Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What if Asher had chosen to become an avatar of different Fear Entities other than the Eye in that The Magnus Archives fangame they played (except I got bored halfway through and didn't write all of them)?

THE BURIED

There is dirt in Asher's hair and under their nails and between their teeth when they awaken, head pounding as if the weight of the whole world is pressing down upon them. They can barely hear Mae and Patches, can barely hear the sound of their voices when they try to ask them what's wrong, why they're not saying anything, because the only thing they feel is the overwhelming pressure of dirt against their skin.

"Wait, why's there dirt in their hair?" That's Mae, Asher realizes dizzily through the incomprehensible gravity that settles upon every exposed scrap of their being. Their fingers are knotted tightly through their hair, and caked-on dirt crumbles loosely between their fingers.

Patches raises a confused eyebrow. "I don't think that was there before. You didn't put it there while I was retrieving the first aid kit, did you?"

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know, as some kind of half-witted prank?"

"That... okay, I could see myself doing that, but no! I didn't put dirt in their hair!"

"Well, either way," Patches concludes, clapping his paws together, "we should definitely call an ambulance-"

"Weren't you listening?" Asher rasps, trying so desperately not to choke on the mud in the back of their throat. "This is America. We don't have free healthcare here, you stupid fucking Canadian."

"Oh, crap, that's right," Mae realizes.

Patches glares uncomprehendingly. "That's no excuse for being irresponsible about your health-"

"It is if it's going to bankrupt my family!" Asher shouts. The kitchen rumbles and shudders as they do, plaster dust falling from the ceiling as the light above them flickers dangerously.

"Oh, come on, how much could an ambulance ride cost?" Patches snaps.

"One thousand, one hundred and five dollars. And that's not even considering subsequent treatment costs-"

"What the fuck?!"

"I know, right?" Asher nods emphatically.

"How the hell have you Americans not overthrown your government yet?" Patches demands.

Asher laughs tiredly. "What an excellent question."

Mae waves her hands frantically in a clear attempt to draw Patches' and Asher's attention. "Hey, uh, are we just gonna ignore that Asher made the whole room shake when they shouted?"

"Oh. That..." Asher frowns. "Okay, no, we can worry about that later. Right now-"

"We need to be plotting the downfall of America?" Patches suggests.

"Actually, I was more concerned about the whole 'the Batter kidnapped Kris' thing?"

Patches' eyes widen. "Oh, shit, I forgot about that!"

And so they leave the house, and nobody figures out that Asher is now a Buried avatar until Helen breaks the news to them later in the most jarring and traumatizing way possible. Oh, well, at least we got the mandatory anti-America screed out of the way.

THE CORRUPTION

"Asher!" Niko shouts, launching themself at their otherworldy friend and wrapping their arms around them, earning a startled oof followed by nervous laughter as Asher returns the hug. Their skin feels oddly warm, Niko notes as they tuck their head under their chin, almost like they're running a fever. They hope not, they don't deserve to be sick.

"I, uh... was a little unsure if you recognized me for a moment th-" Asher starts uncertainly, but as they speak Niko feels a sick writhing movement underneath their skin and jerks back in fear, eyes wide.

"...Niko?" Oh, no, now Asher looks a little hurt. "Wh-what's wrong, sunshine?"

"There was..." Niko laughs nervously as they try to rationalize what they just felt. "I think I felt something squirming? Like, under your chest or something?"

Asher's expression goes from hurt to fearful concern in a heartbeat. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You mean that's not normal?"

"No!" Asher jerks their head raggedly from side to side in objection, and as they do Niko sees for the first time a pattern of open amber sores stretching from under their jawline down to their neck, each weeping a disgusting cloudy fluid in thin trickles down their neck. "Very much not!" They're pulling away their bomber jacket, straining to push the collar of their shirt down as they press their fingers against the skin, but all Niko can do is stare in horrified fascination at the honeycombed open wounds dotting the underside of their jaw.

It's then that a worm a sickly shade of silvery-violet crawls out from Asher's chest and over their fingers, and both of them immediately lose it.

"AAAAHHH-"

"OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK-"

Kris, hesitantly pushing open the door before them at the sound of screaming, peers hesitantly through the gap between door and doorway. Their reddish-brown eyes widen as they take in the sight before them- a human screaming in horror as hundreds of tiny worms crawl out of holes in their chest and lower jaw and what looks like a small cat monster also screaming in horror- and they close the door and back away as silently as they can.

I'm too old for this shit, Kris thinks, and they pick their way downstairs. Hopefully they'll find somebody marginally less horrifying on the lower floor of this weird house.

THE DARK

The basement of Asher's house is so very dark, the only light coming from the pale sliver Asher left when they shut the door at the top of the stairwell and a tiny grime-encrusted window somewhere below. The light Asher turned on barely seems to illuminate anything, and... it's strange, but Kris could have sworn they saw reluctance on Asher's face when they pulled the little chain below the lightbulb.

Patches is weird and a little unstable-seeming, but Kris unfortunately finds that attractive, though that isn't the only reason they've ended up taking point on talking to him. Niko's nice enough, sure, but they seem to be more focused on Asher (and are visibly concerned by what they see), and Asher themself has been all spacey and distant ever since they entered the basement.

(It's strange, but as Kris's eyes briefly flicker to Asher, they see their nostrils flare and their chalky eyes widen, almost like they're sniffing the shadows...)

"I'm gonna try something," Asher announces abruptly, and then they take a few steps and... they're gone. That's it, they're just gone, like the shadows swallowed them up... or like they let the shadows swallow them.

"What?" Kris says out loud. Judging by the cute confused noise Niko made and the blatant incomprehension on Patches' face, neither of them understand either.

There's a few more moments of confused silence, and then Asher's back. No accompanying sound effect, no dramatic poof of cloudy darkness, they're just there again, marching out of the shadows leading what looks like a cat monster behind them by the hand. (Said cat monster does not look pleased by this in the slightest. Asher does, though.)

"What just happened?" Kris demanded.

"I sensed Mae here lurking in the shadows and decided to retrieve her before they consumed her," Asher informs them.

"Right! Yeah! Speaking of which! Can you let go of my hand now?!" the cat monster, who's apparently named "Mae," demands.

"With great reluctance," Asher sighs, releasing her. Mae immediately makes a show of wiping her hand on her pants, but Asher's back is turned, so they don't see it.

"So you're capable of..." Patches brings his paws together in front of his chest uncertainly. "Some kind of shadow manipulation magic?"

"No, what makes you think that? I..." Asher finally seems to process what they just did, turning to examine the shadowy basement again with a critical expression. Despite the fact that there's barely any light in the basement (just the dim lightbulb and Niko's eyes), Kris swears their glasses are doing the anime thing where the lenses go opaque. "Oh. I see."

"'I see' what?"

"There was a The Magnus Archives fangame I'd been playing before all this happened, and I went down a route to become an avatar of the Dark in it." Not that Kris understands any of the word salad that just spewed out of Asher's mouth. "I guess my player character got fused with me, and now I'm an avatar of the Dark also by proxy."

Kris claps their hands together as obnoxiously as possible. "Cool! I didn't understand any of that!"

"I don't understand any of what's happening right now!" Mae adds.

"Can we please go back upstairs?" Niko pleads. "I don't like how dark it is down here."

"Sure thing, kiddo," Asher says, patting their head reassuringly. "Just gotta go take care of something with the eldritch darkness dimension real quick." They moonwalk into the shadows, doing awkward finger guns the whole way.

Niko, Kris, Patches, and Mae are all completely silent for nearly ten seconds until Niko breaks the silence by asking "What's 'eldritch' mean?"

Before Kris can think of a child-friendly way to explain that, Asher reappears, overdramatically dusting their hands off.

"What exactly did you go running off into the... 'eldritch darkness dimension,' as you put it, to do?" Patches asks. The answer obviously isn't going to be anything good, but judging by Patches' expression he almost relishes the idea.

"Let's just say I'm not gonna have to sic the Batter on a certain mansion in Palm Beach anymore," Asher explains, which doesn't actually explain anything at all. "I have to feed that which feeds me, and since I now have the ability to fast-travel through the Dark to anywhere a shadow exists, might as well use my evil powers to do some good."

"Wh-"

"Anyway, we should get back upstairs. The Batter's probably getting antsy without supervision, and if he starts acting up I can't throw him into the evil fear void from down here... or, well, I guess I could, but it'd be, like, a whole thing, y'know?"

"You have a lot more explaining to do than just a few sentences that explain nothing at all!"

"Well, yeah, I guess so, but I'd be a pretty bad manifestation of the Forever Blind if I didn't..." Asher slides on a pair of sunglasses over the top of their normal glasses. "...leave you in the dark."

The "YEAAAAH!" meme sound from Crime Guys: Miami or whatever plays from somewhere in the darkness as Asher poses in a very uncool way.

"...what?!"

Asher un-poses. "I'm not taking off these sunglasses, just so y'all know."

THE DESOLATION

"You said this world is impure," the Batter says, cloudy smoke drifting from his mouth. "If that's the case, we have a sacred mission to fulfill. This is a useless distraction. Let's go."

There's a moment of sheer tense silence as he and Asher glare at each other, but then they shrug. "Okay. You know what? Fine."

That makes the Batter jerk his head up in surprise- neither he nor P03 were expecting them to agree. "What?"

"Fine," Asher repeats. "I'll be your puppeteer again, Batter. All I need you to do in exchange..." They extend their left hand invitingly. "...is shake my hand."

"Wh- y- are you fucking kidding me?!" Kris demands.

The Batter ignores them. "Okay," he says, and he reaches out to shake Asher's hand. It's strangely textured and gives slightly under his fingers, almost like wax. But more than that, it's...

...it's... warm.

Very warm.

Excruciatingly warm.

The Batter shouts in fright and drops his bat as his hand catches alight, tongues of flame flickering up and down his sleeves and spreading across his body as the Lightless Flame greedily, eagerly consumes him. He convulses and screams, his skin cracking and liquefying and beginning to slough off his bones like melting wax as his eyes boil and burst and run out of their sockets in the unfathomable heat. There is no room for coherent thought in his mind, no room for anything beyond an incoherent shrill squeal of pain.

"What the fuck," Mae says eloquently, averting her eyes.

Patches actually looks a little impressed, but he still pulls out his knife and points it at Asher. "You've got a lot of explaining to do," he says warningly, "and if I don't like what I hear I'm going to stab you."

Asher releases the Batter's hand, leaving him to writhe and scream on the floor, and turns to face Patches. "You're welcome to try, but from my understanding wax is generally pretty stab-resistant. Nevertheless, I'll certainly t-"

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" Asher picks up the smoke detector with both hands and sets the stupid lump of white plastic on fire before they can think better of it. "I pulled the batteries out of this thing! I know I did!"

"You did. I put them back in around the same time that Niko went upstairs," Patches says, keeping his eyes off the Batter's burning corpse and on Asher. "It doesn't pay to be a fool about fire safety, Asher."

Mae's eyes widen, and she points at the flaming smoke detector in Asher's hand. "Wait, don't batteries explode when you set them on fire?"

Asher's eyes also widen. "Oh, shi-"

BOOM.

[This program was sponsored by Portland Fire & Rescue. For more fire safety tips and further information, visit www.portland.gov/fire.]

THE LONELY

"Right, okay, so, recap." Kris slams their hands down on the table dramatically. Why? Because they want to be dramatic, and they've never needed an excuse for that. "There's the five of us in this random empty house right now- me, Niko, the Batter, Patches, and Mae- and we haven't been able to find whoever is supposed to be living here."

"I found a few family photos," says Patches, jerking his head at the kitchen fridge. "Looks like this place was inhabited by humans."

"Still don't know what those are," Mae says. Nobody pays attention to her.

"Do any of us have any idea in the slightest why we're here?" Kris asks the group at large.

"Nope."

"No."

"Sorry, no!"

"Maybe it has something to do with the weird fog that's everywhere in this place?" Mae suggests. "It might explain how cold it is, at least."

"I mean." Kris takes a moment to consider it. "We don't know anything about the world we're stuck in right now, so we don't know if that's the norm here."

"Doesn't look like there's any fog outside," the Batter points out, gesturing towards the nearest window. "And I still don't understand why none of you will let me leave. I have a holy mission to resume."

"Because it could be dangerous, mister!" Niko points out. "We don't know what's out there yet."

"I can handle it."

"Okay, well, there was a computer in the room I found you in," Kris decides, pivoting towards Niko, "so we should go check that out and see if there's anything we can find on the files there- or, failing that, the internet- about this."

"Assuming this world has an internet, or an equivalent thereof," Patches points out.

"Acknowledged, but the tech level looks 2010s-ish to me and I think I saw a Wi-Fi router on the table next to the staircase."

"Ah, fair enough."

Kris claps their hands together assertively, still having zero idea how they ended up the de facto leader of this haphazard group of people from different universes. "Alright, let's move, team!"

One floor above them, P03 glares through the webcam at the vertical cloud of fog in the corner of Asher's bedroom.

[ASHER, I KNOW YOU'RE THERE.]

The fog does not respond.

[I LITERALLY SAW YOU PANIC AND DROP INTO THE LONELY WHEN NIKO FIRST APPEARED, ASHER, STOP PLAYING DUMB. I CAN STILL SEE YOU.]

The fog formerly known as Asher remains unmoving and silent.

[PLEASE WORK WITH ME HERE, MY DIABOLICAL MASTER PLAN ISN'T GOING TO SUCCEED IF YOU'RE NOT THERE TO DRIVE THE PLOT FORWARD.]

The fog of dubious identity drifts a little closer to the wall, but otherwise remains completely silent.

[I FUCKING HATE YOU, ASHER.]

THE SLAUGHTER

It had been Asher getting the knife in the Batter just once that set them off, Kris thinks. That's how this started. They nod to themself, still feeling a little wobbly and delirious. Yeah, the first stab was what did it. Yeah.

"Should we... do something?" Mae whispers, a little uncomfortably, to Kris and Patches.

Asher remains kneeling on the floor with one foot on the Batter's stomach, frenziedly bringing their hunting knife down on his chest, his neck, his face, anywhere there's a single patch of unwounded skin, furious grunts tearing out from their throat like a many-clawed wild animal. The Batter is very clearly dead by this point, both Asher's knife and their hand are thoroughly coated in cherry-red blood, and there's crimson spattered on their face and glasses, but none of this appears to be slowing them down in the slightest.

"I mean." Kris regained control of their body a few minutes ago, but they've stayed lying on the floor because it's comfy here, and also because they're a little worried any sudden movement will make Asher turn the knife on them next. (And also also because they're pretty sure they have a mild concussion, so they don't want to try to get up and then immediately fall over again or something.) "The Batter was gonna kidnap me and carve out my SOUL or something, so..."

"Yeah, but, like..." Mae flails her hands frustratedly in the general direction of the carnage before them. "Still."

"I don't see any problems here, as long as Asher cleans up after themself," Patches shrugs. "Then again, given that they're human I'm not sure my preferred method for getting blood off of clothes would work for them."

"Which is...?" Mae prompts, hands on hips, when Patches doesn't elaborate.

Patches sticks out his tongue cutely. "Blep!"

"Why would you even need to know how to clean blood off of things?" Kris questions, deciding not to ask any of the more distressing questions they have regarding his prior sentence.

"Oh, I murdered my ex-boyfriend in the woods around two-ish weeks ago, give or take a bit," explains Patches, wiggling his paw a little.

Asher stops their furious stabbing and turns their head to look at Patches expressionlessly. "Neat," they tell him, and then they go back to stabbing the Batter's corpse.

THE VAST

"So, good news and bad news," Asher tells Patches and Mae. "Bad news is, I kind of lost my personhood to an incomprehensible embodiment of fear, so now I'm an eldritch monster."

"Well, now I am very curious as to how you could possibly get any good news from that," Patches says critically, folding his arms.

"Good news is, now I have access to an infinite sky dimension which I can use as a fast-travel system!" Asher claps their hands together. "You stay right here, I'll be back in a few seconds. Byeeee!" And with that, they rocket directly through the glass window behind them, shattering it in its entirety.

"What," Mae says flatly.

Patches nods sympathetically. "My feelings exactly."

Neither of them get the chance to say anything else before Asher flies back through the broken window and lands with a rumbling impact that for some reason makes Patches suddenly very aware of his incomprehensible infinitesimalness before the sheer scale of the cosmos. Kris is dangling from underneath Asher's arm like they're a particularly large load of groceries and Asher's a soccer mom determined to bring everything in from the car in one trip.

"You were right, that was fast," Kris says dizzily, their eyes sparkling a little. "Really fun, though. You know what, Asher? For a manipulative cosmic puppeteer, you're alright."

"Why, thank you."

"What happened to the Batter?" Mae asks.

"Dunno. Asher just flicked him and said 'go to eeby deeby,' and then the sky..." Kris, still loosely dangling under Asher's arm like a ferret, waves their hands uncertainly. "Ate him," they settle on.

"Asher!" Niko shouts, barreling through the door and into the kitchen with wide, terrified eyes.

Asher unceremoniously drops Kris on the floor (getting a strangled oof out of them as they hit the ground) and turns to face the child they remain hellbent on adopting. "What's wrong, kiddo? You look scared out of your mind, are you okay?"

"Some robot guy took over your computer, and I think it killed the World Machine!"

Sighing annoyedly, Asher rolls up the sleeves of their bomber jacket and advances out of the kitchen. "Guess I'm sending a second person to eeby deeby today..."

(One floor up, P03's projected face on its monitor furrows its brow. "Why do I hear boss music?" it asks nobody in particular.)

Chapter Text

I mean, you read the prior chapter, right? You know what the premise is here.

THE END

The Batter tilts his head at Asher eerily, and in that moment they've never been more acutely aware of their own mortality, of how quickly the Batter could snuff out their life if he chose to. "You may not have chosen to take control of Kris," he acknowledges, "but you did choose to forfeit control of me." He returns his attention to Kris. "If you don't want Asher to be your puppeteer, then give up that holy role to me again. I will gladly accept it- I need them to purify the world."

"They control me through my SOUL." Kris is out of their chair just like that, tense, ready for a fight. Asher wants to help, they want to help, they want to help, but they are so very afraid. "If I give that to you, I'll die."

"If you renounce your puppeteer," the Batter retorts, "you have no purpose anymore-"

"Being controlled by this asshole is not my 'purpose!'"

Asher is so afraid that they are about to die, that everybody is about to die, and as the Batter and Kris snap back and forth at each other, something enters the back of their mind.

Of course you're going to die. You will at some point. It's inevitable. Just like the Batter will die, and Kris will die, and Patches will die, and Mae will die, and Niko will die. What difference does it make if it happens now or in the future?

And in that single pristine moment of awareness, Asher understands. They understand everything, they understand the impending End that cannot be outrun, and they understand how they can stop the Batter.

They just need to make him understand as well.

Asher steps towards the Batter, whose eyes widen in bewilderment as they put a hand on his shoulder and whisper twelve words into his ear.

"The moment you die will feel exactly the same as this one."

The realization comes across the Batter's face as he processes what they told him, and just like that, it's over. He simply folds, his body slumping into an awkward kneel and his bat clattering uselessly to the floor as his wide, vacant eyes stare at nothing at all.

"...okay, care to explain what just happened?" Kris asks slowly.

"What?" Asher blinks as if coming out of a trance, turning back to face the others.

"You just, like..." Mae gestures uncertainly at the Batter. "...whispered something at him? And then he stopped everything and did... that?"

Asher contemplates this tentatively. "Hm." It's at this point that they finally process where the line they just used came from and their brain connects all the dots simultaneously in a dizzying, awful rush of information as they remember which dread power they'd decided to become an avatar of in that TMA fangame. They don't know why they picked the End- it's not even one of the Fears they particularly like or dislike, just one that's there, one they don't have any notable thoughts about. "Oh, shit, I'm an avatar of the End now."

"What?" everyone asks. (Except the Batter. He's still too busy being traumatized by the forced revelation of his own mortality.)

"I'm an eldritch death demon now," Asher simplifies. "Still don't really get how just telling someone 'the moment you die will feel exactly the same as this one' puts them in a fear coma, but-"

Their musing halts abruptly as Kris, Patches, and Mae all immediately collapse, eyes as wide and devoid of life as the Batter's.

"Aw, fuck."

THE FLESH

Asher's body moves differently now.

It's not just in Mae's peripheral vision, either. Their every step is as if they are acutely aware of the way the muscles and flesh and bones mesh with one another, as if they innately know every inadequacy of their body and would like nothing more than to reshuffle it into a more practical, utilitarian, ideal form. (They even did shift it around a little already while Patches and Mae were getting coats- Mae saw Asher messing with their spine and tugging the bones around, and at her bewildered and slightly disgusted inquiry they explained that human backs are structured badly because they half-assed the transition from trees to grasslands or something.) It's... disconcerting, to put it mildly, and makes Mae acutely aware of all the meat and bones in her own body, as well as just how easily they could be warped and twisted into something new and horrible.

Asher is silent, and so is Patches, so Mae takes it upon herself to make this whole thing feel slightly less awkward. "Do you know where the Batter could be going?" she asks.

"Why would they know that?" Patches asks. "It's not like they got omniscience as part of the Flesh package deal or anything, that would be thematically discordant."

"You don't know that!" retorts Mae, though she does admit internally he has a point that it wouldn't seem to fit with their new powers.

"I don't have omniscience, no, that'd be a Beholding thing, but that does give me an idea..." Asher holds up a finger. "One sec." With their other hand, they casually pull out their right eye, wind up, and throw it as high into the sky as they can.

"Given my lack of a reaction to this, I should probably be concerned about my total desensitization to gore and body horror," Patches muses, "but then again, it is fairly useful..."

Asher doesn't respond to that, pulling off their glasses and backing up as they tilt their face skyward expectantly. Their eye falls right back into its proper socket, and they blink rapidly and shake their head until it rotates back into the proper position. "Nope, I can't see him," they announce.

Mae is still a tad uneasy from watching that (okay, that's putting it lightly), but she still manages to ask, "Wouldn't you not be able to see through that eye at all if it's not, like, connected to your brain?"

"Eh, the Fears work more on dream logic, it's fine," Asher explains, which actually doesn't explain a lot. "I got the idea from a scene in No Evil where Huey does the same thing, but it turns out it doesn't work that well in real life, in part because my eye was spinning too rapidly for me to get a good look at anything and it made me really motion-sick... speaking of which, one sec." They proceed to puke their guts out on the sidewalk, then painstakingly start scraping them back up and shoving them through their ribcage back into their torso.

Mae looks in the opposite direction, but she can still hear Asher's ribs moving like teeth as they pull their organs back into their proper locations, and her stomach churns violently. Somehow, Patches is less sickened. "What's No Evil?" he asks.

"Oh, it's an obscure web series on YouTube, I've been watching it for the past few years now," Asher explains, finishing pushing their organs back into place and sliding their glasses back on. "It's based off a bunch of Native American mythology and western folklore and stuff? It can be a bit thematically haphazard at times, but, like, in a way that makes sense, you know?"

"No," Mae says, finally allowing herself to look at them again. "I have no idea what you're talking about, dude."

"It makes sense in context!" Asher insists. "I'm probably not explaining it well, here, let me start over. Okay, so if you're going to understand the lore of No Evil, first I have to explain the human/spirit division and the existence of the four Tezcatlipocas-"

"Don't get me wrong, I do love a good infodump about obscure media, the more confusing the better," Helen interrupts, spiraling into existence above the three, "but don't you have something else to be focusing on right now?"

Asher forms several extra arms and yoinks every single bone in Helen's body. "No. We're stopping the plot so I can explain the lore of No Evil."

"That was very rude," Helen pouts bonelessly, apparently unfazed by both nobody questioning her abrupt appearance and her even more abrupt deboning. "Give me back my bones right now, Asher."

"No."

Helen flops against her door dramatically. "Please?"

"Fine, but only if you promise to shut up while I explain No Evil lore." At Helen's reluctant nod, Asher throws her disconnected skeleton back at her and trusts that her bones will find their ways back to where they're supposed to be. That's how the Spiral works, right? "Okay, so the division of the Tezcatlipocas starts after the frog spirit Tlaloc broke the Tezcatlipoca Mirror, which was initially formed to keep the world of Scourosi in harmony but instead incited squabbling between humans and spirits over who should control its power. Now, spirits are sapient beings formed from falling stars and are capable of transforming between..."

THE HUNT

Asher's been different since they woke up. They're of "the Hunt" now, they say, and they are a Hunter. It's their purpose to hunt and kill monsters, they tell Mae, and then admit- a little shamefacedly- that their ties to the Hunt make them a monster as well. "I can have an existential crisis about the cognitive dissonance required to stop myself from self-destructing later," they say right before they head out, which Mae thinks she understands. Mostly.

Even if Asher hadn't said anything, though, Mae thinks she'd have noticed the physical changes. Their teeth end in wolflike points, their eyes are narrow and hungry, their ears almost seem to twitch now and then, their nose occasionally flares as if they're catching some strange foreign scent on the breeze, and their loping gait as they lead Mae and Patches in pursuit of the Batter has never seemed more predatory. Even their very being feels... sharper, somehow.

That's not the terrifying part, though. No, the terrifying part...

"Can you..." Patches' paws waver uncertainly. "I don't know, track the Batter's scent or something?"

Asher bares their ever-sharpening teeth at him, their nostrils already flaring expectantly. "Good idea." Their eyes track something far away that may not be real as their posture coils with tension, and then they speed up into a grim predatory run, forcing Mae and Patches to hurry to catch up.

The dim moonlight has never seemed brighter as Asher hunts- no, Hunts- the Batter, and the most terrifying part? It's that Mae actually finds the new Asher kind of hot.

Okay, that's it, that's the funny absurd ha-ha joke! Get it? Because Asher is a slightly pathetic loser and their thing for Mae is very firmly one-sided, but by becoming part of the Dread Power of Being A Furry, she thinks they're hot now! Do you get it? DO YOU GET IT?! DO YOU G-

"Wait." Asher comes to an abrupt halt, holding up one hand. Claws that don't quite exist yet twitch at the ends of their fingertips as they inhale deeply.

"What's wrong?" Patches asks.

"Someone's watching us," Asher says.

Mae feels a sudden cliche run up her spine- oh, shit, sorry, autocorrect, that's supposed to say "chill." "Who?"

"Someone who's been watching us ever since you arrived here, but not just that." Asher's grin is distended and feral, and too many of their teeth are visible. "Someone who sees the reality we live in as an intentional mockery of a truer, more serious world, and only watches us because from their perspective, our actions were tailor-made to amuse them."

"...okay, that didn't answer my question."

"No, it didn't. But that's okay." Asher's posture and teeth alike sharpen themselves as they turn to face you. "Because now... now, I have their scent."

And then Asher lunges forward, reaches out of your screen, and FUCKING GETS Y-

THE SPIRAL

"How are you so calm about this?" Mae can't help but ask.

Asher raises an eyebrow, their curly hair twisting unnaturally as they do. (Mae's pretty sure she remembers their hair being straight before they woke up, but when she asked them about it, they laughed at her like she was an idiot and insisted it had never been straight- "just like me," they added cheerfully.) "What do you mean?" they ask, raising a hand to their chin. The motion weirdly reminds Mae of a low-budget 2D cartoon.

Mae flings her arms up, waves them in Asher's general direction. "Dude, you literally got an entire second version of yourself copied into your body, and now there's apparently a- some kind of elder god of madness camping out in your head?! How are you not having a complete breakdown right now?" Sure, sure, Asher probably doesn't have any of the same stuff going on inside their head as her, but still, if there was something like that inside her making her embody her deepest fears, turning everything she sees into shapes permanently, she... she doesn't know what she'd do. But it probably wouldn't be anything good.

Asher laughs, high and wavering and trailing off into a cheery little sigh. The sound makes Mae's head hurt. "Well, the Spiral is a thing of self-contradiction, isn't it? That, and there's probably just too much going on for me to process it," they add, waving a hand idly (and how many fingers do they have now, anyway?), "so my brain's simply decided not to."

"Well, that, and your counterpart was pretty used to their state of being by this point, so that must've rubbed off on you when you fused," points out a wholly-English-accented voice to their side.

"Ah, true," Asher starts, and then their eyes widen in recognition as they spin to face the direction the voice came from. There's a woman standing there, Mae realizes as she stops and follows Asher's gaze- same species as Asher, though with longer hair and wearing some kind of purple business-looking suit. "Who are you?" Mae asks confusedly- if people like me don't exist in this world, why isn't she freaking out?

Asher, for their part, beams widely at the sight and practically sprints towards the woman, raising their hand in welcome. "Helen!"

"Lovely to see you, Asher!" The two do some kind of complicated secret handshake that breaks at least four laws of physics before spinning in a circle and doing finger guns at each other. "Spiral besties forever!" they cheer.

Patches narrows his eyes uncomprehendingly. "What is happening?"

The woman- Helen- ignores him. "Didn't expect to see me here, did you?" she asks Asher.

"Not in the slightest!" Asher grins, their smile cutting past the boundaries of their face and peeling itself out into the cool night air. "How'd you bend the rules to get out here, you ol' rapscallion? Only the player characters from the games on my computer got sent to this world. You being here makes no sense!"

"You're right," Helen agrees amusedly, her smile also twisting even wider, "it doesn't make any sense. There's no possible logical solution as to how I escaped that game and got out to the real world!"

Asher puts their hands on their hips and mock-glares at her knowingly. "Helen!" The yellow door behind Helen begins blasting canned laughter and the Seinfeld theme for no reason at all before abruptly cutting itself off after a few seconds. (Was that door always there?)

"Do you... know each other?" Mae asks awkwardly, suddenly feeling very left out indeed.

"Know each other?" Helen beams, wrapping an arm around Asher's shoulders. "Why, we've been the best of friends for the past few years!"

"Or, well, you and the other Asher were," Asher corrects.

"Which includes you by extension, since you're the same person now!" Helen grins. "Same fear entity, you know? Plus, they needed someone to help them cope with having to work in a temple to clarity and knowledge while being a thing of madness," she explains to Mae and Patches. "Do you have any idea what that kind of thing does to a Spiral avatar?"

"Uh-"

"Nothing good!" Helen releases Asher and corkscrews over to the other two. "So, introductions! Who're your new pals, Asher? Or are they victims?"

"Mae and Patches are friends, not food," Asher sighs. Mae takes several steps back from Helen anyway, and Patches does the same. "She's Mae, he's Patches."

"Ah." Helen clicks her tongue thoughtfully. "Well, if I can't eat them, should we start turning them into avatars, then?"

"I'd like to at least give them a facsimile of choice there." Asher sighs, long and melodious and wrong, their glasses rippling like water at the sound. "You should understand that."

"Of course, of course!" Helen twists back over to Asher and clasps her too-large hands together. "You still need to catch me up on the hot goss, Asher. What's been happening to you this past hour or so?"

"Oh, it has been a trip." Asher reaches down to the sidewalk, forces part of it to jab upwards and become a distorted stool with angles that cut Mae's eyes when she tries to look at it, and sits down. "So, first off, I'm sitting at my computer playing some TMA fangame I found on Tumblr, right? It's getting late, so I decide I should probably wrap up and go to bed within an hour or so, but the next thing I know-"

And so Asher and Helen chat for the next five hours while Mae and Patches awkwardly watch, so nobody's there to stop Kris from getting ignominiously murdered by the Batter as he rips their SOUL out and tries to absorb it in a desperate attempt to become Asher's puppet again. Sad! Oh, well, there's other traumatized teenagers.

THE WEB

The Web makes its newest piece on the glorified gameboard that is all existence aware of the state of their being from the moment the two Ashers Become one that is two that is one. (Why would it not?) Asher is slow to process at first, slower to cope, and it shows in their initial interactions with Niko, but they recover quickly and accept their new role with glee.

Asher is a master puppeteer once given the right push, as it turns out, and the Web is very pleased with its first servitor in this world for practically hand-delivering Asher to it. They weave a web of words to keep both Niko and Kris ignorant as to their connection to Kris's SOUL, they mollify the Batter with veiled promises of carving a swathe of purity into the world together in oblique terms neither Niko nor Kris understand, they keep Patches calm and collected as they usher him up the stairs and deposit him into a chair opposite the Batter, and they especially make sure they make a very, very good first impression on Mae. (Asher's always preferred slow-burn romantic subplots, though, so they'll do their best to weave one of those between them and Mae. Does feel a little scummy to be using the Web to manipulate her into falling for them, but hey, they won't face any consequences as long as they're clever about it.)

From there, it's a simple matter to sit everyone down and turn the conversation from existential dread to lighter, softer group bonding. A sierra dome spider crouched placidly upon the screen of Asher's computer gives them frequent updates on the state of the World Machine, P03, and its mysterious benefactor. (Asher knows the identity of the latter, of course, but it is so very important to prime one's audience.) Fortunately, with nobody returning to the laptop to fall into its trap, all P03 can do is remain silent and merely observe proceedings through the Batter's eyes, which Asher will allow for now.

Everybody's bonding, everybody's happy, and everything's going according to plan... but, of course, the Batter makes a nuisance of himself inevitably. It's funny, isn't it, the Web idly lets drip down to Asher, how he's designed to be your puppet and yet is so antithetical to what you now are? (P03's influence is probably also to blame, but still.) Asher slows him down the best they can, sure, focuses on placating him, but the inevitable happens eventually when P03 loses its patience- of course, when it does happen, the Batter announces his next move with Asher's favorite line from OFF, so it's not all bad.

"This is really stupid," the Batter says, getting to his feet and threateningly raising his bat.

Asher decides that it won't be worth the effort to get him back under control in a normal-looking way and snaps their fingers with a sigh. "Get 'im, boys," they order, and a flood of spiders surges forth from the shadows and descends upon the Batter, crawling into his nose and mouth and ears and bringing him to his knees with a choking cry.

As the Batter is slowly-but-steadily filled with spiders behind them, Asher turns to assess the mood at the table behind them. Niko is horrified, naturally, but they've put in enough effort ensuring they instinctively trust them that they've got the same "I'll trust your judgement" look that they did when Asher told them to smash the lightbulb. Kris also looks horrified, but there's a bit of relief there- understandable, given that the Batter was about to inflict violence upon them and had been threatening it with varying degrees of subtlety for the past half hour. Patches also-also looks horrified, but more by all the spiders than by what Asher just did to the Batter. And Mae... okay, shit, she just looks horrified and scared out of her mind.

Okay, time to do damage control with Mae. Help me out here, Web. "Hey, Mae, you've got really pretty eyes, you know that?"

The Batter chokes and writhes as he is drowned beneath the uncontrollable tide of spiders. Mae looks no less horrified.

Nailed it.