#that would actually discourage the other ghosts from ever wanting to hang out with him | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

couldyouspeakmyname · 3 years ago

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Yandere is a portmanteau of two Japanese words. The first is yanderu, which means “to be sick,” and the second is deredere, used here for “lovestruck.” A yandere is often sweet, caring, and innocent before switching into someone who displays an extreme, often violent or psychotic, level of devotion to a love interest.

(Remember, Yandere’s are toxic, and while it’s fun to write and read about in fiction, it’s not okay in real life. This is your warning)

I’m so sorry anon! Tumblr deleted my draft about the Yandere!Shishigumi ask. I re-did it and I hope it’s okay!

(Sorry for any errors I wanted to post it before tumblr ate it again ;-;)

-Maeve

Ibuki

How they act around you

Ibuki adores you. How could he not? You’re everything he’s ever wanted in a partner. He can’t let you know that though, he doesn’t want to overwhelm you or scare you off. Instead, he becomes your friend. He’s there for you whenever you need him, no matter what time of night or day. If he’s not available, he sends someone else to help you. He’s always there, spending time with you, that others hardly ever see you without him.

He’s supportive of all your goals, and wants to do whatever he can to make them happen.

Over time you’ll find that no one else is as loving and supportive as he is (he makes sure no one else can be). He wants nothing more than to see you happy, with him.

He’ll quickly becomes your shoulder to cry on, the person you rely on.

He’s your foundation.

How they act when angry

Ibuki is extremely protective of you. He doesn’t often loose his temper, but when he does it’s when someone's crossed you. You’ll find that rude, or mean, animals you’ve run into have gone away. Usually you find they’ve moved, or transferred jobs/school/ect. Ibuki makes sure you don’t know what really happened to them. He knows you’d be upset if you knew, but it’s really in your best interest.

He will go into a silent rage when someone tries to take what’s his. Usually they’re harmless strangers he can ignore, but if they try and give you their number, or pursue you further than one interaction, he looses it. Luckily for Ibuki, you don't know them well, so when they go missing you wont be grieving.

Free

How they act around you

Free adores you, and it’s one of the most obvious things in the world. He’s always hugging you, throwing an arm around your shoulders, and calls you nicknames. He never even asked you out, but everyone assumes you’re an item by how he acts. He never corrects them, and goes as far as to call you his baby when you’re out of earshot.

Free loves to tease you. Some jokes are at your expense, but nothing is too intense. He thinks you’re adorable when you get flustered, and have extreme reactions.

He never leaves you without leaving his scent on you. He hangs on you, or has his arms around you in hugs, and a big part of it his him leaving his scent as a silent warning to anyone who comes in close proximity. Animals don’t hit on those that smell like lions. He does it so often you may even become nose blind to it.

He will go to your home when you’re not there, invite himself in.

He goes through your stuff, but is sneaky about it. You wont know he’s logged onto your computer, or that he’s gone through your phone. He’s a feline, so he’s very quiet. Breaking and entering is the least of his crimes.

How they act when angry

Free is volatile on a good day, and that’s not even when it’s concerning you. He loves fighting, violence, and it’s a recipe for disaster when something happens.

Don’t fight with Free. He’s hard to fight with, but if you do Free punches holes in walls, breaks things. He would never turns his violence your direction, but anything else? Free game.

That’s not even taking into consideration what happens when other animals hit on you. The few animals that ignore the fact he’s scented you, don’t live long. As soon as they’re alone, Free destroys them. Free doesn’t kill them outright, he wants them to suffer, and by the time he’s done they’re unrecognizable.

Dolph (credit to @beqstars for the help!)

How they act around you

He spends time with you. At first it’s with a small group of the Shishigumi, then the group dwindles down until it’s just you and him. It starts happening so much, it becomes natural for it to just be Dolph and you

He starts really weaseling his way in by offering to help you around you home, with any extra work you have.

Before you realize it, Dolph is always with you. The few times he’s not, he actually is.

Dolph is a feline, and despite his size, he moves silently and in the shadows. He keeps track of you, no matter where you are, and no matter where you go. If he’s not there, one of his cohorts usually is.

Dolph is intimidating, and while you may assure people that he’s not a threat, their instincts are right. He is. All it takes is a look over your shoulder at someone, and that scares most people off.

Dolph does whatever you need him to, and is very supportive of your endeavors. It wouldn’t be above him to make competition for a job disappear, or for the animal to give it up in favor of your promotion.

Dolph would risk his life for you, without question. He’d also kill for you, without question. He’d never tell you that though.

How they act when angry

Dolph has a firm grip on his temper, so it takes a lot for him to get mad. You probably could even go out on a date, and he’d control himself (though he’d persuade that you two were no good for one another calmly).

What would make him loose his temper is if you kissed someone else, or began limiting your time with him because of affection for someone else.

Dolph’s temper is calm, cool, and lethal.

The person who you began dating may ghost you, or move suddenly. The person who kissed you? Dolph sets him up for something horrible, so you don’t grieve the loss of whoever it was. Luckily for you, in your grief, Dolph is there to comfort you. They were scum anyway. He can hold you, don’t worry.

Agata

How they act around you

Agata is friendly and sweet, if not a bit shy. He likes to be close to you, but never pushes the limit too far. He just likes being in your presence.

Due to his sweet disposition, no one ever sees him coming. Plus, Agata has a very dark mane, so when he does speak with authority, no one questions him.

Agata will use his gang connections to keep you safe and keep an eye on you

Agata is easy to talk to, and because he’s so easy to talk to, it’s easy for him to find out your secrets. It’s easy for you to let him in, and let him know your thoughts, dreams, and hopes. He supports all of them.

You two end up talking so much that he just falls into being someone you can’t picture going without. He’s always there when you need him, even when you don’t call him. He just seems to know.

Is it okay if he holds your hand now?

He’s going to do whatever he has to in order to make sure you’re happy. No matter the cost.

How they act when angry

Agata doesn’t get easily angry, but when he does, he becomes a totally different lion

Agata is so much stronger than he lets on, or that anyone knows. He can and will smash skulls when someone looks at you wrong.

He wont let anyone hurt you. It doesn’t matter if they’re putting you at risk physically, emotionally, or financially. Hell, it doesn’t matter if they just cut you off in traffic, Agata can’t let anyone put his special someone at risk.

Agata wont do it when you’re around, instead he stalks the animal he’s after, and waits until they’re alone.

It’s very messy, but he has the Shishigumi to help clean up after him.

Agata hopes you understands how much you mean to him

Miguel

How they act around you

Miguel is very quiet, and doesn’t talk without purpose. He just kind of creeps into your life. You think maybe you met him when you went on a walk?

On a bad day, he shows up and cooks you dinner. You don’t question the fact you don’t remember telling him where you lived, you’re feeling bad and he’s there to make you feel better.

He always responds to texts messages, calls, and emails. He never makes you wait very long for a response.

Miguel will support you, no matter your cause

He looks at you like you’re the only person in the world when you talk. You’re the center of his universe, even if he has a hard time expressing it.

No one tries anything with your big, burley, shadow.

Miguel is big, but he’s light on his feet. Miguel has a tendency of following you, even when you don’t realize it.

He will often sneak into your home, especially when you’ve been busy. He picks up. Nothing obvious, but he dusts, just generally wipes things down.

He does it more at night than in the day. The day most animals don’t try anything, but the worst kinds of animals come out at night.

How they act when angry

Miguel is a silent killer. He takes out anyone he deems a threat quickly and effectively.

That being said, he doesn’t kill for you as often as some others may.

He doesn’t need anyone to get suspicious. He tends to just...discourage anyone from messing with you.

They’ll find that their cars are wrecked, their homes have been vandalized. He sends a lot of signs that they need to back. off.

If they visit the black market? Nothing stands against the Shishigumi, and Miguel isn’t above using his position to intimidate anyone who stands in your way.

When someone hits on you? Miguel is usually in the background, and one look from an angry Miguel sends whoever it is running. If they ignore him? They’re gone. It’s a good thing he knows where sharks are.

Sabu

How they act around you

Sabu is very quiet, but he may talk more around you (which still isn’t much)

Sabu is the kind of guy that you’re probably not sure how you two ended up friends, but you are.

Sabu is relaxed around you, and he allows himself to let his guard down.

Sabu knows his desires and need to be around you isn’t healthy, but he can’t help it. He only feels normal when he’s around you. You’re his soul mate, he knows it.

Sabu just kind of...knows how you feel, even when you can’t put it into words. He’s always around and willing to be your shoulder to cry on if you get upset.

He also will do any repairs to your car or vehicle. He’s also there to fix anything that breaks in your home.

He’s better at expressing himself in text messages than actually talking.

The fact you’re okay with who he is, and how quiet he is makes you so special to him.

He’d do anything to make sure you’re happy and secure. Anything.

How they act when angry

Sabu rarely looses his temper. He’s one of the few yandere who are self aware. So he has a mental checklist that allows him to pull himself back from the edge.

The rare times Sabu can’t control himself is when someone starts coming after you romantically. How can they make you happy? How could they?

Sabu has done everything he can to make you happy, would they do that for you?

They just go missing without a trace. No one knows where they went, or what happened to them. It’s a big city, after all.

If it’s someone you know well, Sabu will stage a flawless accident. No one will question it, and he’s there to hold you when you get upset.

Jinma

How they act around you

Jinma is a little bit odd on the best of days. He initially is a little stiff and awkward, but he relaxes quickly around you as soon as you start talking to him

He likes to talk with you, pick your brain, and hear you talk back. He could spend just...hours talking to you.

Jinma is supportive of you, especially if you have nay urge to pursue academics. He’ll study with you and help you figure things out.

Jinma spends a lot of free time with you, any time he can have.

He likes to learn about your hobbies, and wants to try them out with you, even if they’re bad. If you have a hyper fixation? He’s going to learn everything about it, and listen to what you have to say.

Jinma tends to plan his life around your schedule, which he knows by heart. You’ll find you happen to “bump” into him while you shop or do errands.

How they act when angry

Jinma doesn’t get angry very often. When he does? He doesn’t just kill the person, he destroys their life from the inside out

Jinma can easily navigate the black Market, the ‘normal’ part of society is no different. Black mail, threats of violence...nothing it too low in order to make you happy.

Jinma only really kills when someone moves in on you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a toxic friend, a rude boss/coworker, Rex forbid someone trying to take you away! Jinma makes quick work of them. He doesn’t even have to do it himself, he uses his connections.

Dope

How they act around you

Dope talks his way into your life. he just reads your body language. he waits until you’re vulnerable, then swoops in with something to make you smile.

Dope is very easy to get along with. His ability to do negotiations in the Black Market means regular people and society are a cakewalk to navigate

It’s so easy for you to talk to Dope, you probably don’t realize you’ve given as much personal information as you have.

Dope Is very supportive of you, and does whatever he can to help you reach goals and milestones.

If you’re a student or need help with a work project, Dope will spend hours with you helping you out. He is very patient, understanding, and will keep you from getting upset or frustrated.

Due to the fact he’s so good at reading others, you wont realize that he’s manipulating you and the animals around you to get you alone more.

He loves to touch your shoulder, hold your hands, keep you close. He’s distracting you enough that you probably wont notice until ten minutes later that your hand is in his.

Dope will go through your personal things when you’re not around. He memorizes your passwords, looks in your emails, texts, and messenger accounts. He’s just making sure no one is moving in on you, and that you’re safe.

How they act when angry

. Dope rarely gets angry, and actually avoids violence if he can. He’d much rather use his words to manipulate others in order to get what he wants

It’s also not above him to use his silver tongue to make someone else life miserable

Dope will use his connections to the Shishigumi to intimidate those that he deems a threat.

While Dope would rather avoid violence, he’s not above it. If someone gets too close to you, he’ll get rid of them.

Dope is fond of knives.

Hino

How they act around you

Hino comes into your life like Prince Charming.

He probably just comes up and introduces himself to you.

Hino is in a very delicate situation, where he has to use his looks for his job, and he tells you about it in a way that will gain your sympathy (he wont tell you his exact job, and just allows you to assume)

While he knows his looks are appealing and the way to get your attention, it’s actually very important that you know him. So he shares his secrets with you when you’re alone, and you do the same. How could you say no to that face?

Hino is instantly hooked.

After a few months he tells you about his insomnia, and that his roommates are noisy. He asks if he can stay with you every now and again so he can nap on your couch. Saying yes, Hino quickly becomes a semi-permanent resident of your home. He’s there when you get off, and greets you with his soft purring voice and a gentle smile.

Due to the fact he stays with you so often, he’s always there when someone else is. He makes himself a fixture in your life you can’t remove.

How they act when angry

Hino is actually easily jealous. He’s not as volatile as many of the other yandere’s, but he has his moments.

He trusts you, and has confidence in his own looks and abilities, so he doesn’t mind if the odd animal idiot hits on you. He knows you wont go after them, not when you have him.

If someone hurts you though, or if someone hits on you and makes you smile the smile that should be reserved only for him it’s game over

Hino will loose his temper.

While Hino looks lovely, his body isn’t just for show. He’s actually sizeable and fast. The animals who crossed you and put his relationship with you at risk are going to pay with their lives.

It’s actually one of the few times Hino allows himself to get really messy

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hockeyforthefirsttime · 4 years ago

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Speechless- Nolan Patrick

AN: Is the ending literal trash? yes, do i care at this point? also yes, but not enough

Word count: just over 3k

TW: none that I can think of, but let me know if i need to tag something:)

Nolan is definitely bored at the bar. He is out and supposed to be celebrating a win, but third wheeling with Tavis and Karly, simply is not fun. Not that it ever has been, but as he watches them laugh at each other on the dance floor.. well he takes a deep sigh and an even deeper swig of his beer. Some of the team is gathered around the bar ordering another round of drinks, and as he is scanning the crowd a woman walks in front of him, making him look up at her.

And stop dead in his thoughts.

She is wearing jeans that cling to her curves just right, a deep magenta top that seems to wrap around her stomach, before it reveals a little more than he can handle, and he looks up at her and sees the ghost of a smile on her lips. She isn’t looking at him though. She seems to be looking into the crowded dance floor, and Nolan desperately wants to know who she is looking for.

In any other situation like this, he would have swept her off of her feet and wouldn’t have put her down until they’d reach his bed. But her obliviousness to him has knocked him off balance it seems.

“Hey Patty, me and Karly are gonna head home. Want a ride?”

Travis comes up to Nolan, Karly in tow and the mysterious girl moves with a quiet sorry and a fleeting smile. Nolan can feel his eyes drift after her before he meets Travis’ eyes, which are brimming with amusement.

“Nah, I’m good.”

He answers, and Travis bursts out laughing.

“What, so you can sit here and stare like some kind of creep the rest of the night?”

Nolan sees Karly gently shoving on Travis, also having noticed Nolans lingering gaze.

“As opposed to going home in the same car as you two rabbits? No thank you.”

Travis and Karly bid their goodbyes as the rest of the team and their significant others appear back at the table. Nobody seems to take notice of the Nolans distantness though, pinning it down as just his Philly personality. Nobody really sees him staring at this girl dancing in vans and a pink top.

As the song ends he watches her go up to the bar, so in normal Nolan fashion he gets up and heads in that direction. He takes a look down at his watch and in a second, a split fucking second, she is gone.

He’s so fucking tired. The game last night had been decent. They’d won in overtime and Nolan had the assist, yet he keeps going over the chances he had and the chances he missed making in his head. Driving to the rink is dreary but even more so than usual. It’s not until he stops at a red light that he wakes up. He’s supporting his head on his left arm and looking out the passenger seat window. His eyes widen when he sees who is in the beaten up truck next to him.

The girl from the bar three weeks ago. She has her hair down her shoulders and is looking at him through her own window. When she catches his eyes, she gives him a wink. As if she recognizes him. And if this was anyone else he might have given her a half smile, or even a wink back. But no. He can feel his cheeks heating up and getting rosy. God how he wishes he could be as confident as he usually is. The girl in the other car seems to be laughing a little, a smile on her lips. Nolan swears she starts slipping away from view, and in that second he remembers. He’s at a fucking red light. Except it isn’t red anymore, made obvious by the boisterous truck behind him, basically laying on his horn.

Quickly he presses his foot down on the gas pedal and looks for the beaten up truck, which is nowhere to be seen.

iii

It’s still winter and Nolan for some reason unknown to him decides to take a walk in the park not far from his apartment. He blames it on his restlessness, which stems from sitting inside the entire weekend. It’s nearing Christmas time and the main section of the park is covered in fairy lights and christmas decorations. There’s even a stand that sells hot chocolate.

He buys a cup, puts in his earbuds and starts walking. It is nice out, he decides, with all the people out enjoying the snow on the ground. There are even some kids out rolling big snowballs, which turn into snow men and women. He feels a sudden wave of content roll over him. And a smile subconsciously finds its way onto his lips.

Nolan walks a little further, and doesn’t really stop, until a ball of golden fur is at his feet, almost making him trip. The wagging tail is making the entire body of the dog move and he catches himself smiling and taking out one of the earbuds. Immediately he hears the voice of a girl shouting.

“Akira!”

The dog at his feet, looks around eagerly as her owner sprints up to him. And Nolan can hardly believe his luck. It is the bar girl.

“I’m so sorry, she usually doesn’t run off like that.”

And judging by her attire she is out for a jog, which would explain how out of breath she is. Quickly she pulls a leash out of her pocket and hooks it onto Akira’s harness.

“Oh there’s no worries.”

Nolan manages to stutter out. He sees a little smirk on her lips and curses his reddening cheeks for being so obvious. He bends his head a little and scratches Akira behind her ears. The golden retriever leans into his touch and a soft chuckle escapes the girl standing in front of him.

He is just about to ask the girl her name when a phone starts ringing. It’s hers. Quickly, from another pocket, she pulls out a phone and answers it. He watches with steady eyes as a frown starts to grow on her face.

“Fuck, okay yeah, I’ll be home in a few.”

She hangs up the phone and pockets it, before she turns to look at him again. With a wink she turns around and Akira follows.

“See you around Shy Guy!”

And just like that she’s gone. His chocolate is no longer hot, so he tracks back to his apartment, with discouragement sitting in his chest like a rock.

iiii

The Starbucks is so full, the line goes through the door and that’s the reason why Nolan doesn’t even consider entering it. He turns and treks back a block until he sees this quaint little cafe he’s never really noticed. Which is no surprise, because it seems to be mostly inhabited by students. With the amount of computers and books up at the cafe tables and its location closer to UPenn it should come as no surprise.

And maybe he gets a little hopeful that the bar girl will be there, so despite his logical mind, he enters through the glass doors and goes straight to the counter. The boy has to be around his own age, but a fair bit skinnier and with glasses on. It makes him look a bit too young in Nolan's eyes, but it doesn’t really matter.

“Hey, what can I get you today?”

The young boy asks as he wipes down the counter.

“Ehh, just a large black coffee, please.”

Nolan says and pulls out his wallet. He doesn’t completely register the bell over the door ringing, not until the gust of cold air washes over him. Instinctively he turns and spots a smaller frame entering the cafe. A hoodie over their head and a black jacket, lightly dusted with quickly melting snow. And a pair of beaten up, black vans on their feet. His hopes rise, and yet again he is rewarded with the presence of the bar girl. She shakes out her hair a little as she pulls the hood off of her head. Nolan could swear his heart stopped right there. The evening sun shines through the window, making her hair appear as a halo around her.

She hasn’t noticed him yet. So he turns and tries to calm his blush. The guy behind the counter has begun making his coffee so he doesn’t really know what to do. The bar girl comes up behind him. He can tell by the way the barista nods at her with a smile.

“Hey Dylan, how are you today?”

And Nolan is instantly a bit jealous of this Dylan, who gets to hear his name falling from her lips.

“I’m good Rory, thanks, how are you?”

Dylan answers, and it feels like his heart is in his throat. Her name is Rory? It suits her.

“Could be better to be honest, this paper on existence due next week is really kicking my ass.”

She answers as she comes closer, and Nolan moves further up the counter to give them room.

“Tell me about it, you want the usual?”

She nods and slings her backpack off one shoulder to unzip a pocket, and pulls out a card. Dylan finishes Nolan's order and places it on the corner of the counter. Nolan can feel his chance slip through his fingers and begins to panic a little.

Until he spots a pen on the counter near his cup. Quickly he grabs it and scribbles his name and number on the cup. And he couldn’t have cued it better for AV to call him. He puts the cup down again and picks up the call.

“Nolan, have you looked over the videos yet?”

Alain, straight to the point as usual.

“Yeah, saw them yesterday, and I have some ideas in mind for me to improve.”

He speaks into the phone, while he puts a hand on the back of his neck.

“Good good, I will see you tomorrow then?”

“Yes, sir. Bright and early.”

And then they hang up. He sees that another cup has appeared beside his. He throws a quick glance at Rory, who is still talking to the barista, and turns his cup the other way so the writing isn’t visible and grabs her cup. Then, he nods a goodbye to Dylan and exits the door.

He’s almost half a block away when his phone rings. He hasn’t drunk out of the cup, but it smells a little sweet and enticing. He looks at the phone and sees an unknown number. He lets it ring twice more before answering.

“Hey, this is Nolan?”

He tries to sound nonchalant.

“Hey, Shy guy. This is Rory. You didn’t by any chance grab my coffee on the way out?”

Despite the fact that he doesn’t actually know her, he swears he can hear a smile over the phone. And he is a little bit shocked by the nickname.

“Oh, so this is who it belongs to?”

She lets out a little chuckle, before she answers.

“Yeah, mind returning it?”

He smiles at the laugh.

Nolan is different, not that he will admit it, but the team can tell. He seems to be more patient, more focused on practicing drills and getting them right, and also for some reason, more ready for practice to be over. At first it’s a subtle change, but after a while and two games where he plays over all very well, it seems to be more than just determination. It seems like he wants to impress someone.

At first they shake it as him wanting to prove himself to.. well everyone. But one day when Oskar asks him who he is texting so frequently, Nolan can feel his cheeks and ears tint even more than usual. Damn her and the effect she has on him. He tries to play it cool with a casual shrug, but half the locker room seems to burst out laughing. Quickly he puts his phone in his pocket and heads for the door.

“Have a good weekend guys!”

He calls out behind him out of habit, as it is a weekend without games and he is taking a short trip home. Various chirps get called out behind him, but Teeks seems to be the loudest one.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

And all hell breaks loose as they all start on chirping Travis about how he can do anything then. With a fond smile, Nolan heads for his car, where he has a pre- packed bag as well as his passport and a carryon.

He parks his car in the airport parking lot and he swears, there is something familiar about the truck beside his car. He shoves it to the back of his mind and starts crossing to the terminal. He’s late tho, and only half an hour to get on his flight, so as he anxiously stands in line for check in he pulls up his phone and sees a new text from Rory.

Hey, I’ll be gone for a couple of hours, text when I can:)

It was sent five minutes ago, and he groans a little at the fact that he has to wait faster, very bored. Finally he has checked in his bag and been cleared to enter the airport all the way to his flight.

In a half jog, half sprint he manages to make it just shy of ten minutes before the gate closes. He pulls his cap further down on his head and puts his ticket and passport on the desk. The hostess scowls at him but lets him enter the already boarded plane.

The smell of too many people and bad flight food smacks him in the face as he enters the plane with another nod to a different flight hostess.

34B seems too far away, but he bites his tongue and keeps walking. He looks at the bald man in 34C and the hooded figure in 34A. He swears, there is something familiar about this too but his mind is a little fuzzy and he can’t quite place it.

“Scuse me.”

He mumbles to the man and he politely moves so Nolan can find his seat. The girl in the seat next to the window turns and looks at him, and finally it seems that he has steady ground under his feet.

“Well, seems like I won’t text you in a couple of hours then.”

Rory smiles at him. And he smiles back.

“Nope you’re stuck with me for the next five and a half hours.”

He teases and plops down in his seat.

“What the fuck are you going to Winnipeg for though?”

Nolan asks as he fastens his seatbelt and ignores the security instructions completely.

“Oh I haven’t told you? My family lives there.”

He feels flabbergasted, how in the living hell has he forgotten to ask? He always assumed she was from Philly.

“Why are you going there anyway?”

Rory asks, but he sees the twinkle in her eyes, she’s just joking with him.

“I’m visiting my girlfriend.”

He decides to reply dead serious. And the twinkle in her eyes disappears, a frown begins to form between her eyebrows and he instantly feels a little bad.

“I’m- sorry, that was a really bad joke.”

This time it seems, it’s her turn to get embarrassed. Neither of them get time to think it over though, because the plane starts accelerating and her hand immediately lands on his. He sees her jaw tense and feels her hand tighten around his knuckles. Nolan doesn’t want to comment on it though, and just lets her hold on.

As they lift off the tarmac her hand slowly starts easing up and when they level out in the air, she seems to have realised that she’s holding his hand. Quickly she lets go, and Nolan already misses it.

“Sorry about that, I get a little nervous about the take off.”

She seems a little nervous to admit it, but he asks anyway.

“How come?”

“Oh, ever heard of the irresistible force paradox?”

He shakes his head no, and that launches her into an explanation of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. It’s obvious she loves theories like this, with the way she talks and moves her hands.

“- which stems from both a chinese and a roman legend. The roman is about Zeus and how he fixed the Teumessian fox, who can never be caught, and the hound Laelaps who never misses what he hunts to the sky in constellations.”

She stops, and Nolan really wishes she wouldn’t. Her voice is so calming yet enchanting at the same time, he could listen and learn every day for forever.

“But wouldn’t that mean that the fox wins? because it never gets caught?”

He questiones.

“Exactly! I’ve been thinking about it for days now.”

And the plane ride goes on like that, until Rory has heard of most of the flyers and Nolan knows the name of almost all her professors. It’s closer to night time when she starts to slur her words, because of tiredness. She ends up with her head on his shoulder and his hair a little bit in her face. But the weight of his head leaning against hers is priceless.

Nolan wakes up a little bit before her and sees that they’re landing soon. So he shakes Rory awake with a promise of a date in the morning. Since they don’t live too far away from each other. And she agrees.

They step off the plane together, collect their luggage together, Nolan’s arm slung around Rory’s shoulder, and hug each other so long, before departing to their own separate families.

“Hey, see you tomorrow shy guy!”

She winks at him, rendering him speechless in front of his family. His sister glances at him with a questioning look as she watches the other girl walk away. Usually few people render Nolan at a loss for words.

#nolan patrick #nolan patrick imagine #nolan patrick fluff #nolan patrick fic #philadelphia flyers #flyers imagine #flyers fluff #flyers fic #flyers 19

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crystalkleure · 3 years ago

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🤝 give the rarepairs

Jin Aizawa, Daina Kurogami, and Clio Delon!

Goth squad! Sadly, as often as the three of them are all seen together in fanon, Jin barely interacted with Daina and never interacted with Clio in canon. And the little bit of interaction he had with Daina was...not quite amicable lmfao. Regardless, these guys would all actually probably get along great after the animosity from that one misunderstanding got cleared up and Jin wasn't Super Offended at The Audacity Of Daina anymore lol

Daina apologizes to Jin, like "Hey, uh, whoops, turns out that weird blue nerd guy was the actual Cheating Bastard, sorry for the slander haha wanna hang out at Hot Topic sometime," Jin has already mostly forgotten about the incident and any remaining irritation dissolves immediately because Jin is chill because Jin is too tired to ever stay angry about anything for very long, and Daina introduces Jin to Clio at some point. That's the only reason I can see Jin ever really having for Becoming Aware Of Clio outside of some kind of tournament context maybe -- they both know Daina.

And *shoves Daina off to the side for a minute* Oh Boy, Jin and Clio. That would be Fun.

Jin is...completely unfazed by any and all of Clio's magic tricks, no matter how physically implausible they seem to be. In fact, Jin might even kind of Barely Acknowledge Clio himself at first. Clearly not to be rude and cold, he's just, uh, spacey. Basically stares right through the guy. Clio is Baffled.

And eventually Jin inevitably has a narcolepsy attack and Clio does his Dream Invasion thing for Maximum Mischief, that MUST be Impressive and SURELY Cannot Be Ignored, and hooooly shit what the fuck is wrong with this guy's brain. Jin's head is full of ghosts. What the fuck.

Clio has discovered that basically every time Jin tries to sleep he ends up in Nightmare Demonsville to the point that it doesn't even terrify him or anything anymore, it just makes it damn impossible for him to get much solid rest. Jin Has Made Friends With The Brain Ghosts But They Are Annoying And Cause Chronic Insomnia Because Holy Fucking Shit There Are So Many Of Them. It Is So Fucking Loud Inside Jin's Head All The Time.

And, to make matters worse, due to the prolonged severe sleep deprivation, Jin does not actually have to outright fall asleep for his Ghost Buddies to start coming out to play. When you're that exhausted, you hallucinate. Something something microsleep, etc., and are the Ghost Friends actually real or are they purely waking nightmares, or did Jin himself manifest them into reality the same way he made his bey avatar because Jormungand's aura DOES seem to be made of Screaming Damned Souls which WOULD seem to maybe suggest that, lol who the fuck knows, Jin's brain is a wreck, he probably doesn't even know, huh wait did that shadow over there just move

In other words, Clio discovers that Jin apparently hallucinates, and THAT is why Jin was Ignoring His Awesome Magic Tricks. Jin has to be aware that he hallucinates, or at least aware to some degree, because it happens so often, so if he sees something weird and Probably Impossible he just Assumes It Is Not Real at this point lmfao. Jin was not 100% convinced that Clio was real because Clio did nothing but Weird And Improbable Things.

It just seems like there are so many Possibilities for Jin + Clio interaction, because Jin is narcoleptic and always half-conscious and Clio can evidently plant himself in your head when you're asleep. Clio would probably make friends with Jin's 323 Brain Ghost Buddies. Daina would not have a clue what's actually going on, aside from the fact that the shadows keep moving in his peripheral vision whenever Jin is around but surely that's not ACTUALLY happening right, and he might try to discourage Clio from Playing Along With Jin's Obvious Hallucinations and Encouraging The Delusions, aaaand then Clio might drag Daina into Jin's head when he catches them both asleep at the same time like "lol hey bro check this shit out, THIS is why this guy doesn't sleep like a normal person," and Daina 1. is fucking terrified, and 2. suddenly has an even deeper respect for the sheer tenacity Jin has to Do The Shit He Wants To Do In Spite Of His Crippling Illness because holy shit how does ANYONE ever get ANYTHING done in that state. "Wow, no wonder this guy almost punched me when I insinuated I thought he was cheating, I'd be super pissed too if I fought tooth and nail through this Terrifying Bullshit all day every day just to be insulted like that by some rando in the hallway" etc.

And, it's a delayed reaction after all of that, but after determining that Clio DOES in fact exist and IS in fact doing all that Weird Improbable Shit, Jin would be appropriately Astounded And Impressed at Clio's magic and Clio would finally be content lmao

#Not to mention...Clio seems to be able to make himself float at least a little bit. Slight Reality-Warping Bey Magic etc.#I wonder if he can extend that to other people? He probably can.#Jin: *Has a narcolepsy attack; collapses* -> Clio: *Levitates the unconscious guy before he hits the ground; sets down gently*#.Replies #ZombieLaunch #BeyBurst #Beyblade Burst #Beyblade Burst God #Jin Aizawa #Clio Delon #Daina Kurogami #Today on: Are Jin's 323 Ghost Friends ACTUALLY Real Or Are They Just Narcolepsy Hallucinations? HE'S Probably Not Even Sure!#I feel like Clio would try to crack that case because how often do you run into someone THAT interesting #And someone that you are perfectly suited for brainpicking because you are The Dream Master 5000!#I think the most unsettling possibility/implication is that they are both hallucinations AND real #Because Jin made a bey avatar. He has the capability to like...coalesce his essence into an entity. Accidentally.#Like...what happens if a schizophrenic-type person possesses the ability to Manifest Things like that? Oh dear #tfw your brain does things on its own without your permission AND you can accidentally Make It Real sometimes #And whatever you Make Real is its own entity now but is still tethered to you permanently...ghh #At least Jin's Ghost Buddies seem to be protective of him and not malicious towards him...he calls them lucky

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thedannyphantomcookbook · 4 years ago

Text

The Phantom Origins

Okay, so I know probably a bunch of people have already done this, but I wanted to rewrite Danny Phantom, from just before he got his powers to maybe when he tells his parents.

I’m tired of waiting for a reboot that may never come, so here is what I picture the reboot would look like.

I’ve always thought it would be darker and more horrific, that the ghosts he fights are more monstrous and demonic.

That there would be a little bit more of a medical concern for Danny’s humanity being affected by his ghost half. Is he becoming more ghost like? Is he gradually getting sicker and sicker, and his ghost DNA ravages through his body like cancer?

Would Vlad be not only a sexist, creepy, abusive old man, but contains a thirst for deception and power that he poses a real, apocalyptic threat on Earth and the ghost zone?

Are ghosts actually the spirits of the dead? Or are they a different breed of human that lives in a completely separate dimension, that’s is layered and hidden within ours?

What about Danny’s mental health. He has to keep this big secret from his parents because he absolutely FEARS what would happen if they found it to the point he’s scared they wouldn’t believe he was their son and try to kill him as a result, or keep him hostage in the basement, slowly torturing him and dissecting him until he’s dead? What would the world think of him? A prophet? A demon? Would they accuse his parents for experimenting on their own children? He would have so much fear and anxiety that he’d have to be on edge all the time, falling into depression, panic attacks - not to mention the PTSD he’d get from it all while battle nightmarish monsters and the hanging question over his head of what he is now.

These are just SOME of the questions I’ve had that Butch Hartman will never answer. He set up such a great plot and characters but carried it out pretty poorly over the show (which may or may not be his fault since they wanted to keep it kid friendly.)

I hope to get into the deep and dark and nitty gritty details of Danny Phantom we’ve imagined but never get to see. I wrote the first chapter below, and I plan to write much more. :)

I hope you guys enjoy it!

Follow me over at Ao3

Summary:

Dr. Madelyn Fenton and her husband, Dr. Jackson Fenton, have just built the world's first portal to the Ghost Zone - an alternate dimension where undead linger for all eternity. The only problem is no one believes in what they are doing. The townspeople call them the Fenton Freaks and the rejection letters from the National Science Foundation are piling up. Not even their own children can tolerate their ghost obsession. Their 14 year old son, Danny, does what he can to separate himself from his parents. Mocked by his peers and judged by his teachers, he keeps his head down and stays out of the spotlight.

It comes as no surprise to Danny when his parents' machine fails to work on the first test run. Discouraged, they leave empty handed for the weekend to go to the Ghost Hunter's Expo, where they were expected to present their portal during their panel. As soon as his parents leave, Danny invites his friends over to give a tour of yet another one of his parents' failed experiments. When he gets dared to walk inside the machine, he triggers something that turns it back on, and for the first time ever, his parents have an invention that works. But that's the least of the surprises when Danny emerges from the portal himself...

To Whom It May Concern,

To the esteemed members of the National Science Foundation, myself, Dr. Madelyn Fenton, PhD., and my husband, Dr. Jackson Fenton, PhD., write to you today to consider us for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award. Our combined decades worth of research within paranormal scientific research fields have led us to believe that the “ghost” entities that haunt our very Earth, could in fact be the missing link to creating new technology, curing human illnesses, and prolonging human life on Earth.

The term “ghosts” is defined as a religious or spiritual being, or the hypothetical soul of the human body, separated from physical forms, usually that of a person recently deceased. Dr. Jackson Fenton and myself have a different theory about the “ghostly” entities that visit our Earth. We have sufficient evidence to prove that ghosts are in fact not the spirits of the dead, but an entirely new species of the human race. We believe they exist in an alternate dimension - a separate plane of existence that is not unlike ours. Recent developments have also shown the possibility of dimensional travel - we believe ghosts are able to pass through into our plane of existence for a temporary amount of time. Through our rigorous research, construction, and experimentation, Dr. Jackson Fenton and myself have created what would be a “portal” to this plane of existence, to the “Ghost Zone.” By exploring and studying the ghost zone, we could collect a limitless amount of research and data that could be used to benefit humanity for the rest of our existence.

We have provided within our application our twenty years of research and development, along with video recordings of our experiments as evidence of our work in progress, as we humbly request your consideration for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award.

Sincerely,

Dr. Madelyn Fenton, PhD. in Quantum Physics and Paranormal Studies

Dr. Jackson Fenton, PhD. in Theoretical Science and Paranormal Studies

From the Grants and Admissions Office of the National Science Foundation

To Dr. Madelyn Fenton and Dr. Jackson Fenton,

Thank you for your interest in applying for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award. The New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award (NESRGA) is an esteemed scholarship opportunity that looks to provide funding for ground-breaking scientific research to scientists working within small and local laboratories. After carefully reviewing your application and research, we have come to the regretful decision to decline your request to receive the NESRGA.

We unfortunately could not approve your request due to the following issues:

Insufficient or lack thereof evidence or proof of scientific research of ghostly entities and/or undiscovered species, the “Ghost Zone” dimension in which these entities exist, or possible travel to said “Ghost Zone.”

Insufficient of lack thereof peer review research and laboratory data.

Paranormal entities and alternative dimensional research is not recognized under the National Science Foundation as factual scientific work.

We are thrilled to hear that you share such enthusiasm, passion, and ambition in the pursuit of scientific exploration, research and development. You are a part of a wonderful community, and through your tireless efforts, you will help bring our Earth into the future.

We welcome you to apply for the NESRGA again next year.

Sincerely,

Barbara Keaton,

Director of Grants and Admissions

National Science Foundation

GHOST HUNTERS EXPO - THIS LABOR DAY WEEKEND

To Drs. Maddie and Jack Fenton,

We are excited to have you return to speak at the Ghost Hunters Expo this coming labor day weekend. We have reviewed your Ghost Zone Theory and we anticipate your presentation of your research.

Please note: due to new regulations we cannot allow the following into the convention center:

Ecto-infused food, inanimate objects, or animal mutations of any kind.

Alarm or defense systems that release a form of knock out gas, ectoplasmic goo, ectoplasmic foam, spoiled meats, or live rodents. All alarms and defense systems must be turned off while inside the convention center.

Samplings or gifts of homemade cookies or other food, beverages, or gifts to bribe the judges.

Disclosed weapons that are not a part of your presentation and/or not approved by the convention prior (we will have metal detections at all entry points of the convention hall)

Asking for audience volunteers unless approved by us prior your scheduled presentation time.

Ghost claims targeted towards convention guests, judges, or other presenters.

All presentations and inventions must have been tested and approved by a judge prior to your presentation time (i.e. no last minute or surprise inventions).

Fighting or displays of physical aggression.

Destruction of convention hall equipment, the building’s foundation itself, or other presenters equipment and or inventions.

We thank you in advance for your compliance and full understanding of the new regulations.

We look forward to seeing you!

Best,

Trevor Martin

Ghost Hunters Expo Coordinator

“Did you see this?” Jack Fenton asked, waving the notice from the Ghost Hunters Expo. He scoffed. “New regulations...I wonder who were the bimbos that made them enforce these rules.” He crumbled up the notice and threw it carelessly on the floor.

“How’s that portal coming, sweet cheeks?” he asked his wife.

Maddie Fenton was deep within a hexagon shaped chamber carved out of her laboratory converted basement wall. The interior was lined with a colorful array of wires and tiny blinking lights. At the end of the chamber, sheets of metal and hardware fanned in on itself. Maddie was kneeled on the floor, wrestling with a few cords.

“I’m just struggling to connect these last couple of wires,” she answered, pinching the two cords together. With a last bit of strain, the cords connected with a satisfying click.

Wiping the sweat off her brow, she came out of the chamber. “Hopefully that will stabilize the gravitational pull of the Ghost Zone once we get the portal running.” She briefly thought back to a dark memory from their college days when their first Ghost Zone prototype had malfunctioned and the toxins from the Ghost Zone leaked out of the portal, resulting in displacing one of her lab partners for the remainder of their college career.

“We got it this time, baby,” Jack said confidently. “There is no way we could make the same mistake twice.”

Maddie sighed as she walked over to the control panel to record the ecto-readings. “I just wish we knew for certain what had gone wrong that day. All of this guess work is driving me crazy.” She picked up her notebook and briefly reviewed her meticulously hand written notes before adjusting some dials.

“Okay,” she huffed, satisfied. “I think we’re ready for a test run.”

Jack clapped his hands. “Excellent! I’ll go grab the kids!” He ran to the basement steps and shouted, “Jazzy-pants! Danny! Get down here!”

A few minutes later both of their teenage children shuffled down the basement steps.

“Is this gonna take long?” Danny asked, disinterestedly. “Tucker and I were in the middle of planning our next battlefield strategies for Doomed. There’s only a few days left of summer vacation and we still have so much planning to do if we want to beat the other online players and achieve the seven Keys of Destiny.”

“And I was in the middle of an important breakthrough in my self therapeutic psychology research,” their daughter, Jazz promptly stated. In her hands she clutched an open copy anxiety and phobias workbook. “Did you know that high functioning anxiety in adulthood is caused by childhood trauma from never feeling safe in your own home? This would explain so much about me and Danny -” she paused in her speech when she saw the machine her parents were working on.

“Oh, no.” She snapped her book shut and pinched the flesh between her eyes. “ Please do not tell me you called us down here to witness another one of your experiments. Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

“Oh, Jazz, relax,” Maddie said, waving her off. “Those burn marks from the last ectoplasmic gun experiment healed eventually. And look!” She walked over to a closet in the back of the room and pulled out two polyester jumpsuits. “We made you both your own custom fitted, lab safe, jumpsuits!”

Jack appeared beside Maddie. “And we matched them with ours! Jazzy-pants, yours is teal to match your mother’s. And Danny, yours would have matched mine but the store didn’t have orange.” he held out a plain white jumpsuit with black gloves and boots.

“And I haven’t even shown you two the best parts!” he grabbed the jumpsuits from Maddie and spun them around. Crudely pressed onto the fabric of the jumpsuit was a cutout of Jack Fenton’s smiling face, emblazoned on the chest.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Jack grinned.

Jazz was the first to respond. “Dad there is no way you’re going to get me to wear that,” she said while backing away and shaking her head. “How about Danny and I will just go upstairs and you can call us down after you’ve tested it? That way we’ll be safe and not have to wear those hideous jumpsuits.”

Danny silently agreed with her while struggling to conceal his own disgust at the suits. It was one thing to be forced to wear a jumpsuit like his parents but it was an entirely different level of lame to have to wear his father’s face across his chest. What if his parents insisted he wore it all the time, like they did? Involuntary images of him becoming the laughing stock at his new high school was surfacing in his mind, more than he already was for being the son of the city’s eccentric ghost hunting husband and wife team. He was already struggling to stay above the pathetic nerd social ring in his class. They’d have to create an entirely new category of nerd just for him if he wore that suit. The thought of it made him want to crawl away in a hole and be left there to die.

“Mom, Dad, I have to agree with Jazz,” Danny said. “The suits are kinda...lame.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Maddie dismissed. “These jumpsuits are the latest fashion that every ghost hunter wants.”

“And when we reveal these babies with my face on them, everyone will be scrambling for one. We’ll be rich!” Jack stated proudly.

Jazz snorted. “Um, I somehow doubt that. Look, we’ll just go back upstairs and you two can let us know when it’s safe, okay?” She looped a hand around Danny’s arm and started pulling him away.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jack clamped a hand on both of them and spun them back around. “You two are being given the chance to witness scientific history! And we are not going to let you pass up on this.” He tossed the jumpsuits to Jazz and Danny. They unwillingly caught them.

Jazz glowered at Danny. “If you take any photos and post them on the internet, I will kill you.”

Danny held out his suit reproachfully. His dad’s smiling face seemed to be laughing at him, like all of the students as Casper High will be if they ever found out about this.

“Don’t worry about it.”

A few minutes later, Jazz and Danny stood alongside their parents in their matching jumpsuits. Jazz stood with her arms crossed, silently fuming, her foot tapping impatiently. At her mother’s insistence, Jazz was forced to tuck in her long, red hair and wear the hair sealing head cover and thick, dark eye protection goggles that came with it. At equal height, Jazz and Maddie were identical in their suits.

At least Danny couldn’t match his dad. Jack’s suit was bright orange and about twenty sizes larger than Danny’s, due to his father’s obsession with Maddie’s homemade fudge and cookie inventions. Danny’s own white suit was slightly too large for him, and hung in odd places due to his skinny frame. He didn’t have to wear a hood and goggles like his sister either - another thankful shortage from the ghost hunter’s clothing warehouse. He picked at his dad’s pressed on face design on his chest as he waited for his parents to get the machine ready for its test run. His dad had tried ironing it on, but had done it poorly, so that with a bit of a tug, it was already beginning to peel off.

Jack and Maddie Fenton ran back and forth across the lab, double checking last minute calculations. Machines whirred and beeped around them, the hum of electricity warm in the stagnant air.

Danny had a good idea of how this was going to go. If this would be like any of their past experiments, it would fail miserably. The experiment would go haywire, probably spout ectoplasmic goo everywhere or accidentally giving ecto energy to the nearest food item. One year, their parents had tried making the Christmas Turkey in their newly invented Ultra-fast Instant Pot and instead infused it with demonic ghostly energy and reanimated it. Danny remembered hiding underneath the kitchen table as Jazz had to beat it back with a pastry roller, screaming for their parents.

The ghost zone portal was their most ambitious project yet. For most of Danny’s life, they had dinner table discussions, weighing mathematical equations and scientific chemical balances in hopes of being able to one day engineer the world’s first ghost zone portal. He was fairly surprised when he found out at the beginning of the summer that they were finally constructing it, and even more so when they claimed last night it was completed. They had been rushing to get it done in time to present it at the Ghost Hunters Expo this weekend.

He glanced at the table beside him looking at the pile of papers his dad had haphazardly stacked among the beakers and ghost weapons. Sitting on top of the stack was the rejection letter from the National Science Foundation.

“It means that they don’t think what they’re doing is science,” Jazz had interpreted for Danny after reading it when their parents’ back was turned. “And who could blame them? There is zero evidence supporting the existence of ghosts. It’s just superstition.”

That’s all it was. Superstition. And yet, his parents had at some point in their youth latched on to the idea that ghosts were more than a myth, and even though they’ve never actually seen one in person themselves, they were determined to prove ghosts were real. What amazed Danny the most is the amount of people who also believed in the same theory. In the years past when his parents had dragged him and Jazz to the Ghost Hunter’s Expo, the crowds always seemed to grow bigger and bigger. Scientists, hunters, enthusiasts, and even ghost cosplayers gathered under the same roof for a full weekend, exchanging theories, stories and footage of what they thought were ghosts. The most ridiculous rumor he had heard at the last ghost hunter’s convention was one of a young, blue haired female musician, who became an overnight sensation after one performance at a local carnival. She had also disappeared quite suddenly after the performance, which raised a lot of speculation. Ghost hunters claimed her unusually pale skin and hypnotic vocals were a part of her ghostly powers. Jazz had stated that it was simply because she was a successful female in the patriarchy they had to deem her as a ghost to explain it.

Danny didn’t want to say anything else after that.

“Jack,” Maddie called from across the room, typing away at a computer. “Did you remember to pour in the ecto-purifier?”

“On it, baby!” Jack cried while fumbling with a control panel. Danny watched as grabbed a can of diet cola, which sat next to the similar sized gray cylinder labeled “EP.”

“Uh, Dad?” Danny called. “I don’t think that’s the ecto-purifier.”

“What’s that?” Jack asked. He turned to look at the object in his hand and barked out a chuckle.

“Thanks, son! That was a close one.” He placed the can of diet cola down and picked up the correct cylinder. “Who knows what would have happened if we purified the toxic ghost energies with diet cola. Could you imagine?” He poured the bright green liquid into the appropriate chamber.

In the corner of his eye, Danny saw Jazz shake her head. “Idiot,” she whispered.

Jazz believed she was the only mature Fenton in the family. At some point during her high school career, she had decided it was up to her to convince her parents that ghosts were not real, and to force them to change their careers to something more normal or socially acceptable. She had tried to get them interested in just about any other scientific field she could think of, such as deep sea diving to discover creatures living on the ocean floor, to NASA’s space engineering program. When those didn’t work, she tried to build a case proving the psychological damage they were causing to her’s and Danny’s upbringing. Over the summer, when she wasn’t preparing herself for the SATs she’d have to take later that school year, she poured over every psychological book she could get her hands on from the library. No matter how many times she argued about the permanent damage her parents were inflicting on their amygdala by creating an unsafe environment for her and Danny to grow up in, their parents would say it’s all worth it for the sake of scientific advancement.

Danny tried desperately to stay out of their fights. Most days, he was too focused on trying to survive a day without being called “that ghost geek” by his peers, no matter how many times he told his classmates he didn’t believe in his parents’ work. Maybe it was because of his small, bony limbs that made it so easy for his classmates to mock him. Or the fact that his only two friends in the entire world were also considered a variety of nerd within the social climate. His best friend Tucker was a little too obsessed with the latest technology and his other friend, Samanatha - Sam for short - was the only school’s goth girl, who filled her entire personality and outlook with dark and depressing outfits and literature. In a weird way, it did make sense that the girl who loved to read about the dead, and the boy who loved technology, would want to be friends with the kid whose parents called themselves ghost scientists. Still, they were his best friends and he wouldn’t trade them for anyone else.

He had been telling them about the portal his parents were building all summer. Just like he was, his friends were also doubtful it would work. They deliberated about what the inventions would actually do. Tucker still brought up the time Danny’s parents were testing out an anti-ghost gravity spray, to temporarily make a ghost lose their flight ability. The morning they were testing it out, Danny had woken up in a hovering bed. It had shocked him so much, he fell off his bed and face-planted onto his bedroom floor, breaking his nose. At some point, Tucker and Sam started placing bets about the outcome.

“Maybe the portal will just blast a hole through the wall and you’ll send up in the Amity Park Sewer System,” Sam guessed last night after he told them his parents were getting ready for their first test.

“Bet you five bucks that Danny will lose all of his hair this time,” Tucker had joked.

He absentmindedly ran a hand through his exposed hair and briefly wished he had a head cover and goggles like Jazz. He couldn’t help but notice there was something different about his parents this time. They didn’t have the same, bubbly and excited energy they usually had when showing off a new invention. They seemed more focused this time. Even his dad’s goofy banter towards Maddie had taken a back seat as his dad frowned over the controls. It was weird to see his dad actually concentrating. Maybe it was the hundredth rejection letter they received from the National Science Foundation, or the pressure to present this weekend at the Expo, but it seemed like they were seriously trying to make this thing work. They did not want to fail.

“Okay everyone!” Maddie ran over and started waving her hands. “Backs up against the wall.”

Jazz sighed and turned to walk over to stand behind the boxed in yellow line, the “safe” spot in the lab. Danny thought a metal containment center with a viewing screen would have kept them safer, but supposedly his parents didn’t have time to build one. Danny followed his mother and sister.

“Almost…” Jack muttered at the controls, typing away. Suddenly there was a loud click that echoed off the basement walls. Machines roared to life and lights winked on. Inside the portal, the metal fans began to spin.

“YES!” Jack punched the air, triumphant.

“Jack!” Maddie called to her husband, gesturing towards the safe zone. He jogged over and squeezed himself in between his two kids.

“This is it!” he shouted over the noise, which was gradually becoming deafening.

All around the room, machines and computers turned on. Attached beakers and graduated cylinders filled up with green, bubbling liquid. A wall lined with dialers bounced up and down. Puffs of smoke expelled out of exhaust pipes. The portal itself began to crackle with electricity, its interior fans spinning faster and faster until it started emitting a bright green glow. The pressure in the room changed, popping Danny’s ears. He felt the tips of his hair begin to rise with the electric waves.

The whirring of the fans inside the machine began to ring out a high pitch squeal as the machine glowed brighter, and brighter, blinding Danny’s naked eyes. He squinted and held out a hand over his eyes, peeking through his fingers. The air around them grew warm and staticky. His father clamped a hand tightly on Danny’s shoulder, as if to hold him back from running away.

It was working. Danny couldn’t believe it. Not once in all of their years of inventing ghost machines and hunting equipment, they may have actually been able to build something that worked like they wanted it to.

What would this mean? That ghosts actually existed? That his parents were not the crackpot fools the town took them for? And if they did exist, there was the one question that no one has been able to answer.

Were ghosts dangerous?

He looked up at Jazz. Her expression was unreadable through the head covering. He looked at his parents, wild and furious excitement in their eyes.

Then, when it seemed like Danny’s ears couldn’t take much more of the screeching noise, a BOOM exploded from the portal. Light poured out of the machine and flooded the room. Danny yelped and turned away. Jack stepped in front of his family and hid them with his massive torso from the explosion. Then, very suddenly, the room went dark. Every light and machine that had been just buzzing with life, died. Danny’s hearing rang in the abrupt silence.

“What the heck?” Jack was the first to say something.

“I got a flashlight, hang on,” Maddie said next. Danny heard her fumbling around her utility belt and a small light winked on. She shined it around the room. Curls of smoke rose up from the machines. The glow from the ecto-purifier had also faded.

“I don’t understand,” Maddie said, dumbfounded as she gazed around the room. “This should have worked.”

“We checked every calculation,” Jack said, equally mystified.

“And tested every single machine.” She threw up her hands. “I even made sure the damn computers turned on!”

“Well, obviously, this wasn’t going to work,” Jazz suddenly said, her anger returning. “You guys were trying to open a portal to nothing . Because ghosts don’t EXIST.”

She ripped off the hood and goggles. “I’m going back upstairs to change and burn this stupid jumpsuit, and work on processing this trauma that you have inflicted on us, yet again.” Without waiting for her parents to respond, she stomped back upstairs, her footsteps echoing off the silent basement walls

Jack shook his head. “What is her deal?”

“Oh, never mind her, Jack,” Maddie said. “We need to figure out what went wrong. We only have a day until the expo and we promised to present this.”

Danny’s parents turned their back on him and began working to restore the power, jumping right into a deep discussion. Danny took the moment to quietly slip away back upstairs.

The second he was back into his room, he let out a long exhale. Suddenly remembering he was wearing the jumpsuit, he hastily ripped it off and then threw it in the trash bin in the corner of his room.

He flopped back onto his bed, and lay in the stillness of his room for a few minutes to collect his thoughts. He stared up at the plastic, glow in the dark stars and planets stuck on his ceiling.

He couldn’t believe there was a moment back there where he thought the machine was working.

He didn’t want to imagine what would happen if ghosts were real. There were no real scientific facts about them. All those convention attendees at the ghost hunters expo all had different theories about what ghosts are - the religiously damned, aliens, spirits with unfinished business, souls that died before their time, another species - no one could settle on a single argument.

But if they did exist, what would happen then? Would they swarm the Earth, like cicadas after their years long sleep? Would they haunt each and every home and building in towns and cities, and try to claim it as their own? Would the world be plunged into a ghost apocalypse, where every human had to fight for their own human survival and soul? Were ghosts malicious or peaceful?

His parents might be arrested for creating the portal in the first place, if it did turn out bad. Or the government might force them to work alongside them to rid the Earth of the ghost population. What would happen to him and Jazz? Would they be put into juvie, just for being the kids of the Fenton Freaks? Would they be put into foster care, once the government decided Jack and Maddie were unfit parents for him and Jazz?

What if the human population adopted a sick fascination of ghosts? Businesses would try to profit off the ghosts by selling fake anti-ghost protection devices or offer tours inside “haunted” houses. There might even be a community in which some would fall in love or even want to become a ghost themselves.

The world would become absolute chaos.

Danny shuddered at the thought. He didn’t understand what his parents saw in trying to prove their existence. What good would proving the undead existed bring to the world?

His anxious, spiraling thoughts were interrupted when his computer dinged. Danny got up and sat down at his desk. He wiggled his mouse to wake up his computer. Tucker had sent him a message.

Still have all of your hair?

Danny chuckled and wrote back.

Yep. Nothing happened though. But the power in the basement blew.

Damn , was Tucker’s response. And I had just invested in a 25 pack of markers to color your head in Lancer’s class when you fall asleep.

Danny laughed out loud. I can only imagine all the pensises you’d draw.

I had planned no less than 50. Two for each color.

Well I hope you kept your receipt cause I still have a full head of hair. Unlike you. Danny made a jab at Tucker’s own buzzed haircut. He had tried growing out dreads for the school year, but his mother forced him to shave it off after he got caught staying up on the computer way too late one night. She paid the barber to give him a military buzz cut.

Shut up, dude, Tucker typed back. While you were away not getting your hair fried off your scalp, I was devising up a new battle plan to defeat Chaos.

Danny smiled. Oh yeah? Lay it on me.

#danny phantom #phantomorigins #phantom #ghosts #nickelodeon #fanfiction #danny fenton #half ghost #sam manson #tucker foley #jack fenton #maddie fenton #jazz fenton #dannyphantomfanfiction #Phanfiction #ao3 #ao3 danny phantom

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ladylynse · 5 years ago

Text

Forewarning: All Dipper knew was that there was something buried in some special thermos behind the shack; all Danny knew was that he had no idea how he’d gotten here. Inspired by this artwork by @hashtag-art and begun for @bibliophilea

Happy New Year, everyone!

Chapter 2 [FF | AO3]

-|-

Danny knew magic when he felt it.

Well.

He could recognize it, anyway. Usually. Unless the magic came with a memory wipe. Between Desiree, Dora’s amulet, Circus Gothica, the Reality Gauntlet, and everything else, he was getting pretty good at picking out it or its effects.

That’s why he knew it was magic that held him in this stupid circle.

It was also why he wasn’t wholly sure he could just burn through a part of the chalk drawing with an ectoblast without bad consequences.

And just about when he was ready to risk those consequences (because he did not want to know what an attempted exorcism would do to him), he found himself with the unfortunately familiar weight of a clockwork medallion around his neck.

Clockwork floated on the edge of the circle, not far from the two kids who had released Danny and then trapped him here. Clearly, whatever bound Danny wasn’t strong enough to bind him. Not that Danny really expected it would be, with Clockwork being who he was and the kids possibly targeting Danny after seeing him earlier. But if Clockwork was here now—

“You are where you need to be,” Clockwork said as Danny opened his mouth.

Danny frowned. “Yeah? Why can’t I call Jazz’s cell? Where am I? When am I?”

Danny didn’t really expect Clockwork to give him a straight answer—it was Clockwork, after all—but the ghost shifted to that of a child and replied, “Welcome to 2012.”

Ice filled his chest. 2012? 2012? He’d been stuck in a thermos for five years? No wonder his call to Jazz hadn’t gone through! She’d be in college now, maybe through college by now, or trying to get a masters degree, or a PhD, or—

Or she might not be.

No. He wasn’t going to jump to that conclusion, wasn’t going to assume this was like last time, not when this was all he had to go on, not even when Clockwork was the reason he was here. Clockwork, who wasn’t supposed to interfere. Clockwork, who refused to interfere more often than not. Clockwork, who saw it all from above and had very clearly forgotten what it was like to be part of the parade, if he’d ever even known that.

“Are you serious?” Anger was safer than panic, and he had good reason to be angry. Clockwork had never talked to him about this, whatever this was. Not like the last time he’d sent Danny to the future. “My family probably thinks I’m dead!”

“Technically speaking, you are.”

Danny hissed through his teeth. “No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to rip me out of my life and shove me in a thermos and stick me somewhere on the other side of the country. You can’t just put me wherever you think I need to be! I just lost five years of my life thanks to you!”

“You’ve been held in stasis for over thirty,” Clockwork said mildly as his form changed again. “You’ll be returned to your own time before your friends and family realize you’ve taken a detour.”

A detour? That’s what he was calling this?

“This isn’t a detour! Just because you can put me back where I came from, doesn’t mean I haven’t still lost that time. And what do you mean, thirty years?”

Clockwork’s expression didn’t change even as his face shifted, growing younger again. He didn’t deign to argue with Danny, instead saying, “The tapestry of time is scarred here. Further interference is…discouraged.”

Danny crossed his arms. “What the heck do you call this, then?”

“A correction.”

“Why do I have to be the one to fix it? It’s not like the Observants don’t know to watch me. If they think I’m meddling in the timestream again—” Danny broke off. “Wait, what do you mean further interference? What did you do here before?”

That earned him the barest shadow of exasperation crossing Clockwork’s face. “The interference was not mine.”

“Until now.”

That might be a slight thinning of the lips. It was probably as much as he was going to get from Clockwork, anyway. “Seeking to repair what others have damaged before reality becomes unstable is hardly unwarranted interference.”

“So a stitch in time saves nine? Wow, I did not realize that expression could be applied literally with time travel. But that still doesn’t explain why me.” Clockwork said nothing, and a horrible thought occurred to Danny. “Except. Wait. You said thirty years. I…. You’re trying to interfere without the Observants knowing, aren’t you?” He pulled a face. “Why thirty years?”

“That was the point of least interference, when your placement would have the smallest effect.”

“So how come I don’t remember anything?” He tried not to let it show how much that bothered him, but it did. He wasn’t sure what he’d been doing before this. Hanging out with Sam and Tuck? Fighting? School? Homework? Nothing seemed clearer than the rest.

He couldn’t remember if he’d been in the Ghost Zone, but he definitely didn’t remember seeing Clockwork.

Still, he hadn’t come out of the thermos wearing one of Clockwork’s medallions, so it’s not like Clockwork just ambushed him, sucked him into a thermos, and dropped him here. And…it must still have been Clockwork, right? Because point of least interference was still interference, and thirty years was definitely time travel when it was thirty years in the past. Or twenty-five and— Whatever. This had to be Clockwork. That had to be why he was here now. Not whoever else was messing around with time.

“You’ve seen the dangers of an uncontained future,” Clockwork said, and it took Danny a second to realize he was ignoring Danny’s question instead of answering it. “Similar destruction is almost certain here. If they stay on this road, they will find themselves on a path from which they cannot turn away. You must warn them.”

“How is that my job?” Danny wanted to ask why Clockwork didn’t just warn them himself, but of course that would be interfering. As if this weren’t already blatant interference. “Why can’t someone else do it? Anyone else? I don’t even know these guys.”

“Perhaps not yet,” said Clockwork as his form shifted again, “but you know the dangers they face. They wish to pierce the fabric between dimensions, between realities, and will release more than they realize if they succeed.”

Danny scrunched up his face. Too bad he couldn’t just straight up tell these guys not to mess with interdimensional portals, but Clockwork wouldn’t be happy with him spelling out the future like that. Even if he did, Mabel and Dipper wouldn’t believe him when he had no other details than that. They’d just think he’d spied on them. Telling them would probably make them more likely to keep doing everything they were doing. “Let me guess: containment of whatever they let out isn’t gonna be simple?”

Clockwork didn’t answer, but Danny supposed he didn’t really need an answer. Clockwork wouldn’t have said anything about it if it was easy. And Danny wouldn’t have been dragged out here to interfere if these people weren’t playing with fire. Or rather, interdimensional portals.

“There’s, um, a path where they win, right, when they don’t listen to me and do this anyway? Because that’s going to happen. Nothing I say is going to make these two trust me.”

“You must warn them,” Clockwork repeated.

Danny didn’t know if that was a yes, but it hadn’t been a no, so he counted it as a win. This was Clockwork, after all. Danny knew there were lines, and he knew he’d crossed those lines, but he wasn’t entirely sure where those lines were—and which ones Clockwork was happy to ignore. More than the Observants were happy with, sure, but beyond that….

“Can I go home after this?”

No immediate answer. Bad sign. Very bad. There shouldn’t be any reason Clockwork wouldn’t just say yes if all he had to do was give these guys a warning they probably wouldn’t listen to. If nothing else, Clockwork would know it would be a way to make Danny immediately play nice and do what he was told. So for him to say nothing….

That meant Danny was supposed to do something else, something Clockwork figured he’d do if left to his own devices. Something Clockwork didn’t think was worth telling Danny, or maybe that he didn’t think Danny would actually do if he were told about it, or—

“I do get to go home after all this, right? There’s not some other detour you expect me to make first? I just need to warn them not to do whatever they’re thinking about doing, and then it’s over, and we’re done, and I can go back to Amity Park the same day I left it?” Because that was part of the problem. He couldn’t just go home from here because it wouldn’t be the home he knew. And even if next to nothing had changed (unlikely; his parents were inventors, after all), he couldn’t risk being caught (especially if his parents had five years worth of ghost tech he’d never seen before). That would require too much explaining.

Unless they already knew everything, in which case it would take less.

Or next to no time at all, if they didn’t take it well and he had to—

But he didn’t want to think about that possibility. He much preferred thinking that Jazz was right, that they would accept him, even if it took a little while for them to get used to the idea or even if they asked him a bunch of rather intrusive questions. And, right now, he much preferred not knowing, just in case the little voice in the back of his mind was right and ignorance was bliss. And—

“Why…why am I really here, Clockwork?” His voice came out as a whisper, drained of anger and instead tinged with desperation. What was he missing? Surely Clockwork wasn’t just being cagey because he didn’t know. Or maybe…maybe he didn’t want Danny to get involved in whatever the kids were doing? Or maybe he did, and just couldn’t risk saying it without the Observants noticing what he was doing?

“Warn them about this path,” Clockwork said gently, “and your own will become clearer.”

Danny hated that answer. It told him nothing. It guaranteed nothing. It was too vague when things mattered this much.

But he also had a better idea of when he could push Clockwork, when begging or wheedling for favours would work, and this wasn’t one of those times.

Danny sighed, settling down in the middle of the circle and holding his head in his hands.

Clockwork was probably being as helpful as he could, even if there was a chance a part of him was also being lowkey as spiteful as he could after Danny’s last time travelling fiasco. Danny kind of owed him for that. There had probably been some pushback from the Observants, and Clockwork must have borne the brunt of that because Danny had never faced any consequences once the timeline was back on track. And this…. It should be simple enough. There were worse ways to repay a favour.

But still.

A little warning would’ve been nice.

-|-

Dipper didn’t know what had happened. He wasn’t going to trust the phantom—if it even was a phantom, since for all he knew, it was just a different sort of ghost trying to trick them into thinking it was a phantom by calling itself one. At least, it wasn’t living up to the whole ‘phantoms cause pain to those who summon them’ bit in the journal. Not that he was complaining. It would just be nice to know what he was dealing with for once.

Maybe the pain part didn’t come until the phantom escaped the summoning circle?

“What….” Mabel hesitated and looked at him, but he didn’t know if asking questions would make things worse. She plowed on when he didn’t stop her, asking, “What are you talking about?”

“If you stay on this road,” Phantom repeated, “you’ll find yourself on a path you can’t turn away from. That’s it. That’s the message. I’m apparently a messenger now. Don’t shoot me.”

“Who are you supposed to be a messenger for?” Dipper asked. The strain of keeping Phantom contained was worth it to get some answers. The journal…. He couldn’t figure out why Phantom’s section in the journal had been coded differently, and he would rather find out as much as he could.

“That’s…not really important.”

Assuming Phantom would be helpful. Dipper should’ve known better than to hope he’d be forthcoming about everything. “How is that not important?” he demanded. The author of the journals—

“You won’t know who it is anyway. He’s, uh, not supposed to interfere as often as he does.”

Interfere? What was that supposed to mean? Interfere with what?

“Try us,” Mabel said, crossing her arms. “We’ve had an interesting summer so far.”

Understatement. And maybe a bit more information than Dipper would’ve liked to give away, even if it was completely vague.

“Fine.” Phantom looked defiant now. “His name is Clockwork. Happy now?”

No. He’d never heard of Clockwork. Dipper had no idea who he was supposed to be. Or, more accurately, what.

“Why’s he sending us messages? And through you?”

Phantom rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just really unlucky. And maybe because he thinks you’ll listen? Clockwork’s not the most helpful guy out there. I’m surprised he interfered at all. I’m surprised I got dragged into this.” He said this last part with a sneer, looking to Dipper and Mabel’s right.

Dipper didn’t need to look to confirm that there was nothing there—nothing visible, anyway—but he did anyway.

The apparent absence of something did nothing to reassure him.

Phantom sighed, his annoyance draining away. “Okay, look, I’ll be straight with you. I don’t know why I got drafted to play messenger boy, but it’s probably because I owe him a favour, and he’s not supposed to be doing this kind of thing. Interfere, I mean. Which means that if he is, it’s big and you should listen to me. So stop whatever you’re doing. Drop it. Walk away. Your future selves would thank you for it if they had the chance. It’s probably a lot of pain and suffering or it wouldn’t be on Clockwork’s radar.”

“Pain and suffering, huh?” Mabel echoed, glancing at Dipper. He knew how she felt; he hadn’t expected Phantom to warn them of the pain he was going to bring in an attempt to trick them into releasing him, but it just meant they needed to be on their guard. If they hadn’t had the journal, they might have fallen for it.

Phantom nodded, not noticing or not caring how uncomfortable they were. “Clockwork wouldn’t interfere for something small. He thinks other people are messing around, though—I don’t think just you guys? I mean, not you you, you’re too young, and if this started thirty years ago or something, it couldn’t be you…unless you’re time travellers?”

“Did you want us to be?” Mabel said slowly.

Phantom blinked. “What? No!”

“Then we aren’t,” she said, and Dipper glared at her and kicked at her leg. He couldn’t really put any strength behind it, and she’d probably been half expecting it, since she didn’t flinch. Phantom might not have noticed the movement, though. Or the glare. If he did, he didn’t react to it.

“Time travel is impossible,” Dipper said pointedly, switching his gaze back to Phantom.

Phantom just stared at him. “I’m a ghost, you’re keeping me trapped inside a magic circle, and you draw the line at time travel?”

Dipper nodded. “It’s not possible. You can’t go faster than the speed of light.” He wasn’t a great liar—Mabel was definitely better, and she wasn’t particularly good, either—but he wasn’t about to tell Phantom that they knew time travel was possible. Or that they had time travelled and run into another time traveller. Phantom might tell them more if he thought they were ignorant of that.

“You’re using magic. And talking to a ghost. What part of that do most people consider possible?”

“Actually—” Mabel started.

“Forget I asked,” Phantom interrupted. “My point is, if you don’t believe in time travel, you should, and if you don’t believe in interdimensional travel, you should, because something along those lines is in your future if you don’t stop all this. Which you should.”

“Because you said so?” Mabel asked, and Dipper kicked her again, this time less subtly. He didn’t care if Phantom noticed that one.

Phantom snorted. “Because whatever it is is bad enough that it merits forewarning. Courtesy of Clockwork. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it.”

“Bit of a circular argument,” Dipper muttered, not quite quietly enough that they wouldn’t hear him.

Phantom groaned. “Fine, ignore me. Just let me go.”

“No. I’m not going to let you hurt anyone.”

“Who said I was going to hurt anyone?” Phantom spluttered. “I’m not! Seriously, I’m just the messenger here.”

“Yeah, that’s what you’d say if you were planning on hurting someone and wanted to trick us into letting you out.”

He caught Mabel’s eye again and saw the trace of worry on her features. She knew he was bluffing. She knew he couldn’t do this forever, that his strength would give out and the magic within the circle would fade. The symbols could only hold power for so long. With Phantom being as strong as he was—or Dipper being as weak as he was; whichever was the main reason behind why it had taken so long for the spell to work in the first place, though it might be both considering he was still fairly new to magic—Dipper wasn’t sure they had much longer.

Judging by the increasingly frustrated look on Phantom’s face, though, he didn’t know that. Which at least meant the magic wasn’t noticeably weakening yet. It would buy them a little time, but—

“If you insist you’re not going to hurt anyone,” Mabel said, “then you don’t need to keep secrets from us. Keep talking, and then we’ll let you go.”

That was one way of putting it. If the spell was going to collapse on him anyway, at least they might be able to get something out of Phantom. Not that they’d know if it was truth or lies, but at least it would be a starting point. And that would be better than nothing.

Phantom threw up his hands. “I gave you guys the message already!”

“No, she’s right,” Dipper said. Mabel smiled at his words as if she hadn’t expected him to approve. “You’ve hardly told us anything. What do you know about the author of the journals?”

Phantom looked confused. Dipper didn’t think it was feigned, either. “What journals?” He looked at the open book and added, “So that’s not a magic book? Or is it just a journal full of spells that you’re not calling a magic book?”

“It’s a resource, not a book on magic.” Not alone, anyway. But if Phantom didn’t recognize it or know anything about it, he wouldn’t be able to help Dipper figure this out. And it meant if this Clockwork person had written the journals, Phantom didn’t know about it. Dipper flipped the book cover up just enough to show the symbol on the front with the three emblazoned on it, but Phantom just shrugged. Either he was a really good actor or he genuinely didn’t know anything.

Which was funny, considering he was in it.

Mabel clearly had the same suspicions, since she said, “You have to know something. The author of the journals is the reason we found you.”

Phantom frowned and flicked his eyes to the still-empty spot beside them. Dipper couldn’t quite suppress a shiver. After a few long seconds, Phantom admitted, “I don’t remember how I got here. I’m not lying, okay? I really don’t know. And it’s bugging me. That’s why I wanted to know if you knew Vlad. This is the kind of thing he’d do to me. And then Clockwork….” He trailed off. “He won’t tell me my own future or anything else about yours. But if you’re trying to find out more about whoever wrote that journal, and if they wrote me into it, well, that’s probably what Clockwork’s warning was about.”

“The author hasn’t been wrong about anything that’s turned up before,” Dipper said.

Phantom crossed his arms. “Well, from the way you two are looking at me, he’s wrong about me. It’s not like I’m going to snap and kill everyone. Seriously, let me go, I’ll be gone, and everything will be back to normal.”

He’d been forced to summon the phantom, and now it was trying to trying to trick him into releasing it.

Of course, if they didn’t do something soon, it would get free anyway.

“How did you….” Mabel broke off, bit her lip, and looked at Dipper. Then, turning back to Phantom, “Danny. The boy who was in here earlier. What about him?”

Phantom swallowed. “His name is Danny Fenton.”

Dipper didn’t say anything, and Mabel knew to hold her tongue, too. Phantom squirmed, one hand reaching up the rub the back of his neck. They waited, but he didn’t volunteer any other information.

Dipper sucked in a breath, deep and long, and let it out slowly. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this. He clenched his hands into fists, afraid that if he didn’t, it would be too easy for Phantom to see him shaking. “And?” It came out as a growl, and Phantom flinched.

“And he’s a friend.”

That was a lie. It had to be. Dipper looked at Mabel and saw that she didn’t believe Phantom either. But Phantom had straightened up, and though Dipper couldn’t see it, he could feel Phantom reaching one hand behind him to prod the boundaries of the circle. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but trying to hold the spell together was becoming more and more like trying to hold water cupped in his fingers. It was draining fast now, and—

“Look, just stop this business with the journals and finding whoever wrote them,” Phantom said. “What’s coming if you keep going the way you’re going isn’t good. It’ll be like…like you’ve opened Pandora’s box. The one from the myth, not her actual box, although that, too, if it’s on the wrong setting….” He trailed off. “Please?”

“We can’t,” Dipper said, hoping it would get Phantom to argue with him. But his voice was shaky now, and he couldn’t—

The spell dissipated, and Phantom smiled before vanishing.

-|-

“Is he gone?” Mabel asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Dipper admitted. He leaned back against his bed and closed his eyes. “Probably not, if the journal is right about phantoms.”

“What if that’s not what he is?” Pain and suffering might be in their future, but it hadn’t started immediately. What would Phantom gain from waiting? He already knew they expected it, and he had to know Dipper was weaker now than he would be in the future. Sure, he didn’t know she wouldn’t be able to exorcise him, or at least that she’d never tried doing that to a ghost before, but it shouldn’t stop him from jumping on an opportunity to strike while they were down.

“I don’t know.”

Mabel tried to swallow down her fear at Dipper’s repetition. The cryptic message about Phantom had been coded differently than anything else in the journal, and it hadn’t even been near the pages on ghosts and exorcisms. Maybe he really wasn’t a phantom like he pretended. Maybe the author hadn’t even known what he was. Maybe that’s why the author had never specified what was in the thermos that Dipper had found.

There’s something stuck in some special thermos buried behind the shack….

She wished Dipper had had a chance to examine the thermos before Phantom had taken it.

“What about his warning?”

That prompted Dipper to open his eyes. “We can’t stop. He’s not really here just to warn us. We wouldn’t have found him where we did, the way we did, if he’s telling the truth about everything.”

Mabel said what Dipper didn’t: “And that doesn’t explain Danny.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Dipper must have no idea what did, no real idea that he didn’t think was too much of a stretch, or he’d have said it.

“So we don’t listen to him?”

“He hasn’t really given us any reason to trust him.”

“Yeah,” Mabel said quietly, “that’s what I thought.” But she couldn’t get Phantom’s abrupt change out of her head, the way he’d been pleading with them to let him out before breaking off mid word and moving faster than she’d been able to see. He’d…changed. In a split second. Still asking them to let him go but with less desperation than before.

He’d claimed that he didn’t know more than what he’d told them, but she didn’t believe that any more than she believed that Danny Fenton, whoever he was, was just some friend. As if they couldn’t see the similarities. As if they had never been tricked before by someone pretending to be someone—something—they’re not.

Even if Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom weren’t the same person—ghost, creature, whatever—they had to be connected. Why would Danny Fenton have come here? To scout out the territory? To try to find Phantom, if Phantom hadn’t sent him? But then there had been the phone call to his sister, before he ran out….

“He talked about other dimensions,” Mabel said slowly. “Do you think he’s from a different dimension?”

Dipper didn’t answer, instead pulling the journal towards him and flipping through it.

“Do you think it was the author of the journals who wrote that note about him? Or do you think it was someone else?”

More silence. Mabel didn’t like that. She much preferred Dipper to talk her ear off with explanations or theories, at least when she had none of her own. She’d rather ignore his ramblings than not have them when they needed them.

“Is this a trap?”

“I hope not,” Dipper finally said, settling on a page in the journal and showing it to her, “but we better be ready for when he comes back in case it is.”

(next)

#danny phantom #gravity falls #phantom falls #danny fenton #mabel pines #dipper pines #clockwork #fanfiction #crossover #dp fanfiction #gf fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #gf snippet #dp snippet

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buncompass · 4 years ago

Text

“Are you ready?”

I opened my backpack for one last check.

“Flashlights, EMF reader, laser grid, night vision camera, backup batteries...Yeah I think I’m set!” I pulled my flashlight out and closed up my bag.

“Okay, let’s go.”

We stepped out of the car and looked around. Other than the solitary dome light from the car, the abandoned yard surrounding us was a void being carried on a breeze. The branches of low-hanging trees swayed and beckoned as they danced into the shallow pool of light around us, raising the hair on the back of my neck in an instant. Despite the full moon, the tall reaches of the pines blocked off almost all of the night sky. I glanced over at Adam. He pulled his own flashlight out and clicked it on before closing the door behind him. The beacon he produced got lost up the front walkway before landing squarely on a crooked, heavily-graffitied door. I turned my light on - the equivalent of an additional match in a coal mine.

“You should start filming before we even get in.” Adam suggested. He sent his flashlight across the yard to illuminate various odds and ends. “I don’t want anyone saying we faked anything.”

“You got it.” I stuffed my flashlight away, pulled my phone out of my pocket and attached my tripod and light. No more holding a flashlight and phone at the same time for us, no sir. We were professionals now. I opened the livestream and pointed my rig at Adam. “Five seconds,” I said. He hurriedly ran a hand through his hair as he turned. After a breath, he set his regular “I’m amped to be ghost hunting” grin to his face.

“What’s up, ghoulfriends?” He asked, his focus entirely on the camera. A few of our streamers began to respond immediately. The chat box along the bottom of the screen was awash in ghost emojis and greetings. One of my many jobs was to keep an eye on the chat for any hints or tips. There was nothing there for me yet.

“I’m Adam, the creature behind the camera is Carlie, and we are here at the Angel House for our Halloween spooktacular livestream event!”

I panned away from Adam and focused on the walkway leading up to the abandoned structure. With a jerk of my head, I directed Adam to get walking. The Angel House wasn’t close enough to be in focus yet. He fell into step next to me, out of view of the camera.

“The Angel House, so named after its late owner, Maurice Angelo, has been recommended to us multiple times. We’ve read the reports you’ve tagged us in and decided that Halloween was the best option for our investigation.” I said, filling my role as historian. “For those not in the know, Maurice Angelo died under mysterious circumstances in the early 1880s. He had no known children, and evidently left his home and grounds to the town. Now, nearly 150 years later, the Angel House sits way in the back of a conservation land. It has been unoccupied this entire time.”

As I spoke, the house began to fill the frame of my phone. What had once been a handsome Victorian manor home was now a sagging, warped building. I paused to let the viewers get the full effect of its broken windows, peeling siding, and crooked front steps. A section of wall to the far left side of the house was broken open. The front porch had a collapsed roof and broken floorboards. It was like the house itself was discouraging entry.

The chat box continued to fill as more viewers signed in to the stream. I watched for a couple seconds and smiled when one viewer posted a gif of a small girl with black pigtails. The gif was then repeated by others, all agreeing on what the house looked like.

“They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky..” I sang softly into the phone. More emojis lit up my screen. Our viewers were thrilled.

“They’re all together ooky, the Addams family!” Adam picked up the tune as we marched up the steps to the front door. He leaned forward and pushed it open on shrieking hinges. Our lights filled a cavernous foyer. Adam stepped ahead of me and I held back, careful to keep both him and the room in frame. A double staircase faced us, leading into the two opposite wings of the house. A broken, dusty chandelier hung above us. We paused again in the middle of the room, scanning the area for both the benefit of our viewers and ourselves.

“Do do do doo,”

Adam clapped.

“Do do do doo!”

He clapped again.

“Do do do do, do do do do, do do do do,”

Someone clapped directly behind my head. I yelped and whipped around. The camera was pointed directly where I heard the sound. Adam, wisely, stayed put. This was our first piece of evidence - we didn’t want viewers thinking we were messing with them.

“What did you hear, Carlie?”

“Someone beat you to the last clap for the song, Adam.” I said. There was nothing behind us. I was staring out the open front door. My camera light bled out onto the porch, illuminating only a few feet out. Two busts sat on either side of the door on the inside along the wall. There were no additional doorways on the front wall of the house.

“Okay ghoulfriends,” Adam said. I panned slowly back around to where Adam stood. “This right here is why we wanted to do our first ever livestream at the Angel House! It seems we have a kindred spirit in here with us.” He grinned at his own pun. I provided the obligatory groan, glad to hear my voice had evened out. It’s hard to take ghost hunters seriously as is, let alone one who shrieks at the first piece of evidence.

“The Angel House has exactly two reported deaths. The first being Mr. Angelo himself. The official report stated that he died of an undisclosed illness in his bed. The second reported death took place in 2001, on Halloween night. Exactly 19 years ago today.”

“October 31, 2001 had the happy happenstance of having a full moon on Halloween. In fact, today is the first Halloween full moon since that night.” I added. Adam gestured to the rooms on the first floor beyond the staircases. The investigation had begun.

“On that date, local urban explorer and photographer Shawn Johnson decided to do a walkthrough of the Angel House. Now, Johnson was not a paranormal investigator. He was just a guy who loved exploring. While researching the house, we discovered his blog. The link will be posted on our page after the livestream.” Adam’s voice grew softer as we passed the staircase and walked towards an open doorway to the next room. It was a common theme for him - he started each investigation big and boisterous. When it came time for the actual investigating, he softened his tone. Something about big, empty, derelict buildings gave the same feeling as being in a church. As though simply by talking, we were being disruptive.

“Johnson believed that it was the unknown that made people nervous, not spirits or ghouls. So he opted for a nighttime exploration of the Angel House to prove, without question, that there was no such thing as ghosts. He wrote a preliminary blog post about it and outlined his plan for the night.” I explained. My tone matched Adam’s.

“Unfortunately, Shawn Johnson never posted his follow up entry. He never made it out of the Angel House. His roommate woke up and checked his bedroom the next morning and found it empty. The police found Johnson in a guest bedroom on the second floor of the house, where he had died from blunt force trauma to the head. To this day, no one has found his camera.”

The chat box on the livestream was nonstop. Our fans were suggesting their own theories, expressing hope that we would find Johnson’s camera, and recommending what rooms to look in. I glanced through the thread. Nothing of relevance to the moment.

We tiptoed over the threshold and found ourselves in a large kitchen. A cast iron stove lined one wall. The kitchen table, which at one point must have been beautiful with its intricate carvings and detail, was missing a leg and slanted to one side. Dust covered everything around us. Each step filled the air with an additional cloud. We poked through closets, looked out the windows, and opened every cabinet door. Nothing stirred. After a few more minutes of exploring. Adam signaled me to focus on him.

“So the main reason Carlie and I decided to start livestreaming was for better accountability. Believe it or not, we do read every single one of your comments and it breaks my little ghost-loving heart that you guys think we fake evidence.” Adam laid both hands over his heart and looked off into the distance, an exaggerated look of betrayal on his face. The chat box pinged with assurances in response. I grinned.

“Whenever we investigate, we really do come alone. We don’t scope out places ahead of time, we don’t set anything up ahead of time. We do as little editing as possible, we just trim down on time to fit our investigations into a reasonable length. And to prove to you that it really just is us here, I want to direct your attention to the floor.”

I aimed the tripod down to our feet. Both of us wore heavy combat boots laced up tight. It had taken exactly one step on a rusty nail wearing Converse back in our early days to encourage safe footwear.

“As you all can see, the floors of the Angel House have a pretty thick layer of dust. No one else is here. Every touch, every footstep, is 100% us.” Adam continued. I recorded our last few footsteps. The heavy treads of two pairs of boots, one smaller than the other, marked our way across the dilapidated kitchen.

“No activity has been found here, so it’s time for us to move on!” Adam walked back into frame. I recorded his feet for good measure, so that the viewers could see the footprints he left on the 140-year-old floors, when he stopped.

“Carlie, what the hell.”

“What?” I asked. I panned up to his face. He was looking at the floor ahead of us. I walked forward, keeping him in frame until I scanned farther up to the entryway to the kitchen.

A third set of footsteps was clearly imprinted in the dust. It looked as though a third person had peered into the kitchen before walking away.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Come on!” Adam walked briskly toward the doorway. The third set of prints had come up from the perimeter of the foyer beyond the room. They were large, clearly men’s, but the tread did not match Adam’s in the slightest. I aimed the camera up to Adam’s face.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think we should follow them back to their source. If there’s someone else here, that could be unsafe for us. I want to see where they came in, because we would’ve heard someone come in the front door.”

“Right.” I agreed. We left the kitchen and walked along the third set of tracks. The chat box continued to roll. A few people thought we were messing with them, because why else make a big deal of our footprints if not to set up a mysterious third set? One commenter suggested we were intentionally misdirecting them.

“It looks like whoever this was came down from the second floor.” Adam pointed at the tracks on the side of one of the grand staircases. I aimed my camera light around the area behind us. Only our tracks followed the third.

“I guess we should just follow it up.” I suggested. Adam nodded and took a breath. Me and our viewers watched him steel himself as he led me forward to the staircase.

“Oh, hey, battery and service check.” I reminded him. “If it ends up being just some creepy rando I want to be able to call for help.” He pulled out his phone and checked.

“87%, full service.” He showed his phone screen to the camera and held it as the lens adjusted to his screen’s brightness. Once the camera registered his home screen, he pulled it down and tucked his phone into his pocket. Immediately, the chat box exploded. I held up a hand to keep Adam where he was. The thread was filled with exclamations and questions.

“Adam, the viewers saw something behind you.”

“What?” He looked behind him and shouted. I rushed forward and looked where he was pointing. The third set of steps had circled back behind him and gone up the stairs. I scanned up the staircase. In my first shot of the footsteps, they had been leading down on the left side. Now there was another set of the same footprints going up the right.

“EMF, now!”

I turned away from Adam so that he could access my bag. I kept the camera level as he dug through the pockets, searching for the tiny, handheld device that read electromagnetic frequencies. In a previous video, we proved that it was not set off by either of our phones or equipment, so Adam bypassed the explanation and held it up. The little range of lights flashed immediately from green to red.

Something was in there with us.

“Okay ghoulfriends!” Adam said, his voice an excited whisper. “The mysterious third set of tracks starts down the staircase and it looks like they loop around the back of the foyer. Whoever is here with us must have peeked in on us in the kitchen before going around the far end and then up the stairs behind us.”

“It can’t be some random person!” I said. “Our prints are the only ones from the front door and these steps originate somewhere upstairs! Unless some homeless person floated up there we can rule that out entirely.”

“Okay, let’s go!” Adam led the way up the stairs. We walked up the middle, keeping the mysterious footprints clearly on either side of us. At the top of the stairs we looked around. The EMF reader remained staunchly red.

“If we follow the prints to our left, we’ll see where they came from. If we follow them to the right, we’ll see where they lead. What do you think, everyone? Which way should we go?”

The chats were evenly divided. The viewers erupted into an argument about what made the most sense for capturing evidence of a ghost. Some argued that seeing the source would debunk the possibility of a third person in the house with us. Many argued that if we followed to where they lead, we’d see if it was a person. Some pointed out that either way, we’d be able to figure something out through a real-life sighting or process of elimination.

“It seems like our ghouls can’t decide!” I said.

“Well, then it’s a good thing we live in the future! Extra tripod please!” Adam reached for my bag again and took out a smaller handheld tripod and light. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, set it up, and held it up.

“If you go back to our main page, you will see that we now have two streams! Stick around with Carlie if you want to see the source, and bounce on over to me if you want to see where they’re going!”

I watched as half of our viewers left the current chat.

“Okay Team Carlie, are we ready?” I asked. The chat lit up.

“And Team Adam, are we set?” Adam asked his own chat. He shot me a thumbs up.

“Then Let’s Ghoul!” we both chanted. With a little wave at each other, we both turned to our respective quests.

The left hallway was as dark and dusty as the foyer below. A few doors to my right hung open, and a few more seemed to not have doors at all. They were simply yawning expanses of darkness until my camera light passed over them. The loss of Adam’s massive presence heralded the return of the creeping feeling on the back of my neck. I felt my entire body stand at attention, took a breath, and walked into the darkness. I directed my camera down to the floor. The mysterious third set was still to my left.

“As you guys can see, the footprints are a pretty decent size.” I stomped my foot next to one of the steps. Even with my big boots on, the extra set was larger. “I’m not sure what shoes looked like in 1880, but I’m fairly certain they didn’t have running sneakers. I wonder if we’re looking at the footsteps of the late Shawn Johnson?”

Talking to the chat made me feel less alone. I read their responses and theories as I walked to the far end of the hallway. The trail led me to the last door on the left.

It was closed.

“Now that’s weird. Look at this! The steps clearly walk out through the doorway, but the door isn’t open. Do you think whoever did this doesn’t have to worry about doors?”

I took a breath.

“I guess there’s no use delaying this, huh? Okay, ghoulfriends. Let’s do it.”

I kept the camera focused on the doorknob as I reached forward, grasped the cold, tarnished brass, and turned. The door opened inward, dragging along the dusty floor and mussing up the footsteps. I quickly panned up and did a sweep of the room. Nothing stirred.

“It looks like we’re in a bedroom.” I whispered to the chat. “It doesn’t look grand enough to be old Mr Angelo’s bedroom. This must be a guest bedroom.”

A section of the wall was broken open. A massive branch had long since crashed down into the bedroom, leaving its rotted corpse behind. The furniture, having been exposed to the elements for who knows how long, bowed out at odd angles after absorbing moisture from outside. An ancient broken mirror stood facing the gaping hole in the wall. The shards of glass had been scattered along the floor.

With my scan of my surroundings complete, I panned back down to the footsteps on the floor. Debris from the broken mirror and furniture pieces obscured what had once been a clear path. I followed them around the derelict bed towards the broken section of wall, placing my steps carefully.

“I’m not sure how secure this section of the house is.” I said to the chat. A few well-wishers told me to be careful. “If I feel like there’s any chance that this floor is unstable, I’m going to go find Adam. I’m looking for ghosts, not construction projects.”

I picked my way over to the mysterious source of the footsteps. The soft, rotted branch covered it up. I placed my foot on the floor next to it and pressed.

“I’m slowly applying pressure to the floor here. I’m not hearing any creaks or groans or anything, so I think I should be good.” Confident that the floor would support me, I stepped over completely and pushed the branch with my foot. It barely moved. The footsteps were clearly coming from beneath it. I looked around and spied a dresser not far behind me.

“Okay guys, I’m going to put you right here and see if I can move the log. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful!”

The camera light was aimed directly where I needed to be. I carefully squatted down, placed my hands underneath the damp, rotted trunk, and heaved. The tree creaked against the remaining wall.

“One more time, I think!” I called back to my camera. I pushed again, and with a crack, the branch broke over, exposing the floor below.

The footsteps came from the broken wall.

“What the hell?” I looked at the section of wall. There, nestled between the interior and exterior walls, was a battered camera.

“Oh my GOD you guys, I think I found Shawn Johnson’s missing camera! Hold on, this is insane!” I stuck my arm into the wall. The moment my fingertips met plastic, I heard a rush of footsteps behind me.

“What the--” Something sharp hit the back of my head, and I went down.

***

The floor was cold and hard beneath me. The back of my head throbbed. I opened my eyes, but saw nothing. Terror flooded my lungs as I blinked. I waved my hand in front of my face. In the darkness, I saw the stirrings of movement. My vision was fine; it was the room that had gone dark. I groaned and pushed myself up. Nausea stabbed through me. I leaned back against the wall and waited for the feeling to pass.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Someone else was here. They hit me. They took my phone and tripod rig.” I sat on the floor and stared around the room, willing my eyes to adjust to the blackness. Shapes gradually appeared around the room. There was the bed, the dresser that had held my camera, the broken mirror across the room. Once I was sure my eyes were as focused as they could be, I pushed myself up against the wall and eased myself up.

Whoever hit me had done an excellent job. Standing made me aware of how out of proportion I felt - my arms and legs felt too long for my body. Could I have brain damage? Was this just leftover dizziness? I shook my hands in an attempt to change the way they felt. No luck.

“Shit.” I whispered again. I shook my head and made myself focus. I had to find Adam. We would call the police, wait in the car, and everything would be okay. A shaky plan, but a plan nonetheless. I left the room feeling asymmetrical.

The darkness enveloped me in the hallway. I paused to listen but heard nothing. Adam’s voice was so distinct, so easy to pick out, that he couldn’t be up on the second floor anymore. I would’ve heard him even if he were doing his excited livestream whisper. I walked down the hallway, keeping my hand on the wall for support. The camera light had spoiled me; I had never known such intense darkness. If Angel House had been creepy with poor lighting, it was menacing in the dark. I kept my focus on one thing: finding Adam. Whoever blitzed me thought I was already down, so I had to assume they were otherwise preoccupied. I stared around me, hoping for a break in the darkness, when my hand left the wall and found the railing to the grand staircase.

Quickly and quietly, I stole down the staircase and looped back to the kitchen. Just before the doorway I paused and listened, hard. Not a single noise. I peered around the frame and looked in. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was an expanse of darkness. I could make out the shapes of the lopsided table and stove, but not much else.

“Adam?”

No answer. I kept heading forward. We had only explored a small portion of Angel House, so the rest of the building was an unknown. I had no idea what else was on the first floor. My hand trailed along the wall next to me. The far corner of the room approached, a faded picture staring back at me. As I walked nearer, the face in the picture grew larger. I stopped and stared. The face in the picture was hard to make out in the darkness. I took another step. The face in the picture grew larger still. Panic had finally started to settle in my ribcage. I strode forward, determined. The expression in the picture matched mine.

He had a long face, a broad nose, and dark eyes. I turned my head to get a better look. He turned with me. I shook my head. He did the same.

It was a mirror.

“What the hell. What the hell. What the hell??” I shouted.

My voice, his voice, echoed across the empty foyer. It didn’t matter that there was someone else in the house. It didn’t matter that someone had tried to attack me. What mattered was that, somehow, I was staring out of someone else’s eyes into someone else’s face in a mirror. He was tall and thin, though somehow familiar. I leaned against the wall, bracing my considerably larger frame on a man’s hands and stared into the mirror. I took in the bold eyebrows and stubby facial hair.

“Shawn Johnson,” I realized. Adam and I had studied his blog. There had been exactly one picture of the photographer. While he was exploring some old church somewhere he ran into another urban explorer. They had stood, arm in arm, grinning into their camera before exploring the church together.

The camera!

Pieces began to fall into place. Shawn Johnson had died in a second floor guest bedroom. The report we read named blunt force trauma. That would explain the head pain. Had he been murdered? Did I have to relive his last few moments because I found his camera? Or was the ghost of Shawn Johnson trying to get me to understand something else? I dropped my hands from the wall around the mirror. Of course. The tree. The trees surrounding Angel House had swayed so easily in the breeze when Adam and I had pulled up. The branch I moved had been huge. It must have fallen into the tree, hit Shawn in the head, and knocked him out.

So why was he here? And why was I with him? I paced in front of the mirror. Shawn hadn’t been a paranormal investigator. He was an urban explorer and photographer. He had come here to disprove the paranormal. I snorted. Before I could even begin to think of the irony of that theory, a car door slammed in the distance.

“Adam!” I called out. Had he gone out to the car to look for me? I ran along the side wall of the foyer and stopped in front of the window. There, down the front walkway, stood Adam. He was facing someone and gesticulating at the house. A bright light shone in my direction. Adam must have gone for the police. He obviously couldn’t expect to find out that I had been possessed by the ghost of the guy we were hoping to find. He had gone for help. I smiled. This was going to be an interesting conversation. But on the bright side, I’d be able to take Adam and the cops to Shawn Johnson’s camera.

I watched Adam fall into step with his companion. They walked up the walkway together, and I heard their voices lilting back and forth. There was no hurry in their stride. Their conversation sounded formal, informative. I pressed my - Shawn’s - face against the glass.

Adam was walking up the walkway with a young woman, carrying a tripod. He was walking up the walkway with me.

I watched us trek across the front porch and heard my own voice begin to sing.

We were walking up the front walkway the way we had earlier in the evening. I was watching myself film Adam as he clapped in tune to the theme song. The front door shrieked open, just as it had when I had been the one operating the camera, Adam and the other Carlie walked into the foyer. I approached us, stunned. We were staring around the foyer, panning across for shots. I came to a stop directly behind what should have been me.

“Do do do doo,”

Adam clapped.

“Do do do doo!”

He clapped again.

“Do do do do, do do do do, do do do do,”

I clapped.

#short story #halloween #the addams family #ghost story #haunted house #this was fun give me critiques

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nelvana · 5 years ago

Text

In which the tower of time is explored

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the god of time is met Previous: In which the land between time is explored

“They’re expecting us…?” Alex repeated, his brows creasing at Ceebee’s comment.

“I didn’t do anything to activate this. It had to be someone else, and based on how we’ve gotten this far, it was probably manually activated,” Ceebee explained quietly, “right?”

Giratina, speaking from the rock still being held by Edgar even after all this time, let out a hum of confirmation, but did not divulge into the subject further.

Alex sighed, “I suppose that I shouldn’t be too surprised. Even if our arrival didn’t come in some sort of time vision, Dialga must know by now that if anyone was going to step up to handle this, it would be us.”

Dusknoir sat up, “they may have been expecting my… return here, as well,” he added.

Frowning, Alex turned away, staring out into the now clouded horizon. His gaze followed some of the floating islands as they slowly moved like on a fixed axis around the Temporal Tower. The Rainbow Stoneship continued its journey at a steady pace, navigating around any stones in its path as if it had always been a natural part of its path.

Dusknoir slouched slightly as the conversation died at his words, idly tracing the markings on their cruise. A few eyes continued to watch each other, but soon everyone had glanced off to either watch their surroundings or their ride.

Carefully padding towards the edge of the Rainbow Stoneship, Nelvana crouched at the back of the platform, studying the rainbow trailing behind it with wide eyes. The glow of the colors bothered her eyes slightly, but at the same time she never wished to look away. Hesitantly, she reached a hand down, waggling her fingers through the arc. It didn’t feel like anything, and unlike natural light, it did not bend around her hand, giving the fur no illusion of extra color. Regardless, the act of touching a rainbow at all brought a smile to her face, and she only moved her hand back to sit on her lap due to her concern for safety.

“Now this is really cool,” Damien gasped.

Nelvana glanced up at the gengar, only mildly surprised by how silently he had wandered up beside her. He leaned down to poke the rainbow as well, but leaned back much sooner than Nelvana had, sitting down and leaning back with his hands palm down behind him for support.

“Well, I can knock ‘touching a rainbow’ off the bucket list,” he joked.

“Touching a rainbow was on your bucket list?” Nelvana chuckled, smirking back at him.

“Not really, unless you ask, like, maybe eight-year-old me,” Damien responded, “I’m more surprised that you know what a bucket list is,” he commented.

“Oh, yeah, bucket lists were kinda common, for humans at least,” Nelvana replied, wrapping her arms around her knees to pull them up to her chest and rest her chin onto. “I can’t remember if I ever had one. I guess the knowledge that I would either succeed my one goal and disappear, or die trying, kind of discourages the idea.”

“Or encourages it,” Damien pointed out, though the casualness at how Nelvana spoke of such a dark fact got him the frown momentarily. “I never really had one either. Maybe we should all work on one when we get back. It’ll keep us occupied, at least.”

Nelvana snorted, “add it to the ‘we’ll do it when we get back list’.”

Shuffling up in between the pair, Keahi ruffled up zir feathers and leaned up against zir partner, smiling and looking out at the rainbow trail behind them as well.

“I can see why Alex was pretty excited for this. This looks amazing!” Keahi commented.

“It really does,” Nelvana agreed, and then paused. “Has he or Ceebee come back over to get a look at this?”

“Dunno about Ceebee, but Alex is still busy brooding over there.” Damien leaned his head back to peer at the grovyle sitting on the other end of the platform. “Here, you two can keep sitting here together, I’ll go check up on those two. Maybe see how Edgar’s holding up afterwards… seemed a bit shaken up by some of those monster houses.”

“Oh yeah, I asked Edgar about that, but he said he was fine… maybe you’ll get some better comfort out of him, he’s always been pretty close to you,” Keahi responded, “thanks Damien!”

Nodding a farewell to the pair, Damien stood up and walked off towards Alex. Both Nelvana and Keahi watched him head over to the grovyle, but then turned back to watch the colorful trail being left behind their ride. Keahi snuggled closer to zir partner, who shifted her position so she could wrap an arm around the torchic.

“Is it just like you thought it’d be?” Keahi asked, turning to look up at Nelvana. “Just the Rainbow Stoneship and all, I mean,” zie added, before sighing. “Wow, it’s been a long day. Can’t see where the sun is from here though, wonder what time it is.”

“This area must be locked into daytime. I have no idea what time it really is anymore,” Nelvana responded, “but… yeah, kinda how I imagined it. Kind of different. I guess the people here and the circumstances really make the difference though. I don’t think the Rainbow Stoneship itself has really changed.”

Keahi let out a hum, “that’s true,” zie agreed, closing zir eyes as zie leaned zir head to fit in the crook of Nelvana’s neck.

“Am I interrupting something?” Alex joked, going to sit beside the two without waiting for an answer.

Keahi flinched in surprise, lifting back up zir head, but not making an effort to move away from Nelvana otherwise. Nelvana blinked over at the grovyle, before chuckling and shaking her head, not moving much either.

“Nah, we were just talking about the Rainbow Stoneship here,” Nelvana told him.

“Hm, yeah… quite the view, huh?” Alex replied, “Damien insisted that I should come back here to look at the rainbow, and he was definitely right that moving back over here would be worth it. I had only been waiting to see if anyone else would rather get situated here first; I’ve already seen this,” he explained.

“Yeah, I mean, may be yo- our second time, but who knows when we’ll get the chance to look at this again?” Nelvana responded.

“At least this ride is pretty long, so we can take it all in,” Keahi added, “makes for a nice break too. I was just saying to Nel, that it must be getting pretty late now.”

Alex turned back to glance over at Temporal Tower, steadily growing closer, “I was hoping we could make it through the tower before resting; we don’t really want to hang around at the base of that thing.”

“Do you think it will be any better at the top?” Nelvana asked.

“Had better be. A good night’s rest is the least we deserve once we get all the way up to Dialga,” Alex sighed.

The trip lasted at least ten minutes, the Rainbow Stoneship not being the fastest method of travel, but finally they had arrived at the base of Temporal Tower. They stopped by another rocky island, the cliff of such a platform rough and jagged. Though this base seemed small, the structure built on it stood tall into the swirling clouds above them all. The outside walls were deep blue, with a lighter metal forming patterns around the tower, likely adding extra support to such a massive building. Their only entrance to Temporal Tower were huge, double doors right ahead of where they landed.

Silent from the awe of such a building, the group one by one carefully stepped off the Rainbow Stoneship, which depowered once they had all gotten off, remaining in place beside the rocks in case of their return.

“Woah… so this is Temporal Tower,” Keahi murmured, “this feels… different than looking up Sky Tower, in a way. I can’t quite explain it.”

“This is an actual dungeon?” Edgar suggested.

Keahi laughed, “maybe.”

“That, and this certainly has… a much more powerful aura to it,” Tsuki added, “Sky Tower may have been Rayquaza’s home, but Temporal Tower is an extension of Dialga’s power. You can feel it.”

“Yeah… that’s probably it,” Keahi murmured.

Sizing up the next step in their quest, the group fell into another comfortable silence. Keahi turned away from studying the tower though to look over zir teammates, and extra allies. Despite the turmoils of the day, no one appeared tired enough to have to call it quits yet. Zie couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief; zie didn’t want anyone getting too exhausted to complete this next dungeon mid-war, including zirself.

“Same number of floors, same safe floor spot, and same dangers as Hidden Land,” Alex stated, crossing his arms as he stared up the tower. “Big difference is that here, the main type is psychic, with some steel, poison, and ghost pokemon lingering here and there as well.”

“Mainly psychic pokemon? Good thing we have three ghost-types here!” Keahi commented.

“With two of us as mainly support,” Damien pointed out.

“You were doing really well with your thunderbolt attack! You can give yourself a bit more credit,” Keahi insisted.

“Still… we should be back to the usual dungeon pace. Plenty of different pokemon, not all fully evolved,” Alex continued, “doesn’t mean that this will be easy though.”

“Will this all be similar as to when you were last here, though?” Tsuki questioned, “Temporal Tower was broken when you had travelled through here; now it is fully functioning.”

“Giratina? Do you know?” Edgar asked, shaking the rock slightly in his grasp.

“What Temporal Tower is like typically… unfortunately, my experience out here specifically is not much. What Alex has been saying so far has been correct, and stays… fairly the same between the two timelines. You may find less variation of pokemon here, as less have attempted to enter but got trapped in this timeline than the other, but that should be the largest change,” Giratina responded, “if anything is this world manages to stay strong throughout destruction… it’s mystery dungeons.”

“How mysterious,” Damien joked.

Alex sighed, shaking his head, “well, no sense in dilly-dallying; we’re almost to Dialga now.”

Small nods of agreement. Taking a couple steps towards Temporal Tower automatically summoned the doors to open wide in front of them. Despite any mild surprise, they were forced to simply chalk it up to Dialga expecting them, like Ceebee had said before. Now without any troubles due to habitude from doing this a couple times before, the group formed their line, and entered Temporal Tower.

Perfectly cut stone floors, and metallic walls with a mild blue hue filled their surroundings indoors. This simplistic design to the dungeon gave it something closer to the appearance of an actual, ordinary building than any dungeon before this one, which only served to create an eerie feeling. The way the ceiling constantly stretched out high above them, and how each hallway exiting a room had its own doorway made everything almost as if they were walking through a strange mansion than the ruined and overgrowth mystery dungeons they were all accustomed to.

“Hey… does anyone else hear that?” Damien asked quietly, eyes flitting around their current room.

“Hear what?” Edgar responded.

“That… ticking noise, like a clock,” Damien told him.

Everyone paused momentarily to listen more, though some, already hearing it at the same time Damien did, were already nodding back to him, but respected the current silence and everyone else wishing to listen and didn’t say anything. Faintly was the sound Damien had described; ticking, just like an old hand clock. The ticking, while almost sounding distant, was still clear as if it were in their current room, despite the source clearly not being here, if there was a solid source at all.

They waited for nearly half a minute, listening to the tick, tock, at every second, before someone spoke up.

“That’s weird, I don’t remember that being here when we were here last, but you’re right, there’s definitely a ticking here,” Alex commented, “think it’s because time is flowing?”

Ceebee nodded slowly, “that was going to be my guess. It must help symbolize the time passing in real time. A tick for every second.”

“Oh, yeah, that would make sense…” Damien murmured, “with everything being time based here.”

Continuing onwards, their first dungeon spawn encounter of Temporal Tower was the psychic-type solrock; just as foretold, and something almost all in the group had seen before. Nelvana dealt with it with a couple swift bonemerang attacks, and they continued onwards without terribly much difficulty.

In fact, the more the continued exploring the dungeon, the more they found that many of the spawn here were not only familiar, but easy to defeat. These foes were certainly stronger than any previous of their kind any of the group had found in dungeons, but still shared weaknesses, and that knowledge helped deal with any of their opponents before they had the chance to become much of a problem.

No, it wasn’t the spawn themselves that were the main problem of this dungeon, as they quickly became aware of. The true challenge began when a grovyle leapt from another hallway in front of the group. Nelvana jumped, startled, but her surprise and confusion only grew as she identified the scars of this grovyle as being the same that Alex had. There were fewer than what Alex currently had, but the scar that stretched across his muzzle was unmistakeable.

“Wha…”

The grovyle ignored the group, even as they looked in their direction, the golden eyes seemed to look past all the pokemon crowded by another hallway. Instead, the grovyle turned back towards something or someone. Their mouth opened as if they were speaking, but no sound came out. In response to their silent words, someone else hurried out from the hallway; a human.

“Is that…” Keahi trailed off, tearing zir own gaze from what was happening in front of them to glance up at zir partner.

“That’s me,” Nelvana confirmed, her voice scarcely a gasp.

The… duplicates of Alex and Nelvana paused in the middle of the room momentarily, talking to each other without any sound. Strung over the grovyle’s shoulder was even the same bag he had now, slightly less worn than currently, but inside the satchel a slight blue glow emitted; a time gear.

Just as soon as the pair entered, they left. Hurrying off to the other end of the room as if in a hurry and fading away from sight before they hit the wall.

“They’re illusions,” Nelvana whispered, letting go of the breath she had been holding.

“Illusions…” Keahi murmured, “you didn’t say there were illusions here,” zie said, glancing back to the back of the group.

“I didn’t know there were any either,” Alex replied, voice sounding far away despite having entered the room with everyone else at the tail end of the illusion display.

“Is this… the normal for here, then?” Tsuki asked, cautiously padding towards where the illusions had disappeared, sniffing the floor and finding nothing unusual.

“It is,” Giratina answered, “I apologize, I had not realized before… But yes, these illusions are us seeing pieces of time.”

“Why weren’t there any when any of you went through here?” Damien questioned.

“Time was frozen then. It must not have been able to… display anything from other times,” Ceebee told him, “it must be that when it flows normally, visions of other times leak in.”

“That must explain why the spawn was not up to the same caliber as Hidden Land; the dungeon’s energy is seeping more into these illusions than typical dungeon tricks,” Dusknoir added, gesturing with one hand vaguely as he spoke.

“Why was there no sound from it though?” Edgar asked, “I didn’t hear anything from it, at least, but it looked like… it looked like, uh, they were speaking.”

“Could be for a number of reasons. I have not seen these illusions before, so it could be normal for Temporal Tower to only display the sights and not the sounds from these points in time it chooses to create as illusions,” Giratina responded, “or it could simply be from the fact that that was an illusion from the dead timeline. Illusions specifically from that timeline must be more challenging to grab.”

“I am surprised we saw an illusion from that timeline at all,” Tsuki admitted, padding back over to her vague place in the lineup; the group now closer to a huddle in the room together than a line. “It must still be slightly connected to then; dungeons tend to latch onto more disastrous energies, I’ve found,” she added.

“That must be it then,” Keahi murmured, “are we all okay to keep going, then…?”

Alex shook his head, exhaling, “yeah, yeah… we’re going to have to get used to that soon anyway.”

“Nel?” Keahi stepped up beside zir partner, who was still silently staring towards where the illusion first appeared, as if expecting it to return.

“I… Yeah, let’s get going,” she replied quietly, continuing onwards in more of a daze, almost stumbling over her own feet after the first step, but catching herself and moving forwards as if that had never happened at all.

They ran into another illusion on every floor.

The next illusion they found was another from the dead timeline, and another with Alex and Nelvana. The group almost didn’t see this illusion, and almost didn’t want to. In the corner of a room they barely peeked into at first, was an illusion, showing the pair sitting together, Nelvana wrapping bandages around Alex’s right leg. It was a simple vision, and unlike the other, did seem to loop, and never disappeared, even as Nelvana paused to stare at it for a long time before coming back to her senses and moving on, skipping the room.

On the third and the fourth floor were more illusions from the dead timeline, one with a horde of sableye running through the hallway and startling everyone enough to move aside despite the fact that the army wasn’t actually there, and one with a trio of pokemon, an audino, a mamoswine, and a porygon, that no one in this group recognized personally, but this trio were quickly surrounded by sableye in the illusion, disappearing before the inevitable could be displayed.

It was on the fifth floor that they finally spotted a vision from the past, an incineroar and a salamence, both sporting rescue team badges, cautiously walked together, tired from assumedly having walked for much, much longer than this illusion would show, yet their eyes narrowed with determination and focus. Suddenly, the pair reared up at an unseen enemy, Salamence blasting it with a powerful beam shot out from their mouth, surely defeating whoever their opponent was in a single hit. The illusion disappeared soon after, but not before Incineroar gave Salamence a small pat on the back as a silent compliment.

“That was a rescue team…” Nelvana murmured, “have you heard of them, Keahi? An incineroar and a salamence?” she asked, glancing back at her partner.

Keahi nodded, “yeah… I think that was Team Endeavor!”

“The diamond rank team?” Damien interrupted for clarification.

Again, Keahi nodded, glancing back at the gengar momentarily before going back to facing forwards, staring past Nelvana and out to where the illusion had been.

“That wasn’t all of them though. There are four members. Er, well, at least four from the last time anyone heard from them….” zie continued, “the team has been missing for a long time now… it’s a mystery as to what happened to them, but Drapion keeps them as the diamond rank team anyway, so they must be okay.”

“Perhaps if we see more visions of them from here, we might be able to figure out where they went,” Tsuki suggested.

“Maybe…” Keahi replied, “I kinda hope so; that would be nice, huh? It would be really cool to actually meet them, and it would be great to have some confirmation on what they have been up to.”

“They looked tired,” Nelvana commented quietly, “I hope they made it out of wherever they were, at least out of what we just saw there, alright.”

The next few floors continued similarly, but nothing got easier. To say that other dungeons got easier as they progress as well would be untrue, however, in most dungeons, getting used to the pokemon that showed up and picking out signs of traps or monster houses granted some more ease for exploration. Here with the time illusions�� no one could get used to that. How could they? How does one get used to seeing visions of other times, including the timeline of the darkest future, whenever one least expects it?

And unfortunately, simply because this dungeon had an extra trick, didn’t mean that it laid off on other, more typical, dangers. There were times the group would pause to watch one of the illusions, and wind up getting attacked from behind from one of the spawn.

On a couple floors, they ended up finding a monster house in the same room as one of the illusions. In those cases, it could be challenging to discern which pokemon they were seeing were really there or not.

The traps, while few here, still would crop up here and there to throw everyone off. Traps could never be perfectly predicted, dungeons always hid them too well for that, but sometimes the more experienced one could take a moment and pick out spots where not to step. Any chance of those predictions being successful were thrown off as well, with sometimes everyone feeling too caught up in everything else to remember that traps were, in fact, still a problem.

Fortunately, for the most part, the few traps they ended up stepping on were mostly harmless. Nelvana stepped on a slumber trap in a hallway, but the effects were temporary and she woke up again after a couple minutes. The spin trap and the slow traps that Keahi and Damien accidentally stepped on turned out to be ways to lighten the mood more than anything else, with those two making jokes out of their temporary situations while they waited for the effects to wear off. Plus, if they had to, there were still heal seeds packed just in case to handle those sorts of effects from traps.

On the tenth floor though, they ran into a more inconveniencing trap, paired with an illusion.

The illusion itself appeared in a large room, a couple moments after everyone had entered. A portal swirled and glowed from the back wall, and the figures of Alex and Nelvana could be seen in front of it, almost entering, but not quite. Nelvana was slouched over so low that Alex standing beside her appeared taller than her, despite the full group now knowing that as a human she was about twice his height.

He turned back, calling out across the swarm of sableye, out to Ceebee, fluttering weakly not far from the portal as well, arms outstretched in front of her and antennae twitching with the telltale sign that she was focusing her abilities. Alex yelled again, the desperation stretching across his face despite the illusion bringing no sound to his voice. Ceebee glanced back, calling something out to him in return. He screamed at her, evidently not liking whatever she had said, but as another sableye lunged at him and Nelvana, just barely missing, he swallowed his pride and guided Nelvana into the portal with him, it closing behind them, them and a sableye leaping in last second, as a couple in the group watching this all managed to glimpse, and leaving Ceebee behind.

Continuing still as one of the longer lasting illusions, they could see the image of Dusknoir roar in fury. While Ceebee was putting up a good fight against the numerous sableye with her fairy-type move, she was inevitably knocked out by a powerful shadow punch attack, Dusknoir shaking with rage as he pulled off the attack. The illusion faded soon afterwards, with the image of Ceebee slumping to the ground, defeated.

“So that’s…” Keahi was the first to speak afterwards, zir voice quiet and hesitant. “…that’s why Ceebee wasn’t with you guys at first when you traveled back in time.”

Ceebee nodded somberly, “with one of the time gears broken, it was important that I managed the portal. It would have been risky for me to get in there with them in the moment,” she explained, “we were already cutting things close.”

“That makes sense…” Keahi murmured, “but Nel, you looked really hurt there. What happened before what we saw to-“

Keahi was cut off suddenly at the familiar sound of a click somewhere in the room. Everyone managed to look over in time to see Dusknoir, having moved to the side slightly during the illusion to watch better, now had a warp tile below him. And just before anyone could say anything, the trap activated properly, and Dusknoir disappeared.

“Where did he go?” Edgar blurted out in alarm, “if we step there too, will we go to the same place…?”

“No, we won’t. Warp tiles always take you somewhere random in the dungeon; no one should step on that,” Tsuki warned.

Ceebee sighed, “I’ll go looking, I can already sense him from here. You all can keep exploring, we’ll catch up later, just don’t go to the next floor.”

Taking the mobile scarf to make the trip quicker, Ceebee bid small goodbyes to everyone before flying through one of the walls to search for the missing Dusknoir.

Traveling through walls was, of course, still disorienting, but her own practice using this item in Murky Cave helped her stomach feel better about it all. She found though, that akin to the rest of the most building-like structure for this dungeon, that the walls were thinner and always seemed to offer more rooms behind them, unlike many other dungeons which truly felt like tunnels more than anything else. This meant she had more walls to travel through, but each wall took less time to pass through.

Eventually, she located Dusknoir in a small room. He had run into another illusion, and Ceebee found him watching it, frozen in place. She couldn’t see his expression, or much of the illusion itself due to her coming in behind Dusknoir. However, what she could see was the images of two septile laying on the ground in front of him, blood pooling over unseen grass. They were dead. Unable to help herself, Ceebee tried peering around Dusknoir, and met the gaze of his duplicate, a younger version of Dusknoir, with bloody hands and no remorse in his eye.

The illusion faded, and sensing the extra presence in the room now, Dusknoir spun around, eye wide, to face Ceebee. For a few moments, neither of them said a thing. They only stared at each other in silence.

“Come on,” Ceebee finally muttered, “the others are waiting; they might have even found the stairs by now.”

Wordlessly nodding, Dusknoir followed Ceebee out of the room, and continued remaining quiet as they made their way back to the rest of the group. By the time they had returned, the others had managed to find the stairs to the next floor, and after forming their lineup again, they moved on up the steps.

Proceeding past the eleventh floor afterwards finally brought them to the safe floor, where they could rest. Though there was the lingering thought of if illusions could reach them here as well, when nothing happened for the first few minutes, the group slowly began to relax again. For once, this floor became an opportunity for them to discuss what they had previously seen more, rather than focusing on specifically checking on supplies and whatnot.

Nelvana sat against a wall with Keahi beside her, leaning up against the cubone for comfort again, while Alex chatted with the both of them, starting out mostly speaking about the illusions from the dead timeline, but eventually curiosity brought them to talk about Team Endeavor again; fascinated by the mystery surrounding the elite team. Looking for more clarification otherwise, Ceebee talked with the rest of the group, explaining to them about what she knew.

Dusknoir, for the beginning of their break, separated himself from everyone else to lean on the wall across from where Nelvana, Keahi, and Alex were gathered. He said nothing and did not move, at least not until moments after Alex got up to check on the others with Ceebee.

Cautiously, Dusknoir floated over to the pair still sitting against the wall, letting himself drift lower to the ground as to not appear as large, at least slightly. Despite his efforts, Nelvana still stiffened as she realized he was approaching, though she remained frozen in place, allowing him to reach a comfortable conversation distance from the two. Sensing Nelvana’s returning unease, Keahi leaned closer, bumping zir forehead on zir partner’s shoulder for a moment before turning zir head to face Dusknoir again.

“Hello, Dusknoir,” Keahi greeted after a few moments passed where Dusknoir still said nothing despite his closeness. “Did you need something?”

“I had been hoping to speak with Nelvana briefly, if that would be possible,” Dusknoir requested.

Keahi glanced at Nelvana, who, after a pause, hesitantly gave zim a small nod.

“Okay,” Keahi replied, without moving.

Dusknoir waited for a moment, but when he realized that the torchic would not be moving, he simply let out a sigh before continuing with what he wanted to say anyway; he didn’t want to have to force Keahi to leave, it was clear why they were refusing already to do so.

“I wanted to tell you this, since I do not know that the other two will give me a moment to listen, so I do thank you for giving me a moment despite everything,” he began, “in my time here in this timeline with you all, I have come to realize my faults, and that I was wrong in what I did before. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” he told her, “I know that you may not believe me, or that this does not fix what I did to you and your friends, but I do not know when I might get another chance to apologize. Though I regret my actions before when I worked under Dialga, they still brought me back here, and I wish to repay them, so my plans of staying with then after this have not changed. However, if there is something I can do to make anything better for you… please let me know. And if you could, let… let Grovyle and Celebi know that I am sorry too.”

Nelvana stared at Dusknoir, unsure of what to say. This was completely unexpected to her, and if she didn’t trust her ability to read others so well, she would have thought that he was completely lying. Though, knowing that he was telling the truth only made it harder to wrap her head around.

“Okay,” she finally croaked, unsure of what else to say in this moment.

Dusknoir’s gaze softened, “okay. Thank you for listening, despite everything. Again, I’m sorry.”

With that, unwilling to bother Nelvana any longer, Dusknoir turned away and floated back to where he stood before. Nelvana watched him leave, her throat dry and heart still pounding. She didn’t understand.

“You alright?” Keahi asked, sitting up more to properly rest zir own forehead against Nelvana’s.

Merely humming back in response for now, Nelvana leaned back to Keahi’s touch, letting herself breath for a few moments. She let her shaky hands find the comfort of brushing through her partner’s warm feathers, listening vaguely to the background noise of the others still wrapped up in their own conversation.

“Do… Do you believe him?” Keahi asked hesitantly, curiosity already eating away at zim after what had just happened.

“I don’t know,” Nelvana whispered, denial at the truth of the answer twisting her thoughts and leaving her with uncertainty in her words instead.

Keahi didn’t say anything else, not trusting zir own knowledge of the situation to make any sort of assumptions. To zim, Dusknoir sounded sincere, but there was always the option of him being a good liar. Admittedly zie still hadn’t spent enough time around him to pick out which was most likely.

“We should keep going,” Nelvana announced quietly, leaning away from her partner and immediately missing the warm touch.

Without waiting for a proper answer, Nelvana shakily stood up again and moved towards the exit of the safe room. Keahi sighed, but got up to follow after only a moment’s pause. Gathering the attention of everyone else, the group quickly collected themselves and headed out to tackle the next half of the dungeon.

Though by now they considered skipping by any illusions that they came across, the possibility of valuable information was far too important to pass up, despite the extra time it took to watch the images came appeared in various rooms, despite how emotionally draining it could be to view something from one’s own past so openly displayed.

This was, at least, fortunately the only major delays they would have throughout the dungeon. The latter half of Temporal Tower introduced more pokemon for them to battle against, but there were only a couple new encounters of which none of them had seen in any dungeons before, but even those ones were the evolved forms of pokemon that they had just seen in the earlier half of this dungeon, and often the same sorts of battle strategies could be used on them as had been used before. Their largest difficulty with the spawn came with the salamence that would appear, which were mistaken from the illusions of Salamence of Team Endeavor a couple times, catching them off guard.

After a few hours after entering the dungeon, surely getting late into the night in the outside world, they stepped up to the final floor. Alex announcing this achievement was met with tired cheers, all thankful to finally be so close to their goal after all this time. They quieted down after this for a few moments, until Damien spoke up again.

“You know… and I’d hate to jinx myself here, especially so close to finishing… but we haven’t seen any illusions from my past,” Damien commented.

“That is an interesting point, actually,” Tsuki replied, licking her whiskers idly. “The illusions we have been seeing do not seem to range that far into the past, or into the future aside from the dead timeline; at least from what we can assume.”

“Does the Temporal Tower have a range of time that it can create illusions from?” Edgar asked.

“I am not certain about that, but it would make sense,” Giratina answered, “this is a dungeon, but it is distantly affected by Dialga themself. It is possible that they may force the dungeon to create… more relevant illusions.”

“I would have been interested in seeing some illusions from that far in the past though,” Nelvana admitted quietly, “your time sounds incredibly fascinating from what you’ve told us, Damien.”

Damien shrugged his shoulders, glancing over at the walls, “nah, nothing really that special… a couple big events happened that I can recall, but honestly nothing as exciting as these mystery dungeons and stuff.”

“I’m sure there would be something interesting to see!” Ceebee chimed in, “you lived centuries before any of us! Well, except for Giratina, that is.”

Giratina chuckled, “Damien is not giving his own time enough credit. The humans then did some incredibly interesting things. You’d get some group of them attempting to summon one of the legendaries every decade or so.”

“Really?” Alex responded, “and you call that not interesting, Damien,” he teased.

“We’re literally about to talk to a legendary right now! We’re currently talking with a legendary and a mythical!” Damien pointed out.

“How do you summon a legendary though? Aren’t there just places to find them?” Keahi asked, “we’ve walked to most legendaries we’ve talked to, and there weren’t even mystery dungeons back then.”

“That’s exactly it though. The legendaries would often have to hide themselves in more… creative locations without mystery dungeons being available to guard themselves. Those that could hide in pocket dimensions often would, and many others would sleep deep underground,” Giratina explained.

“Oh. I guess that makes sense,” Keahi murmured, “you know, we haven’t seen many humans from these illusions either. How many humans were in the dead timeline?”

Alex clicked his tongue, “not nearly as many humans as pokemon, but their numbers were steadily growing over the years. Because they needed good weapons to handle themselves in battle though, it wasn’t often you’d see them exiting the safety of their communities. That’s probably why we haven’t seen many illusions of them. The illusions we’ve seen from the dead timeline that haven’t been of us have been of other traveling pokemon; the humans couldn’t afford to travel as much as pokemon, and pokemon travellers were even few and far in between.”

Keahi nodded, though any previous response was interrupted as zie peered into the next room they were entering, “oh hey, the stairs! Good job, Nel!”

“Finally,” Damien groaned, “my feet are killing me, and if I see one more damn il-“

The image of an enormous pokemon appeared in front of the stairs. The tall quadruped stood on pointed, golden hooves, and it was coated in a smooth white pelt with a grey underside. A golden cross-like wheel was attached to its body with green jewels on each point that matched their eyes. Their long neck was covered in a flowing mane, which reached up to their head and flowed out back from it, appearing similarly to their long tail.

Though no one in the group had seen this pokemon in person before, a few pieced together their appearance to one of the images they had seen carved into the walls of the Old Ruins to go along with the story of creation.

This was Arceus.

The god of all gods gazed across the group, almost as if they were more than just an illusion. And for a moment, everyone was caught up in the silent and peaceful awe at being able to look back at such a powerful being that even some legendaries would not have seen in centuries.

Suddenly, something struck Arceus in the side. They roared in pain, and even though there was no sound to the illusion like all the illusions were silent, the feeling of what the sound would have been seemed to strike right into one’s heart. Arceus, like a tall and powerful tower, slowly toppled over, and unlike all other illusions, they did not merely fade away as the vision ended. Instead their image seemed to peel away and disintegrate, the individual pieces finally disappearing into the air.

The horror at what had been witnessed gripped the group into silence.

Tsuki moved first, as her eyes lidded shut and she collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Not before brushing against Damien during her fall though; who screamed at the sudden touch, jumping up in shock before immediately slapping his hands over his mouth as his voice echoed in the room.

Fortunately for Damien’s dignity at least, attention was drawn to their fainted friend before anyone could be bothered to focus on his shriek. And fortunately for everyone’s worries, Tsuki woke up and began shakily rising back to her feet just as quickly as she had fallen.

“Are you okay?” Keahi was the first to ask, though the question was surely on most minds, and zie shuffled around Damien to stand in front of the absol as she pulled herself up into a crouch.

“I…” Tsuki breathed heavily, her eyes still not focusing properly. “I don’t know,” she admitted quietly, “what was that? What could have harmed Arceus like that?” she questioned instead, staring blankly out towards where the illusion once was.

“What did you see?” Giratina asked worriedly, unable to have been able to see the illusion.

“Arceus. They were hurt by… something, and it looked bad; only one hit too and it almost looked to defeat them on its own,” Ceebee told them, “do you know what could have damaged them so much?”

Giratina paused, “I… I’m not sure. A legendary or mythical at least. Mortals can fight us legendaries and even win, as you’ve proven, but to beat Arceus in one hit… I’m not sure if I would have ever been capable of doing something like that even.”

All questioning faded out for another moment as everyone considered this answer. Even Giratina sounded nervous as they responded to Ceebee; the idea of something that posed such a threat scaring even a legendary that existed on another dimension didn’t inspire any confidence in anyone either.

“I think… for now at least, the more important question is… did this happen in the past or the future?” Alex pointed out.

His question brought heads that previously looked either towards Tsuki or the rock that Giratina spoke from now turned to the grovyle.

“That’s a good point… Is this a threat that’s already here, or can we prevent it from happening…” Nelvana murmured.

Dusknoir’s gaze hardened, “we need to speak with Dialga. Now.”

Never had anyone in this group found had themselves agreeing with Dusknoir more than they had now.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the god of time is met Previous: In which the land between time is explored

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jojomugi · 5 years ago

Note

Hello, again! This is the same anon who said thanks (I’m a little embarrassed to ask for something similar but, I really did love the last scenario). May I please have a scenario with SDC Dio nsfw/sfw w/ the same fem s/o who absolutely adores Halloween? Thank you so much! I truly appreciate it ❤️

Awh yes! I love Halloween themes! 🎃👻

Hope you didn’t mind but I decided to change it up a bit and make it a bit...AU-y(?) lol. I’ll describe it at the bottom :). I apologize for the wait and how short is it compared to the last one. Hopefully it was worth it and I hope you enjoy this piece because I certainly enjoyed writing this!

[Request:Open]

✨AU: Basically everything is the same except Dio is less focused on ruining the Joestars and more focused on his future plans (and Halloween)

✨Word Count: 1779

✨SFW?: Yes

SDC Dio x Reader (Halloween theme)

“Only 30 more days!” You proclaimed to yourself as you wrote in a little journal upon your bed. The gel tipped pen with the elegant white feather glided across the pages as you began making a list of what to do for your favorite holiday, Halloween. Of course, you had not yet had the chance to discuss your ideas and plans with your head of the household, DIO, so you had not yet gotten executive approval from your dearest. However, you kept your fingers crossed that you would be able to possibly sway him into allowing you to at least decorate.

Though you have called this place home as Lord DIO has done nothing but provided for you here, in all honesty, the majority of the work was already done for you. The mansion itself already had a decrypted aura surrounding it. It was dank, dark, and was littered with cobwebs of many varieties. Though Lord Dio had never struck you as the type of man to be invested in holidays, you hoped he would not mind a few pumpkins and spooky ghost decorations scattered about. Actually, you couldn’t help but dorkishly grin at the ideas you had come up with to decorate the halls and rooms of the manor.

They frilly feather twirled between your fingertips as you continued to ponder and daydream on what else you’d do for Halloween if given the opportunity to celebrate. Though this was suddenly interrupted by a small yet strong gust of wind had blown through your window. A silhouette of a majestic falcon framed your windowsill, and it was none other than your favorite bird, Pet Shop. It sat there for a moment, before quickly darting to the floor to devour the rat that had gone unnoticed in the far corner of your bedroom. You jumped back at first, after all, he was a very fierce creature, however, you finally loosened up when he flew back over to your windowsill and perched himself proudly.

You shut the journal and got up from where you had resided, and made your way over to him. With a smile, you approached the falcon and gave him a single stroke on the head. “Thank you Pet Shop, you’re such a marvelous creature!” You softly praised.

Though you were not his master, the bird spread his wings and let out a sound that you could only assume was a ‘thank you’. A soft giggle escaped your lips, as you were completely tickled over how smart he was to actually understand you. “Perhaps for Halloween Lord Dio can let you be...A headless horseman! If they make dog and cat costumes, surely they make them for birds too.” You proposed. The bird merely lifted its head away from you and shut his striking eyes. You frowned a bit at his response, but let out a small smile quickly. “Or maybe instead of being a guard-bird you can look like a pharaoh bird?”

Pet shop turned his head back to you with an approving gaze, however, just as quickly as he came to visit you, he quickly flew off to return to his guard-bird duties when the creek of a door filled the room. Your h/l hair flipped as you turned, knowing already who your next visitor was, none other than DIO. Your e/c eyes lit up with excitement, not only did you enjoy each other’s company, you also could sense he was in a good mood, possibly a good enough mood to even inquire about your idea of the upcoming spooky holiday that was approaching.

“Good evening y/n. Say, who were you talking to?” His words were a harmony in your ears, even in the way he teasingly asked you about your conversation with your animal visitor.

“Lord Dio! Welcome! I just got done with a visit from Pet Shop, he disposed of a rat in the room.” You smiled warmly, placing your hands together in front of your chest. “How has your evening been?”

DIO’s lips had turned up into a very calm smile as he approached you. “Oh? Yes, Pet Shop is a fine bird isn’t he?” DIO nodded before continuing. “So far it has been excellent, I thought that I would share it with only my most favorite human.” He explained as he finally made his way to you. He extended a hand and tucked a piece of your hair behind your ear. His honey-like eyes that had been fixated on you caught a glimpse of the bright full moon that was framed by your window. “Oh? And it's a full moon? How romantic. Just another thing for us to share tonight.” The large blonde had noted as he took his place beside where you stood. Now, both of you were admiring the view of Cairo and the bold night from your window.

“I know right, tonight is just wonderful isn’t it?” You nodded, leaning against the windowsill. A strong sculpted yet protective arm wrapped itself around your waist and pulled you close to his body. He obviously couldn’t allow his sweet angel of a pet plummet on accident, even though you were quite confident you wouldn’t as you had done this many times before. You turned up to his with a smile. “Oh, Lord Dio! Did you know on the 31st, there will also be a full moon.” You quickly spilled the piece of trivia.

Dio rose a boldly arched brown at the oddly specific information you gave him, however, he took it merely as a sign of your intellect and patted your head in response. “Well, that's very fascinating my little y/n. Is there anything else I should know?”

Your face quickly went red from embarrassment. You had wanted to bring up wanting to celebrate Halloween in a different more casual way, but instead, sabotaged what you had mentally planned. However, lying to DIO was never an option for you, you’d never want to break his trust in you and your loyalty for someone you lovingly adored.

“Well, y/n?” He tilted his head slightly, patiently waiting for you to continue upon his request.

“Well...the 31st is also the night of Halloween.” A gulp slid down your throat before you had finally decided to expand onto your information. “Lord Dio, you uh, don’t have to answer if you d-don’t want to, But...do you...do you celebrate any holidays?” You stammered your question, and lightly shook your head at how embarrassingly nervous you got over a simple inquiry. What a silly thing to get all riled up over.

However, for the other party, this was a deep question for him. DIO went silent for a moment as he thought about the last time he had even celebrated a holiday. Suddenly a wave of blurred memories resurrected; The last holiday he spent was New Years with George and Jonathan Joestar. Sure, he was slightly invested in them once upon a time ago when he was still a human, but that was a century ago, and he was a significantly different person in those days. He shut his eyes and thought hard about the answer. “I suppose so. Though last time I had ever recognized a holiday was a century ago. These days I just do not have the time to manage, invest, and dedicate my important time to just another day on the calendar.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly you felt your heart sink in discouragement over this development. He had a point, you couldn’t help but agree that his time was valuable, his points were unarguable. You let out a small frown and shifted your eyes back towards the streets, letting your disappointment out towards the world instead of letting him see. However, the silent sadness you felt was interrupted alas by his voice.

“Why are you, curious darling?”

You blinked, and slowly glanced back up at him. You felt no need to change what was undeniable, you had assured yourself that he would not be up for Halloween. No more need for beating around the bush, you just bluntly spoke. “Well, I was going to ask if you’d allow me to decorate the home for Halloween.” You sighed admittingly, while limply hanging your arm off of the windowsill. You couldn’t help but give him a smile, even if it was a sad one. “I really wanted to make everyone costumes, bake those cute little ghosts and pumpkin cookies, hand out candy to all your servants, of course, only the ones you say are worthy, and watch scary movies.” You could go on and on about all your favorite Halloween traditions, however, you felt for sure that he probably didn’t care to hear more.

DIO went back to silence, and so did you. You both just quietly looked up into the entrancing moon. Though the celebration of Halloween was much different from his era compared to how it is recognized in the 20th century, another distant memory resurfaced, and a fond one at that. A time when his mother was still alive and he was a young boy, and how they’d huddle close together next to the fire she’d share spooky stories with him before Dario would drunkenly return home for the night. When he thought about it, DIO was actually somewhat touched over how desperately you wanted to share your traditions with him.

With a short “hm.”, an unconscious smile formed from his lips.

“Well...I suppose if you do all of the preparation, it would not hurt to celebrate it if it's only for one night.”

Those were words you hadn’t expected to hear. Your eyes lit up like a spark in the night. “R-Really?” You gasped and before Dio would even be able to confirm, you already leaped into him for an embrace. You were over the moon. “Oh! Lord Dio! Thank you! Thank you so much! You’re honestly too good to me!” You squealed out of sheer happiness.

DIO held onto your waist and gently put you down on your feet with a slight smirk. “Y/n, if you make this Halloween successful, perhaps you can not only be my pet but my holiday planner as well.” He stated while softly patting your head.

“Oh, I surely won’t let you down, Lord Dio!” She chirped with a bright smile.

“Well then, my dearest y/n, I will be holding you to it.” He leaned in and left a kiss on your forehead.

You shut your eyes when he leaned in to plant his loving mark on you and in turn, your cheeks flushed pink. You were going to make his Halloween memorable for sure!

#Dio Brando #dio x reader #jjba x reader #jjba #jojo no kimyō na bōken #jojo’s bizarre adventure #//⋆asking m ⋆//

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scrawnydutchman · 6 years ago

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“There’s Always More Show”; A Bojack Horseman Essay

It’s about time I talked about one of the finest ongoing shows in animation right now. I. LOVE. Bojack Horseman. I must have binged the whole series 5 times at this point, and it’s rare for even my absolute favorite shows to get me to do that. The dialogue is so poignant I have entire exchanges between characters burned into my memory. The jokes and societal commentary are so on point that many lines have gotten me to burst out laughing among company.The characters themselves are so complex, so filled with depth, that they are all well deserving of their own analysis. The writing is SO tight and the storytelling so consistently engaging that I hang onto every little detail. I swear they foreshadow events from as late as season 4 and 5 as early as season 1. Even it’s animation, while admittedly pretty primitive character rigging with a handful of noticeable errors, takes some amazing creative liberty at times, particularly with subjectivity in the drug trips. While the art design has taken a few people off guard for it’s blinding colors and it’s premise has discouraged a less open minded audience with it’s animal-human hybrids living among people, those who stick with the show will get a sophisticated while simultaneously wacky romp that is both the silliest and most real show you can watch right now. So with a show this dense that has characters this deep, there are many themes it tackles such as the perpetual meaninglessness of existence or the pursuit to being a good person, but there’s a more central theme Bojack keeps bringing up which I’d like to talk about.

Oh and, uh, Spoilers incoming for Bojack Horseman . . . obviously. Get Netflix and watch all of this show right now before reading. seriously. But for those reading who don’t care about spoilers but are interested in what makes Bojack so great and may like to watch it themselves, here’s a brief summary:

Bojack Horseman (played by Will Arnett) Is a horse-man hybrid living out the so called “glamorous” life style in Hollywood, Los Angeles (later called “Hollywoo” in the series for reasons I won’t spoil here). Out of work, out of shape and out of touch, Bojack wastes away his days in sorrow as a past-his-prime actor who goes day to day being disrespected. Back in the 90s he was the star of a very famous “full house”-esque sitcom called “Horsin’ Around” and he longs for the days where he was in the prime of his life, but nowadays he mostly just sits around the house watching old reruns of his show. He constantly struggles with depression, dependancy on narcotics . . . and the ongoing guilt he feels for every shitty thing he’s done in life . . . and as viewers will no doubt find out . . . Bojack has a LOT of baggage. He finds new friends in life like his responsible ghost writer of his memoir Diane Nguyen (played by Alison Brie), his easygoing freeloader and best friend Todd Chavez (played by Aaron Paul), his happy go lucky Labrador rival Mr. Peanutbutter (played by Paul F. Tompkins) and his workaholic pink cat agent Princess Carolyn (played by Amy Seradis). The show centres around his ongoing relationships with these people as well as their own journeys of self discovery . . . and the occasional wacky schemes. Through his surrounding positive influences can Bojack learn to grow past his personal demons? Or will his shitty tendencies and depressing outlook permanently spoil the lives of the people closest to him like he so often fears?

Spoilers begin NOW

In what is perhaps my favorite episode of the show, episode 6 of Season 5 titled “Free Churro”, Bojack gives an improvised eulogy for his recently deceased mother . . . and that’s it. The episode is just a full 20 minutes of Bojack talking about his dead mom . . . and struggling to find anything positive to say about her. His mom was nothing but cold, hard and abusive to Bojack his entire life and Bojack laments about how he never received a single loving gesture from his mother for as long as he’s known her . . and now that she’s dead that chance is permanently gone. In his ramblings, he mentions an episode of Horsin’ Around in which the writers juice the idea of main cast character Olivia leaving the show for good, only for her to be written back into the status quo, because as Bojack puts it

“Of course that’s what happened, because what are you gonna do? Just not have Olivia on the show? You can’t have happy endings in sitcoms -- not really -- because if everyone’s happy, the show would be over, and above all else the show has to keep going. There’s always more show. (And) You can call Horsin’ Around dumb, or bad, or unrealistic, but there’s nothing more realistic than that. You never get a happy ending, because there’s always more show.”

That right there sums up the entire ongoing struggle of every character in this show. In many ways, Bojack Horseman the Netflix series is like a typical sitcom turned upside down. You have an ongoing setup of colourful, over the top characters doing outrageous things for our amusement, and in a lot of ways they’re actually terrible people but they’re just SO endearing that we have to keep tuning into their antics. Much like how an average Friends episode is about every titular friend trying haphazardly to cover up a lie for 20 minutes when their problems would so easily be over if they just had the maturity to be honest about how they’re feeling, characters like Bojack, Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter are always up to something silly whether it’s poorly covering up a lie or coming up with elaborate sabotages for selfish ends. But there’s one core difference. In Friends, everybody forgives each other in the end. In the gritty and merciless world of Bojack Horseman . . . every wrongdoing has long term consequences, some of which can never be forgiven.

Bojack’s antics especially cause permanent stains on his relationships. When he sabotaged Todd’s rock opera by getting him readdicted to a video game so he wouldn’t leave, he permanently makes a wound in his and Todd’s relationship. He only makes it worse when he has sex with Emily, Todd’s best friend and kinda-sorta girlfriend. Todd had faith in Bojack early on in the show, but he makes it apparent later on that the less he has to do with Bojack the better off he is. Todd’s an easygoing friend that can forgive easily, but Bojack really tests his patience. As he said once he found out Bojack had sex with Emily

“You can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay. You need to be better.”

In the luxurious yet phony and superficial world of Hollywoo, everyone has an outlook on life as if it’s a sitcom. The center of mass produced film and television has everyone believing in achieving against the odds, amending their wrongs in the end and getting satisfying conclusions as if the credits of their very own movie will roll any second. But real life keeps on hitting these characters like a truck, as if to say “there is no happy ending , you aren’t the main character and the harm you’ve caused is permanent. Get used to it.” Bojack gets his hard hitting reality more prominently than anyone. He keeps looking for backdoor solutions to his pain like getting back with Charlotte, starting a new Horsin’ Around spinoff, finding meaning far away from L.A. or straight up finding solace in drugs, but every solution to his search for meaning ends in him hurting somebody else even more. He has to separate the idea from his head that shitty things like nearly sleeping with your old friends daughter is just a wacky sitcom hijinks situation, and that the guilt he feels is just an ongoing conflict he feels every day. He even tries at one point to get forgiveness from his old show writer Herb Kezzaz after betraying him, only to be greeted with Herb saying

“No. I’m not going to give you closure. You don’t get that. You have to live with the shitty thing that you did for the rest of your life.”

Sometimes Bojack will go to more silly extents for his so desired “happy ending”, like humming his own credits as he embraces Sarah Lynn when she comes out of rehab.

But as screwed up as Bojack is, he’s not the only one who’s mind is warped by the empty promise of a “happy ending”. Diane Nguyen, for as much as she comes off as the moral compass of the show who isn’t afraid to call anyone out for their bullshit, is what I like to call “Bojack lite”. While she’d be grossly offended by the accusation that she’s anything like Bojack, she shares a lot of his toxic traits. Sure, she’s not actively life ruining for anyone, but she has a tendency to harshly criticize people as a means to deflect any criticism towards herself and she often manages to find the negative connotation to even the best of situations. Also, she struggles with getting drunk a lot too, which is often enabled by Bojack. Diane makes a lot of rash decisions in her life hoping she’ll find some sort of “happy ending”. She married Mr. Peanutbutter longing for a simpler, more laid back life for she just settles down with her loving husband. However, unwilling to keep up with Mr. Peanutbutters love for spontaneity and grand gestures, she ends up divorcing him, deciding instead to try and find solace in being her own woman who doesn’t need a mans affection to be happy . . .but that leaves her empty too. Every time she gets what she asked for, she ends up having to fight all the challenges that go with it, and those challenges end up obscuring her vision of that made her want that thing in the first place. She thinks it’s something wrong with her, like she just can’t ever be satisfied.

“Why can’t I be happy? Am I busted?!”

If we’re comparing each Bojack Horseman character to standard sitcom fare, Mr. Peanutbutter likely comes the closest to fitting the mold of what we expect from a likable television comedy protagonist. Everyone loves him. He’s endearing, he’s funny, he’s sweet. He makes silly mistakes but has a good heart, and even if he does touch some raw nerves along the way he can usually win his audience back with some sort of grand gesture. If Diane is Bojack Lite, then Mr. Peanutbutter is the yin to Bojack’s yang. They live virtually the same lives to a point where Mr. Peanutbutter even got famous off of what is blatantly a knock off of Horsin’ Around, The key difference though is that while Bojack is incurably pessimistic, Mr. Peanutbutter is obnoxiously optimistic, and why wouldn’t he be? He sees the good in everything and everyone and manages to get his way shearly through people loving him. He never has to learn anything because nobody ever challenges him. But that precisely is the rub. Mr. Peanutbutter is a cautionary tale about what would happen if you DID get that life full of happy endings and comfortable conclusions. Much like how many a sitcom protagonist never learns to tell the truth or to take responsibility for their own health, Mr. Peanutbutter never grows past his mistakes. It’s why he always does grand gestures for Diane despite her repeating several times that she doesn’t like them. It’s why he keeps dating women much younger than himself. It’s why he keeps getting divorced. He never takes any kind of long term lesson from what happens to him and never evolves as a person. Nowhere is this more prominent than in Season 5. Whenever Mr. Peanut butter does something wrong, he’s usually blind to the responsibility he must take to it. He either dismisses it as somebody else being mean or unreasonable or he makes an empty promise to not do it again. But for the first time ever, he partakes in betraying somebody he cares about. After divorcing Diane and getting with Pickles the Pug waitress . . . he has sex with Diane again behind Pickles’ back. This time there’s nobody to blame but himself . . and he doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that he did an unforgivably shitty thing. In fact, he’s the least equipped character to do so in the whole show. He even pleads for Diane to break the news to Pickles and tries to force a silver lining by getting back with Diane as a result of it. In the season finale, when Mr. Peanutbutter has to tell the awful truth and knowingly hurt somebody close to him . . .much like a sitcom character, he instead pulls a happy ending out of his ass and decides to propose to Pickles instead. He actively decides not to do the tough, but right decision, and thus does not evolve. This is especially interesting in the finale because, for the first time ever, Bojack is a step ahead of Mr. Peanutbutter when it comes to committing to making things right. After Bojack nearly strangles Gina to death on his drug high, he turns himself into rehab with the help of Diane and starts taking real steps to self improvement. In contrast, Mr. Peanut butter . . . is just up to his same old tricks.

You wanna talk about reaching that sitcom happy ending? It’s all this workaholic cat ever thinks about. Princess Carolyn leads life with the philosophy that with enough grit and go-getter attitude you can make anything happen for yourself . . . and to an extent that actually serves her pretty well. She gets out of her hick town to pursue her dreams as an agent and whenever the other characters are knee deep in their own mess she’s always the one with the solution to get them out. She compulsively helps people while refusing to take help for herself because . . well, she wants a happy ending . . .but she wants to be the one responsible for it. She had an opportunity as a kid to have everything in her life decided for her but once she had her miscarriage and that dream fell apart, she instead decided to pursue a career in the big city. She made tons of sacrifices to get where she is including leaving her own mother, and she’s also afraid of falling into the same trap of dependency she almost fell into as a kid again. That’s why she rejects Ralph Stilton’s offer to help her with her adopted baby, even though he’s irrefutably the best boyfriend she ever had. Time and time again Princess Carolyn will willingly be pushed right up to the edge before she accepts any kind of help, because she thinks doing so is a sign of weakness. She keeps herself motivated with fantasies about that wonderful happy ending, whether that means living in a cottage in a beautiful painting or succeeding enough that some future ancestor can give her class a family heritage report all about what a great ass kickin’ gal she is. While Princess Carolyn is definitely the most well adjusted and most durable to the constant hustle and beating down of reality, she’s got her own toxic tendencies as a result of thinking she’s a main character. She thinks she’s got to do everything on her own . . . . and if she doesn’t get past that insecurity soon, it may swallow her whole.

At long last we come to mr. Todd Chavez, the endearing little brother of Bojack Horseman’s family of main characters. Upon first glance, Todd seems the least prepared for life’s harsh reality out of all our leads. He’s a 20-something year old with no real job, no real responsibilities and no real goals in life. He’s very upfront and honest about how he spends his time, be it spending all day watching Youtube videos . . . or building a knockoff Disneyland. And yet, when we analyze him with the thesis that these “sitcom characters” are all trying to get by in a cruel and merciless world, we suddenly realize that ironically . . . Todd grows the most naturally out of everyone. Bojack lets Todd down time and time again and rather than accepting status quo as God like many a sitcom character might do, he takes it upon himself to distance his relationship with Bojack. He initially has faith in Bojack to be better, but doesn’t beat around the bush when he’s lost his faith in him. When he realizes that he was nothing in common with Yolanda aside from being asexual, he breaks up with her before prolonging the painful inevitable. The cast of Bojack Horseman go through their share of changes in what they want and who they want to be, but Todd is always the one who knows what he needs and makes an honest effort to be better. He’s surprisingly wise for an adult manchild flunky. But he gets up to wacky sitcomish schemes too, about as much as Mr. Peanutbutter (who is often his partner in crime with these things) . . . yet even then through his ernestness and cuttthroat honesty he manages to overcome better than the other characters.

Conclusion:

*decided to include this gif because i love the animation in it*

Hollywoo is a world of sitcom characters pulled out of the TV and trying to get by in everyday life under the harsh, uncompromising grip of reality. In a culture so entrenched in it’s ideals of maintaining superficial likability and celebrating yourself no matter what you do or who you hurt, each character’s mind is warped into buying the illusion that for how screwed up they are there’s a happy ending waiting at the end of the horizon for them. They all deal with it with different levels of success. Some take change in life with stride like Todd. Some think they found their happy ending but only remain empty like Diane. Some get everything they ask for and thus never evolve and never better themselves like Mr. PeanutButter. Some cling on for deal life as they get everything thrown at them, believing that they’ll be rewarded in the end, like Princess Carolyn. And then . . . some are a depressing cocktail of all of those things. They have opportunity land at their feet and think they’ve finally done the thing that will preserve them, only to find themselves empty. They work through the pain in their life hoping that at any point they’ll get some grand gesture or reward that makes everything they endured worth it, only for that chance to become officially non existent. But occasionally . . . very occasionally . . . they do something wonderful and heartfelt and sincere that maintains a glimmer of hope for their capacity to be better. That is Bojack Horseman. Bojack hurts the people closest to him much like his parents did. He remains bitter and sad and petty and self important . . . but he IS better than his folks. He’s like his late mom . . . only for him the grand gesture really does come.

But as Bojack says

“The grand gesture isn’t enough. You have to be consistent. You have to be dependably good. You can’t just screw everything up and then take a boat out on the ocean to save your best friend or solve a mystery and fly to Cansas. You need to do it everyday, which is so . . . hard.”

The truth is, all of these characters, even Bojack, have the potential to be better as long as they deconstruct their worldview shaped by watching television. They have to rid themselves of the illusion. The illusion that there’s some great happy ending that’s going to make all the pain worth it. The only ending in life . . . is death. Until then, there’s always more show. Time’s arrow neither stands still nor reverses; it always marches forward. There will be days these characters make mistakes and days they do great things . . how much they do of either is up to them. Sometimes they’ll do things that they will never get closure for . . things that can’t be forgiven . . . but that doesn’t ruin their capacity to do right the next day. Bojack’s right . . .it IS hard to do better every single day. But as the jogger near Bojack’s house says “It gets easier”.

And my essay concludes . . . .riiiiiiight after this anecdote.

I think what makes Bojack Horseman so special is that it holds up a mirror to how a screen infested world has permanently warped our sense of self worth and our understanding of how life really works. In a way, we’re all “sitcom characters” roaming around real life. We think of ourselves as the main characters of our stories, that there’s some sort of satisfying conclusion waiting for us. That we can win whoever we want back with a grand gesture and that we never have to evolve, we just have to be “good enough” . . .and that’s all . . SO wrong. That mentality makes us toxic. It makes us self important and hypocritical and petty, while also leaving us empty. It makes us incomplete. We all have to learn that there’s no ending until we die, that we have to do good every day . . . and that we aren’t the main character. Everyone is important. Maybe we’ve been watching too many sitcoms and have had these fallacies drilled into our heads . . . and maybe Bojack Horseman is like a rehab for those bad tendencies. As Princess Carolyn points out in the finale of Season 4

“I got into this business because I love stories. They comfort us. They inspire us. They create a context for how we view the world. But also you have to be careful because if you spend a lot of time with stories you start to believe that life is just . . . stories. And it’s not. Life is life . . . and . . .that’s so sad, because . . .there’s so little time and . . . what are we doing with it?”

#bojack season 5 #bojackthoughts #bojack spoilers #bojack horseman #netflix #netflix original #animation #television

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steve0discusses · 5 years ago

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Yugioh S4 Ep8: Magic Mai

So fun fact, I was out of town around this Thanksgiving and I grabbed a laptop from my Dad’s stack of machinery he’s sort of collected over the years and lo and behold--he put Linux on it.

Like I dunno if you all can relate to this problem, but everything he touches turns into Linux and he’s trying to live this Windows free/Mac free lifestyle, and I get it, I’m friends with so many vegetarians, but like I hate this laptop. I'm using Gimp to make these screenshots...So I can re-do them later in Photoshop because...it just doesn’t feel right to put Papyrus on this computer. It already has Linux. This poor machine has suffered enough. Long story short, this’ll be a small update because right clicking on linux is ass.

Also, because I was on a laptop and realized how small my blog is for the first time--I don’t have control over the size of pictures in text posts, tumblr does, and in this particular theme it’s not allowing me to change the size, and so do me a favor. Click ctrl and + at the same time a couple times (I’m assuming most of you are on firefox). There. the pictures are the right size now. If you hated that, you can click ctrl and - but like lets be real, my font is occasionally...tiny.

Anyway, we start discussing this episode on the confusing legs of the last one, where Mai is evil now, and it’s really not entirely clear if she’s possessed or if she’s just always been this way, or if she just FEELS like it.

And that’s all this episode is about, start to finish--is this Mai’s choice or was this not Mai’s choice? The answer is the same as it would be for a normal person: it’s complicated. Maybe it’s everybody’s choice. Maybe it was because no one did anything that Mai went completely haywire? Maybe it was because Mai hid how she was feeling so no one had any idea she needed help? Or, overall, maybe Mai is kind of a toxic person and wanted to be this way? Especially while she’s on children’s cartoon card drugs?

(read more under the cut)

So to start off, a weird thing happened at the beginning of this episode. After about 4 seasons, someone finally mentioned this:

How many seasons has Yugi been talking to himself? Like, out loud. In front of everyone and Kaiba? This whole time, right? Like Valon just dashed my headcanon where I figured Yugi was smart enough to think his thoughts instead of speak his thoughts. He’s just not that smart, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, Mai has managed to attract this other (teenager?) guy and like...to go worse than Joey so quickly is kind of shocking. Mai just seems embarrassed by the amount of very young boys in love with her. And she’s not even a cougar about it, she doesn’t really seem to want this to happen but it keeps on happening.

And although he is essentially the card form of a drug pusher, Valon has this soft spot for a girl I guess to give him some sort of redeemable flaw. However, she only wears tube tops and minis and spends like hundreds of dollars on her hair, so it doesn’t really make him seem any less shallow, tbh.

PS I’m surprised, that unlike all the other characters on Yugioh, I can’t just type in Valon’s name into Google and get his age and weight. No idea what his age is, and if you know, feel free to tell me but he just seems...exactly the same age as Joey. He seems very 17. Maybe it’s the obsession with motorcycles and children’s playing cards? Maybe it’s his big ol childlike eyes? He just seems young and niave like how a teenager who just fell in love with a very angry older woman would.

Joey tries to remind everyone, multiple times, that this game is the worst idea ever since it requires one of them to super die, but Mai is on card drugs so I don't know why they bothered. Also, why is Joey still surprised by this after 4 seasons of this?

Yo it’s S4 and Mai witnesses magic non-stop but still has basically no idea how it works. She really did say “I have no soul” and it was like...I’m 90% certain she literally thinks she has no soul right now. Which I guess, statistically speaking, is rare to actually have a still intact soul after hanging out with the main villain, with the way this show typically goes.

Meanwhile, last episode it really sounded like Duke Devlin was driving to Pegasus’ company building. It really sounded like he would have gone directly there, since Weevil and Rex told him that Yugi was going to Pegasus.

Remember that Duke Devlin works for Pegasus and probably has his own parking spot.

So where did he go instead?

You know how there’s only one gas station in the entirety of America?

I can’t believe it blew up.

Y’all what is the red splotch in the middle of the pile ps? That is legitimately a pile of blood, right? I didn’t shop that in. There’s just a red puddle in this kid’s show.

Y’all what is that? Like was there a scene with a red handkerchief that I missed? Is that a red handkerchief?

But to move past the mysterious pool of blood that confirms those bikers are so hella dead, I have no idea why Duke was here, I have no idea how he got the tip off that Yugi visited this place, but then he turned around and went back to SF so like...I guess he’ll arrive 3 days from now because again, they are in Arizona. They keep telling me this is right outside SF but like--Mesas. There’s Mesas.

And then this happened.

That one guy on the writing staff who just stans Seto Kaiba so hard got into the drawing room, I see.

PS someone had to pose for this shot for them to draw this shot from this angle.

Meanwhile, lets see why Mai turned evil. Ah, because it is Yugioh, the biggest reason is that she has no friends (probably because she’s got the most acidic personality known to man) and isn’t card popular enough and got super bitter and jealous.

Speaking as an artist who is online, I can understand the frustration here. Sometimes (99% of the time) you work really hard and no one cares and you get like 2 notes. And honestly, why should they? Like, why do you do it in the first place?

Mai echoes a lot of the issues of Seto last season, where she wants so badly to be the absolute best to prove herself to the ghosts of her past who really don’t care any more.

But, since Mai was in a coma when Seto got through all of that, I guess she never got the memo and still seems stuck on just wanting to be the best with no other reason than “to be the best” which again, sounds so much like art school problems. This is everyone who has ever had an interest in animation. We all go through that phase.

Generally we don’t take peoples souls as a reaction to that type of discouragement, but then Mai made sure to mention in almost a foot note that she did spend like an entire season and a half trapped in Marik's shadow realm. And that kind of effed her up in a really big way.

Thanks, Marik.

Really feels like Marik should be dealing with this problem--really feels like maybe Marik is the only person that we can actually point to and say “Oh yeah, that guy is to blame for Mai right now” And he is the only person that Mai does not actively go out and try to kill.

And I’ll have you know I just deleted like a 15 K word rant about the difference between character assassination and your character just--evolving into a jackass, and how it’s OK to have your character change into a jackass, especially after trauma. I felt this need to really have to defend this ancient writing technique that people have been using since about as long as stories have been around.

Then I remembered “Oh yeah, I’m just making this point because a few number of very loud idiots on the internet want to have very lukewarm hot-takes about popular characters solely because they enjoy baiting people on twitter into getting into week-long arguments that don’t go anywhere.” and I just...let it go. I let it just...go into the ether. Ah. The peace that comes when you already know you’re right.

But anyway, back to Yugioh, which thankfully doesn’t take a stance on this nuanced subject, and only presents this very serious problem without actually offering a solution (because there isn’t a one fit’s all solution to falling off the deep end and getting into drugs and murder), Mai decides to just go and blame this decision she made on anyone else. Because, why take responsibility for your actions, when you can pin it on people who were on the other side of the freakin planet when it happened?

Like, I just want to remind y’all that she was in ATLANTIS.

I wonder how good the cell reception is in ATLANTIS.

I just...Mai is like in her mid twenties maybe thirty’s. She’s so arbitrarily old that she plays Yugi’s Mom in the video game spinoff where they’re reincarnations of medieval times. That’s how old she is.

Imagine if you made some epically BAD decisions because you were jealous of some teenager’s success and didn’t want to be weak anymore, and then you confronted those teens, and said “This is all your fault.”

Imagine looking someone as dysfunctional as Joey Wheeler and telling him “You made me like this” because lollllllll

And I present this as a joke but like basically this happens all freakin time. We’ve all had a friend like Mai. Past tense of course, because it’s really hard to keep a friend like Mai for very long. (One of my friend’s who went Mai destroyed my apartment one summer and then literally blamed it on me for going to California for 2 months and leaving her unattended.) But like...don’t let Mai’s do it to you. They can get better, but only if it’s their choice, really. You can’t force them to save themselves.

But, as Mai was finally ready to give up cards and probably improve her quality of life by a huge degree, unfortunately, she got sucked right back into the trap.

Bro note: being a serial murderer cultist is basically working at McDonald's in this universe so maybe this wasn’t even that weird?

But that aside, this is alllllmost like a dark version of “Mai got into an abusive relationship to fill the void in her heart” except she’s not even really dating this guy? Like she hates this guy? He’s just kinda there?

Y’all I really can’t tell if Valon is in an abusive relationship with Mai who is using him for power or if she’s in an abusive relationship with him because he only wants her pretty face and wants to kill Joey because Joey liked her once--and maybe it’s both? Maybe both of these people are just...really bad for each other?

Overall Joey is kind of tossed into this not-a-love-triangle and I’m like

“Hey show? show? Am I supposed to....were any these people ever dating? Is there supposed to be an implied history? Am I supposed to get attached to this?” because I mean...the only character who was able to get some actual physical romance on this show was Pegasus when he macked the ghost of his dead wife because, again, Pegasus is the freakin king of this entire show. Of course HE can do it.

But have this show clarify what the hell is happening between Valon and Mai? I’m gonna take a bet that we will never get to see it beyond Valon being like “Ain’t she a beaut!” Like Steve Irwin talking to an alligator, and Mai just pretending he doesn’t exist. Yugioh romances are so completely one way every single time. If something more than that happens, I’ll be

shook.

Anyway, as all the children on the show keep repeating over and over again, they haven’t had any contact with Mai since she left the freakin country and they went back to High School.

And so someone threatens to kill himself, as is Yugioh tradition, and someone else barks at him to NOT kill himself, as is also tradition, and they decide to play real cards next episode.

This whole entire episode, PS, Joey went out of his way to just...not play cards. that was this whole episode. Way to draw out a card game over three episodes, I guess.

Anyway if you want to read these from the start you can do so by clicking the link here

#yugioh #ygo #episode recap #photo recap #Yugi muto #mai valentine #Valon #joey wheeler #Tristan Taylor #Tea Gardner #That moustache sideburns guy? I think his name is Raphael or something?#S4 #Ep 8 #PS I just noticed my episodes were numbered wrong #so that's nice #I may also decide to do some tagging shenanigans so you can have a link to read which season you would like to go to instead of just from S1 #but that will be when I get bored over christmas I have some client stuff to wrap up right now

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in-tua-deep · 6 years ago

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klaus and five?

Both Klaus and Five or like?? A combo with their relationship headcanons?? The last one sounds fun so I’mma do that so if you want Klaus on his own just send another message!

When they were very little Klaus, Five, and Ben were thick as thieves and Ben and Five both let Klaus take charge because as the first number in the group it made sense at the time. Klaus liked making decisions for the group but didn’t really like the responsibility, so they all grew out of the dynamic pretty quickly. (But some part of them all tend to want to stick together, and Ben mothers Klaus and Five the most out of his siblings).

In a no apocalypse!au, there’s a good moment where Five wakes Klaus up to do something with him and Klaus gets up to get ready and goes to shave. Five follows him into the bathroom and is looking at Klaus intently and Klaus is like “dude what gives” and Five basically admits that he’s watching because no one actually taught him how to shave ever?? He just sort of took a knife to his beard in the apocalypse if it was getting too long and then when he was an assassin he just went to a barber shop and let them do it. Klaus tears up and makes a good attempt at hugging Five while wailing about Five being a baby while Five is unimpressed. Shaving cream absolutely ends up smeared everywhere, including Five’s hair. No one wins that day. (But there’s another day where Klaus actually does narrate his actions out loud and show Five what to do and it’s a surprisingly sweet moment. Five threatens to disembowel Klaus if he says anything to their siblings.)

Klaus gets mistaken for Five’s dad like, a bizarre amount. Klaus tends to roll with it and start gushing about his adorable son while being fully aware that Five is going to kick him in the shins the moment they’re alone. Sometimes Five manages to react first and corrects that they’re brothers (Klaus is only 29 why did so many people assume he was the parent of a teenager) but it doesn’t help because then people start smiling about what a good big brother Klaus is for hanging out with him and taking him places. There have absolutely been occasions where Klaus sort of had to just grab Five and yank him away before his baby bro started considering the pros and cons of murder.

Five tolerates Klaus’s touch the most after they both share a drunken heart-to-heart during which Klaus reveals that he likes to greet his siblings with a clap on the shoulder or a poke to prove to himself that they aren’t ghosts. Because sometimes, when there isn’t an obvious cause of death, Klaus genuinely can’t tell the difference between the living and the dead unless he goes right through them which has led to some traumatizing interactions. After that day when Five pops up he smacks Klaus to get his attention or nudges past him or generally initiates contact which is rare for him especially in the beginning. Klaus maybe tears up about it before Five tells him to stop being an idiot.

Five will insult Klaus’s intelligence and general existence until the cows come home but the second that someone on the street says a passing remark disparaging his brother Five is ready to THROW HANDS. It’s actually an issue because Five’s idea of what an appropriate response is in situations is fucked after living so long alone. Five is like,,, a half feral child who is very possessive and protective of his family. For some reason all I can think about is the scene in Lilo and Stitch where Stitch stops Lilo right up until Myrtle says something about Lilo’s mother and that’s the family with Five. They’ll stop him, up to a point. After any incidents Five tends to be somewhat clingy with the sibling in question aka he lurks in the background and sulks about not being able to kill someone with a spoon while Klaus attempts distractions.

Klaus is also protective of Five and while Klaus generally dismisses remarks against his person with a wave of his ‘goodbye’ hand, he is fully ready to attack someone like a rabid raccoon because Five is a BABY and people who go after him are CREEPS. Ben encourages this and is often the one to point out to Klaus if some stranger is talking to Five or if Five looks uncomfortable bc Ben has some serious Mom Instincts going on that are attuned to the biggest idiots in his life. Five does not encourage this. Five would prefer to actively discourage this because he can take care of himself. Doesn’t stop Klaus from draping an arm across Five’s shoulder as he stares some random dude down and ask “What’s going on here, little bro?” and smiling his crazy person smile

Five would never admit it on pain of death but it’s,,, nice to have someone looking out for him. Sometimes. Other times Five would rather remove Klaus’s kneecaps because he says the dumbest shit on the planet. No, Five doesn’t find it entertaining. Not at all.

Sometimes on nights when they both have nightmares or flashbacks or regular insomnia because they have multiple choice trauma, they just hang out quietly and wait for the rest of the house to wake up. Normally Klaus and quiet wouldn’t be in the same three mile radius but there’s something about creeping around the mansion at 2am that just seems appropriate. They often end up on the sofa together, Klaus knitting and Five reading or making notes or doing… other Five things. They don’t really talk about whatever has them awake, but it’s nicer to be together than alone on those nights so they don’t really want to jinx it.

Five finds it easier to be a mess in front of Klaus because Klaus is like,, the family mess. And sometimes it’s better to fall apart in front of someone you know won’t judge you for it and will understand that the world fucking sucks sometimes. They share quite a few issues as well and honestly sometimes it’s just a relief to know you aren’t alone dealing with shit. Klaus does his best but worries it isn’t enough, but he always gets to consult with Ben at least which is a bigass relief. The first time Klaus saw Five actually cry after a particularly bad flashback, Klaus almost died himself. Seriously though these two are ride or die for each other in their own way. Good siblings.

#ask me #ask game #anonymous #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #number five #ben hargreeves #tua #the umbrella academy #i should be studying right now #but instead here i am #with my exam in two hours #yelling about tua #this is fine #8)

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phantomphangphucker · 6 years ago

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A Secret Dog With A Secret - Phic Phight

Prompt Creators: @purpleillusn @trainernick

Prompts: (1) Jack Fenton thought that all ghosts were evil, until he met a certain ghost dog. (2) Danny gets a dog - Danny decides he finally has time for a pet, but it has to be Cujo for reasons (he's a ghost dog)

Summary: Danny’s got a dog and Jack isn’t quite sure what to think yet

Warning: Implied ghost animal torture

“Uh Danny-boy? I’m pretty sure that dog is not normal”

“Hmm?”, Danny doesn’t even look up as he scratches at the green puppy ears. Besides, he knows full well what Cujo is; he just doesn’t care. Hell, if anything a ghost dog would fair better in this household than a regular one.

Jack himself is finding it hard to just tell his son that this dog is clearly either heavily contaminated or a flat out ghost. Jack bends down and tilts his head at the tiny green puppy sitting on the floor. The puppy bends his head back and promptly falls on his back, barking once with a goofy grin. “Ok, I’ll admit he’s cute. But son, his drool is glowing”, Jack watches a bit confused as Danny simply shrugs. Clearly not caring at all. Jack looks back down at the puppy and spots the collar, “Cujo eh? Named him already did you?”.

Danny laughs lightly, trying to not let his nerves show. After all, he’s doing this both for Cujo and to maybe make his family change some of their opinions. “Naw dad, he came with it. Already trained too, so he won’t pee on the carpet or anything”.

Jack can’t help but find that suspicious but decides that he’ll just have to trust his son, if he ever wants Danny to open up to his family ever again. It hurts seeing how closed off Danny’s become and maybe, just maybe, this will change that. Sighing but putting on a smile, “well I’m still testing his drool”.

Danny watches but lets his dad spoon some of the drool off the floor into a vial, Danny knows full well it’ll come back full ghost but hopefully, by the time the results come in, his dad will have warmed up enough to not care. “I wouldn’t expect any different dad. Got any balls?”

Jack chuckles as he tosses some out of the freezer, “one great thing about freezers, son. They kill practically all germs, even most ecto ones!”. Jack watches his son as he tosses the ball, not too far though, and Cujo runs off to get it; before he heads down to the lab.

Danny smiles at Cujo, “well here’s hoping he doesn’t see big boy Cujo for a while. Pretty easy to think you’re harmless like this”. Cujo jumps up and starts licking Danny, smearing green drool all over his face. “God, ew, stop that you fiend”, Danny’s laughter doesn’t discourage Cujo at all though.

Down in the lab, Jack sits and contemplates while watching the sample spin, “I will be amazed if that dog isn’t a ghost but he’s just a dog right? An evil dog but tiny, very tiny”. With a nod, Jack decides that he can easily handle something that is barely a sixth his sons size. Shaking his head as he heads back upstairs, muttering to himself, “of all the times for only half the Fenton family to be on vacation”.

Danny’s watching Cujo jump from one chair to the next, it’s clear to Jack that the dog is defying gravity slightly. But he does find it odd that the dog doesn’t seem to be floating around.

Grabbing some of his fudge and sitting down he becomes almost giddy as Cujo happy runs off with a piece, “Oh! He likes fudge! Well then he’s must be a Fenton!”. Danny has to restrain himself to keep himself from looking utterly stunned. Muttering into his hand while his dad throws another piece at Cujo, which Cujo is all too happy to eat, “seriously? You just accept a ghost? Because of fudge? Really? I, just. Wow”. Shaking his head he decides that he’ll have to eat a piece of fudge next time his dad’s after him and see how he reacts. To Phantom, eating fudge. Muttering into his hand again, “if all it takes is fudge, to get them to call a truce. I will die just a little more inside”.

Jack is perfectly content to sit outside and watch Cujo run around if it means getting to spend some genuine time with his son. No him running off to who knows where, no locking himself in his room or the bathroom for hours on end, and no staying over at his friends instead of home. Jack isn’t as much a fool as people like to think and he’s terrified that as soon as his son hits eighteen next month, he’ll walk out the front door and be gone for good. Danny, meanwhile, has been terrified for years that one day he’ll have to do just that. But he’s not thinking about that right now, as he watches Cujo futilely bark and jumps at a squirrel.

Catching Cujo’s glow starts to wiggle and knowing full well that’s his transformation queue, Danny whistles at him. Jack looks impressed as Cujo zips right over to Danny and barks. “Wow, son. You weren’t kidding, he really is trained and well too”. Snickering, Jack tells Cujo to roll over and run around. Cujo happily does so, earning the reward of eating the rest of Jack’s fudgesicle.

Danny’s feeling pretty good about all of this as he spots Cujo actually sleeping on Jack while he’s knitting. Danny leans over the couch, arms on the back of the couch, “well someone looks pretty comfy”. Jack chuckles and pats for his son to sit, exceptionally happy that he actually does.

Jack can’t help but look his son over, being reminded of his sons height as he sits, “you sure have grown a lot son, I’m glad to see at least one of you got my impressive height!”. Danny personally isn’t sure if he’s glad or not, he looks way too much like Dan. Though his height and muscular build is well earned, so there is some pride there, and he finds he can’t help a joke, “well I guess it was inevitable that one of us would!”.

Jack has no clue why that’s funny to his son but he’s happy to just see him laughing. He doesn’t do that as often as Jack would like, especially for once being so carefree and full of laughs.

Jack looks over his shoulder as he hears the beeping from the lab, signifying that the sample is done. Looking back to the little puppy, he doesn’t really want to move the little guy but at the same time. Danny runs a hand through his hair, “so you want me to take him?”, he really hopes his dad says no.

Thankfully to Danny, Jack shakes his head, “the results will be there later. It’s not like he’s going to cause issues sleeping, ghost or not”. Jack decides he made the right choice as soon as Danny smiles, it’s clear as day it’s a real one too. Not one of his far too many fakes.

Jack can’t help but laugh to himself when Danny actually falls asleep on the couch, “you really are always tired and I really don’t know why. But get a good rest son, even if that looks uncomfortable”. Jack laughs a bit more as he really takes in Danny’s position, one leg curled up on the couch with the other almost stiffly sticking out, chest turned in the opposite direction, and one arm laying right across his nose. Even so relaxed Jack can still easily make out his sons defined muscles, which he still has no clue how he got. “I wonder if I ate less fudge...naw not worth it”, Jack winces then, as Danny kicks him in his sleep. Rubbing his, definitely going to have a welt, hip, “jeez those muscles are clearly not for show. Impressive, though currently painful”. The movement also seems to have woken Cujo, who stretches out lazily.

Jack blinks down at the puppy, having not actually been around him more or less alone before. Cujo tilts his head making Jack shrug and go to scratch his chin. Cujo seems to be enjoying himself though it becomes pretty clear to Jack that he prefers Danny. Watching as Cujo starts bitting on his sons toes, “you are clearly a puppy, a trained puppy, but still a puppy”.

Danny wakes up after a couple of seconds and flicks Cujo into the air with his toes. Snickering a bit as Cujo lands on his chest, “my feet aren’t chew toys, buddy”.

“He disagrees I’d say!”, Danny moves his arm off his face at hearing his dad’s laugh. Jack pats Danny’s leg as he gets up. Danny asks, “going to check the results now I’m guessing?”.

“Of course Danny-boy! Pretty well already sure about the results though!”, Jack shakes his head as he walks into the lab and sees the sample results. Completely unfazed that it confirms Cujo’s a ghost, “something tells me this won’t even matter to Danny. But it does matter”. Jack mentally debates for a while before heading up, while he’s no fool he’s also not the best at thinking on the spot. So he decides what he’s going to say well before actually doing it, when it’s something he cares about. And at this point anything that gets his son to hang out with him for nearly a full day is something he cares about.

Cujo’s chewing on a little pink bear toy as Jack comes back up. Flashing the clearly positive results at Danny before sitting down. Jack isn’t really surprised that Danny isn’t surprised at all, as he watches his son shrug. “You already knew before you brought him home didn’t you?”.

“Yeah, he's actually been in my room for a few days now. Healing”, Danny still really wants to give those asshole GIW a piece of his mind after the shit they did.

Jack sighs, partly because he had no clue and because he doesn’t like the way his son said healed, “I’m guessing you want to keep him at this point then. And healing from what? Is he a new ghost or something?”. Jack can’t help but wonder if maybe new ghosts could be influenced to be good, he knows his sons heart is practically made of gold so in theory...

Danny decides for honesty, because really Cujo’s been his from the start even if he always denied it, “yeah, I’d like him to officially be mine. He practically adopted me years ago and he was new back then. His ectoplasm was all messed up, he was practically a puddle when I found him. Or more so he found me”.

Jack can tell there’s some anger in his sons' words and it’s officially clear to him that his son is attached to this particular ghost. Looking at Cujo happily gnawing on Danny’s fingers he can’t help but see why. The little guys not so bad, and dare he think it, not remotely evil. “Well you clearly care son and he’s hardly been even a little bad so I guess it’s ok. How’d he adopt you though?”

Danny laughs animatedly remembering how ridiculous those few days had been, “he just walked up to me in a parking lot and dragged me off to help him find his chew toy. After that he’d just show up to play, sometimes I think he thinks I’m a chew toy”.

Jack notes that Danny’s glare at Cujo, who’s chewing on his arm, looks more amused than annoyed, “he must have blunt teeth for that not to hurt. That’s an incredibly odd thing for a ghost to just do. But he is a dog and that’s very dog”. Jack knows there’s more to the story but he knows there’s no point in pushing it. His son will only tell him what he wants to, no matter how much Jack pushes him. Even if he did push, he knows all he’d get is lies and Danny would walk away from the conversation.

“Dogs gonna do what a dog’s gonna do I guess”, Danny tactfully avoids the pain question because it absolutely does hurt but he doesn’t even notice it because, compared to everything else, it was so minimal. Danny looks towards his dad, sometimes he still finds it weird that he actually has to look down a little instead of up at him, “so you’re going to be cool with ghost doggy here? Like, you’re really ok with this?”.

Jack looks at Cujo and thinks on his words, officially deciding that at the very least animal ghosts weren’t pure evil, “yes, son. It’s weird but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and you’re a Fenton! Every Fenton hs a good ghost sense about them”, Jack has no clue why this makes Danny burst out laughing and laughing hard.

Once Danny’s calmed a little, “true there. Cujo is a good boy, hmm, yes you are”. Jack watches as Danny scratches at Cujo’s chin who promptly licks his face. “Just no invisible poop, ok?”.

Now it’s Jack’s turn to laugh, “now there’s an issue I didn’t even think of! There’s a story there!”. Danny nods and grimaces, “stepping in it”. Making Jack laugh more, eventually, Danny joins him in doing so.

Danny stops laughing groans a little at spotting Cujo’s rapidly wagging tail as he jumps down and bites Danny’s ankle. “This is what I mean boy, by you thinking I’m a toy”, thinking quick Danny extends his intangibility to Cujo knowing damn well the pup might not do it himself, as Cujo drags him off the couch and starts running around. Dragging Danny behind him and startling Jack.

“Er, son is this ok?”

“Yup! When I said he dragged me off I meant that literally!”

Jack can’t help but laugh into his hand even if this clear show of strength, there’s no way his son is light, is a bit concerning.

Danny eventually pops his head, with now messy hair, over the top of the couch. “He’s got a fair bit of energy now and I’m fine”, Jack can’t help but snort as Cujo teleports right above Danny’s head and lays in Danny’s hair.

“I think that’s obvious son. But at least his antics are only freaky not harmful”.

Danny decides it’s probably best to bite the bullet at this point, it’s probably not best to spring Cujo’s-also-a-ten-foot-monster-dog out of nowhere. Plus his dad clearly can tolerate the dragging Danny around craziness. “Uh yeah about that, Cujo’s size is very deceptive. Deceptive both literally and figuratively. Let’s go outside and he’ll run around some. Burn off some energy”. Danny can tell his dad’s a bit confused but nods anyway.

Cujo instantly starts bolting around the yard as father and son sit on the steps. Danny chuckles as Cujo, once again, notices the squirrel, “that poor squirrel. He’s really going to wish he picked any other yard to live in”.

“All that yapping might just make him leave!”

“Well once Cujo actually starts barking he just might”, shuffling a bit, “anyways you see how his glow is stronger and wiggling?”. Jack tilts his head and realises that his son is right, “huh? What’s he doing?”

Danny shrugs, “easier to just watch though try not to be too startled”. Jack’s a bit concerned now and then very concerned when the tiny puppy is suddenly a big angry looking tower of green fur. Both of them watch as the squirrel bolts out of the tree and flees.

Danny, picking up that Cujo will definitely chase it and that’s definitely not a good idea to let him do, “Cujo stay”. Cujo stops in his tracks and turns his massive head back to Danny, rolling his tongue out in the process. Danny can’t help but smile and rolls his eyes. Flicking his fingers, he lets Cujo know it’s cool to run over to him. Which Cujo promptly does, licking Danny from toe to head.

Jack’s still a bit in shock as Danny grabs Cujo’s collar and yanks himself up, throwing an arm over Cujo neck and hanging off the side of his big ass dog. “Same dog just, uh, bigger”

Danny watch’s, hiding his nerves, as Jack slowly gets up. Jack holds out his hand and watches as the massive dog licks him and wags his tail, “I’m really glad you didn’t introduce me to him like this, but he really is the same dog”. Jack shakes his head but smiles as he takes in exactly how Danny is just hanging off the side of Cujo, “if he’s letting you do that, then he’s got to be ok”.

Danny smiles warmly and turns his head to Cujo, “down down”. Heeding the command Cujo promptly shrinks down.

“Oh wow! You even have that trained! You could ride him into a fight like a horse!”

Danny can’t help but laugh, since he’s literally done that before, “yeah I probably could”.

Jack throws caution to the wind and rubs Cujo’s head a bunch as he hops into Danny’s lap. Judging by the way Cujo’s purple tongue hangs out, everyone’s gonna be just fine.

End.

#phic phight #phic phight 19 #Danny Phantom #phandom #fanfic #phanphic #implied animal ghost torture #danny fenton #jack fenton #cujo #dog #phantomphangphucker #have a fic suck my dick #team human

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mythicallore · 6 years ago

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Haunted Places: Bobby Mackeys

Can a place be evil? Can it be so completely saturated and permeated by negative energy and dark, tumultuous history that it becomes infused with malevolence and malice, squatting there like a hungry predator? There do seem to be some places in this world towards which such forces seem to gravitate, making them cursed or haunted by something far less than benevolent. One such place lies out in a rural part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. On the surface it seems like a rather happy place, full of dancing, drinking, and overall good cheer, but beneath this veneer supposedly crouches a formidable force of supernatural evil, and it has become ground zero for all sorts of supernatural mayhem.

The establishment now known as Bobby Mackey’s Music World is in its present form a small honky tonk country nightclub in the town of Wilder, Kentucky, now owned by local musician Bobby Mackey, who opened it in September of 1978 as a venue for bands to make their music known and a place for people to kick back and have fun. It is a lively place regularly full of patrons enjoying drinks, dancing, and country music, and at first glance would not seem to have much to do with the world of the paranormal at all. Indeed, taking in the fun-loving atmosphere of the place ghosts would likely be the furthest thing from anyone’s mind, yet this modest nightclub has carved itself a reputation as being one of the most haunted places in the state, if not the entire country, full of dark history, murder, suicide, arcane cult rituals, wild tales of the supernatural, and a purported portal to Hell itself.

Bobby Mackey’s Music World

The very land the club is built upon has a rather tragic past that had tainted the land with blood and woe before any building had ever existed there at all. Sitting right up next to the Licking River, the area was once the gruesome scene of brutal fighting between Native tribes of the area, and this bloodshed continued on when the white settlers arrived, who went on massacring Natives. The area that would be called Wilder then became a bustling railway nexus in the 1800s, with much of the town being built over the unnamed graves of fallen, forgotten Natives. Although the land here had already been saturated with blood, the exact location of what would become Bobby Mackey’s got even more when a slaughterhouse was built here in the 1850s. During its grim 40-year period of service, thousands of animals would make their final journey here, and the nearby river turned red from the blood being dumped there. When the slaughterhouse was shuttered it is said that this blood stained land was used by satanic cults and the scene of human and animal sacrifices. Whether this is true or not, it was certainly the scene of a brutal murder, that of a woman named Pearl Bryan.

Pearl had supposedly fallen in love with a dentist named Scott Jackson and had gotten pregnant with his child, but the two did not want to go through with the pregnancy. Jackson allegedly made arrangements for them to take a trip to Cincinnati in order to have an abortion carried out, but he decided he did not want any publicity and so enlisted the help of his roommate, Alonzo Walling, to try and perform the procedure themselves. They drugged Pearl and went ahead with their plans. The procedure was a tragic failure, leading to Pearl’s death when they realized they had botched it, allegedly cut her head off while she was still alive, and dumped her body in the backwoods near Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Jackson would be found guilty of murder and hanged for the incident, adamantly proclaiming his innocence until the very end.

Pearl’s head was never found, but legend has it that the men threw it into one of the wells once used to contain animal blood, guts, and feces in the remnants of the abandoned slaughterhouse. Other details have been added to the lore surrounding the story over the years, such as that the men had always intended to murder her or that Jackson and Walling were actual satanic cultists, that the head had been found in the center of a pentagram etched onto the slaughterhouse floor in blood, or that Jackson with his dying breath vowed to never rest and to haunt those who had wronged him. It is unclear how much truth any of these eerie details have, but one thing for sure is that an innocent young woman was killed and beheaded, and the legends stubbornly remain, adding a bit more grimness to the area.

By the 1920s the mysterious murder of Pearl Bryan had mostly been forgotten, and the old slaughterhouse building was torn down and rebuilt to become a roadhouse that was soon after turned by mobsters into an illicit bar and casino called The Primrose. This was the era of Prohibition, and The Primrose was by all accounts a hive of bootleggers, gangsters, and other unsavory elements. It would also come to be a magnet for violence, as other gangs tried to muscle in on the territory, bringing down gang warfare that left many dead. In the 1950s the notorious roadhouse changed hands and was renamed The Latin Quarter. It was here that another famous death would occur at the seemingly accursed place.

The story revolves around a woman named Johanna, who was dancer at the establishment and also the daughter of the building’s owner. According to the lore, she fell in love with a local musician named Robert Randall, and their tryst ended up with her pregnant, which did not sit well at all with Johanna’s father. He took it so badly, in fact, that he had Randall killed by his mob connections, which in turn caused his daughter to spiral into a deep depression. She is said to have finally snapped, and after trying to poison her own father she supposedly scrawled a last poem professing her love on the walls of one of the rooms, went down into the darkened basement, which was a leftover from the slaughterhouse days complete with that grimy well of blood, and killed herself. How much of this is spooky lore is true has been constantly debated, but whatever the case The Latin Quarter would survive and stay in operation until 1978, when a series of violent shootings among patrons caused it to shut its doors. Not long after that, Bobby Mackey bought the joint and turned it into Bobby Mackey’s Music World.

Although the establishment and indeed the land it sits on had long been absolutely dripping with blood, violence, and murder, any record of paranormal activity up to that point remains unclear, yet after Bob Mackey acquired it supernatural forces seem to have besieged the place with a vengeance. Almost as soon as Mackey moved in there were intense unexplained phenomena, one of the first being a terrifying incident in which his own wife claimed to have been clawed at and pushed down the stairs by a malevolent unseen force. Workmen and contractors renovating the establishment also reported all manner of paranormal activity, such as moving objects, anomalous noises, and in more sinister cases being pushed, slapped, punched, or scratched by unseen hands, to the point that some of them refused to come back to work.

For his part, Bob Mackey was rather skeptical of all of this talk of ghosts at first, and even discouraged people working there to stop spreading such tales as it had the potential to scare people off before they had even opened for business yet. After all, Mackey had spent everything he had on his dream to have this club and he was not eager to see it all unravel because of some spooky tales. Nevertheless, the ominous phenomena continued on. One of the most well-known incidents revolves around then 20-year-old Carl Lawson, who started work there cleaning and painting, later moving into the attic of the building and becoming a permanent caretaker there. Lawson immediately began to complain of being absolutely tormented by supernatural phenomena, even going as far as to say he was being actively attacked and even possessed by demons that he believed to be crawling out through the slaughterhouse well in the basement, which he was convinced was a “portal to Hell.”

After the club opened to great success, Lawson continued to live there, believing that it had to be cleansed of its evil, and although Mackey was very strict with him not to talk about his supernatural experiences, patrons and employees at the bar began to have their own strange brushes with the paranormal. Besides seeing objects move, having electronics or lights turn on or off by themselves, catching glimpses of shadowy apparitions, and often being overcome with a thick overpowering sense of dread and malice that would descend upon them, many of these witnesses claimed to have been physically attacked by invisible entities, often brutally shoved or even pushed down the stairs. In particular, this activity seemed to intensify greatly the closer one was to the well in the basement, cementing the idea that it was somehow the epicenter of all of the ghostly phenomena.

Such phenomena have gone on to become commonplace at the establishment right up to the present, making it more well known for its hauntings than its music. Some of the spirits said to dwell here and harass patrons and staff are the ghost of Johanna, who likes to hang out in the former dressing room, often appears in mirrors, and leaves the smell of perfume in her wake, as well as the headless specter of Pearl Bryan, who appears without her head and exudes a profound sense of melancholy. There is also an extremely malicious entity fully dressed in cowboy attire and a cowboy hat who attacks people and has even been said to beat people into unconsciousness, a man with a handlebar mustache who haunts the restrooms and is said to repeat “”Die game, die game” (Latin for “Die well”) over and over again, and a very angry dark shadow that likes to break things and seems to especially target women with its nefarious attacks. Indeed, paranormal investigators and psychics who have poured in here have claimed that there are up to 40 different spirits prowling Bobby Mackey’s Music World, all of differing personalities, temperaments, and danger. Even police officers have allegedly seen some of these spirits.

Speaking of paranormal investigators, Bobby Mackey’s Music World has attracted them in droves, and the place has become a popular place for ghost hunters both professional and amateur alike. Many of them have produced all manner of photographs and EVP phenomena, and according to them the location is absolutely swarming with crackling paranormal energy. The club has been visited by several TV shows, and one of the most infamous is a 2008 episode of the hit series Ghost Adventures, who featured it along with host Zak Bagans. During their investigation Bagans claimed to have made contact with the murderer of Pearl Bryan, and even to have been possessed by a demon while poking around down in the murky basement. Bagans was apparently so convinced that he was possessed that an exorcism was carried out on him, and he also claims that he was physically assaulted by a demonic entity down there in the gloom, which left behind claw marks across his chest. The episode proved so successful that there was even a follow-up episode called Return to Bobby Mackey’s in 2010.

Zak Bagans at Bobby Mackey’s Music World

Many of the ghost hunters who have come here have made note of the high concentration of negative energy down in that basement, and some have speculated that it is actually some sort of portal or vortex channeling these forces in, although why that may be is not known. With these shows, along with the popular book outlining it all, Hell’s Gate: Terror at Bobby Mackey’s Music World, by Bobby’s friend Douglas Hensley, the place has become widely known as being one of the most haunted places in the country. In the meantime, Bobby Mackey’s Music World has sort of embraced all of the paranormal attention, setting up ghost tours and even posting a sign in front of the establishment that reads: “Warning to our Patrons: This establishment is purported to be haunted. Management is NOT responsible and cannot be held liable for any actions of any ghosts/spirits on these premises.”

Considering the boost for business that all of this ghost talk has provided, it has definitely become ammo in the skeptical argument against the legends. Many of the tales revolving around Bobby Mackey’s Music World have been related by Bobby himself, and a lot of the supposed incidents were first brought to light in Henley’s book, raising concern that they are stoking the fires of urban legend. It has also been pointed out that, while some of the historical violence described has its roots in reality, much of it cannot be concretely verified, and so it remains rather murky on how true any of it is, and where the real converges with exaggeration and myth. As for the numerous witness accounts, this is chalked up to being “primed” for spooky occurrences considering the sinister history and dark lore pervading the establishment, and the ghost shows could just be playing it all up. Regardless, there are plenty of people who insist that Bobby Mackey’s Music World is the most insanely haunted place they’ve ever experienced, so it is hard to know what to make of it all.

So what are we dealing with at Bobby Mackey’s Music World? Is this all an ongoing urban legend built up upon the violence and blood spilled here in the past? Is it all just a scheme by the owner to pull in customers? Or is it something more? If this place is indeed as haunted as advertised we are still left with many questions, such as why should the ghosts, demons, or whatever congregate here with such potency and generally violent intent? Is there something inherit to this location that should make this so? And what about the well in the basement, the “portal to Hell”? What part does this have to play in all of the strangeness and does it really funnel in evil forces from beyond our understanding? It is of course at the point where it is practically impossible to disentangle all of the lore and history, but one thing for sure is that Bobby Mackey’s Music World has become somewhat of a legend in the paranormal world, with its grim history and macabre lore, and it is perhaps a place worth checking out if you are ever in the area and are feeling brave. Just remember, as Bob Mackey likes to say, “Come for the ghosts, stay for the music!”

#haunted places #spooky #ghosts #supernatural #paranormal #zak bagans

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years ago

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Chapter 21: cameos, indulgent nods to crack ships, and oh wait this is kind of an anticlimactic place to end the first fic what do you mean that’s an ending.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

“So she’s like a centaur but the human part is a catfish.”

“If the only human part of a centaur was its head, yep.”

Trucy’s insistence on not divulging anything about Gourdy ahead of time was apparently just for the sake of surprise, because she tells Vera about it later that day despite her not coming to the lake. Larry wanders to the office with them, as well, and promised a drawn explanation that isn’t coming quick enough for Vera to not be completely confused by Trucy.

“Do you think reverse-centaurs are a thing?” Trucy asks.

“Minotaur,” Apollo says.

“If a reverse-centaur and a mermaid had a kid, it would be a seahorse,” Trucy says.

Phoenix groans and puts his head in his hands. Trucy smirks triumphantly, and Larry looks up so fast that Apollo wouldn’t be surprised to have heard his neck snap. “Can I use that idea for a book?” he asks.

“Oh, god,” Phoenix says.

Trucy’s bursts of �� inspiration? Questionable genius? – are the sort of thing that Apollo uses to contextlessly start conversations with Klavier. It takes most of the pressure off him to be clever or have any excuse for talking, and right now, he did promise Trucy to extend her New Years invitation. But first, the lead-in, centaurs.

-The Fraülein’s mind is a compelling but uncharted territory

And Klavier barely knows the half of it, either.

Every time she says things like this I have this fear that it’s all actually real

-Then I hate to be the one to tell you -but seahorses are very real ;)

Ah. There it is, that strange desire that Klavier instills in him, where Apollo wants to take one of the heavy law books from a shelf in this office and smack him upside the head with it.

I am going to pretend you said nothing and just tell you that Trucy is throwing a new year party at our office and wanted to invite you

Trucy has brought her laptop out to the couches to pull up reference images of catfish for Larry. What is a party in this ridiculous place even going to look like? Will Mia throw them out at some point, like a host who finally wants to reclaim her house?

-Certainly thank her for that for me, but I already have plans

Or is lying, which Apollo can’t see because they aren’t having this conversation in person, and instead just wants to avoid the possibility of crossing paths with Phoenix. Or he’s still wary about the office itself. There are far too many options.

Alright, but if she finds out those plans are hanging out alone and sad at your apartment she’s gonna be mad And she does not let people escape her wrath

-I don’t think you quite understand the rockstar lifestyle :P -But I am duly warned

I don’t think you live it

-Hm.

“Do you think he would’ve come to the Gourdyversary if I’d invited him?” Trucy asks.

“I really, really don’t,” Apollo says.

She puts a hand on her chin and frowns in concentration in a similar manner to her father. “Yeah,” she agrees. “He’d probably be even more convinced than you were that Daddy conducts human sacrifices.”

On New Years’ Eve, Apollo takes a late lunch and wanders back to the office to find that in the meantime, Trucy has arrived from school with a friend. She introduces the other girl, who is furiously scribbling some complicated symbols on a pack of sticky notes, as Jinxie, and Jinxie introduces herself by smacking Apollo in the forehead with the sticky note she has just finished drawing on.

“Red, horns,” she mumbles, retreating back behind the couch with her pen at the ready again. “Fae.”

“No no, he’s human!” Trucy says. “He’s just a lawyer.”

“Fae lawyer,” Jinxie says. “There are lots of those.”

“I’m human,” Apollo says. “Really. Trust me.”

She squints suspiciously at him. Her eyes don’t change color – is she fae, unknowing or self-hating or hell, it’s probably sensible for the fae to be afraid of other fae. Or is she just twitchy and paranoid, worse than Clay, more like Starbuck. Still not appearing exactly happy about the situation, she at least seems calmed enough to emerge back from around the couch. In the back room, the phone rings – Apollo cannot recall the last time someone called that phone – and Trucy races back to it, Jinxie trailing behind her. Apollo has to follow them to return to his desk, where he’s trying to finish writing up notes for the Gourdyversary. He keeps a journal for more than just cases, now, tries on paper to make sense of magic (doesn’t really manage), and it’s taken several days to truly set in that he didn’t dream up the catfish-horse.

“Wright Anything Agency, Trucy speaking!” She flings herself into the desk chair, rolling it halfway out from behind the desk, as far as the phone cord reaches, and a grin spreads across her face. “What, no, it’s not the new year yet! It’s not midnight! No, I in fact don’t know what a time zone is!”

Apollo tries and fails not to roll his eyes. She spots him and scrunches up her nose until whatever is being said on the other end of the line draws her attention away. “Ooh, Paris! I wanna get there someday, you’ll have to tell me what to do – oh! I’m gonna put you on speaker and you can say hi to Apollo and Jinxie!” Her bangs flutter when she blows out an amused breath. “No, not everyone who hangs out here all the time works here. You’ll still have desk space! I think.” She drops the phone, letting it dangle to the floor, and hits a button on the base of it.

“Who’s this, exactly?” Apollo asks.

“Athena,” Trucy says. “She’s studying to be a defense lawyer and then she’s gonna come work here too!”

“Hi,” Jinxie says.

“I’m taking the Bar in February!” The voice on the other end of the phone is as chipper as Trucy, with no real trace of an accent despite the fact that she is evidently not in the country. “Mon Dieu, I’m taking the Bar in February! I have to study!”

“Yeah, I remember that period of sheer panic,” Apollo says. “It was worth it in the end, of course, but it wasn’t fun.”

Athena’s heavy exhale is slightly garbled through the phone. “That helps, thanks,” she says. “So you’re Apollo?” And then without waiting for his response, she barrels onward. “I guess we’ll be working together someday! Soon. Soon? Hopefully? Hopefully! Power of positive thinking!”

“Hopefully,” Apollo agrees, and he doesn’t think about it much, or tries not to, but something he misses about Kristoph’s office is that it was more people than just him and his boss, that there were other lawyers there, others of similar experience levels to him. If he lets himself feel it, he misses having other defense attorneys to talk to about other cases. He misses having more people around than a ghost, a flighty ex-attorney who’s been disbarred longer than he ever had his badge, and whatever teenage girls wander in with Trucy on any given day.

“February!” Trucy repeats. “You could be here soon! Like by the spring!”

“It takes a long time to get the results, just remember that,” Apollo says.

“Do you think I should keep studying while waiting?” Athena asks. “In case I don’t pass, so I can just go right back in and take it again?”

“That sounds like some sort of personal purgatory,” Apollo says, “but I mean, if you want to…”

“Well, if I keep studying and do pass, then some of it must be good to have a refresher on for when I go into court, right?”

Increasingly, Apollo thinks that over half of what he learned in law school has been entirely useless for the actual predicament of trying a case, and that he probably would have been better off taking a course on local folklore as well. Is it folklore if it’s true? Does Athena know the kind of office she’ll be stepping into? But he doesn’t exactly want to discourage her, not when she actually needs to be hitting the books most, so he says, “Yeah, I suppose.”

“Hm. You don’t sound convinced.” There is silence for a moment, and then she says, “But I’ve been studying this long, so might as well just keep going with it ‘till I know! Trucy, if I pass but haven’t found an apartment, would your dad mind if I crashed on the couch? You’d never know I was there, I swear!”

The amount she’s talking, Apollo doubts it. “I’m sure he would be fine with it,” Trucy says, which Apollo doesn’t doubt quite as much, but he’s not exactly sure about that either. “Or if he’s not you could sleep on the floor in my room and climb out the window every morning!”

“Sweet,” Athena says. “One less thing to worry about! Anyway sorry to cut this short but I wanna call your dad’s cell to tell him I’m officially testing in February and wish him a happy new year, and then I need to either sleep or run around the house a dozen times first to get rid of this nervous energy from talking about it. But Happy New Year, again!”

“It’ll be an awesome year if you’re around!” Trucy says. “But it’s still nine hours to go!”

“Time zones, bitchesssss,” Athena crows, drawing the last sound into a hiss that grows fainter, like she’s pulling away from the phone, before a beep signals the end of the call.

“She’s great,” Trucy says, bouncing in the chair. “You’re gonna love her, Polly.”

“She sounds exuberant,” Apollo says, because he’s not really sure what else to say. How does Phoenix meet people like this? How does he even have this much of a social circle? Is he more pleasant to everyone who isn’t Apollo, or are they more tolerant of it because they weren’t the ones who lost their first job being played for a fool with a bloody playing card?

“Very,” Trucy says. She springs from her seat, her laptop now in hand from one of the drawers.

“Is she a fae lawyer, too?” Jinxie asks.

“Of course not,” Trucy says. “And she’s not even a lawyer yet, either! Not everyone Daddy knows isn’t human!”

“You understand why we ask, though, right?” Apollo asks, as Trucy drags Jinxie back out to the couches, where for the next two hours bits and pieces of conversation about anime and pro wrestling drift back to him.

He doesn’t realize until he wanders out into the front room to stretch his legs that Vera has arrived. The three girls are huddled together on one couch in front of Trucy’s laptop, clearly watching something, which must be the reason that the internet connection on Apollo’s phone has slowed to an undead crawl. Spotting him, Trucy jumps up and ushers him back to the nebulously-existing kitchen to help her carry out several bottles of sparkling grape juice. She sets each on the floor as she unloads them from the fridge and Apollo, without thinking, reaches down and grabs it, backhanded, the way he would to swing it as a weapon, the way they argued about in Phoenix’s murder trial.

It’s awkward to pick them up differently, but he makes sure he does, fumbles with all the bottles in his arms and staggers back out, Trucy grabbing the doors for him. She’s promised that he and Clay won’t be the oldest adults here, however much she scoffs when she calls him an adult (rude), and however much Apollo doesn’t actually care if there isn’t any alcohol. He and Clay started the past three Januarys with hangovers and regrets and it’s probably about time to stop doing that.

The next person to arrive at the office is Ema, with two incredibly large bags of Snackoos, and Kay, who has nothing but an abundance of energy as she flings herself over the back of a couch to introduce herself to Vera and Jinxie. “I’m going to sleep at 10 pm and there’s nothing any of you can do to stop me,” Ema announces, dropping one bag on the coffee table, and apparently planning on keeping and eating the entire other one herself.

“Rough day?” Trucy asks.

“By noon I was wishing that I was working with Gavin, so yeah, that bad.”

“Gavin’s not that bad, though,” Kay says, rolling from the couch to the floor and bouncing up to her feet.

“He’s pretentious and obnoxious.” Ema forcefully tears open the bag of Snackoos. “But he at least doesn’t give a shit when I use fingerprint powder before forensics gets there, whereas Prosecutor Whasisface—” She stops with a chocolate nearly to her mouth, staring down at it in confusion. “Shit, what’s his name? Balding screechy voice prosecutor.”

Kay very slowly shrugs and turns her hands up in confusion. That description is almost ringing a few unpleasant bells in Apollo’s mind – distant ones, like there’s a mountain in between him and said bells. “I was just fucking working with him,” Ema mutters, shaking her head. She pops another chocolate into her mouth. “Whatever. That guy. Bumps the glimmerous fop up a notch in my rankings of favorite prosecutors in this damned nightmare coven office.”

“I was talking to Gavin the other day and he said you’re his favorite detective,” Kay offers.

Ema’s frown deepens. “He should probably be introduced to more detectives,” she says. “God, is that why I’m always working with him? Is he requesting—”

Kay has found a pack of playing cards and asks Trucy to show her how to throw them. Jinxie slaps one of her sticky-note sigils onto Kay’s back, which she must have noticed but apparently doesn’t seem to mind. Satisfied with her work, Jinxie goes to sit down on the piano bench next to Vera, who has cleared it off and is tapping at the keys trying to make a pattern of sounds that isn’t unpleasant.

The next arrival is Clay, who brings champagne and with it nets an apology from Ema about the time that she said she would trip him into the path of a hungry bear. Kay apparently doesn’t think this is a remark worth questioning and instead simply introduces herself in the same enthusiastic way that she met Apollo at the lake. “Hi! I’m Kay Faraday! You must be Apollo’s roommate!”

She shakes Clay’s hand like she’s trying to detach his arm and he raises his eyebrows at Apollo. “Sorry; if I’m supposed to have heard of you, someone dropped the ball—”

“I met her four days ago,” Apollo interrupts. “Like, only four days ago.”

“Irrelevant,” Kay says, waggling her fingers, and then she turns and shrieking, dives toward Trucy who had picked up to examine one of the champagne bottles. It turns, as expected, into a argument, citing the legal drinking ages of a dozen countries before a debate begins over the morality of lies of omission and perhaps more importantly, whether Phoenix can magically detect those as well. By the time Trucy throws Apollo and Clay out to pick up snacks at the Kitaki Bakery, Snackoos apparently not being enough for her, Kay has diverted all attention entirely by picking up a bottle of grape juice and threatening to chug it all.

“I like her,” Clay says.

“Of course you do,” Apollo says.

They’re halfway across People Park when Clay asks abruptly, “She’s human, right? All of them but Vera?”

“I – I have no idea about Kay or Jinxie.”

“Cool, cool,” Clay says. “I can’t wait to find out at the worst time that they’re not. That’s gotta be how it goes, right?”

At the bakery, Apollo turns his back on Clay for two minutes, to stammer out an answer to Little Plum asking how Apollo and the office are doing, and finds out that Clay somehow in that time got Wocky’s number. It would be very funny, after the conversation they just had, to tell Clay that the family are all kitsunes and to see his expression, but Apollo still isn’t quite sure what that means – are they shapeshifters? Cursed like werewolves? Foxes turned into humans? Some other kind of lingering magic? – because Trucy never explained, just laughed at the look on his face. Maybe he’ll ask Trucy for elaboration on that later, and tell Clay another time, some day when he really wants to mess with him.

Kay still has the juice bottle in her hand, is now standing on the coffee table, Ema throwing Snackoos at her and Trucy eating those Snackoos while cheering for Kay to chug. Someone new has arrived, a brown-haired mousy-looking young man trying to discourage Kay from the mad scheme she is in the middle of describing. Playing cards lie scattered across the floor and couch; Apollo can only guess what that was about. Throwing them, most likely. “—and technically, that is to the letter what I said I would do,” Kay says. She finally steps down from the table.

“If not the spirit of it,” the man says. “Though I’m not sure why I had different expectations for you.”

Kay snaps her fingers and lets them linger as a pair of finger guns. “I’ve got no idea either!”

He doesn’t pay much more mind to her, instead turning to Apollo and Clay. “Uh, hi,” he says, extending a hand to Apollo. He wears gloves, thin white ones. “Sebastian Debeste. Prosecutor. If you were wondering. Which maybe you weren’t.”

Apollo can’t actually recall knowing what a prosecutor’s badge looks like, in-person. Klavier certainly doesn’t wear one, and he’s the only prosecutor that Apollo has met closer than across the width of the courtroom. And Edgeworth, once, not that he remembers whether or not he saw him wearing a badge.

“Oh, uh, hi. Apollo Justice.”

“So you two have the coolest names for lawyers, ever,” Clay says. “Just to make sure we’re all aware of that.”

“I—” Kay starts and then stops. “Wait yeah, you’re right. I was gonna say Judge Courtney has the best name but she picked it as a pun knowing she was gonna go be a judge so that’s not quite fair.”

“Justine Courtney,” Sebastian says. “It’s a very legal system name and she’s – well, she’s one of the Fair Folk.”

It’s still better than the surname Fey, at any rate. But a judge, one of them, too? How do they judge – as fair or strict as humans? The determination is made solely on the evidence, like the Jurist System is trying to mitigate, but in that, he hopes, that the fae would assess evidence evenly. He wonders what a jury of the fae would look like. Even more swayed by emotion, their petty pride willing to acquit someone they know is guilty because by their morality, the crime is just? Kristoph is one of their own damned by that system – or is he one of theirs? Do changelings belong to the Court?

He closes his eyes and tries to tune out the chatter of Clay introducing himself and saying yes he’s an astronaut as in really going to space, next year, which next year is tomorrow but it won’t be until December that—

That’s normal. Space is normal. Clay is normal (in a certain context). Clay is the only normal person here and now it’s too late for him. Apollo dragged him into this. All his overabundance of caution that he tried to share with Apollo and he’s ended up here, both of them here, curiosity to kill them and turn them into cautionary stories that the next person like Clay will repeat.

And he opens his eyes and Ema is listening enraptured to what Clay has to say even though she heard it all on their road trip back in October. Trucy grabs her Magic Panties off the back of the couch and produces from within it several cardboard cone party hats. One she reaches out to arraign over apparent thin air, but it remains floating, now wedged onto the wisp. The next hat she hangs off of Apollo’s spiked bangs. Ema shakes her head too much to allow Trucy to put one on her, but Kay takes two. Sebastian seems to be listening both to Clay, and to Jinxie plunking away on one of the piano keys over and over and over, Vera flipping through the sticky notes. It’s normal. They’re all still people, somehow, people who don’t give Apollo time to dwell. “Trucy?” Sebastian says when Clay finally stops for breath. “When did your dad last tune this thing?”

“I don’t think he knows how to do that or what that is,” she replies. The levitating hat next to her bobs like her head does.

“Oh,” Sebastian says, staring blankly ahead. “That’s an offense – affront – I’m trying to come up with more synonyms and blanking—”

“Shitty,” Clay suggests.

“I was thinking more about how it affects us that just describing what it is,” Sebastian says, “but… yeah.”

“Disgust-inducing,” Clay says.

“Hey Sebby,” Kay says. “Do you remember that one bar wherever in Europe that they like, had the shots that they lit on fire? Do you remember that?”

“If this is to ask if I’ll set the champagne on fire, the answer is no,” Sebastian says. “That seems like an affront, a, uh – blasphemy! Feels like blasphemy, here. Particularly.”

“I don’t think Mia cares about casual use of magic,” Trucy says.

Oh. So they aren’t talking lighters or matches. “You – uh, Prosecutor Debeste,” Apollo says, feeling like he has the answer to a riddle but that he’s somehow taking a shot in the dark. “You wouldn’t happen to be the witch-prosecutor that Prosecutor Edgeworth and Gavin mention, are you?”

“Oh.” His face falls, immediately, and he doesn’t recover right away, not the way Apollo is used to Trucy and Klavier throwing up masks. “I – probably? I must be. I don’t actually know that there are any other witches in the office, not that I’ve seen or Seen” – he doesn’t say the word the same way when he repeats it, the implication obvious. “So if they said anything bad don’t tell me.”

“It was back in October, when he was annoyed with people trying to check in on him,” Apollo says. “So whatever he said was probably just – annoyed.”

“Yeah, he got like that,” Kay says. “Gets. Whatever. He’s been a little better and now it’s Mr Edgeworth who’s getting cagey and secretive with all that secret Chief Prosecutor business.”

Apollo’s phone buzzes. He expects a message from Klavier, because there’s no one else he regularly texts who isn’t in this room, but it’s Clay.

-witch -guess i shouldnt consider meeting cute guys around u bc everyone is like this

Apollo makes sure that Clay sees him roll his eyes and put his phone back into his pocket without replying. He could say a lot about how despite that, Clay has still acted like that about Klavier.

“Hey,” Trucy says. “You should tell me and Polly all of the Prosecutors Office secrets, so that we’re totally prepared for whatever we face in court next!”

Ema flicks a Snackoos at Sebastian. “We don’t have secrets,” she says. “Everyone’s way too dramatic for that.”

“Set the grape juice on fire,” Kay says.

“Speaking of secret business,” Sebastian says, clearly and deliberately ignoring Kay’s request and when Trucy seconds it. “Kay, did you know Agent Lang is in town? Because I ran into him just a bit ago coming out of Mr Edgeworth's office with a stack of files, said they’re working on something, I have no idea what but they both seemed – kind of super unhappy.”

“What?” It’s easy to see what Ema meant when she said they’re dramatic; Kay springs up from her perch on the arm of the couch and puts her hands on her hips, frowning with a pout almost as unnecessarily exaggerated as some of Trucy’s. “Wolfman is around and didn’t tell me! I can’t believe him!”

Apollo wonders if he’ll ever reach the end of this network of people Phoenix knows, or if he’ll ever understand it. “It worries me when you say things like ‘Wolfman’ because I have no idea if you mean ‘werewolf’ or ‘guy who really likes wolves’.” Like Trucy and her centaurs but the answer is probably going to be worse.

“Both,” Ema says without change in expression.

Apollo throws his hands in the air. “Oh come on!” Next to him, Ema winces and puts a hand up to her ear. She deserves the wrong side of the Chords of Steel for that.

“He’s not a werewolf,” Kay says. “You’re going to kill this poor guy.” She points at Apollo. “It’s a family thing. They’re all super into wolves. His hair is like—” She holds up her forefingers like ears at the top of her head. “But he can’t turn into a wolf. He would, but he can’t. Which is good for not giving random people on the street heart attacks because he’d just wander around like that because what is the point of shapeshifting if not messing with people?”

She spreads her arms wide like she’s either waiting for applause and agreement, or trying to draw out some kind of debate or dissension. Sebastian walks past her to where Jinxie and Vera have googled how to tune an upright piano. Ema throws a Snackoo at her.

“I think that’s a sound theory,” Clay says. “Isn’t that just the entire thing of the Fair Folk, messing with people?”

The lights blink off for two full seconds. Apollo freezes, as does Clay, but the group over at the piano don’t stop their conversation and Ema is still throwing snacks, now at Kay. Mia, messing with them; most of them, used to it. “What is the ratio of those you’ve eaten to those on the floor?” Apollo asks. Ema shrugs.

“Yeah that’s basically it,” Kay says to Clay.

“You see why I worry,” Apollo says. He can feel a weight gathering behind his eyes and higher at the front of his skull. The conversation is all suddenly too loud, backed by the force of the topics they’ve covered, what almost proved overwhelming earlier, fae judges and now prosecuting witches and petty shapeshifters, and he extracts himself from the middle of it and retreats back toward Charley’s corner.

“You okay, Polly?” Trucy doesn’t give him a chance to catch his breath alone; she appears at his elbow, looking up at him with concern.

“Does it ever just hit you that this is all kind of completely mad?” he asks. “All this – this everything?” She pats his arm sympathetically. “Because it just hit me again, that just – last year I was pretty sure of what I could expect from my life.” And then, April. And then, Phoenix. “This year I know I’m going in without a clue! Just waiting for the fae to amp it up to celebrate the new year!”

“They won’t do that,” Trucy says. Her confidence is reassuring until she adds, “Time works differently for them. They don’t know when’s a new year or what. They’ll just amp it up for no reason if they want to, nothing by our calendars.”

“See?” Apollo asks. “That’s what I mean. Uncertainty and terror.”

She leans her elbow on the bookshelf and pokes at the spines of the large tomes. “Lawyers and performers always gotta smile, right through to the end, whatever it is. And you know what?” She bounces a little in place but says nothing, waiting for him to play along with her.

“What?” he asks, trying to at least sound annoyed even if he can’t manage to feel it. Better not let her know how much she can get away with when Mr Hat is already bobbing around his shoulder, prodding him in the arm with the tip of the cardboard party hat.

“Lots happens, and we figure it out.” She stops moving, all but her head, turning to glance to the doorway to the next room, and beyond that, Apollo knows what she’s thinking of, a desk, a drawer, a soul encased inside. “We make it through. We always have.”

[brief note on this ending]

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics

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jenanigans1207 · 6 years ago

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Chaos in His Heart [2] |VLD Season 8 Rewrite|

Okay I have 3 things to say about this before you get to the chapter itself.

1. Thank you guys SO MUCH for all of the love, support and comments. I live for them. Truly. Please continue to reach out to me, tell me the things you want changed, tell me what you liked, I want to hear any and everything you guys want to tell me. Seriously.

2. I know this episode was the Lotor flashbacks. I promise they’re still coming because I also loved them a lot. I’ve just rearranged them in the storyline to make them fit better with the plot changes I’m making. So don’t fret!

3. I changed chapter 1 up a bit to set up for a few more things in the future and I made the sunset scene way softer. It doesn’t really impact this chapter that much, but the changes will show up in later chapters so I’d recommend giving it a reread. :)

And now, without further ado...

---x---x---x---x---x

The Atlas was laid out similarly to the garrison and weaving through the hallways made Lance feel like they hadn’t left Earth yet. Plus, the Atlas was made with the newest and most cutting edge Earth technology fused with Altean magic, so it moved so smoothly, they couldn’t even feel that they were flying. The other reason the Atlas reminded Lance of the garrison was because it was huge. Like, unreasonably huge. Like, it could probably house fifty Voltrons and still have room.

Lance made his way through the large ship with one destination in mind. He enjoyed the sound of life filling the Atlas as he went— the laughter, chatter and footsteps surrounded him, making him feel more at ease. He knew what they had to do would be hard and that there was absolutely no way to know how long this sort of peace would last. So, he vowed to appreciate it while he could. Plus, in a battle this dire, it was nice to know that he was surrounded and supported by so many people.

Finally, the door he was looking for came into view and he paused. He had barely slept the night before, his heart too jumbled to allow him much relaxation and the exhaustion was starting to wear on him. He had tossed and turned all night, replaying both his conversation with Keith and his conversation with Allura in his head. Their words had bounced around, echoing and distorting until it was too hard for him to set anything straight. He’d tried to count sheep after that, to count backwards from a million, to do anything that might help him fall asleep and stop overanalyzing. Nothing worked. He felt like his nerves were raw, like they were live wires just waiting to catch fire and burn him down to ash. Still, he raised his hand and knocked.

“Come in.” The doors slid open and Lance stepped inside.

“Hey,” He said after a moment.

Keith looked up, surprised. “Seeking me out two days in a row? You must not be feeling very well.” he jested.

“I would’ve done this last night but I didn’t think of it.” Lance replied, fishing into the jacket of his blue garrison uniform. The truth was simple: he hadn’t planned to seek Keith out yesterday. Not even after Hunk had been going on and on about Lance needing to talk to both Keith and Allura. But suddenly, when he’d been feeling discouraged and uncertain, the only thing he’d wanted was to see Keith. So he’d sought him out, spur of the moment, with no real plan in mind. Keith watched him, his own uniform unbuttoned and hanging open in the front. After a moment, Lance pulled Keith’s fingerless gloves out of his pocket and extended his arm, offering them to Keith. “I wanted to give these back to you. I managed to save them before we lost the castle.”

“Lance…” Keith took the gloves from his hands, glancing up to meet his eyes and Lance tried not to flush. He’d only had a few moments to grab things before they’d abandoned the castle and the gloves were the only thing he could think to grab. He didn’t even grab any of his own things. He couldn’t be sure why, exactly, the gloves had been the only thing to jump to his mind in that moment. He hadn’t even paused to think about what he’d been doing, he’d just raced through the hallways to Keith’s room, tearing open drawers until he’d found them and tucked them away, barely making it to Red in time to escape. He didn’t regret it, though, because he knew that Keith would want them. And, if things somehow went wrong, they would be something for Lance to remember him by. “Thank you.”

Immediately, Keith slipped the gloves on, flexing his fingers once he did so. It struck Lance then, how different things were. Lance could remember little Keith back at the garrison wearing a uniform that was too big and carrying an attitude that preceded him. And suddenly here he was, the leader of Voltron, in his custom fit red garrison uniform with a scar adorning his cheek. It was a stark difference and yet, underneath it all, Lance knew he was still the same person. He was a more refined version of himself, but he was still the Keith Lance had known for so, so many years.

The smile that ghosted across Keith’s lips was enough to make it all worth it. Lance may never see his favorite jacket again, but he’d always have this moment to come back to and replay in his head. He’d always be able to remember the way Keith’s eyes lit up as he inspected his gloves again. It made everything feel momentarily right, because the Keith that Lance pictured in his mind was Keith with his stupid mullet, fingerless gloves and paladin armor. And now, miraculously, he was able to be that Keith again. The gap that had grown between them with Keith’s absence seemed to shrink in that moment, making Lance feel connected to him in a way he hadn’t been able to manage since Keith returned.

“Yeah, so, that’s all I wanted to do…” Lance said awkwardly, shuffling his feet on the ground. He felt a mixture of emotions swirling around inside his stomach, annoyed at the fact that it had become normal for him to feel this way. Part of him felt silly for saving Keith’s gloves when he didn’t save anything of his own but he knew, if given the chance, he’d grab them again, every time. After a brief pause he turned and headed back towards the door.

“Hey, how’d your date go?” Keith asked a moment before Lance reached the button to open the doors.

“I told you, it wasn’t a date.” Lance let out a sad sigh, the weight of it settling on his shoulders again, making him feel like he was going to collapse. It was exhausting to feel so many things and he wished briefly that he could stop being so confused and just focus on one thing at a time. Maybe then he’d sleep at night or not spend every second with his mind in constant overdrive, analyzing everything that happened around him. “It’s not ever going to be a date. We’re never going to be a thing.”

“Hey, Lance, don’t say that.” Keith took a tentative step forward, a hand extending into the distance between him and Lance but never making contact. Lance sucked in a breath at the tone of his voice and the way he was clearly trying so hard to be a good friend. “You don’t know that. You absolutely could be.”

“No,” Lance let his head drop forward, his eyes staring at the tiled ground, unfocused. “I’m not going to let us be a thing. She deserves better.”

“Better?” Keith echoed, sounding incredulous. “Better than you?”

“You weren’t there, Keith. You didn’t see her with Lotor. That’s what she deserves.”

“Lotor is gone,” Keith remarked, his hand still hovering in that gap. Lance could sense him there and he wasn’t sure if he was glad that Keith was keeping his distance or if he wished Keith would just throw caution to the wind and commit to the contact.

There was something in the very depths of Lance that was yawning open, threatening to swallow him whole. It’d been there from the very beginning, always growing a little wider when he was around Keith. He didn’t have a name for it, didn’t want a name for it, but it was constantly there. He had initially thought that it only got worse when he spent time with Keith. But then, Keith had left for the Blades of Marmora and the feeling had overwhelmed Lance making him feel emptier and more alone than he could ever remember feeling. The deepest parts of Lance’s soul always reacted to Keith and the stronger the reactions got, the more Lance began to wonder. He could feel it now, slithering up and around his heart, making it ache. His heart beat erratically against it, straining as if it were trying to burst out his chest entirely. He wondered where it would go. Maybe it would make a home in Keith’s chest, beating alongside his heart, Lance thought fleetingly.

“Still, he brought out a side of her we’d never seen. He understood her in a way I never could. She deserves that, Keith.” Lance tried to push the sadness out of his own voice, but he could feel it seeping through anyways. It was strange to feel the ache that came with this loss, since he had begun to move on. He wasn’t sure if he was mourning the loss of Allura or the loss of what he had built them up to be in his head. The further he got from the situation, the more he began to realize that they weren’t the same thing— their real relationship and his mental relationship with her had very little in common when he got down to the truth of it.

Suddenly Keith was there, next to Lance, looking over at his expression. The hand that had been hovering finally committed, resting on Lance’s shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze. It was warm through the fabric of Lance’s garrison uniform and Keith’s gloves. Lance liked it. “So do you, Lance.”

“Can we just… can we not talk about this?” Lance felt like his chest had cracked open and the emotions were slowly leaking out of him. He wanted to reach up and press his hand to his chest and hold himself together but he knew that urge was ridiculous. There wasn’t anything actually wrong with him, no matter how it felt. Still, the urge wouldn’t leave and he had to clench his fists against it.

The way Keith was looking at Lance was so soft it was physically painful for Lance. Suddenly Lance was reminded of the night before and the way Keith had looked, fading into the sunset. “If someone makes you feel like you aren’t good enough, Lance, they aren’t the right person for you.”

“Or they’re right and I’m not good enough.”

“I trust you with my life, Lance.” Keith’s voice was so sincere, Lance didn’t know what to do. He finally glanced up from the floor to meet Keith’s gaze head on and immediately was frozen in place. “I know that you’ll never miss. You’ll always have my back. I know that I can count on you for anything. Not good enough? That’s the least true thing I’ve ever heard.”

The two of them maintained eye contact for what felt like centuries. Lance considered reaching for Keith, grabbing him by the ends of that open garrison uniform and tugging him into a hug. He thought about how it would feel to hug Keith— how satisfying it would be because he’d wanted to hug him for years. But something in the back of Lance’s mind was going off like an alarm, insisting that Keith had to be the one to initiate their hug, if they ever hugged at all. So he refrained, settling to just enjoy the way Keith’s handprint was burning into his skin, leaving a feeling that Lance knew would linger for hours.

“Saying such kind things to me two days in a row?” Lance playfully mocked his words from earlier, trying to lighten the mood and change the topic. “You must be the one who is sick.”

That startled a smile out of Keith who shoved him by the shoulder he’d previously been holding. “I’ve just seen you go through a lot, okay? And you’ve grown a lot in the years I’ve known you. You’re less of the annoying Earth Lance and more of the Paladin Lance who knows his worth and what he has to offer. I just don’t want you to forget that.”

—

Keith was the last to arrive to the hangar. The rest of the team was in their gear, standing around their respective lions, getting ready to go. Keith walked in, donned in his own paladin armor, red helmet tucked under his arm. It wasn’t a complicated mission— it wasn’t even supposed to be dangerous— but it was still the first mission of the final battle and that felt like a weight he had to bear. Over the years, he’d gotten better and understanding that being the leader didn’t mean the burden was his and his alone. He’d begun to recognize that the others could handle anything and everything thrown at them and that he was allowed to lean on them from time to time. Still, as the leader, he felt like he should have at least slightly more responsibility than the others and he put extra pressure on himself.

“Everyone ready?” He asked as he approached the team.

Everyone turned to look at him and he was struck for a moment by the way they had all grown. It was incredible to think that this was the start of their final battle and that, once this was all over, they’d finally get to live the lives they’d always imagined for themselves. He’d watched them go from a bunch of misfits who had banded together out of necessity to a team who worked together flawlessly, protecting each other and enhancing each other. He’d gone from an outcast, to a teammate to a leader and he knew, with unwavering certainty, that these people would do anything for him, just like he’d do anything for them. A feeling of pride swelled in him and, despite the risks that lay ahead, he felt optimistic. Together, they could overcome anything.

“At your command, team leader.” Lance was leaning back against Red, his helmet on the ground next to him and arms crossed over his chest, a casual smile on his lips. Keith tried not to think about their moment earlier, or their moment the night before— why were they having so many moments all of a sudden? — and instead glanced around at the rest of the team, meeting everyone’s eyes.

“Alright guys, we’re going in before the Atlas and clearing a path if necessary. Remember, this is a diplomatic mission, not a battle. So be careful. Understood?”

The team sounded off in response to him, each expressing their understanding. With that, he gave them a nod and everyone scattered, climbing into their lions. Keith climbed into Black, walking into the cockpit for what felt like the millionth time. He could feel the familiar hum of Black in the back of his mind, the comfort of him curling around Keith, connecting with him. As he took a seat in his pilot’s chair, he felt like Black was just an extension of his own body. Reaching for the controls came naturally and Black roared to life around him, hopping to his feet immediately.

Through the windows Keith could see the other lions come to life, each standing tall and proud, prepared for what was to come. He could faintly make out each of the paladins from within their lion and that feeling of pride overwhelmed him again as he waited for the doors to Atlas to open. He could see the rest of the crew scrambling on the ground, trying to rush out of the room so the doors could be opened. Once the last member exited, the Atlas opened, revealing the dark expanse of space.

Keith was the first to move, throwing his controls forwards. Black sprinted forward, diving elegantly out into space and taking off towards their destination. It was only a moment before he could see the other lions flanking him, holding a tight formation. Atlas pulls up the rear, raising its shields as the base came into view. He didn’t have to look to know where everyone was as they moved, his connection to his lion and his team made it so that he could feel them as they got closer to their destination. Each paladin and Lion had a special spot inside Keith, humming in a way that made him feel like they, too, were extensions of him. As if, without them, he couldn’t quite be complete. It made him feel like a part of something bigger— like he’d finally found a place to call home.

Once they were within range, Keith opened up a communication channel with the base. “This is the Voltron Coalition,” He announced, the next words poised on his tongue. “We—”

Before he had a chance to say anything further, the base began to attack. Lasers were suddenly shooting at them from every angle and they were forced to break formation in an attempt to stay safe. Keith dove down, spinning around to get a quick visual on the rest of his team. He could feel them scattering around him, doing their best to avoid a hit, but he still wanted to see him. A visual gave him the most comfort. Atlas, with its shields up, was still moving forward, taking direct hits. Lance had weaved around and pulled back up to Keith’s side, Allura was high above, Pidge was diving towards the planet and Hunk was floating along in the middle. Certain that everyone was alright, Keith turned his attention back to the battle at hand, only to see an entire fleet of fighters rising off of the planet and heading straight towards them.

“Paladins, you take the fighters. We’re locked on to the ground cannons.” Shiro’s voice crackled through the coms.

“Roger,” Keith replied before addressing his team. “You heard him, guys. We’ve got the fighters. Remember, we want no casualties. Disable them, don’t destroy them.”

The team sprung into action, the lions fanning out to divert the fighters away from the base so Atlas had a clear shot. Keith scanned the scenery as he swerved, trying to think of a good plan. The base was nestled in an outcropping of rocks— one that was full of plenty of caves. With an idea, Keith dove towards the planet, guiding Black easily into one of the caves. A series of fighters dove down after him, shooting the entire time. He bobbed and weaved, waiting until they were all successfully in the cave before acting. The lasers bounced around him, hitting the rock and causing it to come crumbling down. Black shook occasionally, sometimes getting thrown to the side as Keith was unable to dodge in such a tight space. Finally he was far enough in to be certain that all of the fighters that had followed him were also immersed in the caves. It was time.

With a quick flick of his wrists, Black’s tail rose, shooting its own lasers. The rocks crumbled behind Keith, tumbling to the ground and blocking the cave. Keith shoved the controls further forward, picking up speed until he was soaring out of the opposite end of the cave, free and clear. As he looked around, he could see Pidge’s vines wrapping up some of the ships, holding them stationary in space. He could see some ships on the ground with partially frozen wings. Lance was on the ground, too, the paws of red pinning down a few ships. Hunk was off in the distance, leading the fighters away and dodging all of their attacks, keeping Atlas free from attack.

“Paladins,” Shiro’s voice sounded again, “The MFE pilots are on their way, clearing a path for the rebel ships. Matt will be dropping down in T-15 ticks to take out the power to this base.”

“Roger.”

As if cued, the MFE pilots soared past Keith, the rebel ships close on their tails. The doors to the rebel ships were open and Keith caught a glimpse of Matt in his armor as they rushed by. Unable to waste time distracted, Keith surged forward again, bringing up the rear and distracting any ships that might have a clear shot at Matt and the others as they dove. The adrenaline was pumping through him and he almost jumped when a shot from the Atlas flew by him, connecting with the cannons on the ground and destroying them. He glanced around again, relieved to see that they had things mostly under control.

A few more ships appeared next to him suddenly and he swerved to the side, crashing into them with Black’s body and knocking them off course as Matt dove for the ground, the rest of his crew in tow. Keith could feel Lance take off from the ground suddenly, swooping up to knock away a fighter that had been closing in on Pidge. Through his coms he could hear the team hooting and hollering as they continued to disable the entirety of the fleet, leaving themselves free and clear.

It didn’t take long for them to conquer the Galra. In what felt like no time at all, they had no more ships from the fleet left to fight and Matt and his team were seconds away from knocking out all power to the base. An explosion sounded below and suddenly everything underneath them went dark. The paladins resumed their positions on Keith, falling back into a formation that came naturally to all of them now.

“Great work team,” Keith was saying into the coms, “Now we just need to—”

The end of his sentence was cut off by a large blast from somewhere in space. More blasts followed it immediately, rocking Atlas and nearly knocking the lions out of the air.

“Where are those blasts coming from?” Shiro sounded almost frantic as the defenses of the Atlas went back up again.

“I don’t know,” Pidge replied hastily, “I’m running a scan but I can’t detect anything.”

Allura suddenly raced to the front of the group, the sonar gun appearing on Blue’s back. “I’m on it!”

The rest of the team continued moving while Allura scanned, doing their best to withstand any hits. It only took a moment for the information to pass from Allura to Pidge who was then immediately back in the coms, “I’ve got it. There’s two cloaked satellites above. That’s what’s shooting at us.”

“Alright team, on me. It’s time to Form Voltron.” Keith took off, flying straight up and giving the rest of the team fall into place.

As soon as everyone was in line, Keith could feel it in his very being— the connection to the other paladins. It felt like a tugging, as if the world were pulling them together. Keith succumbed to the feeling, reaching out to the others and pulling them to him. He could feel the others give in one by one and suddenly, instead of feeling five distinct people, it felt like they were only one. Black took over, automatically shifting and transforming to allow the others to merge, forming the defender of the universe.

Once the transformation was complete, Keith glanced down at his console to where Pidge had transferred the map and outline of the satellites. They were further away than he’d like and shooting constantly, covering the Atlas in heavy fire. Plus the MFE pilots and the rebel ships were still out in the open and at risk. Keith knew immediately that they had to get to the satellites quickly and take them down.

As if Voltron were thinking the same thing, the bayard slot next to Keith opened. He could feel Voltron asking it of him, could feel the taut string connecting him to the one other person that he needed. Raising his hand, Keith called his bayard to him, at the same time yelling, “Lance!”

“On it!” Lance yelled in response.

Keith could feel Lance’s movements mirroring his own, could feel the moment Lance slammed his bayard into the slot and twisted. Immediately, the wings appeared on the back of Voltron and they took off, soaring quickly towards the satellites. At the last moment, Keith called out for the sword and the team and Voltron responded in kind, pulling the sword out in time to slice through the satellites with absolute ease.

—

The inside of the base looked similar to most of the other bases Keith had been to. In his time with the Blades of Marmora he'd done a lot of infiltration for information and was pretty familiar with the layouts of these facilities. Because of that, he led the team through the maze of hallways and to the control room with ease. Once they reached the control room and the doors slid open, the team let out a collective breath of surprise.

There, in the center of the room, was a Galra, staring at the team with as much malice as Keith had ever seen. “Look who it is.”

“Hey, pal!” Hunk waved to the guy as they entered the room. “Nice to see you again!”

Keith was struck, not for the first time, of just how kind Hunk really was. The Galra was clearly not excited to see them, but it didn't prevent Hunk from attempting to strike up a casual conversation.

“Do not talk to me as if we are friends,” The man spat.

Keith stepped forward then, feeling a spike of irritation at the man's tone. “You know this guy?”

“Yeah, this is Captain Lan.” Hunk glanced between Keith and the Galra.

Lan, affronted, took a step towards Hunk. “It's Warlord now.”

“Sorry, Warlord Lan. You don't know him because you were gone having a space road trip with your mom.” Hunk's words were not unkind. It didn't even seem like he thought about them before he said them, but they still cut Keith deep. Just yesterday Lance had mentioned something about Keith leaving and now Hunk was bringing it up, too? It appeared his absence had a greater effect than he thought. “I thought we became friends when we were working together to repair the shield that protected his planet. And, you know, saved all of his people from a Galra attack.”

“The Galra were only attacking because of Voltron!” Lan cried, shoving an accusing finger towards Hunk.

“Woah, now.” Lance stepped up to Hunk's side, fixing Lan with an irritated look, too. “The Galra were already attacking when we arrived. Without us, you wouldn't have made it.”

“Then we would have lost honorably.” Lan lifted his chin arrogantly and whatever shred of self control Keith had been holding onto snapped.

“Things don't have to be victory or death!” He cried, frustration lacing every syllable. “I get that it's the Galra way but—”

Lan cut him off swiftly. “What do you know of the Galra way?”

“My mother is a Galra of the Blades of Marmora. I have worked alongside them for months now to—”

“The Blades are a bunch of traitors.” Lan spat. “It's no wonder they took in a half breed like you.”

There was a flash of red in Keith's mind and he seriously considered decking Lan. Instead, he took a deep breath and turned away. He was a leader now; calm, composed and focused. He couldn't afford to rise to the taunts of his opponents like that and he wasn't going to let Lan know that he'd gotten under his skin. Even though he had. Deep under it.

“Now you listen here,” Lance was stepping towards Lan with a finger pressed firmly into his chest.

Keith never got to hear what Lance was going to say. An alarm sounded suddenly around them and the few other Galra who were inside the control room began tapping away furiously on their keyboards. Matt and team had restored the power once everyone else was safely inside and sure that it was no longer a hostile environment. It seemed like a good thing now as a distress signal flashed across the screen.

“That's…” Lan looked perplexed. “That's from one of our ships that went missing quintants ago. We assumed they were all dead.”

“Well it looks like they're alive and in need of help.” Pidge stepped up to the nearest control panel, tapping away at the screen.

The map she was working on rotated and zoomed as she pinpointed the location of the distress signal. Annoyed, Lan took an aggressive step towards Pidge, only to have Keith stop him by roughly grabbing his arm and yanking. He shot a furious look at Keith who didn't back down.

“My team can take care of our own fleet without you.” He retorted, ripping his arm harshly from Keith's grasp.

Keith was about to reach for him again when Shiro stepped up, a calm expression matching his calm tone. “Warlord Lan, please. We've never done anything but try and help you. We want this war to be over just as badly as you do. If there's ever going to be a chance at peace, we need you to work with us and we need you to do it now. We want to help save them.”

“Got it!” Pidge cried suddenly and the map in front of her steadied. “It looks like they're a few galaxies over.”

“I know that area,” Keith stepped closer to the map, inspecting it. “There's another Galra base there. What was your fleet doing?”

Lan turned away, crossing his arms over his chest. “Pillaging,” he said after a moment.

“You're turning on your own people and have the nerve to—” Shiro held up a hand to silence Lance, who glanced over at Keith and shared a long, knowing, irritated look.

“Warlord Lan,” Shiro tried again and Keith wondered where he got his unfailing patience from. “Please. Let us help.”

“You can try all you want but my team would never welcome your help.”

“Lucky for us,” Keith stepped forward and gripped Lan by the forearm hard enough to ensure that he couldn't wriggle free. “You're coming with us so you can tell them to cooperate.”

“What? But—!”

“Pidge, upload the coordinates to the Lions. Shiro, you coming?” Keith had moved past attempting to be polite to Lan and instead ignored his protests entirely.

With a wry smile, Shiro shook his head. “It'll be hours before Atlas is ready to fly again. Plus, we need to make sure they have everything they need here.”

“Understood.” Keith started to head off towards the lions, the rest of his team falling in step behind him without hesitation.

“Will you guys be okay?” Shiro asked.

Keith looked at his team and then at Shiro. “Of course we will be. We have each other.”

—

The paladins were just finishing their preparations when Shiro approached. Keith had situated Lan inside Black and left Kosmo guarding, stepping back onto the ground and approaching Shiro.

“Ready to go?” Shiro asked.

Keith paused and glanced around at the rest of the team. “I think so.”

Seeing Keith lead the team brought Shiro so much pride and joy. He had loved being a paladin of Voltron, sure, but he also loved leading the Atlas. He loved being a part of the fight, making a difference and supporting those around him. Those were the things he really stood for and he didn't care what he piloted as long as he got to make that sort of impact. Plus, stepping aside allowed Keith to rise into the role of leader and it suited him well. He looked confident and more self assured that Shiro had ever seen him look.

“If anything goes wrong out there, send a signal and I'll be there as fast as I can be.” Shiro said once Keith had settled his attention back on him.

Keith raised an eyebrow. “You said Atlas wouldn't be ready to fly again for hours.”

“And Atlas won't be.” Shiro replied, “But Atlas has cruisers on it among other ships. If you need me, I'll be there. I know I'm not a part of Voltron anymore, but we're still on the same team.”

“Shiro,” Keith cut him off, but he had a faint smile ghosting his lips. “You're still the leader to me. I wouldn't dream of doing anything without including you or at least getting your approval. I promise, if we need you, we'll call.”

In response, Shiro gave a proper and genuine smile. He glanced over Keith's shoulder to watch the rest of the paladins take their seats in the pilot's chairs. It was nice, he thought, to still feel like a part of something, even when he was on the outside looking in.

“I know you'll do a great job, but make sure everyone comes back safely. Got it?”

Keith glanced back at the lions, too. “I'll do my best. But if a sacrifice is needed, I'm giving them Lance with no hesitation.”

Shiro laughed, shaking his head and backing away. He had known Keith and Lance since the very beginning of their rivalry and he'd watched it grow into familiarity, fondness, mutual respect and then friendship. Still, old habits die hard and the two of them rarely went a day without bickering about something.

After Shiro was far enough away, Keith climbed back up into Black and took off, diving elegantly into the night. Shiro would never forget what it was like to fly Black, to feel him curled up peacefully in the back of his mind. He'd never forget the way Black connected to him, responding to his commands before he even had a chance to give them. It had felt like power and belonging. But, as Matt came to grab Shiro, explaining what was needed of him and the impact of his task, Shiro couldn't bring himself to regret stepping aside. With one last look towards the empty hangar, he followed Matt to change lives, knowing he would sleep good tonight.

—

The ship was empty, eerily so. Lance had his blasters going as he floated alongside Hunk, the powerless ship dark and decrepit. As soon as they had arrived on the ship, Keith had split them up. He'd sent Pidge with Allura and Lan to review the security footage. Lance and Hunk had been assigned to search one half of the ship while Keith searched the other with Kosmo. The plan was to meet in the middle.

Lance wasn't sure if Keith had split him and Allura up out of strategy or respect for Lance's feelings but he found that he was glad either way. It had become kind of suffocating to be around her, as if he had to try and be as invisible as possible when she was near, fading into the background.

“So,” Hunk was looking at Lance as they traveled down one or the hallways, clearly following Lance's train of thought. “Did you talk to Allura?”

“You didn't give me much choice in the matter,” Lance grumbled in response.

Hunk smiled sheepishly but was clearly unapologetic. Lance rolled his eyes. “And how did it go? What did you say to her?”

Lance remembered the day he'd come to Hunk, heartbroken and forlorn. He'd expressed to Hunk his reservations and the sinking realization he was having that things between him and Allura wouldn't work. Hunk had been kind, of course, but honest, too. He'd gently agreed, stating that he had never thought Lance and Allura were a good pair. It stung to hear, but it helped Lance take the step forward that he needed. Still, he was going to allow himself time to mourn his loss because it hurt, deeply, whether or not it should.

“I told her that I was in love with her but that it wouldn't work and I knew that.” Hunk let out a low whistle at Lance's words, wincing as if he, too, were feeling the sharp stab of the words into his heart. “And she basically confirmed that it was never going to happen.”

A loud bang came from the end of the hallway the boys had just left. They spun around together, both shining their flashlights into the distance. No other sounds came and they could see no movement so, with adrenaline pumping through their veins and making them jumpy, they continued the way they had been going.

“Are you okay?” Hunk asked as they rounded the corner into a new hallway.

Lance hesitated, not because he didn't have an answer for Hunk but because he was surprised to be asked. Allura had asked him the same question the night before, tears in her eyes. Did it really seem impossible for him to move on from a heartbreak? Sure it hurt, but Lance was capable of bending without breaking. He knew there were more important things in the universe than romance; a huge intergalactic war, for example. People got over unrequited love all the time and Lance was about to be one of them. He loved love, sure, but he had other facets of his personality, other interests and talents to offer. No matter what happened with his heart, he would continue onward, refusing to let it rule his life.

“I'm fine,” Lance bristled, trying not to let Hunk see. He knew Hunk was just asking as a concerned best friend but it still stung a little. “I just need some time but nothing has to change between us.”

Hunk turned to Lance, hand poised to gesture as he spoke, but never got the words out. Something crashed into the back of Hunk's helmet and he gasped, turning to look. Whatever it was then smashed into the front of Hunk's helmet and Hunk cried out, reaching up and throwing it off of him. This only resulted in it crashing against Lance's helmet, smearing something across the visor and blocking his vision.

They both flailed, hands wiping vigorously over their helmets in a desperate attempt to get their vision back. Lance could feel his heart beating erratically in his chest and wondered if this was some sort of ambush.

“Oh,” Hunk said suddenly, “It's food goo.”

Lance froze, “Food goo? Seriously?”

In a less panicked state, he took the time to really wipe off his visor only to find that it was, in fact, just a plate of food goo that had attacked them. He felt beyond silly.

“Oh, but it's rotten!” Hunk cried, shaking his hand to dislodge the remnants of it. “Disgusting! Why does food goo keep betraying and attacking me?”

Before Lance could say anything back, static filled their ears. It was a moment later that the static was replaced with Pidge's voice. “Hey guys, we found something here. It looks like there's some sort of creature taking out the crew.”

“Creature? Like what?” Lance asked.

“Well,” The tone in Pidge's voice did not make Lance feel confident. “You'll know it when you see it. It's huge and incredibly fast.”

“Like how huge?” Hunk was asking when Lance came to a sudden halt, grabbing Hunk and yanking him back.

They loomed just outside of a doorway, barely able to see inside. But, despite the darkness, Lance was able to make out a clear shape moving around. It looked tall, taller than him, and big enough to put up a good fight. Hunk followed his line of sight, shrinking further away from the doorway when he caught sight of what Lance was looking it.

Both of them had lowered and turned off their flashlights and in a few extra moments, their eyes were adjusting to the dark. The longer they stayed in silence, the more Lance was able to see. Pidge, as it turned out, had been right. Lance knew that he was seeing the monster Pidge had mentioned, despite having no physical description to go off of.

“Pidge?” Lance whispered as quietly as he could into his headset, hoping beyond hope that the monster wouldn't hear him. “We found it.”

The silence that followed only lasted the length of a breath. Suddenly his headset was alive with static again before Pidge's voice boomed through, loud and clear. “What was that, Lance? I couldn't really hear you.”

The monster whipped around immediately and Lance and Hunk both froze. It paused to assess them briefly before lunging. Lance reached instinctively for his Bayard but it didn't even matter. By the time his fingers had even grazed the handle of it, the monster was already gone, having shoved him and Hunk to the side.

—

Keith couldn't quite make out the yells that were coming through his headset. Lance was a garbled mess, saying something about a monster and to be on the lookout. Pidge, from her own helmet, was trying to give a more detailed explanation of what was going on.

“Lance and Hunk saw this—” Pidge was attempting to elaborate but her words were getting lost in the static.

“Can only one person explain, please?” Keith asked calmly. “I can't understand either of you when you're both talking.”

Something clattered in the distance and it set Keith's nerves immediately on edge. From what he had gathered over the coms, Lance and Hunk had joined Pidge, Allura and Lan in the control room. He'd gathered something about security footage, the crew disappearing and a monster. It wasn't a lot to put together and their connection within the ship seemed to be sketchy as best, constantly cutting in and out, making it impossible to understand even when only one of them was talking.

There was another clanging in the distance and Keith extended his hand, calling his bayard into it. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he continued slowly down the hallway, eyes scanning the distance.

Before he had a chance to even register what was happening, he was suddenly being thrown back and pinned to the wall. True to Lance's words, a monster hovered over him, claws digging into the armor at his shoulders. Keith struggled, thrashing against the creature on top of him but it was bigger than him and certainly stronger. It sniffed at him, slowly breathing against his neck and he shivered.

A moment later he could feel Kosmo wedging his nose under his arm and then the tingly feeling filled him. It had been weird adjusting to the feeling of teleporting with Kosmo but now he was used to it. It felt like a sort of static settling under his skin, making his entire body feeling alive. One moment he was pinned to the wall, staring down the jaws of a monster that seemed to think he'd taste delicious and the next he was being steadied by Lance's hands in the control room of the ship, the rest of the team rushing over to him.

He reached out and stroked along Kosmo's head briefly, a thank you for saving his life. Kosmo bumped his nose into Keith affectionately in return.

“What just happened?” Allura asked, leaning over Lance's shoulder to inspect Keith. Lance's face matched Keith's uneasy feelings.

“I found the monster.” Keith replied, before turning to Lan. “And now I know what base you were pillaging. I know that monster.”

“You what?” The team turned collectively towards him, shock clear on all of their faces.

“Rannveig found that creature in the quantum abyss.” Keith started to explain, glancing at the screen behind Pidge to keep an eye out for it. “He did experimentation on it to see if he could get it to fight for him. It was a Galra-killing monster. The problem was that it couldn't tell the difference between friend and enemy. So they locked it up.”

Lance moved slightly, catching Keith's attention. He glanced back and they locked eyes. “If they locked it up, how did it get in here?”

“Krolia and I released it. Or, well, we gave them the ability to release it.” Keith answered.

“Did you… Did you know what it was?” Hunk asked, terrified.

“Krolia did.” Keith glanced away from his team again, feeling a weight settle on his shoulders. “It was the only way for us to get off that ship alive though.”

“Well,” It was Allura who jumped to Keith's defense, surprisingly. “We've all had to do things we regret to stay alive, that's the nature of war. I'm just glad you made it back to us because we need you.”

Surprised by her kind words, Keith turned to look at Allura. When she had found out his Galra heritage, things had gotten incredibly tense between them. But, to her credit, she had been able to open her mind and look past that. While his Galra heritage had been a shock to all of them, it had turned out to be for everyone's benefit. The realization that not all Galra are bad opened the door for them to forge a relationship with the Blades which had successfully turned the tide in the war. And that, along with the acceptance of Allura and everyone else, had led to Keith being able to accept that side of himself.

“Exactly. All that matters is that we make it out of here alive. So, what do we need to do?” Lance jumped in, encouraging as always.

If Keith had to describe Lance in one word, it would be unflinching. Everything that was thrown at him, he took in stride. He never lost hope or sight of the big picture and was incapable of being discouraged. He always dealt with the issue at hand, resolving it before addressing any lingering questions or feelings. Plus, he maintained a level head. This was why Keith considered Lance his impulse control. Although Keith trusted all of his team implicitly, Lance was the only one who could see to the very core of Keith's being and that's exactly why he had the ability to reign Keith back in.

“Well, it hunts Galra only. So we need to get out of here before it notices Lan. There's nothing else to do, it's too late for the rest of the crew.” Keith said and the team agreed.

Immediately, Pidge pulled up the map on the screen, quickly locating their quickest exit out. She downloaded the map to her gear and they were off. They moved quietly and slowly through the hallways, nobody talking or even breathing audibly. They had their flashlights running, pointing one in all directions to cover their backs.

“The closest and only way out, really, is the way we came in.” Pidge whispered quietly. Despite Pidge being just a few feet away from him, Keith could only faintly hear her voice through the helmet.

The rest of the team was in front of Keith. He pulled up the rear with Lan directly in front of him and Kosmo at his side. Slowly, they entered a large room; so large Keith could barely see the door on the other side. The group paused, shining their flashlights around and clearing the room before entering. Once it was considered safe, they traveled out into the open, still in a large group.

Keith's nerves were on edge and he couldn't bring himself to release his grip on his bayard. They moved across the room with relative ease, and were just approaching the door when Keith heard the breathing over his shoulder. He remembered someone saying something about the monster being fast when they had been talking over each other previously.

“Run!” He yelled as loud as he could, ignoring the way it startled his team and whipping around with his sword out.

Sure enough, the monster was merely inches away from him, it's eyes darting between him and Lan. Keith could feel the team scatter behind him and, a moment later, there were shots coming from Lance and Hunk's guns. The monster dodged, darting around the room with ease. Briefly, Keith wondered how it moved so freely in space but the question disappeared from his mind the moment he saw the creature slam into the door that was between him and the rest of the team.

It slammed once, twice, and on the third time, the door broke, slamming shut all at once. Keith, Lan and Kosmo were left alone with the creature while the rest of the team was trapped outside. Knowing he didn't have time to worry or panic, Keith situated himself between Lan and the monster, calling forth his blade again.

The monster was fast. Keith couldn't even track its movements. The moment he determined where it was, it moved and he suddenly lost it all over again. It wasn't surprising that it was able to knock him out of the way like nothing more than a plaything. He hit the wall hard, his bayard temporarily clattering out of his hand. The monster lunged again and this time Kosmo met it in the middle, rising to Keith's defense. A barbed tail that Keith hadn't even noticed before snaked out and wrapped around Kosmo, slamming him into the ground. He let out one yelp and Keith's heart broke.

“Keith!” Lance's voice came through the coms suddenly. “We're coming for you!”

“We can't open the door though. It broke the gears when it smashed into the frame. So hold tight while we find another way in.” Pidge's voice immediately followed Lance's.

The creature dove for Keith again and he dropped low, scooping Kosmo and his bayard up on his way back to defend Lan. He rose from the ground, relieved to feel Kosmo breathing in his arms and stopped in between Lan and the creature. The creature hovered in front of the door, staring at them across the open expanse of the large room.

“Let me at him,” Lan was saying, trying to shove Keith out of the way.

The monster lunged then and Keith didn't even have time to think. There was a feeling in the very depths of his gut that caused him to raise his bayard, pointing it at the creature. He watched in amazement as the bayard shifted shapes in his hand. But, instead of turning into the sword he was familiar with, it turned into a blaster. Keith didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger, narrowly missing the creature and knocking it off balance and out of the way. The blast had been so powerful that it had burned a hole straight through the door, granting them an escape. Keith ushered Lan ahead of him, pulling up the rear with Kosmo still in his arms.

“Is that a gun?!” Lance cried incredulously as Keith came through the door. He immediately picked up shooting at the creature as it attempted to follow.

“Pidge,” Keith ignored Lance's question for the time being, unable to focus on it right now. “Get us out of here.”

“We still only have one exit option and it's not exactly close.” She responded as they collectively took off down the hallway.

Without even a thought, Keith raised his newly acquired gun and shot ahead of the group, blasting a hole straight through the wall of the ship. Immediately they were being pulled towards the hole, along with a lot of debris. They had to struggle to dodge the debris and keep the monster occupied enough to lock it inside. It wasn't an easy feat, but soon they were all plummeting through the gap and into space. Pidge went last, using her grip hook to pull a long sheet of metal after her, successfully blocking the hole and locking the monster in.

A terrible screech sounded from inside the ship and everyone flinched. Just trapping the monster wasn't enough, Keith knew, but he wasn't sure what else to do. As if understanding his question, the ship below them suddenly exploded, throwing shards of glass and metal all around. The paladins scattered, avoiding burning pieces and racing back towards their lions.

“What just happened?” Keith asked through the coms as he waited for Lan to finish climbing into Black.

“On our way out, I rigged it to self destruct.” Pidge replied.

“Good thinking, Pidge.” Came Allura's response.

Keith clambered up in Black behind Lan, laying Kosmo down gently and stroking along his soft fur briefly. “Alright guys, let's head back. There's nothing left to do here.”

Everyone jumped to attention, falling into formation and soaring back towards the base and Atlas.

—

“I thought I said to call if you needed help!” Shiro cried the moment he watched Keith carry Kosmo off of Black.

The rest of the paladins climbed down soon after and Allura immediately rushed to Kosmo, holding her hands over him and scanning him. Keith was looking at Shiro but wouldn't cross over to him, wouldn't leave his wolf's side, so Shiro walked across the room to him.

“We're fine,” Keith started, gesturing around him to the rest of the team who were, indeed, still in one piece. “Plus, we didn't exactly have time to make an additional call.”

“Keith,” Shiro could hear the mixture of exasperation and a warning in his own tone.

Keith didn't back down, but he didn't lose his cool either. He was no longer the Keith that didn't like being challenged by authority. Instead, he met Shiro's gaze directly and began to explain what had happened. It sounded like a nightmare and Shiro came out the other side of the story proud of his team for thinking quick on their feet and protecting each other.

Allura rose suddenly, turning to look at Keith. “He's going to be fine.”

The relief was palpable on Keith as his shoulders sagged. Kosmo thumped his tail on the ground a few times, indicating that he was now awake. With no hesitation, Keith knelt down and began to stroke his head, murmuring to him. There wasn't much else for Shiro to say on the matter, so he crouched down and began to pet Kosmo's back.

“Just, stay safe in the future, okay?” He said after a moment.

“I promise you don't have to worry. I'll always protect the team.” Keith replied.

Shiro had a response on the tip of his tongue but didn't get a chance to say it. Instead, Lance walked up, clapping Keith on the shoulder, “And I've always got his back.”

—

The rest of the ship was asleep, but Hunk was wide awake. Out in space, it was hard to tell what was day and night so the Atlas was set on a strict schedule to keep everyone as rested as possible. After the mission, Hunk had gone back to his room like he was supposed to. He'd gone through all the motions of getting ready for bed and even climbed into it, but he couldn't calm down enough to sleep. He was terribly shaken from the mission earlier in the day and there was only one thing he could think of to help him relax. That was how he found himself alone in the kitchen, in the dead of their night cycle, clanging pots and pans as he cooked in a haste.

The boxes of ingredients his parents had sent him with were open on the counter, their contents scattered about. Usually Hunk was very precise with his measuring, always cleaning up immediately and never leaving a mess. Tonight, however, his hands shook as he held the measuring cup and he found that he just couldn't care when he spilled something.

The door to the kitchen opened suddenly and Hunk nearly jumped out of his skin until he turned and saw Shay standing there, an expression of concern on her face.

“I thought I heard you in here,” She said kindly, stepping into the room.

“What are you doing up?” Hunk set his ingredients down, resting his hands on the counter and leaning his weight onto them. He took a deep breath, trying to release the tension he could feel in his shoulders.

Shay crossed over to him, placing one hand on the counter near his and the other on his back, rubbing gentle circles. “I could ask you the same thing.”

A moment passed where Hunk considered lying. But this was Shay and she had never judged Hunk. She'd never regarded him with anything other than respect and kindness. She was gentle and wise and an all around bright spot in Hunk's life. He knew he could tell her his real feelings and she wouldn't think they were silly.

With a deep breath, he said “That mission earlier wasn't supposed to be dangerous. It was supposed to be a simple in and out. Instead we ended up traipsing across the galaxy and nearly getting killed by a weird, genetically modified, Galra eating monster. It almost ate Keith!”

Shay's eyebrows were raised in surprise but it wasn't unkind. “That sounds terrifying.”

“It was!” Hunk pushed off the counter but didn't move far enough away to dislodge Shay's hand. “I just—”

The words died on his tongue. He had expressed it once before to Lance. Lance had taken it all in stride but Hunk knew he didn't share the sentiment which made it hard for him to relate. Still, he appreciated the way Lance had been there for him and continued to check in on him since.

“You can tell me.” Shay pulled a stool up, seating herself on it to indicate that she was willing to listen to anything Hunk had to say.

That cracked Hunk, breaking him wide open. The fear from earlier spilled out of him, dragging some of his darkest truths with it. “I know I'm a paladin of Voltron and that I'm a part of this final battle. I get that. And of course I'm going to follow through and see it til the end. But, after that—” he hesitated with the words on the tip of his tongue. Sensing his worry, Shay placed one of her hands gently on top of his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.” After that, I'll be happy to put down my bayard and helmet and never look back. Don't get me wrong, I love my team. They're family to me and they're stuck with me forever. But I want to spend time with them in situations that don't involve death looming ominously over us, you know?”

He paused then to look at Shay, almost surprised at how soft her expression was. It occurred to him then that Shay had never known a life without death hanging just in the distance, a constant and unavoidable threat. A strong pang swept through him at the thought. If anyone deserved a life of happiness and adventure, it was Shay. She had sacrificed herself to help them, put her life on the line for people she had only just met and a cause she'd only heard about in whispers. That was beyond admirable and Hunk just wanted her to have everything she deserved. It was Shay and the people like her that gave Hunk the will and courage to fight. He was fighting on their behalf, to give them the kind of life they deserved.

“There's nothing wrong with that.” She said evenly, her eyes finding his. “Once this war is over, you will have done your duty. If you want to put down your helmet then, you should. You have already served the universe greatly and we are all thankful for you.”

“Well, I didn't really do anything.” Hunk glanced away, feeling overwhelmed by her kindness. “That was all Voltron and I'm just a tiny part of that. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why the yellow lion even picked me. I'm not that remarkable and I'm always scared.”

“That's what makes you so brave. You came back for me, Hunk, even though you were terrified. You came back and risked your life and showed me things I never thought— never even dreamed that I'd see. You could've left me to continue the life I'd always known, but you didn't. That was you, Hunk. Not Voltron.”

Hunk flipped his hand over then, wrapping it around Shay's and squeezing tight. “Of course I came back for you. I'll always come back for you.”

“That's why the yellow lion picked you.” She said and Hunk didn't fail to notice the flush on her cheeks. “Because you are compassionate and you are strong. You put others above yourself. You are the most admirable person I've ever met. And when this war is over and you come out victorious, you will be able to lead whatever kind of life you want.”

Their eyes met again, hands still interlocked, and Hunk couldn't stop the emotions that were overwhelming him. He'd been terrified earlier in the day— terrified of the monster, of losing his life, of losing his closest friends— and he'd been carrying that weight around with him all day, letting it drag him down. And then Shay had appeared and, just like the sun, she had shed light on all of his doubts and made them seem less severe. He pulled up his own stool then, letting himself sink down onto it and giving his shaking knees a break.

“I want to own my own restaurant. To have a big family. I want to be happy and to make people happy.” Hunk could feel an ache in his chest at his own words. That had always been his dream life. And to think, he was finally close to being able to achieve it. The ache in his chest turned into more of a longing and he let out a long breath.

“I so hope I get to see you achieve all of those things.” Shay said.

Without thinking, Hunk responded. “I hope you're a part of them.”

Immediately he flushed a million shades of red. But, instead of being startled or put off, Shay squeezed his hand again with a warm smile. “I hope so, too.”

—

Honerva stood on the steps of the grandest building on the planet, a mass of Alteans waiting at the bottom to hear her speak. She regarded them, scrutinizing them as she looked from face to face. It was now or never. Her son had already done the hardest part— he had won their hearts. All that was left was to use that weakness against them.

“It was Lotor,” She began with no preamble, not even bothering to wait for silence. A hush fell as soon as she began. “who sought each of you out. It was Lotor who gave you a home. It was Lotor who protected you and provided for you.” a smattering of cheers and applause rippled through the crowd as she spoke. “And it was Voltron who took that away from you! It was Voltron who took Lotor away from you!”

She paused, allowing her words to sink in. An angry murmur spread from one end of the crowd to the next, growing angrier as it went. She watched the faces of the Alteans as they reacted to her words, watched them contort with hatred and the desire for revenge. It was exactly as she wanted it to be.

“I have a way to bring Lotor back, to reunite us with them.” She threw her arms out wide, implying that she would be sharing Lotor with them, even if that wasn't even close to her intent. “But before I can do that, we must rid the universe of Voltron. Lotor isn't safe as long as Voltron is still out there. We aren't safe.”

With a quick flick of her wrists, two robeasts appeared, one flanking either side of the crowd. The Alteans gasped at the appearance of them but did not shirk away from them. It only encouraged Honerva further.

“With these, we can defeat Voltron. Only then will it be safe to bring my son back. Are you with me?”

The Alteans cheered uproariously, hooting and hollering and clapping each other on the shoulder as if they had already won. Honerva looked on, pleased with their cooperation and knowing this only made things easier for her in the future.

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