#silver shephard

Wilford insists that Dark opens his present first, and even though Dark knows what it’s going to be because it’s the same thing every year, he still agrees. He opens the small pink box which explodes glitter in his face upon opening it and pulls out an eyeliner pen. Dark smirks. “Thank you, Will. You’re very original…”

Wilford bats his eyes at him innocently and grins.

“Us next!” Ollie presents Dark with a box wrapped in an assortment of the Googles’ colors along with black.

“Yeah, I mighta chipped in a little,” Anti says, crossing his arms defensively.

Dark cautiously opens the box, but rather than exploding, there are a few scattered cranes along with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones designed and built by the five Googles. Dark puts them on and tries them out and even when Wilford volunteers to demonstrate by shooting his gun right by Dark’s ear, they still hold up. “Thank you,” Dark says and then smacks Wilford in the back of the head.

Doc and Host present their gift of an antique pair of silver cufflinks in the shapes of Celtic knots. Host smiles and nods towards Dark. “Those are supposed to bring inner strength, for when you need it most,” he says.

Dark frowns at the Host, unsure of what that’s supposed to mean, but Doc quickly taps his shoulder. “Go ahead, try them on and see if you like them.”

So he does, and they do suit him quite well. He rubs his thumb over one of them and smiles. “Thank you both. It’s very… thoughtful.”

Ed and Silver’s gift is next, and Dark opens it to find a fine pair of white gloves inside. “For the most formal of occasions,” Silver tells him. “Aren’t they just divine?”

Dark smirks and looks up at Ed. “You helped pick these out, did you?”

Ed rubs his nose. “Well, uh, yeah sorta.”

Dark chuckles and gives a nod to Silver. “Thank you for the gift. I’m sure I’ll use them.” Everyone laughs a little, and then all eyes turn to Bim.

There are no more boxes left, and Wilford raises an eyebrow as Bim goes and takes the stage. “My gift,” he begins as a single spotlight illumines his stance, “is not the physical sort.” He looks around at all of them, putting on his best showman’s voice. “But rather, it is an experience, one meant for all of us, not just Dark.”

He pulls something from his pocket, nearly the size of a pen. As he twirls it through his fingers, however, it grows to the full length of a cane, Dark’s cane. Dark jumps to his feet, and his shell cracks wildly as Bim smiles ever so sweetly and lifts the cane into the air. “So gentlemen, let’s get started, shall we?”

Continued from this

The Host went out of his way to avoid Dark for quite some time.

He had arrived in the void not much longer before he discovered Dark and Wilford’s tragic pasts. He knew everything there was to know about them. The only problem being that they had no idea he knew.

The day Dark left his broken cane with the Host was the day he discovered. The Host has the ability to see a story through objects. He can mentally bring himself into the item’s perspective, and through the cane he witnessed things that no human being should ever need witness. Suppose that’s why he was the only one who would figure it out.

That was, until the video’s release.

Mark’s hiatus left the egos all without attention for quite some time. The video’s suspense had revved them up for a bit up until the day the final episode was released.

At first, the others thought Dark didn’t want to watch out of annoyance. The episodes took the place of their Friday movie night, which Dark usually didn’t attend. They were planning on binge watching all of them straight through together.

Normally Wilford was the first one to complain about the movie selection. On this fateful Friday the 13th he was not even a mere thought in anyone’s mind.

Up until the very last episode.

Throughout the course of watching, the Host could do nothing but sit and twiddle his thumbs. The truth could not be hidden any longer.

The first episode finished.

“It was the chef!”

“My calculations are not feasible at the moment, but I can currently conclude that it was the detective.”

“No, the butler’s too suspicious in my book! He didn’t even drink anything!”

“Bruh, we were trippin’ balls.”

“How ‘bout us? Did we do it?”

“It looks like this is the first video where Mark portrays himself accurately.”

The room erupted in laughter.

“Guess the community is a bit more calm this time around.” Bim said.

“What do you mean by that?” Dr. Iplier asked.

“None of the characters he’s playing have showed up here yet.”

“Don’t jinx us, now Bim.” Silver laughed.

“Why do some of them sound… familiar?” Bim asked.

“You have to remember that Mark is human. He only has so many voices he can make.” Dr. Iplier explained.

“Are none o’ y’all gonna question why the chef has cameras?”

“The detective and Mark were the only two people seen in them.”

“For all we know it could be Damien. He was suspicious.”

“Bro, I think we should trust him.”

“Not so sure about that.” Bim said, “Something seems off about him.”

“Maybe it’s the fact that it looks just like you and almost everyone in the room.” Tim suggested.

The second episode finished.

“Is that Pam?! Oh, she’s gorgeous!”

“The description reads ‘Seer’. Is she going to summon some sort of demonic entity?”

“I think it was the colonel! Everything points at him!”

“Bro no. It was obviously the detective. He went off on his own.”

“Still think we dun it…”

“They’re throwing us off of every one else’s trail! Gah!”

“I don’t like the colonel’s laugh.”

“You’re right. Just doesn’t suit him.”

“Yeah. And those stripes just didn’t look right.”

“Why did the colonel call it his house?”

“Are we not gonna talk about how trashed Mark’s room was?”

“Again, it seems to be the most accurate depiction of him.”

Google didn’t click on the next video. Instead he read the description.

“What the–?” He clicked the Tumblr link that led him to the Jim’s daily news report.

“Uh oh.” Bim muttered.

All the Ipliers are there, along with Anti and Mare, who the glitch brought along as his plus one. There’s cake made by the Host, and Ed is currently the event’s DJ, though Wilford threatened that if he played more than one country song, he was out. Bim is handing out punch to everyone, and Silver has set up guard by the presents table to make sure no one peeks or tries to steal one.

“They were all on board for it,” Wilford tells him. “They wanted to show some good will after all you’ve done to change.”

Dark holds his punch carefully and shakes his head. “I never thought… I was scared that somehow, subconsciously I’d hurt them again.” He chuckles a little. “I guess I just need to relax.”

Wilford pats him on the back. “Don’t worry. I will personally see to it that nothing bad happens to you today, okay? We’ll make sure this birthday is a good one.”

Doc knocks a spoon against his punch glass, effectively drawing everyone’s attention. The music turns quiet, and Doc clears his throat, stepping up onto a chair so he can be seen over everyone else. “So, since I’m easily the smoothest talker here besides Dark, Wilford asked me to say a few words in honor of Dark’s birthday, and I won’t lie, I love the spotlight.”

The Egos chuckle, and Doc smiles as they do. “But it’s not about me. Dark and I had an agreement even when he was at his worst. If he left me alone, I’d clean up his messes with all of you. I’d patch up the cuts and bruises and the occasional gun shot wound,” he eyes Wilford who gives him a thumbs-up.

“It wasn’t easy. In fact, there were many days when I questioned if living together under one roof was worth it in the end. But like all of you, I sensed a change after that day when Dark’s aura got loose. The changes didn’t come overnight. It was a long road, but I think that I can speak for all of us when I say that we’re proud of you, Dark, and of how far you’ve come.” Doc holds up his punch and smiles warmly at all of them. “So let’s leave behind our memories of the past, of the tragedy and scars, and let’s look forward to a better tomorrow together.”

You’re resting in the waiting room of the clinic when Dark calls for a meeting, and you can tell from the look on his face that he finds too many of the chairs are empty. Bim has elected to stand in Wilford’s place at his end of the table, and you sit in a chair in the corner, originally intended for Damien.

“What now?” Ed demands, slamming his fists down onto the table. “What’s to keep him from killing us all?”

“He doesn’t want us dead,” Bim says, his voice thick with tears that he won’t cry. “Besides, the fans won’t let it happen anyway. He wants to break us so that we’ll be his mindless puppets, but we won’t let him do that.”

“But… but how will we fight him?” Silver asks, putting words to the silent question they’re all thinking in their minds.

Dark drums his fingers along the table. “Doc, what news do you have of Damien?”

Dr. Iplier looks up suddenly in surprise and bites at the corner of his lip. “He’s alive, though only by the fans’ attention. Wilford must’ve gone insane to do such a thing.”

“Or he was tricked by the Author,” Dark says, rising to his feet and glaring across the table at Bim. “We don’t know when the Host will be back, and until he gets here, you and I are the only ones who can do anything about the Author.”

Bim frowns. “Dark, he fooled Wilford. He could do the same to us. We’d be fighting each other before we ever touched him.”

“We don’t have to fight. We just have to hold him off until the Host gets back.” Dark leans his hands on the table and sets his jaw. “If we can just keep him and his influence inside the library until the Host returns…”

“But for that, we’d need a distraction of some kind, something to keep his attention away from us,” Bim says without really thinking, but then he and everyone else looks over at you where you’re sitting in the corner.

“No,” Bim says quickly. “We are not…”

Dark smirks. “They said they wanted to help…”

Dr. Iplier shakes his head. “They’re not like us.”

“Exactly. They aren’t.” Dark turns to you. “He can’t control them, so if they attacked him, he couldn’t fight back his abilities. Which would buy us all the time that we need.”