Blizz

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

LIGHT.EATERS

???| Light-Eaters | N/A [hr//]"LIGHTLIGHTLIGHTLIGHTLIGHTLIGHTLIGHTLIGHTLIGHTLIGHT."

Description:

In a time long forgotten, a creature full of gnawing hunger descended on the world called Gloom. The Light Eater turned its gaze upon the Adepts of this world, and swallowed them whole one by one. In an event now known as the Lux Purge, over 98% of the planet's Adept were killed over the course of eight days. The Blind believed it to be a meteor shower, but the huge, god-like beast swept over one country after the other in a frenzy too great to stop. The Light-Eater gorged itself on the power of Lux, growing stronger with each passing kill, until the day it could not eat any more.

The beast retreated deep into the ground through a chasm, whose location was hidden by the few rare Adepts who survived. They scattered to the wind, and among the survivors, more than half were killed in the years that followed. The Light-Eater couldn't hold all the power it had hoarded, and the Lux began to fester. All the emotions tied to its stolen Lux soured, rage turned inwards, sorrow took root beyond reason, love went mad. It was just too much, and so the Light-Eater collapsed under its own weight. Its ravenous intentions leaked out alongside the Lux, and that power coalesced into billions upon billions of smaller, more dangerous Light-Eaters as diverse as the countless victims their progenitor had preyed on.

Light-Eaters of the current day are ruthlessly dangerous creatures, who stalk Gloom with a ravenous, desperate hunger for Lux. Adepts who kindle often turn up dead within hours, and the few who have managed to survive in this world have become so detached from society that their names have never been heard before. In Gloom, the only Adept smart enough to live is one who severs from their ancestors, or find their way to other places in the All-Verse.

Abstraction: Pitch

A Light-Eater is, at the most fundamental level, a perversion of everything that Lux embodies. For every negative emotion one can associate with the rage of red Lux, there is a positive one. The fear of yellow Lux keeps people alive, and the sadness of blue Lux is a reminder of better days. But there is absolutely, unequivocally, nothing positive about the magic Light-Eaters wield. Known as Pitch rather than Lux, a given Light-Eater wields twisted powers that act as a dark reflection of their origins. For every color of Lux, there is a color of Pitch, and unlike an Adept, a Light-Eater does not express their Pitch in varied ways. All pink Pitch, for example, is based on the principle of nightmares, and not the manipulation of all emotions and thought like pink Lux.

An individual Light-Eater has the ability to absorb its corresponding Lux, potentially rendering an attack all but worthless against them. The saving grace to this is that Pitch is exclusive, meaning a Light-Eater cannot possess more than one, unlike Adepts who almost always have more than one type of Lux. But using the matching Lux on a Light-Eater is folly, and only makes them stronger. Even the most powerful spells can be a waste if one is especially unfortunate. They also have the ability to sense all forms of Lux from very far away, no matter how small its use. Light-Eaters hunt Adepts to fill that hollow void in their souls, and will stop at nothing to butcher even the weakest Adepts unlucky enough to cross them.

Red (Hatred): Deconstruction Lux
Green (Hysteria): Sickness Lux
Yellow (Madness): Vulnerability Lux
Pink (Obsession): Nightmare Lux
Gold (Egomania): Oppression Lux
Purple (Starvation): Antimatter Lux
Orange (Sacrifice): Vampirism Lux
Blue (Cruelty): Agony Lux
Black (Desolation): Apocalypse Lux
White (Trauma): Ignorance Lux

SPIRITUM

---

With the creatures routed, all that was left was the matter of this "Ivan" individual that Kalina seemed to hate. He was a civilian, ultimately, and Kalina had just shot him. Morden wasn't really sure what to think of that, but it was stupid. What part of keeping a low profile did she not understand. He walked closer, standing just over Kalina's shoulder.

"Give me a reason not to kill you."

You won't kill him because then you'll have to deal with me, He warned, loudly over the telepathic link. Gunfire? Next to an Etherium spill? Aimed at a Rassvet civilian? you could receive court martial for this. Raise that gun again, and I'll break it. Even a diehard WARDEN like him had a line he drew, and firing on the people they were meant to protect was a fundamental violation of everything the WARDENs stood for. He wasn't going to stand for it, but there was still the obvious problem of the grenades, and one Morden was going to try and handle a bit less violently than Kalina. There was a code that the military had to follow, even in war. A code that separated them from the barbarians bent on conquering Rassvet, so he stepped around and glared down at Ivan.

"Answer her question, and explain to us why you were transporting explosives. As you can tell, our patience is thin at the moment, so I can't guarantee you'll receive any better treatment if you waste our time," He explained, calmly. Though it was the calm before a rocket hit home, the calm before a trigger was pulled. Morden wasn't fooling around any less than Kalina.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Amara was not having a good day today.

She sat in her car, seat leaned back with windows up while her radio blared a song on repeat, loud enough that she couldn’t hear other cars pulling out of the parking lot she had been sitting in for the last hour. She just stared up into empty space while her thoughts left the world. One moment, she was there in the car. The next, Amara felt more like a passenger in her own body, staring down at herself while her foot slipped further out the door.

Why’d it have to be today?”

Amara heard the song cut off and start over, and blinked her way back a little. Her fingers curled up and she could feel the blood stir in them. She needed to distract herself, that would help.

She pulled her phone out and sent a message to all the different group chats that formed to keep the coven from tearing itself apart: I’m bored as shit. What’s everybody doing?”

A few minutes later, Amara received a direct text: I’m at the boardwalk trying to clear my head. You wanna come with?

Sure, why not. On my way,” she replied.

Amara drove off and stepped on the gas.

---

About five minutes later, Amara pulled up to a parking lot and then took a stroll down the side of the boardwalk.

Where r you

Turn your head like ninety-degrees to your left, Adora texted.

She had her hand up from her bench.

Amara turned and saw her there, walking over and falling into a seat on the other end of the bench.

”That was a fuckin’ disaster today, huh.”

Adora put both of her hands on her knees, staring at Amara for a second before saying, ”… Who you tellin’?” Adora laughed, ”It’s like people just want attention when we’re trying to get shit done.”

Adora sighed, ”At some point, I was like ‘Looks like we ain’t getting shit done today’,”

”Yeah, well, we got something done,” She said, rolling her shoulders and leaning forward. ”We just could’ve got a lot more done if people didn’t fuck around. I like fucking around as much as the next person but- I mean, shit. Time and a place, you know?”

Adora pulled a knee up and wrapped her hands around it, ”It’s people saying dumb shit that’s the problem,” Adora shrugged,
”Though, with Lila’s idea, we can quiet the dumbasses. Dunno how it’s going to work on us outcasts though.” Adora shrugged,

”Same way it worked back in the day. Drake had his group, we had ours, the scholarly fuckers had theirs,” she said. ”It worked because it had to. It’ll work now, and it’ll give people more room to take some damn initiative.”

”I hope so. We can’t work like this.” Adora shrugged, ”But, let’s talk about something else. There’s gotta be more to Amara King than the Coven. What are you up to?”

Having my skull hollowed out by a hivemind, not much.

”Nothing. Not these days, anyway. I’m not really doing much of anything that isn’t coven business right now since it’s our lives on the line.”

”Like you don't do anything to decompress?” Adora scoffed with a smile.
”Sounds like you need a hobby because dealing with them twenty-four-seven will make you want to eat a bullet.” Adora laughed.

”Wouldn’t be the first time I ate a bullet,” Amara half-joked. ”I’ll “decompress” when this is done.”

Adora shrugged, before looking out to the ocean for a moment before saying, ”I get that. But it ain't healthy. We’re in deep shit right now but you gotta find something to keep your head above water.”

”See, I know that,” She admitted. ”And if we had some kind of tangible progress we could look at, I might be getting hammered with Sully right now. But we don’t, we’ve barely gotten anything done. I haven’t done shit around here in years, I don’t even remember what there is to do, that isn’t shooting ghosts.”

”To be real, nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody has any real leads. Nobody has any idea. I know Auri is desperately chasing anything tangible, I honestly can’t blame her at this point.” Adora shrugged.

”And until we get our shit together, it is going to stay that way.”

”…Well.”

Amara stared out at the ocean.

”Shit.”

She paused, and thought for a second. ”Wanna get unreasonably drunk or something?”

”Fuck it,” Adora grinned, ”Why not?”

”Fuckin’ good. Know any good places around here that aren’t Sully’s Chalice?”

”No clue,” Adora shrugged,
”I usually drink by myself.”

”Oh. Huh… Wanna grab something from a store that doesn’t suck, then? I don’t live around here.”

“Sure, I’m down. There’s a liquor store a few blocks from here that’s good,” Adora replied, standing up and brushing sand off her jeans, “Could grab some snacks too while we’re at it.”

Adora gestured for Amara to come along before she shoved her hands into her hoodie pockets.

“You know, I wasn’t kidding earlier,” Adora said after a few minutes of silence. “About finding something to keep your head on straight. This whole thing… it’s a grind. Can’t let it wear you down too much, or you’ll end up tearing your hair out. And trust me, you don’t want that.”

Amara shrugged. ”I need ways of doing that more than a lot of people, I get it, trust me. It’s just that right now I think I’d rather have those ways be ones that actually do something for us. Something productive.”

“I hear you sis,” Adora said. “But sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is take a step back. Clear your head. Then maybe you’ll see something you missed.”

She led the way down a few quiet streets until they reached a small, unassuming liquor store. Adora pushed open the door and headed straight for the liquor aisle, grabbing a bottle of Fireball without hesitation. Then some Grey Goose, and grabbed some chips. Before paying for it all and rolling out.

Stepping outside, Adora said, “My place isn’t far from here,” she said, glancing at Amara. “You wanna ride with me or you got your own car?”

---

Following Adora’s car, Amara pulled up to her place, stepping out and locking her car with a beep. She took a look around for a second. This part of town felt familiar, but she hadn’t ever been here.

The front door to Adora’s house opened, as Adora waved for Amara to come inside.

She walked inside. ”So… Back at the meeting you had those clones of yourself. Did Sloane do that?” Amara asked, clearly forgetting how to turn her brain off.

”Yeah, it's her little counterfeit,”
Adora began, ”She let me have it after that whole thing at her apartment. She wants them back though.”

”’Course she does.” Amara closed the door behind her. ”It probably takes a while to make one for something that strong… Unless she cared enough to make multiple.”

”Maybe she did,” Adora shrugged. ”I don't care enough to ask her, to be real.” Adora had the drinks and snacks laid out on her coffee table… Along with several shot glasses and cups. She grabbed the Grey Goose and poured two shots…

… Then gestured to one.

Amara picked it up, and knocked it back without hesitation. ”...Yeah, that fucks.”] She nodded, appreciating the booze already. Good stuff.

Adora took her shot, and shuddered, ”Really put hair on your coochie, don’t it?”

”Yeah, no joke. I could drink half that bottle right now… Fuck,” she exclaimed, helping herself to another shot. ”Let’s get fuckin’ drunk.”

Adora passed her the whole fucking bottle, ”Yes, let’s make it easy for Father Wolf,” Adora smiled, before it went flat, ”Okay that was bad taste.”

”Nah. If anyone did get in here and make a move on one of us…” She paused and inhaled a fifth of the bottle. ”Then I’ve got five dead people on standby 24/7. My phantoms’ll take them out.”

Adora reached for the bottle, as she said, ”Does that ever freak you out- You don't have anything, right?” She said with an awkward smile..

”Any what? Magic? Yeah, they kind of are my magic, I’m Adjoined to all of ‘em. All infinity times infinity of the fuckers.”

”No, I mean diseases,” Adora facepalmed, ”You put your whole mouth on this.”

”...What? Noooo. God, no.” Amara cackled.

”Just making sure!” Adora says, taking a few gulps, nowhere near as much as Amara, and putting the bottle down. ”Where was I? Oh yeah, that ghost thing never creeps you out? I mean it's probably tame compared to what we been through.”

Amara’s face twisted a bit. ”Ehh… You get used to it after the tenth time they drill a hole through the back of your skull to make more room. The Army’s a lot bigger than Shimmer, there’s no point in doing anything about it. They Adjoined to me when I was born so… I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.”

”Wow, that’s scuffed,” Adora flopped down on her sofa, and then slid the bottle of Grey Goose over to Amara, ”... You can have more if you like.”

Amara grabbed a shot glass and sat down. ”Might be scuffed. But, I mean… Ain’t much you can do about it. Not like you can seal it into anything,” she admitted, knocking back the glass.

”I mean have you tried?” Adora asked.

”A lot of me tried. There’s one of me in every universe, and they’re all Adjoined to the Army too. If one of them could seal it, I’d know.”

”... Maybe it's not about sealing, maybe it's about breaking the bond. Like with Luca,” Adora shrugged, ”But don't ask me, I’m talking out my ass.”

Amara shook her head. ”Nah. Thing is, the Army exists in different universes at the same time. Like… A lot of ‘em. Unadjoin me to it, it’s like cutting off a hydra’s head. They just come back and get their claws in me again. I literally wasn’t even walking before they got me.” She fixed herself another shot.

”Wasn’t even tying my fucking shoes before I knew I was gonna be like them one day.”

”Yikes, let’s talk about something else?” Adora asked.

”Yeah, sure. Like, uhhh… What? How’s that new Trinity Ring actually work?”

”Technically the Triplicate Ring,” Adora raised her hand with the extra ring. ”One of Sloane’s creations, basically lets me create two clones I can do whatever with.”

”Huh. Are they any stronger than you? Like the real rings?”

”Ain’t tried it, but they are identical,” Adora said.

”Cool. Cool…” Amara wasn’t really good at this like she used to be.

”Okay, better question. After everyone packed up and went their ways, what happened back here? What’d I miss?” That would, hopefully, be a better conversation than small talk.

”... You’re asking the wrong person,” Adora shrugged. ”I left pretty much immediately after Stiggy was defeated. The only person I had contact with in the Old Coven was Kari… But I blew her off.”

”Yeah, I don’t remember Kari at all. Never met her. I think. I mean St. Portwell. First we save the world, then Nazis come back? Then Emily fucking Reed? What the hell went wrong?”

”I don't even know the answer to that, sis,” Adora shrugged yet again. ”What has the world come to?”

”Hell. Fuck if I know,” Amara said. ”Think I’d rather be back in the PRA shooting ghosts than here, feels like that was a hell of a lot easier. At least then, you knew what the fuck you were fighting.”

Adora was silent.

”... But did you know what you were fighting for?”

”Depends on when you asked,” she admitted. ”Eight years ago? Maybe. Five years ago? Yeah, sure. Year and a half ago? Nah, fuck if I knew anymore. Three my badge right in the director’s face. He can go fuck himself. You climb up enough, you’ll see shit you couldn’t before.”

”Well, if you don't mind me asking…” Adora leaned forward then asked,
”... Like?”

Amara paused for a second, looking off into nothing for a second. ”There was this one time, a whole group of cursed people wanted to make their own little society. Kinda like Leon’s cult, only not a cult. All of ‘em Afflicted, and their lives just sucked because of it.”

Amara took another shot. ”Weren’t even hurting anyone, they just wanted a way to live a life that wasn’t shit, but the curses they had gave them magic, and as a whole they were pretty damn dangerous if you pushed them far enough,” She sighed. Then leaned back against the couch. ”We had to kill ‘em all, because one agent of ours got on their bad side and paid for it. It was just self-defense, but before I knew that, we were told they were “highly dangerous paranormals.” They didn’t even stand a fucking chance against us, most of them didn’t even fight back.” They just ran.”

”Sounds like what they did to us, Adora began, ”But with less death.”

”Something like it. When you’re a big enough deal in the paranormal world that people talk about you, you either learn how to protect yourself or someone snuffs you out. They got away with setting that church on fire because they had guns and we didn’t. That’s it.“

”What you’re saying we should get strapped?” Adora laughed, pulling the bottle to her mouth and siping it.

”That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t care how long takes or how hard it is to get all these fucks in a row, most people with magic coming out of their asses aren’t bulletproof. Emily Reed isn’t, and I know Liao isn’t. Seen that myself.”

Adora started laughing, ”... I don’t know! You seen how the meetings went! I don’t think giving the Coven a bunch of guns would end well.”

Adora did a finger gun and ‘looked down the sights’ and said, ”Someone says something outta pocket and then pow!”
”Someone says something outta pocket, and they’re dealing with it like adults,” Amara corrected. ”Because if I put a gun in their hands and they start acting like kids, they’re gonna get the fear of god put in ‘em. Doesn’t even have to be everyone, just the ones who actually get in fights. Drake knows how to shoot already, Linqian’s just close enough to being questionably bulletproof that she could do with a gun…” Amara knocked back a shot.

”We ain’t kids anymore, there’s barely twenty of us left. These fucking dumbasses forgot that quicker than me, and I’m the one with fucking magic dementia.” The alcohol was starting to kick in.

”... Wait, what?” Adora raised an eyebrow.

”You heard me. Magic. Fucking. Dementia. Or magic alzheimers, I don’t fucking know. It’s not like it’s ever been a secret.”

”Talk to me, baby,” Adora said, ”The whole shtick with magic is that there’s a lot of weird shit that comes with it. Are you like losing your mind…?”

”Nah, nah- The Army of One’s fucking- It’s fucked up, right? Billions of years ago, I died alone, you know? Not some other version of me, but me.” Amara got another shot of the Gray Goose.

”What they don’t tell you in Surprise-Magic-Exists-And-You-Never-Knew School is that everything’s a pattern. Constants and shit, there’s other versions of everyone that are all different, but then there’s always that one thing or two that doesn’t change no matter where you go. There’s damn near zero fucking differences between all the mes that are still alive, and every time some bitch named Amara King is born? She’s a fighter, get’s adjoined to a hive mind of dead ghosts of her own damn self, and dies for something she thinks is worth dying for.”

She stared up at the ceiling, all the words just started coming and wouldn’t stop. ”And then- Then they take the mes that die and turn them into more ghosts. They hollow every single one of me out, day after day, every time I lean on ‘em, Adora. They- Fuck…” Amara stopped herself and cracked open the other bottle they hadn’t touched yet, and inhaled a fifth of it. When she sat the bottle back down, her face was a scowl.

”They just… It takes and it takes and takes and takes and takes. That’s what the Army does- It keeps going because war and fighting are all it understands, because when one of me died alone, she got so fucking pissed off at the universe that she was too angry to stay dead. So she found another me and Adjoined to her. Then it just kept going.” And every time I have to use their power, a little tiny piece of me gets taken away and replaced with it.”

Adora leaned forward, as the room went silent.

”... Maybe I should have turned on some music,” Adora broke the silence, before adding, ”That’s heavy. Like. Real deep shit there - actually, have some more to drink.” Adora pointed at the Grey Goose.

”... But, i get it. Thousands of versions of you all dying the same damn way, feeding into this... ghost army? Have you ever thought about not using it? Like, I know you have to sometimes, but maybe... I don’t know; take a step back. Let some of us handle things instead.”

”Look around us, it’s just a bunch of headless chickens so far. And yeah, sure, they’re getting better about it and their heads are coming out their asses,” Amara acknowledged. ”But… Fuck, Adora. Most of ‘em stopped knowing how to protect themselves years ago. I don’t exactly have a choice.”

”... And not a single one of them would give a fuck if you lost yourself protecting them!” Adora shouted, baring her teeth, before sighing and lowing her hands with her eyes closed. ”... What I mean to say is, it’s like with Luca; what good would surviving Father Wolf do if you or he gets killed by your Casper?”

”If I get killed, it gets shut out of Shimmer. The ghosts don’t waste what they’ve got on places where they’ve got nothing. If I just sit on my ass and do nothing, what’s the point of coming back at all?”

Adora facepalmed, ”... Okay, I know you said the other Amaras tried stuff and couldn’t find anything - but there has to be something that can help you. You can’t just cross it off because some MF that’s you - but ain’t you - said so.”

Amara leaned forward. ”You’re not- Look. Look. You can’t just seal the Army, it’s in every world where I’m alive, all at the same time. You unadjoin me to it? It just reaches back in and grabs me again. It’s not just one me that’s tried, y’know? It’s thousands, and thousands, and thousands of me that tried. And I know that because I remember everything they remember. The thing about me having magic dementia is that when they take something, it makes room for more ghosts to fill my head up. I’ve seen shit from other worlds, and I’m dead in them. One of me even tried sealing a god inside her, while trying to push the Army out. Didn’t work.”

”Oooookay, I got that,” Adora said, with a wide and very forced smile on her face as she put her hands together. ”... What I’m saying is that there has to be something that can help with your memory problems. Or SOMETHING that can off-set the side effects. Do you get what I’m saying? Maybe you don’t need to seal The Army; maybe there’s a piece that you’re missing.”

”Like what?” She asked, just a little exasperated. ”I’ve been dealing with this since I was old enough to walk. The PRA knew more about this sort of thing than me, and they had nothing. What are you suggesting?”

Adora shrugged, ”Now, let me just say I’m no magical expert, but there are tons of different weird ass artifacts, right? Maybe there’s something that can help you keep your memory? Maybe someone can make something?”

”I- Shit, I guess? I’ve tried it before. This one smug prick in the PRA gave me this fuckass crown and told me it healed memories. All it did was set my head on fire…” Amara sighed. ”Hell, you know anyone good enough for that?”

”I don’t know but maybe Jack or Britney does,” Adora shrugged.

She leaned back. ”Yeah. Maybe…” She knocked back another shot. ”…Fuck, I normally gotta be a lot more drunk to get into this shit. Sorry.”

”There’s nothing to be sorry over, you have a problem, it’s that simple,” Adora said with a nod of her head.

”Yeah… But we’re supposed to get stupid drunk and we’re just bitching and moaning… You think Greenwood would kick our asses if they saw us like this?”

”They seem cool… they’re probably more inclined to whoop up on Layla if I had to be honest with you,” Adora shrugged.

”Heh… Yeah.” She laughed. ”I bet they got the craziest fucking weed. Lord, I should’ve been Adjoined to a weed apparition instead.”

”You know, they fuck with me; I can hit them up,” Adora leaned back and laughed.

”Fuuuck. That’s what we need. You’re fucking great, thanks.”

Adora smiled.

”... I’m lovely, yeah,” Adora laughed, before she pulled out her phone and called Ruby. ”Good thing I got her number at the flower shop...” Adora mused out loud.

A few moments later, Ruby picked up.

“... WAAAAAAAASSUP!” Ruby loudly shouted through the phone, and Adora rolled her eyes.
”Hey, Rubes, wassup,” Adora began.

“Nah, sis, you gotta say it with style like WASSUP!” Ruby said laughing.

”What are you up to right now?” Adora asked.

“Nothing… me and the crew are about to head to the camp,” Ruby said. “Party off that meeting with the leftover pizza… We gotta get Sully’s ass first.”

”I got you,” Adora said, before putting the phone on speaker. ”You remember Amara, though? Ya’ll met at the Flower Shop Pow-Wow?” Adora gestured towards Amara.

“Yeah?”

”Well, she has a request for you all,” Adora laughed.

”Hey! Greenwood! Which one of you motherfuckers has the good grass?” She asked. ”I’m one step away from being drunk as fuck, who’s in a mood to get drunk as fuck with me?”

“Sis, siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis….” Ruby said, “We got all that good shit… Come party with us.”

Ruby laughed, “I’ll drop the location to Appie here… Be there or be square.”

”You know I’ll be there!” Adora laughed.

”I owe you bitches my fucking life. Thanks.”

“See ya there, babe,” Ruby said with a laugh. “We’ll be expecting you.”

She paused for a moment.

“... Don’t disappoint us.”

Then hung up.

”Well that was unnecessarily dramatic,” Adora said with a shrug.

Amara pointed a finger at the front door, and a phantom appeared out of thin air. ”She’s driving.”

A few moments later, Adora’s phone pinged, and it was the location of the Greenwood party.

”... Whatever you say, champ,” Adora said with a smile.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

---

Location: The Framework
Skills:
Framework Fashion

---

---

Leah kept walking, and walking and walking to ignore that twisting feeling in her chest. It was like walls falling in on her, rooms getting smaller. There were days when death didn’t scare here in the slightest, when she could look monsters in the eye and cut them down with one swipe of a sword. And then there were the days where her fragile confidence proved to be paper thin, and Leah never had the words to explain why that was the case. Not to herself, not to anyone else. It was like she couldn’t think straight, some notion of fear that didn’t make any logical sense just clouded her mind. And she found, every now and then, that the only way to ignore that blackened feeling was to pretend it wasn’t real.

So she got to the roof, and just stared out into the dark. It was close to midnight by now, as far as she could remember. Most of Margaret Carter was sound asleep, while Leah and the others apparently got saved from death.

We died. We died, and Zari saved us.

Her ribs were [i]vibrating[/i{ in her chest, just thinking about it. She wanted to bury Arcade beneath a mile of stone and gravel, where he’d never harm someone again. She wanted to make him experience the terror he had inflicted on them before Zari fucked with time itself just to bail them out.

And she fucking knew, deep down, that he wasn’t sorry for what he did. Dad was never sorry, and he always had people at his mercy. Dorian didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, there was no questioning that. But it wasn’t fair to him.

Leah was stirred from her thoughts by the sound of a jet landing near the school. It was hard to tell from the roof, but it sounded like a quinjet. Leah could take a guess what they were doing here. So she leapt off the side of the building and used the superhuman muscles in her hands to easily climb down. If she went back inside, Arcade wouldn’t leave.

She jogged down the sidewalks and got to the landing pad. And there stood the Avengers. Well, some of them. Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, fucking Shang-Chi, to name a few. Did they hear about this? It was the only logical reason for them showing up this late in force like this.

”We’re alive. No one’s dead,” she told them, sound a touch hollow now that she had a moment to think. ”They’ve got him cornered. He’s not going anywhere.”

Young Justice

These guys went down pretty easily, and Cora was feeling pretty good about her little magic show with Zach. She flowed through the purple clouds and watched him knock a dude out- a holy shit, he could throw a punch! Okay, so far so good. Cora would’ve wished this could’ve been a bit more sneaky. But then again, they were raiding this place in broad daylight. The best they could do now was take advantage of the surprise attack while it was a surprise.

Four of them were going inside… Cora had an idea. She couldn’t fight in confined spaces around others, it would’ve risked blinding someone. But she could get in her natural element.

”I’m goin’ above, so take cover,” she announced, over the channel. Stormcaller floated higher and higher above the building, high over it where she could see the whole battlefield. Her skin stung with static, but she’d manage for now. That was an awfully big compound, it had to be hot in there in a climate like this. Cora could imagine they had to have some kind of AC system in there, something she could sabotage and maybe spit out dust. Or maybe she could get inside and use that other advantage.

Looking behind her, that ominous green blob was still behind her. ”Make sure you’re looking over your shoulders, there’s a green thing being sneaky,” she announced over the channel.

If she had to guess, the big important stuff was likely to be in a central location or on a subfloor. It wouldn’t do much, but just for good measure, she floated closer and fired off some rather loud strikes of lightning at exposed fans on the roof, the kind that brought cool air into the rest of the building. It could scare someone, maybe spit out dust and choke them. Or maybe they’d get heatstroke.

Small things added up, right?

”Stormcaller comin’ in. I’m working on wrecking their AC. If you smoke ‘em out, they’ll have nowhere to go if they bunker down in the central areas. I might be able to get through the vents and ambush somebody.”

SPIRITUM

---

One by one, the beasts fell. Etherium caught fire, Valerie took a mean shot, and the others were preparing to deal with these monsters before anyone else got hurt. And personally? Morden considered his chances against even the biggest ones to be pretty damn decent considering how he just exhumed himself out of one. Civilians and his own squad, on the other hand? Not so much. The fucking princess decided to engage them, which was fundamentally a stupid decision in more than one way. Either they had to account for the liability now, or factor her into battle strategies they couldn't just rewrite on the fly. So Morden decided to ignore that.

He let his shotgun fall out of his mist pocket, and ran to the grenades that had been knocked free of the truck. Strange to have this stuff, but alas. He loaded sabots into the breach, and collected a singular grenade. Morden had an idea in mind, one that wouldn't outright kill the biggest of the sharks, but would make it a hell of a lot harder for it to kill them.

There will be an explosion, do not be alarmed. I am going to blind the creature.

With a righteous, one-handed chk-chk of his shotgun, Morden bit down on the pin of the grenade (in a way only a mist-roided WARDEN could, Hollywood be damned) and used all of his strength to hurl it at the ground, and bounce it at the landshark. The fuse was ignited, and between that and the sheer force with which he threw it, the grenade went BANG a few inches before making contact with the landshark's face.

The point of this was to make the landshark move its head in just such a way that Morden could predict it, so when it recoiled from the cluster of shrapnel and the flash, and its eyes went open again, Morden aimed small.

He knew it wouldn't be enough to put this thing down, but with all the chaos happening, the landshark's options would be severely limited. It was a raging animal, not a trained fight. If pushed came to shove, it would just run, most likely. Morden pressed forward and repeatedly fired his shotgun, aiming the sabots at the small eyes to gouge them out. How could it fight back if it couldn't tell where it was? There was still the one harassing Silje, but this was a start.

Blind them. Cripple them. Drive. Them. BACK, he communicated. Use your environment, worry less about killing them.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Unlike Wiseman’s dumb motherfucker of a writer, the hero himself knew what Backup was getting at by calling him “Frankincense.” One more people deluded into thinking he was a mage, apparently.

”They would not go to this much trouble if there was no ulterior motive here. I was trapped in the room with the doctor, they knew to isolate me. But their plan was flawed.” Of course he knew the point wasn’t to take them out. After all, this attack would escalate if someone died.

They were being harassed just enough to stay engaged without retreating or winning easily. ”This is a distraction.” He wheeled around and blasted the flying drone out of the sky, sending it down into the street below in a frosty ball of vapor. He kept an eye out for anything sneaking up on them.

”Our options are to regroup with the others, or press the advantage we have to look for their reinforcements. It is most likely Gholem, but we don’t know yet.” Wiseman had a feeling he knew which one Backup preferred, but he thought he’d outline it regardless.

”What do you think?”

The whole god damn building was starting to cave into the fire. By now, there was no hope of saving it. But maybe something would be rebuilt here, out of the ashes. Humans were tenacious animals, they lived long enough as a whole to know when someone should be cut away as rot from a tree. Mire caught a ride along the gigantic flesh dragon that Freakshow had become, and elected to retreat that way.

"They will die and return to the earth. Nothing in that pit of stone should be mourned" the fungal abomination said. "One day, you humans will return here and build something over the bones of these creatures, and they'll feed what grows in place of this "plant." Nothing was lost today, only changed."

They were a cryptic, unknowable creature, but Mire had lived for centuries. They knew the cycle of life on the same foundational level that humans understood breathing and hunger. Perhaps the fire would spread, or pollute the air with what was used to build the plant. Perhaps someone would come looking and fall into the pit, never to be seen again. But death was just a turning of the page in the grand scheme of the earth. Millions of years ago, mountains were killed and rotted away into what humans called soil, and yet flowers bloomed all the same.

"Now let's leave this place, I've killed enough of them for one day."

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

---

Location: Gym
Skills: N/A

---

---

”You piece of god damn shit-“ Leah was less than thrilled to hear that Arcade tried to trap them in. Or that he was going to, whichever the fuck it was. There was enough they all had to deal with already, and he just had to launch a villain arc.

”Alright, you know what! Fuck you, Ed.” Leah reached out and wet her hand in Framework tanks, and drew out runes on the ground. Kenaz for fire, uruz for power, and raidho for movement. ”You want to play dirty, I will too.”

She stood back up straight and swung her foot at the ground where the runes had been written, and a small explosion of heat was sent flying at Arcade as if Leah had just kicked a soccer ball, scorching him on the spot.

All of the fear that had gripped Dorian's heart moments ago, was now gone. That time-line abandoned as he moved backwards and was now simply playing a game once more. Then, everything went dark. It was like his senses got a Kickstart and suddenly the world came into view with one large gasp of air as the water drained from his tank. His vision was fuzzy, but he could clearly see as others began to ready up for an Arcade smackdown. He could hear Arcade practically begging for his life as the others began to enclose.

Dorian needed to act fast. One hand gripped one side of his tank, while the other gripped the other side, helping pull himself out as he tried to wrap his mind around what all was going on. He made a mental headcount and then -
Heat blazed in the room nearby as fire hurt Arcade and Leah did some weird mystical shit that he didn't know she could. That was enough to kick him into gear. Dorian quickly vanished, going ghost as he flew threw everyone in the room, chills running through them in an attempt to cool them all down before stopping right before Arcade and coming back into view with his arms spread wide. ” ‘Ave you all lost your mind?!” His eyes darted pointedly at Leah.

”Move, Dorian!” She shouted. ”I should’ve known this prick was up to no good, spending so much time here alone! I’m gonna shatter you like fucking glass, Ed!”

”No! Arcade made a mistake, took a wrong turn. But everyone deserves a chance!” Dorian said as he stayed firmly between Leah and Arcade. ” ‘eroes don't go around shatterin’ ot'ers like glass. ‘E's lost, defenseless, and cowerin’. I say we take ‘im in and allow ‘im to reform.”

”Why, so he can break his way out and someone else defenseless again?! Didn’t hear what Zari just said? got back from rewinding time because he tried to kill us all! He knew what he was doing, he made that choice, and I don’t care if it didn’t happen yet! He’ll just do it again.”

”So many ot'ers have fallen down t'e way too! Erik, Wanda, Pietro, even Pyro who is now a world's best seller! We can't go and kill or shatter anyone because we feel t’reatened. T’at's not what ‘eroes do! We ‘ave to do better, be better. Offer ‘im a chance to right ‘is wrongs and become t’e ‘ero t’is school knew ‘e could be! If you do t’is…you're no better t’an a bully or a villain. Beatin’ down on t’ose who can fight.”

Leah’s face twisted into a scowl. What the hell did Dorian know about villains? ”Villains? People like that are the reason why I’m here in the first place! We could’ve died in there if that lasted long enough! You think he’d beg for a second chance if he won?”

”I t'ink ‘e'd deserve it.” Dorian said with finality and grit in his voice. ”We turn ‘im and Usagi in for what t’ey ‘ave done. T’ey can do time, and since ‘e's young enough…I ‘ope reflect on what t'ey've done and become a better person from it. All it takes is four or five moments to become a ‘ero. T'is is one of t'em Leah, don't pass it up.”

The ground under everyone’s feet trembled.

Leah glared a hole through Dorian. He didn’t know what it was like to watch people die the way she did. He didn’t know how it felt being too slow to save someone’s life.

Her hands balled up into fists, and she contemplated burying Arcade a mile beneath the school with her powers.

”Fine.”

Every muscle inside of Dorians body was tense. He didn't know how she would react. But he knew in a contest of strength he was done for. Still, his heels were dug into the floor as he tried to stand strong against her until finally, it seemed she'd caved. A single word, uttered almost like a threat. An unspoken sentence lingering behind it, telling him that if Arcade didn't turn around, if he did kill others, that it would be on Dorians head. He didn't like that thought. But his father always taught him that everyone deserved a chance to change and be good. ”Thank You.” He looked towards the others, hoping they'd follow Leah's example and not attack.

Leah turned around and left the room, walking off to get out of this suit and back into her regular clothes.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Backup had the same idea as him. That wasn’t a surprise, and it made this easier. She had gone ahead and taken a fight to the thugs at the roof, which Wiseman elected to use to his advantage. He scaled the building slowly on purpose, letting Backup soften them into easier beatdowns, before finally hopping up behind the helicopter and drawing his Stasis Blaster. All of them were on Backup, meaning absolutely none of them noticed as the other hero aimed a rifle at their bodies to stun them. Freezing bolts of energy went flying out from behind the helicopter, putting the battered henchmen out of the fight.

And then, just for good measure, Wiseman dropped a few shots into the hammer to scramble its internals. The metal exterior crackled and popped as ice formed over it, breaking up whatever was underneath.

”When we are finished with them, I’ll take the hammer to pieces and find whoever had a hand in this,” Wiseman said aloud, once the fighting stopped. ”Don’t damage it further. It should stop functioning any second no-“

He was cut short as a drone flew overhead and descended on a nearby building. It had some sort of structure it was carrying, which reshaped into a floor-mounted turret remarkably fast. It moved and fired slowly, but only at Backup. Foolish.

Wiseman raised his rifle and fired a shot into the barrel of its weapon first, to weaken it and cause structural damage. A second shot was quickly fired into the base of the turret, where its head met its body, to damage internal components. The Stasis Blaster was a freeze ray, and machines that large which had moving parts didn’t do so well when exposed to biting temperatures. Metal shrunk in on itself, water condensed and seeped into circuity, and cracked could form in materials unable to flex. Electrical capacitors lost their energy as well, and that was why this weapon worked so well against machines.

”We need to reestablish communication with the others. This attack was coordinated by someone clever, they knew we’d be divided today.”

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Wiseman shut his screens off when both Fallout and Magician stepped out into the waiting room. The self-aggrandizing runecaster disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Wiseman stood up to walk into the office of the doctor. He had gone over answers to this roughly three hundred and seven times in his head during the last five minutes, calculated to give as much of a disarming impression as was possible. This was going to be an uneventful interview, the doctor would think nothing was up. She-

As the lights went out, Wiseman stopped moving towards the chair. These sorts of things were unusual for a building constructed with government funding. There were no routine maintenance checks for the day, he would've known about them beforehand. Nothing within the bounds of the ordinary. So it was no surprise that the doctor fell limp as she touched the door handle. His helmet snapped towards her, as he engaged the IR function of his helmet. No one was in the room with them, the voltage mode showed it was just the handle, another stupid security measure that someone failed to realize worked both ways. Oracle did not mention the possibility of this occurring, so she must not have realized it with her powers.

The TV off to the side began to act up, and Wiseman patiently listened to the unrecognizable voice on the other end. His gaze locked onto the programs and tabs shown on the screen, as if someone didn't take into account the fact that he had a perfect memory. He'd worry about those little glimpses later, when this wasn't the main problem.

"Apologies for the intrusion. I simply need to keep you contained in order to prevent you from interfering with my plans. And also from escaping the range of the signal blocker. Please remain seated. Hey, but at least I got you out of therapy, right? That should count for something."

Ah.

Wiseman flipped through the filters on his helmet and confirmed with his own eye that there was a heavy layer of radio waves flooding this room. Attempting to call for backup would have been useless, and someone clearly had the good sense to broadcast over the TV instead of the computer, lest he find a log and trace his way back. And he couldn't call for Angel-5 to check the doctor for electrical burns.

"...Have you come for me at long last?" He asked no one. Was this karma?

His helmet showed him that there was a strong electrical source several floors up, concentrated around one area, likely the roof. A power signal that strong likely meant the entire building had been blacked out. His best bet was to get out of this room quickly, and group with the others. But even with his Indra Blade, the insulating gloves he wore, the electronically locked door had no way to budge when the security measures were triggered. Someone had taken control of the building, but they could've done better.

"No, you would've killed me already."

He quickly scooped up the unconscious psychologist, and gently laid her behind the wide desk. If someone came in here with grenades or an itchy trigger finger, she'd be fine.

Wiseman walked up to the window, and drew his knife This was why he made a point of always being armed. Safety was an illusion for heroes. He jammed the blade into the window, electrocuted the security lock, and opened it. A helicopter had landed on the roof. By the sounds of things, anyway.

Wiseman jumped on the desk and pried a panel from the ceiling. It left a hole big enough for a person to climb into, but he didn't. He left it there as a red herring.

Whoever it was that was doing this job needed lessons in sabotage. Their work was rough around the edges, it was sloppy. There was still power flowing through the building in some fashion, even if it was just from an auxiliary source, and controlling that to lock Wiseman in here meant that someone had just given him a hint. HERO's digital security was compounded above the average hero company's by the existence of ALISA, who could detect intrusions faster than most personnel, and she hadn't detected this. And yet they transmitted an evil monologue, mentioning a key component of their strategy and the fact that they had further plans. All while they hadn't had the common sense to mask their screen.

Those little details painted a picture for him. They were less experienced, and likely less organized when it came to such things than he was. On a scale of one to ten, he arbitrarily gave them an eight. He was the ten.

Wiseman climbed out of the window, clinging to the outside like a spider. He reached up with one arm to grab it it, then dropped to grab the ledge of the one a floor down. The window was shut completely, and now Wiseman was free.

This was the part where things got tricky.

While most of the heroes had gone deeper into the plant to take out the heart of this, Mire had stayed outside in a fetid puddle of gore that was only growing deeper. They gradually drank up the liquified viscera, faster than the Terrazards could actually damage them, all while erupting in contant boils of enzymous fluid over and over again. The Terrazards that charged Mire on the ground got stuck in the sludge and dissolved into it, the ones that pounced from on high were dissolved more quickly. It was just and endless loop of Mire's body regenerating and exploding like the undying monstrosity they were.

That changed when a gigantic fuckoff monkey man burst out of the plant and started grappling with an even giganticer fuckoff human. Crane, they thought her name was. Someone that big should've had a hang of it, but Mire was in the middle of fighting, so what difference did it make?

They dissolved into hyphae, sinking low into the lake of rotting meat that they had created, giving an impression that they were just hiding from the terrazards.

fungus began to bloom beneath Crane and the Menace, culminating in a long and gaunt hand grabbing at the villain's leg as Mire exhumed their body through cracks in the ground. They could've soaked the Menace with enzymes, but that would've been a bad decision this close to Crane, so they crawled up his leg and to his chest to try and pull him free of the giantess. If Crane started swinging and happened to hit Mire, it wouldn't mean much, since they didn't feel pain.

"Are you the best there is against us, ugly human-thing?" Their four arms grasped at whatever they could to bind the villain's movements, making him an easy target for someone bigger than him.