Realistic or Modern BORROWED TIME

[Zedalith]

ARC 1

AURS
Reality Swirls. Sizzling beads of electricity whip around the room while the surrounding arcade games melt into the floor. The air cracks above her head, and sparks of embers are set loose past her ears with searing intensity. Gail’s hand teeters toward her, suddenly large, grey, with a grasp as large as her torso. The palm reaches forward, carving through the infinity that was set between them.

Gail’s mouth is full of fury, and a yell is sprung from his lungs to pierce the scorching air around them, but it is lost in the energy of the moment. Angie flies through the world in her charge toward Anna, while images from her past zip behind her.

She sees her parents’ faces, she sees the moment that Gail’s disappearance becomes known, and then she sees her death, the hotel, Nick, and Naomi. It floods back into her brain like an unstoppable bull, charging through the haze set upon her by Father Lynch’s doppel. All becomes clear and she sees the world for what it is for the first time.

---

Pilgrim59
“A hotdog?” he speaks the words as if they are foreign. He clenches his face in wonderment and lifts an apprehensive finger to rest on his chin. The wrinkles in his forehead increase in size in the passing seconds, and deep etches set in further at the sides of his face.

The memory strikes him with a snap, and the light within his mind flicks back on, his full attention returning to Anna. Something changes, not just in Albie, but in the world around them. There should be a certain natural ambiance to a place like this; a chatter engineered to bring joy to their inhabitants. Beyond the din of Albretcht’s breathing, there was only a crackling noise, grating, like the sound of a broom sweeping a carpet.

His eyeless gaze falls on her, heavy, oppressive as if she was experiencing the gravity of a foreign planet. He steps closer, shoulders splayed wide apart.

“Meat,” the words are flat and sudden.

“Ground up. Mixed with salt. Then, boiled,” there is a tacit understanding between words, that their game has reached its end. An uncanny stillness becomes apparent in his body language, a stiffness that only came with the absence of a beating heart.

The walls collapse around them. The stalls, the door, and the windows are all swallowed by the dirt beneath their feet while the roof scatters like dandelions into the wind. The earth, or rather, its famiscile, shakes from the violence of the action. The sky is cloudless and red, above all is the radiance of the moon, much too bright and much too close. Albrecht motions to set himself onto her, nails extended into ravenous claws, teeth filed and sharpened into fine points.

---

With an explosion of energy, the eyeless Albrecht is flung backward before his fangs can sink into Anna. A gunshot rings out again from somewhere that sounds both distant and close - like a dozen drums were struck at once at different intervals. They see each other for the first time since they were taken: Anna and Angie reunited.

Around them, a crowd gathers like vultures. An array of faces surround them, some known, others unknown, features obscured like a silhouette in a hazy dream. Their postures are inhuman and primal, spines bent and shoulders hunched. Claws ready themselves at their sides. Their faces make no effort to hide their intentions, yellowed fangs prod through thin sets of lips, hungry and eager to kill.

They step forward through the crowd. Gail and Albrecht stand side by side, their voices blending seamlessly as they speak in sync: “The game is not won.”

Behind them, the reverberation of a church bell drowns out all other noise. It is the crown jewel of the park’s vista, yet remarkably, it was a feature that was absent from the version of the park that they truly visited. This church had only existed here, in this world. Towering above all else, the aged oaken tower beautifully chalked an awe-striking view with the moon’s light. “I remember a name: Walter Lynch. Former illustrator, and Father of the church,” the voices blend so perfectly, that they can be mistaken as one.

“I take after him in some ways - but we are not the same.”

“Where he found his inspiration in tragedy, I only find a meal.” Memories that are not theirs trawl through the murky waters of their mind, images of screaming children who met their lives conclusion in a shallow pool. They see the memories of a man who fed off of those grotesque scenes and used the energy to bring to life countless stories in his books and cartoons.

The eyeless crowd grows closer, drool dripping from their open maws like wild beasts. The faceless bodies increase in number, but the crowd is the most dense between the agents and the church ahead of them. Almost as if they are forming a protective vanguard, to cut off any approaches towards the church.

Gail snaps his fingers and the crowd charges towards them. The collection of bodies is so dense, that a scattering of limbs has to climb over one another merely in the hopes of reaching them. A cacophony of cries in different pitches rain over the two as the heat of the many bodies rushes in their direction. Claws become outstretched while a rictus forms on their faces. The church’s bell hums again, and the sound of it energizes the voracious hunger taking shape within their mouths.

WORLD WITHOUT EYES

 

[Klown]

LOCATION: WALLY'S SECRET COVE
INTERACTIONS: NICHOLAS Kovacs QING YI ERode ILIA Zedalith

Naomi was a vacant husk as Qing-Yi dropped to her side, a puppet on loose strings. Her leg is tugged and wrapped in torn cloth, but she barely had enough energy to grimace at the pain, much less complain. Head turned away from Alma’s hair, Naomi’s eyes met Qing-Yi in exhausted wonderment. Her undisturbed ease into immediate action was admirable as much as it was humiliating. Naomi has been an agent for longer, hasn’t she?

Nick even less, yet there he was going head-to-head with that monstrosity, his arm phased through its chest. Wait, why was it coming—

Nick is cracked against the jagged, rocky surface of the cavern’s walls. The motion too swift for Naomi to look away in time. Her heart plunged, seized only by her stilled lungs when their eyes briefly met. Then he wasn’t moving. Oh god, he’s not moving.

Qing-Yi disappeared from her side and flew over to Nick, subsequently blocking him from view. What had she said to do? Get out, call for help. Though Ilia was the last person she wanted to call.

Naomi looked beside her at Alma. Her body would disappear soon. Lip quivering, Naomi gently lowered Alma onto the ground again, her hand delicately cradled the back of her head. Fingers gently slipped Alma’s hair away from her face, twitching apprehensively when she accidentally revealed the scar hidden beneath her bangs. Apologies welled up in her again but go unspoken knowing Alma wouldn’t hear them.

Looking up, Naomi established connection with her clone again. Her hot-pink visage sprinting to her side and hooking Naomi’s arm over its shoulder. As she’s lifted, a rippling shimmer bounces off her skin and a second clone emerged at her feet. It knelt with its back facing Naomi and she climbed atop it carefully. Its hands hook under her knees and hold her steady as it stands.

They ran to Nick’s body, Naomi’s head poked out from behind her clone’s shoulder.

“Hey…superman.” Her voice was a feeble, twig-like thing. A single pinch of fingers and it’d crumble. “I’m going to move you. Let me know if it hurts too much, okay?” Each sentence trembled as if teetering over a steep chasm. The bleary unsteadiness of his eyes worried her. Selfishly, Naomi didn’t want to be left alone in consciousness right now. Her clones wavered for a second, and after the wave of grief dissipated, the pink gemstone imitation moved behind Nick.

Reaching for her phone was a nightmare. Naomi felt as if her limbs were made of gelatin, each stubbornly defying her mind’s will to move them. The clones carried her and pulled Nick opposite of where Qing-Yi chased the aberration. The flinching brightness of the screen had her replicas stutter as if her head disconnected from her body the moment her eyes closed. With a heavy thumb, she finds Ilia’s contact and calls him.

She wished she’d called Mellor instead after the first ring.

“Help.” Is all she says first, the word practically dragging itself through her dried mouth. She tried steeling herself; assembled a foundation where she’d be able to speak to Ilia and not collapse under the weight of everything that had unfolded. Except her foundation was a single sheet of soaked paper, and immediately tore. “Alma’s dead. Nick and—Nick and I are hurt.”

And it’s all my fault. It’s because I couldn’t get my shit together. Because I’m so fucking useless. Because all I know how to do is cry and run away. They have every right to hate me and God, I hope they do. It’d be so much easier if they hated me.

“Qing-Yi followed it by herself.” She swallowed each vile self-deprecating sentiment, a massive bitter pill that lodged itself in her throat. “Th-the one that did this. It might be the S-tier. We’re still in the cove.”

 

[Togy]

Fifth
​

As Ellyn crushed his cigarrette under her heel, Fifth honestly almost broke down in tears. He'd talked a lot of shit before they'd gotten to the park, but somewhere between the souls of the damned getting handsy and being lit on fire he realized he was in a bit over his head. A day ago, none of this was real, and now he was faced with the very violent truth that he was wrong. His adrenaline was still skyrocketing, and the only thing stopping him from having a panic attack was his own false bravado-and that cigarrette.

Fifth would never forget this. Fifth would never forgive this.

The gooey mess of touchy-feely disappeared from view as the four limped away. The fire spreading in the maintenance rooms above them was decidedly not their problem and was soon pushed from their minds.

Biblically accurate animatronics mocked them with E for Everyone quips about the ride as they passed. The first was tolerable, almost endearing, but by the third Fifth was ready to get violent.

A few wrong turns later and they ended up in the public pool of horrors. The doors swung open just in time for them to catch a glimpse of the action as some ginger got his world rocked by some humanoid creature with a head that reminded Fifth of a cartoon cat. But just as quickly as the creature acted it had disappeared, vanishing as Fifth blinked.

It was far from a pretty sight they walked into. There was a dismembered woman( Fifth threw up a little in his mouth at the sight of her, not because of the missing foot, but becasue she was so violently colorful. The woman needed an epilepsy warning on her) cradling another woman's corpse, and he was fairly certain the ginger had just bit it too. Nobody he could see could actually stand up, and he was pretty sure there were supposed to be three more but it looked like they'd fucked off without a trace.

It was shocking to think that Fifth had lucked out with his team.

Tags: lyn. Wyll Zedalith Klown ERode Kovacs Pilgrim59

 

[Zedalith]

Ilia Drubich

Sanity’s Edge

Luke’s Holy Journey

Excited

interactions

Togy Wyll lyn. Klown Gh0stOcean Kovacs

Ilia's phone jittered at his side, the screen's illumination poking through the crevice of his pants pocket. Initial thoughts told him it was Angie - given their prior contact, but the caller ID spun a different tale. His eyes narrowed with interest as the name of the caller flitted across his vision: "Pink Disaster ," as he affectionately titled her. A thumb tapped across the answer button, rapt attention beaming across his face. His lips parted to say hello, but the frantic voice on the other end cut his introduction short. Help? Her voice sounded so small, so fragile, compared to the large personality he had briefly gotten familiar with.

He is quick in adjusting the volume so that all of his companions might hear. She sounds miserable, grief-stricken, anguish piercing through the wistful tonality of her voice. He points a sidelong glance at Mellor, with his suspicion that the two may have formed a connection beyond friendship … it puzzles him that he was the first choice for her to call and not Mellor.

Naomi was in the cove. Ilia had a good idea of where it should be, given his former canvassing of the park. However, the twisting tunnels underneath the main attractions were much more difficult to traverse. There were no signs to point the way, only the sight of occasional props and discarded merchandise.

Ilia takes off only a few moments afterward, feet pounding against the uneven footing underneath him. "We are on our way. And please, stop the crying. You're only making yourself a more tempting target. Alma will be back soon," he scolds Naomi, his voice slightly distorted through their weak connection. Static fills the vacancy between words, and soon, the line is cut entirely. No matter. They know where Team Nyctiel is located, and they know what they must do.

...

Blood was heavy in the musty cavern air, copper undertones intermingled with chlorine's scent. It was an ugly sight, but not one that he had grown unused to given his many years of service. His head was on a swivel, eyes searching every gap or cleft in their terrain, leaving no shape spared by his cold glance. Shoulders are squared, and his hands stay free and readied.

The scene looked like a bad horror movie set. Corpses lay strewn across the floor, old, much too old, given their state of movement. Death was not something he was unused to. It was a sight that rarely elicited more emotion from him than a frown. It was dangerous to allow yourself to evoke much more negative expression - that weakness would make you a target. Terror, sadness, grief, it was a honeyed scent to their quarry, at times something an Agent might be able to use to their advantage. For the most part, such emotions were ill-suited for their field of work.

But even he had his weaknesses. And this blithesome sight was too enormous to bury within his typically cool demeanor.

Leg was freed of limb and crimson was painted across the floor like a bad piece of abstract expressionism. It brought him back to a similar moment of his own, one that occurred before he fell into the arms of the seraphim.

There was Nick and Alma. Bodies partly faded by the passing of time. An expected casualty in their service to the unfeeling masters. Not a single tear was worth spilling in their name, Alma had grown fat with hours, and Nick, while new, still had some on his plate to spare. They would return, there was no need to get sentimental due to their failures.

A hand covered his mouth, and he recoiled from the terror that axed through his typically calm demeanor. “Naomi,” the name was low and it carried the weight of unspoken terrors. His eyes snapped shut while he shook his head. Fists clenched at his side and his body stepped forward involuntarily. As he drew closer, he could hear music blaring through one of the nearby passages. Qing-Yi, he reasoned - she must be holding strong still, despite all of this - but for how long?

With little time to waste, he swallowed the memories of his past torment and shot a knowing glance at Elyn. “Mellor, get Naomi out of the way. This thing is rushing her the first moment it can,” he looks down at Naomi, shaking his head like a teacher scolding a misbehaving student. “To the devil, she must smell like a 5-star meal … with all of this torment wafting off her.”

“When you’re done, come and lend us a hand. We might be able to kill it, between us and Qing-Yi - but we are all injured, tired. There’s no guarantee we’ll be alive when you get back. So be fast. Don’t dote over your girlfriend too much.”

“Elyn. Fifth… We need to help Qing-Yi before it’s too late. Quickly, on your feet.”

Adrenaline took over, his body careening in the direction of the music. With the wind brushing past his ears as he ran, the music became distorted, almost haunting. He did not know what they might find on the other end and there was little time for intel given their situation. It was terrifying, but also thrilling, a feeling that filled him with purpose. The music grew louder as he charged forward, and his nerves became more frayed with the intensity. He dug his short nails into his palm as he ran, collect yourself or it will know you’re coming. It was a thought that resonated within his head a dozen times, a grounding force in the throes of all of this chaos. Missions were rarely clean, but this one was shaping up to be especially messy.

Squinted eyes gained sight of Qing-Yi’s back. Her silhouette was a single brushstroke in the canvas scattered ahead of him. She appeared to be talking with the creature, buying time. He could not see the monster yet from this distance, so he slowed his pace. He brought his body low to the ground, hand touching the side of the cavern’s wall to guide him as he approached.

All of his senses were turned on to their apex, looking for any signs of something being off. The music silenced their approach, and for the first time since this mission began, they held the advantage. Cleverness seemed to be one of Qing-Yi’s talents. The girl was strange, but no one would deny that she was shrewd.

Voices filled his ears, one deep and alien and the other belonging to his fellow agent. He was close now and the beast had not shown that they had picked up their scent. Unseens still, but the heat in the air told him that it would not remain that way for very long. Intuition proved true when he saw a pallid claw shoot outwards from the wall, razor-sharp talons outstretched to rend Qing-Yi’s head from her shoulders with a single swipe. Ilia stretched out a hand of his own, too far to stop it, but close enough that his voice could be heard.

“Qing-Yi, to your left. Duck!”

 

[ERode]

Zedalith

It was a brick of a phone, but it still had audio. And the song of the day?

‘Yi Jian Mei’, the apex of Fei Yu-Ching’s music career, a heart-wrenching love song, filled the tunnels, signaling Qing-Yi’s presence. Floating above her quarry, that creature with a crescent for a face, the Agent gingerly tapped the wound on her face. It was sticky, but no longer actively bleeding. Nice.

“Well, I don’t know if you can speak, but how about we settle down for a chat? You can’t run away from me, and I’m not really going to fight you. The others will probably come over after a bit, and even if you can kill all of us, we’ll be back tomorrow, so…”

She smiled at the Eyeless, her tone ever flippant, her lax posture at odds with the nightmare setting she found herself in.

“Agents don’t stay dead, but Aberrations do. Why did you let her die, when there’d have been plenty of opportunities during our fight?”

"A life's cessation ... is of little interest. Six-Winged slave ... you can never understand.” Their voice was a low grumble and the effort of speaking almost looked painful. The words clawed out of their throat, and the expression they wore was one of patronization.

"Only in the throes of your misery that we prosper - that I find rich nourishment. So I wait."

"Until the fruit is ripe,” it spoke tersely, flat—like it was pointing out a simple fact to a toddler.

"Until your hope of victory is highest. Only then might I savor the supreme delicacy of your anguish. There is no loyalty between us forsaken. Only happenstance."

“Wow, that’s cruel.” Qing-Yi let out a whistle, her eyebrows lifting at the shamelessness of it all. Perhaps it was more surprising, really, that the creature could speak at all. “I guess I could never understand that, yeah. Sour strawberries are just as nice as sweet ones, you know? And eating your vegetables and rice helps even out your palate.”

The Whisperer and the Eyeless dwelt in the same place, and could both speak, yet everything they did was mere coincidence? She had such encounters herself, people whom she only encountered on the crossroads, people she glanced at and spared a word in the direction of. They parted without a thought; there was no guarantee that the connection would be maintained.

But she’d not use them for her own gain, simply because she knew that.

“Did she live only for anguish too? Or is that a ‘you’ thing?” She slipped her hands into her pockets, leaning back against a wall that wasn’t there. “Don’t have many chances to talk with the other side, y’know. The birds’re looking over my shoulders most days, and my team wraps things up pretty swiftly other days.”

“You hunt us… But you know so little. We are born of anguish. We brew in it, so that we may grow stronger and survive.” It stepped backward, face locked onto the girl's form. A short stride brought it into the light-stricken chamber behind them. Through the haze of the lightless cavern, only the glow of their pale face remained visible.

“I know what I was born of, but I am not them. Only an echo of a past crime.”

“As are you: a fragment of what you were before, honed into a tool to be used. Not human, not whole, as you have been led to believe.” It faded into the shadow, face dissipating into the background like a waning moon.

“Your allies are strewn broken at your heel. But you find the time appropriate to assuage your interest by inquiring about my opportunism. Perhaps, we are more alike than you think.” Their voice faded with distance, but their presence lingered. It waited, unseen, with hungry eyes and eager claws. The walls, the floor, the stalagmites overhead—no shape was to be trusted; it could wade through solid mass without effort.

And Qing-Yi herself shifted slightly, her gift of unrestricted flight seeing her float into the space most different from anything else. Drifting in void, surrounded by that malicious intent, the young woman placed a hand over her stomach.

A fragment indeed. It took two to five days for food to pass by fully through one’s body. If she was what she ate, then according to the seraphim, she was nothing at all. According to the world, she was a ghost with a face no one could recall, leveraged as a tool to handle things, to experience things, that no one else could.

Sunken eyes, sallow skin. Either the past consumed themselves, or it consumed their present.

That no one should.

There were plenty of things people did, in the name of survival though. Those who wrecked their health, keeping up with the demands of work. Those who burned their relationships, seeking promotion or reputation. Those who crossed lines that they shouldn’t have, who claimed to be treading water, when they lived in high-rises so tall they could no longer see the faces of those beside them. They would do all that, and make ‘survival’ their justification.

“If it makes you happy to think we’re alike, then go ahead. But they’ll get past this. Nothing endures, in this world or in our hearts.” She smiled. It didn’t matter if the Eyeless had sunk itself into the walls, or disappeared into the distance, or was calculating the quickest route to her heart. Qing-Yi’s voice sounded clearly still, over the dulcet tones of a lover recounting feelings that were eternal, yet transformed with the changing of the seasons nonetheless. “Or even in our tastes. Ever watched a good movie?”

Only the quietude of the earth’s natural rumble greets her voice. There is a ripple darting around her as if something is moving beyond sight, sifting through the walls from all directions. Dirt oscillates, frothing and scattering as it gets displaced by the unnatural movement. It is an unpredictable sensation, almost teleporting from place to place, appraising her for weakness, waiting to find her neck.

The crack of a whip pierces the silence, as dirt explodes in a crescendo of movement to her left. Claws are spread out in a fan, each pointed end sharpened to peak lethality. It reaches for her, like the all-consuming maw of a mythical beast, leaving little room or time to avoid it without knowing where the strike is coming from.

“Qing-Yi, to your left! Duck!” The voice is instantly recognizable as human, in contrast to the alien voice which she conversed with. The momentum of the claw's movement is carried by the wind. The clawed hand sways forward, but now, it is clear as to where the attack is coming from. It is almost as if it is frozen in time, the pallid hand suspended in the dirt wall that it erupted from.

And her response was to barrel-roll, orientating her body so it was parallel to the ground while she twisted, the clawed hand tearing into Qing-Yi's hoodie, tearing out chunks of her hair. Yet it missed its mark, eliciting only a flat "ouch" from the Agent as she recovered. In one smooth motion, she took off her hoodie, flinging it off to the side. It wasn't as if she was all too muscular or attractive underneath, just a washboard with stick-like limbs, but there was no need for a physical expression of strength either.

With a white t-shirt that had the bold English words of 'BECOME DOOR' stenciled on it, Qing-Yi rolled her shoulders and let out a sigh.

"Good to see you too, handsome," her gaze remained on the pallid hand, but her tone was as flippant as ever. "They've got Nick's power, alongside a laser beam in their chest. They can speak too, but they're kinda a bad egg. Is the sparkly miss doing any better?"

 

[AURS]

angie yeon ;

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  abysmal.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  outfit

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  jeans, tube top, a sleek, allsaints leather jacket, boots.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  location

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  wally's other world.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  interactions

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Pilgrim59 Zedalith
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

POV ; ANNA && ANGIE ────

ANNA’s expressions dimmed, with pale azure optics partially concealing themselves beneath her fair golden lashes. She had purposefully tasked Albie with an endeavor that she knew they both could not answer. His straight answer confirmed her unspoken suspicions, of which was carefully threaded along as a seemingly innocent question. Yet, beneath its elementary inquiry resided an ulterior urgency that even the inciter wished for it to not be true. The reasoning was as uncomplicated as it was equally intricately convoluted. All it took was for either side to let go of their grasp on the ongoing tug-o-war of truth, and the whole thing would collapse on itself. It was not exactly out of the question to consider the possibility that she was trapped inside her own mind. By the time she had been unable to render logic with actuality, her bleeding ear was a close reminder of said perception. While she was a devout Protestant, her personal experience in life gave way to a skeptical development of a reasonable mind to unravel the curtains that did not exist in the first place.

Had he been able to answer, as he did, she too would come to a definite conclusion - an outcome that she refused to accept. Even now, a part of her still clung to the idea that the Albrecht before her was real and that she could dwell in this new paradise with him forevermore. Alas, his very choice of words betrayed him with a swift cut that tore at Anna’s own heartstring more so than it did. Neither the intricacy of relief nor the satisfaction of a subtle victory, they were both at a loss. After all, it was Albrecht that taught her the very heart of a great chess match. A lesson that embedded itself deep within her consciousness and one that she had perfected now more than ever. Sacrifices should be made when all that should be, must be. A necessary admittance of this flawed world, but one that brought her great pain. Sheathing her welling eyes with a resolute glimmer of control, her tender lips ushered forth a melancholic sigh of forlorn hope.

Despite the busy months that she spent with Regenesis, she has yet to forsake her tendency to elaborate on the things that could be, on top of the things that were. Had he avoided her question, or worse lied to her, the Aberration Albie would still oust itself. The tell-tale detail resided in the one particular element that she always referred to when deciphering the Officer’s intentions - his eyes. How beautifully ironic for a masterfully-crafted shadow of its elusive master, well-versed in the arts of manipulation and grand delusions, to be defeated by a culinary discourse. Though she must admit her own shape of luck in this perfect paradise, where the only imperfection was that of missing eyes.

The discordance in his eerily tranquil voice. So refined yet excruciatingly frigid, akin to that of a snapped drum while in cadence - stripping the flesh of the well-designed formation.

”’Tis a shame. I was beginning to grow fond of your facade. God forbid, I might have fallen for you again. Alas, a proper Prussian would at least call it wurst.”

The fact that he was able to exact in words what she was thinking when describing the delicacy, it was apparent that the only way she could break the spell was to assert the unknown both to her and the false image of Albrecht before her. Unable to lie to her, given her personal connection and understanding of her Albrecht’s stubborn integrity, of which was often deciphered by his eye language, the only justified way to pacify her doubts would simply to relay her own knowledge on the matter, of which was already in contradiction with her own distinguished differences with how Albrecht would have reacted. This, juxtaposed by that of her own consciousness when dodging a bullet, the question that she posed to Aberration Albrecht was merely a polite formality for the conclusion of their manipulative game.

As the likeness of her beloved man mutated into a grotesque beast, she lowered her fair optics to the ground, where the watery void of collateral collapse around them had invoked a reflection of their true images. Memories began to flood back to her, as she recalled the true colors that she had long sought after since her arrival here in this false paradise. The brilliant bitterness colluded with the savory agent of sweetness that derived from his long exhausting stares when their maverick gazes locked. Whether he could conceal his thoughts from her or not, Anna and Albrecht both knew that the windows of their intertwined souls would proclaim their unspoken words. The only difference was that Anna had long refined her ability to repress her own feelings.

Melancholy took her, transitioning her grasp to that of a praying pair of interlocked hands, as she called not for a savior but to profess the words that she meant to say long ago. However, before his fangs and talons could bury deep into her flesh, a powerful surge of energy cast her out of his reach. It was then, she finally came to her senses, as her unmaterialized prayer had come in the form of a wicked revelation instead. With Albrecht now amalgamated with another monstrosity of the same caliber, Anna, too, found herself reunited with Angela with her recent memories gradually returned to her. A slight jolt of migraine pummeled Anna’s forehead like a hammer, as she raised an index finger to her fair lips and wasted no time to bite down on it. Thankfully, the near-miss bullet from earlier had exacted the proportionate amount of pain to keep her adrenaline and consciousness intact.

ANGIE slams into cold, wet cobblestones. The sharp tang of iron fills her mouth as blood mixes with the grime on her lips. Waves of her dream world fragment like glass shards, slowly falling.

The fog envelops her like a suffocating shroud, its rank odor of rot and desolation seeping into her nostrils. The cobblestones beneath her are slick, treacherous with some unnameable grime. The arcade and its acid-burn lights are gone. Now, a sickly glow beckons from within the mist. A deep, unsettling growl reverberates through the mist, as if the earth itself curses her intrusion.

It reminds her of sheep’s stomach lining. Coming up with that, she knows she’s not crazy.

Angie blinks hard, shaking off the sting of her fall. The fog is relentless, swatches of gray hands covering her like a shroud, crushing her between its fingers until she can barely breathe.

“Get up,” she snarls at herself, her voice hoarse, rough-edged. “Move.”

Her legs are like a blood clot. Heavy, syrupy. A detriment to her survival. Rot and corruption churn a nauseating brew of long-digested crepes in her stomach. Don't you dare throw up, and don't embarrass yourself in front of the S-tier.

What the fuck is it gonna do? Tell all its S-tier buddies by the pub come weekend?

Anna. Gail. The dark-haired man.

The mission. It all floods back like the nosebleed Angie wipes off on her sleeve.

A bell tolls in the distance. Low. Ominous. Like the tired groan of a voice box than rusted alloy. Ahead, a church looms. A decrepit silhouette etched against the dark sky. Its stained glass windows glow faintly, casting strange, shifting patterns that engulf the entire haze.

Dread rose up over her like a cold, metallic shroud as the ultramarine-stained light lit her up with incandescence.

“Anna, stay behind me,” she orders, her voice hardening as she raises her gun. The cold metal in her hand feels reassuring, an anchor in this nightmare. “I…messed up. Bad.”

Ash words. A bitter acknowledgment of just how deep they are in this shit. It's no good talking to a proper lady this way, but there’s no time for self-reproach.

”Now that’s something we should remedy, isn’t it? Fret not, you and I are both overdued our toils in this twisted realm.” ANNA turned to reply to Angela, raising her gloved hands towards the crowd of monstrosities that surrounded them. “They have desecrated my fondest memories, and for that, I will not permit this perversion to come to pass.” Armed with the will to cleanse her cherished sentiments for Albrecht, the woman’s hands conjured forth a flock of floating pages that suspended themselves around the two. Igniting like radiant light panels, the pages bled into the air and sharpened itself at the behest of Anna’s biddings.

Purpose, goals, and means. These are the fundamentals of any conflict, Frau Schwarzschild.

“Clausewitz. Vom Kriege (On War).”

“I see you are well-informed. It suffices for you the purpose and goals in this game. Once you finalize your means, and define it, you no longer need to fret over the details.”

“War is the continuation of policy with other means.”

“Correct. Now surprise me with your means, Fraulein.”

Anna’s bright blue eyes were set ablaze with determination, as she gave life to her beloved Officer’s words. The words etched upon every page began to glow, resembling her own sapphire optics.

“We’re not at Wally’s anymore, so brace yourself,” ANGELA mutters, half to herself, half to Anna. A wave of ghouls emerge from the darkness, bringing the maggot-shore-memory with them as a congealed, slithering mash—their eyeless, pale faces twisted in agony. Their limbs fast and twitching, phantasmagoric in the false moonlight.

Hyperactive Maggots sounds like a killer band idea.

Angie grits her teeth, every muscle in her body coiled tight as she lines her vision up with the barrel. First at the man, then—the one she can’t bear to look at. The thing wearing her friend’s face.

Even now, after everything, it still twists a knife in her gut to see that face. That...beast used her memories, her secrets against her. Who the hell could she trust if not herself? It made them all puppets, but before she could pull the trigger, something clicks in her mind. She knew its trick now.

How the Eyeless kept the devil in the details, how its every creation had a particular flaw.

With every primary flaw already busted wide open with Angela’s precise groupings of her hollow points, converging hordes from her flanks were swiftly cut to pieces by the arcane parchments that traced Angela’s movements. Conducting her own symphony of the battle with a flair of dramatic grace, the elegant composer stood her ground and wove each page with their own purposes. Serving as her extended arms, the radiant sheets spiraled around her like a miniature typhoon, parting limbs and ligaments from their demented creation.

ANGELA fires, a precise shot that drops the closest ghoul. The others converge, but they’re swiftly cut down by the arcane parchments that trace her movements, conducted by Anna’s graceful orchestration.

“Hey, hey, hey shut the fuck up, you're both depressing. But you - you don't create anything, you don't build. You fuck up things that don't need your help as it is. You just feed. You’re a parasite.”

She forces herself to ignore the gnawing doubt, the fear that maybe she’s wrong about Anna. Maybe this is another trick. But she can’t afford to second-guess herself. Not now.

The Eyeless is a scavenger, not an artist. Scavengers make mistakes. It replicated Anna's man. Her Gail, no problem—anything to lure its prey. But there had to be rough edges, shoddy cover-ups, especially in the belly of the beast.

The bell tolls again, and the ghouls surge forward. Angie moves on instinct, her body honed by years of survival. She drops another ghoul, but they’re too close. She needs to change tactics.

Lynch's own memories.

The way the aberrant had talked about Walter Lynch, the illustrator, the church's founder—it all made sense now. This wasn't just a game to them; it was a shrine.

“...Wait. Jesus Christ.” Her voice is cold, distant, even as the adrenaline surges through her veins. She’s been in worse spots before, and she’s always come out on top. But this—this is different. She should’ve seen this coming, should’ve known this place, this church—was wrong on a fundamental level, a perversion of something that was already twisted. The fucking thing should’ve killed her when it had the chance.

But it didn’t.

Now it owed her money.

“Anna, cover me!” Angie’s voice is sharp, already calculating crowd density, enemy positions, and the fastest path to the church. She holsters her gun, scanning the surroundings for an edge.

“Carry on, Ms. Yeon. Any particular avenue would be helpful right about now.” Extending her hand towards the far side of the trodden steps, the swirling storm of paper pummeled past the multitude of beasts to open a path for Angela.

A ghoul lunges, jaws snapping inches from ANGELA’s sidestep. Anna hadn’t been with them for long–would she have the instinct to take care of herself in a hell like this?

Catching the ghouls arm, she flips the creature with its own momentum, downing it in a swift, brutal kill. You’re too soft, you know. It’ll be her funeral if she fucks up. It whimpers, black blood spraying the body of a deformed carousel horse. She withdraws her blade from its chest cavity—a fishline flicker of vermillion particle waves, an extension of her will to command.

A rusted, finger-worn rosary dangled from its neck. She grimaces. Staggers. Curses.
“Shit,” drunk on epinephrine and crude realizations flood her psyche like a Code Blue protocol.


These poor children, you are fucking fucked up Angie.

Slicing through the air with a flick of her left hand, the air around her siphoned its momentum. At the snap of her fingers, the pressurized air quickly detonated with the pages serving as fragmentation for the well-placed explosion - riddling the ghouls with high-velocity projectiles. Death by a thousand papercuts. Having completed the withdrawing fire maneuver, Anna somersaulted backwards and continuously paced her steps back towards the church.

”Displacing!” She relayed to Angela, while her hands kept up the pace with conjuring more pages to keep their pursuers at bay. The unrelenting waves was not exactly easy to deal with when they were fighting on the enemy’s turf. Hopefully, Angela would be able to formulate their next move.

Then ANGIE sees it—an alleyway, snug between two crumbling concession stands. It’s a tight fit, forcing her to twist sideways to slip through. The ghouls pour in like globs of infected skin, drained from a pustule and scrapping the walls inches from her head. Biting down on the pistol’s handle, she locks her fingers together.

The blade ribbons into arcs that slice through the narrow space, letting the mindless animals jerk and contort like bait on a hook, like stripping their tendons off their bodies. Good execution, lucky timing, her control is absolute, the energy responding to her every intention, bending and twisting as though it has a life of its own.

“Ever pray, Anna? We need to get to that church!” The whip retracts, coiling around her like a serpent, ready to strike again. Angie’s breath steadies, her heart rate slowing as she catches her breath on the other time. This won’t last much longer. “Don’t mind the bodies, come.” Opening, used. Now, they need a route

”Always, Ms. Yeon. Though this place accommodates neither the inclination nor the proper sentiment for worship.” Anna retorted with a tried smile. Despite her best attempt to remain calm in the situation, she could neither omit her waning strength nor the urgency of their survival for the mission.

The alleyway opens into a dense thicket of bushes, overgrown and wild. Angie plunges in, the branches clawing at her clothes, her face. The fog is thicker here, every shadow a new threat.

Earth crumbles beneath her feet, sending her hurtling down a sudden, steep incline. The world tilts as she skids uncontrollably, dirt and jagged rocks scraping her skin until she slams into the bottom of a narrow ravine.

Eyes darting, she spots a rusted metal pipe jutting precariously from the wall above—her only chance. Without hesitation, she leaps, fingers scrabbling for purchase as she hauls herself up. Her back presses against the cold, wet rock, the confined space limiting her movements, making each action more deliberate, more desperate.

Dangling above the ravine, Angie inverts her grip on the pistol, adjusting to the awkward angle. She fires downward, the recoil sending painful jolts through her arms. Ghouls collapse below her, their bodies piling up in a grotesque mound, but she can hear more scrambling, clawing their way up the incline.

Her breath hitches as her grip slips from the pole to the incline, nearly surrendering her to the gaping maw of lost childhoods. Ghoulish hands reach for her, their tiny limbs scratching for her, their teeth, ripping tearing, almost suckling on her boots in the demented way Wally’s perversions forced on her.

She digs her fingers into the jagged ravine floor, the sharp rocks biting into her palms, and propels herself backward with a fierce determination. With every kick, she sent rocks and dust flying into a ghoul’s snarling maw. The blast of bullets, two! shots! and then a rush of power to her knees, buys her enough time to crawl out of the ravine.

As the ghouls momentarily falter, Angie wipes the thick, dark blood from her face. The world converges on a single focus: survival. No room for disgust, no room for fear—only the drive to reach the church.

Another ghoul bursts from the bushes ahead, and Angie reacts without thinking. The whip snaps out, lightning-fast, but this time she doesn’t just cut—it’s a pull, its limbs twisting as if caught in an invisible vice, its movements no longer its own. Angie tightens her grip, feeling the strain in her muscles as she forces the creature to its knees, its body contorting under her control.

It's gibbering cuts short as its leg bursts open like a blood bag, flinging its host to the rocks below.

“Anna, I need you on my six!” Angie yells, her breath ragged, her vision swimming. The fog seems to close in around her, the shadows shifting and twisting, playing tricks on her mind. She needs to shut it all down.

”Rather morbid and persistent, they are. Perhaps some chorus to lighten their spirits proper?” Clenching her fists briefly then unfurling them with great exertion, her rhapsodies fell unto the ground. Upon stepping into her field laden with primed pages, a multitude of explosions followed, with each detonation echoing differently. The subsequent immolation formed a melody in tandem, as the texts left the pages and began to fill the space between Anna and the monsters. Yanking the invisible connection between the words in the air, she tugged at the arcane string with force - snapping the line of assailants before her in half. With every sector they withdrew to, Anna’s final movement would assist her and Angela onto the next.

The ground beneath her ANGIE’s boots shift from dirt to cracked stone. Exhaustion gnaws at her, makes her movements heavier, her vision tunnels. There’s only the next step, the next breath.

The ghouls keep coming, their eyeless faces twisted, their bodies jerking forward like sadistic puppets. Angie fucking hates them, but hating them doesn’t stop them. The ones she cuts down are replaced almost immediately, like a tide that doesn’t care how many times it’s pushed back.

Her heart thundered like a battering ram as she sprinted through the inky veil—the pump of oxygen, acid, adrenaline, strain visceral and pulpy through her feet, thighs, pelvis as the horde’s guttural roars echo like a chorus of the damned through the trees.

Osteomyelitic light dances behind the whipping branches above, threatening to trip her on roots and bramble until–

The church. Moments away. Its stones, worn smooth by the relentless march of centuries, gleamed faintly with the promise of sanctuary. With a desperate burst of speed, she flung herself at the doors.

The creeping doubt pushing against her own attempt to force the ornate mechanism open; What if you lead Anna to her death today?

You're smart, but not smart enough to sacrifice her like that, right? You’ve always known you’re just good enough to get into trouble, yeah?

Angie’s breath hitches, her muscles trembling. Fuck, she's finished—spent in a way that’s too familiar, and yet too dangerous. She’s been here before, on the edge, but never with so much at stake.

Thirty-three years and still scared shitless of Mommy and Daddy's shadow, aren’t you?

Isn’t that why you saw your mom back there?

...You never got away, did you? She’s still got her hooks in you, in everyone you know. Deep down, you know how infected you are.

”Komm schon, mein Freund (Come on, my friend)! Our mission is far from over!” Anna urged Angela on, throwing a page her way. The parchment fell onto Angela’s handgun, reinforcing it with imbued energy. Having done so, Anna withdrew a page and conjured for herself a close-quarter blade made of arcane paper while the fluttering pages around her continued to lock and spiral towards the incoming ghouls.

All the vitriol she could give Anna withers as her muscles scream for respite. Even powered up, moving like this, acting like this— sent her into overtime early. Even powered up, her power was no good here. The massive, ancient wooden door is locked, barred with iron too thick to break. Brute force wouldn’t do them good if they needed to barricade.

“I know– I kn–” dies on her tongue as she scans the rustic, brutalist craftsmanship. Better to shut up and work. There’s a trick to this.

There’s a trick to every one of Wally’s knockoffs. Her fingers trace the worn engravings, feeling for any shift in the wood, until she finds it—a small indentation near the base of the door. “There,” she whispers, dropping to one knee and angling her pistol.

A supercharged bullet jimmies the indent clean off, the recoil rattling her arms as wind rips through her bangs. The mechanism clicks, the door shifts—a hidden latch releasing. “Hurry inside!”

The ghouls are seconds away when Angie pushes the door open, just enough for them to slip through.

Twisting sideways and angling herself with acute precision, ANNA tossed her paper blade into the air. Just as it fell a few meters from her, a rushing wind accompanied her feet as she kicked the imbued weapon towards the horde and, in a rapidly taciturn momentum, she threw herself at Angela - casting both of them inside the long-awaited refuge of their desperately-desired respite. An audible thump followed, as the stained glasses relayed the finality of Anna’s final parting gift to the ghouls in a fiery display just out of sight. As the dust settled around them, Anna swiftly got to her feet and performed a set of nonverbal rituals with her hands, forming a temporal barrier to reinforce the door. Turning towards Angela, Anna fell back against the decrepit wall feeling just as disrepaired as the forsaken architecture around them.

“It seems that the shower has already come to pass. Now we must adjust for the storm ahead.” She muttered softly, smiling softly with a grateful expression as she tucked away a lock of stray hair over her bandaged ear. “Quite a quaint way to wake someone. Nevertheless, I am grateful that you took the shot, Ms. Yeon.” The Prussian conveyed her sincere appreciation, recalling the bullet that deservingly succeeded in waking her from own nightmares. It was only through the merits of their shared journey, whether by chance or the grace of a higher being, that Anna survived her own illusion. Nothing was more formidable, and perhaps terrifying, than that of one’s perpetual mind. As providence would have it, with a grain of salt, Anna must now look to her own means of getting the two of them out of this nightmare. With the two of them battling their own demons, the primary mission that was called to them by Nyctiel seemed as far out of reach as it was within their grasp.

no song linked

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Wyll]

The Caretaker

Mellor
Akir

Mellor was still mentally smiling from the message he'd received from Naomi and, though he had quieted the thought, the possibility of exploring the park with her after the mission still whispered at the back of his mind.

And then he heard her voice. "Help."

It was so light that he wasn't even sure that he had heard it right. At first he thought he had imagined it - the same way he imagined that she was in danger earlier - then he heard her speak again. This time much louder and much more audible. He meets Ilia's gaze and the expression on his face couldn't be any easier to read: despair.

She was in trouble. She had been in trouble all this time. He was right. Why didn't he go earlier? Why didn't he wait and bring her to the tam with his portals? A million questions flooded his mind but there was only one that rang out louder than the others. Where is she?

He summoned two portals. However, his mind was in such turmoil that their shapes were distorted and they were barely holding. Still, he sent one off through the park. The entirety of the park zoomed by in front of him as the portal that had stayed behind projected everything the other portal was seeing as it sped its way through the park.

It wasn't long before a pop of pink showed up, the type of pink that could only be Naomi. He tried jumping through the portal, wanting to be next to her immediately, but the portal was so unsteady that it didn't let him through. By this point, the others had gone ahead of him. A deep, frustrated groan resounded from his throat as he realised he needed to get his breathing under control.

You're no good to her, to any of them, a panicked mess. Breathe. Breathe.

He slowly got his breathing under control and the shape of the portals stabilized and the picture through them became clear. Before he even stepped through the portal, he could see how terrible of a state she was in.

Breathe. Breathe.

He saw the missing leg, saw the wounds, saw who he recognized as Alma. It was bad. She didn't need a frantic version of him right now. She needed the version that could remind her that everything would be alright.

Breathe.

He stepped through the portal, popping up in front of the clone. He wanted to freak out. He wanted to go attack whatever did this. He wanted to chide himself for not making it here sooner. But, all he did was smile. His gaze fell on Naomi who still seemed to out of it to notice him standing there. He places a gentle hand on her head, his smile growing when she turned to him. "Hey there, Gumdrop. Sorry I'm late, but I think the clone wants a break."

He'd managed to put away the fear, the worry and all other negative emotions that he was feeling. He could wallow in guilt later. He could pace around panicking when she was no longer right in front of him. He could lecture her about not being more careful when she wasn't missing a foot. In truth, he didn't even know where to begin trying to put out fires. He was alert and present enough to know that, however he may feel about Naomi, the mission came first. There was another agent facing down what was thought to be an S-Tier. Surely that should take priority. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to leave Naomi's side. And he couldn't bring her with him any closer to the danger than she had already been.

Thankfully, just on time as always, he saw Ilia and the others appear at the entrance behind Naomi and focused his gaze on them. He would need to buy that man a card that said "thank you for always being on time" one of these days. When Ilia walked up, Mell was surprised to see an emotion other than spite on Ilia's face but was grateful for it all the same. He nodded at Ilia's words, smoothly transitioning Naomi from the clone's back to his own. "Go, I'll catch up. I'm not letting anyone else get hurt."

He began walking back towards the entryway of the cove. He stayed far enough away that they would easily be forgotten about, yet close enough that he could hear and respond to any calls for his attention. He knew he would need to get over there soon, but he needed to make sure Naomi was taken care of first. It was the only was he'd be able to focus on the mission.

Mentions: Ilia ( Zedalith ), Naomi ( Klown )

 

[AURS]

angie yeon ;

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  mood

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  ???.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  outfit

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  jeans, tube top, a sleek, allsaints leather jacket, boots.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  location

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  wally's other world.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Pilgrim59 Zedalith
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

POV ; WALTER, ANNA && ANGIE ────

Impossible geometry strains into the ceiling overlooking them, tall, much taller than the outside outlook would imply. The painting cresting the church's awning is almost psychedelic, the pattern spirals into a complex helix, twisting patterns latticed into the marble itself. It’s beautiful—wistful, like looking into the sun. The pattern bubbles at even intervals of time; it is a pumping heart. Lifeblood surges from the ceiling, through the walls, and into the world's core while the entire structure visibly recoils from the force.

Red light streams through the stained glass windows, casting the naves and aisles in a sanguine glow. The chancel is eye-striking. The altar is beautifully wrought, and the candles burn low.

White orbs suspend themselves over the altar, lazily bobbing up and down despite nothing visibly holding them there. They’re floating, suspended in time. The same light that fell from the sky, the same one that floods in through the windows, is lightly emanated by these spheres. On closer inspection, they’re not merely orbs at all–but human eyes. An odd energy flows outwards from around them. Their placement here seems instrumental; they’re batteries, fueling the madness of this hell.

Relief washed through ANGIE in a cold stream, overtaking the adrenaline still flickering in her veins. She leaned against the decayed teak door, eyes burned shut, body trembling from something deeper—older. Stripping off her jacket, she tied it around her hips, her fingers, shaking. Her grin stutters with ragged gasps, with a brief, primal acknowledgment of survival, and the expectation of worst to come.

Sinking to a squat, her hands pressed hard against her forehead. Shivering, ice cold—you'll never get used to the shit you do for Regenesis, will you?

Through the spaces of her fingers, the blood-soaked church danced in long, grueling shadows over the oddly pristine frescoes. Images of divine grace, that's what they were, right?

Well, they were surely meant to be. What else could explain this...inexplicable urge to pray, welling up like blood from a paper cut—palpable despite the desecration, the corruption, the vility.

Did it make sense? Yes, somewhat. Serene, devout Sundays were sometimes juxtaposed with the ominous, foreboding aura that clung to the compounds of rural Gyeongju, where the stench of incense mixed with something far more primal and disturbing, something that seemed to claw at her very soul.

She remembers being dragged to the mudang’s altar as a child, bowing to spirits she neither understood nor wanted to. The skulls of small animals come to mind, desiccated and empty, leering at her with hollowed-out sockets, while jars filled with unidentifiable substances cast a sickly glow upon the scene. The mudang would contort and burn with otherworldly fire, risking beoljeon to the satisfaction of her customers.

Her family called it tradition. She called it hypocrisy. Between the sermons of a Heavenly Father, and offering rice and blood to spirits, gods—Christian or otherwise—were mute, deaf, blind, dead.

But did it make sense?[/color] That same hollow desperation settling between her lungs?

‘Please, please be safe,’ she whispered, not to any god, but to fate. She wasn’t praying to be saved. Too far gone for that. It was for the others.

"Come here. Let me see you," Angie hummed, after a while, reaching her hand out to Anna, her voice steady but detached. The pristine muslin of Anna's gown had turned to ragged streamers, and even with her pages supporting her, the woman had to at least have a few scuffs on her.

The space between them quivered with something unnatural, the stench of burnt flesh filling the air as tissues knit together, as she consumes and leaves the skin numb.

The pews stretch into black infinity. The naves and arches spiral like bronchi. The ribbed balustrades mimicking a ribcage, eyes embedded in the flesh-like walls, watching them with an alien ferocity.

"I’ve seen things," she spits. Gets up. "but this… this is something else."

The church is an odd place in a strange world. His control here seems weaker, unlike the world that he built around them. This place was not a vision that he could change the shape on a whim. Firm, unchanging, much like the true nature of aberrations; imprints of bygone times. This church was Walter Lynch’s true self, unabashedly brought to light. He stands to the side of the altar, more human than he has ever been. His willowy body is flooded by thick soutane, thin lips pursed into a tight line. Wrinkles burrow into his forehead while his arms remain clenched at each side.

“How joyous that you have brought yourselves here,” he speaks, voice echoing through the vast church walls. He motions closer to them, arms locked tight behind his back, spine as straight as a ruler, and his neck craned high.

“Have you come to confess your sins? Repent for the corpses that you have created in the den of your ineptitude?” he poses the question to Angie, his face snapping in her direction. “Or perhaps apologize for lusting after your master? Someone who provided you comfort—a home?” he questions Anna, faceless gaze eliciting no emotion.

Dread coiled in ANGIE’s gut as her eyes locked onto Walter, clad in parody of holy office. More beast than man, his monstrous form barely contained by the trappings of faith.

"Wally, you sadistic son of a bitch," half declaration, half inquisition, her voice swallowed by the oppressive vastness of the church. Death lingered, teetering on the edge at the back of the pews. Eager to spill over.

What unsettled her wasn't Walter, or the chasm-uncertainty as survival dropped from 60% to 32%. The precipice of violence that came with work as an agent was a non-factor, a forced Russian roulette in exchange for one dream.

It was his desperation that clawed at her. Despair clung to him like sulfur, the weight of his sins, maggage bubbling up from the inside out. His scowl, gargoyle-like and sagging, spoke of a soul too corrupted to redeem. His tone, frayed, spasmodic— furiously deceptive, like they’d dug deep into the tender velvet of his gray matter and found the rotten core of him.

Savage. Pathetic. Animal. Even in priestly cloth, he was nothing more than a cornered beast, snarling at the inevitable. That's what he spoke with, digging at her one last time.

Planting a seed that would come for her when she was too weary to resist. After all, he’d seen parts of her no one should have.

“No matter.”

Eyes sprout from walls, bursting open with a sinewy pop. The stained windows shatter and fling towards them as an array of razor-sharp projectiles. Bodies coil, twist, and pound against the walls. From the outside, a human ladder forms as bodies stack atop one another to reach the windows of the church.

Plop. Meat spills against the floor when a body plummets from the window onto the oak floor. Splinters of wood flail outwards from underneath their form as they land, still and lifeless. Another enters through the window, legs snapping as they splatter against the floor with a thud, only to continue to crawl forward toward the agents using their hands. Nails are reduced to mere nibs as they scratch across the wood in their mad crawl toward their enemies. A sea of bodies begins to enter, desperate, and unending.

“Return to the safety of your sanctuary. There is no need for you here.”

The eyeless man becomes larger, rippling muscles straining against the formerly billowy soutane. Blood vessels are pushed to their limits against his thin ghostly skin and angry red striations decorate his arms. He strays to the right, his body forming a protective layer between the agents and the pair of eyes floating behind him.

The very statement irked the Victorian woman, particularly bitter in its reception after indulging herself in a perfect world that was anything but. While she cannot speak on Angela’s circumstantial disposition, Anna was just as guilty as any present in this decrepit sanctuary of despair. What she was in the past and what she was to become in the future, were owed to the hope that she had placed in Albrecht. However, such wishful views were constrained by her wish to nurture with time - time that she did not possess. Yet, as the months came to pass, she found herself in an uncharted forest of perpetual change. Changes of places, time, and personnel. A purgatory that mattered for every moment they braved. An undeniable bond that she had come to expect and cherish - camaraderie among estranged agents of timeless catastrophes.

Measuring up to what they could have done in the past, their regrets and missed opportunities, the only acceptable and consistent element was that of the moment they chose to commit to their choice. While time had refused her of her toils, the only way forward was to embrace the present. The same held true for when she was keen on lending an ear to Angela, Qing-Yi, and Nick. Even if they were indeed a byproduct of a flawed creation of fate, their shared sanctuary lent some wisdom in its name. The reiteration of the beginning, but not just for those who were born into this world with empty hands, but also those with the heaviest baggage to burden in life and death.

Rising to meet the abomination in the absence of their optics, Anna could no longer hold back her words, as if in response to the calling of a confession.

“The legacy of His Eden is a reminder that even His own creation has its flaws. The remarkable difference resides in the intention. You perversed it to corrupt and destroy, not create. By tainting the memories that I cherished, forgiveness is now but an arbitrary gesture. With sulphur and fire, you will find that our wills are equally commensurate to match.” Anna retorted with a heavy tone, accompanied by the fury in her pale blue eyes. “What we do in life, echoes for eternity - knowing that we have broken, laughed and bled together. We have lived.” She turned to Angela briefly, letting the statement take on the weight of their fragile but meaningful purpose. A voice came unto her, calling forth a nostalgic memory of a cool summer day upon a stagnated chessboard - laden with an amalgamation of positioned pieces that have yet to be maneuvered for hours.

“A battle is not always won by decisive movements. Particularly when such a decision is weighed on your alternatives.”

“I am disinclined to consider any at the moment, mein Herr.”

“Perhaps I can be of service on this matter. Pondering your moves, in chess and in life, is a simple act of buying time. But something must be given in return. Our conversation thus far is a great example.”

“Is it possible, then, to talk your opponent into submission?”

“Only if they are of a lesser nature. Alas, I can reassure you that I am not in this game, mein Frau.”

“I can simply deny you a decent meal. I wonder, then, who would be inclined to sort through your paperworks?”

“While I am elated that you have managed to master the arts of leverage, I am slightly disturbed that you would do so over a game, Frau Schwarzschild.”

“I pride myself in taking my lessons seriously, mein Herr. After all, I am in the company of an efficient teacher.”

Examining the grotesque concoction of bodily-horrors and abominable flesh alike, Anna attempted to plan her first movement. She needed a decisive target, and had been monitoring every tenable targets as she stalled for time with her words - just as she had learned from Albrecht.There was little time to act, and she would make sure they make the best of it. Having gotten this far, it was the only opportune time for Anna to unveil her preparations. The decision only came to mind when she had determined that this was the decisive element to bring an end to their illusory nightmare. Plucking the sash from her waist, the cerulean ribbon stripped most of her lower dress with it. The layers of fabric, undone by its mistress’s hands, revealed a crinoline cage beneath, filled to the brim with arcane sheets that occupied every spacing of the contraption.

Far from its aesthetic purpose, the crinoline had served to house much of her designed arsenal. The very cause of her hindered mobility since their arrival at Wally’s Adventure World. She quickly unbuckled the malleable cage, and commanded the pages to take on their true forms - spiraling around her like a miniature tornado. Unfurling her palm towards Angela, the pages wrapped around their chest, glowing brightly before taking the shape of a ballistic plate carrier with munition pouches to aid in bearing magazine transitions. Despite its arcane nature, the Blue Composer’s intricacies had its grounded limitations, given the reinforcement nature of her gift rather than true creation. The remaining pages slung across their shoulder, materializing firstly the lower receiver, then the rest of the Armalite Rifle model. Fashioned with holographic optics for close quarters, ergonomic angled foregrip, and tapered with target-pointing laser that matched Anna’s eye color, the arcane-built rifle was loaded with arcane munitions that was similar to her enhancement of Angela’s German handgun.

With Angela’s firepower augmentation complete, Anna donned her own, which materialized into an ornate suit of armor that swiftly made up for the torn parts of her dress - resulting in a concoction of plated limbs that was dressed by the remaining portion of her apparel. Taking on the image of an elegant fighting machine, the fully-armored Schwarz readied herself with one foot before the other, unsheathing her broadblade from one of the pages until the parchment dissipated completely. Swinging it swiftly, the flying pages around her were robbed of their momentum, finally falling as it withered away like ember halation to induct the maiden into a decisive showdown. The blast of gale plucked her wide-brimmed from her, unveiling a radiant visage of an unelegant agent of the Regenesis.

"Anna. Anna, what the actual fuck—" ANGIE’s voice caught in her throat, half choking on shock and a laugh that died before it fully surfaced. Her breath hitched as her eyes took in the transformation.

Anna; demure, proper, elegant, now looked like a hardened warrior. The soft grace Angie had known was replaced with a steely, almost dangerous expression.

“As the assailing party, I believe our esteemed host has the privilege of the first shot. Though I am of the mind to refuse their entitlement solely out of spite. You may initiate the first volley, Miss Yeon. I won’t be too far behind.” Anna said to Angela with a tranquil voice of reassurance as she brandished her blade with her glowing sights fixed on the aberration.

“I... I’m grateful. But next time, maybe a heads-up?” ANGELA manages, voice laced with uneasy laughter. Even with Anna's power, this was out of pocket.

Please, what do we even know about her, huh? How could someone so refined have such an intuitive grasp of warfare? Something about it gnawed at her, an itch at the back of her mind.

Before Angie could probe further, the atmosphere thickened, laughter forgotten, replaced by the gravity of the moment.

Her hand slams against her thigh, grounding her in the searing pain that ignited her blood, channeling it into something primal.

The air shimmers with red energy, broken glass-sharp and violent. Her mind sharpened too—she saw Walter now, beneath the facade. A predator losing control.

Power didn’t make him invulnerable. She knew that better than anyone.

Her fingers curled around the trigger, energy spiraling through her weapon, charged with her and Anna's combined force. The chamber exploded in a deafening blast. Shards of glass and stone ripped through the grotesque wall of eyes, erupting them in a symphony of nauseating wet splatters, streams of vile, yellowish-green liquid spurting in all directions as the wall of malformed gazes contorted in agonizing pain.

Reload. BOOM !

Shockwave through the corridor. The centipedal corpse mass staggered, blown back by the superblast as she recoiled.

Her mind mapped the battlefield with ruthless precision—the orbs, the eyes, the mass of bodies. She saw the weakness.

THE EYES OF THE EYELESS.
Don’t go kissing the BIRD’s ass now, genius.

No way to get up there, her mind wired to the only calculation she could make to her advantage. Taunt the shit out of him.

“How many babies did you kill, Walter?” Low, dangerous. Murder's edge flashed in her empty incandescent eyes. ”How many innocents for this fucked up fantasy?”

“Actually. How about I make you my fucked up fantasy, instead?” Pressing a corpse to her, she absorbed its pain, sweat soaking her ruined ponytail. The red string-energy connects the pair with viscous strands.

The walls continue to twist while a ripple begins on the furthest wall and pushes through the floor. The room fulminates with the Eyeless Man’s fury. Each shot against him is felt by the world itself. His main body swells further with his anger, bulging and bubbling while unnatural muscle presses against the dark vestment he wears. It continued until every vein was visible through the fabric. All else becomes transparent in his lightless vision, all but the silhouette of her form.

“THEY SERVED THEIR PURPOSE! They gave their lives to fuel MY … no, no …. HIS vision,” he cries, his voice fluctuating with the passion of the moment. It carried through the chamber, echoing through the throats of the ghouls that flooded toward the chapel.

The altar lifts towards the ceiling, taking the eyes with them and rising until they are out of view. Their main body beelines to her, ripping through bits of furniture like they were never there. Shrapnel cuts through the air from the explosion of motion. The sharp fragmentations embed themselves into the countless eyeless bodies lining the chapel.

Walter Lynch’s shadows focus on Anna, while his main body closes in on Haneul. He madly swipes at Haneul’s body, arm swinging behind his back for the momentum, before slamming into her torso at the shoulder.

HA NEUL's boots skid across the ancient stone, her breath bitten short as she tries to maintain some semblance of control. A barrel roll, then a dash, the pain in her shoulder—reminds her of her mortality. The ghosts of his victims moan in the corners, their whispers lost to the roar of battle.

Her pupils dilate as she focuses on the beast coming after her. That living fucking nightmare, stretching out to grab her. You got the fucker's attention, babe. What now?

“Anna, the eyes!” she hollered over pandemonium. Like a hot iron, his claws sear through her knee. Bone, cartilage, ligaments; violated by a brute's weapon. Frothy blood spurted like a crimson font, flooding her vision with even hotter tears as the right side of her torso ripped - the gash completed with her shoulder, shredding the biceps and brachialis like paper.

She made herself the bait, the distraction to allow Anna the chance to strike.

Anna’s armor has the firmness of adamantine when faced with countless blows from the army of approaching figures. While there is no shortage of the pool of bodies flooding toward Anna, there is a strange quality to their shape. The newer figures seem weaker, and more abstract. As if they are struggling to manifest and maintain their shape. This world is gradually diminishing in power, and its specters with it. There is an odd discordance in their shape - they are transparent, like glass, while still possessing the firmness of flesh. Flickering bodies dart in and out of existence.

Walter’s eyes continue to rise until they are at level with the window. Pupiless white orbs peer down at them, leaving nothing in the area unseen by The Eyeless.

It’s too fast, too quick for their eyes to track. It does not leave any time for Haneul to recover before its massive hand clamp around her skull. The pressure is crushing, like being thrust beneath the ocean without warning. It beholds her, craning the head in its hand, admiring the finality of the bleak eternity awaiting her.

“How did you expect to save anyone? When you cannot save yourself...”

It admires her anguish - knowing that her life rested in the palm of its hand. It took time to savor the moment, knowing it could steal her fate at the precise moment that the desire struck them. Relentless, crushing, pricking pain tore through her skull, gradually increasing, with not enough force for the bone to cave in.

Massive talons clamp around ANGELA’s body, the wet pestilence of his palms hot and rank around her skull. The unbearable pressure scorches her neck, her vision blurs, her ribcage labored as the brink of unconsciousness drew near.

Oh. Here it was. The End.

Her bones were going to groan and beg like twigs snapped about in a storm. Her eyeballs were going to burst into hot gelatinous blobs of jelly. Like an eggshell, her brain matter is going to spill like yolk on the cold, indifferent ground.

She feels her body jerk, spasm in futile protest. She feels panic, terror, coalesce into a singular, overwhelming dread as the inevitable hurt comes.

Blood drips from her nose, staining her lip and neck red.

Burning flesh, metallic tang of blood.

The air around her body, Wally's hand, distorts. Condenses into crimson lines that scream through the space between them. The heavy lines of her ability dig deep into Wally's flesh, ripping through muscle and bone like a morning star.

All of it, every ounce of pain stored up for this, she makes sure she drills it into him before he kills her.

All at once, the pain sprung through his arm, searing, endless pain - the likes of which it had not experienced before. A direct line tied his two shapes together from the inner world, it was a blaze that transcended their realities. Both of his bodies, from within and outside rocked in a surge of agony. Helpless. It lost control of its facilities, unable to close the vice on her head any further. Outside of his domain, his eyeless body fell helplessly to its knees.

The everpresent smile faltered for the first time, fading from his whey-faced skin, and washed over by the look of true terror. Innumerable ghouls dropped to the ground, flesh melting from their skin and left to emulsify with the now rippling waves of the ground below. Reality itself began to distort, the walls, the chapel, they flickered and staggered, an electric pop resounding from their surface.

Anna’s armor rang out like a bell beneath the countless blows of flickering, malformed specters swarming her. These ghostly figures, their half-forgotten edifices, vexed to maintain their shape. They shimmered as though made of fragile glass yet possessing a most firm resistance. The world followed suit—abstract, transparent, the apex of dying stars conjured within it. Who was she but a solitary lighthouse, unyielding against the disjointed waves pressing in from all sides?

Her gaze lifted, palpitated with dread as Miss Yeon, her comrade-in-arms, now dangled like a marionette in the clutches of the fiend. The creature's hand encircled her head, threatening to reduce her skull to a pulp beneath its crushing embrace. A crimson rivulet traced down her trembling leg, emanating from the grisly gash upon her knee and torso.

Then, towards Walter's disembodied eyes fortified in the church’s ceiling. Those blank, white orbs peered down, arrogant, bathing everything below in a soulless gaze.

“Ergeben Sie sich nicht, Anna,” she whispered, the phrase falling from her lips not as a command but as a plea—a reminder to herself. She knuckled the hilt of her broadblade with baited passion and—nothing. Her power, a lifeline in such solemn hours, flattered themselves to nothing in the open. Her constructs slipped from her control, the pages fluttering to the ground.

A miss. The horde descended. The lady, her once-radiant visage now a ghastly tableau of despair, stretched forth her dainty hand in a futile gesture of supplication. Cold fingers claw over her body, grasping at her face as darkness pressed in. Tiny, serrated teeth, crimsoned her hand, her arms, and her neck in cruel bites, earning an anguished scream from her as fear closed in.

Fear—a sensation she had long thought herself numb to—like the terrible knowledge of a battalion, routed and left to die.

But then, in the quiet chaos of her mind, the clarion of Miss Yeon’s voice cleared—a command, simple yet piercing.

Anna clung to this one command like a final, fevered dream. Those terrible eyes—how they watched and waited, ever vigilant! She pondered the nature of sound—how it differed from the grand concertos of the world she once knew. A dog’s hearing, she recalled, stretched beyond human capacity; perhaps Walter, blind though he was, was still an animal—a beast that could not see but could hear.

Nay, he was endowed with a form of perception that transcended the limitations of the mortal coil. How else could he have anticipated their arrival, had he not been granted a second sight by the very same forces that had fashioned him?

With trembling fingers, she set her faculties to one sound—a beam of infrared sound so unblemished, so acute, it bore substance that distorted her digits and the crests of the multitude yearning to devour her.

The sound, imperceptible, yet lethal, struck true. It resonated with a force most terrible, causing the ancient halls to quake and shiver as though in the throes of a nightmarish tremor. The iron sinews that upheld the vaulted ceiling clanked and groaned, shaken from their steadfast vigil.

The eyes, dilated to the size of inky pools, quivered and danced as though possessed by the spirits of the damned. The tumorous growths that had so cruelly marred her vision, those abhorrent excrescences that clung to the frescoes like leeches to the flesh of the drowning, throbbed in time with the vibrations - growing taut to burst asunder, showering down a rain of viscous fluid.

The sight was one of the most gruesome that Anna's tortured gaze had ever beheld. Yet, amidst the chaos of the moment, she felt an eerie calmness, a detachment from the grotesque spectacle unfolding before her. The stench that accompanied the tumors' demise was a noisome miasma, a foul odor that seemed to cling to the very walls and tapestries, permeating the very fabric of the room with its malignancy. It was the scent of decay, of death long denied its rightful claim, and it filled Anna's nostrils with a revulsion that threatened to overwhelm her.

Umpteem thrums drum against the chapel and the many fleshy puppets drop to the floor like a downpour of heavy rain. The ceiling … begins to crumble. All turns to ash, whisked away by an unseen force, to be carried into the round moon. His primary body is still, hand still clasped around Haneul's skull, unmoving as it were. He is a statue decorating the dying chapel, body darkening to a stone grey. There is a sentience lingering in his eyes, despite the world around them falling apart, but it found itself unable to move, unable to take the life it so desperately craved. It too, turns to ash.

The sanguine coloration stealing the sky begins to dim until bleak darkness is crested above their heads. The sky … is falling.
It blankets them, much like the force that took them here, but this time, something was different. It held a paternal warmth. For a moment, the sight of falling feathers fluttered in the corners of their eyes.

…

His chest bursts open at the center, and tar sprays onto the ceiling while a deafening roar kills all surrounding noise. Flailing arms beat against their chest as if trying to somehow put themselves back together, but it is no use. His light has been extinguished. The first to be spilled forth is Anna, her body wrapped in a shining protective shell. Angie follows her shortly thereafter, with the same glow at her back like an angel’s halo. It stumbles backward, struggling to gain purchase on its own feet. It slips on its blood, like amniotic fluid following a birth.

Pathetic, helpless, and vulnerable.

no song linked

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Zedalith]

ARC 1

Hearing Naomi’s voice on the speaker did nothing to cure Elyn’s somber mood. She could not find relief after killing the acid-monster, her throat was filled with constant irritation, worsening as her adrenaline wore off and the burns on her body began to sting and ache. Her grip on Fifth tightened as her anxiety grew, and she picked up the pace.

Elyn’s inner complaints died at the crime scene before her, and she cowardly looked away. For fear what little resolve she had left to finish this would die the more she looked at the sight. She could barely handle the smell. Instead, Elyn released Fifth and walked over to a distant wall. She let out a hum in agreement to Ilia’s words as she took out the two remaining concussion bombs in her pocket.

Her gloves were damaged significantly by the acid, but by pure luck still held onto her skin, the majority of the damage only on the back of her hands. Still, her hands stung through the tiny holes on her palms as she used the bombs. Adrenaline quickly masked the pain, and Elyn gave herself a moment to pray this would be enough before she took off after Ilia.

Elyn matched Ilia’s pace as he slowed down. She fought to restrain a cough as they approached, and the sight of the aberration made Elyn’s face twist up in disgust. Not once had Elyn ever made it through a mission without being disgusted by the monster before her in one way or another. At least in TV shows the monsters were made to be attractive, minus a few outliers. She could handle it then, when it was on a big screen, now it only serves a reminder that monsters in the real world aren’t played by Ben Barnes.

At the reveal of their location, Elyn took off. Unlike the former aberration, which was covered in it’s nasty insides from the moment it first got injured, she did not feel averse to touching this one. Elyn focused her energy into her feet and rushed towards the aberration, just as the creature drew near she dug her feet into the floor. She used the momentum. Elyn switched her power into her hands and pushed the creature away from her and Qing-Yi, thankfully catching it off guard. Restraining her strength was not Elyn’s strong suit, and the aberration flew down the cavern, crashing into the ground.

Clawed hands dig themselves into the ground for leverage, and with a heave, the creature retrieves itself from the cavern’s crust. Dark bruises decorate their pallid flesh, newly formed from the blunt trauma unleashed by Elyn. The blemishes are quick to fade and an unending tide of skin and sinew stretches over them. It hems together the damaged spots until they vanish altogether. The aberration fully finds its balance and returns to its feet, stance surging with energy—as good as new. It turns its neck to face Qing-Yi while a knowing look humanizes its alien features. She fooled it with the premise of a simple talk, while her allies rallied at her back. She would be its first target. Its fangs pierced through a smile that was too wide for its face.

Ilia watched and waited, trained eyes curiously inspecting the creature's form as its wounds healed over without effort. S-Tiers were unpredictable: you never knew what strange powers one might have possessed. But, one thing was clear to him, and that was that no amount of attacks they threw at the beast would be sufficient.

“Careful. Something's keeping this thing alive,” he said slowly, but with enough force for his voice to carry to his allies.

“Restrain it. Keep it down until we can figure out what that is.” The possibilities were too endless to consider, but he had never run into an aberration that they couldn’t kill.

Well, it was all well and good that Ilia could speak so calmly, when he wasn’t the one in the Eyeless’s sight. Qing-Yi frowned as she slid her hand into her pocket and muted her phone. The aberration’s smile was reciprocated with a look that was almost apologetic.

She had bought time with the conversation, but she had also wanted genuinely to share some words. To see how things looked on the other side. To know how much ‘human’ was inside something made of humanity. To…

One possessed the power to fly, the other summoned explosive blasts from their body based off of energy absorbed. The third was a mystery…not. The manipulation of water. Foreign memories, plucked out of the minds of those it was still digesting. The flying agent was inscrutable, an ever-smiling unknown, and the energy-absorber was unfeeling, a machine with no connections, but the water-manipulator? Ilia?

Broken souls and a fistful of insecurities, peeled away in a desperate need for someone, anyone, to bridge the gap left by loneliness and regret..

Claws dug into concrete as if it were dirt, before hurling the chunks at the three agents. Elyn could absorb it, but Qing-Yi was only capable of flight. She flew back at double-pace, the sheer spread and the tight confines making it impossible to finesse through the storm. And as one Agent willingly vacated herself, the Eyeless sprung forth again, intentions bare but methods filled with that predatorial cunning. Its smile widened, rushing in on the secondary target of its revenge. She would meet it head-on. It had a measure of her strengths now, and could already see clearly the wounds upon her body suffered from encountering one of the others.

You didn’t get those wounds by being a coward.

You got them by being an idiot.

Three paces away from Elyn, the Eyeless fell into the floor, then rose up behind her, as if it had simply taken a breaststroke through concrete. Its tail whipped out, flicking against her back in an attempt to knock her aside, but the aberration’s attention was already focused on Ilia.

Restrain it, an idea Elyn could get behind if she had a chance to approach the aberration in the first place. Every hesitation gave way to more attacks that left Elyn struggling to defend herself.

She brought her arms up to block the cobble of concrete, narrowly missing as she focused her energy into her arms. The result was a mess of blood and scratches, stone sinking in and irritating her already stinging burns. Disoriented by the pain, she missed the crack of the tail, and in a blink the Eyeless had gotten it’s revenge in pushing Elyn away. Her last movement to bring her arms out to defend her fall.

Power fought with pain as she landed on the floor, the right side of her body taking the brunt of the pain. Not even adrenaline could help her now. All she could do was roll over, taking advantage of the Eyeless’ new target to recover.

Its mouth opened, rows and rows of sharpened teeth. No roar, no screech, no bite.

Only a woman’s voice.

“You don’t have to fight so hard to be worth something to me.”

And the Eyeless laughed, as it reached out towards its own chest once more, tearing open the ribcage to reveal a gleaming paradise-orb.

“She’s keeping me alive, Ilia.”

The World of Light bloomed.

Its words were claws that pierced his chest from the inside, pallid hands clasping his heart snugly within its palm. Heavy, his back felt heavy, and the duffel bag wrapped around his back held the weight of the world. His clothes felt alien against his skin, a claustrophobic stirring swallowing him within the seams of fabric.

His chest was heaving, air expelling from his lungs at a rate that left his brain starved for air. Angie. Her voice was clear among the chaos, with unmistakable rhythm lacing its cutting words. It spoke just like her, winningly sweet but with a strong edge. Ceaseless possibilities raced through his mind, washing away all of his sense. As the dread set in, a cold panic locked his limbs into place and he could only stare forward at the row of fangs framing the dark maw awaiting him.

He felt its drool tumble onto his cheek, leaving a wet trail to bleed a path to his chin. “Angie, I–” he felt smaller than he had in a long time, words left to weakly dangle on his tongue, free to tumble into the blood-starved chasm awaiting him.

SNAP!

A loop of light fell from heaven and draped his body in its protection. Mellor. A portal took him elsewhere, behind the creature, just free of the powerful jaws that clamped down where he used to be. He blinked once, then a second time, his mind struggling to process what had just happened. He held his heart through his shirt with unsteady fingers. Adrenaline was running rampant in his mind, pushing away all reason, all sense.

“How do you know her voice?” Despite the quiver that pulsed through his legs, his voice was even. Things clicked into place in his head, the error message he received through text, the absence of Angie. This thing took her somewhere else, what was worse, it seemed to sift through her memories—enough to know him. Water crept from every crevice at his side, distinctly blue, spiraling effortlessly into his grasp.

No thought, no expression, his feet took him forward and into the den of the beast. He could feel Mellor’s eyes at his back, wordlessly mocking him for being as reckless as Elyn, but he could not bring himself to care. Carnal emotions spurred him into action, free of the sardonic mask or pointed remarks.

Water flowed into itself, a beautiful cerulean glow reflecting off of his skin like enchanted crystals. It spiraled into a pointed spear, pressure sharpening it until it was as keen as a cresting wave. The aqueous luster rippled forward, spraying beads in the rush. His typical manifestations were neat, and constrained. This spear flowed freely with a form that changed by the second.

A mocking smile gleamed at the other end of the spear, their impassive glare unmoving despite the impending danger. Confidence shined out of these pointed teeth, an energy that sang of the futility of their struggle, but it was a song that died in the air.

The eyeless man fell to his knees. Their flesh bubbled like a frog dumped into a pot of boiling water. Squelching pops filled the room's ambiance. White flesh fled their body in moist chunks. Angie’s power gripped the creature from the other side–Ilia could recognize its signature anywhere.

The liquid spear gained purchase in the thing's chest, striking true to the other side. Releasing the spear, Ilia took a step backward, while the intrusion gradually began to reduce in size. His waters flowed into the devil’s veins in place of blood, until the spear dissipated into their body entirely.

Ilia pointed a finger forward and commanded the liquid to pop.

At once, tiny jets of water pierced outwards from inside the aberration’s body like a thousand quills. The aftermath left the creature with too many holes to count. Immobile, for the moment, Ilia conjured two shackles from the nearest wall. The water sprayed outwards, wrapped around their wrist, and pulled the beast backward with a slam powerful enough to shake the cavern's walls.

It fought madly. Their limbs thrashed back and forth against their new constraints, desperate to free themselves from confinement. Muscle mended itself in seconds, the newfound strength allowing it to spring free with a burst of energy.

Damn, I thought we had it.

Finally, Elyn rose from the floor. Newfound energy from her abuse served as a lifeline as she focused on the aberration. She was at a loss for what to do. Not even Ilia’s blasts could permanently harm it, and its relentless attacks gave little room to strategize. Of course, Elyn could be relentless too.

The Eyeless, spotting Elyn on her feet, rushed towards her with an energy she could now match, fueled by her bloodied arms. Elyn dashed to the side in an attempt to dodge its claws. Eyes on her, Mellor’s portal opened up, and in a few dizzying motions, Elyn found herself behind the monster.

No time for thoughts. Elyn dashed towards its back and locked her arm around its neck, her other one locking it in place. Her injuries burned as she pulled at the aberration, its claws coming to wrap around her limbs in shock, drawing blood.

A few stumbled steps back in their struggle as Elyn kept her grip locked on her wrist, squeezing in hope of doing something to the creature. Her hold faltered, however, when the Eyeless sank its fangs in. It ripped its arms back, it’s latched in nails, forcing Elyn’s arms away and ripping at her skin in unclean lines.

A blink, and she was slammed backwards, her back smacked against the wall and she fell to the ground. Elyn’s head spun, unable to tell where her pain ended and the energy started. Even if she could, her arms proved too weak to bring herself up once again. Red covered Elyn’s eyes as she tried again and again to stand up. Finally relenting in a thud.

Angie. Ilia was determined to cleave her from the beast’s stomach at any cost. Subtle as it was, the Eyeless was losing stamina as it went on. Its wounds took longer to close and its attacks were less accurate. Something was weakening it from an unseen place.

Air zipped by as a clawed hand struck at him from above. It whistled through the air while the honed ends grazed across his cheek. It struck him by only a hair. A red scar treaded across his face, red-hot blood left to ooze from the open ravine. The final hour. The moment the predator met prey–with no room for escape. He had to trust that Angie was alive and working to his benefit.

He’d remove its limbs a thousand times if he had to.

A dagger jumped into his hand, edges flowing like a rushing river. A fist danced across his head, a leg sprang forward within an inch of his chest. His dagger dove into an arm that felt nothing, and hewn flesh from bone without effort. They were locked together, his chest heaving with exertion, but his brain not allowing his legs to give. It was growing predictable, and desperate, and he had to push forward or they would never win.

CRACK!

Elbow met ribs, and the latter shattered within its vessel. Ilia’s voice was a scratchy note, wringing out every terrible sensation that pumped into his head. Another fist came down, this one undoubtedly lethal, before a portal carried the arm elsewhere. Ilia took advantage of the moment, cleaving their arm off entirely whilst it stayed locked within the portal.

His body began to fail. His brain screamed at his legs to move. Nothing worked, his legs remained locked in protest.

The air felt like acid in their lungs. He kept his eyes upon by sheer willpower. The aberration, despite their efforts, looked markedly fresh. It was toying with them, each wound Ilia inflicted a distant memory. Ilia’s back strained, body bracing for the fist that would donut through his chest.

The pallid fist remained suspended in air, just short of making contact. Ilia swore that he heard the seraphim mocking him.

Bubbling black tar ejected from its body, spraying across Ilia’s forearm like a fresh canvas. When the torrent ended, Ilia gained sight of the two missing daughters of Glauciel: Angie and Anna.

It was an ugly vision, that confident smile waned from the aberration. Its gait was devoid of the grace that it formerly carried itself, instead, it careened backward like an old man who was missing their cane. It stumbled over its own feet, planting its back onto the ground, with its belly pointed upwards.

With one last push of strength, water charted a course into Ilia’s hand, weaving itself into a halberd. The bladed end clipped through the neck of the offending creature. Flesh turned to ash. The body dissipated into the surroundings, molten flesh flowing freely into the earth’s core. Even its blood became formless, left to fade away into the nothingness of the hell awaiting it.

The weapon Ilia held turned to droplets–no longer possessing the strength required to maintain its form. With the job done he allowed a sense of comfort to wash over him. Ilia allowed his body to drop to its knees. The words of the creature continued to reverberate through his head. Even dead, the evil presence lingered. He shared a look at Angie, brief, just long enough to make sure she was real and ok.

He allowed the encroaching unconsciousness to steal him.

In the aftermath, Qing-Yi, who had remained on the sidelines as those with the proper Gifts took the stage and spotlight, sent out a quick text to all other agents to bookend this operation.

It’s done. Let’s go home.

Arc 1 Conclusion

 

[Zedalith]

ARC 2

Strixiel
Laughter - loud and haughty, ejects through the thin walls of their home and ambles into the neighborhood. Lights are flicked on from home to home, each light was a lighthouse under the cover of night. There is a crowd of people inside the home. Walking is closer to wading through water here, in some spaces, the crowd is so dense that attendees must stand shoulder to shoulder. Chatter is idle and unremitting: most of the conversations are empty. There are spaces where the totality of gossiping voices is high. They make a mockery of the private matters of peers, admit their affections, and most startling - speak on the recent murders.

Women, primarily, two men too, lay dead and buried. Terror and suspicion lie in the unspoken space between words. Careful eyes scan tracing over the visage of any who look at them too hard. Suspicion is the undernote here, feigned casualness fills the room. Red solo cups decorate the tops of counters and tables; dampened inhibition is spelled across their liquor-stricken faces.

Music plays in the background, it plays low enough to discern the chatter from the surrounding conversation.

A woman. Purple hair was dyed atop her head, while blackened strands grow atop her crown. She stands removed from most of the chatter. Her willowy form is faint through the billowy fabric she wears.

"So the murders ... you don't care?" She speaks pointedly to another. The woman across her has dark hair draping over her forehead and across her shoulders. Emerald eyes respond in offense, nose curling inwards in a scrunched expression. "Of course, I care, but they shouldn't stop us from enjoying our lives!" she exclaims. She purses a cup between her ruby-painted lips. Her eyes scan around frantically, looking for a reprieve from the sudden interrogation.

The woman opposite the emerald-eye attendee looks unsatisfied. Her eyes are purpled and sleep-starved; the wrinkles in her face look deeper than they should for her age. Her voice comes out in trembles, with the threat of anger spilling over the dam she has erected. "How can you - "

She is interrupted by a raised hand. "Look Olivia, I understand why you'd be uncomfortable with this, given what happened with you, but ... that does not mean you should try to impede on others' fun. Now, please. Calm down and enjoy the party." She shuts Olivia out, not even turning her head before storming off into a distant crowd. Olivia's head hangs low, and her hands become buried within the confines of her pockets.

The house is large enough to fit at least fifty attendees comfortably, but that threshold has passed. Outside the home, a small crowd gathers outside the house and on the lawn. At least a dozen people and at the door, a blond woman stands at the door.

"Go. Away,” she demands with finality. She crosses her arms and places the heft of her weight on her right leg.

“If you don’t know anyone here then you cannot come in. I know we’re here to have fun, but safety is important too, and no offense, but you’re a creep.” The utterance of the word “creep,” is spoken with such disdain, that there is no doubt that the subject of her ire was despised.

He stands in front of her, short, dark hair crowning his head, with unsteady hands. His glasses begin to fog. His body stands still as if struggling to process the words. There is a long silence. The doorkeeper narrows her eyes and reaches into her waistband, her fingers seem to wrap around something unseen.

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“Bitch,” he speaks with a low growl.

A hot beam of mace hits him in the face like a freight train. His body buckles from the pain. His limbs become tangled as he collapses into the grass at his back. His face reddens, a mix of embarrassment and pain carrying him away from the premises. He picks himself back up from the heel and runs, ignoring the laughter that beats at his back.

“Guess we know who the murderer is,” she speaks with a laugh. The awkwardness of the moment intermingles with a hidden fear.

“I hope no more freaks show up.”

---

Nyctiel
Without the presence of daylight, the typical busy alleys of the University are emptied. A single building remains the sole object of interest for the approaching agents: a science facility. The largest building on campus and the same one where a professor had gone missing. Camera footage had been of little help to the police who had investigated the incident. The missing professor exited the classroom after a long day of grading exams, inserted himself into the bathroom, and never walked out. Some suspect that he simply got fed up with his underperforming students and left, while others believe that he was simply plucked from his room.

The agents know that the truth is different.

It is a large structure with four floors. The hallways are longer and narrow, with an elevator stationed at the center of the building. From the elevator, you can access any of the floors, except the basement. Guards walk around the outside, but the interior is devoid of their presence. Lampposts are raised high into the air. The light streams in through the windows of the structure. While the classrooms are dark, the hallways are well-lit and unobscured despite the growing night.

Night classes ended and the flow of bodies exiting and entering the building had come to a complete halt. Power is shut off for the night, but can easily be started again by entry into a basement that is solely protected by an insecure lock and a staircase.

With keen eyes, one can see a silhouette passing through the hallways. The dark shape travels from one window to the next. Distinctly human, with a gait that hinted at a long life. Occasionally it would vanish, shrinking into doors, before coming out again to continue their voyage. Likely male, judging from the short-cropped hair. They were searching for something - well beyond the hours of operation.

There is a door at each side of the building. The backdoor and front doors are locked, while the side doors remain open.

“Where have you gone? Samuel…”

---

Glauciel
Hospitals are ugly places. Air locked tight into a sterile zone that is churning with illness. Ilia had never held much trust for doctors. How can you pluck someone apart, see their most intimate manifestations, unconscious, helpless, then return to shake their hand the next day? The thought made him nauseous. Psychopaths: the whole of them, he had written the industry off entirely in life. Standing here, surrounded by them, had made him guarded. His arms squeezed together. His torso became more compact.

The words spoken by that terrible aberration haunted him, wrapped around his neck, and whispered into his ear. How could he not notice? How ugly he was, suckling from the hand of whoever offered him sanctuary.

Nightfall guaranteed that the hospital was less busy than usual.

Ginger hair, cleft chin, and almond eyes. A middle-aged woman manned the front desk. Her glasses were buried into the screen of her computer while her fingers hammered away at the keys. Chairs were decorating the front of the hospital, where individuals could wait to be serviced. They were all empty, sparing two seats, whose cushions were filled by haggard bodies.

Silence - save for those keys, clicking and chirping against the stainless white walls. The faces of the inhabitants were hollow masks. Whether it was grief or melancholy, Ilia could not tell. The ambiance was somber and disquieting. Another reason why he dreaded hospitals. A woman hunched over, hands locked in prayer with her forehead pressed firm enough against her hands to crease the skin. Ilia wondered if she would still be practicing if she knew what manner of creature she was pleading to. A feathered face flashed across his consciousness. The image elicited a quiet grumble from his lips.

He parked his body across from the desk attendant and hovered over her. No reaction. She remained busied by whatever stole her focus, face buried into the light-emanating screen. Ilia tapped impatiently at her desk. One second passed, another, then a third.

"Excuse me?" he spoke with a voice that was unnaturally loud for the environment.

The woman slowly turned her focus upwards onto him. The apparent annoyance was obvious in her features. She glared at him wordlessly. When he did not answer right away, she rolled her eyes.

Ilia bit his tongue.

“Hello. We are here to visit a guest at your - “

“Name?” she interrupted rudely, voice sharp and distinct. Ilia leaned forward with both hands clasping the edge of the desk. Bitter old crone. Trading professionalism for rudeness under the guise of business.

“Ilia. The person we want to visit is called Miles.” The urge to reach over the counter and feed her head to the mechanical keyboard she tapped was strong. He settled with taking a voice laced with passive aggression. It would be easier to flick the hourglass in his pocket and stride in, if only they knew where the room was. Searching would take forever, making a play here might save them some time. If only this woman was not already proving to be so formidable.

"Relationship to this patient?" she asked. She was irreparably, distinctly, unmistakably, unimpressed. The attendant was unable to even speak a sentence without following it with a roll of her eyes or a scrunched lip.

"I-" He stumbled over his words slightly, he had never visited a hospital before and knew nothing of their procedures. "I'm a friend," he returned. When the woman looked unconvinced, he continued, "And I am visiting with some of his family. They'll be here soon."

With a smile stretched wide across her face, she hovered over her keyboard and leaned right into his face. Ugly red lipstick stretched over lips that Ilia believed, were too wide to compliment her face. "Then ... why don't you wait for them?" She fell back into her seat.

"ELYN!!!" He let his voice ring out. "Miles' dear sister is here to visit her brother!"

He hated hospitals.

Blood On The Shoreline

 

[Clockwork_Magic]

Mei Hayashi
The Inferno Beneath the Mask

Location: PHU Sorority Row -> Sigma Delta Theta Sorority House
Interactions: Alma ( Gh0stOcean ), Naomi ( Klown ), Gerald ( TheRealAngeloftheStorm )
​

There was always something going on during university nights, it seems that was true here in SF as it was back down in LA. The night was filled with the sound of drunken laughter, the party it rang out from being the target for this job. Mei was no stranger to university parties, granted that was only because her friends dragged her out of her room when she wasn't busy cramming for an 8AM psychology exam the very next morning. To be completely honest, it wasn't really her kind of scene, but it made her friends happy. The sounds of dozens people, strangers, yelling, laughing, and whatnot was a bit overwhelming for her, but at least her friends stuck by her to keep her company.

However, at that moment, it was not the sounds of a party a few blocks away that drew most of her attention. The young Agent, clad in a casual white spring dress, stood in a dim alleyway, a little ways away from the comparatively brightly light sidewalk, feeling as if her heart were about to burst from her chest, her fingers trembling a little as she held the small object in her hand. There was no harm in it, right?

Absolutely not, young lady! Don't you go touching those things! She could hear her parents lecture even now when she asked about it out of curiosity once, being the most lengthy lecture she received until the one they gave her after she had gotten her tattoo.

Mei... Stay away from that stuff, for me, okay? Ayaka was always gentle with her words. She was always there for her two younger siblings growing up and always knew just what to say. To Mei, she was her shining North Star and the kindest soul she knew. If only she could have been there that day... No matter how bright the light of kindness was, one should not underestimate the power of distance to dim it until it's light can no longer be felt, as if it were never there in the first place.

You'll get lung cancer and die if you do that. Masayuki was always the more direct of her two older siblings with his words. That he could be so honest, it was a bit of an admirable thing. It helped ground the youngest Hayashi from time to time, but other times... Well... perhaps she wouldn't even be in this situation if he weren't like that...

The girl left out a hefty sigh. "...What does it matter anymore..." I'm already dead... She muttered under her breath to no-one in particular as she lifted the butt of the cigarette into her mouth. One final act of rebellion, in a way. Every bit of it felt wrong, her reasonable conscience screaming for her to throw the cigarette in the trash where it belonged.

But at least now she was feeling something in these 3 long, mind numbing weeks. It's wasn't bad enough that she was run down by some goddamn fucking lunatic, what was all this about working for an owl and chasing down literal nightmare fuel with superpowers? It was a dream, it had to be. That's what she told herself over and over when she first got thrown into the Regenesis, that it'll all blow over and she'll wake up any second now and all of this will just be a fleeting fever dream. But as seconds turned to hours and hours to weeks, the reality of the situation began to set in. She was indeed dead, and this was no dream.

She lifted her hands to the cigarette that hung from her mouth, her right hand covering the end of the cigarette, a typical thing to shield the flame produced by the smoker's lighter from the wind. But in this case, the gesture wasn't only a practical one to shield a lighter's flame from the wind, for the young woman had no lighter. Instead, Mei held her left index finger against the end of the cigarette, obscured from view, from which a flame erupted from the tip of her finger. A small and gentle flickering light that burned hot all the same.

It didn't take long for the end of the cigarette to begin smoking. It was only now, that she had gotten this gotten this far, did she realize she may have overlooked something.

...How do you even smoke one of these anyways? Do I just... inhale?

Well, no other way to find out now. Mei gathered herself before eventually taking that first drag... and then promptly starting to violently cough up her lungs. If any nicotine made its way far enough into her system to cause any sense of euphoria, you can sure as hell bet that she wasn't feeling any of it over the pain in her esophagus and chest.

Once she stopped coughing up her lungs and the pain subsided, a sigh of defeat escaped the young Agent as she leaned against the wall, gazing up at the stars above. "Watashi wa ittai nani wo shiteiru no... (What the hell am I doing...)" It wasn't often that she spoke in her ethnic language, the circles she hung around back before the accident not necessitating such frequent use, really only being used when she talked with her family. But now, she couldn't even do that.

"Soro soro ikou ka na... (I guess I should get going...)" Mei threw down the cigarette onto the pavement, crushing it under the sole of her shoes, snuffing out the fledgeling flame. As she shifted her weight away from the wall, she slapped her own face a few times, taking a deep breath as she did so. The Agent stepped out from the shadows and into the light of the sidewalk, the sounds of the party getting louder as she neared the property, a small pang of bitter nostalgia ringing out within Mei, going as fast as it appeared. While she was at it, seeing her hands were free she pulled out her Seraphim issued Nokia, fighting with the clunky keyboard to send out a text to the other Strixiel agents that she was supposed to be working with.

> OMW, see you guys inside. If you see me, my name is Haruki.

Aaand send. Her gray-golden eyes lingered on the contacts page for a bit after she sent the message, filled with a bunch of unfamiliar names with only 3 of them ringing any significant bells, of course being the names of the ones she was working with on this job. Even then, she wasn't too familiar with them, not having worked with them in the past 3 weeks save for Gerald, the guy she'd been partnered up with for all that sleuthing work for the past 5 days.

Yet despite being assigned to the same info gathering mission, there wasn't a lot of opportunities for social talk outside of sharing info with each other, the two deciding that the best approach would be to divide and conquer their investigation of the people at PHU at the beginning. He would handle the faculty and staff at the school while Mei would look into the student population. And so for the past 5 days, she'd been sitting in at random lectures throughout the day under the excuse of "I'm on the waitlist." Turns out it works extremely well as long as you're not dealing with a professor that actually cares about attendance. Bonus points for it being able to explain if you never show up to that class again.

The next one on the list was one of, if not the first, person to try to talk to her ever since arriving at the Hotel: Naomi. But it wasn't like Mei was exactly in a mood to respond to a conversation at that point, giving her a bit of the cold shoulder for her first several days in whatever kind of afterlife this was. Looking back on it, that was kind of a rude thing to do, huh? Well, at least Mei knows she's friendly enough. She's also apparently the one she needs to keep from contacting this "Mellor" guy from Glauciel's Team according to her own nocturnal bird of a boss. Best to keep the gossip from spreading... I guess...

The last of the 3 names Mei had never put a name to a face, but she knew it through the grapevine of other Strixiel Agents she's worked with on the few jobs before this one. A witch, they called her in their gossip during whatever downtime they had. Said she was cursed and will curse anyone they are assigned to a mission with. Surely it was just gossip, right? Those animals back at the Hotel wouldn't give one of their own underlings a curse on purpose, right? And besides... Isn't our being here a kind of a curse itself? Well, there's only one way to find out if that is true, now that she were teamed with this so-called "Witch."

Having been lost in her thoughts the entire walk there, it felt like barely 5 minutes have passed since she left the alley way. Her heart once again began to adopt a bpm not too dissimilar to the bass boosted track they were playing in the house right now. Just breathe Mei... all you need to do let that girl let you in... She steadied her nerves, as she approached the blonde woman at the entrance. It was time for her to dawn her mask. "Hey! This is the Sigma Delta Theta party right?"

"Yea, sure." The blonde looked Mei up and down, the silverheaded Agent starting to get a little nervous as she did so. "Hey, you're a new student here, aren't you?"

"Huh? Oh, yea. I just transferred here from SoCal."

"Oh, where from?"

"UCLA." Whenever Mei had to lie, her nerves gradually getting the better of her in a war of attrition that, if gone on long enough, she would eventually lose, either by backing out or being found out by cascading blunders. But over time, she learned a pretty good way for her to keep that at bay: lie by using snippets of the truth whenever possible.

"No shit, LA? I hear the parties down there are pretty fire!" It looks like she was getting on the bouncer's good side. Good! That was good! Now all she needs to do is keep this up so she can get in. "They are! And the beach is right there, it was great! But... y'know, the academics down there were killing me so I came here."

The blonde nodded in understanding. "I totally feel that! But you know what, we can party just as hard up here as you guys down in SoCal!" Mei allowed a chuckle to escape her, though it was probably out of nerves more than anything, but at least it was in line with this conversation. "Well, why else would I be here?"

The pause in the conversation after she declared her intention felt like an eternity as the bouncer once again seemed like she was scrutinizing Mei's appearance. Mei's heart was properly racing now. Please just let me in... don't make this any harder than it needs to be...

"What did you say your name was again?"

"H-huh? Oh, um, Haruki Miyamori. Psychology." Of course, she couldn't use her real name, her death certificate must have been processed by now. A girl with the same name and look of a dead girl appearing is a recipe for either a faked death conspiracy or the birth of a brand new ghost story on the internet. Either way, not good.

"Psychology... psychology..." The blonde repeated to herself as the "standoff" continued. "I feel like..." Her eyes looked Mei over until her gaze landed on the tattoo on her right arm. "Oh, yeaa, no wonder I felt like I've seen you before..."

"W-What do you mean by that?" This is it. The attrition is catching up with her. She's lost the battle. Any more of this and she's sure to cave in or be discovered. Any moment now she's about to be told to get lost. However, instead of being met with a look of scorn, she was met by a smile. "You're in Professor Johnson's Wednesday lecture on social psychology aren't you? I knew that tattoo looked familiar! Pretty cool, girl!"

"O-Oh, this? Y-yea, um, thanks... Oh! But I'm just on that class's waitlist..." All of a sudden, the blonde gave Mei a pat on the shoulder, making the silverhead jump in her skin a little. "Tell you what, Haru!"

We're on a nickname basis already???

"You just enjoy yourself inside and leave the waitlist thing as a tomorrow problem! Don't worry, I'll vouch for you this time, you seem chill enough!"

A few seconds passed as Mei was processing those words before she eventually snapped back to reality. "Ah! Alright then!" She made her way through the entrance, before she could change her mind. "See ya around!" "Catch ya later!"

The Agent let out a long exhale. In an ordinary situation, you'd think it would be appropriate to say "the hard part is over." Not in this line of work fighting literal nightmares. It's just all hard and harder parts. Now was time for one of the harder parts: finding Onore. And just taking a look around, she began to get a bit of a headache, both at the task ahead of her and from the environment in which she had to perform it.

I hope the others get here soon...

 

[lyn.]

Even on screen, hospitals left Elyn uncomfortable. Other than the occasional check-up, she did not frequent them when she was alive. Even when her mother died, Elyn only heard about it from a phone call, no memory tainted her experience in a hospital, and yet all the same, it left her unnerved.

Maybe the unnatural white aesthetic caused it, the strange attempt to come off as clean, that only gave Elyn a headache. Nothing happened in hospitals to match the look, something directors were all too aware of. There was an unnatural amount of scenes of main characters being attacked in hospitals.

She blew out a loud breath as she lingered in the doorway. Her attention left Ilia’s the moment he began speaking to the receptionist and instead focused on the hallway behind her. Chairs sat on the sides of the hallway, empty other than the occasional person strolling through. Two women sat on the left side, a mother and daughter, by the looks of it. The daughters hand was encased in the mothers, her leg jumping rapidly.

Elyn stared, a bad habit she picked up after she died. Her death was both meaningful and meaningless, a search for a purpose she did not have when she was alive. But where would she be now, if she were alive? Here, but all alone, unchanged? Maybe the daughter was ill, and the mother’s bouncing knee was a nervous tick. Or maybe it was the reverse, maybe the mom was seeking comfort from her child, from the unknown.

Elyn jumped at Ilia’s voice, a visceral reaction that had her whipping her head around, looking for danger. Not until she processed Ilia’s words did she relax, and then immediately tense up again. She spotted the receptionist's eyes on her and cleared her throat, inwardly cursing at anything and everything and Ilia.

She approached the front desk, fists gripping at her sleeves as she ran through every show or movie she’d ever seen. Most portrayals of siblings were false, she knew, but it wasn’t like she had anything else to source from. She was an only child, spoiled and bored. What the fuck was she supposed to say?

“Um,” fuck, fuck, fuck, she hadn’t even been listening to what Ilia was saying beforehand. “I’m here to see my brother,” a monotone awkwardness came out as she struggled on what to do with her features. Don’t siblings usually insult each other? “Miles, he.. almost drowned.”

The receptionist leaned her head into her hand. Dull eyes filled with disbelief. “Are you now?” Her head tilted, her gaze pointed, and Elyn shuffled nervously. “If you don’t mind me asking… what’s your last name?”

“We’re step-siblings,” Elyn responded, a bit too fast for her liking, a nervous glance to Ilia. “I never bothered to learn my stepmoms maiden name.” She brushed her hair behind her shoulders. The best lies are half truths, hopefully that rang true. Elyn never remembered her stepfathers last name, her first true sight of it on her mother’s headstone.

Silence stretches too long, and then the receptionist lets her hand drop with a thud. “No, both of you fuck off.” And returns her focus to the computer in front of her with an eye roll.

Elyn’s not shocked she failed, but still turns to Ilia with a shocked frown. Lost as to what to do next. Trying again was not on her list of thoughts. She had fucked up their easy chance in just a few words. She watches shows she doesn’t act in them!

glauciel

elyn

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  Zedalith Togy Wyll

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Wyll]

The Sister

Onore
Akir

Somehow, her friends always managed to get her into the most disagreeable situations. Two weeks ago, they'd gotten her to agree to go on a blind triple date - every word in that phrase sounded was nightmare fuel on its own. The three of them together was...a mortifying thought. And yet, they had convinced her to go.

A couple weeks before that, there was a concert with thousands of people that they insisted that Onore hadn't lived until she went to the concert. Se didn't care much for whether or not they thought she had lived - for her, as long as she knew she was alive, that counted as just enough proof of being alive for her.

The question then would be why did she go? The answer was a simple one - they were her friends. Even before the town gave itself to madness and there was news about killings going around, Onore had always seen herself as the protector - or the mama hen - of her friend group.

She'd be the one who chased away any guys that were a little too confident, she's the one that was always the designated driver because she never got tipsy, and she was also the one in charge of making sure that nobody got roofied. In fact, she was on roofie duty right now. Her two friends had gone off somewhere. From where she sat, she could see one bumping and grinding against some guy from class that just a few days ago had been her study partner. The other one was completely out of sight. Not good. I could swear I saw her not more than two minutes ago.

She'd watched the drinks so far and knew nobody had put anything in them, so she simply walked up to both and downed them. Now there was nothing to roofie and she could go find her friend in good conscience.

She began making her way through the part guests, sliding her way between shoulders and hips and invisible clouds made of a chaotic combination of the smells of sweat, cologne, perfume and vomit. The smells was enough to make her want to rush out to grab some air. But she needed to find her friend first.

Maybe she was outside? Kill two birds with one stone? It was optimistic to hope for but was a far more feasible and practical ocean than searching this sea of hundred of people for someone who barely passed her neck.

The deafening noise from the speaker was also finally getting to her, given that her search had brought her ever so slightly closer to the speakers. Yeah, forget this. I'm starting my search outside. The other friend seemed perfectly content against their dance partner and didn't really give Onore much to worry about.

Going back outside, she gave a quick wave to the blonde at the door, slipping past her without incident. Onore got around the school enough that it was rare to run into a group of people that didn't know her from somewhere, so she never quite had troubles getting in or out of things - the problem was the at was always too busy to make the time to actually do those things - except on a day like today where her friends more or less kidnapped her.

Green eyes scanned the faces of people outside and a small frown formed on her face as she realised that her friend was nowhere to be seen. Best case scenario, she was simply back inside and probably had to use the toilet or something. Worst case scenario, she'd come out her and had been dragged off. But surely, if that was the case, the blonde at the door would have seen and said something. That in mind, she'd chosen to believe that nothing terrible had happened and she would find her friend right she they last left off.

However, in the short time that she had been at the part, he phone had already gone crazy with text messages from people she was mentoring. Thankfully, the questions were basic and only required simple and brief answers - for the most part at least. She probably needed to give some time for her friend to finish from wherever it was she was hiding, so she took that time to get back to her students. Leaning against one of the columns, she started furiously typing, trying to get through as many of the questions as she could before something wild happens that she'll need to take care of.

Mentions:

 

[Wyll]

The Caretaker

Mellor
Akir

When he was alive, being late wasn't really something that happened a lot with Mell - punctuality was always something he took very seriously. Ever since he became an agent and got access to portals, he had even less of an excuse to be late anywhere and to anything. However, on this ocassion, Mell was late - and profoundly so.

He'd spent the morning practicing a new trick he'd been working on and was pretty sure he'd perfected. He could now bring things along with him whenever he teleported, no longer needed to create entire portals for things that would be more convenient to bring with him. He'd briefly considered how it would work on a mission with a real person but, alas, just the time alone it took to figure out how it would work with an inanimate object made him late to the mission and he wasn't looking to be much later.

With the wonders of teleportation, getting to the front of the hospital barely took any time and, from there, he quickly made his way through the hospital to where he was able to find Ilia and Elyn. It seemed as though Elyn was trying to convince the receptionist about something. He hadn't been here for the first half of the conversation but he figured that they were trying to get a way to see the survivor.

“No, both of you fuck off.”

Well, that's a good enough idea how things are going over here. He popped up between Ilia and Elyn. He was going to suggest that Ilia try charming her but, one look at Ilia's face told Mell everything he needed to know. The green-eyes agent couldn't help but give a little chuckle. It was interesting seeing the stoic Ilia rattled.

He smiled as he turned to the receptionist. "I gotta say, I don't think I've ever seen him make that face before and it looks like I have you to thank for that." He considered trying to spin some kind of lie but figured Ilia and Elyn must have already done something similar. Plus, she didn't exactly have the "easy to lie to" face. And so Mellor figured it couldn't hurt to try a new route.

"Listen, you obviously know we're not related to him. But I also think you're way too smart and way too busy to be sitting back here. So let's make a deal?" He had hoped for some sound or indication of interest but all he got was a raised brow and her shoulders relaxing a little bit. Her eyes locked on him, Ilia and Elyn seeming to move to the back of her mind. He waited to see if she'd say anything but it seemed like she was waitinf ro the same from him.

Not expecting to make it this far, Mell shrugged and continued with the first thing to come to his mind. "We're friends of his," Mell began. "And nobody's telling us anything but lies. We just want to be able to go see how he's doing for ourselves. So, here's the deal. I'll take your spot for as long as you want. I'll even turn off the computers and tell people that the server is down and they're going to have to come back later. Make sure absolutely nobody gets past me. In the meantime, you go do whatever you want, and my friends her go check on our friend."

She was quiet for a couple seconds, but her expression was not impressed. "Really? That's your offer? I just fuck-off and you fill my boots for a few minutes ... and that's it?"

Mellor looked between Ilia and Elyn, shrugging before looking back at the receptionist? "Is...that a maybe?"

There was a smile on her face, the expression behind which he couldn't quite place. She leaned in, gazes locked with Mellor and, reflexively, he leaned in as well, almost as if the two were sharing a secret. "No. No-no-no. That won't do. We can use a few interns, no one wants to work these days. So ... my generation, gets stuck doing a job that you should be doing. You volunteer, for free - for a week. And we have a deal."

All Mellor heard from everything she said was that they had a deal and that was enough to cause his face to light up with a relieved and proud smile, staring the receptionist directly in the eye. "One week interning with you? Where's the downside, you have yourself a deal."

He turned back to his team and gave a big, bright, stupid smile that essentially said "I don't know what just happened, but it worked out".

He stood back up to his full height and made his way around the desk to where the receptionist was. "One week of volunteering and you get the night off. Come on. I know you have more important things to do. Let me take this off your hands."

She considered Mellor closely, her gaze carving an outline of his features. Finally, she sighs and stands up, giving Mellor the space. "I expect your name and a phone number at my desk when you leave or I will file a police report for trespassing. Room 216, on your left."

Mellor smiles and nods. "Name and number" what's the number for? "Room 216. Thank you...ah...what should I call you? Gonna need a name if we're going to be spending the next week getting to know each other." he commented as the receptionist moved to walk past him.

Mentions: Ilia ( Zedalith ), Elyn ( lyn. )

 

[Gh0stOcean]

The Witch of Strixiel

alma rhys

location

Pacific Heights University, Sigma Delta Theta Sorority House

tags

Gerald ( TheRealAngeloftheStorm ), Naomi ( Klown ), Mei ( Clockwork_Magic )

The two made for an odd pair.

Alma had seen Gerald on a few occasions in the past. But he had been mysteriously absent up until a day or two ago, when Strixiel debriefed his Agents and informed them that two of the newer Agents had been scoping out this area due to reports of Aberrant activity.

Gerald had been one of these new hires. The other, she assumed, had gone on ahead of them. With her having infiltrated the area as a student from the nearby campus, it would make sense for her to be the first point of contact at the party since she was local to the area.

Granted, Alma was also local to the area. Or at least, so went her current cover story. She didn’t have the three weeks of infiltration time that the other Agent—Mei, if she remembered correctly—had been given. As far as she was concerned, she was a new transfer student from somewhere posh—Harvard or Yale, she figured. Some kind of punishment by her father to teach her humility or something of the sort. Given his apparent age, Gerald could not quite use the same cover story as herself.

Thus, she decided to make him her attendant.

It wasn’t pretty, and it certainly wasn’t a very prideful story, but she didn’t care for that at the moment. The goal was to infiltrate the party, and Gerald’s previous cover story of being Mei’s cousin wouldn’t cut it. This had a higher likelihood of success, as far as she could tell.

“Follow my lead. Refrain from speaking without being prompted. An attendant would be trained to do so.” She explained in her calm and quiet voice. Yet behind that calmness seemed to be an underlying layer of anger, perhaps apathy. After getting to spend two weeks entirely to herself, she was now being made to work with others again. And given that Strixiel’s Agents were assigned to the house party, that all but guaranteed one thing:

She was also going to be here.

“Once we enter, we will split off. Find somewhere inconspicuous where you can have a good vantage of the party-goers, and attempt to spot our mark. Text me if you have visual, and ensure she does not leave your sight.” Alma turned to face her “attendant,” eyeing him and his half-foot height advantage. “I cannot imagine finding a good view will be difficult for your stature.”

“Sure, milady.” Gerald drawled. The unruly mop that he called his hair had been straightened out and slicked back. His clothes were as neat as they could be. Tie straightened, shirts ironed. Unfortunately the trusty white coat he always hung over his shoulders had been left behind at Regenesis. He’d even managed to sneak in a drag before his teammate had all but commandeered him into doing her bidding, without so much as a by-your-leave. “I live to serve.”

Had it been anyone else saying it, or even had it been Alma two weeks ago, her comment about Gerald's height may have almost sounded like a compliment. But there was a cold venom to her words, almost spite. She knew she had no reason to behave as such towards Gerald, especially given this was their first proper mission together. But she couldn’t afford to make the same mistakes she previously had. She had to keep her distance. Having another Naomi incident would bode poorly for her.

They want a Witch? They’ll have their Witch, Alma thought to herself with a callous sense of resolve.

Gerald eyed her back as they marched up to the building. No-nonsense, straight to the point. He liked that. No doublespeak or trying to smooth things over with empty platitudes. His work never really involved acting, so Gerald deferred to his senior in that regard without shame. A little thorny, but everyone had their quirks in the afterlife.

Approaching the door, she quickly brushed out any wrinkles from her clothes. Alma dressed herself in a manner she believed indicative of someone from a high-end school. A maroon argyle sweater vest over top of a simple white button-up, a matching maroon plaid skirt, and black leggings that ended in shined black Mary Janes.

In Gerald’s arms—who dressed much the same way he generally did, which to Alma was more than suitable for his role—was a dark tan pea coat. Alma had no real intention of wearing it, but she believed having him carry one of her personal effects would help to sell the act.

Feeling suitably presentable, Alma approached the guardswoman posted up by the door.

“Good evening,” she said, giving a small bow—practically no more than a nod, “I am here to attend the Sigma Delta Theta gathering.”

Eyebrow cocked, the guardswoman eyed Alma up and down, pursing her lips. “You? Coming to attend a party here? What’d you do, fly all the way down from Harvard for this?” She let out a small chuckle, surely believing such an absurd scenario wouldn’t be possible.

It sounds like she has chosen for me.

“Yes, I have,” Alma stated quite bluntly, watching the guardswoman do a small double-take. “Though, to be more accurate, I was sent here by my father. He told me the rich air of an Ivy League school left me socially stunted, and told me I needed to ‘learn better etiquette through mingling with a more diverse populace’.” She scoffed. “Some nerve. Can you believe him? Anyway, if you would not mind—”

“Hold on there, Miss Wall Street,” as Alma attempted to push past towards the door, the guardswoman raised an arm, blocking her path. “Matter of fact, I can’t believe him. Neither can I believe you. What’s your name?”

Alma clicked her tongue in mock disdain. “How untowardly. Very well, if you must know, my name is Allison Rhea. Perhaps that may sound familiar to you?”

“Nope. Haven’t heard it, haven’t seen it, and more importantly, haven’t seen you either. You say you just transferred? Because it would certainly take a lotta balls for a preppy girl like yourself to go to a sorority party on her first night on a new campus.” The blonde woman turned her attention to Gerald. “And you, what’s your deal? You look a little old to be at a college party. Especially a sorority party.”

Gerald kept his face remarkably straight under the verbal barrage. Not many in the sorority had seen him while he was conversing with the faculty, if this girl hadn’t recognized him.

Meanwhile, Alma watched a drunk man shotgun a beer and run across the front yard, ripping his shirt off partway through.

“...You seem to have no issue allowing brutes of the male persuasion to attend.”

“Please, Barry? He wouldn’t hurt a fly; he’d sooner hurt himself trying to swat it if he tried. It’s pretty obvious he’s not the killer. I can’t say the same for your friend here. So, like I said, what’s your deal.”

“I would sincerely appreciate it if you would stop attempting to intimidate my manservant,” Alma responded with a venomous tone. “He is here to assist me in daily life, and also to serve as an escort. As you’ve mentioned, there is a not-insignificant threat across the area as of late, and to expect a girl with as frail a constitution as myself to walk across such a dimly lit campus at this hour is to wish a grim fate upon me.”

“Yeah, yeah, recite poetry at me all you want, Edna Allan Poe. You’re not getting in. Go try to sneak into some other party, hell, I bet the Rho Theta Pi guys won’t even check you in.”

Alma’s face contorted into frustration; not the faux frustration of a private school girl trying to go to her first party, but genuine anger that her cover story came to fail her and impede her progress. It was clear that they wouldn’t have much of a way to sneak in, not with this woman keeping a close eye on the perimeter.

Fuck this.

“We don’t have time for this, Gerald,” Alma spoke, reaching up towards her hourglass pendant, hung from a chain at about chest level, “let’s just get in there and get this over with.”

“Now hold on there, Allison Hamilton,” the blonde reached for the mace at her side, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing but—”

She stopped.

Her words hung loosely in the air. Her hand did not move any closer to the mace.

The music from within the house abruptly stopped. The idle white noise of several students chatting disappeared.

Barry, having slid on the damp grass, froze mid-tumble.

Gerald hummed as the world stilled. The brisk breeze and the chill night was smothered, hollowed. Expressions were frozen; the low din of whatever the little shits inside were listening to was silenced; muscles and tendons and limbs all ceased in their motions. All around him and at the brushing of fingers against an hourglass, the living settled into place - a snapshot of a scene taken without care for those in the frame.

No time for this, he thought, tugging at his collar. Sure. Stop time after claiming that we don’t have enough swings of the pendulum left.

Gerald brushed thoughts of the sword hanging over his neck and the claws that held it aloft aside. “Guess that’s our way in.”

Alma released the pendant, which gave off a soft, blue glow. She looked at all the frozen faces around her, many of whom were in the middle of having a conversation, perhaps having a sip of their drink. She clenched her fists. It felt unprofessional of her to have to resort to such a tactic, but then again, why did she care? It hardly mattered to her that freezing time could potentially inconvenience her fellow Agents.

It’s not like they cared about her anyway.

“Come on,” she called for Gerald as she walked up the wooden porch steps towards the door, finding that she had to put her weight into pushing it open after finding more frozen bodies blocking it from swinging freely. “I’ll take the kitchen, living room, lower bathrooms, and the backyard. You focus on the rooms upstairs and keeping an eye on the party from above.”

He threw Alma’s coat on his shoulder. “I’ll get to it. Holler if you found her. ”

code by @Nano

 

[ERode]

AURS Pilgrim59 Klown

Angie had come up with a whole plan for this, really. They did their preliminary scouting, got their hands on the schedule for evening classes, figured out security guard rotations (there were none, a 50 year old guy just walked wherever he wanted for eight hours), and even went on a shopping trip with Anna to get her some college-student-type clothes. It looked cute on the heiress, but then again, she could pull off anything with her fine European looks. And meanwhile, Angie even did her whole hackerman schtick and social maneuvered her way into acquiring all kinds of keys and passwords and all to make avoiding the public even easier.

Really impressive stuff. She seemed to be taking some lessons from the Wally job to heart. It was fun too, doing that 'tape on the door' technique to ensure that one of the side doors remained unlocked for them to use.

...

"Well," Qing-Yi said, patting her friend on the shoulder, "It's still better to have been safe than sorry."

The door opened. Time had frozen. Free from the risk of being caught on CCTV, she walked without worry through the brightly-lit hallways, her fingers running along locks rented out to students who didn't want to haul twenty pounds of paper with them everywhere they went. The janitorial staff would probably come out in a bit, but that 'bit' was an infinite eternity due to the work of the Seraphim, leaving them all free to search for the Aberration. There was just one other student left in the building, caught mid-step through the hallway, but without the benefit of 'motion', Qing-Yi didn't even recognize him as a suspicious individual. Who didn't arrange for clandestine trysts in college? Who didn't sleep through an evening class and had to regain their bearings while bleary-eyed and embarrassed?

There was the question, of course, of which other squad had stopped time to begin with, and when time would be restarted, but for the time being, she simply waved for the others to join her in the space behind the stairs, away from any security cameras, before asking, "So I brought some spray cans for any mirrors we come across, but what's the plan for finding the Aberration?"

She motioned to the bulging pockets of her thrift store varsity jacket. If Nyctiel warned them about reflections, then they just needed to remove all reflections. That wouldn't break the veil, right? It'd just be a college student prank!

 

[Klown]

LOCATION: Pacific Heights University, Outside Sigma Delta Theta Sorority House
INTERACTIONS: ONORE Wyll MEI Clockwork_Magic ALMA Gh0stOcean GERALD TheRealAngeloftheStorm

A beacon of bad decisions fueled by frenzied yearning and a promise of feckless abandonment of one’s reservations. Students shackled by the hindering pressures of exhaustive lectures and horrifying threats succumbed to a night of weightless carousing. Naomi saw it in the inebriated sways of dancing bodies, heard it in the raucous laughter of obnoxious groups, and—unfortunately—smelled it in the thick, stuffy heat of the crammed space.

There was a numbing comfort to unceremonious parties like these. The bass of music that rattled bones, the constant social engagement, the unending cups of beer that dimmed the senses. Here, Naomi was just another warm body among dozens. A potential friend, fling, enemy, or complication. That’s all she wanted to be right now. If she could, she’d press her ear against the pulsing speaker until the music shredded her brain, eviscerating her memories of Wally’s Adventure World.

Naomi had left for the mission early without prompting, her heart twisting between her ribs upon hearing the target’s name: Onore.

She knew—or hoped—it wasn’t targeted. Of all the mortals she socialized with during her arbitrary outings, it just so happened this one had caught the attention of an aberration. Sometimes, coincidences were more terrifying than design. And the tiny, venomous voice that hissed in the back of her mind dug its blame into her. Maybe this had been her fault for hanging around Onore too much.

“It’s fine. Nothing is going to happen to her.” She told her reflection, gathering all the ghosts of her determination.

“We will not let you die.” Like the tip of a scorpion tail hooked into supple skin. The bruise Alma had left darkened into a lurid wine since Wally’s Adventure world. Naomi tried hiding it behind careless smiles and unnecessary spending, but the sight of Alma jabbed its pointed finger into the wound to make it bleed anew. And now, assigned a mission once again, it was unavoidable.

Knowing all sense of normalcy would be violently ripped from her hands the moment the rest of her team made their debut, Naomi clung to Onore and her friends earlier in the day. They hit shopping centers for last minute outfits, trendy restaurants for a quick meal, and took photos to commemorate the experience. On their way back to campus, the grim tale of the recent tragedies was shared by Onore’s worried friends. Before Naomi could suggest they ditch the party and rent somewhere outside of campus to enjoy the night themselves, the volume was raised on a beloved song playing on the radio, the severity of the recent cases lost to the latest Pop hit.

Naomi’s delay in messaging the rest of Strixiel wasn’t purposeful. She’d been so caught up in the dress-up and the eventual arrival at the party that there hadn’t been a chance for her to pull out her phone and let hers and Onore’s status to be known. When attention on her waned enough through the aid of classmates unknown to her, she traversed the crowd with the ease of still waters. Swimming through cracks in groups with a sweet, “s’cuse me,” and placating touches, Naomi eventually slipped out through the back of the house, phone in hand.

— anyone have trouble gettin in? I can help if you need! ⸜( *ˊᵕˋ* )⸝

Her thumb hesitated over the send button for a second before it released the message. Deciding it’d be more useful for her to wait out front, Naomi ambled around the home’s perimeter to do just that. A good decision, ultimately, as the angle she emerged from revealed Onore stood outside the home leaning against a column.

“Rey-rey!” She yanked the reins on the pure panic that nearly flooded her voice upon seeing her there, completely unguarded.

Onore nearly jumped out of her skin at hearing Naomi shout her name, fumbling to keep her phone from falling out of her hands. Green, frantic eyes swept the area repeatedly until they found the famous—currently infamous—tuft of pink.

Quickly forcing a blindingly bright grin on her face, Naomi hasted towards Onore’s side and immediately hooked their arms together.

“What are you doing out here? You should be in there showing off that cute outfit we got you.” Her eyes surreptitiously peeked at Onore’s phone screen. “Are you seriously working right now?”

Having finally calmed down, Onore returned Naomi’s smile, but not before giving the pink-haired girl a flick on the forehead, to which Naomi immediately peeped in protest. “Forget what I am or am not doing, I was out here looking for you—where did you run off to? Don’t just disappear like that without telling someone.”

Naomi’s fingers rubbed her forehead, lips pushed into a slight pout. “It was just for a little sec! I had to send a text.” She innocently waved her phone before slipping it back into her pocket. “And I get that the grind doesn’t stop, but girl we’re at a party! If you’re going to be on your phone it better be you arranging something with a hot date.”

Onore rolled her eyes and bumped shoulders with Naomi playfully. “I don’t do dates—hot or cold—you know that.” The smile dropped from her face for a shadow of a second, honest concern whetting her features. “Seriously. Don’t go disappearing on me like that again, okay?”

There was a serial murderer on the loose lurking through campus shadows, ending the lives of those they found alone. The concern on Onore’s face tore through Naomi’s sails, her smile faltered by an inch. There’s a familiarity to the care in her eyes that undressed all the gravitas she fabricated for nights like these.

“Y-yeah, I know.” Naomi could feel her words quiver from her lips. Her mask was slipping. She quickly shoved it back on. “It was just for that text, I swear. Now I’m all yours for the evening. Lucky you, huh?” She flashed innocent eyes towards her friend, head coyly tilted to the side. Both Naomi’s hands reach down and wrap around one of Onore’s.

“How have you been, by the way? It sounds like things have been really scary here.” A tone like warmed honey, soothing and melting. A candid sincerity Naomi reserved for quiet moments between friends. “If you need help with anything at all, you know you can tell me. I know I’m traveling a lot,” It’s been her cover ever since she first stumbled upon Pacific Heights University, “but if you need me here then I can delay a flight or two.”

Onore denied a frown as Naomi asked how she’d been, not actually wanting Naomi to get worried and delay what she had going on in her life for the sake of someone else. That was Onore’s job. “Nothing too crazy. I’ve just been really busy - think I may finally, finally, have stretched myself too thin. I’ve even started misplacing things. Me! A few weeks ago, if someone told me I’d lose my favorite pens, I’d have told them they were insane. Turns out I’m the insane one,” she said with a dismissive chuckle.

Naomi’s brow arched at Onore’s disclosure. It seemed so inconsequential, but Naomi had never met anyone more organized than her. Color coded tabs in her specifically labeled journals, a pencil case you’d find in a catalog neatly showcasing each tool in its intended space. Nothing unsorted, nothing in disarray. There was something pestering her in the back of her mind. Unplaceable and unreachable, yet it filled Naomi with dread all the same. But, it was mundane enough that Naomi could also find humor in it.

“They were pretty looking pens. Someone must’ve been jealous and taken them. Aren’t they always in that cute little case of yours?”

Onore shrugged, choosing not to dwell too much on it - she’d already done far too much of that for her own mental health. “They usually are. Take and replace, always. But, like I said, time has just been flying by and it’s been hard to keep up. Lately it feels like I-”

She stopped talking. It took a second for Naomi to realize that she hadn’t choked on her words, but that time had choked on itself. She glanced around, confirming the stillness of everything around her. Someone must have used their hourglass. Sighing, Naomi pulled out her phone.

— someone stopped time? i’m outside the house with onore rn, anyone here yet? (๑•́ ₃ •̀๑) Mei?

written with Wyll

 

[AURS]

angie yeon ;

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  long-sleeved top, fitted leather midi skirt, chunky dr. martens boots.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  pacific heights university.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ERode Klown Pilgrim59 Zedalith
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

ANGIE HESITATED AT THE HANDLE.

NOT OUT OF FEAR, BUT BECAUSE, SERIOUSLY, WHO DESIGNS A SIDE DOOR THAT FEELS THIS FINAL?

The last remnants of students were long gone when the team arrived, leaving behind empty hallways bathed in the cold glow of exit signs, a labyrinth for the curious or the lost.

Night air hums. Soft rustles from the campus trees fill the silence like a held breath. The old lanterns lining the manicured terrace flickered faintly, casting uneven shadows.

By the door, fussing with an old trick she'd picked up years ago, they are one foot in the ordinary, the other, sinking into oblivion awaiting.

It felt...liminal.

Liminal was...probably not the best choice here. It felt — like the whole campus was waiting—for something to give. Like a heavy egg. Like a spoiled yolk.

“Still better to be safe than sorry,” Qing Yi murmurs. A pat on the shoulder snaps her back to present.

Angela huffs, a sound more acknowledgment than agreement. She should've saved her breath. What Angela lived for, though she'd be quick to say otherwise, was being safe, being protected.

Secure.

Her self-definition depended on preparation that would never be enough to ready her, and she hadn't truly faced that until Wally's job—

Her thumb traced a small scar on her palm, unconscious habit, but it made quite the home out of her. Living as one of the many notches left from all the unfair, fucked-up things she'd survived—etched into her skin, her bones, her thoughts. Things she couldn’t quite make tangible, yet she'd carved them out into neat lines, like sins turned into scars.

So deliriously miserable it whipped her like a fetish.

Fluorescent lights flickered on, spilling into the night as they slipped through the door. Angela looked out—but it was like sinking—drifting over the empty halls and polished tiles. A heaviness followed, where moving and being moved were one thing.

Soft protest, and fluorescent lights usher them in, pouring generously into the black night before she shuts the door.

"It's like a dead animal," she muttered.

Sterile. Husk-like. Dappled by a redolence of old textbooks and nights in putrefying in the bowels of a hagwon, the endless grind of it all, bubbling up like a failing suture.

"Not...not a bad thing, actually." better a dead animal than a rabid one, at its prime danger, lashing out without remorse. The odd comfort of a plan is like that too - a beast that does not fight back.

Maybe it wasn't about control, in that regard. Maybe.

It was about purpose. Something to anchor her mind. There's always comfort in a start and a finish. A set plan in place, even if many of the ones she came up with were the only viable options her mind could permit. It gives purpose to her semi-absentminded meandering, studying lockers, and open rooms with leaflets that—when pulled out—did in fact remain frozen in midair.

It gives reason to the aura of a burned-out martyress, who, like the boar in the hunter’s net, craved rigidity.

...

Qing-Yi gestured to the bulging pockets of her thrift-store varsity jacket.

Angie chewed the inside of her cheek—the scrape of raw, pink flesh oddly soothing as the lingering taste of blueberry Starburst turned her lips a pale shade of purple.

Reflections. Yeah, they'd been warned about that. But how many mirrors were they dealing with?

“We'll have to be thorough, but it shouldn't be the biggest problem. This place is more about glass—windows, reflective surfaces. That’s the real risk.” she said, rolling her shoulders, eyes narrowing on the last frozen figure lingering in the hallway. She circled him.

Caught mid-step, a single frame plucked from the reel of an infinite moment. His clothes, still gripped with perspiration clung to his contours like they were painted on. Wide unblinking eyes, pupils dilated to black holes that swallowed all light around them.

Those fucking birds could do something as horrific as this, yet justice be damned they give them a raise.

...

"I think we should strike."

Angela’s lips twitched—a brief tug between a frown and a smirk.

“But. If it’s here, it’s using those reflections to its advantage. Slipping through the gaps, maybe.” She paused, her gaze sharpening, mind working. “There's something off about that, though.”

She crouched, pressing her hand against the cold tile, the bite of it grounding her. If she were a mirror monster, she wouldn’t want to be seen. She’d want darkness, something to cover her movements, something to let her get at her victim through the cracks, unnoticed. But everything here was too bright, too polished. The floors shined like glass, the lights too harsh. It didn’t add up.

“Listen,” she whispered, looking up at them. "I think it's watching us right now. The tiles, the windows, even this poor bastard here. Anything reflective."

“That’s the thing about monsters, they live in plain sight. You just have to know where to look.” Her tone was business as usual—quiet, sharp, a little jagged. But this time, there was a subtle tremor beneath it, like a thread pulled too tight. Not fear. More like the weight of expectation, failure looming just out of sight.

Angela flicked her wrist toward the intersection ahead. "Elevator's in the center. We’ve got maybe a minute before any janitor stumbles into this wing. We’ll hit the basement first, then the lab. Lock down any reflective surfaces, see if we can flush it out."

Angela lingered for a moment longer, watching the frozen figure with a detached sort of curiosity. It always fascinated her, how things like this—serial killers, aberrations, monsters—moved through the world. In her documentaries, they always talked about patterns, signatures, rituals. How they often went unnoticed until...they didn't. Then, she glanced back at the others, her jaw tightening slightly. "No splitting up."

That did it for her, usually. The way they thrived in the blind spots, in the reflections no one cared to see.

She'd love to take an MRI to the mind of a monster.

no song linked

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Clockwork_Magic]

Mei Hayashi
The Inferno Beneath the Mask

Location: Sigma Delta Theta Sorority House
Interactions: Alma ( Gh0stOcean ), Naomi ( Klown ), Gerald ( TheRealAngeloftheStorm )
​

There wasn't any better place to start looking around the house than the living room. Stepping into the living room, you can just feel the reverberations of the song being blasted on the speakers in your bones. You'd think that someone with purple hair atop their head would be easy to find in a crowd, but so far, she's seeing absolutely nothing as she leaned against a wall, just so she wasn't awkwardly standing in the middle of the room.

"Heyo!" And that's when they walked up to her, a trio of 2 guys and one girl. It was one of the 2 guys talking, his two other friends that tagged along were too busy drunkenly flirting with each other. Mei didn't know them, their faces not ringing any bells from her short few days in PHU's lecture halls. "Whatdya say about getting a drink together." She held off the urge to wave away the stench of weed coming from his mouth. Pickup line of the year, ladies and gentlemen... Not even gonna ask me for my name first? The muscle tension in her head only grew.

"Uh, no. I'm good... I'm looking for my friends, thank you..." And you're definitely not my type anyways.

"Oh, come on! We got plenty of drinks out back in the yard!" The guy that didn't have a girl around his arms looked over and pointed in the rough direction of where the house's backdoor was. "Here, I can go grab one for yo-" The silver head was just thinking about slipping away right then and there when he suddenly went quiet. No, everything went quiet. The bass boosted track, the guys screaming "CHUG CHUG CHUG" in the kitchen, the annoying guy in front of her looking to pick up a girl to complete his double date, all of it. Finally, she can hear herself think!

The place didn't remain dead silent for long, the distinctive ping from her phone cutting through the stillness. This thing can work even now? You learn something new everyday... She pulled out her phone from her dress pocket, walking away from the drunken trio that approached her as she typed up a response. The good thing about time stopping in a crowded place like this filled with drunk people: you don't even need supernatural time powers to explain how you slipped away without being noticed.

> That wasn't me! I just got here like a minute ago! I'm inside the house, living room floor.

Mei let out a sigh. Since when the heck was Onore out there?! I didn't see her on the way in! They must have missed each other by seconds. If she had just taken her time walking, maybe she wouldn't even have to be in here right now! Well, at least they knew where she was now, so it looks like her job is shifting to suspicious activities watch. That abberation could be in this house right now, best to keep her wits about her. That is, if the party and party goers like that trio don't completely wear it down first...

Looking around at the time stopped party goers, it was the picture perfect visual representation of chaos. There were several guys in the kitchen mid chug on their n-th bottle, given all the empty ones on the table, that would make one think that the phrase “like no tomorrow” might actually be true for them, the guy mid backflip in the back yard visible through the back door window that doesn’t look like he’s going to stick the landing, the half a dozen people dangling from the upstairs railings like clothes on a drying rack, beer bottles in hand. She didn't see anything much out of the ordinary from where she was standing, so she returned her attention back to her phone, hitting send before heading off to somewhere less crowded.

> It's wild in here... I'll go check out the backyard.

 

[TheRealAngeloftheStorm]

Gh0stOcean Klown Clockwork_Magic

---

GERALD GRAHAM

The absence of motion and sound rankled at him. A space like this, crowded with throngs of rowdy students drinking and mingling, should be alive. Screaming into the night. There should be whispered words in corners, the tinkling of glass and drink, the steady stuttering of hearts. Instead there is nothing. The vagaries of the world had ceased. An emptiness born from a gesture - the mundane bending to the whims of the supernatural.

His feet dragged him up the stairs, each footfall echoing in the emptiness of stilled time. Gerald brushed past frozen figures, features locked in ecstasy, outrage and cheer. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking it loose and scanning the area for his target in the crush of students below. Fingers fished for a cigar, and soon he indulged himself in the moment, watching smoke freeze in the air.

Just for a little bit, he inspected Rhys’ work.

There was a fragility to this. A glass cage over a diorama that captured this scene for a brief swipe of the hand. All it would take is another tap, and all the world would rush in to fill the void once Rhys unfroze it.

One month into this… un-life, and Gerald struggled to discard the old ways. The ways he knew, when he hadn't been forcibly shuffled off the mortal coil. He slipped into old patterns, wearing worn gloves for a task it wasn’t meant for.

It helped when he questioned the faculty, wielding his false authority like a hammer to browbeat them into submission.. Just a private investigator, he’d sworn, taking off his glasses and frowning. His eyes had been firmly fixed on each and every one he’d managed to corner. He told them that certain individuals demanded answers and action now, rather than anxiously wait for the police to do their job.

The wheels of bureaucracy, ever so slow to turn, grinding progress to dust between it’s teeth- why, that was unacceptable. That’s why he was here.

Clerks and administrators were easy to push around. The slightest bit of pressure and their facades broke with all the resistance of the paper they thrived on. With the specter of the living haunting them, clawing at their windows and screaming for assurances, they were desperate to control the situation. Eager to soothe fears and allay doubt.

What better way to do so than through him, this ‘private investigator’?

So it went from there. Violent deaths, the threads of a mystery running through and entangling Pacific Heights University in its wake. Attached with it was the assuaging of concern and promises of heightened security. It was familiar ground. He’d tread upon it, made it his life’s work.

Then the night had come, and Gerald was reminded of where he was now - dancing at the edge of oblivion with claws carving bloody furrows in his skin, the one thing stopping him from plummeting into the dark below.

His eyes trailed over to the doors below, where the so-called Witch was no doubt trawling through the throngs of students for their quarry.
He was told that it was part of their toolkit., but Gerald never quite internalized it. His tools were words and a pair of foggy glasses. A badge, too. And if the situation ever escalated, then the gun was there. Magic? Never.

It was unsettling just how easily Rhys had resorted to it. A minor inconvenience, and she stopped time without a second thought.

A product of the environment, he thought. The afterlife was a place that did not care over much for the rational and the orderly. The other Agents were all mad in their own ways. But who wouldn’t be, when they were put in service by beings long relegated into the annals of Abrahamic lore to fight manifestations of man’s darkness?

They all said they had regrets. So the question-

Gerald jolted, fingers immediately bringing up his phone.

Magic bullshit, he thought, opening the most recent message and skimming the previous ones. He’d never met Amandine face to face - only a passing glance shot her way before they were all deployed together. Excellent work on her part.

> Rhys stopped time, guard rejected our entrance ploy. Time will resume soon. Eyes out for aberrations.

One pair of eyes on Onore was fine. The monsters were the tricky part. With an S-rank on campus, it was drawing its lesser ilk to the place like flies to honey, eager to feed off the misery the sorority had tried to curb with this display of defiance. Strixiel’s little note that he’d immediately burned with his cigar flashed in his mind’s eye.

His finger hovered over the button for a moment.

Strixiel had his reasons, he was sure. Gerald was keenly aware of the hourglass, each little grain of sand slipping down with every moment he tarried. A millstone around his neck.

Questions could come later. Would come later.

The moment he hit send, the world breathed, before-

-a roar of noise washed over him, and the sea of students began to move again. Dancing and weaving among each other. The music was thunderous, drums and vocals pounding in his ears. Peals of laughter echoed throughout the building as the world moved again, filled with life. No more unnatural stillness to stifle it all. As it should be.

Gerald removed his cigar and crushed it before hammering out another message.

> Keeping an eye out in the upper floors. Will rendezvous meet up after I do a sweep of the rooms here.

He felt someone brush past him just as he shot the message off. Gerald rose to his full height and turned around, gaze falling on an unsteady drunk.

“Fucking...” the stupid little shit slurred, arm wrapped around a girl’s shoulder, “watch it, man! Dooon’t stick your ass out. Fucking bitch.”

Gerald waved him off, ignoring the girl’s eyes wandering all over his frame. “Sure.”

Something flashed in his eyes, and the drunk stepped forward, a challenge forming on his lips before the girl tugged on his shirt and whispered furiously into his ear. The boy stepped back, huffing as he dragged himself away with his paramour in tow. Gerald waited until her eyes stopped boring a hole into his back.

Kids.

 

[Togy]

Fifth​

Fifth was not good.

He drifted aimlessly after the group, skin sickly from lack of sleep and an unending hangover. The hospital staff had mistaken him for an escaping patient at least three times, and he'd had to fight tooth and nail to stop them from dragging him to the ICU.

He'd thought he could do this. He'd thought he could pull himself together long enough to help the team. His first mission had dispelled any such thoughts. He couldn't, and he was an idiot for thinking he ever could. He couldn't even pull himself together when he was alive, when his daughter depended on him. He was resistant to change, maybe immune to it. He should have expected this, but it had been nice to pretend for a time. It had given him a purpose that carried him through the first few days-Something sorely missed now, leaving him listless and very, very drunk.

Fifth sat slumped across a waiting room chair, looking entirely at home among the ailing patients. A few people sitting near him shot him looks of sympathy-Under the assumption he was waiting for a badly needed appointment, clearly-but that only served to piss him off more than he already was.

The other three were ahead of him arguing with the receptionist. Ilia-Fucker-was spinning some bullshit story, and the girl-Who's name he couldn't remember-failed to back him up. He'd stopped paying attention after that, too busy with his own self-pity, but the next thing he knew Scotty had struck a deal to get them into the room.

Scotty seemed like a decent guy. Went to the effort of babying him his first mission and hasn't given Fifth any shit. Maybe if he spoke to the man for more than a minute Fifth would actually start to like him, but he dismissed the thought. Wasn't worth it.

The clean, sterile atmosphere of the hospital choked Fifth's lungs with anxiety. The busybody doctors and nurses fluttering by combined with the wheezes and coughs of the waiting patients to create a banal sensory overload. All Fifth could do was hold his head in his hands so he wouldn't develop a migraine-To block out the world around him so he didn't think too hard and end up a shivering ball in the corner like yesterday.

He had to take deep, calming breaths every now and then to stop himself from getting too worked up. Why was he sticking with the mission? He didn't give a shit about any of this, least of all the three assholes his new boss stuck him with. Surely as a joke, to make them babysit an unmitigated human disaster.

What else are you supposed to do? He thought, Sit on your ass and wait for the clock to run out?. Before he could entertain the dreaded thought of maybe, he pressed on. Just stick with it. Find your footing. You've pushed through worse.

That last part was a lie, but it did make him feel better.

Oxymoronically winning over his own defeatism, Fifth felt slightly better. Like he could still do something with his life, at least until he had enough time to think again. He breathed in, put on whatever false bravado he still had left in, and pushed himself to his feet.

Fifth almost keeled over as his vision swayed and his eyes crossed. Too fast-He'd already screwed up standing up, and the thought might have driven him to tears if he were thinking of anything other than 'Whoah...' as his vision settled back to normal and the static drained from his ears.

Someone had said something than someone followed up with something or other and now they were going somewhere for someone or something, or something like that.

He was really trying here.

Tags: Zedalith lyn. Wyll

 

[Zedalith]

ARC 2

TheRealAngeloftheStorm
He stood stark among the chattering faces. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a mien more akin to a professor than a student. Hedonism was the appointed uniform at this event; each person she questioned was aimlessly lackadaisical. Her questions were intrusions into the fragile peace they fabricated in their minds. Better to ignore, and turn their heads to the knife close enough to kiss the vellus hairs sprouting from their necks.

It was a curiosity as to what this man was seeking, sparkless eyes trailing, sifting through the masses in pursuit of something. More than that, she's heard of a man that fit his description, trudging his body along their campus. And asking questions to people who he had no authority to ask. As far as she could tell, he wore no badge. Two questions lingered at the back of her mind: Was he a kindred soul or the predator she sought to expose? There was no point in guessing or straining her mind overanalyzing the nuances of his body language. With arms apart she split the crowd, forging a straight-shot path to reach him.

"Watch where you're going?"
"What the hell?"

She ignored the offending voices. Her eyes were glued to his back, not even offering them a glance in apology. And why should she? They cared more about feeding their dopamine addiction than finding justice. In her path, she plucks a can of beer with her grasp. She raps twice at his back. One to indicate her presence. Another to grab his attention.

"Are you a cop?" She asked, playful. Her eyes were round and doe-like. The innocence seemed more like a mockery than genuine. She was a poor actor and for her debut - she played the role of a curious bystander. She lifts the tab of the beer can with a click. A mist sprays outward from the open cavity and she points the beverage towards Gerald as an offering. "You look tense, why not lighten up a bit?" she asks, turning her head to play spectator to the other ongoings of the party. Her focus lingers on him and she offers a sidelong glance of assessment.

"Are you here, to ask about the murders?" Her mood dampens in step with the mention of murder, like the sudden appearance of a monsoon over clear skies. A haze falls over her eyes; dark rings paint a doleful veil onto her face.

"I'd like to know about you and what you're doing here." A tacit accusation of wrongdoing was unsubtly pointed towards him. Of what, she was not quite sure, but she intended to find out. Her gaze drifted from him, to fall onto an unoccupied couch with a table to its front.

---

Clockwork_Magic

Black ichor for skin and four legs. The cat-shaped aberration dives between the guests' legs and against their ankles. A swishing tail swipes eagerly and its nose rises into the air. It huffs air inwards and its nose wriggles like that of a weasel, curious and hungry. No one paid it any attention as they lacked the facilities to sense its presence - it existed in a world beyond their purview. Mei, however, was an exception. In her sight, it walked plainly through the grass of their backyard. Its distinct shape was clear even under the dark of night.

The attendees in this area were less shy about partaking in pleasures that surpassed the limits of what others found appropriate. The trace of illicit powdered substance lingered atop glass tables. Those here seemed too inhibited in the mind for the absence of sense to be attributed to alcohol alone. A crashing sound broke the air, and the aberration too, turned its head in curiosity.

"Fuck!"

A table lifted from its legs and slammed into the grass, dislodging dirt to spray against one of their fences. A young man fell onto the table, as evidenced by his collapsed form that rested prone beside it. "Something bit me!" he cried out while gripping his ankle.

More aberrations began to gather here, smaller than the cat: rodent-like. Three of them were present at the spot where the man had fallen. Tiny white mouths cut through the cover of night, satisfied, with a pinprick of blood staining one of their small fangs. More had continued to flow inwards, slipping through the walls of the fences, swishing through the legs of the participants, and slipping forward. Into the house. Towards the basement.

The cat-sized aberration stood on its back legs. It turned its head to face Mei, glowing white eyes staring into her own with intelligence not befitting the creature. Its head snapped toward the home and soon enough, it too created a path toward the basement.

---

Gh0stOcean

"Now that is a curious look," she raised her hand towards the figure of interest, champagne flute in tow. Her friends hovered around her, close enough to feel the heat exuding from her body. Each of their heads turned in the direction to follow her fingers. Their eyes turned into slits, moving to follow, while their heads remained locked into place.

Unfamiliar. It was a word that clicked into place at the sight of her. She was unfamiliar with them, and this environment was a far way from home for her. The way she walked carried such confidence despite that, and a certain assurance that told them that she would broker no obstacles that stood in her path.

Some brat, fat from their parents' wallets, that they thought any ground she stood upon to be hers.

But these were unfamiliar waters and she would ensure that this girl knew it. "Hold my drink," she offered with an ill-boding note sullying her voice. Amused, her friends rallied at her back with a chirping laughter that carried through the kitchen. “Good luck ~ ” Her fingers curled in a feigned “goodbye” while the fingers twisted in a sultry tempo.

She stood the better end of a foot taller than Alma, with a vibrant shock of red hair that concluded halfway at her back. As the shorter girl traveled to the end of the kitchen, an intruder side-stepped in front of her — nearly causing a collision as she had done so.

“You don’t look familiar,” she said, low and predatory. Her chin tilted downward to nearly rest on her neck as brown eyes peered at Alma who stood beneath them. “But — we can change that,” the woman reached forward and plucked a string of blue-grey hair from Alma’s head, massaging it between her index finger and thumb before releasing it. The strand fell to rest limply in place. Her face was a blend of sharp angles and contrast, high cheekbones and dark eyelashes.

A figure-hugging dress of deep midnight blue wrapped around her body. It jutted into every crevice, flexible material leaving very little to wonder. It concluded just above the ankles, allowing space for a long set of spider-like legs to strike against the ground beneath her.

"I like your getup, it's very ... posh," she affirmed, her mouth swollen with mirth. She batted her long eyelashes and drew closer. Where Alma's vision seemed to go, was a new space for her body to occupy. She moved with her gaze, promising that Alma's attention would never stray far from her. She enjoyed being the centerpiece. Anything short of that was a scar against her ego.

“My name is Leolla, and you?” she asked in a sing-song rhythm. “I’d like to get to know you, you seem … interesting?” It was more a question than a statement. The woman seemed to lift her hand then, miming the action of bringing a drink to perch upon her lips before she realized it was absent.

Blood On The Shoreline

 

[Clockwork_Magic]

Mei Hayashi
The Inferno Beneath the Mask

Location: Sigma Delta Theta Sorority House
Interactions: Alma ( Gh0stOcean ), Naomi ( Klown ), Gerald ( TheRealAngeloftheStorm )
​

Mei had barely exited the house into the yard when time had resumed just as suddenly it stopped. The music started blaring again, the voices of everyone inside and out of the house filled the air again, and sure enough that guy she saw from the backdoor window landed squarely on his ass with a big thud.

Glossing over the guy that probably just broke his tailbone while all his "friends" pointed and laughed, the place was somehow even more of a degenerate quagmire than the inside of the house. Hell, it probably was the most degenerate party she's ever seen! As if booze, weed, and cigs combined weren't enough already, the young Agent doubts that the stuff on the table was just spilled sugar or salt. I will never understand why Jenny and the others actually wanted to picked up guys from shit shows like this...

A wisp of black out of the corner of her eyes drew her attention away from the tables, moving between the legs of these high chasers almost like the needle of a seamstress moving between and through pieces of fabric. What the fuck is that thing? "It's an aberration" some of the smartasses she worked with before would probably say if she voiced it out loud. Yea, no shit Sherlock, ever heard of a rhetorical question?

> Uhhh... so... ther

The sudden crash caught Mei just as off guard as it seemed to catch the cat-thing in front of her, her thumb slipping and hitting the send key before she finished typing. So first the literal embodiment of bad luck and now rats with a taste of blood. They themselves didn't seem much of a problem, if they weren't in someone's backyard of druggies that she wasn't allowed to harm, the entire place would have been up in a blaze shortly after walking through the entrance, but the amount of unearthly rodents that started to flow from the outside into the house made it seem like this place was going to be ground zero of the second coming of the Black Death. And then that thing stood up and stared directly into her eyes, the silver haired Agent taking a small step backwards. Her hand hovered over the hourglass that hung around her neck. From what she'd been told, it wouldn't stop the cat from pouncing at her, but at least it wouldn't look like she was fighting some invisible demon to the rest of the people around her. She held her breath, her heart starting to race in her chest, as the staring contest went on for what felt like a few minutes.

Thankfully, she didn't have to stop time a second time as it, too, made its way into the house. Mei let out a small exhale of relief as she withdrew her hand away from her hourglass. As much as her sense of self-preservation protested against the idea, following those aberrations was the only thing she could do now that she saw all of them. At the very least, it'd be better for her sanity to follow those things than stay out here with all these idiots.

Mei once again reached for the backdoor handle, but before she opened the it, the collection of open coolers a few feet away caught her eye and held it for a good 5 seconds, various bottles and cans peering out from the ice from which they were nestled. ...Fuck it. She was already here and one drink wasn’t going to kill her… well again anyways. Mei reached into the cooler by the door and cracked open a cold can of beer, downing a gulp before heading back inside.

> Coming back in

"Yo, watch it!"

"Oh... my bad." Mei made her way through the mass of bodies in her way to follow the path made by the aberrants.

"Hey! What the hell!"

"'Scuse me." The words coming out of her mouth pretty much ran like an automated message machine, not really paying attention to who she was saying them to or what they were saying as she gradually typed out another message with one hand while occasionally taking sips of her drink with the other.

> Buncha rats and a... cat just went in, not the normal ones, following rn

 

[Zedalith]

Ilia Drubich

Sanity’s Edge

Ze Hospital

Concerned

interactions

lyn. Wyll Togy

“Fine, fine. You may call me Sydney,” the clerk returns to Mellor. A mission accomplished.

Mellor – ever the hero, ever the insurmountable angel tearing a path where Ilia had failed. That jitter that found Mellor’s step was agonizing. Ilia often saw that bounce after a job “well done,” it was an unshakable force that seemed to take over whenever one felt accomplished. Jealousy – he recognized, was the green sensation erupting from his chest. A hideous spiney thing. Once he realized the growing feeling, he was able to stifle it, burying it deep within the confines of his psyche.

It was a promise he made to himself: to no longer be shackled to the thoughts or accomplishments of others.

Instead of a splitting half-insult, he offered the sun-kissed agent an awkward nod of acknowledgment. Embittered, if only slightly; it was praise enough. Ilia turned his head to stare behind himself, eyes flitting over the haggard form of one Fifth Avenue. That look in his eyes was dangerous. Ilia had not forgotten the incident that occurred over the week, either. If Ilia had gotten over it, why couldn’t he?

With both a number and a direction, he drove himself to carry forward. The hospital was nearly empty. Where bodies kept busy in daylight he only found mayo stands and gurneys.

A push slid the door in, hinges gliding effortlessly to guide the door into the threshold. The window at the far back of the room grants him a vision of the beach. The blinds are crooked as if they had been forced open hastily. Water and sand shake hands every heartbeat. The waves draw forward and recoil, again and again. His stomach churns at the sight, knowing that something more sinister rests within those waters. Miles sleeps within the confines of his bed, wrapped tight within his blanket. He wears only a medical gown and a hallowed face.

The motion of the door was not unnoticed. Pitch-black eyes address them curiously. Miles props himself upwards by the elbow, his face suspicious and uneasy. The man is young with a shaved head and tan skin.

“Hello. I don’t mean to alarm you,” Ilia affirms with an ill-fitting sweetness. He imagined himself as Ha Neul, doting over a sick patient. This man very much fits the profile. Sunken eyes prelude a sleepless gaze that stared out at nothing. Empty, almost—like looking into the bottom of a vase. Fragile enough that an off-touch could shatter it.

Ilia’s shoulders become lax. His grasp slackens while his arms hang loosely and free at his side. A rueful smile slugs across his face and a soft vacancy falls over his eyes. Soft and void enough that one might mistake him for Elyn. “We’re friends … we’ve heard about what happened to you. I want to know more,”

Miles’ mouth crooks and his forehead wrinkles.

“You look… You don't work for another news station,” Miles speaks to them, but it is more like he's speaking to himself. He slinks away, pulling the covers up high enough to cover his chin. His eyes squint in analysis and a small quiver possesses his hands. Miles takes in all of their faces. His glare flits from one visage to the next, quick in their appraisal. Curiosity mixes with uneasiness. Then, his rhinestone glare falls onto Elyn. His eyes don’t leave her face. Those eyes become stitched onto her.

His pupils dilate.

Miles shrinks into himself. His shoulders withdraw into a protective shell and he pulls back to the edge of his bedding.

Miles can't remove his eyes from her. There is a glaze that sweeps across Miles’ eyes, it is like he's looking at her, but also through her — to a vision only he could see. Ilia recognizes that look. Watery eyes, and quivering lips. It is when he tries to reach out to the man, that he lets out an eardrum-ripping scream.

Like an animal that’s been butchered by a talentless hunter. The scream is wrung out of Miles by force, invisible hands gripping the sponge of his mind and squeezing it with clandestine force.

Ilia’s hold keeps him from hitting the ground as he springs to the floor. “FIFTH! Watch the door, stall anyone trying to come in!” He orders, but that rebellious aura coming off the scrappy agent brokered no faith.

Miles’ body thrashed. His limbs turned into whips that cared not for what they struck. His feet skidded against the tiles while his hands grasped outward for leverage wherever he might find it. “DEMON – IT’S THE DEMON!” Miles spat out through frantic grasps for breath. Miles quivered, hands protecting his skull against whatever force only he had seen. Miles’ heart beat hard against his chest. It might have been audible, were it not for the screaming that choked any other sounds. Irresponsible limbs managed to cower behind Ilia, Miles created a shield between himself and Elyn using Ilia’s body.

He knew not what compelled him. Ilia thought of only the waves, comforting waters enveloping him and soothing him. He thought of the river, of how he wished to have spent his life by its side. Ilia grabs the man by the shoulder and lifts him, pulling him to stare into the cerulean waters ahead of them. Slowly, the sight took over. Each wave fought against the maddening fire growing within Miles’ psyche. The screaming died down into a tiny whimper.

“Elyn, as peculiar as she might be… is not a demon by any definition of the word. I assure you,” Ilia soothed. Miles seemed to receive it well, and while he avoided eye contact with Elyn, he seemed somewhat placated – for now.

 

[Gh0stOcean]

The Witch of Strixiel

alma rhys

location

Pacific Heights University, Sigma Delta Theta Sorority House

tags

Gerald ( TheRealAngeloftheStorm ), Naomi ( Klown ), Mei ( Clockwork_Magic ), Zedalith

Alma was stuck.

She had waited until the very moment Gerald was in position to resume the flow of time, and almost immediately she was deafened by the cacophonous sound of hundreds of voices squeezed into a space only meant to fill dozens. The ground underneath her was tackier than fresh dough, as she had to peel her feet from the dirty floorboards with each shuffled step. There was hardly any room to travel, with bodies being pressed up so tightly against each other, body odors and skunked beer combining into a noxious fume that severely inhibited the air’s breathability.

Her frail body somehow managed to avoid getting crushed between two football jocks and evade being swept away by the ocean of bodies, finally making her way to the kitchen. It was a little less crowded here—most people came to grab their drinks and go elsewhere, with very few remaining to mingle. This gave her an opportunity to check her phone, feeling it buzzing within the safe confines of her sleeve.

She scrolled through the texts, seeing her teammates under Strixiel give their own briefs of their respective situations. Gerald seemed to be investigating the upper floors, as she instructed him to. Mei was the first person to arrive, and had seen some smaller-tier aberrants lurking around.

And of course, Naomi had Onore with her.

Silently, Alma cursed under her breath. On one hand, having someone with eyes on their target was great, but on the other, it just had to be Naomi. She hadn’t seen much of Naomi since Wally’s World, but Alma presumed her combat effectiveness wouldn’t have improved much. If the aberrant decided to attack Onore right now, would Naomi be able to effectively hold her own and protect the target?

No, she decided, I have to intervene.

But in retrospect, what was she going to do? Much less say? She wasn’t a socialite like Naomi; hell, she wished she could’ve been on Nyctiel or Glauciel’s deployments. They seemed far less likely to interact with people than Strixiel’s mission would have them. She wouldn’t be able to keep Onore distracted and safe. She would risk compromising the secrecy of the Seraphim just to keep her obedient. And that, unfortunately, wasn’t much of an option.

Eyes up, my liege.

Hearing her knight’s voice in her head, Alma looked up, just in time to see the voluptuous figure of the woman standing before her, looking her up and down with what to Alma seemed to be a hint of amusement.

She seems to have taken some form of interest in you, my liege.

Great. Just great. This is the absolute last thing I needed.

Alma really wasn’t in the mood to exchange pleasantries with anyone. She wanted to keep an eye on the sorority house, watching for signs of aberrant presence. But now, here was a woman who decided she wanted to make Alma her next plaything.

Alma took a deep breath, and put her mask back on.

“Why, hello there,” she greeted with a brief smile and a small curtsy. “You’ll have to forgive my inattention, I was a bit preoccupied.” She stashed the phone back into her sleeve, looking up towards the woman and her full foot of height on the small witch.

“Allison Rhea. Charmed, I’m sure,” she introduced herself. It felt wrong to have such a superficial ego like this, but it would make sense for the character she was portraying. She swallowed her pride as she continued the act. “Yes, this is my first night on campus. I was recently transferred here from Harvard, you see. My father thought it prudent I… Expand my horizons by diversifying the crowd I gather around. And I must say, what a diverse crowd.”

The smallest wrinkle of discomfort flashed across her face as the woman plucked one of Alma’s hair strands. Every second she spent talking to her made it more and more difficult to maintain her composure. Nonetheless, she pressed on. If nothing else but for the sake of the mission.

“Now then, Leolla, I must ask: to what do I owe the pleasure of attracting your gaze this evening? Surely little old me couldn’t possibly be as interesting as you make me out to be?”

code by @Nano