#or when he finds out the kid thinks they cultists

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Vlad accidentally outed both of them publicly and Danny was forced to flee into the Ghost Zone while his former rogues destroy the portals and leave Vlad stranded in the mess he made.

Clockwork shows up only to dramatically tell Danny that "This chapter of your life has ended. It is time for you to begin anew." He also warned Danny that he would no longer be able to help him in the new world he would be inhabitanting and wished him luck.

Luck was something he clearly did not receive since he landed smack in the middle of Gotham.

Through a bright green portal.

At night.

As a very glowy Phantom.

In the middle of a very busy road.

People were staring at him from inside thier cars, some were trying to put thier cars in reverse to quietly get away some were filming him with thier phones or trying at least trying to. He is a ghost after all.

Some melodramatic person screamed and suddenly there was some type of demon swooping down to Phantom. It was at this point that Danny thought, Screw this. I'm out. Before turning invisible and flying away.

Except...the demon was following him. Black wings like a bat were flared as the thing followed Danny across the city. It took almost an hour to lose its trail and hes certain the only reason he managed to do that was by leading the thing into the sewers and phasing back up above ground while he was out of sight.

Danny took this opportunity to invisibly phase into a boarded up shop and transform from Phantom to Fenton then phase out invisibly and bolt. He needed to be more careful of cameras this time around. Amity may not have had a bunch but this city was infested with them. After a few failed mugging attempts from some people on the streets he thinks he knows why.

He spent his entire day exploring Gotham and swiping food. He felt bad about it but with no legal identity and no way to earn money in a non-criminal way he was kinda tight on options. Eventually dusk came and, not knowing if that bat demon thing could sense him or if it liked to snack on lost little ghosties, he began somewhat frantically looking for somewhere to hide for the night.

Danny was really, really good at finding hiding spots. Usually this wouldn't be a problem. The opposite really. But here it was.

Turns out most of the great hiding places Danny found (abandoned theaters, insides of clocktowers, the 13th floor of some wierd company towers that he heard were unused and had no way to access) they were already occupied. Either by thier wierd Owl cult, this wierd Robin cult or this wierd Bat cult, Danny has decided to avoid the heck out of the bat cult cause he was 90% certain the thing that chased him on his first night here was the bat monster they worshiped.

Also, that bird cult member in the back and blue kept trying to "adopt him" which he was pretty sure meant inducting into the cult, which is a solid no from him.

Appearently him just finding all of thier hideouts is either horrifying or just embarrassing to the members of the cults. One time he popped into another "bird nest" and came face to mask with Red Robin and Nightwing around when this first started. Everyone just stared at eachother in shock for a solid five seconds before RR began reaching for something and Danny bolted back the way he came (which weirdly enough was though a cabinet door)

RR inspected the dog sized hole in the back of the cabinet that the kid must have come through and realized it lead through the walls. Chilling.

In Dannys defence, his phone was left behind and he didn't even think about reading the newspaper past learning the current date. Still on him, but meh.

[suppose-i-was-worm]

Like the Beat of a Drum pt 1

It began when Tim’s soulmark came in- fourteen years later than most children. He didn’t tell his parents, already well aware of what they thought of his late/non-existent soulmark.

He knew what society thought of people who were more than ten years older than their soulmate, and he didn’t want to be labeled a cradle-robber, so he discretely bought a patch to cover it with. Being markless was also helpful for being Robin- nothing to identify him by or to threaten his soulmate with.

Bruce said that having a soulmate was fine, as long as nobody ever saw your mark- even Tim hadn’t seen Bruce’s mark, though he knew where it was.

Tim didn’t know if he wanted a soulmate, but he was the first (and only) to admit that he couldn’t wait to meet this “Daniel Fenton”.

What he wouldn’t admit to anyone is that sometimes, when he was feeling particularly lonely, he could hear a heartbeat other than his own, pulsing from the mark just over his sternum. People would think he was crazy, and that was something he couldn’t afford on top of being labeled markless.

Nobody could know that Tim had a soulmate. He almost pitied the kid who got stuck with him.

~~~

Danny hadn’t had a soulmate before he died. He’d never heard a heartbeat that was a perfect harmony to his own, even when he listened hard.

After he’d died, the heartbeat he began to hear was always loud in his ears, and he had a smudged bit of writing on his hip. When he’d gone to Frostbite about the weird new mark, the yeti explained that other universes had soulmates, and their marks might be different from his own universe.

“You’ll find the right one someday, and then your mark will become clear.”

Sometimes Danny tried to imagine what his soulmate would look like. Would they be fine with him being a ghost? Would they treat him like the rest of the world did, with disgust and revulsion and distrust?

Surely not. Soulmate implied that they would be perfect counterpoints to each other. He assumed that meant they would get along.

The mark was always clearer when he was Phantom. Sometimes he imagined it cleared up a little as Danny depending on the choices he made, but he wasn’t sure about that- it’s not like he’d told anyone that he had a weird new tattoo, and it was in an odd place to look at.

He often found himself floating and looking up at the stars on quiet nights, day-dreaming about having someone perfect for him and him alone.

~~~

Tim grit his teeth and kept moving, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his chest as he fought. He knew he hadn’t been stabbed- that felt different. Clearly, his soulmate was in some kind of trouble.

It’s not like he could do anything for them- he was currently fighting some ninja-cultist-assassin weirdos with Jason.

“We will raise the Ghost King and he shall bring fire upon the world!”

Dick had already swooped in and saved the little girl they were trying to use as a sacrifice, but something had triggered the summoning circle anyways after Tim had tried to mess up one of the lines. It was bubbling neon green, and Tim couldn’t decide if it looked more like the Lazarus pits or more like highlighter ink.

His second heartbeat pounded, a loud drum beneath his hidden soulmark, a soulmark that had been sore for days.

He had worried, of course, that someone was in danger and he couldn’t save them- especially as the fight started and the pain became worse.

To his relief, after the sigil started bubbling, the pain receded, as did the noise, and he could think about other things. Such as the so-called ‘Ghost King’.

With a rumble and a crack like thunder, the green pit spit out a slight figure that hung in midair for a moment, before dropping like a rock onto the place where the pit had been moments before.

Tim knocked out the last cultist and turned to face the new threat, but was instead greeted with a young man with floating white hair, curled up on his side, green blood oozing rapidly from… All of him.

What the hell?

~~~

Danny woke up slowly, feeling all sorts of sluggish. The ectoplasm in the air was thick, so he must be in one of two places- Amity, or the Infinite Realms.

The lack of restraints around his wrists and ankles made him think it was the Realms, but when he pried open his eyes, he was shocked to find himself somewhere altogether unfamiliar.

It was a medbay, of sorts- that he could tell, but from the glass wall he could see a vast cavern, filled with various bits and bobs. He could hear bats distantly chirping above him.

Before moving more than his head, Danny took stock of his situation. He did feel weighed down, yes, but it felt more like blood loss than anything else. There were bandages across his chest, and the heart monitor was letting out a long beep, as if warning everyone in the vicinity that the patient was dead.

Something heavy was taped to his hip, over his soulmark. He winced at the thought- Jack and Maddie had attacked that area with a single-minded intensity, thinking it was the thing that caused him to ‘possess their baby’.

Probably another bandage, but who would go through the trouble of wrapping him up? No one in Amity would, at least, nobody who had the kind of tech he could see. Vlad would just find a way to manipulate him because of his pain, not patch up his wounds.

The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was a tugging at his core, pulling him away from the Fenton lab and into a world of green before that world went black.

“You’re awake.”

Startled from his thoughts, Danny looked to the door to see a young man in primary colors and a domino mask. The stranger tilted his head.

“Can you understand me?”

Danny tried to answer, but all that would come out of his dry mouth was a rasp, so he settled on a nod.

The stranger came closer, bringing with him a glass of water that he held to Danny’s lips.

Suspiciously, Danny took a sip, but all he could taste was clean water, so he drank slowly until the stranger pulled the glass away.

“Wh-where am I?”

“Gotham City, New Jersey.”

Now, Danny hadn’t ever been stellar at Geography, but he was pretty sure he’d never heard of a city called Gotham. Part of him thought that it would be just the right place for Sam to live- Goth-am.

“Would you be up to answering a few questions?”

The stranger was looking at him expectantly, so Danny nodded. Maybe he’d get information if he gave some.

“Wonderful. Do you have a name?”

“Phantom.”

The stranger typed something out into a computer Danny hadn’t noticed before.

“Thank you. Where are you from?”

~~~

“Illinois.”

Tim hadn’t been expecting such a mundane answer from the odd person in the Batcave medbay, but he was well aware that metas came from all over the world, even if they got spit out by Lazarus portals.

“Do you know how you got here?”

Phantom shook his head.

“I was- in the lab, and then everything was green. I passed out pretty fast after that.”

Now, the bats might be emotionally stunted, but Tim was the greatest detective that ever lived, so analytically he was fine. ‘In the lab’ plus the wounds the meta was sporting? That told a disastrous story.

“Can you tell me if anyone else was in the lab with you?”

Phantom paused for a long time.

“I just want to help, Phantom. There might be other metas in danger there.”

“Meta?”

Tim hadn’t expected Phantom to not know what a meta was- that painted an even worse picture than he thought.

He made sure his voice was kind and even when he answered.

“Powered individuals with the meta gene. I haven’t run your DNA yet, I was waiting for you to wake up for permission, but I’m sure you have the gene. There are protective acts in place to stop the abuse of powered individuals- we want to help.”

Much to his surprise, after gaping through his explanation, Phantom laughed!

“No! I’m not- no- my condition- it’s medical, not genetic.”

Tim winced. This poor guy, he’d been brainwashed.

“There wasn’t anyone else in the lab. I saved the rest of us before getting caught.”

Phantom’s tone was airy, but Tim could hear an underlying strength to it.

“What am I supposed to call you, by the way?”

~~~

Danny watched as the stranger went through several stages of grief at his question, and wondered how in the world it had been an odd query.

“I’m- Red Robin. Of the Gotham Bats.”

Oh. That’s why. Danny nodded sagely.

“Sports, I see. Which one requires masks? Cribbage?”

Ope, there went several more stages of grief, perhaps even some as of yet unknown to man.

“No. The Bats are vigilantes. We work with the Justice League, a group of superheroes in charge of world safety.”

Look. Danny might live under a proverbial rock in Amity Park, but superheroes? Never heard of ‘em. Point one to being a different universe.

Well. Point several, he just couldn’t remember the others. Wait a second-

“Are soulmarks a thing here?”

“What? Yes, why?”

Danny shot up, despite the pain in his chest and side and- everywhere.

“Can you show me a soulmark? Do you have one?”

Red Robin’s face shuttered behind the mask, and the heartbeat in Danny’s ears sped up a little.

“I do not.”

“Oh. Sorry. I just- Sorry.”

There was a noise from outside of the medical area, and then a voice called out.

“Red Robin? Is our guest awake? I brought a representative from the JLD.”

The vigilante got up and went out quickly, and Danny felt really bad for hurting him. For a few minutes he was left alone, so he lay back down and stared at the wall.

And then. And. Then.

“YOU!”

Danny shot up into a sitting position again, pointing at the man in the trench coat who came into the room.

Trench coat man looked confused.

Not caring for his stitches or monitors or anything like that, Danny struggled onto his feet, forgetting the pain in his anger.

“Do you, John Constantine, know how much of a pain in my ass you are?” He sneered and let his voice take on a nasally tone. “’Oh Great One, Phantom, lord of the realms and all that shit! John Constantine sold his soul to me, but he sold it to my cousin too! Who gets the soul now?’”

Danny ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

“You know who gets his soul now, Constantine? I fucking do! I-“ He flagged- maybe he shouldn’t air out this guy’s dirty laundry in front of strangers? “Anyways, fuck you, dude. Find a way to get me home and never fucking sell your soul again.”

~~~

Tim was honestly shocked that Phantom had been able to move in the state he was in, even with what Tim suspected was accelerated healing.

His extra heartbeat had started pounding a mile a minute the moment Phantom saw Constantine, but Tim ignored it for now, instead focusing on their guest.

When Phantom mentioned being sent home, Tim had to step in.

“I don’t believe that is wise, Phantom. You came to us severely injured. My conscious would not let me send you away without-“

Constantine was backing away from Phantom, so fast that he ran into Dick standing at the door.

“Nope. Not dealing with that. No offense, King Phantom, but you’re above my paygrade.”

Phantom (king?) stood still for a moment, looking lost, but then he drew himself up.

“John Constantine, I am your paygrade. Send me where I’m supposed to be.”

Tim watched curiously as Constantine winced.

“That’s some. Pretty vague wording there, your royalness. That is a spell, that I can cast, but whether it does anything or not?” He shrugged. “Can’t tell.”

Phantom slumped, and then waved a limp hand at Constantine.

“Yeah, I didn’t figure. Sorry I yelled at you. I’ll try not to lord the whole ‘I own your soul’ over you too much. Can you at least get me back to the Realms?”

“It might take me a while. What will you do in the meantime?”

Sighing, Phantom made his way back to the med cot, sitting on the edge gingerly.

“Heal the rest of the way. Haunt an abandoned building. Do whatever the hell ghosts do in this dimension.”

“Ghosts?”

Dick spoke up, and Tim could tell his brother was a little shell-shocked.

Phantom winced.

“I mean, as long as ghosts aren’t like, science experiments in this one. Been there, done that. Not fun.”

Constantine shrugged.

“There aren’t a lot of you running around, you should be fine.” He turned to Tim and Dick. “Bats, don’t cause an interdimensional incident. Phantom may be a good king, but he’s still a king.”

“Only on days that end in y.”

With another shrug, John disappeared in a swirl of tan trench coat.

Tim looked to Phantom, who was scowling at the place that Constantine vanished from.

“Well, your majesty, can we offer you any assistance?”

~~~

With a groan, Danny stood back up off the bed.

“No- I think I’m healed enough to get out of your hair by now. Uh. Thank you for your hospitality and all, but I should be… Trying to find a way home.”

“Whoever is back where you came from wants to hurt you, Phantom.”

Danny wasn’t sure why Red Robin seemed to care so much. Sure, he had pretty much decided that if anything happened to Red Robin he’d ice everyone in the vicinity and then finish the job on himself, but that was just him. He was pretty sure everyone imprinted on the first person they saw in a new reality.

Right?

“There are people I have to protect.”

He had to keep himself from wincing at the half-truth. He’d ordered the ghosts to stay away from Amity Park right before Jack and Maddie had captured him, so they were fine, but he had to protect Jazz and Sam and Tucker from finding out that the Fentons were so awful as to attack their son.

“You have to protect yourself first.”

The other man had stepped into the room.

“You’ve obviously been through something hard, Phantom. Take a break. We can find a safe house for you to stay in until you are feeling better. I’m Nightwing, by the way.”

Danny nodded to Nightwing, and then looked expectantly at Red Robin, who was tapping away at his wrist computer.

“Collectively, the only one of us with a suitable safe house is Red Hood. His have great security systems, but aren’t connected to the bats main computer network in any way.”

He looked up from his computer with a smile.

“Ready to meet a zombie, Mister Ghost King?”

[ckret2]

Chapter 39 of human Bill Cipher is SURE he's about to escape being the Mystery Shack's prisoner:

Ford's confronted with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he's a little bit too obsessed with Bill.

And meanwhile, Bill has found a way to reach his loyal cultists... if he can find somebody willing to help him make contact.

He thinks Ford is the perfect target.

Maybe, just maybe, the obsession goes both ways.

(warning for an incident of self-harm via burning, and depersonalization and/or dysphoria (depending on how you interpret it) re: Bill feeling even worse about his body than usual.)

####

Soos, Stan, and Ford had stayed up half the night trying to generate enough NowUSeeitNowUDontium to prevent it from vanishing the moment one of them lost (or gained) focus. They'd eventually given up and stayed the night in Northwest Manor. Soos had texted Melody around midnight, and she'd immediately replied (which alarmed Ford, but Soos assured him she was used to those hours) and agreed, with some trepidation, to spend the night by herself in the shack so that the kids wouldn't be alone all night with Bill. She'd texted a half hour later to report that the bathroom was a disaster, but the kids had reassured her it was just some werewolf thing, so, not a big deal.

Ford had thought getting to spend a night without Bill under the same roof would be a relief. Instead, he found his sleep was even worse. He kept worrying about what Bill might get up to so far away and out of sight, where Ford couldn't do anything to stop him. Surely, by nighttime, Bill had to have noticed that the only humans he'd seen all day were the kids? Would he consider Melody any kind of threat, no veteran to combating Gravity Falls' weirdness?

It figured that the dream demon would find a way to disrupt Ford's sleep when he wasn't even there.

####

Ford had given up on sleep around two in the morning and gone wandering until he stumbled across a den with walls covered in bookcases, massive windows overlooking the forest below, and a pair of richly upholstered armchairs turned to gaze out the windows. He drifted between the chairs to one of the windows. It was the kind of personal library he'd dreamed of accepting esteemed guests in, back when he'd fantasized about one day being rich and famous. He suspected the Northwests had never read a book in this room.

Ford had been staring out at the still night and the dark pines for several minutes when he heard the creak of a door and soft footsteps behind him. He whirled around, raising a weapon. "Back, you spectral fiend!"

"Whoa! Easy, Sixer!" Stan held up a hand defensively. "It's just me!" He lowered his hand. "Why are you holding up a dinner plate?"

"Er—sorry." Ford sheepishly tucked the silver dish under his arm again. "I'm sure I saw a ghost earlier. I thought it prudent to arm myself."

Stan muttered, "This place sure is creepy enough for it."

"Mm. It's built on more than its fair share of bones." Ford returned to gazing out the window, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sorry today was a failure. When I'm staring right at an experiment on which the fate of the entire universe depends, it's hard not to think about it."

"Eh, I wasn't doing too hot either," Stan admitted, joining Ford at the window. "There's only so many times you can hear Soos whisper 'Think about the miniature particle accelerator' in your ears on a loop before you zone out and start thinking about fishing season."

Ford huffed. "Maybe we should have switched places."

"Yeah, probably. I retired from thinking about science after I got your dumb portal running, and once you get your head stuck on something you can't stop thinking about it."

Ford laughed wryly. "Unfortunately accurate."

There was a moment of silence; and then Stan said cautiously, "Speaking of you getting your head stuck on something..."

Ford didn't like that tone. "Hm?"

"I was, uh... doing some light reading..." He held up Ford's journal.

A jolt of anger and fear shot through Ford. "Give me—" He snatched the journal back.

It wasn't until it was in his hands that he registered the absurdity of his own action; for the past year, he'd given Stan free access to Journal 5. He'd used it to document their travels and discoveries as a reference for them both; he'd even asked Stan to contribute a couple of entries. Based on a prior precedent of seven months, Stan had every right to look at Journal 5. Revoking that access now was... Well, it didn't look good.

Stan didn't immediately say anything. Ford supposed his own actions said enough. He tucked the journal under his arm with the silver dish.

Stan cleared his throat. "I think we're a little past the 'superhero nemesis' thing."

"It's not a problem," Ford said tersely.

"Not a prob—? Ford, you're letting him consume your life."

"He's consumed all our lives. The kids haven't been able to invite anyone over, Melody all but runs to her car after work, you ended up in a showdown with fae nobility—"

"It was just the tooth fairy!"

"Do you know how important a fairy has to be to claim dominion over all teeth?"

"Forget about the fairy!" Stan waved off the whole fairy topic with one hand. "Look, I'm not the one who's dedicated half a journal to talking about him!"

"You don't keep a journal, Stanley—"

"That's not the point!"

"—I'm just saying, if you did keep a journal, I think he'd have come up on more than a few pages—"

"But like this?" Stan gestured toward Ford's journal. "This is turning into an obsession. And not one of your normal obsessions."

The back of Ford's neck heated up. He wanted to argue that he had to obsess over Bill if he hoped to find a way to kill him—but Stan already knew that Ford had passed off that project to Fiddleford weeks ago. "How can I be 'obsessed' with somebody I barely even see? I'm avoiding Bill like my life depends on it! I talk to him less than Mrs. Ramirez does!"

"And you're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private!" Stan gestured again, angrily, at Ford's journal. (Ford defensively tucked it further under his arm.) "You're acting like a stalker, Sixer. Not that I care about him, but, I'm starting to worry about your head."

"A st—?! I'm a scientist, he's a scientific curiosity! I'm documenting him! I document plenty of things!"

"Not like this, you don't."

"There's a lot to document!"

"Including spending a whole page trying to figure out—how to draw his—?!" Stan gestured furiously toward his boxers.

Ford pointed at him severely. "You were just as curious as I was to find out how a giant eyeball and a sentient triangle make that work, don't pretend you weren't."

Stan grimaced. "Okay, fine, I'll give you that one. But writing a full entry about his posture?"

"He's not only an alien being in a human body but a two-dimensional creature in a three-dimensional body, how he moves and gestures could tell us about how an utterly unfamiliar species perceived space! Nearly all his gestures adhere to an invisible coronal plane, that betrays worlds of information about his original anatomy. Do you know that elbow thing he does when he walks—"

"Ford. You're using your great-niece to get drawings of his childhood bedroom."

Ford raised a finger. "That's—" Ford lowered his finger. Ford sat in a nearby armchair, put his chin in his hands, and stared into space. "What am I doing."

Stan patted his shoulder.

Ford slid his journal and the dish out from under his arm and settled them in his lap. He stared at the cover, then thumbed through the pages. It was obvious when they'd returned to Gravity Falls; the drawings of Atlanteans, were-rats, shorelines, and boats immediately gave way to page after page of staring slit-pupiled eyes.

"It's just... Bill is an ancient being, many times older than our universe, and the last surviving specimen of his own bizarre species. As both an anomaly and a source of esoteric knowledge, he's an invaluable subject of study. He's going to die soon, and he should die, but... between now and then, I don't want to pass up the last ever opportunity to study him."

Stan sank down into the chair opposite Ford. "You're listening to yourself, right?" He didn't sound angry anymore, just worried. "This is a guy who tried to kill us. He isn't a 'specimen' you can add to your collection of weird stuff, you know that, right?"

"I know, I know." That was exactly why it was so important—why it seemed so important—to capture Bill in words and pictures before it was too late. (It was funny, Ford thought, how Stan's very first conversation with Bill had been a murder, and yet he was the one who talked about Bill like he was just some guy; while Ford had spent so many years obsessively trying to find out who Bill was that he'd almost forgotten he was a person instead of a terrible idea.)

"When execution day comes and you think you haven't dug up enough of his history, what'll you do? Give him a stay of execution until he's dictated his memoirs to you?"

"No," Ford said immediately. "No, of course not. I'm just taking advantage of the opportunity to learn what I can, while I can. It's no different from your 'shopping trip' at the mall—"

"Hey!" Stan pointed a finger at Ford. "Watch it! That was strictly business! It's not like I'm attached to the guy—"

"I didn't mean anything by it! I just meant—as long as we're stuck with Bill, make him useful, and—and to heck with him after that. Right?" Like Stan had said about the scratch cards: why throw away free money just because of the source? "He'd do the same to us."

Stan hesitated. "And you're sure that when the time comes, you'll be ready to pull the trigger?"

"I know I will. It won't be the first time. I'm just glad that this time I'll be able to aim at his own head."

"Hm." Stan didn't look convinced.

Ford sighed. "But, if I think I'll waver—I'll hand you the gun."

"Is that a promise?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I promise."

But he knew he didn't need to.

####

Soos drove the tired gang home just past dawn, early enough for him to open the Mystery Shack on schedule.

"Soon as we get home, I'm going back to sleep," Stan muttered crankily. Ford—eyes shut, leaning against the window—nodded in agreement. Stan yawned, "And there'd better not be any nasty surprises at the shack."

####

Bill sat sleeping in his attic window seat, knees to his chest, leaning against the window, ear pressed to the glass.

Outside, Stan wailed, "My car!"

Bill's eyes snapped open. He smiled.

He ran to the kids' room, knocked on the door—"Hey, the bigger Pines are back!"—and bolted for the stairs.

####

Soos got the door open at the exact same time Bill stumbled off the stairs and collided with the living room doorframe. Bill grabbed the doorframe just long enough to steady himself, and then bounded over to the door, shoved Soos and Ford aside, and leaned out onto the porch. "HIYA, STAN!"

Stan whipped around to face Bill. "YOU!" He gestured furiously at the wizard graffiti on his car. "WHAT did you DO to my CAR!"

"Do you like it?"

Stan let out an inarticulate scream of rage.

"Oh, you love it!"

"You massacred it! I've had this car forty-five years! I've done things in this car I can't say! And it's never, never been so—so—violated!"

Grinning ear to ear, Bill said, "What do you think of the girl wizard?"

"The what?!" Stan circled the car. He screamed again.

"Uh-huh?"

"Why does she have a beard!"

"Go on," Bill said gleefully, "tell me what you think! I want the full review!"

"This," Stan said, "is the most ugly, hideous, terrible—"

Bill glanced back at a sound on the stairs. "Oh, hey Mabel! Get over here!" He gestured proudly as Mabel joined him in the doorway. "And here's the artistic mastermind herself!"

Stan choked on his words. "—b... beautiful, stunning, museum-worthy work of art I've ever seen."

Mabel beamed. "It's not finished yet, we ran out of some colors! I was going to add a dragon on the hood!"

Stan's face went white. "No no, it's... perfect the way it is. Don't—don't change a thing."

"Really? You're sure? I don't mind!"

"Really." Looking slightly nauseous, Stan said, "I love it just like this, pumpkin."

Mabel squealed and ran outside to give him a big hug.

Bill was fighting back silent laughter so hard he almost fell down.

####

"...And I still haven't found any sign of the Nightwigglers," Dipper said, sighing dejectedly and dropping his journal on the counter next to the cash register. "So, I dunno, maybe I should give up on this one and move on."

Wendy was sitting back with her feet kicked up on the counter, but she straightened a bit to look at Dipper's journal. She skimmed the news article he'd paperclipped to one page. "Oh, I heard about this," she said. "The cops talked to me about the first burglary. I was in the thrift shop that day."

"Oh, yeah?" Dipper pointed at the picture next to the article. "Did you see anything like this?"

Wendy's eyes widened. "No—but I think one of my brothers did."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, he was talking about it a couple nights ago. He said it was like an armless white thing wearing pants that went up to its face. We all thought he got spooked by a deer butt or something and made up the whole story. Then dad said we should drop it and told us we should stay in at night."

"That's when they come out! At night!" Dipper laughed excitedly. "Do you think your dad knows something?"

"Pfff, not if he can help it." Wendy pulled her feet off the counter and checked the clock. "I could show you the start of the trail my brother was on. It's like ten minutes by bike and the next big tour bus isn't getting here for half an hour, wanna sneak out?"

"Are you serious?! Of course!"

"Just promise you won't tell Gus if we find something. We've been making fun of him for days and I don't want to  admit he was right." Wendy laughed. "Let me grab somebody to cover."

"I'll get my bike!" Dipper was already headed out the door. "I've been looking for a lead for days! I dug through half the dumpsters in town searching for their nests..." The door swung shut behind him.

Wendy ducked into the living room. "Hey Goldie."

"Yello?" He was sitting cross legged on the couch watching TV.

"I've gotta do something with Dipper, do you mind covering for a little bit? Just twenty, thirty minutes."

His gaze flickered to the TV, then back to Wendy's face. "Sure! Anything for you, cool girl."

Wendy had a brief, eerie sense of déjà vu. She shook it off. "I'm not interrupting anything good, am I?" She nodded at the TV.

"Naaah, it's one of those terrible specials about pyramid conspiracies." He shook a cider can, "I'm taking a sip every time they mention Fishmasons or 'ancient dinosaur-worshiping civilization.'"

"Dude. You'll be wasted before the first commercial break."

"Really, you're saving me from myself." He set the can on the TV and followed Wendy into the gift shop. (As he did, Bill checked to see if he had anything on under his hoodie. No? The Pines didn't want him to be seen in public in his hoodie; they thought it would make him "too obvious." He rolled up the sleeves to hide some of the brick pattern and surreptitiously tucked the hood and the bow tie drawstrings into the collar.)

As she headed out the door, Wendy repeated, "Just twenty minutes! Thirty tops. I'll get back before the next tour bus, promise."

"No problem!" He waved her off.

"I owe you one!"

Bill made a note of that.

He looked around the gift shop—any readily-obvious mischief he could get up to? He grabbed an 8-ball cane and took it to the counter. And then he took the stool behind the register, propped his chin in his hand, gazed toward the living room, and resumed watching TV through the wall and backwards. He didn't miss hearing the conspiracy talk—he was sure it was actively making him stupider—but credit where credit was due; they made those CGI pyramid models really hot.

A cutaway of one pyramid showed its internal tunnels and chambers. Bill bit his lower lip. Oh yeah. That's what he came here for.

Several minutes went by. The door opened and a lone tourist crept in, a middle-aged woman with a sun-damaged tan. Bill straightened up and switched his eye patch over to hide his bleeding eye. "Heya! Next tour's in..." He checked the clock, how long until the next bus? "About fifteen minutes."

The woman nodded and quietly started circling the gift shop.

Bill glanced toward the living room, decided he'd better not start damaging his other eye too, mentally cursed the tourist, and pulled out one of Wendy's magazines to read. "Let me know if you need anything."

The tourist spent several minutes making a slow circuit of the room, and then crept up to the cash register. Bill looked up with a smile, didn't see any souvenirs in her hands, and asked, "Can I help you?"

Hesitantly, the woman said, "The sun sets a deep blood red."

Bill's eye flew wide open, his heart leaped into his throat, and his breath hitched. His gaze roved over her exposed skin until he spied a tattoo on her right arm: four triangles stacked atop each other, starting with an equilateral and each getting shorter and more obtuse as they descended, until they'd reduced completely and a single horizontal line underlined all four triangles. This wasn't quite the happiest he'd ever been to see the symbol of a devastatingly self-destructive high-control cult, but it was close. "Oh! Oh, this is—" He rubbed his temples, squeezing his eye shut. "I know this. I rhymed 'red' with 'pyramid.' Why do I give everyone a different code. 'But rises gold over the pyramid'—something like that, right?" Bill gave the woman a pleading look. "I'm close enough that you can tell I know what you're talking about!"

A look of relief washed over her face. "You know him." Voice low, she asked, "Is it safe to talk?"

Knew him? He was him. But he couldn't claim that without proving it—what would convince her?—telling her something that only he knew?—great, but what? Her face was vaguely familiar—he thought he might've given her a visionary dream once—but he had so many little worshipers and they were so unimportant, most of them blurred together.

So all he could do was say, "It's not safe. Everyone here is an enemy."

She nodded sharply. "Where can we meet?"

Bill paused. "We can't. I'm... trapped."

Her brows creased with worry. "They're keeping you prisoner?"

"Afraid so."

"I could get the police—"

"Everyone," Bill repeated, "is an enemy."

She paused, processing that. Bill's gaze flickered to the clock. Wendy said twenty minutes, thirty tops. She'd been gone twenty-two minutes. "Someone's coming any minute."

"Right." The cultist grabbed Wendy's magazine, tore a corner off a page, and grabbed a pen.

"How did you find me?" Bill asked. Of all the tourist traps in all the tiny towns in all the world, how had she come in hereand walked right up to him? 

"We were told a devotee was here," she said. "Someone sent the address and phone number to the Bahamian art studio."

Bill's mind spun. How? Who the heck would know to do that? The only person who knew he was here who'd come anywhere close to any of Bill's other worshipers was...

Ford? No. Did he?

The cultist shoved the paper in his hand and turned to leave.

Bill grabbed her arm. "Stay out of Gravity Falls," he commanded. "But stay close. Don't go back to Death Valley." Between the sun damage and the tattoo, she had to be one of his Death Valley girls. She looked like their usual prey: disaffected middle class white woman, probably had a dead end job and a mediocre husband and a useless degree from a liberal arts college. Maybe being able to guess where she came from would impress her.

It did. She stopped and turned back and looked at him in amazement—and then looked at him, staring hard at his eye. "You're... hosting him, aren't you?" Her voice fell to a whisper. "No. Are you...?"

"You got me." He smiled wryly—behold him, electric god bound in flesh, how low he's fallen, but at least he still has his good humor, doesn't he? "I always said you had great intuition." (It was a safe bet. He usually told the ladies that they had great intuition. Most of them ate that up, and the ones that didn't were often a little too savvy to sucker.)

It worked. She inhaled sharply. "You are," she breathed. "I knew you'd be a woman. Oh, Mary's a fool." She said this like she'd just won some years-old argument Bill had missed.

Mary, as in Mary-whom-Bill-had-put-in-charge-of-the-Death-Valley-compound Mary? Ha. She was getting on in years; maybe Bill could start a schism, that sounded fun. He opened his mouth to say something about Mary having great leadership but waning clarity of vision—

—when the cultist leaned across the counter, grabbed his collar, and pulled him into a kiss.

Okay. All right. She was one of those cultists. Got it. Got it got it got it. Wow. Definitely a "mediocre husband" convert, those were easy to seduce away with a little warmth and affection—nothing obvious, but get them infatuated with the idea of an unattainable incorporeal ideal lover and they'd chase him to the ends of the earth. Maybe a lesbian in denial that Bill had decided to push further into denial, if her assumption about Bill's gender was anything to go by. He tried to remember what he'd told this one.

He leaned into the kiss.

He'd done this before—in dreams, in puppets—he didn't prefer humans, but he could handle them well enough and earthlings had such pretty eyes. And this body he was stuck in made such insistent demands; a surge of human hormones washed over his brain so powerfully it made him dizzy. She broke the kiss to murmur, "Cipher, my lord—" and he took the opportunity to kiss her eyelid and lie, "I knew if anyone could find me, it would be you." He wished he remembered her name. She tugged his face back down to her lips. She was so eager. Cipher, my lord. Oh, it felt good to be revered again—

The door opened. "Um?"

If Bill had had one ounce of his power, he would have killed Wendy on the spot.

Instead, he seized his cultist's hands, ripped them off his hoodie, and shoved her away. "Whoa, lady! What do you think this is, a kissing booth?!" He laughed angrily. "We don't offer that kind of service here! Either get out, or—or buy a souvenir already!" He pointed at Wendy. "From her. Not from me."

Shocked, the cultist turned toward where Bill was pointing; and then turned back, understanding in her eyes.

Wendy raised her hands defensively, grimacing. "Yeah, no, I'm not serving you either. Just... get outta here."

The cultist met Bill's gaze for just a moment, then walked quickly out the door without a word.

Bill shouted after her, "And do not come back!" and quietly mourned as, for the second time in as many weeks, he had to watch helplessly as he sent away his only hope of getting any action/rescue.

"I am so, so sorry," Wendy said. "I leave for like ten minutes and you get one of the nightmare customers."

How Bill loved nightmares. "Twenty-five minutes, but who's counting."

"Psh, shut up." Wendy reclaimed her post behind the counter. "I think she's been here before, she looks kinda familiar. You okay?"

Bill hoped nobody else in town would recognize her. "I think I'll live after some mouthwash. Terrible breath." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Hey, remember when you said you owe me one? You really owe me."

####

All his cultist had written for him was a phone number. Bill slid his stolen journal from its window hiding spot and copied the number down in two-tone dots and dashes. Plaintext transcriptions were usually tricky, given the vast difference between the language Bill wrote in and the languages humans used—but numbers, at least, were easy. Everyone had numbers.

And then he stared at the scrap of paper, reading the numbers over and over, until he was sure he'd memorized them, just in case he ever lost the journal.

And then he ate the paper.

And then he stacked the two cushions of his makeshift bed on top of each other, planted his face in them, and screamed.

Cipher, my lord. It had felt so, so, so good to be revered again.

His organs twisted with touch-hunger and loneliness.

####

Out in the Bahamas, along the southwest edge of the Bermuda Triangle, were two nut job hermits from Miami. Bill had convinced them that the only way they could purge their sins and purify their souls was by sculpting and selling golden avatars of God into which they could pour their guilt, and they had to keep doing it until they no longer felt guilty (and they would never not feel guilty; they needed so much therapy that Bill had ensured they'd never get). And then he'd convinced them that God's true face was an Eye of Providence in a top hat and bow tie.

Over the years he'd lost a little control over those two—in their desperation to be free of sin, they'd also started sculpting avatars to as many gods as they could find and selling them en masse to afford more art supplies—but hey, as long as his face was still mixed in with the rest, fine. Honestly, he was surprised those nuts weren't dead yet.

Somebody in this house had sent his location to them. And in a moment of what Bill imagined was stunning mental clarity, they had passed on that information to the single least dysfunctional pocket of Bill's top cult in the continental United States. Maybe when Bill was back at full power, he'd drop by the hermits' dreams to tell them they'd finally achieved absolution and could rest. Their decades of out-of-control scrupulosity would probably prevent them from believing him, but hey, he could say he'd tried. He washed his hands of all responsibility over them and their mental illnesses that he'd knowingly deliberately exacerbated for his own benefit. Not his problem.

But the question he came back to, over and over, was who had talked to them.

Bill needed to reach his Death Valley cultist. He needed a phone. Every phone in this house was well-guarded. No one would let him touch one... except, perhaps, whoever had sent the SOS on his behalf.

The only person who made sense was Stanford. Bill didn't think he'd ever told Ford about the nutty sculptors; but in the eighties he had given him the mailing addresses of some niche art dealers who would sell tapestries and statues of an obscure one-eyed god to collectors who could appreciate what they were looking at. Maybe Ford had gotten back in contact with them? Maybe he'd told them where Bill was, and they'd passed the information to the Bahamas?

Maybe Ford's feelings weren't quite so cold toward Bill as he'd been pretending.

Bill liked that idea a lot.

Maybe Bill's birthday gift had swung Ford back around to the side of reason—reminded him just how good he'd had it under a muse and mentor willing to teach him anything his nerdy little heart desired. Or maybe he'd always wanted to come back, and had just needed Bill to say it first.

He probably only pretended he hated Bill because they were surrounded by enemies—everyone in the house thought Ford was looking for a way to destroy Bill, what would happen if they knew the truth?

But the truth was there. Bill could almost seize it in his hands. All those moments where they almost talked like they were friends again, before Ford had to stop himself and leave. That one beautiful little word: jealous. And of course, there was the whole thing with the glass pyramid and the "Mysteries" that Ford had passed on—

—to Mabel.

There was another possibility.

As much as Bill would love if it was Ford, Mabel was the only person in the house who acted like she actually wanted Bill alive. Whatever "Mysteries" Ford was teaching her had something to do with Bill, the pyramid made that obvious. Maybe his lessons included the contact information of everyone else Ford knew who knew Bill? Maybe she'd taken it upon herself to call for help?

It was thin. And it was still dependent upon Ford harboring a secret loyalty to Bill that he was passing on to his great-niece. But that was where things stood: Ford was the only person in the house who definitely knew how to reach Bill's followers, but Mabel was the only person in the house who definitely might want to.

And he had to make completely sure of which one of them it was before he asked for a favor.

####

Ford had missed dinner again.

Fiddleford had sent Ford home with a pile of math. All the calculations he'd done to get the miniature particle accelerator to produce Dontium. By his reckoning, that there jar should've filled with Dontium faster than greased lightning; he just plumb can't understand why it trickled in like cold molasses. (His words.) He'd asked Ford to check his work, see if he'd missed something.

Ford was more than happy to help. It was a much-needed intellectual challenge that didn't involve Bill's underhanded birthday gift. Something that would let him feel like he was making progress. And it was comfortingly familiar. He and Fiddleford had spent weeks checking and re-checking each other's math in the lead up to the portal test, before they knew what a horror they were building.

As soon as Ford had gotten home, he'd put Fiddleford's papers in his underground study before going back to bed. Bill had already admitted he could glimpse the future, although Ford wasn't sure how far; and Ford was growing convinced that Bill's ability to perceive "higher dimensions" let him see through walls like they weren't there. He'd begun keeping Journal 5 and other sensitive materials down in his study at all times, hoping that the distance and layers of dirt and rock would keep Bill from peering in.

And when he'd dragged himself out of bed around noon—an embarrassingly late hour to get up, but he had been awake most of the night—he'd grabbed a quick breakfast/lunch, brewed a pot of coffee to take with him, and gone below to get to work.

He'd only worked seven or eight hours with a couple of reluctant breaks in the middle before his head began pounding too hard for him to ignore. He'd been neglecting his exercise regimen the past few weeks, and his back and neck were letting him know. In his thirties, he'd been able to work fourteen hours days and still want to keep going—and that was even before he'd handed his body over to Bill so he could keep working around the clock. He wasn't as young as he used to be.

He dragged himself upstairs after sunset, when the last ambient light from the sky still faintly glowed through the windows. He could make something quick and simple for dinner, go to bed early, and get up early to continue working. He pushed through the door to the dark living room—

"Hello!"

"Gah!" Ford jumped. "You. What are you doing here?"

Bill was leaning next to the door, a dim silhouette with his elbow on the wall and cheek in his hand. Even in the dark, Ford was sure he could see Bill's wicked grin at his reaction. "I happen to live here."

Ford let out an irritated huff. "Whatever you're up to, I don't have time to deal with it. Find someone else to bother." He pushed past Bill and headed toward the kitchen.

It would have been too much to expect Bill not to follow him, wouldn't it? "Aw, c'mon, don't be like that! Would it kill you to act like you're happy to see me?"

"Probably."

Bill's laugh made Ford's shoulders raise up around his ears. Maybe that was the source of his neck pain.

Bill shadowed him into the kitchen and leaned on the table, watching while Ford rummaged through the fridge. "But seriously, Sixer—who are you trying to impress by giving me the cold shoulder? I'm the only one here. You could afford to treat me like a person for two minutes." When Ford slammed the fridge door, Bill smacked it with the tip of an 8-ball cane. "Hey, have my food privileges been revoked? Give me a turn."

How long had Bill had a weapon? Ford snatched the cane from him, but opened the fridge and left it. "I don't consider you a person. I consider you an incalculably destructive force of pure, brutal chaos." He cracked three eggs in a skillet and opened a cabinet for one of the stove knobs they kept stored where Bill couldn't reach them.

"Flattering!" Bill started pulling out his usual nauseating array of condiments: today was sauerkraut, maraschino cherries, mustard, ranch dressing, and barbecue sauce. (Why did he eat like that? Did his species usually subsist on a mostly liquid diet? Was it the flavors—?) "Hey, make me mac 'n' cheese, wouldja?"

"No."

"Fine. Leave the burner on when you're done, I'll make it myself."

"You're not allowed to use the stove."

"Then how about I sit here drinking mustard while you enjoy a hot meal." Bill waved three eggs at Ford. "At least make me eggs too. Zero extra effort on your part. I'll even crack them for you if you want."

Ford gave Bill a dark look; but he supposed, as one of the people who had agreed that Bill wasn't allowed to cook, he was in no position to complain about Bill begging him to cook on his behalf. He snatched the eggs out of Bill's hand. "How do you want them."

"I haven't eaten enough chicken eggs to have a preference. Whatever you'll complain least about doing."

Poorly scrambled eggs it was. Ford shut the fridge and returned to the stove.

Bill sat on the table and crossed his legs in lotus position while he waited. "But really, what do you get out of pretending you can't stand me! We both know it's an act."

Ford gave him a tired, sour look. "Even for you, you sound delusional."

"I know you don't really hate me."

"I could write an entire dissertation and earn another Ph.D. on the topic of how much I hate you."

Ford hated how excited Bill looked by that. "Would you?"

"No! Why would I waste that much time thinking about you?"

"It seems to me like you're already doing that."

The hair on the back of Ford's neck prickled. Surely Bill just meant Ford's research into how to kill him; but his mind flashed to the miniature grimoire he'd spent all his time poring over—the blueprints of Bill's childhood home—the face he'd absent-mindedly drawn in his journal in the middle of the night and quickly scribbled out. Could Bill still see through that face? Had Ford remembered to blind Bill's eye on the blueprints? What about the eyes drawn in his human faces? Did Bill know about Ford's other studies? What did it matter—nothing Ford was doing was wrong. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Bill's smile slowly widened. "Sure you don't. You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. You might as well lean into it."

You're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private. "I am not..." Wasn't he? You're acting like a stalker, Sixer.

"Oh, Fordsy, come on." Bill uncrossed his legs, slid off the table, and was across the room faster than Ford had expected. Ford instinctively took a step back and bumped into the oven; Bill reached past him to lean a hand against the edge of the stove, inches from touching him. "You're not hiding it half as well as you think you are. Did you think I wouldn't notice?" He smirked up at Ford, exposed eye wide and eager, utterly fascinated with him. "And bringing Mabel in on it? I'll have to admit, that surprised me. Can't say I disapprove, though."

Ford couldn't tell if the heat on the back of his neck was from Bill's accusations or the stove. "I beg your pardon?" What was he talking about—their conversation in Portland? The blueprints of Bill's home? (Using his great-niece to spy on Bill, lord, what was Ford doing?)

"Quit messing around! The Mysteries, Stanford. You think I don't know I'm the star of that show?" He poked the center of Ford's chest, "There's no way you joined a cult, you're not enough of a team player! What'd you do? Invent your own cult of one? Mixed a little of what I taught you, a little of whatever you learned out in the multiverse? I know you were asking around about me." Bill chuckled. "You want to keep your little rituals private, fine—I think it's cute, really—just tell me one thing I've been dying to know: how much have you told the kid?"

Ford stared at Bill.

Then he laughed in his face. "You really bought that?"

Bill's smile immediately vanished. "What?"

Ford shoved Bill's hands away. "There are no 'Mysteries.' It was a joke."

Bill stepped back, staring at Ford, brows furrowed. "A...? No," he said. "She's got that glass pyramid—"

"She wanted it because it was pretty," Ford said. "I gave her one since I was throwing them all out."

"That's the stupidest story I've ever heard. Then why would she have brought up the Mysteries!"

"Because," Ford said, "I told her, if you asked about the pyramid, she should make up something to confuse you."

Bill's mouth was open, but no words came out. His face had rapidly turned red. Several emotions flashed across his face in quick succession, from shock to confusion to humiliation to a rage so deep it almost looked like disgust. For a moment, from how Bill's fingers were curling like claws, Ford was sure Bill was about to attack him.

But then he clenched his jaw, backed off, leaned on the table, jammed his fists down against the tabletop, and glared at the floor.

Ford turned back to the stove, grinning to himself. Some of the eggs had burned slightly. Those were Bill's now. "What's the matter? Did you forget that humans can lie?"

Bill didn't reply.

"I'm surprised you didn't expect it. I seem to remember we got you with an impressive whopper last year—"

"Shut up."

"Now you don't want to talk?"

"Now you do?"

Good point; he didn't. If he'd finally rendered Bill speechless, he should enjoy it while he could.

He'd have to thank Mabel later for inventing the Mysteries. Sometimes that girl could be genius.

Ford turned off the burner, put the stove knob away, and dumped the eggs onto two plates. He didn't even bother to keep track of which plate had the burned eggs.

He shot a quick, exasperated look at Bill—he'd sat on top of the table again—and dropped a plate next to him. "Here." He grabbed a bag of bread and looked around for the toaster.

Behind him, voice trembling but low and dangerous, Bill said, "Don't look at me like that."

Ford glanced back warily. "Like what?"

Bill violently shoved off the table. There was an awful squeal of sliding furniture. Before Ford could react, Bill was in his face, grabbing him by his turtleneck, dragging him in, forcing him to look up at Bill.

Ford's peripheral vision was filled with gold. They were so close their noses nearly touched.

"Like you don't remember who I am!" Bill stared down with wide-eyed seething rage. "Your muse!" His voice cracked, "Your god!"

Ford stared up at Bill, speechless.

Then he looked down.

Bill was standing on a chair to make himself taller than Ford.

Ford ripped Bill's hands off his sweater. "You were never, ever my god."

Bill stumbled off the chair, catching himself hard on the edge of the table to keep from falling completely. "That's not true!" He heaved himself back onto his feet with a wince. "You worshiped me—"

"I admired you!" Ford jabbed a finger at Bill's chest. "I respected you! I—I even idolized you, but I never worshiped you!"

Bill jabbed a finger back, "You're splitting hairs! You practically turned your study into a temple to me—tapestries, rugs, statues—"

"Because you said it would help me reach you!"

"And it did! That's what shrines are for, genius!"

"It wasn't a shrine! Not to me."

"You're kidding me! All the money you dropped on that gold-plated statue and you expect me to believe that wasn't an act of worship—"

"Do not. Remind me. How much. That stupid statue cost."

"If you didn't build a shrine for worship then what in the world did you build it for!"

"Friendship!" Ford took a shaky breath in. "I thought... I honestly thought you—you—were my best friend." The air in the room trembled with heat. They were standing too close to each other. Ford refused to be the one to back up.

"I was," Bill said. "I still could be if you'd stop being a moron."

Ford laughed in disbelief. "Which is it, were you my god or my friend?!"

"They're not mutually exclusive—!"

"You can't keep your story straight for THIRTY SECONDS!"

"Don't you call me a LIAR, after EVERYTHING I taught you—!"

"In all the years I've known you I don't think you've told me the truth ONCE—!"

Stan flipped on the lights.

They froze and stared at him. They had their hands around each other's throats. Bill had a foot planted on Ford's stomach like he was trying to get a foothold to climb him. They were both covered in egg.

Stan said, "Could you do this in the morning?"

Ford said, "Sure."

Bill said, "He started it."

"I st—?! You started all of this thirty years ago—"

"Guys," Stan said tiredly.

With some effort, Ford unpeeled his hands from Bill's neck.

To his surprise, Bill voluntarily let go as well. Ford snatched up what was left of his plate of eggs, took the loaf of bread—he had lighters, he could toast it downstairs—and left the kitchen, turning the light off as he went.

Stan was waiting out in the entryway. "Heading to bed?"

"No." Ford shoveled a forkful of eggs in his mouth. "Going to be up late." He was too angry to sleep. He could eat, take a painkiller for his headache, and keep working.

"More research?"

"No. Calculations."

Stan's shoulders slumped; but all he said was, "Suit yourself. Don't stay up too late."

Ford glanced back once into the kitchen. Bill wasn't moving. He sat slumped in a chair, elbows on his knees. He'd pulled on his hood. Its eye stared at Ford.

Ford wasn't about to pity Bill over a performative display of angst. He'd fallen for that already.

He returned to his study and mathematics.

####

Bill stared at his plate of eggs. He mechanically pushed them around on the plate until they formed a perfect equilateral triangle. He scooped out an empty white eye in the middle.

He stood, snatched up the plate, and smashed it on the floor.

They thought he was stupid. They thought he couldn't use a stove if it didn't have knobs, as if he was a child! The humans made it easy for themselves to think of him as a child when they treated him like one, "baby-proof the doors" and "no sharp objects" and "don't talk to strangers." He could show them.

He grabbed the stem where one of the knobs had been removed, and twisted. He heard the hiss of gas under the burner. Everyone was asleep. He could fill the house with gas. It would only take a little push to make a spark and set the entire shack ablaze. In the dark room, he could see the first glimpse of future flames flickering yellow-orange in the periphery of his foresight. No one would survive. Who's your god now, smart guy? He'd rise like a phoenix from his own corpse and he'd tear this town apart.

Where was Mabel?

Was she home tonight?

Bill turned off the gas.

He pushed up his sleeve and pressed the fleshy part of his forearm onto the still-hot burner. The pain burned away his jumbled anger so he could think clearly.

Who cared how the nutty sculptors had gotten Bill's address? He was making good progress on lucid dreaming; maybe he'd astral projected across the country to call for help and forgotten it when he woke up. He'd probably saved himself without even remembering it. It didn't matter. The important thing was that they'd received the message; and now, Bill had friends on the outside. Friends who were on his side.

If he could ever contact them again.

Bill would find a way. He didn't need Ford's help. "Never worshiped you." Ha.

He needed fresh air. Even if it wasn't safe to escape yet, he needed to breathe. He carried himself backward through doorway into the gift shop, pulled aside the curtain hiding the ladder to the roof—

The trap door was shut. He stared up in despair.

He shot a glare toward the vending machine, and angrily crossed back into the living room.

The air was so stuffy inside the shack. "Never worshiped you." Liar. If it wasn't worship then what was it?

Bill took himself upstairs. Hunger gnawed at his stomach. He lay on his makeshift bed curled up around himself, arms wrapped tight across his stomach, his burn pressed hard against a layer of knit yarn, thighs pulled up against his arms. It was a wholly alien position. It felt unnatural and bizarre. This body had curled like this of its own volition. It seemed like the only thing that briefly smothered the ache of emptiness and the hormonal inferno screaming loneliness through every vein. The loneliness wasn't his. He wasn't lonely. This body was. 

Cipher, my lord.

He hated this body.

He ached to be revered again.

####

It was two in the morning. Ford sat at his desk, pages and pages of math scattered before him, glasses off, hand rubbing his eyes.

He didn't want to be checking a mountain of math like a human calculator. He wanted to be studying strange magic and researching new anomalies. He wanted to be digging through Bill's grimoire.

He wanted to be awed again.

####

(I've been waiting to write/draw Bill screaming his grief over not being worshiped since literally April. I hope y'all enjoyed! This is one of my favorite chapters so far, I'd love to hear what y'all think!!)

[radiance1]

Ghost Prince Danny who has been adopted by Pariah Dark, known tyrant of the Infinite Realms that has hated and tried to wage war with humanity for eons before being put to sleep.

Then, there is Raven. Daughter of Trigon.

Danny was just going through some kind of royalty training, that he didn't want nor cared for, when they dropped a bomb on him.

Apparently, Amity Park and the rest of the world he knew exists in some kind of weird pocket dimension that was surrounded by the Infinity Realms.

It went like this:

Infinite Realms > Unworld > His world > Unworld > Infinite Realms > basically everything else.

Which was pretty shocking information to be told straight up.

Anywho, he then decided to go and visit his father (Pariah Dark not Jack Fenton) because it was a way to get out of his studies, he's very thankful that Clockwork stepped in and allowed him to go.

Only before reversing his clock and changing him into a kid, of course, and Danny was like "Why???" and Clockwork refused to explain further than his signature calm, all-knowing smile.

So, he arrives in the dimension and then decides to withhold his visit for now because he wants to explore. He finds this dimension to be very different to his, there's magic for one thing, superheroes and villains for another, and actual proof of aliens.

Safe to say, he's gonna be withholding that visit for a while to explore and check out the differences.

Then he gets summoned, and uh, he didn't know that could happen but it did. Then some heroes pull up, fight the cultists, and then look at him a bit weirdly because they were expecting the Ghost King aka Pariah Dark.

He's his son.

Which, apparently, makes them even more apprehensive than they were a while ago. Something about being the son of a tyrant who was known for enslaving worlds or whatever.

Then, he meets Raven.

Meeting her was pretty.... awkward? He thinks? Cause it seemed like she wanted to say something but didn't know how to say it?

Then, while he was sitting around (because apparently, he was being kept an eye on by the Teen Titans) by himself just zoning out, she sat down next to him, and started to talk about her own father and how he was also a known tyrant and enslaver of worlds, and she was apparently the key to the destruction of this world and stuff.

But she didn't have to be something like that, that she could choose her own fate and be good, and so could Danny.

Danny, is, well. Stunned. Then started crying.

He then realized that his it's been a while since he blinked, and that's probably why he's crying. But Raven doesn't know that and assumed she caused this and is trying to get him to calm down and Danny is already calm he swears-

Looking like someone under 10 probably didn't help, neither was trying to wipe his tears away and claim that he was fine but hey! He was trying his best alright-

(Meanwhile, the Ghost tyrant and enslaving of worlds in question: Farmer with quite the ghostly (and kingly) secret. Yes this was an au that was mixed in with Farmer Pariah, because I like that au and this hc is one of my favorites for Pariah, along with him having an intense love for horses :D)

[animeredhead101]

Tim Drake/ Danny Fenton Masterlist

Completed

Mesmeric Revelation by DisillusionedDanny :

Danny couldn’t stop the future. That much was true. Despite not cheating on his CAT and doing every single thing by the book to make sure that this future was not a reality, it had happened anyway. The nasty burger had blown up. His parents, Jazz, Sam, Tucker, they were all in the building when it happened.With his friends and family dead, Danny goes to the only place he thinks is safe. The infinite realms.As Danny attempts to move on from the tragedy he manages to get summoned by cultists, build a new family for himself and even find love. Not all in that exact order.Tim Drake thought getting kidnapped by cultists was probably the most annoying thing to have ever happened to him. Little did he know it would also be the best thing to ever happen. Word Count: 71,980 Complete Its very heartwarming with a dark tone in the beginning. I enjoy reading this as a comfort fanfic.

Shovel Talk by SummersSixEcho :

When Tim decided to tag along on a road trip with Danny to meet his parents, he was kinda ready for the shovel talk with his friends and family. But bringing out the secrets buried in Amity Park? That’s another kind of shovel talk Danny hadn’t prepared him for. Word Count: 71,396 Complete

Bitter, had the Heart by CastrianAmore :

Tim is the only one consistently watching. Thus he’s the first and only one to notice one more body following the streets like the bats do. A kid with all black hair and white motifs and an attitude problem that reminds him a tad too much of Jason. It was a shame Jason was adamant that he “didn’t know anything”, what a liar right?But the streets of Gotham listened and the name on everyone’s lips playing like a discordant harmony was one word: Distortion. Not that Tim knew what it meant yet, but Danny would make sure he would. If Danny lived long enough for Tim to find out. Word Count: 182,548 Complete

Tim Jr. Coffee Machine Extraordinaire by PaperPuffin :

Dick worried his lip between his teeth as he looked Tim over. His little brother was standing, zombie-like, in front of the Cave’s coffee machine. Not that the act was unusual for Tim. Just… the thing was, Tim had been doing better. Word Count: 2,330 Complete

Wanted: Dead and Alive by Astereae :

“Hey, I do I... Do I know you?” Danny asks, a hand coming up to brush something off Tim’s cheek. “No,” Tim says. “We haven’t met.” “Oh, no, I do.” Danny says, and he smiles, teeth white and sharp. “You’re that guy who rearranged my guts!” Rearranged his- Tim glances at the knotted scars on the boy’s abdomen. He can see the shine and shadow of haphazard stitches that weren’t meant to hold forever, that tore and healed over. His- This- “WHAT!?” Nightwing shouts, equal parts confused and delighted. Tim’s fucked. OR Danny Fenton's been in GIW captivity for 4 months. Tim Drake gets kidnapped by the GIW one Tuesday evening in May. Considering how many of the Bats and the Birds have died and come back to life, it was only a matter of time for some people interested in the afterlife to come poking around. The detectives can't seem to uncover any information about the mysterious white vans, however. And they keep losing the mysterious boy who seems to be the one person in Gotham to know anything at all. Word Count: 121,281 Completed

On-going

Family introductions by Half-dead Ham(Grima101) :

Danny and Tim have been dating for about a year now, figuring out their relationship between Tim’s vigilante duties and Danny’s Ghost King responsibilities. Danny is taking a small (unauthorized) break from his paperwork to find his bf flat on his ass sick trying to go on patrol. The only way to stop him was to take his place, and Danny was lucky they're the same size.

Word Count: 14,070 On-going

An Interesting Family Tree by Scififan33 :

Danny's life in Amity Park wasn't perfect, but it beat his old life. The GIW and Fenton parents didn't make things easier but at least ghost attacks had lessened since he was named Prince, to be crowned upon his twenty first birthday.He'd run from the League almost a decade ago, risking getting their attention, and for a stranger? It was insane. And yet he still got on the plane to Europe to find and warn one Tim Drake that he was being targeted. Word Count: 68,348 On-going This is one of favorite fanfics, I love the interactions of Danny and Tim throughout the story. I also love how the author writes two story lines together. I love both Fandoms and to read a story were they work well together is always a treat!

Tim Drake's I.E.F (Invisible Eldritch Friend) by Half-dead Ham :

The last thing Tim expected while getting stalked was to get used to the unseen creature and how they started taking care of him. He expected even less for them to be the same age

Word Count: 72,042 On-going

I find it hilarious that the bat stalker gets stalked and they some how make it into a funny Rom-com.

Till Death and Beyond by Scififan33 :

Danny and Tim have known each other for a year, have been dating for months, and are very happy. Sure, Tim would prefer if his boyfriend let him help him at least get a nicer apartment, or even an internship at WE but Danny won't let him. Dating Tim is not keeping his head down but as far as everyone knows, Danny Fenton died with his parents and sister. Danny Nightingale has no links to him, thanks to Tucker and Technus' magic.But there are still those who would love nothing more than to get their hands on Phantom, despite his not having been seen in a long time.And why is there a vigilante bleeding out on his apartment floor? Word Count: 79,279 On-going I love the fic for the fact that we talk about how the bat-fam treats Tim. Like he is such a sweetheart and he is not treated they way he should be. Like don't get me wrong I love the fics were Damion and Tim get along and fix their relationship but the way they interact this would not have occurred and to see this in this fanfic and Tim recognizing that its not okay was amazing. I also love that Danny doesn't take any shit from the bat-fam, hes likes fuck with Tim and see what happens. Defiantly one of my top 5!

The Rebirth of Tim Drake by Bewitched_Forest :

Tim gets turned into a halfa after an incident with a newly spawned Lazarus Pit, electricity, and Ra's Al Ghul. When he awakens, he finds himself in the Ghost Zone. Taken to fellow Halfa, Danny Fenton, he travels to Amity Park where he learns with the help of Danny and his friends just what he has become. And how being a Halfa has made him one of the most hunted beings in the world.

Not Abandoned! Updating will just be whenever I feel like it cause I got burnout.

Word Count: 57,663 On-going

My Name is Not Wounder Boy! by CrepuscularCryptid :

Casper High's juniors go on a trip to Washington DC every year. This year it's Danny's class's turn. Absolutely nothing goes wrong. Nothing. Shut up, Tucker. ************* Wherein Danny meets Wonder Woman, fosters diplomacy between the Living and the Dead Realms, and eventually gets a new haunt. Word Count: 44,832 On-going

The Price Of Peace by JoyLess_Nightsk :

The Juistria League - the alliance of the major countries of the continent Juisitria - has long since stood for peace. Unfortunately there is one country that is a thorn in their side whenever they try to solidify that peace: The Infinite Lands, a country of barbarians to the north where the only reason they survive is the magic in the air. Where the magic is so strong that even children develop a talent, which they themselves call "the blessings of the dragons". The country that, last time the Juistria League had tried to negotiate, had waged a war more brutal then anything seen before on them, for over a decade - right until the moment a rebellion caged him. Not long ago, his murderer took the title. And now, that very same newly crowned High Chief demands negotiations of them. Bruce would rather die, would rather see Gotham and all of Juistria in flames than to allow that man to take one of his children. Tim, however, makes another decision before he could say that. Now, everyone has to hope Phantom will be happy with the boy… Meanwhile Danny is just too stunned that they actually agreed to that to do anything about the sudden engagement. Word Count: 50,397 On-going I usually am not a fan of fics like this but I kinda love this but just the fact that their are so many miscommunications between the Gotham and Infinite Lands. It definitely a great start and I cant wait ti read more!

Rated M

A Grave Affair by OnlyHereForTheSnacks :

Tim was used to life taking unexpected turns. It was just another part of being a vigilante. Sometimes life gives you lemons and sometimes an immortal assassin sells you into an arranged marriage to the Ghost King for a piece of jewelry. (Lots of plot. Smut in Ch.3. Mind the tags) Word Count: 14,744 Complete

Seeing Double by Wraiith(Jayyydez) :

"You remember that conversation we had about me being able to duplicate?" Tim's brow furrowed even more. Which conversation-? His mouth dried all at once, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest. Oh. Oh, Ancients and Gods alike, help him. Danny was having this conversation with him. He was having it with him right now, and Tim felt more awake than he had in days. Word Count: 7,752 Complete

Skin of Your Teeth by halfgone(milkywxy) :

Tim can't bring himself to lie about his secret identity anymore. When he spills his secret to his boyfriend, Danny, many more secrets are soon to follow. Some with interesting results. Prompts: Tim Drake |Eldritch Danny| Teeth Word Count: 7,065 On-going

[unadulteratedsoulsweets]

A DC X DP IDEA #7 The Summons

Imagine dis…

It is always Danny being summoned by cultists, John Constantine, enemies…etc to the mortal plane that starts a beautiful meeting and adventure between the two fandoms. But what if Danny pulled an uno reverse this time, and shenanigans and misunderstandings ensue?

Danny is getting tired of all types of summoning around the Infinite realms, being King and immortal quickly gets boring after a few couple centuries. As well as the fact he is getting annoyed at the summoning that he kept getting himself into. The monologue is getting less creative and less creative by the day, he was sure that all villain monologues are either copyrighted or even ripped off from the same book and source, as they are either A. offering their world for his liking B. making him do something, or even C. kill a certain someone, and you wouldn’t believe the number of times he was summoned for the sole purpose of killing either Batman or Superman from the dubbed both liked and least liked dimension for Danny. Liked as they have real live aliens in that dimension as well so far begun the exciting one in this dimension, Least because the majority of the uncomfortable summoning's are from that dimension and the majority of the so-called heroes are either messing up the timeline which comes to the headache of both Danny and Clockwork as well kept jumping through the dimensions of their universe.

Today he sat on his throne with all of his eldritch glory when he felt that feeling of being summoned, now when being summoned is like a very annoying ring that you have on this phone on volume that kept on ringing until you answer it. Sighing at his current life, the number of times he summoned in that dimension to the point he can already feel and identify the same ringtone for that dimension. In a spur of a moment as well an ungodly amount of pettiness at that moment for all the times he has summoned as well the headache he and his mentor received he pulled an uno reverse on the heroes and prepared himself to get back at them.

…

Superman, Constantine, Batman, Red Hood, Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin interfered with yet another cult dedicated to freeing the tyrant Pariah Dark. From what little information they have gathered through the relics and scrolls, Constantine stated that this Pariah Dark will make most of their world-ending fights look like a kid’s squabble due to the vast powers of the Pariah Dark stating that if he wishes though he can destroy this universe in a flick of his hand.

This cult, however, is on a large scale seeing that they were led in a wild goose chase while the other members prepare the runes, sigils, and sacrifices for the necessary ritual.

They managed to stop the cultists from killing their supposed sacrifices when the runes suddenly glowed green, blinding them completely.

The moment they gained consciousness they immediately knew that there is something wrong.

Looking around they noticed that they have been teleported to some sort of forest but looking up to determine the time of the day made them pause.

The sky is painted with endless toxic Lazarus green, and all of the heroes are now on high alert as they assess the situation. They either dimensioned hopped again or they have been dragged by the cultists and transported to wherever this Tyrant ruler is.

Constantine kept reassuring himself that it would be the former but the amount of death magic that flows through the air like oxygen made him think the worse.

Superman tried to fly upwards to have a better view around them but found out that he couldn’t use any of his powers.

As they were navigating this new and dangerous territory Batman kept grilling Constantine for information as every bit of information is now precious as they need to find their way home. Despite Batman drilling for any information that he knew, he knew nothing more other than the following facts.

Pariah Dark is a tyrant that ruled the Infinite realms. Using both fear and his unlimited power to control and dictate the Infinite Realms.

The Infinite Realms have also known as the Ghost zone, in all of the limitless universes and other histories. The Ghost Zone occurs at every feasible and non-feasible moment in time, which means that no matter where or when you are in the Ghost Zone, you are everywhere and every when because it all exists at the same time.

Without the Infinite Realms then there would be the end of their world and reality as they know it.

The residents here are told to be the most powerful ghosts in existence as Deadman could not even measure up to their strengths.

Suddenly the group heard a loud commotion and quickly hid by climbing up the trees for a better view.

There they see a group of large flaming black armored people that covered their entire body and face except for their glowing green eyes. Two of them caught their attention, the larger one has a purple flame surrounding his helmet, carrying a flaming sword as he rides a menacing black horse that has bat-like wings while the other one has a blue flame on top of his head pointing an electrified sword towards the cultists that were teleported differently from them.

From where they at, they were able to hear about the black armored knights that mortals are trespassing around the Infinite Realms. All of the cultists are now screaming and trying to fight off the knights that tried to restrain them, in the end, they were dragged and caged in a metal cage that is connected to a chariot of the skeleton of horses.

They were brought out of their stupor when they heard the continued screaming and begging’s of the cultist in a distant direction and when they heard a child’s giggle below them.

Looking down below them they saw a small child. The child could not be more than 6 with gravity-defying white hair, Lazarus green eyes wearing a simple white cuffed sleeve with brown pants and black shoes.

He pointed at them for being a mortal and looked at them with awe and proceeded to exaggerate the fact that mortals are in the Infinite Realms.

Nightwing being the friendliest face alongside Superman asked who and where they were. The child proceeded to introduce himself as Danny and tell them that they are in the Infinite Realms and that they are trespassing in the land of the dead, being without the High King’s order.

Danny kept gushing at the fact they are living heroes, as well as proceeded to act like a naïve child that will spill information with a few sweet words.

The kid kept asking Nightwing what it’s like to be alive and to eat food that doesn’t attack you.

Of course, that made the heroes grimace seeing that they were reminded that they were in fact in the land of the dead.

Danny next floated towards Superman and excitedly asked about his culture and language as a Kryptonian alien race.

As the ghost child kept asking Superman some questions nobody saw Constantine pale at the moment, they saw the child. As a dark magical user, he can sense the amount of death magic towards a thing or someone. The moment the child appeared in front of them the man Constantine tried to calm his nerves down seeing the abundant concentrated death magic that clings to the child like some parasite.

Batman tried to ask more relevant questions but Danny flew towards Red Hood and Robin exclaiming that they need a doctor, putting on a frown on his face. Batman’s questions kept growing when they heard a siren that seems to echo throughout the realms and the only thing the kid, Danny, said Oh no.

Looking in the direction where Danny looked, they saw a large army of flaming flying horses with black armored knights each of which look like a black sword as the largest one that they have seen before leads them towards their direction the moment they locked eyes on them.

Without thinking of the consequence Red Hood picked up the dead child and proceeded to retreat alongside the rest of the Bat clan, Superman and Constantine.

…

Danny was enjoying this, the soul-whore man was just a bonus. The fact that he owns this poor man’s soul just out of pettiness for tripling the amount of his paperwork for selling his soul to different deities. Once he dies, he is going to embarrass this man to the point he wished he was in hell.

His plan was simple, make them scared at the act of the High King being mad at them. Make them see the horrors of the Infinite Realms and send them home, simple right?

He was about to give them one last scare when he heard an alarm that blared throughout the realms. He just knew that Fright Knight had just pulled the alarm. For the spirit of Halloween, he is serious and zealous about his job. The fact he had forgotten to write a note might be on him.

He was just about to turn around when Red Hood picked him up and carried him like a sack of potatoes. Now in any political sense Red Hood is committing treason, he kept trying to wiggle out of the man’s arms, unable to phase out due to the man’s nature as one of his subjects.

He may be petty but he didn’t mean on making them commit treason, he can do that on his own to piss off the Observants, thank you very much.

Now Danny is panicking about how this prank had railed off course due to his luck.

…

The team of super mortals is now running away from the army approaching them. Using the forest where they have landed to conceal themselves as they think of a way to escape the army of the dead.

Suddenly a green swirling portal opened in front of them, they were about to change direction but Constantine exclaimed loudly that, that portal is the same one that brought them here. So, by that logic that portal will lead them back to their universe.

When they returned to the dark warehouse before they were transported only then they noticed the extra baggage that Red Hood may have brought with him. In fear, Constantine asked why would he bring a ghost child who has extremely protective ghost parents that will hunt them down the moment they realize that he is gone.

Jason argued that ever since Danny appeared the pits quieted down to the moment the ghost child appeared as if he was never been dunked on the Lazarus pits.

As they were arguing Red Robin noticed Danny that he looked worried and kept looking around as if to look for another portal.

…

Newsflash, he was looking for a way to escape the heroes undetected to create his portal.

…

Red Robin was about to ask what was bothering him when all of the heroes present suddenly saw a green outline of a crown and a cape coming from Danny.

Danny asked nervously why were they looking at him funny.

Constantine dropped his cigarette and paled several shades whiter in fear, to the point he was paper.

Batman is now on the verge of a breakdown as well. In a span of a few minutes, they traveled to the land of the dead and saw some ghostly knights and children, and Jason adopting strays in his way. Apparently in the argument the two have and the action, Jason had done in a matter of minutes, his son Jason decided to adopt a ghost child which in return Constantine replied that it is not possible seeing that ghost children in general have protective parents that may hunt us down now that ghost child has a highlight and outline of a crown and cape.

Seeing his look and reaction of Constantine when looked at Danny due to the green highlight outline, Batman demands Constantine's answers as to why and what could be worse news other than Danny’s ghostly parents hunting them down for unintentionally kidnapping their child.

Constantine replied in a small and shaky voice that they didn’t just kidnap an ordinary ghost child, they kidnapped the Crowned Prince of the Infinite Realms.

…

Danny was sure that the cat is out of the bag, but when the sad trench coat man whispered Crowned Prince instead of High King. He can turn this whole situation turn around in his favor, now if only the spandex-wearing men stop harassing him on his so-called “Father-King.”

…

PS: If someone out there wants to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so don’t forget to tag me though.

[doctormead]

A twist on the summoning prompt

Ok, we've had many variations on Danny being summoned by cultists, villains, JLD, JL and bored kids at a slumber party, but what if DANNY tried to do a summons?

The scenario: Danny finds out that, once he hits 21 (let's say he's 16 when this little bombshell gets dropped on him), he's gonna be landed with the Kingship of the Infinite Realms. No, he can't get out of it. No, he can't abdicate to someone he thinks will do a good job. AND, if he can't hack it once he hits that age, the consequences will be...unpleasant to say the least.

Queue panicked questioning of various friendly Ancients who say they can't be his mentor for this (conflict of interest/inadequate scope for what he needs to learn/obscure excuse). Clockwork finally tells the desperate teen that, if he looks hard enough, he will find an appropriate mentor.

Well, Danny doesn't think he has time to search for such a mentor and taking out an advertisement in the IR's local newspaper equivalent may as well be painting a target on his back. But, he HAS been summoned a few times and thinks that two can play at this game.

So, with the help of Sam, Tucker and Jazz, he tries to come up with a summoning ritual for a mentor. The requirements are extensive but specific: non-hostile to Phantom (they initially thought about using "friendly to Phantom" but figured that would be too limiting given their situation), able to instruct in multiple forms of combat, able to instruct in strategy (small scale as well as large scale), able to instruct in management and politics (also on various scales) and, most importantly WILLING to be a mentor in such subjects.

The circle is cast and, when the smoke clears, a very startled Batman is standing in the center. Team Phantom didn't think they'd need to specify that the new mentor also be a ghost.

[nomsfaultau]

got an idea for a fic that I can’t pursue:

Basically, The Blood God is offered his usual blood sacrifice. Screaming, crying, chanting, the whole nine yards. But his cult messed up, because Tommy isn’t actually an orphan. Like on paper he is, but Technoblade can sense it’s not true and is like ‘Bruh stupid worshipers can’t do anything right.’ So he leaves Tommy alone bc he can’t have his followers getting lazy and subpar with their sacrifices obviously. But then also he’s saddled with this mortal kid he doesn’t know what to do with and he feels kinda bad since it’s not Tommy’s fault the cult messed up. So he awkwardly tries to take care of Tommy while still trying to live up to scary blood god expectations and it’s a lot of extra work on his plate. General beauty and the beast type shenanigans of Tommy going from cowering from the big scary god to demanding (and getting) a piggyback ride mid big important ceremony.

Anyway, eventually they figure out why there was a mixup when Philza (normal human man, v angy) fights his way past all the cultist in pure mama bear mode ready to kill the blood god for taking his adopted kid. Only to find Technoblade half way through overacting a bedtime story.

Cue custody battle because ‘hey! That’s MY sacrifice!’ ‘THATS MY SON YOU YELLOW BELLIED FALSE GOD SON OF A-‘

I think some of the cultists end up converting to Phil since he’s somehow way scarier than the nine feet tall blood eyed boar god.

[minty364]

Minty's Master Post

So, I've been asked a couple times for a master post

DPXDC Prompt #43

Danny had kept many secrets from his family over the years. He kept his history as an ex-assassin secret, the fact that he had a twin a secret, the fact that he had died (well half died), and he kept that he was technically king of all ghosts a secret too. He was gearing up to tell his parents about everything he was and this trip to Gotham that they were planning.

There was a science convention that his parents were invited too. Little did they know a group of cultists were planning on kidnapping his family as a sacrifice to the ghost king, they needed 5 and they figured the Fentons would be good, a family of ghost hunters getting sacrificed to the king? They needed a 5th so they also kidnapped a Damian Wayne.

now all 5 of them are in a room, Danny doesn’t even know what’ll happen when the summoning doesn’t work and he knows it won’t seeing as you can’t summon the king into a room he’s already in.

DPXDC Prompt #58

Gotham is a city with a lot of ambient ectoplasm, enough that the Fentons move here instead of Amity Park. Danny being a pretty smart kid being the son of 2 scientists gets a scholarship to Gotham academy where he makes friends with Tim and Damian. Well the 2 were only doing it at first because they wanted to keep an eye on them scientists rarely didn’t become rouges in Batman’s gallery so can you really blame them for being cautious?

Danny is telling them about the portal that they were trying to build and how it wasn’t working and how Danny felt guilty about it. The 3 venture down there when the parents are gone and Danny wearing his hazmat goes into the portal while the other 2 watch on. Danny trips and no one’s having a good time.

They decided to take Danny to Wayne manor until they can figure out what exactly happened to him, unfortunately Danny’s new powers act up and he winds up phasing through the floor into the basement… or more accurately the Bat cave.

this one has been changed a bit from the prompt but I think those changes are more natural

DPXDC Prompt #61

In one universe Damian was sent to live with his father at age 10, in another he winds up escaping Nanda Parbat to America after faking his death. He changed his name to Danny and moves in with a family called the Fentons. Danny dies and is revived by the portal and even becomes king of the infinite realms.

Danny falls through a portal into Gotham but not his universes Gotham but one where he becomes Robin instead. He and Robin meet and of course this version of him assumes Danny’s a clone. Everyone else is just confused and Danny just wants to go home to his universe or does he since the GIW doesn’t exist in this universe…

DPXDC Prompt #108

When you meet your soulmate you both feel it, you know down to your bones that this person was meant to be with you for life, if you’re unable to find them before you pass on, your ghosts will be unable to locate each other in the afterlife. The Fentons tried to make a way to locate your soulmate using ectoplasm, unfortunately for Danny he’s the only one in the family yet to find his. Jazz actually found hers when she started school in Gotham, some guy named Jason, if Danny remembered correctly. They try some experiments with Danny and something works just not as intended as with every piece of Fenton tech. Danny wakes up in an unfamiliar room and in an unfamiliar body. Looking around, it appears his soulmate is rich, he’s got to call his soulmate and explain the situation. He’s not looking forward to explaining his powers to them but if they’re going to be in his body best to let them know what to expect from Danny’s weird biology.

Damian woke up to an unfamiliar ringtone in an unfamiliar room. Assessing the situation he noticed the number from the phone was actually his own. Might as well answer it to see if he could get some answers.

DPXDC Prompt #128

No one was quite sure what happened, They had gone after Joker and while Batman was hesitant to allow Hood along he had gotten better about his anger and everyone else was busy with other rouges. one second Red Hood had a gun in Jokers face the next, there was a shift in Hood like he wasn’t himself anymore. Unfortunately it finally happened for Hood, his soulmate had reached 20 years of age and the two switched places. The person controlling his body now though was Danny Fenton who happens not to like clowns.

Danny was panicking and not realizing he was holding a gun pulls the trigger causing the Joker the go flying and Danny’s panic to increase 10 fold. He whips his head to get a look at his surroundings and that’s when he panics further and slowly places the gun on the ground and slowly raise his hands into the air. There in front of him was Batman and he knew he was in trouble. Still panicking he squeaked at the dark knight’s approach, “I’m sorry!! I- I guess I’m this guy’s soulmate. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone”

Jason meanwhile wasn’t fairing any better. He was pissed the clown was right in front of him and he was so close! He was in this scrawny body, his soulmate happened to be in Gotham but by the looks of it, he was in rough shape, a small fever was forming and it seemed like he had bandages wrapped around his torso. Jason doesn’t know what happened to him but he’s taking him to Alfred, he wasn’t going to let his soulmate bleed out in an alley even if he did have the worst timing.

DPXDC Prompt #136

Danny falls through a natural portal and gets turned into a dog. I’m thinking he gets turned into something husky adjacent like a pomsky or something. He gets found by Jon who wants to give him to his friend and possible crush Damian. Danny wants to get back he was in the middle of some ghost politics but this young kid seemed like he needed a friend. Danny could see through Damian’s cold exterior and what Danny saw was a little kid who went through a lot of trauma in his childhood and Danny wanted to protect him.

DPXDC Prompt #142

It was considered a pretty big deal when a new ancient gets born. Danny didn’t and wouldn’t know this when he gets into an accident. A signal went out to all magic users that the ancient of space was born as soon as he stepped out of the portal and then things changed. If you could make a deal with an ancient it increased your power way more than that of a demon. Soon Danny gets chased by all sorts of folk trying to make a deal with him. He then gets caught by John Constantine who takes him back to the safety of the watchtower. What is the safest place to put the space ancient? In space!

DPXDC Prompt #148

Danny didn’t want to go to the gala but since all of his friends were busy with their own soulmates there wasn’t much he could argue. Vlad invited his family and him to a gala out in Gotham and his parents jumped at the opportunity to show their madness with some of the elite. Danny couldn’t wait to get home, yes he knew he had a soulmate but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to pursue them or not.

They could feel each other’s emotions and his soulmate was an angry person. Danny’s whole life his soulmate acted mad and strangely prideful. But those didn’t compare to his fear, they seemed to have gotten themselves in trouble in the past and maybe even had a few close encounters with death. They also seemed to bottle feelings up from what he could tell his soulmate might not have had the best childhood but Danny couldn’t really say much on that.

Damian knew his soulmate was kind of soft. They seemed to get annoyed at his family typical for a teen. Of all the things he noted about him his dislike of Christmas was a little odd but not everyone has to like the holidays he supposed. His mother Talia imparted on him that he should protect his soulmate with his life when he finds him so he was very determined to find them. Of course galas we’re the best place to look so he desperately asked every time his father hosted one.

When this finally get's posted I've been trying for hours now, LMAO

[luxaofhesperides]

Ghostlight!

"You came?" "You called."

Danny in trouble, Duke to the rescue! (Or it can be reversed!) Maybe they've been online friends or met in person once and bonded over both having all these unexpected powers. Slightly angst.

There was never a point when Danny thought he would need the panic button Duke gave him.

It was a sweet gesture, a way for Duke to show that he cared for Danny and wanted him to be safe. Never mind that Danny can take care of himself, heals quickly from most wounds, and has been the protector, not the protected, ever since the Accident. If it makes Duke feel better, than Danny was more than happy to keep it on him as a token of affection.

The cultists, however, caught him off guard. 

Danny would be embarrassed about being nabbed off the streets so easily if the people who took him weren’t cultists lead by the daughter of a GIW agent, one who disapproved of the scientific approach the GIW took towards ectoplasmic entities and had turned to mystic arts as a way to defy her father. Which, usually, Danny would be all for striking out against the strict expectations of parents and their unwillingness to listen to their kids in any serious manner, but not this time. Not when it ends with him slowly waking up after they chloroformed him, curled up in some magic circle, surrounded by black candles and blue flame, and something in the air that smells of blood blossoms.

There are voices speaking, but he can’t make out what they’re saying over the pounding in his head, his heartbeat stuttering in his chest with each gasping breath he takes. 

Whatever they’re doing, whatever’s got him bound in the circle, makes his blood feel like its been lit aflame, agony coursing through his veins. He tries to grit his teeth and bare it, but it doesn’t become any more manageable.

No, it gets worse the longer he’s awake.

Danny tries to move, tries to get to his feet, but all he can do is curl up tighter, a sob forcing its way out of his throat.

“I know you’ve got some connection to Phantom,” he hears someone say, both by his ear and so far away he can barely make out the words. Danny whines, trying to insist that they’re wrong, he’s got nothing to do with phantom, but the voice continues. “Come on, cooperate with us and this will end sooner for you. You can’t lie about this; you wouldn’t be feeling anything if there was no connection.” 

A hand brushes against his forehead, burning hot, and Danny turns his face towards the ground trying to move away from it. 

“I knew ghosts had to have some tie to the living world. And a living anchor would make the ghost stronger… If only dad would listen to me.” The voice sighs, and the words help him put the pieces together and realize this is the daughter of the GIW agent that came closest to finding him when he first ran to Gotham. 

It’s been close to a year since then. He thought they’d stopped looking. 

Really, he should have known better.

The hand leaves his forehead and he hears the leader bark out an order. Voices surround him, chanting, as they rise out of the dark. 

A red glow begins to fall on everything, enough that Danny can see it through his barely open eyes. A shudder runs through him, and he feels his transformation try to begin.

NO, he thinks desperately. He tries to force it down but it fights against him. It’s agony, pain on a molecular level, the feeling of dying over and over and over again.

NO, he thinks, STOP I DON’T WANT TO DIE SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME.

And then, unbidden, a single word rising in his mind. Duke.

Duke will help him if he knows Danny needs help. Duke has been kind and welcoming and helped Danny find his footing in Gotham, never judging and always quietly offering a hand in support. He’s the person Danny’s closest to in Gotham, someone dear to him, a light in the dark. 

He gave Danny a panic button.

Contrary to popular thought, Danny isn’t an idiot. He knows Duke is the Signal. A few too many incidents where Duke had disappeared and the Signal appeared to save him tipped him off. It didn’t help that Duke acted the same in and out of costume, and he always, always grabbed Danny first at the elbow, then slid his hand down to his wrist. 

Besides, who else gives panic buttons to their friends? Danny would have done the same to Sam and Tucker if they weren’t always attached at the hip. He’s a (former) teenage vigilante too, he knows how being involved in this kind of thing invites trouble into the rest of his life.

Duke can help him. He’s a hero. He’s saved Danny before.

He’s his friend. Danny trusts (wants to trust, so badly) that Duke will help him even when he’s not fully human, fully alive.

With trembling hands, he reaches into his jacket, to the panic button. It’s a simple necklace with an unassuming metal rectangle dangling off of it. It’s flat and thin, but the top gives way to a button that Danny clicks three times in quick succession. 

He waits a moment, trying to breathe through the pain, and clicks it three times again.

Please hurry, Duke, he thinks, hand falling limply to the ground. 

“Let’s try this, instead,” the leader says, and the chanting falls to a quiet murmur to give way to her voice as she begins reciting something.

It starts at his feet. They cramp up suddenly, then pain crackles up his bones like lightning, digging deep into him. It feels as if a thousand knives dig into his abdomen, cutting in deep and twisting.

Danny chokes on his breath, then screams, trying futilely to scramble away. All it does is make him writhe on the ground, back arching enough that he can feel the strain of it on his spine, but it doesn’t matter because he’s forcing down his transformation again, smothering Phantom as much as he can.

His breath mists out before him. His fingers go numb, frost spreading across the floor.

Tears slip down his face as Danny pants for breath.

It hurts. It hurts like nothing has ever hurt before, but he refuses to give in. If they find out he’s Phantom, they’ll only do worse. 

Please, he thinks again, deliriously.

As if hearing him, a window shatters above him and the cultists break off in screams. 

Forcing his eyes open, Danny squints through he tears and watches as the shadows around them rise up, roiling, and crash against the cultists. The force of it knocks them down, leaving them to claw desperately at their faces as the shadows cover their nose and mouths, cutting off their air. The leader is yelling, rage clear in her voice, shooting out magic spells at the Signal.

The Signal is usually a friendly figure. He’s safe, something whose meer presence makes people feel safe. His smile means everything’s alright and when it’s directed to Danny, he feels like nothing bad can ever happen to him again.

The Signal isn’t smiling now. 

He’s furious, expressionless and stone cold, bashing away the spells with shadows or light, advancing on the leader like an avenging angel come to deliver justice. 

He takes her out with hard hits, striking methodically. It’s not quick. She doesn’t get the kindness of being knocked out; no, he snaps a wrist, breaks her nose, slams her down on the ground and cuts off her air with a knee until her struggles die off and she’s left limp on the floor. 

When he rises, surrounded by shadows still moving restlessly, illuminated only by the flicker blue flames of the candles, he should look terrifying. 

All Danny feels is relief so sharp it worries him that his chest was cleaved in half without him noticing until now. He shivers against the floor, too weak to reach out to the Signal.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to. 

The Signal picks him up with careful hands, checking him over for injuries.

“Duke,” Danny murmurs, slurring a bit. The torture is definitely at fault for it, but the sudden absence of all that pain doesn’t help him sound any more coherent. “You came.”

“You called,” Duke says, “Of course I came. I’ve been looking for you for hours. You never showed up for our study date and I know you always try to reach out if you can’t make it. I’m just sorry I didn’t find you sooner.”

“S’okay, ‘m not mad. Was scared, but you made it better. The panic button…”

“It’s how I found you. I’m so glad you were wearing it today.”

Danny tries to smile, but the most he can manage is a twitch of his lips before his head tips forward to rest against Duke’s armored shoulder. “I always wear it.”

Duke’s grip on him tightens for a moment, then he begins walking, taking Danny away from the magic circles and the prone bodies of the cultists who had watched him be tortured and decided to keep going. Danny shudders again, his entire body aching. His transformation is still fighting to come out, but it’s not as strong anymore. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Duke says into his ear. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“No! No hospitals, please. I can’t let them know… they’ll find me…”

Duke shushes him soothingly, tucking him more securely against his chest. “Alright, Danny. No hospitals. But I am going to call Batman for a pick up to get you to one of the people we trust for medical care.”

“But Batman doesn’t work in the day.” Danny’s too exhausted to sound confused, but it must go through anyways. Duke laughs lowly, and the sound helps unwind the last of his nerves coiled up tight in fear. 

“Danny, it’s well into the night. You were gone for hours. Longest hours of my life.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, 

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. Hang on, Batman’s nearly here.”

In any other circumstance, Danny would be excited to meet another hero. Especially Batman, one of the original heroes of the modern age. But all he wants is to go somewhere safe so he can curl up and cry, then sleep for three days before he pretends to be a normal human again. Ideally, he’d stay with Duke until he felt safe again, but he doesn’t want to take Duke away from the city that needs him.

His ears perk up a bit when he hears the smooth rumble of an engine stop in front of them. A door opens with a click without Duke needing to grab the handle, and then Danny is carefully being deposited in the back seat.

“Wait,” he says, trying to grab for Duke’s arm only to have his fingers fumble and grab nothing. Duke doesn’t move away, though, and instead grabs Danny’s seeking hand. “Stay? Please? I just—” his voice shudders, cracks, fractures apart. “I just want to feel safe.”

There’s a pause, a stillness in the air, before Duke says, “Okay. I’ll stay.” And then he’s sliding into the backseat, pulling Danny in to lean against him, curl into his embrace.

“Signal,” Batman’s low, gravelly voice says. There’s something in his tone that makes Danny tense up, prepared to take off, and his transformation pushes at his skin, ready to come out.

“He knows who I am, B,” Duke replies. “He’s trustworthy. Besides, just because he knows me doesn’t mean he knows you.”

“We will be discussing this later,” Batman says, dark promise in his voice. It’s just how he talks, Danny’s sure, too used to years of making himself the scariest thing in the dark. That doesn’t change the fact that Batman can be terrifying, and Danny can’t imagine he’ll take kindly to the fact that Danny knows Duke’s identity.

Fear slithers up his spine, and he can’t stop the transformation this time. The rings of white light flash over his body in a second, leaving Phantom in his place. 

Danny lets go of his legs first, glad to be free from their aching weight, and without a body made of flesh and bone, the hurt begins to fade away until it’s just an unpleasant memory. 

“What—” Duke starts to say just as Batman says, “Signal—”

They must have some sort of silent exchange. There’s only a heavy tension in the car and the barely audible rumble of the engine as they drive towards their destination, whatever it may be. Danny sinks into Duke some more, sighing in relief as a hand comes up to card through his wispy white hair. 

“Danny,” Duke says, “What’s this?”

“It’s why they hurt me,” he mumbles against Duke’s chest. “It’s why they keep hunting me down. I want them to leave me alone. I’m tired.”

Embarrassingly, his voice cracks on the last word and more tears fall down his cheeks. He hears Duke move, and then hands, bare and gloveless, wipe his tears away with a gentleness that makes his heart ache.

“They won’t be able to hurt you again. You’ll be safe from now on, Danny, I swear it.”

“S’okay if I get hurt,” he says, “It always happens. Promise to save me if this happens again?”

“I’ll do whatever I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But if it does, then I promise to always save you. I gave you that panic button, didn’t I? As long as you keep it, I’ll always find you.”

“You’re a good person, Duke,” Danny says, voice falling quieter as his exhaustion catches up to him. “I’m glad I met you.”

He thinks he feels a soft touch to the top of his head. A kiss, maybe, though it’s not likely. But he wants comfort, and he’s endured a lot a pain so he allows himself to hope and be delusional. With the warm that spreads through him from Duke’s soft kiss to his head, Danny gives in to the siren call of slumber.

“Get some sleep, Danny,” Duke says, voice hushed. “I’ll stay with you as long as you need.”

I know, he doesn’t say, too tired to open his mouth again, You’re always here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

He falls asleep easily after that. There’s nothing in the world that can hurt him while he’s in Duke’s arms. He’s never been safer.

[dujour13]

Owlcatober 3. Shelter

---

When the Worldwound weather blew into Kenabres you wasted no time going to ground. Big, sticky droplets hit the cobbles and you hit the nearest shelter before it turned into bugs, eyeballs, or even intestines like that one time—best not thought about.

Woljif ducked through a broken window into the basement of an abandoned tenement and stood in the musty darkness peering out at rapidly forming puddles of viscous crimson. Fed up with this place. When he managed to scrape up the funds he was on a boat to Katapesh and never looking back.

“You found me!”

He nearly jumped out of his boots. “What the—”

He whirled. It was the crazy elf beggar, clapping her hands and laughing like some kinda mad fey.

“Oh. It’s you.” He peered suspiciously into the darkness over her shoulder. “Anybody else here?”

“Just Soot.” The crow hopped about on the floor, pecking at things.

He relaxed a modicum. Be no good getting caught in here with some of the characters he rubbed elbows with around Kenabres. She might be loony but she wasn’t dangerous, at least. He slumped against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, tail weaving, and sullenly watched the blood course between the cobbles.

But she wasn’t giving up.

“Now it’s your turn to hide!”

He glanced her way briefly and then back out at the rain. Those scars weren’t fit for looking at. “I ain’t a kid no more.”

“I know. But at least now your Gran can’t get you in trouble for playing with me.”

This evoked unpleasant memories of pinched ears. He sighed in annoyance, tail beginning to twitch. “I got more important things to do.”

“Grown-ups always say that. And then the important things they do just make them and everyone around them sad. I don’t understand.” She came closer and sat down cross-legged on the packed dirt floor with her rags and her filthy bare feet, and looked up at him with those uncanny liquid black eyes.

“I ain’t sad. Anyway the important stuff I gotta do is gonna make me rich. And when I’m rich, I’ll be happy.”

“Rich people aren’t happy. There’s a Count I see sometimes in the city square. He’s rich and handsome and he has lots of friends. He laughs loudly, but he’s the saddest of all.”

“Well, I can guarantee you when I’m rich I’ll be laughin’ for real, and you can bank on that.”

A thump from overhead made him start up and stare at the ceiling, from which a soft rain of dust sifted down. He cocked his head, trying to listen over the splashing of the blood rain.

“It’s just—” the beggar girl began.

“Sh. Is there people here?”

“Yes.”

“I thought this place was abandoned.”

“I see people come and go sometimes,” she shrugged. “At night.”

“At ni—what kinda people?”

“I don’t know. They wear hoods.”

“Cultists.” He turned his head and spat. “We gotta get outta here.”

“What’s wrong with cultists?”

“They’re dangerous, that’s what’s wrong.”

“Cultists, crusaders, they’re all the same,” she said.

Shit. She was right. No sense arguing with a nutcase. He reached out for her hand. “Come on.”

“But it’s still raining.” She got to her feet anyway, maybe just because it was nice to hold his hand for a moment.

He pulled it away. “I don’t care, we gotta hightail it. Now.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Neither am I! I just—I just think we ougtta find somewhere else nicer.”

“You can go if you want. I’ll stay here.”

Woljif sighed. “Aright listen. I’ll play hide-and-seek with you. But you gotta hide somewhere good. Not in here.” Indeed, the place was barren but for scattered broken glass and splintered boards. No hiding places.

“I’m gonna count to ten and you—”

“Twenty!”

“Aright, twenty. You get goin’.”

He kept counting, muffling his voice with a hand so she wouldn’t realize he followed her to the window and watched her run off down the alley splashing through puddles of blood and laughing, her stupid crow gliding after her.

When he was satisfied, he too crept out the window and headed down the alley in the opposite direction.

“Loony,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head. “Musta cooked her brains.” But he had to admit if he had to get caught in a bloodstorm it felt strangely… cozy to end up holed up with someone who wasn’t trying to rip him off or push him around. Someone familiar and harmless. Someone who knew what it was like. He glanced back over his shoulder, and then shrugged his jacket up around his horns and hurried off.

also on AO3

[tumblingxelian]

Tyrian Callows - The Master of Murder, Mayhem & Multitasking!

So, I recently saw a post discussing Tyrian Callows and I wanted to go into why I find him quite interesting despite his overall demeanor seeming to be that of a nihilistic serial killer.

Off the cuff, when I first saw Tyrian I hated him, "Oh good, another cackling serial killer, I hope e only exists to die & be replaced".

Then he ambushes RNJR & suddenly, oh suddenly I'm having fun!

Because he's not just cackling & killing, he's bombastic, spewing purple prose and strutting around like he's on a stage, then flinging himself through walls for dramatic poses. He waits after receiving major surprise attacks to reveal they didn't hurt him.

He is in essence, a theater kid who happens to also be a cultist and serial killer and I think that is incredibly entertaining if nothing else.

Beyond that I find his fawning behavior on Salem intriguing. Like, even beyond his failure, when Salem is growing in fury & others like Watts & Hazel know to get the fuck out. He starts irrationally offering her acts of service in a bid to make her happy before fleeing as well.

Like, whatever is going on there is interesting if nothing else, I think.

Then there's the fact he is far more insightful than characters like him are usually written as but, its not at the expense of is manic disposition as it often ends up being with say, Joker, bleh.

What I mean is, Tyrian is very good at analyzing people, what they want, what they feel, what will hurt them the most, what above all drives them & can articulate it very easily. Ala his confrontation with Mercury only knowing violence & being too afraid to leave it.

Yet at the same time when out under pressure by Clover, Qrow & Robyn he very quickly starts losing his cool, his mannerism and behaviors become more unhinged & wild, he is legitimately not all there. & it is isn't until he's had time to cool off in the airship that he's back on his game.

Finally there is his 'rivalry' qith Qrow.

To me the fun thing is that there is zero rivalry on Tyrian's end.

Qrow is just someone who he met in V4 and knew to be a capable fighter & important enemy agent. He was excited to fight & kill him & was briefly knocked off his game when disarming Qrow did nothing to slow him down.

Most Hunters based their fighting styles on their weapons so disarming them tends to be a winning move unless they are Hazel, Tyrian or Yang style combatants.

But he was back on his game in short order and still having a great time and even managed to essentially score the win... Right until Ruby dismembered him & he did not take it gracefully.

To say the least, Tyrian is definitely arrogant, I think that much is self evident.

It makes sense, it took a cooperative operation of Mitral Hunters & Atlesian Specialists to take him down. The Queen of Grimm came to collect him herself. His Semblance lets him take Aura out of a fight. & by all accounts he definitely seems to be among the most dangerous combatants on Remnant even without said Semblance.

So yeah, not surprised that he was both knocked off his game & angry about the injuries but after that he doesn't seem to dwell on them much the way Cinder spent several volumes seething over the damage Ruby did to her.

His little foreshadowing moment to Ruby before the election massacre & enjoying Qrow's suffering during Volume 7 very much seem like things he'd have done regardless cos he's just like that.

Tyrian will however exploit the idea of a rivalry to his advantage.

What I mean is, Qrow makes it clear when ambushing him with Clover & Robyn that he holds a grudge over their last fight. Tyrian doesn't utilize that in the three on one beatdown he gets, he's barely keeping his head above water most of that fight.

But once he is back in the game he's cheerfully egging on the break down in the Atlas and Mantle alliance. He's completely ignoring Qrow until the man jumps on him & even then doesn't offer him any unique attention.

Its only once he's established that things with Qrow and Clover have degraded as far as they have that he jumps in. He avoids starting off too violently to see how things go & is well pleased by Clover's dogged commitment to his orders.

Also likely dismissing Tyrian as just a violent lunatic.

It is then and only then that he leans on the idea that he actually wants a rematch with Qrow. But even then he still patiently waits for Qrow to float the idea first. He is playing into Qrow's grudge & Qrow's belief in a Shounen style rivalry & with it the belief that Tyrian will ignore Clover themoment he is not interrupting the fight and duke it out with Qrow.

But Tyrian only plays along with that and instead uses Clover's defeat to end his fucking life and frame Qrow for it.

He certainly has fun twisting the knife but again, this is stuff he does with everyone when he gets the chance. & it serves to make things more complex for Atlas and the now rebellious heroes than it would if Clover & Qrow had died together. Especially as enemy reinforcements are coming.

After this, again, neither Qrow or Ruby warrant a mention from him.

This is his job, they were parts of his assignments and Tyrian just happens to love what he's doing. Which humorously aligns very well with the life advice he gave Emerald and Mercury. Even if that was just because he thinks it'd be fun to be given the chance to kill them.

Anyway those are my takes on Tyrian Callows, evil as fuck, but smarter & more interesting than the usual portrayals of his archetype!

Thanks for reading!

[catcas22]

Literally Dreaming About the DLC

Had a disturbingly vivid dream about an Elden Ring sidequest, and decided to share it 1) to exorcise it from my mind 2) because there might be some potential here?

Content warning for implied dead kids.

Starts out galloping around Liurnia at night, on the lake just north of the Moonlight Altar. Hereabouts, I think:

Tarnished spots a large cluster of spectral animals ahead and investigates. In the center of the herd is a spectral dragon-hybrid, childlike but in a Ghost of Christmas Past sort of way.

The spirit appears morose and rather confused about her current state. When questioned, she drops a few poetically ominous lines about cold and dark, then mentions the name "The Hunter Michigain" [sic] before she clams up.

Tarnished goes to ask her buddy Kalé if he's heard any local gossip about this guy. Kalé explains that Michigain is a madman worshipping some kind of cold-affiliated entity. He sacrifices to said entity by kidnapping small children and leaving them down an abandoned mine to die of hypothermia (What the hell, my subconscious? I think I might have been drawing on SCP-4666 a bit).

Kalé then proceeds to recount an absolutely harrowing tale of how years ago, his three-year-old nephew was taken by Michigain. Against all counsel, Kalé's brother tried to go after the kid. Michigain broke the poor guy's legs and left him a few levels down the mine, close enough to the surface that those above could hear his agonized pleas for help. Kalé finally breaks and arms up to go spring the obvious trap.

Present day, Kalé recounts that he didn't get his brother or his nephew back, just a leg so mangled he can still barely walk on it. Kalé began the story trying to dissuade us from tangling with Michigain, but by the end of it he's ready for round two now that he has the Tarnished for extra muscle.

Kalé directs us to a set of ruins high on the Moonlight Altar, where we find the entrance to Michigain's mine. It's an absolutely hellish platforming puzzle, where we have to drop down level by level through the entire depth of the plateau, balancing on rickety mineshaft scaffolding while Michigain shoots at us with a gatling crossbow and his goons try to run along the rafters and tackle us off.

Thankfully, there are no visible dead kids, no environment-hazard live kids that we have to avoid friendly-firing, and no kids attacking us for whatever reason. There is, however, an omnipresent sound of sniffling and whimpering, always sounding as if it's just around the corner, sometimes louder, sometimes softer.

Kalé is with us. He moves at like 0.2 miles per hour due to the bad leg, and he'll die in a hurry if you leave him behind. But if you stick with him and draw fire, he's got a big hatchet and a box-fed dart gun, and he's quite effective at sniping the cultist highwaymen as they try to rush you.

Michigain looks like a sort of evil coureur des bois, wrapped up in layers of snow-dusted leather and fur. We never see his face. He never says a word. He fights with the aforementioned gatling crossbow, then switches to a pickaxe when we get close.

Before we fight him, we get a miniboss in the form of his two dragon-hybrid henchmen, both notably bigger and older than the spirit who initially tipped us off.

We finally face Michigain at the lowest level of the mine. The sounds of weeping children are loudest here. If we spoke to Ranni after triggering the quest and informed her of what was happening on her land, she shows up halfway through the fight the way Yura does for the Nerijus fight. She gives a monologue to the tune of "You merely adopted the dark, I was born into it" that I dearly wish I could remember verbatim, then wrecks the guy with Ranni's Dark Moon.

It was only in the process of writing this all out that I realized the two dragon-hybrids are definitely the specter child's parents, who sacrificed their own daughter for the sake of Michigain's cult.

[mllemaenad]

Why so anti-Brotherhood?

At their best (Roger Maxon, Elder Lyons, Paladin Danse) they're massively effective humanitarians; even at their worst (Father Elijah, Paladin Casdin) they posess admirable traits (valour and determination); and most of the tine they are somewhere in the middle (Arthur Maxon, Knight Maximus): flawed but ultimately well-intentioned men and women trying to stop humanity from repeating its biggest mistakes.

They helped out in the early days of California, and when the NCR began to start following in the doomed footsteps of the old world, the Brotherhood tried (unsuccessfully to stop them). On the East Coast, they helped to save the Capital Wasteland from drought, and they stood up to the reckless experimentation of the Institute. In Filly, Lucy Maclean would probably have died without Maximus's intervention.

They can be unsubtle, and heavy-handed, and sometimes almost arrogant, but they ARE good people.

Hi, Anonymous person.

It feels like ... maybe you have the wrong end of the stick here? It sounds like you think I've got some kind of specific grudge against every individual member of the Brotherhood. And I ... don't. That would be silly and unfair. The Brotherhood has existed for a couple of centuries now. People are born into it, or indoctrinated as children. That's ... sort of the point Fallout: New Vegas is making with Arcade and Veronica – the forward-thinking children who have to contend with the mistakes of their very backward parents.

My issue is with the institution, not some random guy in power armour.

I'm not going to go through that whole list, because that's a lot. But – well, Maximus, since the TV show is going to be the hot topic.

Maximus is a refugee from a recently fallen civilisation who joined up with the Brotherhood of Steel because he was briefly impressed by the image of a knight in very literal shining armour, whom he saw breezing safely through the destruction of his home.

Then he found out that they are a group of militant cultists who use brutal beatings and ritual humiliation to "condition" their recruits (and possibly force them to take on new identities, as Maximus seems to be a name they "gave" him). His friend Dane is so frightened of going out on a mission with one of these knights that they actively injure themselves to avoid it, and Thaddeus's experience confirms that Maximus's treatment is completely normal.

When he is assigned to a knight, he quickly discovers that literally all of Titus's dignity comes from wearing a helmet that makes his voice sound deep and commanding, and underneath all that armour he is a bully and a coward. Not just a bully and a coward, but the kind of bully and coward who can't figure out that specifically bullying the only guy who might be able to save his life is a really fucking stupid move.

Nothing in that series made me think "Wow! The Brotherhood are good guys!" It made me think ... "Get out now, kid. Run as far and as fast as you can."

It is true that Maximus steps in to protect Lucy. It is equally true that Maximus would have very much died of dead-battery-in-soldier-suit had Lucy not intervened to help him. I'm not sitting here wishing ill on Maximus. But this ain't a story about how the Brotherhood are worthy saviours of the wasteland; it's the story about two lost kids (and one embittered pre-war Ghoul) finding their way together through hard won trust and understanding, which are pretty much always presented as the hopeful counterpoint to Fallout's grim "war never changes" theme.

I mean ... Maximus also falls uncritically in love with Vault 4 because they give him oysters and slippers. This is his standard for joining up with anywhere. He is a starving refugee whom the Brotherhood exploited.

I have no patience for The Brotherhood of Steel because they are violent, bigoted, technology hoarding isolationists whose defining trait is their extreme arrogance. They treat every problem as a nail and themselves as the hammer, and even when individuals in the organisation are actively trying to do good it's astonishing how ineffectual they are. I'm not sure they've had a relationship with another organisation they haven't poisoned.

They are actively genocidal towards Ghouls, Super Mutants and Synths. Owyn Lyons is undoubtedly one of the more open minded members, but a) one of the reasons they are able to appear as "the good guys" in Fallout 3 is because the particular nature of the FEV disaster going on in the Capital Wasteland means that there are virtually no non-hostile Super Mutants b) even Lyons' people still just shoot indiscriminately at Ghouls, an attitude that is simultaneously so morally bankrupt and tactically stupid that it makes me tear my hair out every time I think about it.

Also: The Brotherhood of Steel kills Danse. I don't think you can reasonably put Danse on your list of reasons why they're worthwhile without also noting that they, you know, send you out to murder him because he's a Synth.

And ohhhhhh they are so very bad at everything. It's actually quite difficult for me to think of things they've done that don't piss me off.

In the original Fallout they're sending aspirants off to die in The Glow because they think it's funny.

Lyons may be the (relatively) benevolent protector of the wasteland in Fallout 3, but he's also responsible for The Scourge: the wanton slaughter of half the population of the Pitt, the looting of their technology, and the kidnapping of their children. Undeniably conditions in the Pitt were awful, but this was no mercy mission: it was more of their mutants-aren't-people-and-all-your-stuff-is-ours bullshit. And they leave a guy behind who starts a raider gang and is basically the reason slavery exists in any large scale form in the Capital Wasteland. I'm not sure it's possible to fuck up worse than that.

Even in Fallout 3 ... they are not what you'd call an inspiration. Half of Lyons' forces threw a hissy fit and went off to sulk in Fort Independence because apparently obsessively hoarding laser riles is infinitely more important than helping people. By 2277 no one's even looking at the water purifier. That situation gets resolved because James finally decides to get off his arse and finish the project (I respect the man's commitment to procrastination). They don't manage to deal with the source of the Super Mutants. They basically spend a couple of decades mostly adequately guarding GNR – while places like Big Town get overrun – and tinkering with their stupid robot. They don't even fix the stupid robot. You know what the answer to fixing the stupid robot was? "Hey, did anybody think to ask Madison how the power supply works?" Useless.

In Fallout 4 they roll in and start extorting the settlers, like those people don't have enough to deal with, and the things they say if you bring Nick or Hancock with you to visit them are appalling.

I've recently been reminded of them threatening their allies at gunpoint in Fallout 76 because they think they have the right to steal everyone's research.

Okay. Enough ranting.

What's my problem with The Brotherhood of Steel? They are the walking definition of "following the doomed footsteps of the old world". They are just about Vault-Tec: military edition.

So we have to grab every schematic, every holotape, every book, and every goddamned note that holds the building blocks of the Old World before it's too late. Our Scribes will hold onto them, preserve them, perhaps even progress beyond them. And the Knights will protect them. Like a hard shell around a precious seed. One day, when the time is right, that seed will grow. And a new civilization will be born. – Fallout 76: Preservation of Technology

They think that somehow they are the true last bastion of civilisation, and that they have the right to decide when the world will begin anew. They can't even deal with the idea that there are different kinds of people in the world these days that your standard homo sapiens. They hoard, and they look backwards, and for all their self-righteous we-are-protecting-the-world propaganda, in practice all that means is that they get to keep all the big guns and threaten everyone else with them.

But civilisation has always just been people choosing to collaborate and help each other. And they have zero right to interfere with that.

Also: I think power armour is stupid and no fun at all to play in, and I am sitting here judging the Brotherhood for their obsession with the stuff. :)

[playertwotails]

Okay so this has been circling around in my head for like two weeks like a fly hitting windows in a sun-room.

So I'm back on my Tails kitsune AU bullshit and I've also recently gotten into Cult of the Lamb so now they've mashed in my brain into a hodgepodged gloop.

And it's all going below the cut if you wanna read my brain worms cause it's long

***Trigger warning for like blood and cults and kidnapping and drugging. Just to give people a heads up (nothing too graphic or detailed but just in case and let me know if you think I missed anything I might need to warn people about)****

Little side note before jumping into this: do not tag as shipping, there is no shipping here it's all platonic and familial. If I see a ship tag I will block you.

Starting off it doesn't matter if Tails is actually a kitsune or not (I personally prefer that yes he is just for the post situation of the gang all being like "okay so what species is Tails actually???" )

I've just had this idea in my head where some cult somewhere is started and they worship kitsune's as godlike entities. They then catch wind of Tails in the news or rumors and their target is now locked.

So this cults leader gets the 'big brain but head actually empty' idea to kidnap Tails like any sane cult leader would.

Now these people somehow stumble ass backwards into kidnapping Tails and keeping him contained. And by keeping him contained they're basically drugging Tails just enough he's conscious but nonreactive. And they basically dress him up and drag him to their ceremonies as more of object than a kid. Tails is hating it and actually scared cause what the hell is wrong with these people let him go home.

Meanwhile Sonic and the gang are all freaking out cause "WHERE IS HE??!!!!" Cause lets be honest kidnapped by a cult was not on any of their bingo cards and at this point they don't know that's what happened, they only know Tails is gone and none of the usual suspects have him.

Rouge starts going through her contacts on the side looking for any crumb of information and gets a lead. And in typical Rouge fashion splits off on her own to look into it. She then comes across the cult and infiltrates their compound.

During her snooping though she overhears the leader of the cult and his subordinates talking about "living forever through the blood of their god's mortal form", sees a statue of a multi-tailed fox and all the red flags are immediately up for her. Internal panic button is smashed. 2 + 2 = fucked up situation.

She's already pressing the "get your asses here" button on her communicator and tears off as quickly but quietly as she can looking for Tails. When she finds him he's in a locked room just laying in bed, all dressed up in a white outfit. Which strange for her to see him just laying there since normally he'd be out and gone long time ago She sees what they've been giving him next to the bed and she's now double pissed off. (I like to think it's at least been over a week Tails has been missing, but if you wanna get really angsty make about 6 months, just as long as Sonic was locked up in Forces).

As gently but quickly as she can she bundles up Tails and carries him cause at this point he's got so much in his system he can't walk or talk, blinking is kinda his only form of communication at the moment. To which Rouge doesn't know what's worse, for Tails to have been asleep for the whole time unaware or to be awake for the whole time and know what's happening.

Tails on the other hand is just so happy to see her and scared that he starts crying. Which is just breaking Rouge's heart to witness as she starts to backtrack out of there with him, with him just silently crying nonstop in her arms.

Unfortunately only about halfway to the exit they discover Tails is gone and the place starts going into lock down with cultist swarming the halls of the place. And even though Rouge is an excellent fighter, she's in close quarters with a kid who can't walk so she's quickly overrun by cultist who tie her up and take Tails back.

The leader then using all of his one brain cell figures she's already signaled to the other's where they are and he knows it's only a matter of time before the fastest thing on the planet busts their door down looking for his little brother.

The leader announces to the group they're moving up the ceremony to now much to Rouge's horror and they drag her along too kicking and screaming cause they don't have time to drop her off in a cell or anything.

Everyone is now in this big ceremony/chapel room that has a big stone table covered in white flowers, that suspiciously is the perfect size for an 8 year old fox to lay down on. And the leader does just that laying Tails on the table.

Rouge is throwing an absolute fit and cursing everyone out cause no way in hell is she gonna let this happen, it's to the point multiple people are having to hold her down even with her tied up cause she's kicking up such a storm of rage.

Meanwhile, Tails is mentally absolutely freaking out in a panic and is terrified out of his mind, especially when the leader brings out a large ornate knife and starts chanting something.

As the leader is finishing up and reeling back his hand with the knife Sonic busts in and sees all of this. Immediately rushing to the table just as the cult leader goes for the downswing.

Sonic just barely catches the knife about an inch from Tails' chest grabbing on to the blade of it and cutting his hand which drips onto Tails.

Now Sonic finally has a moment to process all of this and what exactly is happening and for obvious reasons he is beyond pissed off. He's probably not far off from turning into dark Sonic or it's creeping around the edges of him. And just as he's about to send the cult leader to meet his maker he glances at Tails' face and that's the only reason he doesn't kill the leader right then and there. Cause Sonic thought Tails was asleep but now he notices not only is Tails somewhat awake but tears are streaming down his face.

So Sonic does the next best thing in this situation, knocks out the leader in less than a second and just pulls Tails into a hug off the table and starts just sobbing with Tails in his lap curled up on the floor. Cause the horror of what about happened and the relief Tails is okay and he found him in time hits Sonic all at once.

The rest of the cultists are still frozen cause for Sonic, Tails and the leader all that happened in less than a minute and the group is still catching their bearings of everything that just happened. Which is a good thing cause in that moment everyone else catches up and runs into this whole scene.

From their perspective though they just see Sonic sobbing over a limp Tails with blood on his chest (from Sonic's hand but they don't know that), a guy knocked out (or possibly dead??) next to them, a big stone table that suspiciously looks like an alter also next to them, Rouge who is still cursing up a storm tied up in the corner and held down by like 5 people, and a room full of people in matching robes that look like the guy up near Sonic and Tails.

The rest of the group now splits off with Amy and Knuckles running over to Sonic and Tails, Shadow going for the leader on the ground, Omega going to help Rouge, and the rest of their friends they had helping them splitting off to take care of the rest of the cultists.

From here everything gets resolved, cultists and leader locked up, Tails getting what ever drugs they were giving him out of his system and going home and everyone somewhat going back to their lives. Sonic however does not leave Tails' side for a while and hovers around him which for the first few weeks Tails appreciates cause if he's honest he doesn't want Sonic to be far from him either after everything and really doesn't want to be alone for long. Tails get constant nightmares about the situation and is snuggling with his big brother almost every night. Which is great for Sonic cause he's also getting terrible nightmares from the ordeal and feels better when he wakes up and Tails is right there.

It does get to the point though where after a bit of recovery and time healing the mental scars Tails has to convince Sonic that he can be go back to running around and exploring without Tails right next to him. It takes a lot of convincing and scheduling regular check-ins (like 5x more than they previously had) but Sonic and Tails slowly get somewhat back to their normal lives.

If you wanna get angsty though have it so Sonic is just a second too slow in saving Tails and the fallout from that. (couldn't be me though I'm a hurt/comfort girly at heart, give me the angst but everyone's okayish in the end)

[disturbingstar]

The Conjuring universe

The Conjuring (2013)

In 1970, paranormal investigators and demonologists Lorraine and Ed Warren are summoned to the home of Carolyn and Roger Perron. The Perrons and their five daughters have recently moved into a secluded farmhouse, where a supernatural presence has made itself known. Though the manifestations are relatively benign at first, events soon escalate in horrifying fashion, especially after the Warrens discover the house's macabre history.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

In 1977, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren come out of a self-imposed sabbatical to travel to Enfield, a borough in north London. There, they meet Peggy Hodgson, an overwhelmed single mother of four who tells the couple that something evil is in her home. Ed and Lorraine believe her story when the youngest daughter starts to show signs of demonic possession. As the Warrens try to help the besieged girl, they become the next targets of the malicious spirit.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren take on one of the most sensational cases of their careers after a cop stumbles upon a dazed and bloodied young man walking down the road. Accused of murder, the suspect claims demonic possession as his defense, forcing the Warrens into a supernatural inquiry unlike anything they've ever seen before.

Annabelle (2014)

John Form thinks he's found the perfect gift for his expectant wife, Mia: a vintage doll in a beautiful white dress. However, the couple's delight doesn't last long: One terrible night, devil worshippers invade their home and launch a violent attack against the couple. When the cultists try to summon a demon, they smear a bloody rune on the nursery wall and drip blood on Mia's doll, thereby turning the former object of beauty into a conduit for ultimate evil.

Annabelle: Creation (2017)

Former toy maker Sam Mullins and his wife, Esther, are happy to welcome a nun and six orphaned girls into their California farmhouse. Years earlier, the couple's 7-year-old daughter Annabelle died in a tragic car accident. Terror soon strikes when one child sneaks into a forbidden room and finds a seemingly innocent doll that appears to have a life of its own.

Annabelle comes home (2019)

Determined to keep Annabelle from wreaking more havoc, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren lock the possessed doll in the artifacts room in their house. But when the doll awakens the room's evil spirits, it soon becomes an unholy night of terror for the couple's 10-year-old daughter, her friends and their young baby sitter.

The Nun (2018)

When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together, they uncover the order's unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of a demonic nun.

The Nun 2 (2023)

In 1956 France, a priest is murdered, and it seems an evil is spreading. Sister Irene once again comes face to face with a demonic force

The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

In 1970s Los Angeles, the legendary ghost La Llorona is stalking the night -- and the children. Ignoring the eerie warning of a troubled mother, a social worker and her own kids are drawn into a frightening supernatural realm. Their only hope of surviving La Llorona's deadly wrath is a disillusioned priest who practices mysticism to keep evil at bay.