her inability to tell the difference was never that big of a deal until Forks—until she started dreaming about the Cullens, and Jasper specifically. She wishes she could tell which of the Jasper dreams are real. They’re just so…well, horny. If Alice knew they were visions, and not her subconscious making a complete, desperate idiot of itself, she could be less embarrassed about the whole thing.

Tonight she dreams of Jasper and Rosalie in a room with green walls and shiny wood floors. They’re different in the dream, somehow—more still. Rosalie doesn’t sit. Jasper doesn’t blink.

Between them, an open doorway gapes into darkness. Just visible in the room beyond is the silhouette of a prone figure on a bed, unmoving. They watch it for an uncomfortable amount of time before Rosalie speaks.

“If she were any other human, I would have hunted you for sport, you know.”

“I know,” says Jasper, sounding impossibly old and tired.

“I would be off absolutely wrecking your shit right now, and then I would take care of the liability, because that’s how it works in this family. But she’s…this.” Rosalie grimaces, gesturing to the figure on the bed. “And why was it you told us you were following her, again? To ‘ensure her silence?’ Right,” she scoffs, evidently too disgusted with Jasper to keep looking at him.

“She hasn’t said anything. She won’t.”

“No, she won’t, because you’ll stop her at all costs, will you?”

Jasper’s face doesn’t betray the slightest twitch, but his eyes harden almost imperceptibly. “Not that way.”

Rosalie whirls back around. “You were supposed to be the one person I could count on to do what’s necessary! And now you’re telling me you won’t? Listen to yourself!”

Jasper throws up his hands. “Why are you here, then, Rose? Why are you helping her?”

“I’m helping you, you jackass! I know you all think I’m this narcissistic bitch, but I’m not…not inhumane, okay?” Rosalie levels a contemptuous glance at him, then looks away. “I don’t want some girl to be date-raped, however dangerous she is. And I’m not about to sit by and watch you make a complete mess of things.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I think that ship may have sailed,” grumbles Jasper.

“I’ll say. I drive up and she’s going on about how you’re stalking her and claiming you’re dating? She should have been killed the moment she figured out what we were, but instead you’re following her around protecting her because of some bizarre psychic connection she claims you have? Make it make sense, Jasper.”

“Edward confirmed her ability is real.”

“Great, so she’s a bigger freak than us. That makes it all ok,” snaps Rosalie, dripping with sarcasm. “Wonderful to know your abysmal taste in women hasn’t altered after all these years.”

Jasper ignores both the jab and the implication. “Earlier you made it sound like you were on her side.”

“I just think you ought to admit what’s really going on here. You won’t let us kill her—fine. It’s utterly irresponsible and stupid, but I can accept that. But it’s not like we can allow her to keep existing out there as a human, knowing what she knows.”

Jasper barks out a humorless, incredulous laugh. “Are you advocating that we should have Carlisle change her? You, Rosalie Hale, want to ‘take away her humanity?’”

Rosalie shrugs. “I’m not saying she wouldn’t be better off dead. But she’s not a very good human, is she? I gather she’s not exactly thriving. They have to pump her full of drugs just to keep her functional, and her human peers still think she’s insane. Be realistic. Her life was over the moment she learned the truth about us.”

Jasper’s only response is a slow shake of his head, like he still can’t believe what he’s hearing.

Rosalie’s eyes narrow. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about changing her. Don’t tell me it wasn’t your first thought, when you realized you didn’t want her dead. I may not be the mind reader in the family, but I know that’s a lie.”

It takes Jasper a beat too long to answer. “Of course I’ve thought about it.”

“Not enough, apparently. Right now, we’re in as much danger as she is. If she were one of us…well, her life is already ruined anyway. At least then we’d have her oh-so-special ability on our side.  Surely you can see the strategic advantage,” Rosalie rebukes. “Better Carlisle changes her than the Volturi. Has it occurred to you that if they ever find out she exists, the decision will be taken right out of your hands?”

“It’s not in my hands.”

Rosalie rolls her eyes again. “Hers, then.”

He sighs. “The possibility did occur to me.”

“You think she wants to learn Italian and live in a sewer? Eat tourists?”

“I have no idea what she wants.”

Rosalie laughs. “Right, because she’s playing it so close to the vest. She called you a simp. Do you know what that means?”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Funny how you never want to confide in anyone, yet here we are.”

Jasper’s look says that isn’t what’s going on here, but he doesn’t respond. They settle back into tense silence.

“What are you going to do about the man? The one who drugged her?” asks Rosalie after a while.

“Eliminate him. Quietly.”

Rosalie nods. “Carlisle won’t like it.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“Can you actually do it, though? Without slipping?”

Jasper doesn’t answer, which is an answer in itself.

“I could do it.” Rosalie’s voice is quiet.

“It’s not your problem.”

“Exactly,” Rosalie insists. “It wouldn’t be a problem for me. If you slip…well, we may not have to move, but you won’t be able to come back to school for months. Going to trust the rest of us to babysit your human?”

“I won’t slip,” says Jasper, but for the first time, he sounds uncertain.

Alice’s dream chooses this moment to blur and shift. Jasper and Rosalie melt away, voices distorting until they’re drowned out by other voices, other sounds and images that crowd in and pull at her, like being tossed around in a rough ocean. They come one after another, too fast to make sense of them—muddy tires, a burst of cut-off music, a slow, dark ooze crawling over pavement, an echoing splash. Familiar red eyes, looking down at her.

Then Alice is awake, and the eyes looking down at her are black. Wait, no. There are no eyes looking down at her. It must have been part of the dream.

She’s lying on something soft—a bed. Above her is a white ceiling. Her head throbs with a confused, cotton-y ache, and her mouth tastes disgusting.

What the hell happened? Alice isn’t great at piecing together chronological sequences at the best of times. She remembers being in Port Angeles…splitting up with Bella in order to meet her friends from the art show at a bar, and then…people talking, her legs sticking to the green leather barstool.  The lights getting blurry around the edges, the cool, slippery feel of condensation from the glass in her hand, and…oh. Oh, shit. Jasper.

Jasper had been there. The last thing she can recall is Jasper approaching, his face twisted in rage so murderous that she’d thought, huh, I guess he really is a vampire.

She rolls over and—speak of the devil—there he is, standing kind of a weird distance away, halfway between the bed and the door. He looks far less murderous than she remembers.

“Good morning,” she croaks, struggling into a sitting position. “Um. Where the hell am I?”

“Port Townsend,” says Jasper, which means absolutely nothing to her. She’s only been in Forks a few months—is she seriously supposed to know Washington geography?

To Alice’s immense relief, she’s still fully clothed. She does a surreptitious check to make sure her boobs aren’t falling out of her shirt, and when she looks back up there’s a glass of water in front of her face. She takes it and chugs the whole thing down in a few gulps. Why does she feel so hungover? She had only had, like, two drinks last night. Certainly not enough to make her black out and forget the whole evening. No, this big, empty gap in her memory feels more like when they used to drug her at the hospital. In fact, it feels exactly like that.

Jasper takes the empty glass from her and hands her another full one. He’s still watching her in a way that makes her want to squirm and fidget. Why had he been so angry last night?

She chugs the second glass of water while her sluggish brain tries to add it all up. Angry Jasper plus no memory plus waking up in a bed in a strange place, equals…yikes. Maybe she shouldn’t be drinking whatever he hands her.

“Uh,” she taps her fingers against the empty glass, “why do I feel like I’ve been roofied?”

“Because you were. Here,” says Jasper, handing her something else. Her own phone, somehow fully charged. One new voicemail, from…herself.

Future Alice, this is Past Alice. You’re probably pretty freaked out right now, but it’s okay! Jasper didn’t drug you. I repeat, Jasper did not drug you. Be nice to Rosalie; she’s there to help. Now put the phone down, you’re about to hurl. Bye!

Alice has just enough time to think, Rosalie? before a violent wave of nausea hits and she’s throwing up into the waste bin that appears in front of her face. “Ugh,” says the person holding it, and sure enough, there’s Rosalie.

There’s something extra humiliating about throwing up in front of two vampires, one of whom she kind of has a thing with and the other of whom is his super-hot sister who hates her. Thankfully, her stomach was empty except for the two glasses of water.

Rosalie blurs out of the room—damn, she’s fast—and reappears without the waste bin. It’s weird being on the bed while Rosalie and Jasper are standing, so Alice gets to her feet, already feeling way better. “Whose house is this?” she asks.

“Mine,” says Rosalie, practically shooting laser beams of resentment from her eyes.

“You wouldn’t let us take you home or to the hospital,” explains Jasper. “This is Rosalie and Emmett’s beach cottage.”

“Cottage” seems like the wrong word for this place, now that Alice gets a look at it. It has eight- or nine-foot ceilings and the view out the window—a vast, gray body of water that might be the ocean or some kind of bay—looks like a default computer desktop.

“Oh. So, then…someone else drugged me last night?” She tries to remember who she was talking to before Jasper came over, but she’d talked to so many people at the bar that they all kind of blur together in her head.

Jasper nods.

“Like we’d ever need to drug you,” says Rosalie. Oh, right. Vampires.

“So you just…watched me sleep?”

“Yeah, it was riveting. I had no idea snoring like a lawnmower was a side effect of rohypnol.”

So Alice was supposed to be nice to Rosalie, huh? Easier said than fucking done.

Something pushes at the back of her mind—Rosalie and Jasper watching her sleep. She, Alice, had watched them watching her sleep—from outside her own body. A vision, then, and not a dream.

She tries to remember the rest of it on the drive back to Forks, staring out the back window of Rosalie’s BMW like a kid with the two vampires up front. There had been something else in the vision, something besides the disjointed set of images. Jasper and Rosalie had talked about her, about whether or not she should be a vampire. She sneaks a glance at Jasper in the car mirror, at his downcast, shadowed eyes. Had he ever actually said whether he wanted Alice to be a vampire or not?

His eyes snap up to meet hers in the mirror, so suddenly she almost jumps. Alice looks away, guilty for no real reason. The vision, think about the vision.

There had been something else in it: a plan. They were going to…something. Something about slipping, something Rosalie thought she could do better than Jasper…

Right. They were going to kill someone.

.

.

rosalie @ human bella: noooo don’t become a vampire you’re so fertile aha

rosalie @ human alice: yeah nobody’s impregnating this little gremlin. bite away