Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

JC woke up with a jolt. He was still in the tent but he wasn't on the wheel anymore, he was on the stage floor. JC looked around for any sign of life but the whole tent was empty. He couldn't spot Elena anywhere, the deer is usually very easy to see.

When JC finally makes his way out of the tent, he sees an Everlock that he wished was real; the calmness in the atmosphere made all the tension in his shoulders relax, but he knew in reality, this is a peaceful ghost of a town that once was.

When JC starts walking down the empty street, flashes of his last living memories start to come back to him.

He was voted in, next he was on the wheel watching his friend Matt compete for his life. He remembers the look on Matt's face when Safiya completed the challenge; shock, pain, sorrow.

The last flash was of Matt looking at him with guilt heavy in his eyes. JC placed his hands to where he was stabbed, he didn't feel anything there which is strange. He certainly remembers being stabbed multiple times. He lets the thought go and tries to look for his Daemon.

When JC finally makes it to the Lounge. He is more relieved than surprised to see Elena curled up on the couch, fast asleep. JC makes his way and sits right next to the Axis deer, he slowly places a hand on her fur as if he didn't want her to disappear from existence.

When he brushes Elena's fur back, she bolted upright and looked around nervously at her surroundings. Elena eventually looks at JC with a confused look.

"Hey. Your alright Elena. I'm right here, ok?" JC told Elena as he combs over some of her fur to soothe her.

"W-What happened? Why are we back in the lounge?" Elena asks as she looked around the lounge.

"I don't really know" sigh "Can you get up?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine but my chest feels a little funny." Elena struggles a little bit to get up but finally stands on her own, JC sees a stab wound in her chest. Not just any stab wound, it is his stab wound. Why does she have a scar, but he doesn't?

JC shakes the thoughts from his head as they exit the lounge. Now that the town is empty, they can explore more of it. The first place they reach is called Fat Man Slims.

JC tried to open the doors but they wouldn't budge, it seemed like something was blocking them from entering from the inside.

'What is blocking the door?' JC thought.

All of JC's thoughts were cut off when he heard a roar and a burst of white light from outside.

Chapter Text

Roi wakes up to a pitch black void. He feels weightless, then all of a sudden a flash of white blinds Roi. The next thing he knew bright images fly right past him. All of the images familiar

"Ok class! Today we are going to be learning about a few of the different animals that are from around the world!" The first-grade teacher announced as she made her way to give all of the students a coloring sheet. Her canary daemon flying around her. The coloring sheet had a weird looking animal on it, the animal had wings but no feathers.

Even though Roi didn't know what animal it was on the coloring sheet, he always loved learning about the different kinds of animals that were around the world. Castella leaps off of Roi's shoulder and shifts from her current Blue-tailed Skink form into a Dachshund to chase the other kid's daemons around their desks.

"Ok, Now who can tell me what animal this is?" the teacher questioned as she held up a note card that had the same animal on it, but the animal on the card was in color. The teacher's canary daemon fluttered around her before perching itself on her shoulder. Roi was about to blurt out that it was obviously some kind of bird but someone in the other row was called on before he could answer.

"It's a bat, obviously. "

"That's right, it is!"

Tela has a Flying Fox daemon, his name is Juno. Roi wonders what she and Juno are doing right about now. They are probably acing all of the challenges at this very moment. Roi hopes they are both ok. He feels like he is getting heavier by the minute.

Roi can feel someone start to shaking him to wake up. He hears his name being called but he can't place the name for the life of him.

"Roi! Come on man, wake up!"

"Ok just five more minutes, I promise."

"Oh thank god, I thought you were dead!"

"I've already died once, I don't think I can die again. Unless I'm like super dead? Is this what being super dead is like? Are you Jesus?" Roi leans up alittle to ask the last part.

sigh "No your not super dead and I'm not Jesus."

Roi rubbed his eyes before opening them. When he finally opened his eyes, he is relieved to see JC standing in front of him.

"JC! I can't believe it's you dude!" Roi jumped up onto his feet to hug his friend. JC happily returned the hug. When they finally departed from the hug, Roi suddenly realized that Elena and Castella were nowhere in sight, he should be in agony right now but he isn't.

"You can relax, Castella should be around here somewhere and Elena is back at the Lounge just in case she is there."

"You don't feel anything either?"

JC shook his head, answering his question, is this what it's like for people with severed daemons? Roi doesn't feel empty and cold like how most people with severed daemons describe it, but its pretty close. He can sense that Castella is nearby, Roi just hopes his senses are right.

"Let's go look for Castella, Roi."

JC puts a hand on his shoulder signaling him to move. The pair first walks up to the gas station but sees no sign of Roi's daemon. The next place they stop by at is the pharmacy but they also have no luck there. The final place they go to is Fat Man Slims.

"This is where we played a giant version of Jenga and I lost."

Roi solemnly looked the place up and down for any sign of his daemon. After he took a deep breath Roi walked into the bar with JC following right behind him. At first, Roi doesn't see anything but after he looked past the first few tables, he finally sees a small bundle of white and brown. Roi scoops up up the small Beagle, it isn't until Castella yawned that he noticed something was wrong. When she yawned, some kind of purple smoke came out of her mouth.

Castella lazily opened her eyes to see Roi holding her, she started to attack his face with licks and nuzzles. Roi laughed at this and he could here JC in the background laughing along as well. Roi started to even out her fur to calm her down from her attack on him. When he stroked around her neck though, Roi felt two little holes on the side of her neck. Castella started to wiggle in his grasp.

"You ok?"

"Yea that spot just feels a little weird."

"Oh ok. As long as your ok then we're all good." Roi states as he puts Castella on the ground so she can walk on her own. It takes her a few seconds to get her footing but she finally gets it. Both of them make their way to JC who is standing in the doorway waiting for the pair.

"So what's our next plan?"

"I don't know I guess we could go back to the Lounge and chill until-" Just as JC was about to finish his sentence a loud bang of thunder and a bright flash of lighting from outside.

Chapter Text

Teala awoke to be surrounded by trees and fog. It's still dark outside but she can't see any stars in the sky. It was pretty cloudy from what she could see.

Teala realized something is wrong, Juno is nowhere to be found. The last time she saw him he was flying towards the Man with No Name, screaming at him all the way. It was no use, she remembered, he had a hold of her and wouldn't let go no matter how much she tried.

She finally leaves the forest, when she finally reaches the town only to see there is no one in town. All she sees is empty buildings of a ghost town.

She sees the lounge from where she is standing but she hears two very distinct voices coming from the other way towards the bar.

"I'm telling you I saw the lightning strike somewhere around here JC."

The first voice she can definitely tell it's Roi.

"I know Roi, I saw it too. I also wonder who it is."

She can hear JC's voice also not too far off in the distance. She almost comes to tears when she finally sees them.

"Teala!" Roi shocked expression turn into happiness as he dashes towards Teala and wraps her in an almost bone-crushing hug. JC walks up with a gentle smile and joins the group hug.

"Guys! I can't believe it's really you!" She speaks when they finally break apart. She also realizes that their daemons are also missing from the scene.

"Hey, where are Elena and Castella?" Telea questions nervously as she looks around for Juno.

"Both of them are at Fat Man Slims. Juno is probably there too." JC answers as the group starts walking towards the bar.

"Yeah, they're probably just chilling and wondering where we are at," Roi adds.

After a little bit of walking, they eventually make it to Fat Man Slims. Telea dashes ahead of the two, when she opens the door she sees who she has been looking for, Juno. He is wrapped up in between Elena and Castella.
The other two daemons look at Telea with soft expressions.

"He was getting nervous and asking where his human is," Elena whispers, "and I told him by the time he wakes up you would be the one to wake him." Castella gets down from where she is and goes to Roi and JC who is at a different booth in the bar.

"Hey Juno, Its time to wake up." Telea pets his soft fur as he starts to stir from his nap. When he opens his eyes, he is ecstatic to see Telea in front of him.

"I thought I lost you!" Juno leaps towards her and snuggles into her neck.

"Well, I'm here now," Telea sighs as she makes here ways towards the booth that JC and Roi are at.

"Well, since we are all here you guys should tell us how both of you got here," JC states as he opens up a bottle of water and hands the other two a bottle.

Roi told his part of the story first from the Snake Lady to the challenge against Nikita and failed. Teala described her part too, to the Man with no Name and how she also didn't want to go up against Ro.

"That's quite a lot that has happened since I was gone." JC remarks as he takes a swig of his drink. "We should probably cover our ears now."

"what do you mean-" Teala stops midsentence as a loud bang of thunder followed by a flash of lighting comes from outside.

"That's why." Roi grins as he gets up from the booth.

"We have another guest to greet!" He states as he runs out of the door.

Chapter Text

As the world fades to black, Matt sees memories flash before him, back to when he was in college. He remembers meeting Stephine and her cat daemon, Skip. At first, Skip didn't seem to like him or that was the impression he got from the cat. The feline was more friendly with Juniper than he was with Matt. Steph thought it was cute that they were fast friends even before they started dating.

The next memory is there wedding, it was one of the happiest days he's ever experienced. Matt wonders what Steph is dong right now.

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The next thing Matt sees when he wakes up in the night sky except it isn't the same night sky he fell unconscious too, or maybe it's the clouds? He doesn't know and he can't dwell on that now. The main question he has now is how is he alive? He can't be alive, can he?

All of these theories are giving him a headache, instead of thinking of what is happening he gets up and dusts himself off. Matt looks around to see that the streets are empty-wait he looks around again hoping to see his daemon anywhere in eyesight. He doesn't see her anywhere and yet he doesn't feel the pull. Actually, he doesn't feel anything but he still needs to find Juniper. It might be a little hard with her being smaller than most daemons, so Matt looks to see where the lounge is and realizes he is right by it. He practically runs into the lounge hoping to see Juniper somewhere, anywhere.

"Long time no see, it seems" came a familiar voice from the entrance of the lounge. Matt turned around to see his former dead friends in front of him.

"Yo Matt good to see you, man!" Roi's voice boom into the room as he basically tackled Matt into a hug followed by Teala and JC soon after that. Juno came flying in just above them and landed on the couch with Elena and Castella following closely behind.

"You guys are being too loud for me to take a nap." came from a quiet voice from one of the shelves followed by a yawn. The group turns around to see a little head peeking out from one of the top shelves.

"Juniper!" Matt practically ran to the shelves to scoop up his daemon in his arms and hugged her while also trying to make sure he was careful with her at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah I guess I missed you too," Juniper remarked as she crawled her way up to her usual spot on Matt's shoulder.

"Alright, since that has been settled do you wanna tell us how you got here?" JC proposed as he sits beside Elena as he waits for Matt to tell his story. Teala and Roi take a seat on the other side of the couch, ready to hear Matt's story

"Alright, so here is what happened-" Matt starts as a white flash of light and thunder crashes down at the same time comes from outside.

"Whoa, what was that?" Matt questions as he gets up and makes his way to the exit of the lounge. JC, Teala, and Roi also get up and follow closely behind with their daemons. When the three finally reach the outside, somehow a fog that came out of nowhere advanced it's way into town

"Matt! Matt, buddy where did you go?" Roi shouts as stays close to the other as he calls out to his now missing friend. Castella sniffs the ground hoping to find the scent of her missing daemon friend and her human counterpart. Juno flew ahead to get an overhead view.

"Hey guys, I think I found someone." Elena beckons the rest of the gang as she trots over to see a very familiar rat daemon that belongs to a Colleen Ballinger. Castella runs over to Auggie and nudges him with her nose to wake him up. Instead of waking the daemon up, Colleen slowly lifts her head to look around and sees her former dead friends.

"Oh hey, guys what are you doing here?" Colleen says as she rubs her head and stands up from the ground by the bar. She dusts herself off and grabs Auggie and puts him on her shoulder.

"Uh hey Colleen, have you seen Matt?" JC asks as he looks around to see if he sees Matt anywhere in site. He notices Colleen's stiff attitude relax a little bit as he speaks.

"Are you okay?" Teala questions as she takes small strides towards Colleen.

"No, not really, our so-called friends locked me in the Iron Maiden!" Colleen explodes as she throws her arms in the air, then sighs in defeat into the neverending night.

"I think I saw Matt but he looked like he just vanished into thin air before I could talk to him." She relents to the others as she looks off into the distance.

"Uh-huh well uh, maybe he will come back," JC states as he opens the door to the bar. "Until then we can wait in the bar I guess."

Colleen just shrugs before she enters the empty bar right behind Teala and Roi and their daemons.