#He doesn’t travel across the dimensions as much as he RIPS through them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

acerace · 3 years

Note

...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo)

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway)

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will!

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao

#hermitcraft #mindcrack #vintagebeef #mcyt #long post #asks #redwinterrises #that was so many words #kudos to anyone who reads the whole thing lmao

208 notes · View notes

salty-sith-bitch · 3 years

Text

He’s Not Coming

@alternate-dimensions Thank you for the request! I was so excited to write this all day! I am hoping this is what you meant and that you enjoy the story!

I wrote this for any gender so all you lovely people could be a part of this <3

You can find the story on Ao3 as well!

Warnings: Blood. Torture. Cursing.

Words:1333

You spat the blood from your mouth as you stared down at the man in front of you. Your head throbbed and you could only open one eye; your other swollen shut. Your arms hung above your head, chained to the wall and you could feel one of your shoulders strain as it hung out of place and tried to support your weight.

The man whacked you in the gut again with the metal rod causing you to let out an agonizing scream.

"Tell me where the Mandalorian is and I'll stop," the man growled.

"Fuck you," you snapped back, more blood dripping from your mouth. "I'd rather die."

Another whack was sent across your gut. The rod gave off electric shock shocks and your body shook as the electric currents traveled through you. A white-hot burning sensation tingled every nerve through you as the rod seared your side. Spots appeared in your vision and another cry was ripped from you as tears filled your eyes. When the electricity finally left your body your legs gave out from under you and your shoulder gave a loud pop! as it was pulled further out of its socket.

This wasn’t the first time - nor the last- you have been put through this torture. You had been hanging there for at least a couple of hours if not most of the day. The man had captured you earlier that morning while you were in the market doing your shopping. The Mandalorian had given you a couple of credits to get the essentials while he left The Child with Peli and left to get his latest bounty. You assumed the man who kidnapped you had seen you and Mando part ways not far into the market. You were almost done with your shopping and were going to head back towards the ship when you felt an electric current through the back of your neck and the world faded. What you assumed was not long after you awoke in the dark, chained to a wall, and a man beating you senseless demanding to know where the Mandalorian is.

The man snarled at tased you with the end of the rod. "Tell me where he is." He stepped forward and grabbed your jaw in a vice tight grip, your lips just inches from his. “Or this is going to get a lot worse.” Sticking out his tongue the man licked from your chin up towards your ear; catching every drop of blood and sweat that rolled down your face.

Goosebumps rose across your skin as you tried to kick and squirm away, a useless whimper escaping your swollen and beaten lips.

“I’m not telling you,” You screamed out for the hundredth time. You finally got enough clearance to kick the man in the gut.

Stumbling backward the man dropped the rod and fell to the ground. Yelling the man stood and lunged towards you. One of his hands clasped itself around your throat as the other gave a couple of sharp punches into your gut, knocking the wind out of you.

“Fine then. I’ll just have to wait until he comes to collect his precious toy.” The man turned away and sat in the chair across from you. Pulling a pre-roll and a lighter from his pocket he lit it and gave a large puff.

Looking down you felt the tears start to roll down your face. “He won’t come for me. He doesn’t care. He wouldn’t risk his skin to save me. I’m nothing to him.”

Your body shook as the sobs ripped through your body. The Mandalorian wouldn’t come for you. Why would he? You were replaceable. You were only there to take care of the child. He could find someone else to do the job.

Your crying grew louder and you wish the man would just kill you already. Mando may not come to save you but you weren’t going to give up his location. He may not care about you but you cared about him.

“Oh for fucks sake,” You heard the man say as he stood.

You continued to sob as the man wrapped his fingers around your throat again. He took another drag of his roll and blew the air into your face.

“If the tin man doesn’t care then he wouldn’t mind if I took his pretty toy and used it for myself.” You felt the end of his lit roll burn into your cheek as he whispered into your ear. “I wonder what you’d look like with a shiny collar on.”

***

The Mandalorian quietly stepped through the stone hallway as he followed your voice to where you were. He had been searching for you for a majority of the night and was ready to give up hope of finding you when a shopkeeper had said something about a man kidnapping you earlier than morning. Pointing him in the right direction the Mandalorian took off running in search of you.

When he reached the abandoned underground building you were in Mando was ready to burst in and take out whoever had kidnapped you. Knowing that was rash behavior he listened for any hint of your voice or the perpetrator. It wasn’t until he heard you crying and the man responding to using you for his own desires that the Mandalorian’s blood started to boil.

It wasn’t what the man had said or that he had kidnapped you that made him angry, but that you thought the Mandalorian didn’t care about you. It crushed him to know that you cared so much for him that you wouldn’t give his location but thought so little of him and that he wouldn’t come for you.

As soon as the man was done speaking the Mandalorian bolted from around the corner, blaster held high.

“Let them go.”

The man turned and looked at the Mandalorian, hand still clamped around your throat.

“Well, wasn’t my little friend here wrong about you. You would show up.”

The Mandalorian took a step closer and switch the safety off his blaster. “Step back and I won’t shoot.”

A grin spread across the man’s face as his fingers around your neck tightened. Spots started to fill your vision again and you could feel your body start to go slack.

“What is it Mando? Don’t like sharing your toys?”

“I’m not. A fucking. Toy.” You rasped out. “Especially not yours.”

Grinding your teeth together you took whatever last bit of strength you had and swung your legs up and around the man’s torso. Pulling him towards you, you threw your head forward and smashed your skulls together. Instantly the man let go of you and fell to the floor. Not even a second later the sound of blaster fire rang off the stone walls around you and you could smell burning flesh.

The man could trash talk you however much he wanted but you drew the line when he used that tone on The Mandalorian.

“Cyare,” you heard the modulated voice.

Looking up at Mando through your one good eye you choked out his name as blood continued to pool from your mouth.

Mando moved quickly as he unchained you let you fall into his arms. “Don’t speak. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Holstering his blaster the Mandalorian slipped one arm behind your back and the other behind your knees; scoping you into his arms.

Your head rolled into his cold beskar and you felt relief as it soothed your aching face.

Making his way out of the building the Mandalorian looked down at you and spoke with a strained voice.

“Y/N, I was so worried. I thought I lost you. I would never leave you. You’ve given me so much.”

“Mando,” you tried to speak again.

“No,” Mando shook his head. “Don’t speak. I need to get you back to the Crest and take care of you.”

Nodding your head you let the darkness swallow you and pull you under.

#din dijarin x reader #din djaren #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin x f!reader #din dijarin fanfiction #din djarin x female reader #din djarin x male reader #din djarin x nonbinary reader #self insert #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandolorian x reader #the mandalorian x y/n #the mandalorian x female reader #reader insert #star wars #protective din djarin

872 notes · View notes

imagine-darksiders · 3 years

Text

Old-Timer

Chapter 1 - Out of time.

So, this was absolutely inspired by the anon who mentioned a young Eideard. I got to thinking, how can I send Reader back in time and meet this guy? Then it hit me. Phasewalker.

Summary: To keep you safe, Death would tear a hole through the fabric of time and space. Too bad he doesn’t know how to tear that same hole open to get you back....

----------------------

Your eyes fly open alongside an accompanying gasp that tears out of your throat as you lurch upright, pulled from the threads of unconsciousness by some, unseen force.

Bewilderment is what you wake to first, and you spend the first few seconds of awareness jerking your head in every direction, seeking out clues as to where you are, and how in the world you'd even arrived here. Stone surrounds you, from the ceiling overhead to the ground below, even the four walls of the shadowy chamber you find yourself sprawled in are cut from the same, hardened rock.

Gulping down breaths of stale, musty air, you squint hard at the room around you, lit by nothing but a single streak of sunlight that filters in lazily through a wide entrance, beyond which, you can hear the distant whistle of birdsong and rustling leaves. Perplexed, you place a hand on your head and try to think, murmuring aloud, “How the hell... Where am I?”

The memory doesn't hit you all at once. Rather, it bleeds into frame from the very back of your mind, like you're attempting to piece together the segments of a vivid dream.

You were in the Forge Lands.... Yes... More specifically, you'd recently been travelling through Baneswood with -

“Death!” you suddenly whisper out loud, your heart bucking into overdrive once you realise that your grim and mordacious companion is definitely not in the room with you.

The room...

You've... been here. At least, you think you have.

Furrowing your brow, you try to focus.

It would not do to panic now, not least because Death would probably rebuke you for it. The Horseman always maintains that it won't be demons or corrupted constructs that kill you in the end. It'll be your tendency to lose yourself in the anxieties your mind kindly presents to you whenever something bad happens.

'Deep breaths,' you tell yourself, sucking in a lungful of air through your nose and counting backwards from four. As the breath steadily whooshes out of you again, you begin glancing around the room as though it might hold some clue that could answer the jumbled myriad of questions currently floating around inside your head.

Strangely enough, it does.

The whole chamber looks... too familiar – almost an exact replica of the room you last recall being in with Death. Although, for as familiar as it is, there is definitively something off about it as well. The dimensions and stonework might be the same, and yet... where are the holes in the roof? Why isn't the ground coated in a layer of thick dust, and how is it that the walls are suddenly barren of plant life and moss? You would have put money on there being a gaping hole in the ceiling, however when you tip your head back and look up, all you find is a solid, stone canopy standing proudly above you, looking for all the world as though it’s almost newly built.

Something definitely isn't right. Perhaps this isn't the same chamber after all.

Another memory suddenly prods at your mind before it surfaces like the elusive dorsal fin of a great whale, one that you turn all of your attention onto, afraid that it might slip below the waves of amnesia if you look away.

Death had been with you, that much is indisputable. But he'd been... agitated. You remember a pursuit, half a dozen constructs had corralled you both into one of the old, abandoned ruins that lay deep inside Baneswood.

You distinctly recall that the Horseman's gauntlet pulsed and hummed with green light the moment he shoved you behind him and past the threshold. Staggering back, you'd stumbled over an elevated platform at the centre of the room and landed on your rear, blurting out a yelp of shock before you could swallow it down again. Death had instinctively whipped about at the sound to face you and assess the cause of the sudden cry. It was in that precise moment that one of the constructs chose to lurch forwards and wrap its bulky limbs around the Horseman, pinning his arms against his sides.

You had watched, horrified as Death struggled in the stone embrace. Then, a shadow fell across you and to your terror, you looked up to find one of the constructs looming menacingly above you. It had obviously decided to leave its brethren to tangle with the raging Nephilim whilst it opted to pursue a less resilient quarry. The head sitting upon its massive shoulders was utterly devoid of any features, which had unsettled you greatly. No eyes, no nose, no mouth... Nothing but a blank slab of stone that stared down at you while you sat prone on a raised dais in front of it.

The construct twitched its head to one side and you have a memory of seeing Death rip his arm free of his assailant's grasp and stretch it out towards you, the briefest glimpse of fear flashing across his golden eyes. He was being set upon by the remain four monstrosities, all of whom circled like hungry sharks before they closed in on him, their various implements of destruction poised to strike

God... What had happened after that?

You think you might have screamed the Horseman's name, totally oblivious to the construct towering over you with its first cocked back, ready to pitch it forwards to decimate you in a single blow.

You'd tried to stand, but the surface below you was so slippery, more akin to glass than stone, and it had infuriated you when one foot slid out from underneath you and caused you to simply crash back onto your rump with a jarring impact that had sent your teeth clacking noisily inside your skull.

With blood rushing in your ears, you'd stared desperately past the construct and caught a brief glimpse of Death's burning, orange eyes. For the tiniest sliver of an instant, you could have sworn he looked afraid – ‘ironic’, you thought, given that he seemed to constantly admonish you for letting your fear show in front of your enemies.

Seeing his alarm only sent your stomach plummeting down into your shoes, but before you could begin to process the sudden flash of stark, protective fury that crossed his gaze like a lightening bolt...

'Thwump!'

Everything was suddenly illuminated by green light, the source of which emanated from a ball of spinning magic that hurtled through the gathered constructs and flew towards you at breakneck speed, faster than your eyes could even track it. In a blink, the ball of energy hit the ground directly between your legs and you barely had time to be relieved that it hadn't hit you before you were promptly and inexplicably falling.

The last thing you saw as you sank below the solid ground you'd once been sitting on was the construct's face, completely featureless, yet somehow managing to convey a look of total surprise.

Then, just as abruptly as you fell, you started to rise. Your ascent lasted for less than a second before you felt yourself snatched up by the unmistakable hand of gravity once more.

In a disorienting moment of utter chaos, you slammed back down to earth and there was an instance of blinding pain as your head cracked against the smooth surface below you.

And after that... only darkness.

--------

You come back into yourself with a jolt and lift your hand to touch gingerly at the back of your head, wincing when even the barest touch of your fingers brings forth a searing bolt that shoots down the base of your skull. It's only a minor relief to pull your hand away and find it clean of any blood.

Small miracles, and all that.

Emitting a soft huff, you begin to push yourself up and onto your feet, only to end up sprawled flat on your back again moments later after your shoe slides out from underneath you with an almost deafening squeak.

Exasperated, you scowl up at the ceiling for a few seconds before you sit up and twist yourself about to inspect the ground below you.

At a glance, you're laying in the middle of a raised, circular dais. Its surface is made of a polished material, more akin to glass than stone. One of your hands brushes distractedly over strange patterns that form the shape of concentric circles, each emitting a soft, blue light, and skimming around the very edge of the dais are sigils and glyphs, written in a language you can neither read, write, nor speak. Though whilst you might not recognise what they say, you can recognise what they entail.

You've seen them before, after all, dotted about the walls and ceilings and floors in most of the realms you've already visited alongside Death. They're the typical markings of portal.

The revelation brings with it the awful, sinking feeling of dread.

You're sitting slap-bang in the centre of a portal.

Shaking hands card slowly through your hair as your breathing picks up and you swallow hard, finally slotting the final puzzle piece into place.

“Death's phasewalker...” you murmur aloud.

There have only been a handful of times when you've witnessed the Horseman use the artefact that he wears around his wrist like the world's most versatile watch. With it, you've seen him tear holes in space and time, as though he's merely opening a door from one room to the next. Only these doors tend to lead you much further astray than any regular door ever has. It's one thing to use Vulgrim's Serpent holes to travel to another realm, but it’s something else entirely to step through a hole created by the Phasewalker and fall out into a whole different time.

Even after experiencing a few temporal distortions, you still can't say you're a big fan of it in practice.

Rolling yourself sideways off the platform and finally standing up on wobbly legs, you glance around at the chamber, realising now why it looks so like the one you'd just been in. It is the same chamber – only you're standing in it at a different time in history. The past, judging by the lack of weathering on the stone.

Likely, Death had, in a moment of chaos, sought to remove you from danger in any way he could.

The flash of green light, the ball of energy and the sudden sensation of falling...

He'd... saved you...

By sending you through a portal to the past.

You're not sure whether to laugh at his genius or cry at his short-sightedness.

Certainly, you're out of immediate danger, but the Forge Lands is far from safe at any point in time, and while you may not be crushed by a construct, there are other threats lurking amongst the lush, green trees and crumbling ruins.

Still, it's of some comfort that you're still standing, at least. Peering around into the shadowy corners of the chamber, you're fairly confident that there are no nasty surprises lying in wait, ready to pounce at you at any moment, though you're still hesitant to let your guard down. Swallowing down the rising wave of fear, you park yourself up against the wall furthest from the entrance and hunker down, returning your gaze to the portal you'd fallen through. If Death had sent you here, then he must know how to bring you back. All you need to do is sit and wait for him to finish off those constructs, reopen the portal and pull you back through.

And if you know the Horseman, which you like to think you do by now, he'll be stepping through that portal at any moment. So, you sit, trying very hard not to count the seconds flying by as if you might trick yourself into believing that less time has passed than really has. Subsequently, you keep your drooping eyes fixed on the portal and not the sunbeam that moves steadily across the chamber's entrance. You don't want to be reminded quite so starkly that it has been hours, and still Death has yet to emerge.

“Any time now, pal,” you mutter, tapping your heel anxiously against the stone below you.

Far beyond the entrance, something monstrous lets out a distant and melancholy howl, drawing your attention away from the portal, and it only takes seconds for the colour to drain from your face upon noticing that the outside world has grown startlingly darker.

By the looks of the long shadows cast by Banewood's trees you'd wager that sunset has arrived, with the darkness of night nipping closely at its heels.

If there's one lesson that has been drummed into you, both by the Horseman and the makers, it's that for as dangerous as the Forge Lands can be during the day, it's doubly so at night. As another howl answers the first, you start to realise that with every passing minute, your chances of getting through the night relatively unscathed are dwindling, but you're reluctant to leave the portal lest Death appear. Yet, you're also hesitant to stay out in an exposed ruin in the middle of Baneswood until he does.

“Okay.” Slapping your hands decisively on your knees, you push yourself upright, wobbling a little after sitting on your backside for so long. There's only one place in this realm that you can go, somewhere safer, at least. Somewhere that Death might actually think to look for you if he doesn't find you here. Tentative now, you start forwards, edging past the silent portal and taking carefully measured steps to the entrance.

You'd be remiss to deny the apprehensive curl of your gut at the prospect of venturing all the way to Tri Stone. You have little-to-no idea of what to expect.

In your own time, the quiet village is a haven, and you would count the makers who live there among your closest friends.

There's Karn, the youngest, a maker for whom adventure is the be-all, end-all of his life. He'd taken to you the hardest and the fastest, declaring you his best friend in a matter of hours, though you suspect that was perhaps due to your proximity in age. He may be literally thousands of years your senior, yet, of all the denizens of Tri Stone, the youngling is the closest equivalent they have to someone of your age. That isn't to say the other makers don't get along with you though. Far from it, in fact.

The twins, Alya and Valus, didn't take much longer to cultivate a friendship with you, especially the latter, who spoke so rarely that when you first met him, you thought he was entirely mute. It was his sister who did most of the talking for both of them, which is convenient, you suppose, given that she's inclined to talk enough for two people anyway. She'd been a godsend when you first came to Tri-Stone after a timely rescue from the demon-infested Earth. You would have listened to the maker talk for hours if you could, more than welcoming of the distraction her friendly voice brought you. She's the perfect counterpart to her brother, Valus, a strong and silent maker with a tendency to fret, a lot, specifically over someone as small and fragile as a human like you.

A fond smile worms its way onto your face as you dwell upon thoughts of your friends and step a little more surely out of the stone ruins and into Baneswood proper.

Part of you wonders how furious Thane would be if he ever finds out that you've walked amongst the giant, twisting trees by yourself. Hell, he'd probably have conniptions. Whilst you appreciate that the gruff warrior only wants to protect you, he's hardly helping humanity's street-cred by scolding their one, surviving member every time you try to venture within five feet of the village entrance on your own.

With a soft chuckle, you shake your head, already able to picture the maker’s furious expression if he ever happens to hear of this little escapade.

A shadow moves across the path ahead and you swiftly duck behind the closest tree, your heart racing. For a long moment, you simply hold your breath and wait until the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps moves along, then you promptly set out once again, following the glow of the setting sun.

As you cast your gaze about in search of any lurking threats, you can't help but notice how lush and wild the woods are in comparison to those you'd left back in your own time. Bushes grow in abundance between the vibrant, green trees, among which flowers and strangely glowing mushrooms rise out of the ground, coming close to the height of your waist. It's almost impossible not to brush your fingers reverently over the petals of one such flower, noting that it shares the same colour as Muria's elegant, blue robes. It occurs to you that, when you return to your own time, you'll have to describe this Baneswood in vivid detail for the blind seer, knowing that her heart bleeds for the nature that had been destroyed by Corruption's foul influence.

Besides, you'd never pass up the chance to try and cheer her up. You've noticed a certain air of melancholy that surrounds the shaman whenever she thinks you aren't looking her way. You can hardly blame her. The responsibilities of a leader had been heaped upon her shoulders so suddenly after Eideard was killed....

A tiny spot in your heart that's been rubbed raw by all the losses you've suffered promptly splits open and starts to bleed at the mere recollection of the oldest maker. You scrub at one of your eyes as a treacherous tear threatens to escape the confines of your lashes.

Of all the terrible times to start thinking about Eideard...

While the others had taken to you with exuberance and intrigue, the elder's welcome had somehow felt... warmer. Subdued, but no less cordial. He'd been the first maker you met, and he hadn't even taken offence after you took one look at him and promptly fainted. His size didn't frighten you though, at least, not after you remained conscious long enough for him to assure you that he meant no harm. Once introductions were out of the way, it was as though you could just sense that this giant had more control over himself than the others, more experience being around small and fragile things.

In spite of the staff he wielded more like a walking stick than a weapon, and the labyrinth of wrinkles that mapped his face, you were never once under the impression that Eideard was anything but a being who possessed phenomenal power. Makers don't get to live as long as he did without a certain degree of strength, after all.

Over time, he reminded you less and less of the village elder and more of a kindly grandfather, diligently watching over his family with patience and proud consideration, who would go to immeasurable lengths to protect his own.

And in the end... he did just that.

The tear that had been making steady progress with its jailbreak finally succeeds in spilling over the edge of your eyelid where it clings to the lashes, turning the bottom of your vision hazy and distorted.

You don't even notice that the shadow stretched out in front of you is no longer your own until suddenly, a gush of air hits the nape of your neck, hot and wet and stinking of rot, causing you to freeze in your tracks and choke on your tongue.

In hindsight, it would have been far more prudent to just start running, but, for all of humanity's qualities, one of their strongest by far has always been curiosity.

So, it's with agonising trepidation that you twist your neck around, your torso following suit until you find yourself staring up at a row of gleaming, white fangs.

It's a wonder that you don't drop dead from fright then and there.

You must have been so caught up in missing your old friend, you hadn't even noticed that you were being stalked, a fitting term that suits the creature currently looming behind you.

Stalkers are not an unknown enemy for you, nor are they especially what you wanted to see right at this exact moment, if ever. This isn't the first time you've run into one either, but it is the first time you've been alone during the fact. Even Death seems wary of the enormous, cat-like demons that prowl around the Forge Lands, and if the Horseman is wary, then you know you should be downright terrified.

When you raise your eyes to meet its slitted pupils, the scales on its back and forearms bristle like plates of armour, tinted all hues of green and brown. In these dark woods, it's the perfect camouflage for an apex predator.

For a human, there's only one tried-and-true method for surviving an encounter with a stalker, and it doesn't include fighting back.

Stowing away the impulse to smack yourself on the forehead, you finally spring into action, whipping about and jolting forwards into a dead sprint, feeling the Stalker's excited hiss once again waft over the back of your neck as it gives chase, propelled by the instinct to hunt a fleeing quarry.

The galloping thuds of its claws striking the earth close at your heels is more than enough incentive to keep you sprinting like a gold medalist, heedless of a stitch or breathlessness. You try to dive in between the more tightly-knit trees in the hopes that the stalker's immense bulk will work to its disadvantage. To your dismay however, your efforts are in vain.

The beast twists itself sideways and back again with the ease of an gymnast, adapting to its surroundings rather than trying to blunder through them, and with every tree you dash past, the stalker draws nearer and nearer, drool flying from its lolling tongue as it inhales the scent of fresh, scared meat.

The sensation of claws swiping at the backs of your legs tugs a shrill screech from you and you kick up your heels, bursting out into a sunlit glade.

Without dwelling on the fact that you've just opened up a window for the stalker to put on some real speed, you suddenly dart to the left and head for the closest line of trees, and although the demon lets out a grunt of surprise at the sudden change in direction, your manoeuvre doesn't throw it off course.

Lungs burning, heart thrashing, you will your body to keep going until, at last, the stalker grows weary of the chase. Halfway to the tree line, it snarls and lashes out again with its long, blackened claws and this time, they hit their mark, slicing across your calves like butcher knives, leaving three, gaping wounds in their wake and causing your legs to buckle underneath you.

With all the grace of a train that's left its tracks, you careen forwards and fall flat on your face, rolling several times before you eventually come to a stop, gasping for air and crying openly. The pain in your leg is almost unbearable. Heat like hell's fire emanates from the gashes left in your skin and they sting worse than any pain you've ever had. At first, you deliriously wonder if stalker claws carry venom, then you scoff at yourself. 'What the Hell would stalkers ever need to use venom for!?'

Peeling your eyes open, you go rigid at the sight of the demon's foreleg reaching out towards you. It snaps its teeth together in triumph and you let out a wheeze when it places its clawed foot directly on your spine and presses down, hard.

Adrenaline still fires through your body in stubborn spite of your injury and has you clawing at the ground whilst feeble whimpers and sobs run from your mouth in a relentless stream of nonsensical babbling.

'This is really about to happen,' you think, cringing when hot, sticky saliva dribbles down onto your neck, 'Of all the ways I could have gone, I'm gonna be eaten alive.'

You distantly wish that Death was here, or rather, you wish that it’s happening back in your own timeline so that there's the chance that one of the makers will find your body and be kind enough to give you a proper burial.

The stalker’s claws sink into your already injured calf and you let out a faltering scream, hating that it's probably enjoying the sound. Summoning one last burst of courage, you grit your teeth and twist your head to the side, glaring up at it and snarling, “I hope you choke, asshole.”

In response, the demon parts its jaws and rears its head back, aiming to lunge forwards and rip the cartilage right out of your delicate neck so that you won't struggle whilst it devours you, when all of a sudden, something akin to an earthquake rumbles through the ground below you, powerful and abrupt enough to give the stalker pause.

This pause would prove to be a mistake as not a moment later, an immense shape crashes through the undergrowth and charges towards you, drowning the glade in a din that sends birds flapping from their nests.

Caught off guard, the stalker's claws retract from your leg and it takes several, clumsy steps back, lifting its hackles and hissing ferociously.

A shadow falls over you and you barely have time to register that the stalker has backed off before a huge, fur-trimmed boot swings over your head and plants itself in front of you, swiftly followed by its twin.

“You leave this wee'un alone,” a dangerously deep-toned voice growls, low as the purring of a truck's engine. It takes you a moment to realise that the rumbling sound isn't coming from the demon, but from whoever has just placed themselves fearlessly between you and certain death.

Clenching your fists, you shove yourself upright and onto your backside, hissing when the sharp, little blades of grass poke and prod at the open wounds on your calf. Rather than bother to inspect the injury – which you already know to be god-awful – you turn your attention to your saviour.

You know enough about the species to recognise that it's a maker, not least judging by the size of the boots alone. Blinking through the tears that sting at the corners of your eyes, you lift your chin and gaze up past the maker's boots, over brown, leather trousers to a belt that's almost as thick as you are wide. Then, you pause, admittedly taken aback by what you see after you move your gaze up a bit further.

....You don't think you've ever known a maker to wear so... little.

Above his belt, there's.... nothing. No tunic, no armour adorning his shoulders, no cowl draped loosely around a robust neck. Instead, you find yourself staring up at a generously-muscled back with pale skin stretched tightly around every dip and bulge, giving him the appearance of someone that might have been sculpted from marble by a renaissance artist. He puffs himself up, creating a decidedly imposing wall of solid muscle between you and the snarling stalker.

You'd take the time to be impressed by his size were you not already gawking at the absolute fountain of lustrous, golden hair that cascades in gentle waves down to the centre of his spine.

Another growl draws your wandering eyes back down to the demon, which has now ceased its pacing and turns to face the maker properly, glaring at him through unblinking, yellow eyes and flexing its claws into the soft grass, as though contemplating the pros and cons of risking itself for a morsel as small as yourself.

The strange maker emits his own, threatening growl, perhaps sensing that the predator's change in demeanour doesn't signify anything good.

“Don't even think about it,” he snarls through his teeth.

Clearly however, the demon cares little for his request, because not a moment later, its body goes tense and it kicks off the ground with powerful hind legs, launching itself towards the maker, its forelegs outstretched and the long claws at the end of each toe flashing like knives in the flecked sunlight.

For a split second, you remember that your saviour is un-armoured and a shrill cry blurts out of your mouth before you can hold it back. “NO!”

Suddenly, the maker's arm snaps out in front of him, his fingers splayed wide, and the stalker just.... stops. It hangs suspended in the air, utterly still, if not entirely disturbed,

Logically, you know you're witnessing magic at work, but there's just something so mind-boggling about seeing a four tonne demon freeze in midair, its eyes bulging open wide and its limbs still stuck in their outstretched position, twitching minutely against the invisible force encasing them.

Giving the stalker a gruff snort, your timely rescuer draws his hand close to his chest and you watch, enraptured as the demon is pulled closer as well on imperceptible strings of magic. It meets the maker's eye for a few, silent moments, hatred and rage passing between the two beings so strongly, you aren't sure whether the tingle on your skin is from their flaring emotions or the magic hanging oppressively in the air.

All at once, the maker flings his arm out again and the demon goes with the motion, incapable of doing much else. It flies sideways through the air and crashes through one tree trunk, obliterating the wood to splinters before its journey is stopped abruptly by a second trunk. With a howl of pain, it drops onto a thick root protruding from the ground and you wince at the resulting crack that you guess is the sound of one of its ribs breaking from the impact. Regardless, you can't bring yourself to feel sorry for it.

The maker’s hand falls to his side once more and he gives his head a firm, decisive nod, apparently satisfied. For a silent minute, you watch the demon writhe around in agony before it manages to pick itself back up, although one of its forelegs is held up off the grass and tucked against a heaving chest. Definitely injured, then.

Shaking its head, the stalker drags its gaze over to the maker and lets out a noise that's half defiance, half surprise. You wonder if it had expected such resistance.

In response, the giant stomps his boot hard on the ground and bares his tusks at it, just daring it to try again. But the stalker, perhaps possessing slightly more brain in its head than you'd give it credit for, lowers its haunches and turns, limping back through the copse of trees until it disappears into the shadows.

“Serves you right, you great, big bully,” the maker huffs, spitting in the direction the stalker had skulked before he drops his fearsome snarl and begins to turn, slow and cautious as though he’s afraid to frighten you away.

Your heart certainly does skip a beat when you finally get a proper glimpse of his striking features.

Long tresses of golden hair tumble down around the maker's face, framing a strong, square jaw and a modest beard that sweeps neatly down to his throat. With eyes that reflect the alluring blue of a summer sky, he peers down at you in amazement as a soft, yet curious smile parts his lips, revealing a pair of tusks that gleam almost as brightly as his eyes. “What do we have here?”

-----

Bonus - Reader and the mystery maker <3

#Darksiders #Darksiders 2 #Eideard #Fluff #time travel #reader #oh no he's cute #he gets cuter #let me know if you want a part 2 #I mean #i'll probably write it anyway but #makers #g/t #giant/tiny #injury #whump #because I like to make my reader suffer

92 notes · View notes

lady-divine-writes · 3 years

Text

Good Omens - “At Midnight” (Rated G)

Summary:

Crowley is devastated by how smoothly the world continues on after he loses Aziraphale to the bookshop fire. Adam stops the war between Heaven and Hell, and things go back to normal for everyone... except him. Crowley goes from demon to ghoul, haunting St. James's Park every night, caught up in his memories of his angel. Until one night, he comes across something unexpected that makes things a little better... (2416 words) ... and a whole lot worse.

Read on AO3.

The hands on Aziraphale's grandfather clock have crept dangerously close to eleven by the time Crowley steps out the door of the bookshop and into the night. He's not closing up. The shop was never open.

Not for anyone but him.

He’d spent the day lurking in the shifting shadows, coiled around the leg of angel's favorite chair, keeping guard.

Watching for movement.

Praying for change.

For resolution.

He marked time by the tolling of Aziraphale's clock, the ebb and flow of the commuters outside, and a single ray of sunlight carving its path across the floor, disappearing out the window at the stroke of seven. That’s when he came out of hiding, became his demon self once again.

Crowley pops his collar against the wind and locks the door behind him. He takes one last look at the pane beneath his fingertips, running them lightly over a ridiculous note affixed to the glass. It’s a note he wrote on Aziraphale's behest, proclaiming when customers can expect the shop to open.

The long and short of it being - don't.

I open the shop on most weekdays about 9:30 or perhaps 10 a.m. While occasionally I open the shop as early as 8, I have been known not to open until 1, except on Tuesday...

Crowley had written it to irritate his angel - a demonic dig, as it were. But after reading it, Aziraphale couldn't have been more delighted.

"Brilliant!" he'd said. "Masterfully convoluted! Now I can finally relax and finish my crossword puzzle in peace! Thank you, my dear."

Crowley had gone warm at Aziraphale's words. He had never felt so overwhelmed by praise.

But now, the sign makes him bitter.

It should have long been replaced with one that reads on holiday, circling the globe, or living the happily ever after life in Mayfair with my husband.

But that wasn't in the cards for Crowley and Aziraphale.

Crowley snaps his fingers to lower the blinds and snuff the lights, and takes off at a brisk clip to the park.

Alone.

He does this every night - haunts St. James's Park close to midnight when he'd rather be at home asleep. Crowley had planned to sleep the next seven millennia away, wait until the world started over again before he showed his face to the sun, but infuriatingly, he couldn't. It's impossible for him to get comfortable in his bed when there should be someone else beside him, sitting up and reading by his damned holy light.

Crowley never thought he'd miss that stupid light piercing his eyelids and interrupting his slumber, but he misses it more than anything.

There was nothing left for Crowley after he lost Aziraphale in the bookshop fire.

He'd always felt that if they went their separate ways, it would sever his heart, but nothing more. He'd go on. But the assumption had been that Aziraphale would still be - exist, just not in Crowley's life.

When Aziraphale went, everything good went with him - love, hope, color, and taste all vacated Crowley's world. But Crowley was too much of a coward to call it quits and join him in oblivion, since, as far as Crowley was concerned, that was where immortal beings ended up if they were eliminated from Earth. Heaven and Hell only existed for humans. Aziraphale and Crowley were created for this world.

For them, this was it.

He thought he would get into his car and drive, but he couldn't make himself leave. He would get as far as Kent or Surrey, then his Bentley would stop.

Whether he was the one pressing the brake or his car - it varied.

Either way, he'd take a deep breath, toss off his glasses, rub the blur from his watery eyes, and the next thing he knew, he was home.

Couldn't sleep.

Couldn't leave.

Couldn't escape.

Yup. This was Hell. Undoubtedly.

Since he couldn't stay put and he couldn't run away, he spent night after night roaming the park - a ghoul shrouded in shadows of the past. Selfishly, he did everything he could to make the park inhospitable after dark, the same way Aziraphale did for his bookshop to deter customers. He made the place dreary, filled it with suspicious shadows, cold spots, and feelings of dread. In his attempt to get rid of anyone who might bother him, he unwittingly thwarted a few mugging attempts and a handful of assaults, which eliminated crime in St. James's Park for the most part.

Otherwise, he kept to himself.

It didn't matter to Crowley one bit that Adam had saved the planet from Heaven and Hell's blasted war. Or that, in doing so, neither side seemed interested in Crowley anymore.

Without Aziraphale by his side, Crowley wanted none of it.

These nightly walks, re-visiting the spots where they'd met up through time, didn't help. His memories of Aziraphale had begun to erode what was left of his soul.

His regret over the one thing he had left unsaid.

But there was a handshake exchange afoot.

His late-night trips to the park were how he noticed the light, blooming, growing on the bench smack dab in front of the duck pond.

Their bench.

A thread of silver light that lasted one solid minute from beginning to end.

It was spectacular. Unbelievable in its brilliance. Of the few souls who braved Crowley's shield of demonic influence, only Crowley seemed to notice it. And he couldn't avoid it.

It called to him.

Crowley stalked the light for over a week, never getting too close. It seemed like the kind of thing Gabriel might conjure up to trap him. Heaven may not give two shits about him, but archangels have been known to hold serious grudges.

He resisted its pull, but Crowley is a curious demon, and curiosity got the better of him. Besides, what did he care if Gabriel got the drop on him? Crowley was up for a fight, even one he might lose.

He had nothing better to do.

Crowley walked straight to the bench and sat down the moment the light appeared. He stared at it, into it, trying to sniff out its origins, what it was doing there. Being this close to it, he realized he was wrong. It didn't appear out of thin air. It was a consequence - evidence of a seam ripping in the universe, and on the other side...

Crowley only saw him for a second, but that was all he needed.

Aziraphale.

They locked eyes. Aziraphale's face lit up as if he were seeing the stars for the first time.

Stars Crowley created.

He was quite a distance from the tear. Like Crowley, he avoided it as much as possible. But seeing Crowley on the other side, he ran toward it, calling out a single word. It was all he had time for before the rend closed, and he was gone again.

The word he managed was Crowley.

Every night after, Crowley would arrive at the bench with plenty of time for the two of them to speak. As best as they could deduce, something bizarre happened during that fire in Aziraphale's bookshop. Unprecedented. Crowley assumed, at first, that the flames that devoured his angel's pride and joy had come from Hellfire. But they didn't. And Aziraphale, standing in the center of the transportation portal in his corporeal form, never made it to Heaven. He got caught in between.

Purgatory.

A place that many supernatural beings consider scarier than Hell.

A railway station with a way in but no way out. For immortals, that is. Mortal souls can earn a place upstairs depending on how they behave in this celestial waiting room. But as humans and demons don't concern themselves much with Purgatory lore, there is no book in Hell or on Earth that can help. Crowley has tried finding one - traveled to libraries and broken into collections he would do only on Aziraphale's behalf. But for all of his lofty capers, he found nothing. There might be a book in Heaven, but Crowley has no way to access it.

And Aziraphale is trapped.

Wouldn't Crowley know it, but even under these circumstances, Aziraphale found ways to continue his insufferable good deeds, helping mortal souls trapped with him to move along. Though Crowley believes Aziraphale has an ulterior motive.

Peace and quiet.

Aziraphale has one of those faces that attracts people to him, people who long to share their woeful life stories. So he listens, and then he counsels. When that soul moves on, he earns the most sought-after prize of all - an additional measure of silence.

Crowley and Aziraphale thought Heaven would notice his absence by now. Gabriel’s memos were piling up on Aziraphale's desk, untouched. Or by the massive influx of souls arriving at the pearly gates.

But no luck.

The angels in charge of the prisoners in the bottomless pits of Hell are more on the ball than the ones who keep an eye on the poor souls stuck in between.

This boundary between Earth and Purgatory dissolves at the stroke of midnight but zips up as soon as the clock strikes 12:01. Then Aziraphale disappears, not returning again till the following day. They are permitted one minute to tell each other everything, and they do their best to get it all out.

There's one thing Crowley hasn't gotten to yet. Hasn’t for 6000 years.

His one regret.

He plans on telling Aziraphale tonight on the off chance they can't come up with a solution to this.

Crowley feels the light before it appears. It tugs at something deep inside, ushers him to his seat on the bench. It arrives with a clap like thunder, so loud he’s surprised when it doesn’t shatter windows and crack foundations. Air whooshes by him at hurricane speeds, sucked into the impending rend.

A second later, Aziraphale appears beside him.

In a different dimension but beside him, framed by the light as if he's a reflection in a mirror.

Crowley inches his hand close, knowing without seeing that Aziraphale’s hand rests similarly on the opposite side. They cannot touch. They’ve tried.

Neither can cross the barrier.

“So, my dear,” Aziraphale starts, looking through the shimmer at Crowley, “how’s the bookshop?”

“Right as rain as always,” Crowley replies. He used to mutter, “Hello, Crowley. How are you? You’re looking well this fine evening,” but realized how immature and hurtful that was when Aziraphale heard him, and his face fell. Aziraphale wasn’t disregarding Crowley by not asking after him first. It was too painful for Aziraphale to acknowledge how far apart they were from one another. “How have you been, angel?”

“Can’t complain. Although I could really go for a plate of crepes. Or perhaps a nice, hearty gazpacho.”

“Don’t you worry. The moment I have you free of there, I’ll take you to dinner. Anywhere you want to go.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Aziraphale says, the longing in his eyes heartbreaking. “It wouldn’t be so bad over here if I had a book or two.”

“I did try passing you one over, but… “

“Yes, yes, I recall.” Aziraphale sighs at the memory of a favorite Wilde hardcover disintegrating into thin air. Luckily, that didn’t happen to either of them when they attempted to cross. “Valiant effort. Disastrous outcome.”

“Meddled in anyone's affairs today, have you?”

“As a matter of fact… ” Aziraphale smiles brightly. “A charming lady named Agatha. Lived a good long life. Died at the age of 93, I believe she said.”

“Wot in the world did she do to make it into Purgatory?”

“The usual. Attachment to sin.”

Crowley nods, lips twisting with a knowing grin. “Let me guess… the premarital variety?”

“That’s the one. She also poisoned an abusive stepfather, not her own, broke into a research facility to rescue rabbits, and stole a petty neighbor’s tomatoes on the daily until the day she died.”

Crowley chuckles. “Ah, yes. You’ve got to love old ladies.”

“Indeed.”

“Wot did you do?”

“Same as always. I had her give a proper confession. I forgave her for the poisoning, of course… “

“Of course.”

“... and the rabbit liberation. But we talked through the issue with the tomatoes. I explained that trespassing on her neighbor’s property is wrong even if the woman did dye all her delicates on her drying line puce.”

Crowley makes a face. He has no idea what puce is, but it sounds vile. “Probably justified there.”

“But that wasn’t the crux of her dilemma.”

“Wot was?”

Aziraphale turns, eyes wandering in the direction of the pond even though he can’t see it. “She misses the love of her life.”

Crowley's eyes widen. “Oh.”

“I assured her that her lover would be with her soon. After that, she was fine moving on.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says wistfully. “He beloved misses her very much. They make a lovely couple.”

“That’ll be nice. The two of them reuniting.”

“Yes. It will be… for them.”

Silence falls between them. They steer clear of silence when they can, seeing how short their time is together, but it can't be helped. Aziraphale could work from here till eternity joining lost souls, but he can't help himself do the same.

The weight of that overwhelms them.

Crowley's phone vibrates in his pocket, signaling their minute together coming to an end. The silver frame phases, its light dimming, sputtering like a candle about to go out. As with every time before, Crowley tries to stop it, tries to stop time to keep Aziraphale with him longer. But it doesn’t work. Either this rend works outside of the laws of time, or time has had it with Crowley’s antics, but this can’t be stopped.

Crowley’s imagination isn’t strong enough.

“We only have a little time left,” Aziraphale says, “and we’re no closer to solving this puzzle!”

“I know,” Crowley replies. “I'll keep working on it. I promise. But before you go, I just wanted to tell you… ”

The air crackles as the rip begins to mend, the noise drowning them out.

"Yes, my dear?"

"I need to tell you... "

“Oh, Crowley!” Aziraphale starts to fade as the gap sutures shut. “I’m so sorry… "

The tear closes, his angel gone, and in the ensuing silence, Crowley’s last words hang in the air, having escaped his lips a second too late for their recipient to hear.

“… I love you.”

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziraphale #Crowley

41 notes · View notes

blacknight1230 · 3 years

Text

The Past Catches Up With You

OUAT Peter Pan Imagine

Prompt: “I know what I have to do. But going back means I’ll have to face my past. I’ve been running from it for so long” & “Once you’re grown up, you can never come back.”

The sound if arrows flying through the air then hitting their target and the clashing of swords filled the area. “Nice one, Devin. Now try letting go of the arrow when you breath out,” you instructed one of the Lost Boys. Devin wordlessly nodded and did what you told him, his arrow hitting the target dummy straight in the head. “Excellent work. Rufio, don’t do such fancy moves. It’s about hitting the target in the weak points, not showing off,” you commanded. “Whatever you say, mom,” Rufio sassed, ignoring your helpful tips. You narrowed your eyes at him and strode up to him, quickly knocking him off his feet with a few well placed punches and kicks. “And this is why Pan ordered me to train you boys. You guys are good fighters, but he wants the best, so you either listen to what I say or you’ll end up worse than this,” you scolded the dazed teen. You walked away, towards Pan’s second-in-command, and one of your best friends, Felix.

“Nice way to show them who’s boss, (y/n),” Felix complemented as he sharpened his sword. “Thanks, Felix. These boys have sure have authority problems when it comes to someone other than Pan giving them orders,” you said, sitting next to Felix on a log. “They listen to me, though,” Felix pointed out. “True. I have theory that they don’t respect me as much cause I’m the only girl here. And I happen to be one of Pan’s most trustworthy,” you told the scar-faced teen. “It’s possible. The boys aren’t too keen on newcomers. You being a girl doesn’t make matters better.” You rolled your eyes; you’ve been here for a couple of years, but time on Neverland was different than everywhere else. “I’ve earned this position despite being a girl. They should know that Pan doesn’t just trust me without a proper reason,” you said, crossing your arms in front of your chest. “Speak of the devil,” Felix said, motioning his head towards a figure appearing from the green foliage.

Peter Pan stood to the side of the training ground, eyes intensely watching the boys as they practiced archery, swording fighting, and sparring. Authority and dark magical power radiated from his figure, his green eyes glowing as they seemingly stared into the very existence of his Lost Boys. He was expressionless as he mentally noted what the boys were doing wrong and right. The sight before you made you feel warm, but you tried not to show how the piper affected you. Said boy locked eyes with you, a smirk breaking out onto his lips as he strode over to you. “Tired, love. Are the boys too much for you to handle?” he teased, raising one magnificently sculpted eyebrow. “More like they can’t handle me. Rufio over there is still bandaging his hurt pride when I knocked him to the ground for back talking,” you chuckled, eyeing said boy. He was grumpily pouting on a wooden log across from where you were. Peter found this rather amusing, a sly smirk on his face. “His loss, love. Come, I think the boys had enough training for today,” he said, getting up from the log. He whistled loudly, getting all the, boys attention and told them, “Alright, boys training’s over! Get back to camp if you want your fill of dinner before its gone!”

A stampede of hungry, teenage boys rushed towards the main camp, dirt and dust flying as they did so. You camly got up and followed the horde of Lost Boys, used to their frenzied antics. Peter walked alongside you, as you took your time walking the path back to the main camp. “I’m still surprised you can put up with our rowdiness. Being a princess and all, I’d expect you complain endlessly about how ‘wild’ we are,” Peter said as you traveled through the jungle of Neverland. “Hey, I was a rebel princess. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t even be here,” you defended yourself, punching the King of Neverland playfully, but hard, in the arm. Pan allowed you to hit him, as you knew he could easily stop you, and playfully cried out in pain.

Before you were the first Lost Girl on Neverland, you were a princess, although not first in line to inherit your kingdom. Unlike the other inhabitants of Neverland, you were not from the Enchanted Forest or the Land Without Magic. You were a princess from another dimension, and you hated your royal roots. You hated the stuffy dresses, the countless rules, the strict and stone faced members of the royal house ... hell, you couldn’t even talk to or hang out with anyone that wasn’t humanoid or a royal non-humanoid from an allied kingdom. Like the monsters that were repressed by your people. It was suffocating and you didn’t conform to your families strict ideals.

As such, your family finally had enough of your “rebelliousness” and decided to send you off to an institution know for “correcting” wayward princesses. You, in turn, had enough of royalty and fled your home without a word, seeking out the freedom you dearly longed for. Eventually, you found your way to Neverland, encountering Pan and his Lost Boys, who met your arrival with them encircling you with weapons drawn, aimed to kill. The only reason you were still alive today was that you were able to hear Pan’s flute, meaning you were lost, and therefore part of the Lost Boys. It took awhile for everyone to trust you, especially Pan, but it happened and you were never felt more like you were home.

Back to the present, you and Peter finally reached the main camp, a raging bonfire going on in the middle of the layout of tents and huts. The boys were either chowing down or were dancing to the beat of the drums. Peter left you to go include himself in the boys merry making as you grabbed a bite to eat. Grabbing a slice of meat from the day’s hunt, you silently greeted a few of the boys with a raise of your cup. The younger boys dragged you to sit with them, happily chatting away as they told you about their day.

Soon you were done with your meal and the music called to you. Like you were under a spell, you jumped into the frey of wildly dancing bodies, letting the music guide your movements. You danced freely with your fellow lost brothers, your mind focusing on the sound of the pan flute and the drums. As you danced around the fire, you saw Peter staring intensely at you with his green eyes, the light of the bonfire casting shadows across his face, intensifying the strikingness of his attractive features. You couldn’t help but keep his gaze as you danced, enjoying the way he was looking at you with such intensity, an undistinguishable emotion flowing in his eyes.

Unfortunately, the party was interrupted by a loud sound and a bright light. Everyone stopped in the middle of what they were doing, staring at a hole ripped into the fabric of space and time right near the center of the campgrounds. The portal seemed to shine brighter as two figures appeared from the other side of it. As they stepped through, the portal closed behind them, allowing you to see their features now that the unnatural brightness was gone. One of the figures was a teenage boy, characterized with tan skin, dark brown hair, and a mole on his right cheek. He was wearing red hoodie over a light grey shirt, dark grey skinny jeans, and olive/white sneakers on his slender build. His brown eyes eyed the Lost Boys nervously, his hand twitching over the hilt of the sword in his sheath. The other figure was a teenage girl with long blonde hair, light blue eyes, and fair skin. On her head, she wore a magenta headband with devil horns, paired with a green and mint collared short sleeved dress, pink and purple striped leggings, white boots with pink tips and a star on each heel, along with a black spider necklace. But the most astonishing part about the girl was the pink heart shaped marks she had on her cheeks.

Peter and the Lost Boys immediately surrounded the two newcomers, weapons pointed at them. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing on my island?” Peter growled. The boy immediately pulled out his sword and took a defensive stance. The girl on the other hand, raised her hands up and yelled, “Stop! We’re not here to hurt anyone! We’re just looking for someone!” Peter dismissed her claim, saying, “Whoever you are looking for is not here! Now leave before my boys and I make you wish you never stepped foot here!” The boy raised their weapons, slowly drawing closer to the new girl and boy. The girl now raised her up hands up and took a defensive stance, her hands glowing purple with magic.

Before any violence could come to a head, you shouted a command out to the Lost Boys and Peter, breaking the tense air. “Everyone put your weapons down!” you shouted, voice strong and dominating. The Lost Boys, confused by the order, slightly lowered their weapons and allowed you to walk through the crowd of them to the new visitors. As you showed yourself to the newcomers, the blonde haired girl’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in shock. “ (Y/n)?” the girl said. “Star,” you said breathlessly, unable to bite back the smile that made its way to your face. Star’s hands stopped glowing and she tackled you ina hug, which you gladly returned. “Um, what’s going on?” the hoodie wearing boy asked, completely clueless. “Marco, this is my cousin I told you about? I’m pretty sure I told you about my favorite family member,” Star explained, looking at her friend while still holding on you.

“Oh, isn’t this precious,” Pan sneered, interrupting the moment. “A family reunion. How wonderful that they’ve come to visit.” You decided to ignore Peter and his terrible attitude, continuing to talk to your four-years younger cousin. “How did you find me, Star? Neverland isn’t on any map and can’t be visited through ordinary means,” you asked. “I was able to use your old tiara to finding out what dimension you were in! Pretty cool right,” Star bragged a giant smile on her face. Before you could say another word, Peter got in between the two of you, creating a distance of a few feet. “Peter!” you exclaimed angrily. “What the hell?” “I don’t care that you’re her family. I want you off my island. (y/n) has already told me about the way you treated her and I don’t want someone like you here because of it,” he coldly told Star. “Hey, man, back off!” Star’s friend, Marco, yelled stepping in front of Star protectively. The Lost Boys didn’t like this, murder in their eyes as they crowded around you four, fingers itching to use their weapons. “Everyone stop! I don’t want any fighting!” you shouted, dreading for any blows coming to a head. The Lost Boys slightly calmed down, but they were still tense.

“Peter, Star was the only one in my family that I could be myself around. I see I rubbed off on you a bit,” you said. “You guys keep talking about our family as if they were abusive, keeping you locked up and so on,” Star pointed out. “I forget you were too young to understand at the time. Grandma Etheria and the rest of the Butterfly family constantly looked down at me, finding fault in everything I did. I didn’t dress right, talk right, sit right, walk right ... and they let me know. It practically destroyed my self-esteem. And to make matter worse, Grandma Etheria decided to send me to St. Olga’s,” you explained to your younger cousin. “Oh no, not St. O’s!” Star exclaimed in horror. “Please don’t tell me they tried to turn you into a mindless ‘perfect’ princess!” As she said this, she grabbed your forearms and shook you a bit. “Calm down, Star, I didn’t go to St. O’s. I left home before I was forcibly shipped off. I had a pair of dimension scissors and used them to hop from dimension to dimension until I eventually found my way here,” you continued, smiling when you reminisced about finding Neverland, your true home.

“I’m happy you found a place you could finally be yourself. If I wasn’t so desperate for your help, I wouldn’t even ask you this,” Star said. This worried you; what did she want you to do? Star quickly answered your question before you voiced it, saying, “I need you to come back to Mewni with me.” “What?!” you shouted, eyes wide and mouth agape. “I’m sorry, but I really need your help! My mom has disappeared and I can’t find her, the Butterfly castle and kingdom are destroyed by Eclipsa’s half-monster daughter and she escaped her crystal! I can’t do this on my own and everything is in disarray!” Star cried.

All this new information shocked you, making you stand there in silence. Peter decided to step in, angrily setting in Star’s face. “You might be royalty, but I’m the king here. I say who steps foot on and leaves my island. This includes (y/n). Since she’s lost, that means she belongs here and with me. Shfe’s mine, and she’s not going anywhere off this island,” he threatened. Star stood her ground, staring into his harsh green eyes that seemed to glow with dark power. “Then you don’t know (y/n), because she hates other people making choices for her.” She turned towards you and continues, saying, “(y/n), I’m sorry for our family treating you so terribly and I understand your reason for running away. But I still care for you and so does my mother, both of us missing you terribly when you left. If you still love us as much as we love you, I beg you to help me. I need you, my mom needs you, Mewni needs you!”

(y/n) could only stand there in silence, which Peter mistook for her not wanting to return to her home, while in reality she was pondering over her beloved cousin’s words. “Get off my island. I never want to see your faces again,” he threatened, before whistling loudly, causing the Lost Boys to snap into a a violent, wild frenzy. The area was quickly filled with the sounds of weapons clashing, cries of pain, and angry shouts as Star and Marco fought the Lost Boys. Luckily, Star and Marco were successfully able to defend themselves, despite being greatly outnumbered. Star’s voice filled the air as she shouted spells and Marco yelled as he used karate moves/defended himself with his sword. You tried yelling at both sides to stop fighting, but neither side listened to you, either not hearing you over all the noise or not caring enough to listen to you. This made you angry, so angry you used your magic to cast a powerful spell to end the violence.

Unlike Star, you didn't need to verbally say a spell to use your magic, simply sending out a wave of bluish-white magic to emit from your magically glowing figure. As the wave of magic hit the Lost Boys, Peter, Star, and Marco, they were enveloped into a quartz of crystal, frozen in place. You sighed as you stood past the crystal prisons of your fellow Lost Boys, stopping at Peter’s crystal, staring at his evil smirk on his face and the magic accumulated in his hands. “You just couldn’t wait and let me think for a moment could you, “ you said sadly. You used your magic to reverse the spell, and on Star and Marco as well. The three teens fell to the ground, gasping for breath. “I’m so sorry, guys. This was the only way to get you to stop fighting and listen to me,” you apologized, helping Star up first. “Was that the Crystal Imprisonment Spell that Rhombulas uses? Where did you learn it?” Star asked, amazed that you could do such advanced magic. “Glossaryck used to give me private lessons. He said that I needed to learn magic, too, in case something happens. But he wasn’t specific on what that was,” (y/n) explained. “That sounds like Glossaryck.”

You turned towards Peter as he growled, getting up from the ground and his green eyes trained on you. “You little ... How dare you use your magic on me!” he yelled, “Release the Lost Boys right now (y/n)!” “You left me no choice, Peter. You all were attacking my family and I couldn’t just stay by,” you said sternly, brows furrowed as you scolded him. “How can you defend them? They’re the main reason why you are on Neverland in the first place! Or haven’t you forgot that?” Pan seethed. “I haven’t forgotten what they did to me, Pan. But this just isn’t about my family anymore. My homeland is in danger and you’re wrong to think I’ll just sit around and watch shit hit the fan!” you yelled, turning around to walk away, thinking that was the end of it. But it wasn’t and Pan wanted to let you know it. “Oh really? Well, know this, princess, you’ll eventually be disappointed as nothing is going to change. You’ll still be the miserable, insecure, little girl you were when you came here, scrutinized by your family and your people,” Peter threatened, teeth clenched and pure hatred seeping from his pores.

You stopped, back still facing Peter. Said boy smirked, thinking he won this argument. But what you said surprised the male, saying, without looking at him, “I know what I have to do now, Peter. I know going back means I’ll have to face my past. I’ve been running from it for so long but I have to face it sooner or later. And I choose now.” Pan stood there shocked, mouth open a bit as he contemplated your words, and watched as Marco effortlessly opened a portal to another dimension with a pair of scissors, then entered the hole in the fabric of time and space while mumbling about ‘nachos,’ whatever that was. Star on the other hand, nervously looked behind her at Peter, seemingly contemplating if taking (y/n) away from her current home was a good thing, before regretfully entering the swirling portal.

Before the (h/c) haired girl followed the two, she turned her head to the side, looking at so called King of Neverland. “I promise I’ll come back as soon as I can, Peter, to my home, the Lost Boys, and you,” she said, so much raw emotion held in her eyes. But Peter didn’t care, only focussing on the frustration that took over his heart and mind. “I forbid you from leaving, (y/n)! When you leave this island, you’ll eventually grow up, and once you’re grown up, you can never come back!” he shouted angrily. (Y/n) physically flinched and quickly turned her head back towards the portal, trying not to show the tears in the corners of her eyes. “Goodbye, Peter. Until we meet again.” And with those words, she stepped through the portal and left Neverland, seemingly forever.

As the portal closed behind her, (y/n)’s magic seemed to leave with her, as the crystals imprisoning the Lost Boys started to melt, freeing them from their containment. Felix was the first to get his bearings, stroding over to Peter and placing a hand on his shoulder, said King of Neverland not tearing his eyes away from the spot in which (y/n) walked into the portal. “Pan, what happened? Where’s (y/n) and the other two?” Felix asked his fearless leader, a scowl on his scarred face. “She’s gone, Felix. She left Neverland,” Peter told his second-in-command emotionlessly.

Before the taller male could question him some more, the green-clad boy turned and walked away from the center of the campgrounds, towards his own private tent. Felix knew he was taking the Lost Girl’s departure harder than he let on. But he gave his trustful leader some space, allowing Peter to let his emotions loose in private. “(Y/n), I hope you know what you’re doing,” Felix said quietly to himself, before moving to help his fellow Lost Boys recover from the recent events.

~ Time Skip ~

“Again! I expect you to redo everything until you lot get this right! I have no excuse for weak, boys in my army of Lost Boys!” Peter seethed. It was several months, possibly a year, since (y/n) left Peter and Neverland. At first, Peter was angry, at (y/n) and her cousin, for leaving Neverland. Then, he was angry at himself for letting the Lost Girl leave, thinking he should have done everything he could from letting the girl leave. Eventually, Peter’s anger faded away and was replaced with a longing to see his favorite girl again. It was only until (y/n) left did Peter realize he felt something for the rebel princess, seeing her more as just another inhabitant of Neverland and a pawn in his games. And when he realized this non-platonic feelings, he regretted being so heartless to (y/n) before she left, hating himself for letting that be the last thing he ever said to the (h/c) haired girl.

Since (y/n) left Neverland, Peter changed, unfortunately for the worse. He was harsher and more cruel towards his Lost Boys and those that had the misfortune of being his enemy. All Pan cared for now was power, stopping at nothing to increase his magical strength by achieving immortality, regardless of the lives he had to take. And that meant he was setting in motion the events that would lead to taking the heart of the Truest Believer from a young boy to remain young forever.

Hence, the current intense training session the Lost Boys were doing, as Pan need them to be prepared for everything and anything, failure not being an option. “Who knew (y/n) leaving effect Pan this much? He’s been running us into the ground during training even since the girl left him,” Rufio mumbled to a couple of other Lost Boys. Pan heard this, and he did not like it. “What was that Rufio?” he snarled and turned towards the wise-cracking Lost Boy. Rufio’s face paled in fear as Pan strode towards him, his friends that once surrounded him nowhere to be seen, as they fled from Pan’s wrath.

The poor Lost Boy stood quaking in his boots as the King of Neverland stood in front of him, the slightly shorter leader wrapping a hand around Rufio’s throat, crushing his windpipe and preventing any air from reaching his lungs. Rufio gasped from breath as the other Lost Boys stood there in fear induced silence, unable to do anything but watch. “You’ve been mouthing off too much for my tastes. Looks like I’m going to have to put a stop to it permanently,” Peter growled. He shoved his hand into his chest, fingers wrapping around the boys heart. “Please, no...” Rufio pleaded.

Pan was just about to rip the boys heart out of his chest and then crush it to dust, when a loud noise and bright light shook the camp site. Everyone turned their heads to the sky, where a giant multicolored portal hung just below the treetops. Something or someone, came out of it, falling to the ground, and the portal closed violently with a loud bang. Peter and the Lost Boys were unable to do anything, as the figure got up from the ground and their features finally revealed by the light of the fire. (H/c) locks framed a (face shape) face, (e/c) eyes looking over everything as a bright smile broke out on the female’s (thin/plump) lips.

Felix was the first to break the silence, calling out the name of the person. “(y/n)? Is that really you?” the second-in-command asked, shocked that the girl had finally returned to Neverland. “Yeah, it's me,” the former Lost Girl replied a smile on her face. Felix immediately caught the girl in a hug, picking up the (much/slightly) shorter girl in his excitement. It seemed the spell was broken, as the Lost Boys immediately started moving towards the former Lost Girl, chatter filling the silence.

“Welcome back, (y/n),” Felix said to the girl, after he pulled away from her. “It’s great to be back,” (y/n) replied, her face so full of light and joy. Her (e/c) eyes caught Peter’s, causing the girl to stare straight into the piper’s eyes. He was stunned; here she was, the girl Peter has been obsessing over ever since she left, popping out of the blue, acting as if she never left in the first place. Their longing glaze was broken by a younger Lost Boy tugging on (y/n)’s hand, her attention turning towards the little one. “(Y/n), will you be staying here? Please don’t leave us again,” he said, his voice honey sweet and blue eyes looking at the (h/c) girl with pleading eyes. “Don’t worry, Jack,” (y/n) said, lowing herself so she could be eye level with the young boy. “I won’t be leave you.”

She rose to her full height and announced with a loud voice, “In fact, I will never have to leave Neverland again. From this moment forward, this island will be my forever home!” The campsite erupted in cheers and howls, all the Lost Boys loudly showing their approval. “If that’s the case then, let’s celebrate! To our one and only Lost Girl!” Felix cheered. As if it wasn’t already possible, the boys got even louder, happily cheering at the chance to party. Peter could only stare on wordlessly, as (y/n) was swept away by several Lost Boys, losing his sight on the magnificent girl.

~ Time Skip ~

The Lost Boys howled in delight as the drums were banged and the fire in the center of the campsite crackled. Peter watched from the side lines as they danced wildly. But his gaze was focused on one very special dancer. His green eyes followed (y/n), watching every move of her limbs and bend of her body as she danced without a care in the world. She was one with the music as she her body followed the rhythm of the drums. Peter’s eyes caught (y/n)’s (e/c) ones, everything around him seeming to slow down as did so.

He immediately tore his gaze away from her, pretending to be watching Felix wrestle some unfortunate soul into the dirt ground. In the corner of his eye, he saw (y/n) stop her lively dancing and steadily make his way towards him. Peter felt his breath get caught in his chest as she came closer, but was able to calm himself down before (y/n) got close enough to notice the effect she had on him.

“Enjoying the party?” she asked him, leaning against the bark of a tree next to him. “Of course. I enjoy seeing my boys let loose for once. The drinks help a bit, too,” he replied, gesturing towards the wooded cup in his hand. (Y/n) gazed out at rowdy group of wild teenage boys in front of her, a closed-mouth smile on her face. “I missed this. The freedom, how carefree everything is, not having any responsibilities,” she admitted. “You missed all of this? Even Rufio’s attitude?” he asked, surprised.

(Y/n) let out a short laugh, music to Peter’s ears. “Is it so surprising I missed my home. There wasn’t a day where I didn’t long to come back here and just let loose,” (y/n) continued, (e/c) eyes glowing in the firelight as she stared out at the wild party goers. It was silent for a little bit, a hint of awkwardness in the air. “So, um, what exactly happened back on Meowy?” Peter spoke up, desperately trying to break the silence. “Mewni. And so much happened. Everything has changed. And I couldn’t be happier,” (y/n) explained, a smile on her face as she reminisced. “Tell me about it. I’ve never heard of it before.”

“Well, I won’t go into the long and detailed history, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear about that. But I will tell you that Mewni is now unified between its people and the kingdom is in the hands of its true queen,” (y/n) explained as shortly as she could. “Well, that’s good,” Peter replies. A pregnant pause filled the air, until Peter thankfully broke it. “Is what you said before actually true?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper. “What?” you question, thinking you misheard him. “You said would never leave Neverland again? Was that true? Or was that just something you said that was in spur of the moment?” Peter continued. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t believe what she was true. Why would she want to stay here and be with me? he thought. Especially after how I treated her the last time I saw her. “Peter,” (y/n) said softly. “I was serious when I said that. Nothing will make me leave Neverland and you guys again.”

Peter felt his heart stop for moment, in disbelief at what she just told him. (Y/n) turned her kind gaze away from looking down at her hands folded in her lap. “Besides, it’s not like I can return home anyway,” she said softly. “Wait, what?” Peter thought he heard wrong. “It’s no big deal. You already know I never saw Mewni as my home. Neverland is my home. When the chance came for me to spend forever in my homeworld or spend forever here, I made my choice,” she explained nonchalantly. Peter could only open his mouth wide in shocked silence. He never thought she would such a thing. Give up her family and everything she known just to be with for him and the Lost Boys. It was almost insane.

“You really did all of that? Even after what I said to you before you left?” Peter gaped. “I’m sorry ... for what I said by the way. I wasn’t thinking straight and -” “Wow, the Peter Pan apologizing. To little old me,” (y/n) teased a goofy smile on her face. “Don’t make fun of me. You know I’m don’t ever apologize ” Peter pouted. (y/n) giggled, forcing a hidden smile to make its way to Peter’s lips. “I missed you, you know. Can you believe that?” Peter admitted, trying to hide his warming cheeks. (y/n) was astonished at his confession.“You really missed me? I thought you would have forgotten about me.” “I would never. There wasn’t a day I didn’t think about you,” Peter continued, gently taking the girl’s hands into his. (Y/n) looked down their combined hands, cheeks red at the feeling of Peter’s warm hands. “I did, too. The thought of Neverland and you kept me going. You were my reason to keep fighting, so one day I would be able to return to you.”

Peter gently placed his fingertips under her chin, directing her downcast eyes to look at him. “(Y/n) ...” he trailed off. He didn't know what he was going to say, his eyes flicking to her luscious soft lips. Peter couldn’t help but subconsciously darted his tongue out to wet his own, longing to meet them with hers. His hand trailed to cup her cheek, enjoying the site of her reddening skin under his rough fingertips. (Y/n)’s luminous (e/c) orbs nervously flew to look back at him, her breathing hitching in her throat. He watched her for a moment, looking for any indication that she was uncomfortable. But there was none, so Peter slowly inched closer, stopping until there was little more than an inch between them. He heart stopped as (y/n) closed the distance between them, the organ soaring at the feeling of her luscious lips on his own. Peter felt her wrap her hands around his neck loosely, his other hand moving to grip tightly to (y/n)’s hip. He could taste the Neverberries from the juice she had before, along with a specific taste he couldn’t quite identify. But he couldn't get enough it, shown by him adding more pressure into the kiss. (Y/n) reacted positively, fingers gripping onto the hairs at the base of his neck, a little mewl coming from her lips as she relaxed into his hold. Peter was just about to kick it up a notch when they were rudely interrupted.

“Hey, lovebirds! Get a tent will ya?” Felix shouted from across the campfire, hands cupped over his mouth and announcing the scene to everyone. (Y/n) was the first to pull away, face red as the Lost Boys howling once they noticed what their leader and Lost Girl were doing. “Shut up all of you!” Peter hollered at the boys. He was just about to teach them all a lesson when he felt (y/n) lean her head onto his chest. He looked down she was hiding her face in his shirt in embarrassment, the sight causing his heart pang in pity. “Peter, let’s go somewhere else. Please,” (y/n) quietly pleaded. “Alright, dear. Let’s head back to my tent. I still want to be with my favorite Lost Girl,” he whispered in her ear, placing a kiss on her forehead. Peter wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist and gently led her away from the center of camp. The Lost Boys started cheer and make lewd comments, which Peter when stopped at the entrance of his private abode, (y/n) continuing on inside without him. “Not another word from any you, or else I’ll be locking you in the cages for a week!” he threatened, glaring at them with darkness in his eyes. The boys shut up, knowing their leader was serious as they avoided eye contact. “Felix, knock up into shape if anything happens.” The second-in-command smirked, giving Peter a quick wink. The green-clad boy ignored it, heading inside and back to the beautiful girl waiting for him. (y/n) was laying on his fur-covered bed, patiently waiting for him. Peter sighed and crawled next to her, pulling her into arms once he was comfortable. He snuggled into neck, placing soft kisses onto her exposed neck. “Stay with, darling. I want you in my arms tonight,” Peter pleaded, already feeling his eyes close in bliss. “With you. Always.”

#ouat imagine #ouat #peter pan x reader #peter pan imagine #ouat peter pan #ouat peter imagine #ouat peter pan x reader #prompt au #prompt imagine #prompt

222 notes · View notes

edelwoodsouls · 3 years

Text

like real people do - ch.1 [fic]

It's nothing but screams of static and fire- And then Jon wakes up next to Georgie, in his Oxford dorm room. And then Martin wakes up alone in his flat. Shit.

[AKA Time Travel Fix-It]

Word Count: 3,595 | Also on Ao3 | Other Chapters: Not Yet

chapter one: sunrise

He's falling.

Through an endless age of darkness. Down, and down, the wind tearing past skin he no longer has, tugging at limbs he no longer feels. He is a shapeless form of web and tape and eyes, and yet he sees nothing, and hears nothing, and the world is nothing more than pain.

But he can feel a hand. Fingers digging into his skin, fingers he recognises, that he's held close for months, that he could recognise in darkness and fire and the end of everything.

He clings tightly to those fingers, to the feeling of them squeezing back, squeezing hard. Those fingers are alive.

As alive as anything can be, here.

They fall forever. Until time has no meaning and sense has no place, and he finds it so very hard to remember where he came from, where they're going, who they are.

And the sound begins to reform itself - because it's not that there is nothing to hear, but rather that there's far too much. A shrieking of static and reeling of tape, the echo of fire chewing hungrily at brick and sky.

Screams of countless voices, ending or in pain. Those have been an undercurrent to his every waking moment for months now, as constant as the beat of his heart in his chest used to be, before it stopped. But now they are everything, everywhere, and there is no sense of self to anchor to.

He is adrift in the suffering. He could exist here forever, in this waterfall of fear so pure it's painful, like cold air dragging across an exposed nerve. Electric. Alive.

And then, all of a sudden, the hand clutched in his vanishes. He panics, flailing out with his not-limbs, desperate to hold on to the one thing in this insanity that has some sort of meaning.

His fingers brush against nothing but tape, sharp and cold against his skin. He opens his mouth to call out, or to scream, and all he hears is static. He tries to cling to himself, and feels that self unravelling further.

And then, just when he thinks that he'll be lost to the chaos, when the fear rises so strong and bitter in his throat that he's sure he must be on fire-

Jon shoots up from the bed, panting.

He's drenched in sweat, his t-shirt clinging to him. The duvet is thick and stuffy against his skin, heavy against his body.

He has a body. He feels as if he's been nothing more than a thought, an idea, for years. All of a sudden, there is skin, and flesh, and fingers, and arms. There is a chest and a head and a heart-

His heart. Beating like a drum against his ribcage, pumping blood around his body, keeping him alive.

He's alive. His heart speeds up at the mere thought. He'd forgotten what his own heart felt like, what the relief of breathing was. Nothing more than a mechanical function, these past few months, he takes a moment to just... breathe. To let the oxygen flood his lungs and sink into his cells, as if blowing away cobwebs strung inside the unused passageways of this body.

He hasn't been alive, truly, since he first brushed against the End.

His chest feels tight with the weight of - everything. He feels the ache of his head, suddenly light and thankfully empty and closed. He feels the ghost of a knife between his ribs, cold steel sliding through flesh like butter, mixing his blood with the sticky, drying flakes of Elias'.

The loss of Martin's fingers, wrapped in his.

The pressure in his chest increases as he stares at his hands. Uncalloused, unburnt - there isn't a single pockmarked worm scar up his bare arms. His flesh is smooth, and clean, and- naked. It feels alien.

Something must be wrong. He's dead, or dreaming. He's in a dimension that's pure dream logic, or the fears have already begun their work and torn him away from the only thing that might stop him from joining them.

Maybe this is the centre of the eye. A final, peaceful vision to keep him occupied as his body spools into tape and his mind unwinds.

And Martin is... where?

He looks frantically around. The room is dim, but it's practically blinding bright to his eyes, adjusted as they are to the pitch of a collapsing world. He can make out clothes strewn over every surface and object. Books, left face down to keep them open, on the desk and the floor.

Something shifts beside him in the bed, and he jumps a mile high. Flinches away and rips the covers back, to reveal...

His newly restarted heart stutters.

"Jon?" Georgie's voice is soft and sleep-laden, and she rolls over in the bed to look up at him through a cloud of dark hair. "You okay?"

"I..." His throat fails him, closes up like a hand held fast against his skin, squeezing. He puts his own hands up to it, to feel it, to be certain his body is his - and finds it smooth. Unblemished by the scarring Daisy gave him.

He lets out a sob. Clings to his throat, as if he might be able to protect it, keep it safe.

He's never been safe, not once in his entire life.

Strong arms wrap around him from out of nowhere, and Jon flinches at the touch of skin on skin. But Georgie just curls tighter around him, pulls him close to her. Runs her fingers through his long hair, and its such a familiar gesture, such an old one, that for a moment he lets her do it. Sits in the quiet and the peace.

"Hey, hey," Georgie says quietly. "What's wrong?"

Jon tries to think of what words to say. To explain to her that she is nothing more than a figment of fear and dreaming. That any moment she will grow a hundred eyes or limbs, or melt away to wax, or grin in fractal patterns that ache his eyes to see.

It's the only explanation that makes sense. This is one of his few good memories, a final gift from the Eye before he disintegrates.

He is nothing more than a dream, too.

"Just a bad dream," he murmurs, unsure if he's reassuring himself or Georgie. He's longed for his world to end for a long time now, but he'd expected - half wanted - it to be crueler. Painful. He's been holding onto a vision of blood and fire. Of throwing his body in the path of something, saving someone, making all his wrongs right.

His decisions, finally given positive meaning.

He wasn't expecting the end to be this soft. Wasn't expecting it be the scent of Georgie's cheap laundry detergent, and a slow sunrise, and a warm embrace. The last few months - the last few years - have been a revolving door of ache and exhaustion.

This is nice.

Perhaps too nice.

It makes sense that the End would show him Georgie, though. That, at least, he understands. The girl who cannot fear. The woman who saw the End and, instead of flinching, managed to continue on.

Nothing to be afraid of, this vision says. You've done enough. You can rest.

Just let go.

But Jon has been afraid for too long to let it go just yet. He's been afraid, in one way or another, since he was eight years old. It's the electricity in his veins and the pump of his blood, the very thing that keeps him standing, keeps him going.

And he hasn't survived this long only to trust the first sign of kindness, or warmth.

"What's going on?" Jon whispers, expecting the question to disappear into the air like so many of his enquiries have before.

Georgie pulls away and looks him in the eye, still keeping her hands resting on his shoulders. He'd forgotten, how tactile Georgie used to be. How both of them, so starved of contact, had held each other constantly.

"What do you mean?" she asks, the softness beginning to bleed out of her voice. There's a hint of worry, so subtle he could almost believe it was genuine.

"Why am I here?"

Georgie's eyebrows knit into a frown. "Why wouldn't you be?" Her eyes search his face, the worry ebbing away faster now. "What did you dream about?"

He laughs, a bitter and broken sound. "Who says I'm not dreaming now?"

"You're starting to worry me, Jon."

"Am I? Can dreams feel worry?"

Georgie's frown resolves into a grim line of pursed lips. "What did you take? And how much?"

"I'm not high, Georgie," Jon scoffs. "You're just not real. A very convincing facsimile, I must admit, but I'm not an idiot."

She sighs, frustrated - already giving up on him. "Well, I'm going back to bed. Wake me up if you feel sick, or something. There's water on the bedside table."

And she burrows back under the blankets, faced away from him.

Jon frowns. This is not how dreams tend to behave. If this is a final act of kindness, it isn't very- kind. Surely the dream should continue to comfort him, or fade into something awful and twisting and logically insane.

He pokes Georgie experimentally, to see if she'll burst into a thousand worms or spiders or flies.

"What, Jon." She rolls back over, peering up at him from a blanket cocoon, unamused.

"You're..." he searches for words, "you're not going to..."

"To what, Jon?"

"Try to kill me? Burst into flames?"

"Why would I do any of that?" she asks, but her tone is edged with something sharp and wary, now.

"Because you're..." he shrugs helplessly. This is getting him nowhere. "Because that's what the fears do."

"The fears?"

A sudden thought strikes him. "The moment you die will feel exactly the same as this one."

Goergie flinches. No, that's too tame a word. She recoils, staggering out of the bed like Jon's just struck her with electricity. "What the fuck did you just say?"

"You told me that," he says, as his mind stumbles over itself to attempt to fit the pieces together. "Maybe a year ago, before everything went to hell. You told me about the End."

Goergie's voice is shaky when it comes. "I've never told anyone about that," she spits. Jon can see her inching towards the desk, the stack of dirty plates which is a staple to any university dorm room, and - more importantly - one of the knives among the pile.

"You did- or, you will- oh god, I think-"

It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. When he'd promised Martin that maybe, possibly , there was a chance they'd both live- it wasn't exactly a lie, but he'd been pretty damn certain it wasn't true. Maybe for Martin, maybe he'd wake up in some other world to face the fears alone.

But Jon shouldn't have made it, too. Not with the knife buried in his ribs, not with fourteen fears pouring themselves down his throat and tearing him apart from the inside. He's been a dead man for months, and this should've been the closing chapter. A peaceful oblivion.

And maybe he should've felt bad for lying to Martin, for deciding to abandon him. But Martin would get to live on, maybe even prevent the fears from gaining a foothold in their new dimension. Maybe he could be that positive entity Jon always wished for, of love and hope and a hundred other silly things.

This, though. This is not a new dimension. This isn't possible, in any sense of the word - and Jon's had to expand that definition countless times in recent years.

But here he is, in a body that still needs a heartbeat and breath. Here's Georgie, hair loose around her head in an afro, instead of the tight cornrows she favoured later. Here they are, in their university apartment, before their relationship began to tear at the seams.

Georgie's hands close around the knife, and Jon flinches despite himself, a phantom pain in his side.

"Wait, Georgie," he holds his hands up in surrender, slipping out from the bed. "I need you to hear me out. I'm not- this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to listen. I think-" he takes a breath, "-I've travelled in time."

The words hang in the air, strung among the dust motes beginning to catch in the morning sun filtering through the curtains.

"Explain," Goergie says slowly, tapping the knife against her bare arm, apparently oblivious to the dregs of hot sauce or ketchup still stuck to the blade.

"I- wait, you're not going to tell me I'm crazy?"

"You just told me not to."

Jon blinks. He's so used to being dismissed, he's forgotten how pragmatic Georgie is. How she used to humour his long rambling with a soft smile and patience.

How he slowly, but surely, lost that privilege.

"Okay. Hang on, what year is it?"

"2008. March."

That makes sense. The university dorm - third year, when he and Georgie had pooled their resources and lived together, despite all advice to the contrary.

He takes a slow, steadying breath. "Before I woke up here, I was in 2018. Well, probably 2019, but it's not as if time made much sense anymore, and we weren't really counting the days- I mean, there weren't really days, because the sun wasn't exactly-"

"Jon," Geogie cuts him off with a raised eyebrow, and a vague wave of the knife in her hand.

"Right. Okay, so: monsters are real. You know that much, you've met them. And you told me about it, because I was on the run from them. Have been for all my life, I suppose."

He never really escaped Mr Spider, did he? He was never supposed to knock on the door, only witness it, as he would come to witness countless horrors.

"And then the world ended," Jon continues. He can fill in any gaps later, perhaps - they aren't the most important thing right now. "And you and I, and... some other people, we turned the world back. Or we were supposed to. I have to hope that you survived."

"And you?" Georgie asks. She's still clinging to the knife, but her hands are down by her side, unvigilant. If there's anyone who'd believe his stories, surely it would be Georgie. "How'd you end up here? Assuming you're telling the truth."

"We were making a portal to another dimension, to throw the monsters through."

Georgie lets out a sharp bark of a laugh, which cuts out quickly when she sees Jon's expression. "Oh. You're being serious?"

"Deadly, unfortunately. Things went... wrong. Martin and I... we ended up going through the portal too."

His hand flutters to his side, imagining blood slick on his fingers.

"So you've brought monsters with you," Georgie says. "Where are they then?"

"I don't... I don't know," he shrugs helpelessly. "I wasn't really expecting to survive the trip, if I'm being honest. I definitely wasn't expecting to wake up-" he waves his hands around their flat, "here."

He watches the emotions flitter across Georgie's face, as she attempts to settle on how she feels.

Something brushes against Jon's ankle, and he flinches back, expecting for a moment to see tendrils of darkness, or spider web. Instead he sees a small bundle of orange fuzz rubbing agaist him.

He bends down and scoops the Admiral up in his arms. He's barely more than a kitten, tiny and vibrating as he purrs and buries himself close to Jon's chest.

Something like calm, and certainty, settles inside Jon.

Georgie sighs loudly, watching the interaction with half-concealed fondness. She casts the knife aside on the desk with a clatter, opens a drawer and digs out a half empty bottle of shitty Tesco vodka.

"Tell me everything," she says, taking a swig and handing him the bottle.

"It's not even nine am."

"It's five pm somewhere," Georgie rolls her eyes and throws herself back onto the bed. "And I have a feeling we're going to need it."

[linebreak]

Martin wakes far more softly. A steady fade into being, like the sunrise beginning to wash across his floor. He blinks for a moment, trying to remember why the feeling of a mattress beneath him feels so wrong, why his body feels out of sorts with itself.

His memory cascades in too fast, in a flashing halo of green eyes and the scream of tape unravelling, and the weight of a blade in his hands. He rolls over to the side of the bed and is unceremoniously sick onto the floorboards.

He sits there, head held in shaking hands, for what could be hours, but is likely just seconds. Brings his hands in front of his eyes, expecting to see them slick with blood, or whatever fluid doesn't run through Jon's veins these days.

But there's nothing there.

He glances behind him, and is barely surprised to see no one lying beside him.

His feet remember the route to the bathroom, even if his mind hasn't caught up with his location, and he stumbles there quickly. Spins the tap open and scrubs at his fingers until the skin is raw and red and aching beneath the scalding water.

He still feels Jon's blood on him. Still smells smoke and flames.

Eventually, he looks in the mirror.

He hasn't seen his reflection in months, or however long it's been since the world ended, but he's certain he wasn't this clean. Certainly hadn't shaved in a while, for one, though it's hardly his clean-shaven face that makes him doubletake.

His hair is ginger. Martin runs a careful hand through his curls, testing them to be sure. They don't fall away in his hands, or turn into worms or psychedelic spirals; he feels the tug of his fingers catching and pulling at his scalp.

There isn't a single strand of white. He'd almost gotten used to the pale, bleached colour the Lonely had cast upon him, before the end of the world, but-

He isn't crying. He isn't. It's just hair.

His fingers grip the sink so hard he's sure something will break.

Logic. Calm. That’s what he needs right now. Obviously something has gone wrong, if he and Jon have been separated. Finding him is the first priority.

He refuses to consider the alternative.

But where has he ended up? He’d half expected to be scattered to the wind of a thousand dimensions, divided into tiny fragments of consciousness.

But this appears to be a singular universe. A reality of ideals, perhaps? Where Martin has his hair back, has a body that doesn’t yet ache or go hazy at the edges when he panics.

Except Jon isn’t here, so that can’t be true.

Martin emerges from the bathroom, still a little shaky, but with resolve, and it’s only now that he realises where he is. It’s been a long time since he was here, thank god - this apartment was hardly a good part of his life.

Freshly moved to London. Scrambling to find any sort of job that would take him, ultimately having them slip through his fingers. The walls are too close and the ceiling too low, the paint crumbling and the damp stains getting ever wider. It’s cold, with exorbitant heating bills and no double glazing, and now it makes a little more sense to him why he was wearing three jumpers in bed.

He was in this apartment when he applied to the Magnus Institute.

For a moment he stands in the doorway, frozen, as the realisation begins to connect dots in his head with absurd leaps of logic. It doesn’t make any sense at all for him to have ended up here, and yet- he can’t really deny the evidence of his own eyes.

So its 2009. 2008, at the earliest. The past.

Maybe this is an alternate world. Maybe the fears have no foothold here, and he has a chance to try again.

Would that be a good thing? Can he honestly say he enjoyed the life he had before the Institute? He hates Jonah Magnus with everything he has, hates what he and his colleagues were put through in those years.

But they were hardly worse than the endless grey of his earlier years. The Loneliness that lapped at his ankles long before he knew the name Magnus and that, if he’s honest, would have consumed him if the Eye hadn’t set its sights on him first.

And without the Archives, he never would’ve had Jon.

The world seems dangerously small and cold to Martin. The walls are leaning in to press against him, to put pressure on his lungs. If he thinks about this too quickly, too long, he might shatter into pieces and never move again.

He grips the doorway to steady himself, takes a deep and slow breath.

He needs to stay calm. He can panic later, when Jon is in his arms again, when they've figured out what's going on, when they march into Elias' office ten years too early and sink the knife where it truly belongs.

Maybe then he won't feel Jon's blood on his hands anymore.

Everything in time. Martin smiles through gritted teeth, as if to convince himself he's decided. Everything is fine, until proven otherwise.

He throws open the curtains to a fresh, sunlit morning, no eye in the sky or bruise-like clouds bearing down on him, and gets to work.

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #tma spoilers #fanfic #own work #morgan writes

23 notes · View notes

monkey-network · 3 years

Text

Crash Bandicoot the Series Episodes

52 Episodes; To stop N Tropy and Cortex’s Plan Z that puts reality in jeopardy, Crash and Coco must travel between dimensions to gather crystals necessary. Along the way, the duo meets familiar faces and it’s a guess of whether they’re friend or foe. Then again for Crash, an enemy’s just a friend you haven’t made yet.

Method of the Marsupials: Spelunking down an ancient temple, Coco slowly feels inferior compared to Crash’s spontaneity always lucking out. Then again, Crash has never been one without his sister.

The Titanfields and Mucoltants: A chase after a baby mutant leads to a universe where two different clans have been feuding for generations and it’s up to the Bandicoots to finally put an end to it, or make the fighting feel different.

Crash Cultivation: Our siblings split up momentarily and Crash’s adventure involves helping a farmer confront a curse that prevents anything from growing on his land.

In My Element: Coco’s adventure is a puzzle room, literally a room full of puzzles she has to solve to get out. She’s having a blast, but comes to realize that the joy could be endless.

Breakfasticoot: Taking a break from gathering the crystals, Crash decides to go into the morning wilderness to get his sister breakfast in bed. Needless to say, it isn’t easy for our unbreakable hero.

Tense Theory: In order to get the next crystal, Coco needs to show that she can relax like her brother.

Tales as Old as Tiny: The Bandicoots encounter Tiny Tiger, depressed and very lacking in muscle. Crash wants to help, leading to the two entering the wildcat’s mind.

Minuscule Madness (Part 1): The Bandicoots reach a dimension that has everyone in it out to kill them. The problem is that the “everyone” are too small to be noticeable by the duo.

Minuscule Madness (Part 2): Crash’s body has been invaded by the small people and Coco must figure out how to save her bro before he dies or the small people die first due to Crash’s surprisingly volatile insides.

Jake and the Crashman: Crash is split from Coco and is thrust into a noir story involving wumpa fruit, cars, and a hidden conspiracy.

War the Game: Crash and Coco face off against a supercomputer possessing a crystal where losing will mean the end of that world, the heart and mind of our Bandicoot siblings truly at unity this episode.

Coco Kaijuu: The next dimension our siblings enter have them transformed into giant monsters and while Coco wants to be peaceful towards the civilians, Crash is having fun with his new form which unleashes a force trying to stop them.

Rip Roo Ca-Choo: Ripper Roo is alone after his original defeat from Crash, rejected by Cortex and with no direction. He then sees Crash again and becomes determined to exact his revenge.

Crash the Bachelor: A hopeless romantic Skunk finds love when Crash is the one being that isn’t driven away by his putrid stench. And while Crash enjoys being friends, our bandicoot doesn’t care about getting closer.

Tawna Comes to Tango: Dimension hopping Pirate Tawna shows up to help our Bandicoots win the crystal at a casino but her love of risk soon gets in the way.

Bookbrain: Our new trio visit the library where a crystal’s hidden and the former two decide to get Crash into more advanced reading. Crash loves it at first, but when the three discover the comic book section, it’s a challenge to keep that and Crash separate.

Animal House: Crash, Coco, and Tawna have to strengthen their teamwork to face a chicken, a monkey, and a shiny jellyfish in order to get the crystal.

Ghostdusters: Tawna doesn’t believe in ghosts, but a trek through a haunted house suddenly has her scared sneezing. The three try to make their way in and out, but finding the crystal will mean cleaning things up.

Crashket Ball: A game so complicated for Tawna and Coco leads to Crash helping them understand things his way.

Why Love Him: Tawna is separated from her friends into another dimension and stumbles across a dejected Crash that’s been through what she went through long ago in her dimension. She tries to cheer him up, and comes to realize what she saw in him originally.

The Messiness of Music: Our trio have to confront N Gin in a music contest in three days but instruments aren’t their forte, Crash and Tawna can’t and won’t sing, and Coco is overwhelmed in making the best song. However, music doesn’t have to be flawless to feel good.

Crashcading Fury: Crash wakes up angry and on destructive rampage for the next crystal. A scared Coco and Tawna do what they can, desperately trying to get their more cool, easy-going buddy back.

Lunchtime: Crash, Coco, and Tawna have the chance to relax and get sandwiches and the Komodo brothers are sent out to kill them.

Ahoy Baby: A young group of aliens claim Tawna as their mom and she joyously comes to teach them how to live her way.

The House of N (Part 1): Knowing the trio’s progress, Cortex comes up with the idea of bringing multiple versions of himself to come up with ideas in stopping them.

The House of N (Part 2): A battle of the one true Neo Cortex ensues, leading to our main scientist at odds with himself of where everything went wrong.

Aku Uka Alone: Uka Uka and Aku Aku mentally link and argue over the faith they have in their hero/villains.

Dream Reaper: In this silent but musical episode, N Tropy sends a villain capable of killing people while they’re dreaming to the trio, only for our villain to underestimate all three’s imaginative capabilities.

Pace and Test: Crash is challenged to a simultaneous physical and academic exam for a crystal which is where his sister and bestie put their all into making him the best of both worlds.

Ferally Feud: Crash and Tawna get into an argument, leading Coco to try moderating and sees why she loves them both.

It Takes a Bandicoot to Save a Village: Former chief Papu Papu asks Crash to help rebuild his village after Cortex’s meddling might force them to leave the island.

Crate Minds Think Alike: Cortex manages to weaken the trio to the point where they can’t bash crates anymore, leading to them pushing each other to get stronger in the real way.

Dial D for Dingo: Meeting up with an old chum at his “established” restaurant, the Bandicoots take a stand when health inspectors have come to shut down the place by ANY means.

Two Times Tropy: While Cortex is out, N Tropy and his female alternate are working on repairs but are ignorantly making things worse with their constant ego stroking.

Crash The Banditoon: The trio reach a blank dimension where things feel different, more animated and that’s saying something. Crash isn’t complaining though.

Juicy Juiced: A special wumpa Crash finds gives the trio enhanced ability but at the cost of sleeping for days. So they keep eating it in order to come up with an antidote to null the effects at the risk of an eternal sleep.

Lab Rat Revolution: The trio arrive at a place populated by a majority of Brio’s rejects and helps them get revenge.

Wayback Brio: An encounter with N. Brio has him and Coco stuck in a cavern. While Crash and Tawna figure out a way to their freedom, the two inside are forced to rewalk their former relationship.

The Skinner (Halloween Special): Crash is possessed by an evil spirit that’s known for desiring the skin of its victim, unbeknownst to Tawna and Coco though, an unstable spirit can’t control an unstable body.

You’re a Bad Man, Dr. Cortex: Cortex arrives in a dimension where he’s the leader of the world, only this version is a good guy. Naturally he replaces the other Cortex and tries to spin the world into his image, but is conflicted that he’ll destroy a utopia he technically made himself.

Nurse Bandicoot: Coco catches a high fever after a trip through the arctic dimension, and the others do what they can for her. Crash surprisingly takes things slow while Tawna is frantic in making things better.

Do Mursupials Dream of Magic Sheep?: Crash suddenly gets nightmares and it affects him while awake. One night, a figure appears in his dream and the two adventure to found out how to resolves these bitter feelings.

Cocomotion: A trip to the future has Coco visit a successful version of herself. As such, it’s the age old case between future versus family.

Crunched Kindness (1/2 Hour Christmas Special): Infiltrating Cortex’s castle, the trio frees a disheveled Crunch Bandicoot and helps him see the beauty of the world.

High School Bandicoot: The Trio are stuck in a video game dating sim where Crash has to win in one go or get deleted forever.

Fishing for Crystals: A fish eats a crystal, a bigger fish eats the little and so on, forcing our heroes to fish differently in the effort to get it back.

Continue?: Crash finds himself alone in a dreary world where it turns out he's dead. He meets a little possum girl and her big bodyguard as they help him uncover a way back to life.

The Trials of Crash Bandicoot: Crash is framed for multiple interdimensional crimes in space court, all of which are Cortex’s doings, and while Coco and Tawna play defense, everyone he’s encounter over the series comes to either his aid or prosecution, and Cortex has something up his sleeve, Crash himself is seemingly out cold during everything.

The Dimmer of Hope: After the events of the previous episode, Cortex has all the crystals and the trio’s banished to the end of the universe. All feels lost, so all that’s left to do is reminisce of the adventures the three got to have.

The Dimensional Dance (Part 1): Cortex and the N Tropys have everything set for multiversal domination but argue over how they want to do things. Meanwhile the trio get back to reality and figure out a way to destroy the crystals.

The Dimensional Dance (Part 2): Crash has absorbed all of the power of the reality machine to make a universe in his own image. Tawna, Coco, the N Tropys, and Cortex are aware and find out that this won’t be stable for much longer and have to save Crash to reverse the effects.

The Never Ending Story (Series Finale): Crash is alone again, not dead, this time in a plane outside all existence and, given the chance to speak for the first time, reflects on his life and everything he got to have to a being he’s familiar with.

#crash bandicoot #coco bandicoot #tawna bandicoot #crunch bandicoot #neo cortex #n. brio #crash bandicoot 4 #crash 4 #video games #cartoons #long post #fake episodes #fanfiction #dumb

54 notes · View notes

im-totally-not-an-alien · 4 years

Text

Final Fantasy prompts no 53

1. Cloud is immortal and has lived for tens of thousands of years. He has watched his friends and enemies get reincarnated over and over again. He would always interfere and save the day when things got bad, prompting legends and myths of a golden haired hero with glowing blue eyes who swore to return whenever the world was in peril.

But thats not the end.

He took great care to find his friends and keep an eye on them, watching over them as a guardian angel of sorts. When he came across Sephiroth again, he expected a battle, but seeing the dull eyes of a broken teenager staring up at him as he layed battered and bruised by his own parents? It made him realize that Sephiroth wasn't born evil.

The blond added Sephiroth to his list of people to protect.

Cloud often removed Sephiroth from the abusive households he was born into by exposing the parents for their crimes and harassing them as an anonymous individual.

Once the silverette was out of the home he would manipulate circumstances so that he would come to live with Zack or one of his other former friends.

Once he hit a certain age, he would find people Sephiroth was romantically compatible with and play puppeteer until one of them married the silverette. Cloud had done this so many times that he practically became an expert. Strangely, in the recent past lives the marriages ended in amicable divorce. He didn't know what he did wrong, so the blond began expiramenting with Sephiroths "types" again, trying to find a perfect match.

This life however, Sephiroth refused to so much as hold hands with someone romantically and Cloud is about ready to rip his hair out in frustration.

The man walked down a busy street, thinking about what to do next when Sephiroth himselfed grabbed his arm.

Startled, Cloud stared up at him.

"It's you." Sephiroth muttered reverently, as though he couldn't believe his eyes.

Cloud never made contact with these people, he had learned his lesson after the fifth time he lost Zack. He let them live out their lives, only interfering to stop something negative from happening. The blond never showed Sephiroth his face since his ninth life.

So how did Sephiroth know who he was?

2. Cloud nearly giving Denzel "The Talk"

3. Denzel accidentally calling Cloud "Dad", calling Tifa "Mom", and Marlene "my sister" until he was eventually like, screw it, and called them that without hesitation

4. Denzel got in trouble at school for beating up a group of boys that were bullying another kid.

He gets suspended and Cloud takes him out for an awesome ride on Fenrir as a reward, followed by fighting lessons from both him and Tifa, then ice cream.

5. Au where Hollander was murdered by Hojo long ago. Degradation is running rampant through Shinras SOLDIER program, killing several and weakening many more.

Genesis is determined to find a cure, after all, his life is on the line. He's eventually cornered by Angeal and Sephiroth, who pull the truth out of him, and begin aiding him in his search.

They discover AC Cloud, who is from a different dimension/timeline whose very body contains the cure.

Cloud was no longer human, and had developed new organs of unknown purpose, his body having disposed of the unnecessary organs such as lungs, gallbladder, and pancreas, and modifying the ones it kept, such as the digestive track. The catch? Now he needed to feed on large amounts of natural Mako every month to survive.

Genesis sees no problem with this and asks for the blond to save them. Cloud, however, refused, not knowing what was happening to him and knew spreading it would be the bad idea of the century.

Genesis doesn't take "No" for an answer.

Hojo finds out the blond was essentially a second Jenova and had a mini lifestream inside him and becomes desperate to get his claws on him.

6. Jenova haunts Clouds dreams, filling him with dread. Not because she was tormenting him, no. It was the opposite.

In the dreams, she held him like a loving mother. Her gentle embrace warmed him, her soft words brought him comfort, made him confide in her. That's why he was afraid.

Cloud was beginning to love her, and it terrified him.

7. Zack Fair is hereby prohibited from using any form of glitter or glue.

Why? It's Classified.

8. Au where Lazard freed Zack from under the nebilheim mansion, but also dragged him outside, leaving Cloud behind.

He lied to Zack when he woke up, telling him the infantryman was dead. He believed that Zacks chances of survival would be infinitely higher if he left the boy behind, which he would never do if given a choice. So Lazard made that choice for him.

So Zack made it to Midgar on his own.

Cloud was found by Sephiroth months later. The blond had no fight left in him and tried to merge with the other Sephiroth clone, unfortunately since his cells were mutated, Cloud could not merge with Sephiroth.

The silverette had planned to abandon this failed clone until Cloud nuzzle his face against Sephiroths gloved palm. From then on out, Cloud followed Sephiroth everywhere, doing the cooking and the laundry or whatever he could to make himself useful. He would beg the former General not to abandon him, as everyone else had done in the past.

That, admittedly pulled on his heartstings a bit. Sephiroth had also been abandoned and betrayed by his two closest friends. By the company and people he foolishly devoted his entire life to.

So Cloud stayed. His master taught him how to fight, how to care for his gear, and they bonded over shared experiences and silent companionship.

It was during that final battle, where Zack and AVALANCHE slew Sephiroth, that Cloud, hidden somewhere out of sight, swore vengeance against the man who pretended to be his friend, who he believed abandoned him and left him to rot in that hellhole after he had sworn for years that they'd get them both out, that he would save Cloud, (Cause that's what heros do!) only for him to murder the first person other than his mom to ever care about him.

Clouds body held both S and J-cells, and though they may be mutated, he could still call for Reunion. Something Zack couldn't sense due to him being an A-type SOLDIER instead of an S-type like himself.

The blond could cultivate the summoned J-cells and make them multiply under his care. He knew the best revenge was patience, after all, so long as Cloud lived, Sephiroth would never truly die.

All he had to do was stay hidden. Know one could know of him, not that they were looking for a supposedly dead man, even if they were, they would never find him in his hidden underground bunker since no one with more then three brain cells would go near the Northern Crater.

9. Sephiroth drops blatant innuendos and pickup lines all throughout his fight with Cloud, but the blond thinks he's just imagining it.

Seph actually manages to escape that time, but after the fight, his friends point out all the questionable things the silverette said.

Cloud wasn't sure if he should be relieved that he wasn't hallucinating it.

10. Tifa caught Denzel and Marlene "interrogating" a doll that was tied to a tree.

They were hitting it with sticks and yelling, "Who's your source?!" At it.

Needless to say, Reno is no longer allowed to around the children without adult supervision.

11. Kunsel began fiddling with a laser pointer, absent-mindedly tracing large slow circles on an opposing wall. He kept thinking back to all the laser pointer related incidents from the past few weeks until he noticed, much to his horror, that a few of his fellow SOLDIERS in the mess hall were tracking the little red dot with laser focus.

Pun intended.

12. Aerith had long since faded into the lifestream where she belonged, but that's not what this story is about.

Thousands of years have passed since the events of MeteorFall, and Gaia is nearly overflowing with mako energy.

Cloud felt as Gaia began remaking her WEAPONS, and couldn't help but wonder as to why. After about a year of searching he found Vincent again and asked him.

The truth was disturbing. Gaia's lifestream had outgrown the planet, and was preparing a new Omega WEAPON to suck the life out of this one and travel back to the "Mother planet"

Cloud eventually found out about Gaias plans for him by eavesdropping on conversation between Gaia herself and the Cetra from the "Mother planet". You see, Cloud has a unique relationship with the planet. He was modified using Jenovas Eldrich powers, and over time, developed his own. The blond allowed Gaia to use his body/very being as a sort of ward against all things Eldrich, and has worked spectacularly well.

Gaia planned to keep him alive as she traveled through the cosmos. That wouldn't be a problem, no the problem was that she planned to encase him in crystal and keep him there for the rest of eternity. When the Cetra mentioned breeding him so that other planets would have a ward, he nearly gagged.

He told Vincent about everything and admitted he was afraid. The only reason he remained sane all these years was because he could travel and have new experiences. He couldn't do that if he was trapped.

Vincent suggested a rocket, to which the blond revealed that Gaia herself always sabotaged the rockets and space programs. For obvious reasons. They were stuck and didn't know what to do now that it was literally them against the world. So when Vincent suggested reviving Mako energy and the SOLDIER program until they could find a way off of Gaia, Cloud didn't dismiss it.

13. Another summoning gone wrong Au where Sephiroth, Zack, and Cloud who are in the normal modern universe and are lovers in a poly relationship, decide to mess around with a spellbook Zack picked up in a shop. They were saying spells out loud and making fun of them, they also did the wierd little ceremonies and made "potions" and had a good time.

Nothing happened, until they woke up the next morning to the chocobo frantically patting them awake with his hands, stunned silent.

There, in their king sized bed, were their trans-dimensional alter-egos, done up with swords and pauldrons and...is Sephiroth wearing a fetish outfit? Said silverette poked his alter-ego with a ruler a few times to confirm he was out cold.

What were they supposed to do now?

14. Final Fantasy 7 and LoZ: Breath of the Wild crossover

Cloud lands in a new reality, but he's too focused on trying to fight the new breeds of monsters and surviving the desert heat to ponder the situation for long

And then there's all those things that keep trying to electrocute him...Clouds not having a good day.

On the other hand he has plenty of things to take his anger out on.

Also, Cloud meeting a horse! Which are critically endangered on Gaia!

15. Genesis finds Cloud post DoC and begins taunting him, but gasps dramatically when he learns the blond has never tasted Banoran apples/apple products. He drags Cloud along to get a taste. Weirdly, they get along.

#cloud strife #sephiroth #sefikura #ff7 #zack fair #sephiroth+x+cloud #genesis rhapsodos #ff7 story prompts #ff7 prompts #final fantasy 7 story prompts #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy story prompts

130 notes · View notes

crazyasacupcake · 3 years

Text

We Go On

Okay so this isn't Haikyu!! (I'm sorry...), but in September I will be taking part in a readathon created by Book Roast on youtube - the Orilium: The Novice Path Readathon. I thought of this scenario while listening to the playlist I had made for this readathon, based on my Earthling character Treya, and I hope that I've written it well. The characters and story are mine, but the world and species (Earthlings, Iltirian, Skaimorn, etc) belong to Book Roast. If anyone else is participating, best of luck on the path!

Warnings: some gore

Word Count: 4124

It’s like there’s a threshold, a moment in time or space which separates the Ruins from everywhere else she’s been so far, even though there is nothing really distinguishing it. Even if there isn’t a visible border – a visible line that says she shouldn’t cross, that she should go around, that she should turn back and go home – she feels it the moment her foot falls onto the land inside the Ruins. The ground is dead, but saying that would imply that it was ever alive in the first place; it’s grey and covered in a crust of ash, despite there being no volcano or sources of fire anywhere in the nearby area.

Her skin prickles, and not for the first time on this quest does she think about going back, back to the Inn, back to Cabbage, back to Aela – back to clearing tables and only practicing her element when she’s hidden by the blanket of night. This time, it’s not a longing pang that is telling her to forget the quest. It’s desperate, animalistic, with screaming alarms echoing over and over inside her head telling her to turn around and forget everything you saw here. It’s as if her entire body, her entire subconscious is on alert ever since that first footfall into the Ruins, it’s like she’s seeing herself from somewhere else, but she knows that’s not possible. She squeezes her eyes shut, holding them closed so tightly she sees starts swirling around the blackness, and when she opens them everything is normal again.

You need to get through this as fast as possible.

She fumbles as she pulls the map from her pocket, the same map that she had snuck from the Elves table in the Inn that day… how long ago was that now? She can’t remember, she can’t think, she can’t remember what Cabbage looks like, which makes her breathing quicken like someone much larger than her has grabbed her torso in their hands and squeezed – squeezed until her rips popped and her heart burst – because how can she not remember what he looks like?

To ground herself, she grasps a fist full of her cloak where it rests over the left side chest, the buckle over her right shoulder just like Aela had taught her so many years ago. She wraps the old fabric around her fingers, fisting it so tightly she’s afraid she’ll set it on fire – her fingertips are already starting to smoulder just the tiniest bit and she forces herself to calm down. She brings the cloak to her face, burying her nose into it and taking a deep inhale. It smells like the Inn; it smells like smoke and ale and the lavenders that Aela leaves in her room every couple of weeks, it smells like the same cheap, sickly soap that she uses to wash Cabbages hair, it smells like the air surrounding the Library.

It hasn’t been that long. It hasn’t been that long.

She waits until her heart slows, until she can’t hear the blood pounding through her ears, before she straightens up, suddenly remembering that the map had fallen from her pocket. It lays on the ground, it’s thumbed corners blowing slightly in a non-existent wind, and as she crouches to pick it up, she spots a figure standing in the rubble of the old temple. They’re shielded by half of a fallen column and the darkness that surrounds it, unmoving. They’re stood very awkwardly, one shoulder held much higher than the other, as if one of their legs was abnormally short, and she can’t tell whether they are facing towards her or away from her.

She picks up the map, cringing when the ashy ground crunches beneath her shifting weight, but the person – or thing as she would prefer to refer to it – doesn’t startle.

Maybe it’s dead.

According to the map, it should be a straight route through the Ruins, but the scrawled note beside the drawing makes her skin crawl.

Three steps forward and you’re not sure if time is linear, or if things you see are of this dimension.

She swallows, folds the map back up, and slips it back into her pocket, making sure the clasp secures properly before she begins. Each step seems to echo forever, the blinding white-grey fog swallowing it in the distance before sending it back to her, as if it’s trying to communicate. The further into the Ruins she walks, the more things she sees, hidden amongst the rubble or shrouded by the ever-present mist, each one unmoving, each one more unnerving than the next. Some of them are stood with their backs to her, some with awkward gaits like the first one that she saw. One of them was laying in the middle of what she could only assume was a collapsed house, his toes facing up towards the sky.

This one she stares at for a moment, and she is reminded of a time when she was younger, when her temper got the better of her far too often, when she would run away from the Inn at least once a month, always being dragged back to Aela by an Iltirian, a scowl on her face and flames in her eyes. The last time she had attempted to run away, the one time she didn’t need to be dragged back to the Inn because she had ran back on her own, she had seen a man laying in an alleyway near the Library, the toes of his boots pointed towards the sky. A human, a traveller – the kind they didn’t get many of in Darkmeadow – his mouth unhinged and his eyes wide, his hands claws at his throat. Her stomach had lurched, splattering her dinner over his boots, before she had stumbled blindly back to the Inn, her new shoes covered in her fear, her fingers smouldering and sparking.

She doesn’t feel that fear now, only looks on with her mouth set into a line.

Fear makes you stronger.

That person didn’t manage to create the same heart-stopping panic she had felt when she was younger, but the next one does.

They are sitting upright facing away from her, and from the angle she’s approaching at, she can see one of their legs stretched out in front of them. When she passes, she feels her breath stop dead in the middle of her chest, and as she tries to scramble backwards trips over her own feet, landing heavily on the ground behind her, her sword making an awful clang that seemed to make the already still surroundings even stiller.

The other leg is missing, not a clean cut or a healed one – it looks as though it’s been ripped from their body, dislodged at the hip and torn away without care. The skin is ragged and black with decay, and yet it still bleeds thick black blood onto the ground surrounding it. She watches the blood drip down in strands, sticking to itself even when it hits the puddle. Their hands are gnarled, not unlike the hands of the body she had found when she was younger, only the fingertips on these hands are blacked – not in the same way as the ripped skin of the hip, but in the same way as her fingers get when she gets too angry, setting alight and staying that way for too long.

An Earthling.

Of course, she would’ve noticed if she had followed their arms more, would have seen the bright red marks that had adorned her skin since the day she turned ten, but her attention was too focused on the Earthling’s face, or lack of one. Where the face should have been, was a crater like hole, also dripping that same stringing blood down itself, and she is reminded of the time she had found Cabbage leaning over the balcony, letting gobs of spit drop onto the people leaving the Inn. He had turned to look at her with wide eyes and the faintest beginnings of purple spots, the string of spit dribbling down his front in the same way that the blood is dripping onto this things ruined tunic. There are shards of bone protruding from where the eye sockets would have been, snapped sharp by whatever it was that had attacked them.

There’s nothing nearby that could suggest a possible weapon, and it made her ears ring with the realisation that this probably meant that the attacker had taken it with them, and was potentially still prowling through the Ruins for the next victim.

Get through this as fast as possible.

She pushes herself up, wincing at the pain from her now cut palms as she puts all her weight on them, and goes to step around the body, before noticing a piece of paper fluttering weakly inside a pocket on the Earthling’s jacket. She digs her nails into her ruined hands to stop them shaking, quickly pulling the paper away without lingering near it for too long.

Across the top of the paper is the same flowing script that she had seen every day since leaving the Inn. The Novice Path – the words still distinguishable despite the blood that had gathered on the edges of the page.

They were going to Orilium, too.

She doesn’t think on it for too long – she can’t afford to worry about it – instead dropping the map back beside the body, continuing forwards at a faster pace than she was before.

After about five minutes, hearing the whistling of the fake-wind through the Ruins many arches and alcoves, she becomes aware of another noise: a scraping stumble, as if someone was struggling to climb across all of the rubble, dragging their feet and digging up crusts of ash with each step, landing heavily as they tripped forwards. She doesn’t turn around, even though her skin prickles, because there is nothing here to be afraid of, this place has been dead for centuries, there is nothing in the Ruins that could possibly mean any harm to her.

It’s probably just another traveller on the Path, one that isn’t well acquainted with walks like this – maybe from Daerune.

“Treya.”

It makes her stop, not freeze, just slowly stop. It was as though the word was whispered into her ear, as if they had said it stood right beside her and not from however far back they really were.

They. He.

She turns, her mouth still that same stoic line – the same line she had managed to hide every emotion behind when Aela told her she needs to control her temper – despite the way she wants to scream and sob and drop to her knees and run towards him all at once.

Cabbage stumbles over another dislodged piece of ash, longer than his own legs, and lands with his hands outstretched in front of him, a little oof leaving his lips as he hits the floor. He looks up at her with watery eyes and a wobbly lip, and she forgets everything to run towards him, dropping in front of him and not caring about the noise she makes in this decaying place. She hooks her arms under his and pulls him into her, pressing his head into the crook of her neck, her nose in his still baby-soft hair, her tears dripping onto his skin.

She underestimated how much she would miss the two of them, her fake-brother Cabbage, and her boss – and also her sort-of adoptive mother – Aela. She thought of how difficult it must’ve been for Cabbage’s ten year old body to have to endure the trek, to have to follow her through so much, just trying to find her.

“Hi, Cabbage.” Her voice is harsh from days of no use, scratching her throat and coming out not sounding like her at all. “What’re you doing here, hey?”

“Aela told me the Skaimorn had taken you to be their ward instead – said that they needed a mean-tempered girl like you – and I didn’t believe her, not one bit, because why would they want you as a ward when I was right there! I followed you, saw your cloak as you were leaving, so I followed you all the way out here, but you’re so fast and I’m not tall yet so I couldn’t keep up that well.”

She runs her hand down his back, sniffling to herself despite her anger at him being so stupid as to follow her to Gods know where. “This was very silly of you, Cabbage, you should’ve stayed with Aela. She’s probably worried sick about where you are.”

“She’s not, I know she isn’t. Let’s go home, Treya – please. It’s so scary out here, I don’t like it.”

She keeps rubbing his back, and she suddenly frowns, moving her hand towards the top of his back, to the space just under his shoulder blades where the first nubs of his wings should have been. She remembered him running into her room with a grin missing a front tooth as he had launched himself onto her bed, proudly jutting his thumbs behind him towards the start of the bony spikes that would one day become a beautiful pair of wings.

Cabbage’s back shouldn’t be this smooth.

She pulls away from him, smiling, hoping he doesn’t see that it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and cups his face with her hands. She rubs at his cheeks with both thumbs as he keeps talking, and she notices how his eyes are just the slightest too wide, his hair just the slightest bit too dark, his nose just the slightest bit too crooked. The spots on his skin aren’t the bright shade of purple they had been the day before she had left, but instead a sickly dark yellow.

“Or – Treya, we don’t even need to go back to the Inn at all! We could stay right here, couldn’t we! It’s pretty here, and I bet we could even build our own Inn, just like the one back in Darkmeadow!”

She curses herself for dropping her guard, for forgetting the old lessons – to not take anything at face value, to pay attention, to never let her feelings get the better of her, to always be on the offensive.

“I’m sorry, but you and I both know I can’t do that.” She doesn’t refer to it with Cabbage’s name, because it is not Cabbage. It is not her sweet fellow ward who cries with excitement every time a Skaimorn enters the Inn, it is not the little boy who followed her around like a stray puppy, even when she glared at him with her burning eyes.

It is not Cabbage.

And as soon as it registers she knows, her fingertips pressing harshly into it’s skull that’s wearing Cabbage’s face, her mouth back into that line, her eyes dark with black fire, the act is dropped. The wobbly lip disappears, the eyes become lidded as it stares at her with a bored expression that doesn’t fit Cabbage’s face at all; it’s the expression that makes her fury spike, the fact that this thing is tainting Cabbage’s image with an expression of disinterest and annoyance, and she longs to dig her nails into the skin just before its ears and just rip it off.

Her hands are already beginning to heat up; she can see the smoke coming from its skin in thin ribbons. The wrong coloured spots begin to muddle, rippling across its skin, flowing across the surface like water.

It still speaks in Cabbage’s voice, the boredom drawling his words and smearing them together. “Fine. Let’s try it my way, shall we?”

She ignites, her fingers burning with the type of heat that she can’t feel, that she’ll never know the true power of unless she sees it. The skin bubbles, warps, dripping off the skull in gobs as the hair catches, swallowing its face in a blaze of red and yellow. It doesn’t scream, doesn’t give any indication that it’s in any kind of pain, but even if it did she wouldn’t have cared. She wouldn’t have stopped, would’ve only pressed her palms further into its face as she is doing now, not even unnerved when its cheekbones crack and fizzle, not even when its blood splutters and hisses.

Only when there is no remnant of Cabbage left, when his baby-soft hair has burnt to ash and his skin lays in waxy puddles surrounding her, only when she’s staring at the blackened skull does she let go, letting the body fall backwards, looking not unlike a doll dropped by a child who longs for a new, more enjoyable plaything. She doesn’t lurch, doesn’t cry, only stares on with the same lidded eyes it had stared at her with, a smirk playing on her lips.

Look how powerful you have become.

She wipes her hands on the things tunic, longing to unbutton it and take it because it doesn’t deserve to lay there in a crude imitation of Cabbage’s ward uniform. She doesn’t because she has the feeling that as soon as she leaves the Ruins, as soon as another traveller enters, the thing will merge into someone else, trying to convince them to stay forever too. Rocking back onto her feet, she continues, now hyperaware of every slight noise, every piece of rubble dislodging and falling down a pile, every creak and groan as the old pillars are battered by the not-wind, every gasping breath and scratchy yell.

At those, she turns, at the same time surprised and unsurprised to see masses of bodies making their way towards her. The one that had panicked her, the one missing a leg and a face, dragged itself over the ragged ground with it’s clawed hands, being overtaken quickly by others, among them the first one she had noticed with the awkward gait, which she saw was because it was missing the bottom half of one of its shins.

It wasn’t so much fear that got her heart pumping, but annoyance and frustration. She set her feet, drawing her sword with her right hand and spinning it once, twice, three times, her brows furrowed with determination. Her hands were still hot, but she didn’t allow herself to let go yet. They had to get closer – the closer they were, the bigger the explosion, the more could be taken out. She tried to count them, gave up when she realised they were moving too fast for her to be able to not count them twice.

“Going in blind,” she murmurs to herself, shifting her cloak so that her right arm is just a bit freer. “The old way.”

She doesn’t even register the first one. It’s as if her body moved on it’s own, as all she registered was it dropping onto the floor beside her, sliced up the middle, it’s head split into two and leaking black blood onto her boots.

The second one she registers because it dodges her first swing, lunging at her from the other side, but she is nothing if not prepared. She raises her left arm, unleashing an inferno in the things face. Even if it doesn’t feel the pain, it catches it off guard for long enough for her to detach its head. It snaps at her heels with rotten teeth, and she brings her boot down with a crunch, not caring about the sudden silence of the thing.

The majority of the mass is almost upon her, the main body that she was waiting for, and she sheathes her sword back at her side, her lips turning up in a grin.

She cracks her knuckles, presses her fingertips together in a mockery of the prayers they used to do to the Old Gods when she still lived in Irtheria, her palms not touching, her fingertips barely kissing. She was proud of this display of her raw talent, a party trick that was unsuitable for most parties, something she had coined herself in her more rebellious years.

This is going to be fun.

Her lips part in a wild grin as they fall into the right distance, which she knows from many sleepless nights of practice, challenging herself to find her maximum distance – but also her maximum destruction.

She doesn’t need to say anything, she just needs to will it, and for once she thanks herself for having such an untameable temper that required her to let of steam more often than most her age.

The ground erupts, catching the middle of the crowd in a column of fire as wild as the hair on her head and the smile on her face, her eyes flashing with the same bright flame. She doesn’t bother to hide her excitement at the carnage, doesn’t care if she looks crazed because it worked.

Some emerge from the blaze, their clothes and skin alight, their features melting in the heat, eyes popped and dribbling down their faces, continuing to advance upon her without any need of their sight.

Time to go.

She spins, sprinting as fast as she can towards the boundary of the Ruins, towards the Falls. With each footfall, another burst of flame splits the ground on either side of her, her control waning as her heartrate increases. The normally tame flames on the ends of her hair grow, licking their way down her back, catching her cloak with their damning kiss, igniting a section of it to her dismay. Still, she doesn’t stop, whipping her head to the side to dampen the flames enough for them to not be damaging to the one thing she cares about.

As she runs, the cloak billows, the flames extinguishing – to her relief – leaving only a gaping hole that travels from the middle of her bicep to her elbow. It’s better than losing the whole cloak; she can deal with a hole. She doesn’t stop, the gurgling behind her enough to spur her despite the pain in her legs, despite the sword clanging harshly against her with every step, despite the fact that the boundary of the Ruins seems to be the edge of a cliff.

It doesn’t look this way on the map, but she knows from listening to the Ilterians in the Library that maps can lie just as much as men can.

If she stops, they’ll kill her. But if she continues, she might kill herself.

The Path is not impossible if you listen to its warnings.

They wouldn’t send you into the Ruins just to die.

She takes a deep breath, giving herself that last push, that last burst of speed to get just far enough in front of them to take the leap, her arms pinwheeling, her legs still moving as she falls before she angles herself so as not to paralyse herself on landing.

The drop is not as deep as it had looked from inside the Ruins, ten feet at most, and her landing is mostly softened by a thick layer of underbrush that has been creeping out of the forest and began its ascent up the cliffs face. She rolls off heavily, landing on her back on an old dirt path, her chest heaving and her vision blurring as she talks to the Old Gods for the first time since she was ten, thanking them for giving her the strength to survive, though she knows that she alone is the cause of that strength.

Only when she sits up on that small path, only when she looks towards the cliffs edge and sees the creatures gathered and staring down at her, unable to follow past the boundary line, only when she is certain she is safe (from that task at least), does she let herself scream.

She screams until her throat is raw, then screams some more, clutching at her chest with her left hand, fisting the black fabric of her shirt as her voice breaks from anger and pride and that thin layer of fear that she has finally allowed to crest the surface.

For a moment, she just sits, panting, her mind spinning, her fingers smouldering. She thinks about turning back now, finding a way to go around the Ruins and back to Darkmeadow, collapsing in the doorway of the Inn and holding the real Cabbage close to her as she whispers her apologies to the both of them. It would make the most sense to turn back now, with how close Deaths fingers came to grasping her around the throat and dragging her down with him.

But she stands, brushes the dirt from herself, and starts down the path, her mouth set and her eyes lidded.

We go on.

#Orilium #Orilium: The Novice Path #Book Roast #BookRoast Youtube #Magical Readathon #Fantasy

4 notes · View notes

writingithink · 3 years

Text

Tangled Timelines Chapter 4 Rated: T Chapter Word Count: 8,468 Chapter Summary: Their tour of Torchwood does not go well. Notes: Okay so it's been awhile, but I'm back! Life is still p busy and chaotic, buuut the muse is kinder to me when there's more sunshine, so ... *shrug* I can only hope the update is worth the wait XP Hopefully the fact that it's the longest chapter yet helps?

MASSIVE thanks to @hey-there-juliet for being an amazing beta, as always.

All mistakes are definitely mine, being as I cannot leave anything alone.

I own nothing.

Read it on AO3!!

<-Ch 3

They left the warehouse through a dingy corridor, which the Doctor suspected was actually a tunnel. The air felt stale and damp despite the ventilation shafts running above them. Plus, Yvonne was currently silent, not giving them an enthusiastic description of where they were or where they were going - likely an attempt to disorient them. Cheeky, really.

“All those times I’ve been to Earth, I’ve never heard of you,” he told her, mostly trying to figure out how that was even possible, and partly because hearing nothing but their echoing footsteps was starting to get on his nerves.

Rose was quiet, both verbally and in his head, as she continuously looked around them. Being escorted by armed guards through a creepy tunnel was putting her on edge. He squeezed her hand, but had a difficult time trying to project reassurance across their bond.

“But of course not. You’re the enemy,” Yvonne said. “You’re actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the Crown.”

Wait, 1879?! Torchwood, 1879.

“1879,” the Doctor repeated aloud this time. “That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland.”

Just you?!, Rose exclaimed, outrage flitting through their connection. They don’t even mention me? Oh, that is just- just typical Victorian. I bet it’s because you said you bought me or whatever. I was just- just a thing. Good enough to be knighted and banished, but don’t get even a teeny tiny mention on this Charter of theirs?

I’m sorry, do you want to be declared an enemy of the crown?, he asked her. While he was able to keep his amusement off of his face, it was very apparent over the bond.

“That’s right,” Yvonne was saying, “where you encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf.”

“I guess she really was NOT amused,” Rose quipped.

“Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great, and fighting the alien horde,” Yvonne informed them.

Suppose it’s best that I wasn’t mentioned, his wife admitted over the bond. Imagine what would’ve happened if Torchwood did know about me and snatched me up, took me prisoner or something before we even met?

She actually made a very good point.

“But if I’m the enemy, does that mean that I’m a prisoner?” the Doctor asked, more than a little worried.

Earth during this time, from his perspective? Mostly harmless. Torchwood, however, had an awful lot of very not-harmless extraterrestrial technology. And while they couldn’t get into the TARDIS and couldn’t actually stop him from sensing where she was, they did seem to have a sporting chance of keeping them from reaching her.

“Oh yes,” Yvonne answered as they made a sharp turn and exited the tunnel to stop abruptly in front of a heavily enforced door. “But we’ll make you perfectly comfortable. And there is so much you can teach us. Starting with this.”

The door slid open and she led them into what appeared to be some sort of laboratory.

“Now, what do you make of that?” she asked, not needing to be any more specific. There was no way that he couldn’t know what she was referring to, the way the sphere was hovering at the end of the narrow space, every single piece of equipment in the room trained on it. And it was decidedly wrong. More wrong than the ghosts, than Torchwood’s existence, than … anything on the planet , really.

The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off it.

All of his senses were going haywire, forcing him to block out most of the bond in order to shield Rose from just how- how awful this thing was.

“You must be the Doctor,” he was dimly aware that someone was speaking to him. “Rajesh Singh. It’s an honor, sir.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, still unable to look away from the sphere.

The timelines were tangling up around it, some passing over it as if the sphere didn’t exist, others indicating direct consequences of its future actions, or inaction - who knows. But those timelines were the only real sign, aside from the fact that he could see it, that his senses were giving him to prove that it did, in fact, exist at all.

“What is that?” his bondmate asked, dropping his hand. “It’s- it’s-”

“We got no idea,” Yvonne had no qualms to admit.

The Doctor shut down even more of the bond (a difficult feat), activating senses that he rarely used and was sure would only serve to give Rose a headache (or worse) if they leeched over to her. He had some ideas, none of them good, but still needed to narrow it down.

“It’s wrong,” his wife proclaimed.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong with it?” he vaguely heard the bloke - Rajesh - ask her.

“I … I can’t … I think I might be sick.”

His attention snapped back to his bondmate and the Doctor opened the bond a little bit more, as much he safely felt he could, attempting to comfort her while also determining exactly what she was sensing from the sphere. Rose was still new to telepathy, really, and there was a possibility that other senses were activating as well. Unfortunately, he also needed to figure out what the sphere really was, and couldn’t focus the majority of his attention on his wife as he walked up to the platform. All he could safely ascertain, without going too deep into her mind to focus on the task at hand, was that she wasn’t truly ill and that her mind wasn’t in any danger.

“Well, the sphere has that effect on everyone,” Yvonne said. “Makes you want to run and hide, like it’s forbidden.”

“We tried analyzing it using every device imaginable,” Rajesh explained as the Doctor re-blocked the bond and put on his 3D specs, hoping for once that he was wrong. “But according to our instruments, the sphere doesn’t exist.”

Oh, why couldn’t he have been wrong? The sphere was so steeped in Void particles that it almost looked as though it was made of the stuff.

Yvonne had said that the ghosts were a side effect. He was starting to get an idea of what may have happened.

“It weighs nothing,” Rajesh continued, “it doesn’t age. No heat, no radiation, and has no atomic mass.”

“But everyone can see it,” Rose pointed out in disbelief. “Touch it, I’m assuming. It’s there.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it? It upsets people because it gives off nothing. It is absent.”

The Doctor couldn’t stop looking at it. It was … well, obviously it wasn’t impossible, but it should be.

“Well, Doctor?” Yvonne asked, snapping him out of it.

“This is a Void Ship,” he admitted, refocusing on the weakening barriers he’d erected around their bond, trying to reinforce them in order to keep his anxiety and fear from crossing over. The blocks wouldn’t last much longer, the mental energy to keep them in place would be too great, but he just needed a little more time to get a handle on himself. They would figure this all out. They had to.

“And what is that?”

He could feel his wife attempting to reach him and hated that he was keeping her out. But really, they needed to avoid the inevitable negative feedback loop, especially since he had to do his best to appear calm and collected in front of these people. The Doctor took off his glasses, but still couldn’t stop looking at the ship.

“Well, it’s impossible for starters,” he told them, unable to think of a better word. “I always thought it was just a theory, but it’s a vessel designed to exist outside of time and space, traveling through the Void.”

Finally able to rip his gaze away from the sphere, he turned away, sitting down on the stairs leading up to the platform. Yvonne and Rajesh were quick to flank him, forcing Rose to squeeze past them in order to sit next to him. The Doctor put his arm around her automatically, and his barriers crumbled away. It was easier to keep himself calm (well, more calm) now that he wasn’t looking at the thing.

“And what’s the Void?” Rajesh asked.

It’s the space between parallel worlds, yeah?, his bondmate confirmed, attempting to send soothing waves of reassurance across their connection and dutifully not complaining about being cut off.

“The space between dimensions,” he explained to the others after mentally agreeing with his wife. “There’s all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions, billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other. The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that - nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time.” The Doctor actually found himself feeling better, giving them a heavily edited lecture, separating himself from all of the potential ramifications for a moment. But only for a moment, before dread began to claw back up his spine. “My people called it the Void. The Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell.”

“But someone built the sphere,” Rajesh pointed out. “What for? Why go there?”

Oh, he did love it when people asked the important questions.

“To explore?” he hazarded. “To escape? You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang, end of the Universe, start of the next, wouldn’t even touch the sides. You’d exist outside the whole of creation.”

In a rare moment of complete synchronicity, he and Rose both thought of the Beast in the pit.

The Doctor hadn’t thought it possible, but the Void Ship suddenly seemed even more sinister.

Before time.

Perhaps a being could exist before time … if they crawled out of the Void. But how would that even work? He wanted to convince himself that it was impossible - had to be. But …

It doesn’t matter, Rose chimed in, easily getting his attention. We stopped him. Whatever’s in that thing, it isn’t that.

She seemed so certain of this that the Doctor couldn’t help but believe her.

“You see, we were right,” Yvonne said, smugly. “There is something inside there.”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, frowning deeply as she smiled on.

His bondmate was now thinking of a different memory from Krop Tor. What the Beast had predicted for her.

The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon.

He could feel the beginnings of the negative feedback loop that he’d been trying so hard to prevent.

I told you, it was wrong, the Doctor insisted, trying to project his complete certainty of this fact. Their timelines were entwined - it was all or nothing. And he still didn’t trust what he’d glimpsed at the Olympics, couldn’t allow that kind of hope to blind him of the danger of their current situation, but he played the memory for her anyway. He needed her to believe it. They just needed to get through this.

“So, how do we get in there?” Rajesh asked.

Oh, how he hated it when people asked the wrong questions.

“We don’t!” he ordered, launching himself up off the platform. “We send that thing back into Hell. How did it get here in the first place?”

There would have to be a tear in the fabric of reality for it to come through now that his people were gone. And he was going to have to figure out how to close it before it got bigger.

A tear in the fabric of reality?!, Rose shouted in his mind as she got up to follow him.

“Well, that’s how it all started,” Yvonne unknowingly saved him from having to respond to his seething wife. “The sphere came through into this world and the ghosts followed in its wake.”

“Show me,” the Doctor demanded, voice clipped as he took Rose’s hand and marched out of the room.

You’ve known about this Void stuff the whole bloody time, she continued complaining over the bond. Why the HELL didn’t you say something sooner?

I didn’t want to worry you unless I had to, he admitted. When it was just those ghosts, I thought that maybe it would be a simple fix. But that ship is corporeal. It made it properly through. The ghosts haven’t, so I thought I might just be dealing with a potential crack in the Universe. An almost crack. Like when you drop a mug and it gets a tiny hairline fracture. It hasn’t actually broken, just damaged enough that bacteria can get caught in it. You shouldn’t really drink out of it anymore if you can help it, but if you wanted to you could still use it to store pencils.

They took a left and barely made it past the door before he heard Yvonne shout, “No, Doctor.”

He quickly pivoted, accidentally dragging his bondmate in a circle, and then purposefully held his head high as they walked past the door again.

So the ship broke the mug, then, Rose continued as Yvonne and one of the soldiers caught up to them.

Yup. The metaphor kind of falls apart a bit after that, though. I’ll think of something better, just give us a tick. And … I’m sorry. It’s not like I thought you couldn’t handle it or anything.

They were directed to a lift, and as soon as they got inside his bondmate let go of his hand and crossed her arms.

Honestly, the Doctor pleaded across their bond, I was hoping that I was wrong. That it just appeared like they’d crossed the Void.

She glanced his way before eyeing the screen that was tracking their progress up the floors at a rate that was much faster than he could recall lifts being in this time period. The further up they went, the more his senses were screaming at him that things were not right. Timelines were twisting into strange shapes, and what was an occasional flicker everywhere else was more like a strobe as they shifted in and out of existence. The Doctor felt increasingly grateful that the barriers around his senses were much stronger than the rest.

You really weren’t trying to keep me out of some plan you’re cookin’?

Absolutely not, he hastily agreed. Me? A plan? Bold of you to think I have one.

His bondmate covered her mouth with a hand as her laughter rang out over their connection. Much better. Well, relatively. They were still in the middle of a gigantic potentially-Universe-ending catastrophe, but who said he couldn’t still appreciate the little things?

Yvonne led them out at the 45th floor - the very top of the building. Or maybe skyscraper was a better word.

“Right this way, then,” she said, and while Yvonne had started off leading them, they soon matched her pace - the breach was so large that there was no way the Doctor could have missed it even without the escort.

Within moments they turned a corner and there it was. Dormant, but there.

“The sphere came through here,” Yvonne stated. “A hole in the world.”

The Doctor dropped Rose’s hand as he approached the tear. Even in its current state, he could tell how large it was - that it had been growing. He reached up a hand, tracing its edge. Tingly. Tingly, but the bad kind. His hairs stood on end.

Is that safe? His wife’s worry coated their bond.

It’s fine, he assured her. It’s closed … for now.

“Not active at the moment,” Yvonne continued, “but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breach opens up.”

So they made the hole, then? Why?!

He could tell that his bondmate was wondering the exact same thing.

“How did you even find it?” the Doctor asked, deciding to start at the beginning (so to speak), as he backed away to look at the rip in reality in its entirety.

“We were getting warning signs for years. A radar black spot. So we built this place, Torchwood Tower. The breach was six hundred feet above sea level. It was the only way to reach it,” Yvonne answered as he put on his 3D glasses.

Oh. Oh. The edges were steeped in just as much Void particles as the ship - which was just about what he’d been thinking, but still. Anticipating and then seeing were two very different things. He didn’t want to see what it was like when active. It should have never been active.

Do they just have an unlimited budget, then? Country spending all it’s money on this?

The Doctor could tell that his wife wasn’t actually talking to him, but the thought was quite loud and quite irritated. He glanced back to see Rose standing a few feet behind him with her arms crossed, frowning as she glared at the back of Yvonne Hartman’s head.

“You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance?” he couldn’t help but ask. “How much money have you got?”

“Enough,” Yvonne blithely answered before walking away.

Well, that was … fair? He never had figured out all of the rules for money, especially for talking about money. Humans were just so … so weird. The Doctor took off his glasses and tried not to roll his eyes.

“Look who’s talking,” Rose whispered in his ear.

“Oh, speaking aloud now, are we?” he muttered back.

“Mmhmm,” she responded with a cheeky grin. “Gonna let me try out your 3D glasses? Aren’t these from when we saw It Came from Outer Space after the last time we failed to see Elvis?” Turns out third time isn’t the charm.

This time the Doctor really did roll his eyes as he passed his bondmate the glasses. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see Elvis Presley, really it-

He stopped himself from going down that train of thought. Much more important things to think about. Rose tilted her head as she stared at the breach, then turned toward him. Her jaw dropped.

“Doc-”

“Come on now, Doctor,” Yvonne called before Rose could finish her sentence.

“Yup! Coming!”

They both turned and followed their ‘tour guide’ away from the rip in the multiverse, his wife passing back the glasses as they went.

Why are those black things all over you, too? The, er, Void stuff, Rose asked over the bond.

They’re also on you. We’ve been through, remember? But we’ve just got a light dusting. Everything else, you can barely see the thing for the Void, he explained as they caught up with Yvonne only to be led into an office.

Rose paused by a window, pressing her face up against the glass as she looked down at the streets below them, while the Doctor … for lack of a better way to phrase it … wandered off. It was different, though! The rule was for Rose not to wander away from him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t wander away from … uptight know-it-all heads of shadow organizations. Whom his wife was- was guarding. While he investigated!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of interest going on at the moment. And everyone was ignoring him. He was able to get a good look at their equipment, though, so at least there was that. It was simple enough, but he doubted he’d have enough time to dismantle it before a bunch of soldiers with guns came and stopped him.

“Oh!” he heard Rose exclaim from around the corner. “Look, we’re in Canary Wharf!”

The Doctor quickly placed them in his mental map of London. Good to know. He wasn’t yet sure why it would be good to know, but it couldn’t hurt. The ‘ghosts’ were everywhere, so it wouldn’t help with that, but if he needed to contact UNIT at any point, they would need to know his position.

“Well, that is the public name for it,” Yvonne was saying as he headed back toward them. “But to those in the know, it’s Torchwood.”

Right then. And now they were in the know, so it was time they listened.

“So,” he began as soon as he entered the room, “you find the breach, probe it, the sphere comes through six hundred feet above London, bam! It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe? Nah, you think let’s make it bigger!”

“It’s a massive source of energy,” Yvonne justified. “If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent. Look, you can see for yourself. Next Ghost Shift’s in two minutes.”

She began leading them away, yet again, and he was tired of the tour.

“Cancel it,” he ordered as Yvonne walked past.

She’s not gonna listen to ya, his bondmate oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

“I don’t think so.”

The timelines were stretching taught all around him, blinking in and out even faster. He’d experienced temporal tipping points, he’d experienced fixed points, but he’d never experienced something like this. It was fraying his every nerve and it was taking most of his mental energy just to keep the effects of the anomaly from leaching across the bond.

“I’m warning you, cancel it,” he snarled. Why couldn’t she just listen? Why couldn’t she see that her actions right here, right now, could stop the Universe from being ripped apart?!

Rose, unaware of his mental turmoil, recoiled slightly, eyes widening. He could feel her prodding around the bond, trying to get further into his mind, asking what was wrong and baffled at his lack of response.

No no no no no. Not right now, not when he was constantly erecting and re-erecting barriers. It would be too much, if she got in his head fully. Too much, too much, too much.

Yvonne Hartman spun around, showing some real emotion for the first time since they landed at her precious headquarters that she had no idea may as well be a tomb.

“Oh, exactly as the legends would have it,” she said, voice dripping with condescension. “The Doctor, lording it over us, assuming alien authority over the Rights of Man.”

“Let me show you,” the Doctor panted, racing back behind a glass wall just as he succeeded in forcibly pushing Rose out of his head. Their bond went silent. A sinking feeling permeated his being, but … later. He’d deal with it later, explain later. One problem at a bloody time. “Sphere comes through,” he announced, pulling out his sonic and pointing it at the glass, making sure Hartman watched as it splintered around the initial impact site. “But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that’s how the ghosts get through. That’s how they get everywhere. They’re bleeding through the fault lines. Walking from their world, across the Void, and into yours, with the human race hoping and wishing and helping them along. But too many ghosts, and-” he gently poked the glass wall and the whole thing shattered onto the floor.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Maybe he’d gotten through to her.

“Well,” she finally said, “in that case, we’ll have to be more careful.”

He glanced at Rose, meeting her eyes for only a moment before she swallowed and looked away.

“Positions! Ghost Shift in one minute!”

In a few long strides, the Doctor avoided most of the glass, fully ready to beg.

“Miss Hartman, I am asking you, please don’t do it.”

“You’re putting everyone in danger,” his bondmate chimed in, and he didn’t like the panic and desperation in her voice, so he didn’t dare turn and try to look at her again. Seeing Rose upset wasn’t going to help. “Not just London or Britain, but the whole world! Maybe the whole Universe!”

“We have done this a thousand times!” Yvonne shot back, as if that somehow made it better.

“Then stop at a thousand!” he shouted, timelines strobing in and out so quickly that he could barely think straight, barriers beginning to crumble and he didn’t have the energy left to build more, not if he wanted to figure out how to stop whatever Miss Hartman seemed determined to start.

“We’re in control of the ghosts,” she tried to convince him. “The levers can open the breach, but equally they can close it.”

The Doctor stared at her, and came to a decision, though not the most ethical one. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and since he was no longer using all of his telepathic energy to keep his wife from stumbling into the minefield that was his mind, he could do something else. He could project towards Miss Yvonne Hartman. She worked right next to the breach, which means her brain was likely primed for this sort of thing. Universe ending? Fine. Fine. Let her end it, then. But could she make that call? Would she be able to live with herself … whether she lived at all?

“Okay,” he said brightly, breaking eye contact once the suggestion was made and practically skipping back toward the office.

“Sorry?” Yvonne asked, just as confused as he figured she’d be.

“Never mind. As you were,” the Doctor smiled, grabbing the nearest chair and rolling it over towards where Rose was standing, still preternaturally silent in his head despite the fact that his barriers were now almost non-existent.

“What, is that it?”

“No, fair enough. Said my bit, don’t mind me,” he replied, taking a seat and turning toward the nearest worker. “Any chance for a cup of tea?”

The woman at the desk ignored him, but she did turn toward Miss Hartman and announce, “Ghost Shift in twenty seconds.”

“Mmm, can’t wait to see it,” the Doctor said, over exaggerating his excitement, his clenched fists the only thing giving him away.

“You can’t stop us, Doctor,” Yvonne declared, though it didn’t seem like her heart was in it. Good.

“No, absolutely not,” he agreed, crossing his arms. “Come here, Rose. Come and watch the fireworks.”

His bondmate finally walked over to him, and he was quick to weave their fingers together. And just like that, every barrier he had, even the ones that were normally easy to maintain, fell away as if they’d never existed in the first place. Her eyes widened, a barely audible gasp escaping before she moved even closer, stumbling before taking a seat on his lap.

I thought-

She didn’t give him time to finish the thought.

Sod it! If this is as long as our forever might be, I’m not gonna spend it pretending that we’re not together, her mental voice a disconcerting mix of defiance, anger, sorrow, and fear.

“Ghost shift in ten seconds,” the woman at the computer announced.

Rose’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Nine.”

The Doctor locked eyes with Miss. Hartman.

“Eight.”

He could see the fear there, just under the surface.

“Seven.”

He raised his eyebrows, daring her.

“Six.”

I love you, Rose’s mental voice whispered across the bond, tentative, afraid to mess up the game of chicken he’d started, but also desperate with the need to tell him.

“Five.”

I love you too, the Doctor replied, squeezing her hand, eyes still never leaving Yvonne’s, grin still plastered on his face.

“Four.”

It was a staring contest, with the entire Universe at stake, and he could tell that the fact that he didn’t actually have to blink was beginning to unnerve her.

“Three.”

C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon !

“Two.”

His respiratory bypass kicked in, though his smile didn’t falter.

The word ‘one’ was about to pass through the worker’s lips.

“Stop the shift,” Yvonne ordered. “I said stop.”

“Thank you,” he said, managing to not let on just how worried he’d been there for a second.

“Yeah,” Rose seconded, “thank you.”

“I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible,” Yvonne said, visibly shaken though doing a pretty good job of trying to hide it from her employees. “But the program will recommence, as soon as you’ve explained everything.”

“We’re glad to be of help,” the Doctor replied, not wanting to push her any farther. It wasn’t safe to use telepathy around humans at the best of times, and his mind was all over the place.

What?!, his wife screeched in his head.

Not you, he quickly backpedalled. We’ve been over this, remember? You’ve got the activated genes for it.

Not that, you plum! You went in her head?!

“And someone clear up this glass,” Miss. Hartman was saying, interrupting the silent row that was starting up between them. “They did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess.”

“They’re not wrong there,” Rose agreed, standing up awfully primly and crossing her arms.

The Doctor pouted up at her.

I wasn’t in her head, it was just a projected suggestion. Just- just like really loudly thinking in her direction, he tried to explain. I’m a touch telepath, I can’t properly enter another mind without direct contact. Well, aside from you, obviously.

And that works? Thinking loudly at someone?, his bondmate scoffed over their connection, disbelief apparent.

When you’re a telepath? Yes. Sometimes.

And in his case, with great difficulty. Really, he’d just gotten lucky.

It was just luck?

The Doctor sighed before finally standing, forced to move out of the way by the workers who had arrived surprisingly quickly to clean up the glass. Right, no barriers at all now, and no mental energy to make more. Rose obviously still had her own, since he wasn’t getting a stream of endless random thoughts and feelings. Well, this was going to be embarrassing. Actually-

Do you have a headache right now?, he asked her, briefly glancing at the workers around them before taking her hand. The ones that were obviously part of the Ghost Shift program had started typing on their computers again.

No, not really.

How’s that?

It didn’t make sense. He felt awful, the Void and the shifting, snarled up timelines constantly grating at his senses.

I mean, for a second there I thought I might pass out, but then I just kind of … I dunno, turned off the weird stuff?

And oh, how he wished he could figure out exactly what she meant by that, but now - unfortunately - wasn’t the time. Glass taken care of, Yvonne was now entering her office, nodding at them to follow. They both glanced back at the wall where the Void sat, waiting.

“C’mon,” his wife whispered, finally giving him a smile as she grabbed the chair and pushed it in front of her.

His gratitude, the Doctor was sure, must have been abundantly apparent. He took a deep breath before they both followed Yvonne into her office. Rose took a seat in what had been his chair, so the Doctor took the other.

“No,” Miss. Hartman was quick to correct, hands on her hips, “that’s my seat. We’ll get another.”

He turned to his wife just in time to see her rolling her eyes while failing to suppress a grin. Yvonne made the request, and by the time he walked around the desk again, a worker was rolling another chair in. They were quite efficient, he’d give them that. Then again, they had still not managed to get him his tea, so …

They’re not getting paid to listen to you, Rose commented. They’d be paid to bring Yvonne Hartman tea.

The Doctor smiled at her sarcasm as he got comfortable in his new chair, putting his feet up on the desk and leaning back. Blimey, he was tired.

“So these ghosts, whatever they are,” Yvonne asked, getting straight back into it, “did they build the sphere?”

“Must have,” he replied, not that he really knew. “Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball.”

Though if the ‘ghosts’ were following in the void ship’s wake, he was partly curious and mostly terrified to find out what was actually inside the craft. Hopefully just more of whatever the ghosts really were, but possibly some sort of weapon. Who knew? Hopefully they would never have to find out.

Rose began chewing at a fingernail, looking out the window.

“And the energy?”

He raised both eyebrows, though wasn’t completely surprised that these humans would gladly siphon power even while not understanding how it was being generated. Problem was, they shouldn’t be able to do any of it and wouldn’t be able to do any of it without the alien technology they had stolen. Timelines strobed in and out, faster and faster and faster.

“I could use some energy,” the Doctor replied. “Quite the day I’ve been having. Where is that tea?”

His wife took his hand, weaving their fingers together as Miss. Hartman gazed skyward for a moment before (finally) ordering the tea.

Is there anything I can do to help?, Rose asked.

I doubt it. Since you can’t sense all of this, and I would not want to show you, it’s not as if I can even-

Before he could finish the thought, his mind was suddenly full of Rose and light and love and over half of his senses cut off. There were no more tangling timelines blinking in and out of existence - there were no more timelines at all .

The Doctor blinked, trying not to panic.

Yvonne said something, but he wasn’t sure what. Wasn’t paying attention, as he realized that his wife wasn’t in his head.

No.

She had pulled him into hers.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, wiggling his fingers in front of his face. It was so strange. His mind was still in his body, but yet … not? There was a slight lag between thought and action - about 5 picoseconds.

You are amazing, he exclaimed over the bond.

Rose grinned, mind radiating smugness.

How did you even figure out how to do this?

They certainly hadn’t gone over it during any of their telepathy lessons. And he hadn’t yet had the chance to look for more specific information, being as he’d only just found out how it all worked.

I don’t know, Rose’s mental voice admitted, uncertainty coating the words. I just kinda imagined what I wanted to do and then … I don’t know.

Blimey, she was going to be a much stronger telepath than he was.

“I asked what you would have us do if you had your way. You said send it back, but how exactly do you propose we do that?”

Ah. Good question. And where things got downright complicated (not that they weren’t already). The Doctor gave Rose’s hand a squeeze and then let go, wanting to determine if touch was a factor in this newfound ability of hers? Theirs? He wasn’t sure, had only ever done anything remotely similar when invasively telepathically connected with someone, touching their psi-points. This was much, much different.

The connection held.

And most importantly, for the moment - overall it was completely unsustainable, not having access to most of his senses - he could think clearly.

“I’ll need access to your equipment, and a comprehensive list of exactly what alien technologies you have at your disposal, because there’s a chance you may have what I need to properly seal and contain excess void particles. And I’ll need the TARDIS.”

“A comprehensive list? Hah! Nice try, Doctor. The relevant equipment, I may be able to allow.”

“May?”

“Torchwood serves Queen and Country, and there are calls I would have to make.” Now she didn’t look amused.

“Make them,” he urged.

“And when they ask about the energy?” she requested, eyebrows raised.

Calculations raced through his head.

“Well, there’d have to be energy sending them back. So you’d have that, right?” Rose piped in before he could compare the results with historical precedence - took longer without his time senses.

Point was, his wife was right, pretty much. And now wasn’t really the time to get picky. They were going to have to compromise.

“A lot of energy in the transfer,” he agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Run the maths yourself, but reversing all of the particles will take up the energy of key commands, power usage normal, and the energy created by all of the particles reversing at once would be massive. Long term may not be what you wanted, but I also doubt you wanted to annihilate the planet and potentially destroy all of reality, so …”

The Doctor shrugged.

Got a little rude, there, Rose oh so helpfully pointed out.

“We’ll just have to see what they say,” Yvonne said, though she didn’t look convinced, even as she began typing quickly on her computer.

You’ve got to admit, at least it’s progress, he had to point out.

Yvonne looked away from her computer, immediately turning toward the ghost shift control area right outside.

“Excuse me?” she called, getting up from her desk, “Everyone? I thought I said ‘stop the ghost shift’.”

Both he and Rose turned toward where she was now shouting out of the doorway.

“Who started the program?”

Not a single person was reacting. The Doctor stood up, taking his wife’s hand as they slowly followed Miss. Hartman out of her office. This was not good not good not good, and he could really use access to a few more senses right about now.

“But I ordered you to stop? Who’s doing this? Right, step away from the monitors, everyone.”

I’ve not exactly trapped you here, y’know, Rose pointed out, thoughts laced with anxiety as she looked from person to person, blankly typing at their monitors.

“Gareth, Addy, stop what you’re doing right now,” Yvonne ordered, the words having no effect. “Matt, step away from your desk.”

The Doctor stretched his awareness, finding that he had more energy than he thought he’d had as he tentatively shifted across their bond, the action feeling like simply walking through a door in his own mind for all of the effort it took. With great care, he was able to selectively access more of his senses without too much discomfort from all of his time senses.

“Matt, step away from your desk! That’s an order!” Yvonne shouted, and he now sensed her building panic. “Stop the levers! Andrew!”

Workers ran in, trying to manually stop the levers without much success.

He could sense nothing from the employees controlling the program.

“Look at their ears,” Rose breathed, memories from their own trip across the void engulfing the part of his awareness still resting deeply within her mind.

Their ears.

He listened for another moment before pinpointing the one typing the fastest.

“What’s she doing?” the Doctor wondered aloud as he marched over to the one who Rose identified as Addy, making note of how deeply connected they still were but unable to properly address it. Didn’t have the time.

“Addy, step away from the desk,” Yvonne urged as both she and Rose followed him.

He snapped his fingers in front of Addy’s eyes, not getting a single reaction.

No one home.

“Listen to me,” Yvonne continued as Rose stifled a gasp before turning and waving her hand in front of the man across the aisle, “Step away from the desk - oh! The call’s connected!”

“She can’t hear you anyway,” he told her, dread forming in the pit of his stomach as he turned toward the monitor. “They’re overriding the system. We’re going into ghost shift.”

With great reluctance, well aware that the results would be exceedingly unpleasant, the Doctor reactivated his time senses. Because he needed to know what exactly was happening in order to fully monitor the situation.

“Hello, this is Torchwood One, calling mayday, threat level alpha, activation code eight- four- delta- whisky- zero- seven- foxtrot,” Yvonne recited over her comm.

Sensations slammed into him all at once, timelines knotted together and breaking off, the spin of the planet speeding up and slowing down at a rate unnoticeable to the humans. He zeroed in on the devices attached to Addy’s ears.

“It’s the ear piece,” he bit out, swiftly becoming overwhelmed by the activating void but unable to retreat. He couldn’t afford the luxury. “It’s controlling them. I’ve seen this before.”

Of all the parallel worlds, really.

“Situation is dire,” Hartman continued into the phone. “We are requesting backup immediately. The Ghost Shift has been compromised, the Doctor is assisting.”

Hey, that’s where Mickey is, his wife pointed out even as she placed a hand between his shoulder blades, offering him comfort for what would have to come next. With great reluctance, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He sonicked Addy’s ear pod, and within moments she and all of the other partially converted Torchwood employees screamed before collapsing at their desks.

“What happened?” Yvonne demanded, eyes wide in terror as she likely realized she’d lost complete control over the situation - welcome to his world, really. Typical Tuesday, that. “What did you just do?”

“They’re dead,” he informed her, not having time to sugar coat it.

Despite their connected minds, Rose reached down and felt around for Addy’s pulse point.

“Is it really …” his wife paused, finding herself unable to say it all out loud. “Again, but here? Or …”

The Doctor could feel her mind racing as he attempted to gain control of the ghost shift program. Yvonne’s attention returned to her call, though he stopped paying attention.

“I think I know exactly where they’re coming from,” he admitted, loathe to be the one to confirm her fears, but unwilling (not to mention completely unable) to lie to her.

“But … Mickey was- and Jake, and-”

An image of her parallel father flashed through both their minds as Rose clenched her jaw.

Every sense the Doctor had was positively screaming as the seconds ticked on by and the tear widened.

“We’ll figure it out,” he near shouted as it all became too much.

Just as he managed to apologize mentally, Rose seemed to breach his mind even as a large portion of his consciousness remained in hers. The pain seemed to dull, sensations cushioned by the added presence.

Please, please tell me you can’t feel this, he found himself pleading, both grateful for the respite and horrified that the pain might simply be being transferred.

M’fine, his bondmate assured him. I’m just trying to help you make barriers.

Oh.

Well.

Huh.

While he had helped her construct some in their initial training, the Doctor had to admit that the sensation of someone doing it for him was novel.

“They’re patching into our systems. What are those ear pieces?” Yvonne asked.

“Don’t,” he ordered as he continued entering commands into the system. It wasn’t overly complex, but the time crunch was a bit of an ask. As much as he wanted to spare her the horror, he couldn’t afford to make time for sentiment.

“But they’re standard comms devices,” Miss. Hartman insisted as Rose stepped away from the desk, getting a better look at the levers.

“Trust me, leave them alone,” the Doctor insisted as he raced over to another terminal.

“But what are they?” he heard her ask, but ignored the question.

There were multiple universes on the line, after all. And nothing he tried was working.

“Ugh!” Yvonne’s exclaimed. “Oh, God!” He had warned her. “It goes inside their brain!”

“What about the Ghost Shift?” he asked, needing their host-slash-captor back on track. The Doctor looked up from the monitor at the bright, terrifying tear in spacetime opening up mere feet away from them all.

“Ninety percent there and still running,” she replied, quickly joining him at the desk. “Can’t you stop it?”

“They’re still controlling it, they’ve hijacked the system,” the Doctor quickly explained, standing up and pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

“Who’s they?” Yvonne asked, and nope! No time to get into that.

“It might be a remote transmitter,” he continued as he scanned the area, “but it’s got to be close by. I can trace it.”

With that, he ran, following the signal, dimly aware that Yvonne Hartman was tagging along.

“Keep those levers down,” she ordered as they raced out of the room. “Keep them offline! Help is coming.”

Rose broke away from where she’d been helping the others holding the levers back, quickly overtaking Miss. Hartman but still hanging back slightly.

You weren’t tryin’ ta leave without me, were you?, his wife asked, her mental landscape pulsing with agitation.

Wouldn’t dream of it, the Doctor assured her. After all, she had complete access to every single thought in his head now. He was fine to leave it entirely up to Rose, whether or not to follow him into near certain death. Not like he could stop her any other time.

“You two, you come with us,” Yvonne ordered a pair of soldiers walking past, not that it would do them any good.

They all slowed down, following his lead as they neared the source of the signal.

“What’s down here?” he asked as they reached a section of hall blocked off by plastic.

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Yvonne admitted. “I think it’s building work. It’s just renovations.”

“You should go back,” the Doctor told her, taking his wife’s hand before carefully passing into the cordoned off area.

“Think again,” Miss. Hartman scoffed, once again ignoring his advice. It’s as if she truly didn’t understand that he was trying to help her.

We’ll figure this out, Rose assured him this time, despite knowing that he was completely aware of the terror and doubt pulsing through her headspace.

I love you, the Doctor told her, hoping that it wouldn’t be his last chance to say it.

I love you, too.

It wasn’t long before they reached the source … though he couldn’t see anything. At least, nothing obvious.

“What is it?” Yvonne asked. “What’s down here?”

“Ear pieces, ear pods,” he finally began to explain. “This world’s colliding with another, and I think I know which one.”

“We’ve met them before,” Rose continued, just as metal footsteps began clanging from every direction, shadows appearing to circle them behind the flimsy curtains.

“Fell through a crack on accident. Should have been impossible. Now we know why,” the Doctor elaborated, shifting so that his wife was directly behind him - connected lifespans or not, he was the one who could regenerate (hopefully).

“What are they?”

“They came through first. The advanced guard,” he told her, trying to keep the fear out of his voice and doing a rather poor job of it as the creatures surrounding them ripped through the plastic. “Cybermen.”

Rose and Yvonne both ducked as the soldiers began to open fire, and he grabbed both their hands in an attempt to get away that was thwarted before they’d even managed to move more than a few feet.

“We surrender!” the Doctor quickly announced, raising his hands above his head to show he was unarmed as the sounds of gunfire faded. He swallowed, blinking a few times and not allowing himself to turn around.

“Yeah, we surrender!” Rose quickly followed suit, gaze straight forward.

He turned to Yvonne, raising his eyebrows and giving her a slight wave.

“I surrender,” she - finally - agreed through gritted teeth, throwing up her hands.

They were quickly marched back to the Ghost Shift area, escorted into the room with guns to their backs.

“Get away from the machines,” the Doctor shouted. “Do what they say. Don’t fight them!”

Before the scientists at the levers had time to move, they were shot down.

“We are the Cyberman,” one of their captors announced - likely the Cyberleader. “The Ghost Shift will be increased to one hundred percent.”

The timelines around them had become utter chaos within the past fifteen minutes - the Doctor wasn’t sure how he would possibly be able to see straight, never mind think properly once the breach was fully opened.

If it’s not helping, just let go, his wife insisted, tugging him back toward her mind. Despite the fight or flight responses bombarding her systems, it was still much simpler in there, cut off from the nauseating sensations of slowly crumbling dimensions.

Glad my primitive human brain can help, Rose’s (slightly sarcastic) mental voice echoed around him as the levers raised.

“Here come the ghosts,” he warned, bracing himself.

Even cut off from his time senses, the full activation was brutal. The Doctor could sense the barriers Rose had made earlier shatter, despite his primary consciousness being nowhere near them. He grimaced, doing his best to keep the pain of it from touching his wife’s mind. No wonder it was so easy for her to move him telepathically - he no longer had any defenses.

They shielded their eyes, watching as a growing number of spectral figures approached through the rift.

“What are we going to do?” Rose asked, clinging to his side as the strain of protecting them both inside her head began to wear on her.

His precious girl. So, so strong. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he didn’t know, but the most he could do was not say the words. The last thing he wanted her to feel was his own fear, but all he could do was put on a brave face. Everything else was transparent, an open book.

“Achieving full transfer,” the Cyberleader declared.

The Doctor watched as the forms solidified. “They’re Cybermen. All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world.”

“They’re invading the whole planet,” Yvonne stated, and he noticed the blinking light on her ear piece indicating that she was still in a call.

“It’s not an invasion,” he corrected. “It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.”

“You’re the ones who gave it to them,” Rose couldn’t help but point out.

Yvonne opened her mouth only to clamp it shut again as the nearest computer began to repeat ‘Sphere Activated’ on a loop, claiming each of their attentions as data flashed on the screen. The Doctor frowned, eyes widening as he tried to make sense of it all.

How did a Cyber Invasion lead to a Void ship?

How did a Void ship lead to a Cyber Invasion?

Calculation after calculation, and none of them added up.

“But I don’t understand,” the Doctor stepped forward, commanding notice, needing to know. “The Cybermen don’t have the technology to build a void ship. That’s way beyond you. How did you create the sphere?”

“The sphere is not ours,” the nearest Cyberman replied.

“What?”

But … it was active.

It had activated precisely when the Cybermen fully manifested out of the void.

Sure, it didn’t make much sense for it to be theirs, but if not …

“The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed. Its origin is unknown,” the Cyberman continued.

“Then what’s inside it?” the Doctor asked, despite knowing that the answer wasn’t coming.

#ten x rose #tenrose #time petals #ficandchips #dw fanfiction #fandom: doctor who #pairing: rose x doctor #fic: tangled timelines #my fic

12 notes · View notes

jeongyunhoed · 3 years

Photo

You’re traveling to another dimension It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity It is the middle ground between light and shadow, Between science and superstition It ties between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge This is the dimension of imagination

An ATEEZ Twilight Zone!AU (masterlist here)

A/N: If you thought Jongho’s was dark, and if Hongjoong’s was dark, it’s about to get even darker. Also, this is our sexy guy’s bonus chapter for this AU. I hope you all enjoy it. I actually had to pause in between writing because it scared the hoohah out of me.

T/W: Death. Enough said.

XIV. Detour (Wooyoung)

3:00 p.m.

Jung Wooyoung bid his parents and his siblings goodbye while he placed his bags in the backseat of the car after staying with them during his vacation. He was currently on a two-week vacation after what felt like a year of working one project after another as a cinematographer at the production company he worked for. The job was hard and demanded long hours at a time especially when principal photography began. Casting people alone would take weeks at a time unless nearly direct connections were present and there was a lot of money in the budget. The company he worked for made several film-festival qualifying entries, two of which were nominated for major awards.

He got in the car, promising to call his mother up when he arrived at his next destination, this time to spend the remaining days of his vacation with some of his friends at a water park. The trip was going to be long and Wooyoung took note of the stops he might make along the way. Wooyoung had already consumed enough coffee for him to stay awake. As he turned his car to one exit, he heard something pop, making him accidentally lose control of the wheel upon paying attention and skidding towards the shoulder of the road.

It was times like these that Wooyoung was glad to have worn a seatbelt. He reached over to his bag for his phone and got out of the car. Wooyoung turned to call emergency services for help and waited while he looked at the flat tire that his own car was now sporting. He was going to be a little behind schedule at this point, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

The mechanic, a tall young man by the name of Jeong Yunho arrived, parking his car close by. “What’s the problem?” He asked, lugging his tools.

“I don’t think that’s a regular flat tire, isn’t it?” Wooyoung asked, pointing at the damaged wheel.

Yunho bent down to take a look at the wheels, noticing everything else about the car he was driving. “You… you survived this?” He asked, unable to contain his surprise.

“Yeah, I mean, I was wearing a seatbelt though, so yeah, I did,” Wooyoung nodded. “I feel fine, I’m not hurt, just behind schedule, you know? I need to get to the water park a little up north,” He explained.

He noticed the mechanic look at him strangely, and then look back at the tires of his car. “You shouldn’t have called for a mechanic, somebody should’ve called for a hearse,” Yunho said, getting back up.

“That bad, huh?” Wooyoung said, unsure of whether to feel relieved or offended.

“You don’t have a spare tire in your trunk?” He asked.

Wooyoung went to the back and opened the trunk. It was empty. “Oh, no, I guess I must’ve forgotten to pick one up before I came here. I was coming back from my family,” He replied.

“Well, okay,” Yunho nodded. “I can replace your tire but so it doesn’t happen again, you’ll have to follow me into the nearest service station so I can get you a spare tire,” He still looked surprised, walking back to his own car to get the tire from his trunk.

“Thank you,” Wooyoung replied.

He was on his way a moment later, following Yunho into the service station, still quite shaken from his little accident earlier. But at least he could still drive, he thought, and pretty much everything still worked. As Wooyoung continued to drive, following Yunho’s car, he noticed a blonde man standing by the side of the road, trying to hitchhike. He was dressed like a black and white school uniform, only the ends of his sleeves were ripped, and his knees a little dirty, yet the shabbiness of his clothes didn’t take away from the fact that he was undoubtedly handsome. He looked exactly like the people Wooyoung’s company would cast in videos. The male even managed to make a mullet look good.

Wooyoung drove on, parking the car at the service station that Yunho led him to. “I’ll get you a new tire, I’ll be back in a second,” the mechanic said as he got out of the car, rushing inside the garage and into a back room.

He looked through his bags for his wallet in case he had any extra money on him to pay for the mechanic’s efforts. Wooyoung stopped to glance at the rearview mirror, stopping for a moment in surprise when he saw the blonde man standing across the street from where he was. He stood back up when Yunho returned, rolling what would be a new spare tire for his car. “That guy across the street needs help or something,” He said, gesturing to the blonde across the road.

Yunho looked over and raised a brow. “Is there? I don’t see anyone,” He said. “We can only take cash for now since our machine for cards needs fixing.”

Wooyoung looked taken aback at his comment and nodded as he handed over a few bills when he heard the price. He looked over again to see the blonde still standing there, attempting to hitchhike but failing. The more he noticed the blonde, the more Wooyoung sensed that there was something unusual about him. He began to drive, knowing how behind schedule he was and how most of his friends were either already approaching their destination or probably waiting for him to arrive.

Night had fallen and Wooyoung was still on the road, music softly playing from his speakers while he hummed along to stay awake. There weren’t many cars on the road alongside him, but to his surprise, as he was nearing another marker that indicated how far he still had to go, Wooyoung saw the blonde again. This time, he looked like he meant to flag him down. He kept going, trying to shake off the uncomfortable feeling he was getting, somehow it had gotten worse since he first saw him.

The further along he went, Wooyoung was feeling more and more terrified. Every turn he went, he could see the blonde trying to flag him down as if having anticipated that he would be going in the same direction. It made him think about those documentaries he watched, about serial killer encounters often occurring in vehicles. Wooyoung needed to keep going if he wanted to get away from him.

He was approaching a railroad crossing soon after, and to his surprise again, Wooyoung saw the blonde standing on the other side of the tracks, hoping to flag him down. He wanted to step on the gas, only for his car to shut off all of a sudden. The last thing he wanted was to get caught, especially when someone like the blonde guy was trying to go after him. His heart was pounding in fear as he tried to restart the car just as the train was coming, passing in front of him. To Wooyoung’s relief, the car started again, but as the train was gone, the blonde was still standing there, trying to flag him down.

Wooyoung stomped on the gas, the car speeding up as if wanting to outrun the blonde guy. He felt like he was a long way away again from where he wanted to go but he didn’t care. He was fearing for his life if he kept driving down the same road he planned to take. For all he knew, the man would be there. How could he know where he was driving? More importantly, who was he?

He made a turn to the side road, entering the more rural parts until he noticed his car slow down. He had forgotten to get gas a few kilometers back, but his resolve remained. At least he was alive. Wooyoung pulled over and got out, sprinting towards the gas station just as the lone clerk, an old man, was about to close for the night. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” He called out, getting the attention of the clerk. “Excuse me! Sir!” Wooyoung called out again as he skidded to a halt.

“We’re closed for the night,” The old man spoke.

“Sir, can I please just have my car filled with gas? I’m in a hurry right now and my car won’t be able to make it any further if I don’t,” Wooyoung asked.

“The guy who usually operates the machines went home already, he lives far away,” The man replied.

“Please, I just need to fill my car with gas, I’m in a hurry and I’m already behind schedule,” Wooyoung pleaded. In the corner of his eye, he could sense someone was watching him. The more he tilted his head, he saw the blonde guy again standing across the street. “Sir, please, I’m…” He paused. “I’m in trouble, someone is after me, that guy across the street, he’s trying to kill me,” He lowered his voice.

“Please, sir?” A young woman approached them, trying to appeal to the old man as well having overheard their conversation. “He does seem to be in a hurry, please fill up his car with gas.”

“Oh alright,” The old man sighed, returning to the machines.

“Thank you! Thank you!” Wooyoung was relieved, and he sprinted back to his car to drive towards the gas station. It was then he realized how late it had gotten. His friends were probably already enjoying themselves without him. He hated to think that they might have turned in for the night, played a round of games without him. But he couldn’t do anything about it.

He pulled up at the gas station where the old man and the young woman was waiting. Wooyoung got out of the car and approached the young woman, who seemed to be staring at her phone, with a large duffel bag next to her. “Nice car,” She said upon seeing him.

“Thanks, it’s been through a lot today,” Wooyoung said. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Yeah, I’m hoping to catch a bus, but it looks like I’ll be waiting all night,” She said.

“If you’re going my way, I could give you a ride? It’s the least I could do for helping me convince the guy to fill my car with gas,” Wooyoung suggested.

The girl smiled. “Really? You’d do that?” She asked.

“Yeah, I could use the company right now,” He replied. “Actually, I think I’m being chased, that’s why I’m in a hurry,” Wooyoung glanced across the street. The blonde guy was no longer there, but he realized that the male was already on his side of the street, staring at him. “That guy, that guy over there, he’s- He’s been following me.”

The girl looked over to where he was looking, then gave him a look. “Guy? What guy? I don’t see anyone.”

“The blonde guy, he’s over there,” Wooyoung added.

“I don’t see anyone, I’m sorry,” The girl replied.

“How could you not see? He’s over there,” Wooyoung pointed to the blonde guy, but the girl just shook her head.

“There’s no one there, I don’t think you’re being followed, and frankly, I’m starting to feel uncomfortable,” The girl began to back away, getting up. “If that’s how you get girls to get with you, I should tell you I’m not easy and I can call the police if you take another step closer,” She took her bags and stormed off.

“No! Really! No! Please!” Wooyoung groaned in frustration, his heart pounding as he could clearly see the guy staring at him and standing on his side of the road. He shoved a few bills in the old man’s hand when he saw that he was done and got back in the car, driving away quickly.

It hadn’t been long before he had to pull over at yet another rest stop noticing that his phone battery had drained and needed charging.

He got out of the car again, figuring that he needed another cup of coffee to stay awake for the rest of the journey. “Hello, may I please use your phone?” He asked the clerk, who nodded.

Wooyoung dialed the numbers to his parents’ house. He needed to let them know where he was now, and maybe tell them about the man who was trying to follow him. “Hello?” He heard an unfamiliar voice on the other line.

“Hello? May I speak to my mom? Mrs. Jung?” Wooyoung asked.

“Mrs. Jung? She’s in the hospital right now, they all are,” The voice replied.

He felt his heart skip a beat. “What? Why?!” He was unable to contain the panic that immediately sank in.

“Mrs. Jung suffered a nervous breakdown. The news reported that her son, Jung Wooyoung, died in a car accident on the road somewhere,” The voice replied. “Apparently the car overturned when a tire burst or something.”

Wooyoung couldn’t speak. It was then that everything today started to make sense, including the blonde guy’s constant appearance. No wonder the mechanic said he was surprised that he survived. He had long passed. Nothing mattered anymore.

He returned to his car and got back in. Wooyoung looked up at the mirror and instead of his reflection, he saw the blonde guy staring back at him in his place. “I believe you’re going, my way?” He asked.

Wooyoung could only nod in response.

#kdiner #ateez #ateez scenarios #ateez fanfic #wooyoung #jung wooyoung #jeong wooyoung #ateez wooyoung

30 notes · View notes

angelrider13 · 4 years

Text

Alright, so I mentioned in discord yesterday that Thalassa’s been dimension hopping. (We all have that one OC.) She’s currently hanging out in MDZS/Untamed world and causing chaos - as she does. @starofthemourning asked what specifically she was getting up to. So have a ramble!

- Thalassa was just minding her business, cruising through Death’s realm as she does from time to time, visiting past children and friends, helping newly deceased souls cross over, etc., etc., when she gets yoinked into a completely different land of the living.

- Thalassa: Toto, we are not in Eos anymore.

- She’s been summoned into the body of a young woman by a group of demonic cultivators that pushed some buttons they should not have. They are a cult, because of course they are, and Thalassa has no idea what’s happening, but they are cuckoo bananapuffs and leaning WAY too hard on the cult thing - virgin sacrifices, child sacrifices, torture, lotsa bad things. Thalassa in her new, 100% human body, says no.

- Enter JC! Who, as we know, hunts down demonic cultivators with a single mindedness that is probably more than a little unhealthy. And this is...I’m saying like 3 years after WWX died, so some things as still fresh (and also, other people are still alive to react to Thalassa and her...Thalassa-ness).

- JC arrives to find that Thalassa has already solved the problem. Very thoroughly. This strange woman covered in blood, with lines of fire burning across her skin and a smile that’s all teeth and gold, gold eyes that burn with power, escorting children and missing travelers out of the smoking ruins of their former prison, carrying the dead and dying with her. Because she cannot save them, but they will die free.

- JC is immediately Suspicious. This woman is not a cultivator. She is also not human. He is sure of it. He absolutely cannot prove it. (The body she’s currently inhabiting is human, she used to be human in body and soul and still is to an extent - she’s not lying.)

- Thalassa ends up being dragged to Lotus Pier along with some of the kids she saved, because orphans and we all know that Thalassa can and will adopt everything that breathes if it stands still long enough. She has technically done nothing wrong and has earned the gratitude and good will of quite a few people, so it would look bad if JC just disappeared her. But Something Is Afoot, so JC isn’t about to let her go gallivanting across the countryside either.

- Thalassa notices pretty quick that these people bow a lot. In greeting, in farewell, to show respect. Thalassa is Not About That. She is the Sea and the Sea Does Not Bow. It’s not such a big deal at first because the circumstances of meeting are...messy. But once they’re in Lotus Pier, people start noticing that she never bows, even after they’ve bowed to her, and they are Offended. The only ones that are not are the kids that she adopted. No one says anything at first, but they all make spectacular pissy faces that Thalassa delights in. JC eventually snaps at her, snarling about respect, and Thalassa calmly replies that if she ever bows to him or anyone else, they will have earned it. (”I have only ever bowed to my Mothers, to Death and to the Light of Dawn, and no other.”) JC, knowing that she’s not human, but not knowing exactly how, doesn’t bring it up again.

- Thalassa likes Lotus Pier. It’s bright and colorful and loud and surrounded by water. It’s not as good as her waters, of course, but it’s nice to be able to swim when the mood strikes. It’s nice to be able to swim with the children, nice to know that everyone learns to swim at Lotus Pier and that they take it seriously. The first time she catches JC teaching the kids she brought with her to swim she stares because he’s not gentle exactly, but...softer. These people operate on different rules than her, but it’s nice to know that somethings always stay the same.

- It takes Lotus Pier a little while to figure out that they’ve been adopted, but they get there. Thalassa is the weird big sister/aunt/mother figure that will be getting you into trouble one moment and then helping out get out of it the next. She doesn’t bow and they don’t make her. She’s chaos in human skin, but some of them (far, far too few) remember that Lotus Pier has always had a soft spot for chaos gremlins and their antics. It brings smiles to their faces when they see this strange whirlwind of a woman trail after their Sect Leader, tugging at his sleeves and leaning into his space and laughing with a smile brighter than the sun when he swats at her, a secret grin tugging at the corners of his scowl.

- At some point, Thalassa meets other sects. It goes...well it goes. For maximum chaos, let’s say its a discussion conference. At Jinlintai. Which brings us right back to the Thalassa and bowing thing.

- JC and YunmengJiang have been dealing with Thalassa’s bullshit for - months? a year? who knows, it’s been awhile - at this point and know that it’s better to just Roll With It.

- The rest of the cultivation world has very much not learned this lesson.

- The Lan are Offended. So Offended. Depending on the Lan, at least. LXC is pretty chill and would probably also be offended, but not let it bother him much. LQR leans so much on propriety that he might just qi deviate. LWJ also leans pretty heavily on propriety but he is also that person who is So Done With Everyone’s Bullshit that he’ll just walk right out of the room so who knows.

- The rules of propriety! Broken!! Without cause or care!!! The Lans are flipping their shit. Quietly. And with great dignity.

- The Nie also kinda offended, but not nearly as much as the Lan. It’s not often that a woman will look Sect Leader Nie in the eye and refuse to bow to him, but NMJ can admire the guts it takes. He’s also the most likely to bring it up and Thalassa will calmly tell him what she tells everyone who asks - that she does not bow. Most especially not for social niceties that mean next to nothing at the end of the day.

- She absolutely bonds with NHS over the arts. He shows off his fans, she does a dance or two with them, they ramble at each other, they are now best friends. (JC is in the background being a Dispair because he knows, he knows, the NHS is an Enabler. He should never have allowed them to meet.)

- The Jin...well. Thalassa is a woman. Thalassa is very pretty. Thalassa knows she is very pretty and flirts as she pleases and moves with a grace that draws many a eye. And JGS...is JGS.

- You know that post that’s buried in my STotS story tag where Mera, literal Queen of Atlantis, breaks a man’s arm because he put his hands on her without her permission? I’m not saying that happens...but that 100% happens.

- JGS tries to be all smooth and Thalassa is Not Having It. She is well aware that 1) this jackass is married AND absolutely does not have the permission of his wife to fuck around and 2) JGS has a reputation among women. And it is not one that endears JGS to her.

- So he puts his hands on her. Pulls her close and tries to flirt. She tells him to let go. He smiles in that ‘aw you’re playing hard to get, how cute’ way that he probably thinks is charming but really wants to make women punch his face in, and gropes her. So Thalassa breaks his arm, snaps it in her hand and doesn’t let go. She uses the pain and the leverage of her grip to force him to his knees before her.

- It draws attention. JGS doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who gets in physical fights much - he probably doesn’t have much pain tolerance. He’s likely screaming. And you know cultivators are trigger happy little shits so swords are drawn. Thalassa smiles, all teeth.

- JGS is probably demanding that JC ‘put his woman in her place’. JC, having witnessed what happened and far less inclined to put up with this man than he was in the immediate aftermath of the Sunshot Campaign when all he had was the ashes of his sect, is having None Of It. He’s like well if she’s my woman why are you touching her and if she said no, why are you still touching her?

- NMJ approves. JGS deserves this. He’s had it coming for years. He is so happy he gets to witness this. As far as he’s concerned JGS brought this on himself and if he can’t handle it, maybe he should try keeping his dick in his pants.

- Thalassa is not impressed. She’s heard the titles thrown around. Sect Leader, Chief Cultivator, Your Excellency. She is well aware that leaders do not represent the entirety of the people, yet these people overthrew a tyrant and let this take his place? (”So you allow an oathbreaking rapist to lead you. This explains so much.”)

- JGY steps up and tries to smooth over the situation. Thalassa does not allow it. (”The next time he touches me, I will cut off his cock. If any woman he’s touched comes to me for help, I will rip out his intestines and strangle him with them.”)

- The Jiang are the only ones who know that she means this 100% literally. More than a few of them are okay with her following through. JC is standing at her shoulder, glowering at the whole room because Thalassa is one of His People at this point and you better believe he’s not going to let someone, not even another Sect Leader, not even the Chief Cultivator, disrespect her this way.

- JGY continues to deescalate with varying levels of success. (Thalassa is old. She is old and has lived through much. She knows what a viper looks like no matter how honeyed the words or how silver the tongue or how sweet the smile. This child thinks he can manipulate her. How cute.)

- In the end, no action is taken against Thalassa. JC is loud in his defense of her actions and NMJ and LXC side with him. JGS was in the wrong and his behavior was disgraceful. The Jin have no choice but to concede fault.

- Thalassa may or may not spend the rest of her time in Jinlintai teaching as many women as she can how to cripple a man twice their size.

#sweat tears or the sea au #ffxv x mdzs #a sea of lotus flowers verse #think i'm mostly gonna stick untamed canon cause that's what i'm most familiar with #thalassa out there not caring one wit about your social norms #for thalassa this is some time post astral war but pre ardyn #because i said so #thalassa adopts lotus pier and is adopted in turn #jiang cheng has Mine instincts as strong as any lucis caelum's #jiang cheng wonders why he keeps getting attached to chaotic assholes #he should know better #and yet #give thalassa an excuse jgs #just one excuse #thalassa still here not caring about politics #her stance remains: i'm right prove me wrong #it continues to be effective #especially when she shoves their own shameful behavior in their faces #thalassa for the rest of forever: hey remember when i broke your arm?#...if you ask me about this i'll probably ramble more

71 notes · View notes

lordbloodysoul · 3 years

Text

Name:

Rift Doorman

Title:

“The Layer Breaker” – “Usurper” – “Ever Hunger”

Nicknames:

Rifty / Riff Raff / Tele-Broski (Fresh)

Freak of Nature / Parasite / Anomaly Animus (Error Sans)

Paperworm / Layer Breaker / Clown Vomit (Ink)

Age:

[REDACTED]

Height / Weight:

Varies

Soul Type

“Collective Soul”

// - A Collective Soul shows trades of all known Soul Types and is shielded by a thin membrane of Void. It looks like a blank Soul with a black outline, that has a small pitch dot in its center from which a vibration rolls across the surface of the Soul. Those waves appear in different colors and strokes. To those who are very sensible to Soul Energy, the vibration will sound like an endless army of different voices breathing simultaneously in sync. The rhythm changes with Rift’s state of emotion. It has an aroma/flavour that could be described as “Retro and vibrant”. The feeling it would induces is more reminiscent of Allure and vivid Chaos. Like a puzzle started, but left unsolved. With every piece just raining passed fields of endless colors, trapped within a pool of blackness. - //

STATS:

[REDACTED] // It will show the “ : P “ Emoji //

[REDACTED] // It will show the “ >:] “ Emoji //

ATTACK

[REDACTED] // Just spells out “YOLO” in painfully bright colors //

DEFENSE

[REDACTED] // Just spells out “LMAO” in painfully bright colors//

Doorman-Tier:

Tier A—Strength Level is not readable, due to its current activity behavior.

History:

Rift Doorman was born outside a Universe of the Undertale Multiverse. Its behavior is unusual compared to other Doorman. Rift traverses the Layers of the Timelines in search of something, but without a Universe to akin to, both its Power and Ambition were altered in a dangerous manner. Throughout its travels, this Doorman has eaten itself through various Timelines and Multiverses. However, these places didn’t just disappear, like usually when things are being destroyed through Outcodes or beings from the Anti-Void. They stay mostly intact. Broken like shattered glass, but still existing. Each piece would then connect with another part. A puzzle, that was willingly done wrong, with Timelines and places in Space just overlapping in chaotic patterns. Strings missing, but not forgotten, rules shifted, players removed and entire areas shifted incoherently.

When Rift gained conscious it felt nothing. Devoid of anything, it just drifted. This state changed when it fell into a Genocide Timeline by accident. Within it, Rift faced the Fallen Human in the Judgment Hall together with Sans. As it wasn’t able to feel pain, watching Sans Dust became its first experience with Death. It amused it. Thus it smashed the human child. Seeing as the child’s death was different from Sans’s, curiosity began building up. More so as Sans returned from the dead when the Timeline reset. The battle broke apart, literally, when Rift tried mimicking voices and speech patterns, causing a ear ripping shriek that splintered the very fabric and Layers of the Universe it was visiting. Sans, slain once more begged the creature to stop the child’s madness. Still incapable of understanding why, it understood that this Fallen Human had caused the Skeleton grievance. He understood the visualization of agony and hopelessness, but couldn’t comprehend the feeling itself. Amused by the concept of FIGHT and MERCY, they decided to experiment with it in this broken place. Trapping the Human Child in a never-ending loop of Resets they had no control over. Dying as plaything to the anomalous creature. Rift bored itself over the course of 17.589 Resets, ending the Human Child by eating first their upper body and disintegrating their Soul for absorption. This act loaded the Fallen Human’s Timeline Data Layers into its own being, giving it a broader view on what’s been happening. Still not able to comprehend things, however, Rift left the splintered Timeline and returned to the Layers between.

More travels were its answer. Further down its path, this Doorman entered a Rampage, experiencing many Emotions from interacting with various worlds in different ways. However, it couldn’t feel them at all. It understood. It could see them. Could comprehend what actions would lead to what reaction, but not why it was necessary. Hollow. It was hollow. Like a Black Hole. Just ripping everything apart and consuming it, but nothing could look back or return it. Within it grew a terrible Hunger, which it satisfied by devouring various portions of the visited Timelines and Multiverses. Places, Sections, Memories, People. All fell to its strife to understand. To engage. To be part of something. It began building a sort of pocket dimension in the Layers between the Multiverse, where it gathered things from various Timelines that kept intriguing it. In one already destroyed Universe, Rift recovered a monitor of round shape, still functional. It had the shape of a face, much like all the other creatures it met had. Thus it connected with the screen and used it as a makeshift face-mask, ensuring its actual form wouldn’t freak out too many people.

While striding through the Timelines, absorbing information, energy, magic and various other stimuli into its form, Rift discovered that it was possible to READ these Data and use it. Shaping its attacks in combat into Patterns and Styles unlike anything this Multiverse had ever witnessed. But not only that, it began to hunt and kill other Doorman instinctively, absorbing them into its form as well, leaving their Timelines defenseless. Rift became a true threat to many, just through its curiosity and yearning for understanding. It also began leaving pieces of itself behind in various distorted Worlds, hidden from view. Small Homunculi, holding enough Data and energy to reincarnate it. Rift slowly devolved into a Parasite that endangered the delicate balance of the Multiverse. A thorn in the side of both the protectors of the Multiverse as well as the Vanguards of the Anti-Void. As its shattering of Timelines caused multiple Universes to intertwine with one another. Rift became a target for eradication, even though no one knew about its existence yet.

It was during another stride into another Timeline that it encountered the parasitic entity known as “Fresh”. Their interaction was quite different than what it was used to. And something began to stir within it. Rift felt something. Something that was unfamiliar and strong. It played with Fresh, before that one disappeared to safety, as the creature seemingly grew too attached to them. That escape started it all. A chase that both were not prepared for nor understood. Rift’s conscious was completely fixated on Fresh. It didn’t understand why, but knew it was important. For days, weeks and months it kept chasing them. However, the Parasite didn’t need or wants anyone following them, so they kept fleeing and hiding. Despite their best efforts, though, Rift finds them every single time.

[!!!SPOILERS WARNING!!! - for those who wish to Read the FanFiction or wait till I get around to making the Comic, since the LITERATURE SUBMIT on DA doesn’t allow much creative Freedom, so I have to do a lot of Re-Spacing and Editing on those Parts. This Section will spoil some of the Plot in exchange for Character Build - If you don't want that spoiled, please proceed to the APPEARANCE Section - !!!SPOILER WARNING!!!]

Fresh found himself in a skirmish with Error and Ink, as they both tried tracking him down. They misjudged and thought they were responsible for several Holes within the Multiverse. With no secure escape Route, they were forced into battle, holding their own well. Up until the Anti-Void’s Enforcer, C0D35 Doorman, stepped onto the field. His entire presence alone began to erase the Universe he’s chosen as a battleground. Manipulating Space was practically useless against this foe, as one of C0D35 special abilities was to block all types of magics. Before the fight could harm Fresh, however, Rift shattered the Universe into several pieces. It took Fresh with it and delved through several Layers of broken Code, Timelines and hid them in a small Space it had created from the leftover scraps of Multiverses long forgotten. A Null Space of sorts. Due to the strenuous battle with Error and Ink, the body Fresh had chosen was slowly failing. They had to let go of the host body and seek out another. Rift, even though unable to talk and acting more like an excited puppy, willingly helped the Parasite. It took them to another Timeline to gain a new host body. Fresh, unable to understand or comprehend the motivation of this anomalous creature, decided to experiment how far its warped sense of loyalty would go. Curiosity getting the better of them. Since they couldn’t escape from it for long anyway. Thus the duo began their journey to try and understand what this drive was, where it was coming from and what it all meant. But Fresh already has the slight suspicion that something was off with Rift. Something huge was brewing.

Appearance:

Rift Doorman has no corporeal form. It’s a mass of black noise, free floating energy and magic. The almost cloud-like, dense column attached itself to an egg-shaped monitor. A remnant of a long forgotten Timeline. Due to the vapor form of its body, Rift can change its density and size at will, ranging from grasp-less like fog and air to solid and unmovable like a wall of steel and stone. This Doorman is holding its form together through sound wave. The magic and energy flooding its form gives these waves color and form, embracing its shape and fueling every movement of the mass. This special way of mass control makes it possible for Rift to even split itself into multiple smaller versions of itself. The Energy and Magic coursing through its vapor shape glows in various colors, like a swarm of bugs and fireflies. The ones that are mostly present range from neon-pinkish to eye-stinging green lights. The color of the Emoji faces on its screen are similarly bright and colorful, while the biggest mass of the body is a pitch-black buzzing fog.

Rift uses the screen it found as a makeshift face. By sending energy and magic through it, it channels different words and expressive Emojis, which it uses for communication, since it cannot speak. It developed this form of talking, which is accented with Retro musical tunes and sound effects, due to its own lack of actual vocal cords. Rift can only mimic various words through pitching and dipping sounds and tunes.

Underneath the screen is a distorted black orb-shaped head, with a bright, monstrous white jaw and eyes. The magic, energy and sound waves, which course through the body are accentuated here, pulsing through the big eyes that stare empty into the world. As the delight of murder and fighting was presented with a smile by both his first encountered Sans and Fallen Child, Rift has adopted that same expression into its own. Empty of empathy, reason or guilt. Hollow.

Personality:

Rift is a peculiar Doorman. Even though highly intelligent and fast learning, it prefers to act like an excited puppy or curious child. Devoid of any real emotion to drive its actions, it only acts upon what other people think is the “good thing” to do in a situation. Leaving trails of Chaos and destruction in its wake. Rift’s first real emotion was “a sense of joy” which emerged from killing the Fallen Human in their first ever visited Timeline. After loosing that, it was filled with a Hunger to learn more, experience more and discover why it was unable to understand or hold emotions like other beings do. It likes being lout and giddy, causing confusion and messes all around.

Rift learned from its travels that violence is considered bad, thus it only acts upon it when given a cause or being asked of. Through Fresh’s company, it grew found of their way of speaking, censoring and general demeanor, which they try to imitate. Not always successful. Rift lacks empathy and basic moralities. Doing the right things as much as they can, but never getting appreciation, feelings of guilt or delight out of any of its actions.

It is a slight hoarder, liking to collect various things from visited Timelines and just storing them in their own little Null Space.

Likes:

Fresh

Eating

making music through its distorted Retro Voice (which would probably sound much like the music you can hear in the “Just Shapes & Beats” Video Game – example here )

helping people

playing with Fresh

exploring and learning / education

collecting stuff for its Null Space

cuddling and hugs

dancing

Fighting, when allowed to do so

people laughing and smiling

inducing Fear into ‘evil’ people (it doesn’t understand it, but their expressions give it a sense of ‘delight’, which it can’t comprehend)

Dislikes:

pointless violence

swearing

anyone who tries to harm Fresh

disrespectful and rude behavior

the other Parasites spawned from Fresh

seeing other people go through loss, sadness and hopelessness (it doesn’t understand, but it dislikes their expressions during these moments)

Capabilities:

Rift is a special Doorman. Unlike any other it can and can’t do various things that are unlike its species. Since Doorman are shaped by what their Timeline / Universe needs, their abilities will be manifested into something they can use as an exploit to reach their goal. Rift, however, has neither a goal nor a world for that to work. Being born outside the Multiverse, Void and such, beneath the Layers of the In between, corrupted its whole existence. Thus it learned an ability so variable, loose and dangerous, that Rift managed to break its own power limitations. That ability is ADAPTATION. Through it, the anomalous entity can learn anything that it finds. This ability is limited only by its corrupted special skill, ARCHIVE, which extents its own Data Volume by absorbing that of other objects, Worlds and people. Through these two abilities, Rift extended its repertoire of skills by taking those of others into its own. By devouring other Timeline versions of Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, Napstablook and various other monsters, it learned their magics, attack patterns, strengths and weaknesses, accumulating them into its own form and using them against various aggressors along the way. Taking the Souls of the Fallen Children, it enhanced its own Soul Power, HP and influence over various aspects within the Timeline Layers. Even though unable to cause REWRITE or OVERWRITE, its Determination rivals the power output of such abilities, nullifying their affects on its own self. By devouring various Doormen, Rift added their special abilities into its own arsenal. But not only these are something to worry about, since they also absorbed the (apparently) infamous “COLOR PUZZLE”, which appeared in various Timelines. Through absorption of its information, Rift learned to utilize the principle in its own combat patterns, making for, probably, the worst experience of a FIGHT for any genocidal maniac. During a FIGHT Rift delights itself by causing its opponent as much headache and frustration as possible. All its patterns are a mix of things it accumulated from various Timelines, objects and people. The difference to its style is that every pattern follows a rhythm it deliberately switches to cause as much distress as it can. Their own original patterns appears as orbs, bars and string lines, which move in a sort of symphonic flow. It likes to abuse the rules of the infamous “COLOR PUZZLE” into each of their attacks. Goal during these fights are to keep itself busy till its bored. It will reset its opponent back into battle till it can’t get enjoyment out of it anymore. Than the most common outcome is for Rift to grab its foe and devour it (or part of it), just to satisfy its hunger for a bit.

// Attack Patterns for this Character would look like a mix between Undertale and “Just Shapes & Beats Style //

Rift’s voice is a powerful instrument of destruction, as its wavelength and pitch can shatter and fragment entire worlds, when threatened. Most of the time, though its a tool for amusement and distraction as they can’t use it to speak, but make totes rad Retro music and sounds with it.

Due to their body being so fluid, Rift tends to shape-shift a lot. Switching sizes being one of the more common transformations, however, it is capable of turning into practically anything it has a rough understanding off. From people to buildings and even entire landscapes. The greater the scope, thought, the higher the risk of its Soul overloading and damaging it. This skill it uses often to entertain Fresh’s curiosity and help them fight their boredom.

The Doorman is capable of using the Data collected to create completely new Multiverses out of them, which it does by filtering the most intriguing information into its “Null Space”. A collective widespread anomalous space in the Layers in between. Much like the Core Universe, it is a hidden pocket dimension that is unreachable unless you’ve been there once or are aware of its existence. As the Null Space grows, so does Rift’s power, which is connected to it. Would this secluded fragment in the Layers in between be destroyed, the damage to Rift itself would be tremendous. Rift is capable of creating “BACK UP FILES” for itself. So called Homunculi, which it scatters across the various splintered Timelines, hiding them in various objects. Through those Back up Data pieces, killing the Doorman has become nearly impossible. For its adversaries it is even unclear if this anomaly can ever truly be completely killed, since normal, widespread magic and fighting abilities are completely wasted on it. However, Rift is not completely invulnerable. All of its outstanding skills require huge amounts of magic, which it needs to store by devouring and absorbing Energy, Magic and Entities from other Timelines. Starvation is a realistic issue to it, since their moral compass started to change with the appearance of Fresh. Survival becoming an “optional goal” to its primary instinct fixating on the Parasite and its well-being. Rift can be harmed by beings from the Anti-Void as well as Ink, which is why it tries to stay hundreds of paces away from them. Especially C0D35, as his ability, ANNIHILATION, exceeds its coded protection by a margin. When Rift’s Soul reaches critical its body becomes fully corporeal and eats at its own mass till burn-out. The energy and magic from its body will slowly dissolve the very fabric of Reality, Time and Space as it goes on, till everything just becomes absolute Chaos. This meltdown can cause any nearby organism to be entrapped in a cascade of pain and maddening delirium, slowly eating at their very existence. It would cause an unseen apocalypse of shier Madness, but also cause the very Death of Rift, if the burn-out isn’t stopped.

Relations:

Rift has no great attachment to anyone besides Fresh. And even that “affection” is a level of understanding it can’t comprehend. For it, its something that it was born for, but doesn’t know why or what it is supposed to do with it. Finding the answer to this riddle is the only ‘purpose’ it got and after wandering aimless for so long, it decided not to let go of it till it knows.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Trivia:

The first word Rift ever spoke was “YOLO”, when it read the glasses of Fresh at their first meeting.

There is a Momma CQ version of Rift.

Kid!Rift entire backstory is goign to make people wanna stab me to death. I am sure of that.

Rift’s musical Battle Patterns are inspired by the game “Just Shapes and Beats”

Yes, I am aware that I messed up the Color Patterns of both of my Fresh Designs there. They were both drawn separately before placed in the same picture together. It has bugged me to no end!

Yes, there will be a Momma CQ version of this one coming (probably soon, since I don’t want to loose my shin. It’s not worth making Rifty mad)

Fresh Sans belongs to @loverofpiggies

--------------

#Rift #Doorman #LordBloodySoul #Horrorpuppets #Darktale #Undertale #Underfresh #Fresh #Sans

6 notes · View notes