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I am gonna finally feed u guys tho lol

Waisan Robert my beloved, I have no idea where the hc began but I do know that it would be hilarious on a drunk karaoke night with the z-team.

[WIP] hmm looks good so far i think...

planning on doing a robert sticker sheet and then flambae's

maybe after ill turn some of my popular works into merch as well since some of you guys have asked if it would be turned into stickers or smth

At the height of the heat, Robert begins to feel a touch delirious. His vision swims slightly. It is so bad that he misses the drop-off at the end of the stairs. While the distance isn’t that great, it does cause Robert to fall onto the ground. The noise he makes echoes down a long hallway with an unseen end somewhere in front of him. 

He receives a response in the form of laughter. Pink light crosses over the ground he’s staring at it for a split second. He tilts his head back to find Visi leaning her shoulder against the wall. She smiles at him, dark eyes glittering in the pale blue glow of his arm. She nods toward his current situation. “Stick your ass up a little.”

“Visi,” Robert murmurs. He glares at her, but tiredly. But half-seriously. Mostly, he’s happy to see her. He’s happy that she looks and sounds like the Visi he knows, not like all these other imposters who have only hurt him. Unfortunately, he can see that she isn’t soaked in sweat. She isn’t breathing heavily. She isn’t even a little flush. She doesn’t feel the heat that is blowing right through this underground circuit. She isn’t any more real than anything else is, so he feels comfortable asking, “Where are we?” 

“A five-star restaurant filled with rich bitches,” Visi jokes. She crosses her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at him. “Where the fuck do you think we are, Leuitenant Dan? You’re the one who came here.” 

“Why would an observatory have a basement open to the public?” Robert continues. 

Visi’s glare sharpens. “I don’t fucking know. I’m the one that runs this shithole, and I couldn’t care less who gets to enter their basement. Not like there are many places off-limits to me.” 

Why do the illusions have to go with realism now? Robert would very much like to talk to someone that actually knows what’s happening, or could give him a clue. He would even take it being mixed up in this philosophical bullshit everyone has been spouting at him like he understands this cosmic game he’s been put in the middle of. 

Robert pulls himself onto his feet. He leans heavily against the far wall. He takes deep breaths. Each step makes him feel even more off-balanced than before, but he perseveres by continually wiping his body down with his damp clothes. It isn’t making him feel much better. In fact, his vision remains in a constant state of flux, bringing the end of the hall closer and further away in rapid succession. 

Visi doesn’t help. “Just take the whole shirt off.” 

Robert glares at her from the corner of his eye. She rolls both of hers, disappearing from his sight. Her footsteps fade away from him. With a sigh, Robert just gets himself to the end of the hallway. 

It opens up into a large room. There is a desk with a single computer in the corner to his right. The majority of the room is clear until Robert realizes that what he thought was a complete wall was actually dozens upon dozens of boxes stacked together. They take up over half the room, stopping just before a metal vault door. 

Visi reappears, sitting on the desk beside the computer. Robert glances over at her. She has her feet propped up on a chair he didn’t see before her invisibility turned off. Without looking at him, Visi says, “You know, the Red Ring helped pay for this shithole.” 

Robert pauses. The information takes a moment to register with how scattered everything inside his head is. “What?” 

“Yeah, got the money docs right here,” Visi tells him. She lifts her hand to reveal a stack of papers. Robert takes them from her, and Visi lets him. As he’s looking through financial records and checkbooks, Visi adds,  “Wonder what they were trying to do.” 

Robert continues flipping through the papers. Through sheer force of will, he pulls his awareness together to focus on what they say. Or, more accurately, the story they are telling him. “It must be a base of some kind. Or a means of laundering money. Or…” 

Robert goes quiet. Visi leans forward. The chair’s four legs all drop to the ground. She gets real close to him, peering up directly into his eyes. “...or? Don’t leave me hanging. You know I’ve never looked good with a noose.” 

He frowns, though not because of her strange comment. He taps the papers against his fingers. He considers everything he’s been told so far. The other pieces of evidence from the other rooms. An image is starting to form in his mind despite how this heat wants to kill all his brain cells. “Shroud is the kind of person to have… contingencies. He would’ve known there was always a possibility of death. How does a man become immortal?” 

Visi smirks to herself. “He tells death to fuck off?” 

“Maybe…” 

“What? You think the stars had something to do with this shit? You are off your fucking rocker.” Visi leans back. She gives him an assessing look like that time in the bathroom. “It’s kind of hot in a… maybe for one night kinda way.” 

Robert puts the papers back on the desk. He frames his hands around them. He leans forward, letting his weight sink onto the surface. His sweat stains the paper like tears. “I don’t… I don’t know what he did. I just have this feeling that he did something and this observatory was part of it.” 

Visi shoves the chair aside with her feet. Robert jumps at the clattering sound. Visi drops onto her feet. She spins around the chair. When she stops, she hooks her thumb over her shoulder at the vault’s many locks. “Well, while you’re chasing a ghost, how about you figure out how to open the door?” 

“Open the door?” 

She nods. She turns her fingers toward the desk. “Yeah. Check the computer. It’ll help you.” 

Suddenly, she disappears. “Visi?” Robert steps forward, swinging his arms around with what limited energy he has left. “Visi!” She does not reappear. She does not make a noise. She is gone, and Robert is alone once more. “Ugh, dammit.” 

Not wanting to deal with any more bullshit, he turns his attention to the computer. The program it was running opens immediately, no sign-in or loading required. It’s because the only thing the computer can do is show him a security feed of the room. The angle is weird, though. It’s straight-down, showing the entire floorspace that isn’t covered in boxes. 

“What the hell does this have to do with anything?” Robert asks himself. The computer doesn’t give a straight answer. Nothing else in the room does, either, and Visi doesn’t seem to be giving out hints any time soon. Sighing, Robert drops down into the chair. He stares at the screen, letting his fingers mindlessly flip through the pages. 

With all the puzzles, there has been a through-line. Everything is connected. The computer, the boxes, the papers—they are his clues. Or his pieces. He just needs to figure out what they mean and how they connect. Easier said than done when it’s hot as hell and he’s frequently distracted by his inhuman appendages, but Robert isn’t going to quit. Or worse, die. 

Robert glances back at the papers. He goes over the statements, one after another, searching for… anything, really. What he finds are inconsistencies. At first, he thought the Red Ring simply sucked at finances, but there might be something more to it. Without any other leads, Robert begins investigating. 

Each inaccurate transaction is paired with an alphabetical assignment to distinguish it from all the others. Robert uses that to track down letters that could form a code. He does come up with a word. Or two. NOSAVIORS. No saviors. Robert doesn’t think about it further. 

Carrying the papers with him, Robert stumbles across the room to the vault door. Unfortunately, he can’t find any way to insert a code. He only finds an inscription telling him one is necessary. But how could that be if there isn’t a place to put them? And how does the computer and boxes fit into this solution? 

Robert goes to the center of the room. He tilts his head back. It’s too dark for him to see the ceiling or the camera that must be hanging from it. Robert sighs, turning his head. The computer screen appears in his peripheral vision. When he looks at it, he notices that there is a red box around what must be himself. Robert runs over to the screen, but the box is gone by the time he gets there. Needing a way to see what it said, Robert goes to the boxes. He only takes one, setting it in the center of the room. At the computer, the red box is still there, along with a little note above it. PASSWORD INCORRECT.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

No one tells him that he’s being fucked with, so Robert sighs. He sets the paper down on the desk. He goes to the boxes. He pulls them down one-by-one. He starts to spell out the code he found. What must be an hour later (if not an eternity given how he’s working in this hellish heat), Robert has the word spelled out. The computer screen shows a bright green box, and he imagines it’s paired with the words PASSWORD CORRECT.

The vault’s gears start spinning around. In the minute it’s going to take, Visi reappears beside him, sitting atop one of the boxes. She swings her legs, hunching forward to whisper into his ear. “Take my advice, Rob, and don’t play the hero. You’re only going to hurt yourself.” 

The vault door opens. Robert walks over to it. There is only darkness on the other side. Thankfully, he feels the trickling of a cold breeze. It reminds of Visi’s words. He glances over his shoulder at her as he steps through. She remains where she was sitting with Shroud’s mask over her face. Robert jerks back to question her, but the vault door slams shut, leaving him in darkness and silence and coldness. 

This is a stressful job. Good thing Robert found some new stress relief methods. Like stress toys! (Or biceps.)