#smart people question less yadda yadda but like. she’s gonna end up in a home at age 62 at this rate

[wilted]

qanon genuinely broke my mothers brain she used to be such an intelligent and kind and caring woman now she supports palestine only because she hates muslims less than jewish people

[dannyphannypack]

DP/PJO Crossover

Hello losers and welcome back to Taylor Writes A Teaser and Later Deletes the Entire Thing Because She Decides She Doesn’t Like it but She Wants to Put the Teaser Somewhere Else Where Her Grimy Little Hands Can’t Reach it so the Teaser Isn’t Lost Forever to Time! The Series. Today I’ve got a prologue for my upcoming fic, The Phantom Recollection. Enjoy!

“Woah.”

Daniel Fenton, newly fifteen, stood outside the Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan with a cardboard box overflowing with weaponry. He stood in front of the park’s Roman triumphal arch, where two statues of George Washington stared down at him. Behind the president on either side were two other people Danny didn’t recognize.

Jasmine, Danny’s older sister by two years, came up behind him toting another cardboard box labelled ‘Samples.’ She nodded toward the eastern pier. “That’s George Washington as Commander-in-Chief, Accompanied by Fame and Valor.” Jazz recited the words as if reading straight out of a textbook. “And the other one is George Washington as President, Accompanied by Wisdom and Justice.”

“Ah, yes,” Danny said as he adjusted his box. Guns were heavy. “My four favorite people: Fame, Valor, Wisdom, and Justice. Love those guys.”

Jazz nudged him with her shoulder and continued through the arch, where a crowd of people were gathered around a large fountain with jets that spewed water 45 feet into the air. A few adults sat around the fountain with their feet in the water and kids ran across the surface in swimsuits and trunks. Danny watched as one kid walked a little too close to the fountain and got pummeled by falling water.

The perimeter of Washington Square was decorated in booths. While one half of the square was shaded by the surrounding trees, the other half was enduring the hot July sun. Some people had been smart enough to bring canopy tents. Others were already baking.

“There,” Jazz said, pointing. A single empty fold-up table on the other side of the square sat in the sun with a sign that read, “RESERVED — Fentons.” Danny used a hand to shade his eyes in an attempt to get a better look at it.

“I told you that you should’ve brought sunglasses,” Jazz said. Danny figured she was rolling her eyes underneath her own pair of aviators.

“Yeah, yeah,” Danny huffed. “Let’s just go before I drop this Fenton-Tech all over the ground.”

A big guy in a bright orange neoprene HAZMAT suit ran into Danny from behind, almost making him fall over. Jack Fenton carried seven stacked cardboard boxes. “Whoops!” he shouted. “Didn’t see you there!”

Danny figured he couldn’t see anyone, anywhere, but a similarly-dressed woman in a bright blue suit came up behind him and urged him along. “Jack, I told you that we could just take a second trip.”

Beside Danny, Jazz hunched her shoulders like she thought she could hide in a turtle shell. “If anyone asks, I’m not related.”

Danny’s parents were … quirky, to say the least. Danny rarely saw them without their suits in public, and Danny even less so with his mom’s hood and red-tinted goggles. Underneath was a chin-length bob of red hair and deep blue eyes, almost purple in color. She was nothing compared to his dad, though, who was easily six feet seven and built like an MMA fighter (minus the rippling muscles). Huge. Stocky. Shaped vaguely like a box. He was difficult to miss. Even behind the boxes, people that walked past were giving him strange looks. Danny figured that was bad, since they were at a ghost convention.

“Not any ghost convention!” His dad had exclaimed, barely a week ago. “The Haunted America Conference in Alton, Illinois!”

“It’s not in Alton anymore, Jack,” His mom had sighed like they’d been over this three times already. “They had to move it due to popular demand.”

“Where is it, then?” Danny asked.

His mom had beamed. “Oh, Danny, you’re going to love this: New York City!”

And that’s how they’d ended up in America’s most populated city, carrying ghost weapons across a supposedly haunted park in the middle of July. Danny was pretty good at telling where ghosts were and where they weren’t, and there definitely wasn’t anybody here. The land had once been used as a mass burial ground during the yellow fever, but the spirits had all moved on since. If Danny had died during the yellow fever, he wouldn’t have stuck around either. Children running playfully over his unmarked corpse? No thanks.

Danny set his box at the foot of the table. His dad was trying to bend down without spilling the contents of his seven boxes everywhere, and his mom was fussing over him. “Don’t worry, Maddie, I got it!” his dad said, and he set the boxes on the pavement a little too roughly. The bottom box made a noise like breaking glass and crumpled underneath the weight. Ectoplasm began oozing out the sides.

“I’ve got the other samples,” Jazz drawled, setting down the box. “If you need me I’ll be by the fountain pretending that I don’t exist.” She shouldered her backpack and walked away.

“I’m just gonna go, uh, walk around,” Danny said.

His mom opened her mouth like she meant to tell him to stay there and help set up the booth, but she replaced the expression with a hesitant smile. “Go have fun. Be back by noon.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Danny knew how much his mother liked physical reassurance, so he stood on his tip-toes and pecked her cheek. “Love you.”

She smiled. “Love you, too.”

Danny turned and started heading around the square, glancing at people’s ghostly booths without actually getting close enough to warrant a conversation. He didn’t get a chance to walk very far, though. While passing a section of the square that branched off into a sidewalk, an old lady in a black hood grabbed him by the hand and pulled him aside. Despite the temperature (and the outfit choice), her skin felt cold. Danny forced himself to remain calm. Not a ghost, he told himself. Still, the woman set him on edge. When she opened her mouth, she sounded like she was hissing. Between gasping breaths, she said,

“Three shall find the child of death

Who loses his mind with one gasping breath

The son of the sea god must attend

To repay the kindness of a forgotten friend

See that his memories are safely returned

Or the reign of the King will be overturned.”

Danny blinked and she was gone, melting into the shadows of a big elm tree. “Wait!” he shouted, but the old woman had disappeared.

A wild animal growled nearby, but it came from all sides and echoed like Danny was in a cave.

He shivered. Get it together, Fenton. You’re losing it, man.

Thinking about how characters in movies splashed their faces with cold water when they were upset, he turned and walked down the sidewalk in search of a restroom.

Jazz sat on the steps of the fountain. With her laptop balanced in her lap, she reached into her backpack and removed a flash drive from her key ring of flash drives. This one was marked by a little cartoon ghost painted in neon green nail polish. She inserted it and opened up the folder. More folders stared back at her. Ghost Psychology, Ghost Physiology, Ghost Physics, Ghost Theories, Ghost, Ghost, Ghost. Jazz pursed her lips. Maybe she should take the ‘Ghost’ out of all her folder titles. The nail polish ghost on her flash drive already told her what it was.

“Hey,” someone said from behind her, and she jumped. Pulling her computer screen down, Jazz turned and looked up at the girl who had spoken.

She might have been a bit younger than Danny, though Jazz couldn’t tell exactly. She had long, curly red hair and dozens of freckles that decorated her nose like tiny paint splatters. Her eyes were so green they practically glowed in the light of the sun, swirling with mirth and curiosity. She was wearing red running shorts and a white t-shirt, so she looked like she had just finished a jog. Jazz supposed that she might have; this was a park, not a year-round ghost convention.

“Hi,” Jazz replied, pushing up her sunglasses so that they rested on her head. She visibly relaxed.

The girl chuckled and sat down beside her. She began taking off her sneakers and socks. “Surprised to see a fellow redhead at the Haunted America Conference.”

Jazz looked up and observed the crowd. She didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed before, but the people wandering about the square were a sea of black clothes and colorfully-dyed hair.

Jazz snorted and reopened her laptop. “That’s why you came over here?”

“No. I happened to see your computer screen.” She leaned in close for a better look. “Ghost Psychology, huh?”

Jazz closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Look, I know it seems weird—”

“No, I love it!” The girl said. “Everybody else here is all, ‘Palmistry, Chakra, Tarot Readings.’ You’re asking the real questions. What do ghosts think about? That’s what I’m interested in.”

If anybody else had said that, Jazz would have assumed they were being condescending. This girl, though … she could tell that she was just curious. “You believe in ghosts?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, putting her feet in the water and kicking them back and forth a bit. “Why not? Had this weird experience at the Hoover Dam last month. Not a ghost, I think, but—” she cut herself off and bit her lip, like she was trying to stop herself from retelling it. She raised her hand for Jazz to shake. “My name’s Rachel. Rachel Dare.”

Jazz shook it politely. “Jazz Fenton.”

“Fenton, huh?” Rachel looked like that name sounded familiar but she didn’t want to say anything about it.

“Yeah, I know,” Jazz said, preparing herself for the obligatory ‘I’m a Fenton’ speech. “Parents are Maddie and Jack Fenton, ghost hunters extraordinaire. Last year they saved Amity Park from being annihilated by the Ghost King, yadda yadda.

“They did what?” Rachel squeaked, but she sounded more amused than shocked. “Ghost King?”

Jazz mentally berated herself. Without thinking, she’d started spewing the information that everybody back in her home state wanted to know. She hadn’t thought about the fact that she was in New York, hundreds of miles away. Stupid.

Rachel must have saw Jazz wince, because she switched gears. “So, ghost hunters,” she said. “Your folks got a TV show?”

Jazz took a second to process the change in topic. She blinked once. Twice. Suddenly, she burst out laughing.

“What?” Rachel yelled over Jazz’s laughter. “What’s so funny?”

Jazz giggled but calmed down. “Sorry. My parents having a TV show … I can’t imagine.”

“What do they do then?” she asked. “Ghost Tours?”

“Ghost—?” Jazz cleared her throat to keep herself from laughing again. “No, no, no, Rachel, you’ve got my family all wrong. Think, ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “They shoot ghosts? How does that work?”

Jazz jabbed a finger behind her, where her parents had started on the box of weaponry. Her mom set the Fenton Bazooka down. Like anybody was gonna buy that.

Rachel gulped. “So I’m hoping you’re the ‘ask questions, shoot later’ one.”

Jazz nodded mutely and opened her Ghost Psychology folder. At the top was a folder labelled ‘Danny Phantom,’ but she scrolled past it to the general information. “My parents think that ghosts are inherently evil and have no thoughts of their own. They’re just a bad copy of their old human consciousness, wanting to get revenge on humans because they’re jealous that we’re alive or something. But they’re so much more than that. They have these—these ghostly obsessions.” She opened a Word document and began scrolling. “But they’re not evil obsessions. Sure, when they die, they can be like, ‘I’m going to make them pay.’ But usually it’s more of a gray area. Like, ‘I’m going to watch after my family,’ or ‘I’m never going to stop writing.’ What my parents don’t understand is that they’re not unary; they can think about other things. They aren’t limited to one state of mind.”

Rachel looked surprised at the sudden lecture, but she adjusted quickly. “Who is Skulker?”

“Oh.” Jazz paused and bit her lip. “He’s—he’s not the best.”

“What’s his obsession?”

“Hunting,” Jazz said, though she didn’t sound as excited as she had before.

“I’m guessing he’s not hunting for deer,” Rachel said, watching Jazz’s reaction. “Okay. Then … who is Danny Phantom? Why’s he got a folder to himself?”

Jazz’s eyes widened.

“Right. Another touchy subject.”

“No,” Jazz said, shaking her head. “No, he’s … he’s good. Great, even. I think he’s obsessed with protecting people.”

“Well, that’d good, isn’t it?”

“Yeah!” Jazz exclaimed. “I mean, yeah, it’s really good.”

Rachel stared at her. “But … something’s wrong?”

Jazz exhaled slowly through her nose, considering what she should and should not say. “He’s just a little … too protective, I guess. Never thinks about himself. Always rushes in when he could get hurt.”

“Ghosts can get hurt?” Rachel asked.

“This one can.”

Rachel could tell that Jazz didn’t want to talk about it, but she was curious. Choosing her words carefully, she asked, “What’s he like?”

Jazz smiled. “Oh, he’s great. Always saving the day. You know, everybody thanks my parents for the Ghost King thing, but it was really him. Our entire city was transported to a different dimension called the Ghost Zone. It’s where all ghosts live. The Ghost King had just woken up. People doubted his power. He was going to kill us all to set an example. Let everybody know that he was in charge.”

Jazz took a deep breath. “And then … well, Phantom couldn’t stand for that. He was already upset because … someone else got hurt. So he went up there by himself and beat him. He could’ve died.” Her eyes widened. “Well, not died, but he could’ve gotten hurt.”

They sat in silence for a moment, staring out at the fountain and watching the water splash against the surface. Some little kids ran by them, laughing. Rachel said, “You like this guy a lot, huh?”

That seemed to break Jazz out of her stupor. Her cheeks turned red. “Not romantically!” she shouted. “I care about him like a little brother. Not—” She put her face in her hands.

Rachel laughed and stood, shaking the water off her bare feet. “I’ve got to get going before my dad comes home for his lunch break and finds out that I’ve left the house. It was nice meeting you, Jazz.” She pointed at the laptop. “You keep that ghost science thing up. You never know. You might end up publishing it and becoming famous.”

“Your shoes,” Jazz said, grabbing the sneakers and holding them up to her. Her socks had been stuffed into the toes.

“Oh! Right.” She took them but didn’t bother putting them on; instead, she started walking up the steps and back into the square, barefoot. “And you keep that Phantom kid from doing anything stupid!” She added.

Jazz laughed. “I’ll try!” she shouted back.

Just like that, Rachel Dare was gone.

In hindsight, Danny should’ve known that he’d never get a break. Weird stuff had been happening to him since last year like clockwork. August: get ghost powers. September: fight ghosts. November: find out that a creepy old man has ghost powers, too. December: fight ghosts. On and on and on until now, watching people stumble through the gates of a sandy dog park behind the restroom he’d found. An old lady shuffled past him, screaming bloody murder. “Rabid dog!”

Danny turned back towards the dog park. That thing was no dog. Snarling angrily at a park ranger was a full-grown lion, 500 pounds at least. It snorted a small plume of red-orange fire. Danny blanched. Yeah, so maybe it wasn’t a lion.

Danny was still trying to process its more … interesting parts. From its back sprouted a black ram’s head, with big, curly ebony horns and a sneer almost as nasty as the lion’s. It, too, huffed, but only smoke came from its mouth. Thank god. Danny didn’t know if he could handle two fire-breathing heads. 

Then there was the matter of the tail. The golden fur grew in patches before tapering off into tough yellow and orange snake-skin. At the tail’s end was a full, honest-to-god python. As he watched, the snake looked up at Danny and flicked its tongue.

This was a ghost. It had to be a ghost, right? Sure, it didn’t glow like a ghost … and it didn’t float like a ghost … and it didn’t set off his ghost-sense like a ghost … but what else could it be? An animal experiment escapee from the Central Park Zoo? Danny seriously doubted that.

The park ranger pressed his back against the fence, which was a little too high for him to jump, and made a high-pitched whimpering sound. Danny shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. Whatever it was, he had to get rid of it.

Danny glanced nervously at the security cameras attached to the public restroom and nestled between the trees. Okay. He had to get rid of it, but without ghost powers. How?

Looking around for anything he could use, Danny settled on rock and tossed it twice into the air to test its weight. Deciding that it would work, he shouted, “Hey, Alex the Lion!” and threw it as hard as he could. It hit the creature in the back of the head.

That got its attention. Turning away from the ranger, the lion growled and set the floor around the gate on fire. Danny surveyed the fence. He wondered if he could jump it or if he’d seriously have to run through flames to get inside. Danny didn’t like heat. It wasn’t his thing. If he channeled a little flight into the jump, would it be too noticeable?

He didn’t have to think about it for very long, though. A boy and a girl, apparently unconcerned with the security cameras, catapulted over the fence on the other side and somersaulted into a standing position, one holding a dagger and the other holding an entire sword.

A sword. This day was just getting weirder and weirder.

The girl kicked the guy in the back of the knee, causing him to fall. She pushed him toward the lion. “Mmm, look, yummy demigod!”

“Annabeth!” The guy spluttered, standing. Just in the nick of time, too. Their entrance had caught the creature’s attention. It lunged forward. The kid jumped out of the way.

Danny raised his eyebrows. The girl, Annabeth, had her wavy blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore jean shorts and a hazard orange t-shirt similar to Danny’s dad’s suit. The guy was wearing the same shirt, though he had a pair of black basketball shorts on instead. Together, they shared a matching gray streak of hair. He wondered if they’d dyed it together.

In the other corner, the park ranger fainted.

With nothing but sand and rocks to fuel it, the flames around the gate died, allowing Danny to walk in like a normal person. Unlike the other two, he’d rather not high-jump a fence with security cameras watching. Even in New York he needed to keep up appearances.

The creature rushed toward Annabeth and its snake head-of-a-tail wrapped around her arm, squeezing until she dropped her dagger with a pained yelp. She looked down at it and kicked it in the general direction of the other guy.

Okay, my turn, Danny thought. He grabbed another rock (this one sharper, yay!), stepped through the gate, and threw it. It cut a long gash through the ram’s cheek. The lion turned to face him.

Both of the strangers looked surprised to see him there, like they hadn’t noticed a fifteen-year-old kid standing by the front gates. Honestly, Danny was surprised that he was still there, too. He had seriously considered running away when he saw them jump the fence. He had thought, Great! Back to my vacation, but his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground.

Annabeth recovered quickly. With the lion-goat-snake-thing distracted, she ripped her arm free of the snake’s grip and tumbled away.

The lion head roared, shooting fire across the park at Danny. He rolled out of the way and stood, bouncing on his toes. What he would give to be able to fly right now.

The other guy stared at him.

“What?” Danny snapped.

“Your pants are on fire.”

Danny looked down. Sure enough, the hem of his jeans hadn’t been as lucky as the rest of him. Patting it out, he shouted, “Dude!”

And then the lion was on top of him.

Now, Danny had been in some pretty sticky situations. The lion had his arms pinned on either side of his head. Danny couldn’t help but flash back to another time, when a ghost panther had been on top of him in the same fashion. It wasn’t the same, but still. Two giant cats pinning him to the ground in a year? That was sad.

On one side of him was Annabeth, on the other, the guy. Annabeth pointed frantically to his right. His eyes flicked in the direction she was indicating. Ah, yes, the dagger! He’d never be able to grab it with the creature’s full attention on him, though.

“Percy,” Annabeth said in a harsh whisper. He didn’t seem to notice. With a stomp, Annabeth ground out, “Per-see!” and nodded her head toward the dagger. He opened his mouth like, Ah, hyped himself up by jumping up and down, and started running top speed with his sword held high above his head, screaming.

The lion gnashed its teeth like it was annoyed. The goat head bleated angrily. The snake hissed. In one swift motion, the creature lifted one of its massive paws and hit Percy across the stomach. He flew backward into the metal fence.

Fortunately for Danny, that was all the time he needed. With one arm free, he reached for the dagger, got a hold of it, and pushed it into the lion’s chest. He cringed, bracing himself for the five hundred pounds of lion-goat-snake-thing that was about to die on top of him. Instead, it began raining sand.

Danny opened his eyes, sat up, and immediately began gagging. “It got in my mouth!” he yelled, though it sounded more like, “It got in me mouf!”

Percy, who had been thrown into the fence and didn’t look much better than Danny, had the audacity to start laughing. Danny turned and glared at him, using his hands to brush lion-goat-snake dust off his tongue. He only succeeded in adding more sand from the ground to his mouth.

Annabeth held out her hand for Danny and helped him to stand. Percy cleared his throat, like, Hey, aren’t you gonna help me up, too? but Annabeth just looked Danny up and down with a puzzled expression. Her eyes were gray like a storm cloud. “Who are you?” she asked. It sounded like an accusation.

Danny was still spitting sand and monster dust all over the ground. “Danny,” he said between gagging. “Bleh.”

“First time?” Percy quipped, helping himself up by leaning heavily on the fence behind him. He winced and held his stomach.

“I’m Annabeth,” Annabeth said. She gestured flippantly at her friend. “That’s Percy. I’ve never seen you before. Where did you come from?”

Danny furrowed his eyebrows, thoroughly confused. “You ever meet a tourist?”

Annabeth continued to stare at him. Shaking her head, she asked, “Where’s your parent?”

“Uh, parents? And they’re at Washington Square.”

“You have a stepparent?” Percy blurted.

“What?”

Percy changed gears. “You’re adopted?”

“What? No!”

Percy’s eyes widened. He muttered, “You’re like Rachel?”

“Who?” Danny and Annabeth asked in unison. For once he wasn’t the only one out of the loop.

“Look,” Danny said, brushing himself off. “This has been super fun, but I’ve got a ghost convention to get back to.” He turned on his heel and started stalking out of the dog park. What was up with them assuming he didn’t have parents? And people thought he was nuts.

“Wait!” Percy shouted. Danny paused mid-step. “Thank you.”

Danny considered that. He wasn’t supposed to be a hero in human form. It was dangerous. Even now, he was running through scenes in his head of these two stealing the security footage and putting him on YouTube or something. Highly unlikely, but anxiety twisted that in his head and made him more and more uncomfortable. He turned back around. “Look … don’t tell anybody about this, yeah?” Then, to disguise his nervousness, he said, “My parents would flip if they found out lion-goat-snake hybrids existed.”

“Chimera,” Annabeth said.

“Bless you,” said Percy.

“What? No! Percy, you of all people should know this. The Chimera is a Greek monster. Bellerophon shot it with the help of Pegasus. Do you listen to anything we tell you in camp?”

Percy shrugged noncommittally.

Annabeth fumed. “I—”

“You could come with us, you know,” Percy said, cutting Annabeth off. “To camp, I mean.”

Danny pretended like he was considering the offer. “Hmm, a camp with a Greek mythology class? No thanks.”

“It’s not a myth,” Percy said, rushing to get what he wanted to say out before Danny lost interest and left. “The Greek gods, I mean. They’re real. We could really use someone like you.”

Danny considered this. Right, so … crazy. They were crazy. If the Greek gods existed, why would there be a Ghost Zone? Didn’t spirits go to the Underworld in Greek mythology or something? But then again … what else could that lion-goat-snake thing be? It definitely wasn’t a ghost.

Danny shook his head. He had enough things to worry about. This was crossing into the Too Weird category. Turning, he said, “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve gotta go throw rocks at some other monsters. See you around.”

He walked out the gates and down the sidewalk towards Washington Square, thinking, I could really go for a sandwich right now.

[ask-sweetest-devil]

Can you please do 💗?

There are heavy references to abuse in here so read at your own discretionA memory of a good deed

Gilbert felt the familiar pull of a summoning tug at him. He wasn’t usually summoned, it was a very rare occurrence, but it had happened before and he knew the feeling.

He felt flames rise around his feet before sweeping around his body. The floor shifted and suddenly he was somewhere else. It appeared to be a basement. It was dark and dusty and it had a bed in the corner of it. He looked down, candles and extremely sloppy binding runes surrounded him.

He chuckled inwardly, thinking of how easy this was going to be for him. He would humor whoever summoned him before simply stepping out of the circle and taking their soul. He looked up to see who was the mastermind behind the incompetence and was surprised.

Before him, a young girl, no more than sixteen, kneeled. Matted blonde hair covered her eyes and he immediately noticed the bruises that covered her skinny arms. One of his eyebrows shot up.

What was someone like this doing summoning him?

There was a thick silence in the room. The girl continued looking down and kneeling, he body shaking a bit. He cleared his throat and her head shot up, blue eyes looking at him and widening in terror.

“Ummm… Was there something you wanted?” Gilbert broke the silence with the very unprofessional sounding question. He was simply too confused at this point. Was someone pranking him? They had to be.

“I-I-I-I..” the girl stuttered, looking into her ruby red eyes briefly before letting out a squeak and looking down.

“If you don’t want anything, I’m just going to go-” Gilbert awkwardly began, summoning his magic to take him back home

“Wait!” The girl cried and he stopped, wanting to see what this was all about.

“I-I want to make a deal!” She said, squeezing her eyes shut.

“You?” Gilbert asked incredulously, “You want to make a deal? Listen Mädchen, whatever silly material thing you want, it isn’t worth your soul. Trust me. I know highschool suchs but just grit your teeth and get through it you’re only there for a few years and- ”

“It’s my dad!” She shouted, cutting him off. Venom spewed from her voice as she said the last word, like it physically hurt to say.

Gilbert couldn’t help it.

Now he was very very interested.

“Go on.” He said, motioning with his hand for her to continue.

She took a deep breath and swallowed hard before steeling herself and looking directly into his eyes. Her gaze was so strong that Gilbert actually felt a little uncomfortable, like she was seeing right through him.

She said nothing but raised her arms, displaying the bruises to him and it immediately clicked.

“I see.” He said cooly.

“He does it to my mom too. We want to leave but he says he’ll just find us.” She elaborated, voice still hard, “I didn’t have any other options.”

He looked at her, young and strong, and immediately saw his younger brother. Her eyes nearly matched his and the conviction on her face was a mirror image of ludwig.

“Damn it.” He muttered quietly to himself, realizing that this wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought.

“Alright. I’ll take care of him.” He said.

The girl stood and reached out her hand.

He shook it.

______________________

Later that night, Gilbert appeared in the house again. Bound to the house by the deal he made, he went out in search of his target. He stepped through the halls of the house, not making a sound and followed the noise of shouting. He eventually traced it to the house’s living room where a man and woman stood. The mean was shouting, his face red, at the woman, who shrunk back with every word. Then he struck her hard, across the jaw, and she crumpled to the floor.

Gilbert was no stranger to the horror of humanity, but never the less, he felt absolute disgust at what he had just seen. He stood in the shadows as he watched the woman weakly scamper away to another room. The man stood there and let out a breath, wiping either blood or spit off his knuckles, Gilbert didn’t know.

He didn’t care.

After all, it was show time.

“Violence!” Gilbert shouted, apperating behind the man. He jumped, startled and whipped around, looking at gilbert.

“Who the fuck are-” the man began, but was cut off by gilbert grabbing him by the throat and hoisting him upwards with ease.

“Violence wins you a one way ticket to the seventh circle of hell, Kleines Entlein. Outer circle to be exact. Thats where the people who murder or are violent to others go to relax in a lovely river of boiling blood for all eternity. Congratulations!” He announced with a grin.

The man’s eyes were wide and his legs thrashed about, attempting to kick his captor. One kick landed and Gilbert heard the bones in the man’s foot snap from the impact.

“Kesesesese… Nice try.” Gilbert chuckled, “You know, I wasn’t going to take this job, but that little girl of yours drives a hard bargain, I’ve gotta tell you. Be real with me here, she’s not actually yours is she? No way something so smart could come from you.”

The man thrashed harder, his face turning purple, and Gilbert dropped him.

“Listen. Buddy.” He said, walking up to the man’s crumpled form on the ground, “I don’t like bullies.”

He delivered a swift kick to the man’s side, hearing ribs crack and splinter.

“And soon enough, you’re not gonna like them either. After all, your…. Cell mates, for lack of a better word, are quite rowdy. Even when they’re boiling alive in bodily fluids they’re always still looking for someone to beat the tar out of, and, sadly for you, there are muuuuuch bigger guys and ladies down there that can, and probably will, lets be real, crush you like a bug. Every day. Until the end of time.” He explained, hoisting the man back up and looking him in they eyes.

“Well, time is ticking and you don’t want the missus seeing what’s about to happen, do you?” Gilbert grinned, giving the man a playful slug to the shoulder.

“Try to keep the screaming to a minimum. Your neighbours are sleeping and waking them up would be rude.”

____________________

One more time, Gilbert appeared in the basement of the house, standing before the girl.

“It’s done. No mess. Autopsy will say he drank himself to death but I’m sure you and I both know that’s not true.” He said to her casually, stretching out his arms, “Now. On to payment.”

The girl looked at him and gulped, knowing what was coming.

He stuck out his hand and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Silence.

“What are you just going to leave me hanging?” Gilbert asked

The girl’s eyes shot open and she looked at him. His hand was outstretched for a high five. She looked down at his hand, then back up at him. She said nothing for a while, beyond baffled as to when the demon in front of her was doing.

“Aren’t you….. Going to take my soul….?” She questioned quietly

Gilbert snapped his fingers and a purple flame sparked to life. The flame quickly dissipated and in it’s place was a sheet of parchment. Gilbert held it infront of him and began to read aloud.

“Technician; Gilbert, that’s me, client; yadda yadda yadda where is it…. Ah! Request; A life. Payment; one crisp high five from the client.”

The girl looked at him, her eyes wide. Gilbert looked back at her and sighed, the flames whisking the parchment away as he reached up a hand to rub his temples.

“Look. I don’t like bullies, okay? And you remind me of someone. So… let’s just get this done and move on with our lives, alright.” He said curtly and stuck his hand back out again.

He felt a light smack come to his hand and he looked at the girl, “Not exactly crisp, but I’ll take it.”

He summoned his magic one final time and he felt his flames beginning to wrap around him.

“Wait!” The girl cried once more and Gilbert felt a sense of deja vu. He looked at her and she smiled.

“Thank you.”

“Ehh..” he said as the flames finished covering his body, “Don’t mention it.”