Of Apples And Spooks

Mavis had been planning this for a while. Ever since Mori, her beloved Mimikyu, had laid that egg. Maybe a little before that, if she was honest. The important thing was she had an idea, and once it was in her head, she was going to make it work. This plan in particular was very important. It could make or break the next stage of her life.

She decided to put her plan into action at the final stage of the gym challenge, after the final battle. That in and of itself had made her a bit nervous, she had to admit. If anything, she was hoping she'd be able to ride the adrenaline rush from a successful battle to give her the courage to just do it, but if she lost the opposite could happen. She could lose her motivation and her bravery, could chicken out and never get a good opportunity to do it again. When it came down to it, however, she really didn't need to doubt herself or her abilities. She was a strong trainer, highly skilled, and a brilliant strategist, if she did say so herself.

So here she was, nervous, fiddling with the hem of her shirt, still in the Champion uniform because she honestly wasn't sure if she would have time to change, so best not to chance it, about to talk to him.

Mavis had had the courtesy to do this away from the public eye. She had asked Bede to come with her to a side room to talk about something important. Hop said he would make sure no-one disturbed them, no fans or journalists, no other gym leaders, not even well wishing friends and family. She was thankful for that. Hop had been the first person Mavis had told when she realised she had feelings for Bede, and the first one she told when she decided she was going to confess her feelings to him. He had been nothing but encouraging and supportive the whole way, her best and most reliable friend right through to the end.

"So?" Ah yes, back to the present. Bede was watching her fiddling with her shirt, a look halfway between amusement and concern on his face. Had he ever seen her quite this flustered? She wasn't sure. "What do you need to talk to me about?"

"Oh! Right! Well...first, I need to give you something. Sort of a gift."

"'Sort of' a gift?"

"A gift."

"What for?" Now he just looked confused. It wasn't like he'd done anything to merit this, or like any kind of special occasion was today as far as he knew. She shrugged her bag off and began to dig through it.

"That's what I'll need to talk to you about." There it was. She pulled a pokeball from her bag and opened it. There was a flash of light, and then between them stood a single small Mimikyu in a shining silver disguise.

"A Mimikyu." Bede stated blankly as Mavis continued to pull things from her bag.

"That's right!" Laying a smaller bag on the floor beside the Mimikyu, she waved her hand at the Pokemon excitedly. "This is Spoop!"

"Spoop...you named your Pokemon Spoop..."

"Yep! She also answers to Spooplet. A Spooplet is the proper term for a baby ghost, after all."

"It's...really not."

"Yes it is."

"Fine, whatever, I'm not going to argue with you over something so stupid. Why are you giving me...Spoop?" He pulled a face when he said the name. It almost made her laugh.

"Okay." She stood and clapped her hands together. "So your gym is fairy type, and I know you don't have a Mimikyu, and I've prepared a bunch of different outfits for her so she can fit Miss Opal's pink theme as well. See, my Mori happened to have a baby and I thought I could give her a good home with you. You're a good trainer, and your Pokemon are all happy and healthy, and having Spoop on your team now and then would help make the Gym Challenge a bit more interesting for some people, and she's grown a little already, I think the two of you would get on really well. You're the best person to give Spoop to and I know she'd be really happy to have a trainer like you." She crouched down and gently lifted Spoop into the air, smiling all the way. That was when Bede seemed to notice the shadowy arms of the Pokemon. They shimmered and caught the light, and were tucked behind its back, carefully concealing something.

"Is she holding something?" He asked, craning his neck to one side to get a better look.

"Spoop has a gift for you too!" Excitedly, Mavis spoke to the creature cradled in her arms. "Show Bede what you have for him, sweetie."

Spoop made a noise that sounded happy and drew her hands out from behind her back, waiting until Bede held his own hands out before handing over the held item.

It was a red and brown ball with green extras attached, made to look like an Applin. "She's giving me one of her toys?" He asked, turning the ball over in his hands. He looked confused again, and honestly unimpressed.

"Well..." Mavis hesitated, not sure how to explain this. "Yes, but it's more what the toy is that's important."

He looked over it again. Then his eyes widened in understanding. "Are you trying to...? This isn't some kind of joke, is it?" He turned, looking around the room as if expecting to see someone spectating, laughing at his expense.

"No...Bede, no, I...I really do like you." She waited until he was looking at her before continuing. "I like you a lot. More than I've liked anyone before. Listen...you don't have to like me back, if you don't, that's fine, I just hope this doesn't make things awkward between us because the last thing I'd ever want is to lose you as a friend. It would be nice to be a little bit more than friends, but if friends is all we'll ever be then I'm okay with that too. And you don't have to take Spoop if you don't want to, I just thought this would be a better idea than giving you a real Applin. After all, you don't train dragon or grass types, and you'd bond a lot better with something you could use in battle. I thought it would be better if I went to the effort of, you know, personalising this confession to you, showing you I do care about you and that I know you fairly well and all. I wouldn't say perfectly, but I do know you. Anyway, you wouldn't have had to take Spoop if you didn't want to at all, it's just a cute way of presenting the toy Applin with a bonus new friend if you do want to take her." One of the problems with Mavis was that when she got nervous, she rambled. Figuring she wasn't going to stop talking any time soon, Bede quietly handed the toy back to Spoop.

This action actually caused Mavis to quiet down, however. Maybe she thought this was a rejection, or maybe she recognised she was about to get an answer of some kind, but whatever she was thinking, she trailed off and looked at Bede expectantly. The quiet as Bede tried to figure out what, exactly, he wanted to say wasn't that long, but seemed to drag on for an eternity. Finally, he seemed to decide. He nodded, reached out to take Spoop, but let his hands rest over Mavis'. "I do too. Like you a lot, I mean."

"Really? Really?!" With a squeal, she shifted Spoop to one arm and threw the other around him, pulling him into a hug. Squeezed between them, Spoop also wrapped an arm around him, deciding she might as well be a part of this hug. As for Bede, his arms were trapped between them whether he wanted to hug back or not.

In the end, Spoop went home with Bede, and the two trainers decided to give a relationship a try. Bede had tried to say Spoop should stay with Mavis, giving the fact they may have already bonded as a reason. She suspected that really he was just embarrassed at having to use the name 'Spoop' in a battle situation. Spoop herself had chosen to go with him in the end, and with them they took the little bag Mavis had given them, full of various handmade cloth disguises. A Sylveon, a Hattrene, a Snubbull, all sorts of different fairies to disguise as. And of course they brought the Applin ball along. It was, after all, Spoop's favourite toy, and part of a precious and heartfelt gift from one of Bede's favourite people.

((I find it hard to write for Bede. Like, really really hard. Spoop is best character. This can count as Dressedinpinkshipping because Mavis is my version of the female player character.))

The Hanged Man

This 'dark secrets' thing was...interesting, to say the least. Morihiko had no idea what was in the little despair envelope that held his secret, nor did he know who had it, but he could bet it was a hell of a lot more incriminating than the one he'd been slipped. It simply informed him that one of his surviving classmates tended to piss the bed. Not exactly the kind of reality-twisting secret that would cause someone to commit murder.

It wouldn't be hard to figure out who this secret belonged to. Part of Mori's job involved following people and learning their routines, learning their secrets. It almost came naturally to him. Almost as naturally as his killing did.

Being introduced by the goddamn bear as the 'super high school level assassin' meant everyone knew right away that this tiny asshole had taken lives before. Being forced into a game of kill or be killed meant they wanted to keep their distance from him. He didn't blame them, of course, and even if he did talk to them, he didn't really have any way to relate to them. He didn't know anything about what was popular or any of their talents or interests, he'd always been painfully awkward. It didn't bother him any more. Trying too hard to get closer to these other kids would just cause problems down the line anyway.

He checked a clock as he passed. Half an hour until Kai's yoga session in the entry hall they'd all met in. Did he want to go this time? Did he want the false sense of community and relaxation to distract himself? He'd been to the one that took place in the morning, before breakfast, for the early bird kids, because Kai always said rising with the sun and greeting it with a smile was good for you. Only three of the other kids had turned up and it had been awkward. You couldn't even see the sun down here, so he had no idea what she was blathering on about.

Yoga wasn't for him, he decided. He decided to go get some exercise in at the room that had clearly been decorated to resemble a school gym, likely to give a false sense of normalcy. There was some halfway decent equipment there, at least. He'd never be as good as the super high school level basketball player, but he could try his best to throw the ball vaguely in the direction of the hoops. If he had a greater height and reach, he figured he could be a fairly decent player.

With a sigh, Morihiko pushed open the double doors to the gym, and froze at the sight before him.

Now, by this point, Mori had seen many dead bodies, and had made many as well. Even if he hadn't been known as a killer before, this wasn't the first death to occur here, and nor would it be the last, The body was even in a better state than the previous one, but that wasn't hard to achieve.

Before him, swinging ever so slightly on its rope, Nolan Alzanar's corpse hung from the central scoreboard. His wrists were bound together, and his ankle, just the right one, was tied with the rope attached to the board. The other leg was spread to the side by gravity. The body itself was badly beaten. Bruised, bloody and swollen, Mori almost hadn't recognised the victim. Blood had collected beneath him in a messy puddle, and had been sprayed further out still by the force with which he was attacked. Postmortem, judging by the careful avoidance of the main puddle, the words 'THE HANGED MAN' had been painstakingly written over the floor and wall in the victim's blood. Large footprints led away from the body and to the door, but stopped there.

Not wanting to disturb the crime scene, Mori very carefully stepped around the footprints and came closer to the body. It was suspended quite high up, high enough that if the body was beaten after being hanged, it would have had to have been done by someone tall. Even then, a tall person would had to have used a ladder to reach the scoreboard. There was a baseball bat from the equipment store discarded carelessly to one side. It too was soaked in blood. For now, he would assume that was the murder weapon. Again careful not to step in the blood, Mori went over and tried to get a rough estimate on length. At the longest, it would be perhaps forty two inches in length, which would give a reach of three feet. There were no drag marks to suggest a specific place of death or attack prior to being hanged by the ankle.

Mori returned to the body. The victim's eyes were open and stained by burst blood vessels. The blood pooled beneath him was still wet. The murder had been done with malice and forethought, and an undue amount of brutality. Before he explored any further, he would have to let the others know what had happened. He turned to the door, and there stood a very frightened-looking Hiro Shironuma.

"Hiro!"

"Is he...?"

He didn't even look back at the body. "He is. We need to let the others know about this."

She gave a shaky nod and took off down the hall. He made sure to close the double doors before following.

When everyone in the entry hall had been gathered and brought over, with a few students still absent, the body discovery announcement went off, which quickly had the rest of them scurrying over. At that point, the investigation began proper. It was quickly noted that the large footprints could only be matched to the clown-sized feet of Jun Fujita, the basketball player, who conveniently had misplaced his shoes. With no ladder in sight, and the rather abrupt end to the footprints, however, Mori wondered if there was a chance someone was trying to frame the big guy. It wouldn't be too difficult, with his habit of isolating himself, but his constant presence in his room also meant it would be harder to plant hard evidence on him.

That was how Mori found himself in Jun's bedroom, looking for clues. Either some way to prove he hadn't done it, or some way to prove he had. A collapsible ladder was thrown into one corner, and unfolding it showed blood on some of the steps, but something seemed strange about it. Mori couldn't figure out exactly what it was that bothered him, so he folded it back up and put it back where he found it.

The wardrobe against the wall had several copies of his uniform and underwear thrown in haphazardly. No sign of blood or damage. A yoga mat had been rolled out on the floor. Jun had likely been using it when the announcement had gone out. He wouldn't have been wearing his shoes to do his yoga, and there was no sign of them in the room, not even the telltale smell of sweaty feet. There was another smell in here, one that Jun had attempted to mask with deodorant. The smell of urine. He approached the bed, where the smell was strongest. Hesitantly, he went to peel back the covers when he noticed something else. A sheet of paper peeking out from beneath the pillow. He decided to examine that first, and found the secret Jun had been given by Monokuma. The words on the paper simply read 'This student stole money from their mother's purse as a child'. It didn't seem worthy of murder. He tucked it back beneath the pillow, gripped the edge of the duvet between thumb and forefinger and peeled it back from the mattress.

Brown stain. The bedwetting secret Mori had been left with belonged to Jun. That coupled with the secret Jun received suggested he lacked motive to perform such a brutal killing. That would be important to mention at the trial. Embarrassing Jun by admitting to everyone that he'd pissed himself was definitely preferable to letting him get blamed for murder and having them all killed for it.

There didn't seem to be anything else of note to examine in Jun's room, but Mori doubted he was the culprit. Someone had certainly clumsily attempted to frame him, however. Frowning, Mori began to turn away, to leave the room, when something struck him hard on the back of the head.

It was like someone had hit him with all their strength. His knees buckled and he fell forward, sprawling on the bed. His face was lying in the piss stain, but that was the least of his concerns. Someone had attacked him while he was investigating. The same person who had killed Nolan?

He had to move, to get out of there, but his vision was already fuzzing over, his body refusing to cooperate. Through the haze, he saw someone. Small, smaller than him, a blur of black and white cloth and white hair, a bloodied baseball bat in her hands.

"Hi...ro...?" He tried to ask, to call out, to do anything, but he wasn't sure any noise escaped his mouth. Realising the single strike hadn't done the job, Hiro swung the bat again, hitting the same point on his head, cracking his skull.

Mori wasn't sure if he died at that point, or if he just lost consciousness. He didn't know if Hiro continued to bash his skull in, or if she was merciful enough to stop once his life had slipped away.

He'd been sure he'd been alone in that room, would never have expected someone to even have the balls to try and kill the Ultimate Hitman among them. He'd let his guard down like an idiot.

Someone else would have to figure out who killed The Hanged Man.

((This was originally meant to focus much more on Nolan's death and murder, but, uh, I got sidetracked...instead, I might write a second part that focuses on Nolan and the one who actually killed him. Nolan and Kai belong to a friend of mine.))

Clipped Wings

It had been a rough fight on unfamiliar ground. The three of them had been tracking down a crimelord who had been causing trouble in their home town for years, who had gotten away the last time they fought and who had since been hiring supers to deal with the heroes he might encounter in future. The man's ambitions had long since grown from power and wealth to something far more sinister. He delved into revenge fantasies and dreams of obliterating vast expanses to the south. Essentially, he may well have gone completely insane. There was also a theory between the three of them, Minh, Hien and Thanh, that something else may have been pulling the strings, something not entirely human. Overall, whatever was happening here, it was dangerous, and they needed to get to the bottom of it.

The three heroes had ultimately tracked their prey, a greasy and violent slimeball by the name of Thoi Ngoc, to a vast expanse of sand and heat. Minh wasn't entirely sure where they were geographically, it was Thanh in charge of navigation. It didn't matter. They thought they were about to corner him, and he sent his top bodyguards on them, because of course he did. He was desperate. It was just a little confusing, though, because unless one of them had the ability to make them all invisible, there was absolutely nowhere in the flat, plain heat hell they could have been hiding.

He recognised one of the three bodyguards. A Latina girl, he didn't know her real name, but she went by the alias of Gigantica, because she could grow bigger than the trees. He'd fought her a lot in the past, and the two definitely hated each other. The second appeared to be a man who had been alongside Ngoc many years back, one of the men in his original cartel who must have also survived the raid. Though he looked to be Vietnamese, despite strange, inhuman eyes, he introduced himself quite amicably as Firebreath Qinni, and had spoken with a strange accent, one Minh couldn't quite place. The third was a bored looking white man none of the three had ever seen before, but every step seemed to send a quake through the ground. He was the smallest of the three, but seemed to carry some major power in that small body of his. Quake didn't introduce himself, never once opened his mouth to speak, just moved to protect his charge.

It took a long time to settle, during which time Ngoc had successfully escaped. Now, Minh didn't consider himself the strongest in the team by any means, far from it, the situation was a good one for him. The only one who could fly, nimble and quick, and more resistant to fire than the others, luck was in his favour for a short while, and he was able to deal some damage. Hien and Thanh had been taken out, and he was flying around, buzzing by Gigantica like an annoying fly, albeit a fly that could breathe fire and had caused partial thickness burns here and there already, trying to avoid being swatted out the sky by her. Below him, Qinni and Quake were either out for the count, or playing dead. He didn't really want to find out which one. Hien was bleeding badly, Quake's powers having caused his armour to splinter and cause him harm, and Thanh was unconscious. Minh wasn't badly hurt, but he was tired. The fight was close, and he couldn't be sure he would win, even if his opponent was struggling to land a hit. One wrong move could end with him crushed like a bug.

Minh made a decision. He decided to swoop down, grab his friends and beat a retreat. Positioning himself, he dived down behind the enemy, toward Hien. The Guardian was starting to look scarily pale. He drew close, outstretched his hands, and something shiny and sharp burst from nowhere and hit him in the chest.

His own speed, mixed with the weight of the impact, sent him spinning back across the hot sand. He tumbled, like falling down a flight of stairs, and ended sprawled in a less than comfortable position not far from Gigantica's foot. Near The Guardian, a woman slowly stepped out into existence, holding two long, bladed weapons dripping with blood. She had brown hair, greying, tied in a bun that made her look like Miss Trunchbull. She was older than the other three, and sunburned. Minh hadn't realised there had been a fourth enemy lurking around, but it sure explained why the others had been so well hidden. There was little miss invisible, here to ruin the day. He wanted to get up, get away, but the hit to his chest had winded him badly. He managed to get a hand to his chest, and was surprised to find it stung to touch. His hand came away wet, and he became aware his shirt was also getting soaked with something other than sweat.

The bladed weapons. The fourth hadn't just hit him, she had sliced into his flesh. He wondered if she would have made herself known if he hadn't tried to escape, or if she would have gone and killed his friends unseen. Fuck. Fuck, this was bad. He had to get out of there before it got worse. Keeping one hand to his chest to stem the flow of blood, he reached his other out to pick himself up

and Gigantica picked him up faster. Large fingers closed around his waist, trapping his elbow to his side. His stomach dropped out as she lifted him into the air, bringing him to eye level. The fourth enemy flew up and sat on Gigantica's hand, next to her captive.

"What should we do with him?" The big lady asked the small one as Minh tried to struggle. He couldn't move his legs, and breathing in was hard, so he could hardly get a spark out of his throat. He beat at her fingers weakly with his free hand, but that did fuck all.

"I have a few ideas." Answered Invisible, as Minh decided to dub her. "Take him down to ground level so his friends can see. I'll wake the boys."

Gigantica shrunk down, but kept her hand large enough to hold him, tightening her hold just briefly to make him stop struggling. He cried out weakly, not having enough air to scream. He shut his eyes tight, not sure how long, but when he opened them again, Qinni and Quake were up again, stood in front of him with Invisible. He tried to take a deep breath, but it came shallow and painful. Qinni leaned in close and drew a sharp fingernail across his cheek.

"You're the kid Gaddris saved." He mused, cocking his head to one side curiously.

"G-Gaddris?" Minh hadn't heard that name since he was fourteen. He sure wasn't expecting that name from this man's mouth. "How...how do you know Gaddris?"

"Gaddris...he's no friend of mine, if that's what you're thinking. Quite the opposite." He circled round the hand, and Minh turned his head to try and keep him in view. "The real question is what Braveheart Gaddris would want with a human child in the first place. Of course, he's no ordinary human child." He felt the man touch his wings and shuddered. "Someone's been sleeping with humans, I see. Which suggests you're a family relation?" He heard Qinni spit. "That's disgusting. That's like if a human had a baby with a dog." None of the others seemed at all offended by Qinni's words. In fact, they seemed to be watching him as though awaiting orders. Behind Minh, he gave a firm nod and wiped his hand on his trousers. "Let's clip the wings of Gaddris' little champion here."

"No!" Minh started to struggle again. "No no no, please, no!" It had been so painful growing them in the first place, he'd been through so much just getting them, and if he couldn't fly, he and his friends would be stranded in this desert, left to die. He heard something wet tear behind him, and saw bits of Qinni's clothes and skin fall to the floor.

Quake gagged and turned away. The hand that grabbed Minh's wings was now thicker, clawed and scaly. He really was whatever strange thing Uncle Gaddris had been.

"Please...please no..." Minh begged again. "Please d-" He cut off with a strangled squeal as Gigantica tightened her hold again. He heard pops and cracks as joints dislocated and bones broke, and by some miracle managed not to cry. He panted for breath and felt a pull at his wings.

Maybe it wouldn't be too bad, he thought. Maybe they'd injure one wing, stop him from flying, and leave him there. Maybe someone would come to save him. They had devices on them they could activate to send out an emergency distress signal, they could have called for help as soon as the villains left them be. Maybe no-one would die today after all.

"Kristen, Ram, come give me a hand here, will ya? Kim, be a dear and hold him steady." Invisible and Quake walked round behind him to join Qinni. Quake still looked a little ill. Three pairs of hands gripped his wings, and at Qinni's command, they began to pull.

At first, it was tugging, pinching, then muscles pulling and tearing, the joints of his wings dislocating. There was no way the three of them would be strong enough to fully rip his wings of, though, right? Nails and claws were digging into leathery flesh, and Minh was crying now. He was sure every joint he had in there was gone, and they were still twisting and pulling. He wasn't sure how long they were pulling for before they stepped away, getting their breath back. They sure as hell weren't going to move any more, sure as hell weren't going to fly.

"Think he's had enough?" Asked a man's voice.

"Not nearly." Answered a woman. "He burned my face! My face, Qinni! That's my best damn asset!"

"Yeah, it's fuck ugly now. You have blisters all over the place."

"He likes his wings so much, I want them ripped all the way off!"

"See, I only want to hurt him because he's with that fuckhead Gaddris. You have a personal vendetta."

"You know how many times I've fought this little idiot? Enough times that I'm not satisfied seeing him blubbering like a baby. Little dream crushing fly."

"Oh, go for it. Just make sure to save some for us too, yeah?" And with that, he was being lifted up again, and now it was Gigantica's finger and thumb on his wings.

It was as easy to her as pulling the leg off a Barbie doll. The sensation of having a body part physically torn off was one he couldn't really describe. It hurt, it was agonising. Flesh and sinew tore, and he felt his back try and go with it. His shoulders pulled back with the force, his body almost bent double. For a moment, he thought his spine would snap in two. He was faintly aware that he was screaming now. It seemed like an eternity, and then his back was a mess of torn, bloody flesh. He saw his wings thrown carelessly aside, and then...she opened her other hand.

Minh fell, no way to save himself. If he hit the ground from up there, he would certainly die, but there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He shut his eyes and awaited his fate, pain rippling through him still. He couldn't even think about the wind rushing by him or the ground coming up to meet him. All he could think of was the pain.

Mister Bones' Wild Ride

John liked to go and see the strange horses when he could. He didn't like many animals. He didn't like slimy textures of toads, and the last owl he tried to stroke bit him, and cats always had people cooing over them because they were cute, too many people. He would also pet them too hard, or pet them in the wrong place, and they would get sad and run away, or scratch him. He was learning to get better at that with Riordan's cat, which was slowly starting to trust him.

The good thing about the strange horses was that people didn't crowd around them. They looked kind of lizard-like, which he didn't like when he first saw it, and bony. Skinny. They let him come over and pet them, and didn't get upset by how he did it. They made horrible noises sometimes, but that was it. Overall, the strange horses were nice.

It had become habit for him now to take some bacon from breakfast, or ham from lunch, and hide it in his school bag until he had a free hour or half hour to go and see the horses. They liked meat, he'd found, so he would bring them meat from the hall.

Normally, he would go alone to see the horses. Today, Eric followed him, even though it was raining. He'd seen him grab a wodge of ham, fold it neatly and put it away in his bag, after all. He had questions, and lots of them, many of which he asked as they trudged through the mud towards the forest.

"So why do you keep taking ham out here?"
"For the horses."
"...Horses don't eat meat, John."
"These ones do. They're magic horses."
"...You mean hippogriffs?"
"Less feathers."
Eric thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know what you mean, mate."
"They pull the carriages at the beginning of the year."
"...The carriages pull themselves..."
"They pull the carriages." John insisted, winding his way through the trees. Eric dropped it, and followed quietly. Eventually, John stopped and laid the ham out.

They waited a few minutes. "Where are they?"
"They'll come for the ham if you're quiet."
So Eric crossed his arms and tried to find cover beneath one of the trees, waiting quietly until John called him.
"There! A big one. See it?"
There was nothing there, as far as the blond could tell. "No."
"Some people can't see them. I don't know why. Maybe we can ask Hagrid about them." From Eric's point of view, ham disappeared from the floor as John patted the air. From John's point of view, he was petting a thestral as it ate some ham.
"So how come you can see them and I can't?"
"I don't know. I said I don't know."
"Can Riordan see them?"
"I don't know."
"Can Penny see them?"
"I don't know."
A third voice cut through to them before Eric could ask another question. "Honestly, you two, what have I told you about hanging around out here during storms?" It was Violetta, another friend of theirs. John bet that Eric was about to ask if she could see the horses. He barely spared her a glance.
"You'll get cold and sick out here in the rain." He recited, still focusing on the horses. "Go inside and warm up. We can have hot chocolate."
"Sometimes, it feels like you and Penny are our mums." Eric muttered.
"I like seeing the horses." John explained. "They don't mind the rain. I don't mind the rain."
Violetta looked directly at them and smiled, coming forward to pet the same one John was. "You mean the thestrals? Yeah, they're pretty cool, huh? A lot of people who can see them don't like them. They're associated with bad omens, which is bullshit, and people think they're creepy. They're really sweet and affectionate though. Wild ones and trained ones. The ones in the forest are trained, I think."
"They don't bite, like the owls do. I have a scar on my finger from the owls."
Eric huffed. "How come you can both see them and I can't?"
Violetta was looking at the scar on John's finger as she explained. "They can only be seen by people who have seen and come to terms with death, that's what I've been told."
"Oh...well, John boasts that he stabbed someone once, so that explains that..."
"That guy was worse than the owls." John agreed with a nod. He then pointed back to the Thestral. "I call this one Mister Bones. I don't know if he actually is a mister. I don't know how to tell short of looking between the legs, and that's rude."
"I thought you liked being rude to people."
"Yes, people. Not to horses, though. The horses have never done anything wrong."
"Fair enough."

John stopped petting the thestral and spoke to Violetta. "You saw death?"
"Once. When I was little..."
John chose not to pry. It was rude, and Violetta was one of his best friends. "I've seen it a few times. People would get hurt or get cold and not make it. Then I came here and saw the horses and I didn't care any more. I like normal horses, too, but I don't see them nearly as much as I get to see these ones." They were quiet for a moment, and then he said "I was little too. Old enough to understand, but still young. And stupid. When I first saw someone die, I thought I was with a family I'd be with for the rest of my life. I was six, I think, and all the other families had decided they didn't want me. Fostering, they said it was, I wasn't technically adopted, not even with this couple, and it was always really upsetting when I went back and forth between houses, I didn't like it. The dad that time died suddenly. The mum was out somewhere, and the dad choked on lunch and died in front of me. I think the mum blamed me. Most people, I tell them the first person I saw die was my real dad, and he deserved to die, but it was the dad I had when I was six. He was nice. He used to carry me on his shoulders and put my name into songs."
"Oh, John, I'm so sorry." For a moment, Violetta reached out to touch his shoulder in a comforting gesture, but read his body language and pulled back at the last minute. He didn't like unexpected touches, after all. He gave Mister Bones a few more pets, then turned on his heel and began to walk away.
"I need to go to the toilet." He announced. "I'm coming back afterwards, though."
"What about charms class?" Asked Eric.
"Fuck charms class."
"Huh."

Once John was out of sight, Eric approached Violetta. "He really likes you, you know."
"Yeah, I'd hope so. We're good friends, at the very least."
"Yeah, but he likes you more than Riordan or Penny. He shares with you without being asked. I think the only person he likes more than you is me."
"Uh huh, sure."
"I mean, it's impossible to like anyone more than me."
"Yep. You're really full of yourself, Eric."
"I know. You love me anyway." He bumped shoulders with her, then sighed. "John once told me 'I can't stand blond people, but I'll make an exception for you', and from him, that's a huge compliment. That's the day we became best friends. I think I'm gonna embellish it in future, make it sound cooler. Include pirates, maybe."
Violetta nodded. "Stuff it with pirates. John will always tell the real version, but you can make it wilder every time."
"Definitely. He's honest to a fault, that boy." Eric gazed to the empty space where he thought the thestrals were, and felt an uncomfortable feeling in his chest. A tight ball of sickness. He couldn't see these death horses now, and now he knew they were seen only when one had witnessed death, he wasn't sure he wanted to. If anyone around him was going to die, it would be his sister with her awful habits and self-abusive behaviours, and he didn't want to watch her go, then be reminded of that every time he saw a horse. With a shudder, he shifted closer to Violetta, using the cold and the rain as an excuse, never willing to admit he needed comfort.

((This started off as just Eric, John and Vi bonding near thestrals and then part of it turned into 'hey, remember how John's life sucks?', then turned into 'Eric has death-related anxiety'. Violetta does not belong to me.))

Blep

"Why are you wearing such a low cut top? What if the others see you?"

The comment had taken her by surprise. First and foremost, her top wasn't even that low-cut. Her chest was certainly covered modestly. She looked down at herself, trying to figure out what was wrong with it, and he continued on with his sweet but somewhat possessive talk. About how he loved her and she was his and his only.

Now, she knew he didn't mean it in a rude way, she knew damn well he was worried about other men staring at her boobs, but when he critiqued her choice of outfit, it felt different to her. It reminded her of years of being told she couldn't wear what she wanted to, because her body was something that shouldn't be seen.

Dajoo had thought she'd looked good when she first put this shirt and skirt on. It had been a risky outfit when she'd bought it, it showed off a fair amount of skin without being indecent, but to put it simply, Dajoo was not a slim girl by any means. She'd been told so many times that she couldn't wear this or that because of her weight, but when she'd gotten dressed that morning and taken a look in the mirror, she had genuinely felt beautiful. Really, really beautiful. It wasn't often she felt good about her looks like that. She'd been bullied for years for her weight, her albinism, her hearing aid, the fact she didn't look a thing like her sisters, anything that made her different, and it had undoubtedly had an effect on her, but today she felt beautiful. And usually, Zen helped her feel beautiful.

But not today.

Today, he told her not to go out in public in clothes that showed this much skin. Today, he told her to cover up. Today, he told her he didn't want other people to see her body. And though the rational part of her knew he was saying she was too attractive to be seen, at least in his eyes, that other men might do something nasty or try to take her away, the irrational part of her mind insisted he was saying what everyone else said. That no-one wants to see her. She felt her eyes sting and an unpleasant feeling well up in her chest.

No. No, she wasn't going to cry. She was going to be an adult, and politely ask her boyfriend not to tell her off for wearing nice clothes in public. And maybe ask that he try not to get so jealous or possessive, because as sweet as he was, it honestly scared her a little sometimes. But first thing was first, she couldn't spend the rest of this relationship second guessing everything she wears because he might tell her to cover up again. She would talk to him as soon as he was finished filming.

RB Short

Looking up at the familiar old house, Sean felt a wave of nostalgia. It looked just as he remembered it. The white walls, the brown tiles and burgundy door, chipped paint on the window frames and a well kept lawn with purple flowers lining the walkway. It was two floors, three bedrooms, one bathroom, and had a small garden at the back for children to play in.

Many years ago, Sean had lived in this house. He had been a young child living a happy life. He had had toys, a family and a bed. That had been a good time. And here he was, staring up at the house he hadn't seen since the day his parents died.

It had been a long time since he had come to this house, and never once in this timeline. Not this version of himself, and not this version of the house. Sean had been searching for a reality like this for a long time, and now he was here he wasn't sure what to do next.

The reality in which Sean now stood was the first reality he had located in which his mother and sister were still alive. It was also a reality in which he had died, or perhaps had never been born. He was sketchy on the exacts, but he knew there was no Sean Tavistock in this place.

Someone cleared their throat behind him, and he turned to face them. It was a woman and a young girl, maybe about ten years of age. The girl was unfamiliar to him, and he didn't know her name, but the woman was unmistakably his mother. It had been a long time since he'd seen her, and longer still since he'd been this close to her.
"Excuse me," she said, biting her lip slightly and pulling her daughter closer, protectively, as if she feared the ragged man before them. "Can I help you?"
At that moment, Sean wanted nothing more than to hug her, to hold her tight and inhale her perfume and pretend she really was his mother.

He held himself back.

"No. I used to live here, is all. I just...wanted to see it again."
Honor, his mother, frowned, as if she didn't believe that. "You look very young."
Of course. His mother had lived here a few years before he had been born. He shrugged. "I get that a lot." She wouldn't believe the truth even if he told her. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am." He walked past the two of them, letting his gaze linger on their faces for a little too long.

He saw, in that moment, what future awaited this version of Honor Tavistock, or rather, Honor Mitchell, as in this reality she returned to her maiden name after her husband tried to kill her before killing himself, and her young daughter. In a matter of months, the two of them would be dead. Illness was coming to this reality, was already sinking in, and if he stayed too long, he would catch it too. His eyes began to sting, a ball forming in his throat and a weight in his chest. All he wanted to do was meet his baby sister just one time, but he couldn't even ask her name without earning a look of fear and disgust from the woman he had once called mother. There was no recognition, no sign of care or concern. Just...fear. Some belief that the man in front of her meant her harm.

This reality was a failure as well. He'd never intended to stay, of course. He had more waiting for him in his home reality than he would ever have here, but for just a moment, stood before his childhood home, with his mother and sister stood with him, he could pretend. Pretend he was normal, pretend he didn't have his powers and that he hadn't seen his own death thousands of times over, that he lived in this house with this family instead of in a storage unit with toys and memorabilia from the various worlds he'd visited. It was a warm thought, but as he stood there, at the end of the drive, eyes closed and trying to imagine, his body just felt cold. Cold and sad. He heard the front door go as Honor and her daughter retreated inside, and knew they were about to report his behaviour to police. Instead of crying, he made sure no-one was looking, and went home.

Soul/Whisper Baby Short

It had been way too long since the team had all sat down to breakfast with each other. So much had been happening as of late. With Tarquin alone, there was the issue of balancing his hero work, royal duties and trying to upkeep a healthy relationship. Never mind the fact that he'd been laid out after his most recent battle with, among other things, a particularly nasty concussion. As it was, he still wasn't quite on top form, but he also didn't want to spend longer than strictly necessary in the medical bay.

Everyone was sat down, happily enjoying a meal made by Shard and Hex, and a good one at that, but Tarquin had to admit he was a little...distracted. the others were holding a conversation, and he kept out of it with his head injury as an excuse, keeping his mouth full so no-one would ask him to speak. 

When everyone had come into the kitchen that morning, he had noticed something unusual. A thrumming, fluttering sensation at the edge of his senses that seemed to be attached to Whisper. Like something else was there. At first, he thought it might be an insect on her clothing, but he couldn't see anything. Other than appearing tired, she also seemed entirely unbothered.

The fluttering wasn't an entirely new sensation. He was sure he'd felt it before, but it wasn't something he was used to, and he certainly wasn't used to sensing it among his friends. Taking another mouthful, he tried to think about when he'd felt this before.

Here and there, from passersby on the street, and for a while, from Zhen's boyfriend as well, though not the same. At the time, he was undergoing some form of impossible pregnancy via demon possession. The parasite attached to the girl from Skylark had also given off an awful fluttering, but both of those instances had been clearer than this, stronger, solid and more...unnatural, disturbing even, than this. The life energy of a fully formed being within another, such as a parasite, was always a strange sensation, but there was something about these demonic beings he had encountered that was...unnerving? Revolting.

Even so, the thought of some form of demonic being attaching itself to Whisper was concerning. He would have to bring it to the attention of the others. But the sensation didn't quite match...it wasn't the same unnerving thrum, but more the gentle pulse of...of...what was it?

There was some kind of memory his mind was trying to recall. Something back from the shimmering plains he had once called home. It eluded him the more he tried to force it, so he backed up, focusing once more on the sensation itself.

Moments of little thought passed, and he found his gaze drawn to his sister, across the table. She seemed quite proud of herself. Whisper and Shard had been teaching her to read and write, and she'd taken to it well.

Viahar...

That was it!

The fluttering pulse sensation was the exact same as one he had once felt at age six, from his step-mother. He had asked her why her belly was pulsing, and those around him had been confused. He was scolded for saying strange things, but his mother later explained his step-mother must have been pregnant. Indeed, some time after, it was announced she was expecting. The fluttering sensation he had felt was the moment his baby sister's heart began to beat for the very first time.

It was a warm memory, despite the scolding. It had been his first real experience of the beginning of life. And now he could feel that very same first heartbeat feeling as he did back then from right...beside...him...

Wait.

The same sensation as his sister's first heartbeat in the womb.

From beside him.

Where his girlfriend sat.

The girlfriend he'd been sleeping with before he was injured.

She...

Whisper was...pregnant?

The realisation stunned him. A tiny gasp had part of his breakfast go down the wrong way, and he began to choke. Around him, he heard sounds of concern, felt Whisper's hand on his back, but, aside from trying to breathe, his mind was focused on one thing.

He was sure of it. Whisper was definitely pregnant.

McCalither Short

Caius and Kirby always thought it was weird, those little coincidences where the same thing just happened to occur at the same time. For instance, if something startled both of them and they both happened to drop what they were holding. Or they happened to say the same thing at the same time. They often said that that came from growing up together, having a similar sense of humour. A friend of theirs did that with her mother a lot, after all. Went to make the same joke at the same time. Sometimes, saying the same thing at the same time was annoying. Like some stupid perpetual cliche, like they were following some stereotype forced on them, or like their brother was copying them. And there was something that happened sometimes, when they would happen to speak in unison, even if it was just one word. 'Would you like a drink?'
'Yes.'
And if they both answered the same thing at the same time, eyes would light up, because there's some kind of novelty to twins doing the same thing at the same time. Even with fraternal twins, people get excited by something as silly as that.

Caius didn't remember many of the specifics from each encounter with someone who was genuinely curious about his status as a twin. He wasn't sure if Kirby remembered any of them clearer than any others either, it wasn't something they spoke of often, besides the occasional mockery of a particularly stupid line of questioning shortly after the idiot had left them be. He did remember one of those particularly stupid people had been a woman who approached the two during their summer holidays, when they were about eleven or twelve, to ask them for directions. She wasn't especially old, and might have been a teenager herself, but he wasn't sure. Kirby had tried to help her out while Caius stood by, using the fact that they themselves weren't familiar with the place as an excuse, and once they'd done their part as good citizens, the lady turned to them with a smile.

"So if you're not from around here, where are you from?"
"England." Kirby replied vaguely.
"Well, yes, but where?"
"We can't tell you." Caius answered.
"Why not?"
"You're a stranger."
"And much older than us." Kirby added. "Stranger danger. All the kids at schools are told this when they're little."
"Because anyone could swoop down and abduct a naive six-year-old." Caius agreed with a nod.
The woman stared at them blankly, like she was shocked by their outburst.
"How...how old are you two?"
"Eleven." They both said at the same time, before giving each other a 'did you seriously say that at the same time as me?' type of look.
"And you're on holiday together?"
"Yeah." They said it together again, but Caius asked it, like 'why wouldn't we be?' while Kirby just sounded sick of this line of questioning.
"You must be really good friends then."
This lady is creepy, Caius thought as they both replied "We're brothers."
"You're the same age."
Kirby rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's called twins." He told her. "Two kids born at the same time. It's not unheard of."
"You can't be twins, you don't look anything alike."
Kirby was probably the kind to just call her an idiot and walk away, or loud and slow, just tell her they were fraternal twins, but Caius was the kind to smile sweetly and launch into a full explanation about genetics, zygotes, and the differences between identical and fraternal twins. Which was exactly what he did. He even went to the effort of explaining that blond hair ran in their family on both parents' sides, while Caius himself must have gotten his dark brown hair from their brunette mother, and thus segued into the topic of how genetics could skip generations and how people could carry recessive genes but not actively show them. The woman tried to interrupt him several times, possibly to state she understood or she didn't care or to make some excuse to leave them be, but Caius kept talking and talking until he was sure he had covered anything, and then cheerfully ended his spiel with 'any questions?'.
"I guess you're the smart one." The lady stated.
Caius blinked, then looked at his brother. "She just called you stupid." He told him.
"At least, compared to you I am." Kirby pretended to agree. "Like I could ever learn that piece of biology that I always thought was taught to every eleven-year-old going to any normal school. It's far too advanced for me. Not like this is what we were being tested on right before the school break or anything."
"Maybe she's just jealous because she isn't very smart herself." Caius started walking off at that, as the woman behind him started complaining that that was a very rude thing to say and that she hadn't once said Kirby was stupid. Kirby showed the woman his middle finger before following.
"Do you think mum will buy us ice cream if we ask real nice?" He asked his brother as he caught up to him, the woman already forgotten.
"We can tell her we were accosted by some creep in the street when she sent us off to explore on our own, and that we all need ice cream to get over the shock."
"I don't think she'll fall for that one."
"But Juliet will, and if all three of us are asking for ice cream and Julie thinks we're upset and scared she'll be more likely to cave and Julie will be nice to us. Win-win."
"Using a small child's emotions to your advantage. Devious. I like it."
"I'm secretly an evil genius. Watch me take over the world. With ice cream."
Kirby nodded. "I mean, if there was an election, and one of the candidates was promising to take over the world with ice cream, I'd vote for them."
"Exactly. It's the perfect crime."
"I won't bail you out when your life of crime gets you into trouble."
"Well, that's just like you."
Kirby shrugged. "I'm tough, and I'm not getting dragged down with you."
Caius pouted for a moment. "Meanie." And with that, they made their way back to their mother.

A Brief History Of The Costiel Family

It was said that the Costiel name was cursed with bad luck. It was, according to legend, a curse that dated back to when the family was headed by Helgi Costiel, who had had a reputation as a womaniser. Back in that day, the family had been a wealthy and noble pureblood family, one considered to be full of talent and intellect, and overall treated with the utmost respect. Helgi, supposedly, had earned the ire of a young witch who was adept with curses, and even known to design her own. Essentially, the young woman was of exceptional talent, far more so than Helgi himself, or his siblings. The legend went that he had scorned her, some tellings even said he left the woman carrying his child, marrying a woman of higher social standing and ignoring his firstborn and its mother. So curses were weaved against the Costiel line, against those baring the noble Costiel name.

After Helgi, it was noted that every first born, every true heir to the Costiel family, was a son. There were no families of just daughters, so the name was assured to hold strong for longer.

It began with Creole Costiel, the illnesses that swept across the family. The crushing ill health that plagued him, his siblings and his own children. Frequent and incurable illnesses. Creole himself suffered for years with breathing difficulties, fits, blackouts and fever severe enough to send him into delirium. He was known, during these episodes of delirium, to become deeply distressed, and to even cause harm to his family, much to his own horror. He died young, but not before marrying and producing an heir, Farkis.

It was Farkis who lost the family their entire fortune. Through debt, gambling and poor choices, most said, but it really did seem to just...slip away from him. Suddenly everything was gone, and with no siblings to have taken a share of the initial fortune, nor a share of his debts and responsibilities, Farkis found himself destitute, and far from the top where he had started.

Tobias was born into wealth as the eldest child of Farkis, and was there when they were dumped into poverty. Starving and struggling to support his family, in a time when assistance would not be there for him to turn to, Tobias thought to do the unthinkable. In a moment of desperation, he throttled his youngest son and fed the meat to the family. As he seared the meat, he made a promise to himself that he would not think to do the same thing again. Not three months later, Tobias killed his eldest son, Erasmus. Once again, he ate the remains, finding it far more satisfying than before. The next year, he and his wife were blessed with a new child, a daughter, and he smothered her before they even registered her birth, before she had time to become thin and weak from deprivation. In the end, he was known to have murdered three of his children, his wife, and his only sister.

Hephaestus, taking over as heir upon the death of his elder brother, found his nights plagued by nightmares of the horrors he had seen growing up, and his days of flashbacks to being forced to eat members of his own family, of the constant fear that he would be the next one killed to satiate his father's insane desires. His mental state spiralled down continually, until he was left in an irreparable state. In the end, he lived out his days at the mercy of asylum doctors, treated as no longer human for the absence of rational thought within his mind. He died screaming.

Columbus Costiel was the one who decided to try and implement arranged marriage to improve their family's standing. Their reputation had been destroyed from generations of murder, insanity, illness and the like, but if they could join with families of higher repute, they in turn would find their condition improving. Columbus and his brothers worked hard to find a way to undo this curse believed to be upon them, and it was the youngest, Aenas, who found he could confirm without a shadow of a doubt that there was indeed some form of magic affecting their lives. Without a full knowledge of the original curse cast, however, he could not undo or dismantle it.

It was Columbus' great grandson, Genesius Costiel, who discovered that his cousins did not seem to suffer from the curse. His seven sisters were all murdered, some for being discovered as witches, others for finding love with a psychopath, and others still for angering the wrong person or even just being in the wrong place in the wrong time. His cousins, however, all born to his father's sisters, lived normal, fulfilling lives, and ones without illness, insanity or the overhang on various disaster. It was Genesius, therefore, who wrote of the belief that offspring of the Costiel line who did not hold the Costiel name were not afflicted by the curse. After this discovery, many of the younger sons chose to change their name at marriage and disappear into a safer family line, their cursed heritage eventually forgotten.

Fursey Costiel, a further few generations down, was known to suffer from a great paranoia. He believed his younger brother, Viti, to be having dealings with what he referred to as unnatural creatures. Werewolves, vampires, veela and the like - this wasn't entirely false in and of itself, as Viti did in the end have a child with a veela woman. The true paranoia came in the form of Fursey's increasing belief that Viti wished to kill him and become the heir to the family himself. Nothing could quell his intense fear and distrust building toward his dear brother, especially not once Fursey had it in his head that his brother had allowed himself to become a vampire. In the end, Fursey turned to a good friend of his, Orestes Lang, whose family were strict in tradition and well trained in the art of vampire hunting. He begged Lang to take care of his brother, and Lang conceded. Viti was then abducted by Lang and three others, and despite the four agreeing he was most certainly not a vampire, they tortured the man to death without a second thought.

Fursey's second son, Garridan, was then formally executed by Lang, alongside his lover, after they tried to elope together. Garridan's lover, Ebony Lang, had disobeyed her family's traditions, and had chosen to elope after becoming pregnant with Garridan's child, knowing she and her child would likely be killed anyway simply for the pregnancy, or for having any relations with a man not chosen for her by her father.

Gundulf Costiel was publicly scorned for his own child born out of wedlock. An illegitimate baby boy whose birth killed the mother. His resultant wedding to a miss Gardenia Hubbard, said to be of exquisite beauty, a wedding arranged by the parents of the two, was known to be terse and unfriendly. They never shared a room, and never produced a child. Gundulf's family did not wish for his illegitimate son to become head of the family, but that is exactly what happened.

By the time Scipio Costiel was head of the family, the arranged marriages once suggested by Columbus had began to bring good fortune once more to the family, if only by a slim margin. Scipio lived within comfort enough that he felt no undue stress over his survival, his lack of finance or the idea his family might starve. Scipio also was known to believe that naming his children names intended to bring good luck would protect them from the curse.

He was wrong.

In the end, all but two of his children died in childhood. Fortunato and Prospero, the surviving brothers, did extensive research into curse protection during their lifetime, and wrote that they believed that actively naming one's child after a place, a city or a street in which they once set foot, would form some sort of protection from the curse. A Costiel would not be fully protected, and would still suffer the effects, but it was thought to drastically reduce the severity. Much of their research was later destroyed in a flood. All that remained for the next few generations to work off was that if they used street names for their children, words on road signs they had seen in passing, their children would be safe.

By the time Woodbine Costiel was leader of the family, things were really looking up. He needed only to marry his eldest son into the right family, and they would be back to the wealth they once held. Ruxley had always been rather rebellious, in all honesty, but he was in good health and had a good head on his shoulders. If he could stand still and do as he was told long enough, he would undoubtedly be a very successful man, and potentially the saving grace of a family once thought to be doomed. Alas, his rebellious nature won over when he eloped with a woman named Mel, who was not only not of a noble and illustrious family, she was not even of magical blood.

Ruxley had run off with a muggle woman, much to the disgust of his family. And it was Ruxley whose family experienced the worst run of luck in many generations, because he'd heard the stories of how the children would suffer if not given the 'protected' names, and though he thought it silly, he still named his eldest son for a street. Only after that, the husband and wife decided that they should be able to name their children as they wished, no curse could stop them.

Ruxley's second son, Lexius, fell ill in childhood, was often kept inside for his health, and was known to cling to his elder brother for his own lack of social skills. The one time he ventured out without permission, he was attacked. It seemed the worse his luck became, the more he dragged down the wellbeing of his siblings. It was no wonder his family withdrew from him. He lived the rest of his life often feeling hunted and alone. The drag down on the other sons of Ruxley slowly pulled them into illness, fear and distrust of each other. The home would become stained red with the family's blood all too quickly.

The next heir would be Rosebury's first born. He too would be cursed.

Luck was overall a very fickle thing, and difficult to grasp hold of. The curse would rage on many generations more, attempting to overcome any barrier the Costiels put to it to protect themselves, before one day someone might find a way to lift it.

Perhaps the secret to undoing the curse lay with the descendants of the witch who first cast it.

Thunderstruck

The machine made an unpleasant sound. A warning blare that sounded over and over, which couldn't possibly be a good sign. Tarquin's understanding of the machine wasn't great, but he figured it was some sort of energy generator. The exact medium was a mystery to him, but he knew electricity was involved, and he knew the villain they'd been after had been tampering with the machine with the goal in mind of causing an explosion.

Tarquin never did understand bad guys who wanted to just destroy, especially if that destruction endangered the bad guy as well. His own drive for causing trouble had never been just 'break shit', and he'd never seen damaging property as a primary objective. His own motives had mostly been survival and revenge, and revenge was usually directed at a single person with limited crossfire where possible. Hex had liked to cause random chaos and damage back when he'd been a criminal, but that had mostly been out of anger and confusion, which Tarquin could sympathise with, he supposed. But when a person destroyed with intent to trigger mass genocide, now that he couldn't quite understand. Even coming from a land where torture was a regular occurrence, it seemed weird to just slaughter hundreds upon hundreds of innocents for whatever reason. He didn't even approve of the mass cullings of his homeland performed to prevent further spread of plague. Not that such measures had worked in the first place.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. To an extent, the man's sabotage attempts had failed, but to an extent, they had also succeeded. Again, he wasn't quite sure about the exact specifics of the thing, his area of expertise was definitely not electronics. He couldn't even figure out how the basic communications devices his team leader had provided him with worked. But he understood the basics of what was happening here, because it had been explained to him.

Elsewhere in the building, whatever sort of place this was, Shard and Hex were running to shut down the whole system before disaster could strike and the overload or misdirection or whatever it was caused an explosion large enough to take out all of...where were they again? Whatever. It would be difficult, and if they couldn't figure out how to shut the whole energy system down in time, it would be down to the team holding the bad guy captive near the explody thing to stop the explosion.

What he did know about his part in all this was that the machine had some major electrical charges firing through it. Some things had been moved out of place, but couldn't be put back safely while everything was live, which was what was causing the overload, if he understood correctly. No human could touch that thing right now and survive.

But then, Tarquin was no human.

He'd seen it before it had been tampered with. He could see which parts were out of place, and where the missing connector was. Flesh conducted electricity, so he himself would work as a connector until the thing was switched off, and he could delay total meltdown. At least, that was what he hoped.

With that thought in mind, Tarquin had stepped closer to the exposed parts of the machine, startling slightly when someone grabbed his wrist to stop him.
"Stay back." Whisper warned him.
"It's broken. They're taking too long. If I just move that wire and plug that back in, it gives them more time, right?"
"Tarq, no, you can't touch it. It'll electrocute you to death."
He gave her a scathing look. "You know my powers, right?"
The grip around his wrist tightened. "You can direct electricity."
"A Shadow Meister can conduct and direct electricity. It's a form of energy that agrees with us. I am not human, what may kill you will not kill me. But if that thing blows, it won't just take us out, it'll take a lot of innocents out as well."
She thought it over for only a moment, weighing up the pros and cons, the possible dangers. Tarquin was right, of course. The electricity wouldn't kill him, and neither would the other things this thing was doing. "Be careful."
"Plug the thing in, move the wire back in place and bridge the gap where the other thing was meant to be. I can do it."

Of course, while it was absolutely true that there was no way that this action would kill him, he did have to admit he didn't have total immunity against electricity. While a normal Shadow Meister would think nothing of 200 volts shot through the body for an extended amount of time, regardless of how the current was acting, Tarquin was not a normal Shadow Meister. He was a halfbreed, and he had his limits. He gave one last glance back to the members of the team still watching him - he was pretty sure Zhen was in charge of the prisoner, Viahar and Astral were in charge of evacuation, or being evacuated, one or the other, and that Crayon had decided to draw something that could potentially contain the blast - and offered a cocky smile before reaching out to grab the wires.

Electricity always looked for the fastest path to the ground, and once his skin touched the uncovered wire, he became the fastest path. While the charge would not kill him, it sure would hurt. His muscles spasmed and he felt flesh burn at the entry and exit points - his palms and feet. It was a bit more intense than he'd expected, he'd have to admit. Regardless, he had a job to do, so he tried to grit his teeth against the pain, tried to stop screaming, tried to keep his eyes open just long enough that he could reroute the wire in his hand. Somewhere vague in the back of his head, he thought he heard Whisper call out to him, but for the time being he ignored it. It was just a burn. Or four. Or more. It was just his muscles going a little too tense and really not wanting to move. It was just an outside stimulus irritating all those old wounds that would never heal quite right. It was a body he knew acting in a way he expected that would not be too badly damaged by this. It would hurt, but he would be fine. He would feel every part of the path that electricity took, and he would be fine.

The wire was back where it needed to be. He stepped back, taking a deep breath, and reached for the plug.
"Tarquin, stop!" He heard Whisper approaching. Her powers were electricity-based as well, but she was still human. He didn't know if she could survive touching this thing, especially since he didn't know what else could be leaking out of it, so he did the only sensible thing he could think of. He threw his shadows out behind him to push her back, and picked up the next bit. The plug. If he was correct, it went...there!

The sound that came from the thing, accompanied by the bright flash, was one he would describe as a mini-explosion. It also earned him some more burns, which hurt like a bitch, but that was inconsequential. He shook it off with a few nasty words in his native tongue, tried to ignore his team leader's attempts to force her way through his shadow shield, and went to bridge the gap. Connect part A to part B and break the feedback loop. Use himself as a conductor. It would hurt until Hex and Shard succeeded in switching it off (or it exploded after all) but he figured he could manage it.

At some point after that, he must have blacked out, or been really stunned, because the next thing he knew, he was flat on his back on the floor, looking up at a completely dark room with all the power off, and with someone sat by his head. Whisper, most likely. He could still acutely feel the burns, and an unpleasant urge to vomit, though that could have been the lunch he'd eaten earlier - it had had leaves or something in it and he'd almost immediately thrown it up again, but it was entirely possible that some of that was still in there, unable to be digested.
"I take it...we all lived?" He managed, squinting through the darkness.
"Just about..." He tilted his head back so he could see her. She looked angry. "What were you thinking?"
"'Prevent unnecessary death'. I think I did. I told you I wouldn't die. I never said it wouldn't hurt or make me sick." Using his elbows rather than his hands, Tarquin tried to push himself up to a sitting position. The wave of queasiness quickly pushed him down again. He heard Whisper heave a sigh.
"We've had the 'full disclosure' talk before, haven't we?" It was an understandable situation, but..."You nearly gave me a heart attack there. Are you okay?"
"...Just need some rest. Already feeling better." Again, it wasn't a lie. With no electricity coursing through him, nothing was being irritated by that path. He was just tired and nauseous now, which was normal when he'd overexerted himself, and any of his powers could cause him to overexert himself. Not that his health had ever been great since he'd met Whisper, but potato potato. He felt her take his hands and examine the burns, wondering how good her night vision was.
"We'll get Viahar to look at you. There's bound to be something for burns back at the tower, too, so you should be fine...just..."
She went quiet, and he pushed himself up again, managing to stay mostly upright this time. "Just?" He echoed, peering through the dark curiously.
"Just...don't scare me like that again, okay?"
He offered a smile he hoped she could see. "No promises. But I'll do my absolute best."

A Lesson In Self-Defence

It happened at the same time every Wednesday night, like clockwork. Like some sick ritual Mr Cura always had to stick to.

It had been this way ever since he'd been moved here. Ever since the courts had ruled Mr and Mrs Bergameschi incapable of caring for their own children, because that was why he was here. A vulnerable and neglected child, with only his big sister to rely on.

Big sister wasn't with him here. It was just the boy, and a few other children from bad homes moved to here for their own 'safety'. Supposedly Mr and Mrs Cura would take good care of them, keep them safe and ensure no further harm could come to them. They'd gotten Bergameschi a tutor who wouldn't ask too many questions, changed his entire wardrobe to clean and crisp outfits of their own choosing (and certainly not something he would have chosen for himself), and picked and chose who he could spend time with. At first, he questioned none of it. It didn't seem bad, or sinister, not then. They seemed like ordinary people, and the government trusted them to care for children already in a vulnerable place, so surely they had to be good people, right?

But if that were the case, then Bergameschi wouldn't need to stay awake all night, watching the clock like a hawk, waiting for Cura to make his way to his room. Sometimes he would just sit on the bed and talk. Never nice things, though. Always things that made his skin crawl. Other times, Cura would get physical. It was something he never wanted to relive.

He was sure the other children stuck here were suffering abuse as well. He could hear screams and cries. He was suffering more than he ever had been before, and nothing he could say to any authorities seemed to help. Every case meeting, he would say the same thing. "The Cura's are abusing me and the other kids. I want to live with my big sister instead."
And every time, he would hear back "We'll look into it" or "Your foster carers are here to help" or "You must have been really traumatised by what happened before, but it will be okay now" and they would never do anything to help. There had been so many custody hearings as well, where his sister had tried to get her brother transferred to her house, but the boy remained firmly at the Cura household.

He'd tried to run before, as well. The police had found him pretty quickly. He'd ended up right back where he started, and the officer he'd spoken to had even laughed at him when he'd tried to explain why he ran.

Exhausting all his other options, Bergameschi lay awake, staring at his clock, hand curled under his pillow and around the handle of the kitchen knife he'd managed to sneak upstairs when no-one was looking. He wasn't crazy and he wasn't lying, and if he had to use violence to protect himself then he would. He refused to be a victim any longer.

The clock ticked over. 2:34. 2:45. 2:46.
Creeaak
He hated the door. It gave the slightest creak when it opened, and he winced, tightening his hold on the knife. Cura stepped in, humming something ever so softly. Some Duran Duran song from however long ago. The bed dipped beneath his weight as he sat beside the boy, and Bergameschi felt him hesitate.

It had to be obvious that he had no intention of going to sleep that night. He lay there fully dressed with his glasses still on, body tense and eyes wide. He heard Cura tut.
"Now why are you still awake?" He leaned over, close to him. A hand was near his head, unpleasant-smelling breath tickling his skin. "It's two in the morning, you know. You'll be exhausted if you don't get your sleep." This was followed by a slight chuckle, as if he didn't wake Bergameschi up every Week at half two anyway. Cura braced his hand against the boy's pillow, moving so he was practically straddling him. His hands were positioned to support him and touch the boy's head. Nothing free to protect him from a single strike. With his head that close, it wouldn't be that hard.

Without a moment's hesitation, he'd pulled the knife from its hiding place and plunged it upward, into Cura's throat.

What happened next was by no means quick, nor was it pretty. There was a lot of blood. He recalled Cura thrashing as he plunged the knife in a few more times for good measure, never quite sure where he was hitting, not able to clearly see his target in the darkness. He kept stabbing upward against the struggling and gurgling, kept going until Cura fell still and silent and slumped down against the boy. After a moment, making sure his ex carer was no longer breathing, Bergameschi pushed the body off to the floor and inflicted a few more stabs. Just to be sure. He had to be sure.

It took a couple of minutes to calm down. He felt across the wall for the light switch, wincing when the light burned his eyes and grimacing further when he removed his glasses and saw the blurred remains of the man he'd just killed. He pulled a shirt from his wardrobe to wipe his glasses clean, the wipe that came with them having gone missing a while back, and slotted them back into place.

Odd. Murder was easier than he'd expected. He didn't feel any guilt, or like he'd done anything wrong. This was to protect himself and the other kids, after all. Mr Cura was a dangerous predator, and he was sure the bastard had abused all the children in the house in this manner. As one of the eldest in the house, at 14, Bergameschi felt he ought to protect the others from such monsters. And Mr Cura wasn't the only one to subject the already vulnerable youth to such cruelty. Sure, Mrs Cura's violence and deprivation never went to sexual levels, thank god, but it wasn't by any means any less serious. She would wake up in a few hours, find her husband dead and never pay for her crimes herself.

Well, he couldn't have that.

He wasn't sure if the struggle against his foster father would have woken the others up or not. Even so, he was quiet as he could be as he slipped through the door and tiptoed down the hall, to the door at the end where the Cura's normally slept. Mr Cura had left the door slightly open when he'd left his wife to sleep. This meant minimal noise involved in slipping through to her bedside.

Bergameschi stood stock still by Mrs Cura's bedside for several minutes, paranoid she would waken and he would be caught. Or that she was pretending to sleep, only to catch his arm when he tried to stab her. The time stretched on, crawling at an impossibly slow pace before Bergameschi steeled his resolve and struck.

Afraid she might wake later if he didn't kill her quick, he kept his blade flat and stabbed at the chest. Repeatedly. And when he was done, he backed off and sat against the dressing table, breathing hard and watching her for any sign of movement. He stayed there, watching, feeling the blood coating him dry and cool. When the sun came up, and he heard the shuffle of the other children in the house waking up, he stood again. Mrs Cura hadn't moved an inch, and when he went over to check the body, he was relieved that he could find no sign of life.

He closed the bedroom door behind him and returned to his own room, ensuring the man was dead as well before shutting his door. The least he could do was keep the others in the house from seeing the bodies. They'd been told it was an absolute rule that no-one was allowed in any bedroom but their own, after all, and Bergameschi's door had even had the doorknob removed a while back, so that he wouldn't be able to completely close it. It was just another way they wanted to take away his privacy and sense of self.

He did his very best to be quiet as he descended the stairs, creeping toward the front door, not wanting the kids to see him as he slipped out into the mild morning. Still blood-drenched, he made his way down to the local police station, followed by stares and whispers. Running. Running faster and faster, not wanting anyone to stop him and ask him any questions. Not wanting to explain what happened, not wanting to deal with their looks of disgust.

Murder was wrong, but he didn't feel wrong for what he did. He felt justified. He felt, if there was no other way to protect himself and the others, it had to happen. Even so, as he got to the station and walked up to the front desk, he was fully prepared for the consequences as he told the man sitting there "I've just committed a murder".