#entofic

--- Part 1: Background ---

In the normal timeline:

- Several years after the events of ‘Endergame’.

- the Blackrock crew are pretty stable. Rythian is a mage again, researching / using the new version of magic (after Endergame reset it), but he's a lot less isolated than he used to be, since the castle is now much more of a community than it was.

- Nano has appeared. Most of the Survival Games series has happened in this time - particularly the ones that involve her. She is… something like Ridge, but a new one, and not fully sure how to be that. She doesn’t seem to need the Game sacrifices to power her, but she’s got a lot less power (for now). She also has chosen to keep a lot of her ‘other side’ locked away from herself (Ridge helps with this, although does warn her she can’t deny that part of her or it will find its own way back).

- This has resulted in echoes and hallucinations that manifest as creepy Flux stuff. 

(Note that ‘Flux Buddies’ as a series had only recently started when I finished Endergame, so I didn’t know where they were going with that. I also didn’t end up watching that much of it myself, so this is all based on the original ideas I'd had / what I remember.)

- Nano’s themes are: Purple (vivid, amethyst, aggressively alive, verging into infestation body horror; not the violet-black dissolving nothing of the End); hyphae-like connections / patterns; ‘childish’ spikes in emotions (while she seems like a young adult in her human side, her godling side is still very new). 

- Lalna and Nano have been doing 'Flux Buddies' for a while. Lalna has gotten involved because a) magic changed and he's genuinely curious, and b) frankly because he has some un-handled technology trauma from - y’know - the everything, plus that time an eldritch dragon ate off his power-gloved hand, in a dimension where you can’t pass out. So focusing on some only slightly-unnerving, nature-y themed magic with this new person - who doesn’t know anything about all of the End stuff - is rather a relief.

- Would it be a good idea to perhaps unpack some of what happened? Yes. Is he going to do so? No.

Some nice repression you have there. Be a shame if someone were to doom it through narrative.

Meanwhile, in the other leg:

(Note that the split point for these timelines was whether Israphel decided to pay any attention to / troll the original duo at the start of SoI.) 

- If he does = normal world, Xephos ends up being the Hero / Unexpected Variable that sets everything down the path we’ve seen. He’s eighteen buckets of trauma in a fancy jacket, sure, but meeting all those characters, getting pulled into the War of the Sands and derailing the whole Fate of that, led to him developing into the guy we know. Lots of connections with lots of people, and for an empty man with no memories, that shaped who he became.

After the War, the pair wander around a bit more, but Xephos in particular has an extremely hard time with the aftermath and being seen as a hero. Eventually they start actively trying to get somewhere where no one knows about them, and head off across the sea to the Wilds; picking up Lalna on the way (he's looking to lie low after the Tekkit War debacle). Story happens as usual.

- If Israphel decided not to fuck with them = Voltz/Yoglabs timeline. Zephos is still a random variable in the world, but it doesn't do anything if the duo just sort of… wander off in the other direction and don’t interact with the plot. Israphel’s plans work, the War of the Sands is faster / bigger, and ends up with Israphel managing to bind himself inextricably with the very root of magic itself.

- At that point, with The Worst Guy literally on the doorstep of apotheosis, Ridge had to act. And in a more direct way than just introducing one tiny random actor into the mix. (He ‘doesn’t interfere’; remember; for whatever that means.) Unfortunately, the only way to do that now is to quite literally rip magic itself out of the world, and it needs to be done fast (also: opposed, cos Israphel wasn’t exactly a passive actor here). It worked, but it caused severe damage to the world and to Ridge himself - damage that he couldn’t fix from inside the problem. He no longer had access to the Game either, so can't recharge himself in the same way.

- The world trundles on, without magic, but with mad science and industry rising to take its place. Big companies form (being much more massive, capitalistic mad science juggernauts than the <name>.Incs of like, three people from the other timeline). Sipsco is one of these, but collapses after a disastrous attempt to colonize the Wild coast; Sips and Sjiin bolt into the wastelands.

- Zephos and Honeydew generally adventure around, but it’s a very different world. Before magic died, the world rapidly became more hostile / suspicious / terrifying as Israphel’s nonsense occurred, so they didn't exactly make many friends. Something went horribly wrong for the dwarves as a whole, leaving Honeydew without any chance to make amends for his banishment (and being one of the few survivors). The pair are more isolated and a lot more co-dependent; even when they joined one of the mad science companies (the previous ‘Labs’) and met Lalna there. The three later left together in a very destructive way. There’s a lot of wasteland due to war / magical fallout / etc, to go hide in. They run into Sips & Sjiin and Voltz happens - and by this point, Ridge has started to pay attention to them. The group is messing around with things that he can’t fully touch, and that’s interesting to him; although they don’t realise he’s not human.

- The Bomb happens. Red Matter exposure starts affecting Ridge, and his burgeoning bitterness at being reduced to ‘this’ after sacrificing himself starts getting much worse. Zephos becomes a focus of it - he ‘failed’ to do anything useful back then, and he’s tangled up in this stuff now. This Ridge hasn’t had any of the Survival Games stories happen - so the whole ‘you have got too close to this band of good-hearted idiots and it’s bleeding into you’ situation hasn’t played out.

- Ridge essentially starts using Zephos as a vessel / filter for his own power. Both because Ridge wants somebody to research fixing him, and because running it through Zephos a) manages to filter out some of the corruption that’s happening; not fully, but enough to be useful; b) it doesn’t instantly implode him like it would most people. 

Something something Unexpected Variable something something Not From Around Here something something.

- Yoglabs happens. With the usual minecraft-world handwaving of how this can occur - although at least in this instance, one of the team is running in a weird version of creative mode at all times. Which is driving him insane, deeply fucking up his ability to see anyone else as a person (with one specific caveat), and generally causing many Unpleasant Things. Also he can track you down if he has your name, and within a certain proximity to the Labs themselves, can just fully teleport people around if he has your name. (/tp <name>)

So, it's not going fantastically well in this timeline.

And it's about to get... complicated.

--- Part 2: The Plot ---

I haven't any idea where chapters would go. Wherever they fitted.)

- Lalna generally trying to avoid thinking too hard about how the world has changed, and how he’s feeling somewhat… left behind? Listless. Restless, doesn’t actually want to be responsible for yet another disaster yet can't shake the feeling that it's inevitable that he will do so, eventually. There's just something wrong with him, deep inside; it's only ever a matter of time. Even Rythian seems to have managed to change.  Xephos is concerned about him, but Lalna doesn't think it's something he could really understand. 

- He's not telling Nano about this. In some ways, it’s nice she doesn’t know much about what happened / she wasn’t there, so even the bits they’ve talked about are distanced. He's constantly tinkering with his prosthetic arm; never satisfied with it, but also kind of shying away from trying anything he might actually want to do. Nano knows there’s something wrong, but she’s also trying not to let on to him that her Flux-y hallucinations etc are getting worse. Excellent communication skills, all round.

- Survival Games interaction with Team Demigod. Nano talking to Ridge about how she’s handling her whole situation; and choices generally. Talking about magic. Talking about the differences between them. Warning from Ridge that she can’t push aside her nature for ever - it is her, and it will come through. Nature vs. nurture, but what does that mean for things like them.

- Meanwhile, in Yoglabs. In economic / mad science metrics, everything is going well; government doesn’t interrupt the Labs, they have basically free reign. But in terms of ‘fix the demigod’; not so much. Current situation shown by following Zephos. In particular, showing that this-world Honeydew seems much more wary/placid, and dumber, than the one we’re used to. Zephos gets exasperated with him, but also he’s pretty much the only one he actually likes.

- An idea has been developed. If ‘Fix Ridge from Here’ doesn’t work, then they will seek somewhere else. Have made a machine to punch a portal through to another timeline - although it uses a massive amount of resources, damages the Labs, AND causes instability in the world itself. Aiming for something like Ridge, although less powerful. (Portal room is the red matter room from ‘All That Matters’, since apparently that's where they do the things that really puts physics through the wringer.)

- It works, and targets Nano. The Flux Buddies are out & about, not dealing with their problems or telling each other about them - and then the world is punctured like a needle-stick and she starts getting dragged into a portal. This goes about as well for Lalna’s mental state as you might imagine, and his constantly-tinkered arm fails as he’s trying to pull her out, so both go through.

- The portal wasn’t designed for two. Nano’s panicking, Flux is thrashing like a wild thing, Lalna’s panicking and not supposed to be there. On the other end, systems are overloading, Weird Shit is occurring. This all results in dumping them both out early / not in the labs. Furious Zephos sending people out to FIND IT.

- Brief scene with Zoey & Rythian at a safehouse, surprised by all the alarms happening from whatever the Labs just did. Zoey gets that half-stare she sometimes does and says a hunt party is being sent out to search for… something important. They have to find it first. Rythian hates those hunches, but a) she's usually right, and b) he trusts her.

-  The pair land somewhere near(ish) the Labs / city, with no idea what has happened. Nano realising first that something is very, very wrong with the world. Very hard / exhausting to do any magic. (Will turn out Lalna can only do Flux magic if he’s near her.) Trying to find out what is going on / where they are. Nano does a bit of magic and people are horrified.

- Local alarm triggered in response. Rythian is following the Labs team that is closest and sabotages some of them, but there is a small group too far ahead to overtake. Mooks going after Nano & Lalna, Rythian drops in, in his dramatic way, takes out most enemies. Nano does some magic at the last one while Lalna e.g. brains them with a chair (or similar). Rythian is Shooketh by seeing unfamiliar magic; Lalna by seeing an unfamiliar Rythian. Everyone confused, but need to flee together.

- Rythian is very suspicious, so takes them to somewhere off the main safehouses. Demanding answers, receiving confusion. He has never met any Lalna, and is very wary about how he knows his name. Lalna comparing him to the man he knows (considerably more athletic than his Rythian has ever been; eye colour is still dark, etc); starts listing names of other friends back home. As soon as he mentions Xephos, Rythian has him pinned to the wall with a knife at his throat, which is when Zoey and Min arrive. Lalna struggling, pulling down Rythian’s mask - his ‘M’ face scars are revealed, which is what throws aside any possibility of this being the usual Rythian. Zoey is instantly fine with the idea of them being from another timeline, because some Zoey things are universal. Everybody eventually calms down (“Okay. Fine. Say I believe this, and you’re from… somewhere else. Why the fuck are you here now?”) and move to somewhere more secure.

- Later. Zephos is interrogating the mooks that interacted with the rebels. Rythian, they know about (although not his name), and Zephos really wants him dead. Head cam footage is put up on screen - gasp from Honeydew as there is a fairly good shot of Lalna’s face. (“He’s back!” <- does not know what happened to their Lalna.) Zephos incredulous. It’s fake. It’s hacked. Losing his temper, accusing the mook of lying to him - rips the man’s helmet off in a way that armour should not move, grabs either side of his face, slams his forehead into his and screams SHOW ME. Man spasming, clawing at the grip, starts begging (“SHUT UP.”) Goes silent. Zephos seeing the memory, realising the footage is accurate. Drops the man, his eyes bloody side-to-side, weakly breathing, non-responsive. (“Clean this up.”) Honeydew staring at the mook, weird twitch on his face, then follows Zephos as he storms out. (“Zeph - he’s back! That’s great!” “...apparently so.”). Zephos dismisses him and heads for the computer core.

- Flashback of Voltz!Lalna trying to leave Yoglabs, and Zephos finding out about it. Back to current, to reveal Lalna has been long-fused in with the computer systems of the Labs, by Zephos. Demanding if he knows anything about this; Lalna claims no. Finds it very funny though. (Could never keep myself out of trouble <- typed on a screen, since he can’t speak anymore). Zephos sighing - gotta clear this up. He knows a name now at least and tries to summon this other Lalna, but he can’t. He can’t focus on him, perhaps because Voltz!Lalna is there as well? Angry.

- Honeydew is having a bad time. Seeing Lalna has triggered a load of flashbacks / memories he’d ‘forgotten’. Frantically packing and unpacking bags. Pulling bits of Lalna’s old stuff out of his chaotic storage - ‘making his room ready’. Zephos is frustrated, but indulges him for a while. Then presses his fingers to the panel at the back of the dwarf’s head, and he goes blank. Zephos sends him back to ‘have a nice jaffa’, and he wanders off.  Some Ridge mocking in hallucination / echo (“How much of your little pet is even left in there?” “Shut up.”).

- Back at the rebels, and Zoey has made everyone sit down and try to have clear conversations. It hasn’t helped that much. Rythian is willing to acknowledge that they seem to think their story is true. He keeps staring at Nano and her flux marks. Whatever is going on, the Labs wants them, and that isn’t good. They can get them out on a boat in a few days, then they’re the Wild’s problem. Lalna argues that they’ve got to get back home. Is shown evidence of what the Labs does; what Zephos does, and he can’t believe it (it must be a misunderstanding...?).

- Night Thoughts. Lalna dwelling on his friends. Weird guilty thought - does he want to go back? No one here knows anything about him. Even this Rythian is hostile, but not really personally so. He could… stay.  But also the idea of Xephos being a monster here sits so bafflingly wrong…

- Nano also having Night Thoughts. The portal came straight for her. Nothing that’s been said makes any sense for that.  Flux stuff has been very quiet since they got there; worried by that.  Unsettled by how Rythian has been staring at her markings; he’s very hard to read. Sinks down into sleep - and wakes up as closer to her full self.  Memories come back, moment of confusion, and realising she has stepped out of her body (which is completely covered in purple flux). The world looks wrong. There are huge, raw wounds like bloody black lightning everywhere, a space in the fabric of it all where something is missing. And there’s a direction to it. She follows it (clipping through the world).

- The landscape is dreamlike and all fucked up with the marks of torn-out magic, and there’s an ominous red haze to it too. She tries not to touch any of it. The Labs is dominating everything, rotten and twisted and chained to itself; there’s something deeply wrong in the centre and there’s Attention sweeping out like a lighthouse. She basically stealths around it. Finds something strange - a space that seems to be a pocket of calm in this nightmare space. Calm but almost… frozen. Encysted. She manages to get through the barrier, carefully opening a space, and finds Voltz!Honeydew there.

- In this view, he’s clearly been messed with. She can see the shape of him, but it feels like bits of him have been closed, or locked off, separated; again and again and again. It’s not the Honeydew she knows, but she can’t just leave him like this. (“We don’t interfere.” “Liar!”) A little dot of purple, beading on her fingertip, so utterly alien to the washed-out, torn up space around her. Touches it to the back of his head, where it starts to spread like timelapse hyphae, connecting, breaking apart barriers, re-linking torn spaces. 

- Realises this has taken too long. More movement in the world, and the Attention is widening. Sudden spike of urgency back at her body, and she heads back in panic. Accidentally trips through a few of the torn spaces, which burn, as she runs.

- Earlier. Rythian cannot sleep. Keeps thinking about what he’s seen Nano do. He has to know. He has to know. Goes to where they are staying; Min is leaning against the wall outside. (“Don’t be creepy, Ryth. It’s not a good look on you.”) Bit of whispered argument / discussion; broken by a panicked sound from inside. They both go in - finding Lalna shaking Nano, who is a) unconscious, b) covered in a complete cocoon of shimmering, viscous purple. The patterns on his face / side are shifting too, flowing up his arm.

- Rythian goes to shove Lalna aside, he resists; they argue about who knows what they’re doing. Rythian being very dismissive in a way that infuriates Lalna (because apparently rage, hatred or murderous intent he can handle from that face, but dismissing him? Absolutely not). Lalna shoves him back, harder than he meant to, and the magic goes with it. Rythian is hurled into the wall, purple spreading across his chest like a stain and he’s choking / Lalna’s panicking even more, Min’s got her weapons out - and Nano sits bolt upright, back in her body. The Flux around her and Lalna fades out; the magic tendrils on Rythian’s chest retreat and he collapses.  Zoey sticks her head around the door, wanting to know what is happening.  Nano: “I found Honeydew. And I might have… done something really silly.”

- Awkward morning. Zoey aggressively making coffee, Nano trying to explain what happened (it’s all dreamlike and fading; not helped by her not being fully aware of that side of herself when conscious; and Lalna having no idea about it). Rythian hasn’t spoken. He’s barely moved after Zoey dumped him bodily in a chair, and he won’t look at Nano. Min being tactical about it, even if she doesn’t understand what’s happening. (“Did anyone see you?” Did you see anything useful; can you do it again etc).

- Rythian stands up abruptly, asks Lalna to follow him (“...please.”) and leaves. Zoey assures Nano he’s not got his stabby face on. Lalna does follow, still feeling guilty about magically throttling him. Head into a different room, close door, and time for Emotion conversation. (“You said you knew me. Or - another me. Who still… who never…”) Lalna confirms again that while the Rythian he knows has been technically a few different types of mage (and, kinda cursed), he never lost magic - and then he realises that this Rythian is visibly forcing back tears.  Awkward conversation continues, as Rythian admits he thought he’d come to terms with losing magic, that he would never be the same (and it had almost killed him, so many times). How even the memories of the feel of it were wrong, unreal, somehow. He’d been suspicious of Nano’s tricks earlier (phrasing of the ‘sufficiently advanced technology’ bit, close enough to Lalna’s ‘The End’ words to be unnerving), then he’d hit him with it - and for a moment it was all real again. He could remember, as if all those fragments of blurred impossibility suddenly lined up and he could remember… And then it stopped, and it’s almost worse. Lalna admits he can’t do magic here without being in close proximity to Nano.

- (“I’m… not really used to this level of honestly when we’re not trying to kill each other.” “What the fuck is wrong with your Rythian?”  “...me, I think.”)

- Rythian is particularly worried about what the Labs would do with Nano. More than even before.  If she’s a source of magic… (Could they want to fix it? <- thinking of Xephos. Answer: No. If that place wants to fix something, it’s nothing good.).  They have to get them out of here. Rythian musing about getting them to Lomadia, and Lalna realises it’s the same one. (“Blonde? -nod- Owls? -nod- Slightly terrifying?” “Oh for fucks sake.”)

- Honeydew waking up. Really waking up, for the first time in… a long time. Nano has fixed a lot of the damage that Zephos’ constant fiddling with his mind had done. It’s not a good time. Remembering the sort of things he’s seen / done / permitted (quite a lot of horror). Finds his axe, packs a bag and leaves (no one tries to stop him, because the staff are used to just letting the dwarf roam around; he doesn’t go anywhere). It’s clear that System!Lalna opens the final door for him. He’s following Nano (the Flux left in him is seeking her again). 

- Bit of time passing; Zoey / Min / etc needing to go do rebel things. Rythian spending a lot of time Brooding On The Roof / avoiding Nano (but also not going far away) / not telling anyone that there are weird purple veins starting to trace up his neck from where the magic hit. Nano and Lalna discussing what’s happened (sort of. Nano still doesn’t understand how she did the sleepwalking; they put it down to having magic when no one else does). Nano wants to go home. Lalna doesn’t agree fast enough (does he want to be here? Not really. Does he want to be there? Also not really), and she manages to get him to admit some of his thoughts on that.

- Honeydew turns up. Rythian attacks him (surprised at how competent he is at fighting), and at some point is close enough to see the little purple lines / flecks in his eyes (and promptly stops being able to breathe until he disengages). Gets Zoey to set up a shielded room (blocking Labs tracking chips) and puts Honeydew in it; gets Lalna to bring Nano there (Rythian fiddling with / tightening his mask more than before, but Lalna doesn’t really notice).

((This whole story outline is people having awkward meetings in grotty safehouses))

((Then again 75% of Endergame was Poor Communication In Eldritch Caves, so…))

- Honeydew single-focused on Nano until he can thank her. She gingerly pats him, and it’s like a string has been cut - like he can actually see other people again. Lalna is immediately tackled into a massive - and extremely awkward - hug, while the dwarf has a meltdown on him. A bit later when everything has calmed, Nano awkwardly apologizes for whatever she did in drawing him there. He’s not having it (“I wanted t’leave for years. Part o’ me, anyway. Needed the push.”). He knows Lalna isn’t his Lalna (“Really hoped it was; yer the spitting image. More tattoos, maybe.”) but he doesn’t know what happened to him. Zephos wouldn’t tell him; which means it wasn’t good.

- Rythian (etc) are a lot warier. If he knew what the Labs were doing, he’s as guilty as the rest of them. Honeydew says it wasn’t always like that; admits he turned a blind eye to some of the weird in the beginning, then denial, then… something else. Couldn’t see it - couldn’t keep it if he did. Says he knows who Rythian is (“You’re that one he really hates.”); Zoey is missing hardware; Min’s a traitor. Rythian demanding to know what Honeydew wants. He wants to get Zephos out. Stop him; stop everything. Because there’s something deep in there that’s so much worse than him.

- And then the lights go out. The city has gone into full lockdown mode.

- Zephos has realised Honeydew is missing, and he can’t sense him. That shouldn’t be possible. Find him. FIND HIM. Searching the room desperately, screaming orders at some mooks - and they all freeze. Ridge appears, walking down the corridor dragging red-rimmed shadows in his wake. He looks worse than when seen before in Yoglabs stuff - like he’s a veneer on himself, occasionally cracking and reforming. Mocking as Zephos continues to search. ("Not getting distracted, are we?") Zephos snapping back, which results in Menacing (everything you are / have / ever done is because of me; and I can take it back so, so easily, etc). Zephos frantically saying this is the only thing he asks for; keeping him safe. During the Menacing, Ridge notices traceries of Nano’s power still clinging to the shell of this place. He can’t touch it / phases through it, but Zephos can (although it recoils from him). Resolves to study it. (“Looks like our interests still align. Find them both.”)

- For the rebels, this lockdown is a problem. There’s no way they can get a boat out in this; they’re stuck here. But maybe they can use the situation a different way. With the attentions of the Labs outside, searching for the newcomers AND Honeydew, maybe it’s not looking inwards enough. Honeydew reports how unstable the place is - especially after the portal experiment, which caused quite a lot of damage even when it went well. It could be vulnerable. Maybe set the portal off again - send Nano & Lalna home (or more importantly: away) - and fuck up the system so it blows up.  It’s centrally controlled - if you didn’t actually care about balancing anything, you can do it from one place (Zephos doesn’t like to give control to anyone else).

- This plan is objectively insane. However. (re-use of Honeydew’s ‘just wing it’ comment from Endergame, but from Lalna.) Is it a suicide mission? Probably - but Rythian suggests a way out. He has two Enderpearls, and they do work. It’s Ender rather than magic; that never stopped functioning (did become rarer). If you hold one and throw it, it teleports you. If you throw it into a forcefield it doesn’t break but stays linked to you anyway - so when the field turns off and the pearl breaks, it will teleport you. (Has he done this before? Yes. Once. Not over as far a distance, but it’s possible that distance doesn’t matter in this case.)

- Lalna is trying not to be intensely weirded out by how fondly this Rythian talks about the Ender stuff in general. But then again, he didn't sink through an End portal, inch by horrified inch, as somebody watched it happen...

- Min points out that the power is out, and forcefields need a lot of it. Rythian says it doesn’t have to be large - and points out that Zoey has a small forcefield generator built in, that runs on her power. She could hold the pearls, be far away, and get them out after a time / signal. She is not pleased with this suggestion (“No. No! I’m coming with you.”). Min says she is not going back inside that place (“I told you; I die on my own terms, and no one else’s.”). Honeydew is pretty quiet about it. He wants to get to Zephos, ideally when there is no chance of him stopping the Lab imploding - and force him to leave.  

- As they argue, Lalna raises his artificial arm and points out he might be able to do something by combining the two sets of tech. Rythian snaps that if Zoey hasn’t been able to disconnect that system from herself before, he certainly won’t. (“And how are you going to make sense of this mad science bullshit?”)

- Lalna does eventually stop laughing.

- Eventually.

- It takes a bit of time. Figuring out the unfamiliar tech (but not… that unfamiliar), combining things etc. Nano sitting on the table watching at some point, seeing Lalna dart around in a sort of gleeful mania. It’s not something she’s seen before. Sure, he’s interested in magic, finding new things to tinker with, working out how stuff fits together, but this is something else. He seems… in focus, almost, like some part of him finally present. Like she's really seeing him.  Eventually he’s stripped his own prosthetic down to barely anything, a metal skeleton with gripping fingers; and created a forcefield box with his power cell, while giving Zoey a still-functioning arm. With a grapple in it now. (And any other addition needed for story reasons later; e.g. a few points of undeclared load.)

- Infiltration mission!  Create a distraction and head to the Labs, Honeydew leading the way. Everyone in lab disguises, which works better for some than others (Zoey & Honeydew = in armour, Lalna = lab coat and face covering, long glove; Nano = as much mask as can be fitted over her Flux; Rythian in lab coat, high necked shirt, mask.) Get in fairly easily - security to stop people getting inside has indeed been reduced. Want to find the portal control room. 

- Possible Lab bits: Rythian finding a captured Enderman and having emotions about it. Zoey’s internal map is out of date. Lalna trying not to oggle through every door they go past; eavesdrop every conversation / not butt in (fails).

- Infiltration mission goes wrong! Something has been set up around the traces of flux Nano left behind, and has been activated. Nano freaks out; starts to scream (not so ‘nano’ sounds now) in a way that begins to cause damage to the surroundings; Flux going mental. Lalna having trouble controlling his arm; Honeydew frozen, Rythian can’t breathe. It's all drawing attention. Nano drops through a puddle of Flux into the floor. Lalna pulls Rythian’s mask down and realises the purple has spread all the way up his neck, which is writhing. Zoey seems to be replying to things Lalna hasn’t said; knows that security is coming; Lalna yells at her to go. She grabs Honeydew, he hauls Rythian up (Flux arm taking the weight like nothing) and they run. He can feel several heartbeats thundering down his arm, Rythian’s own panic and another one that somehow he knows is Nano’s. Remembers the times she’s had night terrors, when he talked her down and tried to ignore the weird Flux effect happening (new magic is weird, right?), and tries to mutter similar things. Seems to be helping. Zoey boots open a door, hauling off a wall vent and posts Honeydew inside, climbing after him.  Rythian is breathing again, tightening his grip on Lalna’s shoulders. (“...how…? What did you…” “Wouldn’t actually be the weirdest purple thing I’ve seen on your neck.” Hauling him towards Zoey’s waiting hands. Half laugh. “What - is wrong - with your - ”

- “Rythian.” His eyes go wide as the sentence is finished, but not by him, and he’s torn out of Lalna’s grip. Slams into the wall, wall starts to buckle and Zoey yells for him. Lalna slams the hatch on her, hearing Honeydew bellow as they both fall back into the vent, and lunges back for Rythian - half a moment too late as the wall shatters into fragments and dust and he’s yanked backwards; before freezing in the air, pinned in place like he’s chained there.

- “Ryth-i-an.” Voice again, almost sing-song, like it’s tasting the word - and Lalna knows that voice. Never heard it sound like that before though, with smooth, predatory tones, and he turns to see a tall figure walking through the dust, the air swirling oddly around him. (“It’s about time we were introduced, friend.” <- at ‘friend’, Rythian twitches and groans, a horrible spasm running through his frozen form.)

- Lalna steps between them. (“Xeph. Please.” <- mirror of Xephos getting between Rythian and Lalna in ‘The End’). Zephos stops advancing for a moment and stares at him. He doesn’t look shocked, but there’s definitely something there. (“You really do look like him.” “Please let him go.” “And why should I do that, Lalna? Do you know how much trouble this wildling trash has caused me? How long I’ve waited to learn his - tightening fist, creaking - goddamn - tightening, and Rythian makes an awful noise - name?”)

- Lalna gambles on: “Because I can help you. But I'll need him, and so do you.”

- Zephos laughing. It’s a strange sound, a double-layered laugh not entirely his own. (“You? I’ve had copies made before.  You’re just a spare. A miscalculation. What possible use have I got for a one-armed, dilute facsimile of - ?”

- And now it’s Lalna’s turn to laugh. It’s not a happy noise, but it winds up out of his chest like an absolution and he brags about who he is; all the things he's done Moved an Enderportal; twice. Created such weapons, on a whim. Fought back an apocalypse at your side. Punched a hole in the world to get my friend back. Lost my arm down the gullet of the Queen of the End, minutes before we killed her and rode the wave of a breaking world back to our own. Shattered the walls between science and thaumaturgy because I wanted to; because I could. And if your Lalna was half the genius I am, then that - points at Rythian - is the best bloody mage you will ever find here, too. You want the impossible? Then step back and let us work.  Friend.

- Zephos is listening.  Eyes narrowed, but… interested. Drops Rythian, binds him to the floor with a collar of bent rebar from the wall. Don’t go anywhere. (“You. Follow me.”) Lalna doesn’t exactly have a choice.

- In the vents, Zoey and Honeydew plan to start freeing prisoners / experiments to cause chaos.

- Nano has sunk down through the floor / clipped back into Honeydew’s old room. There’s a lot of weird machinery there, surrounding the trace she left, and she starts tearing it apart. Realising she’s not alone - there’s a seething red-black darkness nearby, the spluttering edges of gold flame constantly spitting and dying within. (“Now, now. Shall we put our polite faces on? I’d hate to make a poor first impression.”)

- She knows that voice. Nano pulls herself back together (becoming less of a sort of purple storm in vaguely humanoid shape), managing to look mostly human. The space opposite her resolves somewhat as well, peeling back into itself, still trailing bloody shadows.

- “Ridge. You look terrible.” <- he’s weirdly delighted by this. (“Ohh, you have me at a disadvantage, little maelstrom. Here I was, thinking I was all left out of the one-sided reunions.”)

- Quite a lot of demigod verbal fencing. Ridge can’t touch her, but he’s fascinated by what she seems to be. (“You’re infecting them. I’ve never done it like that.” Will they come to you, if you call? Will they fight for you? Will they die for you?) There’s a deeply unsettling hunger about him. Nano’s trying not to say too much, but figures out that his power is split between him and Zephos; whatever is being cycled through Zephos, Ridge can't use.

- She disconnects herself from the Flux fragment in the machine (which crumbles to grey ash and fades to nothingness), and starts backing away. Ridge becoming angrier, losing his shape a bit; threatening that she is going to help him; that this world owes him. Nano points out she’s not from around here, remember? - and bolts, heading back the way she came.

- She re-emerges through the floor and finds Rythian bound down by wreckage, struggling. (“I can help. Probably. I’m really trying not to make it worse, okay?”) Security are around the corner, not wanting to get near to someone / thing of Zephos’ interest, but they’re going to notice her soon. Panics when she hears someone approaching; apologies again and grabs Rythian, pulling them both back down through the floor, flux-clipping away.

- Lalna and Zephos are having coffee. It is insanely normal. They’re in a canteen (everyone else found ways to discreetly flee).  Deeply unsettling. There are parts of this Zephos that remind Lalna so strongly of his friend (little mannerisms, turns of phrase), and parts that really really don’t. Xephos has always been such a constant - a mystery, half the time, sure; cagey as hell about some things and an almost-embarrassingly open book about others, but always - always… (What, Lalna? If you can’t say it to yourself, who can you admit it to? He’s better. Even before you found out about the ‘hero’ stuff - which he’s so sheepish about; he’s saved the world and he’s awkward about it for fucksake - he’s always been… better. Can be a mother-hen, sure; somehow has less actual tact than Honeydew when he’s carefully trying to make sure you’re not starting another apocalypse in your basement; and the ‘biscuit factory’ was always the most ridiculous veneer if I’d actually stopped to think about it for more than two guilty seconds…) Compared to the man in front of him; wearing that same face - yet lit up with a malevolent delight when Rythian cried out. As he casually began to crucify him in the air.  All the things he’d been told; all the things a little part of him held so, so firmly to the idea must be misunderstanding. Somehow. Somehow.  

- How can you be worse than me?

- Zephos is curious. (“Why did you bring us here?” “I didn’t. You are a mistake.”). Asking about Nano. (“She’s my friend.” “Why?” “...because she doesn’t know who I am.” / “She’s a monster, you know.” “At this point, who isn’t?”) Assumes that Lalna’s Flux patterns are inflicted on him too (which isn’t… entirely wrong. But they’re not deliberate). Risks mentioning Ridge - Lalna doesn’t know who he’s talking about. Zephos realises it’s genuine. (“Let’s keep it that way.”)

- (He does; but he doesn’t know he does. The sealing of Survival Games memories - and even the space they are in - has been done by a Ridge who isn’t damaged.)

- Zephos has no idea where Nano is. She’s not showing up on any of the feeds.  Lalna admits he thinks he’d know if she had left. Plus she wants to go home. (“And you?” “I’m… not sure.”) Zephos stands up and offers his hand. Lalna didn't realise he was familiar with what Xephos' hands look like, but this is so different - smoothed out, none of the callouses or scars.  He takes it, watching his flux patterns retreat from the touch, even as he reaches out, and Zephos grins a moment before they both vanish again.

- Nano and Rythian dumped out into a dark corridor. He shoves himself away from her and is immediately sick. She backs away, apologizing again. Doesn’t know why the flux doesn’t affect Lalna like that (“You’ve always known what you were doing.” “I’m - not - your - fucking - Rythian!”) He rounds on her, twitching and furious and she starts backing down the corridor. Every time she touches him, he can remember, and it’s like being torn apart again and again and again. He feels like he’s going insane. (“If you can’t give it me back then at least take it away. Please! <- voice giving out, livid purple crawling up his neck, outlining the ‘M’ scarring in gleaming webbing). Lunges past her, staggering into the room beyond, half-collapsing onto a console, drooling Flux and choking. It’s spreading further, down his arms, up his face.

- (“You’re infecting them.”)

- Nano grabs him and he screams - and she steps out of herself again. Can see the two of them frozen, and the flux webbed out through them both. The surrounding world is like it was when she went wandering earlier - an odd red hue over everything, covered in deep rends, and now she can see they run through Rythian too. It’s like he’s a shattered thing, but the gaps between his fragments are half-scarrred over, pushed back into place with… other things. Rebuilt links, sewn back across the chasms of his scattered soul with the thread of a thousand other connections. Flickers of concept and memory echo as she touches them (the shift of feathers in the wind; pain; bloody minded determination; the gleam of over-bright green eyes, etc). But the purple glisten of the flux is pushing at the cracks, digging in, trying to follow pathways that don’t - can’t - exist anymore. Breaking him apart again.

- (“Come back to me.” Resisting. Fix it.  Flow again. “We can’t. This isn’t ours to fix.”)

- the Flux is resisting. A stubbornness she knows so well. “You’re me. I… know that. I know we’re a bit scrambled up; I’m working on it. But I don’t want to hurt him, and you’re me too, so…”. Eventually it does pull back. Mostly. A bit won’t, staying settled in the original purple starburst over his heart; and she doesn’t push it. Steps back into herself - and lets go.

- Awkward staring. Shrug. “Best I can do?”

- Rythian straightens up - and the console under his fingers lights up. More, and more, spreading around the room, which is a lot bigger than either of them had realised. Wires, screens, scrolling reams of information, and in the centre is a pillar of twisting metal - with Voltz!Lalna embedded into it. (“...this explains a lot.”)

- Zephos and Lalna appear in the portal room. Zephos wondering why he’s doing this. (Do you miss him?) He’s cloned Lalna often enough (not recently - the tissue is too poisoned with nanotech to get a clear sample now), and they’ve always been… disappointing. Never quite right; never with that impulsive mania he remembered.  Often wondered if he’d been too hasty in what he did - but the real Lalna is so thoroughly enmeshed in the facility, there’s so little of him left to work with now. 

- Yet this one is staring at the portal room; the readouts, the technology, everything, with that so-familiar mad cogwork twisting behind his eyes. Zephos is watching him, waiting for something. (“What do you think? What would you do with this?”) (“It’s incredible.”) He wants to peel it open, he wants to see how it works - and he’s not lying. He really does. Perhaps…

- Lalna almost feels high. Maybe it was the teleporting. Maybe it’s everything around him. This is all insane. He knows what this place does. He’s been told; he’s seen it. He can’t be thinking about…

- Nano. She has to go home. Maybe he deserves this place, but she doesn’t. Asks if Zephos could send her back. 

- No. It doesn’t go in reverse. It targeted her, not directions. There is no way back.

- Lalna trying not to panic. Entertaining the idea of maybe staying, even this black-mirror half truth he was hanging on the precipice of here, was very different to the idea he that had to. The idea there was a choice, even if he had no idea how he’d make it, had allowed everything to be almost… fun. Not fun-fun, not by any honest sense of the word, but something that was ultimately more of a… game. Not fully real. (Remembering other times he's hit this kind of wall - reactor alarms screaming, with Sjin bleeding out his feet; as Rythian slipped just too far into that oil-sheen wrongness of the End portal; as he plunged forward towards that same fate; as the Queen cut into him, twice...)

- “Having second thoughts?” “Never been good at those.” Not in time, anyway.

- They should have run.

- Zephos tries to teleport Rythian there - and he can’t. He’s got an extremely vague feel of him, he knows he’s somewhere, but it’s like trying to see through purple fog. Grabs Lalna’s arm again and watches the flux swirl away from his hand. One godtouch can’t overlap with another. Laughing. Resigned.  Alas, the main use for Lalna now is going to be as bait. ("I'm sorry, friend. But none of this is about you."

- Back in the basement with other Lalna. <He’s looking for you.> There are no cameras in here. Lalna can’t directly disobey Zephos, but he can do things around the edges. Like open doors. Rythian realises he must be why he and Zoey were able to escape in the past.  He feels something grasp for him, but it slides off the knot in his chest. 

- What does this Lalna want? An end to this. Everything can burn, if he can do it. Glitching a bit with too many questions.  Also a lot of alarms are going off - chaos starting in various places, as experiments get loose / escape. 

- Lab-wide announcement of Lalna Being Imperiled. It’s a trap. Nano is going anyway, Rythian following.  Obviously Honeydew & Zoey are going too. 

- Everyone into the trap! (of course)

- Menace. Ridge turns up. Extra menace. 

- Honeydew standing up to Ridge, for Zephos. Threatening him with the axe. Ridge is furious, Zephos trying to placate him / Honeydew. Ridge grasps his arm, causing pain / special effects, and Honeydew throws the axe (“Leave him alone.”). Ridge pauses it in the air, it lighting up gold/black and sends it back. (“I am so very bored of you.)

- Honeydew crumples, dying; Zephos yanks the axe out, but he can’t fix the wound. Ridge won’t let it work.

- Zephos goes mental.

- Ridge!Power-off. Lalna getting grabbed from whatever Situation he’s in while this is happening. Any other staff have fled; room being torn apart. Nano ‘bubbling’ them all, but can’t do much more than that. Room flickering between where they are normally and the portal room (since the red matter is in the roof of that room; Zephos trying to get Ridge impaled on it; can’t teleport him alone, but can AoE it). He’s not winning, but he’s not instantly losing either. Nano’s bubble disrupted by red matter bits getting thrown around / shattered.

- Ridge starts winning, although he is clearly coming apart under the effort. Finally rips his power back out of Zephos (“Goodbye, Zephos. I don’t think I’ll miss you, after all.”); bloody cracks opening along Z’s body as he’s crawling towards Honeydew. Ridge reforming, and he’s not complete but it’s the most power he’s had for a long time. Starts drawing Nano’s Flux towards him (it’s running through the cracks in the world, and she can see how they all end/start with him). She’s fighting back, Rythian & Zoey trying to hold on to her as Ridge advances; not even remotely human now, with altered Flux marks starting to curl up his face (different to Nano’s - angular, vicious designs that look nothing like hers). Nano’s visibly her full self, her magic pulling back out of everyone else to protect / fight.

- Lalna beside the console. No Flux; his prosthetic already destroyed - he has nothing. He can’t get into the system past Zephos’ safeguards. Doesn’t have time. Slamming hand on console. Beep. It lights up (“I’m… in?”). Screen scrolling, and he realises he understands the instructions, although more by vibes than anything else. Portal can be activated - and set to target the biggest thing there.

- What happens if you try to pull someone into a dimension they’re already part of? Let’s fucking find out.

- If you're going to cause a disaster, do it for the right reasons.

- Portal starts up, everything shaking and starting to break. It pulls Ridge towards it but he hasn’t gone in; raising a hand towards Lalna (this is where I die). Shape rises behind Ridge, and Zephos brings Honeydew’s bloody axe round like a garotte, hauling them both backwards and into the vortex.

- Dramatic special effects for effectively throwing both primary antagonists into a feedback loop black hole.

- Portal machinery collapses, leaving a brilliant tear in the world hanging there in its place. 

- A bit of time to check if everybody is alive.  And then a lot of alarms start going off (Reactor critical, safeties disengaged etc etc).  Lalna’s console informs him that the surrounding forcefields will ‘contain it’, and says they need to leave. Goodbye. Then shuts off). ("Let’s say there’s something wrong with our Lalna" from Rythian, since Lalna didn’t actually meet his double / know what any of that was about).

- Nano has been staring at the portal space, and realises it’s widening, as if pixels are peeling off into it. (“This is bad.”). She’s exhausted, barely showing any flux; doesn’t know if she can get her and Lalna away in time.  There has to be something they can do, but…

- Another flash within, dark against the empty brilliance and holding an open shape, and two figures crash through it, landing as if they’ve jumped. A moment of horror as the first - so familiar; tall, thin - one straightens up, but then Lalna sees the blue metallic gleam of a sword gripped in one hand, and a torch in the other. Impossibly low-tech against the background of this place; yet held unwavering, like a declaration. Bellowing from beside him (“Lalna, yer mad bastard, where the bloody hell have you gallivanted of to this time?”) Then a different voice, just behind that one, as two more shapes materialize; one darkly clad, half-masked; the other with bejewelled sunglasses crammed on top of piled red hair. (“You’re going to start with the yelling?”) Behind them, there’s a slice of somewhere else visible, as if superimposed on the world. Other figures can be seen back there.

- Everybody sees each other. Lalna yelling to get away from the rift. Honeydew shouting that they brought a professional for that. The Rythians are just staring at each other. Nano grabbing Lalna’s arm, a faraway look in her eyes; Flux sparking there. They need to leave. Now. 

- Hadn’t expected this. What about the hole in the world? Nano insisting. (“It’ll be okay. This is one of those ‘believe me but don’t ask’ things.”). Lalna looking at Rythian, who is still staring at his doppelganger. (“I… think we’re being rescued.” "I can see that."). Zoeys wave at each other. (“Need a lift?” “No, we’ve got a teleporter box!” “Okay!”). 

- Huge explosion somewhere, and Rythian gasps - as he and Zoey vanish, in a twin vwip and two trails of broken black-violet.

- Running to the others, grabbed and hauled through. Moment of threshold confusion, and then they’re hitting the floor in Lalna’s old castle basement. Xephos grabs him, part in a hug, part holding him down, looking away. (“He says it’s better if we don’t try and watch this.”) Something happens behind them, in one long, very weird moment, and then the world resolves itself again. There’s a swish next to them, and Lalna catches a glimpse of gold-and-black brocade as someone strides past. A voice, felt almost more than heard. He’s going to want a little chat about this; later. Then he’s gone - and suddenly unimportant, sliding from Lalna’s attention like oil on water, as reality hits. They’re back. (“Yeah, well. Some ruddy idiot left a whole load of portal technology just gathering dust in his basement.”)

- Epilogue: Normal world. It’s been a few days and Zoey has aggressively thrown a party at Blackrock. Someone has pinned another sign under the ‘welcome home’ banner saying ‘that was so much easier than last time (and another saying: Don’t do it AGAIN; underlined)’. Nano watching Lalna. He's wearing one of his old prosthetics and starting to fiddle with it while drinking, but like he's been struck by an idea rather than because he's uncomfortable with it this time.  Suddenly everything gains a slow-down shimmer, and Ridge sits down beside her. He has a ridiculously colourful drink, with a little black-and-gold umbrella in it. Bits of it are moving.

- Demigod discussion of events. Used Lalna’s old portal tech (slightly... tweaked) to try and track where they had gone; trail was too thin to follow until the machine was activated again. He hasn’t altered anyone’s memories much - just obfuscating a few details. (“As much as it might pain my ego to say it; I hardly think I was the interesting part of this.”)

- Will they ever remember? Enough. If they need to. 

- Wondering what happened there, that didn’t happen here. (“Glad it didn’t. Sounds terribly boring.”) Noting that Nano seems more connected within herself. No need to rush things, but it’s good to see her more settled. Flux patterns are back, but are calmer, and move more lazily under her skin than frantic shifting. Ridge gives her a gift - the scar in the world from sealing the rift, made into a necklace. It's a gold, faintly non-euclidean squiggle, which turns purple when she touches it.  (“What is it?” “A reminder.” “Don’t you want it?” “I have plenty. Not my first rodeo.” Runs finger along the strange golden brocade of his coat; the complex intertwining of strange, glimmering patterns...)  He vanishes, and the world speeds back up.

- Lalna and Nano discussion. He knows there’s something he’s forgetting - but trusts her when she says she’s sure it’ll come to him; if he needs it. Checking she’s okay.  Checking he’s okay (re: coming home / feeling less like it’s just something deeply about him that must always end in disaster etc).  It’s a ‘Yes’ that covers a lot. Nano saying they should go back to Lalna’s castle for a bit - he can sort out his arm how he wants, and they can fix it up. They’ve been doing… her thing, for a while. She’d like to know more about his. Gives him the necklace (although most of the weird of it she can tell he can’t see) - since… y’know, waves at his arm, where his own Flux patterns used to be.

(other bits? Tie up any appropriate loose ends)

- Epilogue: other leg. It’s been over a year.  There was a lot to do after Min finally smashed the pearls (when the Labs started falling apart, as by that point they clearly either weren’t able to give her a signal, or that was the signal). The Labs outer forcefield did indeed stay intact, containing the resulting explosions, and so their first action was to make very sure that the outer power sources kept running. Then evacuate the city. Actual cooperation between everyone, Labs staff included, because no one wanted to be there when it fell / imploded.

- Other rebel groups took out other Sites, since there was no coordination to the Labs anymore.  It wasn't just losing the leadership - something had changed. Even people trying to take it back over didn’t seem to have the drive to do so anymore. Rebels able to coordinate properly for the first time in ages - and as it progresses, Rythian realises there isn’t really a him-shaped space here anymore. He and Zoey are heading back to the Wilds, and it’s so much easier a trip this time. (Having an amazonian cyborg along with you will do that.) Worried about what they’ll find. He has sent a communication, but there’s only so much he dares put in even those coded channels. 

- Seeing an Enderman in the distance as they’re getting closer; sheltering from sea spray. Zoey says it’s kinda creepy - a lot of people think they’re an omen. Rythian agrees with the omen part; but he’s not sure if he knows which way.

- Arriving, and Rythian is amazed to see the ramshackle port looks good. (“What, you thought it’d all fall over without you here? Ego, Ryth; pfft.”) Disembark, and he’s trying to get his bearings when there’s running footsteps, quite a lot of yelling, and Lomadia hits him in a sprinting hug, before shaking him violently, then being horrified at his scars; then hugging him again. (“Nothing for years, and then ‘Oh, yeah, fyi I’m on the way back; don’t wait up.’ You absolute bastard. What happened to your face?” etc). 

- Others there too - the Hatlads, clamouring as usual, plus a few more he doesn’t know (in the background: “I’m Zoey and I really want to see a massive owl.”) - and then someone else, standing half behind the rest. It’s Nano; but clearly not the same one. Looks younger; different markings; owl feathers woven into her hair. Lomadia brings her round to introduce her, hand extended. Rythian freezes, then it’s like something in his chest tugs him forwards, swinging his hand into hers -

- and the world lights up again. Feels power unfurl under his heart - but not painfully now; not displaced or desperate. Something from here. Something very old, and completely new, all at once.  He manages not to fall down, although mostly because Lomadia catches his shoulder, wincing. (“Oh damn, I didn’t think it’d be immediate, it took a good while for - ” Background, Smiffy bellowing: “Five seconds! His eyes went fucking purple; Ross you owe me money you pessimistic bastard!”)

- (“Yeah, he talks now. It’s exactly as aggravating as you expect.”)

- Nano apologising, Rythian assuring her it’s okay. (Lomadia: “I’m not complaining, but you are a lot less freaked out than I thought you were going to be.” “I’ve had… some practice.” “Oooh you should try fire first; fire is great.” “Shut up, Smiff.”

- Magic. It's little more than a seed right now, going to need growing, tending, learning the new shape of it… but it feels right. 

- The close of one thing, and the start of something else.

- Because in some ways, an end is always a beginning.

That last round of gunfire had really screwed up his right arm.  He'd wedged himself in place against the thick struts of a heavy-duty shipping container - splattered almost as much now with crimson as it was with spraypainted Cyrillic – and tried to breathe quietly.  The enormous bastard wielding a goddamn helicopter canon had fucked off to yell 'roided nonsense into a different part of the warehouse, so they probably had a few minutes pause before he realised his targets had dodged.

Not dodged as well as Joplin'd have liked, but there y'go.  You worked with what you got.

Most of the bullets had gone straight through – since he wasn't an armour-plated van – but he could feel a few wedged points of pain even within the jellied miasma of broken flesh that hung unpleasantly from his torn shirt.

"Jesustapdancing­-" he bit down on the mismatched curse as he grabbed his messed-up limb with his other hand and twisted, pushing it up against himself and the steel wall behind, and tried not to go blind.

It squelched.

"Don't like that," he muttered, then glanced up at the wet snort of amusement from just down the container row. "Hey, he nailed you to the fuckin' wall about as well as I've seen; don't get lippy."

Not that his extremely temporary partner was in much shape to be more actively sarcastic.  The brunt of the recent salvo had hit taken Belton pointy-ear to hip, ripping the big grey fuck open like a side character in chainsaw splatter, which – somehow – made the look of dazed amusement on the bits of his face that weren't hanging off even more aggravating than usual.  He shifted position, bringing his torn-up arms out in front of him as if holding something narrow and invisible in both hands, and –

Joplin blinked.

Pull... yourself...

"Oh fuck off," he growled – and it was a growl, a sound that started deeper than his chest actually went and brought the pull along with it; a bestial reverb that went beneath his bones.  Joplin gritted his teeth – which felt about ready to start moving in his jaw as it was, aching with something beyond nerves – and had another unpleasant feel around where his elbow used to be.  It helped if everything was in the right place.  Last thing he needed right now was having to rebreak a limb because he'd managed to shift over all wonky.

That'd have to do.  Very pointedly not making eye contact with Belton as he did so, Joplin Changed.

There have been a lot of renditions of a lycanthropic* transformations over the years, and there have even been some that have come close to the actual reality of seeing it happen. The exact visuals tend to vary person to person, but however it looks, the world bends – just a little, at the seams – as something that was only ever the thickness of breath away steps forward.  Joplin always thought it felt like stretching should do – an all-over, unfurling release of physicality, like every fibre of you stopped hunching its shoulders all at once.

________________________________________________________________

* There's an argument that 'ursanthropic' might be a more technically correct term when the reader is considering Denis Joplin himself – or even the bellowing figure currently firing 30mm rounds into what will turn out to be a container of tinned garlic pallets – but the linguistic side of paraphylogeny isn't a popular field.  'Actually, it's wereBEAR' is only a helpful correction under certain circumstances, and this isn't one of them.**

** Yet. ________________________________________________________________

The arm took a bit more effort.  A transformation that added several feet in height, width, and summed-up hair length didn't exactly have a problem fixing a half-mulched limb, but there was clearly an additional process going on.  He wondered how people had explained what it looked like before timelapse film had been developed.

It... healed.   Torn vessels sealed over; bone shards scraped and swelled together within muscles that bulged crimson-purple as they knitted close.  Tissue bloomed, bruise-blossom hues racing through tattered skin and dragging raw pallor behind them; black-bloody tears welled up pink and grey and pink again, threaded with ribbons of tendon herded into place by a lightning flash of sudden scars, gone as fast as they appeared.  Then the fur broke surface like desert flowering, and a heartbeat later there was nothing to show for the damage that a slight extra paleness in the iron-grey pelt, as Joplin flexed his bulked-out fingers carefully.

Belton clapped.  Just once, with a softness that hands tipped with inch-long claws shouldn't be able to achieve, and it was the most sarcastic fucking sound Joplin had ever heard.  He bared his considerable teeth in a silent snarl and waved his own padded hands towards the old bat.

Hurry.  Up.

Belton's black eyes crinkled at the edges, and then he pulled himself back together.

The real difference between vampires and werewolves is how they bleed.

Belton's blood was dark, with a strangeness to its consistency that would have baffled splatter analysts on a fundamental level, but it also didn't tend to stay where it landed.  None of him did.  Metal gleamed naked against the pitted concrete as pools of inky crimson pulled away from the bullets that had torn them loose, flowing back along their own path like a retreating tide - rivulets of reversing gore that snaked and whipped back up their origin form, trailing back into ruptures that folded seamlessly shut around them.  Belton stood up, even as his chest cavity was still closing, and gently pushed his hanging jaw back into place, smoothed like fresh clay.

Vampires don't heal – you see – so much as 'rewind'.

He held Joplin's gaze, half a heartbeat longer than he needed to, and grinned.

There was a spotless bullet held between his rows of teeth.

"Oh, fuck off," Joplin repeated – before he was drowned out by a guttural roaring, and the sound of a minigun barrel being smashed through something unfortune enough to be inside its turning circle.

"Little pigs, little pigs!  I hear you!"

Both men visibly winced.

"See, someone with that little self-awareness just shouldn't be this much of a problem," Belton muttered, flicking the bullet aside like a cigarette butt. "It's genuinely a bit embarrassing."

"Yeah, well," Joplin whispered back, as he scanned the roof, taking in the environment with an eye to traversal options he hadn't had five minutes ago. "I won't tell if you don't."

Another roar burst the air, and Belton started edging down the row again, clearly doing his own version of the calculations.

"Pity he doesn't take after your side of the family, really."

"This isn't a family situation," Joplin snapped back, readying himself to move when the oncoming footsteps got a bit closer.  If he could get around, then maybe he could deke out the...

He glanced back, about to signal a go, and realised the old vampire was still looking at him, one of those impossible-to-read expressions on his weird bat face for a second, before he spoke softly.

"See, that's the thing with monsters.  It's always going to come back to blood, one way or another."

A shiver danced down Joplin's extended spine, strong enough to stir the fur.  That was a bit close for comfort – and from sodding Belton?  He shrugged dismissively, only partly to himself.

"Yeah, well, this ain't gonna be the worst it gets.  Try not t'get cut in half again."

Then the shipping container exploded in a nightmare of burning metal.  Belton went right; Joplin went up; and everything else went on from there.

Beep.

Twenty-eight forty.

Beep.

Thirty-one seventy.

Beep.

Nox watched the till display tick up, comparing the total to her mental tally.   She had enough; she knew she did.  It might have been in tattered bills, tarnished coin rolls and bits of change so old they were chipped like gears around the edges, but she was always real careful to plan these trips down to the grubby dime.  In and out, as unobtrusive as possible.

Beep.

A final bag passed, the green-yellow numbers flickering one final time.  The cashier smiled in customer service plastic as she read out the total, then followed it with a look of awkward concern.

“That’s all for you?  We - er – we have some good specials,” she said hesitantly, nodding towards the little stack of brightly-labelled packages beside the register. It was mostly sweets and tampons, and Nox bit back on a grin at the sight. Nice thought, but that hadn’t been her ‘bloody’ problem for a while now.

“That’s it,” she replied, adding: “Thanks, though.”   Sure, it was an upsell, but a kind one. The girl even managed to keep back any disgust at the state of some of the cash; it had been cleaned up, but people didn’t tend to drop crisp ones into a cup on the sidewalk.

Nox carried everything out to the repurposed shopping cart that she’d left just inside the little bodega’s doors. The thing was unbalanced and took corners like a drunk, but it was better than playing pack mule herself. The new bags settled down on top of the day’s earlier buys: bulk discount batches of toilet roll, bleach and superglue, along with cheap fabric for bandages. Plus, now, thirty-eight dollars and eighty-six cents’ worth of the cheapest mince and frozen shrimp available within a four-mile radius.

There had been a time when she’d had to worry about dietary fibre. Or vitamins.

The cart’s wheels creaked and rasped on sidewalk dirt as she headed it away, hunching down over the handle as she pushed; partly for more control, mostly to keep her face in shade. Her battered baseball cap and hoodie did a pretty good job – accompanied by garish plastic sunglasses and a stained bike mask – but every little helped. It also added to the overall ‘bag lady out on an afternoon shuffle’ aesthetic she was going for. The trick was to inspire just enough awkward pity to be invisible, but not enough to be a target.

Apparently, her act was off today. She’d just turned a laborious corner, distracted by trying to keep the bags all stacked, when she felt a hand clamp down onto the top of her head and yank hard. She didn’t move, but the hood pulled away and she heard a yelp of disgust even before she swivelled around. Two young men stood behind her, gawking in revulsion at the revealed state of Nox’s scalp, in all its piebald, peeling, erratically-thickened glory. A thin braid slithered down her face, torn too-easily free along with the hood.

She gave the scene one more heartbeat to really settle in, before grinning widely. Faced with a mouthful of teeth like broken ivory, the youths managed to look even more horrified.

“Aye, that’s how I caught it too!” Nox cackled theatrically, before snatching the hat back from now-unresisting fingers and jamming it back into place. “Don’t go scratching yerself anywhere pretty fer a bit, eh?”

The lad – and his already-retreating backup – hesitated, then let out a string of bravado-born obscenities. Freak – gross – blah blah blah I-have-a-tiny-dick blah. He kicked at the cart as he started follow his friend, and Nox let just enough spill out to sate the petty spite.

Once they had gone, she picked up the packets again and began to fix her hood. The exposed skin was stinging and smarting already, a poison-ivy prickle that calamine wouldn’t touch. At least it was late enough in the afternoon that she probably wouldn’t blister from the exposure. More annoying was the missing chunk of hair, and she probed at it gingerly. No deep wound, thankfully; which probably meant that the straggly braid had been almost ready to fall out anyway. She tended to keep about half a head of hair going, on average; so it’d grow back.

The lads were long gone by the time she was ready to set off again. With any luck she’d be nothing more than an awkward moment in a day of shoving their weight around; quickly forgotten. Being gross in the eyes of idiots wasn’t a Breech, after all.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. Streets gave way to alleys, sidewalks to cracked paving, to rotting asphalt, and even the graffiti began to wane as she got closer to home. The main occupants of this ass-end of nowhere – a ghetto’s dumpster of a place – didn’t exactly make it their business to advertise where they were. Those that needed to know; knew. Those that knew, generally didn’t care – which was honestly a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Nox had heard the stories of what it had been like only twenty years ago. It was strange to feel that there was any sort of luck to her history, but six years wasn’t twenty.

Reaching a gap in an otherwise unremarkable wall, she glanced around quickly, making sure that no one was watching. Then she straightened up, gripped either side of the overloaded cart, and hefted it up through the broken brickwork in one smooth movement. She vaulted in after it, dropping down into cool shade, and let out a sigh of relief as the accepting touch of Karloff’s Invitation washed across her. The sense was like a door opening in welcome; like taking the first familiar turn towards home after a long day’s drive. It also meant no more unwanted attention – without that explicit permission, you’d never be able to recognise the entrance, or even keep your attention on what you were looking for. She was as invisible now to all other turned-aside eyes as everything else within the Invitation’s borders.

A few more rattling corners later, Nox finally turned into the Homestead grounds. The whole area had once been a crammed-in mess of squat apartment blocks, copy-paste civic solutions built without charm to fill the need for cheap rooms. The Homestead was the only one of its kin still standing, now surrounded by an opened-out area of recent amateur demolition and scrap-built fencing. Bright splashes of street art cut across sagging concrete and the blacked-out eyes of the windows, although the tags and themes chosen indicated the difference between these creators and the more standard ones of the world outside. Most of this had been painted at night, for example, with rather more variety on the theme of ‘hands’ grasping the tins.

There was a lot more inside, and below, but she felt a particular warmth at these murals. Out here, on the surface. Bright in sunshine that most of them could never see. The Nosferatu might be Vegas Below’s crusty little secret, but they were damn well there.

Bits of cracked paving clicked and skittered beneath the cart’s wheels as Nox made her way through the fences and to the big, bolted main doors. There was a rough porch built around the frame, mostly to give extra shadows, and she looked up at the tiny glints of watchful glass sunk into the surrounding wall. She waved.

“Dimestore-Blade’s grocery delivery,” she announced, and listened to the familiar rattle of bolts start on the other side of the door. A few moments later it swung open and a hunched figure peered out, wincing back from even the thick porch shade. This was Max; an older woman than Nox in both kinds of age, who managed her marks via a combination of extensive bandaging and even more extensive needlepoint. Watery black eyes looked past her, squinting through a gap in the heavily-embroidered scarf wrapped around her head.

“All okay?”

Nox nodded and lifted the trolley over the threshold.

“Fine.” She didn’t mention the youths. Didn’t seem a lot of point. “Let’s get this lot into the freezer before it can walk on its own, yeah?”

Safely inside the slightly-fetid gloom of the entrance, Nox took the opportunity shed her bag-lady layers. True, she couldn’t actually overheat, even on a Nevada afternoon, but being swathed in that many layers was still claustrophobic. Beneath the mismatched fabric strata was an increasingly-threadbare pair of yoga pants and a dark vest, and Nox gave a small sigh of relief as she folded up the rest of her daylight-drag, shoving it onto a shelf nearby.

“Right,” she muttered, as much to fill the air as anything else, and turned back to the trolley. Max had already transferred much of it into precarious piles in her own arms. Her scarf had slipped down, revealing a hairless head webbed with splitting skin; much of it made whole again with patterned patches of colourful thread. The fabric discoloured over time, of course, but it reduced the leaking.

Balancing their burdens, the pair made their way further into the Homestead. Closest to the entrance was the most decrepit part, occupied mostly by shelves and old furniture crammed full of clothes and patched umbrellas for venturing out, and with years of dumped debris building up in corners. Rooms with windows – even those as thoroughly blacked out or bricked up as these were – mostly housed the rat runs or storage, because no one wanted to spend a lot of time somewhere where crap mortar could result in dayburns. Similarly, the roof and most of the top floor was given over to pigeon roosts and No avoided them whenever possible. She’d never much liked pigeons before this, and she still held that even their vitae tasted of garbage, somehow. Still, they were much dumber than rats, and they did lay eggs, so that helped.

The really lived-in part of the Homestead was underground. Everybody knew Nosferatu lived in the sewers, right?  Okay, so Nox would admit she hadn’t much understood the difference between ‘sewer’ and ‘storm drain’ before her life had taken its scabby turn, but she sure did now. Vegas had extensive storm drains – large concrete tunnels that lay under much of the city, designed to quickly shift heavy rain away from the tarmacked surface above – and they were ideal: underground, dark, not monitored.

And not actually full of shit.

The arrangement used to be… messier, Karloff had told her. When they hadn’t been so organised; when they’d lived closer together with others who had slipped through the cracks Above. Some of the Family had started off as those same ‘unfortunates’ after all; those who were aftermath-sired in a broken frenzy, or from the bloody jaunt of some fuckfang cutting through the ranks of those who wouldn’t be missed. Splitting their claimed tunnels off from the main circuit and establishing the Homestead proper had happened later, after the Vegas Accord had given the Nosferatu a Clan-status, and hunting them for sport stopped being an acceptable weekend activity.

Six years sure ain’t twenty.

Max chatted away as they walked; an idle litany of gossip, social media tidbits and reports from watchers all over the city, woven together into what Nox tended to think of as ‘Radio Max’. Spying on people was apparently another nos stereotype; but honestly when you didn’t really sleep, were functionally invisible to large portions of society, and had worked out how to divert half-decent broadband from badly-secured leisure networks overhead, it wasn’t difficult to get ahead on current events.

Plus the rats, of course. 

Information was power, and they had precious little of any other. Although Nox sometimes wondered how much of those scant threads of power that Karloff put such value on would diminish if Clanpires in general figured out how to just Google things.

They had reached what she thought of as ‘mainstreet’ of the Homestead tunnels – a long space with concrete pillars linking floor to ceiling every thirty feet or so, quite cheerfully lit by a mishmash web of light fittings rigged up overhead – when yelling broke out further down. Nox and Max shared a look of alarm at the commotion, but it was when her name became suddenly clear in the shouts that Nox’s stomach dropped.

“Get this stuff away, will you?” she muttered, carefully setting her packages down beside Max, and turned to meet the oncoming figures. Even wrapped in a heavy coat and thick gloves, she knew the loping form of Skaad instantly.

With features which sagged so violently that his bruise-yellow skin frequently tore at the edges, and a mouth like a lipless sharps bucket, Skaad was nonetheless gifted with some of the keenest senses in the clan, plus a damn-near eidetic memory. Which meant he spent most of his time skulking in hidden places, listening to things he shouldn’t, and following people who thought they were alone in their secret business. Having him sprinting towards you, so fast his eyelids were visibly flapping, wasn’t a great sign.

Back in the world Above – before her life had gone to hell in a weirdly specific way – Nox had been a paramedic. It was useful in the day-to-day, being the closest thing this bunch of ragged immortals had to a resident doctor, but there was only really one sort of actual emergency left down here.

Skaad skidded to a halt, and grabbed her arm with a worrying urgency.

“Got a phresh one. Get yer kit!”

Fuck. A fresh one meant one thing: someone had found a dumped fledgeling, one who’d been showing signs of the Change going wrong and been tossed aside by their disgusted sire. Intervening quickly could help, particularly getting a pigeon smoothie down them fast, but the panic on Skaad’s drooping face didn’t line up with -

“What’s so – ?” she started, but he shook his head, steering her towards the plastic-covered tunnel they used as a makeshift clinic. He leaned in to shove her again, but lowered his voice and muttered just before he did – and the words sent ice down her spine.

“It’sh a kid.”

Oh no.

Oh fuck.

-

You didn’t turn kids.

When your working knowledge of vampires had been a general pop-culture miasma and some blurry memories of teenage Buffy marathons, finding yourself on the other side of the supernatural coin came as a shock in various ways. One of which was the weird sensation that you should have studied it all harder, somehow. Nox had certainly felt stupid, in her early days, as a man with a face like a charred wasps’ nest listened to her stutter her way through half-remembered fiction and worse-remembered reality. But she’d apparently got a few things right, and somewhere in that muddle had been the idea that you shouldn’t turn kids.

There were all kinds of theories as to why – from the debauched to the practical – but she found that in many ways it didn’t matter. Whatever fucked-up intention you had, it wouldn’t work. Too young just… didn’t take. And when a siring didn’t work, there was every chance the result would end up on her table.

She scrabbled through the assortment of old drawers and boxes that stored her gear, pulling out anything she thought might work. Bandages, thread, craft superglue, repurposed bottles of hard spirits that would do in a pinch for sterilising. The best-case scenario things. And the rest. Old herb pots of fine powders; thrift-store silver cutlery hammered and polished and changed into a very different set of tools. Sharpie-labelled bottles of liquids that moved weirdly in the light, and a range of refillable lighters that definitely didn’t contain hydrocarbons anymore. All the things she’d picked up in the last six years that fitted in with other sort of medicine.

The plastic curtain behind her was yanked back and a sound she had been trying not to hear finally demanded her attention. It wasn’t even a scream, and Nox hated, hated hated hated that she recognised the cadence there perfectly: raw, animal agony of sound torn from a throat that was violently reforming around it. She turned to see Skaad forcing flailing limbs down, looping thick restraints around rippling flesh, and finally allowed her full attention to turn down to the spasming form.

Gore looked different through vampire eyes. It was hard to describe exactly how – partly because wordsmithery had never been one of her strong points, but more because trying to compare feelings from now and then was always going to have a huge fucking hurdle of shifted species in the way. She’d still probably seen more human blood in nine years on the ambulances than during the half-dozen in and out of Vegas’ shadows, and but everything afterwards had been… different. Displaced. Detached. Just didn’t seem as visceral as it used to do.

But this did.

Acid tightened in Nox’s throat as she stared down at the shuddering mess in front of her. Blanched skin bubbled and writhed, tearing as it pulled away from the muscles beneath; themselves little more than contorting ropes of livid tissue that pulsed under dying heartbeats and spilled black fluid from ever-widening rents. The throat was gone, now a bubbling pit of desperate breaths, sucked past exposed tendons that wriggled like furious worms. Half-clotted ichor was pooling from gashes along the arms, down the stomach and further: the marks of peri-sire wounds, those that had been still fresh as the invading blood forced itself into collapsing veins. The eyes were side-to-side a sickly crimson-yellow, bloating out from a face that was collapsing in on itself, and throughout it all, the kid screamed.

It was revolting. Nox had to bite down on the vicious spikes of fight-flight that were going off in her mind, so violently she could feel her hands trembling from the horror and her disgust at her own reaction. It was an instinct, an unbidden response to a failing siring – she knew that – but understanding it didn’t make it easier. Everyone down here had ‘gone nozz’ during their own Turn. Hell, a few of those brought to her were walking around now, not seeming any weirder than any of them, but she’d still felt that awful surge of fundamental wrongness about them before they stabilised.

Nox gritted – all of – her teeth, and slammed her kit down on the table.

Instincts can fucking blow me.

“Let’s see what we can do.”

-

It turned out what they could do, wasn’t much. Cleaning, sewing, cutting, sealing – nothing held. Stitches fell from uncertain skin, or tore great new holes as fresh spasms pulled at the edges. Wet rags soon littered the floor, sodden with black and yellow fluids that turned the rough concrete into a slippery, stinking mess. The bleeding wasn’t slowing, even as the body seemed to be crumpling in on itself, gradually liquefying around the bones.

The sound had gone quieter, if not softer, and Nox didn’t have much hope it would stop soon. It might be days yet, before the final sparks of vitae or life or cruel continuation finally went out.

Too young. The kid – the girl, most likely, going by anatomy – had been just… too young.

They had to have known that.

“I’m outa tricks,” she said, although the words felt thick and sharp in her mouth. She wanted to keep going. She wanted to, so fucking much. But somebody had done this. Somebody who knew this would happen.

“I’m gonna make her comfy,” she continued, then hesitated even as she pulled out the frankly-horrific cocktail of morphine and street drugs that might make a dent in a system caught somewhere between undead and alive. Skaad looked at her, and held out a clawed hand.

“Want me…?”

“Nah.” Nox shook her head, and swallowed. “You can get the others outta upstairs, though. I need to – to make a call.”

Skaad stiffened, his jaundiced eyes flicking between her and the table for a moment, before he let out a low hiss and ducked away through the curtain. Nox administered the mix and tried to convince herself it would have any sort of palliative effect. Then she went back to the drawers and rummaged again, right at the back, until her fingers closed on the ridged plastic of an old nokia.

There weren’t many numbers in the phone, but it was the first one she selected, under B.

- SUMFCK SIRED KID. ITS BAD -

She threw the phone back into the drawer and hurried out, past the plastic sheet and into the tunnels, leaving sticky footprints in her wake. Not a great look, but everyone would already know what was happening. Nosferatu gossiped like – well, like a society of insomniac, semi-immortal shut-ins.

Overhead, an erratic cluster of repurposed pipes trailed down through the domed roof, emanating from the rat runs above. Drainpipes, corrugated plastic, bits of plumbing, and all of them shaking slightly with the constant pass of tiny feet within. They opened out onto tiny highways of shelving that lined the walls, all heading in the same direction as she was. Pairs of black-beady eyes glanced at her as they passed, and with so many concentrated here, she could feel the faintest flick of Attention in each one. They were all headed to a squat metal door at the end of an offshoot passageway. The rats passed freely back and forth narrow holes punched in either side of the door; but Nox knocked. She knew she was already expected and entered after a respectful moment.

Karloff’s chamber was bigger than it looked like it would be from the doorway. Nox wasn’t sure what the space had originally been – some kind of maintenance room? – but it was now dark, and warm, and smelled less of rats than might be expected given the constant rodent tide. Shelves lined the walls, full of books and occasional pieces of recycled pet furniture. One floor-ceiling tower was filled entirely with old radios, police scanners, walkie talkies and the like.

The old man himself lay where he usually did, propped up in a nest of pillows and blankets in a box-like bed in the centre of the room. He presented an impossibly gaunt figure: papery-brown skin layered like peeling paint across sharp bones, with eyes so thickly clouded they sat like grey-milk marbles in unclosing sockets. His face looked scorched, blackened at the edges of the old dry wounds that had taken his nose, torn away most of his lips, and presumably shattered the broken fangs that jutted from his mouth. There was – as usual – a huge white rat lazing across his chest, nearly the size of a terrier and wearing a dark silken ribbon, and its sharp crimson eyes fixed on Nox as she entered.

She bowed her head, and tried not to leave bloody footprints on the rug.

“I need a temporary Invitation,” she said. It was blunt, but there was no point in dancing around it. He’d already know anyway. As she spoke, the huge rat sat up. It’s pale paws were clasped in front of it, folded in a strangely human-like gesture, but Karloff himself turned his head only slightly.

“’Belton,” he said softly, in the throat-based hush of his voice, and Nox nodded. Her fingers twitched into fists, and she felt the sticky remnants of gore slide between them.

“I… I’m running out of options, and she – ” the words were sticker than her fingers, getting caught on her lips “ – she’s real bad.”

The rat cocked its head and Karloff drew a slow breath.

“You will not do it?” he asked. Nox’ throat tightened.

“If I gotta. But I want him to see her, cos I – I could do this, but I ain’t got a snowball’s chance of doing anything about it.”

Karloff’s head turned further, and the clouded eyes passed over her with an intensity that Nox could feel, as if they skipped sight entirely and went right into her heart instead. There was another stretched moment of silence, then the pressure dropped and the rat turned away, curling itself neatly under its master’s chin.

“It is done,” Karloff said. The long fingers on one hand twitched slightly, and the faintest hint of a frown dug into his face. “...take care with the old death. You have seen little of him.”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you,” Nox added before she headed out again; first to check that the cocktail of drugs had at least calmed the kid’s screams, then back into the upper house. A few rats followed her as she slid into the squeaking, busy dimness of the runs to use the sink that still stood in one corner, using brownish water to at least scrub some of the stains from her hands. Then she set to wait, pacing with nervous energy.

No one joined her. By now, everybody would know what was happening, and no one wanted to be around when he came calling.

The problem – okay, so one of the problems, in a dreadful, tangled ball of ever-more layered problems – was that it was very, very difficult to kill a fledgeling in any way that could be considered humane. A body already in the process of tearing itself apart was resistant to most damage for the same reasons that you couldn’t punch a fog. Getting any kind of drug to land in an even-partly vampiric system was difficult enough at the best of times, and this…

Well, there was sunlight, but everything about Nox’s very being baulked at the idea of using that method. She knew with personal, hellish intimacy that the agony from that would get through even a Change. Torturing someone to death with one of the few things worse than what they were going through was really not the point.

Plus, there was a tiny, tiny part of her mind that hoped she was wrong. She’d only been dealing with this stuff for a handful of years, and while rumours varied widely about how old Belton actually was, he’d seen a lot of shit. Maybe she’d missed something. Just maybe…

It seemed to take an eternity before the roar of an engine outside broke through Nox’ whirling thoughts. She hurried to the door, took a careful breath, and peered out through the little viewing slot. Not that anyone else would have been able to ride a motorcycle up to the Homestead without the permission of Karloff’s Invitation, but it never hurt to keep caution.

A huge bike was settled just beside the front steps. It was black, but in the way a magpie’s wings were black, with oil-slick iridescence hinting around the edges. The rider – dressed to match, in that seamless continuity of clothing that Nox had started to think of as ‘vampire sunscreen’ – had already dismounted and was stood beside his bike, the raven-sheen of his helmet turned towards the door. There was no visible gaze to meet, but the weight of his attention was like ice down her spine, and she opened the door as deliberately as she could.

“She’s downstairs,” she said, as the figure came up the steps. The sun was already going down, barely spilling dying light over the surrounding wall of buildings, and the porch shadow was very deep there. It only got deeper as the big man stepped into it – and then paused, right on the edge of the frame.

“May I enter?” His voice was never as heavy as she expected, with a melodic edge that absolutely did not match what she knew lay under that helmet. Nox rolled her eyes.

“I texted you, and you’re here, right?”

He was always so… old fashioned about this. It wasn’t like it was a general requirement. Nox stepped back, gesturing inwards.

“Come in already,” she added. The man might have been big – although ‘fucking enormous’ would be a better description, needing to visibly turn and duck to get through the doorframe – but he moved deceptively fast, and was well inside the hallway, starting to remove his helmet before she had had time to shut the door. She turned to look, not even pretending not to stare as he unclipped all the security bits and lifted it smoothly free. The dramatic effect was only slightly spoiled by the oddly-bulging balaclava he had on underneath – but Nox supposed that if her ears could meet at the back, she’d want to keep them restrained inside a helmet too.

Belton looked… well, he looked like Belton. There just plain wasn’t anyone else like that. The best description she had ever been able to come up with was that he looked like someone had tried very hard to make a bat in the character creation screen of a pro-wrestling computer game. It was as if the underlying architecture that should have made a human skull had been stretched and tweaked and twisted into something approaching Chiroptera from the other side.

It probably said something worrying about her own psyche that – somewhere in the mess of emotions that Belton inspired – a part of her really, really wanted to see an xray of his head.

No time for this.

“C’mon,” she nodded him to follow her back down the Homestead’s passageways. The rats watched them from every surface; their skittering highways unusually still as the majority of glinting little eyes were fixed on the visitor. They were the only visible watchers, and Nox tried not to notice how empty every space they passed through was. It added another level of eeriness, with the just-abandoned debris of life seeming like some extremely localised Rapture. Even Nox’ rapid explanation of the situation fell muted around them; for his part, Belton just listened and nodded every now and then. He didn’t look around.

How familiar was he, with this place?  He’d come a few times since she’d been here – and of course, that first time meant he’d sure known where it was. Nox’ gaze slid sideways. Belton had removed his gloves by now, and the hands revealed couldn’t even remotely be thought of as human; the fingers were too long, bone and tendons standing stark beneath mottled grey skin; capped by black claws that curled from the nailbeds, polished to an obsidian gleam.

How many times had those hands run across the outer walls of the Homestead; at Karloff’s limits; searching for a way in?  How many times had those claws torn into sagging flesh, or crushed furry watchers into broken blindness?

How many times had he come before he had brought her here; a crispy mess of fledgeling coated in sand and gravel and gore, spat out by the desert and into hands that immortals feared…?

The plastic curtain seemed to rise up like an exclamation, a cold shot of right now breaking her thoughts, and Nox came to a sharp halt. There was still sound from inside: a bubbling, slurred collage of moans that had made it past the drugs, and her hand froze halfway to the curtain. The swell of renewed, visceral revulsion felt like she’d choke on her own fucking hypocrisy, and she couldn’t suppress a slight hiss.

“It’s – ” she started, through gritted teeth, but cut out as Belton gently touched her shoulder.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Nox’ fingers twitched, then she turned away, moving until she could lean heavily against the nearest concrete pillar and rested her forehead against the pitted surface. The groan might as well have been coming out of the air. It pressed down around her and her skin crawled.

She hated this, and she hated that she hated it like this. Some depraved motherfucker had dragged a fucking child into very literal hell and she’d tried, she’d tried with every stupid, macguivered bullshit tool she’d put together out of garbage; she’d tried everything and it was never going to have meant a damn thing and all she could focus on, really really focus on right now was how fundamentally disgusting that fucking sound was –

And then it stopped.

Nox physically sagged against the pillar, relief and nausea chasing each other through a stomach that was dropping into her boots. There was only one reason for the sudden silence, and she let her eyes slide closed, muttering the same half-wordless prayer she’d always used when a case went bad, or a patient flatlined in the ambulance. Whatever that meant now, she’d never been sure, but it still sort of fit.

She’d known. She’d known when she picked up that damn phone.

But fuck me if hope isn’t a bitch.

It wasn’t long before there was the faint brush of plastic again and Nox opened her eyes to see Belton smoothing the curtain back behind him, covering the sudden stillness. There was a long moment of silence before he turned to her. His eyes were the most human-looking part of his face, and the grey gaze sought hers.

“I’ll be on my way, then.”

Nox nodded numbly. They went out the way they came; still alone, still watched at every step by a hundred rodent stares. Back up, back to the door and out into the thickening dusk of the evening – and it wasn’t until the porch steps were creaking under his boots that Nox’s nerve rose again.

“Hey – Belton?” she managed, and the big figure paused. He looked back at her and one curled brow raised, moving an ear with it. Nox pulled the Homestead door shut behind her as she sought the right words. “This… ain’t your job, right?”

“I don’t have a real tight specification,” he replied, then shrugged. “But broadly?  No. To be honest with you, my boss couldn’t give a rat’s twat what happens with the Nosferatu.”

“So why’d you come?” Those words came fast, but Nox didn’t try to stop them. Belton paused again, then hung his helmet and balaclava over the big bike’s handlebars. He sat down on the steps, hunching a little in that strange shape his back took when he wasn’t standing, and Nox slid down beside him at the unspoken invitation.

Belton shook his head, what might have been a wry smile tugging at the edges of his too-wide lips. Glints of needle teeth flashed in the dusk.

“It’s a question of perspective, see,” he said quietly. “For someone like you?  This’ll ruin your whole year. Getting all Lady Macbeth with the inevitable. But for me?” He held up a hand and slowly flexed the clawed fingers. Once; twice; and Nox couldn’t draw her gaze away from the mottled skin as it shifted over his bones. Belton sighed. It was an old sound, so old that any hint of what it might contain had worn away like stone under rain.

“What’s one drop in an ocean?  Don’t get me wrong – ” he added, with the edge of smile falling away again “ – I’ll feel bad about it; but I’m not losing myself any sleep.”

She should have been angry. She wanted to be angry, at the casual way this bat-faced bastard just said it; as the so-recent feel of the kid’s crumbling flesh slammed against her thoughts and ghosted under her fingers, and bile she wasn’t even sure she had anymore swirled at the back of her throat. She should be angry.

“...thank you.”

“No need for that,” he replied – but Nox shook her head.

“Nah; there is. Things need saying.” She fidgeted with the hem of her pants for a silent moment, before continuing. “Don’t believe you actually sleep, though.”

This time there was no mistaking that Belton grinned; and the resulting expression was exactly as unpleasant as it sounded.

“No?  Not even if I say I’ve got little bats on my pyjamas?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Now that there’s uncalled for.”

Nox grinned, and even as she did she could almost hear Karloff’s voice in her head. Be wary of the old death. 

And yet…

There was another long silence, although this one felt less tense.

…fuck it. When am I gonna get this chance again?

“They found her in the desert,” she said carefully, scuffing dust across the steps with one toe as she spoke; an idle motion to distract herself from the nerves inside. Belton nodded.

“Aye. Letting lady sun do the dirty work. It’s an almost foolproof method, really.”

Nox looked down at her own hands; where the patchwork of thickened tissue traced patterns like dry riverbeds over her pallid brown skin. The sun burned bits went blistered red, then dark and crackly, then sickly pale when that peeled; slowly edging back to her default. It sure as hell wasn’t pleasant; but it wasn’t the chemical-melting collapse of flesh that she’d seen on others.

“So, that make me a fool or an outlier?”

“I said almost.” Belton leaned back a little, looking up into the dark expanse of sky. “Always going to take a risk when you don’t stay to watch. Although I’ll admit it takes some big balls to stick around for that sort of disposal. What with the deeply ingrained phytophobia of your classic vampire, and everything.”

Nox raised her most intact eyebrow.

“This is more about your junk than I want to know.”

Belton laughed. Really laughed; the kind of melodic tone that bordered on a snatch of song and that was so very out of place coming from within that face.

“Oh, I’m not claiming that kind of testicular fortitude. Sunlight scares the piss out of me as much as it ever did. Don’t think it’s the kind of thing you can get over. Built-in, you know?”

“You ride about in the day,” Nox pointed out, and Belton waved a hand back towards his helmet.

“I’ve got some really bespoke protective gear, see. Amazing what’s been done with polymers in the last thirty years.”

Nox blinked.

“…you’ve got bike pleathers?”

“Technically I’ve got an integrated neo-polymer baselayer,” Belton stopped and his nose crinkled – which was quite an extensive expression. “…ah fuck, that sounds like I’ve got plastic pants, doesn’t it?  Keep that one to yourself, will you?”

“Sure.” Nox’s shoulders sagged again as reality dropped back suddenly. She decided to just go for blunt. “With… the kid. Someone did that, and before that they – ” her words choked again, at the thought of where some of those peri-sire wounds had been.

“I know.” The amusement had gone from Belton’s voice as he stood up, heading back to his bike rather abruptly. The engine roared into life as he swung himself astride it, folding his ears into their cover, and Nox had to shout to be heard above the rumble.

“Do they… just get away with this?”

“There’s plenty that think they should,” he replied calmly; oddly easy to hear over the din, as he slid the helmet into place. “It was like that for a long time.”

Nox’s lips drew back, almost of their own accord, working to some defiant instinct she only had partial control over.

“And you?”

“Me?  I’m a monster on a chain that I put there.” Belton looked up, and just before the visor snapped closed, there was a flicker of crimson in his eyes.

“But I’ll see what I can do.”

“That’s not – ” The hand on Samie’s arm tightened.  Still shaking. “What I – mean – I don’t need you to risk – ”

“Ferg, you are shite at having a bodyguard.” Samie shook his head. “It’s the point of it, right?  Why we got this whole Diolain thing going on in the first place – ”

He didn’t get chance to finish because Fergal interrupted, muscles in his throat tensing visibly as he spoke:

“You know damn well I don’t support the droit.”

Samie stopped.  Time might as well have stopped.  Even the background sound of State gunfire seemed to hesitate, off-footed by the shock of those words piercing the air.

Fergal Callaghan.  Diolian.  Ambassador.  Close enough to legitimate that the circumstances which could put his fancy arse on the throne weren’t totally impossible.  Saying, out loud, where representatives of three other nations could hear clearly – even if Crawdibs was only half-awake – that he opposed the reason that either of them existed at all.

Of course Samie knew.  You didn’t spend this much time around someone without getting at least an inkling of their bugbears, and he was one of the few people Ferg’d drop his political guard around.  He’d almost said as much, half a dozen times.

Wasn’t sure he’d actually said-said it, though.

“We do not have time for this,” Najwa hissed, breaking the frozen moment. “They find us, or we find them.  Decide now, Abhain.”

Samie stared down into Fergal’s frozen expression, and shook his head.

“Sorry Ferg; it’s been too close already.  You aren’t allowed t’die on my watch.”

Without waiting for a response, he strode out into the open and glanced around.  The space was a wide diamond of paved ground, with low planters in those geometric arrangements Statey architects had such a hardon for.  Two hulking armoured cars were parked across the main routes in, metal shields deployed from their sides to block the roads, and the tops of State helmets were visible crouched behind them.  An ornate two-storey tower rose out of the plaza’s centre, its narrow windows overlooking each entry road and Samie caught a brief muzzleflash from inside, followed by the spark of ricochet from one of the vehicles.

Alright lads.

He started to run.  About halfway across the surprise of his appearance seemed to wear off, and the first splinters of shot-out paving burst around him.  Gritting all his teeth, Samie ignored the misses and managed not to stumble when the first bullet hit home, gouging a line of hot pressure across his back, followed by a bulging shiver as his plates rose in response and finally shredded his shirt.  He swung his arms up, shielding the sides of his face as more shots whizzed past; one catching him in the leg, sending his gait into a loping stumble until the flesh pulsed back out; another pair punching quick-succession impacts into his side.  He reached the tower wall still upright; there wasn’t really cover here, but he lurched around the base until he was at least out of direct sight from the trucks.

One of the hits on his side had gone deep.  Spasms of wet pain spilled through his chest as he dug a claw into the bloody puncture, which didn’t help in the slightest.  Definitely didn’t have time for that.  Tensing, Samie reached back, opening himself further to the feel of the Scout’s infinitely-close attention.  Pain died abruptly, washed aside in the warm pulse of strength that came through with Her, and he felt bullet fragments scrape bone the other way as his tissue swelled – shivered – and pushed the invasive shrapnel back out again; accompanied by a sensation he could only describe as like a meaty sneeze.  

Through his ribs.

…there was probably a reason the Cineal had never had any famed poets in their ranks.

More gunfire rattled, this time above him, and Samie blinked reality back into place as he peered upwards at the window above.  Shapes were visible inside, moving rapidly back and forth between cover, and shouting – which he couldn’t exactly blame them for.  Now he was closer, he could see the oddly-ornate design of the metal shutters that covered the openings.  If they were closed, and no one was shooting out of it, the little building probably just looked like another piece of architectural artwork.

Seriously.  Who hid a gun post in the middle of a diplomatic-themed town square?

Samie took a few steps backward before starting to run again, willing as much speed as he could from legs that were increasingly built more for bracing than sprinting; then leapt.  His hybrid wasn’t one that leaned heavily into agility, but he wasn’t fully through yet, and even an unreasonably bulky eight-foot tall man can clear a fair height from personal altitude alone.  Samie’s claws slammed against the metal, bone screaming against steel for an uncertain moment before he got purchase.  His limbs tensed, bracing with his feet – his shoes were lying in sad tatters below, but it was easier now to grip with the pads of his fused toes – and he pulled.

Half a dozen bolts resisted for a moment and then sheared at once, the decorated gunnery slats crumpling under the alien strength of his hands, and Samie let out a grunt as he ripped half of the shutter free.  A frantic spray of bullets tore through his shoulder in reply – burning, electric beestrings that sent odd echoes running down his arm – but he just growled and lunged further in. The dark mouth of the mounted machinegun greeted him, and he bent the hot metal back against itself.

“Lay off,” he rumbled, looking around at the handful of figures inside, all staring at him with unconcealed horror.  They looked a more varied age group than the trigger-happy youths in full armour, and it smelled like half of them had already pissed themselves.

Damn.  It was a lot easier to stay angry when your opponents were a bit less pathetic.

“You party guys?” he hazarded, trying to remember the terms Crawfog had used. “Not – warded?  Wards, I mean?”

Gunfire rattled again from outside but it cut short this time; the interruption accompanied by a strange whoosh sound and a thin scream.  Najwa must’ve got started.  The nearest Statey – a crow-haired fella who could’ve given Crawfek a run in the chinless race – managed a small nod, even if he looked like he was about to swallow his own Adam’s apple in panic.  Samie let out a long breath, which apparently was enough to make the man wince.

“Okay.  Now you keep your fuckin’ heads down, don’t shoot anyone, and I’ll be returnin’ the favour.  Right?”

There was a general terrified shuffle, and a couple of the figures started inching towards the floor.  Samie nodded, in what he hoped was a vaguely encouraging fashion.

“Right.  And don’t any of you try shootin’ me in the back; I feckin’ hate that.”

He slung himself back out, dropping back onto the plaza slabs and looked over in the direction of the new commotion.  The eastern vehicle now had a dead dark figure hanging down over its barricade.  He couldn’t spot any more helmets upright there either, so it seemed that –

“Surrender, Aberrant scum!”

Samie swung around towards the bellow, and ice pulsed down his spine.  A State figure was stood atop the other vehicle with one arm wrapped around the chest of one of Najwa’s team.  The woman had been unmasked, freeing a wave of thin black braids, and blood was already running down her face from a gash at her forehead.  Yet what drew attention the strongest was the rifle pressed into the side of her face.

Another golden figure lay on the floor a few metres away, unmoving; a dark stain spreading out over the plaza slabs beneath.  The soldier who had spoken was in cover at the side of the vehicle, holding a megaphone.

“You are in violation of Mother’s generous terms, monsters!” they shouted again, the boosted tones bouncing off the nearby walls. “Submit now to her mercy!”

“The fuck, ‘violated terms’?  Aren’t you the ones shootin’ your own mates?” Samie shouted back as he took a few steps out of the shadow of the tower.  He couldn’t cover that distance fast enough, but he could try and hold the fucker’s attention...

“Stop!  No further!” the amplified voice cracked a little as its owner ducked back even more at Samie’s movement. “I swear on the Chain, Aberrant, this cur dies if you take one more step.”

Samie stopped, fingers flexing, and bared his teeth.

“And then?  You gotta a plan fer stop me rippin’ your murderin’ head clean off after?”

“Samúiel, you stay put!” Fergal’s shout was soft in comparison, but it caught attention, and Samie’s heart leapt into his throat.

Ferg, this ain’t time for your diplomacy bollocks.

Yet there he was, walking slowly into the open space; hands raised, face set in a constipatedly-calm expression.  He focused on the vehicle, speaking gently.

“Please.  There must be a peaceful way.  We do not want to harm you.”

Speak fer yourself.  Samie bit back the comment as his gaze strayed to the unmoving golden shape on the ground.  He suspected Najwa wasn’t exactly going to be on board with any –

-something is wrong-

It wasn’t exactly the same instinct as before, but still something flared violently in Samie’s extended awareness.  A glint, a corner vision flicker – the ghost-echoes from corners not yet manifest – and a sense of sudden danger pulsed like a scream in his mind.  Apparently he wasn’t the only one who noticed – Fergal had opened his mouth to speak again when he let out a yelp, clutching at his ear and wincing so physically that the first shot went through his shoulder rather than his throat.

“Sniper!” Samie roared; and it was a roar, a guttural rattle that rolled up his throat like distilled thunder as he broke into a sprint, lunging for Fergal out of instinct more than planning.  Another shot came, passing through Samie’s leg again and this time the limb buckled under him, tendons snapping and wavering beneath his ruptured flesh.  He kept his momentum, arms taking the weight as he pounced the next few steps.  A third shot missed his changed posture by inches, burying harmlessly into a planter, and he finally noticed the new commotion happening on top of the armoured vehicle.  The unmasked woman had clearly taken a moment of distraction to her advantage and was now straddling her captor, her hands clamped either side of theirs along the rifle’s length, wrestling for control.

Fergal was flat on the ground, half-curled and clutching his shoulder, his face set in a rictus of agony.  Open.  Exposed – at least until Samie’s armoured bulk skidded to a halt over him.  His back plates flared out, spreading and flattening, and he felt another shot shatter one, embedding into the muscle underneath.  He didn’t care.

“You fucking eejit,” he snarled down at his brother, trying not to panic. “Let me be your fuckin’ bodyguard!”

The bullet had gone through clean enough, but the wound was still a gory rose against Fergal’s tattered dress shirt, and that arm was kinked at a strange angle, barely even shaking compared to the rest of him.  Samie wasn’t a medic – he really wasn’t a medic – but this didn’t look good even to amateur eyes.  Was there anything in the diplomatic bag for this size of hurt?  There had to be something, but his memory was skipping, caught between fear and fury and that this shouldn’t have happened, he was supposed to… he was supposed…

Something shattered high above them and Samie whipped around, blinking at the rain of falling glass from near the top of one of the surrounding buildings.  He was in time to see a flash of gold, hear a distant choked-out scream, before a figure came tumbling out of the broken window and hit the ground hard.  Gold flashed again, zigzagging like gilden lightning across the paving – and then Najwa was suddenly beside him, a long coil of strangely-animate fabric twisting back up around her arm.

“No further sniper.”

“Thanks,” Samie replied absently, hesitating as he reached towards Fergal, who just groaned. “Fuck… fuck fuck fuck…”

Najwa gestured towards her troops – including the unmasked woman, who now had a lot more blood on her clothes, and the State rifle slung over her shoulder – snapping instructions that Samie couldn’t understand.  He wasn’t paying attention. He needed to do something, but his thoughts were going through treacle.

Snap out of it.

One shot did this. Just one.  Everything about Fergal suddenly seemed impossibly fragile, as if he would just shatter into dust as soon as something like Samie touched him.  One shot. There were at least two of those same bullets rising up through Samie’s back right now, being rejected by his unquiet flesh like metallic time-lapse pimples.

They’re supposed to shoot me.  I’m the one with fucking horns. They’re supposed to shoot me.

If he breathed too hard he might just blow away.  Break something else. A weird giddy horror danced through Samie’s thoughts, dragging paralysis with it.  This brittle creature.  He shouldn’t be here.

Snap out of it, Samúiel.

He’s bleeding.  He’s bleeding so much.

Do something.  Do something-!

“We must move.”

Najwa’s voice was like a blade cutting through the mess of Samie’s thoughts, and reality slammed back hard along with it. What the fuck was he doing?  He needed to -

He blinked as he finally registered what was happening.  One of the golden guards – the one who had been working on their Ambassador – had ducked in under the shadow of him and knelt down next to Fergal.  An array of strange tools were laid out on a cloth to one side, and her quick fingers were already dancing across the injury, leaving glistening silver sutures like cobwebs behind them.  She uncapped a small vial of something colourless, revealing a fine needle, then stopped and looked up at Samie questioningly.

“Trust, Abhain,” Najwa said softly and Samie just nodded, mesmerised.  Fergal’s expression relaxed as the needle bit in, the whole of him going limp moments afterwards.  The medic worked rapidly, doing some other complicated things to the wound – which had stopped bleeding now, like a paused film – before she pulled out a silken wrap and quickly covered the site.  She nodded, and helped Najwa lift the still, slender figure into Samie’s huge arms.

He was so light.  So fucking light.

The women stood back, and both immediately stared down at Samie’s leg.  There wasn’t a lot left of his trousers by this point – from bulk and bullets – and already-knitted flesh could be seen clearly through the tatters, reduced to a cracked, coppery scar that was already fading.  The medic stared, muttering something unintelligible, then slid her kit back into a pocket and she turned towards the rest of the group.

Najwa waited until she had moved off before looking back at Fergal.

“He is not like you, Abhain?” she asked, quietly, although it wasn’t really a question now.  Fergal was barely larger than the arms that cradled him – arms that were thickly layered in bronze scales, with a demon’s thick heartbeat pulsing through the blended blood beneath.

Samie took a long, slow breath, and shook his head.

“No.  He isn’t.”

Najwa held his gaze for another moment, then nodded towards the others.

“We must go.”