Zombiedude101

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

@Mixtape Ghost N Sloane @Atrophy Luca @FernStone Alexander@Estylwen

---

It hadn't taken long for the others to catch up, even if they were doubtful of why he'd dealt with the not-corpses The Greenwood girl had expressed mild disapproval in her need to remind him of what they didn’t need.

"... And we don't need to kill every zombie we come across,"

Autumn

To that, Clancy had thrown up his hands in a half-shrug, thumb and forefinger tapping together to silently puppeteer her commentary. Need was a strong word, and particularly from someone who had probably been shitting her diapers while he was dealing with a different kind of monster. Her chastisement was a familiar talk-down he'd learned to suppress over years in half-doses.

He doubted she'd have appreciated it if he'd left one of the rotting carcasses to grab at their ankles and do what things that should be dead... did to the people that weren’t yet dead. Whatever that was. And he'd broken through enough of them in the sodden yard of Kari Wilson to know it was safer than leaving to chance.

“Personally, I’d feel more comfortable knowing there were less ghouls to potentially block our only known exit,”

Sloane

Sloane blunted the edge of his irritation, gratitude enough for now. He tilted his head slightly upward in response, perhaps not so subtly exaggerating the nod in the process.

They came towards the supposed access point to the compound, a side-entrance with a loose door. He wanted to question whether it should’ve been that simple, but he’d seen plenty of smart people who still forgot the basics. A light here, a door there.

The Greenwood girls’ warnings echoed in his mind. No lights, no loud noises, and most importantly, no magic. Stick to shadows. All of those he could check easily enough, except for maybe the fact that he wasn’t functioning by natural means. His existence was unnatural. Did that mean being there would qualify?

Either way, there was something they needed here, and he doubted the others were any less noise than he was with their collective magic and parasites.

Soon, as foretold, the first of many cameras cropped up, the faint blinking LED indicating its presence as it slowly pivoted from left to right. It took maybe a quarter-minute to get the timings of the search pattern down, but then he had never really had to worry so much about them before now.

The others, on the other hand... Luca volunteered to go first, looking in his direction.

”I guess you could come with me?”

Luca

Without hesitation, Clancy had bobbed his head in agreement, then moved in lock-step with Luca, expressing a quiet contempt for the corrosive presence probing at his facade of a body as he escorted the skinny latino across the camera's blind spot like a good samaritan walking an old lady across the street.

Even as the others passed through, he chose to keep pace with Luca while some of the others moved ahead, letting them slip past him as though he was no different a fixture than any of the ornate decor of the place. Further in they pressed, keeping to narrow alcoves, blind spots and the like until they came to what he guessed was the security gate that had been mentioned earlier in the plan. While his intent was to keep an eye out for Luca, he warily glanced towards the others.

Layla and Alizee, bound as they were, were as unknown a quantity as he was to the rest of them; Britney and Sloane had been whispering to each other a moment before, about what he had no idea, while Adora and Aislin seemed to be keeping quiet for now, as were the Greenwood girls and Amara’s phantom.

Well, they were, until something at the periphery of his senses seemed to close in, off one blind corner away from the security gate.

Clancy was late to notice it, in light of the distant cacophony of sounds and smells pulsing across the island as the other groups made their play, but now he could distinguish it from the background noise, the large presence he felt was too close to ignore, footsteps that closed ahead and smells accompanying them. ”Something big, close-”

Gurgling, stinking mound of meat, the lizard-thing had been sighted by the Greenwood girl before rearing its ugly head, a toothy maw not unlike the books he’d seen when he had been a lot younger, still growing.

The same Greenwood girl was hollering a warning of an incoming adept, which he had figured by now meant magic-user, though ‘red’ and ‘purple’ were distinctions that meant nothing to him, and to one side he could hear the rumblings of Adora, ready to leave. Britney seemed a little more resilient.

"Came here so we could find the asshole who murdered my n-.." Clancy sharply reminded them, then changed trajectory mid-sentence "Your friends." Like the biker’s pet ‘dogs’, the lizard-thing was not something that gave him pause. If it came to it, like he’d guessed it could with the stone dog, he favoured his own chances of dealing with it.

At least, he had until a rush of air pushed out from behind, too close to ignore.

Prompted to turn, Clancy caught it just barely in time to catch two figures emerging from a distortion in the tunnel, for one to just as quickly disappear as some hulking corpse-king took their place, wreathing either exit in green fire.

The man that remained pointed at them, raving about Luna - the white-haired girl who’d been spying on them?

No, not raving. Revenge.

Manifest in power, surging forward. Clancy stepped out, trying to put something between Luca and the bolt spearing at them..

That something was himself.

The arc crackled over him, manifesting in the form of half a dozen obsidian fingers which seared at his clothes and gnawed at his instincts. One licked at the open mouthed, buck-toothed grin of the cartoon character portrayed on his mask, blackening it into a charred, hollow scream. Beneath the fabric, he could sense the recession of what accounted for his lower jaw, where the pale white expression of cold skin was peeled back to expose bare teeth and the black void yawning behind.

Another black kiss made his knee give out for a moment, not pain as he could describe it, but something that counted for discomfort, stalling him. Then, it stopped.

Vines and roots emerged to close off one mouth of the tunnel, binding the dark-haired mobster in a cocoon of tangled overgrowth, but Clancy’s eyes were dark, flinty chips of ice, set on the gaps where skin and clothing remained to showcase the outline of a body.

And the boy felt that malevolent instinct surging at the back of his mind, the hunger, the need for meat from some stupid asshole that tried to kill him.

All that worthless flesh.

Clancy threw himself forward and drove a hand through the overgrowth that bound the mobster, small fingers raking through plant matter to grasp at his entangled arm, still pointed outwards, at the point where the elbow connected to the upper arm.

His other hand grasped at the gnarled growth that stretched out from the mobster's trapped fingertips, intending to wrench the limb away. Noises were abuzz around him, his s senses fixated.

Clothing. Meat. Bone.

The boy, bathed in an iridescent green glow, crunched down at either end, the moment washing over them.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

---

Clancy had quietly listened as they finalised and formulated their plan for the job, studying the map that had been set before them, the warnings of the obstacles and dangers they would face, and the division of the groups.

He was no stranger to getting into places where he wasn't welcome, but could not have said he'd ever pulled off a heist on purpose. Like it or not, his vice was prey.

Stumbling into poison and loose change were sometimes a consequence of what he did - especially in the cities, but he never hung onto them, usually holding onto a few spare bills as his allowance, while tossing baggies and bricks were thrown in the furnace or, given the former's scarcity, into the nearest body of water, more often than not. No doubt the fish had probably not thanked him for that, but it was better than leaving it for other assholes to find.

Whatever their mutual doubt of one another, he could recognise that Britney was right about the plan - or specifically, the lack of a backup. If the Greenwood people weren't around to get them off, what was the plan?

Swim for the shore? Clancy, for his part, was not so bothered about getting off the island this way.

He had forded streams, rivers, even lakes. Why did an ocean matter?

The first time, when he had refused to accept his situation, when he was in denial, had been the worst. A dark, cold plunge that he thought - hoped could've stopped him, except it didn't, as he found himself tearing at the entrails of a fresh carcass less than an hour later, his clothes sodden, his face and fingers caked in mud, grit and blood.

When you didn't need to breath or worry about the stuff flooding down your airway, water was just another environmental presence, like thicker air that moved over and around you. When you didn't need to care about the cold washing over your body, weighing down your clothes and holding you back from surfacing for air, or worry about feeling any pain from where the water would normally sting at your eyes and burn through your lungs, it was just another aspect to the world, like the difference between walking over snow, ice, grass, asphalt.

Clancy could swim, but often times he found himself sinking like a stone, walking or wading close to the solid ground beneath, clawing at the silty bed for a better foothold here and a lunge there. It was how he'd left the Halloween Festival when the old man had driven the cane through his eye.

But there were others here, and they were a mixed bag. Britney didn't like him, nor he her. Enough said. Sloane and Adora were okay. Aislan, he knew less of, but he had no problms with her at this point. The Greenwood people were strangers, and probably saw him the same. Layla and Alizee had made their bed, and would now have to lay in it.

That left Luca, probably the only one of them, apart from Adora, who he could trust to the furthest point he had trusted anyone in his unnatural existence. Although they were all - Clancy aside - technically adults, he suspected Luca would benefit from a helping hand. He knew how fragile the skinny latino was, and how he was more at risk than most of the others on those benefits. The rest could, as far as he understood, look after themselves.

For that he hoped they wouldn't need another way out, because he didn't rate his chances of trying to drag their fragile bodies back to shore in the middle of the fall - hypothermia would do a faster job of killing most of them than any parasite could.

The others were dressed for the occasion. The Greenwood Maidens in their sports gear, the others similarly garbed in caps, hoodies and masks. Some were armed for the occasion, like the Ghost Woman - Amara - in her riot gear, complete with phantom figures stood beside her. Where had she got that? He put it out of mind, that didn't matter - only that two of the phantoms were going to accompany them.

As far as disguises went, Clancy's had worked for him. There was no cutting or styling the hair, but he could hide his face and make it less obvious who he was. He'd traded the grey hoodie for a navy one, this time with some dull faded sports branding across the side, and slipped on a yellow balaclava with the likeness of some stupid kid's character called Jimbob Squareshorts or something stupid like that, swiped from the post-Halloween bargain bin of a thrift store. The only part of him he didn't cover were his hands or eyes, and that because amything he did was likely to be torn off if they got into a scuffle.

Even if he didn't particularly care if some saw his face, he didn't want to make it so obvious by association. He'd spent a long time keeping under the radar, avoiding the supposed magic feds and their like, even after surveillance cameras started showing up on every other street corner. He didn't want to risk that now, or the slim chance of the same people they were taking these magic items from would make the connection between him, Luca and the others who'd hosted him

Not to mention the hitwoman the old man had probably sent after him. For all he knew, these people might have had connections to her, as everyone in this town seemed to have with one another. A few fleeting words and thoughts passed through his mind, thinking back to what he'd learned at the club what must've been over a month back.

Dollhouse. Judas' connections to them. Who were Shayton's bosses? He put the thoughts out of his mind for the moment, focused on the matter of artifacts.

By his understanding, the axe he'd taken from the nazi had been such a thing. It had felt powerful, in its way, although the only thing he'd found it good for was cutting things in two a little more efficiently than with a butter knife. Perhaps it was the source of the tattooed nazi's strength, but for him - his existence a different kind of strength - it seemed only to serve as a sharp tool, and even then it had been lost to him when the 8th Street assholes had turned the scene outside the cabin to mud.

Still, the axe would've been helpful for the stone dog, for the eventuality that it turned up. For now, he'd have to manage without. The artifact group were going with minimal baggage, and he was about as best as they could get for-

The veil fell. His train of thought interrupted, their assembled groups were moving. Within moments, he found old ground disappearing beneath him in one moment and new ground apparating in the next.

Teleportation? They were here. No time to think on it.

---

Elysium Island - Artifact Group
Luca @FernStone, Sloane @Atrophy, Artifact Group

---

As they progressed, gunfire and other panicked noises crackled in the background. He was no stranger to such things, although perhaps not on this scale. Usually it was closer, directed at, above or beneath him, rather than being on the score of half an island away. It was rare to run into assholes with the kind of power on display here. A distant thunderclap underpinned that musing.

And not usually with explosions.

Clancy wondered if this was what his old man and Uncle Gerry had been through in their wars of long ago. What Frank had been unable to escape. Except there was a clear difference; Clancy didn't care so much about getting through it alive. He wasn't living, had nothing to lose except the prospect of failing, and while they were still trying to get back home, the only thing that he could hope for was the end of the line.

There wasn't a home left to which he could return, either way.

Luca had volunteered to demolish whatever doors sat between them, but Clancy was inclined to agree with Sloane on letting her or one of the others try it first. Using the Rot was a double-ended sword, with no safe way to use it.

As for the 'Starving Dog'...

"If the dog comes, I'll buy you time," he put the notion forward, then continued, "Focus on getting whatever you'll need to find Father Wolf. It can't hurt me."

Unless it happened to have teeth that were made from the same crystalline material that had pained him so. [i]Nothing[i] would've surprised him at this stage, and it was a chance he was willing to take if would get them a shot at Father Wolf. For Ashley.

Perhap to undermine the point about something being unlikely to hurt him, there was a blinding light off somewhere on the horizon, as though the sun itself were bearing down on the island, centered on the mansion. Clancy's attention had been directed towards Luca and Sloane, but even so the light had briefly flashed through the fabric of his hoodie and mask.

He stopped in his tracks, almost blinded for a few seconds, fingers tightening into half-fists as he raised one to shield the half of his face until he could adjust. Off in the distance, he could smell what could've only been described as ozone and charcoal mingled together, along with something else closer.

Meat he thought at first.

No, he corrected himself. It was rotting.

Dead.

Clancy threw a hand up in a silent gesture to the others, still half-balled into a fist, then approached a clearing amidst the trees they'd pushed through. There, where the daylight bored down, he spotted a pair of silhouettes lurching over tree roots, barely avoiding getting thei footing tangled in some of the oversized root systems that cut through the ground.

The boy veered off to the left, leaning against one tree, then pounced, slamming a foot into the hamstring of one undead guard that had been faced away from him to break their footing, and brusquely grasping and mashing their head into the tree trunk aside in a mangled smear of dark viscera.

.
The other wight, half-turned, was subsequently shoved at waist-height over a thick patch of moss and overgrowth, and the boy soon concluded its existence by driving his knee into the undead creature's skull before it could wheeze out another strangled roar.

Useless, rotting meat. The base instinct at the back of his consciousness would've recoiled more out of disappointment than disgust.

The others no doubt were catching up, as fast as they could go given their limitations. There was no time to be annoyed or disoriented. "Few more nearby. Can smell them."

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

---

Clancy had little to say on the matter of the conjoined girls. Both victims of a parasite, and now...

Layla claimed there was no force in the matter, but Clancy had been for long enough to know that force went beyond the physical. Sweetened words, promises, threats... some had tried it on him while out foraging, and come to regret their tastes shortly afterwards. Leon, now back to normal form, had a literal devil on his shoulder, whispering poison into their ears.

Clancy knew that he himself was proof they couldn’t be trusted, and both Luca and Lila’s circumstances had only reaffirmed that view. Parasites, through and through.

But it was done, and there was no separating the two now. He could only think over the names being bandied about.

Scott Reese. That meant nothing to him, as far as names go, other than he seemed to be difficult to deal with. Monstrous or not, raw strength by itself did not make him pause.

Be, Todd.... he hadn't known much of them.

Auri, the flower girl. She had meant more - had been closer to Ashley at one stage - but even so, Clancy hadn't much to make of her. She'd tried to organise them, and by all accounts had struggled doing so, given the divisions between the old coven. Much of his attention and subsequent suspicion had been reserved for Britney. Even now, even after the cautious agreement that he'd proposed. The only thing he could trust was that she didn't particularly trust him.

The dangers they spoke of carried weight.

None of it particularly frightened him. Even the prospect of facing the hitwoman and associated agony did not stir fear in him, not like that. It was failure that made him wary. The prospect of failing to end Father Wolf. That he would kill the rest of Ashley's friends.

Some of them weren't assholes, and didn't deserve to die that way.

That gave rise to another thought, buried at the base of his consciousness, for in truth there was a selfish element to keeping close to Luca, Lila and the others.

Whether he wanted it or not, as long as they were alive, if not well, they served as bait, the prospect of an attack dangling over their heads. While Clancy was with them, there was the hope he could stop the killing once and for all. Part of him might have even hoped Father Wolf would try, if only so he could gnaw on the murderer's bones for what they had done to Ashley. For taking that last vestige of family away from him.

"You're serious." Clancy finally noted, and there was no sarcasm or incredulity masking his tone. It was an acknowledgement that they had something of a plan. "I want Father Wolf. Some of you probably do, too." He didn't clarify his meaning, and left that open to interpretation. "You've... seen what I can handle. Some of you, anyway. I don't know if they'll smell me from a mile away, but if Sh-... if the old man's hired woman knew, these people probably will too. What's the plan for getting in?"

Clancy leaned in, ready to ask a few more probing questions. "Elite. Heard a little but not much. Who are they? Names, faces?” For a moment, he considered the matter. ”Same for House of Cards. Names and faces.”

He was, after all, still a stranger in this town, even if he’d found a shade of trust in some people here.

"What's the dog supposed to be, big?" Clancy's mind thought back to the dog-like creations that asshole biker boss had sicced on him, a chimera of dog, deer and sheep. "If it gets in the way, I'll deal with it."

If it was anything like those creatures, it would take a beating, throw him around, gnaw through the facade, but he didn't tire, and he didn't hurt in most instances, it would be a matter of breaking it down until he was the only thing left intact.

Layla's question about who would make it home had reminded him of another concern, perhaps a little more urgent to him. "How do you make sure the things we need to find him make it off? Who takes them?"

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Background Noise

Somewhere in the Midwest

One year ago

---

The faint thrum of hospital machinery, ventilators and heart monitors pulsed against his temples. A dozen footsteps and voices idly chattered outside the hospital room, unaware that an interloper had scaled the wall to clamber in through the window. A dollar-store radio set rested by the windowsill loosed the faint lyrics of the late, great Jimmy Ruffin.

Clancy blinked at the fragile creature resting on the bed, garbed in a speckled-blue gown that ran from shoulders to knees, an IV line snaking its way from the bedside stand into her sleeve. Time had robbed her of many things: her youth, her memories and now? Her health.

His sister wasn't long for this world, that he knew, from what he could follow of the countless conversations and private doctor's messages he'd pried upon. Illness was terminal, this time - and even if it wasn't, lucidity eluded her more days than not. She was a widow, who's own family couldn't bear to watch their mother, grandmother fade away, seldom making personal calls anymore, and for all intents and purposes she was the last of their family. The last he knew of.

That he could care about.

Clancy knew he shouldn't interfere. Shouldn't say anything. He was a ghost, and yet...

“Judy?“ The name slipped out of him.

His voice was barely above a whisper, yet her frail form seemed to stir in mere seconds and her withered expression seemed to light up.

"Clancy?“ she spoke hoarsely, "Is that you?“

Too late to back out. "It's me, Judes..." The words spilled out awkwardly.

"Clancy... where've you been, huh?" her greyed brow furrowed, leaning forward as though she wasn't aware of the IV drip feeding her fluids, "We've been worried sick." Age had robbed her of just enough lucidity to to deceive her into thinking they were just children once more.

"Mom and Dad, they've been worried sick for you.." Dad had been gone for more than twenty years. Mom hadn't held out for long without him.

But Clancy tried to pass it off, best he could with a kind lie. "I was walking to Uncle Gerry's place and took a bad shortcut, y'know?" Last of our parents' generation, and he died after we both got closure. He knew the truth was too much to bear or believe. Far better to tolerate a gentle scolding - any excuse to spend a little time with her, face-to-face.

"Even Frank.." Judy's features creased a little more as she chided him, slowly forming the words, "H-he went looking all over for you, he can't sleep." Frank got drafted, and died halfway across the world in Vietnam for it. Clancy loosened a soothing hush to try and calm her, leaning in close enough to be drawn into her embrace. She didn’t seem bothered by the fact he was cold.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, with a childlike sincerity he hadn't felt for some time, clutching her tight as he felt her heartbeat strum a familiar, waning chord. "I didn't mean to upset you." Perhaps for just a moment, he could truly be a child again, in body and mind. Forget about what happened to him. Forget about everything he'd done - had to do, wanted to do. Forget that he was stuck somewhere between spending eternity as a child and the black oblivion which lay beyond. For a moment, Clancy could be the little brother and forget.

"Didn't want any of this."

But not the hunger. No, never the hunger. It was always with him at the best of times, like a scratch on the paintwork of a brand new Camaro. And for a brief moment, perhaps by instinct alone, he became acutely aware of her heartbeat. How even her ailing body constituted meat, blood and bone - that it would be such a tempting moment, an opportunity. And there he was again, no longer a child.

No.

You won't have her.

The thought shamed him, and he stiffly drew back from the thin, leathery arms that had been drawn around his shoulders. The hospital was an abattoir for him, and the people within just meat. Even Judy.

And soon he'd be alone.

Better to let his last link to the world rest. It was time he made his exit, before his senses failed him.

"I'll go tell Mom I'm sorry, Judes." Clancy lied, turning away so she wouldn't see his contorted expression, "Just get some sleep." He didn't stop to see if she acknowledged that, but he felt the faint murmur on her lips. Goodbye.

As he left the room, he felt the reverberating thrum of the burner phone resting in his side pocket. Idly slipping it out, it took him but a few seconds to scan the SMS that had crept across the screen.

looking forward to seeing u buddy. ;)

Another matter to attend to, a friend - the kind that were easy enough to bait out if you trawled the right places. The kind that might've been a predator to some, but prey to him. Which was for the best, really.

The hunger was never truly apart from him. Self-control had its limits.

Clancy keyed a few letters back in a well-rehearsed motion, then hit send.

see u soon

---

Luca's Apartment

Early Morning

Dourly, he peered back at his own reflection, faintly distorted by the street lamps outside Luca's apartment.

In truth, he'd been watching for the skeleton, but it had not returned since he had arrived with half a mouthful of bone, absent the marrow. Clancy suspected it was waiting for a moment of opportunity, when he left. He’d been gone a while, slipping out in the night to settle a matter and returning before the autumn dawn had returned, but it seemed as though the wretched thing had not chosen to visit in that period.

There was little else to do here while the others were gone. He had little enjoyment of TV alone, though had endured it with the others for some quiet company. Music offered some respite, but Luca's tastes differed from his own. He did not seek to intrude on Lila’s space, either, which meant for him he spent those quiet hours in the ‘communal’ area, hunched near the couch or the kitchen.

He had no need of sleep, and he was unlikely to find sustenance within the confines of the apartment building, at least not without inconveniencing Luca.

All through his stay here, he became acutely aware that the place was far from hospitable. Luca had tried, for all his efforts, but Clancy was acutely aware of the cracks forming in the kitchen counter and what little wooden furniture remained, fabrics torn and freyed as though left to molder for years.

It was by this he was reminded of some of the rot he’d seen in his world, before this city, before even knowing Ashley existed. Derelict apartments, filled with poison to the mind and body, in the form of needles, chemicals and violence.

For all he tried, Luca was fighting a losing battle. The parasite sat inside him was a poisonous influence, and not unlike the world he came from, he wanted it gone, but was powerless to do so with the power weighed against him.

And while Clancy could not die, he too was incapable of escaping his situation.

Thoughts of a time long past drifted through his mind. Home. Family. His parents. Frank. That last moment with Judy.

”Oh shit- Clancy?” Luca almost tripped over a slight bump in the floor as he shuffled out of his room as quietly as possible. He couldn’t sleep, having woken up in pain. He didn’t want to lie there rolling about in case it woke up Jasper… so he’d snuck how. He hadn’t expected Clancy to just be there. Especially when he’d disappeared that night. ”You’re up?”

Clancy pivoted to see Luca standing in the hall, ”Don’t sleep. Remember?” He awkwardly cocked his head to one side, half heartedly shrugging.

”Oh yeah,” Luca laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. ”I didn’t expect you back tonight… Did you get whatever you were doing done? I had quite the day myself…”

”Yeah.” The boy had taken a change of clothes since Luca had last seen him. Olive pants, with a grey hoodie, and a navy knapsack hanging off to one side. One hand reached into that knapsack, pulled out a wrapper, tinted green with dollar bills all tightly packed together, ”Might have broke your window lock.”

Clancy stepped forward, and planted the baggie on the countertop. There was a faint red hue smudged across one wide that had been discreetly wiped away. ”Sorry. This should cover it.”

The truth was that it was probably broken before he'd ever visited the place, but it was an excuse to offload money he would be unlikely to use, and subtly compensate Luca for tolerating his presence.

”You don't have to but- thanks,” Luca accepted it with a slight smile. Normally he wouldn't… but he had a whole group of people to worry about now. A house to buy, and all.

”You have family you talk to?” Clancy changed the subject.

”Not anymore,” Luca said with a sad smile. ”I have family. Both my parents live in St Portwell. Last I heard my older brother moved to Portland, and my little sister goes to university here. Nevermind my extended family back in Brazil but…”

Luca trailed off, turning around to sit on the arm of the couch with a slight grimace. ”None of them have magic. When I first became like this I made some excuse to my parents to move out. But they'd call and insist I came around… and I can't do that. Just getting near me would kill them. So I had to cut them off.”

”Sorry. Guess this world isn’t out there for most.” Clancy paused, ”I get that, not wanting them in danger. But... take it from someone who was just gone, it won’t make it easier for them. You don’t have to tell them everything, but...”

But what? The more his mind lingered on the subject, the harder he found to come up with an answer. ”I kept an eye on my family, sometimes. Like I said, always far away, never close. But I broke that rule. Twice.”

”Twice? When?”

”Had an uncle,” Clancy omitted the second time, ”Hard as nails. Went through some... bad stuff in the war. Worse than my dad and the camps. My folks were missing, my sister out of town, me and my brother buried for years, and the only one left was my uncle, holed up in a nursing home. He was dying, I knew that. We had... closure? I don’t know. I told him what I wished my family had known, and he answered a question I’d been stuck with for years by myself, not knowing.”

”What question was that?” Luca asked softly.

”They moved on. I don’t think they were happy through it all, but... they had good times and bad times.” His face was frozen, ”I don’t have any right to tell you what to do, but... think about it, maybe.”

Luca gave another sad smile, then held up his bare hands. ”I’m not scared of putting them in danger from the Paranormal world. The danger is me. How can I tell them they can’t come within arms length of me without getting hurt? That if they stay close for more than a few minutes their skin will rot away? That if I touch them they’ll just die?”

He shook his head, looking at Clancy with that same sad acceptance he had for his impending death. ”I’d love to see them again, but I can’t. It’s not an if they’d get hurt- it’s a when. I can’t kill my own family, Clancy.”

”No.” The boy acknowledged with grim resignation, ”I get that. I realised how dangerous it was, when I saw-... when I took my chances, too. But you don’t have to see them, or tell them everything. Just... maybe give them some closure...”

If he didn’t know himself better, he might have volunteered for the job himself. But the path he was set on didn’t allow for too many diversions, and he’d taken enough chances already. ”Wasted your time,” The boy shook his head, like a wolf snapping the neck of a rabbit in its jaws, ”Sorry.”

”It’s fine, I appreciate it… and I'll think about it,” Luca shrugged, offering him a smile. He didn't seem upset - and wasn't really. He spoke very quietly, in case anyone else in the apartment was awake. ”Funnily, when you find out you're dying, you start to appreciate the small things. You'd think it'd be the opposite but… nothing’s a waste of time to me. Especially talking to someone. After years isolated, I really appreciate it.”

”Easier when not talking to assholes.” A thin smirk emerged from the boy's lips, ”And I get it. Even if I'm not… dying.”

”Yeah, good company makes things a lil easier,” Luca said, before yawning. ”Do you… need anything for the night? I should probably try get some more sleep. My joints feel a bit less achey after talking.”

”No,” Clancy shrugged, then added, ”I could grab you pills. For pain. Pharmarcy couple blocks down. Window doesn't lock right. Lockers easy to open.”

”I already got the strongest stuff, it just isn't always enough,” Luca shook his head with a slight smile. ”But thanks… I'll take you up on that if I ever can't afford them.”

He then yawned again, raising a hand in a slight wave. ”For now, good night.”

Clancy acknowledged Luca’s wave with an upwards tilt of the head, attention turning back to the ceiling.

---

Eleventh Path
@FernStone@AtomicEmperor@NoriWasHere@Estylwen

---

Now

Much as the others had been, Clancy found the way opened for him. It was strange to think; whether he intended it or not, he had made himself a participant of the Sycamore Crew in his presence and actions here.

When he stepped inside, his hood was still on over to the peak of his forehead; he was somewhat wary of being stopped and speared by the hitwoman again. Memories of the encounter, and the pain that had accompanied it, stalked his every step, much as he stalked others.

Quietly, he observed and listened, paying half-attention to what had been said. Three more people, names he wasn’t particularly close to or had really spoken with, but the fact they had been together worried him.

Father Wolf had been able to get the best of the others in spite of their abilities, their power and practice. And the hitwoman, the crystalline structure she’d bedded in his chest, were proof that there were people out there that could get the best of even him.

What did that mean for Luca, for Jasper and Lila, or Kenshiro?

It almost made him regret needing to leave the apartment in the night, even if for a few hours at a time, but it was difficult when the alternative was disruptive at best, and damaging for his hosts at worst.

Some sense of.... relief? Or at least what he took for relief, had washed over him when he sighted his roommates arrive, in one piece and unharmed. Except Luca, anyway.

Also, much as he had been wary of at the bar… his stony expression betrayed little as Layla and Alizee stepped in, his worst expectations confirmed.

They had joined, against his every warning.

Stupid, stupid girl.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

House on the Hill
@Shin Ghost Note

---

ambience

As people had slowly filtered away, Clancy had taken the liberty of stepping aside from a now somewhat-stable Luca to poke through the old building in a hunt for something to wear, for what was probably the nth time in as many weeks.

As it was, he had been half-naked, wearing the tattered remnants of his shorts with sneakers that looked as though they’d been through a woodchipper. His shirt wasn’t much better, and as he’d moved around the tattered remnants of it sloughed away like dead skin, exposing the facade of pale flesh that had by this point reformed, painted back in. Even his eye had returned to occupy the empty socket, to the point he now looked as much as himself as he ever could. 

Given he stood out, he didn’t want to draw more attention than needed. The police scanners no doubt would be alive with reports of an underdressed child if he walked out like this, and that would in turn catch the attention of the hitwoman and her employers. An annoyance that threatened to become something more, and he wasn’t eager to experience that kind of pain again.

A few minutes of clambering over the bar and crawling through crevices eventually found him something that would work for now. A leather jacket, bundled in a heap in a corner under a dripping faucet.

It had seen better days to say the least. While it was still intact for the most part, the grainy patches of white material speckled across its edges betrayed a colony of mold that had formed across the surface. For Clancy’s part, that didn’t bother him. He didn’t need to worry about breathing in the spores, and the musty, mossy odour it gave out was no worse than the other array of things that assaulted his senses out in the wilderness. 

Slipping it on, Clancy found it had been oversized for him, enough that he had to roll up the sleeves, and it extended to the midpoint between his waist and knees, but it would do. It was better than nothing, and worst case scenario strangers would not annoy him with small-talk if it meant having to deal with that moldering-grass pungence that usually came with mold.

Luca and the swordsman would probably be leaving soon, In the corner of his vision, he caught a glimpse of Britney. She hadn’t yet left.

”Did you know this would happen?” he asked, pointedly, ”Your friends and the Prom Queen.”

Britney narrowed her eyes at Clancy, resting a hand on her hip. ”You’re gonna have to be more descriptive, hun.”

Deep down perhaps, he might have understood some of it if his perspective was in a different place. Maybe if they had been desperate.

”You might not trust me, but I try to be better than those parasites. And you've worked with worse than me.”

”No, no,” Britney raised her hands. ”It feels like I am actively working with worse - but that isn’t on my mind.”

For a moment, she paused.

”You might have the others convinced you’re not a threat, but be straight up here: what are you? What gave you these abilities?”

”Feeling is mutual,” Clancy cracked back, ”Not convinced about either of us.” For a moment, his face scrunched, ”What am I?” 

For a moment, he seemed to weigh his options.

”Twelve-and-a-half.” He answered with a flippant shrug, motes of dust flaking off the sleeve of his moldering jacket, I don’t know.” he said, dispassionately. 

”Come now, you have to know something,” Britney pushed, ”Where did it start? If you remember?”

”I’m not an expert in this stuff, like you people, I guess I ran into the same kind of monster that you fed people like Luca and Emily Reed to.” 

The truth came sharply. Bitter, painful memories surfaced and washed over him, colouring his words. 

[b]”If you really want to know… imagine you wake up from your worst nightmare. Except that’s the last time you’ll ever get any [i]sleep[/i again. You’re cold, but you’re not freezing to death. You’re [i]always[/] hungry, starving even, but you can’t make it stop. Not really. Food tastes like… dirt, sand, dust. It’s all meaningless. And you feel the world through a filter. Pain isn’t…. It isn’t there. And you can’t die, no matter how hard you push your luck. I’ve been under cars, trains, dropped into frozen rivers and fell from rooftops. I’ve been shot in the head enough times I could spit fragments out.”[/b] It streamed forth now, a diatribe on his situation, ”Do I like that? No. Do I have a choice? Also no.”

”So… maybe I’m still me, or I’m something that has all the memories of me. And I keep going by dealing with assholes and bad people. That’s how I keep control. That’s all I’ve had to keep going. Ashley? She was family, and I’m trying to find the asshole who murdered her, and stop her idiot friends from dying the same way. Does that cover it?”

Britney was silent, as she looked at Clancy.

”… Do you remember where or when it started?” She asked. ”Something had to have changed you… unless you are an Abominable.” She shrugged.

”I don't know what that is.” 

”A magical creature basically. Some are created… some are born,” Britney explained.

”Maybe, whatever.” Clancy shrugged, ”East. Somewhere between Huron and Michigan, maybe. I was twelve-and-a-half when it got me, and I woke up like this.”

Half of the truth. The closer he got to the memory, the more difficult it was to maintain a normal composure.

His last moments alive had been inhuman terror beyond anything he could understand.

”So I'll ask again. Did. You. Know?” Clancy switched back to his original line of questioning, ”What they would become, what they would do. What would happen to them? You know that boy-... that Luca is rotting from the inside, don't you? I felt it. I could smell it.”

Britney silently averted her gaze from Clancy. ”… No, I didn’t.”

”You know now.” Assuming she wasn't lying. ”Barely know him, but even I can see he doesn't deserve that. Even if they're assholes now, I bet 8th Street didn't deserve it before they chose to be monsters. Have you thought about whether any of this could be because of that?”

He let the point hang for a moment. 

”They were calling for your blood.”

”Of course I have,” Britney said with a nod of her head, ”Look, I understand what I did was fucked up. I’m not going to sit here and try and justify or excuse it. I had this conversation a thousand times already.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, ”If it’s my fault, then it’s my responsibility to fix it.”

”Sure,” Clancy shrugged, optimistic of neither her chances nor her sincerity, ”If you want to make a start, Luca. You help him, and I'll probably keep Emily Reed from wearing your skin.”

If he could save one of them from being consumed by the monster that had taken their body, it was him.

He seemed to pause, then reconsidered.

”You said ‘abominable’ earlier. I don't know if that's what I am now. I'm Clancy Patrick. Or I think I am, and I have his face and memories. But you know these monsters better than me. If you want to do something right, maybe point me in the right direction on how to kill one of them. When our business is done, I'm going to end the thing that did this to me. I won't be anyone's problem after that.”

He offered out a hand to her, cold and unflinching.

”Deal?”

Britney hesitated for a moment, ”I’m already working on something for Luca. Don’t worry about that.” She shook her head. ”And look, at the end of the day, Emily and Vashti are my responsibility. Not yours.”

”Offer stands,” Clancy's hand pulled back, his expression creased a little further, ”You can do something good and leave the world with a few less monsters in it, for a change.”

Britney stared at Clancy, ”I think I am looking at one.”

”Maybe we agree on something, then,” The boy offered her a dour expression, ”But you're not above working with them, either.”

”No, I’m not,” Britney sighed, ”But, let’s just shake on it and be done with it, okay?” She extended her hand, and after a moment's pause, Clancy returned the gesture with a firm, icy grip. 

And maybe she needs a mirror, he considered, wordlessly breaking off from the contact as soon as they'd made it.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Ken, Leon@AtomicEmperor Luca@FernStone Layla, Spooky!Alizee@Estylwen Lila@NoriWasHere

---

“I'm already in pain, I have already lost myself…” She said. “I've had nightmarish apparitions follow me my whole life. And no way to protect myself. But…” Her eyes slid over to Alizée. “With a little help…”

Layla

"You don't get it." Frustration bubbled to the surface. Clancy's expression became a glower, crinkled with disgust. She doesn't get it. He realised she probably wouldn't get it, because she was young, terrified and desperate. She hadn't experienced the world that he had come from. To stare down the barrel of perpetual existence, with no end, no ability to grow beyond the base instincts and needs that shackled him.

He was still aware of the shadow that hung over her, but at this moment, with the fog still swirling over and around them, he couldn't discern it from the rest of the white noise. Instead, he let the back and forth continue.

“You're right. You're absolutely right. I have no right to adjoin with her, and I would never force her, or anyone, to adjoin with me.

“But I would never harm her. Connections are not made by harming others.”

Spooky!Alizee

Bullshit. The only 'connection' Clancy had ever understood was not a thing he'd inflict upon anyone. Even if Alizee couldn't realise it, he knew from word of mouth that the connetion between her and the Void Heart had been poisonous at best, a corrupting influence that had taken hold of her at an age where she was too young to know better, or say no.

Considering his own circumstances... it was too close to home to detach himself from it as he might've done with anything else that would've horrifie a normal person.

“Yes… I want this. I want to adjoin with Alizée. Perhaps… With Alizée's help, I can forget about the Void Heart.”

Layla looked over at Alizée. “Only, of course, if that's alright with you, Alizée. I uh, have a lot of baggage.”

Alizée stared for a moment, before her red eyes curled upward in happiness. “We'll be the best of friends, don't you worry.”

-

“Leon's just trying to help… I think it was an accident, but he's injured now. How can we work together as a team if we're always hurting each other?”

-

“You have a serial killer after you, right? I… understand why tensions are so tight among you, and I don't blame you. Death is… a scary experience.

“This serial killer must be the one tormenting you all. I want to help.”

She turned to Clancy. “Even if it's for selfish reasons, I want to prove that I can be better. That I can be a boon in all ways, and not a burden.”

Layla & Alizee

"Whatever. Do what you want. Don't say I didn't warn you. Both of you." His tone was callously dismissive, masking the disappointment and disheartened thoughts gnawing at him.

Even Britney had washed her hands of them, and that was one of the few places where he could say they shared the same sentiment.

Maybe he was unfairly taking the high ground, but if Clancy had been given the choice to inflict any component of his existence on another person in exchange for some relief, he would still have declined. His burden was his to carry alone.

The response from Leon's guest did little to change his opinion on the matter.

"Rousing speech, Husk. We'll refer back when someone gives a fuck... You all speak about consent and caring as if your actions reflect that. Sycamore: You could barely remember the poor girl's Abstraction, yet you deign to decide if one parasite is greater than the other. And then compare her to the likes of Emily G. Reed, or Vashti Nour? Britney's projects? Spare me your talk. You all scream about the Temple, wail, bemoan yourselves as you huddle for warmth...-"

Lelou

That he wasn't alone in expressing disgust at the sheer hubris of Leon's passenger gave him some small comfort, although that quickly evaporated upon seeing the disgust manifest in the form of the Rot bubbling to the surface, Luca's anger manifesting in the corrosive, hateful wroth inflicted upon Leon's arm. Equally, he felt some relief as the skinny latino boy managed to push it back down, with a little help from Kenshiro.

When the fire had died down, Clancy leaned in, his voice lowered enough that only Leon and his passenger were guaranteed to hear it. A seething, cold hatred gazed past the shadows of Leon's consciousness, his attention directed at her.

"Maybe they'll find out how long a parasite can last when she doesn't have a host to piggyback off. Don't try me."

The silence that followed impied neither disdain nor acknowledgement. If the host heard it, he hadn't acknowledged the warning. It may as well have been an empty scowl. But, in the periphery of his vision, Clancy caught the vague outline of a single, central digit being displayed in his direction through the dissipating fog, a contemptuous chortle whistling back at him.

Fuck you too, he made an educated guess what her answer would've been.

At least he could admit to himself what he was. It wasn't an empty threat, if he was being honest with himself - there was some intent behind it.

Leon alone was a big man, and bigger still in the monster movie outfit. But Clancy had lost his fear of big things a long time ago. Assholes with bats, knives, guns. The nazi with the axe had been big, too. The hitwoman had been a tiny thing by comparison. In some respects, that made him an acceptable target, and he was not certain whether he should have felt guilty for even entertaining on the thought.

On one hand, perhaps Leon was another victim of something he couldn't control anymore - as Luca had suffered with the Rot. But he'd just seen no less than two examples of a victim that had enabled and perpetuated the problem, giving in to what the monster wanted.

Alizee and Layla were not-so-living proof of that now, much to his disdain.

If Leon was going to enable more of the same behaviour, he was no better than them. And that made it easier to accept the idea of stopping things there and then, whatever that meant.Feral instincts aside.

It was the kind of thing Clancy could not willingly allow. It was a violation of every boundary he'd set for himself, and unlike the other monsters, he was still Clancy Patrick, enough to control himself. No matter what. It was perhaps one of the only anchors he could cling to in his perpetual existence.

"Just absorb who'll come, Ruby. Let the chaff blow into the wind..."
Back to Layla and Alizée, Leon nodded his head toward the exit.
"Come, you two. They don't want freaks like us."

Leon

"At least you can choose not to act like one." More of that unfiltered bitterness seeped out of him, like raw sewage overflowing from a manhole.

But he realised at this point they had all again become sidetracked, himself included and playing a part in the distraction. This meeting had been, yet again, a disaster. The bird-girl, Lila had a point. Ashley's group simply weren't meant to outlast their original purpose, stopping the snake. Splitting off seemed the better approach for now, until they had a common purpose that could be achieved - stopping the murderer.

Right now, in this moment? Clancy found himself standing with Luca and Kenshiro.

One of them seemed to understand his particulars better than the rest - and had taken a beating in the process, while the other at least had more common sense than most there. Neither of them had acted like idiot teenagers and brought petty arguments into the situation, and in each instance there was an element of duty in what they were doing . They understood loss, and they were willing to take responsibility.

And Luca looked as though he could use an extra hand. While he claimed he was fine to Kenshiro, Clancy could tell he was not. "Prefer being around not-assholes. You could use extra pair of hands anyway. It can't hurt me, remember?"

Clancy's voice was hushed, but there was a faint, concealed sincerity to his comment as he not-so-subtly informed the two of them that he was there. even he came across bluntly. And in truth, he felt he owed the skinny latino for the helping hand earlier.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Britney @Shin Ghost Note Ken, Leon@AtomicEmperor Linqian, Luca@FernStone Layla, Spooky!Alizee@Estylwen Lila@NoriWasHere

---

“Brother, he is my source, my strength. I have to maintain my good word. Surely he isn't the villain you make him out to be?”

Alizee

Brother. The word agitated him, and not just because he saw no familial connection between them. He had been a brother, but those days were done. Seeing the phrase come from her was salt in a wound that was unlikely to heal in his case.

"I'm not-.." -your brother, Clancy almost snapped, "Anything like it is playing with you. It doesn't think on human terms. It doesn't care. It can't care. It just takes what it wants." There was conviction in every word when it came to the 'Void Heart'. He understood the kind of horror and pain entities like that inflicted.

The implication was that they ere two sides of the same coin.

Were they? Maybe.

She was a representation of everything he had come to loathe in himself. No rules. No self-control. Following whatever instinct came to her without questioning it.

Once, he'd felt bad for her. Now, there was a part of him coming to hate what he saw. It didn't help that she readily dove back into pleading for the Void Heart the moment the prospect of his return came up, breaking the very terms she'd agreed to.

We can't be trusted, he understood, because by nature they were driven by impulses that weren't rational to the human mind.

Outside his periphery, the larger man, Leon, had begun speaking in tongues with a discordant voice not unlike when Clancy's own voice was overlapped by the guttural feral presence pressing at the edge of his mind. But while he still spoke with his own consciousness, Leon spoke with a woman's voice. Vague phrases in French that he barely understood - he'd only barely followed his old man trading war stories over a few beers, and joking about each other's failed attempts at seducing the local mademoiselles.

He understood the phrase 'sister' and recognised Layla's name being called out. That was it. Moreso, he recognised that Leon had shifted into an equally inhuman guise, not unlike that of a movie monster. Wolfman? At this stage, it was far from the strangest thing he'd seen today. And far from the worst he'd experienced, in light of being the closest he'd felt to a living death less than an hour ago.

He observed Kenshiro giving him the side-eye, as though he was looking for help. Advice?

From his own experience, this situation, being altered made one forget who they were, and other instincts took control of the driver's seat.

"Remind him who he is," Clancy spoke back with a hushed tone, "You know him, right?" He might not have known Leon, but the others had. Maybe they could put sense in, if they stopped fighting and shouting. The lack of focus on the important things was gnawing at the bar set for how agitated he could get.

Except things got worse, and the lady immersed the three of them - her host, Layla and the spectral Alizee - in a thick, almost blinding fog.

"If anyone dares lay a finger upon this Soul, or the Body meant for her; I will be their retribution."

Leon/Lelou

"Body meant for her?!" Clancy growled, incensed at this thing trying to steer the girl "It's not happening. There's enough monsters here." He looked at Britney, and some of the others, "You might not trust me, but you know I'm right, here."

Even if they were idiots.

Some of them, anyway.

"Listen!" Clancy shouted back, marching towards the fog. By this stage, his body had almost wholly reformed. The only thing left was the singular, empty eyesocket that had yet to reform its icy orb.

With the tattered clothes that exposed most of his pale, icy body, save for his intimate components, he looked the part of someone had had been through the grinder.

"Look at the others here. This isn't what you want. Emily Reed, that Prom Queen and her pets all started from being sold to or made into monsters by assholes who thought they knew better." For a moment, Britney would've caught his cold gaze seething at her, but he continued, "And bird lady," gesturing towards Lila, "Luca, and the French Gir-.. Alizee, before she turned into that!"

The silence didn't seem to be making headway. He pushed forward. "Look at me. I never wanted this, can't die, just starving, tearing and I've outlived everything that mattered and I have nothing left. Being like this is pain. You'll lose yourself, and there won't be anything left. Like I said before, you still have a life." It was almost pleading, and the truth was he was projecting the thoughts he wished he could've projected onto himself, for making the mistake of taking a wrong turn all that time ago.

"We don't have time for this while you're being stabbed in the back by the serial killer, so stop wasting time. If there's anything left of you, Alizee, don't do this to her. Your... friends, said you were suffering. End it. Control yourself. Be better."

Clancy stepped forward, into the fog.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Britney @Shin Ghost Note Ken@AtomicEmperor Linqian, Luca@FernStone Spooky!Alizee@Estylwen

---

Clancy's initial instinct with Kenshiro had been to expect another verbal beating after reinserting himself into the situation - distracting him from the fact that Layla had been wholly ushered away at this stage. The man had seemed exacerbated at the stupidity of the group and their apparently failure to appreciate what they'd lost. Instead?

He caught a flash of teeth. A warning?

No, a grin.

"High sentiment for a ghost wearing a corpse."

Kenshiro

The blunt comment was refreshing, if nothing else.

If it was functionally possible, he'd have loosed an amused snort of his own. Instead, he repaid the gesture by not immediately recoiling at the unprompted physical contact. Sully's elixir had sufficienty muted some of his worse instincts for a period, even if it hadn't done anything to accelerate the reformation of his body.

The swordsman might have felt the boy bristle at his touch, his shoulder icy-cool to the touch.

"If I remember correctly, there are assholes with my Girlfriend's notes out there. Important fucking notes. Important fucking assholes. If it makes you Greenwood people feel safe? I'll gladly lend myself to hunting for some other artifacts associated with you... Murakin Kenshiro; you call me Ken. I'm sorry for... Well, assuming you had shot our friend here."

Kenshiro

Clancy again found himself surprised a moment later by that final comment, adding a "Definitely wasn't her."

To be called a friend had higher meaning for him than Kenshiro probably could've known

There wasn't much time to ruminate on it, however. A tear opened up before them, behind the disappearing man, and then an atrophied hand reached out to grab his collar.

Then, the rest of her emerged.

The girl was in chains, spectral, fractured. She wasn't whole much as in the same way he understood he wasn't whole. But what more, he recognised her within a matter of seconds, and realised he wasn't the only ghost in the room anymore.

There was no mistaking it.

When he'd last seen her, in the flesh with the parasite, the presence had stood out to him apart from the rest. After all, predators usually could recognise one another when skulking in the same woods.

Except there was no parasite this time.

Just the French Girl.

And this time, she'd became a monster herself, or something close to it. The chains, which seemed to act as extensions of her as they snaked out towards the others, all but confirmed it to him.

No. It was not a fate he'd have chosen, to come back like this with all that he'd known now.

The others hadn't recognised it, or refused to. But it was definitely her, reeked just the same they had the night outside the strip club.

Things moved fast.

The blinding light erupting from some of the others wasn't much incentive to throw in, but he took a step forward, positioning himself somewhere between Kenshiro, Luca and the new Alizee, but not making a move further. His singular eye - the other barely yet to reform - remained fixed on the chains, wary they might close on the others.

Thanks to Sloane and Linquian, that never happened, and she surrendered of all things, withdrawing her appendages to her person.

If he had a heart, it would've quickly sunk. She explained herself to Jack - in a language he couldn't follow - and then he realised that it was the parasite she was looking for. That her sense of identity had been so fractured that she had the name, the face, but not much else.

Shades of everything else.

”... You are Alizee, but at the same time, you're not Alizee. You're not our Alizee. Alizee Alteri was shot to death by the Wolfpack, then the Hound took what he needed, and the leftover consciousness, psyche, and memories, formed an entirely new being and, well... became you.”

Britney

Britney's rationalisation had perhaps made the most sense to him, in a way that cut almost as much as the hitwoman's shells had taken chunks out of him.

He vaguely remember waking up to this. But unlike her, he remembered almost everything. A childhood. Friends, family. Barbecues with Dad and Uncle Gerry. Nearly falling into a ditch when Frank took them racing down the trail on his Indian Scout. Judy and her bird feathers.

And the absence of it all, which hurt in a way that couldn't be described in words.

”You’re not a person.”

Luca

Luca's comment had caught him the most off-guard, although he understood it. The skinny boy had been more victim than predator in the relationship with his parasite,

Clancy wondered if that description could've been ascribed to him. He wasn't human anymore, that much was clear.

At this point, was he Clancy anymore?

Or was he just the memories he retained, wrapped up in the facade of the boy that had been.

Like the hitwoman had said, he was functionally a corpse in either case, and regardless he had no intention of letting her follow the same path he'd been dragged down. Maybe there was some sense.

"Trust me. You don't want this, whatever you're looking for in that parasite isn't worth it." If he'd had a chance to get her alone, before she died, he'd have told her as much then. Now? "You'll never stop wanting and you'll hate every moment you continue existing. You want purpose? Don't make this harder. Put the chains away. You don't have time for this."

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

House on the Hill
@Estylwen@Shin Ghost Note

---

For a little while, Clancy let Ruby run through her introduction, her agenda and the usual spiel.

She shook her head before she continued. "Lyric Brown and Felicia Harvey were murdered by the Das Sonnenrad cult and robbed of their artifacts. Lyric herself was an artificer, and we've been trying to track down her artifacts because hell if we're going to let some skinheads use her hard work to commit hate crimes."

"So, if you can help us find those, then that'd be great—but I don't want to seem like we're doing this for something in return."

@Shin Ghost Note

Skinheads. Nazis. Clancy had no shortage of enmity for their type. Assholes through and through, and his family had a painful history with them of which he'd only teased out in snippets over time.

The name Das Sonnenrad vaguely rang a bell, but only from local stories. Weren't they all supposed to be dead?

That thought was dispelled shortly.

"... You're a kid,I don't know what they told you, but did you forget that you walked up, got capped by that Wolfpack bitch, and caused that absolute fuckin' pandemonium? You're not doing anything. Sit your ass down."

@Shin Ghost Note

This again. He'd spent enough time being more this than putting up the facade of the harmless kid with hands-off parents, that he'd nearly forgotten how unconvincing he was.

She had a point, but only in that he had been shot. He hadn't trashed the nightclub, hadn't wanted to be seen, hadn't asked the bikers to try and murder a regular kid for all they knew.

I didn't ask to be shot. Assholes do what they do. And I'm still around, aren't I? Quietly, he bristled with a silent irritation. If she knew what he'd managed outside of town, she might have been a little less dismissive. As it was, he kept his thoughts to himself.

At least he could respect that they seemed to have good intentions, that they wanted to deal with the assholes and the monsters out there. Depending on their interpretation of both, in different times they might've found him, or vice versa.

We'll see.

“Naomi said it herself. Alizée was getting ready to leave. She knew Alizée was easy to anger, she knew Wolfpack was on the way. She knew everyone needed to leave, else suffer. And what did she do?!”

“It's her fault Alizée is dead. Naomi goes, or I refuse to acknowledge this alliance.”

@Estylwen

Clancy was decidedly unimpressed by the host-girl's argument for railing against the Greenwood people, all things considered. Fair, they weren't people he knew, but the reason for railing against them didn't even make sense. The bikers shot the French girl, not anyone else.

Linqian's suggestion of mind drugging her seemed like a sensible argument given the stakes they were facing. Jack, the disappearing man, also had the right of it - it wasn't the Greenwood people who tried to murder people, insofsr as he could remember. The bikers were busy enough with that job, even if they sucked at it.

He wondered what stake the white-haired girl had in things to be throwing out random recordings. Had she been following them the whole time?

Eventually, the agitation at the day's events had stacked enough that he had to speak his mind.

"Idiots," Clancy growled. "You're arguing while more than one asshole is out to here to kill some of you. And me, I guess. Good luck to them there."

He pivoted at Layla, jaw set tight as he shot her a cold glare with the singular eye.

"The French girl let that parasite try and eat their friend, from what I'm hearing. They didn't shoot her. If you want to blame anyone... shooting started because I make a good target. So maybe that's on the assholes who tried shooting me. Or maybe it's just me you gotta blame for not scaring. It's shitty, but you know what? There's a mountain of names I don't even remember anymore... it's just a drop in the bucket."

The memory of that cold, entropic embodiment of predatory contempt that had taunted him only added fuel to the fire, the more he thought about it. That it had seen him as something amusing when he wanted nothing more than to be far away from some monster'us plaything.

"You and the French girl... Alizee? You were being played, and you're getting weepy over some parasite that fed on people, no rules, no limits... I get it - it sucks, because I know what it's like to be alone and stuck that way, always cold and starving." To emphasise the point, he jabbed a finger at the as-of-yet empty eyesocket and the black void contained within. "Nobody asks for it. But at least you got away from that, you still have a life... until this wolf asshole sticks you in the back and you waste it-.."

He was about to say more, but Adora - Adoras? He hadn't noticed that before - all three of her had stepped in, and he could see she was trying to defuse things before it descended into another pissing match over stupid high school grudges. Given how fair she'd been with him earlier, he felt a need to try and give some credit where it was due, and not worsen that.

He shot her a knowing look as the door clapped behind them.

"-..be angry, but deal with the assholes first.."

That much he said to the rest of them, still left in the room.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

House on the Hill
@NoriWasHere@FernStone@Blizz@Shin Ghost Note

---

Greenwood?

Clancy had almost missed their arrival, in the throes of pain. And they'd come bearing pizza.

The sight briefly invoked a memory from long ago, being taken to some pizza parlour on a stop in Chicago when he was a little younger than he'd been, but that quickly soured as he realised he'd all-but-forgotten the taste of it, much as he had with most other things.

Now? The thought of that invoked memories of the slice of cold hawaian pizza he'd left moldering in the motel room, a few weeks back. Thinking of the man who'd purchased it, and his intentions for that first night in town, had left him with a bitter impression.

Clancy's attention, for a moment, shifted back to Luca. There was a genuine guilt that one of the few people he could verify as both alright and trusting of him had been hurt, as a consequence of trying to help him - a relative stranger, a monster who had seen and done things that most people of his youthful visage did not.

”Well, you’re alive and in one piece now,” he noted. ”That’s the important thing, isn’t it? You might want to keep close to some of us for the time being. Just in case this woman wants to finish the job.”

@Blizz

Stormy's choice of words made him almost chuckle at the irony, but he only offered a muted answer.

"Sure."

As for the others, they were still watching him with wary apprehension, or preoccupied watching each other. That much he was conscious of - he got the impression of bad blood between them. Could he blame them?

Not really.

“There's more than Father Wolf and 8th Street after you people…”

@Estylwen

Somehow, the white-haired girl - Luna - had managed to elicit a bitter chuckle from him. "Some more than others." That he was on the shitlist of someone who had the ability to inflict the sheer damage and pain that they had to him

Anya seemed to quickly shut down any further conversation on that topic, strangely so. The abrupt nature of her comment further cemented the impression he had that there was bad blood that he wasn't too clear on. Ashley had only given him broad strokes, and he hadn't probed past that. It wasn't like there was an encyclopedia on these people and their problems.

When he was introduced by name to the Greenwood people, he offered them a shrug from his hunched position against the wall - it probably did him no favour, given that his left shoulder was far from okay, still little more than a shadowy, skeletal outline that contrasted with the reforming patches of pale white skin creeping inwards from the rest of his battered body, like spilt paint spreading across a canvas.

This Ruby White introduced herself and her friends. Then, he felt their 'healer' Kashmira speak in some strange language before a green wave washed over those in the close vicinity. Something about it felt familiar, invoking memories of a trashed parking lot he'd barely heard out on hs travels, before a certain familiar, green irridescence washed over him without any clear effect - still tattered, still skeletal in patches. It felt warm, which was strange, because warmth was something he almost never felt unless he ate.

And the hunger far outlasted any brief release he might experience.

That also reminded him; hos shirt and pants were ruined, which had meant another trip to the store with some other wallet he'd swiped.

It was hard to go out and buy clothes when you looked like you'd fell through a woodchipper, even if you eventually recovered from it. Naked and underclothes children attracted attention, particularly in a time where phone, dashboard and surveillance cameras were all the rage.

This used to be so easy.

To distract his mind from the frustration at that fact, he turned his attention back to the Greenwood people. Their naming conventions were... unconventional to say the least. Maybe it was something about the almost sing-songy nature that reminded him of a dumb fairy tale, like one of the Disney showings he'd been taken to at the movie theater when he was just a little younger than he was.

"And I'm Peter Pan," was his response to that, before he shifted to business, "I don't know you people, and you won't know me... this coven stuff is all new to me, but I've taken care of myself long enough to know there's other stuff out there, so I can guess you're here for the right reasons? Not to be assholes?"

"I want the asshole who killed Ashley. I can’t rule out that it someone who knew her and everyone else in this room that dealt with the snake years ago. That's the common lead. But while I'm at it, there's some people here that she probably cared about. And 8th Street... that prom queen who runs them is a problem, and she obviously doesn't give a shit who or what she steps on, like uh-"

Clancy shot Lila a glance, then parted the fingers of one hand to make a wing-flapping gesture "-bird-lady here. And I'm still not convinced she isn't part of it, or knows more than she's telling about the murders. The others are assholes," then, for a moment, he shot Luca a glance, "Mostly assholes," Clancy corrected, "But it's just her and a couple others making the asshole decisions, right? Emily. That Vashdee or whatever. The rest are people who just think they want to be her, or think she can help with their problems."

His contempt for Emily Reed was written on his face, a crinkled expression rendered even more grotesque by the fact he was still missing a quarter of his face, where his eyesocket and the corner of his jaw had yet to reform, leaving a dark, empty pit in their absence.

If any of his family were left, he doubted they'd have approved. But they weren't here, because the world wasn't fair, and so he'd even things out his way if he had to.

Because he had to.

"What do you need to get them alone, so they can be taken apart one-by-one?"

The phrase he was looking for was decapitation. A decapitating strike, to take the head off the snake.