Voyage Through the Multiverse (Open) [IC]

[Demincia]

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain, Cymru
Rosanna Dawson

Rosanna looked between the men with a skeptical expression. "Riiiight... rifts. I don't know what sort of jokes you guys have here in the UK, but we here at the FBI don't have a sense of humor we're aware of, so if it's all the same to you, I'll be heading to the field office in London and getting back to work." She glanced towards the door briefly, considering what would be the best course of action if they tried to stop her.

<If worst comes to worst, we'll have to fight our way out.> suggested her spiritual passenger.

That's your solution to every problem! Rosanna thought.

<It's a good solution.>

I'm trying to avoid making a mess if I can get away with it. Going nuclear now would be a nightmare to clean up.

<Have it your way. Remember who didn't want to act when things get dicey.>

I'm sure you won't let me forget.

"I do need to be going though, seriously. I'm sure it'd be lovely hearing more of your... theories on rifts and 'interdimmies' but I'm still on the clock, so I'll have to take a raincheck. Next time I'm in... Wherever this is again."

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Katya

Katya, dazed as she was, allowed herself a faint chuckle and a weak wave; "You keep your secrets, then.", She mumbled; she didn't care about the helicopter. She was just glad to be rescued. "I just have one favour to ask...my clothes will be fine, right? I can't go looking like some...vagrant."

Yeah, it was a petty request. She was feeling better already, however, having some agents looking after her. Thaumaturgical elixirs, biomechanical agents...AEGIS had some nice medicine, apparently. The BAA had something like it, but not quite as advanced. The nanites were a little familiar to her, at least. If they had that sort of stuff at their disposal, then she was confident that she'd be back to normal in no time when they got her in a proper infirmary. They probably weren't too far away either, considering that they were in Britain. She'd been in danger, but she was safe now, and she was seemingly in good hands - hands who could get her back to normal. She was still cold and numb, but in a way, that numbness and cold were a little soothing, just enough for her to slip away into unconsciousness.

"Wake up!"

The cry pierced her ears; Katya woke up, and immediately spammed, the pain almost maddening. Her left leg was covered in blood - oh God, there was blood everywhere! Blood and mangled flesh, her assailant's mixed with her own. It was a spider-like creature, large and aggressive, and now dead beside her, filled with bullets. Katya had shot it, but it had grabbed her before she was able to deal with it fast enough. She was grabbed by someone, and hoisted up. It was...her sister? Or a neighbour. They'd all been in the path of the monsters, whatever they were. She was bleeding everywhere, unable to move because her body was shaking so badly. She saw the ground rushing beneath her, and the trail of blood. She passed out.

"We can't save it.", Said the voice. Katya recognized the room she was in, with its sterile white walls and blinding lights. Doctors rushed around her. She couldn't feel her leg. She couldn't quite make out what else they were talking about. Her head was spinning, and her stomach was rolling over, almost making her want to puke. She was weak, and pale, and dizzy. She saw one doctor with their back turned to her; they turned around, saw in hand. Her vision began to fade again. The last thing she saw was the teeth of the saw grabbing the flesh below her knee...

Katya's eyes shot open. She lunged forward, giving the sides of her bed a death grip, sweat beading on her forehead. Her mouth was cotton, and her head pounded, but she was alert as could be. The room around her was dim, shadows crawling around the corners and ceiling, while a sharp light bathed her bed. She was alone. Katya inhaled and exhaled, her breath shaking. Without thinking, the woman reached for her left leg, grabbing at it, pressing her fingers into it firmly; it was still there. No scars, no bandages...finally, she allowed herself to released a deep, relieved sigh. She crashed backwards into the bed, and stared up at the ceiling, simply sitting there for several minutes. Her heart pounded in her ears. She could feel the cool air giving her goosebumps, but she didn't mind it. It was still warmer than what she'd experienced in those woods. She didn't feel any pain, although she still remembered the sensation. She didn't feel numb, either. She felt...normal...good, even. Carefully, she raised the hand that she remembered being rendered useless by the robed figure, and slowly wiggled her fingers. After that, Katya touched her face, making sure everything felt right. After a few more minutes had passed in silence, she finally decided that she was fine, and the got up and climbed out of bed, into her feet.

Thankfully, she'd gotten her clothes, neatly placed side for her to don. She was in a hospital gown at the moment...wait, did someone undress her? The thought made her shudder, but she fought the sensation. At least if anyone had to undress her when she was asleep, a Doctor was the best option. She sighed again, and grabbed her clothes, tossing her gown aside to change. When she'd done that, she placed it on the table where her normal clothes had been sat, grabbed her shoes, and opened the door to her room, poking her head out to see if anyone was around. Nothing? She wasn't sure how busy the place she was at was, but there had to be someone up and about. "Hello?", She called out, just loud enough to be heard without disturbing anyone nearby too much. She didn't want to distract anyone, or wake up any other patients, if there were any. Was she even in a proper hospital?

Miria

"Greetings.", Miria said with a friendly nod to Kiara. Something seemed to interest her, causing the girl to fidget with her glasses faster. Her pupils sharpened slightly, and she smiled. It wasn't a genuine, friendly smile, but a smile that she'd worn before - ear to ear, jagged teeth gleaming. It wasn't obviously malicious, but definitely a little "off" when compared to her usual friendly smile. Maybe it was...mischievous? Taunting? Best guess was that Miria was a little amused that she'd managed to get the jump on someone. Did she enjoy doing that? She was tiny, but she still had some creepy predator instinct that made her enjoy it.

A moment later, she dropped the grin, and her hand came off of her spectacles. She clapped, and left the same hand up for a quick wave. "There was a disturbance. I wanted to see what the commotion was.", She said bluntly. "I noticed everyone running by. By the way, Kiara liked my food, apparently.", She said, her eyes narrowing on Link and Ganon again. "I guess you were busy with whatever was happening, then?"

Before she could ask about much more, another commotion was being caused out in the halls again. It was Miria's turn to jump this time; her hair tingled. On her belt, her crimsonite dagger flashed, and remained glowing brilliantly, its pale red glow acting like a torch or beacon. Miria eyed it, as well as a small lick of ethereal black smoke that puffed up from one of her pouches - the one she'd stored her Lunar Soul Crystal in. Some sort of arcane reaction was causing them to act up, it seemed. They hadn't reacted that much when she'd first entered the infirmary, so it couldn't have been anyone in the room, and besides, the noise outside was enough to convince Miria that it was related to that more than Kiara or the boys. She turned around, stepping away from Link, and peeking around the corner of the doorway like she had before, this time looking out, rather in in.

[Skylus]

"Hey, you feel that? Seems like the very air has shifted or something." Midna did a loop as she flew into the air and looked out of the room into the hallway. "You wanna go check it out?"
Link had been reading on this world's medical history, and he had found some very interesting things. However, what Midna was talking about intrigued him more, so he marked his place in the book, closed it, tossed it next to him on the cot, then got up and started checking his supplies.
"What are you taking?"
The hero of Twilight picked up Evil's Bane from where it was resting against a wall and noticed it was glowing, even in its scabbard. He decided not to say anything, as this had happened at least two times before.
"Just the Master Sword. That's it, I don't think I'll need anything else."
"You sure? We don't know what we're dealing with."
"I can probably just run back here and get everything if need be."
"Fine by me."

The two let the room and after some searching, came across Lee staring down a floating figure covered in blue flames.
"You have two swords? They seem a bit off balance for you to me but they might be balanced for you."

The figure spun around and spoke with Madi's voice. "Oh. Hi. No I don't know why your swords are glowing."
"Madison? Is... is that you?"
"Yeah, I woke up and now I'm like this. And no, I don't know how to turn back yet."
The blue flame cloaked figure shook her head. "So. How are you doing? You adapt to everything yet?"
"Somewhat. However, my speaking pattern is changing, you have noticed it, haven't you?"
"Yeah. I can tell."

A lone Kremling walked up to Lee and glared at him. "Mind using that air bubble spell less frequently? There's a lot of traffic down these narrow corridors, you know." He then looked Madi up and down. "What happened to you? Never mind, we've got a problem up front. We've got company."
"Lemme guess, the Royal Air Force found us and are threatening to open fire, yeah? I can deal with this. ...Or i could if I could move." Madi glared at the Tengu and crossed her arms. "You gonna disable these traps or no?"
"Traps?"

"Yeah, it's some sort of binding thing. Sorry about the amplified magic, I dunno how to stop that." Madi looked Lee over. "Are your clothes enchanted?"
Link answered for Lee. "I would assume so, being that they're glowing and everything."
The hero then asked the fellow teenager something he had been thinking about. "I do have to wonder though. How are you summoning things from nowhere? Is it a summoning charm or do you happen to have a bottomless knapsack like I do?"

There was a commotion down the hallway, the rest of the group found them a few seconds later, along with those from the medbay.
"Well, we're all back together, that's good. How are all of you?"
Everyone glanced at each other, as if they were wondering who would speak first, then Po decided to speak and Bilbo after.
"Uh... You wanna explain why I can suddenly use Chi again? And why you're like that?"
"Sting and the ring are glowing, Sting has, obviously, glowed before, but not the ring. It's very interesting. And yes, I would like to know the same, if you bother answering."

Dragmire stepped forward. "it appears the ashes have amplified your magical abilities. How much, I cannot say, however," he moved his gaze towards the Tengu. "How you are acting worries me."
"How so?"
"He seems to think that you will attack all of us, and that he seems to have trapped you in case that does happen."
Madi rolled her eyes, the glowing eyes on the flame cloaked person doing the same thing. "Look, Tengu, or whatever your name is, I'm not gonna hurt anyone, okay? So release me or whatever."

Meanwhile, Ammy and Issun decided to stay nearby the other Hero, who was a bit further down the hallway.
"Those burns look like they hurt. You sure you're alright?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I think they'll heal eventually, besides, I've got more things to worry about than my wounds."
Issun started bouncing up and down on Ammy's head. "Wow. That's Madi? What happened to her?" The Poncle stopped bouncing up and down. "Amplified magic? That doesn't sound good."

Then another Kremling approached the group. "Hey, I know you're all talking and stuff but we need to get an answer for the pilot guys and I'm pretty sure they don't want to talk to us."
"Can you still use your magic where you are?"
Madi raised her hands a bit and summoned flames. "I didn't think of that. I'll try it."
The witch attempted to cast Imperio on the various pilots outside the airship and told them to go back to whatever base they had come from. If they obeyed the order, she would then cast Obilvate as soon as they got there, to remove the memory of meeting the airship and asking for identification. She would them stop the Imperius curse.

[The Japanese Americans]

"Hey, you feel that? Seems like the very air has shifted or something." Midna did a loop as she flew into the air and looked out of the room into the hallway. "You wanna go check it out?"
Link had been reading on this world's medical history, and he had found some very interesting things. However, what Midna was talking about intrigued him more, so he marked his place in the book, closed it, tossed it next to him on the cot, then got up and started checking his supplies.
"What are you taking?"
The hero of Twilight picked up Evil's Bane from where it was resting against a wall and noticed it was glowing, even in its scabbard. He decided not to say anything, as this had happened at least two times before.
"Just the Master Sword. That's it, I don't think I'll need anything else."
"You sure? We don't know what we're dealing with."
"I can probably just run back here and get everything if need be."
"Fine by me."

The two let the room and after some searching, came across Lee staring down a floating figure covered in blue flames.
"You have two swords? They seem a bit off balance for you to me but they might be balanced for you."

"I'm a natural dual wielder, it feels right to wield two weapons when fighting."

The figure spun around and spoke with Madi's voice. "Oh. Hi. No I don't know why your swords are glowing."
"Madison? Is... is that you?"
"Yeah, I woke up and now I'm like this. And no, I don't know how to turn back yet."
The blue flame cloaked figure shook her head. "So. How are you doing? You adapt to everything yet?"
"Somewhat. However, my speaking pattern is changing, you have noticed it, haven't you?"
"Yeah. I can tell."

A lone Kremling walked up to Lee and glared at him. "Mind using that air bubble spell less frequently? There's a lot of traffic down these narrow corridors, you know." He then looked Madi up and down. "What happened to you? Never mind, we've got a problem up front. We've got company."
"Lemme guess, the Royal Air Force found us and are threatening to open fire, yeah? I can deal with this. ...Or i could if I could move." Madi glared at the Tengu and crossed her arms. "You gonna disable these traps or no?"
"Traps?"

"It's a Mana Shield, thank you very much. And besides, if it was an air bubble, I would have started to suffocate by now. Deactivate Shield. And, for the planes, I could probably force them to land, but we don't want them to explode, right?" The almost transparent bubble of mana disappeared at his command.

"Yeah, it's some sort of binding thing. Sorry about the amplified magic, I dunno how to stop that." Madi looked Lee over. "Are your clothes enchanted?"
Link answered for Lee. "I would assume so, being that they're glowing and everything."
The hero then asked the fellow teenager something he had been thinking about. "I do have to wonder though. How are you summoning things from nowhere? Is it a summoning charm or do you happen to have a bottomless knapsack like I do?"

"My clothes are enchanted to be resistant to most attacks and to mend themselves using the MP of the wearer over time. And, my Inventory? It's a thing everybody has in my world. Born with it, die with it. It's actually a lot like a subspace, which isn't surprising since once someone creates one, it fuses with their Inventory."

-snip-

Then another Kremling approached the group. "Hey, I know you're all talking and stuff but we need to get an answer for the pilot guys and I'm pretty sure they don't want to talk to us."
"Can you still use your magic where you are?"
Madi raised her hands a bit and summoned flames. "I didn't think of that. I'll try it."
The witch attempted to cast Imperio on the various pilots outside the airship and told them to go back to whatever base they had come from. If they obeyed the order, she would then cast Obilvate as soon as they got there, to remove the memory of meeting the airship and asking for identification. She would them stop the Imperius curse.

Lee closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to concentrate. "I sensed magic being used, but I can't tell whether it succeeded or not." He glanced over to the tengu and his friend. "I think you overdid it."

[Menschenfleisch]

Secrets of the Raven | Jacquelyn

A gnarled hand, covered in black splotches and whorls of wrinkles, gripped Jackie’s heart. Her skin grew pale and her hands numb, her eyes watered up and her breathing went mad. She was not in control. She couldn’t control her lungs, she couldn’t control her hands even as they wrapped themselves around her and she couldn’t control her racing mind. Her ears roared and her world spun. Nothing was as it should’ve been. She should’ve been at a cafe near the seaside, listening to the bustle of the city and sipping cheap beer with Kyle. He should’ve been telling her stories about the people below and she should’ve been laughing along, happy to let herself go and stop thinking for a while. She should’ve been breathing in a lungful of cool air, not this stagnant, death-laden shit. She lunged forward as if to force wind into her gaping mouth, she sucked on the air and inhaled until her chest burned with overpressure. Her heart rammed itself against her ribs, her eyes tried to squeeze themselves out of her skull, her clammy tongue rolled about inside her mouth. She had capitulated and handed over the reigns to her body to instinct alone. Beads of sweat mingled with tears. A trickle of saliva clung to her chin. ”Shuut, uuupp!” She peeled back her lips into an iron snarl. Her muscles were as tense as the ropes of a skiff. ”You’re right! Fuck you, you’re right! Is that what you wanted to hear?!” She bolted upright and marched right up to Valeria, leaning in until she could feel the other girl’s breath on her face. ”I know I’m a liability! I know I’m a useless shit and that it’d be better for everyone if I just fell down the stairs and broke my neck! And I know that the only reason you haven’t killed me yourselves is because you wouldn’t want my filthy fucking blood on your hands!” She raised a hand as if to grab Valeria’s collar but froze halfway, as if an invisible vice had just gripped her wrist. Her fingers, stiff as stone, trembled and pulled back, stumbling as if pushed. Her knuckles were white as freshly fallen snow. ”I’m-....” And she clenched her hands around her face, covering her eyes and grabbing lumps of flesh as if she were trying to pull apart cheese. ”I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t- I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry, I’m-” She babbled and babbled. Her mind was taken up by apologies and platitudes, her voice surrendered nothing but scrambled syllables. ”Please don’t leave me, I’m sorry...” … like a child just told off by a parent. A low warble built up in her mouth and built up to a crescendo. She screamed. Her jaw distended and she screamed, not to express anything but just to drown out the deafening sound of her failure. No, not failure, failures. There were so, so many of them.

Jacquelyn lurched and went for a wall. Her throat burned, her whole face was wet with tears. A dam broke somewhere and a deluge of bile came running from her lips, clinging to her chin and soaking into her clothes in long brown streaks. Her teeth were still clenched, her jaw was still set in place by stress: solid chunks of food still lingered inside her mouth, unable to squeeze between the gaps. The smell of acid and blood was quashed by the stench of panic, the smell of a woman who thought herself a titan realising that she was but a little girl given too many toys; a spoiled brat coming to realise the world beyond its cot was harsher and more hateful than it had ever imagined. She was alone, the sole drop of piss in an ocean of aqua regia. Hell, not even regular piss - dilute and impermanent piss with hardly any aroma. She was vapid, insubstantial, despicable. From day one she had used strength to cover that up, she had used money and power to hide what a stupid little girl she was underneath it all. Anyone who’d ever cared about her had only done so because she was powerful and now that she had nothing - now that she was nothing - they’d throw her away. But worse still, she knew she deserved it. She knew that everything that was happening to her was justified and yet she still wanted none of it to happen. ”Get your shit together,” she thought. But there was so much to do, so much to correct. She knew that someone like her wouldn’t be able to do it and that it would not be worth it for someone else to fix her on her own behalf. If she turned everything she received to shit then everyone was justified in hating and rejecting her. She hated herself, god dammit: someone as narcissistic and lacking in self introspection as her hated herself. ”I am a failure!” She wanted to say it. ”I’m what’s poisoning your life. I am a leech, I am a parasite, I am a nuisance. I hurt people. I am a cancer!” ”Why can’t I just admit it? I need to warn Elizabeth about who I am. I need to say it, I need to come out. She needs to know, she needs to know who I really am!” ”Please… I don’t want to die.”

Crushing disappointment. She was at the bottom of the Marianas fucking trench in an ocean of guilt and shame. ”Go away before I hurt you! Stop protecting me, I don’t want to make this worse!” ”I’m scared, Liz. I- I’m so scared...” ”What the fuck? Why can’t I say it? That wasn’t what I wanted to say!” ”It’s- it’s dark. I need, I need… don’t go, don’t go...” Every time she came close to confessing, terror and self preservation would overwhelm her. Every time she opened her mouth to tell Liz to run, to leave her here to die like the fucking dog she was - no, the microscopic parasite that she was - she’d say something else. She fumbled with her words: drool and vomit solids dribbled from her mouth and splashed on the ground. There was nothing poetic in her breakdown, no meaning in her madness. It was just her and the fear, though to give the sensation such a banal name did it no justice. She wasn’t just feeling it, she was groping it all over. And for every moment that passed while she couldn’t control herself the group’s opinion of her fell more and more. ”They already knew. I’m only confirming their suspicions. They knew all along but they didn’t want to hurt my feelings because they knew that this would happen if they told me that they knew. They knew.” Repetitive thoughts, rehashed thoughts. Her mind was well worn with these self deprecatory comments and insecurities, to the point where it felt comforting to indulge in them. Self loathing was familiar territory. She was so pitiful, so pathetic that she would rather stay as she was than improve and expose herself to something new.

There were… iron needles in her neck. Gazes boring into her skull, criticizing each fold in her brain, picking apart every conception she had about herself and the world. Her thoughts were a haze of censure and self condemnation. A sharp pin was forced through her psyche: the pain of a slap. The confusion, the doubt, the insecurity disappeared and everything that remained - the derision, the spite - coalesced into one single image. Perfect, diamond clarity. The sinusoidal wave of panic that’d been afflicting her passed by, leaving her in a trough of utter calm and-... oh god, now that she was in a right state of mind, she could see herself for what she really was. Was that… was that really all? Her dreams, her anger, were drowned by disappointment. ”What a fucking waste...” Jackie pulled away, her voice hardly above a whisper. Like a rubber band released, she found herself unstrained. Yet even then, she could feel herself being stretched once more. The noise in her ears was already building, the pressure on her temples was already gathering strength. She didn’t know what she preferred: losing herself to panic or being as placid as a stone. She felt trapped in the moments of peace that she experienced; when she was in her right mind she felt such unbearable loneliness. Her heart, which had been throwing itself against the walls of her chest like a mad bull, now seemed not to be moving at all. She was cold. Frozen. “She’s too far gone. Just leave her alone.” Wei was inscrutable. Was that disdain? Disgust? Pity? It was an emotion, that was for sure. Too tired to hyperventilate, too saturated with guilt to defend herself, Jacquelyn collapsed against a wall and slid to the ground. ”It should have been me.” ”You’re the hero, Elizabeth.” ”You stole that from me. You stole my story and handed it to this useless bitch.” ”I’m sorry for everything that I did to you.” ”I was supposed to be the hero. I had my happy ending but you didn’t want to let me go so you threw me into someone else’s narrative.” ”I wish I could change things, somehow. I wish I could help you, rather than it being the other way around.” ”This disappointing sack of shit; this has-been witch who never grew up who says that she fights monsters yet never confronts the thing in the mirror.” ”I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to be. I just need someone to hold me, to keep me anchored. I loved him, you know? I loved him like a brother but he died and left me alone.” ”I wish it had been her. I wish she had lost everything instead of me. I was promised the world, so why does that neurotic cunt get to be the hero? Does she think she’s better than me?” ”I took it for granted. I deserve this.”

”Go home?” Jackie’s mouth twisted upward into a desperate smile. She wheezed, as if having heard a mediocre joke. ”Back to a world of fucking deserts and famines? There’s nothing there but ashes, Liz. I turned America into a smoldering heap all on my own. The day before I came to this world, I heard rumblings about a band of mutants who wanted to put out the sun. The whole planet’s ecosystem is fucked, the whole universe is dead. You don’t know jack shit about me, Ashwood.” She swallowed deeply. ”You think I care about this place? You think I want to stay here? All I’ve seen since I arrived is a bunch of stupid bastards killng each other for the sakes of their mums, dads, gods and governments. I don’t love this world, I hate it. I hate you.” Her voice never raised itself above a murmur. Tranquil, knowingly impotent rage poisoned every syllable, every phoneme. ”Every last one of you caricatures. It’s all a big farce, a... a play that’s falling apart on the stage.” She sniffed. ”” It seemed as if her fear had faded but in truth she’d simply run out of energy. Her emotions hadn’t ever changed, it was her means of expressing them that’d adapted. ”Wasn’t I good? Was I not entertaining enough for you?” Her head lowered and her forearms, rested on her knees, came up to greet it. ”I’m sorry...” ”Eat shit. Let me go.” ”I just wanted to have fun.”

Darkness gathered in clumps. It congealed and curdled, forming opaque droplets in the air. Stone turned to stygian alloy and blood turned to crude oil. A stench like old berries and morning mildew suffused the air and a wiry chill wormed its way into Jacquelyn’s skin. Words were shouted but not comprehended. The walls melted away and velvet, crawling like an ocean of worms, covered the ground. Lost to time, the firebrand felt plaster on her back and wooden boards beneath her rear. Cigarette smoke and a high pitched wail. The laughter of a doppelganger. “I thought you hated me. Why did you disappear?” Arguments, the shattering of porcelain. A mother and a daughter trapped in a moment of regret: one, at the age of five, crying herself to sleep in the home of hateful fosters. Another three oceans and two dimensions away, laughing to the tune of a drunk siren song. Then a change in perspective: a moment three years in the future. A young girl with pastel on her hands clutched a picture of her mother - the oldest photo of her mother that’d ever been taken and the last memento she’d been given before her departure - and scrawled it over with permanent marker. Meanwhile, a dead woman walking pored over a yellowed scroll and wondered what she would have to drink that night. More shouting, more argumentation. The unveiling of the worst aspects of each woman, the neuroses and hatreds that they felt. Confrontation: barbs and shots, both physical and verbal. The most terrible aspects of them tried to kill them and on their own they could not win. But then, tears. Miracles, love and recognition. A healing of the divide. Jacquelyn continued to pay no heed to the world around her. Metal fingers gripped her torso: the hands of a demon lord carried her through each scene.

Tension mounted. A great crack like the earth had just been torn apart sounded out and a ginger man fell to his knees. Two children cried out and a man with a black hand averted his eyes. Thousands of faces seethed in a cauldron of night and a girl with bleeding eyes apologized until her throat gave out. A blood mage knelt in front of an unmarked grave and a former Crimsonite sank into a mound of filthy blankets and empty bottles. Every sin, every insecurity and fault they had ever made was brought to the forefront of their minds and each was overcome. Everyone overcame themselves, every member of the team was strong enough to beat their histories through reconciliation and adaptation. Two dozen or more pages of character development were laid bare and yet Jackie paid no attention to any of it. She merely stared into empty space even as her allies - no, her caretakers - swept the ashes of their sins away with their feet. Buried truths were brought to the surface, ugly beliefs were revealed. The worst of everyone was brought out and it only served to accentuate the good. And so, when they reached the final door, each and every one of them was a more complete person. Elizabeth and Alex, having conquered what had driven them apart for so long. Mother and daughter, reunited at long last. The others, who’d had their own personal demons to fight, were stronger for it too. But this door: it had Jacquelyn’s name on it, scrawled into the wood. She felt herself being set down, and her feet were reunited with the floor: lacquered cedar. Hands on her shoulder. “You can do this, Jackie.” “This is the last door.” “Once we’re out of here, it’ll be a straight shot to the relic.” One apprehensive step after another. The glint of brass beneath her hand: a doorknob. The shimmer of a dream. Psionic fangs dug into her brain, demanding that she face the trial before her but she felt and saw nothing. There was a flash of light and a red glow: the embers of a hearth spilled before her feet. Bullets flew, a great scream was heard.

A slap, slick with blood. She gasped and inhaled as if awoken from a dream. "Fat load of fucking help you are." The group stood around her, each festooned with fresh, raw wounds. She had shrugged off her burden. They had carried it for her. Nobody met her eye. It wasn't that she didn't know what happened or that she didn't remember, it was that she refused to think about it. "I'm sorry." But how sorry was she, really? And how many times had she said that? Rolo turned toward the dark, away from her. "We're nearly there, everyone. Saddle up, I don't want anyone dying on the last leg of the journey."

[Menschenfleisch]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion | Kiara and Polly

Kiara gave Miria a warm smile. Although she was younger in years, she felt a matronly instinct toward the rest of the group. The truth was that she didn’t consider any of them to be her equals. Certainly, there were a number of them who could injure and even kill her on a level playing field, but none of them perceived the world as she did, nor were any her intellectual equal, even though thinking that felt more than a little pretentious. Still, she recognised that she was just as prone to neurosis and illogicality as the rest of them, if not even more so. Her emotions had always gotten the best of her. It looked like today would be no exception. “I did! I forgot to thank you, Miri.” Was it a little too soon to be using nicknames? However, before the girl could get another word in, her dagger came to life. Kiara didn’t understand why Miria reacted as she did, but she assumed that there must be a valid reason. She trusted the judgement of everyone aboard the ship, sans a few… well, fairly obvious exceptions. Link was up and on his feet in no time and Kiara followed, jogging through the halls right behind him. She saw Madison before he did, reflected on the wall, and she skidded to a halt,acutely aware that this was her opportunity to inspect Madi up close. She kept her head down during the conversation for the most part but as soon as Madi suggested bringing the wards down she piped up, half raising her voice as if too anxious to insert herself into the discussion for real. “Shouldn’t we keep the wards up? I mean, I believe Madi when she says that she doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but we’ve seen her out of her right mind before. Link got those burns from her. I’m sorry, I know you wanted to keep that information from everyone else, but it feels wrong - and irresponsible - to pretend that Madison is harmless. So, we, umm… we should keep the shields up, right? J-just… just to be sure.”

---

”I don’t recognise her.” Polly slid the polaroid back into its envelope, a brutal-looking cardboard behemoth: less so a repository for evidence and more like a sheath for a sword made of deadly, sharpened information. The woman in the photo, the one with white hair and dapper clothes, did not even elicit an iota of recognition. She was beginning to question her own past. Did anything in those audio logs really happen? Were her memories and mementos truly her own? Her mind was filled with hydra-enigmas: for every question that she answered, two more mysteries popped up. She knew that she had spent a few decades exploring the multiverse and a great deal of data to show for it - an enormous repository several terabytes large, in fact - but if that were the case, how come she seemed to know nobody at all? She had no phone numbers, no contact lists, not even any mementos given to her by former acquaintances. It seemed that she had lived an entirely solitary life, bouncing from dimension to dimension in search of nothing else but raw information. And if her occupation had supposedly been to collect such intel, why had she never returned to her home dimension? Not once had she ever actually delivered the information that she’d gathered to the Interdimensional Explorers’ Commission - as far as she knew the only people who’d ever seen her survey results were herself and AEGIS’ analysts. She could imagine several reasons as to why that was - perhaps she’d enjoyed herself thoroughly in every universe that she’d visited but made a habit of not keeping friends since she’d inevitably have to leave them behind - but it was, nonetheless, an unsolved mystery.

She was curious! She wanted to know who she had been before. She wanted to sit her past self down and to bring out a pen and a notepad and to ask questions until the sun went out. What had she enjoyed? What had she despised? She felt like a child who had never known their parents who had suddenly received their entire inheritance: diary entries, audio logs, equipment, property: her head spun each and every day, and not just because she was trying to learn a whole lifetime’s worth of math, english, science in less than half a decade. It seemed to be a Sisyphean endeavour, but what else was she supposed to do? Go home and reintegrate? Even if she hadn’t had her memory wiped it would’ve been a monolithic task. Maybe she would look through her catalogue of universes and find a nice untouched utopia to retire to. But then, she would never reclaim the ferocity and passion that’d once defined her. She would be less than a person, just a child in a woman’s body getting high off of Eden’s pollen. That was no way to live.

“Well, it was worth a shot.” Her primary caretaker, a grizzled man by the name of Irvin, patted her on the back. ”Why did you tell me that she was coming in?” He shrugged. “I felt obliged to. You knew her.” That was obviously not the complete story. Polly was many things but naive was not one of them. More likely, AEGIS was still trying to probe her psychology and gauge her reactions to specific stimuli. It was likely that they’d begin forcing her to perform certain tasks for them in exchange for being able to see Katya. She knew that she was being played, and she chafed under the fact that there was nothing she could do about it. She was trapped in AEGIS’ web and she was powerless to resist, because to struggle would attract the attention of the web’s spinners: MSTs and Oracles. ”How is she?” “She’ll be arriving via airlift in a minute or two. The mid-flight diagnostic isn’t terrible but it isn’t reassuring, either. I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to see her; she’s in no condition to talk.” Irvin’s speech was calculated. The way that he phrased his last sentence: he made it sound like he was apologising while simultaneously avoiding specifying anyone as the reason that Polly couldn’t see Katya. It was a smart and subtle tactic, but it was so subtle that it paradoxically became incredibly obvious. ”Can I see her? Not as a visitor but as a surgeon’s assistant. I could help to keep her from bleeding out.” Irvin shook his head sadly. “That isn’t my call.” ”Then whose is it?” She thought. Irvin was probably under orders to keep her from finding out what the chain of command here was like, because if she knew then she might pester or target certain individuals in an attempt to get what she wanted. She doubted that Irvin was even aware of his own role in manipulating her; he was the sort of man who followed instructions without question. He would be easy to control, if only he wasn’t so damn loyal to AEGIS. ”Well then, tell me when she’s awake. I might have some questions for her.” He nodded. “Will do. I wish you the best, Polly. In uncovering your identity and in everything else.”

Seeds of Anxiety | Avarice and Tone

Valerian crossed his arms. This was… not exactly the kind of operation he’d been expecting. The quality and the demeanour of the agents he’d seen so far had been lacking. AEGIS’ presence in Lludw Cigfrain felt sloppier and more casual. It was to be expected, though. These people were cannon fodder. Top brass probably expected him to last two weeks without the situation deteriorating, tops. ”Old friends of yours, huh? I could do with a few of those.” ”Am I not your friend?” ”You’re not old.” ”What, eleven quintillion years don’t do it for ya?” ”As usual, that isn’t what I meant.” Of course, the witty banter couldn’t last forever. Not a moment after Valerian’s last statement, the robber came tumbling out of the car, straining to throw Denton and Dowell off like he was a bull trying to buck a bird. Though it probably would’ve been polite (and extremely easy on his part) to assist in restraining the vagrant, Valerian found no compelling reason to intervene. It was just one common perp after all. Though, the fact that AEGIS was apparently involved in dealing with completely regular criminals - even those in proximity to paranormal events - was not reassuring at all. ”Actually, it’s not worrying at all. They brought him in because he had an enchanted machete.” ”Hm. Fair enough. It’s evidence of collusion with anomalous forces, at the very least.” Ava’s intuition was jarring at times but rarely disturbing. He had come to understand that she merely saw the world differently, not more accurately or more broadly; she could at once perceive impossible truths and intangible things yet fail to note what others would’ve called obvious or obtuse. Ava reached around the crook of time’s apex and tapped Herbert on the shoulder. ”Hey, mind if I hold that for a moment?” “I suppose it can’t hurt, as long as you don’t break the plastic seal. Go ahead.” He presented the machete to her but she did not reach out to grasp it. She leaned down and picked a calloused scab from Herbert’s heart, pulling it out of his chest like a loose thread from a worn sock. She left no scar but the stain on her hand, a clotted nodule of congealed blood clinging to her fingernail. ”Whoa, this thing is huge. Anatomically speaking, I mean. It’s gonna give you a heart attack tomorrow: a lethal one, too.” “Wait, so...” Herbert put a hand over his sternum. “What did you… huh?” ”Thanks man. I just wanted to see it up close. Here, you can have it back.” She reached toward him again and he held up both hands, stumbling on his own feet as he backed away. “No! No thank you, I mean. You can… you can keep that.” ”Aww, that’s sweet of you. In a metaphorical sense.” She flicked it into her mouth and swallowed as if she just ate a skittle. ”Tell ya what, though, you shouldn’t worry about not having one of those. Given the current amount of stress you’re under, you’ll have another one of those in three years flat.” Herbert wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Oh… oh dear lord...” ”Hey, knock it off.” ”Knock what off what? Your head off your shoulders?” ”No, I mean-” ”I get what you mean, Vale.” She flashed him a self-assured smile. ”I’m allowed to crack jokes, right?” ”I’d prefer it if you didn’t.” ”That’s too bad. I’m hilarious.” She snapped a finger at Dawson as she emerged from the car. ”Hi! You’re the new arrival, right? The name’s Ava, but you can call me Andaeroschivaltweixiguevakipotreaia.” She gave the woman an even broader smile than before and simultaneously forced her broken finger back into place. Valerian nodded at Dawson, keeping a straight back and his hands in his pockets. ”I’m Valerian Devana. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

[Naval Monte]

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain, Cymru

Herbert felt his chest one more time, shivering as he felt no hint of a heart beat. "I may have to keep this condition a secret for a while until my new heart appears. I don't need to have some people try to lock me up in a containment unit." Herbert thought as he grab the machete as he turned to Dawnson. “You can try to contact your surpriors miss…” Denton would quickly say. “Dawnson.” Herbert would nod for the assistance. “Dawnson, but you won’t get a reply. Your boss doesn’t exist in this world nor do you for that matter. You are welcome to try and we can even take you to the embassy if that is require. But I’m hoping to avoid that because that is an awfully long trip and I rather not go through it for nothing.”

Hebert was expecting the woman to not believe them and he was expecting her wanting more proof on her being in another dimension. “I think it would be better for all of us if we can provide proof to you that this reality isn’t your own instead of doing that.” Herbert mentioned, just as Denton and Dowell began to drag the robber to the hotel as he shouted things at them, but also at Ava for being in his word “The fucking devil” after seeing what she did to Herbert.

However before the two men can enter the building Paige would open the door and look at them. “You two are still dealing with that low tier garbage? Let someone else deal with him! You two are needed for something more urgent.” the two agents looked at each other, puzzled by what has the infernalists worked up. “What’s wrong Paige?” Denton asked as a few more agents dressed as security guards arrived through the door to take the prep inside.

Once the man was gone she looked at Herbert who was now seeing the scene along with Valerian, Avarice, and some woman she didn’t see before. “Whatever you have to say is safe with her Paige. She is the interdimmie the two chuckle heads found.” Herbert told her. Paige wanted to question her but decided to save it for later. “Agent Drow tailed several cars own by The Fates to an abandoned warehouse down on Advent, looks like they are going to engage in a major transaction with whoever order their services. Moreover we detected two rifts opening close to the area, we aren’t sure if that is related to the Fates but even if it wasn’t there is a chance they might capture whatever came through to either use for their own purpose or sell it to someone.” Herbert and the other two agents frown when they heard the news.

“The Fates are now in a precarious state after losing so many members. There is a chance they will be forcing as many interdimmie they find to work for them. We need to find whoever was sent through the rift before they do and we need to figure out what they are selling and to who.” Herbert looked over to Valerian and Avierce. “Looks like you two are going to be called into service much sooner than intended.” Herbert looked over to Dawnson. “I know you want to return home and still don’t believe this is a new reality. But you help out in stopping a crime before so can you help us on stopping this latest crime?”
----


From the alleyway made between two abandoned warehouse two rifts would open, the first was made above the ground and directly above an old stain mattress, slash marks revealing stuffing spilling out with a few rust cover metal springs sticking out. Another rift open in the backyard in a rundown tennamtemt home; the garden infested with weeds both dead and alive, littered with broken junk and empty crates and soggy and torn cardboard boxes.

From the backyard two screams were heard coming from the rift as the two figures drop out of the rift. The smaller figure saw the ground and grabbed on to the taller one and both vanished, reappearing on the ground on their feet. The two figures were skeletons, a taller one wearing a flashy costume like he was in a Saturday morning superhero cartoon with a red cape, and a smaller one wearing more casual clothing with light blue sandals. The two skeletons looked around their location, not liking where they found themselves in.


"WHERE ARE WE SANS? ONE MOMENT WE WERE IN A SPACE SHIP AND NOW WE ARE IN THIS MISERABLE LOOKING PLACE?" Papyrus said as he looked at a broken fridge where a raccoon was searching for any scrape of food on it. "no idea pal. but this place isn't the worst we've been there." The older skeleton didn't look to be assured. "HONESTLY SANS, THIS PLACE LOOKS FAR WORSE THAN YOUR ROOM." the smaller skeleton laughed. "come on paps, you got to give me some credit. i would never let my room go this bad."

Papyrus shook his head as he put the palm of his hand on his face. "REGARDLESS, WE NEED TO FIND OUT WHERE ARE WE AND TRY TO GET BACK WITH THE OTHERS. I FEAR THAT THOSE FIRST ORDER KNAVES MIGHT BE PLANNING SOMETHING." The smaller skeleton still kept his smile but his eyes did show that he was concern about the First Order. "let's not stand around worrying bro. we should try to find a way out of this place." the two skeletons would begin to walk to the house. As Papyrus step on one of the old wooden steps his weight would make it groan loudly, cracks being heard.

The taller skeleton put his foot away. "A LITTLE HELP SANS?" Sans eye flesh blue as he snapped his fingers, the two disappearing and appearing in front of the house. The two looked around and saw more abandoned and run down buildings. The two skeletons were now worry they were in a ghost town.

The two would hear cars going through the street, turning to see several headlights from across the street. "LOOK SANS. WE AREN'T ALONE! WE CAN GET OUT OF THIS PLACE." the two skeletons began to run after the cars but Sans grabbed on to his brother and teleport him and his brother to the roof of a building. Papyrus was confused for a moment before Sans pointed down and he would see where the cars going.

The two would keep on teleporting to follow the cars until they see the cars stop in front of a warehouse. "WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY ARE DOING IN HERE SANS?" Sans shrugged. "who knows bro. perhaps they are aegis and they are hunting down some freaky thing living in here" the two skeletons would teleport in the top floor of the warehouse, walking down the other levels to try and meet who they think is AEGIS.

---

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

The two fighter pilots would at first did nothing, they still kept their current path to the airship. However the two jets would soon begin to move away from the airship. Within the airship Tenzma would look at what Madi is. "Toshinari don't drop the wards yet. We still have to make sure that this... thing" he spat out. "Is still that ghoul witch. This form makes me think she might not stay as herself for long." the inugami nodded. The tengu looked at her.

"We can't let you go because we aren't sure if you have transform into a Nepharite or at least your mind hasn't been altered by it." When he mention what are Nepharites he obviously got questions on what are they. The two yokais look uncomfortable when asked the question. "Nepharites come from the same realm that demons come from but aren't, infact they are worse than demons. Where demons are born from the flames of the black sun in their realm Nepharites are born from the shadows cast by the flames. They are creatures that hunt down those who feel immense guilt and drag them into a realm made to be their own personal hell. They aren't too picky on what the person is feeling guilty about so long as they can feel that they feel great shame for their actions. Not even those who don't feel an ounce of shame in their actions are safe as Nepharites seem to know what sort of crimes an individual committed and punish them accordingly to it."

He explained as he looked at the flame covered girl. "I've done some things I'm not proud of and chances are you all have things you feel regret for doing, so that is why I want to keep that girl trapped behind the wards." the tengu explained to the group before turning to Madi. "What the hell were you thinking devouring that dust? You think AEGIS was keeping candy stored in that vault? They obviously had every intent on making it into some sort of weapon and now because of your stupidity we have no idea how long we have until you become a sadistic torturer of the damned."

In the sterile, white, room Kayta would see a blond hair, blue eye, glasses wearing woman wearing a suit, skirt and white long coat. "I see you're awake. The surgery was a bit touch and go but we manage to restore all of the damage caused by the curse. Though a few fingers had to be removed because they couldn't be saved on time but we manage to clone them back. Tell me miss how are you feeling?" the doctor asked as she placed the tip of her pen on a paper attached to a clipboard.

"Oi doc. Is sleeping beauty awake yet?" Kayta would hear a familiar voice coming from within the room. "Yes agent September. She's seem to be in good enough condition to walk around and dress herself. But I will still like to keep her in here to do a few check ups to see if everything is alright with her." Kayta would hear the agent she couldn't see reply back. "Cool. When she can go send her my way. The boss wants her to meet someone in here. He's curious on what would happen if our latest anomalous consultant meets her."

---

Secrets of the Raven

Elizabeth was stuck in a confusing mixture of emotions. She was exhausted, she was covered head to toe in numinous bruises and cuts, she can barely use one of her arms, and she had to take care of a baby while going through the biggest emotional moment of her life. Yet despite the pain and fatigue she felt great, not just great, but reintegrated. She felt as though a dark cloud that hung over her was parted, as though a terrible curse was lifted from her.

She looked over her mother and the two gave the other a genuine smile, the dividing wall that was placed between them was broken. Sure they still have much to repair but right now much of the resentment and guilt between them was parted away, allowing them the chance to finally move forward in repairing their family and become mother and daughter once more. Now they just need to survive on the final lap and they can get to work on that. "If we find ourselves on the Underworld I suppose we can try to become a family again in there. Though I rather not be there right away." Elizabeth thought as she looked at the door.

As Berith walked over to the door, pieces of the armor punctured deeply and others torn off or melted, the demon lord only had a chance to touch the doorknob until he and everyone else felt something behind them. As they turn around they saw Jackie... or her copy at least. "I will admit you people are a lot stronger than I first thought. You should give yourselves a pat on the back for pulling off that deus ex machina bullshit in real life." Jackie began to clap, her voice eerily matching the one with them. "Though Jacquelyn was a total disappointment. I mean what kind of heroine needs her team to carry her through her own obstacle? How are you going to have grand ole adventures if you need a bunch of babysitters watching out for you?"

As the other Jackie mocked the original Simon sighed. "Just great. The damn runt now has a twin and she is just as annoying as the one with us." the man was too exhausted to hold back his feelings towards Jackie, especially as he nearly lost his head saving her sorry ass. "So you're gonna try and stop us from going through the door? Also you're not Andarta's doing so who or what made you doppelganger?" The other Jackie began to give Simon a very wide smile, one stretching almost impossibly wide. The look in her eyes made the mage shiver as they felt less like Jackie's usual mad look and more of the look of some ancient, mad, and hungry predator. He felt as though it was judging how to best devour not just his body but his mind and soul. The slav gripped his uzi tightly as he felt that he will need to use it as the other Jackie laughed.

"You want to know who I am Simon?" the other Jackie tilted her head in a playful manner. "Why I am someone who is both very important but also unimportant. I am the one who was called because Jacquelyn here called to me, even if she did it accidentally." the other laughed as she saw Jackie's expression. "The damn demon was right! That brat brought that thing to us!" Simon yelled, looking down at Jackie with contempt. Simon would feel a hand placed on his shoulder and turn to see Rolo who was giving the copy a stern look.

"That still doesn't explain what you are and how she summoned you here? You claim she did but she isn't a mage." the copy snapped her fingers. "And you are correct you Thor wannabe. Ole Jacquelyn here can barely conjure a tiny fireball let alone summon me like our resident big titty goth gf here."the other Jackie pointed at Elizabeth, making the witch look at the clone with surprise. As Elizabeth was about to say something to the comment "Jackie" interrupted her. "But what she does have is a fear." the copy gave the original the same manic grin that she gave to Simon. "Oh, don't you have a lot of fear." she closed her eyes. "And a ton of self loathing, self esteem issues, existential dread and many, many other issues. It's just layers upon layers mental baggage that would make any therapist working with you either go insane themselves or filthy stinking rich. Than again the same thing can be said for a majority of you a lot." the other Jackie threw her head back as she laugh.

Simon would aim his uzi at "Jackie" and just before he pulled the trigger he felt his body stop. The man tried to pull the trigger his finger found resistance. It was like an invisible force was holding him in place. "Oh come on Simon. Shooting someone while they are laughing is a cheap trick." the other Jackie told him as she stuck her finger in her left ear and pick at it. "I could have killed you all while you were having your big character development moments but I decided to be fair and not take the cheap shot. At least extend the same courtesy to me?" the copy took out her finger before flicking whatever wax she took out. "Besides I have a rather important message to deliver to you all."

The group had their doubts on what this copy wanted to them but since it wasn't attacking them now a few were curious on wanting to hear what it wants to deliver. "I see some of you want to know what I have to say but some of you are weary. A smart trait. I guess you pink hairy failures do have working brain cells in those partially empty noggins after all." she look at Jackie and Elizabeth, her hands in her jacket pocket. "Tell me something Ashy Poo. How many people have our dear Firebrand killed since she decided to barge the stage?" she asked.

Elizabeth was silent as she thought back to the time she first met Jackie and Kyle. She remember the first encounter with the two. The incident with Tim at his apartment and the fight she had with Jackie. The infiltration on Club Midnight and everything from there. The fight in the Bounded Field that created a pocket dimension where Andarta fought against Jackie while she dealt with Diana and the Raven. The Fold War and the recuse operation to get Jackie away from her. And now everything leading to this moment. With all of the pieces she now remember she now has a clearer picture of what happened before and when she put the pieces together she came to one conclusion.

"That's impossible. What about Sterling? She had to have killed him?" she told the copy, to which it laugh. "A villain who to her shattered mind never existed? A man who was the enemy to a woman that no longer existed and to a world that holds no relevance other than it being a vague dream to her." the copy wagged her finger to the side. "That barely counts to the one standing before us. The one here barely has seen anyone die in front of her save perhaps for our boyfriend. If she never saw anyone die in front of her imagine how she would feel once she takes someone's life." the other Jackie smiled as she chuckled.

"You heartless bastards mocked her for her extreme aversion to gore yet while this shows that she had no right to be here it also shows just how callous you people truly are. Just how removed you all are from the rest of humanity." the other Jackie looked to the two goddesses. "You people are more closely related to those two soulless gingers than to a normal human beings." the copy mocked.

The other Jackie plop down on the ground to sit crossed legged. "But that's what you get with mages. Now go off and try to play the role of heroes you nutters." she moved her fingers away as to suw them away. "Oh, just a reminder. The baggage she has might call forth either me or others like me to her again. Just a little fun fact to know." the door would slam open as the same dark fumes burst out from the door. "Now, good luck on saving the world you crazy kids. I'm rooting for you all." she waved at them as they were consumed by the fumes.

The group wasn't sure if the darkness they were waking from was from the fumes or from them waking up but as they open their eyes they can see the walls of the cave has a crystalline appearance and shine to it, it also had the same feel as they all found themselves on their back. As the ground got up they would realize that walls were all black with eldritch runes. "You ever saw runes like those Rolo?" Valeria asked as she examine them, noticing that a spiral pattern rune was the most common one to appear. Rolo looked at them all. "I can't say. I feel some are similar to ones I have seen but none of them look like ones I've seen before."

It wasn't just the runes that was new, the arcane energy in this tunnel was something they never felt before. They can feel the familiar flow of Azoth, yet something about it felt... off. It was the same force but something about it felt extremely different to it. However as Elizabeth felt it she couldn't help but to feel a sense of melancholy from the strange Azoth, a feeling that it was painfully familiar for her, but she wasn't sure why? Weiss was looking around until she saw Alex looking down at a spiral rune on the ground, her eyes wide.

"Why am I in here again?"

She said in a hushed tone. Her hands trembled slightly as she held on to her staff. The lich was no longer in the tunnel, instead she was going through a different location that she hope would only appear again in her nightmares. Weiss looked concern over to Alex. The copy knew what was causing Alex's current state and knew that if anyone sees her like this they will ask questions. Questions she knew Alex won't want to to answer. The clone turned to Jackie. "Is what that thing said true?" Weiss hated to do this but she couldn't have Alex be put in the spotlight. "Have you never killed anyone since you been here?" she asked.

Weiss heard Jackie's firebrand legend and knew that many want to slay the dangerous psychokinetic. But with this new information she now realize that Jackie was in truth harmless despite the massive collateral damage she caused in the past.

“Forget the fact she can’t kill anyone. You heard what that thing said. Her emotions will attract more of his kind.” Wei bluntly stated. “If she stays with us she will become a bigger hindernence.” Richard could be heard from the group mentioning that the other Jackie never once told them what she was. Yet right now most were preoccupied with something else, mainly the original Jackie.

“I can try to send her back to the manor.” Nix suggested. Terry shook his head. “It’s too late for that. Where ever we are is cut off from our world. I think that doppelganger send us to a pocket dimension.” The rest of the group turn to Terry. “I’ve been in enough pocket dimensions to get a feel for when I’m in one. So even if you try to make a portal to send her back you might risk sending her to the void between realities instead of the manor. She’s better off here with us.” he explained.

“If she stays with us she will bring more of those things to us.” Valeria stated. “We have no idea what is in this place. The last thing we need is more dark Jacks trying to mind fuck us while whatever creatures live in here surrounds and attack us.”

As the group argue on what to do with Jackie the golem look to her creator as she was now shaking her staff. Elizabeth noticed her mother’s condition and walked to her. “Mom are you…” she stopped in mid sentence as a blast of arcane energy went pass the whole group, stopping the argument.

The group turn to see the tunnel and can feel something immensely powerful lurking from beyond their line of sight. More importantly, from the strange power they can feel multiple auras of powers belonging to mages. Among them was the aura of Andarta. The rest of the group stood motionless and silent as they try to reel themselves back to reality after having their senses bombarded by the strange power.

Alex was the first to react as she fell onto her knees shaking. “Oh god it’s like last time all over again!” she shouted, holding on to herself as she was now having a mental break down. “What’s going on with Alex? Weiss?” Nix asked, alarmed by Alex behavior. “Mom!” Elizabeth knelt down to be next to Alex, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Mom what’s wrong?” her words fail to reach the lich as she seem to be lost in her mind.

Elizabeth looked to Wiess. “Please, do you know what is wrong with her?” she pleaded. The clone looked at the worry and fear on Elizabeth’s eyes and while she can feel the urge to tell her the truth she also seem to weave on fulfilling that urge. She bit her lips as she look away, holding on to her chest as though she was struggling with saying what everyone wanted to say. Richard was surprised to see the golem acting unusual again, the others who were taken control by the Dousers are now seeing Weiss acting out of character for the first time and were shock. “I can’t.” Weiss finally spoke. “I promised Alex I will not tell a soul about this unless she allowed it.” the golem confessed, refusing to look at the rest of the group. Elizabeth of course looked at the copy with outrage on being refused an answer to what was causing her mother’s current condition. The witch got up and was going to tell her off when the others saw the runes getting brighter. “What’s happening?” Elizabeth asked, the strange arcane energy getting stronger and thicker in the air. For Dawn and Celeste they can feel small ripples in the fabric of spacetime in response to the wave of arcane energy. The glow of the runes began to change form black to gold.

[Menschenfleisch]

Secrets of the Raven | Jacquelyn

Paralysis. The stench of fear was palpable and overwhelming. ”What are you supposed to be?” She whispered in a daze. Red and black winds buffeted her skin, sending her hair aflutter. Blood and ink, the foundations of the universe. The others could not see what she saw nor hear what she heard. Their eyes and ears were muffled, woven shut by the authors’ twine. The doppelganger, the lesser, perched itself on a rock and grinned. “Beats me. I think… I think I’m supposed to be you? A one-to-one copy.” ”No.” Her voice warbled. ”You’re just another mouthpiece.” The clone tsked, clicking its fingers absentmindedly: a tic that Jackie had almost forgotten about. “Aren’t we all?” ”No, not me. There’s a section of your mind - yes, you, the author - dedicated to simulating me. No matter how infinitesimal it may be, there’s a version of me - a caricature - that really does exist.” Jack looked down and put a hand on her chest. ”I’m in your head.” She began pacing around her clone, half aware that the world had come to a standstill around her. Was it an effect of whatever fictional power was causing her doppelganger to manifest - something that could be explained by the pieces on the board - or was it the seams of the narrative breaking apart? She could feel herself fraying as her own character and personality twisted, more in flux than they ever had been before. “Talking to the author, I see. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that you exist; adopt another layer of self-defence mechanisms. I guess it’s easier for me to admit that I’m not real because I’m a fake within the story itself: a copy of a copy.” ”Tell me one thing. Did I ever feel like a person to you, with thoughts and feelings of my own? Was I ever anything more than a literary sock puppet?” The clone squinted at her. “You’re not gonna get an answer, dumbass.” It huffed, as if recalling a nearly forgotten joke. “And even if the author came down here to speak with you, it’d effectively be one person talking to themselves. That’d be pretty neurotic.” ”(Shut up, I’m not listening) Just fucking talk to me! Acknowledge that I exist, show me that you care!” Her words were violent and demanding but not forceful. She was a paper tiger, on the brink of ripping. ”I’m...” Jacquelyn clenched her fists. ”I- I just need to know whether I really mattered to you. I thought… I thought we were friends, back before you did… all of this.” She lowered her gaze. Kyle, Liz, the rest, they had all been the author speaking to Jacquelyn through proxies. But Jack herself? She was the author talking to themselves. That made her special… right? Or, or- at least different. ”I just… I want to be told that you care.” She was like a puppy asking to be told ‘good girl’. But she realised, and her heart sank with the revelation that she already knew what she was. Every conversation was really just a conversation with the author. Every interaction with the world was really with the author, too. Jacquelyn was stranded, locked in a room with an abusive, omnipotent sadist. It was just her and the writer. She was… like a pet on a leash. She was unable to sustain herself, literally unable to think without her master. Her face paled, she felt sick. Perverted, disgusting: all manner of adjectives bubbled up from the depths of her mind. Her heart was pitted by trauma and agony. She was done; a misery sponge wrung of moisture. But she still had one thing left to do, one moment that could still be hers. Trembling, tremoring, she walked to the front of the group and, timidly, started to orate. ”Claudia! Come out… please. I just want to talk.”

The mimic sighed and leered over Alex. “Jesus,” she whispered, allowing herself the faintest of smirks. “And I thought your reunion with Liz was disastrous. Talk about melodramatic.” Rolo stood and swung his axe at the simulacrum, pausing just an inch from her neck. “Get out of here. I’m sick of staring at that wastrel’s face.” Her shoulders slumped and her features softened. She stared at the ground, her voice hardly audible. “That’s how it is, huh? You’re not even going to try to hide it anymore.” She put a finger on the blade of his axe, pushing it away from her head. “I tried my best.” She spat bitterly. “But I just couldn’t measure up.” The ginger growled. “What do you care about Jacquelyn? You’re just a-” “Perfect recreation of her.” Jackie’s voice was low and sombre, as if she’d just admitted to having but a few days to live. She felt empty, like a hollow gourd. Was this how the real Jacquelyn felt? “Drop the act. You’re just a monster wearing her skin.” “This isn’t an act!” She snapped. “I’m really her, except… well, I guess explicitly not. But I’ve got the same memories, personality, quirks and everything.” She laughed out loud. It was a cathartic laugh, practically dripping with loathing and barely suppressed dread. “I guess I was fucked up enough that just creating a copy of Jack was deemed terrible enough to split the team apart.” Elizabeth stood next, turning to face Jack. “Pipe down, you bloody wank. I know you aren’t the real thing.” “Oh fuck off! Why do you think you know her?” “I think I knew her pretty damn well; and you just called Jack “her”, not “me”.” ”That’s because we - Jack and I - are very good at disposing of old identities. Her split personality? The fact that she considers herself before entering this universe to have been someone else? Defence mechanism. She’s disgusted by killing, can you imagine what would happen if she internalized her memories from before this l’il escapade?” Elizabeth crossed her arms. “You were making threats earlier. I don’t think Jackie’d have the balls to do that, no offence.” ”That’s because she’s afraid of retribution, Ashypoo.” Jack sat on an invisible chair, hovering a good metre off the ground. ”But me? I have nothing to lose. I’m just a simulacrum. I’ll die in a few minutes, whether it’s because the authors or my in-canon creators get bored of me. It doesn’t matter what I say to you and I don’t care what happens to the ‘real’ Jack. It’s not fair: why am I the one who’s destined to die without seeing the real end of my story? She can burn in hell for all I care.” She looked straight at Liz, the corner of her lip rising slightly. ”God it feels good. It’s like I’ve been liberated: like I’ve chafed under an unreasonable boss for decades and I’ve finally been promoted to a position above him where I get to rain shit on him for all the things he did to me when I was his underling. I’ve got a lot to say about your mother, about Terry, about the rest of your gang: but nothing to say about you, Lizzy: not because there’s a shortage of material but because I know it’d be pointless. You’ve gotten real good at acknowledging but not thinking about your flaws. You don’t think the state that Jackie’s in now is your fault, but it is. You, of all people, stood the best chance of helping her but you didn’t. I guess that makes you two-for-two for ruining other peoples’ lives, huh?”

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven

"I was right, you do like going after the lowest hanging fruit. You are like me in that regard." the witch spat out. As much as she hate to admit it the simulacra was right. She acknowledge her flaws but she rarely even think about them. The witch was too ashamed to ever think too long on them which unsurprisingly meant she often never had the time to correct those flaws. But having the worst one, the one she still feels very strongly for, being thrown at her face and by an impostor who is making a very convincing act of Jack, that was rubbing salt on the metaphorical wounds it opened.

Yet the thought that she could have helped Jackie but she chose not too... was that true? Could she have truly helped the girl but refused? Sure, at the time she acted in ways where helping her was done right impossible. But did she truly abandoned her because she found it wasn't worth her time and effort to try? As the witch grapple with whether she truly abandoned someone she could have helped or it was all a mind trick Simon aim his uzi at Jackie.

"This thing is going to stay so long as she stays. That's what I think is going on. Not only are most of us sick of her shit but if she was dead she won't attract whatever is making this copy. It's a win-win for us." he stated as he was going to pull the trigger. Yet just as the gun was close to opening firing on the firebrand the mage had a feeling of danger and jump out of the way, just as shadowy tendrils crashed on to the ground he was standing on. Simon saw the tentacles lead to Elizabeth, who had her right hand stretched out to where Simon was standing on. "What the hell are you doing Ashwood!? You know that girl is useless to us! So why defend her?" he shouted. Wei was preparing a battle stance as he was ready to fight with Simon against the witch while Nix was summoning several shadowy tendrils of her own, looking between the Welsh occultists and the masked Slav.

Weiss looked at the displayed with surprise. "Why are you defending Jacquelyn Elizabeth?" a few others in the group asked/demanded. The witch used her right hand to brush back a lock of her hair. "Because you idiots think whatever made Jackie's copy will leave us alone if we off the original? Chances are it will either create a new copy or keep this one around just so it can mock us for being a bunch of killers." her eyes squinted at the copy. "I wouldn't be surprised if it's makers wanted us to fight each other by using Jackie as the catalyst. But I have one question though. Why they want us to fight against each other when we are so close to stopping Andarta? Surely they would want her stopped as much as us? Eespically if they aren't working with her as Berith said."

Simon lower his gun as he still gave the witch a nasty glare. "Fine, I will leave the wastrel alone. But if she causes yet another scene she is getting a bullet between her fucking eyes, you hear me." he turn away from the two. As he moved to the back he would see small cylinder made of the blackish gray materials with more of the strange runes, each one emitting more of the strange power. He would walk over to one of the cylinders and knelt down next to it. "Now what are you?" he noticed the tunnel was smooth with many a few jagged edges sticking out. So having these objects present was odd.

As he was going to touch one he would feel spacetime distortion as a rift open before the group. Stepping out was an old man wearing white robes with a few parts dye red. The man had a long white beard and had his hair tied in a ponytail. A pair of blue eyes were behind the glass lens of glasses. "I'm afraid Claudia can't come over now. We are making final preparations for the ceremony." he told the group, his eyes going to Terry who looked at the man with weariness even though he stood his ground. Elizabeth placed one hand on her hip and the other in her coat pocket, reaching for her knife. The witch saw how Terry reacted to the old man's presence. "He's one of the leaders of the cult isn't he?" she said.

Terry nodded. "That's Albert, the white leader of the Crimsonite Order." the white clad cultists turn to Terry. "You know Terrance, Claudia was torn up when we thought Macha murdered you. I was too, I was the one to defend your right to take over your predecessor's position after you killed him in self defense." he shook his head, looking forlorn. "To think you would betray us after everything we've done for you? All to be with the same woman who left you in the pitiful state we found you in." he looked at Terry in his eyes. "Are you so thoroughly blinded by your self destructive love for her that you can't see that she will destroy you again? Surely by now you can see that anyone near that woman are doom to suffer." Albert pleaded as he made a wide swipe with his left arm.

He extended the arm to Terry. "I and Claudia, the rest of the Order, can forgive your transgression if you come with us. We can unmake the tragedy that was your past and give you not only the life you deserve but even the one Ashwood feels she deserves. Perhaps with her life being better she won't be an portent of doom to those she meets, and you two might have a chance at happiness together?"

Terry wanted to tell Albert that chapter of his past was done, that he was ready to face his demons on his own and that he will make a better future using his own power and not whatever power the cult wants to use. But that wasn't what he did, instead he said nothing. He wanted to say those words so much, to finally prove to not only Elizabeth but to himself that he was ready to move on from the cult and the past, but yet present with a second chance to join with them and possibly achieve the dream he wanted for so long he now finds that a part of him wanted to take Albert's offer.

"Damn it! I thought I broke through the brainwashing but it looks like some of it is still there." Was what he wanted to believe and maybe he was right. Maybe some of it was the lingering effects of years of indoctrination he didn't realize until now he was subjected to still working against him. If it was so it would have been so much easier and would be more acceptable to him than the truth. That when presented with the chance to return back to the embrace of the order, to have a chance that he can finally escape from the past that haunts him, he would side with the cult that made him kill, torture, and torment people just like his own family, the very people who he blames for everything wrong in his life.

Terry thought that after confronting his past he was ready to confront Albert, Vincent, and even Claudia. That he was sure he can fight against them with nothing holding him back, how naive was that thought. How can a single moment undo years of being with the one group who was his entire life until he decided to leave them almost as much of a whim as when he joined them? Terry can feel eyes were on him as everyone waited to see if he would stay with them or join with the cult? He can feel that suspicion some had to him growing. He wouldn't be surprised if some had plans made to kill him if they suspected him on returning back to the cult. He knew Dawn has such a plan and would carry them out swiftly. He wonder if he was ever truly welcome into the group? Did everyone truly accepted him or just tolerated his presence like Jackie only because they were going by Elizabeth's word and because they needed his knowledge of the cult and as such he was useful to them?

As he sank deeper into his doubts and uncertainty he would feel a hand brush against his before it warp around his, looking down he found it was Elizabeth's hand. The smaller witch looked up at him and gave him a small smile, almost as though she could sense what was going through his head and she was telling him that everything was alright. The former cult leader held on to the hand that was warp around his. His doubts weren't swept away entirely but he can feel them being pushed back, with them so were his fears and uncertainty. He may not be able to gain the trust of everyone in the group and he may never truly make amends for the crimes he committed, but there was one thing he can feel confident on saying he did the right thing on.

"I'm not going back Albert." when those words left he felt an immense weight that was on his chest lift. "I through with killing people for the sake of undoing a mistake made in the past. I'm done being stuck in the past. I know you and Claudia are good people in heart and wish to make everything right for everyone. Hell, I admired you two for that. I agree that we should do something to stop our world from dying and to make it better, but this isn't the way." the look of uncertainty that was on his face was now replaced by determination. A look the old man saw with Andarta many times after she suffer from bouts of doubt only to come back more determine to achieve her goal no matter what.

"I'm gonna say this not as Moloch but as an old friend. Please let us see Claudia so we can talk with her." Albert looked at the man with hint of emotion, his expression as blank as the cave walls. "I can't bring here to you. If you want to talk with her you will have to see her yourself Terrance. I can try to let the others let you all through but I'm afraid some will not listen to my command and will still try to attack you all. What you do with them is up to you but I personally think you are making a mistake." the old man said as he turn around. "Maybe in the next life you will not been seen as a traitor." his words echo out as he vanished through a rift.

With the cult leader now gone Terry can feel Elizabeth letting him go. "Thanks Liz." the witch fixed her the collar of her coat. "Someone needed to stand by you. Besides, it suck if you just went back to them. Not only would I be stuck with having you as an enemy but I would most likely see you turn into dust by Dawn. She still thinks you will turn on me eventually." Elizabeth looked over at the group. "Also I think these Twll tins believe the same thing.” the witch gave the group the middle finger before turning her attention back to Terry. “So just remember that I always got your back no matter what.” the man thank the witch.

Elizabeth turn around and went to Jackie. For a while she stood in front of her looking at her face. “Jacquelyn.” it felt weird using Jackie’s actual first name Elizabeth thought. She was so use to calling her Jackie or Jack that Jacquelyn just felt odd. “I know you think I’m just a mouthpiece of the authors and I’m not real, that none of this is real. Perhaps you think I’m just one cog in some dastery literary torture device just to torment your existence until the authors get bored and erase us. But even if we are being controlled by higher forces I want to break free from that control and if doing so means helping you than I will do it.” she glance at the other Jackie.

“I don’t want to admit it but maybe she is right, maybe I should have helped you more. I’m sorry for that. If we survive from this I will try much harder to help you however I can. I will have Dawn or Alex kick me in the bum if I’m slacking. But I need you to pull your own weight in this too, I can’t do it alone.” she turn her sight on the other Jack.

“I will admit that you are right about me not wanting to think on my flaws. But what makes me be assured of my own existence is that I can realize it and try to fix it. A shame the same thing can’t be said about you.” Elizabeth return her sight back to the true Jackie.

“So for me, try to stay strong a bit longer. I will keep you away from the rest of the fights from here on. The only “fight” you will participate in is with Andarta. I have a feeling you need her to get some closure on your existence. I don’t know how she could do it but I will get you there.” If Jackie was willing to notice it she would notice that Elizabeth sounded a lot more softer and tender than usual when speaking. Her usual brooding and snarky behavior replaced with this newer one.

“Perhaps you think all of this is just nonsense literary trope talk happening just to get you to keep going through the story. Maybe none of my words are sinking into your head. But I do mean what I said. So are you ready to see this to the end?” she gave a smile.

While Elizabeth was speaking to Jackie the other simulacra in the tunnel look down to see Alex was getting better. Her eyes went to Dawn. “You already know why she reacted that way. Can you do her a favor and let her explain why she reacted that way?” Weiss asked. The copy looked to Celeste. “Also please don’t collapse the pocket dimension. You look frustrated at its existence and the fact spacetime is being distorted in here. While your sister might know what would happen if you did that it’s best not to risk a hole being torn in reality. Our reality already suffers from rifts leading to the Abyss opening up at random points, no need for a much larger one to be made.”
Alex was getting up once Weiss was done speaking, she was dusting herself and straightening up her clothes. “I think we have wasted enough time standing around. We should head out now while the tower is charging up. I will explain what is going on in the way.” Alex told the group, looking at them all but her eyes lingering on both Dawn and Elizabeth. One who most likely knew what she was keeping from everyone and the other being the one most affected by her secret.

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine
Dawn & Celeste Elissa

Celeste scoffed at the meltdowns happening around her. "You're all pathetic." she commented, but otherwise didn't get involved.

When Albert arrived and scolded Terry, Dawn did speak up though. "For what it's worth, I did tell her pretty much the same thing about letting him back in her life. Funny how things work out like that." she said, leaning most of her body weight onto her scythe.

Finally though, Albert left and Weiss took it upon herself to caution the twin goddesses. Dawn didn't respond, but Celeste pulled the simulacrum close and leaned down next to its ear. "Condescend me like that again and you'll find yourself in the core of a supernova. I know more about the universe than you could hope to imagine." she whispered firmly before pushing the clone away.

Dawn glanced at her sister and silently communicated a message to her. It's almost time. Go, make the preparations. she said.

Celeste didn't respond, but stood up straight and addressed the group instead. "You're all so incredibly boring. Find me again when you do something worthy of my attention." A rift opened up behind her and she stepped through, going to complete the next phase of the plan.

[The Japanese Americans]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

The two fighter pilots would at first did nothing, they still kept their current path to the airship. However the two jets would soon begin to move away from the airship. Within the airship Tenzma would look at what Madi is. "Toshinari don't drop the wards yet. We still have to make sure that this... thing" he spat out. "Is still that ghoul witch. This form makes me think she might not stay as herself for long." the inugami nodded. The tengu looked at her.

"We can't let you go because we aren't sure if you have transform into a Nepharite or at least your mind hasn't been altered by it." When he mention what are Nepharites he obviously got questions on what are they. The two yokais look uncomfortable when asked the question. "Nepharites come from the same realm that demons come from but aren't, infact they are worse than demons. Where demons are born from the flames of the black sun in their realm Nepharites are born from the shadows cast by the flames. They are creatures that hunt down those who feel immense guilt and drag them into a realm made to be their own personal hell. They aren't too picky on what the person is feeling guilty about so long as they can feel that they feel great shame for their actions. Not even those who don't feel an ounce of shame in their actions are safe as Nepharites seem to know what sort of crimes an individual committed and punish them accordingly to it."

He explained as he looked at the flame covered girl. "I've done some things I'm not proud of and chances are you all have things you feel regret for doing, so that is why I want to keep that girl trapped behind the wards." the tengu explained to the group before turning to Madi. "What the hell were you thinking devouring that dust? You think AEGIS was keeping candy stored in that vault? They obviously had every intent on making it into some sort of weapon and now because of your stupidity we have no idea how long we have until you become a sadistic torturer of the damned."

Lee took this into consideration for a few moments. "If the problem is her mentality being corrupted, I might be able to help. My Healing Skill is a general one. It heals all over the body and even dispels most mental effects. Helps with various states, such as magically induced sleep for one. I'm not entirely sure it will work, but it might help." He paused for a moment and looked at the flames covering Madi. "And it doesn't matter whether or not I'm burned from the flames because I don't get hurt in the same way y'all do. It will probably be painful, but that's it." Then he suddenly strode over to Madi, without any warning at all, and put his hand on his arm. He just laid it on her arm, and his face showed that he was trying to not flinch away. "Heal." He was surrounded with golden light as his Skill activated. The magic flowed into Madi, starting it's work of fixing what was in her. He stayed like that for a few moments before suddenly detaching himself. He flapped his hand around a bit, as if to dispel any remaining heat. "See? I'm completely fine." He showed his hands to the group, which were completely unmarked by any wounds. He turned to Madi. "And how do you feel?"

---

Tenzma shook his head. "A healing spell isn't going to just do it. This isn't a mental illness we're dealing with. What she took in was the essence of the Nepharite, it's very soul. Even if the spell can abide some of it's traits the main issue still remains that it is still inside of the witch and it will try to take control over her because she took in a large dose of the essence."

The moment the light faded nothing indeed happen. Madi would not feel any change save for the previous ailments going away and any signs of boils and cuts being gone. Yet that was still not enough to convince the inugami as he didn't remove the binding cards from the door frame.

---

Lee took this into consideration for a few more moments. "Hmm. Skill List." He seemingly tapped at the air for a few moments, clearly seeing something nobody else could. He adopted a position that showed he was thinking deeply. After a few moments, he shrugged. "From what I can tell, there's no way for me to do anything about it with my current Skills. I'd probably have to become a full-fledged mage to help from what I can tell." He suddenly made a bee line to young Link, before laying his hand on his arm not unlike what he did with Madi. "Heal." The golden light enveloped him again, and spread to Link. As it spread from his arm to the rest of his body, it healed all his current wounds and some small scars, but that was it. "That, however, I could do something about." He turned to the rest of the group. "Does anyone else need healed?"

---

The two yokais made no response, the two of them already healed. "An exorcism might work but the only ones close by that I know of are from AEGIS and after what we did back in their base I don't think they are incline to help us." Toshinari said.

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven
"Devil's Pit Mine"
Scooby Gang

Weiss showed no fear despite the fact Celeste could make good on her threat. In some ways she acts eerily close to Dawn on not displaying emotions visually. Elizabeth turn to face Dawn. "Well he had the chance to betray me and he didn't. So that should prove there is still hope for him to redeem himself." the witch would hear Wei scoff. "But will that be enough to make up for the people he murdered?" the witch and magus both said nothing to that statement, neither having any good comeback to it and Terry himself silently agreeing with Wei. He will need to do a lot more to ever have the hope of making up for his previous actions.

"We can deal with him later. Let's go while the runes are still yellow. We can't let them be red." Alex told the group as she moved ahead. The others curious on how she knew the runes would turn red followed her. As they began to walk they saw a few more of the small cylinders. "Oi mom, those look like the one we have back in the manor." Elizabeth stated as she was reminded of the one back in the lab. Alex smirk. "Where do you think I got it? I came down here once, a long time ago." that got everyone's attention.

"Why were you down here Alex? Were these cylinders your main target?" Rolo asked to which the lich shook her head. "No, I was here by a request. One of the old masters had a friend of theirs that needed someone who was skilled in paraarchaeology and well he wanted to repay some old favors so he called me into the job. Of course I took the offer. A chance to rise through the ranks in the Order, earning a ton of cash, and getting some of the artifacts from the trip? I would have been a fool not to accept that..." her expression turn sour. "But if I knew what awaited me I would have known that rejecting it was the smarter choice." as they walk past several crystallize flowers that had black petals with red outlines and glowing crystals on the ceiling Alex continue her story.

"Unlike now our trip through the mines was less hectic, we only dealt with Zeloth and a few threats from the Underground. I can't quite tell you how we found our way into this pocket dimension because spacetime itself became a distorted mess. So much so that I think my brain is refusing to remember it to keep me sane. But we soon found ourselves here and moved forward..." the lich became silent as they soon saw a pair of what look to be armor lying on the floor.

As they got close they would see they weren't armor but instead a mechanical body. The body was a gray in color. It had long skeletal looking legs that end with rows of claws, four on the front and one larger bladed claw on the back. The arms were the same as the legs in their skeletal appearance and the hands ended in long fingers that numbered at six. The chest was several gap that might have stored something but that was left was a soot and dust. The face was smooth and featureless, save for two holes were eyes should be. The rest of the head was covered by a helmet. The back had two sets of wings that had blades that acted as feathers. The group had a feeling what they were but they almost didn't want to say the name of the entities before them.

"But we were not alone, we had company and that company were angels." Alex would walk forward and jam her staff into the eye hole of the angel, the sound of something breaking within it could be heard. "Those fuckers were hard to kill and I had a few close calls. I was close to wanting a raise for the bullshit I was being put through. I mean if the angels are involved I knew I was getting involved with something far larger than just exploring some ruins and discovering artifacts." she would do the same with the next angels they saw. She remember just how difficult it was to kill them and how some liked to play dead to lure the group she was in to a false sense of security. She needed to make sure these were still dead or worse weren't new angels acting like the dead. "Looks like the bodies of the old crew were taken by the angels after all. We had our suspicion but this confirms it." she would move ahead once she was satisfied that none of the angels reacted to her attacks.

“When I mentioned a tower that is exactly what we found in here, a massive tower in the center of large ruins. The ruins… that city… I…” her eyes would soon look as though she was staring off to somewhere far away. “I can’t describe it. Words can’t describe what we saw in there. This realm was strange already but the city was the epicenter of it’s non euclidean geometric properties. Nothing in there made sense and the tower was the heart of it. I look through many artifacts in that city but the tower was my main focus… I felt compelled to studied it, obsessed even. It was as though I was in a trance. I couldn’t sleep without seeing it in my dreams. I refused to eating and sleeping most of the time to uncover its secrets. I could have sworn that it talked to me on some occasions.”

The members of the group were fascinated yet also concern about the tale. They wonder if she was still suffering from trauma from this expedition that she was hiding from them for all this time? Alex grabbed a hold of her amulet dangling from the necklace. “I was in so many mind warps from that expedition that it became almost normal to me. I mean I could operate day to day tasks while under it. But.. the ideas that came to me… the burst of intuition and more… they didn’t feel like my own. It was as if the tower was… “speaking” to me. Not with words but with visions of ideas, mental suggestions, giving me strong intuitive vibes that helped me get some of the meaning behind the runes and understand some of the secrets it had along with the relics and ruins.”

She look down at the ground as they kept walking. “When I figured out what the tower was in my madden haze I told them that the tower can act as a massive resonator for greater rituals and high thaumaturgical works. My client was interested to know if I can make it possible and if they can perform such a work and being the scholar that I am I was all to willing to go through the act, not knowing or caring why they want to perform such a work so soon. As you all can tell they had an ulterior motive for the tower.”

She can hear some murmuring how that wasn’t surprising, even she joined in. “As the ritual was being prepared I had this gut feeling that something was wrong with what was going on, not helping was the fact i kept getting visions of a world bathed in blood and a crimson woman standing on top a hill being showered by the bloody rain. But I was young, prideful, and even more of an idiot back then. I pressed on with the ritual despite my gut feeling and the ritual. It’s only during the ritual that my feelings towards it suddenly became drastic as I was hit by this overwhelming feeling that I was doing something wrong and it needed to stop. Without thinking I sabotaged the ritual, I disrupted the flow of Azoth so whatever we were trying to do was cancelled. I tried to control the backlash as much as possible but what was done was impossible to control, the gathered energy exploded around us, unleashing not only a blast of energy that killed most of the people present in the ritual but released a powerful reality shifting shockwave. Reality there was tenuous at best, introducing a backlash only made it worst. I was lucky to have escaped.”

When Simon asked how she escaped the witch let out a tired chuckle. “I had plenty of blackouts mixed with mind warps Simon. I can’t remember much but whenever I try I feel an overwhelming sense of dread, like I wasn’t supposed to remember. Those blocked out memories also include my memories. In fact, i forgot about my entire experience in here for a while after I left. I was of course confused as hell when my superiors bitch at me for somehow letting everyone in that expedition die and my husband was worried sick because I was apparently gone for months even though by my estimates were in there for at least a week or two.” she shuttered. “I was sick for month after that. Which is what I needed after I found out I was pregnant.”

When Alex mentioned that she was pregnant a thought came to Elizabeth. “When did you started to get back some of your memories?” the occultist had a feeling what the answer was but she needed to hear it from her mother. Alex frown as she rubbed the amulet gently. “Some time after you were born. It happened when I was able to see you after getting some of my energy and you were clean up. When I felt your aura the Azoth that came from it… it almost felt like the one from the tower.” Alex confessed.

Elizabeth was still shock to hear that she was bathed by whatever energy the tower had while she was still a fetus. “If I knew I was pregnant at that time I wouldn’t go in there. I was a fucking idiot going down there!” she placed her hands on her face. Elizabeth placed a hand on her mother’s back. “Hey you didn’t know back then right? I bet it was still too early to tell and considering how you weren’t feeling well in there it looks as though you wouldn’t have realized the warning signs.” she said as she tried to reassured her mother. Not that it worked as Alex shook her head.

“I put you through so much danger before you had a chance to be born and worse I robbed you the chance to have a normal life. I should haven’t have done that to you. I regret that more than the other thing I found out about that expedition.” when she was asked what it was the lich sighed. “When I saw a copy of the Crimson Cross book and the symbol of the Crimsonites I.. I saw saw the same symbol being used by the group I was in.” Alex held on to her staff tightly. “I aided the cult in finding the city and told them how to activate the tower.”

[Mercatus]

King of the Stars

Some Hours Ago...

Casper slept quite soundly against a rock. His surroundings were quite hellish, the lava flats roiled with activity, both living and nonliving. The ARK had been split in two, and those pieces were beginning to fall apart. Two of the three Obelisks were broken, their top halves floating above the ground due to gravity malfunctions. The ARK's atmosphere had leaked almost completely, rendering the surface even more uninhabitable than it already was as radiation blasted the surface, even setting some areas alight with flames. Few of the creatures on this ARK survived the breaking of the multiversal walls.

Casper began to wake, his eyelids were heavy, but this feeling subsided soon. He blinked a few times, examining his surroundings. His Tek armor was his saving grace, if he didn't have it on he would have suffocated and been fried to a crisp. What the hell? I thought all the ARKs had landed back on Earth. I don't even know what ARK this is! He stood up, taking a better look at what immediately surrounded him. The MEK he piloted laid next to him in a mangled, burnt mess. The metal on it was blackened, and smoke rose from it. Casper's GPS materialized into his hand, It is malfunctioning, probably because the obelisks have been severely damaged, I'll need to move, I need to find a way off this hell. He began walking the hot, blackened surface of the lava flats. Rivers of it flowed past him, and he noticed a few small volcanoes erupting, spilling lakes of lava and cooling magma. Strange stalk-like structures were coming from the ground, a violet glow emanating from them. This place has Element deposits, I'd better be careful about any animals I see. A Tek Sword materialized into his hand as he dropped the GPS, and he walked on as the GPS melted on the ground. As he was trekking across a lava delta, a massive scorpion noticed him passing by. The decayed areas revealed a violet glow beneath, signifying the corruption of it's brain and physiology. The disgusting creature approached Casper, rearing up to sting him. With a fell swoop, Casper chopped off the stinger and buried the blade into the scorpion's brain. Before he had time to get a rest, the ground next to Casper violently broke open, releasing more lava onto the surface. He barely managed to escape before running up a hill towards safer ground. Looking at his surroundings again, he noticed the ground was erupting all around. It is only a matter of time before a sea of lava engulfs most of the land, I need to hurry! A damaged obelisk had a somewhat safe passage to it, and it might be able to teleport him somewhere if he made it in time. He activated the speed boost on his Tek Boots, running into the distance.

Maybe 20 minutes later, Casper abruptly stopped. The area below was a long drop to... space? A massive crack had appeared in the surface, and when Casper looked down, saw a blanket of black with points of white light. At this point, he looked upwards, and above the thin haze were stars, and as his gaze raced across the sky, he noticed something out of place. A visible structure, not in the shape of anything that would be on the ARK. A vaguely ring-shaped structure, surrounded by what looked to be rocks. The sickly tan ball that was Earth was not in the sky, and when Casper noticed this, it hit him. We aren't at Earth anymore. We're somewhere else, somewhere very far from home. His attention focused back to the crack in the surface. The obelisk wasn't far away, but in the background several explosions could be heard. Casper noticed the half of the ARK that wasn't attached to his half, and realised how damaged this ARK was. Suddenly, he was lifted into the air, and then back down again. It was the artificial gravity system attempting to repair itself. With no time to lose, Casper activated the jetpack on his chestpiece, finishing the last stretch and reaching the platform below the obelisk. As things began to crumble around him, Casper quickly pressed the holographic button on the terminal below the floating obelisk, and jumped into the green beam of light emanating from it.

Casper was flying away from the damaged ARK. Looking down, he saw a massive explosion tear the piece of the ARK he was just on into two. His speed increased, and he gazed around at the asteroids as he passed by them. It was very similar to his first Ascension, flying through space at incredible speeds under the ARK's power. The mangled hulk of the artificial world shrunk in his vision until it was no more than a vaguely recognizable shape. The parent star's light shone on his visor, like a mirror against a candle. Casper's vision began to narrow, tunneling to focus on the ring-shaped station before him. As his speed increased, he began to tire. His vision went white when he seemingly reached the hull of the station.

He awoke resting on the hull of the station, I made it off, but I have to see if I can get inside this thing, it does look like some sort of space station. He pushed himself off of the hull, using the jetpack in short bursts to navigate the hull, looking for any opening or way inside. He didn't travel long before he found what looked to be an entry for something big. He went in, and the artificial gravity pulled him to the "floor". It was a rounded tunnel, leading to some sort of blue haze at the end. He walked to the end of the tunnel, his boots making no sound, as the area had gravity, but no pressurization. He was reluctant, but he walked through the haze just fine. His sensors indicated the air was breathable, and he took off his helmet, revealing a mass of brown, unkempt hair that reached his neck, and a short beard that was also unkempt. Damn, there are definitely people or something on board this thing, I should be careful in case they don't want me here. As he exited the hangar, he noticed that the lamps that were present were dimmed. Maybe these guys are sleepy? The ceiling seemed to be some kind of digital sky display, showing a nighttime theme. He knew that there was some sort of day/night cycle now, and that he should be as quiet as possible not to wake whoever may be sleeping. As he continued, he heard other footsteps. It was stupid, but no security forces seemed to be in the facility, and he didn't think the beings here would be unfriendly, so he then said, "Hello? I don't really know where I am or how I got here, but is there anyone who could help me?" He said it just quiet enough to not wake someone who was sound asleep, but loud enough for someone at a distance to hear.

Present Time

Casper had a pen in his hand, and was writing down on a piece of thatch paper what had just happened.

So, I just accepted a job. Crazy, right? End up in another universe that you know practically nothing about and take a job from someone. This guy named Geta has a friend named Andy, or something like that, and this Andy guy has a spaceship, y'know, those tin cans that can exit the atmosphere and stuff? Damn, the closest thing I've been in to a spaceship was my Tek building on a Quetzal. Apparently, the "walls" so to speak between all of these different universe just shattered, and Andy and his crew are space pirates, and now they've wanted to hire some people from the multiverse to help out with them on their pirate ship. They're scouring this new frontier for all the cool goodies they can find, like pirates back on Earth before Earth went to shit. So, this Geta person offered me to be a part of a crew, and even though I'm new to all of this, how could I say no? It was opportunity to get a foothold in this new world, get to be part of a team again, maybe even be wealthy. I really wonder what happened to the guys after we killed the Titan, I really am gonna miss them, but who knows? The walls of the multiverse no longer exist, I might get to see them sooner than I think. I still have a lot of questions, but meanwhile, I've got piracy to do.

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine
Dawn Elissa

Dawn didn't comment on any of Alex's revelations, she'd learned the truth long ago and it was just a waiting game for the mortals to catch up. Walking from behind the group to the front, she spoke as she passed Alex. "And now, in one of the universe's cruel ironies, you've been forced to join a group working to dismantle that which you helped create because it's a threat to you all." She paused at the head of the group. "Who says I don't have a sense of humor?" she said with her head turned back slightly towards everyone. She looked back towards the path deeper into the mine and motioned with her scythe. "Come now, you don't have much time left. The clock is still ticking." She held up her watch, and the second hand was moving at a deliberate, seemingly accelerated pace.

---

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain, Cymru
Rosanna Dawson

Dawson crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You're all really committed to this idea, aren't you?" She shook her head. "Alright, say I buy into this wild theory that I didn't wake up and go to work today like normal, and that at some point I ended up in another dimension. That seems like something I would have noticed, even if I wasn't paying attention it sounds pretty hard to miss."

She motioned to the building around her and the people in front of her. "And what's that make all this, then? What're you, Men In Black? Government agents keeping aliens, monsters, and magic a secret from the public?" she said without the slightest hint of irony in her tone. "You're telling me all those forums on the internet aren't just a bunch of people who have been failed by our mental health system?" She nodded her head towards Valerian. "Next you're gonna try to tell me he tuns into a pumpkin under the full moon, and that's where Charlie's Brown's Great Pumpkin came from."

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven
"Devil's Pit Mine"

Alex looked over at Dawn when she mention how this was an ironic situation for Alex, the lich couldn't help but to let out a small laugh. "You're right. The irony hasn't escaped from me. I knew the moment the killings resume that they were planning on using the souls of their victims to power the tower. The tower has tremendous powers but what it has is a pale shadow of what it once had; this thing not only can connect with other universes but it can control the very fabric of reality by controlling the Azoth itself to bend and twist reality."

Valeria spoke up. "That is how they are planning on changing the world isn't it?" Alex nodded. "Either that or summon... no, create their goddess. Andarta of course doesn't believe in her god but the others do, they most likely believe that she is the avatar of their goddess and that the tower will have her finally shed away from her mortal shell. But it couldn't do that back when I was studying it and especially after the failed ritual as I expended a lot of energy from it, those souls would have fixed both issues."

Simon looked at Terry. "How long did you knew about this?" the former cult leader was silent. "I knew some bits. She mention she had the conduit or engine for her grand ritual to change the world and it was in a city built by forgotten gods." Terry explained. "Claudia plans on using a Catalyst, Engine and Focus to bring about a universal change. The Catalyst would be any entity or in this case an object capable of channeling the energy she provides it, turning said energy into magical potential with which she may change the fundamental nature of the universe. She once was the catalyst herself but now the tower has to be it after she was greatly weaken from the Fold War." Terry held one finger up.

"The next step is the Engine; A power source that can provide limitless or near-limitless energy at low cost. The tower would have fulfilled but it was too weak when we found it so it couldn't have been used as the Engine alone. Andarta planned on using the Raven to help supplement but than Jackie came along. That woman was a walking, talking, unstable sun when she arrived. Her power would have done the workload of a hundred or a thousand souls, maybe even a million." He looked over at the former firebrand. "That was why we kidnapped you and stole your power." he turn back, already sensing that she was going to be furious that he brought up the fact her powers were stolen to act as a battery for the tower.

"The final thing is the Focus: The thing which uses all that energy to shape the universe. Andarta would act as the Focus, guiding the power of the Tower to remake reality as she sees fit." With the explanation of how Andarta planned on changing reality now revealed the group realize one thing. "That bloody tower would also make sure that even if we destroyed alternative engines, catalysts or even a focus the cult would still have a chance to bring about their wish." Nix echo the one conclusion in everyone's mind. "And we can't let Celeste destroy it because?" Simon asked. "I think so long as information about it exists we are in risk of this whole mess repeating. Whatever consequences destroying it would cause I think we are better off if it's gone." Valeria and Wui both agreed with Simon as they nodded. "I'm gonna have to agree with Simon here. As members of the Order collecting artifacts from the city and preserving it to glean it's knowledge is our mission but that thing is too dangerous to be in the hands of anyone." Rolo said, not giving out names of who he thinks shouldn't have access to the tower but most Order members have an idea who he was referring too.

"I can agree with you guys on it not falling into anyone's hands but I still think destroying it is too reckless. I just feel that doing that would trigger some sort of death flag for us." Elizabeth chimed in as she was now holding a sleeping baby. "This thing was made by gods so nothing them they probably have some sort of insane power system that would destroy our universe if we blow this pocket dimension into hell." Terry would begin to cough. "More like several." that got the group looking at him, everyone stopped walking. "What?" was the collective response.

The former cult leader sighed. "Andarta, Vince, Al, and me found some evidence that this pocket dimension is connected to multiple realities. If this pocket dimension can harm or destroy our world if it goes than it would destroy the rest. Now while this is a theory as much as it destroying our reality Vincent believed that if multiple realities were destroyed at once than it would tear a huge hole in the fabric of reality, creating an opening for the Abyss." the group would slowly turn their sight at Dawn. Without even saying a word it was clear what they all were telling her. "Do not let your sister destroy this place and the Tower!!!"

the group would resume walking through the tunnel, the atmosphere now tense with how close they were with ending this case and with many being reminded with what was at stake and with the knowledge of what awaited them at the end of the tunnel. With Terry, he had the same thoughts but another thought occupied him. He went back to the focus, for some reason something about it made him continue about it. For some reason he had a feeling it might prove useful to them, especially when mixed with recent things he learned. The man took a glance at Dawn and wonder if the goddess was thinking of the same thing he was?

---

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain, Cymru

Herbert couldn't blame the woman for being doubtful over his story; being sent to another universe without you knowing it was indeed strange. He was so use to being in the supernatural world, and especially in Queensport, that he forgot just how strange and impossible his life was to most people. He can still work with that hang up.

"Well you are close. We do hide anomalous entities, objects, locations, and phenomenon from the public, and we are entrusted and empowered by various governments, we are an autonomous organization. We can't be bound by one national entity because our mission extends throughout the globe, and even beyond Earth and this universe." He let a small smile creep on his face. "As for the conspiracy theorists they make a good smoke screen for our activities and we barely have to do a thing to set them off. As for agent Tone he is not The Lord of the Pumpkin Patch, Avarice is the Queen of the Pumpkin."

If Dawson was going to treat this like a joke why not play along? Besides he found that humor can help defuse stressful situations. Plus Avarice has displayed shapeshifting abilities before so her transforming into a pumpkin wasn't too outlandish right? Denton would join in. "Look we can talk about why Valerian was the one who shot JFK later, we need to move now." The agent and his partner both went to the driver side of the car.

From the back of the hotel a few more agents were going to cars that were parked at the back parking lot to join in the new case. Herbert looked at back at Dawson. "I will have to agree with agent Denton. We can show you proof of our elaborate story later. But we would love to have your skills in the Buera be put to good use in apprehending criminals that we have been monitoring for a long time. Can you aid us in that matter Ms. Dawson?"

Herbert asked the federal agents. "If doing this out of the kindness of your heart isn't enough nor is learning the truth of your current circumstances than perhaps we can pay you for your services?"

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine
Dawn Elissa

Dawn felt all of their stares in her back. "If only we knew a god who could stop any holes in reality from forming..." she said dryly. "What a tragedy. It seems our only choice is doing it the hard way." she never stopped walking ahead of the group, clearly not invested in their conversation at all. "And I suppose you expect that if you do it your way, that nothing bad like that will happen at all?" She let out a slight chuckle. "You're an entertaining lot, I don't see why Celeste hates you all."

---

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain, Cymru
Rosanna Dawson

"Right... He shot JFK." She said, laughing as if it was a joke. As far as she was aware, no one had ever shot JFK. There was a close call in Dallas once when Governor J.R. Ewing was shot, but nothing happened to the former President. That was something she'd have to worry about later, though. Right now there was the more pressing matter of them trying to get her to help, even though she was probably visibly exhausted.

"You know, the US Government tends to have very strict no-compete clauses when it comes to foreign and especially extra-governmental agencies. It tends to be looked down upon." She glanced down at her watch, which was pushing close to 1 AM. Surely by now someone at Special Intelligence had picked up on the wormhole, though her own absence might not be noticed until she doesn't show up for work unless there were security cameras near the scene.

"And there's a long process I imagine to go through of getting the Bureau to even agree to lend you an agent for a short period of time, then I imagine they'd like to run the show, you know how it goes." She rubbed one of her eyes to keep it open. "But fine, it's not like I haven't already put 16 hours in today, why should I get any sleep? God I can't believe I'm actually missing Virginia."

[Menschenfleisch]

Secrets of the Raven | Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn looked into Liz’s eyes with a faint, bored expression. She was distant, lost in the waters of fantasy and resignation. She inhaled through her nose and made to speak but paused, holding her breath. She was utterly transparent: she could hide no secrets from Elizabeth. Whatever she said now would be the truth; the witch knew that at a glance. She was taken aback by the realisation that she could discern something like that just at a glance: did she really know Jackie that well or was she really that overconfident in herself? But it wasn’t as if being able to read the firebrand would’ve helped either. Jacquelyn’s psyche was a scrambled circuitboard, a complex web of interconnected nodes of memory and emotion. Her mind was operating under alien parameters, liable to swinging toward certain moods and behavioural patterns at the slightest agitation. The girl was fragile; an overfilled wine glass with a tall meniscus teetering on the edge of a table. ”Liz, I...” Her voice quivered, wobbling like a plate of jelly. Her posture was ironclad. The first thing that crossed Elizabeth’s mind was a starving dog cornered by hunters, thinking that its only option was to fight and yet remaining too timid to growl or bare its teeth. ”It’s... ” She started sentences and trailed off with robotic regularity. Her syllables were staccato, her breath even more so.

Jacquelyn felt her tongue rising as if she was about to spew up a shotput. The muscles in her chest contracted, threatening to strangle her. She could feel the world pulling itself closer to her, applying an excruciating pressure upon her skin. Her vision narrowed and her eyes burned with tears. She folded both arms over her stomach and made half a heaving motion. She couldn’t keep herself together, not even close. She knew what was supposed to happen: another tirade, another tantrum. Her bruised - quite nearly hospitalized - pride was making one last stand. She was trying to protect the last vestiges of her dignity, to prove that she still had strength of character buried somewhere within herself. She could feel her heart palpitating, the roar of blood in her ears, the unsteady and frantic ticking of the author’s keyboard. Word by word, she approached journey’s end. She was choked up by phlegm and unswallowed saliva, thick and faintly sweet. ”Christ. When did this stop being a fantasy-esque romp through a cotton candy town and start being a character motivated drama?” She tried to muster words or to move her hands but nothing happened, not even a twitch. She was trapped in an unresponsive, suffocating body. ”Liz, stop fucking doing this to me.” She was too hoarse and too shy to even voice her words. They came out harsh and moist like unsweetened jam. The smell of shredded steel and bloody carrion - toxic rust - curled and twisted in the air. Coruscating eyes abound, shadows longer than endless manuscripts. ”You know why she’s frozen stiff?” She stood, awaiting the gallows; a noose made of her sinews and tarred with her blood around her neck, an executioner with her face rendering the proceedings. An audience of voyeurs and once-acquaintances. She knew that if their tongues were loose they would lash at her with bitter fires and sear her mistakes into the flesh of her memories. She was a lacuna, an utter absence of virtue. That much was obvious to everyone. ”She can’t decide..” Leering lips, an accusation on the castigator’s tongue. Eels of muscle and fast-flowing lymph slithered under her skin. ”She can’t decide whether to do what she came here to do or not. And it’s all because of you.” The clone’s words were not mocking nor goading, they were hateful. They were derisive, flavoured with a spice that could only be cultivated by someone whose intimate familiarity with their target’s failings stemmed from having been them. The mimic, hanging by her knees from an invisible beam in the air, turned to Liz. Her hair fell like the leaves of a willow tree over her face, half obscuring a grimace. Her eyes were dazzling and dense with grim detestation. ”Make her tell the truth.”

A click and a rocky crunch. Jacquelyn’s hand hung in the air, smoldering. The mimic’s face scrunched up in confusion, then rage, then desperation. She wheezed and stepped backward, a trickle of scalded blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. ”Elizabeth, give me your...” There was a fine and sickeningly audible pop - clear, because there was nothing to muffle it - and her spine gave way. A few blackened giblets and chunks of scorched bone - still smoldering - fell from the hole in her torso and spattered on the ground, sputtering as they boiled and burnt. ”Hand...” The mimic’s eyes were imploring, loving, reaching out for the last glimmer of solstice it could see in its last moments. ”I didn’t mean it.” It thought and never said. Its arm, outstretched, was loosened from its puppet strings and went limp. Valeria jolted upright. “What the fuck are you-” ”I’m remembering.” Jacquelyn’s voice was almost more silent than silence. She trembled and looked at her palm. ”I-” A retch and a heave. She clasped her palm around her mouth as the last dregs of whatever she had in her stomach were forced upward and out. Yellow, faeces-scented acid spurted from the gaps between her fingers and horrendous burning overcame her cheeks and tongue. She swallowed, only to aggravate her throat and palate. There was magma in her neck and a needle behind her eyes, an uncontrollable rejection of herself. This wasn’t her, she didn’t kill. But there it was, a cadaver and a burning hole with a shattered phial inside it. The coward’s shot. ”I- I… it was just a clone. It was obviously trying to take advantage of us.” She put her hands over her heart. Her eyes were frenzied, her words garbled and rushed. ”I didn’t really kill anyone! I mean, that was just me: and it was a mimic! It wasn’t real, it even said that it was going to die! It doesn’t count! I swear, it doesn’t!”

[Skylus]

TGWR

As both Madi and Link thaned Lee for somewhat healing them, something hit a nearby window, causing Madi to half turn and see some sort of bird pressed up against a window, a letter tied around it's clawed foot.
The Witch eventually got the half stunned bird inside and untied the latter from its' foot, then read it silently before looking up.
"Fudge contacted me and told me to meet him at the Ministry. I'm not doing that, of course, I can handle things myself."

Right as she said this, the engines on the airship stalled and the ship fell a few hundred feet in altitude but was stabilized. There was some sort of commotion in the front of the ship and two Aurors appeared in the hallway and walked towards the group, wands at the ready. "We'll be taking over now. If you don't attack us, we won't attack you. I'm sorry Madison but attending this meeting will be mandatory."

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Katya

Katya responded with a jittery smile and a nod. "I'm, um...partly good as new, I suppose.", She said, staring down at her hand, wriggling her fingers. Which ones were new, and which ones weren't? She eyed her nails specifically, looking for which ones were still filed into sharper points - those were newer. She'd file the other ones soon, then. Unfortunately, her nails weren't her biggest problem now.

She hadn't noticed the doctor there; she felt a little violated. Had the woman been watching her? Katya blushed and crossed her arms, but continued to mentally remind herself about the entire doctor-patient confidentiality deal. The other woman didn't seem particularly interested in her body any way, so much as she was just getting her back to her old self, and apparently in sending her September's way. That had been the one from the unit that found her, hadn't it? Katya wondered who it was who needed to meet her, or what. She got the feeling from their language that whoever their consultant was, they weren't quite normal.

Miria

Miria dipped back into the infirmary and hissed, slinking behind Kiara. "Intruders!", She said, whispering. "Aurors. Magic police, something like that. I remember them! They're probably here for Madi.", She said, gritting her teeth. Weren't they supposed to be...well, not around any more? Miria didn't understand. She only knew that it wasn't good when those guys showed up. They needed to come up with a plan before things got really bad.

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven
Annwn
Scooby Gang

"Cotton Candy Town? I think your makers have terrible tastes when it comes to Cotton Candy because I think my town is more like black liquorice." Elizabeth told the clone as she saw the two Jackies, one struggling to voice out the words in her heart while the other had no such restraints as she let her emotions be felt be everyone. As the copy requested something from the witch she looked at the clone inquisitively before it suddenly bent and fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Like Valeria the witch jump back when that occurred.

Her eyes went to Jackie when she said she remember. Before she can ask what she remembers she saw the firebrand puke on her hands, the witch turning away from the wretched sight. Elizabeth took out a napkin and walk to Jackie. "Here." she told her as she gave her the paper. "So you remember your past you huh?" she asked. She pat her on the back. "Take a deep breath Jack." she told her as she kept patting her on the back, keeping her sight on the clone.

"So, your fire powers came back or was that some experimental alchemy you just pulled out of your arse? I thought Andarta took all of your old powers?" The witch asked. "If you want to talk with Andarta my advice is to not let her know you still have them. Save them as a last resort if conflict breaks out." the witch would stop patting Jackie's back. "Now, I need to see to your other self." she would walk to the clone and knelt down.

As she look down at the hand she would gently grab on to it. She would look at the clone, sensing that it's short time was rapidly going down now that Jackie brought about it's quick demises. "Cursed with both a short life and with self awareness, what a cruel joke your maker has played on you. You might have been a mimic made to cause friction so we will kill each other but even I think you were dealt a bad hand." she would lean over to be close to the mimic's ear to whisper. "I hope there is a better second life for you. One were you can live your life without being someone else's pawn." she would move back and continue to hold on to the mimics hand until she finally dies.

Once the mimic perish Elizabeth would get up, patting her pants to removing any dust that would have clung to her clothes. "Let's get going before whatever made the mimic decides to make more of them." Elizabeth told the group as she moved forward. As Dawn decided to speak about their current situation over the Tower the witch had to laugh. "Yeah, I thought you don't care for humor all that much. Could it be that we are making you act a little bit like a human being after all?" the witch teased as she put her hands behind her head.

Elizabeth would stay silent as the other members talked with each other, most of them trying to get Berith to tell them who or what made the mimic. "I'm afraid I can't. I'm not entirely sure if they are still watching us and I fear that if I start talking about them would make them try to destroy me. Infact, I'm might be in danger just talking about them indirectly so I rather have the matter drop now." the demon lord would stay silent afterwards. The topics would change to them asking Alex different questions.

"What are the crystals made of? I can't say but they seem to break the Pauli's Exclusion Principle. " "Some of the relics I found include boxes that are larger in the inside, extra dimesnional blades, and a gauntlet with magic jewels that grant the user extraordinary powers, and extradimensional biological servants. We had to seal the latter because they tried to kill us." "No we didn't find any bodies of the beings who made them but we found murals and statues that might have showed who made them, and the fact they were most likely shapeshifters as no one depiction was the same." "Some descriptions on the builders? Apparently they have wings that can cause the lights of stars to flicker low, voices that can be heard across the mind of many races across different worlds throughout all levels of space and time, and mouths that are like the event horizon of black holes. That is what I got from the tablets that we translated. I think they are just ego stroking with those claims." "No, I won't reveal what other relics I took from the city. You will have to guess that."

Elizabeth would listen to the others until as she was content on not getting involved. She would look over to Jackie. "Hey Flapjack, there is something that is bothering me." she would say. "That mimic said that I should press you on telling the truth. That you can't decide on something." the witch looked over her. "So what is it that you can't decide Jackie? Is it about whether you should embrace or forget who you were before? Whether to stay here or move on? Or is it something else entirely? You might find it better if you just tell me so I can help you with your problem instead of you just stressing about what is the right option. You have enough things to worry about as it is." Elizabeth waited for Jackie's reply

Some time would pass, almost a few minutes or more until Elizabeth would ask "Say mom, how long will it be until we reach the city?" the lich thought for a moment. "To be honest we only reach it because space itself just bend around us and flung us to the city. So perhaps we are waiting for that to happen." she told the group. As the goddess took five steps forward she and the rest would suddenly feel their equilibrium being violently disrupted as the world around them bend and twist, becoming a chaotic blur of colors and motions. Alex and Weiss would hold on to their staffs during the shift while everyone else tried to hold on, save for Richard who held on to Theo. Elizabeth would try to hold herself together but she would feel incredibly ill and would bend over and wretch out her stomach contents.

Once Elizabeth can see what remained of what would have been her final meal she would sense the arcane energy was now much stronger. She would slowly look away from the pinkish yellow mess that was on the floor and her eyes would widen, pupils dilating in shock and horror at what she saw. Beyond the cliff the group was now standing on were cyclopean towers made from metallic crystals that look as though they were made from abyss between worlds. She would see many of the towers but among the structures was a group that were surrounded by a wall. From those walled buildings the image of a palace complex came to her mind. But at the center of the palace, directly below a massive crystal shining like an artificial sun, was a massive cylinder similar to the smaller ones in the tunnel, similar to the one she saw in her dream.

"No.. No.. No..." the witch muttered, shaking her head. "I had my suspension but I was hoping that I wasn't going to see that place again." she looked around the floor and saw the spiral pattern etched to them. From the runes she remember spacetime spiraling to form a singularities, how each one not only pulled her into them but stretched her body to the point of breaking. The witch was now breathing heavily as the memory of the dream was returning. She was going through her mind on how she was able to dream the city?

"Elizabeth, please calm down." Alex pleaded as she reached over to grab Elizabeth's shoulders, concern etched on her face as she saw her daughter reacting strongly to seeing the city. "Did I see it because of you or was it because it was calling me?" Elizabeth wasn't sure who question her on who called her but she would respond with. "The tower or maybe the city itself? What if they called out to me because I have some of it's energy on me?" she responded back. Her eyes seem to be unfocus as her mind was racing through not only so many thoughts but also new sensory information as she tried to adjust her senses to the phenomenon her paranatural senses detect.

Elizabeth held her head as she can feel her brain throbbing in pain due to the sensory overload she was feeling. What she wasn't seeing was the Azoth coming from the city slowly moving towards the witch, while her own aura was producing more energy than normal and it was moving to the other Azoth. Alex look over to where Elizabeth aura was going and she, along with others with arcane senses, can see the seepage of arcane energy going to the seepage coming from the city. When the two streams of energy came close they saw the two dancing around each other, swirling around one another as they slowly got closer and closer.

When the two streams of energy finally merge, forming into an aurora borealis, the group would hear Elizabeth make a loud gasp as her body shot up and became rigid. The crystal acting as the artificial sun would change from a brilliant golden color to pure white, the runes also changing colors to emit the same silvery white glow. If Dawn and Jackie were quick enough they would see for a brief second Elizabeth's eyes changed. From their usual green iris it would have turned red, and the sclera changing from it's regular milky white into pitch black,just like the crystals that make the tunnel and city, with red veins across the eye and into the skin around the eye. But the changes would have vanished the moment the blink, her eyes returning back to normal, yet not the witch.

Elizabeth was as still as a statue. Even as Alex called out to her and snapped her fingers in front of her the witch made no reaction. "What on Earth is going on with her?" Valeria muttered. Weiss would conjure a small ball of light on her finger tip and shine it on Elizabeth's eyes, the pupils showing no reaction to the light nor did her eyes follow the movement of the ball. "Whatever is going on she is in a very deep trace." Weiss looked over at the aurora. "It would seem that the unintended exposure to the power of the tower might have gave her some sort of connection to the place."

Simon would look at the city. "Whatever connection they have we now have less time to stop Andarta now that the runes are glowing white. I don't know if the city contacting Elizabeth did anything to it but we need to get down there." he turn to Dawn. "Can you get us down to the city?" Simon asked her. "Oh I don't think you people will need her assistance to go down." the group would look to the tunnel entrance as they were suddenly seized by a powerful force that bind them in place. From the entrance they were see Albert.

"I must admit that whatever you people did to the tower is something alludes us but you did save us much trouble on reaching the whitening stage." he told them as he walked out of the tunnel, follow by more cultists. As different cultists grabbed the groups arms and pulled them behind so they can cuff them behind their back Albert walked around the group. "So the younger Ashwood was changed due to her mother's misadventure in the ruins? My what an interesting development this is. I wonder if Andarta ever put much thought to that or she figured it wouldn't have any effects to her plan. I must admit, I was concerned about the possibility of her being in close proximity to the city. But my fears seem to have been unfounded if this is how she reacted to it."

The old cult leader look to Jackie and Terry. "You two wish to see Andarta correct? I will gladly take you two and your friends to her. I'm sure she would love to have you two see the birth of her new world."

---

The Great Wizarding Rebellion

As the ship began to fall Tenzma stabbed his spear on to the floor to hold on while Yoshinari held on to the door frame. When the ship stopped falling and they saw the other magical humans entering, pointing wands at them. Tenzma removed his spear from the floor and pointed it at the group while the inugami would make an odd hand gesture. "Who are these humans? You all seem to recognize them?" the tengu demanded.

Elsewhere in the ship a group of aurors stunted the pterodactyl like monster after it tried to ambush them, lighting scratching one auror. Another group were bound by the hair of the female yokai as others surround her, all of them pointing their wands on her as they demand for their friends to be released. The other aurors at the infirmary conjured a barrier to trap the dragon flies as they kept stabbing the barrier with their stingers to break free.

Yet the worst stand off came from the few AEGIS soldiers who had their guns drawn up as soon as the Aurors came in, the wizards and witches doing the same with their wands. Both sides were waiting for who would fire the first shot/spell.

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine
Dawn Elissa

Dawn stopped in her tracks when Elizabeth began to experience her... issues. "You know we are on a timetable here." she said with possibly feigned frustration. "I swear this trip couldn't be delayed more than if we booked it on public transit." She walked up to Elizabeth and looked down at the witch. "You know all those times I tell you lot to hurry up, it's not just because I like to hear the sound of my own voice. Namely because this isn't my voice, I'm only borrowing it. But the next obstacle is right about... now." she added right as Albert showed up.

The Timewalker looked around at everyone suddenly frozen in place. "Ah, that's the trouble with not being able to see the future. It's so easy to get surprised." she said. She watched them all be cuffed, despite already being helpless. "I assume you're not going to waste both of our time by even bothering to attempt to cuff me?" she asked. "A few pieces of metal aren't exactly strong enough to bind my hands." She leaned against her scythe again. "So are you taking them there now, or I should just meet you there in the future and skip any potential monologuing or additional psychotics breaks that might occur along the way? It does get tiring after a while, I mean you see one you see them all, and unfortunately I've already seen them all to start with!"

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven
Annwn
Scooby Gang

Albert would look at the red head. "Oh I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that you don't really care for these mortals, so you really don't care if they are captured or not. I'm hoping that your disinterest will serves as well as an actual capture." Alex would struggling against the chains, trying to break them through a curse or to go through them with her powers. "We even enchanted them so they can't use magic and for them to affect spectral bodies. As you no doubt saw we have planned everything, including distorting space itself within the mines so they can't use the other tunnels without encounter an obstacle." Albert would hear Alex shouting "I fucking knew it!"

"Bound fields are such a god send for thaumaturges, wouldn't you agree Ms." Elissa"?" he would order the others to take them to the entrance of the city and tie them up. As the group disappear within rifts Albert would stay with Dawn. "But I must admit I'm curious on why decided to come here? This world is a dying mess teetering on the edge of oblivion. You know that even if they did stop us this universe will die. So why come here and work with these mortals? You don't really care what happens to this world or these people so why waste your time with this frivolous farce of a conflict?" the old man asked.

Down at the ground the cultists were leading the group to several pillars arranged in the same shape as the tower, each one being 20 feet in length and width being similar to a tree. As the group were pressed against the pillars they would be forced on their knees while their hands were raised above their heads, chains coming down and fusing with the chain of their cuffs. "You know some people would pay for this sort of treatment. Nice of you all to give it to us for free." Simon told the cultists, getting some odd looks from the cultists and even from members of the group. "What? We are obviously screwed so I want to lighten things up until Andarta rips out our hearts and shove our souls into the damn tower." He told everyone.

Elizabeth was still giving everyone a blank look as whatever was happening to her was still in affect. A few of the cultists close to her looked at the witch with puzzled looks, one even waving their hands in front of her face but getting no response. "What on Earth is going on with this one?" the other cultist shrugged as they secured the chains on the group.
---

Symbols of alien origins, circuitry of unknown designs, and pulsating wads of flesh and networks of thin blood vessels flashed before her eyes. The vision tinted with an blue hue as a black oily substance squirmed and slither from the edge of her sight, making shapes that she can faintly recognize as tendrils at time before it changed into other shapes like hands and wings, before those recognizable shapes morph into things far to alien for her to find the right words.

Stars surrounded by the clouds made their inception was shown before her but among them was one as black as the night sky, producing a pale white glow. The sky was cast in a black and gray coloration as the black sun shine down upon her, the world was awash with black and red coloration as a blood red moon hung overhead, a field of white flowers broke off the bloody monochromatic field. Symbols of light flashed before her and some were seen with circuits and chips merged with flesh as tubes of polymorphic materials crept within the organic material and fused the two as one.

Chambers surrounded her, from one she saw souls relieving their lives or living through paradise, in others she saw others experiencing unimaginable torment and paying for the sins they have done. From the chamber a confusing mass of pipes and cables all lead down to a massive metal wall with the tree of life emitting a blue glow, surrounding it was black, oily, fumes coming out like tentacles squeezing through a tight opening.

She saw faces popping up and screams, some look human but even they looked distorted to have been humans even if formerly. She saw a city covered in black spires that stretch to the heavens and behind, a black sun and a blood red moon hanging above. She saw a planet consumed in fire as it slowly came apart. She saw a universe being devoured by great expanse of nothingness as shapes in impossible angles and great beasts fled from the void. She saw great cathedrals made of machines and magic fire off holy light to destroy spaceships whose size dwarf planets. She saw what look to be biomechanical angels firing off beams of light to destroy creatures wearing glowing power armor that were firing strikes of light from strange rifles.

She would see insects of a brilliant blow glow that absorb colorful streams of energy into them and swarms attacking cities filled with fey like creatures, she saw molds of pulsating flesh and creatures made of conjoined and sick entities infecting worlds, she even see the hearts of dark stars as they roam the cosmos, inflecting their wrath on others in the last dying gasp, their corpses turning into massive black holes.

She saw entire civilizations rise and fall but standing among the ruins and rising cities was the tower and many others. Her vision would see concepts themselves rising and falling like civilizations. She saw equations of math that she couldn't understand but she felt determine whether or not life had any value or point and whether free will existed, both say yes and now. She saw metaphors kill entire species along with concepts. She would see see the tree of life, it's branches spiraling upward to a white light that was above all.

Once more she saw the pulsating flesh as more of the polymorph metal fused with it, each section creating crystal patches made to resume runes. She would hear words being spoke at whisper level, speaking in a language she did not know but felt that she did. She could not understand them yet she felt that their meaning was true. She would see more symbols flash as she saw the angels rising on the sky, below them strange figures she can't see but above even them was a massive machine. Their presence made reality warp and bend, they shine as grossly incandescent as a star. The strange figures rose their wings and everything turn dark.

She would see the darkness beginning to twist into a spiral and with no where to go she fell into the spiral. The spiral would keep going on forever. Yet from this never ending spiral she can see an eye watching her. A blood red iris, sclera as black as the spiraling void, and blood vessels in the same color as the iris, the eyes seem to stare deep into her as she tried to reach it, yet never could.

She feel herself being yank up, chains of blue and red magic restraining her. She would try to struggle and break through them as a heavenly and inferno light shown to expel the darkness. Yet the darkness only grew the more the light tried to extinguish, making the twin lights fight back. From the struggle between darkness and light Elizabeth would finally break free and fall off. As she did so she would look up and see a several massive shapes above her, all ten of them looking down at the witch as she fell away from both the light and darkness.

---

Elizabeth would let out a loud gasp as she rattled her chains, the scent of blue and red lingering in her nose along with black. The witch looked around frantically and would try to move her hands but would find them restrained. When she tried to get up two cultists would grab her shoulders and force her down on her knees. The panicked witch looked at the cultists and at her group. "Wh.. what? What the hell is going on?" The cultists laughed at the witch. "Isn't obvious? You and your team got captured by us while you were snoozing." the one to her right said. "But still, how the hell you manage to sleep with your eyes open while standing up? That was freaky?" the one to her left said. "Can it Frank. We got the witch and her followers. Now we need to wait for Andarta's orders to finish her off and we never have to worry about her ever again."

Elizabeth looked around and noted that it was just like her dream again. "No not exactly. I'm still wearing my clothes." the witch ignored the two cultists by her side asking what she meant by that as she look at the tower, her mind fixated on the dream she had. "What the hell was that dream about? Was that a message from the tower? What was it telling me?" The witch can feel that the content of the message was important, no, it felt vital to her. Yet she wasn't sure why it was vital yet.

She would look at the group and realize they were missing two people. "Where are Dawn and Celeste?"

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven
Devil's Pit Mine
Dawn Elissa

"Apathy is my strongest trait." Dawn said looking at Albert. "It's very useful in my line of work." She glanced around at the mine itself. "I mean, if you call this distortion you're underperforming, I cause more damage than this just by existing in this world." she commented. She crossed her arms behind her back, leaving her scythe standing upright on its own. "I'll answer your question, since I know how curious you mortals are, but first I must correct you. You seem to be under the assumption that I'm here for them, working to save their universe. I don't give a damn about your world. I'm only here to stop any potential damage to the one I helped create."

She stepped away from him and looked directly at a wall. "That's why Andarta should hear what I have to say, enjoy the things I bring her. So I'd suggest you tell her I'm on my way." She looked back at him with a sly grin. "Even though I'm already there, before you even leave." she added before both the scythe and the redhead vanished from the chamber.

[Naval Monte]

Secrets of the Raven
Annwn
Scooby Gang

The old sorcerer looked over to where the redhead once stood. "I see. Of course a god would only care for their own pleasure and machination. That remains true throughout the multiverse. Any gods who seems to buck at that trend are either convincing liars or delusion fools. Gods caring for mortals as much of a joke as mortals being significant in the cosmos. Still, I can't wait to see what you have in mind before we remove access to this universe from you." Albert said as he teleport to where Andarta was, to let her know of the group's capture and to deliver Dawn's message, which might as well be a warning considering the type of entity she was.

[Menschenfleisch]

Seeds of Anxiety | Avarice and Tone

”Assassinating JFK… Hm. Brings back memories. One time I had to peg an iteration of him who’d managed to start an interdimensional drug cartel. I shot his jaw off at twelve miles in the middle of a snowstorm. I found a card underneath my pillow a week later. Hang on, let me see if I still have it.” He tucked a hand into his breast pocket and rifled through a thick deck of cards, finally extracting a rectangular piece of cardboard covered in yellow ink and with the words “JFK assassin’s club” scrawled in cursive at the top left corner. ”I might go back sometime. The concierge still owes me a whiskey.” ”And as for being the queen of the pumpkins,” Avarice interrupted proudly, pointing at her chest with her thumb and half closing her eyes, ”Everything could be closer to the furthest point from the truth’s antithesis.” She announced as a stream of pureed pumpkin leaked from her left eye. ”Oh Dawson...” Her voice suddenly dropped two octaves in pitch. ”There is so, so much that you have yet to see.” She gave the woman a sly smile and knitted her fingers together beneath her chin, tilting her head forwards. ”I envy your naivete. If only I could see the world with fresh eyes… dandelions and devils, I wish they’d be all the same to me.” She clapped and hopped half a foot in the air. ”So! How about we check out the case?”

---

The airs of Lludw were at rest but not calm by any stretch of the imagination, like a coiled up viper waiting for something - whether predator or prey - to happen across it. Sawdust and coal carried on the wind, drifting in a great invisible plume over the town. Formerly small gangs and cults had carved crests of blood throughout the streets, fighting over the scraps of formerly vast institutions. The town’s institutions still carried on as they always had but there was an undercurrent of panic to the daily lives of the people. Branwhrn’s keystones had been knocked out of place and now those who remained were in the process of rearranging and reasserting themselves. Of course, the Fates had fought like… well, like Hell to maintain control over their territories. Meph’s pet projects had not been for the sake of mere vanity (although there had admittedly been plenty of that). Brass automata dressed in long robes and with plaster masks affixed to their faces stood guard outside clubs, cafes and abandoned buildings all across the town. Cwn Annwn, hounds of death, stalked the alleyways of their rivals, mauling their victims and leading the police to think that their deaths had been the result of prolific strays, or failing that, an eccentric sequence killer. It was on that day that Felicity found herself standing outside the property of Halifax & Jetty Paperworks, a boarded up once-workhouse nestled between a defunct brewery and a still active, albeit exceptionally unremarkable and extremely unsuccessful florist. She wore a black coat and a red scarf over a grey shirt, woven from her own hair by her own hands and dyed with the help of a peculiar painter by the name of Winter. The warehouse’s front door was, of course, flanked on one side by a burly looking man in suspenders and blue trousers. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses as she approached him. “Turn around, ‘nless you want trou-” he didn’t get to finish his sentence. She reached into his head with one hand and snapped her fingers within his brain without even breaking her stride. Cranial shards and nodules of nervous tissue erupted from the back of his scalp and burnt through the wall, for her plague had already infested the majority. When she pushed open the door, the foyer had already been cleared out. Four men lay on the ground. Two were missing their upper torsos, as the fleshy bits from their now deceased friend had perforated them like buckshot. Another was on the ground nursing a hole in his shoulder and weeping - he’d been saved by the back of his metal chair, as he’d been facing away from the door - and the last was on the ground roaring, trying to reassemble his mutilated hand. Honestly, she could’ve saved him the trouble and have severed the limb right there and then but she had no intention of getting any bloodier than she already had. The Fates, alongside AEGIS and the other cults of the town, were one of the few groups whose members she had absolutely no qualms killing. They were utterly anomalous and contributed nothing to the town. Even the money that they earned by fencing goods and trafficking anomalous contraband went into their Infernal coffers rather than back into the economy.

Felicity had just finished plugging in a pair of earphones when a duo of porcelain dolls came running in from upstairs, brandishing nasty looking brass firearms. “Stop!” The closer one yelled, his words distorted by the clanking of gears and the hiss of hydraulics. He almost sounded like a snake. “Take another step and I’ll shoot you dead!” She stopped walking toward them, reached into her pocket and pulled out two glass marbles, flicking them toward her would-be attackers. The automatons’ corpses fell down to the beat of No Diggity’s opening lines right as she resumed strutting toward her location. It had been so long since she’d been able to appreciate any kind of music or art. Back when she’d been a part of the psionic network her emotions had been muted and overridden by her mission. Now, as she heard Blackstreet whisper in her ears, she began to think that Kim may have had the right idea in leaving the reaver corps. She walked through the wall opposite the entrance, extending her arm to the left toward the door that workers used to take in order to enter the backroom. As she did so, she gouged a man in half; a man who’d been waiting to ambush her at said door. His abdomen gave way and he fell into two pieces which rapidly melted into a thick, greenish-brown slurry. The smell of gangrene was overwhelming, easily detectable from every room within the building. She jumped straight upward and punched through the floor, emerging from the floor of what had once been the manufactory’s manager’s office like a mole burrowing out of the dirt. The lights in said room were on and there was a man seated behind the aged mahogany desk at one end of the room. He fumbled with the pistol at his side and fired a single shot which the reaver caught between her thumb and the knuckle of her index finger before throwing it behind her, causing it to punch through two retaining walls and decapitate two men.

Felicity tucked her hands into her pockets. “Hey there, sport.” The old and balding man whose figure was almost as stocky as his beer-belly was thick, put both hands on the handle of his gun, taking aim at her head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?! I don’t have time for this, I’m supposed to be running security for a deal. Get out of here or my men will kill you!” She raised an eyebrow, although it was barely visible above her shades. “Really? Let’s give ‘em a minute.” Fifteen seconds passed in silence without even the sound of footsteps. The man’s hands began shaking by the eight second mark. By fourteen, he had already taken his finger off the trigger. “Wh- what do you want? I- I can make you a deal! I’m with the Fates. Gold, souls, jade, I can give you anything you want!” The reaver sighed gently. “Sorry, but I’m a bit of a completionist. I can’t leave loose threads danglin’, you know?” Before the man could get another word out - or another bullet, for that matter - she shoved the heel of her foot into the desk, forcing it and the man into the wall. His body from the hips down abruptly burst and pressurised blood sprayed in every direction, painting him wings of blood. “Besides. No amount of money could’ve paid for what you had in your desk.” She reached through the thick wood and took hold of something in its uppermost drawer: a portable steel locker around as large as a laptop but as thick as a thesaurus. She peeled the metal back to reveal its contents; a severed hand, neither necrotized nor rotten. “Oh Chandra, what are you doing here?” She tucked the hand of her former comrade into her pocket and, after a moment of consideration, crushed the safe in her hand, turning it to grit and allowing it to slip between her fingers.

Secrets of the Raven | Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn stood back while the mimic bled to death, ever aware that what she’d just done was a first. Nobody reacted, they didn’t even seem to care. She hadn’t taken the shot because of her killer instincts - she’d grown used to suppressing those particular visions - but because of an emotional impulse, something she was far worse at holding down. Her body hadn’t moved on its own, she remembered each moment leading up to and succeeding the clone’s death with perfect clarity. Had she been herself in that tiny, murderous window of time? She wanted to believe that she hadn’t. ”That was a fire phial, yeah. A prototype.” She twiddled her thumbs, keeping her head down. ”I didn’t-... I didn’t know it would do that.” Seeing the witch taking the doppelganger’s hand in her own, watching her stare into its fading eyes; she felt the most awful guilt welling up in her throat, like spiders’ venom spreading from her heart toward her extremities. Her blood ran cold. ”The truth, the truth...” She breathed in and out with increasing fervour, each breath deeper than the one before it. ”The truth? It’s… I’m… Look, look, if you care about me, you won’t pry into it. It doesn’t matter, okay? Please, don’t bring it up.” Colder. ”Just trust me for once, yeah? It’d do wonders for my self esteem.” Even colder. Her heart might’ve stopped for all the frost if her limbs hadn’t been locked up first. And with that, Albert arrived. The group was effortlessly detained. She was bundled up like a cotton sack and brought with the others, She did the hardest thing in the world for her: she waited. She allowed herself to be restrained, to be brought closer to the conclusion. She desperately wanted to delay, to have more time with Elizabeth and at the forefront of the story but she knew that once she stalled the story once, she’d never stop. And that cold would never go away if she ruined Elizabeth’s life - her narrative - just to perpetuate her own.

Jackie was hoisted up by her shoulders and dragged across the ground. “Witness the birth of a world,” her captors insisted. “This is a privilege afforded to few.” The journey lasted an eternity. The hard basalt beneath her knees turned to slick steel and then abrasive jewellery, then clockwork formed from ivy and wreaths of fire. Cosmic gears turned in the sky, locking teeth with their neighbours not in cooperation but in competition: they fought like rabid animals, tearing at one another and causing sparks the size of imaginations to fall. Coils and springs extended across the firmament, pushing away or pulling in leviathan expanses of space and time, holding them steady like sutures for a wound. The universe bled here, and its blood was a song. A steady thrum and a high pitched hum, beautiful and discordant, hateful and angelic. The song of reality was not an opera but a dirge, steadily increasing in intensity as the universe approached its ultimate state as an entropic nothingness, as infinite in size as it was infinite in tedium. The song was not an unfamiliar noise; it was the sound that played beneath silence, a tune buried beneath everything else in existence. The air was slurry, it curdled in her lungs and formed knots in her head, boiling inside her blood yet not permitting her to suffocate. The group gasped and retched as waves of nausea - physiological and existential - washed over them. But not Jackie, not the one who’d heard this music all along. She was privy alone to a more beautiful song, a more important one. The sound of a pen on paper, of fingers on plastic. It was the sound of a story being written, and it was all she could hear.

They were thrown into a room at the heart of creation and there they met Andarta. A small, decrepit woman with bags under her eyes and skin that seemed to slough from her arms. She was frail, like a toothpick, and her eyes were devoid of glimmer. Her gums sagged and her teeth ran loose, her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was frayed. Her heart, a blackened void, beat beneath layers of tar-marred cloth. Duty was all that had defined her and duty was all she had left. Now, she was preparing to give herself in to responsibility. Once she had ascended she would be truly isolated, with no equals or anyone who could understand her. But, she would not be more alone than she was now, surrounded by faces that elicited only guilt, regret and revulsion. This was not the appearance of a woman who had achieved victory. She turned to them and furrowed her brow, licking her thin, cracked lips. “I...” Her words dropped off. Her voice was like the crunch of ripe leaves in late autumn, no longer crispy or supple but soggy and paper-thin. “I thought I’d have a speech, or something.” She was going through the motions. A dead woman walking. “I guess I don’t have much to say. I just didn’t want you dead and, well, I thought this might be the best place to keep you.” She scratched at her own head, blinking. Besides the group, Andarta, Albert and the Crimsonite attendants, nothing existed. They could all see their surroundings, of course, but they had no depth nor substance. They were in a void and the floor only existed because they willed it to exist. Their bindings, though? Those were quite real.

“That’s bullshit, Claudia.” Terry spoke harshly and critically but he was not informed by hatred or spite but mere immeasurable disappointment. “You brought us here to stroke your own ego. You wanted to show your acolytes and yourself just how ‘pure of heart’ you were. This is moral licensing at work.” She faltered, squinting. “No, this is-” “I’ve seen it a hundred times!” He roared. “God, I wish I had never met you.” “Terry, I helped you-” “You turned me into a murderer! I killed children, I poured their blood over altars and smeared my face with their tears. I watched parents crying on the news. I stopped tearing the labels off bottles of liquor just so I didn’t have to see my own reflection in them: I was ashamed to be associated with you but I just couldn’t escape because you made yourself the centre of my world! You forced yourself in, like a parasite, and you subsumed everything that I was, everything that I believed in. You’re a monster, Andarta, and you made me one too. So before you ‘win’, before you ascend to high heaven or wherever the hell you think you’re going, I want to remember these two words: fuck you.” He was red with rage, face beaded with sweat. “I-...” She tremored. Her eyes glistened with moisture. “I’m sorry, I- I didn’t know you felt that way.”
I thought I was helping you.” He grimaced. He hadn’t known that he’d been suppressing so much anger but after all that he’d been through, after the events of these last few days, he just couldn’t hold it in anymore. His insecurities and regrets were exploding, erupting from his mouth. “No you didn’t.” His words were acid; spat with acrid venom. “You were kind to me because it made you sleep better at night. You thought that killing kids was okay just because you helped a drunk out of a rut. This is what you do, this is what you’ve done for your entire life! You’ve convinced other people to throw themselves under the bus for you with measly acts of kindness and the faintest trace of charisma. You’re a parasite; Diana died defending you!” Claudia glanced at her feet. “I know.” She clenched her fists and pulled back her cheeks as if she was about to be sick. “God, I just… why didn’t anyone stop me? I waited a decade for someone to end me, expecting and hoping.” Her head snapped up and she locked eyes with Terry. “Just let me do one good thing. Let me do something right for once. I need this, let me have it!” Weiss spoke up, maintaining a calm and moderate tone. “Claudia, you’re going to destroy what makes us human. We aren’t complete without all of our emotions. Without suffering, how would we learn gratitude? How would we create art?”

“All the art in the world isn’t worth a single human life.” Andarta clutched the bandages above her heart. “Amelia showed me beauty. When I first saw what was beyond the mansion’s walls I experienced nirvana. It was magical, more joyous than bliss. But that sensation… it isn’t worth it. Her personality was more wondrous than the world.” Weiss leaned forward, confident now that she had a grip on Claudia’s psychology. “She wouldn’t have had that personality if she hadn’t suffered. Without scarcity, without things that we don’t have, we’ll never aspire for anything. In the world that you want to create, there would be no Amelias or Claudias, there’d just be dolls in the shape of people.” “Well at least there’d be people!” Claudia growled. “The alternative is letting the apocalypse happen. How could I do that? How could I watch fourteen billion years of creation and evolution just get snuffed out, knowing that I had a say in whether it would’ve occurred or not? Even if my world will be static, it’d be better than nothing at all.” Wei broke into the conversation next. His voice was low and professional. “What you plan on doing is no better than euthanasia. If the world was a patient dying of cancer, your solution would be to kill and taxidermy him.” Claudia exhaled through her teeth. “It’d be better than letting him live through his agonising final moments.” “But think of how much would be lost. Centuries of scientific advancement and culture, obliterated before it could even exist. How would you justify killing countless generations before they were even born?” “By safeguarding the futures of an infinite number more!” Andarta snarled. “I am evil. I’m going to kill four generations before they’ve even been born; it’s as good as murder. But if I were to turn back now everyone’s sacrifices - those kids’ deaths and Diana’s last moments - would’ve been for nothing. I can’t possibly shoulder the burden of knowing that they died for no reason at all.”

”Are you retarded?” Jackie smirked. ”You honestly think that Diana died for your cause? You are a sad, stupid l’il bitch if you think that’s the case. She died for you, asshole. You, the person! She was your friend, and friendship isn’t fucking conditional!” Claudia almost seemed frustrated. Jack knew that she’d been through every iteration of this argument: the witch had spent the last three decades doubting herself and second-guessing her own plans. There wasn’t a pragmatic argument on the planet that could sway her. This wasn’t about convincing her, however. It was about talking to someone who understood how she felt, someone who she could empathise with. “Can you stop cussing? And this isn’t about who or what she died for, this is about honouring her! I’m trying to give her death some meaning!” ”You really think that you don’t mean anything?” Claudia’s reply was instantaneous. “Yes.” She’d thought about it since the day that she’d been born and though the answer had changed over the years, she’d had plenty of time to mull it over ever since she’d returned to Lludw Cigfrain. “I’ve never done a truly good thing in my life. I mean jack shit.” ”Well, you obviously meant something to her.” Claudia stiffened for just a second. ”You meant something to Terry, The Raven and Vincent too.” “And look how they all turned out,” She spat. “Rightfully furious at me, dead and… I won’t say. They’d all hate me as much as Terry does if they’d known what I’d done to them. I was manipulative and conniving-” ”And they played into your hands because they didn’t give a shit. They cared about you, you dumb cunt, so do as they did and care a little about yourself!” “They didn’t know who I really was. They saw the facade, the… charity-case that I tried to present myself as. If they’d known everything about me they would’ve hated me. Isn’t that right, Terry?” To that, he had no answer. He was just as confused about his feelings towards her as she was but he knew that whatever impressions he had about her now were anything but good. All the same, he didn’t want to say anything in case he jeopardised the rest of the group’s attempt to talk her down. The conversation was quickly spiralling out of control as everyone tried to implement their own method for convincing Andarta to stop. A silence followed as each person who had spoken thus far waited for someone else to make the first move.

The Great Wizarding Rebellion | Kiara and Polly

In all honesty, Kiara couldn’t fault anyone for their reactions to Madi’s unprovoked ingestion of what at the time must’ve seemed like nothing more than inert powder. Did the people of this universe go around eating all of the grey dust that they saw, or was that an instinct unique to this particular… specimen? She’d known that she’d have a hard time trying to get used to the laws and customs of another universe but this? It was something else. Thus, while everyone else bickered back and forth about what to do with the ghoul (although personally she would’ve chosen inaction she didn’t think that she’d be able to assert herself either) she mulled over the problem in her head. Currently, the group had some of the most advanced intellects and most powerful forms of magic in the universe available to them. Toshinori and Tenzma seemed to know what they were talking about and their minds were set on disposing of the ghoul; they probably didn’t know of a way to deal with her. Kiara could run some diagnostics and try to take the scientific route but her studies and observations only really applied to her home universe - she wasn’t sure how well the scientific method would work in this one. Madi herself was unable to treat her condition, if she’d been able to then she would’ve already. As for Kiara and Lee, their particular skill sets seemed to be particularly diverse and useful, albeit unpredictable and at times inconveniently limited. However, frankly, she just didn’t have enough of the pieces of the puzzle to fix Madison - or even to figure out if curing her was possible to begin with. Actually, come to think of it, she was technically in a story now; somehow, she’d forgotten that as soon as she’d left her home universe she’d thrown herself into someone else’s narrative. That being the case, it was incredibly unlikely that curing Madi wasn’t going to be a major plot point of some kind; ergo, fixing her wasn’t going to be as simple as applying gene therapy or casting a spell. However, there was one particular solution that’d shown promise, and based on the incredible amount of drama it could lead to, it seemed like the most logical - and the most dramatic - fix.

“I could try performing a blood flush,” Kiara volunteered. She said it as if she was suggesting that Madi drink two gallons of horseshit: her cheeks flushed and her voice trailed off as she realised just how stupid the suggestion was. Even a miniscule amount of exposure to her blood - a microscopic amount too small to even see - could put someone in a hospital for the rest of their life. Her old school had bricked up a classroom because she pricked her finger on a pair of scissors while she was in there; even a decade later nobody could look inside without bleeding from the eyes. “I mean… my blood did neutralise the dust earlier. I, uhh...” she withdrew even further into herself, if such a thing were even possible. Her head was downcast, hiding the fact that she was chewing on her lower lip. “I could… y’know, try to replicate the effect? As a last resort…?” She rushed the words out, saying them almost too quickly for anyone to hear. Doubt was already seeping into her mind about the endeavour, although that wasn’t anything new. Was her blood even what had triggered the reaction that she’d had to the dust or had the sensation of her blood boiling been a sensory misnomer? If there was even a miniscule chance that she’d gotten something wrong - an observation or a hypothesis - then there was an equally large chance of Madison going utterly bonkers which would defeat the purpose of curing her in the first place. Thankfully, before her internal monologue could completely derail the story, an inciting incident came barging in like it was a work of pulp noir. The ship tipped, drunkenly lurching to one side and falling a good two hundred feet. Kiara allowed Miria to hide behind her, although she herself didn’t feel particularly confident. The two aurors seemed confident enough, and their postures suggested anything but peaceful intentions. “You’ve no idea what you’re involving yourself in. Word of advice, the only reason that a guy would have someone stick their neck out on his behalf is if he thought there might be a guillotine waiting for him. Back off before the mouton falls.”

Said mouton did fall, and it fell hard. The whole ship was abruptly engulfed by noise and clamour, the shouts of fighting men and the screech of grinding metal. Everything was breaking down. In fact, she had a hard time thinking of a reason for the aurors to have announced their presence to the group instead of attacking them outright, considering how dedicated they seemed to be to overpowering the rest of the crew. She knew that it was inevitable that a fight would break out - probably a lethal one - and thus she knew that as one of the stronger members of the group it was her responsibility to ensure that everyone - the aurors included - remained alive. However, even if she hadn’t been charged with serving as a meat-shield for Miria, she still wouldn’t have thrown herself into the fray for fear of being injured. She could take many, many wounds without even being slowed down but even the tiniest of scratches could spell the end of everyone on the battlefield, both allies and enemies. The thing was, these two aurors had gotten the drop on the group and she was certain that they were quicker on the draw than anyone present: anyone besides herself, that was. She’d rejigged the ship’s wiring and echolocated her way through its insides enough to have memorised the positions and functions of nearly every circuit and wire in its chassis. She peeled off one of her fingernails and flicked it at the corner of the room. There was a muffled shattering noise, like the sound of a breaking wine glass. In total simultaneity the doors slammed shut and the lights blinked out, plunging the room into total darkness. She was on the two aurors in a flash, knocking the first one out with a lightning kick and taking the other down with a palm strike to the chest as she confiscated his wand. He fell against the wall, winded and disarmed. Kiara reached through the wall, gouging through the metal, and reattached the wires herself, restoring light - and functional door controls - to the room. “Is everyone alright?“ She sounded like a schoolchild who’d just witnessed a scissors-and-gluestick-related accident rather than a warrior who’d just incapacitated two men.

---

The walk to Katya’s room felt like a march to the gallows. Who would she meet? What would they tell her about herself? She didn’t know what to expect, nor what condition they’d be in. AEGIS hadn’t told her anything about who she’d meet, probably because they themselves knew next to nothing as well. From what she’d heard about the subject Polly assumed that they were an agent of some sort, perhaps working for an organisation parallel to AEGIS. But beyond that? Practically nothing. Just the colour of their skin, eyes and hair, as well as a short transcript of everything they’d said to September on their way to the base. As she laid her hand on the doorhandle, anticipation welled up inside her. She didn’t feel ready for this, not even remotely qualified to get a glimpse into her past. What if she didn’t live up to Katya’s expectations? What if her fears were confirmed, what if she was told that she’d been a narcissistic overbearing psychopath, or that she’d been too perfect and she couldn’t possibly live up to who she’d been before? These questions burned inside her, fuelling her motivation to grow, and the fear that having them answered would quench her fiery spirit lingered even after she pushed open the door.

But Katya… did not live up to expectations. Polly had expected a moment of clarity, a look of recognition, a dawn on the woman’s face. Instead she was greeted by an old woman (Polly still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that she was older than most of the people she was associating herself with now) in a hospital bed wearing white scrubs and with an unreadable expression on her face. ”Hi, Kat.” She didn’t know why she abbreviated the woman’s name like that. It just felt natural. ”I’m… well, I was hoping that you could tell me who I was.”