Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a calm night in the Mexican city of Juarez, a large city just south of the U.S. border, and the city of El Paso, Texas. The moon was hanging in the sky, casting a dim light throughout the desert outskirts of the city. A lone complex of buildings towered over the empty landscape, a barbed wire fence protecting the property.

One of the buildings in the complex was buzzing with life; dozens of workers were exiting one of the main buildings in the complex, a large WOLFCONN sign illuminating the parking lot in a blue light. The workers were conversing with each other, whether it be about their weekend plans or about the recent policy changes in the facility, or even with the street vendors stationed outside that were trying to sell the departing workers a bite to eat, they were all too distracted to notice a lone man in a pinstripe suit standing by one of the delivery bays.

The guard, a bulky middle-aged man with a steel-gray mustache and a receding hairline of wirey thin hair, let out an agitated sigh as he took another whiff of a cigar he was holding. He put his cell phone back to his ear.

“No, sir. I ain’t saying that I’m mad or anything! Yeah, no I ain’t mad at all.”

A few seconds passed and the man took another whiff,

“Good, good! I’m glad that we’re on the same page here.” He said with a weak laugh. “Yeah, I ain’t mad. No, no. I’m pissed off!” He yelled, pacing around the delivery bay.

“You idiots up in corporate shove my ass in the middle of the desert and put me in charge of a bunch of incompetent dimwits for over a month! Then you make me wait hours in the blistering heat, waiting for a damn asset transfer that’s been off schedule! “

He flicked the cigar to the side. “Do you jackasses know who I am? After all the shit I’ve done for you? All the hard work and hours standing around, making sure some rich jag-off that’s worth a good fifty percent of a small country’s GDP doesn’t get a bullet between his eyes! That’s how valuable I am to this whole operation! Without you, this whole shebang will be screwed harder than- Hello! Hello!”

The man checked his cell phone. No bars. The cell service just went dead. He cursed under his breath. The Wolfconn complex had some of the dodgiest reception imaginable. Not even the new cell tower installed in the complex didn’t help; the reception always stayed at one to two bars, max.

He tossed his phone to the side. The damn thing was quite useless anyways; just an old burner phone that he was assigned. It wasn’t like the thing had any value to him anyways-

“Dan? Hey Dan, you there?”

He sighed and unbuckled the radio from his waist. “Yup, still here. Can you please someone get the cell reception fixed, it just had an aneurysm again.”

“That’s the issue. Cell reception just went down.”

Dan ran a hand through his hair. “Wait, what do you mean it just went down-“

“I mean it just went down. It’s not even just the cell reception; internet, phone lines, hell, even the damn fax machines are down.”

“And the radio is still on?”

“Barely. Our range is pretty limited at the moment. We can’t contact anyone outside of the facility.”

“Damn! Well, it can’t be anything too serious. Probably just some idiot down in IT who just pulled the wrong plug or something. Wouldn’t be the first time. Just send someone down to check it out.”

“Noted. And do you want me to notify the security team?”

The older man scratched his head. “Eh, why not? Better be safe. If this transfer goes wrong, our necks will be on the line.”

“Our necks are always on the line.”  The person muttered. “Anyways, I’ll get someone down to the server room to check things out. I’ll report back in a few.”

Dan nodded and clipped the radio back on his belt. He scratched his head, thinking. Something was wrong here, that was obvious for sure. The fact that nearly all their methods of communicating with anyone outside of the factory just went kaput conveniently right before an important asset transfer was rather suspicious.  It could just be a coincidental accident, sure. But something was completely off about this situation. Like it wasn’t an accident.

Like they were being sabotaged-

“¡Discúlpeme señor! ¿Me puedes ayudar con algo?”

Dan whirled his head around. Standing near the entrance to the delivery bay was a man, most likely one of the locals that worked in the factory judging by the uniform. He cursed to himself. This wasn’t the first time a local stumbled into the wrong part of the facility and he had to shoo an idiot or two away, which was made even more difficult due to the language barrier. He thought that he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone stumbling into the delivery bay, and yet here he was.

Dan tried to recall the limited Spanish he knew. “Uh….. ¡No español! ¡te vas! ¡Privado!” He yelled, wincing as he butchered the pronunciation.

To his disappointment, the man only walked closer. “¿Qué? ¡No puedo entenderte!!” The man yelled, clearly frustrated at him.

“For the love of- ¡No español! ¡Te vas! ¡Ahora! ¡Privado!

“¿Qué? ¡Solo necesito un baño!”

Dan cursed. He marched forward, mumbling under his breath the whole way. He jabbed a finger in the opposite direction. “¡Salir! ¡Ahora! ¡Vamos!” He yelled, slowly pronouncing each syllable in the words, hoping that the idiot in front of him can understand him.

“¿Q-qué? ¡S-solo ne-necesito un ba-baño!” The man spattered out, shaking.

Dan stopped in his tracks. Something was wrong with this man, that was fairly obvious. He wasn’t sure if the poor guy was having some type of stroke, heart attack, or both. Dan didn’t know, he wasn’t a damn doctor after all.

“Uh, you good? ¿Necesitas una doctora?”

“¿Q-q-qué? ¡S-solo ne-ne-necesito un ba-ba-baño” The man said. Then, like the man was in some type of video game, he began to glitch, parts of him floating around violently in the air with him still sputtering the same sentence, over and over again.

Dan backed up and

 placed his hand on his holster on instinct. He had to eat some weird shit earlier right? Maybe it was like those French people who ate some moldy bread and danced til they kicked the bucket, only this time it was just one idiot in a warehouse watching a guy glitch out of reality.

Then, as fast as it began, it all came to a violent conclusion. The man suddenly poofed into a weird blue smoke, which quickly dissipated into the air, leaving Dan standing in the bay, completely bewildered by what just happened.

“What the hell-“

Dan was suddenly cut off as he felt a wet cloth thrust against his mouth. He tried to fight back, reaching for his gun, but the attacker shook him, disorientating him as his eyes grew heavy. He tried to stay awake, he tried to fight back, he tried to do anything.

But all he could do was breathe in a sweet, intoxicating fume, as his eyes grew heavy and he collapsed onto the pavement.

The man standing behind him huffed a sigh of relief. He was wearing black boots, black cargo pants, and a black fleece jacket, with a balaclava obscuring his face. He pulled it off, revealing a head of curly brown hair and weary brown eyes. He yawned, scratching the stubble on his face. He stared at the incapacitated guard for a few moments before reaching for a radio of his own.

“Control. This is Blue. Ready to proceed with the mission.”

Blue waited for a few seconds before the radio buzzed back. “Perfect timing. You know the plan  right?”

Blue rolled his eyes. “ Of course I do, the plan has been drilled into my head by now.” He kneeled to inspect the knocked-out guard, digging in his coat pocket for anything useful. “Get in, get the data, get out. Perfectly easy.” He relayed into the radio.

“Great. And, uh, if you can get us some food from one of those stands outside -Like any one of them, I got no preference- that would be great-“

“Green! For God’s sake, stay on task!” He heard a woman’s voice shout in the background. Blue rolled his eyes. It must’ve been Elena, the field captain for their small rag-tag group of idiots whose job was to prevent said group from accidentally killing each other, not out of hatred, but out of sheer stupidity.

Blue was pretty sure that the reason they were all still employed was that, as a unit overall, they were surprisingly competent at their jobs.

“Don’t worry Green. I’ll get the food.” Blue said, flipping through the guard’s pockets. Nothing but an empty wallet and a small pocket watch. Useless. “What do you guys want?”

“Blue! Don’t encourage them-“

“Kinda feeling tacos. Had ‘em last night, but I kinda wanna have ‘em again, y’know?”

“I’ll get what Greens having!” The group’s medic, Moss, called out from the background.

“……Fine, I’ll get some tacos too. But can we please stay on task here!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Blue muttered. He smiled as he finally found what he was looking for: clipped onto the guard’s shirt was a small ID badge. Blue plucked it off and inspected it:

[FOXCONN ENT.]

DAN LEDGEMONT

HEAD OF SECURITY

Perfect. Blue clipped the badge onto his shirt. “Got the guy’s badge. I’m ready to apply the illusion on myself.”

“Affirmative. Try not to strain yourself. We both know that stuff drains you pretty quickly.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “No, it does not!”

“Really? Then how long did this illusion you did last?”

“Uh…. About three minutes.”

“Damn! That’s a record! I mean, even with all of the practice we did the best we could manage was about a minute.” Green replied sarcastically.

Blue rolled his eyes. “All right, you’ve had your fun. Now lemme do my magic here.” He said, putting the radio to the side. Blue closed his eyes and tried to focus. He projected a mental image of the unconscious guard into his head, trying to picture every last detail about him; the pinstripe suit he was wearing, the mustache on his face, his eyes; the more detail, the better.

He weaved his fingers into a circle, and although his eyes were tightly shut, he could feel the energy pulsating from his fingers as he weaved a small spell circle into the air. He felt a cold air suddenly surround him as he applied the illusion spell over himself.

One of the first things that the Foundation learned about illusion magic was that it happened to be deceptively difficult to master. The concept for illusions is relatively simple: one needs to picture a mental image of what they want to create, and then cast the spell. However, depending on the size and complexity of the illusion, the spell can wear out the user quickly. Esspecially if the illusion is complex, such as the worker that Blue made earlier. Blue was lucky that the illusion finally gave out when the guard was in the right spot for him to knock him out.

Speaking of the guard.

Blue opened his eyes. Instead of the black jacket he was wearing before, he was now wearing a pinstripe suit. He checked his reflection on his watch, and he noticed that his face was the guard’s face.

All right, things are going as planned.

He picked up the radio. “Illusion applied. I’m moving in.” He said, his voice the same as before. That was one of the downsides of the illusion he cast; it only changed his physical body, not his voice. He’ll need to keep quiet in there so he wouldn’t blow his cover.

“Affirmative. We’ll be shutting off all radio comms in the facility. Just buzz us back if you run into any problems-“

“Actually….” Blue interrupted. “I think I’m gonna shut off my radio as well.”

“What?”

“Look, here me out! It would be a tad bit suspicious if I’m the only guy in there with a working radio, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but-“

“Don’t worry about it! If worst comes to worst – which it won’t – I’ll just turn it back on and let you know. Got it?”

Blue waited for a few moments. “….Fine. I’m shutting off radio comms now. Good luck. And don’t die.” Green buzzed back.

He smiled. “Wasn’t planning on it.” With that, he turned off his radio and shoved it in his pocket. He turned around and saw the guard laying on the pavement behind him.

Right. Probably should take care of him.

He spun a small spell circle. The man’s limp body levitated off the ground. On the other end of the delivery bay, a dumpster’s lid flew open. Blue flicked his finger to the side, and the guard’s body was flung across the delivery bay, slammed into the dumpster lid, and fell into the dumpster. The lid happened to conveniently fall shut afterward.

Blue winced.

He’ll be fine.

Blue walked over to the delivery bay and opened the side door.

Get in, get out. It’ll be a piece of cake.

*-_-_-_-_-*

This is not a piece of cake

Blue ran into one small, tiny, minuscule problem a few minutes into the operation.

It just so happened that the building layout that Blue was given by the recon unit, the building layout that was supposed to be one-hundred percent accurate, the building layout that he had wasted hours of his life memorizing every single twist and turn, was completely inaccurate.

Well….. sort of.

Some parts of the layout were just fine. Other parts of the layout on the other hand were just wrong. Blue had to stop himself from walking into a wall once or twice, which wasn’t good for his cover.

As Blue strolled through the building, his mind wandered to what he was really here for.

Wolfconn was a large electronic parts manufacturer. They produced computer chips and other components for some of the largest tech corporations in the world. Name a company, there was a good chance Wolfconn was their supplier.

Of course, the Foundation wouldn’t have even been interested in Wolfconn, let alone their facility in Juarez.

But then the Foundation was tipped off by one of their agents in Juarez about some suspicious activity going on around the warehouse: The sudden arrival of armored convoys delivering goods to the factory that were clearly not computer chips. The seemingly random construction of a second warehouse close to the main complex, which according to rumors, was strictly off-limits to the facility’s normal personnel. And lastly, a few dozen additional personnel, mostly heavily armed security, were hired to staff the newly built warehouse.

It didn’t take a Ph.D. to realize that things were not where they seemed at that factory.

After MTF unit Mu-3 did some digging, they discovered that the newly built facility in the complex was for a particular group of interest that had caught the Foundation’s attention for the last couple of years: Marshall, Carter, and Dark.

MC&D were major players in the market for anomalous objects and entities. In a nutshell, the group was a club for the super-rich that is headquartered in London. Despite this, the group has immense political and financial ties worldwide, which they naturally used to their advantage to achieve their goals.

Their goals in question? Providing their members with the most exquisite and expensive experiences imaginable, all with the usage of anomalous objects and entities.

The warehouse in Juarez happened to be front for a large storage facility where they kept many of their items until they were sold off or shipped somewhere else. To the disappointment of the foundation, the warehouse did not contain any artifacts that they could retrieve and properly contain.

However, they found something much more valuable. The item in question was a computer that contained sales logs from the last decade. This was a particularly valuable find since information about the group’s members and leaders was generally kept hush-hush.

One problem quickly arose: simply hacking into the computer and retrieving the files wasn’t an option.

It was obvious that MC&D thought about that possibility due to the presence of military-grade encryption which secured the facility’s computers.

If they wanted the file, they needed someone to go in on the inside.

And that is where Blue and his team came in.

The plan was simple: a surveillance van would drop Blue off a few blocks away from the warehouse. Blue would then subdue and take out one of the guards, take on their identity, and use it to sneak into the warehouse, copy the data into a flash drive, and get out.

And with the onsite security expected to be light for the night, the assignment should’ve been relatively simple.

Keyword: Should’ve

Blue walked past a pair of heavily armed guards and stopped a few feet away from them next to a door. He was starting to get a bit antsy; these guards weren’t the first he’d seen that night, and Blue was pretty sure they had to increase the security for the night.

The conversation he heard between the two guards nearby happened to confirm his suspicions:

“It’s kinda bullshit they scheduled us this late, don’t you think?” He heard one guard say.

The other guard shrugged. “ Eh, you get used to it. Management is always pretty incompetent.”

“Yeah, but you’d think they at least give us some heads up? One moment I’m in my hotel room drinking my ass off, the next moment they send me here, shove a gun in my hands, and now I’m stuck in this place, waiting for a delayed asset shipment.”

“Yup, tell me about it. And everything is down too. Radio, cell reception, hell, even the damn fax machines went kaput.”

“The hell’s a fax machine?”

Blue stifled a small laugh; both out of the other guard’s acute unawareness of what a fax machine was, but also out of sheer frustration. So his suspicions were apparently right: This place really did have extra hands on deck.

Well, that was an issue. If he couldn’t find the server room fast, he might need to bail and run back to the van. Granted, the chances of him even finding the dang room with the wrong building layout on hand were exponetially lowering by the minute-

A small sign next to the door in front of him caught his eye. He took a glance at it:

--- INTERNAL TECHNOLOGIES DEPARTMENT ---

Huh, that was convenient.

Blue looked around and walked into the room. The room was small, with large computer servers towering over the back of the room. On the other end were a few monitors, with a man staring intently at one of them. He noticed Blue come in.

“Oh! Hey Dan, glad you can make it. Can you take a quick look at this?” He said. Blue walked over to where he was seated and glanced at the monitor, which displayed several error messages.

“All of our systems just went down about five, maybe ten-ish minutes ago.” He explained. “ I’m looking at the error messages here and it’s kinda weird. It’s not like our communications are damaged from the outside or something. I had some of our maintenance guys look upstairs, and they managed to let me know everything is in the green before our radios went down. It’s almost if like our communications are being jammed-“

Blue took that moment to gag the poor guy with a rag. He struggled to get a good hold of him for a few moments before his body gave in. His limp body fell out of the chair and into the ground.

Blue pocketed the rag and leaned over to the computer. Within a few minutes, he was leaving the room, flash drive with the newly acquired data in hand, and ready to head back to the van, not before getting some food for his fellow agents first.

But of course, things had to go wrong.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Blue learned one thing about the guards on site that night: they were apparently very trigger happy.

Also, getting shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest hurts. A lot. Well, it wasn’t like he knew that already. It was more like a reminder. A rather painful reminder.

“Right there, I see him! Third central pillar, right at the base!”

A flurry of bullets attacked the pillar Blue was crouched behind. He quickly jumped behind a nearby crate that to provide himself some more cover from the oncoming gunfire.

He didn’t even know how everything escalated up to this point: one moment he was walking to the warehouse’s exit and the next moment he was stopped randomly by a guard who recognized the person who he was disguised as, who simply asked him how he was doing. Blue, in what was probably a mixture of overconfidence and stupidity, replied that he was doing fine, which drew the guard’s immediate attention. Here was the thing, Dan – the guy Blue was disguised as – had a thick Boston accent.  Blue did not have a thick Boston accent. So, when the guard immediately drew his sidearm at Blue and asked for identification, Blue panicked and did the most logical thing he could think of in that situation. 

He ran in the opposite direction.

And now he was slumped behind an empty shipping crate, surrounded by several heavily armed lunatics who were firing at him in what seemed like all directions. He flinched as a bullet struck the crate, mere inches from his head. He looked up, quickly pinpointing the source of the bullet: a guard lying flat on his stomach on a catwalk above him, aiming a rifle toward him.

“Fuck…….” Blue cursed under his breath. He took a look to his right. He could see several other guards rushing towards the crate he was hiding behind, guns drawn. A glance to the left told the same story. He was cornered.

Blue wildly glanced around. No, that couldn’t be possible. There had to be some way out of this, some type of loophole that he could exploit, right?

Another shot hit the crate, this time much closer. Blue drew his own gun and fired a few shots back, which given his current luck, all harmlessly bounced off the metal catwalk. He pulled the trigger again to only find that the gun had run empty, and with a quick patdown of his waist, he came to the sudden realization that he was completely out of ammo.

It was at this moment Blue realized that he probably wasn’t going to make it out of this one.

Fuck.

To be honest, this wasn’t exactly the way he’d expected to go out. He’s had it drilled into his head that he would inevitably have to go out sometime, somewhere – it was an unfortunate fact that came with the job, after all – but he’d never expect it’d be so….. mundane. If anything, he’d think his death would be intense and exhilarating.

Like being ripped to shreds by a giant indestructible killer reptile. Or having your entire molecular structure rearranged, rebuilt, and then rearranged yet again until you were disintegrated into sheer nothingness by some Lovecraftian horror. Or having your brain taken over by a giant intelligent parasitic centipede. Or-

Another gunshot rang out, and Blue recoiled as he felt his left arm erupt in pain. He glanced over and saw a large gash across his upper arm and a bullet embedded in the wooden crate next to him. He clenched his arm and looked up, noticing the guard above him cursing and slamming his fist against the catwalk like a small child. The guard quickly reloaded the gun and aimed it at Blue. 

Blue widened his eyes.

Farts.

He braced himself, getting ready for the now inevitable sweet release of death.

“Getting sniped in the head in a warehouse in Mexico,” Blue murmured to himself. “I’ll take it.” Blue then closed his eyes shut, waiting……..

And waiting…………..

And waiting- ok, what’s the hold-up?

He opened his eyes in confusion at looked over at the guard. He was tempted to taunt the guard to just shoot him already when he realized the guard was struggling with his rifle.  Wait. The guard’s gun had jammed.  Blue watched for a moment as the guard struggled with unjamming the gun. Although he was clearly outgunned, the idiots he was facing didn’t seem to have any formal training with their weapons, as clearly evident by the guard in front of him somehow making his jammed gun problem worse. All Blue had to do was make a quick decision before the guard realized that he had a second gun and then proceed to shoot him with that one. 

All right, think Blue, think! Options. What options do I have here?

He considered the limited options that he had. He couldn’t fire back at the guards; not only was he considerably outnumbered, but he was also completely out of ammunition. Maybe he could just throw the empty gun at a guard’s head and- nope, that wouldn’t work either.

He looked at his watch: a cheap standard-issue watch that already had a cracked screen from years of work in the field. The watch was equipped with a panic button on its side; one quick press and alert his fellow agents that he was in a messy situation, and they would come over and bail his sorry behind out. Basic standard operating procedure.

Blue looked at the button and hesitated. It would work on paper, but he was sure if he would be able to hold out on his own before backup arrived. Given his luck, he would most likely be the human equivalent of Swiss Cheese by the time his team broke into the facility to get him. Besides, he wouldn’t want them risking their necks to save his neck.

So he can’t run, shoot back, or even call for backup.

Wow, he really got screwed over this time.

Well……there was the last option.

Was it risky?

Yes, yes it was.

Was it against every single protocol the Foundation had?

Yes, yes it was.

Was it going to get him into a lot of deep shit?

Yes, yes it was.

But was it going to get him out here alive?

Yes, yes it was.

Blue breathed a rushed sigh. He fell onto his knees and quickly cast a simple detection spell. After a few seconds, the spill pinged back and Blue was surprised at how few guards were shooting at him. There had to be at least five or six other guards around him at most, which to be fair still was pretty bad for him, but at least it was something he could work with.

He ran through a list of spells in his head. Maybe he can make some copies of himself using an illusion? No, that wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t have enough time to cast it. Besides, there is still a chance that a guard will get lucky and end up shooting him.

Maybe some type of electrical discharge to shock these guys? No, that would be a terrible idea given all the exposed wiring and electrical components around the warehouse. He’ll probably end up shocking himself.

What about some type of harmonics-based spell that he can use to put these guys to sleep? Oh wait, he can’t really do that since he doesn’t have any specially enchanted instrument to work with. He could try whistling, but he might end up putting himself to sleep by having the spell backfire on him. He would know, it’s happened before.

C’mon Blue! Think! Think as if your life depends on it BECAUSE IT KINDA DOES!  

He rustled his pockets, trying to find something to work with. A small cylindrical device fell off his belt and hit the ground. Blue ducked down and picked it up, ignoring the gunshots around him, and inspected it. It was a standard-issue stun grenade or flashbang. He honestly forgot he even had it on him. He could use it to stun the guards around him, but the grenade was simply too weak to do anything substantial. He needed something stronger.

Wait.

The Ultra-Flashbang of Doom.

Back during his training days, one of his fellow candidates for the thaumaturgy program had created a spell that would generate an “Ultra-Flashbang of Doom” by combining an amplified light spell and another spell that would manipulate the air molecules in the general vicinity to create a large *BANG*. Like a regular flashbang, but it doesn’t rely on an explosion for its effects, which helps to minimize the risk of burns.

Before the idiot got booted out of the program for using the spell in the mess hall as a prank he had taught it to all the other candidates in the program, Blue included.

He rummaged through his pockets and produced a pair of silicone earplugs. He shoved them into his ears and began to cast the spell. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the spell circle he was drawing in the air, a lot larger than the one for the detection spell earlier. He heard the shooting die down a little as some of the guards stopped shooting and yelled at each other in confusion.

Blue completed the spell circle and a large glowing ball of light was generated in front of him. It was so bright that the entire warehouse was completely illuminated like the sun was high and bright outside, and not late at night. Blue tightly shut his eyes and slapped his hand against the light, praying to whatever God there was that he did the spell correctly.

A sudden thought hit him: Wait a minute, this spell would probably affect me too right-

And then the spell activated.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“What the hell is taking him so long?” Elena Lennox silently muttered to herself. She was seated in a rusted foldout chair in the back of the surveillance van, fanning herself with a bundle of reports that she should be working on, but was too preoccupied with worrying about Blue to focus on.

Well, it wasn’t like she was worried about Blue-

Wait, that sounds bad.

All right, she was worried about her friend, but at the same time, she was also worried about the status of the operation as a whole. She had been a field captain for what, two, three months now? And within that time period not a single mission, not a single damn one, has gone to plan. Sure, it’ll start out nice and smooth, but then the roadblocks appear, and things get messy. Phone calls have to be made, a few disinformation agents have to be discharged out to the field, and she gets the flack for it.

Every. Single. Time.

She likes the unit she’s with: Blue, Moss, and Green. They’re nice people, but at the same time, she feels like she’s wrangling a herd of cats from running off the side of a cliff.

Case in point: Moss, the group’s assigned medic.

In a normal unit, the medic would be taking stock of supplies while the operation is running. In this unit, Moss was passing the time by telling ‘fun’ medical facts to keep her and the surveillance specialist, Agent Green, occupied.

He always talked when he was bored.

“Here’s a fun fact! When you blush, your stomach lining also blushes as well! I can that can explain the ‘Butterflies in your stomach’ phrase, eh?” Moss laughed at his own awful, terrible excuse of a joke.

“Oh, here’s another fun fact! Your own immune system can sometimes go haywire and kill you! Like for example, you got Devic’s Disease which is essentially when your immune system attacks your eyes, which leads to blindness. It’s pretty fun, right? Like, imagine falling asleep, not knowing that it’ll be the last time seeing your loved ones, and then you wake up to perpetual darkness! It’s amazing! Oh and did you that if you squeeze out all the bacteria from your intestines, you can fill a coffee mug-“

“Will you please shut up man,” Elena said. “I don’t even want to know how you even know half this stuff, but you’ve spent the last twenty minutes traumatizing everyone in this van-“

“Oh, believe me, that’s just the tame stuff. Wait until he gets to the graphic descriptions of obscure medical procedures.” Green called from behind her.

Elena sighed. “I- I don’t even want to know. Moss, did you at least take stock of the medical supplies before you went on a tangent about the effects of Escolar on the digestive system?”

He nodded. “Yup. Nothing changed at all, we still got everything. Gloves, cold packs, bandages, you know, medicine stuff.”

She nodded. “What about you Green? What’s Blue’s status so far? Is everything going smoothly- oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

She groaned at the sight before her: while she was completely preoccupied with (not) filling out the mission reports, Green thought it would be totally professional to recline back on the old office chair, relax his boots up on the desk (which was filled with some expensive and sensitive communications equipment) and reading a worn lavender book.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Elena yelled. Green snapped his head up from the book and gave her a small smirk. “Reading.” He replied, sarcasm oozing from his voice.

“Oh for the love of- You’re supposed to be on surveillance, not reading whatever crap that is!” She said.

Green gasped and fanned a hand on his chest. “Oh how DARE you call…. uh, La Bruja Buena Azura crap! I’ll have you know that this story happens to be a literary masterpiece comparable to the works of Shakespeare!”

Elena blinked. La Bruja Buena Azura? She translated the title into English and facepalmed. “Really, Green? The Good Witch Azura? That book is for kids. You’re a bit over the target demographic, don’t you think?”

“Excuse me! This book’s target audience happens to be teens, thank you very much-“

“Ok! Ok, I get it! You like the book. That’s great and all, but you need to be focusing on the task on hand here.” Elena sighed.

“Oh, I am!”

“You’re reading a Spanish edition of a children’s book.”

“Yeah, and I’m also monitoring Blue’s position within the warehouse. He hasn’t really been doing much so far, just wandering around by the looks of it.” He pointed to the screen, which was connected to a tracker.  

“And is the radio still down?”

“Yep. I don’t wanna turn it back on until he’s outta the building though. Don’t want to risk anything going wrong.” He said.

Something always goes wrong. She thought to herself.

As if the universe was giving her the finger, the van then suddenly shook as a large explosion was heard in the distance.

“What the hell was that!” She yelled. She looked at her fellow agents. Neither of them seemed to know what was going on either. Green sat back down and practically flung himself towards the communications console. “I’m taking a look at it now, Elena. It looks like it came from inside……oh fuck.”

“What? What is it!” Moss yelled.

“It came from inside the warehouse.”

Moss simply sat in shock as Elena ran over to the back of the van and flung open the door. She peered outside of the back alley they were parked in and looked toward the direction of the warehouse. Nothing. No fire, no smoke. Just the sound of car alarms wailing in the distance and unintelligible shouting.

“I-I’m not seeing anything.” She said, slamming the door. “There’s nothing going on out there. It had to be an explosion, right?

“That’s the thing…..” Green started, his eyes darting around the screen trying to make sense of what was going on. “It wasn’t an explosion.”

*-_-_-_-_-*

It would be fair to say that Blue did not think things through.

The sudden burst of sound from the triggered spell knocked Blue off-balance, and despite the earbuds he’d shoved into his ears moments before, his head was ringing louder than the fire alarms that were blaring around the warehouse. The explosion (was that the right word to call it) must’ve triggered the fire alarms somehow.

Blue rubbed his head. He wasn’t expecting the earbuds to work, this was the same spell that landed several people in the hospital for ruptured eardrums after all (the disinformation bureau had a fun time explaining that to the hospital staff). Still, he’d thought they at least do something.

Here’s a spoiler alert: they did jack-all.

With some difficulty, Blue managed to get back up on his feet. He looked around for a few moments, checking to see if he was in the clear. The guards who were firing at him moments before were lying around in the warehouse, some clutching their heads in pain, others just screaming a mixture of curse words and incomprehensible gibberish. The guard who nearly killed Blue earlier wasn’t faring well either: he appeared to have rolled off the catwalk and fallen into an empty crate, now screaming a colorful variety of curse words.

Blue breathed a sigh of relief. He patted himself down, checking for any potential injuries he may have sustained. His hand brushed against his arm, and he felt a stabbing pain. He looked down and cursed to himself. The wound seemed to be pretty worse for wear, especially since it seemed pretty deep, but he should be fine. At least for now.

Blue began walking down the deserted warehouse, his boots crunching on the shards of broken glass that littered the warehouse. As he stepped over another unconscious guard, he noticed that all the windows in the building were completely gone, presumably shattered by the spell, and several car alarms wailing in the distance. He winced to himself.

He probably went a little overboard, but on the bright side, he was alive!

After some walking, Blue spotted a promising-looking door. Above it was a neon sign that simply read SALIDA, or EXIT in Spanish. That was good. Exit means he can finally get out of here with the data, and back to the van. Granted, Elena would most likely be completely ticked off at him for…… everything – which to be fair was completely reasonable – but what did she expect him to do? Just stand there and get shot?

Well, that…… and the fact he didn’t want them getting killed over him. It wasn’t like he’d thought his teammates would get killed trying to extract him– quite the opposite in fact – but he wouldn’t live with himself if something were to happen. 

He got to the door and clasped the handle, hoping for an exit. He turned the handle and opened the door.

It was not an exit.

He wasn’t sure what type of room he stumbled upon. It seemed like a mixture of a recording studio, judging by all the styrofoam paneling lining the walls, and a break room, with a large table in the center of the room, cabinets, and a sink on the other side of the room. Across from him was a still intact glass door, with another exit sign above it, taunting him. Most concerning was a trio of dazed guards. The walls and styrofoam paneling must’ve drowned out most of the effects of the spell, saving the guards from a lifetime of permanent hearing loss. Lucky them.

But it wasn’t exactly lucky for Blue. The guards perked their heads up and noticed him in the doorway. The table they were sitting at was littered with playing cards and a few half-empty bottles of what Blue can assume was – as the cool kids say – the fun juice. They seemed to be in the middle of a card game. They all stared at each other, a tense (and awkward) silence in the air.

After a few moments, one of the guards spoke. He had a wad of cards in his hand. “So, uh……. Does anybody have any sevens?“

Another guard shifted the cards in his hands, which were covered with some rather nice white gloves. “Uh…..no. Wait hold on, I just found one! Yup, there ya go-“

“Wait, wait, hold on. Are we just going to ignore this guy?”

The two guards muttered to each other and nodded. “Yup.” Card guy announced.

“W-What, that question was rhetorical! You know the orders, right? Apprehend any trespassers.”

“Yup.”

“And there is a trespasser right there.”

“I see him.”

“So by that logic, we should be apprehending him and taking him into custody instead of, I don’t know, playing fucking GO FISH!”

“Makes sense to me.”

“So, you two get off your lazy asses and help me take this guy out!”

“Hm……no.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO!?”

Card guy sighed. “Look, we’re on break right now. We don’t get paid while we’re on break, thus, anything that goes on is simply not our problem.”

The guard’s face turned crimson. “W-what, but for the love of- ITS OUR JOB!”

“Exactly! A job that we get paid to do. We’re on break, which means we don’t get paid, which means anything that happens out there ain’t our problem-“

Gloves interuppted him. “Hold on, it is our problem now since he’s in here.”

“Shit, you got me there.” Card guy sighed. He collected the cards laying around the table and pocketed them. He stood up. “Well, I’m continuing this game outside. You two coming?”

“Eh, sure.” Gloves got up.

“Wait, what the hell are you two doing?” Crimson yelled.

“Taking the game outside. Since he’s in here, if we go outside, he’ll no longer become our problem.” Card guy explained.

“You- what- you can’t-“ Crimson sputtered, watching as his two fellow guards waltzed out of the room. He spotted Blue. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going!”

Blue cursed to himself. While the guards were bickering amongst themselves, he took the opportunity to quietly sneak around them and through the exit. He was so close, so damn close, to slipping out of the door, but of course, it couldn’t be that easy.

The guard got up and drew a knife from his belt. He approached Blue slowly like he was some kind of wild animal. “Alright buddy, just hold still.” He muttered. “Just put your hands behind your back, and cooperate with me, otherwise things are gonna get complicated.”

Blue raised his hands in surrender and let the guard approach him. He noticed that the guard was jutting his arm out too far, exposing it. The idiot probably didn’t even know how to use a knife.

When the guard got close enough, Blue sprung into action. He lunged forwards, dodging the knife in the guard’s hands, and twisted his arm. He flipped the guard down to the ground with a loud thud.

Perfect. Now to leave- wait, why did his shoulder hurt?

He glanced down at his shoulder and said a few choice words. There was a knife lodged firmly in his shoulder.

Ok, so he may not have dodged that knife too well.

While he was processing this realization, the door to the break room flung open and a group of guards stepped in, arguing among themselves. They all stopped when they noticed Blue.

Once again, there was that silence. The awkward silence. Blue simply stood frozen like he was a deer caught in the headlights. He should’ve been running, but no, he was just standing there. Like an idiot.

“Uh……..hi!” Blue smiled nervously.

The guards all drew various types of weaponry: batons, knives, even a taser, and charged him. Blue gritted his teeth.

Things might get complicated.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“What do you mean it wasn’t an explosion?” Elena all but yelled.

“I-I don’t really know, the SMRs aren’t picking up any traces of an explosion. It looks more like a sudden rush of air if anything,” Green said.

“What do you mean?”

“When you pop a balloon, air that was trapped inside of it will rapidly rush outside of it, right? Well, that’s what I’m picking up here. It’s like someone just popped a huge balloon or something.”

Elena leaned forward to glance at the monitor. Green replayed the footage from the SMR and it showed a large shift of air within the warehouse. He was right, it wasn’t an explosion.

She sighed in frustration. The SMR, or Satilite-based Monitor and Radar was the Foundation’s advanced monitoring system that was designed for situations like this. She didn’t know too much about the specifics of the system, but what she did know was that the system was based on a series of satellites in Earth’s orbit. Most of the satellites were for civilian or government use, but all you really have to do is just log into the SMR interface, choose a satellite that is adjacent to your location, and a few clicks later you got a perfect bird eye view of the area you’re in.

Basically, the same satellites that you’d probably watch trashy reality TV with can be used to pinpoint the exact location of a missile launch. Or in their case, figure out the cause of a disruptance in an operation. But what they had right now made no sense.

An idea popped into her head. “Can you try pinpointing his location?”

Green typed a few commands on the keyboard. “Doing that now. Lemme see what’s going on-oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” He paled, staring at the screen.

“What! What’s wrong!” Moss asked.

“His tracker just went dead.”

Elena froze. “How?”

Green shrugged. “The trackers connected to his watch. So I’ll take a guess and say his watch was damaged somehow. But that’s just being optimistic-“

“No, no! We’re being optimistic here!” She said. She was beginning to panic, which wasn’t something she wanted to do in this situation. She couldn’t lose one of her teammates in this operation. Not again. “Can you try to figure out where he was last?” She asked.

Green hummed for a minute, rapidly clicking away at the console. “Well…..kind of? I can dig through the saved location data in the cloud for his last known geographical location, but I may have to dig pretty deep through the files since the system isn’t really designed to show previous data. It sort of just deletes the old data and replaces it with the new data for redundancy purposes, so worst case scenario I have to go through the deleted data cache which will be a pain in the-“

“Green, you need to understand that everyone here isn’t well acquainted with computers like you.” Moss interuptted him. “So can you please-“

“If you tell me to ‘speak English’, I will throttle you.” Green snapped.

“Hey, don’t you threaten me with a good time-“

“BOTH OF YOU, SHUT IT!” Elena yelled, and Green and Moss fell quiet. She didn’t need Green’s excessive sarcasm and Moss being…… Moss right now. She breathed a sigh. “Ok, so you can get his location. How long will it take?”

“It depends on whether the data has been deleted or not.”

“Give me a worst-case estimate here.”

“Uh….. maybe an hour? There’s a lot of data to shift through here, Elena. As I said, this isn’t really what the programmers had in mind when they were designing this tech.”

Elena cursed to herself. She wasn’t sure what was going on in the warehouse, but she had a feeling it wasn’t exactly good. She also had a feeling that Blue probably won’t be able to hold himself off for enough time for Green to pinpoint his location. She might have to go to drastic measures here.

She leaped into action, jumping across the van to the gun safe in the back. She opened it, grabbed a rifle, and checked it. It was still in good shape, that was good. She grabbed another gun and thrust it into Moss’s hands. “Grab the medkit, we’re going in after him.” She announced.

Moss didn’t even protest, he simply shouldered a medkit and followed Elena to the back of the van. “Hold on! What about me?” Green called to her.

“Keep in touch with us, our comms should be good, right?”

“Uh, I think so.”

“Good. If our comms go down, signal an MTF team for backup.” She ordered, unlocking the van door. She was just about to open the door when it unexpectedly flew open, and she saw a stranger looming in the van’s doorway. Elena instinctively went to her side to draw her gun but stopped and breathed a sigh of relief upon noticing that it was a familiar face.

Blue. The son of a bitch was somehow still alive.

He was wearing the same clothes as before, so she assumed that the illusion spell at least went off without a hitch (the alternative plan was for Blue to change into the guy’s clothes and dump his unconscious body in a dumpster, and boy, she was glad it didn’t come to that). His balaclava was wrapped around his neck, exposing his face. He looked a bit worse for wear: several small cuts and bruises littered his face, and there was a large gash along the side of his left arm. Probably a graze wound by the looks of it.

He gave a large toothy grin. “Sup guys. I got that food you wanted.” He held up two large paper bags, the smell of freshly cooked Mexican cuisine emanating from them.

 Moss smiled. “Aww….. Thanks! You know you really didn’t have to do that-“ He stopped short, his eyes widening. “Uh…..Blue, I’m not sure if you noticed, but you kinda got a knife sticking out of your shoulder there.”

She glanced down, and there was indeed a knife firmly lodged into the right side of his upper chest. Blue glanced down as he’d just noticed it. Because knowing him, he’d probably just noticed it.

“Huh, I forgot that was there.” He muttered.

Yup, of course, he’d just noticed it.

Elena had many questions. How did he get a knife lodged in his shoulder? Was he going to be all right? How did he forget it was there? And- oh lord, she was going to have to file an injury report for that, wasn’t she? Knowing her luck, the answer was a resounding yes.

Moss facepalmed. “How did you forget- do you know what, forget it. We’ll just talk about this later. Can you clear these reports off the table here, Captain? I need the space.” Elena nodded and began to declutter the table, Moss barking at Green to pass him several pieces of medical equipment, and telling him to get his lazy behind off his chair.

Moss ushered Blue into the chair, reclining it back all the way. She heard Green mutter to himself from behind her. “I swear if he gets any blood on that chair….”

“Don’t worry about it, Green. Blood cleans off pretty easily. Just slap some hydrogen peroxide on it, and it’ll disappear.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a medic, Green. It’s kinda my job to deal with Blood.” He tore through Blues jacket with a pair of scissors, exposing the wound. He began to work on Blue, carefully examining the wound.

Blue noticed Elena staring at him and smirked. “What?”

“What? What? You scared the living crap out of us! We saw your tracker went down and we were going to go in after you!”

“Awww…. That’s sweet. Also, you’re gonna have to let the folks over in IT know that I need a new watch because the old one is……uh, kinda kaput.” He said, showing his wrist. His watch was completely shattered.

“What the- What happened in there?”

“Everything. Everything happened in there.”

“Well, can you elaborate? You look like shit!”

He grinned. “ Believe me, you should see the other guys- OW! Dammit Moss! That hurts!” He flinched as Moss rubbed a wet cloth on the wound. Moss rolled his eyes and ignored.

“All right so I got good news and bad news. The good news is the knife didn’t go in too deep, so there should be no risk of any permanent damage.” He said.

“That’s great! What’s the bad news?” Blue said.

“Bad news is I can’t really take the knife out right now. We gotta wait until we get back to the safe house to give you some better treatment.”

“Why can’t we pull it out?”

“The knife is keeping you alive right now,” Moss explained. “It’s not lodged in too deep that it’s damaging any important muscles or nerves, but there’s a solid chance that it may have nicked an artery. There are about three major arteries running through your shoulder; you pull that knife out, and you’ll bleed out in minutes. The knife is acting like a plug essentially. Just don’t mess with it, and you…. might be fine-“

“No, I’m going with ‘will’. I will be fine. I did not risk my neck getting that data only for me to kick it in the back of dingey van.”

Elena wanted to slam her face into the table right then and there. The data. The one measly little thing that her team was sent here for. With all the commotion going on, she completely forgot about it.

“The data, did you get it?” She asked.

He nodded. “Copied it into a flash drive. It’s in the front right pocket.”

Elena ripped the pocket open and found the flash drive safely nestled inside. She felt all the tension quickly release itself from her shoulders. Only for that tension to build back up as a loud siren began to sound over the complex. She had no clue what the siren was for, but she didn’t want to stay to find out.

“Uh, Captain. I think that may be our cue to leave.” Green said.

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” She muttered under her breath. “Green, get us back to the safe house!”

He smirked and climbed to the front of the van. “You got it!”

“And without breaking any traffic laws this time!” She added.

“Dammit!” He yelled.

Elena rolled her eyes. “I’ll never understand that man’s beef with traffic laws. Oh, and speaking of beef, can you pass me one of those bags over there?” She pointed to one of the bags of food next to Blue.

Blue smiled and leaned down to pick up one of the bags, suddenly lurching forward as the van began to speed off. He tore open one of the bags and passed a styrofoam food container to her, and another to Moss.

Elena opened one of the containers and took a whiff. Delicious. “Ah, this is great, Blue. How much do we owe you?”

Blue froze, his mouth wide open and about to take a large bite out of a taco. “What do you mean?”

“For the food. How much do we owe you for the food?” Elena clarified.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I took care of that.”

It was Elena’s turn to be confused. “What?”

---[EARLIER]---

Blue sat down, exhausted from the chaotic last few minutes. Several guards were strewn about the breakroom, all hopefully unconscious.

From where he was sitting, he could spot one of the many unconscious guards. In particular, he spotted a leather wallet sticking out of his back pocket.

Blue walked over to the guard and pulled the wallet out. He opened it and saw a large wad of cash sticking out.

Was he really going to take this money from an unconscious guy-

Wait a minute. Blue took a closer look at the guard’s face. He recognized him as that little shi- sorry, as the guard who slammed a baton right in his……er, area.

Blue pocketed the cash and threw the empty wallet to the ground.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Like I said, I took care of it,” Blue repeated.

Elena decided then and there to simply drop the subject. It wasn’t because of the murderous glint in Blue’s eyes, but because she had some work that she wanted to finish up before they got back to the safehouse. She collected her unfinished report off the ground and gave it a once over:

[After Action Report – Operation Benevolent Zebra]

She stifled a laugh at the operation name. Benevolent Zebra? Really, that was the best name the higher-ups could come up with. They needed to think of some better names for these operations. In their defense, most of the decent names were all used up a long time ago. But Benevolent Zebra? Really? What a pinnacle of creativity there.

She picked up a pen and opened the unfinished report. After all, there was still a lot of work to be done.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Change is a funny thing, isn’t it?

It’s not exactly something that you can just plan into your daily schedule or anticipate. You’re given no warning. No anticipation. It just happens, and sometimes you’re completely unable to stop it.

It was no wonder why Thomas Hayes hated change. And yet, here he was, standing in the doorway of a newly emptied-out office within the confines of Site 374, a small research site in El Paso, Texas. He looked at a small placard that was hanging right next to the door:

[ Dr. Thomas C. Hayes – Site Director ]

He rubbed the placard, for some reason expecting the letters to fall off and return to the name of his predecessor. But they didn’t, they simply remained there. It was all real, but at the same time, it still felt so unreal.

Hayes stepped into the office – his office – and dropped his suitcase. He walked over to his desk and collapsed onto the chair. He took a moment to just breathe for once, for the last few days had been a complete whirlwind of events.

Yesterday had been esspecially rough for him. His presence was requested over in Site 91, or if you preferred to call it by its full title, Xenobiological Research and Containment Site 91, for an emergency meeting. The site served, as the name suggests, as a research site for xenobiolgical specimens. Despite the hefty file he was given about the site before his flight, he still didn’t understand much about that part of its inner workings. He decided to stop reading and call it a day after he got to the part where he learned that the site was built under the body of a decomposing god that was dissected in the late 18^th century by a local occultist society. Damn, even that sentence couldn’t do that mindfuck of a file justice.

However, Site 91 also served another purpose: it acted as the working headquarters for the Department of Thaumaturgy, the SCP Foundations’ definitive authority for the study of the anomalous science of thaumaturgy.

Or in other words, the Foundation’s department that studies magic.

The emergency meeting over in Site 91 was to discuss the recent power vacuum that was left over in Site 374 in the wake of the death of one Mr. Hugh Clarence, the former site director, and to assign a new on-site director.

Which, as it turns out, happened to be him.

Hayes opened a desk drawer, which happened to be packed to the brim with dozens of unread paperwork and documents. He groaned. When he got back to the site, the sun was just beginning to set, painting the sky a lovely orange. And for once the weather wasn’t deathly hot outside. Hayes was sure that most of the personnel on site were enjoying the beautiful Friday evening, enjoying themselves after a hard day’s work.

Hayes on the other hand? He was stuck here, doing paperwork for the site. Approving asset transfers. Organizing meetings. Running an entire site.

He should be happy with the position, right? When the announcement was made during the meeting that he was assigned as the new site director he was shocked. He sat in silence for a few moments, trying to convince himself that he was dreaming, and he continued to sit in a dazed silence until the person next to him shook him out of it. Literally. The person next to him grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. It was kind of rude come to think of it.

Then again, being a site director for 374 wasn’t too much of an ask for him. The site wasn’t exactly too large, it happened to be one of the smallest sites in the region. The site served as the headquarters for the Department of Thaumaturgical Analysis and Countermeasures, though the name was a bit of a mouthful, so most people preferred to call it DTAC instead. DTAC was a small subdivision of the Department of Thaumaturgy that specialized in a different approach to its research.

While the Department of Thaumaturgy specialized in the study of magic within a scientific field, DTAC specialized in the active utilization of magic within the field to gain a better understanding of it and to better contain it.

Or they essentially used magic to contain magic. Simple, really.

A sudden knock on the office door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in!” He called out.

The door creaked open, and a head of red hair popped into view. Hayes rubbed his head for a moment, trying to recognize the visitor when it clicked. It was his new secretary, Richard, a junior researcher that recently joined the Foundation a year or two ago. They met via a quick phone call while Hayes was waiting for his flight back home at the airport. Judging by the interactions he had with him so far, the kid was smart, albeit shy.

Hayes gave him a weak smile and waved him inside. Richard stepped inside and Hayes noticed a large folder in his hands. Probably more paperwork. His lab coat was wrinkled and Hayes couldn’t help but notice the dark bags underneath the kid’s eyes.

“Uh, good evening sir-“

Hayes sighed. “Richard, I told you this a million times already. You don’t need to call me sir. Believe me, it just makes me feel old.” He chuckled.

The young researcher rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I apologize si- Dr. Hayes. I apologize.”

Hayes pointed to the folder in Richards’s hands. “ I assume that’s for me?”

“Y-yes, it came in the mail a few days ago. It’s urgent.” He fumbled the folder over to Hayes. “There was also a note attached to it as well.” He produced a small slip of paper from his pockets and handed it to Hayes.

“Thanks, kid. Out of curiosity, are you all done for the day?”

“Almost, I just need to finish that preliminary report for the cross-testing tomorrow. Oh, and I also need to finalize the details for that test with those tabloids we found in Gravesfeild a few months back. And I need to-“

“Woah, kid, slow down for me.” Hayes cut him off. “Just get that report in when you come in tomorrow, I’ll take care of everything else.”

“Dr. Hayes, with all due respect here, the report is due tomorrow. I don’t think the research department won’t be happy with it coming in so late-“

“Fine, then I’ll take care of that too. I’d just call it night if I were you. There’s a good restaurant downtown, a lot of the other researchers are over there. You should head over there and join them-“

“Are you- are you sure? I can just get all of this done tonight and-“

“Yes, I’m sure, Richard,” Hayes said. “Confident even. Someone your age shouldn’t be stuck in an office doing paperwork until the crack of dawn. That’s my job. Someone your age should be having a nice night out, especially you.”

The tension in his secretary’s shoulders released, and he gaped his mouth open in surprise. “Uh…. Thank you, doctor.” He turned to leave.

“One more thing….” Hayes added, stopping Richard dead in his tracks in the doorway.

“Make sure to get some sleep tonight. You look like a Racoon with those bags around your eyes, kid.” He said. “And make sure to close the door when you leave.”

Richard relaxed. “Yes Doctor…….thank you.” He walked out of the room, easing the door shut behind him.

Hayes sat in silence for a few moments.

He’s a good kid. Has a bright future ahead of him as well.

He would make sure of it.

Hayes turned his attention to the file Richard passed him earlier. He unfolded the note and began to skim through it.

To the current director of Site 374

I would like to first apologize for the unorthodox delivery of this message and the documents with it. I do realize that it would’ve been easier for both parties to just E-mail these documents to you, however, my higher-ups insisted that I mail this to you due to the….. nature of our situation.

These documents involve an inter-department project that your predecessor, Senior Researcher Hugh Clarence, was involved with. Clarence acted as the head of research of our operation, and we were entering the final stages of the project when his unfortunate passing occurred. The specifics of his role within our project are enclosed inside. I would like to also offer my condolences for his passing. He was an interesting character, and I’m sure he’ll be missed.

Hayes had to stifle a small laugh. Hugh Clarence being missed by someone? That was unlikely as all hell to ever happen. Although it was considerably screwed up, according to a few rumors a few researchers celebrated his death a few days after it happened. Hayes wasn’t sure if the rumors were true, but knowing Clarence’s reputation as a stuck-up narcissistic asshat, he wouldn’t be surprised. Although he never had to undergo the horror of dealing with the man himself, he’d heard stories.

And they were not good ones.

Although Hayes could at least see why the man was chosen as the head of research for this mysterious project; he was a brilliant man who led some important research that furthered the understanding of thaumaturgy.

Still a prick, though.

However, we must press on with the project. The O-5s are getting a bit antsy with our lack of progress within the last few months, and they want results. This second part is where you and a few other personnel come in.

We need you and four other personnel (their names are listed at the end of this note) to visit Area 42 in Gravesfeild, Connecticut, where the project is being held. I HIGHLY recommend you familiarize yourself with the enclosed documents to get familiar with the project, however, I need the agents involved to be kept in the dark about the project for now. We will inform them when they arrive on site.

Hayes paused. The Overseers were in on the project? That was a bit of a shock, considering the fact that the O-5 council happened to be one of the most powerful groups of people within the foundation. Hell, Hayes didn’t even know they existed until he was promoted to a senior researcher a few years ago. So if the O-5s were in on this project, it meant serious business.

Not even a day into the new job and I’m already getting all the serious shit.

And why was Hayes supposed to keep the agents involved with the project in the dark about it? It seemed pretty counterproductive to send a bunch of people halfway across the country and not tell them what the hell was going on until they got to their destination.

Enclosed in the documents is some documentation that’ll get you a flight over to JFK International in New York. There, you’ll meet up with our transport unit who will ensure your transfer to the site. You and the chosen personnel are expected to be on-site by the following date. No sooner, no later.

Hayes glanced down at the date and groaned. It was only two days from now.

Christ, are they trying to kill me? I’d just got back from England and now they are shoving me in another damn plane.

Was it a good time to mention that Hayes hated flying?

If you have any concerns or questions, don’t hesitate to send me a message.

Exitus Acta Probat – We Die in the Dark, So You Can Live in the Light

Sincerely,

Dr. James Whitman – Head of the Department of Thaumaturgical Analysis and Countermeasures

Hayes froze when he read who signed the letter. Dr.James Whitman. The man who built the entire department from scratch. The man who fought tooth and nail to establish thaumaturgical analysis in the field during a time when the usage of anything anomalous in the field was frowned upon. The man who was now his boss.  

Whitman was an interesting character. Mostly because nobody saw him. The man rarely made any sort of public appearance in the Foundation. He never showed up to any meetings, choosing to either attend virtually or send his assistant in his place. The emergency meeting in Site 91 was no different; one of Dr. Whitman’s assistants sat right next to him during the entire thing.

He was about to put the note to the side when he saw there was more text on the bottom.

P.S. – Congrats on the promotion by the way!

Yeah, congratulations to him. Yay.

P.P.S. – Also there is a slim chance that there is a memetic kill agent attached to the documents that will, since you’re not accustomed to the kill agents protecting these documents yet, cause immediate cardiac arrest and therefore, death. I would just recommend removing the first couple of pages in the document for your safety. Burn it. Shred it. As long as it’s gone you should be fine.

Oh, for the love of- Yup, of course, he would do that. Two words that fit perfectly together in a sentence were ‘James Whitman’ and ‘incessantly paranoid’. Wait, that was four words. Whatever, close enough.

He went to the folder and, with his eyes shut, removed the first few pages of the document and shoved them in the shredder. There! That should do the trick.

Because if it didn’t, then Richard will most likely find him collapsed on the ground dead when he came back the next day, and they’ll have to find another poor idiot to take the job. Hayes opened the folder, and judging by the fact that his heart didn’t stop, he assumed he did a good job taking out the kill hazard.

He flipped through the remaining pages and skimmed through them. Most of it was a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo that Hayes didn’t have the qualifications to understand. All he could make out what was that the project had something to do with generating an artifical spacetime anomaly, and a lot of math.

Seriously, when did they add letters to math?

He pushed the documents to the side and drew his attention back to the note. One the back was a small handwritten list of numbers: four numbers to be exact:

C – 01

C – 05

C – 07

C- 08

Wow. That’s so helpful.

Hayes rubbed his head, raking his mind to figure out where he saw those numbers before. Normally foundation personnel would be assigned a small serial number which would be used for identification purposes, however, Hayes had no idea what he was looking at here.

He booted up the computer on his desk and logged on to the RAISA database. If he couldn’t figure out what those numbers meant, surely the foundation’s database could.

And to his surprise, a result came up:

RAISA ARCHIVES

Recordkeeping and Information Security Administration

T.I.T.A.N PROGRAM CANIDATE LIST – CLS 2011

C-01- [ERROR]

RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]

STATUS- INACTIVE

C-05- “Rose”

RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]

STATUS – ON ASSIGNMENT ( LIST – S 19 )

C-07- “Keeper”

RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]

STATUS – ON ASSIGNMENT ( LIST – [DATA EXPUNGED])

C-08 – “Blue”

RN – [DATA EXPUNGED]

STATUS – RETURNING TO SITE (LIST – S 374)

Well….. that was a problem. One of the names was simply marked down as inactive. Hayes didn’t even know what that even meant. Was the agent dead? Retired? Defected? The database didn’t tell him too much. And the other two agents on file were currently on other assignments. That was surely bound to complicate things. Hayes would send Whitman a message about that later.

But the last name though……he recognized that name. He entered the name into the database and let it load. After a few moments, he was staring at the file image of a man with a small amount of stubble on his face, brown eyes, and a small, sly smile.

Oh…. That Agent Blue. He loudly chuckled, staring intently at the image. To say the two of them had a history would be an understatement. Hayes didn’t know what Whitman wanted Blue for in this project, especially with the several disciplinary reparations that lined his file, but he knew one thing was for certain.

Things were bound to get interesting.

Chapter Text

It was a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun was barely peaking over the horizon, painting the sky a beautiful orange-red. A sparrow landed on a dull grey light post and began chirping away, filling the air with its sweet, sweet melody.

*HONK*

The poor startled bird flew away as a van below blasted its horn, yielding nothing but a middle finger poked out from the sedan in front of them and barely moving an inch in the bumper-to-bumper morning traffic.

Yep, what a beautiful morning.

Elena slammed her fist on the horn, sending it blaring yet again. The driver in front of them was now sticking their head out the window, yelling something unintelligible in rapid-fire Spanish. Elena simply rolled her eyes.

“Honking the horn isn’t gonna make things go faster, you know?” Blue mumbled from the passenger seat next to her.

“It makes me feel better.” She responded with a tired twinge in her voice, tapping her fingers quicker and quicker on the wheel as each second passed. The clock on the dashboard seemed to mock them with each passing minute stuck in the gridlocked traffic. Blue sighed and looked out the window, trying to find some way to pass the time as the symphony of honking cars blared around him.

Green poked his head out from the back of the van, scrunching his eyes at the bright early morning sun like a gremlin that had just seen the sun for the first time in centuries. “How much longer do we get back to the site?” He grumbled like a small child, rubbing his eyes.

Blue sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. Probably longer since we’re moving at a snail's pace because of the traffic.”

“Well, we could’ve avoided all this traffic if we took that alternate route I suggested earlier.” He pouted.

“Your idea of an alternate route involved cutting through several back alleys, trespassing through people’s yards, driving on the wrong side of the road, and cutting through a construction site.” Elena retorted, glaring at him through the rearview mirror.

“It would’ve been an adventure, though.” Green crossed his arms and scowled.

“An adventure that’s very illegal,” Blue added.

“Not if we get caught! We could’ve shaved off a good ten minutes.”

“Or added ten months to our sentences.” Elena shook her head. “Besides, we wasted a lot of time as it was dropping Moss off at the airport. We were never going to beat the traffic.”

Blue slumped back. “What was with that, anyway?”

Green shrugged. “He got reassigned somewhere else. Knowing him, he’s probably still waiting for his flight and traumatizing some poor stewardess with facts about the appendix or something.”

Blue shuddered. “Remember that one time he brought out the medical diagrams? The really graphic ones?”

“Please, don’t remind me or you’ll make me throw up…again.” Elena shook her head. “Besides, I’m focusing on the traffic right now.”

“Oh, the traffic that isn’t moving- sorry, sorry Captain.” Green piped down after Elena gave him a piercing glare.

“Shouldn’t you be filing away the reports from the operation, Green?” Elena silently fumed.

“Well excuse me. I have been busy with important business for the last hour, thank you very much-“

“You’re reading that book again, aren’t you?”

“Yes. “Green sighed in defeat, retreating into the back of the van.

Blue rolled his eyes. “Never got the appeal of that series. What was it, The Good Witch of Zorula, or something-“

“The Good Witch Azura.” Green shouted from the back. “And I’ll have you know-“

“’ That it’s a literary masterpiece comparable to the works of Shakespeare’, yeah, we know. We’ve had this entire spiel before!” Elena snapped with an exhausted twinge to her voice, tightly gripping the steering wheel.

The van sat in an awkward silence before Elena groaned and mumbled something about how ‘the silence is killing me’.  She quickly flicked on the radio, and an overly enthusiastic and disgustingly cheery DJ’s voice poured out of the speakers:

“Goooood morning, El Paso! Today is Saturday, May 23^rd, and today is gonna be a wonderful day! It’s also hot, hot, hot! We got another roaster today, with highs up in the 90s and cooling down later tonight as we dip into the 80s. Moving on to traffic, for you folks heading east on I-10, expect some delays since we are getting reports of a crash that’s blocking a lane of traffic over by exit 22B. The traffic seems to be going on for miles, so boy, I’m glad I’m not those suckers-“

Elena groaned and swiftly changed the channel, each one seemingly intent on aggravating her further.

“Are you feeling worthless? Well, you can vent out all about how utterly useless you are to a licensed therapist on SmartHelp-“

*click*

“She has ultimately been an ineffective leader and has failed to act time and time again. She is nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing, an imposter, a failure-“

*click*

“Oh, what the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.”

*click*

Elena punched the radio off and sighed. The traffic crept forward a few feet before grinding to a halt again. Blue glanced at her, noticing how tense she looked, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel.

“Uh, Captain? Are you feeling good?” Blue asked softly.

Elena snapped out of her daze. “Hm, me? Yeah, I’m…...peachy. Doing great over here, thank you very much!” She tried to smile, but it came out as forced as the traffic they were stuck in.

Blue didn’t buy it. “Captain- Elena, excuse the language, but I think that’s bullshit.”

“Excuse me? What did you just say to me-“

Blue hastily cut her off before she got to chewing out his sorry behind for the third time in forty-eight hours. “Look, I’ve known you for years. We’ve worked together for what, four, five years now? That has to amount to something. I know what ‘peachy’ looks like on you, and I sure know that this isn’t it. You haven’t been this upset since the Chicago Sunroof Incident.”

Elena turned a whiter shade of pale. “Oh God. Please don’t remind me of that.”

“I’m sorry, what’s the Chicago Sunroof Incident?” Green innocently asked from the back of the van.

“Don’t want to talk about it.” Blue and Elena sputtered out, their voices a tangled mess.

Blue hesitated, then laid a gentle reassuring hand on her shoulder. Since his hand wasn’t broken, he assumed it was safe for him to continue. “Come on, talk to me.” He urged softly. “I’m not talking to you as your subordinate right now, but as your friend.” He gently smiled.  

Elena, stubborn as always, remained quiet before finally relenting. “It's…just about what happened last night. I’m a little worried about Clarence.” She admitted.

Green, his curiosity piqued, leaned out from the back of the van, poking his head right below Blue’s outstretched arm. “I’m sorry, but who are we talking about here?”

Blue was confused for a moment before he reminded himself that it was Green’s first time visiting Site 374. “Director Clarence is the moron in charge back on site, at least when he isn’t too busy trying to shove a stick up his ass.”

“Blue!” Elena chastised him.

“What?” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Someone had to say it. He’s an asshole!”

“He’s also your superior, so stick up his…whatever or not, at least try to show a little respect,” Elena snapped, trying to look serious, but Blue could tell that her heart wasn’t that all in it.

Blue gave a sly smile and nodded before turning back to Green. “The guy’s a giant walking cactus because he’s a massive prick. Though, calling him a cactus would be an insult to all cactuses everywhere.” Blue thought aloud.

Green shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, he can’t be that bad, right?”

“He yelled at someone for almost an hour because they didn’t refer him to him by his full designation.”

“It was an hour, actually.” Elena corrected, still staring at the traffic ahead. “He’s…not the best.” She said to Green.

“At least we can both agree on that.” Blue nodded. “Now, why are you so worried about him?”

She gave a dry laugh. “Oh, why I am so worried? Well, I don’t know? Maybe because I fucked up another operation!” She hissed, her frustration finally boiling over into sheer despair.

Blue’s expression hardened. “No, No! Shut up, shut up, Captain. We both know that last night wasn’t your fault, alright?

Elena’s eyes flashed with frustration. “Then who’s fault was it then?”

“It sure as hell wasn’t yours.” Blue said firmly. “Things went wrong, ok? That happens.”

“A lot,” Green added.

“A lot. But we got the job done. Isn’t that what matters?”

Elena exhaled slowly and some of the tension released from her shoulders. “Sure, but what about your little incident in the warehouse?” She narrowed his eyes at him, her eyes glinting dangerously. She gently swatted his hand off her shoulder.

Oh, right……that.

Blue winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I will be the first one to admit here that things could’ve, and should’ve, gone a lot smoother. But hey, we got the data right?”

“We….uh, also made the news.” Green stammered, fumbling his phone out of his pocket and showing it Blue. His eyes widened in a ‘Oh dear, I’m screwed!’ motion as he read the headline.

EL PASO TIMES

Explosion occurs during police shootout in Foxconn warehouse in Juarez. Twenty-four injured, no deaths suspected.

Blue swallowed hard as he felt Elena’s near-murderous gaze fixed on him.

For some reason, he felt like it was going to be a long drive.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Alright, we’re here.”

Elena killed the engine and sat in silence as the van settled on the hot pavement. They were parked in front of a nondescript strip mall; a carbon copy of one of the dozens of similar buildings that littered the city. The colorful mismatched neon signs on its faded facade were fading intermittently in the early morning light, which cast long shadows from the sparsely parked cars onto the cracked pavement.

To their left was a diner that Blue occasionally wondered how it managed to stay open since it was collecting health code violations like they were baseball cards. There was a neon 24-Hour Breakfast sign that was hung up on the door. To their right, there was a dimly lit pawn show with a flickering rusted WE BUY GOLD! sign hanging crooked by the window.

Sandwiched right in between the two buildings was a small office with a colorful patriotic paint scheme which, albeit faded, awkwardly clashed with the other two buildings. Tiny American flags fluttered in the morning breeze, as a massive inflatable Uncle Sam tied onto the roof wobbled slightly, unsure of its purpose in life. A bright neon sign on the roof read:

STEVENS, CLARKE, AND PETERSON: ATTORNEYS AT LAW

Suite 374

Yeah, the foundation was never known for being subtle with their front companies because of course they had to do the cutesy thing with the letters.

To any random passerby, the overly American building was simply an ordinary legal firm.

Just a regular legal firm

But to him and his fellow teammates in the van rapidly warming van, the building was nothing more than a front, because a couple of feet underground laid Site 374: a small, yet humble, research site that dedicated itself towards research on Thaumaturgy, as well as studying and containing hundreds of anomalous items and entities, hidden out of site from the completely unaware civilian population.

The trio got out of the van in silence Blue adjusted the bag on his shoulder and wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. It wasn’t even officially summertime yet, but it was still blazing hot. He loudly closed the door and wiped his brow again.

Green hopped out from the back, attempting to shove the book he’d been reading into his duffel bag. He grunted as he uncomfortably balanced the bag. “Just let me get this stupid little shit into this motherfucking-“

Another one of the doors shut next to him. Blue glanced over and saw Elena, her bag slung over her shoulder, wordlessly pointing to the front door of the office.

They filed into the building, letting the sweet chilly air from the air conditioning greet them as they entered. The door closed behind them with a small electronic beep. The reception area wasn’t anything exceptional: the walls were lined with some cheap mahogany paneling that at one point, was a warm, luscious brown, but was now faded and scratched beyond all recognition. A boxy TV was mounted on the wall, displaying only static, along with a few cheap motivational posters that hung crooked on the walls, barely clinging to place.

Elena approached the reception desk, where a gruff middle-aged man was snoring loudly, drool slobbering down his cheek. Blue gave a knowing smile to Elena and Green as he rang a small service bell on the desk. When the bell rang, on cue, the man shot up, wide awake.

“HUH, WAH! I WASN’T ASLEEP I WAS JUST RESTING MAH EYES!” The man cried out in a thick accent. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, blinking them slowly as he readjusted to reality. Judging by the strong smell of booze coming from him, it was clear the guy had a hangover.

The man shook his head.”Eh….anyways. Good evening-

“It’s ten in the morning.” Blue corrected.

The man rolled his eyes. “Eh, times a fuckin’ construct created by the government. Good morning and welcome to Steven, Clarke, and Peterson. How may I help ya?” The man asked in a gruff monotone voice, like he rehearsed the line hundreds of times before.

Elena stepped forward. “We have an appointment at four today.”

The man scratched his chin. “Then wat the hell are you’s doing here then? It’s ten in the morning!”

Elena sharply inhaled. “It’s a special appointment.”

The man raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair, considering them for a moment. “So? Does it look like I give two flying shits? Special or not, ya gotta wait-“

Blue leaned in and grabbed the prick by the collar of his shirt. “Listen asshole, we just need to use the room in the back. If you get what I’m saying.” He said through gritted teeth.

The man’s eyes widened. “O-oh. That type of special appointment. Just let me, ah-“ The receptionist motioned for Blue to let him go and he relented. Shaking, he reached under the desk and flicked a switch.

The man cleared his throat nervously. “A-alrighty. Ya’ll do….whatever it is you do downstairs.” He quickly stood up, adjusted his rumbled shirt, and all but ran out of the building.

Elena stared at Blue like he lost it. “Was that really necessary?”

He shrugged. “It got the job done, right?”

Elena shook her head and sighed. “Just don’t scare the poor bastard next time. Hiring someone up here is pretty difficult.”

“Hiring someone?” Green asked, puzzled. “Wasn’t that guy part of the staff here?”

“Yes, but actually no,” Blue answered. “Director Clarence, in all his infinite wisdom, decided to cut back on some costs by hiring civilians to act as receptionists for the site entrance, rather than just have one of our own do the job.” He explained as they walked deeper into the building

They wandered down a narrow, dimly lit hallway. The fluorescent lights above them flickered as they walked past several closed doors, the brass nameplates that labeled them long since tarnished. They stopped by an innocuous door, and Elena dug out a set of keys, jingling through them as she searched for the right one.

“Isn’t it a walking security hazard to employ civilians?” Green pointed out. “How much does that guy even know?”

“Enough.” Elena flatly said. “He knows that there's something underneath this building, and he has to let people inside here and there. We just tell them not to ask too many questions. Most of them comply and do their jobs; no questions asked.”

“And the ones that don’t comply?”

Elena found the key she was looking for and slid into the door, unlocking it with a click. “Amnestics. Wipe their memory, plop ‘em somewhere else. Besides, even if they go blabbing their mouths off on the internet or something, they’ll look like a complete lunatic. We handpick the people we hire to be crackpot conspiracy theorists: the crazier, the better.”

“The guy back there was pretty active on the Parawatch forums,” Blue added as they entered the room. He closed the door behind them with a soft click. It was completely barren, save for a couple of dusty boxes haphazardly stacked on the corner and a lone dial thermostat on the wall.

They approached the thermostat and Elena hesitated. “You do remember the entrance code, right?” Blue asked.

“Shut up, of course I do!” She responded defensively, staring at the thermostat, her hand hovering right over the dial.

Blue sighed and gently pushed her out of the way. “I’ll do it. We’ll be in here all day waiting for you to remember that damn code.” He said, taking the dial and twisting it to input the code, like opening a safe.

010920

He tapped the dial with his thumb, and with a hiss, a hidden panel on the wall slid open, revealing an empty sterile grey elevator.

“IDs?” Elena asked. Blue fished his ID out of his pocket, with Green following suit. After scanning them into a scantron, they stepped inside the elevator, and Elena pressed a button labeled -1.

The doors hissed shut. The air inside was freezing, smelling like disinfectant, and the overhead lights cast a bright light on the metal walls.

A soft ding played on the speakers. “Identities confirmed, now descending. Sublevel one.” A monotone voice played, and the elevator began its smooth descent. Mozart played over the tiny hidden speakers.

The elevator slowed to a stop with another ding. “Site 374, Sublevel one.” The doors slid open revealing a warmly lit reception area, soft, warm lights replacing the harsh fluorescents in the elevator, casting a gentle glow on the room.

Across from the elevator was a doorway to a stairwell that led into the lower sublevel of the facility, including the laboratories and the containment wing. To the right was a hallway that extended towards the site cafeteria and administrative offices, the cream-colored walls adorned with framed photos and a few paintings. The distant murmur of conversations from down the hall drifted down to them.

To their left was a security desk, manned by a tired-looking guard dressed in a crisp uniform, a SECURITY tag pinned above their right breast pocket. The young woman barely looked above thirty, and Blue had never seen her before. Probably one of the newer personnel, he assumed.

As they approached, the guard looked up, her eyes slightly narrowing in recognition. She nodded curtly to address their presence.

“ID’s?” She demanded, her devoid of any emotion.

They handed her their IDs, and she scanned them into a computer on her desk in a swift practiced motion. She handed them back without a word and typed into the computer on the desk, which beeped back after a moment.

 “Welcome back, folks. Ya’ll were on assignment in Juarez, correct?”

Elena nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We just came back.”

The guard bother didn’t look away from the computer. “Director Hayes wants you in his office, room 11, in one hour for the AAR.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me, but you mean Director Clarence, right?”

The guard looked away from the computer and at Blue like he had suddenly grown a second head. “Who?”

Blue felt like he was going insane. “Director Clarence! The asshat who runs the place!”

The guard's confusion deepened before a look of realization clicked on her face, and she slightly cringed. “Oh…oh. That’s what you’re talking about. None of you were here for the past couple of weeks, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

The guard quickly glanced around and leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Well, there was an incident about a week ago and, um….” She trailed off as she tried to find the right words. “Director Clarence isn’t exactly with us anymore.”

Blue gave a sigh of relief. “Oh! Did they finally fire that prick?” The guard again looked at him like he had gone crazy. “What? You know it’s true.” He defended himself.

“No, he wasn’t fired.” The guard explained with a solemn shake of her head. “There was a containment breach last week, and…...” The guard trailed off, and it only took a few moments for Blue to piece the rest of the pieces together.

“Oh. Oh. That’s awful.” Blue said, exchanging an uneasy glance with Elena and Green. “I kind of feel like an asshole now. Do you know what happened or…”

The guard shrugged; her expression completely unchanged. “Not really. All I know is it was an accident involving one of the anomalies we just got in. The rest has been kept pretty tightly under wraps. It was pretty messy though, from what I heard. They held a service for him a couple of days ago, but barely anybody came. People were either too busy, or just didn’t care enough.”

She leaned back in her chair and gave a nonchalant shrug. “But y’know, death’s just another part of the job. Anyways, Director Hayes is busy with some cross-testing right now downstairs, so make sure to be in room 11. Remember, one hour.” The guard swiftly and jarringly changed the conversation from the grim news of their superior's grisly death, right back to her routine instructions, like she was talking about the weather and not about someone having their life violently cut short. In any other situation, someone might feel something, anything; grief, sadness, anger, but all Blue felt was indifference.

Death was just another part of the job, after all, and in the SCP Foundation, the lines between life, death, and mundane bureaucracy often blurred together into an undistinguishable mess.

Elena nodded in understanding and adjusted the bag on their shoulder. She turned towards Blue and Green. “I’m going to grab something from the cafeteria, I’m starving. Are you two coming with?”

Green shook his head quickly. “Nah, I’m just gonna head down to the quarters to unpack.” He turned and took a few steps before stopping, clearly unsure of where he was going.

“So…...which way is the quarters?”

Blue sighed and patted Green on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take you there.” He said, steering him towards the stairwell, and deeper into the facility.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Welcome to your new home, my friend!”

With a swipe of a keycard on the electric lock, the door clicked open, and Blue swung the door open to his, and now Green’s, shared quarters. Two soft beds were laid against the back wall parallel to each other, leaving some space for a nightstand on Green’s side, and a minifridge Blue bought an eternity ago on the other. A door adjacent to the right of the entrance led to the shared bathroom.

Blue, unfortunately, realized too late in horror that he should’ve done some cleaning before he left for Juarez a few weeks ago. Piles of clothes were strewn across the floor, conveniently everywhere but the small makeshift laundry bin at the foot of Blue’s hastily

made bed, the sheets still rumpled up the same way he left them the day he left.

Green waltzed over to the minifridge and dragged his finger along the top, revealing a clump of dust that had been displaced on his finger. With a raised eyebrow, he turned to Blue. “It looks like you’ve been living like a college freshman. Is everything in here covered in dust?”

Blue chuckled nervously and ran a hand through his hair. “Well….kind of. I don’t spend too much time here; they always like to move me around the place on assignments. Things get a bit…hectic sometimes, and this place doesn’t get too much attention.”

Green’s eyes roamed the room. “This place looks like a natural disaster zone. How do you live like this?”

Blue shrugged, attempting to gather up the clothes in his hands. “I have a system. It’s…. unconventional.”

Green picked up an empty crumbled chip bag. “I don’t think it’s working.”

Blue felt his face warm up, and he snatched the bag out of his hands and threw it in the garbage. “I’m not used to having roommates, alright! It’s….been a while. Give me a minute, I’ll try to clean up while you unpack, ok?”

As Blue worked on pitching armfuls of his dirty laundry into the hamper, he couldn’t help but notice Green’s chaotic packing skills as he loaded piles of haphazardly stacked clothes onto his bed, humming what Blue recognized after a minute of contemplation to be the Good Witch Azura movie theme. It wasn’t like Blue was particularly fond of either the books or subsequent film; he found them too flowery for his taste. However, Green insisted that it would be a good “team bonding” exercise to watch it a year ago, and against all better judgment, Elena relented.

It was truly unfortunate that the main theme had to be so damn catchy.

Blue pointed out this observation to Green – the one about his inability to properly pack for a trip, not the one about Azura – and the other man sheepishly smiled. “ I was never really good at this part.” He admitted, attempting to fold a pair of jeans that had somehow ended up inside out.

“I can see that,” Blue replied with a grin, yanking the pants out of Green’s hands and straightening them out with a quick, fluid motion. “I pretty much lived out of a suitcase for most of my life, so I might be able to teach you a thing or two.” He offered, tossing the pants back to Green.

Once Blue disposed of his last pair of dirty socks, he returned to unpacking his bag. As he placed a neatly folded shirt on his bed, Green glanced over with a thoughtful expression.

“Well, so now that we’re roomies,” Green announced, “how about we try to get to know each other a bit more, huh?”

Blue groaned. “Green, we’ve been working together for a few years now. I already know a lot about you, too much in fact.”

Green raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Oh really? Like what?”

Blue sat down on his bed, arms crossed. “ You drool in your sleep. You tend to talk in your sleep about important mission details, which is slightly concerning. You have an incredibly unhealthy obsession with The Good Witch Azura-“

“No, I do not!”

“You are talking out your sixth copy of the fourth book.”

Green whipped his head and saw the purple book sticking out of his bag. “It was a first-edition copy for fifty bucks. How could I resist?”

Blue shook his head. “Fair, but it’s a bit excessive.”

“It’s a collector’s item, that’s what it is!” Green said, pulling the book, along with a horde of other books, out from his bag with great care and placing them on his nightstand. “Besides, it is always good to have a backup!” He smiled.

“Yeah, because you’re going to wear out the other five copies.”  Blue teased.

Green chuckled, unphased. “What about you?” He asked.

“What about me?” Blue replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, what about you?” Green asked. “You’re right, we’ve worked with each other for years, but I feel like I barely know you.”

Blue shrugged. “What’s there to know? I’m just an average guy.”

Green shook his head, leaning forward with genuine curiosity.” Oh, c’mon. I know you’re not average. Everyone’s got their story. But you’ve always been….I don’t know, closed off about your past.”

Blue hesitated, glancing around the room as if he were searching for an escape. He wondered if he could fit underneath the bed. “I don’t know. I’m pretty boring. I wake up, do my job, go to sleep. Repeat until I eventually kick it.”

Green raised an eyebrow, refusing to back down. “That’s just routine. There's gotta be more to you. What about your family?”

“Complicated.” Blue swiftly answered.

“Oh, I feel you.” Green sighed. “What about where you grew up?”

“In the city.”

“Hobbies?”

“Don’t have that much.”

“Favorite color?”

“Green.”

“Really? I thought your favorite color would be blue-“

“Green,” Blue said in between gritted teeth. “I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood to be interrogated about my personal life.”

Green raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, okay, I get it. No hard feelings. But…... can I just ask one more question?”

Blue considered the idea for a moment before relenting. “Sure.” He mumbled.

What’s the worst that could happen-

“So… Why exactly did you choose Blue as your code name?”

Fuck.

Blue froze, completely caught off guard by the sudden question. “I-I don’t want to talk about it.” He stuttered out, his voice barely above a whisper.

Green rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s just a name, right? What’s the big deal-“

“I said I don’t want to talk about it, ok!” Blue snapped, tightly clenching his fists as he tried to maintain the little composure he had left.

Green recoiled, taken back by the intensity of Blue’s voice. “I-I’m sorry, I’ll drop it!” He said cautiously.

Blue exhaled softly, and the room fell into another awkward silence, punctuated only by the constant droning hum of the mini-fridge. Green silently got up. “I’m just… going to head out now.”

He hesitated at the door, then continued. “This might be a bad time to ask, but I was thinking that we could stop by a bookstore we passed by on the way here tomorrow. Normally, Moss and I would do this type of thing together, but since he’s out of town, we could just hang out, just you and me. What do you think?” He sheepishly smiled.  

Blue shook his head. “Nah. I’ll be a bit busy tomorrow. You have fun though.” Blue gently declined.

Green’s smile fell and he nodded. “Alright…… Well, if you need me, I’m going to be in the cafeteria upstairs. I’m done with unpacking anyway.” Green left and closed the door behind him.

Silence enveloped the room once more. Blue silently wondered where it all went wrong.

Maybe you should reconsider. It would be fun to get out for once. A small voice in his head said.

Another voice popped up. No, we have things to do. Remember?

What? Mope around in your quarters again, being a sad, sorry excuse of a man? You can’t keep doing this. You know you can’t keep doing this for the rest of your life.

Well, it’s worked out fine for the last decade or so, so who says it isn’t going to work this time?

What about Green? He’s your friend. Moss, Elena-

They’re not your friends. They’re your colleagues. Learn the difference. Besides, you don’t need friends anyway. You sure as hell don’t deserve people that are good to you, either.

What’s the fuss about trying to make some connections with people? Maybe you should just try to put some effort into the relationships you already have!

There’s no point in trying to make your “relationships” better. You’re nothing but a burden for others; maybe it would’ve been better if you just died last night. It would’ve at least saved Elena a lot of grief-

That’s not true and you know it.

-and besides, you know the risks of getting attached. It’s easier if you just cut yourself off. Friends? They make you soft. And when you’re soft, you’ll just drag yourself down, the same way you did the first time and the time after that.

Do you want to know what else friends can do? They can make you feel whole. They can make you happy. They can give you an actual purpose in life.

You ALREADY have a purpose, remember?

What, working for the Foundation for the rest of your life? Don’t you think it would be nice to finally settle down one day? To try to fix the broken parts of your life? Maybe even one day settle down with someone nice and have a family one day?’  

You wanted to do that years ago, remember? Now, look how that ended up. After the incident, you were an inconsiderable mess for YEARS. Friends? Love? All that crap just makes you PATHETIC- ‘  

“WILL YOU SHUT UP!”

Blue shouted into the empty room. His face felt oddly wet, streaked with tears he hadn’t even noticed falling, the all-too-familiar taste of salt lingering in his mouth. The silence in the room only seemed to suffocate him as the seconds ticked by. His nails were digging into his palms now, any harder and he was sure he would draw blood. At this point, he didn’t care.

“Why….” He whispered, his voice barely above a croak. “Why can’t I just-“ He trailed off, not sure if he wanted an answer, or if he was finally losing it.

He fumbled through his bag, his hands still shaking – he didn’t know why, was it the cold? Why did the room feel cold?- and retrieved a small pill bottle. Dumping two, no, three tiny pills into his palm, he quickly downed them-

-I’ll prescribe you something to help you out with the more….serious episodes, but it's only just a temporary solution. I strongly suggest that you seek therapy-

- and felt them roll down his dry throat. He let himself collapse onto his bed, and he finally breathed.

He was in the same clothes from last night, his shoulder still sore from having a knife plunged into its flesh, a bandage covering the tender flesh. Blue was sure it was going to scar (yippee, there’s another for the collection!). He could almost feel the dark bags weighing down his eyes; he wasn’t sure when was the last time he slept.

The realization struck him. I look like shit.

He sighed and got up, feeling his stiff muscles ache from every movement. He slipped his shirt over his head, revealing years of scars across his chest. He was feeling calmer now, more anchored. Yet, he still felt a hollow ache in his chest. Shame. No amount of pills could solve that, he supposed.

He changed into some fresh clothes and walked to the door, but hesitated right before stepping out.

This never happened. He thought. It was fine. Everything’s fine.

Maybe he could reconsider Green’s offer; go with him to that bookstore just for a day, pretend to have fun, just for his sake, and maybe get him that collector’s edition of the first Azura book as an apology for being such a stuck up asshole-

And Elena, he can just talk things out, right? Apologize for potentially fucking up everything for her, just because he didn’t think. He didn’t fucking think. Why can’t he just do anything right-

Blue took a deep breath, trying to steel his nerves.

This never happened. It was fine. Everything’s fine.

He felt another tear slip down his face. He scowled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, ashamed of his tears, of his weakness. He didn’t deserve to cry. He didn’t deserve to feel better.

He didn’t deserve anything.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“There you are, I was starting to get worried! We’ve been waiting here forever for you.” Green piped up as Blue passed the threshold into the site cafeteria, his shoes echoing off the tiled floor.

Blue forced a smile onto his face. “Sorry, I got caught up in unpacking.” He lied through his teeth as he sat down. The cafeteria was bustling with activity, the sounds of the early morning breakfast rush: chatter, clinking cutlery, laughter, all melding into a monotonous dull that throbbed at the back of Blue’s head.

He set down a cup of coffee as he took his seat on the table, gave Green a quick fist bump, and Elena acknowledged his existence by giving him a curt nod and a faint smile.

“So, catch me up. What’s the plan?” Blue asked.

“We’re just waiting for now,” Green explained. “The AAR is in a couple of hours, and I’m sure…well, what’s the best way I could put this?” He paused, searching for the right words. “I’m pretty sure that-“

“We’re screwed.” Elena finished for him, taking a sip of her coffee. “I got twelve unanswered emails from administration about last night.” She said gloomily.

“How mad are they?”

“Very.” Elena said. She took another sip. “They want answers about what happened last night.”

Blue shook his head. “Of course they do. I’ll see if I can take the brunt of getting yelled at, ok?”

Elena sighed, doubtful. “I highly doubt it’s just you Clarence is going to be after. If we’re going to get yelled at, we’re doing it together. I- We could’ve handled things a bit better on our end too-“

“Clarence is….uh, gone, remember?” Blue corrected. “We got a new guy to worry about now.”

Elena stared at Blue like he had gone mad, before the realization hit her as well. “Oh, oh, you’re right. Damn, I’m losing it I swear.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“It’s hard to think I never even got the chance to meet him,” Green said flatly.

“Consider yourself lucky,” Blue muttered. “Besides, have you heard anything about our new esteemed director?”

Elena shrugged. “Nope. But I’ve heard chatter around that he’s the opposite of Clarence, so the new guys got that going for him.”

“So not a narcissistic asshat?”

“Seems like it. Pretty sure the security guard up front said his name was Hayes or something.” She said.

Blue took another sip of his coffee, trying to process all this information. Hayes…he was pretty sure he remembered a Hayes from somewhere.

Issac Hayes? No, that’s not it. Rutherford B. Hayes? Definitely not. Hayes…Hayes, I know a Hayes from somewhere…

Approaching footsteps from behind him caused Blue to perk up. He turned around and saw a tall, imposing woman approaching their table, dressed sharply in a tailored lab coat. Blue guessed that she was one of the researchers that worked downstairs. Tightly clasping a clipboard in her hands, her eyes darted around the table.

“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting anything, but which one of you is a…” She trailed off and flipped through the pages on her clipboard, her brow furrowing in concentration. “Which one of you is a Mr. Blue?”

Blue shared a confused glance with his companions before slowly raising his hand. “Just Blue is fine-“ He muttered before the other woman cut him off.

“Perfect, perfect.” She hummed to herself as she shifted through her papers like a madwoman. “Director Hayes sent me to fetch you for him. He would do it himself, but he’s rather preoccupied at the moment- oh, there's no need to stand up, Captain Lennox. Dr.Hayes only needs Blue.”

Elena froze, halfway stood up, and Blue’s gaze darted between her and the other woman. “Be honest here, how screwed am I?”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? He just wants to talk.”

He just wants to talk. Blues mind echoed with the times where oh, they just want to talk, was usually preceded by being chewed out for the next twenty minutes. He shot a quick mock salute to Green and Elena. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.”

Elena sat back and gave a long, sarcastic whistle. “He only wants to see you? Yeah, you’re in deep shit. Have fun getting yelled at!” She smirked.

“What happened to, if we’re getting yelled at, we’re doing it together?” Blue mimicked Elena’s voice.

She shrugged. “Solidarity only goes so far. Right, Green?” she said, playfully nudging Green, who looked nervously between Blue and Elena. “I-I’d rather just stay neutral in this.” He stuttered.

Elena rolled her eyes. “Coward!” Blue silently mouthed a thank you to him and flipped the bird at Elena. She did the same in response, though with a grin on her face. Blue supposed it was an improvement from before.

As the woman escorted him out of the cafeteria and towards the stairwell that led deeper into the facility, she asked him a question, her voice echoing in the empty stairwell. “So, you two are friends, right?”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

The woman reiterated her question, shifting through the papers on her clipboard. “You and Captain Lennox are friends, right? Because it seems like-“

Blue laughed. “Oh no, no! We’re pretty good friends. We’ve known each other for five-ish years now.”

“Huh. I thought you two hated each other.”

“What gives you that idea?”  

The woman looked at Blue with a deadpan expression.

 “Alright, that’s fair,” Blue responded. 

They approached a set of heavily secured double doors at the bottom of the stairwell that separated the main facility from the research bays and storage facilities. The woman escorting Blue took out a key card and flashed it over a scanner. The doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss before jamming halfway, leaving a small but manageable gap in the middle.

The woman sighed. “The doors got damaged in that freak containment breach last week. According to our engineers, the damn pixies chewed through the wires or something.” She explained.

“Pixies?” Blue asked, squeezing himself through the doors.

“Yeah. Have you ever read Peter Pan?”

Blue nodded and she continued. “Imagine Tinkerbell, but double the size, triple the number of limbs, and include an overtly murderous disposition.” She explained, stepping into the other hallway.

“I’d always thought they’d be more…I don’t know, cutesy?” Blue said in a mixture of disbelief and fascination.

The woman chuckled dryly, closing the large doors behind them. “They’re tiny little shits with wings, that’s what they are.”

As they walked further down the hallway, the atmosphere changed. The brightly lit halls of the upper facility were replaced by a dimly lit corridor, lined with heavily armored numbered doors. Blue has barely ever been down here -his job was in the field, not in a stuffy laboratory- so this entire section of the facility was unfamiliar to him. Even still, he could tell that the bullet holes spread across the walls, the deep claw marks, and what looked like blood (Blue gave it a fifty/fifty shot it was human) spread across the wall.

The woman noticed Blue staring. “Apologies for the mess, we normally like to keep things cleaner down here, but we haven’t been able to fully clean up from the breach yet.” She explained. “But we at least learned two things.”

“That being?”

She pointed to the bullet holes. “Pixies are pretty hard to shoot,” then to the blood-stained wall, “and that their blood is chemically similar to sulfuric acid.” Upon closer inspection, Blue saw the wall was slightly scorched.

A guard walked towards them, rolling a pushcart with a violently shaking crate tied on top of it. He gave a thin smile to the woman next to Blue. “Hey, Kate! Got us some help here?” He motioned towards Blue.

The woman- Kate- shook her head. “Unfortunately, no, Ben. Just escorting Blue over here to Bay A. Director Hayes wanted to see him.”

“Ah, so you got the attention of the big dog, eh?” He gruffly said. “Shame, we coulda used someone beefy like ya with the cleanup.”

“Cleanup?” Blue asked.

“Yeah, we still findin’ a couple of these pricks around. Though we’re getting close to catching ‘em all though.” He slapped the crate, which quaked and shook, nearly falling off the cart. Blue heard a loud growl from inside. The man held onto the crate tightly. “Me and Jerry found this little bastard crawling in one of the air vents earlier. Lil’ fucker nearly took his hand off.”

A loud agonizing scream echoed from down the hall, close to the medical bay. “Oh, my hand! I can’t feel my hand! Take it off, take it off!”

A grim look sprouted on the guard's face. “I stand corrected. Lil fucker did take his hand off.”

Kate sighed, shaking her head. “We should’ve shut down the ventilation system sooner. Now, come on, we’re going to be late.”

Blue tried not to imagine what type of creature would easily tear off a man's hand and instead focused on keeping pace with Kate. They reached a large white metal door. Stenciled next to the door, a sign read:

RESEARCH BAY A

THE FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE PROHIBITED –

• FOOD
• DRINKS
• FIREARMS / SHARP OBJECTS
• UNAUTHORIZED ELECTRONIC DEVICES
• UNAUTHORIZED CURSED ARTIFACTS AND/OR ENTITIES 

Kate swiped her key card, and the door smoothly opened. The sterile scent of bleach greeted them as they stepped inside. The bay was expansive, with several empty workstations lined up against the gleaming white floor. Some stations were equipped with dusty computers that softly hummed, others had stacks upon stacks of antique manuscripts and tomes with strange, unfamiliar symbols printed on their covers. To their right was a securely sealed door that led into an enclosed testing room, a large glass dominating the wall next to the door, offering a clear view into the testing area.

Blue glanced into the testing room and saw two people dressed in grey hazmat suits, large headphones wrapped over their enclosed heads, their hands moving like they were talking to each other, but Blue couldn’t hear anything. A metal case was sitting on the table in front of them, along with a camera.

“Seems like Dr.Hayes and his assistant are still working on those damn tabloids. He’s been obsessed with them ever since we got the newest batch in.” Kate sighed in annoyance and banged on the glass, drawing the attention of the two people inside.

Kate hastily pointed to Blue, then to one of the figures in the room, their face obscured by the tinted visor of the hazmat suit. The figure, who Blue assumed was the Director Hayes he’d heard so much about, looked quickly between the metal case and Blue before holding up a finger, signaling them to wait.

Kate cursed under her breath. “Typical.” She muttered, crossing her arms impatiently as they waited for the two men inside to finish up whatever science mumbo-jumbo they were doing.

“So, you said these were tabloids, right?” Blue asked.

A mischievous glint appeared in Kate’s eyes. “It’s just a working name. But they’re not exactly the ones you see in the checkout lines at Palmart. We don’t exactly know where these suckers come from; we keep on finding boxes of these guys lying around up in some random town in New England. An old lady dug up those ones there while she was trying to plant some watermelons in her garden. A few hours later, the cops get called up because of a noise complaint.”

“A noise complaint?” Blue raised an eyebrow.

She smirked. “You’ll see. Oh, and you’ll might want these.” She handed him a pair of thick earmuffs that she produced seemingly out of thin air. Blue threw them on, feeling the vacuum of silence overtake his ears.

He watched as the two men inside propped the case open and carefully removed a…magazine? Although the cover was visibly yellowed, and one of the corners looked like it was burned off, Blue was barely able to make out the title boldly printed on the cover:

-*- THE BONESBOROUGH ENQUIRER -*-

Your 2^nd best source for news surrounding the wonderful town of BONESBOROUGH

Blue observed in slight fascination as one of the men gingerly laid the magazine on the table, holding it like it was a live grenade. Beside him, the other researcher swiftly retrieved the camera from the table, nodding to his partner who started a stopwatch with practiced efficiency. The two worked like a well-oiled machine; one researcher delicately opened the magazine, pausing to allow his colleague to take a picture of the current page, and then quickly flipped to the next one.

Flip, snap, flip.

They seemed to be in a rush, one of the researchers giving the occasional glance to their stopwatch, as the others sped through each one of the pages, one by one. Blue didn’t get the urgency of the situation, why these two eggheads were in such a hurry to take photos of an old tabloid.

That was until he heard a low vibration in his ears, muffled by the delicate headphones around his head. It started as a faint, indistinguishable murmur until it grew louder and louder, the relentless tide of sound pushing against the headphones. It sounded like a pulsating concert inside the testing room, although it was designed to be soundproof. Blue could barely make out what the voices, no, advertisements were saying:

IF YOU HAVE AN UNOILED SNAKE, BUY STANLEY’S SNAKE OIL TODAY! STARTING AT TEN SNAILS PER VIAL, WE GUARANTEE THAT YOUR SILLY NOODLE WILL BE OILED UP AND READY TO GO-

GOOD CREDIT? BAD CREDIT? NO CREDIT? ROLL CREDITS! COME DOWN TO JABERMAN BROOMS FOR OUR COVEN DAY BLOWOUT SALE! WANNA BUY A BROOM BUT THE BANK SAID NO? WELL BUY ONE ANYWAY!  WE HAVE OLD BROOMS, NEW BROOMS, FAST BROOMS, HOT BROOMS…... WHATEVER THAT MEANS-

DO YOU FEEL LIKE REALITY IS AN ILLUSION AND NOTHING IS REAL ANYMORE? FRET NOT, FOR WE HAVE THE SOLUTION: GOLD! GOLD IS NOT ONLY PRETTY, BUT IT’S ALSO A GREAT INVESTMENT. SO, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!? INVEST IN GOLD TODAY! PLEASE, JUST IGNORE THE ACCUSATIONS THAT GOLD CRASHED THE ECONOMY ONCE, ALRIGHT-

Blue tightened the headphones on his head. He could already feel a terrible headache coming on because of the constant, unending barrage of advertisements for rather questionable goods and services.

The two researchers were panicking now, and one of them rushed forward, slammed the magazine shut, and quickly threw it back into the metal case, locking it.  

Instantly, the room became quiet once more, leaving only the faint hum of the testing equipment. Blue took off his headphones, his ears still ringing. Kate shook her head and whistled in amusement.

“Wow, that was one of the worst ones we had to deal with,” she said dryly.

Blue turned to her, aghast. “Wait, there’s more of those things?”

She nodded. “We have a couple of boxes worth in storage. We don’t know their exact origin, but some geniuses decided to hex them to spew out random adverts at an increasingly louder pace. The longer you keep them open, the louder they get. The loudest one we’ve clocked was about one hundred fifteen, one twenty decibels.”

“How loud is that?”

“About the equivalent of standing one hundred feet away from a jet engine.”

Blue scratched his head, still processing the experience. “No wonder why the cops got called. And you just have these lying around?”

“Yup. Dr.Hayes believes we’ve only scratched the surface with these tabloids. They’ve given us a lot of valuable information over the years.” Kate explained. “Oh, don’t give me that look, we’ve got a lot worse to deal with down here. We have a box of bananas that when peeled, cause your own skin to peel off as well- Don’t ask us how we figured that out.” She said, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

Before he could say anything else, the door to the testing room swung open, and the two researchers from before entered the room, one of them trying to catch their breath while the other clutched the suitcase tightly like it was going to leap out of his hands and stab someone. After the last five minutes, Blue didn’t blame him.

“We need to address the elephant in the room here,” One of the researchers said, their voice muffled by the large helmet covering their head. “This was enlightening. Truly enlightening, but we need to address the, er… procedural flaws in our methodology, Dr.Hayes.”

The other shook his head, ignoring Blue and Kate standing by. “Our procedure is fine enough. At least it wasn’t like the time we wheeled a printer into the testing room so we could scan all the pages. I’m pretty sure we owe the accounting department upstairs a new printer after that fiasco.”

“I’m aware of that, sir, but I could’ve gotten some better pictures of the item-“

“Don’t worry, don’t worry! They’re a bit on the blurry side, but we’ll be able to work with them. Don’t be so hard on yourself Jerry!” He said, patting the other man on the shoulder.

Blue looked at Kate. He whispered. “Is that the same Jerry who got his hand ripped off by the pixies, or-“

She shook her head. “No, we have six different Jerry’s in the site. Haven’t you been here for years? I’d thought you’d know that.”

“I don’t….uh, spend much time in the site.” Blue stuttered. Technically, it was the truth, and it was better than saying that he just spent most of his time moping around watching Mewtube in his quarters.

One of the men in the suits finally noticed the pair standing awkwardly nearby and enthusiastically waved them over. “Oh, Dr. Robinson, wonderful job! Thank you so much, I really owe you one. And it’s great seeing you again, kid!” He grabbed Blue's hand in a firm handshake, nearly causing him to lose his balance.

Blue eventually managed to wrestle his hand out of the other man’s grasp. “Uh…thanks?” He winced, rubbing his very sore hand. What did he mean by again?

The man rolled off his hazmat suit and sent it crumbling to the floor, revealing a short stockily built, man wearing a lab coat. Wisps of thin, greying hair were sprinkled on a balding brown head, framing a face lined with a kind, aged face, keen bright eyes sparkling with warmth and recognition as they fell upon Blue. His familiarity struck Blue like a bolt of lightning, and he felt his jaw drop.

Oh, so that’s where I remember a Hayes from.

“Dr.Hayes?” Blue gaped as the older man trotted over to one of the workstations and retrieved a pair of glasses. He paused to adjust them on the bridge of his nose before turning back to Blue with a warm smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“Director Hayes, technically. I got promoted a couple of days ago.” He mumbled sheepishly. “And, kid, I’ve cut you open, and I’ve been inside of you. I think we’re far beyond formalities here.”

Blue was about to launch into a barrage of questions when the other researcher interrupted him. “Sir, I don’t mean to interrupt, but can I…er, leave now?” They said, now stripped down to his regular work clothes, stood awkwardly by the door, holding the folded suits in his arms.

Hayes nodded absentmindedly, still focused on the current conversation, “Yes, yes, go ahead Jerry. Great work today.”

“Oh, and are we still analyzing the other tabloids later-“

“Absolutely, just give me an hour with these two here, okay?”

The other man hesitated before hastily nodding and scurrying out of the room, leaving him, Blue, and Kate standing in the middle of the empty research bay.

Hayes shook his head. “Good kid. Did you know there are six Jerry’s in this site? It gets confusing trying to remember, who’s who-“

Kate cut in, trying to steer the trainwreck of a conversation back on track. “Director Hayes, about seeing Blue, remember?”

Hayes’ attention span shifted like a goldfish in a bowl. “Of course, of course. Anyways, how have you been doing, kid? It’s been a while.”

Blue nodded quickly, still in shock. “I’m still kicking. How about you, doc?”

Hayes shrugged, scratching his chin.“ Hectic. I’m still trying to adjust to the new job. What about you? You haven’t emailed me since Christmas!”

Blue’s smile froze as he tried to come up with a plausible explanation. “I’ve just been busy with fieldwork, that’s all.” He lied. Again.

Hayes raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying Blue’s bullshit, but he didn’t choose to comment on it. Kate looked between the two men, confused. “You two know each other?”

Hayes chuckled, a warm sound that filled the research bay. “Me and Blue go way back. He was one of the first volunteers for an experimental project I worked on a couple of years ago.”

“Basically, a human guinea pig,” Blue added with a wry smile.

Kate looked between them. “And you were fine with that?”

It was like a fifty/fifty shot I was going to die on an operating table, so either way I didn’t particularly mind.  

“It was something I was willing to do for the betterment of the science.” Blue spewed out the same canned response he always uses when someone asks that damned question, in the same dull voice he always uses.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, all of the participants we used volunteered of their own free will!” Hayes quickly broke in, trying to diffuse the tension. “We generally consider the T.I.T.A.N program to be a remarkable success. And, nobody died, so we count that as a win too-“

Kate looked even more confused. “The what program?” 

Hayes raised an eyebrow. “The TITAN program. I thought you of all people would know about it, especially since the files were declassified to lower-level personnel a few years ago.”

Kate scratched her head shyly. “I was promoted recently, sir. I haven’t had too much time to read the declassified files yet.”

Hayes beamed with excitement, and Blue was able to guess the next words he said: “Oh, I could give you a rundown if you want!”

Kate nervously looked between Blue and the now foaming-at-the-mouth Hayes. “ Uh…….”  

“I’ll take that as a yes!” Hayes beamed. A now terrified Kate looked at Blue with a PLEASE HELP ME, OH GOD PLEASE, look, and Blue had to resist the urge to crack a smile at her misfortune. Her eyes darted to the door, perhaps considering making a run for it.

Hayes’ eyes widened in realization as he noticed Blue standing patiently next to her. “Oh…is it alright if I explain-“

Blue shrugged. “I got all day.” Hayes's smile grew wider.

For the near-decade that he had known Thomas Hayes, he knew that Kate was about to get a front-row seat to one of his famous impromptu lectures, whether she, unfortunately, liked it or not.

Blue discovered this fact the day he woke up from the surgery. Still groggy from the anesthesia, he blinked blearily and saw him standing at the foot of his bed, flipping through his medical chart with a practiced hand. The man’s eyes lit up when he noticed Blue was awake, and without missing a beat, launched into a barrage of questions.     

“How are you feeling?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Do you feel any pain in your chest? Any discomfort?”

Blue, still half asleep, managed out a groggy yes, not even sure what question he was answering. The man beamed as if Blue cured cancer and introduced himself with pure childlike enthusiasm: Dr. Thomas Hayes, a surgeon who had been studying possible thaumaturgical applications for medicine in the field.

A surgeon who, in fact,  had been the one to operate on Blue in the first place. A fact that he was clearly proud of, as evidenced by him going into a long explanation of how the surgery went in graphic, painfully graphic detail. Blue’s still drugged-out mind struggled to keep up, and by the time his mind was able to process the details of how the other man managed to cut through his sternum, a nurse walked in and promptly kicked Hayes out of the room for disturbing her patient.

However, he would still occasionally sneak into his room, and they would chat. Sometimes about the procedure, other times about life. And then there was that one day when Hayes explained in alarming clarity the one time he had nearly burned down the records department in Site 42.

“It was a complete accident.” Hayes had said, taking a sip of coffee. “It was back when I was still a newbie. I had the bright idea to incinerate some outdated files with a flame spell. Old world rune, goes back centuries. The Vikings used it the most around the late 900s. Anyhow, things were going swimmingly until a stray ember hit a trash can, which promptly burst into flames.”

Blue laughed, wincing as the movement pulled on his stitches. “No way.”

“Yes, way.” Hayes smiled, taking another long sip. “ It was complete chaos. Alarms blaring, sprinklers going off, people running everywhere. Dr. Sherman- he was one of the researchers above me- nearly stabbed me with his pen. I swear, the way he twirled that thing around all the time; it was a miracle nobody ever got their eye poked out. I thought they were going to fire me for sure.”

“But they didn’t,” Blue noted.

“No…I guess they didn’t.” Hayes agreed, softly smiling.

After Blue’s recovery period ended, he was whisked off to training. However, he still frequently emailed Hayes for many things; cooking advice, the best ways to de-escalate a conflict, how to properly dispose of a body, and TV show recommendations. Hayes would send back rambling emails detailing his work, and although Blue had absolutely no clue what he was reading, he still tried to listen.

He guessed that’s how they became friends after all; Blue was the first person to listen to Hayes’s incessant tangents, unlike his colleagues who either felt weirded out by his extreme passion for his work, or thought he had his head so far up his backside.

Blue found that Hayes didn’t like to ramble on about his work because he was an egotistical megalomanic, no, that would describe Clarence. He found that it was because Hayes was just a nerd. A nerd that can cut you open easily with a scalpel, but a nerd, nonetheless.

Hayes was now explaining the story of how the T.I.T.A.N Program came to be to an increasingly interested Kate. A tale that Blue had heard one hundred times by now:

Thaumaturgy, magic, sorcery – whatever you call it – is surprisingly difficult to classify into neat little categories on paper. That, of course, made sense; every culture on Earth has its definition and beliefs on magic, each one different from the last. There are some types of magic where you conjure a circle of pure energy, fueled only by sheer hatred, to obliterate your neighbor's house from the comfort of your couch. Then there are other types where you can shoot sausages out of your fingers. The sky’s the limit.

Hayes had explained to him that thaumaturgy was divided into two main, broad, categories based on their origins: Old world thaumaturgy for the Afro-Eurasian continents, and new-world thaumaturgy for the Americas. It was simple enough for Blue to wrap his tiny brain around.

Now on paper, these two categories acted as the two main branches of magic, with things being broken down further into other types, such as the aforementioned circle of death or spontaneous sausage generation.

For decades, old-world magic was what researchers believed to be the origin of magic, evolving right along with the first humans thousands of years ago. However, a recent (and by that, Blue meant over a decade ago) discovery upended years of established research: a third classification, older, much older, than humanity itself, which was donned proto-modern magic.

Kate arched an eyebrow in interest. “So, if the other two types are based on geographical location – something I already knew, by the way – where would proto-modern magic fall?”

Hayes grew uncomfortable and quickly waved his hand in dismissal. "It’s….er, classified.”

“Even to you?” Kate pointed to the newly promoted Site Director.

Hayes turned a light shade of red. “I’ve got the proper clearance to know it exists, I knew it existed for a while now. I just don’t know the specifics.” He rubbed the back of his head.

Blue smirked, enjoying the other man’s discomfort. “ Sounds like you’re not as high on the ladder as you thought, huh?”

The other man rolled his eyes before composing himself. “They probably have their reasons for the secrecy. We barely understand it as it is, even after the T.I.T.A.N program. We’re learning something new every day, even after all these years.”

Kate leaned back on a table; her curiosity not satisfied. “ So, what about the T.I.T.A.N program?”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’re getting there.” Hayes gave a maniacal grin, trying to look like a mad scientist, but ending up looking like a massive nerd. He explained, “You see, like all great things, the T.I.T.A.N Program began with an idea…”

Blue’s attention drifted elsewhere as Hayes launched into another long-winded explanation, the same story that Blue had heard time and time again. Strangely enough, though, it felt different this time because Blue was a part of this story.

Hayes explained that, as it turned out, proto-modern magic worked differently from anything ever seen before. Sure, it followed all the other basic rules and fundamentals they had studied before, but there were subtle nuances that made it unique. It functioned almost harmoniously with its user, blending seamlessly with their intentions and emotions, removing any need for vocal incantations. While you could theoretically channel it using a wand or a staff, it would be like trying to mow your front lawn using a pair of scissors. Sure, it gets the job done, but it’d be easier if you pulled the lawnmower out of the garage.

Another oddity was that, unlike other types of magic Hayes and the Foundation had encountered, you couldn’t just learn proto-modern magic; you had to be born with it.

According to Hayes, being born with the potential to do magic was just as rare as finding a pink sheep in the middle of nowhere. More commonly it’s something that someone had to learn through years and years of studying.

Hayes paused briefly, letting his breath catch up with him before continuing. “Now here is where we ran into a problem: our bodies aren’t designed for magic. We’re missing an organ inside of our body that can…filter and channel EVE emissions through the body. So, through hours of tedious research, we eventually devised an idea.”

Almost on cue, he dug out his wallet and produced a tiny square of laminated paper, unfolding it until it became larger and larger, becoming a crumpled-up picture. Its corners were worn from frequent handling, and it crackled softly as he spread across the table before them. Blue leaned forward, squinting at the notes scribbled across it in faded ink. Most of the page had been redacted hastily with a black marker:

BILE-SAC NIGHTMARES? TRY █████ !!! (THIS TRICK IS HATED BY MOST ███████ )  

By ████████

Is your magic fizzling out when you need it the most? Struggling to cast spells like you used to? Poor ███████ performance can not only be embarrassing, but it can also lead to ███████ █████, or in worse cases, even ██████!  😱

BUT WAIT! Former ███████ █████ member, ██████ ██████████, has revealed an INGENIOUS solution to restore your bile sac’s properties. Forget the old tricks, this method involves ██████████████ and, ██████ ███ ███████, will have no impacts on your health or ███████!***

*** - These statements have not been factually verified by the ██████ ██████. The Bonesborough Enquirer holds no responsibility for any and all potential outcomes, including inversion of your internal organs, spontaneous combustion, accidentally being transported to the night terror dimension, turning yourself/ a family member into a ██████████████ that will █████████, and/or death.

See the following charts below!

Hayes tapped a spot near the bottom of the paper; a cross-section of a humanoid figure, with everything from the shoulder up being redacted out. “ This little fella right here is what we call a bile sac! It's attached to the heart, right along the left side. Now, ignoring that this entire article here is medically useless to us, these charts have been very helpful for our research here.”

Kate took a look at the paper. “ And where is this picture from?”

“Oh, we got that from one of the tabloids.”

“And where are the tabloids from?”

Hayes coughed awkwardly and shifted in place. “ That’s, uhm….also classified.”

“Typical,” Blue muttered.

“Anyways,” Hayes quickly tried to get back on track, “We hypothesized that if we could mimic the function of this organ, to find a way to surgically implant a copy into a willing individual and then study how their body reacts. That is what the T.I.T.A.N program was for.”

Kate traced a line on the chart with her finger, trying to follow what Hayes was saying. “ That sounds impossible. How did you do it? Did you start the program by using D-Class and then go from there-“

Hayes quickly shook his head. “No, no, no! We didn’t use D-Class for the program. Mostly because we did not want to give a bunch of people we didn’t trust potentially powerful abilities to alter reality.” He grinned, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Besides, nothing is impossible when you’re stubborn enough. We asked for willing volunteers across the foundation-“

“And I happened to be one of the guinea pigs that stepped up for the job.” Blue cut in, a shy smile on his face. “You’d be surprised how many of us were crazy enough to sign up.”

Kate looked at him up and down with some trepidation, and he had a feeling that he knew what she was about to ask. “So, does that mean you can….well, you know.” She wiggled her fingers awkwardly. Blue had the sudden urge to crawl into a hole.

Blue hesitated for a moment, questioning his life decisions. Eighteen months. Eighteen grueling months in the T.I.T.A.N program, enduring the relentless, grueling training, watching his friends drop out one by one, only for his final reward for being one of the last people standing to be getting his chest cut open and having some magic sac sewed onto his heart. Sometimes he could still feel the phantom ache from the surgery, the long scar on his chest throbbing silently, mourning what once was.

All that, only for his abilities to be considered as glorified party tricks. He couldn’t help but hold in a laugh. Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?

He sighed deeply before finally nodding in resignation. He traced a circle in the air, the familiar organic hum buzzing from the glowing light on his fingertip. A faint blue light trailed behind his finger, and when the circle was finally closed, it collapsed into a ball of light, no bigger than a tennis ball, glowing blue, then shifting to a bright, golden-yellow, like a miniature sun. It hovered in the air for a few moments before fading away under Blues will. A simple light spell. Always a crowd pleaser.

Kate stared at the spot where the ball of light was, her eyes wide in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like that before- well, I have, I know a light spell when I see one. But, this is different. I’ve never seen an orb carry itself like that before. The way it shifted and held itself together. And the amount of precision? It normally takes decades of training to be that precise with the size! This- This is amazing. Dr. Hayes, you gotta send me the declassified files as soon as you can.” She said, now violently shaking Hayes with every word.

Hayes, trying to maintain his composure, smiled sheepishly, glancing at Blue out of the corner of his eye as he realized he had awakened a monster. Kate tightly gripped his shoulders, her excitement palpable. “Y-yes, it's fascinating stuff. Y’know, I can send you the files later, if you – ow that’s my shoulder – uh, let go of me.”

Blue couldn’t help but chuckle at the scene. “Seriously, you’re going to break Doc’s arm before he can send those files if you on shaking him like that,” he teased.

Kate, seemingly snapping out her mindless excitement, quickly noticed the awkward predicament she was in, and quickly loosened up her vice grip on the other man’s shoulders.

Hayes heaved a sigh of relief and rubbed his visibly sore shoulders. “Now, that’s all the basics about the T.I.T.A.N Program. I’ll email the unclassified files over to you later, I just gotta have a little chat with Blue first.”

Kate stayed where she was, looking between Blue and Hayes.

“Preferably, in private.” Hayes gently added.

A look of realization clicked on her face. She nodded, albeit reluctantly, and left the room, leaving Blue and Hayes alone in the laboratory.

Hayes softly chuckled to himself, turning his attention to refolding the paper laid out on the table. “ Dr. Robinson has always been one of our more…er, passionate researchers. Very passionate, in fact.” He shuddered and rubbed his shoulder.

“I thought for a moment there she was gonna rip off your shoulder or something.” Blue poked his shoulder, and Hayes let out a laugh.

“Oh, she has a tight grip alright. It’s that passion that got her here, after all. She’s in the same boat as me.”

“New fish in the water?”

Hayes shyly smiled, tucking the folded picture into his wallet. “Yup. She got transferred a week ago, though, so at least she had the chance to accumulate to the new waters ahead of her. Me on the other hand? They shoved me straight into the deep end. It’s only my second day here, so I’m figuring things out.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “It’s your second day, and you’re already in the lab? Don’t you have a site to run?”

A look appeared on Hayes’ face. “I prefer to work in the lab. Besides, his- that office…... I don’t know. Being in there is suffocating. It's like that place is cursed. I dunno, I’m probably just losing it from the stress.”

Blue patted him on the shoulder. “Have you slept at all in the last couple of days? You look exhausted,” he asked, noticing the dark bags underneath his eyes.

“Oh, so you’re giving slack over my sleep schedule?” Hayes retorted with a smirk. “That’s rich, coming from Mr. I believe sleep is vastly overrated.”

Blue rolled his eyes and drew away, walking towards the door. “Touche.” He felt a hand on his shoulder and Hayes pulled him back, his cheery demeanor suddenly shifting.

“Now hold on just a minute, don’t go thinking I called you in here just to play catch up.” Hayes glowered, his voice filled with uncharacteristic anger.

Blue’s expression grew serious, and he had a sinking feeling about what this was about. “W-What’s going on, doc?”

“What’s going on?” Hayes echoed, his voice rising. “What’s going on is that when I woke up this morning, I had twenty-six, no-“ he swiftly took out his phone and tapped on a few times –“twenty-seven unread emails from administration about the little stunt you pulled last night in Juarez. It was supposed to be a covert operation. What in the hell happened?”

Blue grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck. “It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. Everything went wrong, do- sir. They had extra security on site and the building layouts we were given were complete junk, sir. My cover got blown, and I had to…...uh, improvise.” He shrugged awkwardly.

“Improvise?” Hayes hissed, his voice oozing with sarcasm. “ Your idea of improv’ led to over four million dollars of broken windows, and now the disinformation bureau is on my ass because they’re having trouble convincing people it was just a gas leak.”

He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Look, I just want answers, so can you tell me what exactly happened last night?”

So, Blue told him.

*-_-_-_-_-*

By the time Blue was done with a long-winded explanation about the last night’s events, Hayes was locking the door to the research bay.

“So let me get this straight,” Hayes said, stuffing a keycard into his pocket and giving Blue a look of concern. “ You got stabbed?”

Blue sighed. “I just told you how everything went horribly wrong last night and how I nearly died several times over, but the main takeaway you get is me getting stabbed?” He said incredulously. Hayes didn’t say anything, gesturing for him to go on and he groaned. “Yes, I did. Crazy guy with a knife.”

“Yes, I would assume he’d have a knife. That’s generally how stabbing works.” Hayes said deadpan. “Can I take a look?”

Having a feeling that he wouldn’t take no for an answer, Blue reluctantly nodded and lifted his shirt. Hayes leaned forward, fixing his glasses as he went in for a closer look.

Blue heard the clacking of boots approaching from behind him, coming around the corner. He spun his head around and saw one of the site’s guards frozen in place, her face scrunched up in confusion as she took in the scene in front of her. They made eye contact, and Blue slowly shook his head, a grimace on his face. Don’t ask.

“Well, it seems it has healed up nicely so far. You should be fine- you can put your shirt back on by the way- but I do recommend that you change the bandage every few hours, preferably before showering, so it doesn’t get infected.”

The guard shuffled her feet awkwardly, finally clearing her throat. “Uh…Director Hayes. Is everything good here?”

Hayes quickly straightened up, returning to his professional demeanor. “Oh hey, Susan! Keeping the place safe?”

The guard looked between Blue and Hayes, stiffly smiling. “Y-yes sir. Just doin’ my job! I’m just going to go that way now. In the other direction. Yup!” She turned on her heel and hurried away, nearly tripping on herself as she rushed in the opposite direction.

Blue sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, turning back to Hayes. “You sure know how to make things awkward, doc. You gotta work on your discretion.”

Hayes rolled his eyes. “Says the guy who made a giant flashbang of doom.” He retorted, a smile tugging at his lips. “Discretion isn’t your strong suit either.”

Blue sighed, dreading the next part. “So, how are we going to do this? Am I gonna be on weekend duty again for another month?” He asked. Weekend duty was never fun. It mostly involved doing paperwork, helping the maintenance staff clean the toilets, and other mundane tasks that drained the life out of him. The last time he screwed up on an operation, Clarence had put him on weekend duty for four months.

It sucked. Blue couldn’t help but shudder at the memory.

Hayes gave him a sympathetic smile. “Tempting, but no. If it was Clarence in my shoes right now, you would be going to be scrubbing toilets for the rest of your life until you die of exhaustion, then he’d raise you from the dead just so you can scrub more toilets.”

“Do we even have anything that can do that?”

Hayes shrugged. “ After working for the Foundation for so long, I honestly won’t be surprised at this point.”

Blue rubbed the back of his neck. “But it isn’t Clarence, right? It's you now. Huh, kinda ironic don’t you think? You always told me-“

“That I wasn’t a fan of authority?” Hayes finished, taking a nostalgic sigh. “Well…I guess I changed, kid. I should be giving you weekend duty for the rest of your life for what you did last night, because I’m sure we can both agree that it was reckless and stupid.”

Blue nodded. “Yes. Very stupid”

“But…” He trailed off, deep in thought. “I’ll compromise here. I’ll give you a pass, just this once.”

Blue’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? A pass? Why, because we’re friends?” He sarcastically retorted.

“Because of our ethics policy, I am required to say no. But I also don’t want to get into all the paperwork. Take that answer as you will.”

Blue let out a relieved laugh, the tension easing from his shoulders. “I’ll take it. Thank you.”

“I never said there wasn’t a catch, however,” Hayes said with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He produced a folder from his lab coat and handed it to Blue. “Congratulations, you’ve been reassigned.”

Blue took the folder and eyed it with some reprehension. “Reassigned? To what? I just got here!”

Hayes leaned against the wall, his face a mixture of amusement and seriousness. “Open it and see for yourself.”

After a moment of hesitation, he flipped open the folder and scanned the top page. He arched a brow in confusion. “Area 42? I’ve never heard of it. And why is everything else redacted?” Blue showed the folder to Hayes, pointing out the blacked-out sections. “How am I supposed to know what I’m getting into if I can’t read half of it?”

“I was instructed not to disclose the details to you right this minute,” Hayes explained, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “It’s stupid, I know. Welcome to the world of need-to-know, kid.”

Blue’s frown deepened as he flipped through the heavily redacted pages. He muttered, “This is just a waste of paper at this point. There is not even anything on this page, it's all redacted! Why me?”

Hayes sighed and patted him on the back. “It’s not a punishment, Blue. Consider it more as a….. vacation as you will. It’ll just be me and you, four weeks on the other side of the country for a research project.” Hayes stressed the research part of the research project. Blue had a sinking feeling that it was not a ‘research project’.

Blue closed the folder and took a deep breath. “Where are we even going?”

The other man quickly glanced around, as if to make sure to make sure no one else was listening, then leaned in closer. “Connecticut.” He whispered, as if the state itself was a classified secret.

“Connecticut?” Blue replied, incredulous. “Where in Connecticut? Why in Connecticut?”

“I’m not sure what your… whatever it is, towards the state of Connecticut – personally, I find it to be a rather lovely state – but it’s a facility called Area 42,” Hayes explained.

Blue raked his mind. “There’s a Site 42, but I’ve never even heard of an Area 42.”

“That’s because it’s generally kept hush-hush. I didn’t even know it existed until yesterday.” Hayes explained to a bewildered Blue. “Judging by my copy of the files, it’s a research site in some random town outside of Hartford.”

Blue felt the feeling of dread curl down his stomach. “Hartford?” Blue said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, Hartford. You know, the capital of Connecticut, the insurance capital of the world. The place where Mark Twain wrote a lot of his books. That Hartford.”

Blue slowly nodded, and Hayes looked at him funny. “Uh, you alright there, kid? You looked like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Y-yeah, ghosts. No, I’m good.”

Hayes gave him a skeptical look, but decided not to press any further. “Ok. It's in some small town. I forgot the name of it, it's almost on the tip of my tongue…”

Blue's mind raced, his mind flashing back to memories he tried so hard to bury. It can’t be where it happened. No way! There are a lot of cities and towns around Hartford, what are the chances that it’s-

Hayes snapped his fingers. “Gravesfeild! Ah, I got it. Gravesfeild. It’s a charming little suburb. A lot of colonial history too; back in the 1630’s there were a lot of witch hunts there. It was not only a lot more ruthless, but it also predated the witch trials in Salem by thirty years! Fascinating stuff, really- uh, Blue, are you alright?”

Blue had gone pale, his breathing suddenly growing shaky as the memories came back to him. The screeching of metal. The rain. The sirens. He didn’t even notice his hands were trembling. He managed a weak nod. “Y-yeah, good old Gravesfeild! A lot of history, right?” He laughed nervously.

Hayes frowned, concern etching deeper into his face. “Are you sure, if you want to talk about it-“

“It’s nothing, alright.” Blue stiffened, tensing up as Hayes gently patted his shoulder.

Hayes sighed. “If you say so. You…you do know you can talk to me, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” Blue quickly nodded. “Anyways, when are we leaving?”

The other man looked at him with a strange expression on his face (what was it? Sympathy? Pity?), clearly unconvinced, but decided to drop the subject. “We’re leaving tomorrow night. Try to pack light, we have a long flight tomorrow. We’re going from El Paso to New York, where we’ll meet up with a convoy that will take us over to Gravesfield. I would recommend you try to get your affairs sorted out and rest up. “

 Blue nodded, trying to put on a brave face. “Thanks, Doc. I guess I’d better start repacking, then.”

“Good idea,” Hayes said, giving him one final pat on the shoulder. “Try to take it easy. We got a big day tomorrow after all!” He smiled and clapped Blue on the shoulder before turning and walking away, his footsteps echoing through the hallway.

Blue watched him disappear around the corner, and he suddenly felt an oppressive weight drop over his shoulders. He turned back to return to his quarters, each step taking more effort than the last. His mind buzzed with a mixture of anxiety and dread, and the name of the town where it all went wrong, Gravesfeild, kept repeating over and over in his mind as the reality of the situation sunk in for him.

Memories he long since buried in the deep recesses of his mind clawed their way straight back up to the surface of his subconscious, like worms digging out of the soil on a rainy summer day.

Back in his quarters, he tried to distract himself with the mundane task of repacking for the upcoming trip. As he worked in his quarters, meticulously packing clothes, and sorting his equipment, he tried to stay focused on the task at hand.

He did a terrible job at it.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“And here we are! I didn’t know what everyone wanted, so I just got a little bit of everything! That works right- Woah, OH FUC-”

Blue, sensing the inevitable disaster that came with Green juggling a precarious stack of trays filled to the brim with hot food, reacted swiftly, casting a quick spell with the flick of his wrist. One of the trays that slipped from Green’s grasp froze midair, levitating barely inches from the ground.

“I got it!” Blue said, softly smirking as he smoothly guided the tray back atop the table.

Green let out a laugh, his face flushed with embarrassment. “Nice save! You have some reflexes.”

“Or maybe he didn’t want to see our dinner end up on the cafeteria floor.” Elena teased with a grin, tapping her fingers atop the grey table. “Next time: ask for help. Now, what did you bring us, anyway?”

Green grinned sheepishly, forgetting his earlier clumsiness as he set down the trays of fresh food. “I tried to stick to the healthier foods, I think Moss would appreciate that if he was here. Oh, and I also got some muffins for you, Blue!” He announced, handing Blue a muffin wrapped in a napkin.

Blue watered at the mouth. “Blueberry?”

“Naturally.”

“OhmygoshIloveyou.” Blue’s eyes sparkled with delight. He ripped the napkin to shreds and inhaled the muffin, as Elena and Green sat by and watched in reticent horror.

Site 374’s cafeteria- if you could even call it that – was a small sterile room with a few tables and chairs strewn about. It wasn’t exactly a five-star restaurant, but the cafeteria was still bustling with life; a myriad of researchers, doctors, security guards, and janitorial personnel crammed in one room, chatting and eating whatever was being passed as food that night.

Elena chuckled and rolled her eyes as Blue devoured his muffin. “You know, you remind me of a vacuum cleaner sometimes. You wanna suck the crumbs of the table, too, while you’re at it?”

“Only if they’re blueberry crumbs.” Blue wiped his fingers off. “Besides, I need to get to packing.”

Green raised an eyebrow. “You mean unpacking, right?”

Blue took a breath, steeling himself for the moment he had dreaded for the last hour. “No, I mean packing, Green. They…reassigned me.” He broke the news to the others.

The table was silent for a few seconds. Ten seconds, thirty, nearly a minute passed, a shocked silence pestering the group before Elena finally said:

“What the hell! Are they trying to burn you out or something? You just returned today, and they’re already sending you out again? This is ridiculous-“

“Elena, please, it’s fine!” Blue hissed, trying to draw the least amount of attention possible from the surrounding tables. Several heads were already turning in their direction, giving the group funny looks.

Elena crossed her arms, eyes burning with frustration. “No, it isn’t, you’ve been through enough already. You at least deserve a break!”

“Elena, it’s fine,” Blue repeated, this time through gritted teeth. “ It’s not a big deal. I’ll be gone for a few weeks, maybe a month at most. It’s probably something low-risk. It’ll be like a vacation! A boring vacation.”

Elena narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, because vacations are so relaxing when you’re in dangerous situations every other day. Besides, where are they sending you this time? Site 19? 95?”

“That one outpost in Alaska?” Green chimed in, leaning forward with a hopeful grin. “If you’re going there, can you send some pictures of penguins?”

Blue softly chuckled despite himself, shaking his head. “Firstly, there are no penguins in Alaska, Green.”

The computer expert’s face fell, and his shoulders slumped dramatically. “My whole life was a lie.” He whispered, a tear falling streaking down his face.

“And secondly- Green, stop crying – I’m not going to Alaska. I’m going to…..Area 42.” He whispered, remembering that the site was supposed to be classified.

“…Never heard of it,” Elena said after a long silence.

Blue glanced around, making sure nobody was eavesdropping. Come to think of it, maybe doing this in a crowded cafeteria was a stupid idea. He leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “That’s the point. It’s off the maps. I don’t even know what I’m getting into: everything in the briefing folder I got was redacted. I’m pretty sure it was just paper waste at that point.”

“That’s unusual, even for them. Are you sure you’re not getting into anything dangerous?” Elena remarked.

“It’s just a research project,” Blue explained, trying to maintain an air of nonchalance. “ I’ll probably just be doing some paperwork, maybe getting coffee or just going through a routine checkup. Something low-key that won’t cause a mess like last night.” Blue guessed.

“Where the hell is that place anyway?” Green sniffed.

Blue paused, staring into the empty napkin. “Connecticut.”

Green mouthed the word as if he was trying to remember where Connecticut was on a map, but Elena’s usually stern demeanor softened into concern, and she winced. “Connecticut? Isn’t that where…... uh, you know what happened?” She said, eyeing Green next to her, who looked puzzled.

Blue nodded grimly. Elena was the only person he told the truth to. Not even Hayes.

Elena gave a shaky sigh and tried to reassure him. “Ok, I wouldn’t worry too much about going to….you know where. Connecticut is a big state, what are the odds that they send you to the same place, right?”

“It’s the same place.”

Elena’s face fell. “Oh, oh. That’s awful! Are you sure you’ll be alright? Going back and all “

“I’ll be fine,” Blue managed a reassuring smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It happened over twenty years ago, I’m sure I can handle going back.”

Elena still didn’t look convinced. Green looked between the two of them, bewildered.” Wait, so what happened? “ He asked.

Blue froze, crumbling the napkin in his hand as he struggled to find the right words to describe the weight of his past that was pressing heavily on his shoulders. Green, sensing he hit a nerve again, quickly backpedaled. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to! It’s fine…It’s not a big deal. We all got our things, you know?” He said softly.

Blue sighed. “No, I want to tell you someday. But right now, I don’t want to talk about it.”

With that, the three of them began to eat, the tension around the table quickly dissipating as the group quickly shifted to lighter topics: telling the stupidest stories possible. It was like a little game for their unit, a ritual to see who could tell the most outrageous tale. Whoever told the best story of all would win something, though the ‘prizes’ were usually trivial- perhaps the privilege of choosing the next movie for their downtime, or the honor of picking the music for a late-night stakeout.

As they laughed at Greens recounting how he got banned for life from the Site 19 cafeteria – something about a coffee machine and a guy named Joe – Blue found himself relaxing, truly enjoying some semblance of peace for the first time that day.

But even as he joined in their laughter, Blue couldn’t help but wonder: why was he being sent halfway across the country for? The redacted folder gave him more questions than answers, and he felt there was more than meets the eye.

Blue shook his head. Probably something stupid. He thought to himself, trying to push the anxiety aside.

Probably something stupid….

He had no idea how wrong he would be.

Chapter Text

Luz had honestly thought that she was gonna nail her book report.

After all, she had spent days pouring her blood, sweat, and tears into that project. It was her magnum opus, her chef-d’oeuvre, her piece-de-resistance, her-

“Mija, hurry up! You’re gonna be late for school!” She heard her mother, Camila, call out from downstairs.

“Coming Mama!” She responded. She then stuffed all of the things she needed for the book report into her bag, flung it over her shoulder, and started for the door of her bedroom before stopping.

‘Oh right! Can’t forget about the Gildersnake! She reminded herself. She hustled over to her closet and flung it open. She shuffled through the closet until she found what she was looking for: a small portable terrarium with a small snake curled up inside.

Luz opened the terrarium and, with great care to not spook the little guy/girl, took out a small snake. “Alright, Gildersnake today’s your day to shine!” She told the snake. It flicked a forked tongue in response. Luz smiled a placed the snake into a cloth bag, and then into a safe spot in her bag.

She slipped the bag over her shoulder and ran downstairs to meet her mother waiting for her by the door. She was wearing her work uniform, a set of cyan scrubs, and had her hair tied back into a bun. She noticed Luz coming down the stairs and walked towards her.

“Luz, honey what took you so long? You’ve been in that room for the last half hour.” She asked her.

“Nothing important, Mama. Just getting some last-minute preparations for the book report.” Luz replied, giving her mother a double thumbs up.

Her mom sighed and placed a hand on Luz’s shoulder. “You’ve been working on that report nonstop for the last week. You need to take some breaks from time to time!”

“I know, I know mom! You don’t need to worry anyways; I’m presenting it today!”

Her mother gave a weak smile in response. “Alright Mija, I hear you. Just please tell me it’s something normal this time. I don’t want you getting in trouble again.”

Luz waved her hand in response. “Don’t worry mama, what I have prepared is as normal as apple pie!”

Her mother looked like she was about to say something, before stopping herself. “I’ll just take your word for it this time.” She then walked over to the front door and opened it.

“Anyways, I’m gonna drop you off at school, but you’ll need to take the bus back today. I’ll be a little busy at work today, so I won’t be able to pick you up as usual.”

Luz nodded in understanding and followed her mom outside and into their car.

As Luz strapped her seatbelt on, she thought to herself and smiled in confidence. ‘Yeah, I got that book report in the bag!’

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Good morning, everyone! As you know, today marks the first day of presenting for the book reports that you all have been hopefully working on for the last few weeks.” Luz’s English teacher announced from his desk.

The entire class, except for a few students, Luz included, collectively groaned at the announcement.

“Yes, yes. I understand that summer break begins in a few days, however, school is still in session, and I need one more assignment to close out my grade book for the quarter. Now would anyone like to volunteer to go first?”

Luz shot her hand up. This was it! This was her moment!

“Anyone? Would anyone like to volunteer?” Her teacher asked, a weak smile plastered on his face.

‘Huh, that’s weird. He probably didn’t notice me I guess!’ Luz stretched her hand up higher to try to gain the teacher’s attention.

It thankfully appeared to have worked, as the teacher sighed and pointed to her.

“Alright class, it appears that Miss Noceda has volunteered to present first! So, let’s give her the floor, shall we!” He announced, then nodded to Luz to allow her to present.

Luz excitingly sprang up from her seat, grabbed her bag, and confidently trotted over to the front of the class to present, ignoring the murmurs and snickering from her fellow classmates.

She got up in front of the class and after setting her bag on the ground next to her, she turned to the class with a wide grin on her face, ready to present.

It was time to get this show on the road.

--- One Book Report Later ---

So, it turns out that using live snakes in a book report is apparently against several school rules.

At least Luz’s English teacher enjoyed the report; According to him, it was one of the best oral reports he had ever seen in his twelve years of teaching. He also liked the inclusion of a live snake and her Azura doll action figure to represent the conflict between The Good Witch Azura and the Gildersnake in chapter 33.

He still had to send Luz to the principal’s office, however, because as it turns out, the backup snakes that she kept in her locker escaped.

It also turns out a lot of people have an irrational fear of snakes. Which led to the snakes attacking several people. Which led to school-wide panic as the staff attempted to catch the snakes.

So there Luz was, sitting in Principal Hal’s office waiting for her mother to arrive so that the three of them could, in Hal’s words, “Have a conversation on her conduct.”

The two of them were silent. Luz was sitting in front of his desk, still holding her Azura figure in one hand, snake in the other. Hal was at his desk, staring daggers at a sheaf of paperwork he was holding. He took a sip out of a mug labeled “WORLDS BEST PRINCIPAL”.

“Sooooooooooo…... Is that mug new?” Luz asked, breaking the tense silence between her and Principal Hal.

“Huh? Oh yes, one of the upperclassmen gave me this mug right before he graduated. Heh, good kid.” Principal Hal responded and took another sip out of the mug.

Luz slightly frowned at that. “Yeah, he must’ve been good alright. Probably better than what you have to deal with right now I guess…”

Principal Hal sighed. “Look Luz, you’re not a bad kid. Sure, you can be a little…... much at times, but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad kid. I’ve only known you for a year, but I know that you’re a bright kid.”

Before Luz could respond, the door to the principal’s office opened, and Luz’s mother walked in.

Principal Hal put the papers on his desk and greeted her. “Ah, good morning Ms. Noceda! I’m glad you could make it on such short notice.”

“It was no problem, sir.” Luz’s mom responded. “Now what did my little Luz do this time?” She asked Principal Hal while taking a seat next to Luz, her voice filled with concern. She didn’t seem to notice the snake.

“Well for starters, I would like to say that your daughter is not in trouble. Now under normal circumstances, she would be receiving detention for a few days, and worst comes worst an in-school suspension. However, because classes are ending in a few days for summer break, I’ll let her off the hook for this time and this time only.”

“Alright that’s great and all, but what exactly did Luz do to end up here?” Luz’s mom asked, a small frown plastered on her face.

Principal Hal scratched his head. “Well, I think it might be better for Luz to explain. I don’t think I can do it justice.” The two of them turned to Luz

“Heh, well my book may or may not have gotten me in here,” Luz responded, with a nervous smile on her face.

Luz’s mom rubbed her eyes and turned to her. “¡Ay por el amor de Dios! Cariño, ¡pensé que habías dicho que este informe era normal!” (Oh, for the love of God! Honey, I thought you said this report was normal!)

Luz slightly winced. When her mother usually talked in Spanish to her, she’s usually either anxious, worried about something/ someone (usually Luz), or when she’s ticked off.

In this particular scenario, Luz couldn’t tell.

She tried to defend herself. “ Well Mom, the book report was-“

“Do you know what! Just-“ Luz’s mom sighed in frustration and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Just a give a recap of your book report. I mean, it can’t be that bad, right?” She nervously chucked out.

“Well alright then!” Luz said. She held up the snake and the Azura figure, ready to present her report when her mother shrieked.

“What the-  HOW DID YOU GET A SNAKE! “ Luz’s mom cried, noticing the snake in her hand.

“Oh, Gildersnake here? I caught him. It was pretty easy, I already knew how to make an effective snake trap, and Mewtube tutorials helped me fill in the gaps!”

“Alright, but why?”

“For my book report!”

Luz’s mom sank her face into her hands. “Oh Dios Mio……”

--- One Recap of a Book Report Later ---

“And that’s the end!” Luz said. She had just concluded an, albeit summarized version, of her book report to her mother. She decided to leave out a few bits of course; after all, it would’ve taken all day to explain the overly complicated and convoluted plot of the Azura franchise.

Luz’s mother just looked confused. “The end of what?” She asked.

“My book report! I think I knocked it out of the park!” Luz answered.

“Luz, you’re book report is why you’re in here. Remember?” Principal Hal stated.

“And what were you going to do with this?” Luz’s mom asked, holding up a bundle of firework rockets.

Luz sighed. “That was for the act three closer.”

Luz’s mom placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “ Mija, I love your creativity, but it’s gotten out of hand. Do you remember why you were in the principal’s office the last three times?”

She sighed and pulled a small pamphlet out of her purse. “We all love that you express yourself, but if you can’t learn to separate fantasy from reality, you may need to spend the summer here.” Luz’s mom handed the pamphlet to her.

Luz glanced at the pamphlet –

Reality Check Summer Camp

Think Inside the Box!

Luz slightly winced.

“Uh Mija, are you alright? You went a little pale there.” Luz’s mother asked.

“No, no! I’m fine! A-OK!” Luz reassured. She turned to her mom and dramatically stood up. “Don’t worry mom, I won’t let you down! No more weirdness!” She cried.

Unfortunately, the snake in her hand, probably startled by the sudden movement or change of volume of the room, jumped right out of her hand.

And right into Principal Hal’s face, who fell out of his chair with a shriek.

Luz looked back at her mother. “That doesn’t count, right?”

--- 6 Hours Earlier ---

Blue woke up swinging. Not in the metaphorical sense that he was ready to face the day and the unknown events to come. No. He woke up literally swinging his fists.

One of them, unfortunately, contacted Haye’s face.

“JESUS CHRIST, WHAT THE HELL! I WAS TRYING TO WAKE YOU UP!” Hayes cried out, reacting to getting decked in the face. Blue rubbed his eyes open and absorbed his surroundings.

He was reclining back on a sofa in the private jet that he and Hayes took to get over to New York. Hayes was standing over him, wearing a beige dress shirt and jeans, and a duffel bag flung over his shoulder. He was rubbing the side of his face were Blue (accidentally) punched him.

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry sir, but you do gotta know you don’t just shake a person awake!” Blue said.

“Yeah, I know that now!” Hayes hissed back. He groaned in pain before responding. “You could’ve gone a little easier with the punching though.”

“Hey! I already said I was sorry!” Blue argued. He rubbed his eyes again. “Yeesh, we’re at the airport already?” He asked.

“Yeah, we got here ‘bout half an hour ago. I was just waiting for our transportation to get here before I woke you up. By the way, you mumble a lot when you sleep. Is that normal for you or-“

“Yeah, that ain’t important right now though,” Blue responded. He then slowly got up from the sofa, went to the overhead compartment, and pulled out his duffel bag. He strolled over to Hayes.

“Let’s just hope that this will be quick. How long do we gotta be here?” Blue asked.

“Don’t know, kid.”

“Like ‘don’t know’ as in you can’t tell me, or ‘don’t know’ as in you actually don’t know?”

“Like I don’t know. The documents I got told me practically everything but how long were gonna be here. I’m betting we’ll be here for a few weeks to a few months though.”

Blue cursed under his breath. Of course, the one time he gets moved to another facility long-term, he forgets to pack extra clothes. Typical, just typical.

He accompanied Hayes out of the plane, stepping down the stairs onto the runway of the airport. He heard the sounds of airplanes taking off and landing in the distance. The sky was still relatively dark, with some sunlight peering over the horizon. Blue checked his watch. It was barely past 6:30.

Blue glanced up from his watch and saw a well-dressed man exit from an SUV that was parked close by. He was short, just around Hayes’s height, with a balding head of grey hair and round-rimmed glasses nestled on his face. He was wearing tan dress shorts, a white dress shirt, and a scarlet sports coat. He approached the two of them, a big smile beaming on his face.

“Ah! Good morning gentlemen!” He greeted them, a British accent coming from his lips. The two of them looked at him with some confusion. It didn’t seem like either he or Hayes recognized the man.

“Ah hell, forgot to introduce myself!” The man held out his hand. “My name is Dr. James Whitman! I’m the head of DTAC, as well as the chap running the little operation we got going on in Connecticut.  You can call me Dr. Whitman if you think my full title is a bit of a mouthful, but not James! We haven’t got there yet!” He chucked

Blue and Hayes shook Whitman’s hand. He continued. “Anyways, which one of ya is the new director at 374?” He pointed between the two of them.

Hayes raised his hand. “So, you must be Director Hayes then. Great to meet ya!”

“You can just call me Dr.Hayes, sir. I’m still getting used to the promotion.” Hayes corrected.

“Sure, sure!” Whitman responded. He turned to Blue. “That means you must be Agent Blue, correct?” Blue nodded, then winced in surprise as Whitman walked forward and wrapped him in a bear hug, then retracted and gripped him by the shoulders.

“Lemme tell ya this kid: you don’t know it yet, but you’re gonna make history!” He declared.

Blue tried to stammer something in response as Whitman leaned in towards his ear.

“Sorry ‘bout the close contact here kid, I’ll make it up to you later, but please tell me that this guy is better than the last one!” He whispered.

“What?”

“Is this Hayes guy better than Clarence? Because let me tell ya something, if I have to work with another narcissistic asshat, I’ll make this guy’s death look like an accident.” He responded.

Blue answered, “Uh…. No not really sir. I know Hayes pretty well, and unless him trumpeting about some random topic for hours on end ain’t your thing, I’m he’s an improvement over Clarence.”

“Oh thank-“

“I can hear you two! You do realize that, right?” Hayes pointed out.

Whitman, suddenly flustered, let go of Blue and adjusted his coat.

“Anyways, our ride here is gonna meet up with the main convoy, then we’re gonna-“

Hayes interrupted him. “Are we gonna ignore what you two were talking about because I do not trumpet on about-“

“-head over to the site for the mission briefings and whatnot. The convoy is just a trio of SUVs that are accompanying a truck that’s transporting some important cargo from the airport to the site. We just did some stuff with the scheduling so we can transport you two and the cargo around the same time; the whole ‘kill two birds with one stone’ business.” Whitman checked his watch and then ushered the two of them into the SUV.

“Now let’s save any other chit-chat for when we’re on the road because if we wanna make it in time to meet up with the transport convoy we gotta leave……. Right about now.”

Blue took a seat in the back of the SUV, with Hayes taking a seat next to him. James took a seat in the front passenger seat and nodded to the driver. The vehicle suddenly lurched forward, launching Blue into the seat in front of him.

“Whoa, you alright back there kid?” Whitman called out from the front.

“Yeah, I’m fine sir! I think I may’ve broken my nose though….” Blue touched the inside of his nose with his finger and glanced at it. The tip of the finger was covered with blood, confirming his theory.

“Yup! I broke my nose alright!” Blue called back.

“Eh, don’t worry about it! Just slap a quick healing spell on that bad boy, then take some of the painkillers from the storage compartment in front of ya!” Whitman instructed.

Blue was about to cast the spell when Hayes objected. “Hold on a minute! Sir, are you sure it’s a good idea to be using magic in a public environment? Its-“

“A security risk?” Whitman finished. “Don’t worry about it, the only people who are gonna notice are us; the windows of the car are tinted so no one outside shouldn’t suspect anything-“

“Yes, but sir, it’s still against several protocols!” Hayes countered.

“I’m quite aware of that Dr.Hayes. After all, I was the one who wrote the protocols!” Whitman reassured. “We’re in a rush here, so we can’t make a quick stop at a hospital to get that nose fixed. Besides, those places charge an arm and a leg for fucking everything.”

Hayes sighed and nodded to Blue.

Blue took that as an OK to work his magic (in a more literal sense in this case). He quickly cast a small healing spell over his nose, wincing in pain as he felt his nose mend back together. He then took a few tissues out of a nearby box, cleaned his nose, and then took the painkillers from the storage compartment. He downed one of the pills quickly, then asked Whitman a question.

“Hey sir, outta curiosity can I ask you something?”

“If it’s something that I can answer, sure!”

“Firstly, how did you know about my ability to use thaumaturgy?” Blue asked.

“First kid, you can use ‘magic’, we ain’t doing lab reports here. And secondly, I was the guy who co-ran the TITAN program back in the day, so of course, I know who all the candidates are!”

Blue whistled. “That’s impressive. Now secondly, how long is it going to take us to get to Area…… what was it again?”

“Area 42? Eh, don’t worry about it, it’s just a quick three-hour drive from where we are now. Though it may take longer because of traffic, it is New York after all. And probably even longer since we’re driving in a convoy.” Blue observed Whitman rubbing his chin in thought for a few moments through the rear-view mirror.

“Yeah, probably not a quick drive, but don’t worry! We got some reading material, a small mini fridge, and if we’re lucky, some good music on the radio to keep us occupied! Now let me look up some good radio stations along our route here…...” He announced.

Blue sighed and looked out the window. He observed as their SUV got into behind a pair of two similar SUVs that were following a box truck. He shifted his focus back into the inside of their SUV, picked up a magazine, and flipped it open.

He began to read and tried to fight the urge to sleep.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Blue woke up to Hayes tapping his shoulder.

“Hey Blue! Kid! Wake up, we’re almost to the site!”

Blue rubbed his eyes open. He was still sitting in the SUV, the magazine that he tried to read earlier laying flat on his lap.

Blue groaned. “Damn, how long was I out for?” He asked.

“For about a good chunk of the trip!” He heard Whitman answer. “By the way kid, you should probably see a doctor about the snoring, you’re louder than my ex-wife!” He chuckled. “Oh, you should also get that somniloquy checked out as well-“

“That what?” Blue asked, confused.

“Somniloquy, a fancy word for sleep talking,” Whitman explained. “Because, and I ain’t exaggerating here, but dear lord you talk a lot in your sleep. You were pretty vulgar as well; I’ve never heard a man curse that much in his life-”

“Oh shoot! I apologize for that sir-“

“Eh, it’s no need. Sleep talking is pretty natural, happens to everyone! You should apologize to Hayes though, you almost smacked him on the face a few times while you were out!”

“Oh, it’s no need sir. He already smacked me in the face this morning when I tried to wake him up!” Hayes added with a chuckle.

Blue sighed and looked out the window. “Yeah, yeah. I get it, my sleep habits ain’t pretty” He grunted. He glanced out the window and observed his surroundings, trying to see if he can recognize the area.

The street looked…... familiar. Blue was racking through his mind, trying to figure out how he knew the street when their SUV passed it: a small roadside memorial on the side of the road. Although their car passed it quickly, Blue was still able to make out what it said:

DRIVE SAFELY

IN MEMORY

OF

The rest of the sign was too faded to read. Hell, it looked like the whole thing went through a lot, with the sign being bent at an unnatural angle and the flowers, once vibrant, were now dead, only showing off a faded brown.

He felt Hayes touch his shoulder “Uh, Blue? You alright, you’re-“

“I’m fine sir, just…. got lost in thought that’s all.” He felt Hayes pat his shoulder.

“Alright kid. Just…... let me know if you need anything, alright?” Hayes responded. Blue nodded.

“How long until we get to Area 42?” Blue asked with a stifled sigh.

“Should be about ten more minutes. Though, we can make a quick pit stop at a restaurant or something to pick up some food. You two in?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, sir!” Hayes answered. “What about you, kid? What do you-“

“I’m fine with that.” Blue agreed.

Whitman nodded. “Great! Do you two got any preference or-“

“A-Anywhere would be fine for me sir.” Blue stammered out. Hayes nodded in agreement.

“Perfect! Burger Queen it is!” Whitman turned to the driver. “Alright Carl, I‘ll load up Doogle maps on my phone here. I point, you drive!” He ordered.

Blue sighed and rested his head on the car door, turning it away from the others.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Alright, gentlemen! Here we are!” Whitman announced with a grandiose voice.

The three of them were parked in front of a two-story Victorian-style building, with brown brick walls and a black slate roof. There was a tall dome on the roof, with two chimneys adorning each side. On the pediment of the building, was a symbol that Blue recognized as the town emblem of Gravesfeild: A golden bird with folded wings.

The three of them stepped out of the car. Immediately after they stepped out, the car peeled off into town.

“I assume our stuff is going to be delivered to our quarters on site?” Blue asked.

Whitman nodded. “Would be a bit suspicious for onlookers to see a bunch of people walk into a museum with luggage and whatnot. Your stuff should be delivered on-site later.”

Whitman stretched before continuing. “Anyways, let us head inside. If we hurry, we can be early for the briefing!”

Whitman escorted them towards the building. They passed by a weathered sign as they walked:

GRAVESFEILD

HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Taped underneath the sign was a small poster board that read, “Under New Management!”.

The three of them approached a set of double doors that led into the building. Whitman opened one of the doors and gestured to Blue and Hayes inside.

The doors behind them shut. Blue took a minute to take in his surroundings.

The lobby reminded Blue of a small museum. An assortment of artifacts such as a few stuffed animals, paintings, and even a statue labeled ‘A Witch’ were scattered across the room.

Directly across from the entrance was the front desk. A plate reading ‘HISTORICAL SOCIETY’ was attached to the desk. Behind a desk was a door that had an attached sign that read ‘STAFF ROOM’.

Whitman walked over to the desk and rang a small bell. After a few moments, a professionally dressed man appeared from the staff room door. He looked to be the nerdy type: wearing a pair of square framed black glasses, a collared shirt, and jeans. The guy looked pretty scrawny, with the only signs of facial hair being a tuft of hair on his chin.

“Ah, good morning Mr. Whitman!” The man spoke.

Whitman scoffed. “Firstly, it’s noon Jacob. And secondly, I got no time to chit-chat today. I gotta get some business sorted. If you know what I mean?”

Jacob nodded. “Oh, business. I got it, sir!” He fumbled underneath the desk before Blue heard the click of a switch.

“There ya go! I did the thing!” Jacob announced, a smile beaming on his face.

“Yes Jacob, you did the thing. Now go back to whatever you were-“

“Actually, I know what the thing does! And I know who you people are!” Jacob enthusiastically shared.

Ah shit. Maybe it was a bad idea to hire crackpot conspiracy theorists as site receptionists after all.

But still, this was bad. Blue glanced at Hayes. He looked just as freaked out as he was.

Whitman on the other hand? He was completely unfussed by the whole situation. If anything, he looked annoyed.

“Alright, Mr. Hopkins, would you like to share your findings then?” He replied in a snarky voice.

“Oh, you bet I do! Not with you, but with the whole world! Once I get my MewTube account unbanned that is. But soon the whole world will know about your little SCP foundation!” Jacob snarked.

Oh shit. This was a lot more serious than anticipated. Blue looked around the building. It seemed empty, the only people around were just the four of them. No one was outside. Blue gripped his hip, where his sidearm laid concealed.

Whitman seemed to read Blue’s mind. He shook his head towards Blue.

What?

Blue was about to speak up when Jacob suddenly continued with his dramatic speech.

“Yes! Soon the whole world will know the truth about the SCP Foundation! The truth is that you all are just a bunch of government agents trying to hide the truth that the Earth is flat!”

What. The. Fuck.

Jacob continued. “Yes! I know the truth! You can’t hide the Earth’s flatness from me: a certified Flat-Earther!”

Whitman placed his hands to his face and let out a long, exasperated sigh. He then pulled out a small spray can from his pocket, labeled with an ‘A’.

“Wow Mr. Hopkins, you were really off-base this time,” Whitman said while shaking the can. Before Jacob could respond, Whitman aimed the can towards Jacob’s face, took a deep breath and sprayed the can.

“Hey wait a minnnnuttte thattt was ruuuuuudddddeeeee……...” Jacob slurred. His face went blank before returning to a more natural expression.

He looked around the room, confused. “Hold on a minute, I don’t remember being here- Oh hey Mr. Whitman! Do you need-“

“Don’t worry Jacob, I already let myself in. You can go back to your job now.”

“Oh, ok!” Jacob said. He turned and returned to the staff room.

Whitman turned to Blue and Hayes and put a finger to his lip before pointing to the doorway to the right of the desk. Above the doorway was a sign that said “MUSEUM`”.

Blue and Hayes followed Hayes deeper into the exhibit hall of the building. There were a lot of historical items and pictures scattered about the hall. As they passed a glass case containing some old tools, Whitman finally spoke.

“I honestly hate that man.”

“Who?” Hayes asked.

“That Jacob guy. We hired him as a receptionist for the site entrance thinking that he’ll be just like the other guys; just your typical crackpot conspiracy theorist that buys the most ridiculous shit imaginable. But nope. This guy has a fucking habit of shoving his head everywhere it doesn’t belong.”

He let out a long groan before continuing. “This isn’t even the first time! It’s the third time this week! At this rate, we’ll be spending most of our site budget on Class-A amnestics to keep this guy out of the loop. At least he’s always completely off-base; last time he thought we were a bunch of lizard, alien, things!” Whitman sighed again.

“Anyways, here we are!” Whitman announced as the group came to a stop in front of a storage closet. Whitman punched a code into the door, and the three of them stepped into the closet.

“Alright so it’s a bit of a tight squeeze, so you might wanna suck it in Hayes!” Whitman said as they began to enter the cramped closet. Hayes let out an annoyed huff in response.

With some budging, the three of them managed to squeeze into the closet (a closet mind you, that could barely hold one person, let alone three).

“Alright! Who’s closest to the thermostat in here!” Whitman asked.

Blue looked around and noticed a digital thermostat in front of him. “I’m right in front of it sir!”

“Perfect! Now just punch in the first four numbers on it in order!”

Blue did as he was told.

The door of the storage closet clicked shut and the wall across from it slid open, revealing an elevator. However, unlike the state-of-the-art elevators that were in place in most Foundation sites, this elevator looked like it was ripped from a mineshaft, with exposed bedrock lining the walls.

Whitman walked forward onto the elevator. It creaked under the new weight.

“Excuse me sir but are you sure that thing can hold three people?” Blue nervously asked.

“Oh, this old fella? Eh, don’t worry about it, she can hold anything. Besides we got this bad girl certified by the Foundations safety department! If the eggheads from that place say it’s safe, then I’m pretty sure it’s safe!” Whitman reassured.

Blue shrugged and got on the elevator, Hayes following. The elevator creaked louder under the increased weight but managed to hold.

Whitman flicked a switch on the elevator, the doors shut, and the elevator began to descend.

The elevator eventually came to a stop, and the doors opened, revealing a long corridor. The corridor had a light grey floor and walls, with a pair of orange stripes on the wall adding color to the dull environment.

“Welcome to Area 42! It ain’t much…… and that’s kinda it. It ain’t much right now. The only thing we have on this sublevel are personal quarters, some offices, and a pretty small cafeteria. This place usually has about four or five people here at a time; it’s pretty rare for our on-site personnel counts to go in the double digits!” Whitman chuckled.

He walked off the elevator and pointed down the hall. “ Anyways, let me escort you two to our meeting room so we can have the briefing as planned.”

Whitman escorted the two down the hall where they stopped at a door. Whitman opened the door, revealing a conference room. In the middle of the room was a long table, with a few office chairs adjourning the table. On the table was a set of folders, along with a tray of food. A screensaver was being projected onto a screen across from the table.

“You two can take a seat! Help yourself to a muffin if you want. My personal recipe!”

Blue and Hayes sat down. Hayes grabbed a muffin and began to scarf it down, while Blue stared the muffins down.

“Hey kid, those muffins ain’t gonna kill ya you know?” Hayes said.

“I know. Just paranoid. After all, the last time I ate muffins during a briefing, it turns out they were spiked with an-“

“-extremely potent hallucinogenic!” Whitman finished. “Ah shoot! Sorry kid, I forgot you were part of that reality bender seminar a few years ago. Don’t worry, if you eat these bad boys the chairs in here won’t come alive and try to eat you.” Whitman assured.

Blue sighed in relief and took a muffin. “Thank fuck. I’m still slightly traumatized from that seminar. Mostly because I got yelled at by several people for smuggling a weapon into a Blue Zone, and then using the said weapon to open fire on a desk that I was convinced was trying to eat me. The guy running the thing thought it was hilarious, though.”

Whitman looked taken aback. “Oh, so that was you? Wow, you’re a legend back in-“

A pair of muffled voices from outside the conference room interrupted him.

“I’m telling you! You need to fucking replenish!” A man’s voice shouted.

“Oh, can it Sean.” Replied a familiar-sounding feminine voice. “I took one damn soda from the fridge, and now you’re having an aneurysm over it-“

“I’m not mad about you taking the soda! I’m mad about the fact that you take a soda, but you don’t fucking replenish. The rule is simple: you take a soda from the fridge; you replace it with a warm one. You’re supposed to replenish! But when I go to the fridge to get a nice cold one, it’s empty because you don’t replenish!“

The door to the conference door flung open, and two people walked in. One of them was a middle-aged man dressed like he was on vacation rather than attending a briefing; sporting a pair of flip-flops, cargo shorts, and a Hawaiian print shirt, with his long, slick hair pulled back in a ponytail. A drawstring bag was resting over his shoulder.

Another person followed the man into the room and Blue’s heart suddenly came to a stop.

They were wearing a lab coat, with a loose-fitting navy sweater underneath, along with jeans and sneakers. Their shoulder-length hair was neatly tied back in a bun; with streaks of azure contrasting their brown hair.

The two of them were still conversing about……. God knows what. “I swear to God Sean, if you say replenish ONE more time, I’m gonna shove a-“ They glowered, before stopping as they noticed the occupied conference room.

Along with Blue.

Blue shyly grinned. “Uh…. Hi Sam! Wasn’t expecting to see you!”

Their face contorted into confusion. “Blue!? What the heck are you-“

“Oh, so I assume you and Dr.Halcroft know each other?” Whitman interjected.

Blue scratched his head. “Well…. I guess you could say that. We were close for a while-“

“And by that, he means we dated for a few months.” Halcroft corrected. “At least before…… before-“

“Alright, we don’t need to get into your romantic history-“ Blue and Halcroft blushed simultaneously, “-but you can settle any…. past disputes later over a cup of joe in the break room. Believe me, it’s a lot better than the dog water they serve back at site 374-“

Hayes snapped. “Excuse me sir, and I mean this with respect, but what the fuck did you just say about my site’s coffee?!”

Whitman opened his mouth to respond when the standing next to Halcroft chimed in.

“Ok, you two! Please, calm down.” He requested before waving his hand. “Hi! My name is Senior Researcher Sean McDaniels. I’m the head of research here at the Frontiers program.  Today’s briefing today should answer any questions you have. Now, can everyone please take a seat and get comfortable.”

Halcroft shrugged and threw themself into one of the office chairs across from Blue, reclined it back, and rested their feet on top of the conference table.

Sean sighed. “Not that comfortable Dr.Halcroft.” Halcroft rolled their eyes in response.

Sean mumbled something under his breath before retrieving a laptop from his bag and connecting it to the projector. The screen changed to the title screen of what Blue assumed was a PowerPoint:

Project Frontiers

Pre-Operation Briefing (Confidential – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE)

“Alright-“ Sean began, “Good afternoon, everyone. Today we’re just gonna go over the basics of this project. For simplicities sake, I’ve taken the liberty of breaking this presentation into three parts: The overall background of this project, the purpose of the project, and the overall plan we’re going for.”

He clicked a button on the laptop, and the slide changed, showing a list of names. “Now this is the list of all the minor personnel involved in the project. However, the main personnel you’ll be interacting with in the next few days will, in the most part, be us.”

He clicked the button again. “Ok, background. For the most part, the city of Gravesfeild, Connecticut is just your typical New England town. It had no particular reason to warrant the foundation’s attention until a certain someone showed up completely out of the blue.”

The slide changed, and a video icon appeared. Sean pressed the icon, and the video began to run.

The video was split into two separate screens. One screen displayed what appeared to be footage taken inside of an airborne fighter jet. The other screen showed black and white footage that was probably taken by an infrared camera. A date in the corner dated the footage to early 2001.

The audio of the video began. “Tower, this is Rhino. I’m closing in on the unidentified aerial object in the Gravesfeild airspace. Reducing speed.” A voice reported.

The jet reduced its speed before approaching the unidentified object; a woman, probably a young adult, riding a staff adorned with a carved owl, its wings flapping just like any other bird. She had a head of untamed orange hair, and pointed ears, like an elf from one of the crappy fantasy movies Blue watched back in the day. She was dressed like any other young adult as well, wearing a pair of jeans and a flannel jacket, with a bag on her shoulder.

She turned a displayed a look of shock at the jet that was suddenly next to her. The two stared each other down for a few moments before the kid turned, pulled out a Magna-doodle board, and scribbled a message onto it before turning the board towards the pilot, a smug, shit-eating grin on her face.

Blue managed to make out the handwritten message:

Good luck telling

everyone without

sounding crazy!

Blue couldn’t help but smile. Whoever the hell this person was, he liked them already. He saw Halcroft smirk from the corner of his eye. They seemed to like this weird woman as well.

The pilot in the recording stammered a bit before speaking up. “Uh… this is Rhino, I got a visual on the object. It looks like – and ain’t making this up here – it looks like a person riding an unusual staff. Like uh, one of those witches from those old movies riding a broomstick, if that makes any sense. Er, requesting guidance, over.”

The lady seemed to realize that her jig was up, and quickly took a nosedive. The pilot reacted, “Holy crap! The person just nosedived towards the ground. What do I-“

The tower broke in, “This is Tower to Rhino. We’ve looked at the footage from your cameras, and we’re afraid this type of thing is above our paygrade. We’ve notified the proper officials for this type of scenario. RTB immediately, over.”

“Ro- roger that, Tower.” The pilot stammered out. The video ended.

Sean rewound the video to show a still image of the strange woman before continuing. “That folks, was a recorded interaction between the Connecticut Air National Guard and Person of Interest #2632. Goes by the alias ‘Marilyn’.  The gentlemen in the footage here was investigating a UAE over the Gravesfield airspace that was picked up by the National Guard’s Radar systems.”

Sean leaned onto the table. “Now under normal circumstances, the National Guard wouldn’t be worried about an unidentified object on radar. After all, a lot of stray objects, such as birds or weather balloons, have the tendency to get picked up by accident. However, what caught their attention was the fact that this unidentified object had flight patterns that aren’t consistent with stray objects, along with the fact that the object flew during specific times and days. This brought up national security concerns, and thus, when the object appeared again, they sent someone to investigate.”

He continued. “Now after this initial incident, we administered amnestic treatments to everyone involved in the initial interaction and began tracking this individual with the eventual goal of detaining her for questioning.”

Sean threw his hands up. “Turns out: that was easier said than done. This lady is pretty damn hard to catch. Hell, some of our best response teams struggled to even apprehend her. This game of cat and mouse went on for over ten years.” He explained.

Blue whistled. “So, what do you want me to do? Try and catch this lady or-“

Sean nodded. “No, no. We’ve thrown that idea out the window a while ago, it was getting too costly sending a response team into town every time we got a sighting of this lady, only for her to disappear into thin air. Thanks to our surveillance units, however, we managed to figure out how this woman just vanishes.” He explained before clicking a button on his laptop.

The slide changed yet again, showing yet another video. Sean clicked the play icon, and the video began to run.

It showed what looked like surveillance footage. The camera was positioned in the middle of a forest, facing an old, dilapidated two-story house. It appeared to be daytime, with beams of sunlight piercing through the trees. After a few moments of silence, a figure suddenly came into view of the camera.

It was the same woman, this time much visibly older, wearing a maroon sleeveless dress, grey leggings, and high-heeled boots. Her previously orange hair was now layered with different shades of grey. She appeared to be running from someone, frequently turning her head over her shoulder. She walked into the house, and a bright light emanated from the interior. Sean paused the video.

“That is how this woman is able to suddenly disappear in thin air. We don’t know how, but we suspect that she has her own way-point to another location. The other location is what we suspect is another dimension. I’ll let Dr.Whitman explain the rest.” He explained.

Blue sat up. Now he was listening.

Sean gestured to Whitman, and he stood up, taking his place next to Sean. He began. “Alright kid, lemme tell ya, this place was a bit difficult to find information on, but what we do know is this: this dimension is most likely the point of origin for Proto-Modern magic, and thus, magic as a whole.”

“So, you’re telling me that magic…… is just from another dimension?” Blue sputtered out.

“Yup! Bit of a shocker too, this discovery kinda threw decades of pre-established theories and research out of the window.” Whitman chuckled. “But, this place is much more than that, however. With some digging, along with years of Hume measurements, we deduced that our two worlds are interconnected. According to some of the eggheads in the department of Multi-Dimensional Research – who are probably much more qualified to discuss this topic – this interconnection results in a bit of our world flowing into theirs, and a bit of theirs flowing into ours. That’s where the tabloids Haye’s has been obsessing with came from.”

Hayes piped up. “Now from these tabloids – that I do not obsess with mind you – we’ve learned a lot about this dimension: society, culture, geography, hell, even wildlife! We also know that the locals have a similar anatomy to humans as well; the only major differences being a bile sac attached to the heart, pointed ears, and elongated canine teeth in some individuals.”

Sean nodded. “That’s correct! However, we don’t have the full story of this place just yet; there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge currently. That’s where this project comes in.”

The screen changed to a slide titled ‘Purpose’, with a large block of text below it. Sean began to talk. “Now the overall goal of this project is to build a stable gateway between our two worlds and establish relations with this society. Now the first part of the goal has been completed; we got a working portal downstairs-“

“Woah, WOAH!” Blue exclaimed. “You built an interdimensional portal underneath a history museum that’s right across the street from the town square?! How the hell did you-“

“Simple, we just made up a cover story that the building upstairs needed renovations due to severe structural damage – which it really did mind you – and during the renovation process, we managed to not only construct this facility but also the portal as well. All we had to do is just put some surveillance teams to make sure any civilians didn’t enter the facility.” Sean explained.

Blue slowly nodded. “But why here, though? You could’ve just built it in the middle of nowhere and save the trouble.” He probed.

“We originally considered that,” Sean elaborated, “but the issue is we need an area with a low Hume count, or an area where reality is a bit weak in other words, in order to construct a functioning portal. We had a few locations in mind: one in California, another in Oregon, and the third one in Oklahoma. But we settled on Gravesfeild since we had already had a pre-established operation here.”

He continued. “Now, we’ve already activated the portal a few times. The only issue we ran into is the fact that we can only keep it only for only a few minutes at a time; it turns out that trying to keep an interdimensional rift open requires a lot of energy. The other issue we ran into is that the portal needs a nuclear reaction to activate.”

Whitman added. “It also turns out it’s pretty difficult to get Plutonium! It’s not really something you can walk into the corner store and buy after all! But I managed to acquire a decent supply thanks to some…... connections I have. That’s what the truck was transporting this morning after all!”

“Those two issues aside-“ Sean redirected, “- the portal has shown to be stable, and we’ve already sent a few probes into it to get gather some data, as well as confirm we wired the portal to the right dimension. We don’t want to accidentally send you into the wrong dimension after all-“

“YOU’RE GOING TO SEND ME INTO WHAT NOW!” Blue yelped.

They’re joking, right? He probably just heard Sean wrong. Because there is no way that they are sending him into another dimension, right?

Right?

“Shit didn’t mean to say that just yet. But yes Blue, the reason why you’re here is that you have been chosen as the person to spearhead the first manned expedition into, what we know as NX-059.

Blue began to feel dizzy. Not in the metaphorical sense, but in the sense that everything around him began to spin.

The last thing he heard before blacking out was Halcroft shouting.

“Oh fuck, I think he’s gonna pass out!“

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Goddammit, Sean! I thought I told you to lay it on him gently!” One voice said.

Another voice responded. “Hey! I did kind of tell him gently-“

A third voice interjected “Both of you, shut up. I think he’s coming to.”

A few moments passed.

“Ah fuck this, I don’t have all day. WAKE UP!”

Blue felt a hand cleanly slam across his face. He had been slapped awake.

“Gah! WHAT THE FUCK-“ Blue cursed before stopping. Halcroft was standing next to him – Blue assumed they were responsible for the rude awakening – with Hayes, Sean, and Whitman in the background.

Whitman was the first to speak. “Jesus Christ Halcroft! Was that really necessary-“

“Yup! And it got the job done too. Blue’s awake and we can continue with this stupid briefing. I’ll take over for you Sean, take my seat will ya?” They ordered.

Halcroft and Sean switched places. “Now, the original plan for this whole shebang was to have you, along with three other TITAN program candidates, hop into this place, get data that the probes can’t, and hop out. However, due to a scheduling error-“

“Don’t worry I’ve already fired someone for that!” Whitman exclaimed

“- we were only able to recruit you for the first mission. Thus, we had to do some downsizing from the original plan since it’ll be just you participating in this mission.”  They explained.

“The new plan is simple: we send you in for about ten, maybe fifteen minutes. During that period of time, you’ll be collecting as much data as possible: photographs, soil samples, water samples, etc. The portal should remain open the entire time, which will allow us to communicate with you via radio. However, if the portal closes, we should be able to maintain communications via a Multi-Dimensional Communications Device, or MDCD for short.” They clicked the laptop, changing the slide to an image of a Brick-Phone-esque object, with a keypad and screen replacing the normal number pad.

“Yes, I’m quite aware that this thing looks like it was ripped straight from the ’80s. Or 70's. I dunno, I'm not a historian.” Halcroft commented, furrowing their brows at the image.

“The reason for the extraneous size is due to the power requirements; It works by creating a portal that’s just small enough to allow signals to pass through, which as Sean mentioned earlier, requires a lot of power to manage.”

Blue nodded, his gaze fixed on the image. “What about battery charge?”

“The battery charge runs for about three hours. However, it’s designed to work with any type of power source. So hypothetically, you can use a spell that can create electricity or whatnot to power this thing.” They said.

Blue was perplexed. “I don’t really know how to do stuff like that just yet. I’m also pretty sure that breaks the laws of physics-”

“For the love of God Blue, you can literally do magic! I’m pretty sure a majority of the things you do not only break the laws of physics, but also all known scientific conventions!” They mumbled.

Blue shrugged. “Touché”, He admitted.

They rolled their eyes. “You’ll also be equipped with a specially designed suit for this operation.“ Halcroft continued, switching the slide to an image of a grey hazmat suit, a gas mask fitted over the face.

“This is the Pioneer Suit, named and designed by yours truly.” Halcroft bragged with a smug grin. “These suits are designed to be resistant to any hazards: corrosive substances, radiation, extreme temperatures, etc. The gas mask fitted onto the suit will filter out any foreign substances in the air. Originally it was going to be connected to an external oxygen supply, however, data from the probes we sent in have shown that the composition of gasses within its atmosphere is roughly the same as ours, which should make it safe to breathe.”  

“If the air is safe to breathe, then why the gas mask?” Blue asked.

Whitman responded. “We don’t want to risk you bringing any foreign diseases from that place into ours and vice versa. It’s based on what Stephen Hawking said about Alien contact with humans having a similar outcome to Columbus landing in America; the death of millions due to the exposure to new diseases that their body’s immune systems weren’t prepared for. Because of this, we’ll also put you into quarantine for a few days when you get back.” He explained.

“So that’s pretty much it! We’ll go a bit deeper into the specifics on the day of the actual mission, which will be the day after tomorrow. For now, do you have any questions?”

Blue leaned forward in his seat. “Oh, you bet I do.” He began.

Chapter Text

“So that’s pretty much it! We’ll go a bit deeper into the specifics on the day of the actual mission, which will be the day after tomorrow. For now, do you have any questions?”

Blue leaned forward in his seat. “Oh, you bet I do.” He responded.

“Alright then,” Halcroft said. “Ask away.”

Blue opened his mouth to speak before realizing that he had no idea where to begin, with his mind overwhelmed with a massive hoard of questions.

“You don’t know where to start, don’t you?” Halcroft asked, smirking. Blue slowly nodded in response.

Whitman rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Well… we can just cap it off here folks. Great presentation Sean-“

“Thanks, I knew that certification in PowerPoint would finally come in handy one day!”

“- and Dr.Halcroft, you did a great job taking over for Sean.” Whitman checked his watch and grimaced. “Now if you excuse me, I gotta step out for a bit. I got some…… business to take care of. Hayes, do you mind coming with me?”

“Oh! Uh, yes- I mean, no sir!” Hayes sputtered out.

Whitman sighed and stood up. With Hayes in tow, the two of them left the conference room, shutting the door behind him.

A few moments passed.

“Actually, I have one question to start with.” Blue mentioned.

 Sean groaned. “Jesus Blue. You should’ve-“

“Hey, Sean! Two words: Shut, up. Let the guy ask his question.” Halcroft interjected, much to Sean’s annoyance.

“Well… why exactly did you choose me for this operation?” Blue asked.

Sean’s brows came together in a scowl. “I mean…… why wouldn’t we choose you? You’ve acquired a pretty impressive resume during your time with the Foundation-“

“Yes, I’m quite aware of that. But why me specifically?” Blue reiterated.

Sean scratched the back of his head. “Well, Whitman insisted on exclusively using personal from the TITAN program-“

“So, he wanted people who can do magic?”

“Yep.” Halcroft said, popping the ‘P’. “ We’re essentially sending you into uncharted lands. Although we do know some things about the…. hey Sean, what are we calling this place again?”

“Our working name for it right now is NX-059,” Sean replied.

“Perfect! Now although we do know some things about NX-059, our knowledge is severely limited right now. We want to make sure that if things hit the fan, which they won’t, you at least have your – fuck this sounds ridiculous – magic to defend yourself.”

Sean chimed in. “The probes helped patch some things up about the weather, climate, and atmospheric conditions. The tabloids helped as well, but they only gave some insight on the culture and society this place has, but they weren’t that helpful in regards to learning about this places natural conditions: nature, wildlife, geography, etc. We at least know something, but it’s still isn’t enough.

He closed his laptop and stood up. “I mean, it’s not like The National Enquirer has a foldout with accurate maps of the United States or something like that. We were honestly pretty lucky that some idiot in that place put, what I imagine is our equivalent of a medical diagram, into one of the tabloids we found, otherwise, the TITAN program never would’ve happened!”

Something clicked in Blue’s mind. “ Hold on a minute. How were you able to read the tabloids in the first place?”

Sean snapped his fingers. “Ear protection, kid. Layers upon layers of ear protection-“

Blue shook his head. “Yeah, I know about the ear protection, I saw one of the things get photographed in person. What I’m asking is how you read the thing. I’d imagine they were in some unknown language or something like that-“

“Nope. They were in English.” Sean nonchalantly replied

Blue was confused. “H- How in the hell? How does that work? I assume since this place is isolated the way it is, I’d imagine that a different form of spoken language - hell, maybe even a different form of communication in general - would evolve there-“

“That’s what we thought as well. But nope, the main language of this place is English.” Sean said, beginning to pace around the room.

“Maybe it might’ve something to do with the interconnection between our two worlds. Maybe someone from here accidentally stumbled into 059 and introduced English to the local population. Or maybe it’s just something we don’t even understand yet!”

Blue nodded to feign understanding, but in actuality, he was still confused about how English, a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to (what is now) Britain by Anglo-Saxon Migrants in the 5^th – 7^th centuries, managed to find its way into another fucking dimension.

Blue shuddered.

I’m just overcomplicating things here. Maybe there’s NO logical explanation for this. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to deal with some weird shit.

Like those damm telepathic Orangutans.

Or that interdimensional baseball broadcast.

OR that corgi that extends across the world and is used as a train by faires.

It’s either that, or the Brits got a little TOO imperialist.

Blue decided to change the conversation, otherwise the linguistic major side of him from back in his college days would have an aneurism trying to figure out the logistics and implications of-

Nope. Just change the conversation before your brain melts.

“Well, do we know anything about the local population?” Blue asked.

“For starters, we do know that the society that has developed there is aware of our existence, as well as extremely prejudiced against us,” Sean explained.

He chuckled. “Kind of ironic considering their society is a near-perfect mirrored image of human society. They got a spoken and written language, as well as an established economy. The only major difference between us and them is technological prowess – we hypothesize that they’re way behind us technologically -  as well as the general acceptance and usage of magic and other anomalous phenomena in their society.”

“Speaking of which-“ Halcroft interjected, “-we recommend not to make any general contact with the locals during your quick stay.”

“I mean it’s not like I’m gonna be in that place for long. How long did you say I was gonna be in there for? Ten, fifteen minutes? I highly doubt I’ll bump into anyone. Besides, what’s the harm in just saying hello-“

“We just don’t want to take any risks here. Besides, we got people that handle inter-universal relations and diplomacy.” Halcroft answered.

Blue nodded in understanding. “What about equipment? What am I bringing with me?”

Sean perked up. “Glad you asked! Along with the suit, we’ll equip you with a specialized backpack for the operation.” Sean pulled out his phone and showed Blue an image of a gray tactical backpack, a patch of the foundation logo adorned on the front.

“The back pockets contain a specialized pop-up shelter, made out of the same material as your suit, to be used if the weather gets a bit hairy. Along with that, we included about two weeks’ worth of food and water, as well as some basic survival equipment as well. In the middle pocket is the main storage compartment for the MDCD, as well as an instructional guide in case you forget how to use the thing. And finally, the front pocket is for your personal use.”

Blue widened his eyes. “Christ almighty, you’re gearing me up like I’m going to mars or something. This whole shebang is only going to be-“

“Yes, we’re aware of the short time frame this operation has. However, we want to take all possible precautions in the possible event that the portal malfunctions, and you end up stranded on the other side.” Sean informed.

Upon seeing the horrified look on Blue’s face, he quickly added, “Oh and don’t worry about the portal malfunctioning! We tested the portal extensively and sent in a couple of probes in to test the stability, and all of the tests came back with flying colors!”

“Alright, but have you tested this thing with people?” Blue inquired.

Sean shifted nervously. Halcroft turned to him and gave him an ‘I told you so’ look. “Well…... not exactly. You’re the first person to be sent through. However, we did send through a few mannequins to make sure the human…... form can handle interdimensional travel.”

“Well?”

“After some tinkering with the portal settings, we managed to make it work.”

Blue rubbed his eyes and sighed.

“Well, I do appreciate the personal space you’ve given me with the bag-“

“Oh, it’s no problem!” Halcroft said.

“But I don’t need it. I got my own little pocket dimension to work with.”

Sean and Halcroft looked at Blue with confusion.

“What…... do you mean?” Halcroft asked, tilting their head.

“Well…. Uh, how exactly do I explain it?” Blue said scratching his head.

“According to Hayes and some of the other eggheads I talked to, proto-modern magic users have a small pocket dimension. Essentially you can fit stuff into it; only smaller objects though, largest thing I was able to squeeze in there was a broomstick. The working theory is that it’s used to store a magic user’s staff, wand, or some other magical shit like that. I just use to keep my junk.” Blue explained.

“Junk like what?” Halcroft asked.

“Lemme show you! Just gimmie a minute, it takes a few tries and some concentration if you don’t do it frequently.”

Blue held his hand out to the air and began wriggling it around, trying to find the pocket space. Halcroft and Sean looked on in confusion; from their perspective, he probably looked like an idiot.

“Ah-ha! Gotcha!” Blue announced as he pulled out his belongings from thin air, as Sean and Halcroft watched in awe.

“Alright lemme see. I got…... a pack of chewing gum, some matches, and oh! My WD-40 and duct tape!”

Sean’s face fell into his hands. He groaned. “Wait so you have a weird magical pocket thing, and you keep duct tape-“

“and WD-40, can’t forget about that!”

“- inside of it. Why? Why not go for something practical, like-“

“That’s the thing: You can never go wrong with some good ole WD-40 and duct tape! Got something that’s supposed to move but it ain’t moving? WD-40. Got something that’s not supposed to move but it’s moving? Duct tape. It’s good to keep that stuff on ya! Besides I do keep some practical stuff in there!” Blue chided, digging through the pocket, throwing a paperback novel and a calculator onto the table.

“Ah! Here we are!” Blue announced, pulling a handgun, a Glock, out of the pocket, eliciting a terrified yelp from Sean. Halcroft just rolled their eyes in response.

“JESUS FUCKING- Blue, are you aware that this site is a weapons-free zone!? You’re breaking several protocols-“

“Oh, relax Sean! This thing ain’t loaded!” Blue checked the gun to only find out that it was, in fact, fully loaded.

But Sean didn’t need to know that.

He slid the gun back into the pocket. “Besides, I got authorization to carry. Kinda comes with the job-“

“Alright, but out of curiosity, discounting that gun, what other weapons do you have on you right now?” Sean whimpered.

“Hm, let me see. I got another sidearm holstered on my side, a bowie knife holstered on my other side, and another one holstered on my leg.” He explained in a deadpan voice.

“I- I’m not even going to-“ Sean sighed. “ Alright, do you have any other questions for us while we’re here?”

Blue thought for a moment. “Nope, what do you need me to do now?”

Halcroft spoke. “Just read over this file right here.” They said, pushing a manilla envelope towards Blue. “It just has additional information and instructions if you have any more questions.”

They stood to leave, Sean following closely behind. They turned in the doorway. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Whitman wants to get some of the personnel together for lunch tomorrow, something about a farewell party or something like that. I don’t really get the purpose of it since you’ll be gone for only fifteen minutes, but hey, he’s paying for it so free food is free food. It’s at 11:00 sharp, make sure to show up.” They waved before exiting.

The door shut behind them and Sean, leaving Blue alone in the room.

What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

-- THE NEXT DAY --

The lunch was pretty decent.

It was no Michelin star restaurant, and Blue would know, he had to infiltrate a Michelin star restaurant that acted as a front for an Ambrose Restaurant location a few years ago. Everything was going well until the squid he had eaten reanimated in his stomach. That was a weird night.

They were inside of those trendy new restaurants that popped up in recent years; the ones with (rather uncomfortable) communal seating and distressed wood paneling on the walls to give the place a ‘modern but rustic’ feel. All while serving the most mediocre food imaginable while charging the most ridiculous prices.

But hey, Whitman was paying for everything, so Blue couldn’t care less.

Speaking of Whitman, the man himself was seated to the right of Blue, chuckling in response to a joke Sean told.

“Alright, alright! I got a good one.” Sean said in between laughs. “ Ok, so a Grasshopper walks into a bar and the bartender says, ‘Oh hey! We got a drink named after you!’”

“And then-“ He snorted into his hand, holding back giggles. “And then the Grasshopper says, ‘ You have a drink named Steve!'” Whitman and Sean erupted into laughter at the punchline, while Blue and Halcroft stared at the pair in awe, admiring their poor sense of humor. He heard Hayes mumble something under his breath.

Blue poked his honey barbeque salmon with his fork, before getting up and excusing himself from the table. He walked outside to the front of the restaurant and collapsed onto one of the front steps. He took a deep breath and sighed, digging his hands onto his face.

The image of the roadside memorial he had seen the previous day was still fresh in his mind. He knew that it had been what? Fifteen, twenty years since he’d been to Gravesfeild? He was expecting the little memorial to be a bit run down, but not that rundown. Blue internally cringed as he remembered the state the memorial had been in; the sign crooked, the paint peeling off, the dead flowers. Blue sighed again.

“Excuse me?”

Blue looked up and saw the source of the voice: a Latina woman dressed in medical scrubs, with a young girl, presumably her daughter, standing next to her.

“You’re blocking the entrance. Is it alright if you can-“

“Oh, shoot! I’m so sorry ma’am!” Blue got up and stood to the side. “There ya go! You two have a good day now!”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” She began to walk towards the entrance before realizing her daughter has lagged behind. She turned and saw her staring at a lizard basking on a rock. The woman sighed. “Come on Luz! We don’t wanna be late for our reservation!”

The girl perked up. “Sorry, Mama!” She responded, rushing after her mother. The two entered the restaurant.

The woman stood at the doorway, holding the door. “Sir, are you coming in or-“

Blue shook his head in response. The lady nodded and shut the door behind her.

Blue leaned on the rail of the entrance, chuckling to himself as he remembered the kid staring at the lizard.

Kids these days.

Blue then pulled out his phone from his pocket to shoot a quick to Whitman.

BLUE – Is it all right if I can hop into town to run a quick errand? I’ll be back at the GHS ‘round 4:00.

Blue was about to slip the phone back into his pocket when it dinged back multiple times with a response. He glanced at the screen.

JAMES WHITMAN – Sure!

JAMES WHITMAN - Just make sure to keep the phone on you, it has a tracker on it that’ll keep tabs on your position at all times.

JAMES WHITMAN - If you lose it or deactivate the tracking feature on it, we’ll assume you’ve either gone rogue or gotten kidnapped, and we will have to send a unit to your location: either to bail you out or terminate you.

JAMES WHITMAN – Standard protocol! : )

Blue shuddered at the casual tone of the warning and loaded up the map’s app on his phone.

He looked up directions to a nearby store and began to walk before suddenly coming to a stop.

He patted his pockets and breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the familiar square shape of his wallet.

He went back to walking.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Finally.” Blue huffed to himself.

It turns out it was a bit of a walk from the hardware store to the roadside memorial. One that was made even more difficult since Blue was hauling a heavy shopping bag filled with items he had purchased.

But he was here now, and it was time for him to get to work.

Blue kneeled down to inspect the sign. Although the sign was worn out and rusted in several spots, it was still fixable. He adjusted the sign, making sure that the soil around the base won’t give out and cause the sign to tilt again.

He then unpacked the contents of one of the plastic bags, taking out a can of paint and a brush.

After a few minutes of labor, Blue’s hard work paid off. The sign looked brand new, mostly because the sign was actually readable, unlike the rusted and worn version it once was.

Blue sat down on the ground and looked at the sign.

DRIVE SAFELY

IN MEMORY

OF

FINN HARPER-LEE

1976 – 2001

Blue sighed and pressed his face into his hands.

‘It was YOUR fault. You do know that, right?’ One part of him told him

‘For fucks sake, we’ve been through this time after time again. It was NOT your fault. Hell, it was nobody’s fault, it was a damn accident-“

‘It wasn’t an accident. ‘Accident’ implies that there was nobody at fault. But guess fucking what? It was your-“

‘Oh, for the love of- Can you just SHUT UP!’

‘I’ll shut up if YOU shut up!’

‘Oh, you’ll shut up alright! You’ll shut up after I shove a-‘

A police siren broke Blue’s thought. He turned around and saw that a police cruiser had pulled up in front of him. The door swung open, and a female officer stepped out.

Blue politely greeted the officer, who was walking over to him. “Hello, officer! What can I do for ya?”

“I just saw you sitting by the road, and I just wanted to make sure you were all right, that’s all!” The officer chuckled. She noticed the sign.

“Oh! It’s about time someone went by and fixed this thing. It was starting to get depressing passing by this thing every day.” The woman said. “So, are you family or-“

“No. He was……. a close friend, yeah, a close friend.” Blue answered.

The officer shook her head. “Well…… I’m sorry for your loss. My sister died a few years ago. It’s tough but-“ She shrugged. “-you gotta move on sometime, you know?”

Blue nodded. The officer gestured to her car. “Do you want a ride back to your place? The weather forecasts are predicting a nasty storm later, and I don’t want you getting caught in it.”

“Yeah, sure! You can just drop me off at the Historical Society. Can I have a minute before we…”

“Sure, sure! Take your time! Just make sure to pick up that litter, I don’t wanna write you up for littering!” She walked back to the cruiser.

Blue stood up and retrieved the final item from the bag, a bouquet of flowers. He strapped the flowers onto the sign and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

He took a breath. “Well…... you’re welcome, Finn. Holy shit it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Blue shakily said.

He blinked back some tears. “So, fuck, where the hell do I begin? Well, after you……. you know, I wasn’t really feeling too hot. So, I did what any normal person does: go on a self-destructive alcoholic binge!” He softly chuckled.

“Now don’t worry!” He quickly added. “I managed to pull myself out of that shit. I haven’t even thought about touching that crap in years. I also dropped out of college, enlisted in the army and all that jazz.”

He sighed yet again. “Looking back…... I kind of regret it. But it did help get my shit together for a while. After that I uh…… got some work from some other people. Worked for ‘em for a few years, mostly because they got some good pay and benefits. A few days back, they reassigned me…... here.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m…… sorry for not being around a bit more. It’s just works been busy and all, so……. I- I’m sure you understand right?”

Silence.

“Well…... it’s been nice catching up to you man.” Blue said, patting the top of the sign. He cleaned up any nearby litter and began to walk to the car before turning around.

“Goodbye Finn.” He added. “I love you.”

*-_-_-_-_-*

It was almost five by the time Blue got back to the GHS.

When Blue entered the building, he found Sean standing at the receptionist’s desk, waiting for him.

He looked pissed.

“Let me guess: Time slipped you by?” He mockingly asked.

Blue was silent for a few moments before nodding.

Sean groaned. “I honestly don’t know what Whitman sees in you.” He mumbled.

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Blue snarled.

“N- Nothing.” He sighed. “Let’s just head back-“

Suddenly the staff room door flung open, and the conspiracy theory-ridden nutjob Jacob rushed out of the room, a wad of papers clutched in his hand.

“I finally found you out! You’re all just a bunch of aliens from mars disguised as humans so you can try to harvest our teeth! It’s all here, in my handy-dandy research-“

“Oh, for fucks sake Jacob- Let’s just get this over with.” Sean scoffed, taking out a familiar-looking spray can from his pocket, shaking it, and aiming it at Jacobs’s face.

“Huh, what’s that for- WAIT, ARE YOU GOING TO HARVEST MY TEETH! I WON’T TELL I SWEAR-“

He wasn’t able to finish, as Sean sprayed the amnestic on Jacobs’s face. His face went blank yet again before returning to normal.

“Huh, I don’t remember being here.” He noticed Blue and Sean. “Oh! What are you two doing here-“

“I believe you have some paperwork for me, Mr. Hopkins. I believe it’ll be in your best interest if you gave it to me.” Sean warned.

“Wait I have paperwork- Oh yeah, the paperwork! Here ya go…... what was your name again?”

“Nunya.” Sean snarked.

“’Nunya’? That’s a weird name, is that foreign or-“

“Nunya fucking business. C’mon Blue, let’s go.” Sean ordered, walking into the exhibit hall. Blue followed behind, leaving a belittled Jacob behind.

They got to the storage closet, and they repeated the same ritual as the day before: Sean punched a code into the door, they stepped into the closet, Blue punched another code into the thermostat, the walls slid out and the elevator to the site appeared, and Blue and Sean stepped on the elevator.

The elevator began to descend, before stalling suddenly.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me!” Sean exclaimed. He turned and saw Blue’s frightened expression. He hated elevators, let alone being stuck in the damn things.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. This thing stalls out on a daily basis. Just give it a minute.” Sean reassured Blue, pressing the down button on the elevator again. Nothing happened.

“Or a few,” Sean mumbled. The two stood in silence for a few moments before the elevator finally decided to work, continuing their descent.

The elevator doors opened, and the pair stepped out. Sean turned to Blue.

“We’re serving dinner in the break room now until seven. You can head to your quarters if you wish, but I recommend getting something to eat; you won’t be able to eat or drink anything after nine tonight.”

“Why?” Blue asked, perplexed.

“Just a standard precaution, we don’t know if having a full stomach will affect anything regarding interdimensional travel. It’ll be an experiment for another day, but for now, we’re not taking any risks.”

Blue nodded. It made sense he supposed. Maybe having a full stomach might screw some the portal, or even worse, the person going through the portal. It would be an interesting experiment to see the effects.

An experiment that Blue did not want to be a part of, thank you very much.

Sean continued. “As for the actual mission tomorrow, we’ll wake you up in the morning tomorrow and get you through the de-briefings and whatnot before we send you through. Hopefully, we’ll be able to wrap things up before breakfast.”

“Alright. So I’ll see you and Halcroft tomorrow?” Blue asked.

Sean nodded. “Yep. Anyways, I’m not missing dinner. Have a good night.”

Sean walked away, presumably to get dinner.

As for Blue? He wasn’t hungry, he’ll just head to his quarters and get some well-needed rest.

After all, he had a big day tomorrow.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Camila was worried about her daughter.

It wasn’t like getting into trouble was a new thing for Luz; in fact, it was quite the opposite.

First was the cheer tryouts where she flipped her eyelids inside out to impress the other kids, who in turn ran away (wimps). Then there was the Romeo and Juliet tryouts were she dramatically recreated the death of Juliet, with sausages and ketchup to represent…… well it was fairly obvious what they were supposed to represent. Then there was the art project, where Luz recreated an ‘anatomically correct’ figure of a griffin (which oddly enough, had the head and wings of a pigeon, rather than an eagle) with spider breath.

Camila was still stumped about the spider breath.

And then there was the most recent incident; the incident involving the snakes and the book report.

Camila wasn’t surprised that Luz considered bringing snakes to a book report as normal.

She should’ve probably expected that.

Camila sighed. She loved her daughter’s creativity, but she was starting to get worried. Luz was fourteen, at this point she should’ve already made a couple of friends already!

But yet, her daughter was all alone in school, ostracized and bullied as the weird kid. It broke her every time heart to see her daughter standing all alone by the school entrance.

She didn’t want to drain Luz’s creativity by sending her to that camp. All she wanted was for her to be happy and be with the other kids her age for once instead of spending all of her time hooked up on those convoluted fantasy books or whatever new anime that has come out.

Camila yawned and checked the time on her phone: 8:19 PM

“Mierda” She cursed under her breath. The time had slipped her by, she meant to check up on Luz almost twenty minutes ago. She quickly shut off the animal documentary she had been watching and rushed upstairs.

She stopped by the door to Luz’s room, hesitating before opening the door.

Her daughter’s packed bag was lying next to the bunk bed she had insisted on getting. Luz was lying on the bottom bunk of the bed, engulfed in one of her Azura novels.

“Hola, mija. ¿Estás bien?” (Hello, honey. Are you alright?) She asked her.

“I’m……. alright mama.” Luz answered in a monotone voice, not looking up from the book.  

“Are you ready for camp tomorrow?" She asked. She debated on adding a, ‘Are you excited? ’ but decided against it. 

“Huh? Oh yes, mom! I got ready a few minutes ago. I’m just getting some quick reading in before bed.” Her daughter answered, still staring at the book. 

“O- Ok mija! Just make sure to go to bed by nine, you’ll be waking up a bit early tomorrow to catch the bus!” She reminded her. Luz just nodded in response. 

Camila sighed and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.  

She probably hates me. But it IS for her own good.  

She leaned on the wall, digging her face into her hands.

I AM a good mother?

Right?

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Sir, you wanted to see me?” Hayes called into the office, standing in the doorway.

“Hm? Oh, yes! Come in Thomas!” Whitman announced from his desk.

Hayes walked into the office. Compared to his office back in 374, a disorganized mess of books and paperwork, Whitman’s office was much more orderly.

Whitman was seated at a mahogany desk, working away on a laptop. His desk was neatly organized, with two separate piles of papers sorted on his desk, and a coffee mug nearby, filling the air with the familiar scent of caramel.

Whitman noticed him. “You can take a seat, Thomas.” He told him, gesturing to one of the chairs facing his desk.

Hayes nodded and took a seat. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

James Whitman was one of the most powerful figures in the foundation. Twenty years ago, he was merely junior research who forwarded work on Thaumatology. Then, just a few years later, along with Hayes and some other researchers, led the TITAN program forward, spearheading research into proto-modern magic.

Whitman has always been an ambitious man, and when he says that he is going to do something, you’ll be dammed if you think he isn’t going to do.

James Whitman was a genius, and one with power at that.

So, Hayes had fair reason to be fucking terrified.

“Alright Thomas, let me tell you why you’re here.” Whitman began, closing his laptop. “I’m promoting – well, technically demoting, but it is a promotion – you as head of research for this project.” He opened a drawer in his desk and fished out a manilla envelope. He held out it to Hayes, who quickly took it.

“Now in this folder is some of the R&D stuff that your……. predecessor was involved with-“

“Wait hold on a minute.” Hayes interrupted. “What about Site 374, who’s gonna run it while I’m out?”

Whitman waved his hand. “Don’t worried about it. I put your secretary, some lad called Richard, in charge while you’re gone. I told the lad to call you if he had any questions-“

Suddenly Hayes’s phone rang. He checked the caller ID and saw that it was Richard.

He picked up. “Hello?”

“Oh! Hello Dr.Hayes! Did Dr.Whitman tell you-“

“Yes, he did, just now in fact!” Hayes said, holding back a laugh. The kid sounded pretty happy. “What do you need?”

“Well, we’re getting the next item shipment tomorrow-“

“Which items?” Hayes asked.

“Uh…... the telepathic orangutans, I believe.”

Hayes held back a groan. Site 374 usually stored different anomalous items; it was a pretty rare occasion when they got actual entities delivered on site.

But when they did, nine times out of ten, it was usually a nightmare. First, they had clear out space and construct a proper containment chamber, which was expensive. Then, they had to clear out the site of all unnecessary personnel for safety purposes. And then they had to transport the things on site and get them into containment without any breaches.

Besides the inbound Orangutans, the site only had two other sentient items (which will hopefully receive SCP classification in the near future): the pixies and the razor hedgehogs

The razor hedgehogs, as the name suggests, are simply just hedgehogs with razor-sharp, steel quills. Despite the danger posed by the quills, they behaved just like any regular hedgehog. Hell, some of them are even friendly towards personnel, rubbing their backs against the arms of personnel who clean their enclosure, which did cause some issues since their quills were razor sharp after all. After a few people got their arms sliced open, the higher-ups elected to give the handlers specialized gloves to reduce the number of visits to the infirmary.

And then there were the pixies.

Oh God, the pixies.

Unlike the hedgehogs, which were relatively docile, the pixies were outright murderous. They also even looked the part; unlike the typical pixies you see in British folklore, little mischievous humanoid figures who happily pranked children (or something like that, it has been a while since Hayes refreshed his knowledge on British folklore), these little shits were the exact opposite.

Imagine a small humanoid around four, sometimes five, inches tall with two separate pairs of arms, each with razor-sharp talons.

Then you have the head. There is no nose, no eyes, only a vertical orientated mouth, filled with razor-sharp teeth.

These things weren’t pranksters, they were predators.

And of course, they learned that the hard way.

The plan was to transport around twenty of the things to the site. According to some experimentation that was done during the initial containment process, the pixies got sedated when fed horse meat. So of course, they chucked a slab of horse meat into the crate where they were housed to mellow the things out.

But for God knows what reason, that one time it didn’t work.

By the time the transport crew got on site, the damn things had almost broken containment numerous times.

It was a miracle that they even managed to get the crate down into the research bay.

The protocol was simple, someone would roll the crate into the containment chamber, step out, shut the door, and release the pixies.

However, there were no volunteers to do the job. Even the D-Class refused to go near the crate, even when they were ‘encouraged’ to by the security personnel.

And then, for God knows what reason, director Clarence volunteered to do the job.

Everyone was shocked. Director Clarence, the guy who rarely went into the research bays, the guy who acted like a pretentious prick to everyone, the guy who (and Hayes meant all offense here) was an absolute coward, was volunteering to do one of the most dangerous jobs possible.

Nobody objected. Hayes was not sure whether it was because of the shock or (and he hoped to God this wasn’t the case) some sick bastards actually wanted the guy dead.

Either way, Clarence walked up and rolled the thing into the chamber, shutting the door behind him.

And then things went wrong. The crate opened too early, and the pixies were let out with Clarence still in the room.

Hayes still remembered when the screaming began; his voice, shouting and begging for his life. The scream became more and more distorted and gargled as the things ripped him apart.

Oh God the screaming.

They learned another thing about the pixies that day; when they found prey, they swarmed and attacked it, eating it alive.

By the time they managed to re-establish containment and retrieved Clarence, at least the parts of him they didn’t like, it was too late.

Director Clarence was dead.

Was the guy a prick?

Yes, yes he was.

But that was no way anyone should go.

Hayes shuddered before returning to the task at hand.

“All right, so telepathic Orangutans? They shouldn’t be too much of a hassle just follow protocol 51-C for the containment transfer.”

“Alright si- Sorry, Dr.Hayes! I’ll do just that! Have a good night and thanks!” Richard responded from the phone.

Hayes smiled. “No problem, kid.” He responded before he heard the phone hang up.

Whitman nodded and stood up. “So, with that out of the way, can you follow me? I have something I’d like to show you.”

Hayes nodded and followed Whitman out of the office. He was escorted down a stairwell to another hallway. They stopped at a large set of double doors.

Whitman spoke. “This here is the main entrance into the portal room; however, I got something better to show you! C’mon!” He dragged Hayes along.

They went up a set of stairs and found a door. The plaque next read, ‘CONTROL ROOM’.

Whitman unlocked the door and ushered Hayes inside. When Hayes entered the room, his jaw dropped.

The room reminded him of mission control at NASA. There were two lines of desks, each with a puzzling array of different knobs, switches, and consoles. The desks were facing a large window.

Hayes looked out the window and his jaw dropped further.

The window was facing a large, hangar-esque room. There was a large variety of storage crates and barrels neatly tucked in one corner of the room. On the other side of the room were several generators and computers.

And then there was the portal.

“The portal…… is smaller than I expected,” Hayes exclaimed.

The portal, rather than a large circular frame that takes up a chunk of the room like Hayes anticipated, looked more like an empty door-frame. There were lines of wires and cables running along the side, leading to the generators.

Whitman laughed. “Yeah, that’s what everyone says! They’re all expecting something huge and jaw-dropping, but nope! It’s just a door-frame. We’ve originally tried going for a larger approach; however, the issue is you’ll need a lot of juice to power the rift. So, we just stuck with a smaller design.” Whitman explained.

He gestured to the control room. “So, this is the main control room for the portal. It’ll take ages to go over what everything in here does, so I’m not even gonna bother. But what I am going to say is this: I want you in here tomorrow to oversee the radio communications with Blue.”

Hayes arched a brow in confusion. “Why, sir?”

Whitman scratched his head. “Well……. I want him to hear a familiar voice giving him instructions and whatnot, and since you two are friends, after all, I thought it would be a good fit. So, do you think you can handle it?”

Hayes nodded. “I think I can sir. I think I can.”

Whitman smiled. “Excellent. Make sure to set an alarm for about six, maybe seven so you can get in here for the de-briefing. See you tomorrow!” Whitman walked out of the room, leaving Hayes to himself.

Hayes found himself staring at the portal and releasing a breath he never knew he had.

Chapter Text

Blue suddenly woke up in a start, his breathing heavy and rapid. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and retrieved his watch from the nearby nightstand.

Holding his watch up to his face, he squinted his eyes to try to make out the time.

5:01 AM

He flung himself back onto the bed and groaned.

The plan was simple: he’d wake up at around nine, go through the last-minute briefings, get strapped into the suit, hop into the weird magic dimension, do some science stuff, hop out of the weird magic dimension, and eat breakfast.

Yup, just another day at the office.

But instead, Blue was lying awake in his bed, mumbling an assortment of curse words under his breath. This has happened before; he’d wake up in the middle of the night, usually panting as if he’d just ran a marathon, and he’ll end up spending hours lying awake in bed, trying to fall back asleep.

He was pretty sure this was a by-product of waking up early on a daily basis for years. He woke up early during his training in the Foundation. He woke up early when he was in the Army. And he woke up early when he was still in college. Waking up at ungodly times in the morning was just something his body was wired to do, he guessed.

It might do him well just to call it a night and just head out into the break room. There was a TV and a decent-sized sofa in there, after all, he could just hang out in there and binge-watch some random show that piqued his interest until the others woke up.

Hell, he might even be able to fall back asleep.

Granted he didn’t really know where the place was. For whatever reason, nobody had bothered to give him a proper tour of the place. But he’ll just wing it.

Blue sighed and got up from the bed. He quickly donned a pair of sneakers, grey jeans, and a T-shirt, and waltzed over to the door of his quarters.

He quietly unlocked the door and peeked out into the hallway. The hallway was empty, and the main lights were off.

However, the hallway was not entirely dark as Blue expected. There was a dim light creeping underneath the door of the last room in the hallway before the stairwell into the lower levels, piercing the darkness of the hallway.

Was he not the only one awake?

Blue shuffled over to the door- the break room, and carefully opened it, peering into the room.

The breakroom was pretty decent-sized. There were a few cupboards and cabinets along the right side of the room, with a microwave and a gas stove. Along the other side of the room were a few bean bags and a couch, their backs oriented towards the doorway of the room, facing a small flat-screen TV.

Blue noticed the outline of a head and shoulders of a person who was reclining on the couch. Shifting his gaze over to the TV he saw what the person was watching: one of those direct-to-DVD old 90’s slasher films, the sounds of a chainsaw and screaming barely audible from the TV.

Blue stood in the doorway, suddenly engrossed with the movie.

After a few minutes passed, during a scene where the masked killer was (rather poorly) attempting to murder a teenager with a chainsaw, the person on the couch spoke up.

“Bleh, the CGI in this stupid movie looks like crap. Am I right or am I right, Blue?” The figure turned to face him. It was Halcroft, a sly grin on their face.

The two stared at each other in silence.

“Uh, yeah, you’re right about that, I guess. Practical effects work a lot better-“

“That’s exactly my point. Glad you agree about that! For some God-forsaken reason, Sean actually likes the CGI they use in these movies-“

“Ok, ok. I, uh, get it. What are you doing awake anyways? It’s five in the morning.” Blue asked.

Halcroft shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. I’ll take a wild guess and assume that’s why you’re here too, right?”

Blue scratched his head. “Well…. yeah. I just woke up earlier and knew I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I just came here to watch something. But it looks like you’re, uh…. kinda busy, so I’m just gonna leave and go somewhere else.” He turned to leave.

“NO!” Halcroft cried out before paling, realizing that they might’ve been a little too loud.

“I uh… I mean it’s uh, cool if you stay here I- I guess.” They stammered out.

“Are you sure? I mean, I don’t really wanna interrupt…... whatever you’re doing here-“

“No, no! We can even watch some random crappy horror movie together, just like the good old days!” They insisted.

Blue sighed. He supposed that spending some time with his ex  a close friend would be better than lying in bed for another four hours.

He sighed, and waltzed over to the couch, taking a next to Halcroft, who was wearing a neon green turtleneck and grey khakis.

It turns out that the sofa was a little smaller than expected, as Blue quickly realized that he was sitting a little too close to Halcroft, his shoulders pressed against theirs.

He elected to bring it up. “Do you…. want me to move or something? Because I’m a little close to you right now and I’m not really sure if you’re comfortable with that or not-“

“Oh! Uh…. I actually don’t mind. You are kinda warm after all.” Halcroft admitted.

Blue felt his face heat up.

Well, THAT was not what I was expecting.

They noticed Blue’s slight discomfort. “Are you comfortable?” They asked.

Blue simply shrugged in response.

They raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Blue opened his mouth to respond, but nothing managed to come out.

On one hand, it was a little polarizing being close to another person, especially if said person was someone he had barely talked to in years.   

But then again………

“I’m just saying I don’t mind.” He finally managed to stammer out.

They smirked and nodded in acknowledgment. The two of them continued to watch the movie in silence.

After a while, Halcroft spoke. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, where exactly did you run off to yesterday?”

Blue thought for a few moments. “I just…... had to make a quick visit somewhere. That’s all.”

“O- oh. I assume it was-“

“Yeah, it was…. the uh, roadside memorial where…... you know what happened. I just wanted to stop by to fix the place up before-“

“H-hold on a minute. I assumed you went into town or something, not…. there.”

Blue sighed and pressed his face into his hands.

I shouldn’t have said that

“Look…. I’m- I’m sorry that I just ran off in the middle of lunch like that yesterday. I just-“

“What are you apologizing for?” Halcroft asked.

Blue stopped, a look of puzzlement crossed his face.

“I uh…. I guess for just d- ditching you – and everyone else – at that crappy lunch yesterday. I mean… I haven’t been really feeling too well, emotionally I mean, coming back here after all this time.”

Blue leaned back on the sofa. “I- I don’t really know. I remember after the- the accident, I swore up and down that I’ll just pack up my shit, and just hightail it out of there. And well…. that’s exactly what I did. I ran away from this place, moved back in with my parents in Miami, and got a cushy desk job at an office as a technical writer, and then when that became too much, I carted myself off to the army.”

He chuckled, holding back a frantic sob. “That’s what I kind of find ironic: I just ran away from every single problem in my life. And when I couldn’t run, I just- I just…... I- I don’t really know what I did.”

Blue was silent for a few moments before continuing. “I guess that’s what I’m sorry for…… for just running away from everyone, even the ones that tried to help me, e- even you.”

Blue breathed a sigh that he never realized he even had.

Holy crap, I’ve never really opened that much to…… anyone! Hell, I’ve never really opened up like THIS to even my psychiatrist.

It was then Blue noticed the silence from Halcroft. He turned and noticed that they had a stunned look across their face, their jaw wide open.

After a few moments of agonizing silence, they finally spoke. “J- Jesus Christ, that- that question was supposed to be hypothetical, not literal.”

Blue sank into the sofa in a mixture of embarrassment and remorse, and quickly apologized. “S-shit! I’m really, really sorry for dumping that all on you. I- I mean, it’s probably a bit awkward between us as it is since we haven’t talked in what, two, three-ish years? But for me to suddenly just dump my fucking crybaby backstory onto you is just-“

Blue was suddenly cut off as Halcroft smothered him in a hug.

They softly reassured him. “It’s all right Blue. We all just gotta open up once in a while. Just- Just remember this: there are people who will be there for you, ok?”

“O-ok.” Blue managed to stutter out, finding it hard to talk due to the sudden physical contact and the fact that he was suffocating under the pressure of the hug.

“Also, when this whole project is done and dusted with, we’re gonna get you an appointment with a fucking therapist, because holy shit, God knows you need one-“

“Ca- Can you please let go? I- I need to breathe, you’re squeezing the air outta me.” Blue responded in between gasps.

“Shoot, sorry!” They apologized, leaning away from him.

“I-Its fine,” Blue responded taking a deep breath. “Also, I am sorry for leaving you behind at the lunch yesterday.”

They waved their hand in dismissal. “Nah, it’s fine. I just asked you earlier since I was just curious, that’s all. Besides, I probably would’ve ditched that place as well. Not really for anything serious per se, but mostly because of those jokes Whitman and Sean were telling. Although they were a little funny at first, they got old. Fast.”

Blue weakly smiled. “Yeah, those jokes were awful. I did like the atom one though”

They quizzically quirked an eyebrow. “Which one was that again?”

“Oh… I think it went a little like this: Why can’t you never trust an atom?”

“I don’t know. Why can't you?” They sarcastically retorted.

“Because they make up everything!”

Halcroft groaned at the punchline. “Oh my God! I hate you so mu- oh son of a gun, the movie ended!” They said.

Blue turned his head and saw that the movie was halfway through the credits sequence.

“Well, that’s a shame.” Blue sarcastically droned. “I mean, it’s really just a shame that we happened to miss the ending of the best horror movie ever-“

“Don’t. Just don’t finish that sentence.” Halcroft mumbled, rubbing the bridge of their nose. “Believe me, I don’t even want to begin on how- on why- do you know what, let’s just watch something else, shall we?”

Blue nodded with a smirk on his face. It seems like even after all this time, Halcroft had barely changed, with their obsession with old horror movies with varying qualities, and then ranting about said movies.

Halcroft quickly changed the movie on the TV. After a few moments, a new movie began to play on the TV. The two of them shifted their focus to the movie.

After a long stretch of time passed by, Halcroft spoke up. “ You know, it was nice getting to talk.”

Blue smiled. “Yeah, yeah it was. Do you wanna – I don’t really know – catch up or something? I’m not sure how well you know the town, and I’m pretty sure a lot of things have changed since I’ve been here, but I- I can give you a tour or something and we can like…... uh, hang out?”

Halcroft smirked. “Sure. Does Saturday sound good?”

Blue nodded, and their smirk grew into a shit-eating grin. “Great! Guess it’s a date.” They announced, giggling when Blue’s face heated up into a crimson shade.

Another few minutes of silence passed by, with Blue engrossing himself in the movie.

“This whole…… whatever we’re doing Saturday is platonic, right?” Blue asked, rubbing his arm.

No response.

“Sam?” Blue turned and saw that they were fast asleep, a light snore emanating from their mouth.

He smiled and yawned, the desire to sleep suddenly coming back to him. He reclined back on the couch and closed his eyes.

For once, he was actually able to fall back asleep.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Seriously. I can’t find those two anywh- Oh there they are. Oh my lord, this- this is adorable. Oi lovebirds, it’s time to wake up!”

Blue suddenly jumped awake at Whitman’s voice. He quickly noticed two things.

One: Whitman was standing right in front of the sofa, an awkward grin plastered across his face.

And two: Halcroft, who was somehow still asleep, was using Blue’s shoulder as a pillow, leaning their head against his shoulder. Their hair was bundled up against their face in a weirdly adorable way, with their glasses barely hanging on off the bridge of their nose. A light snore was-

He heard Whitman cough.

Right, Whitman was still here. And he was probably annoyed at the fact that he was staring at Halcroft with lovey-doves eyes-

Oh.

Blue felt his face warm up. He was quite sure the color of his face matched Whitman’s jacket at that point.

He looked at Whitman. “This isn’t what it looks like, I swear-“

“No- no, I don’t want to know kid.” Whitman began. He pointed to Halcroft. “Can you wake up Dr.Halcroft for me?”

Blue nodded and tapped Halcroft on the shoulder, attempting to wake them up.

They jumped up from Blue’s shoulder, quickly straightening themselves.

“Wha- What! I’m up!” They cried out. Their eyes darted to Whitman, who waved at them awkwardly. Blue could see the cogs turning in their head as they realized their rather compromised situation.

They rapidly began adjusting their sweater. “Oh, shi- Oh I mean uh…. Good morning, sir-“

“Good morning to you two as well Dr.Halcroft. Can you do me a favor and lead Blue over to the main airlock to the portal room so we can get him suited up? I want to get this operation wrapped up before breakfast.”

Halcroft nodded. ”Gotcha sir. C’mon Blue, I’ll lead you to-“

“Oh, and if you two are gonna…... watch horror movies or whatever the hell you were doing last night-“

“Hey!” Blue and Halcroft interjected, their faces simultaneously turning red.

“-just…... do you know what, I’m not your parents.” Whitman sighed. He pointed to Blue. “I’ll see you later, kid. Don’t do anything stupid inside of that magic dimension!” He called out, walking out of the breakroom.

“Well…... that was awkward,” Blue announced.

“Tell me about it. Anyways, lemme lead you downstairs.” Halcroft affirmed, getting up and gesturing to the doorway.

Blue nodded and got up. He followed them outside of the breakroom, however, unlike the last couple of times during his stay at the site, they took a right from the breakroom, heading down into the stairwell.

After some walking, Halcroft escorted Blue to a large set of double doors. They punched a code into a nearby keypad, and the doors unlocked.

They slowly pushed one of the doors open. Blue realized that the door had to be at thirty centimeters of solid metal.

“Uh… You got that?” He asked.

“Huh? Oh, nah I got it. The doors are just pretty slow to open since they’re so thick.”

“And why are the doors so thick, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Radiation shielding.” They said in a matter-of-factly tone. “C’mon, let’s hurry up or Sean will have a hemorrhoid.” They encouraged Blue, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the room.

The room, well it was more like a hallway, was fairly small. On one end of the hallway was the entrance in which Blue and Halcroft came in, and on the other end was another set of double doors to what Blue assumed was the portal room.

Blue spotted Sean on the right side of the hallway, struggling to open a large metal case that was propped on top of a table.

As the two of them approached, Blue could hear Sean cursing under his breath at the case.

“Stupid damn case! Why. Won’t. You. Open-“

“You need help with that man?” Blue asked.

Sean whipped around and noticed Blue and Halcroft, a look of relief coming across his face.

“Oh, thank God! Yes, I would love the help. Can you grab this end right here….”

Blue followed Sean’s instructions, and in no time, they managed to open up the case. Blue noticed a neatly folded-up pioneer suit inside the case, a patch of the familiar crest of the foundation logo stitched onto the suit.

“Alright Blue, here we are! You ready for the big day!” Sean said with an unnatural cheeriness to his voice, gesturing to the suit.

“Are you…. Alright? You seem-“

“Ah fuck it didn’t work.” Sean sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Look Blue, we haven’t really gotten to the…... best start-“

“You think?” Halcroft called out from behind Blue.

“Sam, not now!” He hissed under his breath, only to the bewilderment of Halcroft, who flipped him off in response.

He continued. “Anyways, before I was rudely interrupted, I was going to say we should just… start over, I guess. Also, I want to give you this.” He pulled out a white rectangular object from his pocket and handed it to Blue.

Blue took the object and realized that it was an old Mp3 player, the earbuds clipped onto the back.

“That’s an old Mp3 player I modified. Essentially, it’s got Bluetooth connection with the earbuds – don’t worry about charging ‘em, they run off the Mp3 player battery – and extended battery life, I believe around twenty or thirty hours?” He explained to Blue.

Blue smiled warmly at Sean. “Oh, thanks! But why did you-“

“I remembered back in college when we did fieldwork, I’d bring that bad boy with me to listen to some tunes. Makes the fieldwork go by faster. So, I’m giving it to you, so you got something to listen to while you work away. I uploaded some of my favorite tunes onto it, so if we got a similar taste in music, you should be fine.” He said, showing Blue a file on the MP3 player:

FAVORITES

221 songs, 27 hrs, 27 Min

Updated – September 8^th, 2018

Blue whistled upon noticing the number of songs on the list. “Wow, over two-hundred songs? That’s impressive-“

“Nah, that’s just one of the smaller playlists I got. The problem with some of the…… larger ones is that this thing doesn’t have enough memory on it to hold them all.”

Blue whistled yet again. “Damn that’s…… something.”

Sean smiled. “Yep, it sure is. Now let’s get you into the suit!”

Blue shrugged and went to slip the Mp3 player into his pocket before Sean stopped him.

“Hold on! Blue, you can keep your shirt on for the top half of the suit. However, you’re gonna have to change your pants.”

Blue looked at Sean with a confused look. Sean sighed yet again. “Blue just…... take off your pants.” He ordered.

Blue smirked. “I think it’s a bit early in the day Sean, I don’t know if we’re there yet-“

Sean groaned. “Har Har. Very funny. But seriously though, take off your pants.” He said, taking the bottom half of the suit out of the case and shoving it into his hands.

“Uh…… are you- is it alright if you two- if you two turn around or something?” Blue stuttered.

Sean sighed. “Yeah sure. C’mon Sam, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen this all before-“

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?!”

“-but let’s just turn around for Blue’s sake.”

Blue watched as the two turned in the opposite direction to him. Blue sighed and began to unbuckle his pants.

As he was struggling with the zipper to his jeans, he overheard Sean and Halcroft whispering angrily to each other.

“Did you really have to say that in front of him?” He heard Halcroft hiss at Sean.

“Hey, hey, I already apologized for it! Besides, can’t I help…... I don’t  know, push you two along?”

“What are you talking about?” Halcroft asked.

As he was slipping his pants off and grabbing the bottom half of the suit, he overheard Sean. “For Pete’s sake Sam, it doesn’t take a major in psychology, which I do have mind you-“

“You minored in psychology.” Halcroft corrected.

“Eh, same thing! But my point is this: any reasonable person with two brain cells to rub together can piece together that you still like Blue!”

“Oh, I do not! We’re just…. close friends!”

He heard Sean groan in exasperation. “Really now? Let me list a couple of things off that suggest otherwise: you talk about him almost every waking minute of the day-“

“No, I do not-“

“Sam for God’s sake, you’re the one who tells me about him all the time. All of the stupid shit he’s done, the time you spent together, etc. Now let’s see what else-“

“Alright! I may have a thing for him. I don’t really know why, but I do.”

He heard Sean snap his fingers. “Ah-ha! I knew it!”

Halcroft groaned. “Yeah, rub it in all you want. I said it.”

“Wait a minute, weren’t you two, you know…. together in the past?”

They sighed. “Yes, we were………. a thing for a while a few years back.”

“What happened then?” Sean asked.

“Well…… I don’t know. I work just got in the way of things, and we kinda just went our separate ways after a while.”

“So, you two never really…. officially broke up?”

“Yeah…. I- I guess so.” They groaned in frustration. “But can we please just talk about this later? I don’t know, preferably when he’s not standing behind us!” Halcroft whispered to him.

Sean reassured them. “Oh relax Sam. He can’t hear us.“

Only silence followed. Blue continued to strap the pants of the suit onto his person as Halcroft’s words echoed in his head.

I may still have a thing for him.

This day just suddenly got a bit more interesting.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Hayes woke up fairly exhausted that day.

It wasn’t that he didn’t sleep well; in fact, it was quite the opposite as he slept pretty damn well that night.

No, it was the stress.

Hayes was worried about one thing, no, person, in particular.

Blue.

He wasn’t worried about the kid getting killed in NX-059, he knew Blue could easily pull his own weight when shit hits the fan, either through skill or pure dumb luck.

Hayes was pretty sure it was dumb luck at this point.

What he was actually worried about was something going wrong, and it wasn’t excessive paranoia; in the past, he had worked as a surgeon in one of the largest hospitals in Los Angeles for almost a decade before the Foundation picked him up. Throughout those years, he learned that surgery, regardless of the procedure or whether elective or necessary, carries heavy risks.

Adverse reactions to anesthesia, shock, infections; the list goes on and on.

Oh, and also death. That was kinda an important part right there.

Although surgery and engineering were two, completely different topics, they both had something in common: safety. In the medical field, there are countless different protocols to ensure the safety of the patient being operated on.

One could argue that the same could be said about engineering; safety-critical systems are designed and tested time and time again to ensure they don’t fail or malfunction.

He knew that the systems used in the portal were extremely high risk; he could easily tell just by reading some of the schematics of the portal.

Granted, said schematics were also ingenious, but they held a lot of risks.

Of course, Whitman had tried to reassure him.

The two of them were seated in the control room, with Whitman helping him with getting the main communications module set up.

“Thomas, you really don’t need to worry about anything,” Whitman told him, waving his hand reassuringly.

“Look sir, I- I know. Its just-“

“Lemme guess, gut feeling?” Whitman asked, taking a long sip of...... something from a flask. Hayes nodded in response.

Whitman smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry Thomas, everything is under our control. These systems have been stress-tested time and time again. And time and time again, they passed the tests with flying colors!”

Hayes arched an eyebrow. “And when they didn’t?”

Whitman shrugged. “We just patched up the mistakes and tried again until they did. We’re not idiots here Thomas. We’re not gonna send someone through this thing until we know it’s one-hundred percent safe!”

Hayes tried to breathe a sigh of relief at that fact.

The door to the control room suddenly opened, breaking Haye’s train of thought.

Three people, two women and one man, all wearing identical lab coats, shuffled into the control room. The women in the group nodded to Whitman as they sat down in their respective stations within the control room. The man simply waved before taking a seat next to Hayes.

Hayes whispered to Whitman. “Who are these people?”

“Just some of the folks from my team, that’s all. They’re gonna work the main control modules for the portal.” He explained.

Hayes looked at the newcomers. “That’s it? Only three others?”

Whitman waved his hand dismissively. “We got two more people downstairs in the main room.” He pointed to the window into the portal room. Hayes looked and saw two other people, both donned in hazmat suits, connecting cables to the portal.

“Along with those two, we got Dr.Halcroft and Sean helping Blue out with getting the suit on. Mostly just some last-minute explanations and tests to ensure the thing works properly” Whitman said.

Hayes nodded. The man sitting next to him suddenly spoke.

“This is Control to Systems Check. Is everything green down there?”

A voice responded, presumably one of the people inside of the portal room. “Everything’s all Green down here control. The portal has been fueled and we’re ready to begin.”

“Roger that.” He replied, then turned to the woman in the nearby modules. “Systems check is ready to proceed. Are the TMD coordinates plugged in?”

“Affirmative.”

“Perfect.” The man turned to Hayes and smiled. “Ah! So, you’re the guy runnin’ comms today, eh?” The man asked.

“Yes sir. What do you need me to do-“

“Nothing much right now, just hold on tight. We’re waiting for Pioneer-One to get into position in the main portal room.”

Hayes nodded in understanding and turned back to the communication module, reaching for a nearby headset and putting it on.

He flicked a knob to switch to the channel Blue was on. A small light flicked red, indicating that Blue was still getting ready downstairs.

Hayes fidgeted with the headset, before sighing.

Please God, make sure that kid stays safe.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Ok, that should be it for the suit,” Halcroft said, adjusting the gas mask on his face.

Blue took a deep breath through the mask, his breathing slightly restricted through the thing.

Halcroft took a step back and whistled. “Damn! You look pretty snazzy in that thing.” They said, giving Blue a thumbs up in approval.

“Thanks. Do you got a mirror or something so I can check myself out?” He asked, his voice slightly muffled and distorted through the gas mask.

Sean spoke up. “Hold on a minute, I can just take a picture of you on my phone and show it to you.” He said, taking out his phone.

Blue smiled (well at least he tried before realizing that the smile won’t be visible to the camera)  and gave a double thumbs up as Sean took a photo of Blue.

“All right, lemme show ya what we got here.” He said, showing Blue the phone.

To be honest, he looked pretty good in a hazmat suit.

The suit fitted his body pretty well, it wasn’t too loose nor too tight.  The gas mask also fitted him quite well; maybe if the Foundation ever did one of those fancy parties where you were required to wear one of those fancy masks, he’ll just show up wearing the gas mask.

Will he probably get yelled at/ kicked out?

Yes, yes, he will.

But it will sure as hell be worth it.

Halcroft scoffed at Sean. “Wow! Sean, are you really breaking the no photography protocol that was drilled into our heads when we first joined this program? How could you!” They told him, their voice dead serious while they were holding back a huge grin.

Sean rolled his eyes. “Oh relax Sam, I’m gonna delete it later. Now Blue, do you remember what you need to do in there?”

Blue nodded. “Take some soil samples, pictures of the local environment, and if possible, some water samples.” He repeated from memory. After all, this information had been drilled into his mind by that point.

Sean patted Blue on the shoulder, “Great! Now we’ll be in the break room waiting for you when you come back, alright? So please don’t do anything stupid”

He walked to the door before stopping and turning back to Blue and Halcroft, who was still by Blue’s side. “Oh, I’ll leave you and Dr.Halcroft alone for a bit. Just make sure to hurry up. That applies to you, especially Sam. He’s only gonna be gone for a few minutes, he’s not leaving for war here.” He said, grinning as Halcroft blushed, before exiting the room.

Then it was just Blue and Halcroft. Together. Alone. In the same room.

Oh shit.

Halcroft and Blue looked at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.

“So…… are we still on for Saturday?” He asked.

Really, that’s the best you I come up with? ‘aRe wE StIlL On fOr sAtUrDaY?’ My God, I am SO hopeless-

“Y-yeah of course! Why wouldn’t I be?” They said, smiling.

Do you know what, it’s stupid but it worked, so it ain’t stupid.

“I- I was just wondering, that’s- that’s all!” Blue quickly answered.

Why am I LIKE THIS? For God’s sake, the other day almost got my head blown open in a warehouse in Mexico, and I was cool as a damn cucumber.

But now? I’m a hot mess just trying to talk to them alone!

Sweet lord, why does everything about…… THIS need to be so damn complicated-

“Uh Blue, are you alright? You kind of just…... zoned off on me there.”

Blue shook his head. “Just a bit nervous for uh…. the operation. That’s it.”

Please don’t notice. Please don’t notice. Please don’t notice-

They smiled (God that smile  WHY AM I LIKE THIS?!) “Well…... just don’t do anything stupid. Ok?”

They then did something that he would ever expect from them in a million years: they leaned in and planted a firm kiss on his cheek.

Although it wasn’t very practical, considering the fact that he was wearing a gas mask, he still managed to understand the gesture.

They walked back to the door. “Don’t die in there! After all we, uh, do have a date on Saturday after all!” They said, walking out of the room, leaving Blue all alone.

Blue sighed.

All right, game face on. Just a quick in and out. Don’t die.

He went up to the side of his gas mask and pressed a button that turned on the two-way radio on his suit.

“This is Pioneer-One to Control. I’m ready to roll down here, awaiting instructions.” He said, remembering the communication protocols he had read over the night before.

After a few moments, a familiar voice buzzed back. “This is control to Pioneer One, we read you loud and clear. Please stand by while we get the portal online, over.”

It was Hayes. Blue assumed they put the poor guy on communications.

Blue stood in the hallway for a few moments, waiting for a response from control.

Then the room began to shake.

It wasn’t anything violent, it was more like a gentle shake if anything. But the room was shaking.

The radio buzzed back. “That was just the portal being booted up, p̷̛̜̠͈͐́̂l̴̺̼̹̈͌è̵̬̜̮̓̆a̸͖̦͌ş̴͈̺͊e̴̗̰̗͋ ̴̩͑̔d̶̤̑̓͘i̴̱͇̟͆̾̚s̴̩̯̃̆͑ṛ̵̀̈́e̴̻̋̏̔g̷̡̈́̓a̶̧̿r̸̦̓͒͝d̵͚̂͆͊̅”

Blue clenched his ears as the radio filled with static.

Probably nothing to worry about. Maybe this portal booting up can cause some connection issues.

After a few seconds, the static ceased. “Are comm’s good? Pioneer One, can you read me?”

“Yes control, I can read you.” Blue responded.

He heard a sigh of relief from the other side of the radio. “Good, good. We apologize for the sudden static. The opening of the portal rift caused some issues with the radio connection.”

CALLED IT.

“Now, we’re ready for the next step. Please step into the main portal room.”

Blue walked forward, and with some mild difficulty, opened the set of double doors in front of him.

The first thought that went through his head was: ‘Woah, the portal is A LOT smaller than I thought.”

The portal, rather than a large circular rift that he was accustomed to seeing in sci-fi movies, was instead a door frame of all things, the portal itself, the light from it illuminating the room.

The room itself reminded Blue of a small aircraft hangar; high towering walls that had to extend at least four or five meters high, with long support beams adorning the walls and ceiling. As for the walls themselves, there were no signs of paneling on top of the walls and ceiling, only exposed stone from when the room was dug out. Two other people, both adorned in hazmat suits, were with him in the room.

The portal itself looked like one of those weird spiral optical illusions. Blue craned his head, and the portal looked the same, a golden inward spiral of light, with no sign of the other side.

Blue noticed two other people, both adorned in hazmat suits, were with him in the back of the room, sheltering behind a protective shield. He waved to one of them, smiling as they waved back.

Hayes's voice buzzed back. “Alright, we’ve stabilized the portal. Pioneer One, please approach the portal.”

Blue sighed in anticipation and walked towards the portal. No

The portal was slightly elevated off the ground, attached to a small metal platform. Blue walked up the stairs of the platform, the heels of his boots clanking against the metal.

And there he was, standing right in front of the portal.

“Perfect. Now please enter the portal. If you feel anything, and we do mean anything, wrong with your equipment or physical person while you’re entering the portal, fall back to our side immediately.”

Blue rubbed his hands, readying himself. He took a few steps towards the portal, before stopping.

He turned away from the portal, looking back at the room, noticing a large bay window above the portal room doors. He assumed it was the control room.

It’s just gonna be a quick hop! I’ll be back quickly……... but why do I feel like I’m not going to see this place for a long time-

“Pioneer one, are you alright?” Hayes’s voice buzzed.

Blue shook the nerves off. “Sorry control, just got a little nervous there.”

“Affirmative. Please step through the portal.” He repeated.

Blue gave a thumbs up to the window and turned back to face the portal.

Well…… away we go!

Blue stepped into the portal.

The last thing he saw before reaching the other side was a flash of light.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Hayes watched as Blue stepped through the portal, shielding his eyes as a blinding light flashed through the room.

He turned to Whitman. “Jesus- is that normal!?”

Whitman nodded. “Just a byproduct of interdimensional transportation. We don’t know what it is, but we suspect it’s just a sudden release of energy or something that is caused by an object, or in this case a person, goes through the portal. Completely normal.”

He pointed to the communications module. “Can you check to see if we still have comms with Blue?”

Hayes nodded and turned back to the module. “All right, comm’s check. One-two, one-two. This is control to Pioneer one, can you read me?” Hayes spoke into the microphone.

Nothing but static came back. Hayes furrowed his brows in worry and turned back to Whitman, who gave a reassuring nod.

“Give it a minute to connect. We should have comms online right about……”

 “Pioneer one to control, I can read ya loud and clear!” Blues voice called out from the receiver end of the module.

“….Now!” Whitman called out, smirking as Blue’s voice came back on the air on cue.

“Control to Pioneer one, we can read you here back home. Are you alright in there?”

“Affirmative control, everything’s all green here.”

“Excellent. Do you remember what you need to do?” Hayes asked.

“Yup! Take some soil samples, some photographs, and if possible, some water sa- Holy shit.”

Hayes sat up in his seat. “Pioneer one, is something wrong in there?”

“Uh…. No sir, I- I just got a good look at the place. Jesus, this place is........ something."

"Can you give us a description?"

"Uh...... I- I don't really know. This is one of those things you gotta see for yourself- is that a giant skull?!"

Hayes scratched his head. The communications systems must've been a bit bugged, because there was no way he just said something about a giant skull.

"Uh control, is there a camera packed in my bag? I can take a photo if you need me to." Blue said.

Hayes remembered that Whitman told him something about a camera on the MDCD the day prior, after the sappy celebratory lunch.

Perfect

“This is Control. Perhaps you can take a photo through the MDCD and send it over to us.”

“Wait, it can do that?” Blue asked, his voice bewildered.

Whitman tapped his shoulder. “He wasn’t told about the camera on it, do you mind if I explain it to him?”

Hayes nodded and handed Whitman the headset. After a few minutes of Whitman explaining to Blue the camera functionality on the MDCD, and Blue then struggling to take a proper photograph, an image was sent back to the control room and displayed on one of the monitors.

When the image finally loaded, Hayes, along with everyone else present in the control room, were…… stunned, to say the least.

“Holy shit…” He mumbled under his breath, staring at the image. The rest of the room was silent, absorbing themselves into the image as well.

Although the image was heavily compressed and in black and white rather than color, Hayes was still able to make out some interesting details within the photo.

The photo appeared to be a wide shot of a forest clearing near a river. Among the background, Hayes could make out what looked like pine trees and long, thick hills, no, mountains protruding through the landscape, extending upwards towards the sky and out of the frame. He looked to the right of the image and saw a large mound of land, that sort of resembled a skull -

Wait a fucking minute.

Hayes took a closer look at the image and his heart suddenly stopped.

The hill didn’t resemble a skull. The hill was a skull. Of something non-human, nonetheless. If the massive size of the skull didn’t give that fact away, then the horns on top of it sure as hell did.

Huh, guess it wasn't a bug in the communications. He ACTUALLY saw a damn skull.

As for the long protruding mountains? Hayes assumed that they were ribs. Whatever this…... thing was, it was big.

“Holy shit.” He repeated, turning to Whitman to gauge his reaction.

Whitman’s body language appeared to be calm, with him standing completely still, his hands tucked within the pockets of his jacket.

But his eyes betrayed him. However, unlike Hayes, who was having a small panic attack from seeing the image, Whitman’s eyes gleamed with childlike curiosity.

“Sir aren’t you a little…. freaked out by this?” Hayes shakingly asked.

Whitman took another sip from his flask. Hayes could barely pick up the smell of Whiskey. “Nope, not at all in fact. I actually was quite aware of…… this for a while.”

Hayes was taken aback. “What do you mean for a while!?” He hissed under his breath.

Whitman adjusted the glasses on his face. “Do you remember the tabloids?”

“Yes, why?”

“Well…… we originally discovered about twenty of the things originally. However, we only handed twelve of the things off to your team to be transcribed. The rest was handed off to my team.”

Whitman sighed. “On those six other tabloids, we discovered a lot of things about the place. Not enough for us to get a clear enough picture of NX-059, but just enough for us to understand the place.”

Whitman leaned towards Hayes and whispered into his ear. “This place is known by another name by the local population: The Boiling Isles.”

Hayes whistled. “Huh, lovely name. But does it exactly boil there?”

Whitman nodded and continued. “Yup. So much so that the rain there is hot, and I don’t mean hot as in warm. I mean hot as in it’ll give you second to third-degree burns.”

“Jesus.”

“Yup, that’s why we made the suit resistant to practically every single natural hazard we can think of.”

“But that still doesn’t explain the damn skull,” Hayes whispered. Whitman rubbed the back of his head.

“We’re still working on…… that part. We saw some images in the tabloids, but we weren’t able to piece together an explanation. What do you think Thomas?”

Thomas scratched his head. “Well…... first off, I’m pretty sure that thing isn’t human. If the horns on the side of the skull don’t give that away, then the skull shape does. The skull is a bit too wide for it to be human. Comparing the size of that rib there-“ Hayes pointed to one of the ribs on the screen, “- and that pine tree I can estimate the size of this thing.”

Hayes leaned back in his chair. “Usually-“

The communications module beeped back. “Uh control, are you still there? You went a bit silent on me.” Blues’ voice buzzed.

One of the women raised their hand. “I’ll handle the communications for a bit.” She told him, flipping a switch on her module. Hayes silently mouthed a thank you to the woman.

She nodded and turned to her module. “Ok, this is control to Pioneer one, I’ll be handling comms for a bit, ok?”

The woman and Blue began to converse with each other. Hayes turned back to Whitman before continuing.

 “Anyways, usually pine trees can grow up to fifteen to twenty-five meters tall. I guess that this tree in particular is about in the middle of that range, maybe about sixteen meters. Because the tree is positioned pretty close to the rib here, I can estimate that this rib is about……… forty, maybe forty-five meters tall?”

Whitman groaned. “Impressive Thomas. Pretty damn impressive. So, we know the things big and dead.”  He retorted. “But it still doesn’t explain-”

“Why it’s there in the first place. And how an entire civilization just developed on a corpse.” Hayes finished.

Whitman nodded in agreement. The man next to Hayes chimed in.

“Maybe it’s like a whale falls?” He suggested.

Hayes arched an eyebrow. “A what?”

“A whale falls. It’s a type of phenomenon that occurs when a whale dies and its carcass hits the ocean floor, usually over one thousand meters below in the lower zones in the ocean. It leads to the rapid development of whole ecosystems that sustain themselves of the carcass, which can usually last for decades.” The man explained.

Whitman and Hayes stared at him in silence.

“I, uh, watch a lot of ocean documentaries.”

Whitman suddenly smirked. “Good theory……. What’s your name again, kid?”

“Charlie, sir.”

“Good theory, Charlie! It would make a lot of sense for not only a diverse set of ecosystems to develop in this place, but also a civilization as well! But that just leaves us many more questions…….”

“Like what, sir?” The man, Charlie, asked.

“Well for starters, we know this thing is dead. So, what killed it?”

Hayes suddenly felt dizzy at the realization that something had to kill this behemoth. I could’ve been natural causes as well, but just by another glance of the image, Hayes had a gut feeling that wasn’t the case.

This……. Titan didn’t just drop dead from natural causes. It was killed by something.

And he didn’t want to meet whatever the hell it was.

Whitman noticed Haye’s discomfort. “Are you all good Thomas? I know it’s a bit…... exciting to take all this in at once-“ 

“No, no, it’s not that sir. It’s just…… I don’t know sir. I just feel like something is going to go wrong, like there’s something we haven’t accounted for, like there’s something-“

Whitman patted his shoulder and reassured him. “Relax Thomas! Everything’s going to plan. He’s gonna be out of there in a couple of minutes and everything’s gonna be A-OK!”

Hayes turned to look at Hayes, who smiled at him. “Really Thomas, you worry too much sometimes.”

Hayes sighed and turned back to the communications module.

*-_-_-_-_-*

It turns out that a snake “attacking” ( the little fella was probably just spooked, he/she wouldn’t hurt a fly!) your principal, does in fact, count as “weird stuff”.

Her mother, rather reluctantly, had decided to send her to the stupid summer camp after all. She told Luz that it was for “her own good”, that it will help her, that she might make friends for once.

Luz honestly wasn’t so sure.

She was standing dejectedly in front of her home, her bag slung over her shoulder. She heard the front door close from behind her, and her mother call out.

“Oh, my baby!” She got in a tight hug from her mother. After a moment she released Luz from the perpetual torment known as a mother’s love and noticed her daughter’s dejected look.

She attempted to reassure her. “Now don’t worry. Summer camp is only going to be for three months. You’ll be so busy balancing checkbooks and, uh… learning to appreciate public radio, that the time will fly by!”

“But I don’t like any of that stuff” Luz shot back. “I like editing anime clips to music-“ she fished her Good Witch Azura book out of her bag, “- and reading fantasy books with convoluted back-stories!”

Her mother sighed. “Mija, your fantasy world is holding you back. Do you have any friends? Not imagined, or drawn, or reptilian?”

Her mother wrapped her hand around Luz’s shoulder. “Summer camp is a chance to make some friends, but you have to try. Can you do that?”

Luz sighed and walked over to the nearby garbage can and reluctantly placed the book in.

“Yes mom” She sighed, looking at her book sitting amongst the garbage in the bin.

She heard the ding of a phone. She looked back and saw her mother fishing her cell phone out of her purse. She glanced at the screen.

“Oh, I gotta go to work!” She rushed over to Luz and planted several kisses on her head. “Your bus is coming soon. Text me when you get there. Cuídate mucho, mija. ¡Qué te vaya bien!” (Take good care of yourself, honey. Good luck!)

Luz sighed as her mother walked away. After a few moments of waiting to ensure she was out of view, Luz rushed toward the garbage can to retrieve her book.

Did she slightly lie to her mother? Yes. But then again, she wasn’t going to throw her copy of The Good Witch Azura just because of some stupid summer camp. Also, she spent thirty dollars that she scrounged up over the course of a few weeks of doing chores to get the collector’s edition.

But it was mostly the first reason.

She looked inside the garbage can.

The book was gone.

“No, no, no, NO! Where is it? Where is it!?” She frantically spoke as she tore through the contents of the bin, desperately trying to find her book.

She was just here! How could the book just suddenly disappear like that-

She heard a hoot from behind her. She flung her head back.

A tiny, yet adorable owl, was standing near the entrance to the forest next to her house, an oversized burlap sack being held in its beak. Poking out from the top of the bag was her book.

The owl hooted yet again and began (adorably) hopping away into the forest next to her home.

 “TINY TRASH THIEF!” She gasped, and immediately began to give chase to the little bird. It turns out the little fella was deceptively fast.

After some running, she entered a clearing. In the center was an old, decrepit house that looked like it hasn’t been touched in decades. She paused for a moment to catch her breath before she noticed the little bird thief hop into the house, dragging the bag with her book along with it.

She hesitated.

‘Maybe this is probably not a good idea. I mean, who can be in there? Also, the house looks VERY unsafe.’ One part of her thought.

The other part of her shot back. ‘Nah, we’ll be fine. We can just hop in, get the book, and hop out. It’ll be a quick side adventure, like one of the B-plots in the Good Witch Azur-“

Shoot, she got distracted.

She clenched her fists and ran into the house, ignoring the sound of the door shutting from behind her.

A blinding light flashed from the inside of the house, illuminating the clearing.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Interdimensional travel wasn’t exactly an easy feat per se.

It took decades of established research, theoretical simulations, and backbreaking labor just to create a small, nickel-sized rift back in 1988 at a university-led research project in Cambridge.

Not full seconds, no. Bloody milliseconds.

Whitman would know. He was the one who led that project after all. He was a young lad then, barely skirting over the age of thirty with big dreams and even bigger ideas.

One of his main theories built off Hue Everett’s many-worlds interpretation: the idea that multiple different parallel universes exist side by side at the same time and place as our own. Whitman still remembered the nights he spent in his dorm room, absorbing himself into one of the main research papers that outlined this theory, engrossing himself in advanced quantum mechanics the same way a child would absorb a fantasy book.

It was an understatement to say that he was obsessed.

However, Whitman wasn’t interested in the idea of multiple simultaneously existing universes. He was interested in creating a doorway in between realms. A mere idea that was only regulated to crappy sci-fi movies.

But Whitman? He wanted to make it a reality.

In 1982, he assembled a small team of researchers; brilliant men and women who saw the world exactly like him, and they went to work.

After two years of extensive research, his team managed to lay out a rudimentary theory. In simple terms, each world, dimension, universe, whatever you call it, is separated by a fabric if you will. Hypothetically, if one were to pinpoint the exact point in the fabric where their world (position A) meets their desired world (position B) and simply pierce the fabric and stabilize the rift, you’ll have yourself a working portal between points A and B.

But then came along all of the logistical issues.

Firstly, it takes a substantial amount of energy, concentrated in a singular location to create a rift. His team’s initial energy estimate of creating a rift just like the one being used today by Blue is that it would take over eight thousand megawatts of energy to simply produce the rift.

To put that number into perspective, New York City uses a similar amount of energy on a daily basis.

The only silver lining to this issue was the fact that this amount of energy was only necessary to jump-start the rift. Keeping the rift stabilized just required a small constant stream of energy.

And then there was the other issue: the technology to even attempt the proper construction and assembly of a portal simply wasn’t around in the 80s. The technology won’t even be conceived for another twenty to thirty years, and that was just the rough estimates from some of the other team members working on the project.

But Whitman wasn’t worried about that part, of course. While the rest of his team was frantically trying to figure out the logistics of the project with the technology they had at the time, Whitman was already laying out the schematics of a portal that will utilize technology that didn’t even exist yet.

Sure, he had to rework a couple of things as the years went by, but by the time they had a proposal laid out in 1986, Whitman was confident of his their lives work.

When he proposed his theories and schematics to the university’s scientific board that same year, some of the more……. conservative members of the board scoffed at him. They thought that he was a madman.

‘It can’t be done.’

‘These theories break all conventions of modern science!’

‘We should just have you dismissed for even suggesting this.’

Whitman scoffed at the memory. Science and conservativism were two ideas that simply did not mix. The whole point of science was innovation and change; if the whole of civilization acted and thought the same way as those egotistical dipshits narrow-minded individuals, human civilization would still believe that the planets revolved around the Earth.

He was pretty happy when he was finally able to tell them ‘I told you so’ after successfully creating the first rift.

Whitman drew a lot of attention thanks to that project. Overnight, he had become an important and respected figure within the quantum physics community. 

And that all that attention, of course, earned him the foundation’s attention.

It started small at first; he’d notice a few men dressed in black following him. They’d never interact with him, they’d only watch him from a distance, either seated in their nondescript Ford Granada’s or standing on the corner side, taking the occasional photograph.

Typical men in black shite.

After a few months, Whitman went from being restless 24/7, constantly checking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed, to being undisturbed, comforted by the fact that at least someone was watching him.

Besides, he couldn’t act like a mad lunatic, especially with the high position and standing he held at the time, and especially when he had a reputation to uphold.

And then one day, they finally decided to pay him a visit.

It turns out, the men acted as recruiters for a mysterious and secret organization, so secret in fact, when he asked the recruiters just for the name of the organization, they only showed him a simple crest in response; a circle with three singular arrows pointed inwards.

As it turns out, the organization that the recruiters were from had some interest in Whitman for years, moreover his research.

And of course, they wanted to hire him. Not only due to his expertise but to make sure some other rival organization or group doesn't snatch him up first.

And that’s how Whitman got his new job, working for the Foundation, which led to him being carted off Northwards from his home to site 91 in Yorkshire, to assist with Thaumaturgical research and countermeasures.

At first, he thought it was a mistake. He wasn’t a bloody magician, he was a damn quantum physicist for Christ’s sake!

Hilariously, Whitman’s original hunch was correct: the idiotic recruiters did, in fact, screw up and assign him to the wrong site. In actuality, the morons actually meant to send him to Site 19, where he was supposed to assist an engineering project.

However, by the time they went back to fix their screw-up, Whitman was happy with his position in Site 91.

It only took a week for him to fall in love with Thaumatology. It turns out that science and magic were more alike than expected: magic had a set of rules and laws that determined the functionality and limitations, and just like science, people had found a way to bend those laws and limitations to their absolute limits.

Whitman wasn’t a religious man, far from it in fact. But the series of events that have led him to his current position had to be the responsibility of something.

And so, he worked for the foundation for decades, establishing himself yet again as a key figure, this time in Thaumatology rather than quantum physics (though that field still held a soft spot in his heart), and eventually, he was designated as the head of the newly founded Department of Thaumatological Analysis and Countermeasures.

DTAC’s purpose was interesting, to say the least. Unlike the other thaumatology departments in the Foundation, which actively studied and researched thaumatology and all of its aspects, DTAC was more interested in countering the effects of thaumatology.

How?

By actively utilizing it.

The approach was controversial within the foundation, of course. However, with some convincing, the O-5 Council finally budged and allowed the research.

Whitman thought the pushback was ridiculous. Every other group within the metaphysical and paranormal communities. Serpents Hand has been doing it for years. The Chaos Insurgency jumped at the chance the first opportunity they could. Hell, even the geezers at the Global Occult Coalition had enough bloody common sense to incorporate thaumatologists within their ranks.

It was simply just common sense to follow suit. After all, they would gain an upper hand over the other groups of interest after all.

The research eventually led to the founding of the TITAN program, and then the construction and opening of Site 374.

And then the discovery of NX-059, which was a whole story in of itself.

And now, Whitman was completing the life’s work that he and his colleagues had started over thirty years ago.

The foundation had been interested in NX-059 for a while, and they gave Whitman the green light to begin the construction of a portal in order to make contact. This led to him organizing the construction of the site, and the construction of the portal.

And now here he was, watching it being used by an actual person, not a probe or a mannequin.

An actual person.

Whitman’s heart excitingly skipped a beat, excited for the things to come.

He turned to Hayes and looked at the lad. The poor lad still seemed to be pretty nervous, his foot silently tapping the floor.

Whitman sighed. No matter how many times he reassured the guy, he insisted on being a nervous wreck.

It was starting to get a bit frustrating, really.

Whitman rolled his eyes, taking a swig of Whiskey from a flask he'd been keeping in his pocket.

The alcohol helped to calm his nerves after all. Hayes had been pestering him about...... fuck, bloody everything regarding this operation.

Hell, this was even after he had shown him all the safety protocols, the systems, the structural supports, the Faraday Cage, everything.

Hayes just had to understand that nothing was going to go wrong-

“Uh sir, I believe you should see this.” Charlie, one of his newer recruits on his team called out.

Whitman sighed and looked over.

It’s probably nothing too serious. Maybe just a bug within the internal programming, we’ve had a lot of issues with that recently-

“We’ve just got a large spike in the Kant Counter a few moments ago.” He said, pointing to the module screen.

Whitman looked at the screen. There was indeed a large spike in the chart. It was fresh too, it only appeared a few seconds ago. It didn’t seem right.

“How recent was this?”

“Only a few minutes ago, why-“

“Do we got a geographical location for this spike?”

“About two, three-ish miles-“

“Metric system, Charlie.”

“Uh, three, four kilometers?”

Whitman took the information he was given and ran some quick math in his head.

Wait a minute…… The energy spike is close by. That would…….

That would definitely destabilize the portal…...

Oh hell………

Whitman felt his face pale, remembering the personell working in Systems Check in the main portal.

And Blue.

Based off his calculations, he only had less than a minute before the spike reached their location.

He had to act fast.

“Charlie, listen to me very carefully. I need you to order the people in Systems Check out of the portal room, now!!"

“E-excuse me? You need me to do what-"

“GET THEM OUT OF THERE! DO IT DAMMIT!” He snarled at the kid. The kid paled in response, turning to the console to relay his message.

45 seconds

Hayes noticed the commotion and looked at Whitman with concern. “Wait a minute, what the hell is going on-“

He waved his hand in dismissal “Nothing of your concern right now Thomas. Now look, I need you to listen to me very carefully, do you understand?"

"Yes sir, but what-"

"Now, I need you to inform Blue t-to stay put in NX-059-"

“WHAT!?”

“-and that's its for his own safety. Neither of you need to worry too much though, it's only going to be for a few minutes. Worst case scenario, an hour. Do you understand?" He questioned Hayes. He only nodded in response before turning to his module.

"This is Control to Pioneer One, we- we are having a bit of a situation on our end, so do please stay put for now in NX-059. I repeat, do not exit NX-059, and stay put. This is for your own safety-"

He heard shouting coming from Hayes's headset. He could make out a few curse words and an angry, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" from the incomprehensible shouting.

Whitman balled his fists and nervously sighed.

30 seconds

He pointed to one of the women manning the control panel, Agnes.

"Alright, Agnes we have a potential Code Yellow here. I need you to-"

Hayes cut him off. "Sir, what are you-"

"CAN YOU PLEASE SHUT UP!!!" He yelled, ignoring the way that Hayes jumped back in his seat in response. He turned back to Agnes. "Agnes we have a potential Code Yellow here. I need you to initiate the emergency shutoff protocol."

She paled, but followed orders, turning to her control panel and began to rapidly press buttons.

“Sir, can you please tell me what the hell is going on!” Hayes hesitantly asked.

Whitman sighed, but before he could speak, one the other woman, Penny, cut him off.

15 seconds

“Sir, we're having some difficulty shutting down the the portal!" She cried, ushering him to look at the module.

Whitman rushed over to her.

Its all under control. We still have control. Its all under control. He thought, repeating those three words over and over in his head.

"Whats the issue? Why can't you shut it off?" He asked, leaning into the desk to see the module with several error messages plastered on the screen

"I-I don't know sir, the systems are working properly, its appears to be a communication issue between the console and the portal." 

Whitman clasped his hands behind his head. He was only able to get out a single word before all hell broke loose: "Oh."

5 seconds

Agnes called to him, panic laced in her voice. "Sir, the portal is showing signs of destabilization- OH HOLY SHI-" She cried, suddenly cut off as the portal became unstable and imploded in on itself, creating a large electronic pulse within the portal room, blowing out the overhead lights and frying the unprotected computers in the control room.

And then, everything went back to normal, with the obvious exception of the now damaged destroyed portal and the flickering of the remaining overhead lights that survived the pulse.

The entire room stood in shocked silence, taking in what had just happened.

‘BACKUP POWER NOW ONLINE.” An electronic voice buzzed on the intercom above, as the lights turned back on.

Whitman shakily took his glasses off, and stood aghast, staring at the portal, which was warped from being overheated, and had sparks flying off the disconnected cables.

His...... their lives work, reduced to this.

All because of a- a system error.

ONE DAMN SYSTEM ERROR.

Whitman chugged the remaining Whiskey from his flask, ignoring the burning sensation in his throat, before throwing the flask halfway across the room, muttering nearly every curse word in the English language under his breath. The rest of the room stood in silence, shocked by the sudden outburst.

Hayes suddenly cut the silence, his voice filled with anger. “Ok, I am going to ask this question once, and only once. Can somebody, anybody, tell me what the actual fuck just happened!?”

Chapter Text

“Ok, I am going to ask this question once, and only once. Can somebody, anybody, please tell me what the actual fuck just happened!?”

Whitman took a deep breath and put his glasses back on, controlling the urge to strangle Hayes.

“Well…… the portal has appeared to have been destabilized by an unexpected energy shift."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's pretty obvious Sherlock!” Hayes yelled.

Calm down. Just breathe. Breathe, don’t strangle him. DON’T STRANGLE HIM.

Hayes took a breath and calmed down. He looked at Whitman. “What type of energy surge are we talking about."

“Well….. when portals like this open or close, they have a large sudden release of energy as a byproduct, or at least that’s what our theories say. You saw the energy release in action a few minutes ago; the big flashing light, remember?”

He nodded, and Whitman continued. “Good. Now as you should know, portals are naturally fairly finicky little things. Even when they occur naturally, which is a pretty rare event mind you, they only last for up to a few minutes on average. The portal we have here isn’t natural in the slightest, which means it’s even more finicky than a naturally generated portal.”

He sighed, pressing his fingers against his head. “Now we did take all the precautions necessary to ensure this portal is within a controlled environment. We didn’t need to worry about foul weather, electronic discharges, rusting, etc. However, there was one, one singular blind spot that we couldn’t patch up “

“I thought you said the portal was safe!” Hayes accused, jabbing his finger at Whitman.

Oh, I want to snap that finger in half like a twig- no, stay calm. You’re in control. You’re in control.

“Yes, the portal is, well, was safe. However, the main portal has one weakness. Recall what I said earlier about how the energy surges are released when a portal opens and closes. Well, those surges are extremely dangerous to the portal and can easily destabilize it, just like y-you saw earlier. We discovered this flaw when we were running some of the initial tests on the portal.”

Whitman shifted the glasses on his face. “Now there is a bright side to this: we can easily monitor when and where these surges take place and calculate when they will affect us. The energy surges are quite slow as well, it took only a minute for a surge about four kilometers away to affect us.”

Hayes slammed his hand onto the desk in frustration. “Ok, I get it, but what happened?!”

“What happened was that there was a surge today that affected the portal. We picked up the energy surge on our monitoring equipment and initiated the standard protocol: evacuate all personnel from the main portal room, shut the portal off so it doesn’t get fried by the surge, and turn it back on when the surge passes. But……..”

“But what?”

Whitman took off his glasses. “The portal is controlled wirelessly by the modules up here. Including the main activation and deactivation buttons. What happened was……. there was a system error between the module and portal, which prevented us from turning off the portal in time.”

Hayes blinked, the angry expression on his face replaced with a look of betrayal. “B-but you said-“

“Thomas, we ran the systems through every single test and safety protocol available to man. However……. Things sometimes slip through the gaps.”

Whitman walked over to the door and propped it open. He turned to Agnes and the other portal operator, a woman about his age named Penny.

“Agnes, Penny. You’re both dismissed for the day. However, you are not permitted to tell anyone, and I do mean anyone, about what happened here today. Understand?”

The pair nodded, and Whitman escorted them out of the control room, closing the door behind them. He turned back to Charlie and Hayes.

“Before we do anything, let’s take damage control here. Charlie, what is the status of the computers?”

He pointed to his module, which displayed the computer systems. Most of the screen was plastered with red error messages. “Just checked a few moments ago. The main systems, including the control panels, are protected from electronic surges so they were undamaged. The rest of the computers though…… they are a complete loss, with most, no, all of them being unresponsive.”

Whitman pressed his hand into his face and sighed. “Can we salvage any of them?”

“A few of them, yes. We just need to replace some parts and whatnot. As for the rest of them? It’ll just be better to replace them entirely.”

Whitman took a deep breath. “Ok, as for the portal? What’s the status of it?”

“Lemme ask the folks in Systems Check.” He said, flicking a switch on his module.

“This is control to Systems Check. What is your current status?”

A voice buzzed back with some slight static. “Affirmative. We’re both unharmed down here. We’re just doing damage control on the main portal system now.”

“Good, can you give a damage report?”

There was silence for a few moments before they responded. “Well, er, do you want me to put it lightly here or just-“

Whitman wrestled the headset out of Charlie’s head, ignoring him yelp in surprise, and put it on. “This is Dr.Whitman here. Don’t give the light crap. Hit me with all the details, what exactly are we looking at?”

“Uh……. Well for starters, the main portal frame has been completely warped from the heat exposure from the surge, we’ll probably have to replace that. The circuits are just fried here, some of the connecting cables are just…… whoo boy, yup, they’re a total loss -“

“Ok, ok, I- I get it,” Whitman said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “The portal is busted. I’m quite bloody aware of that. What I need to know is this: is the portal salvageable?” He asked although he had a sinking feeling that he knew the answer.

“Uh…. That’s quite the question, sir-“

“What’s your name kid?”

“Uh, Hudson. W-Why is that relevant, sir?”

“So I can threaten you more personally kid. Now Hudson, quit the shit and answer the damn question, or else I will-“

He didn’t even have to finish the threat before the git in systems check, Hudson, stammered out a reply. “Well s-sir, the portal isn’t exactly salvageable. We might be able to pull out some parts from the wreckage to clean up and reuse, but this thing is too far gone to be repaired.”

“So what you’re suggesting is……” Whitman asked, his question trailing off.

“Uh, I- I’m suggesting that we might need to entirely replace the portal, sir.”

You’ve gotta be shitting me. YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING SHITING ME-

“Ok. What’s your rough estimate for getting the portal repaired, sorry, replaced?”

“Well……. Worst case scenario: a year. However, if we rush things along by overlooking a few worker safety laws, we might be able to get this thing working in a few months.”

Months? I DON’T HAVE BLOODY MONTHS!

“Oh, you’ve gotta be-“ Whitman hissed, before cutting himself off. He wasn’t about to go ballistic on this poor kid after all. “O-Ok. Thank you kid, you and you’re coworker are dismissed for the day. Make sure to keep everything that happened to yourselves.” He said, taking off the headset afterward, gripping it tightly in his hand.

He pointed to Charlie. “You’re dismissed too, kid. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to keep your trap shut, yes?”

“Uh….. yes sir.”

“Good. Now do me and yourself a favor and run into the liquor store and get a twelve pack of Guinness - the good stuff as well - because lord knows we’ll need it. Don’t worry about money, I’ll take care of that.” Whitman said while escorting Charlie out of the control room, slipping a fifty into his hands. He closed and locked the door behind the kid.

Whitman took a quick deep breath, trying to remain calm before his anger overpowered him.

He violently took the headset and flung it across the room, where it landed next to his (now most likely dented) Whiskey flask.

“GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!!!” He yelled, slamming his fist against the table, startling Hayes.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves.

He took another deep breath, and collapsed into one of the empty chairs next to Hayes, balling his fists against the arms of the chair.

Just stay calm James. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I can still fix this. Everything is going to be FINE. The plan will still work out, all we need to do is just get that portal patched up. That’s it! Nothing else really-

Hayes tapped his shoulder. “S-sir, are you good? You look-“

“T-Thomas, this shit’s my fault.” He stammered.

Hayes sighed. “Look, we shouldn’t be playing the blame game right now, we have a lot of other things to worry about right now. Even though, yes, this is your damn fault for overlooking that system bug in the first place-“

“I-I had no other choice.” Whitman sputtered. “We were already behind schedule by a few months and the funding was about to run dry! I couldn’t go back to my higher-ups – the bloody O-5 Council mind you – and beg for more money! They were already on my ass since we were behind on schedule, can you imagine what they’d do if I came back begging for more funding?”

Hayes quizically raised an eyebrow and Whitman looked down to the ground. He had to make a choice here: Inform the O’5s about the incident to try to get some outside help and risk…….. everything, or alternatively, keep them in the dark about the whole ordeal, and fix up things himself.

He sighed. He knew what he had to do in this scenario.

“We can’t let anyone else know about this,” Whitman announced, to the bewilderment of Hayes.

“S-sir, are you insane? They’re going to eventually find out- “

“Who, the O-5’s? Thomas please, you’re acting as if they are a bunch of omnipresent deities or something. They’re only people, after all. If everyone involved in this shitshow keeps their traps shut, they’ll be none the wiser.”

“B-but sir, they can help us with-“

“Help us?! Thomas, you do realize how screwed we would be if word goes back to the O-5’s that I potentially got one of the foundation’s most valuable assets-“

“Sir-“ Hayes began, his voice holding back anger. “-Blue is not an asset-“

“Yes, yes, I understand that part. I know you two have been friends for the last few years. However, the O-5s don’t care about the human factor when it comes to incidents like these. They only care about the cold, hard facts. And the fact of the matter is, I- I purposely looked over a small bug in the system programming to rush this project along, and it came back to bite me in the ass. Now, not only is the portal complete rubbish, but we also potentially lost one of the foundation’s most valuable assets. Do you realize the shitstorm we’ll be in – because Lord knows they’ll implicate you into this whole mess as well – when they figure out that……. that…….”

Whitman stopped, his eyes widening as the reality of the situation finally hit him like a dump truck.

Blue was stranded, in a whole, relatively uncharted, world.

“Oh, bloody hell……. Blue.” He muttered.

“Wait a minute, did you forget-“

“Yes, I believe I did. I apologize, m-my memory isn’t exactly the best lately, especially now with this bloody shitshow.”

Hayes shook his head in disbelief. “I- do you know what, we have a lot of other things to worry about besides your memory giving out on you. What exactly do I do about Blue? He’s probably wondering what the hell is going on-“

“That’s why I believe it’s best for us to update him on the current situation. Can you press that red button on your module? That one Thomas, right there.” He said, directing Hayes to a previously untouched section of the communication module.

Hayes hesitantly pressed the button and a small keyboard and screen popped out from the module, ‘MDCD - FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY’ stenciled on the top of the device.

“The MDCD was originally designed for emergency use in case of the portal giving out,” Whitman explained. “However…… in our particular situation, we’ll have to resort to using it for our primary communications since the radio signal is down. Now let me type out a message here.” He said, reaching to the keyboard.

He inspected the pixelated, calculator-Esque interface of the device:

MultiDimensional Communications Device

Signal Strength – MODERATE

-----------------------------------

MESSAGE ASSIGNED TO – <PIO_1>

CURRENT ESTIMATED DELIVERY TIME – 0 DAYS, 0 HOURS, 0 MINUTES, 0 SECONDS

ASSIGNED MESSAGE ( 0 / 280 Characters Used)

{ENTER MESSAGE HERE}

“Huh, I thought it’d be more complicated,” Hayes spoke.

“No, not really, the main interface is fairly simple, really,” Whitman said, pointing to the screen. “It takes time for the messages to be delivered using the MDCD; sometimes a few seconds, sometimes hours. It depends on the complexity and length of the message, as well as general signal strength. Now let me type a short message out to Blue…….”

After a few minutes of typing, Whitman successfully produced a message on the device. He showed it to Hayes.

Hayes looked at the message. “Sir, don’t you think you’re leaving out some…….. important things here?”

Whitman shrugged. “Yes, I understand that I may be purposefully leaving some things out. But Blue is in a bit of a dangerous situation at the moment. He needs to focus one-hundred percent on his wellbeing and survival, rather than……… you know, being stuck in another dimension for the next couple of months.”

Hayes shook his head. “Fair, but it still feels wrong.”

“I- I agree, but it’s the best thing to do……” Whitman said, pressing the send button.

MESSAGE SENT -

ESTIMATED TIME OF DELIVERY – 10 MINUTES

Whitman turned to Hayes. “It’ll be a bit before the message sends. I’ll stay here and watch over the communications. What I need you to do is head upstairs and, uh, inform Sean and Dr.Halcroft about our current predicament. Make sure to drop it on them lightly, especially with Halcroft-“

“Wait why? I mean, I know they’re close with him but-“ Hayes said, before being cut off by Whitman groaning.

“Bloody hell, Thomas. I know you can be dense sometimes, but this tops the cake!” He chuckled. Hayes only arched a brow in confusion.

“Sir, what are talking about-“

“Thomas, literally everyone in this site – well, everyone except you apparently- is quite aware that Halcroft and Blue kinda…… fancy each other?”

Hayes raised both of his hands in confusion. “What? What do you mean by fancy-“

“Oh, you damn Americans,” Whitman muttered under his breath, unbeknownst to Hayes. “They like each other!”  He translated.

“Oh……. Wait how can you be sure-“

“I found them together in the break room this morning, they were snuggled up against him like a koala and everything.”

“…….huh.”

Whitman arched an eyebrow. “What are you still doing here? Go, do what I told you to do, and remember, tell them lightly.” He said, pointing to the door.

Hayes stuttered out “Yes sir” before swinging the door open and rushing out of the room.

He listened for a few moments, waiting.

When the door clicked shut, and he was sure that Hayes was upstairs, he planted his face into his hands, sighing, letting his thoughts overwhelm him.

We probably won’t even be able to make it to him in time; he only has enough rations for two weeks. Hell, even if he were to ration the rations, he’ll still won’t have enough. He’ll probably starve or dehydrate to death long before we can make it to him-

Whitman sighed, attempting to dispel that thought out his head.

I wonder how he’s feeling right now. I mean, no other person within human history – at least that we know of – has ever been in quite a situation like THIS.

He probably thinks we gave up on him or something. He might think that he’s all alone.

What is he thinking right now?

*-_-_-_-_-*

“I swear if I have to listen to one more Sinatra song, I’m going to fucking lose it.” Blue groaned to himself, laying against a rock, his bag plopped on the ground by his side

It turns out, for one reason or another, Sean happened to be a bit of a Sinatra fan; this was clearly evident by the fact that since Blue started listening to the MP3 player to distract him from his current predicament (and to pass the time of course), the only songs that played so far were exclusively Frank Sinatra.

At first, he didn’t mind. One or two songs were fine he supposed.

However, by the time song number seventeen played, he was about to rip his hair out.

He groaned loudly as another Sinatra song began to play.

{ Start spreading the news }

{ I'm leaving today }

Blue clenched the MP3 player tightly, the option of chucking the thing into the nearby river still fresh in his mind, and beginning to look better by the minute.

{ I want to be a part of it }

{ New York, New York }

No, that would be a stupid idea. Sean would probably kill him for losing the thing. Besides, it was the only thing keeping him distracted from what happened earlier……….

-- EARLIER --

A large flash of light blinded Blue, and for a few moments, he felt like he was weightless. However, the feeling quickly subsided, his feet making contact with, what he hoped, was solid ground.

He stumbled around for a few moments, still blinded by the light of the portal and very dizzy.

Blue learned something that day in fact: interdimensional travel can apparently make you nauseous.

Very nauseous. It took a lot of willpower for Blue to not vomit inside of his mask.

In a few moments, his eyesight began to return. He reached his hands up to his face to rub his eyes before realizing that there was a gas mask firmly nested on his face. At least there was nobody around, he’d look like an idiot otherwise-

“All right, comm’s check. One-two, one-two. This is control to Pioneer one, can you read me?” Hayes’s voice suddenly buzzed.

Blue sighed in relief. “Pioneer one to control, I can read ya loud and clear!” He replied

A few moments of silence passed before Hayes finally responded. “Control to Pioneer one, we can read you here back home. Are you alright in there?”

Should I tell them about me almost throwing up because of-

No. I’ll just tell them later. No need to worry them more after all.

Besides, if Halcroft hears about this, I’ll never hear the end of it from them.

“Affirmative control, everything’s all green here.”

“Excellent. Do you remember what you need to do?” Hayes’s asked.

Blue scratched his head for a few moments, trying to recall what he was here for, while walking around, his eyesight attempting to adjust to his surroundings.

“Yup! Take some soil samples, some photographs, and if possible, some water sa- Holy shit.” Blue suddenly cursed, startled by the scene he had just walked in upon.

Blue was no stranger to natural scenery; he was an avid hiker back in his college days, sometimes even being joined by his…….. his……..

No, he’s getting off track here. The point was, he was quite familiar with natural scenery back home, and although what he was seeing at the moment was familiar it seemed so…… different to him at the same time.

“Pioneer One, is there something wrong in there?” Hayes’ voice chipped.

Blue took a deep breath, attempting to calm his nerves. “Uh…. No sir, I- I just got a good look at the place. Jesus, this place is........ something."

“Can you give us a description?”

Blue rubbed the back of his head, turning in a full circle in an attempt to fully grasp his surroundings.

Blue felt like a verbal description of this place wouldn’t do it justice; in front of him laid a forest clearing, a river flowing nearby, splitting the landscape in two. Beyond the river laid a meadow, with tall, red-leafed trees dotted across the landscape.  Breaking the scenery of the rolling red hills were some tall, jagged pillars of what looked like stone that had to be at least a couple of stories tall, contrasting the yellow-orange-ish sky.

He looked to the right, noticing an even larger hill that sort of resembled a skull, with two large holes that looked like eye sockets, and a large ridge that looked suspiciously like a nasal cavity. Two large jagged points adorned the top of the hill.

He tilted his head, still looking at the peculiar hill.

Maybe it’s just some weird type of pareidolia, he thought to himself. Sorta like that one rock that looks like a face from that crappy tourist trap in Oregon-

Wait, what was I doing again?

. . . .

Oh yeah, right, Hayes was still waiting for a reply.

Blue rubbed the back of his head, still staring bullets into the hill. "Uh...... I- I don't really know. This is one of those things you gotta see for yourself-“ Then he suddenly realized that was he was looking at wasn’t a hill that looks like a skull.

It was a skull.

“-is that a giant skull?!" Blue added, suddenly startled by the realization.

He stood in silence for a few moments, in awe of the giant skull that was in front of him. The thing must’ve been huge as well, it took up a good part of the landscape and Blue roughly estimated the thing had to be the size of an office building.

Granted, he has seen odder things before; It kinda comes with the job, after all.

But this . This tops the cake for sure.

An idea popped into his head. “Uh control, is there a camera packed in my bag? I can take a photo if you need me to."

Hayes responded. “This is Control. Perhaps you can take a photo through the MDCD and send it over to us.”

Blue quizically arched an eyebrow. “Wait, it can do that?”

They never told me about a camera-

“Hello, hello. Hey, kid can you hear me?” A different voice buzzed back.

“Uh, yes I can read you, who is this-“

“It’s me, Whitman! I’m pretty sure we forgot to tell ya about the camera feature on the MDCD, but I’ll give you a walkthrough so we can get a picture here. So what you need to do first is open up the bag, and unpack the device……..”

--- A FEW MINUTES LATER ---

After a few attempts of trying to take a halfway-decent photograph with the MDCD, Blue managed to churn out a somewhat decent photograph and sent it back to control for them to analyze it or whatever. Judging by the fact that the person communicating with him from back home switched from Hayes to some random lady, he assumed that Hayes (and perhaps the others) was just as stunned as he was.

All he had to do was just wrap up the few field tasks that he was there to do; shove some dirt into some bags and take a few photographs here and there. He was going to attempt to take some water samples from the nearby river, but upon closer inspection, it appeared that the river was boiling , with steam and the occasional bubble popping up from the river.

Nope, just nope.

So there he was, standing by the portal, waiting for the green light to step through back home.

Out of boredom, he took out the MP3 player Sean loaned him out of his pocket, and began to peruse through some of the songs before Hayes’s panicked voice suddenly filled his ear.

“This is Control to Pioneer One, we- we are having a bit of a situation on our end, so do please stay put for now in NX-059. I repeat, do not exit NX-059, and stay put. This is for your own safety-"

“Woah, Woah, Woah! This is Pioneer- oh fuck this! Hayes, what the fuck is going on. What do you mean stay back-“

Static suddenly filled the other end of the radio. “Hayes!? Hayes? Are you there, hello?” Blue said, a twinge of uneasiness in his voice.

Ok, just relax Blue. Hayes did say it’s a BIT of a situation. Maybe it’s just a small system bug or something like that. Besides, Sean did tell me that this thing is designed to stay stable after all-

A sudden crashing sound from behind him interrupted his thoughts. Blue turned around and watched, in a mixture of awe and horror, as the portal rift suddenly began to rapidly shrink, becoming smaller and smaller before……. before…….

It was entirely gone.

Blue sighed in exasperation.

He muttered under his breath. ”Well fuck my life……”

--- [NOW] ---

Blue suddenly heard a loud beeping noise emitting from his bag, drowning out the music from the MP3 player. He dug through his bag and found the source: the MDCD, a green light flashing on top of it.

He turned the device on and gazed at the screen.

{PORTABLE MDCD} – PIONEER ONE

Signal Strength – MODERATE

BATTERY CHARGE – 80.5%

-----------------------------------------------

ALERT – (1) UNREAD MESSAGE

• INBOX – ! (1) UNREAD MESSAGE !
• NEW MESSAGE
• PREVIOUS MESSAGE LOGS

Blue navigated on the device’s interface and clicked on the inbox icon. A message was displayed on the screen after a few moments:

FROM - CONTROL

Portal ran into issues and was severely damaged. You will most likely be stuck here for a short time – enact SERE protocols.

Main priorities are your safety and finding a power source for the MDCD to maintain communications – radio down – any power source works.

Stay safe

Blue gasped upon reading the message, his eyes scanning the message, again and again, hoping that he misread the message. Hoping that maybe, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

But he had to face the reality of the situation here; whatever had gone wrong in that control room, it was bad. Bad enough, that it knocked out the portal-

Blue suddenly paled, the reality of his situation finally hitting him.

He was stranded. Completely alone, in another world.

“Well……….shit.” He shakingly uttered.

He took a deep breath in.

No, no time to panic now. Gotta focus on NOT DYING. I got a date with Halcroft after all-

Oh fuck, what are they gonna think about this whole mess-

NO, FOCUS! YOU CAN’T GO ON A DATE IF YOU’RE DEAD BECAUSE YOU GOT DISTRACTED YOU DINGUS. FOCUS!

Ok, he had two priorities ahead of him right now: Survive and find a power source for the MDCD.

Survival wouldn’t be that difficult for him; when he was in the army, he had to go through a mandatory SERE, or Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, training program every twenty months. Hell, when he joined the foundation he had to go through the whole program again, this time with a lot of other subjects added on, such as non-Euclidean geometry, cognitohazards, and countermemetic conditioning.

However, he only had enough food and water to last him approximately two to three weeks. Even if he were to ration out the rations, he’ll only be able to stretch out his food to only a month, maybe two if he really stretched his rations thin.

And then there was the other issue: his survival training, although useful back home, was most likely completely useless here.

Weather and temperature fluctuations may function differently, he has no experience with dealing with the local wildlife, and to top it off, he had no fucking idea where he was.

Maybe his bag had something useful?

Blue kneeled over to his back, slipped his MP3 player into his pocket, and began to dig through his bag for anything useful, finding a compass and an air quality testing device.

He looked at the air quality testing device first, turning the device on and holding it up to the air, allowing the device to do its work. The device pinged back, informing Blue that the air quality was, in the device’s words, ‘fresh’.

Blue breathed a sigh of relief, taking off his gas mask and taking in a deep breath before gagging at the olfactory assault his nose was facing.

Apparently, this place smelled….. pungent. Maybe because of the fact that he was near a, rather hot, body of water, he assumed. He took off the top half of the suit, leaving him wearing boots, the bottom half of the grey suit, and a t-shirt. He wiped off the sweat from his brow and ruffled his hair, relieved that his head no longer felt like it was stuck in an oven due to the gas mask and the rampant humidity this place had.

He inspected the compass next, attempting to orientate himself, before realizing that the compass needle was aimlessly spinning in circles.

Huh, guess the magnetic poles here are wack. Either that, or there’s some other energy that’s throwing this thing off. He thought to himself, shoving the compass along and the device back into his bag.

He shouldered the bag before a clever idea popped into his head.

Maybe I can fit this thing into my ‘pocket’ if I do some reorganizing?

Blue reached out to the air, finding his pocket dimension rather quickly, and began to pull some items out from it, packing them into his bag.

Upon noticing his gun, which was left undisturbed in his magic pocket after startling Sean with it a few days ago, he elected to leave it in there.

After all, he might need it.

After a few minutes, his labor proved fruitful, with him successfully managing to deposit the bag into his magical pocket dimension thing.

I really need a better name for that thing.

He decided that his next step was to find a suitable area to make a temporary camp. He recalled Sean telling him that there was a pop-up shelter inside his bag. All he needed now was to find a good place to set up base. He shifted his gaze towards the river.

He scratched his chin. “Hmm…… maybe if I find a way to collect water from there without burning myself, as well as decontaminate it, I’ll have a good source of water. Better yet, if I can just follow this thing, it might take me to a good spot to make a shelter or, better yet, civilization.” He planned aloud to himself.

Suddenly, the nearby bushes began to rustle. Blue quickly drew his gun that he kept in his magic pocket, and pointed it at the bushes, waiting.

A weird deer-like creature suddenly emerged from the bushes. Blue lowered his gun but kept his finger on the trigger.

The creature appeared to resemble a deer, but instead of antlers, the creature had two long tusks protruding from its mouth, and a singular eye. Besides that, it just looked like a typical, run-of-the-mill deer; hooves, a reddish-brown coat, and a little white tail.

The cyclops deer, as Blue decided to call it, seemed to ignore him, preferring to just wander towards the river. The deer bent down to the river opened its mouth, and a long, pencil-thin tongue extended outwards from its mouth. Blue watched as the deer began to lap up water from the stream.

Huh, its tongue isn’t getting burned by the water. I guess the wildlife here has adapted to the local environment-

All of a sudden, a cluster of tentacles erupted from the stream and wrapped around the dear. The dear squealed, desperately trying to kick itself out of the creature’s grasp in vain. The deer was dragged underwater, and the sound of the water sizzling was very audible.

Blue stood, shocked for a few moments.

“Nope. I- I’m not going near that river. Fuck that shit with a capital ‘F’”. He mumbled to himself.

So the river was a potential death trap waiting to happen, so Blue decided to throw that option out the window.

Blue turned around and faced the forest that was laid out behind him. Although the foliage was somewhat thick, he was certain he could be able to get through it. He looked up into the sky, trying to find any sign of life in that distance, such as that odd plume of smoke that was rising up from the distance-

Blue did a double take. He looked toward the horizon and there was, in fact, a long, thin, plume of grey smoke rising up towards the sky.

Smoke meant civilization. And civilization meant help, maybe even food and shelter.

But he still had to be a bit cautious. After all, the locals here were slightly prejudiced against humans for whatever reason. The last thing Blue wanted was to be thrown in jail, or whatever the equivalent was here, just because he said something particularly stupid.

He placed his gun back into his pocket dimension and took out the MP3 player, slipping one earbud into one ear and leaving the other exposed, so he could listen out for any potential threats.

He pressed the power button and anxiously waited as the device loaded up Sean’s playlist.

Please not be Frank Sinatra. Please not be Frank Sinatra. Please not be Frank Sina-

The sound of a familiar guitar riff, paired with the sound of drums suddenly startled Blue. He checked the song description on the MP3 player.

Space Cowboy – Steve Miller Band

Blue whistled, impressed. “Huh. Sean didn’t strike me as a Steve Miller fan.” He muttered to himself. “Hell, I’m pretty sure I haven’t listened to this song since……. since…….”

Freshman year of college, he finished in his mind.

Blue shook his head, trying to clear that thought out of his mind. The last thing he needed right now was a goddamn flashback.

But as he began walking into the woods, the sound of leaves crunching under his boots, he couldn’t help but have his mind wander back into the past…….

{ I told you 'bout living in the US of A }
{ Don't you know that I'm a gangster of love? }

--- 22 YEARS AGO, GRAVESFEILD UNIVERSITY OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES ---

{ Let me tell you people that I found a new way }

{ And I'm tired of all this talk about love}

It was a warm autumn day, the leaves just beginning to change from their vibrant green into a warm, orange-red.

A group of people was standing in a parking lot. Blue…… no, he didn’t go by Blue back then. Today a simple code name that he picked out to conceal his identity when he joined the foundation all those years ago was now his new name. A new identity he had chosen, to shield himself from his past.

But back then? He went by another name. A name that his parents chose. A name that he was born with. A name that he hasn’t heard anyone call him in……. years.

Caleb.

Caleb, roughly about the age of twenty, with a head of brown hair and wearing a purple crew neck sweater and jeans,  was assisting his father, Jorge, a much older Hispanic man, dressed similarly with a head of balding grey hair, in untying a suitcase from the top of an old station wagon. His mother, Emilia, roughly about the same age as his father, was standing nearby, sniffling into a tissue, and clutching Caleb’s arm.

Between sniffles she managed to ask a question to her son. “Cariño, ¿estás segura de que no necesitas nada más? Podemos acompañarte a tu dormitorio si quieres-“ (Honey, are you sure you don't need anything else? We can walk you to your dorm if you want-)

The older man, while dropping the suitcase to the ground with the assistance of his son, sighed and chuckled at the woman. “Cariño, estoy bastante seguro de que tiene la edad suficiente para llegar a los dormitorios por sí mismo. Además, estoy bastante seguro de que se muere por estar finalmente libre de nosotros.” (Honey, I'm pretty sure he's old enough to make it to the dorms on his own. Besides, I'm pretty sure he's dying to finally be free of us.)

The younger man scoffed at his father. “Papa, it’s really fine, I don’t- I- I don’t want to leave you two just yet-“

The man’s father sighed, and along with his mother, wrapped their son in a hug, smothering him.

“It’s all right my son. We all need to grow up sometime.” He released the young man from the hug, but still kept his hands tightly grasped on his son’s shoulders.

“Now remember carino! Focus on your schoolwork and don’t do anything stupid. Or illegal. Or-“

“I’m sure he gets the point, honey.” The man’s mother cut off, gently placing a hand over her husband’s mouth. “Just make sure to call us frequently, ok? And we’ll see you around Christmas, yes?”

“Yes, Mama,” Caleb replied to his mother. His mother wiped another tear from her face.

”Dios Mio. It still feels so……. Weird just sending you off like this. But….. I suppose there is a time for anything, right?” She asked. Caleb only nodded in response, a small smile on his face.

After a few minutes of talking, Caleb finally parted ways with his parents, watching them leave in their own car parked nearby. Caleb shouldered his bag, and began to walk towards the University’s residence hall, stopping only to gaze at a sign marking the entrance of the building:

*{WITTEBANE RESIDENCE HALL – EAST }*

*-_-_-_-_-*

Caleb sighed and plopped his, unnaturally heavy, bag in front of the door to his dorm room; AKA the place that he’ll be stuck in for the next year, along with some random stranger that he know’s jack shit about.

He took out his keys and stuck them into the door. He sighed and crossed his fingers in anticipation

He began muttering to himself. “Please not be a serial killer. Please not be a serial killer. Please not be a serial kill-“

Caleb suddenly jumped as the door suddenly opened. Caleb did what any other reasonable person would do when they were suddenly startled.

He swung his fist towards the first thing he saw.

Which unfortunately just happened to be his new roommate.

The poor guy managed to only get a few words out before Caleb’s fist made contact.“Oh hey you finally-“

SLAM

The kid slid down the side of the doorframe, clutching the side of his face.

Caleb immediately paled upon noticing his fuck-up and began to profusely apologize.

“OH SHI- Oh my God! I am so, so, so sorry about that man. You just suddenly startled me, and I just went-“

“No, you’re good man. It’s my bad for spooking you like that after all.” The guy apologized, still clutching the side of his face.

Caleb shook his head. “No, really i-it’s my fault man. I mean, no normal person would just….. you know, resort to violence instantly when spooked-“

His new roommate sighed. “No, no it’s…. kinda normal. I kicked my dad in the crotch once when he entered our house because I thought someone was breaking in. It’s my fault really-“

“N- no! It’s mine!”

“No, it’s mine!”

“Dude, I literally punched you in the face!”

“So? I spooked you enough for you to punch me in the face!”

“For the love of- Dude can you just accept my apology?”

“No, because you don’t need to apologize!”

“Yes, I do!”

“No, you don’t!”

“Yes I-“

A door behind Caleb suddenly opened, and another student popped their head out.

“Hey, can y’all keep it down out here? Although you two arguing about who should apologize for what is kind of adorable to be honest, the walls here are kinda thin and Reginald doesn’t like all the noise going on out here-“

“Hold on.” Caleb’s roommate began. “I thought you said you didn’t have a roommate?”

Their neighbor shook his head. “Nah, Reginald ain’t a person. He’s my Blue-Tongued Skink-“

“Wait, how did you get permission to have a pet in your dorm?” Caleb asked.

“I didn’t. Which is why I’m tellin you two not to snitch on me.” He said, pointing a finger at Caleb and his roommate, slowly closing the door.

The two of them stood in an awkward silence before Caleb finally spoke. “So, uh, do you need help up?” He said, extending his hand towards him.

His new roommate smiled and took his hand, Caleb helping him up from the ground. Caleb also finally managed to get a good look at him as well: he had a head of ruffled brown curly hair and was wearing a faded tee shirt with a pair of basketball shirts.

“Thanks. Oh, uh, my name is Finn by the way! Finn Harper-Lee.”

“Oh! We’re introducing each other. Now. Uh, my name is Caleb. Caleb Rosales.”

Finn arched an eyebrow. “Caleb? Like one of the town’s original co-founders?”

“I, uh, don’t really know what you’re talking about. I’m kinda from out of town-“

“Oh, no worries! Here, I’ll help ya with your…….. one singular bag, and let’s head inside, shall we?”

Caleb nodded and stepped inside the room. It looked rather cozy, with two beds on either side of the room, a small kitchenette near the doorway, and a door leading to, what Caleb assumed was a bathroom.

He heard Finn grunt from behind him. He turned and saw Finn struggling to pick up his duffel bag.

“Christ- What’s inside of this thing?!” He cursed. Caleb rolled his eyes and walked over, effortlessly picking up the bag from Finn’s grasp.

“Just some clothes and some other personal belongings, dude.”

“But why did you shove them all in one bag?” He asked, his voice small.

Caleb shrugged. “My family traveled frequently, so we all learned how to shove as much stuff as possible into one bag to save space.” He explained.

“Yeah, that makes sense I guess,” Finn said, walking into the room and collapsing into his bed. He leaned over to a small cassette player on the bed, popping a tape into it. “But still, what do you have in there? It felt like there was like, I dunno, three bowling balls in there!”

Caleb laughed. “Like I said before, just some clothes and some personal stuff.” He said, dropping his bag off at the foot of his bed. He perked up his ears, noticing the music playing from Finn’s cassette player.

“Is that…….. The Steve Miller Band?” He asked.

Finn’s eyes lit up. “Oh, my Go- Finally! I lived in this stupid town all my life, and not one other person has ever even heard of them before. Well except for Pierre that is-“

“Who’s Pierre?” Caleb asked.

Finn waved his hand dismissively. “The guy from across the hall, you just met him, remember? He’s the guy who smuggled the lizard into the dorm rooms; he’s really obsessed with animals as well, more so the exotic ones. He told me that he’s here for Zoology.”

He trailed off. “ Wait, what was I talking about again?”

“You were talking about the Steve Miller Band, dude.” Caleb reminded him.

“Oh, right! I- I just thought it was nice that somebody else liked ‘em, you know? Anyways, where are you from, since you said you were from out of town earlier?”

Caleb rubbed the back of his head. “Uh, I was born in San Juan, but I spent a majority of my childhood in Miami, at least, when our family wasn’t traveling that is.”

Finn whistled. “Damn. So what brought you here of all places? I mean, not saying that this place is bad or anything, but aren’t there some decent schools in Florida?”

“My family isn’t exactly rich, and the schools here are cheaper. Besides, I heard the linguistics programs here are pretty good as well.” Caleb said.

“Eh, makes enough sense. But why here? This place is – and this is coming from someone who’s lived here all their life, mind you – boring as hell.”

Caleb shrugged. “I dunno. Change of scenery?”

Finn dramatically pointed a finger at Caleb (Boy, this guy has a flair for theatrics) “Well don’t you worry…..I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Caleb.”

“Don’t you worry Caleb! I, Finn Harper-Lee, will give you the grand tour of good ‘ole Gravesfeild! I- if you want to of cou-“

“O- Oh! That’ll be nice actually!” He stumbled out.

“Perfect! What day works best for you linguistics boy?”

“L- Linguistics boy?” Caleb asked.

“You said you were here for linguistics, right?” He asked. Caleb nodded in response. “Yeah, so I’m calling you linguistics boy. Just a lil’ nickname for ya; you can call me theatre boy if you want, since, uh, I’m doing theatre after all.”

“Uh…..yeah. So, I’m good on Friday, if that works for you theatre bo- Finn.”

He smiled and pointed a finger gun at Caleb. “Perfect! Guess it’s a date then!”

Caleb felt his face heat up. He only managed to stumble out a basic, ‘yep’ in reply, before quickly turning to his bag, and beginning the process of unpacking.

Why am I blushing? I’m just hanging out with a new friend, that’s all!

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

He was quite relieved that his roommate was, not only not a serial killer, but just a decent guy in general

He was quite attractive as we-

He freezed suddenly, dropping a folded t-shirt onto his bed, flabbergasted at the thought that popped right into his head from out of left field.

Where the fuck did THAT come from…………….

He’s never really felt……. Feelings for other guys before. At least, as far as he could recall.

It was probably nothing, though. There was a solid explanation for this: it was just a mixture of conformation bias and hormones, that’s all.

But then again, there was junior prom, where the highlight of his night was the after-party with one of his closer friends.

And there was also that one where he almost drove off the road because he got distracted by a shirtless jogger.

And there was also………… oh.

Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me. How the fuck did I- HOW DID I NOT NOTICE!

Somehow, despite all of the, to be quite frank, obvious signs right in front of him, his oblivious ass somehow did not realize the simple truth.

He wasn’t exactly straight.

And there was a 50/50  100% chance that he…… might’ve fallen head over heels for his new roommate, a guy he’ll be stuck with for the next couple of months, just within – Caleb checked his watch – the first five minutes of meeting him.

He groaned to himself, realizing the situation he was in. “Son of a bitch……”

 --- PRESENT DAY ---

“Son of a bitch!” Blue called out, his hands on his sides. “There’s a goddamn hill!”

There was, indeed, a steep hill blocking his path. Beyond the hill, he could see the smoke rising into the sky very close by. So close by in fact, that he could make out a rotten-egg smell coming from the smoke.

He scratched his head and sighed.

All right. Inclines a bit too steep for me to climb it. I’ll just go around the hill. Maybe I can find an entrance or something to……. Whatever this place is.

A few minutes later, his hunch proved to be correct, as he stumbled onto a dirt pathway-

You gotta be kidding me, right? I stumbled through about three miles of dense woodland just for there to be a DAMN PATH!!!

He huffed a breath, ruffling his hair to remove any lasting traces of his journey through the woods, with some small twigs, leaves, and to Blue’s horror, an unusually large beetle-like creature that skirted back towards the woods.

He shuddered and turned back towards the source of the smoke, suddenly finding himself staring in awe.

“Woah.”

In front of him laid out a large manor sat upon a hill. The building itself reminded Blue of one of those old English castles; purple and grey stone brickwork, with colorful stained glass windows. Among the brown slate roof laid stone chimneys and a large stone spire.

Leading up to the home was a stone path, which terminated at a gate at the front of the property, which had a painted sign above it:

BLIGHT MANOR

“I guess they got rich people here too.” He quipped, looking at the sign. It was fairly obvious that whoever, or whatever, lived here were fairly wealthy.

He scratched his head, contemplating about how he should approach this situation. He couldn’t exactly just waltz up to the front door and ask for help.

Or can he?

Maybe, just maybe, if he were to disguise himself as one of them, he could be able to get directions to a nearby lodge or something. Hell, he might be able to snag a bite to eat and a roof under his head for the night.

He recalled what he was told a few days ago:

“We also know that the locals have a similar anatomy to humans as well; the only major differences being a bile sac attached to the heart, pointed ears, and elongated canine teeth in some individuals.”

He could work with that: a simple illusion spell would do the trick.

Illusion magic was quite tricky to perfect, but Blue had quite the knack for it: all you really need to do is just slap a image in your mind and cast the spell, the spell itself would do the rest of the work. The main issue was holding the illusion; the larger and more complex the illusion, the harder it is to keep up. This was why smaller illusions were generally more preferred; they were much easier to keep up without passing out.

Blue made a rough estimate that he could keep a illusion over his ears up for a couple of hours, maybe more. He put a mental image of himself, but with more….. pointer ears into his head and began to cast a illusion over himself.

He was quite astonished when the spell finished rather quickly, and for once he didn’t feel like he was about to pass out, like he was so normally accustomed to back home.

Was his magic just…… stronger here?

. . . . . . . . .

Nah, it was probably a coincidence.

Blue huffed a sigh of determination, and began his journey up the stone path to the front door of the manor, his heart thumping inside of his chest.

He stood at the doorstep of the home, hesitating.

Maybe I should just turn back. I mean, I was explicitly told NOT to make contact with the locals. One, more reasonable side of him thought.

He looked at the door knocker of the large, purple double doors.

Nah, fuck it. I came all this way, might as well do it.

He gripped the door knocker, and rapped it three times subsequently.

He waited in silence….. for anything.

The door opened and a humanoid purple sludge thing stepped out to greet him.

This thing, no, this abomination was quite tall, towering over Blue with its head just barely below the door frame. It appeared to be crafted entirely out of some type of purple sludge, with its body and its little bow tie being made out of the substance. The goo was falling off of the creature in droves, however the goo appeared to be crawling back to the creature, reabsorbing into the creature.

It had a frown on its face, its dead, green eyes only staring at Blue.

“Uh….... I think I might’ve gotten the wrong house. I’ll just leave now bye.” Blue squeaked out before a……. speaker popped out of the creatures mouth.

“Gre-tin- g-s. W-lco-me to- Oh ti-t-n dam-it, th- spe—ke-s br-k-n aga--!”  A garbled male voice spoke through the speaker. Blue could hear the sounds of some banging and cursing before the voice returned.

“Greetings! Welcome to Blight Manor! If you are here to sell us something, please leave right now. We have legal authorization to maim any unwanted solicitors.”

Blue whistled, impressed at the device. “Huh, looks like a pretty decent robotic – well at least their equivalent of robotic – automatic answering device. The prerecorded message could use some work though-“

“Oh no. This message isn’t prerecorded, its live. I can hear, as well as see, you right now.”

Blue paled.

Shit. Alright game face on. These people are most likely high class, so be polite. He told himself.

“Oh! Well, I am quite sorry for the intrusion but I am, uh……”

Quick, throw out some random BS!

“….. I happen to be quite new to the area, and I happened to get a bit lost. Do you mind pointing me to the nearest town or settlement?”

Nailed it!

The speaker remained silent, though, Blue could barely make out the sounds of hushed argument between a man and another, very faint, female voice.

“Very well.” The voice returned. “Follow me- I mean the abomination here, and we’ll give you the directions you need, in exchange for something of course.”

Blue hesitated. “U- Uh, actually. I think I might head somewhere else. I do apologize, Mr.Blight I assume?”

Another voice spoke through the speaker, this time a woman. “Oh you don’t need to worry! Just head on inside and we’ll give you what you need. We might even give you a nice, cozy room for you to stay in for the night, after all, you do look quite tired. All you need to do is just do one little thing for us!” She explained.

“And don’t worry!” She added. “A Blight always upholds their end of the deal.”

Blue hesitated yet again, biting his lip, before relenting to the offer. “O-Ok, I’ll head inside-“

“Excellent!” The voice cut him off. “We’ll see you shortly.” The woman replied.

Blue gulped and followed the, what he now knew as, abomination, into the house, ignoring the door quickly shutting and locking behind him.

Blue wiped a bead of sweat of his brow.

The deal was pretty good, but Blue was worried that it might’ve been too good to be true.

When he was out of the abominations glimpse, he reached into his pocket, grabbing his glock and slipping into his pocket.

Who knows, he might need it later.

Chapter Text

Blue was no stranger to stupid ideas. But this? This was stupid.

The thing is, he had done, as well as pulled off, quite a lot of stupid ideas that he pumped out from his mind on a whim to get out of some rather precarious situations in the past before; the Ultra-Flashbang-of-Doom incident in Juarez, which seemed like an eternity ago, was only the tip of the iceberg of all of the stupidly dangerous, and frankly risky, things that he has done.

But just waltzing right into a stranger’s home, in another dimension, all the while being escorted and watched like a hawk by a towering purple sludge golem thing just to get some directions from some awfully suspicious people?

That was just stupid. He should’ve just apologized to that woman, walked away, and figure out things from there.

The issue was that Blue didn’t have any other choice at the moment; this was the only option he had. Well, besides just camping out in the wilderness of an uncharted dimension, with equally uncharted fauna that may or may not try to eat him.

Blue thought it’d be better to take his chances with these Blight people rather than risk becoming plant food.

I hope these people aren’t too much of a blight. He hoped.  Heh, puns. Is that a pun? Eh, I don’t know.

But hey, at least he had some type of peace of mind with the gun securely nestled in his pocket, right?

Right?

Blue huffed a breath of determination.

Just get in, get directions, and get the hell out. Forget about that offer about staying the night because it’s starting to sound a little too horror movie-y: some creepy people convince you to stay in some creepy house or a huge mansion for the night, and it turns out they’re cannibals, werewolves, or werewolf cannibals.

And nine times out of ten, the idiotic person that decides to take said creepy people up on their offer usually gets murdered. Sometimes pretty graphically, sometimes not so. Kinda depends on the movie’s rating and whatnot-

Wait, what was I doing?

Oh for the love of- no distractions, just get in, get out.

He sighed again, repeating the short mantra in his head as he walked along the carpeted hallway of the manor. The abomination was in front of him, guiding him to some unknown destination, taking the occasional turn into another corridor.

Christ, how big is this place?

At least the manor itself was rather lovely. Minus the off-putting portraits of (what Blue assumed were) various Blight family members that seemed to be staring daggers into him, as if they knew he wasn’t like them. Like they knew he was a human.

He shook his head.

Nope, they’re JUST paintings. Just paintings. Just paintings-

He then could’ve sworn he’d just seen one of the paintings blink.

He picked up his pace a little after that.

Besides the potentially possessed family portraits, the home was lovely; brown striped wallpaper lined the walls, contrasting surprisingly well with the purple (or where they magenta?) curtains draped over the windows. The sounds of Blue’s haste footsteps and the abomination’s wet, dragging feet echoed off the hardwood floor and around the hallway.

Eventually, the abomination gestured him into the parlor room, holding the door open for Blue as he walked in.

Blue turned back to the abomination. “Alrighty then Mr…….. uh, I don’t know what to call you. You got any preference buddy?”

The abomination groaned shallowly in response.

Blue thought for a few moments, suddenly snapping his fingers as an idea hit him. “Oh! I know the perfect name for you: Bob! Mr.Bob, the abomination. What do you think?”

Again, the only thing the abomination, no, Bob, had to say was just another, shallow groan.

Blue shrugged. “I’ll take that as a yes. So, Mr.Bob, what exactly am I supposed to do now?” He asked.

Bob ignored him, choosing to shuffle out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“Huh. Well, that was rude!” He called out. He rolled his eyes in annoyance and turned around, looking around the room.

The room was neatly furnished, with different shelves and tables containing various artifacts and antiquities, such as a crystal ball, some rather expensive-looking vases, and a cutlass sword that probably belonged in a museum hanging above the brick fireplace.

Standing high above the fireplace was an ornately framed family portrait. It was a standard portrait of your typical nuclear family: seated on a purple loveseat were three children, all dressed in formal outfits. In the middle was a girl, perhaps in her early teens, with dyed aquamarine hair tied back tightly in a ponytail. A solemn expression stood on her face as if she was at a funeral. On either side of her were two older siblings – a boy and a girl - both looking nearly identical with heads with green hair and small, sly smirks plastered on their faces.

Behind them stood two adults, the parents of the seated children, Blue assumed. Standing on the right was a tall, middle-aged man with an unkempt head of chestnut hair with a prominent widow’s peak, and a small, weak smile displayed on his face.

Meanwhile on the right was a woman, wearing a sharp, confident smirk, her minty green hair neatly tied back with not a singular hair out of place accenting a pair of blue eyes which seemed to pierce right into Blue’s soul through the painting, which acted as a stark contrast to the gentle, golden eyes that the rest of the family had.

Blue automatically hated her. He didn’t know why, he just hated her.

It might’ve been that he had seen a look like that before printed on the faces of his higher-ups, both in the army and the Foundation; a look of a pure pompous snob that treated everyone below them like dirt.

Like Director Clarence, for instance. And this lady reminded Blue of him. Right down to that damn smug grin.

He shook his head. It was probably just a very unfortunate coincidence. Besides, how bad can she be? She did make an offer for him to stay the night, granted in exchange for some unknown favor being done.

Maybe, he should stick around for now. After all, this was his only option.

But just to be on the safe side, Blue noted his escape routes: two doors on both sides of the room, a (currently unlit) fireplace, and two windows by the fireplace.

With his escape routes noted, Blue began exploring the room, careful not to touch or break anything and admiring the home.

After all, this was one of the few times he had been in a home this……well, huge. The only other times he had been in homes like this was when he was on the clock: mostly just operations involving his team infiltrating illegal anomalous item auctions and whatnot.

And that one time with the Giraffe breeding operation in the basement of a lavish mansion in Houston.  

He’d never look at Giraffes the same way again.

Blue shuddered and continued to look around, mostly as an attempt to scrub the memories of that night out of his head.

But mostly because he was starting to get bored.

“Nice place these folks got here.” Blue hummed to himself. “I’m pretty sure a place like this would go for an arm and a leg back home.”

He walked over to the fireplace, and looking at his distorted reflection through the blade of the sword on display, made some quick adjustments to his ruffled hair. He noticed the illusion spell was still holding up, his ears pointed as intended. However, for whatever reason, the illusion seemed to affect his eye color as well, with his eyes being an unnatural bright green instead of their usual brown.

Guess the illusion spell worked a little TOO well! But damn, I can pull off green eyes pretty well!

Come to think of it my magic has been working a bit better here-

“Oh, so you made your way here without any problems-“

“GAH, WHAT THE FU-“ Blue, suddenly startled by the person who just snuck up behind him, jolted around to face them, his hand naturally shifting to where his gun was.

The man behind him seemed to be just as startled as he was, putting up his hands in surprise. Blue quickly recognized the man from the painting; He looked quite similar, albeit a little older, with some small wrinkles below his eyes.

“S-Sorry ma- I mean, uh, sorry sir!” He stammered out, quickly remembering to keep up a formal demeanor with these people. “You, uh….. happened to startle me and-“

“You don’t……need to worry.” The man cut him off, his voice monotone. “Now, my wife sent me over here to escort you downstairs so that we can organize the conditions of our arrangement. Now, will you follow me?” He explained, escorting Blue to the other end of the room to a smaller door.

Blue obliged, following the older man through a door that led into another hallway. The walk was silent, which gave Blue a decent chance to examine what the man was wearing; a dark gray lab coat stained with some questionable purple stains gray pants, and boots, which were also stained. Strapped atop his forehead was a pair of goggles.

“Out of curiosity, what exactly was that thing that answered the door?” Blue asked the man.

He stopped and turned his head back. “An Abomination?”

“Uh… yes.”

The man scratched his head. “Well, it’s a particularly complex topic to explain. They’re created and summoned via reanimated matter to perform menial tasks, especially high-risk ones since they can reform easily, unlike a person. Pardon me for asking, but how do you not know this already-“

“Oh, uh….. I’m from, uh, out of town.” Blue quickly spat out.

“So you’re not a resident of Bonesborough? Are you from one of the nearby towns-“

“NO! I-I mean, no-no, not really. I’m from, uh, far out of town. Like, really far.”

“If that’s the case, then how did you get here?” The man asked, a skeptical look on his face.

“Uh….. it’s a long story. A really long story.” Blue answered.

 “Uh-huh.” He narrowed his eyes and stared Blue down for a few seconds. Blue tried to ignore the beads of sweat running down the back of his neck.

Well, this was it. He’d most likely gotten himself compromised, in what had to be the worst possible time in human history.

He really should’ve come up with a better cover story. Hell, he was pretty sure that anything had to be better than, “Oh! I just happen to be out of town!”. In Blue’s defense, he usually wasn’t the person who comes up with cover stories; there are usually people who’d do that. And said people usually knew what they were doing.

That was the thing, he knew what to do in every conceivable scenario; he had trained hard for years so he could easily get into places where he wasn’t wanted, smooth talk his way out of nearly any hostile situation, and when da hit the fan, get out safely and quickly.

But in this case? Blue had no idea what he was doing; If the fact that he was a stuttering mess didn’t show it, then he didn’t know what did.

And that had probably screwed him, as Blue could see the cogs turning in the man’s head that something about him was amiss.

Blue was debating whether he should cut his losses and make a break for it when the man suddenly spoke.

“Hm….  Well, no matter the case, I do believe you’ll help solve our little situation.” He said, turning back around and resuming walking.

Blue stood surprised for a few moments before catching up with him.

Well, that was close.

*-_-_-_-_-*

It turns out the mansion has a basement.

Because of course, it had to have a basement.

Unlike the rest of the house, which was rather neat and orderly, the basement was an absolute mess. Boxes and crates were scattered about the room. Along with this, it seemed like the entire room was converted into a makeshift laboratory, with different anatomical posters of abominations printed on the walls, a chalkboard pushed against the wall with all sorts of unintelligible schematics, and purple goo.

A lot of purple goo, in fact, that was all messily piled atop a table.

“Oh ignore the mess if you will. I happened to be working on one of my projects when you arrived at our doorstep.” A look of realization crossed the man’s face. “And also pardon me for not telling you this earlier, but my name is Alador. Alador Blight.”

“I guess we’re doing introductions now eh?” Blue smiled. “Well, I guess my name is…… uh-“

Blue hesitated for a moment. Should he just stick with just using his code-name as a cover name while he was stuck here? On any other day, he’d just use his code-name and call it a day, after all.

Then again, this wasn’t any other day.

Eh, might as well. I’ll be outta this place in a few months anyways. Blue internally relented. Besides, it’ll be fun to be called by my ACTUAL name for once.

“My name is Caleb.” Blue finished. “ Caleb…..uh… Blue. Caleb Blue. Yup! That’s my name! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr.Blight!” Blue said, holding out his hand, expecting a formal handshake.

Only to be met with a look of bewilderment.

“What are you doing with your hand?” He asked, puzzled.

“It’s a handshake. It’s fairly commonplace where I’m from. You know what a handshake is, right?”

“A what?”

Blue sighed. “I’ll take that as a no then.”

Alador shook his head. “Well, ignoring whatever the Titan that was, just find a seat somewhere. Or stand, I don’t particularly care what you do. Odalia – uh, my wife – is working on some other things at the moment. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

He pointed to Blue. “And Caleb, don’t touch anything.” He ordered. “A lot of my projects here are quite finicky, and I don’t want someone coming in and ruining them. Do you understand?”

Blue nodded in response.

“Good” Alador all but muttered in response, shuffling over to the table with the purple goo piled atop it. He lowered his goggles over his eyes and turned to work on…….. whatever he was working on, leaving Blue standing by, watching curiously in silence as Alador worked away.

“You said these abominations are used to perform tasks, right?” Blue suddenly asked.

“Huh?” Alador exclaimed, pulling out a large clump of purple goo from the pile. “Well, yes. Yes, they can. Along with a multitude of other applications.”

“What type of applications? Sorry for asking, we just don’t really have this type of magic from where I’m from, so everything here is fairly new.” Blue said.

This wasn’t exactly a lie; researchers across the foundation had discovered multiple applications of protomodern magic during the TITAN program’s heyday. Originally, a lot of attention was placed on researching healing and alchemic types of magic, mostly for use in the field for treating injuries.

But then the researchers quickly learned that proto-modern magic had a lot of other uses as well; it could manipulate and accelerate plant growth, be used for telepathic communication, cast illusions, and even tame and control wildlife. Hell, one TITAN program candidate accidentally discovered that even soundwaves can even be used to produce a range of different effects after (accidentally) putting an entire room of people to sleep from strumming a guitar.

The point is, this abomination magic was completely new to the foundation, and Blue could already tell that the eggheads back home would probably froth at the mouth to learn more about this type of magic, along with figuring out potential applications for it in the field.

So might as well just take some notes for the folks back home, right?

That, and Blue was also just curious about this new type of magic.

“Oh, no worries. I don’t really get the opportunity to talk to anyone about my work, so I don’t mind much.” Alador began, scratching his head nervously. “But to answer your question, abominations have many practical applications, such as creating different types of tools and weaponry out of abomination matter. Abominations are also useful for combat as well; however how adept they do depend on the strength of the user’s magic. If the magic is stronger, the abomination can be much more stable as well as larger- are you taking notes?” Alador stumbled upon noticing Blue behind him.

Blue was standing behind him, a small notepad and pencil that he fetched from his pocket dimension in hand, quietly scribbling down notes. “Abominations depend on the strength of the user’s magic- huh! Oh, of course, I am! This is, uh, quite the interesting topic after all and-“

“Hold on, let me get something for you that’ll save you some trouble,” Alador said, walking to a crate across the room. He produced a small book from it and passed it over to Blue.

“Here. Admittedly it does explain abominations quite well, however, I do recommend you ignore chapters two, twelve, and twenty-one. The summoning methods mentioned in those chapters are just awful. And chapters eight and four, are completely useless if you don’t have the proper ingredients. And don’t even get me started on chapter seven!”

As Alador was rambling on about what chapters were absolute rubbish, Blue glanced down at the cover of the book:

Abomination Creation

By Darius Deamonne

Blue was just confused about this sudden amount of hospitality he was being shown. “Y-you, don’t really have to do this. I mean, we only just met-“

“It’s no problem, really. Besides, I have a whole crate of those Titan damn things that an old ‘friend’ sent to me to rub in his success of being a published author.” He said the last words with an audible disdain and shuddered before continuing. “I would’ve used them as kindling years ago, but for whatever reason, Odalia insists we keep them.”

He sighed. “I honestly don’t understand her sometimes-“

“You honestly don’t understand who sometimes?” A woman’s voice piped in from outside the room.

Alador paled, and Blue shifted his gaze to the source of the voice.

Coming down the stairwell was a woman that Blue recognized from the painting earlier. She looked exactly the same, with the only difference being the violet blouse, dark pants, and grey boots, whose heels clicked against the wood of the stairwell.

The woman entered the room, and immediately shut down any rebuttal or excuse from Alador with a subtle, yet terrifying, ‘We’ll talk about this later’ -Esque look before shifting her gaze to Blue.

Blue stood in silence, silently watching as the woman’s sharp gaze analyzed him.

As she was staring him down, he realized two things:

One: trying to keep up his front was going to be difficult, to say the least, especially since this woman was apparently listening in to their conversation from outside of the room.

And two?

It was probably just a very unfortunate coincidence. Besides, how bad can she be?

Judging by immediate first impressions: very bad.

The answer is very, very bad.

“Damn. It looked like he just crawled out of the woods.” The woman mumbled under her breath.

“Pardon?”

The woman dismissed him. “Oh, it’s no matter!” She held out her hand. “My name is Odalia. Odalia Blight. And I can say that it’s a pleasure to meet you…….er, Alador, what was his name dear?”

“Caleb Blue, dear,” Alador replied.

“Ah! It is such a pleasure to meet you, Mr.Blue.” She exclaimed in a pompous voice that clearly portrayed a slight amount of annoyance and gripping Blue’s outreached hand in a tight handshake that probably cut off his blood circulation.

“I- I thought handshakes weren’t a thing here,” Blue said. “I tried doing one with your husband earlier, and he looked at me like I had an extra head or something-“

“Oh!” Odalia cut him off, discreetly wiping her hand on her blouse. “Well firstly, we’re not married dear. It’s more of a……. business partnership.” She explained. “And secondly, hm…… how do I put this? Well, Alador isn’t exactly a people person-“

“Hey!” Alador protested, his face burning red.

“-which isn’t exactly the best for running a successful business, but luckily I am. It’s why we’re such successful partners after all; I take care of the business side of things while he takes care of research and development of our products.”

Blue pointed to the table. “So I assume your company sells abominations or-“

“No no! Any regular coven witch can summon an abomination. What we do is sell abomination-based items for home security, with a special interest in weaponry.” She explained, shifting her gaze to the diagrams on the wall. “We’re quite successful actually; we’re one of the top suppliers of abomination-based weaponry in the Boiling Isles!”

Blue recoiled in surprise. “I’m sorry, the Boiling what-now?”

Odalia quirked an eyebrow. “ The Boiling Isles? The place we’re in right now? You are from around here, right-“

“Actually dear-“ Alador cut in. “Caleb here mentioned that he happens to be out of town-“

“Really far out of town!” Blue quickly added.

“ and he didn’t elaborate on how he got here. In fact, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know where he is.” He explained to her, Blue nodding in confirmation.

“Hm…. That’s certainly interesting.” She shrugged. “No matter! We can kill two bats with one boulder, come along Caleb. Oh, and you too Alador sweetie.” She said, pointing to a confused Alador.

Odalia escorted the two out of the basement and back up to the ground floor, where they followed her through the halls of the manor.

“Now to begin Caleb, you happen to be situated at our residence just outside of the town of Bonesborough. Does that answer anything so far ?”

Blue scratched the back of his neck, more confused than before. “uh…. No?” He slowly replied.

A look of actual, genuine surprise crossed her face. “Wow. Alador, dear, you really were not exaggerating.”

“Wait, you thought I was exaggerating-“

Odalia held a hand up to Alador, silencing him instantly. “Hush now dear.” She hissed to him before turning back to Blue, a very obvious faux smile on her face.

“So it appears that I might need to be just a tad broader. Well, you happen to be in the right arm of the Boiling Isles-“

“I’m sorry the Boiling what-now?” Blue cut her off.

“The Boiling Isles,” Alador explained, much to Odalias visible dismay, as they reached a door. “ It’s a fairly large archipelago located in the Boiling Sea, which is where the name comes from. The islands themselves are made out of the decayed remains of a deceased Titan, essentially in clinical terms: a god.”

“Huh, so that explains the giant skull outside.”

“So it does,” Odalia murmured to herself, summoning a lavender-colored key out of midair, a large ‘B’ emblazed on the bow of the key. She tapped the key on the door, and Blue watched as the ridges of the key changed shape, in a similar fashion to the abominations he saw earlier.

Odalia noticed Blue looking at the key. “Oh, this little thing is just something that Alador here and the rest of the research team at our company cooked up. It’s essentially a skeleton key that works only with one specific person within a household.”

She gleefully pointed to herself. “And that person happens to be me.”

“What happens if someone besides you uses it?” Blue asked.

“Oh, that’s not important.” She hummed to herself. “Now say, Caleb was it?”

“Yes.” Blue sighed. This woman was beginning to become unbearable.

“So Caleb, just out of curiosity, how exactly did you end up here in the Boiling Isles.” She innocently asked.

Blue froze, the question suddenly catching him off guard.

Which wasn’t exactly the best thing that he could’ve done given the circumstances.

Under normal circumstances, he would’ve just been given a basic cover story.

And under normal circumstances, he would’ve just followed said story to the letter, gotten in and out of whatever place he’d been sent to, and gotten the job done.

But it was fairly obvious that these weren’t exactly normal circumstances.

Nonetheless, he had to say something, hell, anything that at least made some sense to these people.

The problem was: the truth would most likely make absolutely no sense to them.

Oh hi! I’m just a person from another dimension that happened to get stranded here after an experiment with an interdimensional portal went awry! Oh, I’m also a completely separate species from you as well! Mind if I can stop by for the night?

Yeah, that wouldn’t work one bit.

But maybe, he could just skirt around the truth?

“Well, Mrs.Blight, I happen to be from a region fairly far away from here-“

“What type of region?” Odalia skeptically asked.

“One that ‘s made of soil and rock, and not the decayed remains of a dead god.” Blue usually shot back.

“Hm… go on.”

“Now we happened to be working on a new type of technology – just some basic er, teleportation stuff, nothing too fancy – but there was a bit of a mishap, which led me being plopped about a kilometer north of here-“

“Excuse me, but what’s a kilo- ki-lo-mater- kilo- ah damn it all, the weird word you just said?” Alador puzzlingly inquired.

“Kilometer? It’s just a unit of measurement we use back home.”

“Well, putting whatever that was aside-“ Odalia said, glaring at Alador, “ let’s get to the deal shall we?” She announced, unlocking the door which slowly creaked open, and gestured the two inside.

Blue couldn’t make out much in the room before a snap of Odalia’s finger turned on the lights in the room.

It was a long narrow room, with rows of shelves packed with a variety of different artifacts: which ranged from antique crystal balls, to an array of minerals, and even another sword, this one looking much older than the one hanging above the fireplace in the parlor room from earlier. Light poured in from the open window which revealed a thick layer of dust atop many of the artifacts.

“Pardon our dust here Caleb, it appears that housekeeping hasn’t necessarily touched this room in a while.” Odalia excused. “Now, this room used to be a private study for Adeline Blight, one of the original founders of what is now Blight industries. But now it’s just a display room for some old family heirlooms. Speaking of which……..” She trailed off as she walked over to the center of the room, where a pedestal covered with a lavender cloth stood.

She pulled off the cloth, revealing a polished rock kept underneath a glass cover, an ominous blue glow emanating from the artifact.

“This, Mr.Blue, is one of the Blight family’s prized possessions: The Rock of Ages! I came up with that name myself, actually.” She gloated.

“Huh. Out of curiosity what’s so important about it? Does it have any historical value? Because to me, it’s just a rather nice rock.” Blue asked.

She waved her hand away. “Oh yes! It holds a lot of historical value. It’s a long story about a sibling rivalry, attempted manslaughter, manslaughter, and a pub in Latissa.”

“Uh…..ok?”

“Anyhow- oh, and Alador, sweetie, I just need you over here for a quick demonstration.” She ushered Alador next to her, who looked at her quizzically as she removed the glass cover from the pedestal and continued. “As mentioned before, this particular item has quite the history. However, it’s because of this history that things get complicated.”

She straightened herself up. “Long story short: this item was cursed with a fairly complicated hex. You can see it as this blueish hue that’s surrounding the rock here. The specifics have been lost to time, however, what we do know is that the curse prevents any person from within the Blight family to access the rock, which as you can imagine, has made it a proper pain to properly move it.”

Blue observed the rock. “So what exactly happens when someone within the family tries to touch it?”

“Good question!” Odalia grinned, suddenly grabbing Alador’s wrist and pressing around the area near the rock where Aladors hand was pressed against an invisible forcefeild. Blue watched as the blue hue grew brighter, and he heard a faint sizzling sound as Alador retracted his – now burned – hand away.

“Dammit, Odalia! What the Titan was that for?” He cried, rubbing his hand.

“That was for earlier dear.” She sneered. “Now run back downstairs and finish up that abomaton prototype you’ve been obsessed with for the past week!”

“Wait? Was that the only reason why you-“

“Honey, do you want to try that little demonstration we just did again? Or, do you just want to run back to your little project, hm? The decision is ultimately yours.” She hummed.

Alador grimaced and sighed, choosing to quickly stumble out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Odalia turned back to Blue. “ Now that he is out of the way, let’s just cut to the chase.”

She pointed to the rock. “I just need you to hand me this rock from the pedestal here, that’s all.”

Blue frowned. “That’s…..it? Nothing else? Like, no catch at all?”

“Nope.” She responded, popping the p. “I did some reading on the hex, it shouldn’t affect anyone outside of the family, so if you just take the rock off the pedestal here, it’ll remove the hex and solve all of our problems.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” Blue asked.

She shrugged. “Then we’ll cover the medical bills.”

Blue looked back to the rock. He sighed and relented, walking over to the pedestal.

When he got to the pedestal, he sighed and looked back to Odalia, who only gave him a steely look in return.

Blue hesitated before slowly reaching his hand out towards the rock, his mind racing the entire time.

This is REALLY a bad idea! I mean this lady giving off all sorts of red flags, hell, this lady’s EXISTENCE is a red flag! We should probably just back out of this while we still can. One more reasonable part of his mind said.

But then again, what other choice DO we have? Another part of his mind argued.

I dunno! But I’m pretty sure it’s not THIS!

Look, all we need to do is just grab this stupid rock, stay the night, and leave, all the while we keep this facade going. If it turns out she’s bluffing and wants to murder us or something, we HAVE the upper hand here: not only in combat experience but also with the gun we got stored away in our pocket here-

Yeah, that’s the issue. The reasonable part of his mind began. We HAVE the upper hand in any normal scenario. But nothing about THIS is normal! We are in new territory here, and we don’t know jack shit! What if guns are completely useless here or something? Like I mentioned before, we should just back out now- oh son of a bitch our hand is right near the force field.

Blue watched as his hand passed harmlessly through the force-field surrounding the rock. He gripped the rock and quickly pulled it out from the pedestal, the blue hue surrounding the area where the rock once was now dissipating into thin air.

Blue held the rock to Odalia, who looked at him with shock painted on her face. “Uh….. so what now?”

Odalia only stared at him in surprise. “I……. I didn’t think that would actually work.” She whispered to herself.

Blue awkwardly smiled. “Yeah, if I’m being perfectly honest, I didn’t really think it’d work too-“

“It worked. It actually worked! Wait a minute, the hex on that rock. You goo that would mean…….”

A look of realization crossed her face. “Oh my Titan I was right. I- I was right! I knew it!” She said, silently laughing to herself. “I knew it! Alador thought I was going crazy, but I knew something was off about you!”

Blue’s stomach dropped. “P-pardon? What are you talking about?” He nervously chuckled.

“Oh don’t worry about that dear.” Odalia menacingly said, twirling her finger into a spell circle.

Blue heard the sound of wood scrapping. He whipped his head around and saw one of the shelves in the room glow a bright magenta and shift in front of the door, blocking the only exit out of the room.

Blue turned his head back and froze, immediately noticing that Odalia was standing right in from of him, wielding a dagger that was pointed right at his throat.

“Now all you need to do right now is explain yourself, human.”

[EARLIER]

Odalia Blight was walking down the hall of the manor, huffing to herself in frustration while she looked at her scroll, a purple-framed device with similar functionality to a smartphone. One of their main business partners, a well-known drafter in Latissa who was supposed to draw up some blueprints for some new items in the Blight Industries catalog so they could begin production, had just backed out of their arranged agreement over a hurried scroll text.

And all because of a rather trivial death in the family.

She was thinking of some very specific words that she could use in her drafted response to the text when she passed the doorway which led into Alador’s laboratory when she heard talking coming from the room.

Out of curiosity, she wandered downstairs into the basement. Stepping into the room, she noticed Alador hunched over in front of his desk, talking into an intercom that was connected to a recycled crystal ball, an image that she couldn’t make out displayed on the screen.

 “Oh no. This message isn’t prerecorded, it’s live. I can hear, as well as see, you right now.” He said into the microphone, a ghost of a smile growing on his face.

He noticed Odalia behind him. “Oh, hello dear. I finally got the opportunity to test out that new security intercom we’ve been developing in the lab. Some random guy just showed up at our doorstep. You can see him here, he’s as pale as a ghost right now!” He chuckled to himself.

Odalia walked to stand beside her husban- business partner, and looked into the swirling image in the ball.

Displayed was a clear image of their front lawn. Standing on the steps of their home was a rather unkept man, who was wearing boots, a pair of baggy grey pants, and a blue shirt. The man himself had a head of untamed brown hair and shockingly bright green eyes, which stared directly into the camera.

Odalia sighed. “Damn pests. Dear, I’m pretty sure that’s just another homeless deviant. Let’s just incinerate them and move on with our day-“

The man suddenly spoke. “Oh! Well, I am quite sorry for the intrusion but I am, uh….. I happen to be quite new to the area, and I happened to get a bit lost. Do you mind pointing me to the nearest town or settlement?” He asked.

Alador shrugged and was about to respond before Odalia quickly stopped him.

“Hold on! I think something is off here.”

“W-what do you mean? It’s just a random guy asking for directions. The quicker we answer him, the quicker he leaves, and the quicker we can get on with our lives!” He pointed out.

Odalia ignored Alador’s protests and stared at the image on the screen.

Something was off about the image. She just didn’t know what.

The area surrounding the man’s ears and eyes seemed distorted. Not in the sense that it was contorted or twisted in an unnatural way. But in the sense that it just wasn’t supposed to be there. Like it wasn’t real. Like it was……

Like it was an illusion.

Odalia wasn’t skilled at illusions in any capacity -she was an active member of the oracle coven after all- but she knew what an illusion looked like. She learned this skill mostly from necessity; out of her three children, two of them were skilled illusionists, and pranksters as well. Knowing what an illusion looked like was the difference between going to a meeting spick and spam, and going to a meeting with a “Hex Me” sign taped onto your back.

So it had to be an illusion.

It was either that, or Alador really needed to replace the camera in the new security system.

Either way, she was wary of the stranger at their front door. She assumed it either had to be a witch or alternatively some type of demon masquerading as a witch.

But then again, why would they only use the illusion to only disguise their eyes and ears? If it was a demon, then it would be necessary to disguise the entire body, rather than exclusively just some parts of the face. And if it was a witch, well, an illusion would just be completely redundant, so that possibility would be out as well.

So why the illusion?

Unless……

An idea popped into her mind. One that was absolutely ridiculous, but it was the only other possibility that hasn’t been explained away by basic common sense.

The stranger on their doorstep was a human.

Granted it was quite the jump in logic; everyone knew that humans can’t do magic, of course!

But it was the only logical explanation she had. And if this was truly a human that can perform magic just like any other witch, they might’ve had an opportunity here.

She smiled “I think I might have an idea of what to do with this stranger here-”

“What?”

“Alador, do we still have the Rock of Ages in our collection?”

“Uh, I believe we do. But what does that have to do with anything-“

“I know it has nothing to do with this, but just hear me out, dear.” She began. “I have a plan I just need you to help me pull it off, do you understand?”

“Yes?”

“Ok all I need you to do is just…….. follow my lead.” She said. She leaned into Alador’s shoulder and whispered some instructions into his ear. His face changed from shock to confusion quickly.

“Wait…. So you want me to do what?” He sputtered.

“Look, just do it, honey.” Odalia sighed.

“And….. you’re certain that he’s –“

“Very. Very certain.” She quickly answered.

“Well, if you say so.” He relented. He leaned into and spoke into the microphone. “Very well. Follow me- I mean the abomination here, and we’ll give you the directions you need, in exchange for something of course.”

The man on the screen shifted uncomfortably. “U- Uh, actually. I think I might head somewhere else. I do apologize, Mr.Blight, I assume?”

Odalia quickly grabbed the microphone and turned it towards herself, much to Alador’s surprise.

“Wait, what are you-“

“Negotiating, dear. Negotiating.” Odalia answered, turning on the microphone. “Oh, you don’t need to worry! Just head on inside and we’ll give you what you need. We might even give you a nice, cozy room for you to stay in for the night, after all, you do look quite tired. All you need to do is just do one little thing for us!”

“And don’t worry!” She quickly added, a smirk rapidly spreading on her face. “A Blight always upholds their end of the deal.”

[PRESENT]

Blue stepped back away from the dagger in surprise.

“W-what the hell are you talking about?!” He cried.

“Oh nothing much, dear.” She sneered at him. “It’s just that may or may not have lied about that little hex surrounding the rock, that’s all.”

Blue felt the blood drain from his face. “What.”

“Oh yes, that hex is designed to block out all witches and other folk across the Boiling Isles. Not just members of the Blight family. However, it’s practically useless against-“

“Humans…….” Blue finished for her. “It’s useless against humans, isn’t it?”

Odalia smirked at him. “Ah, so you finally managed to figure it out. Now I’ll ask this one last time.” She jeered, pointing the knife at him. “Explain yourself.”

Blue smiled. Although he might’ve been rumbled, he can still have the upper hand here.

“No. I don’t think I will.” He smirked, pulling out the gun from his pocket and pointing it at her.

Her air of confidence quickly dropped upon noticing the weapon pointed at her. “Wait what is that thing?”

Blue ignored the question. “Look, I’m gonna be perfectly honest here, I’m quite impressed about how you tricked my sorry ass so easily. So yeah, I’m just gonna cut the crap and say it here: yes, I’m a human. And a pissed-off one at that as well. But I don’t mean any harm here-“

“You’re pointing a weapon at me!” Odalia argued.

“Yeah! Because you pulled a knife on me!” Blue quickly shot back. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “But look, despite our differences here, all I want is directions, that’s all. So how about you put down the knife, I’ll put away the gun, you tell me the directions I need, and we can both go on with our lives, nice and happy, alright?” Blue negotiated.

Odalia seemed to consider the proposition for a few moments before smiling at him.

“Hm….. or we can do it my way.” She snarked at him, creating another spell circle with her finger.

Before Blue had the chance to react, he saw the gun glow a bright magenta and fly out of his hand, right into Odalia’s outstretched hand. She took a moment to inspect the weapon.

“So this is what you humans consider a weapon. Huh, how cute. But let’s see what it can do.” She smirked. She pointed the weapon at Blue and pointed the trigger.

Blue wasn’t a religious person by any means necessary, but he wanted to thank whatever God there was out there for the fact that this crazy bitch had no idea about how to use, or even hold a gun properly.

The weapon’s sudden recoil caused Odalia to drop the gun, to which it landed on its side. However, Blue felt a stabbing pain in his right leg. He looked down and saw that the bullet had managed to graze the side of his thigh, blood leaking out from the wound.

While Odalia recoiled her temporary shock, Blue leaned down to the ground and quickly cast a healing spell over the wound. While the wound might need more care later, the spell would work for now.

Odalia bent down and picked up the gun. “That- That was…… That was amazing. Oh, I know our investors will love something like this!” She cheered to herself. She looked back to Blue. “Oh, and apologies for your injuries, but at least we can consider ourselves even now, eh?”

Blue stood up and groaned in pain, clutching his leg. “What….. what the hell do you want?”

Odalia’s brow quirked. “Cutting straight to the chase now, are we? Well, you humans happen to be quite adept with creating all sorts of machinery. At least that we know of at least-“

“Wait, how do you-“

“Oh don’t worry about that! I have my sources of information. The point is, even without magic, you folk have done quite well for yourselves. Especially when it comes to weapons. I’m honestly quite surprised about all of the various creative ways you can maim and kill each other!”

She chuckled. “And well, here at Blight Industries, we want -well how do I put it? – a source of inspiration for our new product line!”

She looked back at the gun. “With some tweaks, this particular weapon will sell wonderfully!” She grinned and placed the gun to the side, Blue watching as the weapon disappeared into thin air.

“W-Well, you got your inspiration.” Blue snapped. “Now will you let me go already?!”

Odalia scoffed at him. “Oh not yet. There’s just one more little thing I want to know.”

Blue staggered a step back. “What.” He hissed at her.

She smiled. “Well, everyone knows that humans can’t perform magic naturally, so you’re quite the oddity! So all I want to do is figure out how you work.” She scowled, pointing her dagger back at him.

“You can just cut open a human safely, yes?”

Blue would’ve laughed at the pure ridiculousness of the question under different circumstances. But all he could manage was one singular response at a time.

“What the fu- NO!”

“Hm, well that’s a shame. But hey, it’s no loss right?” She said. She spun a lavender-colored spell circle and began walking to Blue, cornering him in the back of the room, near the window. “Now just relax and let the sleeping spell here do its work. And Caleb, if that’s even your name, it’s been a pleasure having you.”

Blue backed into one of the shelves, desperately trying to piece together a plan before the woman got too close. He had to think of something quickly before she got close enough.

Then he remembered the rock he was still holding in his hand. And a plan, a stupid plan at that, formed in his mind.

“Wait a minute, what about the rock?” He sputtered out.

“What about it?” Odalia asked, stopping in her tracks.

“Did you…… essentially just make up an entire backstory for a stupid rock, just to get me to expose myself as a human?” Blue asked.

“What, no! That would just be ludicrous!”

“Wait, so this rock is an actual family heirloom?”

“Yes, of course, it is!” Odalia shouted back at him.

“Perfect.” He muttered. There was one part of the plan taken care of.

Now for the second part.

Blue quickly spun his own spell circle, a circular blade of light formulating in his hand. He remembered it as a neat trick he discovered back in the early days of the TITAN program: a spell that contorted air molecules into a circular shape so rapidly that they could through nearly anything.

Rock included.

He held the saw up to the rock, and smirked at Odalia. “Alright, not a step closer ok? Follow my instructions, and everything is gonna go well for everyone.” He instructed her.

“Wait are you- are you threatening me?”

“No, I’m threatening the rock.”

Odalia quickly managed to piece together what was going on. “Are you- Are you trying to use my own vainness against me?” She chuckled, albeit with a slight twinge of nervousness in her voice. “Well, that isn’t going to work because I know you don’t have the gall to try that nonsense-“

On cue, Blue quickly brought the saw up the rock, the sudden sound of grinding filling the air of the room. Odalia quickly paled and doubled back on her previous statement. “WAIT! Alright, I- I’ll work with you here.” She relented.

Blue smiled, knowing that his plan was going in place. “Perfect! Now all I need you to do is- CATCH!” He cried, throwing the rock at Odalia, which surely must’ve caught her off guard.

Then he turned to the next part of his plan: the window across the room.

His plan was quite simple, really: he knew Odalia was quite the vain woman, so a quick distraction with a family heirloom would buy him enough time to jump out the window. He was pretty sure that they were still on the first floor of the manor, so while the jump would still be rather painful, it would be manageable.

And so he rushed to the other end of the room and lept out of the window, the glass shattering as his body made the impact against the glass.

Or in clinical terms: Blue defenestrated himself.

Granted, it wasn’t the first time he had to jump out of a window to get himself out of a sticky situation.

The good news though: he wasn’t going to get hurt. This wasn’t his first rodeo, after all, he knew how to jump out a window without banging himself up too badly. And he can proudly say that he does a damn good job doing it as well.

The bad news?

While being led around the house by the Blights, he must’ve gone up to the manor’s second floor, because much to Blue’s sudden realization, he’d just jumped out of the second-story window, a long drop quickly awaiting him as he fell down.

He must’ve uttered nearly every curse word available in the English language, and the Spanish language as well, as he fell from the window, and right into a thick patch of bushes.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Hey mittens, whaddya think? Do you think the teacher will let us keep these adorable little fellas?”

Amity Blight, the youngest sibling of the Blight family sighed to herself in annoyance. Her older brother, Edric, had been rambling on about a recent assignment they had been given from their Advanced Palisman Care teacher: care for a model Palisman that simulated the basic needs of an actual Palisman for a week. If you returned it in good condition, you’ll get a passing grade.

It was a rather simple assignment, really. Amity had already planned out the next week in advance; a variety of different factors, such as feeding times, training, and some other……. rather trivial activities such as reading to the little fella planned out.

She looked to the model Palisman adorning her staff: A black cat, naturally. She had always been quite fond of cats. She never knew why. Maybe it was their natural secluded nature. Or maybe it was-

“Mittens! Hello! Are you even listening?” She heard her older sister, Emira, cry from next to her.

Oh right, the twins were still there.

For the entirety of the walk from Hexside to their home, the pair had been wording off about all of the activities that they had planned for their model Palismen; a creature that was a cross between a cyclops and a bat for Ed, and a small dove with a halo above it’s head for Em.

As they turned the corner of the path, their home coming into view in the distance, she answered her older brother’s question from earlier.

“I highly doubt it, Ed. I overheard some teachers talking about the costs of these things, and I didn’t get an exact number, but it sounded like a pretty penny.”

Ed sighed in disappointment. “Damn, I was starting to get attached to this little fella too. Named him Ed. Jr and everything-“

Em groaned. “Oh for the love of Titan- Ed, the one thing the teacher explicitly said was to not get attached to the models!”

“Well, how was I not supposed to get attached to such a cute Lil fella like this!” He argued, scratching the chin of the model, which gave a robotic cooing in response.

Amity sighed and tried to ignore her sibling’s bickering as they approached the front steps of their home. The normal peaceful tranquility of the manor was broken by the sounds of shouting coming from one of the rooms on the second floor.

Em sighed. “Damn, looks like some poor witch is getting chewed out by mom.” She said. “Probably just a business deal that fell through or something.” She assumed, referring to their mother, Odalia.

Amity didn’t quite think so, she knew the difference between her mother’s attitude when a business deal fell through, and when she was just plain mad.

Judging by the screaming, it was neither. It sounded like she was…… like she was happy about something.

“Hey Am’s, you coming in or what?” She heard Edric call out to her. She noticed that she was just standing in front of the stairway to the house, while her twins had just walked ahead to the front door.

“Hold on a minute!” She answered. “I think somethings off here.”

“Like what?” Em answered. “It’s obvious Mom’s just in a business argument. Everythings fine! Or are you finally cracking from all the school work you’re doing-“ She jeered, but was cut off by a shush from Amity.

Em protested. “Hey hold on a sec, you can’t just-“

“Hold on,” Amity said, holding up her finger. “I- it stopped.”

“What stopped?”

“The shouting from upstairs.” She answered. Indeed, where there was once the muffled sounds of shouting was just silence. A calm, peaceful silence.

A sudden crashing sound broke the silence. Amity watched in shock as a person fell down from one of the windows on the second floor shouting some odd words all the while.

“MIERDA, MIERDA! HIJO DE PUTA, FUCKING SHIT, DAMNIT-“ His shouting was cut off as he fell right into a Thornberry bush that was kept in the front of the home.

“Holy Titan! Is he dead?” Ed cried out in shock

His twin sister sighed. “Dangit Em! Now’s not the time for joking-“

“He jumped out from a two-story window!” He pointed out. “I’m pretty sure nobody can survive that!”

The sudden sounds of groaning coming from inside the bush quickly proved him wrong.

“Oh, my titan,” Ed muttered. “That guy is still alive. Wait, he’s still alive!” He rushed down the stairs and jumped into the thorn bush.

After a few moments of Ed cursing from being pricked by the bush’s thorns, he pulled out a man from the bush.

The man looked considerably banged up. There were shards of glass littered all over his clothing, some jagged right into his flesh. There was also a large gash on the side of his right thigh, which stained the grey pants he was wearing a dark red.

Em rushed to the side of the man and waved a hand across his face.

“Hey, hey! Hello? Can you see me? How many fingers am I holding up-“

“Wait Em! What are you doing?” Amity cried in confusion.

“What does it look like? I’m trying to help this guy!” She shot back.

“Yeah but, we don’t know if he’s dangerous or not-“

“Amity, he got shoved out a window! I’m pretty sure that doesn’t constitute as dangerous-“

“A-Actually, I jumped out the window.” The man corrected, opening his bright green eyes and looking directly at Em. He tried to roll over to his side but Em stopped him.

“Hold on! I really wouldn’t do that, esspecially as you’re injured-“

“I’m fine, kid.” The man argued.

“B-but you’re bleeding!” She argued back. “Besides I’m pretty sure you could’ve broken a bone or two from the fall-“

“Kid, I’m fine. I’ve been through worse, trust me. Besides-“ He got onto his knees and rubbed his face. “I know what a broken bone feels like.”

He noticed Ed standing nearby, still holding the model Palisman. He pointed to him. “You, give me that stick- er, staff thingy.” He ordered him.

“Wait w-what! I can’t just-“  He was cut off as the man snatched the staff from his hand and used it to get up.

“Jesus, fuck, my back-“ He muttered. He looked back to Ed “Sorry about taking your staff- wait what the hell?” He mumbled, noticing the Palisman atop. Before Ed could stop him, he snapped off the Palisman from the staff and tossed it over to him.

“Again, sorry about that kid, but I gotta get out of here- dammit my back!” He cried, stumbling while clutching the staff.

“W-Wait, you have a lot of explaining to do!” Em yelled at him. “For example, why in the titan did you jump from a second-story window!”

“And what the heck happened in that room?” Ed added.

The man paled. “T-that’s not important. As for the window, I thought I was still on the first floor. As you can very obviously tell, I was wrong.” He chuckled.

His face grew stern. “Now, listen to this very carefully here. Where is the nearest town to here, I need directions, and fast.”

Ed stuttered. “I-its Bonesborough. Just follow that path over there and take a left at the fork.” He directed him.

The man nodded. “Thanks, kid. Now if anyone asks, I wasn’t here.” He said, turning and limping away rather quickly for an injured person away from the home, turning onto the path.

Suddenly they heard the front door slam open. The three of them swung their heads back and saw Odalia standing in the doorway, a furious look on her face.

“Where is he?” She fumed, standing menacingly in the doorway.

“Uhh, where is who?” The twins replied simultaneously

Amity rolled her eyes. “He went down the path. Ed and Em helped him out.” She said, ignoring the look of betrayal and anger in her sibling’s eyes.

Odalia took a deep breath. “Edric, Emira. Go to your rooms.” She said in a dangerously calm voice.

They protested. “Wait but mom-“

“Now.” She said, and the twins reluctantly obeyed, walking into the house.

Odalia turned her gaze to Amity.

“Now thank you Mittens for your honestly, I really do appreciate it.” She said with a faint smile on her face.

“You’re welcome mother, but what exactly happened?” Amity asked.

Her mother looked surprised for a moment before answering her. “Oh, it’s nothing of your concern dear.” She began leading Amity back into the manor. “But I am happy you told the truth, even if it did mean telling on your own siblings.” She said. Amity tried to ignore the slight twinge of guilt when she heard that.

“But don’t worry about that, Mittens.” Her mother quickly added, suddenly feeling her mother’s hand on her shoulder. “I know you’ll have a good future, and you’ll make the Blight family name proud. Just as long as you don’t deviate from your path, yes?”

“Yes, mother.” She responded.

She felt her mother pat her on the head. “Good! This is why you are my favorite, after all!” She praised her.

Amity smiled, letting herself get embraced by her mother’s praise. But all the while she felt like something was just missing from it.

But she didn’t know what.

Chapter Text

Blue felt like an utter and profound idiot. There, he finally admitted it. He was an idiot. Granted, at the time he thought knocking on the door of a lavish mansion in the middle of the woods to get some directions so he can at least gain some bearings on where the fuck he was and find some feasible place to spend the night that wasn’t in the middle of the woods with potentially murderous megafauna was an, albeit risky, idea.

But a good idea? God no.

And unfortunately, he forgot to take a few, very minuscule yet important factors into account. Such as the fact that one of the homeowners was -and Blue was putting this in the lightest and most polite way he could - a psychopathic bitch.

Or maybe it was the fact that he was so distracted from talking with the Blights that somehow he didn’t even notice that he climbed up to the second floor of their home, at least not until he jumped out of the window to escape the previously mentioned psychopathic bitch.

At least that woman’s…… personality wasn’t hereditary. Or it seemed it wasn’t; the two twins, an older boy and girl that he recognized from the painting, seemed nice enough. Well, after meeting Odalia Blight, he was pretty sure anybody would fit the bill of being nicer than that woman.

But at least he got what he came there for: directions.

Blue staggered across the path away from the house. He tried to focus on breathing; one breath in, one breath out, he thought in his mind. It was a neat technique he learned very quickly in his early days in the Army as an effective way not to stop the pain, but to simply ignore it. To pretend that it wasn’t there.

And Blue was trying his damn hardest to ignore the pain erupting from his side, his leg, and all over his damn body. He clutched onto his side as another wave of agony spread from his leg as he walked.

Breathe in, breathe out.

He needed to get as far away from that damned house as possible. Although he didn’t know for certain, he had a small, itsy-bitsy feeling that Odalia Blight wouldn’t take too kindly to losing her prize.

That and the broken window. The broken window didn’t really help things either.

Blue continued to rush down the path. He shielded his eyes from the bright summer light that peaked through the trees, which would be a lovely sight any other day. But today it was just a nuisance. A nuisance that only slowed him down and cost him valuable time.

Just a little farther. Blue thought. Just a little bit farther and I can make it to town, find some random place to spend the night, and patch myself up.

And send a message back to control. Blue added, resisting the urge to slap himself in the face for ignoring a pivotal detail. I haven’t gotten back to them yet. I should just give ‘em a quick update about how things are going.

As well as ask about what the hell is going on.

Blue was just confused at this point. Although the last few hours have kept him rather distracted, he knew that the mission should’ve been wrapped up by now. He should’ve been back home by now, lounging away in quarantine reading a book or something. Maybe even chatting about obscure horror movies with Sam on the pho-

Oh dear lord. Sam.

They had to be worried sick by now, right? It has been a few hours since he has gotten that faithful message from control, and he didn’t even bother to report back at the time, choosing to rather selfishly focus on his own wellbeing.

Blue felt a sudden jolt of pain in his leg, even worse than it was before. He shifted his hand down from his side to clutch onto his thigh, only to realize that it felt oddly wet. A quick glance at his leg quickly confirmed his first assumption; he was bleeding out from the wound he sustained earlier when that little- when the Blight shot him with his own gun.

The healing spell that he applied to his leg earlier wasn’t exactly that great. In the simplest terms imaginable, it was essentially the magical equivalent of applying a band-aid to a gunshot wound; it barely helps, but it’s better than nothing. Blue used that specific spell since he was rather pressed for time, assuming that he could focus on giving the proper care later.

However, stumbling for what had to be at least a mile down a dirt path didn’t necessarily do any wonders for the wound to heal. Jumping out the window didn’t really help either to say the least.

Blue turned around and saw that the only thing he could see in the distance was just the dirt path and the surrounding woods that came with it.

All right, maybe he was far enough away from the manor. Just enough distance for him to make a quick pit stop to patch himself up, send a quick message back to control, and maybe have a bite to eat.

Blue felt his stomach rumble.

Okay. A bite to eat as well he supposed. He noticed a tree that had grown near the edge of the path and decided it would be a good place to rest for a bit. He staggered over to the tree, and without any hesitation, collapsed onto it in exhaustion. Blue heaved a massive sigh, finally able to take a few moments to just breathe.

But then he went straight back to work.

He reached into his pocket dimension and pulled his bag out from it. He opened the bag and began to fumble through it, trying to find something he can use to fix himself up. After checking through the first two pockets in the bag, ignoring the air quality device and the useless compass, he finally found what he was looking for.

Blue procured a first aid kit from the bag and opened it. To his surprise, he found that the kit was well stocked, with a variety of medical items and even a full box of AMTs.

Wait a minute.

Blue remembered back to the operation in Juarez a few days back. According to Elena, to even have a few vials of the stuff she had to fill out an endless amount of paperwork to get the proper authorization from the higher-ups, as well as wait over a month on a mandatory waitlist. And even then, she was explicitly told not to use the AMTs unless it was explicitly an emergency.

Even though Blue was quite sure that bleeding out in the back of the van technically qualified as an emergency, the higher-ups didn’t exactly see it that way. According to the text messages he received from Elena within the last few days, she got a pretty bad earful from some of the lower-level administration in site 374, however, she got off scot-free thanks to a good word put in from Hayes.

But Blue was ignoring the point he was trying to get at: AMTs are generally a pain in the ass to get. If it takes a field captain a few months of paperwork and occupying a space on a waitlist to just get two of the damn things, then how the hell was Whitman able to acquire a whole box for what was supposed to be a quick fifteen-minute operation?

Granted, Whitman was the director of DTAC. Blue wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to pull some strings with his higher-ups to get access to some AMTs for the operation. But a whole box for a single operation really must’ve been a pain in the ass to pull off.

Even for Whitman.

Nonetheless, Blue decided to leave his concerns alone, preferring to focus on the wound on his leg.

Blue chose to save the AMTs for any future incidents. Instead, he grabbed a bottle of water and a small tube of petroleum jelly. He opened the bottle with his teeth and dumped its contents on the wound. He then carefully applied a thin layer of the jelly over the wound, hissing through his teeth as he accidentally prodded the more sensitive parts of the wound.

BREATHE IN. BREATHE OUT.

After that whole ordeal, he took a small breath and made a quick glance back at his bag. He produced a roll of gauze and began the process of wrapping it around his leg, making sure that it thoroughly covered the wound. He tossed the gauze aside and dug through the kit again, this time getting a packer bottle of pain medication. He opened the bottle with his teeth, downing two pills.

He closed the kit and shoved it back in the bag, swapping it for the MDCD and a granola bar from his allocated rations.

As he took a bite from the heavily processed cement that the idiots in the resources department called food, he opened the MDCD and turned it on. As he went to scratch his head, his hand brushed his ear and he noticed something. He felt his ear, noticing that it was no longer pointy like before, but instead back to a normal rounded shape. The illusion spell must’ve faded sometime after he left the manor. But no matter, he’ll probably recast it before he heads into town.

When the familiar blue light hit his eyes, he began to navigate through the device to compose a new message:

{PORTABLE MDCD} – PIONEER ONE

Signal Strength – MODERATE

BATTERY CHARGE – 80%

-----------------------------------------------

• INBOX
• NEW MESSAGE
• PREVIOUS MESSAGE LOGS

He pressed the IBOX tab on the device, and a new screen popped up:

MultiDimensional Communications Device

Signal Strength – MODERATE

-----------------------------------

MESSAGE ASSIGNED TO – <CONTROL>

CURRENT ESTIMATED DELIVERY TIME – 0 DAYS, 0 HOURS, 0 MINUTES, 0 SECONDS

ASSIGNED MESSAGE ( 0 / 280 Characters Used)

{ENTER MESSAGE HERE}

“Huh, I thought it’d be more complicated,” Blue spoke. All right, the device’s layout was fairly simple. Although the potential of having a message take days to be sent back was slightly disheartening, he assumed that since the signal strength was somewhat workable it wouldn’t take that long, right?

Right?

 Blue shook his head. Now was not the time for overcomplicating things. Now was the time to write.

He sat beneath the tree, typing away at the device. He kept on stumbling on his words, the keypad being too clunky for his sausage fingers to properly work with.

That and the fact that he didn’t really know what to write.

He spent about five or so minutes working away. He kept on deleting word after word, and then sentence after sentence as he bumbled through writing the message. It didn’t help that he kept on getting distracted by every sound that echoed through the woods, convinced that it was something trying to kill him.

Eventually, he managed to compose a message:

ASSIGNED MESSAGE ( 72 / 280 Characters Used)

{ I AM SAFE, BUT INJURED. LOOKING FOR A POWER SOURCE FOR MDCD, AS WELL AS A POTENTIAL SHELTER FOR NIGHT.

TELL SAM I SAID HI :)

AWAITING NEW ORDERS}

Blue admired his handiwork. The message conveyed everything perfectly!

. . . . . . . . . . .

Well, maybe not that perfectly. Although in a technical sense, he was safe, he still needed to find a better shelter for the night.

Also, the fact that the Blights probably wanted his skin for breaking their window as well.

But besides that, he was somewhat safe.

He also decided to omit the whole fiasco with the Blights from the message as well. Not only because of the fact that he broke protocol by even interacting with them in the first place, but also because he potentially introduced them, along with the rest of this world to guns, before being shot by one by a person who has never used one before.

Blue wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing: getting shot and injured by a person who has never used a gun before in their life, or getting shot by his own damn gun.

Actually, he did: Both. It was both.

Blue will just leave this out of the message to control, esspecially since he doesn’t have much room in the message left. Along with the final report he’ll have to inevitably file when he gets back.

Nobody else needs to know about his monumental fuckup.

Blue shakingly stood up, his leg aching in protest. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain, and got ready to send the message. He pressed the send button on the device’s keypad:

CONFIRM MESSAGE SEND?

EST TIME OF DELIVERY – 1 HOUR

EST BATTERY LIFE AFTER MESSAGE DELIVERY – 64.7%

• PRESS ‘SEND’ TO CONFIRM

Perfect. All he needed to do now was send the message and hit the road. By Blue’s rough estimates, he had at least a few hours to make his way down to Bonesborough. He should be able to make it before nightfall.

Hopefully.

Blue’s finger hovered over the send button. But right as he was about to send the message he heard rustling coming from the woodlands behind him. A simple ‘CRACK’ of a broken branch, then silence. He thought nothing of it at first. He was in the middle of the woods after all; it was probably just a deer (or this realm’s equivalent) or something.

But then he heard it again. This time, a little closer. Then again. And again. Each time rustling in the bush getting closer and closer, encircling him.

He froze, the sudden realization hitting him.

He was being hunted.

Blue slowly deposited the MDCD back into the bag and stowed it away in his pocket dimension. He stayed still, not moving a single muscle in his body. His eyes were rapidly darting around the area, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

Blue blinked for a few moments.

“Huh, that was anticlima-“

THWOOP

Blue felt something rush by his head and hit the tree behind him. He spun his head back. There, lodged into the tree, was a dart. Not one of the cheap playing darts can be found in the local bar. No, this was a long, thin rod, with a razor sharp tip embedded right into the tree. Just a few inches and it would’ve hit him straight in the head.

Only it wasn’t made out of steel, or even wood for that matter. The dart was made out of a familiar purple sludge that had been molded into a dart. And branded on the tail of the dart was a familiar name:

{BLIGHT INDUSTRIES}

“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me.”

THWOOP

Blue heard the sound again before he felt a stabbing pain in his shoulder. One quick glance at his arm revealed the cause; another one of the darts was embedded in his shoulder. He barely had time to react as he felt his entire arm become numb. He tried moving it but to no avail.

His arm was paralyzed.

Blue tried to control his breathing. He couldn’t panic. Especially now.

He glanced over his bad shoulder to the canopy above, darting his eyes around like a madman trying to find whatever was hunting him. His gaze settled on one of the trees, where he saw it.

Nestled in the treeline was an abomination. It looked just like the ones he saw back in the manor. However, unlike the bulky, towering creature that escorted him throughout the home, this abomination was different. It was considerably thinner, frail even, with its ribcage (do these things even have bones?) visible through its chest.

It was crouched on a tree branch, its arm morphed into a long blow pipe, aiming its next shot directly at Blue before it froze, realizing it had an audience.

The abomination tilted its head in a childlike curiosity, its red eyes staring at Blue. The blowpipe on its arm morphed back into a bony arm, and it continued to stare him down.

“Uh…… hello?” Blue stuttered.

The creature only blinked in response, before its body liquified, and pour down the side of the tree, sliding onto the ground below, and reforming back into a humanoid shape as it slowly began to approach him, one of its arms morphed into a scythe.

Because of course, it could do that.

Blue barely had time to leap to the side as the abomination made its first swipe at him. By the time he managed to stagger himself back up on his feet, the creature was charging at him yet again. Blue ducked to avoid another swipe, and he quickly summoned a spell circle to create a shield in front of him.

Its next attack bounced harmlessly off his shield, which bought him enough time for his next move.

Blue created another spell circle with his good hand. Suddenly, vines sprouted out from the ground around the creature and began to wrap around it. Blue grunted in concentration as he made the vines wrap tighter and tighter around the abomination.

“Come on. Come on!” He muttered. Within a couple of moments, the abomination was tightly wrapped with the vines, a large tangle of vines entrapping the creature.

Blue sighed. “Well that was eas-“

The vines exploded as the abomination tore through them with its blades. It stepped out of the ruins of his labor and stared back at him. Although most of the abominations that Blue met usually had no discernable facial expressions besides what he could best describe as pure melancholy, this one had one that he could piece together.

Rage. Pure, unfiltered rage.

“Ah, fuck.”

Blue had two options here: stand his ground and fight his way out of this.

Or run like an absolute coward.

The abomination charged forward, and Blue immediately made up his mind.

Run, he was going to run.

Blue turned on his tail and dashed in the opposite direction. He resisted the growing urge to look behind him, only focusing on running as fast as possible.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The wound on his leg definitely has reopened by now. If it wasn’t evident by the constant stabbing ache in his leg every time he took a step, it was certainly evident by the warm sensation of blood trailing down his leg.

Blue wasn’t even sure if the abomination was still chasing him. There was no sound behind him, not even the sound of footsteps or a branch cracking.

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and whirled his head back. The abomination was still standing in the same spot it was before. It tilted its head at him as if it were taunting him.

“Oh for the love of- What do you want you little shit!” Blue shouted. “You want me right? Then c’mon! Hit me! I CAN TAKE IT! HIT ME!”

Blue could’ve sworn he saw the thing shrug before it extended its arm into a long, curling tendril which crawled toward him. He didn’t really know what exactly the abomination was going for before it lifted the tendril up in the air and swung it back like it was preparing to hit something-

Oh.

Oh.

That’s what it was going for.

“Son of a-.”

The tendril rushed forward and slammed into Blue, hurling him into the surrounding forest.

And then everything went black.

----------

Blue could only remember one thing; falling.

Despite being on the verge of unconsciousness, he could feel everything as he tumbled down the hill beside the path. The wind rushing by him, branches and rocks tearing apart his (already ruined) shirt, and the hard, painful thud as he spilled into the ground below.

Blue laid on the ground for a few moments, regretting every single stupid decision and justification he made that led up to this point.

But to be fair, he did tell the thing to hit him.

Blue struggled to open his eyes as he struggled to sit up. He was now in a completely different place, which would probably complicate his journey over to Bonesborough.

He was in the middle of a forest clearing, only this time he heard the sounds of waves crashing nearby. He turned his head and saw that he was right near a large, steep cliff, the ocean expanding over the horizon.

But Blue wasn’t focusing on that – admittedly beautiful – sight.

He was focusing on the house that was situated right next to the cliff.

The home looked like one of those old fantasy-style homes he would see in old medieval TV shows. The sun shone off the home’s aged white brick walls that sat below a blue-sloping roof. To the left of the house was a large crumbling stone tower, with orange moss crawling up the side. Small stained glass windows darted the front of the house, but they were all dwarfed by a massive oculus window, the stained glass made the window appear like a giant eye staring right back at him.

Blue stood up and tried to brush himself off, moaning in pain. He coughed out a few leaves that got stuck in his mouth in the process. He noticed that the dart from earlier was still firmly lodged in his arm. He pulled out the dart from his arm and tossed it to the side, applying a quick healing spell over the open wound in his numb arm.

He looked back at the woods and considered his options. He was in the middle of God-knows-where, with the directions that almost got him killed now rendered completely useless. Although there was a path that led away from the house, he didn’t want to take the risk of getting lost again.

Also, there was a murderous abomination in the woods as well. That doesn’t really make things any better.

Blue shifted his glance back at the house.

Maybe he could just try again. But he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes twice.

Blue reached to his ankle and pulled up his pant leg, revealing a knife strapped to his ankle. He unbuckled the strap from his ankle and put it on his belt, right near his grasp.

Better safe than sorry.

He took a few steps towards the house, piecing together some cover story that he could use.

Maybe I can just rehash the same story as last time? Well, maybe not THE SAME story, seeing as that didn’t really turn out as well with those Blight fellas.

Well, I do know the name of the closest city now, so at least I got something to work with. Maybe just stick with, “Oh hello dear stranger, I happened to take a few wrong turns and I ended up here. Do you happen to know where Bonesborough is?”

Yeah, I think that’ll work. Might need to work on the formalities though.

Christ, there is a reason why we have people do this for us.

Blue was just approaching the front of the house by the time he made up his mind on a good cover story. He smirked upon a closer look at the wooden front door. Jutting out from the door was a doorknocker that looked just like an Owl’s head.

Blue was honestly quite impressed at the craftsmanship. He knew a few people who worked as carpenters, so he knew that making something that looks realistic from wood is quite difficult. Despite this, the knocker on the door looked exactly like an owl he would see in a city zoo back home, feathers and all.

In a way, it kind of made him homesick-

Wait, did the door knocker just….. blink?

And was it just him, or was it getting closer-

“Hello, hoot!”

Blue blinked as the door knocker suddenly zoomed right into his face. He took a few steps in shock and looked to the side of the supposed door knocker. What he could best describe as a neck, fluffed in light brown feathers was extending out from the door. Sort of like the body of a worm.

So not only was the door knocker sentient, but it could also extend its neck, body to an unknown degree. And it had a voice that could be equated to nails scraping against a chalkboard. And it was annoying as all hell.

Despite all this, he’d take the bird tube over Odalia any day.

However Blue was sure that this wasn’t the owner of the house. Maybe it was some type of security system that the folks around here have? It would make sense that something with a voice that annoying would deter would-be robbers.

But he needed the house’s owner, not its security system. And Blue was pretty sure this….. thing can tell him where he can find them.

All right, just be polite Blue.

“U-uh, hello!” Blue smiled.

“Wow, hoot. That’s the first time someone I just met didn’t immediately scream in sheer terror. Or resort to violence. Or vomit in disgust. Or-“

“Whoa, whoa, buddy you gotta slow down for me, alright?” Blue said. “Can you, uh, tell me if the person who lives here is at home? I just need to ask for directions-“

“Oh sorry little dude, but Eda left just a few minutes ago. So I guess it’s just you and little ole’ Hooty!”

Hooty. This thing’s name is Hooty. All right, just try to remain calm and NOT strangle the thing. Mostly because it has the information I need. Also because I can’t tell where its neck ends, and the body begins.

Blue feigned a smile. “And can you tell me when you expect her to come back?”

The bird worm thought for a few seconds. “Hmm…… can’t say. Maybe a few hours? But hey don’t worry!” Hooty responded, nuzzling against Blue’s face (and getting rather close for comfort). “Hooty’s gonna keep you company, HOOT!”

“That’s w-wonderful.” He muttered through gritted teeth. He gave the owl a weak smile and a thumbs up.

“Oh boy! We can have so much fun! We can talk for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and-“

Blue lost track of what the bird was saying at that point. He was just focused on breathing. In and out, in and out. Trying desperately not to panic.

For the last few hours, his mind was completely occupied with trying to survive. But now that he was…… well safe wasn’t exactly the best word to put it. Out of harm’s way? Whatever. Now that he didn’t have to worry about not getting killed, the reality of the situation finally hit him.

He was stuck.

Well, he couldn’t be stuck. Whitman had to have some type of contingency plan for this shit, right? Maybe it was just a simple power outage that caused the portal to break, and they were fixing it right now. And soon he can be back home, back to some sense of normalcy in this fucked up world.

He tightly closed his eyes. This was some fucked up dream right? Maybe he ate something funky the day prior, and it was now affecting his mind or something. Because this couldn’t be happening. This had to be a dream. He was just going to wake up, and go on with his day. The operation will go well, he’ll spend the next couple of days in quarantine and he can go on with his life.

This couldn’t be real. He wasn’t stuck in a demon realm.

And he certainly wasn’t stuck with a bird-tube creature named Hooty.

He opened his eyes and he saw Hooty was still in front of him, rambling about some random crap that he couldn’t care less about.

Ah fuck.

Well, there goes all hope of this being a dream.

“Hey, little guy? You there? You kinda just zoned out on me for a bit-“

“Huh?” Blue looked and saw that Hooty was staring concerningly at him.

Did the bird tube actually….. worry about him?

“O-oh, I’m fine. Just…… tired, that’s all.” He responded.

“That’s good! I thought you were having a panic attack or something. Hey, I remember a little trick I learned for controlling your anxiety is to simply breathe in and out and to count to ten. I’ll show you! Breathe in. One, two, three- Wait a second, I don’t have fingers- OH TITAN I DON’T HAVE HANDS! WHY MUST I LIVE IN SUCH MISERY, HOOT!”

Blue looked at the bird worm having an existential breakdown and sighed. “How can this day get any worse?” He muttered.

THWOOP, THWOOP

All of a sudden, Blue multiple sudden jolts of pain run across his arm and leg. A familiar sensation of paralysis spread across the affected areas, and Blue’s legs gave out on him, causing him to collapse on the ground.

“Oh hey, are we going to play in the mud now? Wait, do you like playing in the mud too?! Wow, we have soooo much in common, hoot-“

THWOOP, THWOOP

Blue’s heard the familiar sound again, and his eyes widened. Propelling himself using his still-functioning limbs, he propelled himself across the ground. He landed hard on the ground a few feet away. Where he was mere moments ago were several darts embedded into the ground.

“I…..really…..need…..to learn…… when…..to……shut up.” Blue stammered between breaths. His eyes darted across the treeline, trying to find the abomination from earlier. He looked and looked, but wasn’t able to find anything.

THWOOP

Another dart flew into Blue’s arm, and within moments his arm went limp. He couldn’t get up or move at all. He was stuck. Blue looked at the dart lodged in his arm and traced where it came from; up on the roof of the house was the abomination, hunched down like some type of spider, and staring at him with a gleeful expression.

To its credit, it was persistent.

The abomination jumped from the roof, landing in front of him. Its arm bubbled and morphed into a long sharp scythe. It approached Blue, raising the scythe and preparing to strike. With his arms and leg paralyzed, he had no way to escape. That’s probably why the thing aimed for his limbs specifically; it wanted to down him to make the kill easier. Reasonings aside, however, he was utterly screwed.

Well…..this was the end. Blue was honestly surprised it took this long for him to finally get killed, esspecially while on the clock as well.  

But hey, at least he went out in a somewhat……unique way. Beats being shot in a warehouse any day-

“Oh hey, another new friend!”

Hooty suddenly slammed into the creature, sending it flying across the front yard into a tree. Hooty’s stretched out from the doorway over to the creature.

Blue craned his neck to try to see what was going on. The bird tu- Hooty couldn’t be that stupid? He saw how dangerous this thing was; its speed, its agility, its aim with a fucking blowgun of all things. And yet he was actively running to it with a child-like curiosity. That had to be stupidity, right?

Or maybe, in some strange way……….. he was protecting him?

Hooty began to encircle around the, possibly perplexed, abomination.“Wow! Three new friends in one day! Nobody ever gives me this much attention, hoot-hoot. I’m so happy, I can just give you a big hug!” The owl tube then constricted its long body against the abomination, squeezing tighter and tighter until-

*POP*

A loud bang erupted across the front yard. Blue tightly shut his eyes as purple abomination sludge flew across the yard, landing everywhere.

“What the- aww…….not again.” Hooty dejectedly said as sludge poured down from his body. Blue watched as the sludge seemed to crawl back to the center of the yard, and bit by bit, the abomination slowly reformed in front of them.

Instead of attacking Blue, the abomination focused its gaze on Hooty, morphing both of its arms into scythes. It charged towards Hooty, quickly swiping and stabbing at him. Hooty, somehow effortlessly dodged every single attack.

“Huh, I guess we’re dancing now, hoot!” Hooty said, dodging another swipe. “You know, I’m an expert dancer. I tried entering Bonesborough’s got Talent a few years ago, but I wasn’t able to make it to tryouts because I got distracted by a bug-“

 “Hooty! Wait, it’s not trying to dance, it’s trying to kill you!” Blue shouted.

“Huh! Oh, don’t worry about that. Nothing can’t kill Hooty, hoot-hoot!”

“Wait, what the hell are you talking about!”

Hooty slammed the abomination into another tree, temporarily stunning it. He turned to Blue, a sudden serious glint in his eyes that up to that point, he never saw before.

“Don’t worry new friend, I’ll be all right! After all, t̷̛͉͔̭̀̀ȟ̶̡̨̋e̴͂̑ͅṟ̵̜̃͂̃è̶͙̟͙͘ ̶̠̥͍́̉i̷̼̦̩̽͂s̶̟̚ ̵̩̳̓̑́ṉ̵̖̟̅ó̷̮͝ ̶̼͉̈b̷̙̜̟͆̾e̵̯̺̹͌g̵̹̈̌̒ĩ̵̢͍n̷̰̱͐͘n̶̝̦̞̍͛̔ḯ̵̜̭̦n̸͈̰̋͂̌ǵ̵̙̂͆. T̶̰͒͛h̸̪̺̃̃́e̷͖̎̕ȓ̵̨ḛ̵̊̓͠ ̴̯̙̭̒͂i̶̘̊̌ś̶̨̰̭͒͘ ̷̱͇͗́͠n̵̦̪̑͝ó̴̢̈ ̶̫̜̅͑͜e̵̺̍̆̅n̷̼͂̓̀d̸͈̅͛.̷̹̇͛͠ ̵̼͋̇ T̵̢̟̹̈́́ḧ̷̳͙̯́ë̵̳̮́r̶̰̜̮͑e̵̻̍̔͠ ̵̛̪̞̖͊ï̵͍s̶͉̮̯͛͐ ̷̢̍o̵̰͑͒n̸̬̙̋͑l̸̡͔͑̚ỵ̶̘̼́͛̕ ̷̣͕̙͂̐̕H̶̗͖̹̄̇̎ȯ̷͓͔ọ̷͘t̴̰͓̦͝ÿ̷̖̖̃.̵̋

Hooty turned back to the abomination, which was beginning to stand back up. Before the abomination had the chance to recover, Hooty charged, screaming a battle cry worthy of a true warrior:

“HOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!”

The abomination’s eyes widened in surprise as Hooty rammed into the abomination, sending it flying into the distance. Blue was pretty sure it didn’t see what was coming. And to be honest, he didn’t see that coming as well.

Hooty stretched back over to Blue.  “Hey, are you good? You’ve been lying on the ground for a while, hoot.”

“Um….” Blue hesitated. He still wasn’t sure whether he could trust Hooty or not. But then again, he did quite possibly, no, he did save his life.

Besides, what can he do? Walk away? Bit difficult when your limbs are paralyzed.

Blue sighed. “ No, not really. Can you pluck out some of these darts sticking out of my arms? J-just make sure to be careful with them. I mean very careful, they have some type of paralysis agent laced on them, and I don’t want you getting affected-“

Without any hesitation, Hooty leaned over to Blue and quickly plucked the darts out from his limp body. Within a few moments, Blue started to regain control of his arms and leg. He was about to take the darts back from Hooty to dispose of them safely, but much to Blue’s abject horror, Hooty proceeded to eat the darts he was holding in his mouth.

Blue wasn’t necessarily an expert in how birds -or bird tubes for that matter -worked, but he was pretty sure swallowing razor-sharp darts coated in a paralysis agent wasn’t exactly good for their digestive systems.

“Wait, Hooty! Don’t swallow that, I don’t think those are good for you-“ Blue tried to protest, but it was too late, as Hooty downed the darts. Blue waited for a few moments, either waiting for him to vomit the darts back up, choke, or suddenly seize up as the paralysis agent kicked in. But much to Blue’s surprise, all Hooty did was loudly burp.

“Sorry about that, hoot!” He apologized. “But gee, those things were pretty spicy!”

Blue didn’t respond, just staring at Hooty with a look of profound confusion and horror.

It was one thing that Hooty could talk. Blue could work with that, he’d met a few talking birds. He’d even worked with a few talking seagulls from Eta-4 during an operation in Atlantic City where they provided his team air support. Before that operation, Blue barely had any respect for seagulls, seeing them as rats with wings. But after that operation, he was a little terrified of them, to say the least.

But that was beside the point. He’d met talking birds, so Hooty talking to him didn’t necessarily phase him too badly.

What did phase him was that – relative to the potency of the paralysis agent used in the darts, the total amount of the agent that was coated on the tips of the darts, and some rough estimates of Hooty’s size – The bird-worm just ingested enough sedative to knock out an adult bull, and yet he was still completely normal.

Hooty suddenly burped loudly again. “Sorry, hoot! I guess my stomach can’t handle spicy foods!”

Ok, maybe the darts did affect him somewhat. But compared to Blue, who had to suffer through paralysis in most of his limbs, having stomach issues wasn’t that bad in comparison.

Blue stood up, trying not to fall as the last of agent was wearing off. He felt something lean against his back. He turned and saw Hooty was using his body to support him as he got up.

“Oh… thanks Hooty!” Blue said.

“No worries, hoot!”

Blue took a breath and fetched his bag out from his pocket dimension to get some water. After everything that just happened, he was quite parched. He took out his canteen and took a few long sips from it. He held out the canteen to Hooty.

“Hey, do you want some water? You might be a bit parched after…… well, er, everything.”

The bird tube gasped. “Y-you are giving me something?”

Blue quirked an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I? You did just save my life after all.”

“I saved your life, hoot?”

“Yeah with the whole thing with the abomination- ah, forget it. Just take the canteen. I got some more in my bag anyways.”

Hooty took the canteen up in his beak and began to chug away at its remaining contents. Blue smiled contently and shifted his focus back to his bag. While he did feel like it was a bit reckless to get rid of a lot of water like that, Hooty did help him. Granted, he didn’t know what the hell was going on, but Blue still wanted to say thanks in whatever way he can. Without him, who knows what could’ve happened to him?

Blue shifted through his bag, trying to figure out where he put the MDCD. When he started to get antsy when he wasn’t able to find it in the first couple of pockets, he heaved a sigh of relief as he found the MDCD hiding away in an odd space in the back pocket of his bag. He took out the device and shouldered his bag.

Hooty spat out the empty canteen, sending it tumbling to the ground and turned his attention over to Blue. “Hey, whatcha got there? It looks pretty fancy, hoot!”

Oh right, Hooty. How exactly was he going to explain the MDCD to him?

“It’s, uh, something I use to communicate with some of my….. other friends back home.” He explained. “They’re, uh….. really far away, and this is the only way I can talk to them.”

“Oh, that’s nice! Are you gonna tell them about all the fun we had?”

Blue smiled. “Actually……yeah, I think I will.”

The device finally finished rebooting and turned on. Blue navigated back to the message he made earlier and made some important edits:

ASSIGNED MESSAGE ( 106 / 280 Characters Used)

{ I AM SAFE, BUT INJURED. LOOKING FOR A POWER SOURCE FOR MDCD, AS WELL AS A POTENTIAL SHELTER FOR NIGHT.

TELL SAM I SAID HI :)

AWAITING NEW ORDERS

ALSO FOUND A NEW FRIEND: SEE IMAGE}

Blue then tried to remember Whitman’s explanation about the camera functionality in the MDCD from earlier when he was told to take a photo of the area he got dumped into by the portal. His finger hovered around the keypad until he found what he was looking for: a button with a small button icon printed on it. 

He clicked on the button, and the screen went dark. After a few moments, the device reloaded and the screen turned on again, this time displaying a fuzzy black-and-white feed of the area from the camera atop the device.

Blue thought for a few moments. He wanted to take a picture of Hooty, since it was a bit difficult to describe Hooty in a limited amount of words (but mostly to traumatize the others back home) but he thought it would be best to at least ask for permission first.

He turned to Hooty. “Hey is it good with you if I can take a photo of you for my friends back home? They might be a bit curious about you and all-“

“You? Picture? Me?” Hooty gasped, his mouth agape. He was shaking violently and Blue was afraid that he’d probably just crossed a boundary.

“O-oh! I’m sorry, you don’t have to! I was just-“

“N-no, it’s fine, hoot! I-I was surprised. Of course, you can!”

Blue smiled and obliged, pointing the MDCD at Hooty. “Ok, say cheese! Or Hoot, or whatever you want to say to be honest-“

“HOOOT!!!”

Blue jumped in surprise as Hooty screamed, accidentally pressing the shutter button and taking a photo. He recovered from the temporary shock and looked back at the screen and watched as the image loaded.

Surprisingly enough, the image developed fairly well, and although it wasn’t too detailed and not in color, he could still easily make out Hooty grinning in the photo.

“Huh, the pic turned out pretty good Hooty. What do you think?” Blue turned the device to show Hooty the screen, who immediately began hissing in response, and the feathers along his back suddenly puffed up.

“W-Who are you! Why are you monochrome? Why are you in my territory? GET OUT OF MY TERRITORY!” He hissed, lunging for the MDCD. Blue quickly moved the device out of his reach and used one of his hands to restrain Hooty’s head from attacking the camera.

“W-Wait! Hooty, it’s you! Is a picture of you! Don’t attack the camera please!” Blue begged Hooty, pushing his head back as he continued hissing at the camera. Blue quickly navigated through the device, mashing buttons away as he went through the process of sending the message with the new image attached. He pressed the send button on the device, ignoring the prompts informing him about the estimated delivery time. He’ll try to figure that out later. Right now, he was trying to prevent the bird worm from eating his only connection back home.

Blue stowed the MDCD back into his pocket dimension. It was only then that Hooty finally calmed down.

“S-sorry about that, hoot.” He said, completely out of breath. “I can get a little territorial sometimes. But I did like the picture though!”

A little? Hooty tried to murder the damn thing!

“Uh…..yeah, it’s ok, buddy!” Blue gently laughed.

He sighed. Perfect now all he had to do was wait for the folks back home to get the message, and he can finally figure out what the hell is going on. Oh yeah, and he had to wait for the person who lived in this weird…. Owl House in the woods to get back. So essentially he was stuck with a whole lot of waiting.

But at least he wasn’t alone.

He turned to Hooty. What exactly should he talk about with him? He wasn’t exactly the first… sentient being he met in this place; that, unfortunately, fell to the Blights. But he was the sentient being that didn’t try to murder him, so that was something. There were so many questions that he wanted to ask! Granted, most of them were about Hooty himself since there were so many….. concerning things about him that he’d just witnessed in the last half hour. But he also wanted to know a lot about this realm too, and although Hooty admittedly might not be the best source for everything, he can at least learn something new. Esspecially since he’s possibly one of the first humans to set foot in this dimension-

Wait.

The whole conflict with the Blights arose because he was a human. That was one of the main reasons why he decided to disguise his ears; to avoid any conflict. Blue remembered that the illusion surrounding his ears had faded away by now, exposing him for what he really was. And yet, it seemed like Hooty didn’t either care or didn’t even notice in the first place that his ears were round. That he was a human.

While Hooty was momentarily distracted by a bug, Blue quickly recast the spell over his ears. To be extra safe, he retrieved a hat he’d packed the day prior from his bag. It was just a simple black beanie, with the foundation emblem sewn on its brim. He put on the beanie, taking extra care to hide his ears.

Hooty turned back to Blue and gasped in surprise. “Oh hey, nice hat! I like the little funny logo on it too! Is that for a sports team or something?”

“Y-you could say that!” Blue quickly answered, forgetting about the foundation emblem on the hat. That would be a bit difficult to explain.

“Sooooooo what do you wanna do buddy! I got so many ideas, hoot!” Hooty said.

Blue thought for a few moments, trying to think of something that the two of them can do while they pass the time. An idea popped into Blue’s head. He retrieved his MP3 player from his bag and showed it to Hooty.

“Say, do you like music?”

Chapter Text

---[EARLIER]---

“Can you stop adorably hopping away, you- what the?” Luz suddenly stopped in her tracks. This didn’t look too much like a house. It looked more like a tent, with fabric draped over the walls. It was either that or someone who had some weird tastes in home décor decided to do some redecorating. There was junk and garbage strewn across the tent, with a thin silver of light peeking through the tent flap.

She whistled to herself. “Dang, I thought I had a lot of weird stuff, but this?” She looked around the room, taking in all of the weird and wonderful items around her. “This is just impressive.”

“Finally, you’re back!”

Luz suddenly ducked down, hearing a woman’s voice from outside the tent. She crawled over to the entrance of the tent and pulled the curtain aside. She peeked through and saw a woman smirking at the owl she was chasing earlier. She was tall with a head of untamed grey hair. A green bandana was wrapped around her head.

“Alright, let’s see whatcha got this time.” The woman said. She began rustling through the bag, dismissing several expensive-looking items and tossing them to the side. “Garbage, garbage, even more garbage. Dang Owlbert, have you lost your touch or something? Because I can’t do anything with any of this stuff!”

“Hoot!” The owl chirped back.

“Yeah, I suppose that’s fair” She sighed. “But still, what am I supposed to do with- Oh sweet mama! We hit the jackpot buddy!” She cried, rummaging through the bag and putting something on her face. She turned to face the small owl, a pair of novelty glasses adorning her head.

“Now this? This is gonna make me rich! See, this is what you gotta be looking for! Now if I did the junk hauls instead of you-“

“Hoot! Hoot Hoot!”

“Damn, you’re right. I still got those weird….. uh, S.C.P. people on my tail. I don’t even know what that even stands for! Stupid Crappy People maybe? Eh, whatever. Better for you to do the garbage runs until the heat dies down anyway.” She said. She continued digging through the bag, occasionally tossing items aside.

All Luz had to do was wait. Just wait until the weird woman outside happens to toss her book, she can sneak behind her, grab it, and leave! Easy!

Luz continued crouching on the ground for what felt like hours. By the time her knees started to cry out in pain, she considered giving up before the woman finally pulled out her book from the sack.

Yes! Just drop it. Please drop it, just PLEASE drop it!

“Hmm….. Hey looks like we got some human literature here. I remember hearing from Perry-“

“Hoot?”

“Perry Porter? Y’know, the guy from Hexside? Founder of the H.A.S? No? Eh, whatever. The point is he told me that humans have some good literature. Mostly from this weird shake-spear guy. Anyways, I might be holding literary gold in my hand!” She chuckled.

She opened up the book and flipped through a couple of pages. Luz watched her face morph from excitement to confusion, to disgust within mere seconds.

She slammed the book shut and gagged. “Dear Titan, that was the most repulsive thing I’ve ever read- hey! Don’t give me that look Owlbert! I’m serious! This is just awful! Words cannot even describe how- how bleugh this thing was! I can’t sell this! This will offend every last witch on the Isles! They’ll want my head for introducing this disgusting, repulsive piece of work to this world-“

“Hey!” Luz jumped out from her hiding place and pointed at the lady. “The Good Witch Azura isn’t disgusting, or repulsive, or bleugh! It’s a modern literary masterpiece compared to the works of Shakespeareeeee……..” She trailed off, realizing her mistake.

She just exposed herself.

LUZ, YOU FOOL!

The Luz and the older woman stared at each other for a few moments, an awkward silence surrounding the two of them. Luz could’ve sworn she saw the small owl next to the woman facepalm with its wing.

A flicker of realization flashed on the woman’s face. “Wait a minute, were you hiding in the tent the entire time-“

Luz paled and snatched the book out of the bewildered woman’s hands. “Sorry, this is mine! Thank you! Gotta go! Bye forever!”

She turned on her tail and rushed back into the tent. She was expecting a door leading back out into the woods. Instead, there was a glowing door frame, the interior of the decrepit house in the woods lying on the other side.

Luz had many questions about what was going on, but she didn’t care at that point. She had the book. She can leave and get back home. Maybe, just maybe, she can manage to catch the bus to camp in time and her mama wouldn’t get even more disappointed in her because she missed the bus to the camp.

All of those hopes disappeared when the door suddenly folded into itself into some type of odd suitcase, a large demonic eye in the center. Luz turned around and saw the odd woman behind her, a key in her hand and an angry expression on her face.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Luz squeaked and ran in the opposite direction, ignoring the older woman calling after her. She tucked the book back into her messenger back and rushed out through the back of the tent. She pushed back the flaps and ran out of the tent, shielding her eyes from the sudden onslaught of sunlight. When her eyes finally adjusted to the light, she gasped and skidded to a sudden stop, mere moments from running off a cliff.

Her sudden shock from almost running herself to her imminent demise was immediately clouded by the shock she felt when she looked upon the small town below.

“What the……”

The town below the cliff reminded Luz of a medieval-era town; dozens of homes were densely packed amongst of sea of boney thin mountains that Luz guessed were probably actual bones. Two lean green arms jutting out from the ground were ominously looming over the town. What appeared to be an actual dragon flew over the town and was snatched out of the air by one of the arms, squealing in pain as it was pulled to the ground.

Well, one thing was for sure: she wasn’t in Connecticut anymore.

Luz backed away from the cliff, breathing frantically.

“No, no, no! What’s going on!” She breathed in and out, trying to remain calm. There had to be some type of logical explanation for this, right? Maybe this was just some weird dream. Yeah, a dream! That would make perfect sense!

A small pink fairy suddenly flew next to her. Luz gasped in relief and looked at the small creature. “Oh, hello, little fairy! Are you here to tell me that this is just a fantastical dream, and I’m gonna wake up safe and sound back home.”

The fairy only stared at her before flashing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. “GIVE ME YOUR SKIN!”

Luz screamed and swatted the fairy to the ground. Which, given the circumstances, was probably a reasonable reaction.

“W-where am I?” Luz wondered. “I’m I dead? Am I in the bad place?”

Luz felt a hand tightly grip her shoulder. She turned and saw the woman from earlier.

“You wish.” She scowled.

The next thing she knew, she was dragged to the front of the tent and shoved into a random stool in front of the older woman. The woman only told her one simple word. “Explain.”

“I’m so, so, so, sorry! You’re – very adorable by the way – owl took my book so I followed it here into your tent and I heard your entire conversation with it but I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I swear! All I wanted was my book back.” She rambled to the woman. “If you’re gonna eat me, just make it quick! Do it now! Get it over with!” She begged, offering up her arm.

“What the- eat you? Titan, kid, it ain’t 1693.” The woman said, slightly offended.

“Hoot.” Owlbert hooted to her.

“Oh yeah, eating people is more 1694. Good call Owlbert. Now look kid, I don’t know who taught you that snooping in someone’s private business is acceptable-“

“Hoot!”

“Ok, ok Let me reiterate what I said. Snooping in some private businesses is acceptable, as long is ain’t my business, ok? So I don’t know where you came from-“

“Hoot-Hoot!”

“The Human-Realm? Owlbert, that’s impossible- wait a minute……” The woman narrowed her eyes at Luz and stared at her. She glimpsed at one of her ears and gasped.

“Y-your ears. They’re round. A-are you a human?”

Luz shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Uh, yes? That’s kind of a weird question to ask another human.”

The woman laughed. “Oh my dear child, I’m not like you.” She ripped off her bandana to reveal a pair of long, pointed ears.

She leaped atop the table across from Luz. “I’m Eda, The Owl Lady! The most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles!”

Luz gasped. “A witch?”

Eda smirked. “Oh, you bet! I am respected, feared-“

“BUSTED!”

A fist smashed into an old TV across from Eda. Luz saw the culprit; a beefy man dressed in a gray uniform, a pointed mask obscuring his face.

“Oh for the love of- Was that really necessary? I was gonna sell that! ” Eda groaned. The guard only rolled his eyes underneath the mask. “Well, you won’t be selling anything anymore! By the order of the Emperor’s Coven, you are under arrest for misuse of magic and demonic misdemeanors!” He held up a wanted poster, with the older witch prominently displayed front and center.

“Whoa! Witch criminal!”

“Oh come on! I haven’t done anything illegal! You idiots always come up with some excuse to follow me around. It’s starting to get kinda annoying.” Eda said.

Luz was suddenly lifted up by the scruff of her shirt by the guard.  “Oh, and you’re coming along too. For fraternizing with a criminal!”

“Wait! That’s not cool!” Luz protested.

“Oh, all right, all right, you win for once. Just at least let me pack up my stuff!” Eda said, reaching underneath the table.

The guard visibly relaxed. “ Wait, really! Huh, I honestly thought you would be harder to arrest. Oh, I might get that promotion! Oh boy! Looks like things are turning up for little ole Larry-“

The guard was cut off as Eda swung a staff at the guard, knocking him to the ground with a grunt. The witch whistled over to the small owl that was still huddled on the table. “C’mon Owlbert! Let’s get the heck outta here!” The owl flew over to her and hopped atop the staff, Eda grabbed the owl and turned it on the staff, Luz watching as the once fluffy Owl morphed into a wooden fixture atop the staff.

She spun her staff and tapped it on the bottom of the table. All of the items atop the table glowed a yellow hue and began to levitate. She suddenly had a sudden look of realization flash on her face.

“Wait a sec, can’t forget about this!” She dug into her hair and pulled out a key with a large eye on it. She clicked on the eye, and the suitcase-portal-thingy flew out from the tent and into her hand. She closed her other hand into a fist, and all the levitating items collapsed into a ruck sac which she stuck onto the end of her staff.

“C’mon human! Let’s get outta here.” Eda called, running away from the scene. Luz had no other choice but to catch up to her.

“Oh, man! My Mom is gonna kill me if I die here!” She said to the older witch when she caught up with her.

“Eh, don’t worry!” Eda said. “I ain’t gonna let ‘em hurt you. A human like you is more valuable to me alive than dead after all!”

“Wait, what’s that supposed to mean-“

Luz was cut off as Eda kicked her staff off the ground, and with Luz in tow, flew off into the sky and off over the horizon. Luz tightly closed her eyes as she was lifted into the sky with the older witch.

The Guard, huffing in exhaustion from chasing after the pair, stopped in his tracks as he saw the staff with the wild witch atop fly further into the distance. “Hey, someone stop her! She’s gonna get away!”

The guard paused for a few moments before sighing, throwing up his hands in defeat.

 “And she got away. Again. Typical.”

*-_-_-_-_-*

“You can open your eyes now human.” Luz heard Eda say.

She slowly opened her eyes, and gasped as she took in the new world around her; below a lavender sky lay a land covered in a forest of cherry red trees, with large mountains that looked like ribs jutting out in the landscape.

“Flying staffs, crazy monsters, you’re a witch- what is this place?” Luz said.

Eda laughed. “Well…..uh, what was your name again, kid?”

“Luz! Luz Noceda!”

“Well Luz, lemme tell you about the Boiling Isles……..”

As they flew through the sky, the older witch proceeded to fill Luz in about the Boiling Isles; A place filled to the brim with magic, with every myth and legend throughout history being a result of a little bit of Eda’s world flowing into the human realm.

Luz couldn’t believe what she was hearing! Magic was real. For years, she had been dreaming of a moment like this; a moment where she can leave her home filled with people who treat her as an outcast and into a world filled with mystery and wonder.

Well….. sort of.

The pair lowered into a forest clearing, and Eda hopped off the staff. Luz was about to follow her when she noticed Eda’s severed hand still clung to the staff. She shrieked in, while Eda turned around, completely oblivious to her missing appendage.

“Hey, what’s the matter kid- ah, shoot,” Eda said, noticing the hand. She pried the hand off the staff and screwed it back onto her arm. “Yeah, that just happens sometimes. Perks of getting old, eh?” She smirked.

“Uh….. yeah.” Luz steadied herself off the staff. “Do you know what? I think I’ve had enough adventure for one day. This world is clearly not the PG fantasy world I always dreamed about, so can you help me get home?”

“Only if you can help me with something first!” Eda laughed.

Luz followed Eda through the forest. “Wait! Why me?”

“Because I need a favor only a human could do. Believe me, I would’ve done it myself if I could!” Eda answered, leading Luz into a clearing in the woods beside a cliff, a lone house towering over the landscape.

Luz glanced behind her. “Aren’t you worried about those weird guys following you around? What if they find us?”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. Those guys are extremely incompetent. And I got a state-of-the-art security system.” Eda said, escorting Luz to the front door of the house. An owl face on the door that Luz assumed was carved blinked alive and spoke.

“Hoot! Password plea- OW!” It said, being cut off as Eda poked the poor bird in the eyes.

“Sorry, Hooty, but we’re kinda in a rush right now. Just let us in!”

“Alright, alright! Jeez, you never let me have any fun! Ow! Hoot!” Hooty complained. Nonetheless, he stretched open his mouth and the inside of the house was visible. Luz followed the older witch inside.

Standing alongside Eda, the older witch smirked. “Welcome to The Owl House.” She declared, and with a snap of her fingers, the whole house came alive. Brooms began floating and tidying up the home, cauldrons were stirred, and a large mural became alight and illuminated the room.

Luz looked around in awe.“Woah! This place is beautiful. Do you live here all alone?”

The home suddenly shook, thundering footsteps coming down the hall.

Eda sighed. “Actually, I got a roommate.”

 “WHO DARES TO INTRUDE UPON I, THE KING OF DEMONS!” A loud voice boomed across the house. A large demonic shadow crawled against one of the doorways of the house, getting larger and larger until-

A small furry grey creature emerged from the doorway, its head a horned skull. Its tiny body was covered with a bathrobe and a bath towel was wrapped around its head. It squeezed a rubber ducky in its hand, glaring at Luz. However, she didn’t cower from the small demon’s gaze.

She did quite the opposite, in fact.

“¡Ay, que lindo!” Luz gasped. She rushed forward and scooped the demon up in a hug.

“Aw! Who’s a little guy? Who’s a little guy?” She cooed, tickling the squirming creature in her arms.

“No, wait! I don’t know who your little guy is- w-wait, can you just continue scratching right there? Oh yeah, that’s good! Wait a second! Eda, help me! Who is this monster?”

Eda pulled Luz away from the tiny demon. “This, King, is Luz the human! She’s here to help us with our…… situation.” She explained.

“Oh. Hooray!

“Hold on.” Luz backed up. “I don’t like the sound of this…. ‘situation’”

Eda raised an eyebrow. She smiled reassuringly at her and patted her on the head. “Oh don’t worry kid, just let me explain.” She said, spinning her hand.

A small light glowed within a room, and a scene was projected against the wall. “You see, a long, long, time ago, King here used to be a powerful King of demons. A feared ruler across the land!” She began, a fearsome creature somewhat resembling King was displayed on the wall.

She snapped her fingers and the scene changed. “However, one day his crown of power was stolen by the evil Warden Wrath, and his power was whisked away, reducing him to…… this.” Eda pointed to King, who was chasing his tail from across the room. He stopped when he noticed he had an audience.

“What? It’s good exercise!” He protested.

Eda sighed. “Now, his crown of power is locked away in a vault in the conformitorium, right behind an enchanted magic seal that only a human can break through. A human like you!” She pointed to Luz.

“All we need you to do is retrieve King’s crown, and we’ll send ya home! Besides who can say no to this widdle face?” Eda cooed, holding up a squirming King and pinching his cheeks.

“Eda stop! Don’t encourage her!”

She dropped the demon back on the ground. “We’re kinda you’re only way home as well.”

The realization dawned on Luz. “So…. I don’t really have any other option?”

“Nope! So let’s go human! We got no time to lose!” She rushed out the door, dragging Luz along.

“Wait, so where are we going?” Luz asked.

“Somewhere fun!” Eda smirked.

---[NOW]---

“The crown……. It doesn’t give him magic powers, does it?”

They were inside of the conformitoriums vault. Eda’s plan had gone through without a hitch; she managed to distract the warden’s guards long enough for Luz and King to sneak through the prison without any incident. The three of them eventually made their way into the vault, Luz effortlessly passing through the magic seal as planned. However, she discovered something about the supposed ‘magic’ crown.

It wasn’t an ancient relic that gave King power. It was a worn Burger Queen crown. Something completely normal and not an ancient relic of power. This was further proven when the small demon adorned the crown on his head and immediately went to ordering a small pink stuffed bunny around.

Eda’s eyebrows scrunched together and she lightly chuckled. “Oh, of course, it doesn’t!”

Luz glared at the older witch. Eda stared back at her for a few moments, her smile waning into a small guilty frown. The witch sighed. “Look, kid, I’m sorry for tricking you, I really am. But look at us. I’m a wanted criminal who lives in the middle of the woods and peddles off junk for a living. King is practically a kid. We don’t have much in this world, only each other. So…. If that crown makes him happy, then it makes me happy. Because us weirdos gotta stick together, eh?”

Luz shifted her gaze to King, smiling as she watched the small demon happily bark away orders at his newly assembled stuffed animal army. It was sweet in a way.

She looked back to Eda. “Yeah. I understand.”

Eda smiled. “Well, kid. A deal a deal! Now let’s get outta here before the Warden loses his head!“

“Too late.”

A blade slashed through the air, and Eda’s head was severed right off her body. The head flew into Luz’s arms, and for the second time that day, Luz screamed her lungs out.

“Ow! Son of a bitch, that hurts!” Eda yelled.

Luz shrieked. “E-eda, you’re alive! Are you ok!”

“Titan, my neck. Yeah, kid. This is just something that happens when you’re older.”

“Is it?”

Before the witch had a chance to answer, her disattached head was yanked out of Luz’s reach by the Warden’s weird tendril arms. In fact, everything about the Warden was just weird. Granted she was in a demon realm. This was probably just another walk in the park here.

The Warden jeered at the captured witch. “Edalyn Clawthorne. The infamous Owl Lady. I have you in my grasp at last. My guards would’ve never caught you, but I knew if I stole your pet’s toy, you would come running.”

The Warden’s arm morphed into a mass of long, sticky, tendrils and shot towards King. Luz was about to shout for the demon to duck when the tendrils wrapped around the crown on its head and shredded the paper crown into pieces.

King fell to his knees. “No! My power!” He sobbed. Eda’s face morphed into a scowl.

“Oh come on! Was that really necessary?” Eda yelled. “ Why do you morons always follow me around, anyways? It’s not like I haven’t done anything illegal……. in front of you at least. Gah! What do you want from me!”

“Do you know what I want, Owl Lady?” The Warden mustered, getting down into one knee. All of a sudden, he pulled out a bouquet of flowers and looked at the bewildered witch’s head in his hands. “I want you……. To go out with me.”

“What!” Eda spat out.

Luz only blinked. She had to mishear the guy, right? Because there is no way that-

The vault door opened and two guards rushed out of the room, completely out of breath. “S-sorry, it…… to us…… too long boss. B-but, you- you’ve got this!” One guard wheezed. The other guard simply held up a thumbs-up before collapsing on the ground. The warden saluted the guards in response before turning back to Eda.

“I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. You always eluded our capture. You’ve always been the one who got away. And I found that alluring.”

Nope. She didn’t mishear him. He was asking her out.

“I hate every word you’re saying right now.” She muttered. The Wardens head spun to look at her, and Luz was pretty sure she saw him glare at her through the mask.

“Why you little- You stay out of this!” He tossed the flower bouquet to the side and lashed his free into tentacles which went straight for her.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Another explosion rocked the Conformitorium. Luz barely managed to duck as the Warden breathed a mouthful of fire that rocketed toward Eda. She watched as the older witch effortlessly drew two spell circles; one spell circle absorbed the Warden’s attack, while another redirected it straight toward him. The fireball collided with the Warden, sending him flying across the Conformitoriums courtyard and into a stone wall that shattered like glass from the force of the impact. Nonetheless, he shook off the attack like it was nothing, standing back up and charging back to the other witch, leaving a large hole in the wall.

 Eda huffed a sigh and ran over to Luz, fished the portal key out from her hair, and thrust it into Luz’s hands. “Kid, things are starting to get a bit hairy here. I need you to get back to the human world.” Eda said.

“Wait, what about you guys? I’m not gonna leave you behind!” Luz said.

“Don’t worry about it!” King ran past the bewildered human. “If you think he’s bad, you should’ve seen her last boyfriend-“

“Not my boyfriend!” Eda corrected, snatching up the small demon and leaping to the side as the warden released another flurry of attacks. The older witch summoned her staff, and all but shoved Luz onto it. “C’mon, kid! Go, go!”

“Wait, but I-“

The older witched slapped the back of the staff, and Luz rocketed off into the air. She gripped the staff tightly as she flew farther and farther away. Looking behind her, she could see the ongoing fight between Eda and Warden Wrath, with King throwing in some cheers for Eda and some mild obscenities for the Warden in the background.

The staff automatically stopped near a large hole in the conformitoriums wall, and Owlbert popped off the staff. The small owl plucked the portal key out of Luz’s hand and pecked at the large button on it, summoning the portal door in front of her. The door flung open, and Owlbert flew into Luz, trying to push her back into her world.

“Wait, Owlbert! I’m not going to leave them! Stop it! I’m not leaving them!” She said, swatting Owlbert back.

“Hey, kid! Can you tell us what the heck is going on?”

Luz and Owlbert froze and turned around. Behind them was a small group of prisoners: a woman, a small nose-shaped demon, and a large blue demon with eyes over his face. They were peeking out of the crater in the wall, staring at Luz. The woman threw her hands up in frustration. “Well! C’mon, spit it out!”

Luz blinked. “Uh……well you see miss……” She trailed off, looking at the woman.

“Katya” The woman answered.

“Well, you see Miss Katya, it’s a bit of a long story- WAIT, DUCK!”

The eye demon blinked, which looked quite nauseating since his face was covered in eyes. “Wait, what do you mean by duck-“

“She means duck, you idiot!” Katya cried. She threw her fellow prisoners down to the ground as several bolts of energy slammed right into the spot they were standing mere moments ago. Luz turned and saw Eda frozen in place like a deer that got caught in headlights.

“Sorry! Misfire!” Eda called, before resuming the fight.

The eye demon shakily stood back up, brushing rubble off himself “Well, that explains the explosions.”

“And why the Warden has been gone for the last three hours.” The small-nose demon chipped in.

“And how you got out of your cell.” Katya to Luz.

Luz was confused. What did she mean by getting out of a cell-

The realization hit Luz like a dump truck.

“Wait a minute! Woah, woah, woah, I’m not a criminal!”

“Hoot!” Owlbert chirped.

“The small bird is saying you aren’t a criminal, yet!” The nose demon translated.

“Wait a minute! You speak palisman?” The eye demon asked.

“I’ve been in prison for three months. I needed something to do.”

Katya rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but we ain’t criminals either! All I did was write some fan-fiction about food!”

‘Wait…. That’s it!” Luz said. “You’ve got shoved in a maximum security prison for fan-fic?”

“Yup! I mean, I like food. I like writing about people falling in love. Just let me write about food falling in love!”

“I eat my own eyes.” The eyeball demon said. He ripped an eye out his socket and ate it, only for it to pop back in place seconds later.

“Alright that’s…….. questionable. And what about you?” She asked the nose demon.

“I am an agent of free expression! I’ll never be silenced!”

“Wait what-“

“Conspiracy theories. She’s really big into conspiracy theories.” Katya explained.

“Hey! They aren’t conspiracies! They’re facts! We live in a simulation! Don’t you see, we’re only mere playthings for a higher being-”

“Yep, we get it. We’re in a simulation. Playbeings for a higher being. Blah, blah, blah. You don’t need to repeat it over and over and over. We’ve been hearing this speil for the the last three months!”

Luz paused “Wait a minute…. None of these are actual crimes. None of you ever did anything wrong!” She pulled out the crumbled wanted poster from her pocket. “You guys are just a bunch of weirdos. Like me.”

Her attention was drawn back to the ongoing fight. As she saw the Warden get flung into yet another wall, a realization hit her.

“Why are you guys just standing there?” She yelled at the group of prisoners. “You guys have the perfect chance to escape right now! Why aren’t you taking it?”

“There’s no point.” The eyeball demon sighed. “We’ll run off, and then we’ll inevitably be caught by the warden. He always does.”

“Yeah, he’s right.” Katya said. “ We belong here anyways. Like you said, we’re just a bunch of weirdos-“

“None of you belong here!” Luz cried. “Just because you guys do things a little bit differently from everyone else doesn’t mean squat! It may make you weird, but it also makes you awesome! Can’t you see?”

“Why are you even helping us?” Katya said. “We’ve just met like, I dunno, five minutes ago!”

Luz smiled and grabbed ahold a Owlbert. Strangely enough, the small Palisman morphed into its staff form without any hesitation, and Luz mounted it. She pulled her hood down, the same cat-eared hood that the other kids would make fun of her for back home, and smiled at her newfound peers. “Although we’re just strangers, we’re all just a bunch of weirdo’s-“

“Really? What makes you weird?” The small nose demon yelled.

“I think it’s kinda obvious, Tinella.” The eye demon whispered.

“I’m not sure whether to be offended or honored by that!” Luz called. “But we may do things a different way. We may see things a different way, but nobody can punish us for who we are! And us weirdos gotta stick together!”

“Huh, what a totally motivational and riveting speech!” The tiny nose demon, who had a name, said. The other prisoners nodded to each other in agreement and cheered. Luz grinned wildly and turned the airborne staff around.

“Now lets get em!” She cried.

*-_-_-_-_-*

Everything hurt. And Eda wasn’t exaggerating one bit.

To be fair, getting her head chopped off, using up a substantial amount of her magic, and then being flung against the ground at high speed (all in that order) wasn’t exactly her first run in the slayground before, yet she still struggled to get up.

Probably her age was catching up to her. Or maybe it was the cur-

She felt something small and furry rush to her side- King. “Eda! Eda, are you ok!” She could hear the small demon yell by her side.

“Yeah, I’m good! Just a little woozy- hey was this crater here before?” She rubbed her head

“What- no!” King yelled. “You got thrown here by Warden Wrath! You didn’t hit your head too hard, right?”

Eda blinked, then it all came back to her: She was in midair, rapidly dodging the Wardens sudden flurry of attacks, when she miscalculated. She weaved around one of the attacks too slowly, and one of his arms tentacles (?) wrapped around her ankle and slammed her right into the ground.

And he must’ve slammed her down hard, considering the massive hole in the ground she was lying in.

Heh, hole.

A large shadow loomed over the crater, and she felt a pair of eyes staring daggers into her.

Fuck, the Warden. She reminded herself.

“No more running, Owl Lady. Today I capture you once and for all! I hope you and your rat enjoy prison food.” He snarled. “Or, y’know, you could just accept my, uh, prior offer-“

“I’d prefer to eat prison food than go out with you.”

Warden Wrath sighed. “It was worth a shot.” He muttered. His arm bubbled and morphed into a giant hammer, and he raised it high into the air. “Well, nothing personal, but I gotta take you two in because, its kinda my job. So, uh, no hard feelings.” He shrugged.

Eda felt King whimper and dig his head into her stomach, which under normal circumstances would result in her firmly scolding the small demon, mostly because it was kind of embarrassing,  and mostly because his small horns dug straight into her chest, which was quite painful.

But now she didn’t care much. What she cared for at that moment was the large hammer that loomed above them.

Well this was it. It really seemed like Eda and King’s days of running have finally ended. There was no way she could weasel out of this one: her magic was completely pooped, and she was pretty sure she broke at least one bone during the whole ordeal, so running wasn’t exactly an option.

She supposed it was time for her to – oh dear Titan ­­– face the consequences of her actions.

Bleugh. Even saying that in her head left a bad taste in her mouth.

She scowled at the Warden, putting up a mask of rage, when in actuality she was silently awaiting the inevitable.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Eda blinked. That voice reeked of sheer childlike overconfidence, and arguably worse, it sounded too familiar for comfort. It couldn’t be Luz, right? She was pretty sure she had Owlbert make sure the kid actually went through the portal and back home, instead of, she didn’t really know, attempting an impromptu rescue mission to try to bail her out of this situation.

She did tell Owlbert to do that, right?

She blinked again, and she almost missed it as several prisoners barreled right into the bewildered Warden. Eda was pretty sure that the Warden didn’t see whats coming. And to be frankly honest, she didn’t see it coming either.

Eda watched as the prisoners proceeded to attack the Warden by tripping him, holding him down, and tying him with his own tentacle arms. Luz was not far behind, mounted on Eda’s staff and instructing the prisoners on how to take out their collective enemy.

The Warden stumbled up, and roared at the young human. “You! Who do you think you are?”

Luz descended to the ground and pointed to the Warden. “Do not underestimate me, Warden Wrath.” She said, a confident twinge in her voice. “For I am Luz, the human, warrior of peace.”

An awkward silence ensued, the Warden merely staring at Luz with sheer confusion.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t that whole line just ripped from that crappy fantasy book Eda read earlier. What was it? The Good Witch Bluzura or something? Because Eda was pretty sure around this part was when the main heroine pulled out some weird staff-bazooka thingy and obliterated the main villain of the story. But Luz wasn’t going to go to there-

“NOW EAT THIS SUCKA!”

Nope. She totally would.

The young human pulled out a colorful bundle of ­– fireworks? The demon realm had its own form of the stuff, but Eda preferred human fireworks more. Mostly because they were less bitey.

Eda had only dealt with the weird human devices once; a few years back the humans were having some celebration down in the town square. Something about a Fourth of July? She didn’t really remember much. What she did remember was that she found a few boxes laying about. She was naturally attracted to the boxes because of the large printed ‘CAUTION: EXPLOSIVE’ labels across the sides of the boxes, but she was disappointed when she popped one of the bad boys open to find some weird cylindrical things.

But that disappointment turned into immense excitement as she saw a human light a fuse on the end of it and sent it flying into the sky, to which it exploded in a colorful and sparkly burst of colors and it was so colorful and sparkly and she wanted it.

So like any reasonable witch, she swiped a box of the stuff, hopped back to her house, and spent an entire night lighting the stuff ablaze. She’s pretty sure she still has some lying around in the basement.

Luz threw the bundle up in the air and whacked it, sending it flying right into the Wardens mouth. The Warden breathed a mouthful of fire, which set off the fireworks in his mouth in what had to be the most colorful and sparkly chain reaction imaginable.

Eda stood and stared at the colorful light show in front of her. The Warden fled, his reputation as a ruthless jailer now shattered as fireworks exploded from his agape mouth. She was sure that no amount of covering up in part by the Emperor's Coven would prevent word about this entire fiasco from spreading around the Isles.

Mostly because Eda was going to spill everything to a reporter the first chance she gets.

“Eda! Eda!” The older witch turned and saw Luz running towards her, completely out of breath.

“Yeesh, kid. You good?”

“I’m…… fine.” She wheezed. “Just not……. used to……running.”

Eda whistled and her staff came flying back to her. She picked up the kid by the scruff of her neck and put her on the staff. King crawled on top of Luz’s shoulder. “Huh, that was one of her better breakups!”

Eda sighed. “Not a breakup. Now let's bounce before any more monsters fall in love with me-“

An explosion interrupted her. Eda turned around and saw a large plume of smoke billowing from one of the outer walls. She could hear frantic yelling coming from inside the conformitorium.

She winced. “Oh yeah, we should also bounce because I’m pretty sure you just started a large-scale prison riot, kid.”

*-_-_-_-_-*

Eda loved flying in the air in her staff. She was never sure what it was: the freedom of flying so high up in the air, the wind flapping against her face, or being so high up that she could see the entire Isles, every single trivial problem far behind her.

This time on the other hand was different. It wasn’t really because she had the extra weight on her staff due to Luz sitting behind her, that wasn’t really the problem. What she found off was the fact that every time she glanced back, she kept on seeing the kid looking around, wide eyed at the world around her and then back dejectedly at a wadded-up pamphlet in her hand. She couldn’t really make out what it said. Just the words ‘REALITY CHECK CAMP’ boldly printed in the front of the thing.

The ride was silent. Too damn silent. Titan, she barely knew the kid for what, half a day? Luz was an absolute chatterbox when it came to anything magic. When they were riding over to the conformitorium, the kid wouldn’t shut up, asking question after question. At first she found it kind of annoying, but then it kind of got……. Charming?

Eda decided to say something. She turned to Luz.“Well…. a deal’s a deal, kid. When we get home, we’re gonna get you back home, alright? Oh, and we also gotta get your book back as well. I’m pretty sure you left that back at the house-“

“Actually, I got it right here.” Luz said, taking out the book from her bag.

“Ah, great! We can get you outta here even faster then. Just don’t start reading the thing; I don’t want you getting staff-sick and having you throw up on me. Or even worse, you dropping that book, because believe me, I ain’t going back for it.”

That last part was kind of a lie. She might go back for it. But Luz didn’t need to know that.

She looked back to the open skies in front of her. Just a couple more minutes, and this entire clusterfuck of a day will come to a conclusion. Eda wasn’t really expecting much today, after all. Just another day of ripping off, sorry, selling her wares to a bunch of impressionable idiots customers, only to be inevitably chased off by the cops back to her house where she can spend the evening relaxing her wary bones while King brutally suppresses another stuffed animal uprising by holding public executions.

She heard Luz silently gasp behind her. She wasn’t exactly what was going on when she felt the young human tap her on the shoulder.

Luz shifted on the staff. “Hey, uh, Eda?”

“Yup!” Eda said, loudly popping the ‘P’.

“Look, I know you got your head chopped off, and we kinda started some type of prison riot-“

“Correction: You started a prison riot!” King pointed out.

“- but this was the most amount of fun I’ve ever had.”

Eda was confused. Last time she checked, humans didn’t really find immense amounts of danger and peril fun. Humans found boring, menial tasks to be fun. Like being stuck in traffic with their smelly cars, or listening to two old guys arguing about tax rates, or being stuck in a waiting room with only decades-old magazines being the only option to pass the time.

But starting a prison riot? She was pretty sure humans didn’t find that fun.

“So, uh, where you getting at, kid? Whats the point?”

“Well, I don’t really fit in at home. You don’t really fit in here. If I stay, we can not fit in together!” She said. She crumbled up the small pamplet in her hand and chucked it to the side, sending it flying off into the distance. “And I’m not going to summer camp.”

“Whats a summer camp? Wait, what are we even talking about here?” Eda asked.

“I want to stay and become a witch! Like you! And Azura!”

The staff screeched to a sudden halt. Eda had barely enough time time to catch King as he flew of her shoulder. Eda giggled, and then broke out into all-out laughter. “What? Kid, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day! You should try becoming a comedian or something, because that was gold right there-“

“Eda, I’m not joking!” Luz shouted.

She blinked. “Wait, you’re serious? Kid, that’s insane. Besides, humans can’t really be witches anyway. It’s impossible.”

Luz shrugged. “Well, maybe that’s because nobody bothered to try.”

“Heh, she’s got you there.” King said, perched on her shoulder.

“King. You’re not helping”

Luz grabbed the older witch by the shoulders. “Please! If you teach me, I’ll do anything you want! I’ll……uh, even clean Hooty!”

Eda shivered. “Firstly, kid, nobody should ever be forced to clean Hooty, because I’m pretty sure that’s a crime against witch-kind right there. And secondly, the answers still no.”

“Oh come on! Please! I’ll do anything! Whatever you want!”

King whispered to Eda. “C’mon Eda! Let her stay. She can make us snacks!”

Eda sighed and thought for a moment. It wouldn’t really be that bad having an apprentice of her own, right? She supposed that if she had the human had an apprenticeship with her, that’s just one more thing she can use to one-up herself against her sister.

Besides, she can just get the kid to do some work for her in exchange for some basic lessons, and she’ll give up in at least a week after she realizes that humans doing magic is just a biological impossibility and then she can send her home. It’s a win-win: she gets free labor, and the kid can simultaneously fulfill and have her dreams of being a witch crushed!

Ok, maybe not that second part. But the rest is still great for everyone!

Eh, fuck it. Might as well let the kid stay.

Eda smiled. “Do you know what, kid? You got yourself a deal. You get to stay with me and learn magic, but you’ll need to work for me first before I teach you anything.” She held out her hand. “Deal?”

Luz smiled and flung herself to Eda in some weird vertical arm thing, wrapping her tightly in her grasp. She didn’t really have a clue to what was going on, all she knew was the kid was squeezing her tightly, and she was beginning to lose air quickly.

“Ok! That’s good!” She pulled Luz off of her. She willed the staff to begin flying forward again. “Now lets head back to the house. We’re pretty close anyways, its just over there- what the?”

She saw the house over yonder. At first it looked completely normal, but then she saw something that looked completely off: Near the front door, talking with Hooty of all things, was a lone guy. Eda couldn’t really see him too well from so high up, but she could make out that the guy was wearing a torn-up shirt, some odd-looking baggy grey pants, and a black beanie on his head. The stranger was standing in front of the door, laughing along with Hooty.

That last part set off a few red flags. A normal person's reaction to Hooty was usually either sheer disgust, confusion, terror, or a mixture of the previous three emotions. It was how she herself reacted to the house demon when they first met. Titan, even Luz seemed slightly terrified by him.

However, someone being this close to Hooty was completely unusual. Something was off. It couldn’t be too serious. Maybe it was just some wandering salesman trying to con a conwoman. Or maybe it was some prick sent in from the Emperor's Coven.

Whatever it was, Eda ducked the staff into the forest below, ignoring Luz and Kings sudden protests.

*-_-_-_-_-*

“Hey Eda, I got a question. Why are we hiding in a bush-“

“Shhh!” Eda clamped her hand against Luz’s mouth. She peeked through the bushes. Nope, the random guy was still there. They had been in the bushes for at least ten minutes now, and she had to convince Luz and King to keep quiet while she kept a lookout.

The original plan was to just to hide out until the guy went away, but that ship has sailed ages ago. She was pretty sure this guy has been here for quite some time now, judging by the extremely lengthy conversation the two have been having; which has jumped from talking about random ‘seventies rock bands’ (whatever that meant) to about Hooty himself.

“Oh! So you’re a house demon.” She heard him say.  “So how exactly are you, well uh, born- actually do you know what?  No offense, but I think the less I know about you the better.”

“I’m a horrific amalgamation of nature, hoot, hoot!”

Eda shuddered. Well at least that was one thing that wasn’t off about the guy; the two may get along disturbingly well, but at least there is still some slight aversion.

She felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned and saw Luz, visibly frustrated. “Eda, how long are we going to be sitting here?” She whispered. “It’s been hours.”

“Its been five minutes.” King corrected. “Do humans just naturally have a bad perception of time? Besides, what's the big deal? It’s just a random guy at our doorstep. He’s probably just another snake-oil salesman. Just have Hooty eat him and lets get on with our day-“

Eda hushed King. “The reason why I’m being cautious here is because I’m not sure if you noticed, but I’m kinda, well I don’t know, a wanted criminal!” She hissed. “Look, we’re in a bit of a pickle here. I just need you two to listen here: I’m gonna see what the deal is with that guy. I’m not sure if things are going to get hairy,but just in case they do, I want you two to stay put, got it?”

“Oh come on. Eda, I can help!” Luz protested.

“Ahem?”

“Oh, sorry. Me and King can help!”

Eda sighed. The kid wanted to help her even more? Even after she put her neck on the line to fish out of that tricky situation with the Warden by (unintentionally, might she add) causing a prison riot that was bound to be on all the front papers tomorrow morning. And then offering to do it all again, all for a person she met mere hours ago?

“No, kid.” She said. “Believe me, you’ve already done enough for me today. Just sit this one out for me, ok?”

Luz opened her mouth to speak, but then quickly closed it, sitting down and crossing her arms in a pout. Eda softly smiled and patted the young human on the head, gave a quick nod to King, and stepped out of the bushes and into the open clearing.

The man heard her coming and turned. When he saw her he paled, which was saying something since he was already pale. In fact, the guy probably wouldn’t look out of place in a healing ward; with his sickly pale skin and shaky breathing overcoming the silence between them. He straightened himself and spoke. “Hi! I assume you’re Eda, right? Hooty told me a lot about you-“

Eda cut him off, quickly cutting to the chase. “Ok, listen up here, buckaroo. You can quit whatever spiel you’re putting up here, man, so let's just get this over with. Are you here to sell me something, drag me to the Emperor's Coven, or kill me?”

The man backed up right against the door. “What the- no! I-I just need directions to Bonesborough, that’s it!”

“Really then? Hooty, how long was this guy here for?”

Hooty stretched over to her. “About two hours!”

The man squeaked and muttered to himself. “Two hours! Oh shit, I haven’t updated control-“

“So you’ve been waiting for two hours on my doorstep for me to get home to ask for directions?” Eda asked. “Sounds kinda fishy to me.”

“Look, I know it sounds bad, but I’m only here for directions. I stopped by earlier, but nobody was home so I just decided to wait it out until someone showed up. If you just tell me what I need to know, I’ll be on my merry way!” He timidly smiled.

Eda put her hands on her hips. “Still don’t buy it. You could’ve just asked Hooty you know?”

The mans smile dropped. ”What.” He turned to Hooty. “You…. You could’ve told me where Bonesborough was THIS ENTIRE TIME!” He yelled, startling Eda.

“Of course! Just head down that path right there, take a left at the fork, take another left, then a right, and then you’ll be right there!”

The man blinked, and Eda saw an intense fire in his eyes. When she thought things were about to get violent, the man took a long, shaky breath and spoke.

“Hooty, I mean no offense here, but I want to strangle you right now-“

“Not the first time someone told me that!”

“- but I can’t, mostly because I don’t really know where your neck is. Are you all neck, or- nope, just forget I asked.”

He sighed and looked back to Eda. “Sorry for giving you and your, uh, bird-tube any trouble.” He waved goodbye to Hooty. When the man turned to walk away, well more like stumble away, Eda quickly noticed something dripping along the side of his pant leg.

“Uh, hey dude. You’re kinda….. bleeding.” She pointed out.

The man stopped. “What? No I’m not- oh shit I am.” He said, finally noticing the large gash on the side of his leg that was oozing out blood.

Eda grabbed him. “Hey do you need to go to a healer or something? I’m not too qualified to say this, but that doesn't look that good-“

“No, no, I can get it myself.” The man muttered, stumbling out of her grasp. “I’m fine, I just gotta apply a quick spell on this bad boy and then things will be ok……. ok……….oh fuck, my head. Nope, not ok, not ok. Oh fu- Oh I think I’m gonna- nope I’m gonna. I’m gonna pass out.” At that, the man suddenly collapsed on the ground.

If she had a snail for every time someone passed out on her front lawn, she’d probably have like, two- no three snails, can’t forget the Coven Day incident. Wasn’t a lot, but it was weird that it happened thrice.

A sudden scream broke her thoughts. Luz burst out from the bushes. “Eda is he dead?!”

“Eda can we eat him?!” King followed.

“Can I get first dibs!” Hooty shrieked.

She sighed. “No, definitely no, and I’m not even going to answer that third one. He’s just knocked out.” She quickly looked over the unconscious guy. The wound was still open, she’ll probably need to get that sewed up before the guy bled out. That’s probably what caused him to collapse in the first place: blood loss. The guy was bleeding out the entire time, and he didn’t even know it.

But something was missing still. What the Titan happened?

Eda shook her head. No, she’ll figure that out later. What she needed right now was to get this guy inside.

Fuck. Only one day, and she already has two other freeloaders in the house.

She pointed to Luz. “Kid, grab his arms. I’ll grab his legs. Be careful not to get any blood on you, the guys still dripping a bit. We’re gonna drag him upstairs, third room on the right, got it?”

Luz looked like she was about to burst from the seam with the number of questions she was going to ask, but she decided to simply nod and follow her instructions, grabbing the unconscious man’s arms.

“Alright kid, count with me here. One!”

“Two!”

“Three!” The two picked up the limp body, quickly realizing that the task in ahead of them would be more difficult than anticipated.

“Gah! How heavy is this guy? Did he swallow a bunch of bowling balls or something?” Luz heaved, walking backwards into the house, Eda and King following behind her. The door to the Owl House slammed, Hooty stretching his neck inside to check on his new friend.

Unbeknownst to any of them however, a small, gooey creature was lurking in the bushes surrounding the house, silently watching.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And WAITING.

HIDE. WATCH. WAIT. HUMAN INSIDE HOME.

OWL TUBE GUARDS HOME. OWL TUBE DANGEROUS. LOST TO OWL TUBE, HUMAN ESCAPED.

HUMAN INSIDE. TAKE OUT HUMAN, PLEASE MASTER.

MUST WATCH. MUST WAIT.

MUST WAIT.

With that, the creature lurked through the bushes.

Chapter Text

Elena was facing the worst decision in her life. 

Her eyes darted around the table, running every single possible scenario in her head to come up with something, anything, that would get her out of this dilemma. She silently hummed to herself; a simple four-note tune that her father had taught to her when she was small. They would hum it together every night before bed. Just the two of them; her wrapped in the warm bed sheets, and her father leaning over her, his warm eyes staring lovingly at her as they hummed together until she fell asleep. 

She could feel the site’s research director, Kate, staring daggers at her from across the table. Even with only her elbows on the table, her hands tightly knotted together in concentration, she could feel the table slightly vibrate from the other woman’s leg restlessly bouncing underneath the table. 

Kate sharply inhaled. “Elena, I’m not trying to rush you or anything, but we’ve been sitting here all morning waiting for you to make your move-“

“Just give me one more minute,” she said absentmindedly. 

“Elena it’s been fifteen minutes,” Kate said. “We’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes waiting on you. I have some tests I need to oversee downstairs in an hour, so can you just hurry up already! -“

“Keep it down, Kate. You need to let her think.” Moss shushed her. He noticeably had thick dark bags underneath his eyes, and he was already on his fourth cup of coffee for the morning. He’d just returned a few days ago from his mission in Oregon. The only details she remembered him mentioning was that it had something to do with trying to convince a bunch of Gnomes not to revolt and invade the local town because apparently kidnaping a small child and forcing them to be their queen wasn’t covered under the protectorate treaty they signed with the Foundation. Things went predictably south, and Moss ended up attending to several injured people. 

So pretty much just another day.

Kate rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, it’s not like she’s doing rocket science or something.” 

“I’m not sure if you noticed, but our lives are kinda on the line here.” Moss pointed out. 

For the millionth time in a row, she had to agree with Moss. All their lives were in balance here, and it was up to her to make the right choice. The right choice will bring them prosperity and success, and the wrong one a painful, grisly, and embarrassing death. 

But hey, no pressure, right?

She raked her mind ideas, continuing to hum, albeit faster.

15 minutes. That’s how long she has been sitting there, pondering her current predicament. It’s funny how fast time passes when you’re stuck on something, right? When you are taking a test, and you get stuck on a question you feel like you know the answer, like it’s right on the tip of your tongue. But you don’t, and you end up spending an hour on that one question right up until the bell rings, and you have to turn in the test that has only three questions answered because you spent all your time on one damn question. 

And yes, that previous analogy was from Elena’s own experience. 

Overthinking comes easy for Elena. She must take her time with fifty percent of the decisions she makes. The other fifty percent of decisions she just makes a quick split-second choice, and then she proceeds to regret making said decision. 

And now here she was, facing her greatest challenge yet. 

She began to hum faster. 

She tried to consider all of her options and began to formulate a plan. Maybe she might have enough time to formulate a backup plan, and just to be extra safe, a backup plan for the backup plan- no, that wouldn’t work. Judging by Kate’s inpatient gaze, she was already pushing her luck. 

Just then, like some cosmic deity (she would normally say God, but given the fact that it seemed like every single religious deity – past and present – are not only real, but are also in Foundation containment, she just gave up in the concept of religion) planted something insider her, an idea began to form in her head.

A stupid idea, but an idea. 

She waved Moss over, and she frantically whispered her idea to him, his face growing more and more puzzled with each passing word. 

“That’s a stupid idea.” He said, stating the obvious.

“I’m aware.” 

“And are you sure it’s gonna work?”

“Nope.” 

“….. Well, I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

With Moss’s (semi)sarcastic approval, she let her (semi)determined eyes fall back to Kate. 

“Fuck it, we’re going for a full-frontal assault. Roll for attack.” She announced.

“It’s about time.” Kate snarked. She grabbed a pair of dice and gave them a hearty toss, letting them clatter against a table that was cluttered with a sprawling fantastical map, several detailed character sheets, and a hunky worn-out box with the words Creatures and Caverns boldly printed.

And coffee. So much coffee. 

The dice landed, and Kate grimaced when she saw the number the dice landed.

“That’s a good number, right?” Moss asked. “I mean, the higher the number is, the better the attack, right? Wait, or is it the other way around? The lower the number, the better the attack.” 

Kate awkwardly nodded, the same grimaced expression on her face “I don’t actually know.” she admitted.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the DM, you’re supposed to know!” 

“To be honest, I’d tried reading through the DM manual, but I gave up halfway through it because it was so long. I swear, the thing had to be longer than a college textbook. So, I have no idea what have been doing for the last hour and a half. I’ve been mostly winging it, and it seemed to be working until now.”

Elena and Moss stared at Kate in dumbfounded silence for what had to be a good minute before the latter finally spoke. “Anyhow, I can lay out what happens next in two ways. One, I can go through this based on the large extensive campaign I’ve spent hours building-“ 

Moss butted in, “So you have all the time in the world to build an extensive campaign, but you couldn’t be bothered to read a DM guide?” 

“I have my priorities, sue me. Now, we can use my extensive campaign with so many layers of worldbuilding that it’s like a giant, uh, lasagna of worldbuilding! A worldbuilding lasagna! Or I can just give you the boring, simplified version of events- “

“The short version.” Moss and Elena said. 

“Oh, come on!” Kate groaned, throwing up her arms in defeat, sending several papers up into the air, and scattering them around the site’s cafeteria.  

“I’ve spent hours, hours I tell you, trying to craft the perfect campaign for the inaugural gathering of the Site-374 Creatures and Caverns Club. And my hard work happens to get rewarded by a bunch of party poopers!” She threw all sense of dignity out the window for a moment and pouted like a small child that got denied a candy bar at the supermarket, rather than a seasoned researcher with a Ph.D. in thaumaturgical studies. 

“Don’t you have tests to oversee in an hour?” Moss asked, grinning. 

“Party poopers I tell you!” She cried, wiping a fake tear from her eye before quickly composing herself. “Ugh, fine. You two try to take on the Hydra of the Colchian Caverns, but it spots you and although you do fight valiantly, you both die. Horribly. Which balances out the valiance come to think of it-“

“Hold on, hold on. Ok, I get we died horribly, but define horribly.” Moss asked. 

Kate rolled her eyes. “Oh, so now you want the details? What a bunch of hypocrites, you two are. Well, there isn’t exactly any way I can sugarcoat this, Moss, your paladin attempts to, uh, whatever it is that paladins do- “ 

“Cast spells?” Moss suggested.

“Yeah, that, whatever. You try to do your magic stuff, but the Hydra is immune to magical attacks, so your attacks are rendered useless. Then, the Hydra uses its poisonous breath to incapacitate you, and then slice you in half, giving you the Bisected status effect.” She slapped a handmade card on the table, on it a small, crudely drawn, stick figure sliced in half with little x’s on its eyes.  

Moss picked up the card. “I’m pretty sure being bisected isn’t a status effect. Also, I thought Magical attacks were supposed to have a X2 effect on undead creatures-”

Kate elected to ignore him. “Anyways, Elena-“She thrust a finger at her, “your Fighter leads the assault, but is the first one to fall at the hands of the Hydra thanks to the aforementioned poison breath. If by some miracle from the gods that doesn’t kill you, the Hydra stomping its foot atop your head will! It stomps on your head, causing your head to explode like a watermelon in a hydraulic press- “

“Kate, spare the details, please. We just ate breakfast, and I prefer if my breakfast stays in my stomach, thank you.” Elena pleaded with her. The image of someone’s head exploding like a watermelon in her head wasn’t helping her keep her breakfast down, especially this early in the morning. 

Kate thankfully got the hint, silently nodding before continuing, “And as for Green….” She gestured to an empty chair. “I don’t know, he died of dysentery or something outside the cavern because he’s been in the bathroom for the last thirty minutes!” She groaned. 

Moss sighed. “I tried to tell him that maybe getting the four-cheese pizza, with extra cheese, wasn’t a great idea since he is extremely lactose intolerant. But no, he said it was – and I’m directly quoting him here - ‘his body, his choice’.” He threw his hands up in defeat. “I tried to tell him, I really did, but the idiot refused to listen. He’s probably still in the bathroom right now, regretting his life choices- “ 

“Hey team, I’m back!” Green appeared out of nowhere, startling Moss, and sat back down, completely oblivious to the conversation that was taking place. “So, how are things running along?” He asked Kate.

“Everyone died. Badly.” Kate bluntly said to a gasping Green.

“What! I was in the bathroom for like five minutes, how did everybody die! - Wait, I was in the bathroom, how did I die?” 

“Dysentery.” Everyone else said. 

Green blinked, the gears slowly turning in his mind. A scandalized look quickly grew on his face. “Oh, how dare you make fun of my medical condition! I’ll have you know it’s very serious!” 

“You’re lactose intolerant, Green.” 

“So? That’s a serious medical condition. Besides my logic is this: I can eat as much cheese as I so please, what’s it gonna do, kill me? Besides, Moss, what’s with the fuss about me eating things that I shouldn’t? Unless…Aww, are you worried about me, Mossy boy?” He teased, lightly pinching Moss’s now slightly pink cheeks.

Moss quickly swatted his hand away. "Never call me ‘Mossy-boy’ again or I’ll violate the Hippocratic Oath.” He muttered.

Elena decided to swiftly change the topic before things got violent.

“So, what type of strategies are we thinking to get past this Hydra?” She sputtered out. Her eyes went to Kate, and she did her best to silently plead with the other woman to just go along with the sudden change in topic. 

She thankfully bought it. “Uh, Elena’s right. Maybe you all consider a change of strategy besides just, ‘charge at it until it dies’.” 

“We have!” Green scoffed. “We first tried to kill it. It killed us instead. Then we tried to sneak past it. It smelled us and then killed us. Then we tried to seduce it, but then it ended up- “

“Nope! We are not going over that part of the campaign again.” 

“Didn’t you write the campaign?” 

Again, Elena decided to swiftly change the topic. 

“So, uh, Kate didn’t you mention that a couple more people signed up for the Creatures and Caverns club meeting?” 

Kate frowned and slumped down in her chair. “Well, I did. But its…. Complicated.”  

“Why so?” 

Kate sighed. “Well, the site got hit with some budget cuts recently. A lot of the smaller sites did. Half my research staff got reassigned across the country. About half of our anomalous items in storage had to be relocated too. Though we couldn’t get rid of the damn pixies. Nobody wanted them! Not even the Aussie branch, and we send all of our spiders all the time!”

“The pixies aren’t exactly spiders, though,” Moss said.

Kate waved her hand.” They’re close enough. They've got half the limbs of your normal spider but double the murderous tendencies. It’s a perfect match!”

“Well, that explains a lot.” Moss hummed, looking around the deserted cafeteria. “The site’s been getting pretty empty as of late.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too!” Green added. “It’s pretty weird seeing this place this empty. I mean, I’ve only been here for a few weeks but it’s still…. Weird.” he slowly said. 

Elena at first thought her two teammates were exaggerating. There was no way the site could’ve become a ghost town in a couple of weeks, right? But then she looked around, and the truth became immediately apparent. 

The cafeteria was nearly deserted. Besides a lone food booth open that was serving breakfast, it was only them. 

All alone. 

Playing Creatures and Caverns. 

“Woah….” Was all Elena was able to mummer. She grabbed her coffee and began to take a long sip.

“Yup, tell me about it.” Kate, said, seemingly reading her mind. “It’s…. odd seeing this place this deserted. I mean, it wasn’t like we were jam-packed here before, but now you barely see anyone anymore. It’s nine in the morning, and usually, this place is pretty busy-“

“Nine in the morning!” Elena hissed, spraying coffee all over the table. She pulled out her phone and checked the time: 9:17 AM

Crap, crap, crap, CRAP!

“Oh, come on, you just got coffee all over the map!” Kate cried, gesturing to the now-soaked cardboard map on the table.

Ignoring her, she stood up abruptly, causing the chair to scrape across the floor. “Marcus wanted me in his office at nine! He’s probably going to kill me! “

“I’m sorry, are you talking about that general dude that walks around the place?” Green asked. 

“That general dude happens to be my boss, Green. And by extension, your boss as well.” She said, quickly flattening out her shirt and pants to get rid of any possible crease. She pushed her chair in, somehow causing even more noise than before. “I gotta go, I’ll let you two know what happened afterward!” 

She rushed out of the cafeteria, ignoring Kate yelling behind her, “These things are expensive, Elena! You owe me a new map!”

*-_-_-_-_-*

Elena stopped short to the door of Marcus’s office, breathing hard after running down a flight of stairs and halfway through the lower levels of Site 374. She began to quickly check herself: 

Boots, shined.

Pants, spotless.

Shirt, tucked in and neatly pressed. 

Hair neatly combed and tied back. 

She let out a long-drawn-out breath and clasped the door handle, polished of course. Because of course, it was polished. This was Marcus she was talking about. She turned the handle and pushed the door open, revealing a dark room, the silhouettes of Marcus’s desk and chair barely visible. 

Oh, thank fuck. Maybe she misread the message Marcus sent her? Maybe she’s just early. Yeah, that would make sense, that would make perfect, logical sense-

The lights suddenly came on, and there he was, sitting at his desk, an undiscernible expression on his face.

General Lionel Marcus isn’t exactly the type of person that can be described as intimidating. But right now, he was the most intimidating person she had ever seen in her life.

Marcus is a man of…. Precision. Not perfection, no. Precision. He applied that idea to himself: he always had a clean-shaven face, except for a neatly brushed mustache. He always wore the same neatly pressed uniform, every single button flawlessly polished and the collar always crisply flattened. 

And the sunglasses. 

He always wore sunglasses. Not only outdoors, but also indoors, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day, while it rained, and while it shined. Nobody ever knew why, and whenever he was asked, he never gave a straight answer. Some people thought it was because he had some cybernetic enhancements in his eyes. Other people thought it was so he could hide his emotions. 

And there were the people who thought he was an idiot. 

Right now, Elena was firmly leaning towards the second theory, since no matter how hard she stared into the deep, dark inky recesses of the tinted lenses that nested upon Marcus’s face, she couldn’t grasp any emotion from the man who was sat behind that desk. 

Upon seeing him, she promptly stood tall, her arm shooting up into a salute. She tried to ignore the beads of sweat running down the back of her neck as she watched Marcus just stare at her, a small frown on his face. 

What was he feeling? Anger? Disappointment? 

Both?

“You’re late.” He said, stating the obvious. 

“Sir yes, sir!” She shouted back in response, trying not to cringe at her volume, still tightly bound in a salute. 

“Why exactly are you late?” He said, a brow raised. 

Alright, just make something up Elena. Like, I don’t know, you overslept or something. Oversleeping is realistic, and it isn’t as ridiculous as saying something like-

“ I was playing Creatures and Caverns with some friends, and I lost track of time, sir!” 

Fuck.

She felt her face heat up. Marcus hummed to himself. “The Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons rip-off? I thought they stopped making that game years ago.” 

“Well, technically Creatures and Caverns came first sir-“

“Eh, I don’t give two hoots. Just take a seat. We have much to discuss, Captain.”

Elena took a seat in front of her superior. She squirmed under the other man's gaze, discreetly trying to cross her legs into a more comfortable position. She still felt a gnawing sense of discomfort and dread gnawing into her, however.

What does he want? 

Marcus didn’t say anything at first. He simply sighed and pulled out a file from his labyrinth of a desk. He slapped the file down onto the desk and pulled it open. He spent a minute in silence, reading its contents. 

Elena didn’t bother trying to peak at the file. She was certain that it was her file. He was looking at her file. 

Breathe, just breathe, Elena.  She tried to reassure herself. It can’t be THAT bad, right? He might be just going over it to, uh, refresh his memory! He oversees hundreds of personnel, so of course he doesn’t know the details of every single person he’s in charge of! Yeah, that makes total, one-hundred percent sense-

“Elena, are you still with me?” 

Elena snapped out of her thoughts and regarded her superior, who was looking at her with a confused frown on his face. 

Shit, I did it again, because of course, I did it again. Why I am like this? 

“Uh, yes, sir. My apologies.” She quickly apologized. 

Marcus remained silent for a moment before speaking again. “Well as I was saying, you have an exemplary record with the Foundation- perhaps one of the best I’ve seen. Your performance on all bi-monthly training assessments has been exceptional, and your military background, especially your service in the Army, is impressive. We're fortunate to have you.” 

Her jaw dropped in surprise. She was expecting to come into Marcus’ office to get yelled at, not to suddenly get overwhelmed with a sudden flood of compliments. “Um, thank you, sir.” She said, her voice slightly wavering. 

He nodded along. “Your teammates also have a pretty decorated record as well. Who were they again? Ross, Gene, and Hugh, right?” 

“Moss, Green, and Blue, sir.” She gently corrected. 

Marcus hummed. “Gotcha. Hoss, Dean, and Drew.” He repeated the names with utmost confidence, somehow missing that he completely butchered their actual names. As Elena was pondering whether he was doing this on purpose to mess with her, he took out another item from his desk, a simple pink envelope. 

He looked at her, or at least she thought he was looking at her. It was always hard to tell with the sunglasses. He had a strange look on his face, an almost sad, dejected look on his face. He remained silent for a while, almost a minute by Elena’s count, before finally speaking. 

“I’m not sure how I can put this lightly, Elena. So, I’m not even gonna bother. Effective two weeks from now, your team is being decommissioned.” 

The room was silent. 

Elena’s mouth went dry. She made a strangled sound that was intended to be the word what. 

Marcus let out a drawn-out sigh. “Yes, I understand your…... confusion, about this situation. But this decision has already been set in stone- “

“S-Sir, my apologies for interrupting, but why? Just a minute ago you were pretty much singing praises about me and my team, so why are we being decommissioned?” She quickly stiffened up when she noticed she had spoken too loudly. 

Marcus leaned back in his chair; his fingers laced together. “Elena, this decision doesn’t have anything to do with the competency of you or your teammates. I’m not saying your team is competent however, but it isn’t exactly incompetent.” 

He pondered for a few moments. “Like, if being incompetent was an Olympic sport, I’d bet good money your team would score within the top ten leaderboard. Because, believe me, I have seen worse! Some of the pricks I’m stuck with are so stubborn and utterly convinced that they are essentially untouchable, they end up getting themselves turned into anthropomorphic blobs of flesh with some dangly noodles for limbs, forever damned to wander the Siberian wilderness for the rest of their miserable, painful lives-“ 

“Uh, sir?” Elena gently interrupted him. “I understand that my team has it’s shortcomings, but what exactly do you mean?” 

Marcus shifted in his chair. “I’m glad you asked!” She pointed a finger at Elena. “You are too analytical. You spend fifteen minutes trying to make a decision a normal person would make in fifteen seconds.”

“Well, uh, sir don’t you think that’s an exaggeration?” 

“Two weeks ago, I was behind you in the lunch line. You spent ten minutes trying to decide whether you should get chicken tenders or chicken nuggets. Ten minutes.” He said, a blank expression on his face, like the memory of that day was coming back to haunt him. 

A sudden fury swelled in Elena, and she stood up rapidly. “Sir, it was perfectly valid for me to take my time with that decision! People think that chicken nuggets and chicken tenders are the same thing, but they’re not. One is a tiny oval blob of mystery meat that’s been heavily breaded. You slap some sauces on them, and boom, you call it a day. Now tenders, oh-ho, those are the real deal! They’re made from actual chicken and not some processed goo, and they’re larger with a better breading to chicken ratio, which allows for the breading and chicken flavors to sing in harmony. Now with the tenders, they could’ve worked perfectly as a standalone meal, but the nuggets would allow me to get some other food to diversify my diet as well. However, that would lead to an increased caloric intake, and I know I always get sludgy and tired after eating too much, but I could’ve negated that with some coffee, but then I had to factor in the cost of coffee into my monthly budget and- “

She froze suddenly, a realization hitting her. 

“I’m just proving your point, am I sir?” 

“Yes. Yes, you are. Now please sit your ass back down!” He ordered, and Elena reluctantly obeyed, the logistics of choosing chicken nuggets or chicken tenders for lunch two weeks ago still running in her head. 

She was pretty sure she went with the tenders after everyone in the line gave her looks that ranged from confused frustration, to downright murderous. 

Marcus continued. “As I was explaining, you are far too analytical for your own good. Agent Green has the attention span of a goldfish-“

“Don’t goldfish have a better attention span than people?” 

“- Agent Blue is an absolute maverick ninety-five percent of the time. And Moss?” He trailed off into silence, scratching his chin. “Honestly, I can’t think of anything.” He hummed to himself, content with his stellar assessment of Moss. 

The room fell into silence. 

Elena felt awkward, exposed like Marcus just stripped her entire team down- like Marcus stripped her down- and carefully dissected them, their quirks, their idiosyncrasies, like he had them in the palm of his hand and he was carefully prodding them. Waiting for something, anything, a reaction, like he was a little kid pointing a magnifying glass at an anthill, waiting for the sparks to fly. 

But Elena wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. What was he expecting her to do? Beg? No, she wasn’t about to get on her knees and begin pleading to Marcus, ‘Please, please, pretty please! Can I have my old job back? Pretty please with a cherry on top?’.

No, to hell with that! She may have (potentially) lost her job, but she isn’t going to lose her dignity. 

She took a long, steady breath, steeling her nerves. “Sir, I understand that my unit has several, er, flaws, but I’m confident that these issues can be worked out as a team. Is there anything, and I really do mean anything, we can do to resolve this issue?” She asked with a hopeful glint in her voice. 

The older man scratched his head. “Well…. It’s complicated, Elena. The reason your team is being decommissioned not only stems from your performance issues but also the site's budgetary issues as well.” 

Elena blinked. The gears in her mind began to turn. “Kate told me earlier that the site was experiencing budget cuts. A lot of people got moved around to other sites. Is that what’s going on here?” 

For a while, Marcus remained silent, drawing out the tension in the room. After an eternity of waiting, he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, a slight frown on his face. He almost looked…. Defeated. There was a resigned look on the man’s face like his mind was in a completely different place. 

“Dr. Robinson is right on the money there,” He said, referring to Kate by her actual title, “We got hit by several cuts in our budget. A lot of our personnel got moved around a lot. In fact…” He gestured to the corner of his office. Elena followed his gaze and saw several packed boxes and a briefcase packed in the corner of the room. 

Elena turned back to look at him, and he still had that defeated expression painted on his face. He sighed. “They reassigned me as well. Don’t start celebrating yet, you’re still under my command, Captain. I’m just being moved to another site, that’s all.” 

He twirled the hairs of his neatly groomed mustache. “Still, I’m gonna miss this place. Except the pixies, they can go straight to hell.” He shuddered. “They’re shipping me off to Site 95. It’s a decent gig at least, and apparently, they have some guy there that can’t die or something, so they’ve just resorted to using him as a test dummy.” 

“Uh-huh,” Elena played along, completely disinterested in what Marcus was saying. “So, sir, what about my unit? Is there really nothing we can do here?” 

Marcus thought for a moment. “Well, I never said that, did I?” His lips curled into a strange half-smile. “The reason why your team was decommissioned is because although your team is admittedly one of the best teams we have, you’re also one of the most expensive ones as well.” 

Elena raised an eyebrow. “Expensive?” She asked.

Marcus nodded. He produced a paper from his desk. Several spreadsheets and numbers were printed on it. “This is the financial report from the last six months. Our average costs for teams of field agents are usually around here.” He pointed to the middle of one of the spreadsheets, where the numbers were all nice and green. “Your team, on the other hand, is here.” His finger moved downwards, where the numbers were mixed between dark orange and red.

Elena cringed. Marcus only nodded grimly at her expression before continuing. “Your team, Elena, is, uh, sloppy at best. About half the time, we have to do some type of cleanup because your team was involved in an incident in the field. Believe me, I got yelled at several times by the pricks from the disinformation department because they had to do a cleanup. And the problem is cleanups are…...?” He trailed off, goading Elena into finishing the sentence. 

“Expensive. They’re expensive, sir.” She finished. 

Marcus snapped his fingers. “Exactly! Do you know how expensive amnestics are? Actually, don’t answer that. My point is the upkeep for your team eventually outweighed its usefulness, and administration voted to give you the cut.” He explained. 

Elena nodded. “So, what can we do?” 

Marcus leaned forward, the half-smile on his face replaced with a serious expression. “I can give your team one- only one- chance to try and prove that you are not a financial burden. If you can do that, then I’ll be able to make a case for your team not to be disbanded.” 

She quickly sat up at the last part. “A-alright sir, we’re in. What exactly do we need to do?” 

Marcus breathed what sounded like a sigh of relief. What was there for him to be relieved about? Last time Elena checked, it was her team, her career on the chopping block, not his. She almost felt insulted at that little huff of air, like it was still floating around her, taunting her. 

“Oh thank 343.” He muttered. “I was hoping you would say yes. We were in a little bit of a pickle, you see. Remember that random thing I said earlier about how some of the pricks I work with end up getting themselves anthropomorphic blobs of flesh?”

“Uh, yes, sir. I remember.” She answered, still puzzled. 

“Well… there was an incident in Siberia with one of our units and 610.” He said, his voice slowly trailing off. 

“Oh. Oh, that’s- that’s- “

“Terrible, yes, I know.” Marcus dismissively waved his hand. “Anyways, they were supposed to be involved in a heavily classified joint operation next month. But then they had to get themselves turned into sentient meatballs, which wasn’t ideal for us since we only have a narrow time frame to execute the operation. Thankfully, you agreed to this, which thankfully saves me a lot of headaches later on-“ 

“Sorry for interrupting sir, but why our team specifically?” Elena asked. “Like you mentioned, we’re kind of… er, sloppy, sir.” 

“I want you because you’re one of the few teams that have been specifically trained in deactivating thaumaturgical wards.” He blankly explained.

Elena’s jaw dropped in confusion. “Wait, but sir, we don’t even have Blue on our team-“ 

“Yes, I’m quite aware that Dr. Whitman dragged him out to Connecticut for some science stuff with his cronies.” He spoke. “But I’m also aware that your team is also trained in deactivating thaumaturgical wards, yes?” 

Elena scratched the back of her head. “Well, yes. But we don’t have that much experience with it- “ 

“I don’t care about whether you have experience or not. I want to know: can you do it or not?”

Elena shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Well, y-yes, sir. Yes, we can.” She sheepishly answered.

“Good. On your feet, Captain.” Marcus rose from his seat, and Elena quickly followed. 

She tried to wrap her head around the whole situation. Despite everything, her team’s flaws and her flaws, Marcus had given them a lifeline. One last shot. One more chance to prove themselves. And as she anxiously watched Marcus pace around behind his desk, she knew that she had to make the most out of this opportunity. Marcus continued to pace around the room like a madman, his hands folded neatly behind his back. 

“Now listen up because I’m frankly too lazy to repeat this all again. This operation - if you choose to accept it which judging by your enthusiastic reply is a yes, but I was going to assign your team to it anyways, so you never really had much of a choice in the matter – is going to push your team to it’s absolute limit. We’re sending you and your team to a place so treacherous, so perilous, it’ll make or break your team. It’s a land filled with challenges and nothing really else. It’s a place where hopes and dreams go to die, the type of place that’ll test your sanity. We’re sending you off to a place that will be full of harsh conditions and relentless challenges. We’re sending you to……”,

*-_-_-_-_-*

“…. Oklahoma.”

Marcus pulled out a pointer stick from God knows where and quickly extended it, pointing to a projected image of the panhandle state in all its glory. 

Elena leaned back in her seat in the darkened briefing room. She tried to resist the urge to lunge forward and strangle Marcus. For all the hyping up he was doing in his office earlier about her team being sent to 'a treacherous place’ that would make or break them, she was slightly frustrated that said place was just Oklahoma. 

Fucking Oklahoma. 

And to make matters worse, he had simply just left off at ‘we’re sending you to…’, kicked her out of his office, and then later summoned her team into the site’s one conference room for the briefing. All the while, Elena was rolling over with anxiety trying to predict her team’s future. 

“Did he really wait fifteen minutes just to say that?” Green, who was sitting right next to her, whispered. 

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Dramatic effect.” Elena guessed. 

Green shot her a wry grin. “Explains a lot.” He whispered back. 

She silently snorted to herself before drawing her eyes back to Marcus, who was now rambling on about why, in his humble opinion, Oklahoma is the worst state. 

“-Now I will say that you can make an argument for Oklahoma being a decent state, sure. But that hellhole has some of the most unpredictable weather that they have whole museums dedicated to weather. Museums people! And don’t get me started on the cows! I swear, the last time I went through that state, those cows were giving me some dirty looks. Hell, the corn was giving me dirty looks. And don’t get me started on the corn. They have a town – a whole town – named corn. Fucking corn. Do you know what the worst part is? They don’t even grow corn! They grow peanuts! The worst type of nut. Now, I’m not saying that because I’m personally biased against peanuts but let me tell you if I find the person that came up with the idea of putting peanuts in M&M’s, I want to have a few choice words with them. And by a few choice words, I mean I want to strangle them-“

“Excuse me, sir?” A man seated across the briefing room politely interjected, his voice carrying a very faint Australian accent. 

“You’ve seemed to have veered off course once more,” chimed the individual seated beside him, as they seamlessly finished each other’s sentences, his voice twinged with a very strong English accent.   

Within the sea of military uniforms in the room – sans Marcus – the two men stuck out like a sore thumb. One of the men was dressed like he was at a seaside resort in Florida, wearing the brightest Hawaiian print shirt possibly known to mankind, with an Australian flag patch sewn onto the shoulder, combat boots, and cargo shorts. He exhumed a relaxed, carefree demeanor as he was slumped back on his chair, strands of his tousled, sandy blonde hair framing his face, like he just got back from a day at the beach (despite the fact that the nearest beach was 8 hours away). 

The other man was the complete opposite. He wore a finely tailored deep navy peacoat that just oozed sophistication, with gold accents that reminded Elena of an old military uniform she saw in a museum with her father once. Underneath the coat, he wore a simple white dress shirt, slim-fit trousers, and loafers. He had long, dark, slick hair that was meticulously combed back, framing his sharp, pointed face, along with a striking mustache that probably required more maintenance than her morning routine. It was like the man was plucked right from the streets of some posh European city and dropped inside the room. He was sat up straight, his eyes staring holes into Marcus. 

Elena’s gaze narrowed at the peculiar duo across the room. She had never seen either of the two men in the site before, and their presence was starting to make her weary of what exactly Marcus had in store for them. 

Behind the duo, Elena noticed a few more individuals who appeared to be part of the other unit Marcus had mentioned earlier. None of them looked familiar to Elena, but that was par for the course. What concerned her was the matching patches on their uniforms: 

Underneath the Owl insignia, M.T.F – THETA 19 was neatly embroidered. Theta-19? Elena had never heard of a Theta-19 within the Foundation’s ranks. She exchanged a weary glance with Green and Moss, who sat nearby. 

“Have you ever seen those guys before?”

Moss furrowed his brow and leaned in closer, keeping his voice hushed. “Never heard of Theta-19 before, but those two guys?” He pointed at the unusual pair, and for some reason, his voice sounded strained, like he was nervous. “Yeah, I’ve seen ‘em before. They call them the twins.” 

“Twins?” Green asked. He turned his head back at the two men and then back to Moss. “They don’t look like twins.” 

Moss nodded. “They’re not biological twins.” He clarified. “But they’re practically inseparable for as long as anybody could remember. They do everything together. It’s like they have a bond that goes beyond blood.”

“Oh, and they’re also notorious pranksters, too,” Moss added with a sigh. “Their antics are legendary back in Site 19. The amount of audacious shit they not only pulled off, but also got away with is just hilarious.” 

His eyes widened. “Oh, hold on, look at this!” He bumped Elena’s shoulder and pointed discreetly at the twins. While the blonde one seemed to be barely awake, like he wanted to be anywhere but here, his brother in stark contrast was wide awake with a small smirk on his face. Elena wasn’t sure what Moss was pointing at first, but her eyes moved downwards to his hands, and she noticed his finger slowly tracing a circle in the air, the circle glowing a soft green light. 

She felt Moss nudge her again. She turned and saw him pointing to a potted plant in the corner of the room (of all things). She was stumped for a moment until she noticed what looked like a long snake crawling out from the pot, and stretching across the floor-

Wait,  no, it wasn’t a snake. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that it was the plant’s roots crawling out from the pot and stretching across the floor. Her eyes followed the roots across the floor until they stopped right at Marcus’s feet, the man being too distracted mumbling about peanuts to notice the roots on the floor undoing his shoelaces. The sight was completely surreal; Elena watched as the roots snaked with a graceful motion, unknotting his shoelaces, and then carefully weaving them together in a complicated knot that was sure to take Marcus a while to undo, tying his two shoes together.

Elena was torn between warning Marcus and just letting the prank unfold. Her eyes met the man across the room who was now slowly reeling the roots back into the pot, and he subtly winked at her. 

“Anyhow, enough with the nut talk. Your mission is simple-“Marcus went to take a step but promptly stumbled and fell on the floor. The room burst into laughter that was quickly hushed as Marcus struggled to get up, cursing all the while. Marcus, utterly baffled, looked down at his tangled hoes. 

“Motherfucker- Which one of you pricks did this?” His head darted around the room, until he turned and noticed the potted plant in the corner of the room, its roots still retracting back into the pot. 

“Nightshade, for fucks sake! Do I seriously have to start removing all of the potted plants in the site, so you won’t try to prank me for five minutes?” 

The posh man laughed. “I’m sorry, sir. I only wanted to have a tad bit of fun! I swear it won’t happen again. Scouts honor!” He crossed his heart, a sly grin on his face. 

“Bullshit! This is the fourth time this week! Sinclair, tell your brother to quit it with the pranks for once.” He pointed to the other man. 

“Hm?” The blonde man yawned and stretched his way to wakefulness. “Oh, sorry. I wasn’t listening. What were you saying again?” 

Marcus sharply inhaled. “You know the only reason why you two are still employed is because you’re the only occult specialists in a two-hundred-mile radius, right?”

“Yes.” The twins said. 

Marcus let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Why do I even bother?” He (not so) quietly muttered under his breath. “Anyways, before I was rudely interrupted earlier, your mission is simple.” He explained. 

The projected image changed, now showing a picture of a mugshot of a disheveled man in a lab coat. His eyes were sunken deep into his face, and his hair and beard, once neatly grown in the past, were layered and overgrown, like he had just let himself go over the span of a few months, no, years. 

But the eyes were just creepy. It’s like someone had just sucked the life out of man, leaving but a mere husk behind. 

“This man here is Emmet Parsons. He’s a former engineer and physicist who worked closely with Dr. Whitman over the span of a decade.” Marcus said. 

“What type of work?” Green asked, a brow raised.

“Most of it’s classified. What I can disclose is that six years ago, he went…… uh, how is the best way I can put this?” Marcus pondered, scratching his chin.  

“Nuts. The man went mad.” Sinclair finished, his voice holding a tone of frustration and concern. He absentmindedly twirled a strand of hair in his hand as he spoke. “He was working with Whitman on some type of project, and something happened. A lot of it’s classified, but all we know is that he started rambling about people who lived among the stars and the end of days. Then, before we could do anything, he stole a bunch of classified files, gathered a dozen other personnel, and disappeared. Just like that. Gone.” 

Marcus nodded. “Yes, yes, what he said.” He waved his hand dismissively. “However, we managed to pin down where he and his associates went.” 

The image changed again, showing a satellite image of a small town. Marcus continued, “A few months back, several reports came in from steel mills across the region. They were claiming that a lot of their materials were going missing. The local police chalked it up to poor recordkeeping, until a truck carrying uranium suddenly vanished mid-transit.” 

Elena sat forward in her chair, her interest suddenly piqued. Radioactive materials? She wasn’t expecting things to get this serious, this early in the morning. She focused on Marcus, keen on listening for any more details. 

“We suspect that the materials, including the uranium, may be located here-“ He pointed out a highlighted portion of the map, showing a unassuming ranch,-“ where they are in possession of a group led by Emmet Parsons.” 

Marcus turned. “Sinclair, would you brief us on your findings?”

The blonde twin gave a nonchalant shrug before shrugging. “After Parsons jumped ship from the Foundation, he, as well as several of his associates, fled to Oklahoma. There, they established what we can define as a neo-doomsday community. They’re not exactly fond of the term cult, though; they prefer to call themselves a ‘small collective of like-minded individuals working towards averting an impending apocalypse.’” 

Elena, puzzled by the description, furrowed her brow with skepticism. “Isn’t that essentially the definition of a doomsday cult?” 

“Yes,” Sinclair answered, his face completely emotionless. 

“What my brother is trying to explain- “Nightshade interjected, “is that they’re not fond of being called a cult. Parson’s people are a bit, er, caught up in some fantasy of trying to save the world. They are so detached from reality, that, that….” 

He paused for a second as if he were carefully selecting his next words.

“…They’ve convinced themselves that they are humanity’s sole saviors.” Nightshade continued, his tone mixed with amusement and disbelief. “They think that whatever it is they’re doing is so important, it can save the world from its impending doom.” 

Elena’s curiosity deepened as she listened. “What do we know about their activities in this town?” She inquired, wanting to figure out the connection between the missing radioactive materials and the steel, and a doomsday cult of all things. 

Nightshade tilted his head. “The reports we got suggest that they have been inducting new people in, with their count jumping from nine to twelve total members within the last few months. They’ve been stockpiling supplies: the stolen steel and uranium mentioned earlier, as well as several computers, processing systems, large magnets, etc.” 

“So, are they trying to build a weapon in their backyard?” Green hypothesized. 

Nightshade shook his head. “A weapon, no. But they’re trying to build something. And whatever it is, it’s big. They’ve set up their base of operations in a ranch, but we have a slight problem.”

“And that’s where you come in, Elena.” Sinclair completed his brother’s sentence, which was so off-putting and- 

Hold on, how did Sinclair know her name? She couldn’t recall sharing her name with anyone else during the briefing. Maybe Marcus told him? Wait, no, that wouldn’t make sense, Marcus was in his office the entire time between her leaving the office, and him coming into the briefing room. So how would he know? How would he know-

No, no, Elena, you’re just overthinking it. It’s nothing. Probably nothing. 

Her eyes wandered back to the other man, and their eyes met for a moment. Sinclair oddly smiled at her, and she felt a sudden stabbing sensation in the back of her head. She squinted in pain and her hand rose instinctively to clench the afflicted area. By the time she opened her eyes again, the look on the other man’s face was gone, replaced by the same, disinterested look he had throughout the entire briefing. 

For some reason, she couldn’t help but feel like he just heard her entire trainwreck of a thought. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and she had a nagging feeling that the man staring at her knew more than he led on. 

“What type of ‘slight problem’ are we talking about here?” she asked, still slightly wary of Sinclair. 

“Slight problems, actually.” Sinclair corrected. 

“Pural,” Nightshade added. 

“As in we have multiple.” 

“What slight problems do we have, then?” Elena asked, gritting her teeth, and resisting the urge to (again) strangle someone. She felt Moss grip her shoulder, and from the corner of her eye she saw him shake his head. The message was clear-

They’re pranksters. It’s not worth it. 

Or at least that’s what she thought the message was. 

“Problem one,” Nightshade began, “is that the property is enveloped by several thaumaturgical wards.” 

“What are those again?” Green asked.

Nightshade explained, “Essentially thaumaturgical-based protections. Imagine your home security system, but it can do a lot more than call the cops when someone breaks in to nick your stuff. During his time at the Foundation, Parsons had a lot of connections at DTAC, and after he went rogue, some of the people he recruited cast several wards across the property, primarily concentrated around the house itself. They do all sorts of things, really; some can act as traps that signal an alarm, others petrify you, and some of them just turn you inside out.” He grimaced. “We learned that one the hard way. Rest in peace, Larry.”

“Rest in peace, Larry.” Sinclair said. The twins crossed themselves in unison. 

Elena, still trying to process the disturbing implications of the wards, decided to raise the one practical concern in her head. “So, I’m assuming you want…. us to deactivate the wards. How are we doing that?” 

“Simple,” Sinclair began, “The words are designed to go off on anybody the caster deems as intruders. So, if we go in there, guns blazing, we wouldn’t make it past the doorframe without being caught. Now on the other hand, if they are expecting three innocuous people to show up on their doorstep…...”

“You want us to play undercover?” Moss suggested, his voice twinged with indifference. 

Sinclair’s response was a tight smile as he replied, “Exactly love.” Love was delivered with a subtle edge, and Elena couldn’t help but feel the tension between the two men. Maybe some type of personal history she didn’t know about? 

Come to think of it, this was the first time that Moss had directly spoken to the other man since they came in. 

Sinclair continued. “Anyhow, you three will pose as some folks interested in Parsons’ organization. While you’re being toured around, you’ll discreetly cast a basic incantation to disable the wards. It’s nothing fancy; just a basic vocal incantation that you can say in the bathroom that will spread across the property. We’ll be able to teach it to you all in a week, tops.”

Nightshade chimed in. “And while you’re being toured around, you’ll have a mapping software on your person that will give us a good layout of the house while you’re at it.”

“Why is that necessary?” Green asked.  

“The house is affected by non-Euclidean geometry,” Marcus said with a completely emotionless expression, like the answer was overwhelmingly obvious. 

Moss looked perplexed. “I’m sorry. Non-Euclidean what now?”

“Non-Euclidean geometry.” Green corrected. “Euclidean geometry is the type of geometry you learn in school. Like how a triangle has three sides and adds up to one hundred and eighty degrees. Basic logical stuff. Now with non-Euclidean geometry, we throw that logical stuff out the window because it defies the rules we’re used to. Like parallel lines that converge with each other, or squares with more than four sides.” He explained to Moss, who was looking more and more confused by the second. 

“So…. Logic doesn’t make sense?” He guessed. 

Green sighed. “Close enough.” He patted Moss on the shoulder, and Elena couldn’t help but notice Sinclair glare at the two from across the room.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Marcus hummed. “And by that, I mean I was just going to wing it with Wikipedia. The house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. We don’t know why Parsons’ group elected to use a house on a property where the calculated Hume count is so low that it causes the house to exist in its own pocket dimension where it defies the laws of reality, but what we do know is that we can map that pocket dimension, which will make things easier for the second phase of the operation.” 

The presentation shifted to a list of objectives. Marcus read through the slides, outlining the plan, “Phase one of the operation will consist of Elena’s team entering the property under the guise of interested cultists. While inside, you’ll map out the house’s interior, as well as disable the thaumaturgical wards surrounding the house. Once your team has safely withdrawn, we can proceed to phase two.”

He pointed to the twins and the group of people sat behind them. “Mobile Task Force unit Theta-19, known affectionately as the ‘Night Owls’”-

“We never choose that name!” Nightshade quickly interjected. 

Marcus carried on, undeterred, “-Will lead a covert raid on the property. They’ll seize any anomalous materials, detain Parsons and his group, and withdraw. Easy as that!” Marcus clapped his hands, and the lights turned back on, momentarily blinding everyone. 

“Mission names go on the whiteboard on the back. Do we have any questions? No? Great! I’m off. This briefing is adjourned.”  Marcus rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. 

The room began to stir with activity after Marcus left, with many of the briefing’s attendees leaving the room after him, including the uniformed personnel, just leaving Elena’s team and the twins.

Elena rose from her seat and stretched, trying to relieve the tension on her shoulders from the last half hour of her life. Green took out his work phone and began fiddling around with it, either jotting down some quick notes from the briefing or, more likely, launching Flick Flock to occupy himself for the next hour. While Green was confirming her theory by watching his fifth consecutive cat video in a row, Elena turned to Moss, a question still prodding at her mind. “I assume based on the little plant trick he did earlier, Nightshade was a part of the Titan program?” 

“Yup. Blue mentioned him once or twice.” Moss nodded.

A suspicion she had confirmed, she leaned in closer. “What about Sinclair?” She whispered, wary of the twins across the room, “Was he a part of it as well?” 

Moss shrugged. “Dunno. We’d never talked about it much. Why do you ask?”

“I mean, they’re twins so I’d bet good money they’d do everything together. Don’t you think?” 

Moss hummed. “I suppose.” He said blankly, “But Blue would’ve mentioned him. He mentions everybody from the Titan Program. That guy he went to college with who works with anomalous wildlife. That one mute lady who messed around with plants and accidentally turned a greenhouse into a miniature jungle. But someone like Francis- Sinclair,” he spat out the name with poorly masked disdain, “He would’ve mentioned someone like him- “

“Er, excuse me?” Elena turned and saw Nightshade standing awkwardly in front of them, carefully fondling a crumbled-up piece of paper in his hand like it was a live grenade. He looked completely disinterested in whatever he was doing. “Neil.” He said curtly to Moss, slightly nodding his head, the casual mention of his real name sounding alien to Elena’s ears. 

“Nightshade,” Moss replied with equal disinterest. “What’s up?”

The other man sighed. “My apologies for interrupting your conversation, but my hopeless romantic of a brother wanted me to give you this note here.” He handed Moss the paper, a pitying expression on his face. “I’d told him it would be a better idea to just give it to you in person, but no, the knob thought that was too risky.” 

Moss sharply inhaled, like he knew what the note contained within, and despised it with every fiber of his being. Moss unfolded the note and began to read it, his expression shifting from disinterest to something close to annoyance very quickly. Curious, Elena leaned in to get a better look.

Neil, my dear

I would like to meet up at our old spot, 2200 hours. I just want to talk again.

Moss clenched his jaw and muttered some choice words under his breath, and promptly tore the note into shreds. “Tell that- that prick that we’re done. We have been done. Period. And if he pulls anything else, if he comes anywhere near me, I’ll deck him in the face.” He seethed; his voice low but filled with pent-up anger.

Nightshade shifted uncomfortably on his feet, cringing uncomfortably. “I tried to tell that moron- er, I mean I’ll pass on the message then. My apologies for interrupting your conversation.” He nodded respectfully to the pair one more time before turning and leaving, though Elena was able to catch him muttering something along the lines of, “That prick owes me a fiver for this,” while he rushed out of the room. 

“Hm, what was that about?” Green nonchalantly asked, still staring at his phone.

Moss shook his head and got up. “Nothing important, just a stupid ex that can’t take a hint, that’s all. Or comprehend the word no for that matter.”

Green looked up from his phone with sudden interest. “You dated that guy?”

Moss sighed. “For like, I don’t know, two months. Great at first, but it went to shit later.”

“Why, what happened?”

Moss gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “That’s not important. Now what is important is your posture right now!” He pointed to Green’s slouched form in his chair. Without any warning, he pulled Green out of his chair and began to give him an impromptu lecture, dragging him out of the room by his arm. Green looked back at Elena and gave a panicked look that silently screamed, Help me. 

Elena shrugged back with a sly grin. Can’t do anything, sorry. 

Greens brows furrowed. Why you little- 

Then he was dragged out of the room and out of sight, and the door closed shut. Elena stood in the empty briefing room, completely alone with her thoughts.

She was still unnerved by Sinclair. The way he just looked at her earlier with that knowing look on his face left her feeling…... exposed in a way she never felt before. It was like her mind had just opened up to the world, and then someone came in with a knife and began to slice and strip it down, layer by layer, like an onion, and just look into the cluttered recesses of her mind. 

Nothing else. He just looked. 

All that from just a knowing look and a smile. 

She rubbed the back of her head again where she felt the pain earlier. Right now, nothing. Just the sensation of her hand rubbing against her hair. 

No. No, Elena was going to be logical about this. Maybe it was just a coincidence paired with incessant paranoia. Maybe Marcus just…...er, emailed the details of the briefings beforehand to the Twins, and that’s how Sinclair knew her name. That would make sense. Logical sense. Elena that they presented their findings in the briefing, the details about a house bigger on the inside than it is on the outside (Elena felt like she read that from a book somewhere?), and a doomsday cult. Of course, they would need the names of the other team involved in the operation! 

And the sudden head pain. Just a coincidence. What other explanation is there? Did Sinclair just use his mystical, fanatical psychic powers to inflict Elena with a little teeny migraine? Why? What was the point? Even if he did have psychic powers, which he certainly did not, why would he waste them on just causing a little headache? To poke fun at her? Sure, Moss did mention that him and his brother were pranksters, and that they loved to poke fun at people, and, and……...

She shoved that idea out of her head. She sighed and shuffled towards the door, a weight still present in her mind. 

She isn’t going down another damn rabbit hole. Not again. Maybe it was just a pure coincidence and a lucky guess on Sinclair’s part, that’s all. Maybe there was nothing else to it, no shenanigans, no conspiracies, nothing. 

Maybe she was just overthinking things again. 

But then again……

It was a lot of maybes. 

*-_-_-_-_-*

The cold summer rain fell in sheets upon the slated roof of the Gravesfeild Historical Society, the covered portico shielding Thomas Hayes from the current onslaught of rain by mother nature. 

Leaning against one of the ivy-covered columns and cigarette in hand, he took another long drag of calming smoke before puffing it back out, the puffs of smoke quickly dissipating in the rain. 

Now if only his worries could go away as quickly. He had been standing outside for what felt like hours, silently watching the traffic go by on the deserted roads in front of the town center. It was quiet today, the rain forcing many people to stay at home, but Hayes spotted the occasional person wandering around with umbrellas to shield themselves from the rain. 

As a medical professional, he knew the drawbacks of smoking off the back of his hand. Back in the day, he remembered frequently lecturing his patients about why they shouldn’t smoke dozens of cigarettes a day: breathing problems, dental problems, hearing problems- just problems in general. 

But here he was, taking solace in the same habit he advised against. What a hypocrite he turned out to be. 

But damn it all, he needed something to calm his nerves. 

Memories of the fiasco that took place earlier were still flashing around in his head; the destroyed portal, Whitman yelling, him yelling. 

And Blue. 

Oh God, Blue……

He knew the kid was going to be alright. He had to be alright. But he was still worried. His mind was going through all of the worst-case scenarios: what if something happened and he was injured? Or worse…...

Hayes tightly shut his eyes. He wasn’t going down his path right now. He wasn’t going to start imagining all of the ways one of his closest friends could die, and it is his fault-

No.  It wouldn’t be his fault. It would be Whitman’s fault. That sleazy bastard sent him through a portal that he knew had a critical error, but he decided to overlook it for the sake of efficiency. 

And look where that got him. 

What the hell where they supposed to do now? 

He remembered how Whitman had panicked earlier, frantically searching for any solution, anyway that everyone could claw out of this situation unscathed. Then that fear had turned into steely determination, and eight simple words that perplexed Hayes for the last couple of hours:

“We can’t let anyone else know about this.”

Those words echoed in his mind. What the hell was Whitman thinking? Did he really think that keeping hush-hush about this would solve anything? Hayes just felt uneasy about the whole secrecy aspect of the situation. 

Hayes heard the door behind him cling open. He turned and saw Whitman stepping into the portico. He quickly noticed the cigarette. “You know those things are horrible for you, right?” Slight concern etched on his face. 

Hayes shrugged. “Given our choice in profession, I’d be surprised if lung cancer kills me first.”

Whitman only solemnly nodded at that. The older man held out a bundle of papers to him. “These are the diagnostic reports we have for the portal. Or at least what’s left of it.”

Hayes accepted the papers and quickly skimmed through them. He noticed that he held the documents as if they didn’t contain complicated spreadsheets and error messages, but rather as if he were holding an obituary. 

“There’s nothing much we can do,” Whitman explained in a low voice. “The computers are alright, but the portal itself is a lost cause. We need to start over from scratch.” 

Hayes took in another sharp breath, inhaling another whiff of smoke. He thrust the papers back into Whitman's hands. “What are we going to do?” He asked, frustration laced in his voice. “Because the way I see it, we are utterly screwed. With a capital S.” He gritted out the words, glaring at Whitman in the corner of his eye. 

If Whitman was upset, angry, or experiencing any emotion at all, he didn't show it.

“Well…... I suppose we need to make a new portal.” Whitman casually mused. 

Hayes looked at the other man with clear confusion. “Make a new portal?” He squeaked. “What, do you think we can walk into the Palmart down the road and get all the stuff we need? Last I checked, I don’t think they sell reinforced titanium and plutonium there.” 

Whitman sighed, his tone a mix of frustration and resignation. “I know it’s not that simple, Thomas. We’ll have to rebuild the portal from square one, and it’s not going to be easy, I know, but what other choice do we have?” 

Hayes, still tense, scoffed at the idea. “You’re saying all this like we’re building a treehouse. We don’t exactly have the luxury of time here, and Blue is still out there-“

“I know.” Whitman muttered. “I know, ok. But I have an idea.”

And look where that got us,  Hayes wanted to say but instead, he said, “What is it?” He snarked. 

Whitman hesitated for a moment before speaking again. “Well…... I know someone.” 

*-_-_-_-_-*

Hayes quickly learned that James Whitman had no idea how to use a computer. 

He found it ironic in a sense: James Whitman, one of the smartest people he had ever met and a man who could read off the basic fundamentals of quantum mechanics off the back of his hand, struggled with a video call. 

It took ten minutes – ten painstakingly slow minutes – for Hayes to guide Whitman to the video call app and put in the right number. It didn’t help that Whitman’s computer in his office was so ancient, it most likely witnessed the extinction of the dinosaurs. Hayes couldn’t help but remember cringing at Whitman blowing off layers of dust off the keyboard and monitor before they could begin the call. 

As the computer loudly hummed as the call processed, Hayes asked Whitman, “So who exactly are we calling?” 

“An old contact of mine. His team was the one who built the portal in the first place.” Whitman explained. 

Hayes blinked. “Wait, I thought you built the portal- “

“No, no. My team was the one who designed the portal. We had a…...setback, a few years ago with one of our original designs, and we were forced to start from scratch. But Dr. Crow’s team was the one that built the new iteration and shipped it here, piece by piece. We simply assembled it. Quite straightforward.” 

The computer chimed, and the call finally connected. Hayes couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the grainy, pixelated image of him and Whitman on his stone-age-era webcam. It was a complete contrast to the crisp and modern technology he was used to back at site 374.  

The image on the monitor was taking a minute to process, but a smooth, friendly voice cackled through the speakers. “Hello? James, is that you?” The voice asked.

Whitman softly smiled. “Yes, it is. I’m glad we could reach out to you on such short notice, Kain.” 

“Oh, it’s no worries, James!” The other voice said, talking to Whitman like they were old friends. “Oh, hold on. We? Is there a second person there with you? My apologies, it’s taking a minute to connect on my end.”

“Yes, just a colleague of mine.” Whitman turned to Hayes and introduced him to the stranger. “Dr. Crow, this is Dr. Thomas Hayes, the current director of site 374. You might remember I emailed about him a few days ago.” 

Dr. Crow’s response with delivered with a cheerful tone. “Ah, you’re talking about the gentleman who was obsessed with those anomalous tabloids, delightful! Now if you can give me a moment to fix up my webcam- ah, here we go!” 

Hayes, slightly flustered by his experiences working with the screaming tabloids being spread around casually spread around, watched along with Whitman as the image on the screen slowly loaded. 

The image finally loaded, with a workshop with power tools and blueprints carelessly strew about in the background, was a dog. A big, fluffy golden retriever with safety goggles strapped on its head. But a dog, nonetheless.

At first, he thought it was some type of weird webcam filter. Something like the ones that people online would use with motion capture to create cutesy cartoony avatars for streaming. What was it called it again? C-tubing? Hayes couldn’t particularly remember or care, all that he knew was that it was all the rage with the younger researchers these days. 

But then the dog- no, Dr. Crow talked. 

“There we are! The signal down here in the workshop is always a tad shoddy- Oh, and perfect! I can see you two now!”

Whitman was about to say something, but Hayes cut him off, “Y-You’re a dog.” He stuttered in surprise. 

“Yes!” Dr. Crow didn’t stutter, stating the obvious. 

“Huh…...” Hayes trailed off, the sudden shock of a talking dog quickly wearing off. “Anyways, what were you going to say, James?” 

Whitman sighed. “Well, we happen to be in a bit of a situation right now, Kain. The portal suffered a, er, catastrophic failure.” 

Kain tilted his head.” A failure? That shouldn’t be possible, my team installed many safeguards into the portal. What type of failure are we talking about here?” 

“I sent you the diagnostic report a few minutes ago, check your email.” Whitman said. 

Dr. Crow swiveled his head to view another unseen monitor. “Alright, I see it. Let me see what we’re working with here- “He stopped dead, his expression changing, and his eyes widening in stark realization. 

“Oh. Oh dear, that is a problem.” He remarked, prompting a grim nod from Whitman. 

Kain examined the rest of the report, and his expression grew more and more concerned with each passing moment. “It seems like the safeguards we put in place were…. Compromised.” 

Hayes' concern deepened. “Compromised? That’s not possible. I read the files about the portal myself, it has state-of-the-art security measures!”

“Now, now, I’m not implying foul play here.” Dr. Crow reassured. “It may just be a missing section of code in the safety systems that caused this. But to be sure we need someone to investigate. Give me a second, I’ll send a little something over to you two.” 

A few seconds later, James’ computer email pinged. Whitman opened the email to find a file attached. He opened the file, and a new window opened up with a complex array of code rapidly scrolling down, an intricately woven labyrinth of lines and characters. 

“What I just sent you is the original code for the portal’s safety systems.” Dr. Crow explained. “We need someone to go into the system’s current state and check to make sure that the two match. If we find any discrepancies between the original code and the current code, then we can figure out what went wrong with the safety systems.” 

Whitman nodded. “I’ll get someone to that in a bit. What about the portal itself? Is it…. salvageable?” He asked, his voice filled with hesitation as if he already knew the answer.

Kain winced slightly as he considered the state of the portal. “Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of salvageable, James.” He said. “Because judging by what I’m looking at here, all I can tell you here is that I can’t work any miracles here.” 

Whitman sighed. “Just…... how long would it take if we were to start over from scratch? How long would it take for you and your team to build a new portal?” 

Dr. Crow froze, contemplating an answer. “Well, that is certainly a loaded question. The portal design iteration we have, er, had, is a complicated piece of machinery. My team will need a considerable amount of time, not only for construction but also for the bureaucratic nightmare that we’ll have to go through to expedite the process. Funding, materials, logistics, it’ll take a lot of time, James.” 

Whitman rubbed his temples, and Hayes couldn’t help but feel the anxiety coming off him. “How long, Kain? Days, weeks, months?” 

“Well, my best estimate off the top of my head is about six months. More or less, and that’s assuming with have access to everything we need, and we don’t run into any hiccups.” 

Whitman cringed, and Hayes’ heart sank at the thought of Kain’s estimate. Six months. Six months where Blue is stuck in a barely mapped dimension with resources that were only supposed to last him a few weeks at most. Those weeks can be stretched out to months with rationing, sure, but afterward, considering that he wasn’t killed by something else, he’ll surely starve. 

Hayes took a glance at Whitman out of the corner of his eye, and by the other man’s expression, he knew this too. 

“Is there any way we can expedite this process somehow? If your team was to work around the clock, how long would it take then?” James asked. 

Crow scowled, and Hayes couldn’t help but feel like Whitman hit a nerve. “James, I’m telling you this as your friend here, I’m not going to make my team work themselves to death because you made a grave error. We’re already swamped with work trying to design another containment chamber for 682. I swear, that stupid lizard breaches containment on a biweekly basis nowadays. So, I’m sorry, James, but I can’t ask my team to do any additional work. I can hardly approve of that.” 

Hayes chimed in. “Dr. Crow, just take this as a hypothetical situation, not a request. Assuming we secure the resources and funding necessary beforehand, what’s the estimate if your team works around the clock then?” 

Kain’s expression somewhat softened. “Well, it’s hard to say. Three, or four months maybe? But that’s purely speculative, mind you.”

Hayes nodded. “Yes, speculative.” He lightly smiled. He looked at Whitman, whose nervous expression wasn’t fazed by the new estimate. 

Hayes gave a serious look at Whitman. They both were most likely thinking the same thing: Three months is still too long. We won’t make it to him in time.

“Er, James, can I ask you something?” Dr. Crow asked, snapping the two men out of their silent conversation.

Whitman’s attention turned to the dog. “What is it?”

Dr. Crows was looking at them through the monitor, his eyes filled with concern, his mouth curled up in a reassuring doggie smile. “Well, I don’t exactly understand why you two seem…...terrified, to say the least. And I don’t understand what the rush is about the portal being replaced here. I mean, it’s not like you have something important, like God forbid, a person, stuck on the other side of the portal, right?”

The silence in the room was palpable, and Hayes couldn’t help but cringe at how blissfully unaware Kain was of their predicament. 

Dr. Crow’s expression sombered, and his doggie smile slowly faded. “You don’t have a person stuck on the other side of the portal, right?” 

Whitman cleared his throat, forcing himself to respond. “Well, Kain, it’s a long story. You might want to sit down for this…” 

Chapter Text

Whitman awkwardly looked between Hayes and the computer, hesitating. “W-well Kain, it’s a long story. You might want to sit down for this.” He said, his voice quivering.

On the computer screen, Dr. Crow tilted his canine head. “I’m already sitting right now, James.”

Whitman blinked at Kain’s deadpan delivery, momentarily taken aback.

Kain rolled his eyes “James, I’m messing with you. You’ve always been so jumpy; I’ve never understood why.” He sighed and shook his head. “Anyhow, I’m sure you and you’re team can’t be foolish enough to get someone stuck on the other side of that portal, right?”

Whitman looked at anywhere but the screen. Kain frowned. “Right, James? Right?”

Whitman took a slow deep breath. “There’s been an incident with the portal. I’m sure it’s best if we start from the beginning…”

The next ten minutes were spent with Whitman filling in their colleague on their predicament, and Hayes only stood and listened in silence as the other man guided Dr. Crow through a rough timeline of events leading up to the portal failure… and up to Blue being stranded, all alone, his fate hanging in the balance in another dimension.

However, as Hayes listened, he couldn’t help but notice that his recounting of events held some peculiar gaps, like missing puzzle pieces that would complete the picture. Strangely enough, whether unintentionally or completely on purpose, he had no idea, he omitted a few specific details from the story. He mentioned the energy surge, but conveniently left out the part that it could be from another portal opening, and completely omitted his sudden insistence on extreme secrecy surrounding the entire incident, even refusing to report the incident to the O-5 fucking council out of sheer panic.

Come to think of it, why would Whitman force silence on everyone in the project about the incident, then turn around and ask someone else for help? It didn’t make any sense. Then again, Whitman did mention Dr. Crow’s previous involvement in the project, so maybe he felt more comfortable confiding in him more? Still, there was something that was missing, one last piece of the puzzle that was being withheld that was preventing him from getting the full picture.

Even with all of the empty gaps in Whitman’s story, it still felt eerily surreal hearing him describe the incident. In his head, it felt like some distant memory, a memory trapped within the pages of a weathered history book. Yet, it was only a few mere hours ago. It oddly reminded him of his time before the Foundation, working as a surgeon in L.A. The days were frequently so frantic, that they just began to blend into a continuous stream of chaos that roared by him faster than he could imagine. He’d blink just for a moment, and a month would’ve already passed. He was just so focused on work that he’d forget about everything else.

He'd like to say he changed, and he developed a ‘healthy work-life balance’ or whatever nonsense that’s called. But he never saw the point. His work was his life, both his studies in thaumaturgy and human anatomy. He found a way to fuse his two loves in his life into a career, so why would he waste his time doing anything else? Sure, he had to miss a few birthdays, a funeral here and there, and dozens of parties, but what’s the point? Life goes on.

And what does he get from that? Endless scorn from his fellow researchers who labeled him as an obsessed ego-manic who was far more concerned with his work than the people around him. But that wasn’t true, he knew that wasn’t true. But eventually, he began to believe them.

At least until he met Blue.

Blue was one of the few people in his life who listened to his, admittedly, incessant rants about niche topics such as the complexities of proto-Eurasian runes, and their possible applications to the human immune system. Granted, he was sure the kid had no idea in hell what he was rambling on about, but it was the thought that mattered more.

The two of them became fast friends. Blue became a one-man audience for Hayes’ impromptu lectures, and Hayes tried to prevent the kid from doing anything stupid. A mutually beneficial friendship. 

For the first time in his life, he felt like he had a purpose in his life outside of his work, and the kid helped with that.

And now what?

He heaved an anxious sigh.

“-And we aren’t sure how long we can maintain communications for,” Whitman said, impervious to Hayes zoning out next to him. Hayes guessed that they were talking about the MDCD. “We aren’t sure how much time we have. Worst case scenario, it’s only a few days until we lose all communication with him. So that’s we’re at now. We’ve got a broken portal, an agent stuck in a barely mapped dimension, and no way to get him back home…” Whitman slowly trailed off, a glazed look in his eyes.

Dr. Crow sat in silence for a moment, trying to absorb all the information he had just been told. He leaned back in his chair, his furry eyebrows furrowed in thought as the gravity of the situation hit him.

 “I- I don’t even what to say.” He chuckled after a long, awkward pause, and tried to give a reassuring smile, though the clear panic in his eyes betrayed him. “That’s quite the mess you’ve found yourself in this time, James.”

“Yes, it’s a…complicated situation. We’re racing against the clock here. We need to figure out how to get Blue home before something bad happens-“

Just before Whitman was about to elaborate into darker territory, his phone began to go off in his pocket, and the jazzy sounds of a harmonica and piano cut through the room. His eyes widened, and he fumbled through his pocket to retrieve his phone, a sheepish expression on his face.

“Of all times,” Whitman muttered under his breath as he answered the phone. “Sean, what is it? I’m a bit busy right now, so whatever it is can it wait-“ He stopped for a few moments, listening to whatever Sean was telling him on the other end of the phone. A sudden interest grew on his face. “What? Are you sure?” Another pause. A faint ghost of a smile grew on his face. “Ok, I’ll send him down. Talk to you later.” He hung up the phone and turned back to Hayes.

“It’s Sean. We just got a response back from Blue on the MDCD.” Whitman said, his tone carrying a newfound energy.

Hayes blinked, digesting the information before a small smile of his own grew on his face. Ever since they sent the message informing him that the portal was down temporarily and to not die, they have had nothing but radio silence on their side for hours. So, this was a good sign.

“Do you know what he said?”

Whitman shook his head. “No, not yet. Sean mentioned something about how the computer was having some issues processing the message. Or some rubbish like that, I’m not that good with technology. Maybe you should head down! You’re a lot better with technology than me.”

Hayes tried to stifle a laugh. “Believe me, sir, I’m awful with computers. I barely can set up a spreadsheet, let alone work through a processing issue.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense! You did a lovely job booting up the computer!”

“It wasn’t much. I’m used to this type of computer anyways. I used something like this a lot back in college.”

“See! You’re a natural!”

An awkward silence. “Sir, this computer is over 30 years old.”

Before Whitman could say anything, Dr. Crow cut in with a raised paw. “Uh, gentlemen, as entertaining as this is, we have more pressing matters on hand.”

Whitman nodded. “Y-yes, that’s right. We have a lot to discuss, Kain.”

“Exactly. For instance, out of all of the songs ever made, why did you choose Piano Man of all songs as your ringtone?”

Whitman's face turned a bright shade of red that matched his jacket quite well. “I-it’s, uh, nostalgic for me. I listened to the album a lot when it first came out. It helped me study, I guess. Though my flatmates hated it.”

Kain raised an eyebrow. “Nostalgic, huh? I would’ve imagined that you are a bit more of a Mozart guy considering you probably watched him perform from the first row.”

“You cheeky little- I’m not that old!” Whitman stammered out, his face somehow turning more red.

“James, you said you listened to that album when it first came out, yes?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with-“

“That album’s over forty years old. You’re old, James.” Kain grinned.

A bead of sweat trailed down the back of his neck. “N-now you see, time is only a relative factor. Now, in the grand scheme of things- “

“In the grand scheme of things, you’re old, my friend.”

“I- Well you see…” Whitman trailed off, his shoulders slumping ever so slightly. “Bloody hell, I am old.”

Kain’s mischievous grin grew even wider. “James, I’m messing with you. Again. It’s like an Olympic sport at this point.” He turned to Hayes. “Now, Thomas, was it? Why don’t you step out for a bit while the grownups….er, talk a few things out here, hm?”

Hayes raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I was there during …. the incident as well, so I might be able to provide some additional information.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! We’ll give you a holler if we need you.” Whitman chuckled. “Now you should hurry up and head downstairs. Sean waiting for some help, and he gets impatient pretty quickly, which means he’ll try to solve the issue himself.”

He rubbed his temples in exasperation. “That boy. He’s probably going to break something if you don’t hurry up.” He smiled, though it seemed almost forced.