#Ethan has passed far beyond the point of giving a fuck

[m4gp13]

I heard someone say Alabaster probably does a lot of drugs cos ya know magic boy and stuff while Ethan shakes his head from across the room but man. you got it all wrong. Al takes a whiff of incense and starts hacking up his lungs. Ethan has a very stressful position and needs to unwind sometimes and if that means Al walking into a party for some undercover ta stuff and finding Ethan already blasted sky high on the sofa then so be it.

#alabaster: i just don't want anything to distract me from the war ya know #ethan devouring an entire tray of pot brownies with one hand and fighting off a centaur with the other: pussy #Ethan has passed far beyond the point of giving a fuck #he's used up all his fucks already #they're spent #he would chill with the Stolls if they could provide #and keep their mouths shut #I bet Al has cork boards #with shit like #crime families usually deal in drugs #the Olympians are just one big magical mafia #therefore drugs have ties to the gods #therefore drugs = bad #and while he's explaining this Ethan's hitting a blunt in the corner #like damn bro that's crazy but did I ask #I'm gonna stop before I get carried away #pjo #percy jackson #ethan nakamura #alabaster torrington #alabaster c torrington

[blazedgraysons]

Killing Me Softly

The one where Grayson falls in love in under 12 hours

A/N: Here’s another fic inspired by literally nothing. I am pretty proud of this one though. To all the people who said nice things about Drunk Off You, just know that I read every single one of them and you own my heart and soul. Also, I know literally no one knows who I am but feel free to send asks or messages. I pinky promise to respond. ♡

Word Count: 1.7K

Pairing: Grayson Dolan x OC (Harlow)

Warnings: nothing really, it’s pretty tame minus a lil angst towards the end. 

“Are you B29?”

Harlow removes an earbud, looking up to meet big brown eyes staring back at her. It’s hard not to notice the rest of the man standing in the aisle.

Brown hair flops over his forehead as she moves her eyes down to appreciate the soft scuff lining his chin - not quite a beard, but not quite stubble. He’s dressed casually in a gym shirt that outlines every single bulging muscle paired with grey sweatpants and some Louis Vuitton slides. She nods slightly to his question, hoping the adonis of a man doesn’t notice that slight blush that’s appeared on her face. He offers her a gracious smile and effortlessly slings his carry-on into the overhead cabin.

“Looks like we’re neighbors then.” Harlow hums in acknowledgment, not sure why he’s so friendly. Most passengers would’ve just grabbed their seat and slept or occupied themselves, but this man intends on making himself known.

He slides into the neighboring seat, and Harlow is instantly overwhelmed. If she thought he looked good from afar, up close was even better. Here she could appreciate all the minute details — the dark mole on his chin, the expensive cologne, the 333 tattoo behind his ear. It took everything in her not to stare, so instead, she settles for quick glances hoping he would be too occupied by his phone to pay her any attention. If he did notice, he spared Harlow further embarrassment by not saying anything. She turns back to her magazine, a random Vogue issue she picked up in the airport convenience store to pass the time, mentally telling herself to calm down in order to get through the next three hours.

“ I’m Grayson, by the way. Just in case we crash, and you need to identify me.” He jokes, smiling widely and — oh shit, does he have a diamond in his tooth? Harlow is so screwed. 

—-

Grayson’s never been a big believer in fate until now. The idea of some external force dictating a situation in your life just seemed like bullshit. Yet, Grayson couldn’t describe meeting Harlow as anything else.

He had been irritated all the way up to that point. An overbooked plane forced him off his original flight and away from his twin brother. Ethan had offered to go with him, but Grayson didn’t see a point in delaying their trip even further and told him he’d meet him in Jersey. While the airline was over apologetic and gave him (terrible) perks, in order to make the next flight, he had to sacrifice his first-class seat for an economy red-eye flight. But at least he had a shitty hot towel to make up for it.

He scowled all the way through the check-in and tarmac, vowing to never fly with JetBlue again as he passed the first-class seats that he couldn’t help but stubbornly think, ‘That should be mine.’

It wasn’t until he reached his row that he realized what he thought was a hindrance was actually a blessing. Because there sitting in the seat next to him was a beauty that could only be described as ethereal. Her long, dark hair tumbles in tight coils down her shoulders as she sits crossed-leg, hunched over a magazine, biting her lip in furrowed concentration. She bobs her head slightly to whatever song she’s listening to as she quickly flips through the pages. She tucks her hair behind her shoulder, revealing blemished copper skin that reflects the light.

A small voice in his head (that suspiciously sounds like Ethan) tells him to stop being weird and talk to her. Before he can justify themillion reasons why he shouldn’t, an annoying cough comes from the lady behind him.

He turns around to glare at her a little and asks the mystery girl her seat number with a smile that he hopes comes off as charming and not predatory.

And fuck, he knows she has to be a blessing because she looks like she was sent straight from the gates of heaven to Grayson’s heart. Ironically, the plane’s fluorescent lights form a halo around her head (‘Or maybe you’re finally losing it.’ Ethan's voice tells him.) He blinks, once, twice, three times before realizing that the girl in front of him isn’t a sleep-deprived hallucination and is actually real. He tries to act unaffected by the slow once-over her round, onyx eyes give him. Still, when he notices her eyes lingering on his chest and thighs, he swallows hard before throwing his suitcase into the overhead and sitting down. 

The grumpy lady behind him gives him a look as she moves down the aisle, and he whips out his phone for a welcomed distraction. The girl, unaware of the havoc she was wreaking on Grayson’s mind and body, continues to sneak looks at him that were a little too obvious for Grayson to not notice. He debates whether or not to ask for her name until she turns back to her magazine and Grayson figures that she doesn’t want to be bothered anymore. It wasn’t until the voice in his head repeatedly calls him a pussy (‘Shut up, Ethan’ he thinks back) that he introduces himself. And when her plump lips turn up into a smile, Grayson pretends to not notice how screwed he is. 

—-

Conversation flows smoothly between the two of them after that. Grayson explains the situation with his original flight and his plans to surprise his mom for mother’s day while Harlow talks about her little brother and the birthday party she helped plan for him this weekend. They talk for so long that their conversation turns from typical discussion to hushed whispers to not disturb the other sleeping passengers. They finally pause for a break when the beverage attendant stops at their row.

Harlow’s honestly glad for the lull in conversation as it gives her time to reflect over what she’s learned. Grayson appears to be very humble despite being heavily involved in the influencer scene in Los Angeles, something Harlow desperately tries to stay far away from herself. Also, despite being one of the hottest guys she’s ever seen, he seems to be so shy that it’s endearing. She notices he stumbles over words, getting so excited about their conversations that he trips himself up.

“So in LA, what do you do for fun? Any friends? Boyfriend?” He asks coolly, trying not to be obvious about his intentions (which makes it so much more apparent in Harlow’s eyes) as he drinks his diet root-beer.

“I work for a high- fashion company doing PR, so I’m always there. I have a couple close friends, but since I’m working so much, I haven’t had that much time for a relationship or finding a guy worth making time for.” Harlow sighs wistfully.

“Ah, that makes sense about the magazine.” He nods, trying to hide his excitement. This situation seems to be working more and more in his favor. “And what guy would be worth making time for?”

“I don’t know honestly. It just seems that all the guys I run into in LA are beyond superficial. All my dates have just been talking about how many followers they have on Instagram or TikTok and just end in hookups. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just hard when you want something more, you know?” She shrugs. And as much as Grayson hates to admit it, he does know. Hell, he’s probably been that guy once or twice in his younger years. Still, as he grows older, he craves the same things Harlow does: intimacy, connection, emotion. He takes another swallow of his drink before responding.

“Yeah, I mean hookups and one-night stands are great in the moment, but it’s hard when you just have love you want to give. It’s even harder now that my brother’s dating someone, ya know. Seeing someone you’re close with have what you want; it’s kinda hard not to be jealous.” He shares, hoping she relates and doesn’t think he’s weird for telling so much to someone he met a few hours earlier.

Harlow sits with that for a second before responding, “And what girl would you want to give your love to?” She whispers.

’Someone like you.’ Grayson thinks. But before he could make the bold confession, the plane announces its descent.

——

Grayson realizes almost immediately that he wasn’t paying that much attention to the flight details because the fact that there was a layover in Colorado flew over his head. He lets Harlow pass by him to stand in the aisle and grabs both his and her carry-on to take off the plane. As Grayson stands behind her (and tries not to stare at how incredible her ass looks in her leggings), he does what he’s best at: forming a game-plan. He realizes that a girl like Harlow is too good to let go. So, he figures he could grab a coffee with her, get her number, and plan a date for when they both are back in LA. He smiles, already thinking of the story he’ll get to tell Ethan when he gets to Jersey. As they both slowly move into the terminal, Harlow turns back to Grayson with a bright smile. He smiles back before asking —

“Do you want to get coffee?” He can’t help his heart from swelling as she bites her lip, a habit he notices she does a lot.

“Good, I thought you weren’t going to ask.” She laughs. “Wait here though, I have to run to the restroom.”

He nods, handing Harlow her carry-on. He sits down and pulls out his phone, already texting Ethan that he met his future soulmate.

Five minutes pass: He’s got the future planned out: the wedding, the kids, the farmland in Jersey and the tiny-home in Australia.

Ten minutes pass: He starts to get worried, but figures Harlow can handle herself.

Thirty minutes pass: He considers sending someone to the bathroom to check on her.

Two hours passed: He’s already cased the domestic airline terminal twice, looking for her dark curly hair. 

It’s not until the final call of flight 437-A to New Jersey that he understands: Harlow’s not coming back for him. And he can’t help it when his heart splits into two.

#grayson dolan #dolan twins #grayson dolan x y/n #grayson dolan x reader #grayson dolan fic #grayson dolan blurb #dolan twins x reader #dolan twins x y/n #dolan twins fic #dolan twins blurb #grayson dolan oc #grayson dolan x oc #grayson dolan oc fic #grayson dolan oc blurb #blazedwritings

[grither55]

The Princess and the Peasant - (An Azula Epic) - Chapter 101 - A Will of Her Own

The alarm sounded off throughout the vast fortress.

While the blinking red lights continued to flash ominously in the chaos filled halls.

Just as two gloved hands pushed open a pair of doors that slid open with a metallic groan.

And then Naoki stepped foot into the chamber with her machinelike brown eyes now gazing back at the far side of the hall.

Only for her lips to pull into an even larger smirk over what she saw.

Standing on the other side of the chamber was none other than Reynolds.

The large man stared back with utterly ruthless blue eyes while the young supersoldier just smirked goadingly back at him.

The two stared at one another for a passing moment while the crimson light flickered above them.

Their faces were accentuated with a red hue that only served to amplify the look of uncontrolled rage on the colonel's face.

The man clenched his jaw while the prodigy released an entertained laugh before he roared at the top of his vocal cords.

And then the fearsome commander opened fire on the smiling supersoldier while his yells echoed throughout the nearby halls.

Mai and Ty Lee sat in the chamber as they reeled for air with their eyes still wide in uncharacteristic fright.

They had held their breath for as long as they could while toxic gas began to blow into the room from the overhead vents.

In reality it had only been about a minute.

But it had felt like an eternity.

And they had been certain that they were going to die.

Only to find themselves gazing up in bewilderment when the gas abruptly shut off.

And the vents immediately began to cleanse the air of the poisonous gas.

"We're…we're alive." Ty Lee stated in a rasping voice with her brown-gray eyes almost tearing up in relief while Mai panted across from her.

"Someone…stopped the execution." Mai coughed in a relieved voice while she gazed around with still startled tawny eyes.

Not even a minute after the woman had stepped away from Azula's cell door.

The princess's golden eyes spun towards the door when she heard the door being unlocked from the other side.

And then Azula's lips curled into a gratified smirk when she found herself gazing back at the woman from before.

While she watched the aide wordlessly stride across the distance of her cell to release her from her bonds with a small briefcase in hand.

"As I said…" Azula trailed off in a smooth voice while her merciless golden eyes tried to hide any indication that she had any doubt that the woman would return.

"Don't get too overconfident. I have yet to set you free." Cynthia stated flatly as she approached the princess while the woman glared at her through the corner of her eye.

She couldn't deny that the woman had an imposing presence.

Even when she was bound in chains and unable to move the strange princess possessed an ominous aura of intimidation.

"What of my subordinates?" The princess questioned in a callous voice as she took pleasure in how her frigid gaze made the woman sweat.

"They are alive. I shut off the lethal gas before I came to speak with you." The aide assured in a hurried voice while the princess's eyes stare lessened in harshness marginally.

And for the briefest of moments there was a flash of something akin to relief in the conqueror's ruthless eyes.

"It takes about fifteen minutes to render fatality. And I would say that your friends were likely only exposed for around a minute and a half. So, they will probably be fine…probably." Cynthia commented in a less than convincing voice while Azula's cold eyes glared at her once more as she fumbled to unlock the face cage.

"I should hope so. Anything that happens to them. I will repay to you and your people tenfold." Azula announced in an unfathomably ruthless voice with her steely golden eyes now gazing right back into the aide's fearfully nodding face.

Just as the sound of a distinct click penetrated her ears as the cage was unlocked.

And then she stared on with a more pleased look in her cold golden gaze while she watched in satisfaction when the woman pulled the structure free from her head.

Only for the sound of a sudden shout resonating into the air to cause the aide to freeze up and the princess to snap her eyes in the direction of the door.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Ethan demanded with his pistol pointing in the direction of the now paling Cynthia while Azula seethed in her restraints.

"I'm making a calculated call." The aide answered in a guarded voice as she knelt with her back turned to the soldier while he kept his gun trained on the back of her head.

While the princess scrutinized the two with her cold golden eyes sweeping back and forth between the crouched woman and the approaching soldier.

carefully with her cold golden eyes sweeping back and forth between the crouched woman and the approaching soldier.

"A calculated call? You know how crucial these experiments are! Our entire country, maybe even the entire planet depends upon it! Not to mention the importance of the resources that this new land has to offer us!" The soldier shouted with desperation lacing his voice while he held the barrel of his gun against the woman's head.

While Azula furrowed her elegant brows as she listened intently as she recalled the cryptic words that Elle had told her on their ride to the fortress.

 Nothing was ever the same again after that. We ruined much of the world beyond repair.

'What hasn't Elle told me?' The princess thought with her callous golden eyes flickering with a desire to learn more about her handmaid's world.

It hadn't escaped her notice that the girl had a tendency to give explanations to her questions that only left her with more questions than answers.

There was clearly more to it than what the girl was telling her.

"Yes, I know. That is what they tell us." Cynthia responded in a doubtful voice only to find herself crying out in pain when she was kicked to the floor of the cell.

And then the aide hit the floor while the princess sat in her bonds with her eyes coldly regarding the furious soldier.

While she began to take careful intakes of air into her lungs with her crimson lips pursed into a merciless scowl.

"Then you know that humanity can be as it once was! And if that means killing a few freaks along the way to get there…then so be it!" Ethan bellowed as he now pointed his gun in Azula's emotionless face while the bound woman took in a great inhale of air.

Before her cheeks discreetly puffed up with all the fire that she could muster.

And then before the man could react.

She spat a mouthful of orange flames right in the soldier's unsuspecting face.

And not a moment later Azula watched with vengeful delight in her cruel golden eyes when the man recoiled screaming onto the floor.

All the while her cruel lips curved into a pleased smile.

While it wasn't her usual flawless blue flame. It was a flame all the same.

'As I suspected. Their method of chi blocking isn't full proof. Given enough time…a bender can regain control of their chi. And for a prodigy such as myself…that is all too easy.' Azula thought with her ruthless eyes gazing down in satisfaction at the writhing man as he frantically tried to put out the fire on his face.

Just as the gun clattered to the floor while she watched through the corner of her eye as Cynthia dove to retrieve it.

"Y-you bitch! You blinded me!" The soldier screamed with his burned eyes squeezed shut while he rolled across the floor.

While the princess smirked down at him with a noticeably sadistic gleam in her gaze.

Before the sound of a single smoking gunshot erupted thunderously into the air of the cell.

And then just like that Ethan slumped over against the wall with a bleeding hole in his temple while Cynthia now stood panting for air above him.

All the while as Azula's golden eyes were once again agape in fascination over the power of the nonbending weapon.

It was like she saw in her handmaid's recollection of memories.

All one had to do was point and their target was dead.

It was nothing short of astonishing!

'I have to acquire this technology!' The princess thought with her golden eyes still staring down at the man in amazement.

Before she turned her cold eyes to the yet to be named woman as she rushed back over to her side.

"We…we have to hurry! I have to give you the reverse serum before anyone comes to investigate or we're both dead." The aide stated in a hurried voice while the princess stared back at her with curious yet pleased golden eyes.

"Reverse serum?" Azula asked in a dignified voice while her cold golden eyes watched the woman quickly open her case.

While she quirked her brows once more when she found herself staring down at a collection of syringes injections that were prefilled with a mysterious substance.

"I can see that you are already slowly regaining use of your…abilities. But as it stands now. It will still be around an hour before you fully regain the ability to move." Cynthia informed in a casual voice while Azula golden eyes now boiled over in murderous fury.

"An hour!" The princess hissed with her teeth bared like a wrathful dragon while she stared intimidatingly down at the sweating woman.

"T-that is if I don't give you the antidote. It was developed specifically for power users working for the government. It will restore your mobility and your ability to use your powers. But you will still be sluggish for some time." The aide explained in a helpful voice while the princess listened with her icy eyes still gleaming in displeasure over her words

"And how do I know that it isn't poison?" Azula inquired with an unmistakable violent edge to her voice while the woman prepared to inject her arm.

"You don't. You just have to trust me. Just like I have to trust you." Cynthia remarked as she gazed back into Azula's glaring golden eyes while the imposing woman still scowled down at the syringe.

Before she leaned forward to roll up the princess's robed sleeve while the woman still eyed her coldly.

And then she injected the syringe into the royal woman's skin while the monarch still glowered in silence.

'Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way.' The princess thought with her calculating golden eyes watching as the fluid was injected into her arm.

All the while as her lips still remained pursed into a moody scowl.

And yet right now…she knew that she had no other choice.

And then not even thirty seconds later.

The sound of the restraints being unlocked resounded into the air of the cell.

Before the bonds were discarded to the floor below as they clanged loudly upon the metal flooring.

While the statuesque princess now stood up on her unstable feet as she clenched her fists at her hips.

The serum had truly restored her ability to move!

And while it displeased her that her movements were somewhat impaired.

It was much more preferable to being immobile.

Before she turned her cold eyes to gaze down at the aide standing up before her while the woman momentarily regarded her in uncertainty.

Before Cynthia finally broke the silence.

"If you're actually expecting me to bow. I hate to disappoint but the people in my culture haven't had a monarch in centuries. And we don't bow." The aide commented in a professional voice as she gazed back into the taller woman's icy eyes while the princess still eyed her coldly.

And yet there was a spark of grudging curiosity in Azula's eyes to learn that the woman's country hasn't had a monarch in centuries.

Just as her golden eyes glanced down when she saw the unnamed woman hold out her hand.

"So, you'll have to settle for a dignitary handshake." Cynthia stated with her hand held out before Azula while the princess stared down at her hand.

Only to find herself gazing on with no surprise in her blue eyes when the imposing woman let out an arrogant scoff.

"Whatever. Let's just go free my subordinates." Azula spoke in a glacial voice as she stomped past the woman while Cynthia nodded her head.

While her golden eyes shimmered with still present anger when she found herself almost losing her balance.

Only to quickly catch herself before she fell with her lips still smashed into a seething scowl.

Before she carefully made her way out while she tried her hardest to avoid showing any signs of weakness.

"Oh, and If you make any sudden moves…. I will immolate you." The princess called out in a terrifying voice with her cold eyes glaring over her shoulder at the aide's frightfully nodding face.

Just before the two exited her cell while she sternly watched the woman quickly lead the way.

One minute later.

Zoe stared down at the floor in surprise as her bonds fell to the ground with a clang.

While she stood up on wobbly legs with her fist grasping at the wall as she stared back at her princess's stony face.

Before she turned her bewildered eyes to the woman standing beside her while the aide silently met her gaze.

"I would ask how you managed to set us free. But at the moment all I care about is paying these bastards back in kind." The captain stated in a stoic voice with her hazel eyes hardening into a focused stare while her princess's golden eyes seethed in agreement.

"Come on. We have no time to waste." The aide remarked as she rushed out with the base in hand while the two firebenders exchanged a look with one another.

"I take it that she is an ally then?" Zoe questioned as she gazed back at her ruler's cold face while Azula let out a snide snort.

"Nothing more than a momentary pawn." Azula replied in a callous voice while her warrior nodded in understanding.

And then the two firebenders quickly followed after the other woman.

All the while as they found themselves struggling to maintain their balance on their encumbered legs.

Ty Lee and Mai glanced up with still present panic in their eyes when the chamber door was opened up at long last.

Only to find that they were gazing back at Azula's cold as ever face.

And the acrobat found herself unable to fight the tears in her eyes while she smiled in relief back at her friend's scowling face.

And the markswoman breathed a huge sigh of relief while she still sat trying to regain her air flow.

In all of her life she can't think of a time when she was more relieved to see Azula's face of all people.

And behind the princess stood her loyal captain while the noblewomen gazed back at them with slightly more concern in her eyes than usual.

And to their confusion.

A woman in what seemed to be professional attire stood behind their two companions.

"A-Azula! You have no idea how happy I am to see you!" The acrobat cried out while the princess allowed her cold stare to thaw ever so slightly.

"It is good to see you too Ty Lee." The princess spoke in a regal voice as she swiftly strode forward with her golden eyes never leaving the aide as she moved past her.

"Yeah. Dying in the gas chamber is not the way I want to go." The markswoman breathed in an exhausted voice while she watched the unfamiliar woman approach them.

"Kind of like being thrown in a mine pit. It's not very fun is it?" The captain quipped in a taunting voice while her fellow noblewoman visibly flinched over the reminder.

"Ugh! Do not start that right now!" Azula snapped with aggravation in her golden eyes while the two fell silent under her disciplinary stare.

Before the four Fire Nation women turned their gazes to Cynthia now dropping down before Mai and Ty Lee.

While the two restrained noblewomen shared a brief uncertain look that soon faded when the woman hurriedly released the acrobat from her bonds.

And soon after the puzzled markswoman.

And then the two women stared on in bewilderment when the woman opened a case full of injections of an unknown medicine.

"Stay still. This injection will reverse the paralyzing effects that your bodies are under." Cynthia announced as she held up the needle before Ty Lee while the noblewoman shakily nodded her head.

While Mai observed from beside her with guarded tawny eyes.

All the while as Azula and Zoe stood by the door with their wary eyes keeping a close watch out for any enemy soldiers that might come to investigate.

And then a moment later the two noblewomen were soon uneasily pulling themselves to their feet.

While they gazed around in surprise to find that the injection had indeed somewhat restored their ability to move.

Just before the five females heard the sound of a large gun being fired off in the distance while they gazed around in alarm.

"That girl is keeping them distracted. But it won't keep them away forever." The aide muttered as she strode out into the hall while Team Azula closely followed after her.

And then the four highborn women rushed with great urgency to retrieve their young friend.

And not too long after that…

Elle stirred with her amber eyes now opening up before the memories of what had just happened came back to her.

And then she sprung up with her hair sticking to her face while her mouth was agape in a panic.

"Ty Lee! Mai!" The handmaid cried out in a distraught voice only to find herself being gently shaken by the shoulders.

Before she was abruptly snapped out of her panic-stricken reverie to find herself shocked to be gazing back into the acrobat's warm brown-gray eyes.

"We're right here Elle." Ty Lee spoke in a tender voice while she offered the fretful girl a reassuring smile.

And then Elle glanced over the noblewoman's shoulder to find Mai standing over them while the markswoman cracked a small smile down at her.

Before her eyes swept about to find her princess standing at the back alongside the stoic captain.

And most puzzling was a woman that she did not recognize standing at the back of the group.

"O-oneesans. You're…you're alive." Elle stammered in a voice of overpowering sentiment before she flew into the acrobat's arms.

And then she passionately embraced the noblewoman around the neck while Ty Lee gently patted her back.

While Azula's golden eyes glared on in jealously at the scene.

"We're alive shorty. Don't worry about us." Mai stated with a momentary break from her monotone voice while she smiled back at the teenager.

While Elle emotionally nodded her head.

Only for all but Azula to gaze on comically when Ty Lee smashed the younger girl's face into her breasts.

"Mai is right little sister. We're all going to be fine. We're getting our of here and we're going back home." The acrobat remarked in a loving voice as she cradled the back of her adopted sister's head while the smaller girl clutched onto her neckline.

"I…I am so happy that everyone is okay." The handmaid gushed in a cheerful voice once more while she smiled with her face pushed into the acrobat's soft chest.

"Ty Lee." The princess snapped in a tyrannical voice while her possessive eyes stared daggers back at the smiling acrobat.

"So am I little sister. So, am I." Ty Lee answered in a soft voice as she helped pull Elle to her feet while the petite girl smiled up at her.

"The time for hugs is over. Now is the time for war." Azula spoke in a tone frigid voice devoid of mercy while her comrade's expressions grew colder as they firmly nodded their heads.

"My thoughts exactly." Zoe agreed with her fist clenched before her face while she still stood on her unusually shaky booted feet.

"You'll want to be careful. Your reflexes will be dulled for a while longer now. And that is all it takes to get a bullet in the head." Cynthia advised as she strode forward with her pistol in hand while the Fire Nation women scowled but listened all the same.

"Did…. did you set my friends free?" Elle asked in a gentle voice from where she stood beside the acrobat while the woman nodded slightly.

"I did." The aide replied while she gazed back into the girl's emotional amber eyes.

"Arigatou gozaimasu…for helping us." The handmaid stated in a grateful voice while the aide numbly nodded once more.

"Yes, thank you." The acrobat spoke in an appreciative voice while the princess rolled her eyes behind her.

"Please. It's not as if she did it out of the goodness of her heart. The only reason she let us out is because she wants to save her own skin." The princess declared in cold voice while her companions gazed at the woman in understanding.

"You aren't wrong. And I am not going to lie and tell you otherwise." The aide admitted as she gazed back at the group while the highborn women eyed her closely.

"It doesn't really matter." The markswoman said in a deadpan voice as she gazed back at the other woman's clearly worried face.

"Well, whatever your reasons. It's all the same in the end. Now let's go get our weapons back." The captain announced in a ruthless voice with her hazel eyes glaring at the doors while her comrades clenched their fists in concurrence.

"Indeed. I couldn't think of a better place to start. I just have one question for you before we begin." Azula remarked in a sophisticated voice with her imposing eyes staring back at Cynthia's weary face.

"And that would be?" Cynthia answered in as calm a tone as she could muster while Azula stare grew monstrous.

Before she gazed on in confusion when the princess pointed her flawlessly manicured fingertip back at Elle's innocent face.

"This one here. Did you have any part in conspiring to render her an experiment?" The princess questioned in a violent voice with her predatory eyes never leaving the woman's fearful face.

While Elle bit her lip as she stood in silent between her highborn friends.

All the while as all four of the older girls now directed warning stares back at the other woman's nervous face.

The implication from the stares of the Fire Nation women was quite clear.

And that was that the woman wouldn't be leaving the fortress alive if she indeed had any part in the teenager's torments.

"Formerly I worked as an aide for a high-level politician…it wasn't until a few months ago that I received a promotion. And that I learned of this place. Did I know about it these last few months? Yes. Did I have any decision-making power? No." The aide responded in a factual voice while the princess's eyes expertly studied her face.

While the four highborn women shared a look with each other.

"Do you know who runs this organization?" The princess asked in a smooth voice while her strict eyes remained on the other woman's face.

"No. I do not. The chain is long. And the names of those on the top are unknown to those at the bottom. The highest ranked individuals that I know of are Colonel Reynolds and Senator Greely." Cynthia explained in a serious voice while she reloaded her gun.

All the while as the team took careful note of the senator's name.

"Where is this Senator Greely?" Azula pressed in a searching voice while her eyes watched the woman intently.

"Well then, this…Senator Greely. Would he happen to be the one that I heard Reynolds state that he had just arrived?" Azula pressed in a searching voice while her eyes watched the woman intently.

While the three noblewomen now recalled what they had heard the commander say earlier.

"That would be him. When I last left him, he was in the control room." The aide stated without delay while the team gazed on in surprise.

"Really? Is he now? How convenient." The princess purred with a cold smile forming upon her crimson lips while her subordinates stared on in agreement.

"If you want, I can point you along the way." Cynthia offered in a helpful fashion while a malicious smirk came upon the princess's lips.

"That sounds wonderful." Azula spoke in an authoritative voice as she stepped forward with her fists on her hips.

"Naoki said that Katsu was captured by the government…do you know where she is? Is she here too?" Elle pondered in a soft-spoken voice as she chewed on her lip while her friends turned to gaze curiously back at her.

"You'll have to be more descriptive than that. The government doesn't list any names in their archive. Only numbers." The aide responded in a grave voice while the teenager's amber eyes flashed with renewed sorrow.

And the acrobat and the markswoman found themselves unable to resist gazing on in disgust.

Although once more, given the gravity of the actions of their own nation they knew that they had little right to judge.

While the princess and the captain gazed on with more reserved looks in their eyes.

"She's the one who creates explosions with green light. Naoki says that she is the second strongest…after her of course." The handmaid informed in a concerned voice while the highborn women listened with great interest in their eyes.

While Cynthia's blue eyes now flickered with undeniable recognition.

And if Team Azula didn't know any better, there was also a look of fear that came over the woman's eyes.

"You mean the explosions maniac. No, to my knowledge she isn't being held here. And I can't really tell you where they might be holding her." Cynthia answered in a detached voice while Elle's shoulders slumped in disappointment.

While the four Fire Nation women gazed on in bewilderment over the girl being referred to as an 'explosions maniac'.

"O-oh…okay." Elle mumbled in a bothered voice as she hung her head.

While Azula let out an aggravated groan when she already sensed Ty Lee's eyes on the back of her head.

"It's okay Elle. I am sure that Azula would be more than willing to help you find Katsu." Ty Lee remarked as she patted the smaller girl's shoulder while Azula now glared at her through the corner of her callous eye.

"In any case. It is best if you focus on getting yourself out alive before you worry about anyone else. That is what I will be doing. And if you want to go home with your friends you will too." The aide advised in a truthful voice as she turned away from the group while she began to make her way out the doors that they came in.

"I-I'll try to do that." The handmaid muttered in an unconvincing voice while her princess sighed over her.

"Just stick close to me Elle. The last thing I need is for you to get hurt. We don't need your weakness dragging us down." The princess sighed in a seemingly cruel voice as she swept a fingernail through her dark hair while her possessive eyes lingered on her timidly nodding pet.

All the while as the three noblewomen were unconvinced by their leader's most recent lie.

"Yes princess." Elle replied in an unquestionably faithful voice with a smile returning to her bashful lips while Azula gazed down at her in approval.

And with that the team began to stride out the doors while they headed after their mysterious benefactor.

"Azula. How did you manage to convince that woman to set us free?" Mai questioned with slight curiosity lining her voice while the others gazed at the princess with inquisitive expressions in their eyes.

While a conceited look overcame Azula's golden eyes as she gazed after Cynthia's hurriedly striding back.

"The same thing I always do Mai. I conquered." Azula boasted in a smug voice with a proud smirking forming upon her lips while her childhood friends slowly nodded in understanding.

And a small smile of admiration had come over the captain's lips.

While she took great delight in the look of innocent worship that had come over her young girlfriend's pretty face.

All while as she strode with returning confidence in her slowed steps as she savored the way her serving girl now gazed up at her with such adorably lovesick amber eyes.

"O-oh my queen is so authoritative." The handmaid gushed with a dainty hand on her cheek while the tall princess swelled in pride over her.

While the noblewomen just shook their heads fondly as they followed after the two.

Only for the group to be quickly torn from their thoughts not a moment later when they heard another round of rapid gunfire in the far distance of the vast fortress.

While the Fire Nation women gazed ahead with alert looks in their eyes as they hurried out through another set of doors after their new ally.

The sound of roaring machine gun fire split into the air while a storm of bullets sprayed the walls of the fortress.

While Reynolds’s obsessed blue eyes glared through the now bullet riddled double doors in search of his agile target.

Only for the veins in his forehead to bulge out in his fury when the redhead's amused laughter flowed into his ears once more.

"You'll have to do better than that Reynolds." Naoki taunted with a smirk on her lips while she listened to the colonel howl in fury at the top of his lungs in response.

Before she nimbly leaped out of the way when a grenade was hurled through the jammed doors.

Just as it rolled along the floor for a few brief seconds while its detonation consumed the air while a flurry of shrapnel exploded into the red lit hallway.

While the large man furiously stormed into the corridor with his machine gun fire now penetrating through the dense cloud of smoke.

All the while as many lights shattered overhead with broken glass raining down from above.

Only for Reynolds to find himself spinning around with his eyes widening in indescribable rage when he heard the girl laugh all around him.

"Do you really think that you can hit me with that bulky machine?" The assassin questioned in a sanguine voice from where she stood in the smoke while the colonel gritted his teeth in outrage.

And then with expert quickness the commander slung the machine gun back over his shoulder while he withdrew his military rifle.

"Shut your mouth! You are nothing more than an experiment!" The colonel roared as advanced into the smoke while he futile fired in the direction of the supersoldier.

And then before he could even react a scarlet blur kicked the rifle out of his hands while he recoiled several steps back in disbelief.

While the sound of the rifle clanging upon the steel floor resonated into the tense air.

All the while as he could only stand there in impotence when he heard light footsteps touch the ground behind him.

"You have it backwards Reynolds. I am the one who is superior to you." Naoki stated with an ever-present smile on her lips while Reynolds reeled around to lunge at her through the smoke.

"I'll kill you brat!" Reynolds bellowed as he slammed the girl into the wall while Naoki hung from his grip.

Just as his eyes grew wider when he gazed back into the girl's emotionless eyes while she laughed eerily once more.

"I…am Naoki. That's who I am." The assassin announced with her bangs hanging over her face while the man's furious gloved fist swung at her face.

Only for the frustrated commander's fist to plunge straight through a pipe in the wall instead of connecting with his target.

Just as hot steam from the broken pipe exploded into his face while his screams soon resounded into the air.

And just like that.

Reynolds was finally coming to realize his own powerlessness.

For all of his powerful physique, grueling training and ruthlessness.

He didn't stand a chance against this girl!

'This can't be! I can't lose to her!' The colonel thought with his skin burning from the steam as he took his pistol out of his holster.

While he squinted his eyes as he desperately tried to locate his opponent in the overflowing white mist.

Before he began to madly fire several shots into the mist while his roars echoed bounded off the metal walls.

While a red blur sprinted at him with speed that his blinded eyes were unable to follow.

And the next thing Reynolds knew a searing pain consumed his entire being.

And then he fell down to his knees with his left hand frantically clutching at the bloody stump on his right arm.

While he stared down in horror to find himself gazing right back at his now severed hand.

All the while as Naoki stood above him with a chilling smile adorning her lips.

Before she turned around to walk away with her back turned to the helpless man while his shouts of impotence served as music to her ears.

Elsewhere in the fortress.

The Fire Nation women watched in interest as Cynthia smashed an overhead camera to pieces.

"T-that's surveillance technology. She's breaking them so they can't remotely see where we are." Elle remarked in a timid voice while the older girls listened with fascinated looks in their eyes.

And once more they saw the stark difference between their two worlds.

One a world of bending and the supernatural while such technology had yet to be invented.

And the other, a world of cold hard science that was only just discovering the power of bending.

"Surveillance technology…I bet you would love to get your hands on that wouldn't you princess." Zoe commented in an impressed voice while Azula glared a hole through her forehead.

"Shut up Zoe." Azula snorted in a pompous voice with her cold eyes staring at the broken pieces of the camera as it fell to the floor.

Only for her merciless eyes to narrow with a desire for vengeance when she heard approaching voices in the distance.

While the group rushed forward with their young friend hurrying alongside them as they took cover behind a wall.

"It looks like David and the others found out about your escape." The aide muttered as she hid with her back against the wall.

While the eyes of all but Elle burned with a deep yearning to repay the man for how he treated them.

"Good. Let him." Mai snarled under her breath with her dark hair in her angry tawny eyes while she crouched at the end of a corridor.

Soldiers poured down the halls with David running at the front while he cursed in frustration.

"The prisoners! They got out!" A soldier called out while the lieutenant glared down the hall in his anger.

'How the fuck did they get out? There's no way that they got out on their own!' The lieutenant thought as he clutched a rifle to his chest while he stared out from underneath his helmet.

"I can't reach the commander and the others! I think they've been overwhelmed by Number Three!" Another soldier exclaimed with a panicked look in his eyes while David digested the news with a look of rage in his eyes.

'Just what I needed! Now I have to clean up this mess!' David thought with his eyes narrowing in fury while he sprinted down the hall.

Before he quickly waved several of his soldiers forward while they rushed ahead of him down the long length of the hall.

All the while as Team Azula and Cynthia watched from over the edge of the corner as the soldiers began to advance on them.

While the two firebenders seethed with their eyes narrowing into slits as they spied on the approaching soldiers.

"Watch it. They have machine guns. One wrong move…and you'll have dozens of holes in your body." Cynthia whispered with the back of her head touching the wall while Elle's fearful face peered up at her taken aback highborn friends.

Mai and Ty Lee shared a weary look as they knelt low with their backs upon the wall.

Just as they heard the sound of the footsteps growing closer and closer.

And then just before the three men rounded the corner.

Just before the princess and the captain skillfully released their pent-up energy that they had been gathering in their fists.

And explosion of orange fire detonated in their unsuspecting faces.

The soldiers screamed out in pain as they tried to back away as fast as they could muster with flames now burning from their armored clothing.

"They have their energy back-" A male soldier yelled at the top of his lungs only to find his facial armor exploding under the force of another blast of fire.

And then three soldiers' screams resounded into the hallway as they were consumed in the explosion of flames.

While Ty Lee protectively held her hand over Elle's face as the small girl quivered under her arm beside her.

All the while as Azula watched the soldiers burn alive with her tyrannical eyes forming an utterly malicious stare.

Before she threw another fire ball down the hallway while the other soldiers shouted in distress as they quickly ran for cover.

Just before the team fell back against the wall when gunfire erupted down the now blazing hall.

"Kill them goddammit!" The lieutenant shouted as he fired through the scope of his rifle while his soldiers followed his lead.

Just as the faint image of a brown head came up through his cross hairs while he readied his finger on the trigger.

Only for the acrobat to soon find herself stumbling back in surprise when a bullet nearly pierced her skull.

While Elle rolled to the floor with a cry alongside her.

While she gazed up with astonished brown-gray eyes to find that the still unnamed woman had pulled her back by the neck of her shirt.

All the while as Azula's eyes burned with even greater fury as she generated another fireball in her fist.

And Mai's cold tawny gaze grew cold after witnessing the soldiers nearly kill her friend.

"You…you saved me. Thank you." Ty Lee breathed in a still shaken voice as she sat up on her backside while Cynthia curtly nodded her head.

While bullets continued to spray the hall as Elle shook in fright with a renewed expression of trauma in her eyes.

All the while as she let out yelps of fright while bullet after bullet nearly made it around the corner.

Only to find herself gazing up in astonishment when she felt a strong arm pull her in.

While she now stared up with endless adoration in her widened amber eyes while her princess's larger frame now crouched down above her.

All the while as the gunfire continued to explode in the distance as she sought haven in her girlfriend's armored side.

"A-Azula-sama." The handmaid stammered in a sweet voice while the princess crushed her under her powerful arm with her lips pursed in a mighty snarl.

And then the monarch threw her gathered ball of flames down the hallway above the soldiers panicked heads.

Before another explosion of orange fire peppered the walls of the fortress while the shouts of one soldier after another rang out into the air.

Just as Zoe took hold of the discarded rifle of a dead man while she surveyed it with fascinated hazel eyes.

While Mai did the same as she reached out seize a pistol.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking House Lin?" The captain inquired in a devious voice as a smirk came onto her lips while her fellow noblewoman almost smirked in response.

"As a matter of fact, I am." The markswoman stated in a monotone voice as she carefully studied the weapon while they took positions against the wall.

And then the two noblewomen opened fire while the princess threw yet another fireball over the screaming soldiers heads.

While David and his men desperately ducked their heads as yet another round of intensely hot flames exploded in their armored faces.

All the while as the deafening siren served as an ever increasingly eerie ambience as it continued to blare in their panicked ears.

"The whole base is falling apart!" A soldier yelled out in a hopeless voice while the lieutenant stared on with sweat soaked eyes through his helmet.

While hot flames continued to stain the hallways as thick smoke blew into the air.

And the lights began to shatter as the fires that Azula and Zoe started began to spread.

"I can't see shit!" Another man hollered as he strained his eyes to see through the smoky hallway while the inferno began to rise to the ceiling.

Only to find himself slumping down onto his knees as his visor shattered when the captain managed to fire a bullet in his forehead.

"Let's go! Now is our chance to advance!" Zoe called out in a battle-hardened voice as she made her way through the smoke while the rest of the team followed suit.

All the while as the two firebenders skillfully bent the flames to allow safe passage through the inferno.

While Azula sprinted down the hall on her still numbed boots with her wrist tightly gripping Elle's hand as she pulled the smaller girl behind her.

Only for the teenager to cry out in alarm when an armored body came barreling into them from the smoke.

And then she fell to the ground with a shout.

While the princess stumbled backwards on her still unstable feet as she rushed to get back to her girlfriend's side.

And then in that very moment a figure came emerging from the smoke.

It was none other than David himself.

And then her callous golden eyes widened in uncharacteristic worry when she saw that the man was pointing his rifle in the young girl's terrified face.

And once more.

Somewhere deep down inside of her cruel heart she felt a jolt of fear.

And that was when she sprang forward like a rampaging dragon.

Azula rammed her shoulder plate into the man before he could fire while she grappled for control of the rifle.

All the while as their shouts split into the air.

"Close your eyes Elle!" The princess ordered in a vicious voice while put all of her weight into the grapple.

And the still traumatized teenager squeezed her eyes shut as she shook upon the floor.

"This base might be collapsing but I swear I'll fucking kill you if it's the last thing I do!" David yelled in a furious voice as their bodies slammed into the wall.

All the while as the two fought for control of the gun.

Only for a plume of orange fire laced with sparks of blue to explode in his eyes.

And then the barrel of the gun was shifted so that it was staring him directly in his now paling face.

Before the sound of a single gunshot thundered into the air while the soldier fell to the ground lifeless with a bullet in his skull.

While the princess stood panting with her hair clinging to her heated skin with her shaken girlfriend trembling on the floor behind her.

"I told you that I would kill you." Azula snarled as she held onto the rifle in her right hand while she heard her companions rush through the smoke.

All the while as several more gunshots rang out into the hall with explosions of firebending serving to further terrorize the now overwhelmed soldiers.

While the enraged captain plunged through the smoke as she slammed a man into the wall.

All while the markswoman followed suit as she ambushed another soldier.

"Azula! Are you and Elle okay?" The acrobat blurted out in a worried voice as she shakily balanced herself on her uneasy feet.

"We're fine Ty Lee." The princess stated coldly as she pulled the younger girl up with her other hand while the teenager gazed throughout the flames beside her.

Numerous soldiers lay dead in the heated hallway with what few that remained alive shamelessly retreating down the halls.

"Will…. will we ever achieve peace?" Elle murmured as she held a hand over her chest while Azula let out a heavy sigh over her.

"I'm sorry that you had to see this Elle. But they didn't give us any choice. It was us or them." The captain spoke in a softened voice as she wiped the sweat from her brow while she held her rifle in hand.

"I…know Zoe. I just wish…that it didn't always have to come to this." The handmaid lamented in a depressed voice while her princess still stood over her.

"Maybe someday it won't Elle." Ty Lee offered weakly in an uncertain voice while Azula scowled as she glared through the flame filled hall.

"Let's…just get out of here." Mai muttered in a quiet voice while she gazed at her little sister's face in concern.

"Don't waste your compassion on these fools Elle." Azula remarked in an unsympathetic voice while she stood with her palm on her girlfriend's petite shoulder.

"I'll…try not to Azula-sama." Elle responded in a numb voice while she leaned in under the older female's arm.

And then soon enough they began to make their way through the flames while her princess's muscular arm held her exhausted body up.

Just before she shyly wrapped her arm around the woman's armored belly.

And soon enough the couple was soon walking with their arms wrapped around one another.

All the while as their comrades watched in amazement over the touching display of the princess's newfound protective instincts.

And then the team began to make their way through the smoke only to find their new ally standing at the end of the burning hall.

"This was bound to happen sooner or later. You cannot keep people in chains forever. Such a system cannot exist indefinitely. Sooner or later it is inevitable that it will collapse." The aide spoke with her hair in her eyes while the group listened in astonishment behind her.

While Elle gazed on with an emotional look in her amber eyes unaware of the looks of guilt in her friend's eyes.

And Mai and Ty Lee could only gazed down at the floor with remorseful expressions in their eyes.

All the while as Azula's golden eyes flashed with a hint of an unseen emotion.

While Zoe stood reflective at the back of the group with her hazel eyes gazing through the smoke.

"That is the fate of every empire. No matter how powerful, no matter how great. History has shown time and time again that they all fall in time." Cynthia commented in a contemplative voice before she resumed her walk forward while the Fire Nation women gazed on in a thoughtful silence.

And the princess glared on with her lips pursed into a regal scowl.

She wanted to tell the foolish woman that she was wrong.

And yet deep down inside there was a small part of her that wasn't certain.

Before she derisively scoffed under her breath.

'Just look at me…I have barely spent forty days with this peasant and her weakness is already starting to get to me.' Azula thought as she shook her head with her toned arm coiled around her handmaiden's small neck.

Only to sigh as she made her way down the hall with her young love under her arm.

And yet strangely enough she couldn't help but feel an intense wave of relief.

Not just over the fact that her childhood friends were alive and relatively unharmed.

But over how she had prevented those soldiers from taking her loyal servant away from her.

The girl was still by her side.

And somehow…in this very moment. That was all that mattered.

And with that the team rushed through another set of doors while they made their way to collect their weapons.

And to the exits to make their way home.

Back in the control room.

"This is Senator Greely! I repeat this is an urgent message from the Porta Base! Does anyone copy!" The senator shouted into the speakers while his fist shook over the controls.

Only for his brown eyes to grow wide in terror when he heard the doors open with a click behind him.

And then he turned to gaze over his shoulder.

Only for his entire face to turn pale when he saw who was standing directly behind him.

"There you are senator. I have been looking all over for you." Naoki spoke in a frighteningly at ease voice as she made her way into the control room.

While her machinelike brown eyes stared back at the politician's cowering face as he collapsed against the controls.

"Y-you don't want to kill me! We can talk about this!" Greely yelled out as he watched the girl approach with widened eyes while she smiled back at him.

Only for the redhead to say nothing as she sauntered even closer while his hands trembled at his hips.

"L-look I'm just a senator that was assigned to clean up someone else's mess! I didn't even know about your existence until I arrived!" The senator blurted out in a frantic voice while the redhead's emotionless eyes stared right through him.

"Liar." The assassin countered in an astute voice with her cold eyes staring back at the man's terrified face.

Before her tabi booted feet pressed down into the floor.

And then there was a swish of air.

And before the politician could reach the girl was standing right beside him with her hand swatting his own off the radio controls.

And then she hit a switch on the system controls before she raised the handheld speaker to her lips.

All the while as she never took her unfeeling eyes over the senator's fretting visage.

"People of society…to those of you that can hear me. I have an announcement to make." Naoki announced in a strikingly calm voice with her voice carrying through the speakers.

And into the ears of a great many officials that were picking up the military radio signal.

And throughout the halls of the fortress as well.

The Fire Nation women glanced up with their eyes once more expressing their fascination over the technology of this new world.

While Elle stared up at the ceiling with innocent amber eyes that were agape with emotion.

All the while as Cynthia listened with her weary eyes gazing up at the speakers.

"I…was raised as a government experiment…the government intended to use me for all intents and purposes as a slave." The assassin remarked with fist gripping the speaker while the senator shook in terror.

If the girl gets word of her existence out…

Even if by some miracle he manages to escape with his life he will be killed by the higher ups for sure!

"I was stripped of my name…and rendered a number by people that had the gall to tell me that my will didn't matter." Naoki stated in an unsettling voice that swept throughout the radio network.

While the group listened with their eyes glued up at the speakers.

"Naoki…" The handmaid trailed off with her lip shaking while her princess stood unmoving over her.

"I was broken down until there was nothing left. I lost my identity. I lost…everything that I had ever been." The assassin commented in a chilling voice with her words carrying out into the signal while her bangs hung over her eyes.

All the while as the team still listened in a bizarre spellbound intrigue.

"Well, now who I am. I am Naoki." Naoki spoke in a captivating voice with a look of unmistakable identity coming over her brown eyes.

While Elle trembled with her amber eyes wide in growing apprehension.

"I have a will of my own now. And it is a will for destruction. And my appetite…is vast." The assassin declared in a voice that sounded more machine than human while she turned her back to the terrified senator.

There was a moment of brief silence while Team Azula still motionless in the now barren halls.

"What happens…when you push someone until they have nothing left to give?" Naoki questioned in a frozen voice with her cold gaze staring back at the bewildered politician while sweat dripped down his face.

And then there was another unsettling pause while Elle quivered in trepidation of what was to come.

"Well, Senator Greely?" The assassin pondered in an almost relaxed voice while she smiled back at the wide-eyed senator.

It was then that Team Azula understood that they had no need to hunt the senator down.

While the princess's lips pulled into a coldly amused smile as she listened to the man swallow in terror over the speakers.

"I…don't know." The senator admitted in a barely perceivable voice with his hands shaking at his hips as he stood a shaky step backwards.

All the while as Naoki's brown eyes now drilled into his skull with even greater frigidity than before.

"I'll show you what happens…I'll show all of you what happens." Naoki stated as her feet began to slide back along the floor while her brown eyes grew even larger.

And then Greely out into a terrified run with his coat flailing in the air behind him.

Just as a scarlet blur leaped into the air above him while the handheld speaker dropped to the ground with a resounding rattle.

And then a moment later an ear-piercing scream split throughout every speaker in the fortress.

And into the ears of all that were listening into the radio signal.

While Greely now fell forward with his mouth fixed in an expression of shock.

And Naoki's knife was now penetrating straight through his chest.

And then the senator hit the floor with final labored breaths flowing into the air like a fading breeze.

All the while as the supersoldier now stood above him with her brown eyes gazing down at his dying face.

"That is what you get." The assassin concluded before she slid her feet back upon the floor with her machinelike brown eyes staring ahead.

And then her chi erupted from her body.

Just before the control room explosion carried out throughout the halls of the fortress.

And then the radio signal finally went quiet with an everlasting static.

Elsewhere.

Rieko turned the radio off with a gloved finger.

While she leaned back in her seat with her lips curving into an entertained smirk.

"Naoki…you truly have come a long way from the little girl that I met so long ago." The emperor spoke in an excited voice with her blue eyes taking on an eager gleam.

All the while as her ship soared across the horizon towards its destination.

And back in the fortress…

Several guards now lay dead on the floor by a pair of discarded restraints while the siren continued to blare ominously overhead.

While Felix stepped over their corpses with his glasses shaking over the rim of his nose.

All the while as he rubbed at his reddened wrists with a devious smile growing upon his lips.

"Now then Elle…where were we? Oh, that's right. We were in the middle of a reunion." Felix remarked to himself in a delighted voice with a maddened grin adorning his lips.

While the sounds of his psychotic laughter soon resonated all throughout the halls of the chaotic fortress.

Yes, indeed.

He was truly looking forward to playing with his sister and her new friends.

Especially, that wild firecracker!

#Azula #avatar the last airbender fanfiction #ty lee avatar #mai avatar #femslash

[sam-lives-story]

#SamLives - Chapter 11

“Presenting Tonight’s Cast of Characters”

[Previous|Next]

Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

Jack hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he and Mark were planning on doing some collabs. In the few days that followed the initial video, they recorded a good nine or ten videos worth of content each, most of it consisting of two-player games. (Being able to record one session for two channels had its perks.) Jack still hadn’t gotten over his wariness of technology in that time. He had to steel his nerves before starting every session, had to take a breath before hitting ‘record’. He found himself frequently checking his facecam on the monitor to make sure nobody was in the background, and every flicker, every stutter, every lag in whatever game he was playing made his hands tense and his breath hitch.

Today was no different. After spending a good five minutes mentally convincing himself that his computer mouse wasn’t about to come to life and strangle him, he and Mark dove head-first into a new game of “Sea of Thieves”. It was just the two of them this time, with no time to schedule a play time with Bob or Wade or Ethan. At the moment, Jack was trying to fend off skeletal attackers while his friend dug up the buried treasure.

“Shit! Fuck! Fuckin’ bastards!” He took another swipe at the nearest skeleton, cutting it down. Another attacker was quick to take its place. “Hah! That’ll teach ye not to mess wit’ ol’ Jackaboy.”

He pulled out a blunderbuss and took two shots straight through the newcomer’s chest.

“DIE BITCHES! How’s that chest comin’, Markerino?”

Mark, who Jack now realized had been oddly quiet the past few minutes, let out only a distracted hum in response. Jack turned his avatar to look at Mark’s rather voluptuous character, only to find him standing still over the half-buried treasure chest. Jack chuckled, a little bewildered.

“Mark? Th’ fuck are you doin’?” he took a shot at another skeleton. “Are ye just waiting for it to unbury itself or–”

Thwack!

The familiar-yet-unexpected sound made Jack jump, his heart pounding in his chest as he whipped his head around to stare at Mark. The other YouTuber had turned his seat away from the desk, Nerf gun in hand, aiming at the closed door with narrowed, focussed eyes.

What the fucking–

Jack swallowed thickly and took a slow breath, his panic ebbing away to make room for amused irritation. He swiped a small crocheted Sam from his desk and chucked it at the side of Mark’s head.

“Hey! What–?!”

“Don’t fuckin’ scare me like that, shithead!” Jack shoved Mark’s shoulder playfully. “What th’ hell was that for?”

“Target practice.”

Mark’s grin was cheeky and a little mocking.

Jack blinked at him, slowly, fixing him with a look that clearly said ‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’ He snatched the Nerf gun from Mark’s hand with a barely-restrained chuckle and brandished it in the other’s face. Mark took a swipe at it, pouting and trying to take back his toy.

“Hey!”

It turned into a game of Keep Away, with Jack holding the Nerf gun high above his head and Mark practically falling out of his chair and climbing over Jack in his attempt to reach it.

“I’ll use you fer target practice if you don’t–”

“Jack! Give that back, you asshole!"

“–get your head back in the game!” Jack suddenly whipped the Nerf gun back at Mark, who fumbled to catch it. “I’m dyin’ here!”

Mark clutched the gun tightly to his chest and retreated to the safety of his seat, pouting and hugging the toy as though Jack might attempt to steal it from him again. He stuck his tongue out childishly before turning back to his screen - and he stifled a laugh.

“Uh…” He carefully set his precious plastic weapon on the desk, out of Jack’s reach. “Not to alarm you, but I think we’re already dead.”

Jack’s focus snapped to his own screen, and sure enough, both he and Mark were now standing on the deck of a ghost ship, waiting their turn to return to the land of the living. He threw his hands in the air and flopped backwards in his chair.

“Fuckin’ DAMMIT all!” He sank in his seat with a groan, Mark’s deep giggles permeating the air around them both. “I blame you entirely for that.”

“Yeah...heh...yeah, that’s...that’s on me. Sorry, man…” Mark still hadn’t stopped giggling, his mood far too bright to be dimmed by a death in the game.

“I’m makin’ sure everyone knows it’s your fault,” Jack bemoaned from his slouched position. “I’m gonna make you buy me a fancy-ass tombstone, an’ put one o’ those shitty rhyming couplets on it…”

He held his hands out in front of him, pretending to frame the words.

“Here lies Jack Just blame his friend Whose Nerf gun brought Their bitter end.”

Mark’s only response was a slow golf clap while he pretended to be tearing up.

“Beautiful,” he told Jack, voice laced with false emotion. “Absolutely beautiful. You should’ve become a poet instead of a YouTuber. Clearly you were meant for greater things than video game commentary.”

Jack almost fell out of his chair in his attempt to chuck another Sam plush at Mark’s head.

“D’you think that cop really believed that nothing was wrong?” Jack asked Mark with a mutter later that evening.

Mark had already sent out the day’s raw videos from both him and Jack to Robin and Kathryn for editing, though only after doing a little bit of content cutting before passing them along. There were certain things that had to be cut out from their recordings that really, really didn’t need to be shared with anyone beyond their immediate group. Not yet.

“The guy from the other day?” Mark asked, looking up from his phone. “I dunno. I mean I don’t think he believed all the anonymous tips, anyway. He was trying not to crack a smile the whole time he was explaining stuff to us.”

Apparently, some of Jack’s fans had taken Anti’s appearance on the stream at face value. They had believed (rightfully so) that it was real, and when Jack went silent on all forms of social media for more than twenty-four hours after it had happened, people had started to panic. While nobody knew for sure where Jack lived, the local police station in Brighton had gotten call after call after call from concerned teens and young adults who all claimed that a YouTuber named Sean McLoughlin had almost been killed on a livestream. If it hadn’t been for the sheer number of phone calls and the video proof that looked almost too real to have been edited, Jack was sure the police would have ignored it.

But two days ago - three days after the stream itself - a police officer had come knocking on the apartment door asking if a Sean McLoughlin or a Jacksepticeye lived there.

After explaining - through stifled grinning and amused chuckles - that a lot of fans thought he had been hurt, Mark and Jack had tried to awkwardly laugh it off and explain that, no, it was just a video, and nobody had actually gotten hurt.

(Jack was wearing makeup on his neck again for recording, thank god, otherwise the bruises might have brought on some unwanted questions. As it was...)

“I dunno man.” Jack sighed deeply and scrubbed his hands over his face, sinking back on the couch. “I swear he kept lookin’ at my neck. I’m sure he watched the video for th’ sake of the calls. Probably checkin’ to see if I really got strangled.”

“Ah, quit worrying. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Mark scrolled through Twitter again, reading a few more tweets before, “...and we’re sure we don’t want to get the police involved?”

Jack leveled him with a blank stare.

“Do you honestly think the police are gonna know how to deal wit’ a computer virus of a demon that came to life from my YouTube channel? I mean WE barely know what we’re doing and we’re fully invested in the lore of it all!”

Mark stifled a laugh.

“Okay, yeah good point,” he admitted. He shook his head, eyes falling back to his phone gain. “Fully invested in the lore...god, we sound like we’re trying to solve Five Nights At Freddy’s conspiracies. That’s how complicated this whole mess has become. Frankly, if anyone overheard what we were talking about in the cafe that first day I showed up, they’d probably think–”

Jack jolted upright in his seat, eyes wide and expression one of stunned realization.

“Holy shit.” He grabbed Mark’s arm and shook him a little, his movements suddenly intense and a brilliant grin splitting his face in two. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit what?” Mark gripped his phone a little tighter so it wouldn’t go flying out of his hands from Jack’s enthusiasm.

“Mark, you’re a fuckin’ genius!”

“Well - I mean, yeah, I thought we established that, but what the hell did I say?!”

Mark was rightfully very bewildered by his friend’s sudden change of mood. He gave Jack a quick once-over with his eyebrows raised, wondering if he should be concerned.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s!” Jack exclaimed. He looked far too excited and far too proud of himself for his own good.

“...Five Nights at–”

“Dude! Don’t you get it?” Jack leapt up off the couch, pacing, and Sam - who had been dozing in Jack’s hoodie pocket - poked his ‘face’ out with a sleepy blink, wondering what all the commotion was about. “This whole thing is too fuckin’ complicated right now, right? We don’t know what exactly Anti is, or how to stop him from comin’ back. He’s solid but he’s not. He’s made of glitches but - who the hell even knows what that means.”

“Okay…?” Mark just watched the Irishman pace the room, his phone long forgotten in his lap. “Where are you going with this?”

“Anti doesn’t make sense!” Jack was grinning like an idiot. He stopped in his tracks to turn and face Mark. “We know why he’s here but that only gets us so far! We need somebody who’s used to picking apart ridiculous bullshit to find the real answers, somebody who already kinda knows what’s going on.”

“Jack, you’ve lost me,” Mark said flatly. “Who are you talking about, Robin? Amy?”

“No!” Jack was talking with his hands, talking with his entire body, like he couldn’t contain all the energy that had built up inside him. “Five Nights at Freddy’s. Crazy timeline. Bullshit lore. There’s only one person I know who was able to tear that shit to pieces and make sense out of it.”

And then it hit Mark like a load of bricks, and he was on his feet too, his exclamation coming out as a loud and incredulous question in the same moment that Jack was busting out the same words.

“MatPat?!”

“MatPat!”

“Waitwaitwait, hold on–” Mark was trying to sort out his thoughts, pinching the bridge of his nose while he watched Jack rush around in a frantic search for his cell phone. Mark didn’t have it right now and Jack couldn’t quite remember where it had ended up. “What the hell do you mean Matt already knows what’s going on?”

“Well, okay, he doesn’t know about Anti,” Jack admitted, his ass in the air while he leaned over the armchair in the corner to see if his phone was plugged in back there. “He knows about Sam though.”

“He knows about Sam?!” Mark’s jaw dropped.

At this point, Sam had abandoned Jack’s pocket to hover a few steps behind the Irishman, watching him with quiet curiosity. At Mark’s question, Sam let out a happy little squeak and nodded, twirling through the air a little.

“Did you tell him before you told me?” Before Jack could even answer, Mark had continued: “But he posted a video like two weeks ago about how Sam couldn’t possibly exist!”

“Well, duh, he posted that because he knows about Sam,” Jack rolled his eyes and shoved away from the armchair, detouring to the kitchen. He spoke up to be heard across the apartment. “He was tryin’ to throw people off. And I didn’t tell him about Sam.” Jack returned to the living room, cell phone in hand and a sheepish smile on his face. “He...er...kinda found out on his own.”

“How?”

“Tacos and Rachel Ray.”

Mark didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“Look…” Jack huffed and came back over to Mark, sitting on the edge of the coffee table while his friend sank slowly back onto the couch. Sam settled onto his shoulder and nuzzled up against Jack’s cheek with a quiet purr. “Sam was sick, so I brought him with me for the taco-making contest. Matt was on my team. He bumped into me, I tripped, Sam almost fell out of my hood, and Matt saw him.”

“And he didn’t freak out?”

Jack’s lips twitched into a wry smile and he looked up from his phone.

“Oh, he freaked out, but not until later.”

“Let me get this straight.” Mark watched Jack carefully as he spoke. Jack nodded and went back to shakily tapping out a message to Matt. “Just so we’re both on the same page. Sam exists, clearly. Anti exists. You, me, Robin, and Matt know about Sam. You, me, and maybe Robin know about Anti.”

“And Matt too now, sort of.”

“And Matt,” Mark agreed. “And Amy too, come to think of it. Is there anybody else who knows anything else, just in case we need to recruit people for a battle of the digital age?”

“Nope, nobody else. Don’t think so anyway,” Jack shook his head. He paused and looked thoughtful, setting his phone aside (looking relieved to get the thing out of his hands) and tapping his chin. “...though I probably should bring up that Anti mentioned being late for a date or something last time? What was the name...something...something Warfstache…?”Mark looked like he might explode

“WHAT?!”

“Oh my god!” Jack cackled, doubling over with laughter and trying not to slip off the edge of the coffee table he was sitting on. “Oh my fucking god your face! That was PRICELESS! You fuckin’ - Haha! - f-fuckin’ believed–” He could barely breathe he was laughing so hard, his laughter sounding a little wheezy.

Mark groaned and flopped backward across the couch, a low, pained chuckled escaping him.

”Oh, you absolutely piece of shit. Fuck you.”

“Y-Yeah, I - heh - I probably...haha...deserve that one…” Jack was grinning, wiping tears from his eyes.

Sam had bounced over to Mark to make sure he was okay and was now nestled on the American’s chest, Tim’s curious little eyes watching from the arm of the couch not even a foot away. The little box tumbled forward and landed right next to Mark’s head, patting his cheek softly in what Jack assumed was a comforting motion. Another low, rumbling laugh bubbled up from Mark’s chest.

“But no, to answer your question,” Jack continued once he could breathe again. “I think that’s everyone.”

“Good. Great. Excellent.”

Mark was absolutely done. Just...done.

“Ah, lighten up, Markimoo,” Jack snickered. “Consider it payback fer that Nerf scare.”

“Considering that you were implying that Warfstache is alive too, and that he and your evil twin are getting it on–”

“Hey! I only said they went on a date!”

“–I’d say we’re far from even right now.”

“Oh, fuck off! That’s totally even!”

“And what if I tricked you into thinking your Dr. Schneep guy was alive and I caught him flirting with Dr. Iplier?”

“Oh, dude, no,” Jack groaned, laughing through it. “Nooo...I mean, yeah, Henrik totally would. He’d flirt with anything that moved. But hell no.”

“See my point?”

The living room was pleasantly quiet for a long moment, save for the little questioning squeaks Sam was making from his position on Mark’s chest. Then Mark heard the buzzing clatter of plastic against the coffee table. Jack’s phone was ringing, but on silent. Mark cracked open one eye to glance at Jack, who suddenly looked a lot more tense than he had a moment before.

“...you good, Jack?” he murmured, watching the other YouTuber. Jack nodded stiffly, looking a little pale. “Is it MatPat? He calling back already?”

Jack swallowed thickly.

“Nah. It’s...just Robin.”

“Answer it,” Mark encouraged him evenly. “Go ahead. We’re all in the room with you, it’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded, the motion a little jerky, and he reached over to press the ‘Answer’ button. He quickly put it on speaker and withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned. The phone stayed sitting on the table.

“Jack?”

“Hey Robin,” Jack murmured.

Mark could see the way Jack started fidgeting the moment he heard Robin’s voice, saw his fingers tugging at the edges of his hoodie and saw the way his knee started bouncing rapidly. Like he had too much nervous energy, like it was trying to get out however it could.

“Hey! I just wanted to...you know. Check in,” Robin continued, a half-smile in his voice. “I got the videos from Mark. Why didn’t you tell me he was planning on visiting the UK?”

“That’s his fault,” Jack muttered, and a small smile made its way onto his face. “He didn’t fuckin’ tell me he was stoppin’ by until he was on my doorstep. So blame him.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Robin’s words were a touch humorous for a moment. “Anyway...how’s everything going? How’s Sam?”

“Sam’s great!” Jack’s grin became more genuine, and he giggled when Sam bounced over to sit beside the phone. He was wiggling on the spot in excitement. “He and Tim are gettin’ along famously. He’s been so damn happy, Robin, I wish you could see ‘em together.”

“You can thank me later,” Mark chimed in with a smirk.

“Is that Mark?” Robin asked. “Am I on speaker?”

“Oh! Yeah, you are. Sorry. Shoulda said.” Jack chuckled softly.

“No, it’s fine!” Robin laughed a little too. “Hey Mark!”

“Hey Robin!”

“How are you doing though, Jack?” Robin’s tone had turned concerned, more strained than before. “And what the hell is going on with the whole Antisepticeye thing? I mean - I saw the stream. That–” A sigh crackled through the speaker. “I know for a fact I didn’t edit that, and it looked…Jack, it looked way too real. What the hell was that? Are you okay?”

Jack stiffened. He could feel Mark’s eyes on him, his look a knowing one. It had been five whole days since they had talked at the cafe, and while Jack had texted Robin back and forth a few times since then (in very brief interludes, as there were still moments Jack couldn’t even look at his own TV for fear of Anti jumping out of the dimmed pixels, let alone carry his phone in his pocket all day), not once had Jack brought up the livestream. Any time Robin asked about it Jack evaded his questions and changed the subject, or didn’t respond at all. He had been half-ghosting his friend and he knew it.

“Eh…” Jack cleared his throat and shrugged, though Robin couldn’t see it. “I’m fine.” He answered only half of the question. “A little worn out, but Mark an’ I have been really goin’ hard, knockin’ out tons of videos now so we can get some free time to hang out later…”

“Seán.”

And there it was, the gentle scolding that reminded Jack too much of his older brothers. Robin usually pulled that one out when Jack was working himself too hard or he hadn’t sent Robin his finished recordings yet. How Robin managed to make Jack feel like a misbehaving child every time he used it was a mystery to him...but it worked. Every damn time. Jack sighed and let out a quiet groan.

“I’ll tell you soon, I promise,” he whimpered. “I promise I will, it’s - it’s just - I can’t–” He dragged a hand through his hair, and his gaze landed on Mark. The other YouTuber had sat up in the past few minutes and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his expression a searching one. He quirked an eyebrow at the Irishman.

“One second, Robin,” he said softly, reaching over to tap the ‘mute’ button on Jack’s phone. He watched his friend for a long moment before speaking. “Jack...I’m not gonna push you to talk to him, but - oh my god, man. It’s almost been a whole week . The longer you wait, the more likely it’ll be for him to figure it out on his own. Or, worse, he’ll be hurt that you’re still keeping things from him. He already told you yesterday, people have been sending him tons of tweets and tumblr messages asking about you. Didn’t he tell you that some people wanted to know if you’re dead or not?”

Jack nodded stiffly, wincing.

“I told you I’d help you tell him the truth.” Mark smiled reassuringly. “I meant that, okay? And - hell, I can get Amy on the line, and we can have a big ol’ Sleepover Party Egos Theory Skype Call.”

Jack snorted out a nervous laugh, shaking his head in amusement. Sleepover…

“Only you would see it as a “sleepover” opportunity, Mark.”

“What can I say?” Mark grinned cheekily and winked. “I’m a fully-fledged man-child.” His grin faded back to a soft, understanding smile and he tried to catch Jack’s eye. “Waddaya say? You up for it?”

“...I eh…” Jack stared at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt while he thought.

Was he ready to talk about what had happened yet? Would Robin even believe him? Would he freak out, or take it all in stride like he had with Sam? Jack didn’t want to cause a panic and he didn’t want to make this a bigger deal than it already was. He didn’t want to push into painful and uncomfortable territory but...it seemed a little unavoidable at this point. He had known that, eventually, he would have no choice but to tell Robin - but he’d been trying to delay the inevitable. He’d been hoping beyond hope that this whole thing would blow over as though it had never happened and he wouldn’t have to even think about the livestream or its implications or Anti’s “haunting” his videos ever again.

But Mark was right. The longer he waited, the worse it could get.

Jack sighed heavily. His hand was shaking when he reached for his phone, but he still pressed the ‘mute’ button to let Robin hear them again.

“Hey Robin,” he mumbled, to let her know he was back. “You there?”

“Still here, Jack.” The usual friendly patience was in his voice, colored with a touch of concern for his friend

It helped Jack with what he knew he had to do next.

“I...eh. D’you mind waitin’ a few minutes?” he asked, wringing his hands in his lap. “Mark’s gonna get Amy on a Skype call wit’ us, an’ we can all talk face-to-face, and I’ll...I’ll fill you in on what’s been, er, happenin’ in my part of the world.”

“Really?” Robin asked, sounding brighter. “You’re actually going to tell me this time?”

“I - yeah. Yeah, I am.” Jack took a breath. His nervousness was clear with every word that left his mouth. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Wait!”

Mark’s outburst made Jack jump and his head shot up.

“What–”

“My smoothie! I totally forgot my smoothie!”

Jack stared, and he heard Robin snickering on the other end of the call.

“Your smoothie,” he repeated, his lips twitching into some semblance of a smile. “You mean the one from after dinner? From, like, two hours ago?”

“Yes, from after dinner!” Mark rocketed off the couch, skirting the coffee table and grabbing his rental car keys as he went to the door. “It’s still in the car. This is super serious.”

“Super serious?” Jack repeated. He watched Tim bounce off the couch and hop curiously around the room in pursuit of Mark, doing his best to keep up. “More serious than Serious Shit?”

“YES! MORE SERIOUS THAN THAT!” Mark, who almost stepped on Tim in his haste to get to the door, let out a rather undignified squeak and immediately crouched to the ground beside the tiny box. “Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? C’mere, my little biscuit, let’s get you off the floor. I would neeeever want you to get hurt, I would neeeever step on you…”

“Oh my god, Mark, you’re such a mom.”

“What? It’s not like you’re not the same way with Sam!”

At this, Jack chucked a pillow from the couch across the room, hitting Mark in the legs to avoid hitting Tim.

“Go get your fuckin’ smoothie!”

“Fine! I will!”

Mark flipped him off and pretended to storm out of the apartment, putting Tim on his shoulder and “slamming” the door shut (only to stop it at the last second to close it with a quiet click.) Jack shook his head with a smile. Only Mark.

“Hey...Jack?”

“Hm?” Jack returned his attention to his phone, still sitting beside him on the coffee table. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask...you tried to tell me before. Anti is real, right?”

“Yeah…” His answer was a tense one, his hands coming up to fiddle with the strings of his hoodie.

“Did…” Robin’s voice trailed off, and there was static in the speaker, like he had taken a breath. “So...did he really hurt you? On the stream.”

Jack swallowed thickly. He was suddenly very aware of the sore bruises on his throat, and he felt rather than saw Sam land lightly on his shoulder.

“What...eh…” He cleared his throat, and Sam nuzzled up against his jaw, little waves of reassurance and worry filtering into the back of his mind. “...w-what makes ye ask that?”

“I told you I was getting messages and asks,” Robin told him. He could hear footsteps in the background, movement. Like he was pacing. “And I turned them off for now, because Mark said I should wait until you told me what was going on. Which I can respect. But...some of the messages – people are really worried about you, Jack. And I am too. I couldn’t help it. I kept going back to watch the end of the stream, and – damn. That entire thing - it was so intense. It...it looked like Anti was trying to…I mean, when he was...” Robin trailed off.

Jack closed his eyes, his jaw clenching tightly. Oh. Hands shaking, Jack picked his phone up off the coffee table and took the call off speaker, holding the mobile to his ear and getting to his feet.

“When he was holdin’ me up against the...eh...th’ wall?” he asked hoarsely. His movements were stiff, his footing a little unsteady as he crossed the room to pick up the pillow he’d thrown at Mark. He squeezed the edge of it tightly in his hand, lingering there by the door.

“...yeah.” Robin took another deep breath on the other end of the line, and when he spoke again his voice was low and hoarse. Concerned. “He – Jack, he was hurting you. Actually hurting you, not just - play-fighting, or acting for the camera. Wasn’t he?”

Jack’s chest felt tight, his throat constricting from both the memory and his own emotions. He took a shaking breath and dropped the pillow into the armchair closest to him, his free hand coming up to rest against his opposite shoulder. By Sam. Sam’s tail trailed down and brushed against his fingers, helping to soothe some of the uneasiness that had begun to build inside him.

“N-No, that...that was. Um.” Real. It was real. He blinked rapidly and his grip tightened on his phone. “Yeah. It...he left bruises.”

Robin swore quietly on the other end of the line.

“Jack–”

But whatever Robin had been about to say, Jack never found out, because the call was suddenly filled with static and audio distortion, Robin’s words lost in a mass of broken sound that had Jack freezing where he stood.

“...Robin?” he whispered, eyes widening. “Robin...listen...I need to go. Okay? I can’t...I can’t hear you, but I th-think–”

The call dropped before Jack even hit the end button, the cell phone slipping from his hand and tumbling to the floor with a quiet thump against the carpet.

There was a static in the air, a crackle, an energy to it that made the hair on the back of Jack's neck stand on end. His breath hitched. The hand that still lingered near his shoulder tensed, and he could feel Sam curl closer to his neck.

"I'm not the only one feelin' that, yeah?" Jack breathed, his eyes darting around his apartment and landing on nothing. He took an involuntary step back toward the door.

"Nuh-uh. I feel it too..." Sam's worried voice floated across the back of his mind. Jack nodded. Alright. So he wasn't crazy.

A lamp across the room sparked and popped, the bulb blowing out suddenly, and even as small of an occurrence as that was it made Jack jump. The room was plunged into darkness. Wide blue eyes latched onto the deadened lamp. "W-What the hell is going on...?" His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.

But the question he asked was one he was almost certain he knew the answer to. This static, this...tension. Electricity. He knew this feeling. It was one he was far too familiar with, one that he had experienced before.

Anti.

The room had felt much the same as this when Anti had appeared during his stream last time, when he had pinned Jack to the wall by his throat and toyed with him in front of an audience, had left him scared and shaking in a way he never expected he'd have to feel in his life. Until then he hadn't been sure if Anti was real. But now? Now there was no denying it. So the feeling in the air, the tension, the spark? It flooded him with a very real and tangible fear that wasn't without reason.

"Ďid̎ ÿo̊u m̰i͋šs̶ m̰ē?"

A voice, so close, a cold breath against his ear. Jack cried out and flung himself away from the sound, knees hitting carpet as he hurried away from his own front door now, scrambled across the living room with desperate movements, one hand clamped over Sam so he wouldn’t lose him. There, by the door, his smile just as sharp and as wicked as Jack remembered, was the glitch himself. His image crackled and distorted for a moment - Jack could see the pixels separating as he stood there - and a moment later he had flickered forward, appearing a few steps closer.

Shit...shit, shit, shit...he had half a mind to scream, to call for Mark, but at this point Mark had probably already made it down to his car and wouldn't hear anything. All he could hope for now was that he could stall long enough for his friend to make it back inside. Two on one were better odds in this situation.

"I̥ d̠on̪'t e͊v͐enͥ g̴ét a h̒e͊llo̖, J̠åc̮k̾a͈b͗ö́y?"

“Go away!”

Jack’s eyes widened and he went stiff, panic doubling. Sam had wriggled free from his spot on Jack’s shoulder and he was hovering in mid-air between the two men in the room, planting himself boldly before Anti as though he was planning on defending Jack himself.

“Sam, don’t–”

“Leave him alone, you meanie!” Sam sounded so brave, so determined, so…so angry for such a small little being. “You hurt Jack, and you made him sad, and - and–” Sam wriggled in the air and tried to make himself look intimidating. “–and I’m not gonna let you hurt him again!”

Contrary to what Jack was sure Sam had wanted, Anti didn’t look scared at all. In fact, he smiled...a gleeful smile that had Jack dreading whatever was about to happen.

“W̠e͆ll, a̒re̮n't y͞oṳ a̸ b̸ra̢v̜e lĭt͉tle t̹oa̤s̈t̤èr̔?” Anti crooned, his head tilting far to the side in a way that was eerily non-human. He held out a hand, palm-up, and the air above it distorted and warped impossibly. A worn, dark jewelry box appeared there in a flurry of pixels, its lid popped open to reveal the empty space within. “Sȯr̬r̗y t̸o b̓ur̢s̈ţ ŷou̬r͊ b᷆u̫b᷇b̍l͑ě, S̕a̺m̮my̳, b̝u᷈t...yo̔u'rē no̸t̹ ne͑e̓d̐ed f̔o͍r̈ toñḯgh̠t̡'s ća̧s̱t̎ o̱f͗ c̟har̐a͐ct̊e͓r̊s͊.”

Quicker than Jack could react, Anti glitched, vanished, and reappeared inches from Sam with the jewelry box held out before him. With one swooping motion, Anti had flicked Sam into the box, snapped the lid shut, locked it with a key and tossed the box over his shoulder to land neatly on the armchair in the corner.

“NO!” Jack sprang forward without thinking, arm outstretched as though to reach the box–

“D̹ǐd̵ I̽ s͌a̝y y̪o͚u͘ c̡o̾u͎l̦d͗ m̐o͋v̫e͕?”

Before Jack could register the giggling words, he found himself tripping head-over-heels, colliding soundly with the front of the cabinet his television rested on. A jolt of pain pulsed through his shoulder and he cried out, biting his lip, biting his tongue. Desperate fingers clutched at his aching shoulder and he gritted his teeth.

“What the fuck do you want?!” he bit out, panting and tense as he watched Anti slowly stalk toward him across the room. “You here to...to k-kill me? Hurt me? S...Strangle me again?”

“Wh͔a̠ţ d᷁ō ÿ́o̊u̖ t͔ak̓e m̉e̥ f̓or̓, a᷇ s᷀a͂di͉s͟t͊?” Anti scoffed incredulously.

Jack blinked at him, a sassy retort on his lips before he could stop himself.

“What, you - ngh - aren’t one? Could’ve f-fooled me...”

“I'̗m̺ m̛or̬e̍ ǫf a m̭a͒s᷅ochi͙s̜t̕,̘ r͖ea̪l͟l̓y,͏” Anti shrugged. Jack was surprised that Anti had even bothered to answer the question at all. “Bu͂t̢ bo͑t͐h̬ a᷊r̛e͞ p̭r̂ett͒y̎ a͘c̬c᷅u͑ra̻t̎e̍.”

Great. Good to know. Wonderful.

“N̚o̫, i͓t̋'s no͙t̘h̺i̝n᷆g s͕o̻ s͑i̔m͕pl̖e̍ as a̖l̥l̆ t᷁h̄a̓t,” Anti smirked, waving the thought away with one hand.

The air around his palm distorted and glitched, and a shining blade appeared in his hand on the way down.

Oh, fuck.

Anti was a few steps away now, and Jack scrambled backward across the floor, trying to get as much distance between himself and the glitch as possible...but he was cornered, pinned between the side of the TV cabinet and the wall, blocked in with no way out. It was starting to become a struggle to keep his breathing steady, his heart hammering away a tarantella against his ribs, his throat coarse and tight from tension.

The burst bulb from earlier had thrown the room into near-darkness, but what moonlight was coming through the living room window reflected off the sharpened blade in Anti’s hand, the light bouncing off into Jack’s eyes as the glitch knelt in front of him - close, too close - his eyes beginning to swirl with an inky blackness that Jack never wanted to see this close again.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the blade, wide as saucers, and his breath hitched when he saw it inching closer and closer to his face. The touch of cool metal against his cheek made him tense and he clenched his jaw with a gulp. It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t painful. Anti was dragging the flat side of the knife along his jawline, and Jack could hear the sound of its edge scraping against the coarse facial hair there.

“No̫…” Anti shook his head, and the sharp grin widened wickedly, appearing to split his face in two. “No, I ẖa͗v̶e m̪ůch...͛mùch᷆ b᷆i͈g͗g᷄er p̓lan̶s᷉ foͥr᷆ yõu͕, Jaͅc̻k.” 

Mark was humming to himself as he made his way down to the rental car, the keys jingling in his hand. Tim sat perched on his shoulder, one tiny hand clutching the collar of Mark’s shirt, and he was trying to hum along to whatever song Mark had stuck in his head right now

It wasn’t his fault Katy Perry’s music was so catchy.

By the time he unlocked and opened the driver’s side door, he was well into the chorus, mumbling the words in an undertone to himself and for Tim’s entertainment.

“California girls, we're undeniable! Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock~” Tim was giggling, and the sound brought a warm smile to Mark’s face. He shifted into the driver’s seat so he could reach his smoothie easier, but not before belting out the next few lyrics at the top of his lungs.

“West coast represent, now put your hands up!”

He did so, dancing in his seat, grinning and playing it up for his little biscuit’s benefit.

“Ooh, oh, ooh! Ooh…”

Something flickered in the corner of his eye, something red...or was it blue?...and he trailed off, a crease forming in his brow. Tim was still giggling softly. Had he been seeing things? With a soft chuckle, he reached over and plucked his half-finished smoothie from the cupholder, still somewhat chilled from the cool weather of the evening.

Yeah, it was probably nothing. The whole Antisepticeye thing had been keeping him on edge since he’d arrived here in England. He pushed himself out of his seat and shut the door behind him. But when he turned to head back inside, something in the reflection in the car’s window caught his attention.

Mark dropped his smoothie.

A quiet thumping rose up across the living room, a rattling that caught Jack’s attention as well as Anti’s.

Sam. Sam was trying to get out.

Anti looked away from his victim for a moment, only for a moment, some space coming between Jack’s cheek and the metal of Anti’s blade.

A moment was all he needed.

Jack lashed out with a fist and a knee, landing a punch square across the glitch’s face and driving a knee up into his gut. Anti tumbled away from him, distorting and flickering, a static-fused snarl of pain and annoyance bubbling up from his prone form. Jack shoved himself to his feet, leaping over Anti and heading for the front door. He had to get out, had to leave, had to get Sam and go–

“I d͓O̬n͈’Ṭ t̉H͠iN̼ḱ sͅO͊!”

Static, feedback, a crackle in the air, and Anti was in front of him again, seething with fury, blocking his exit. Jack was running on pure adrenaline now, veering left and heading down the hall toward the bedrooms. The bathroom. Recording room. Anything.

“y̜O̰u̯’̒R̡e̿ N̈o̽T͔ g̓O̩i᷈N̸g̽ Ản̉Y͋w̳H̤e̦R̸ë́!̉”

There he was again, cutting him off, keeping him trapped in the same room. Shit...fuck…

Mark. Mark was downstairs. He just - he needed to stall, to wait it out until Mark came back with his stupid smoothie. He could make it that long.

Jack did a one-eighty and darted back down the hallway, the rug slipping beneath his feet and making him stumble. He caught himself on the wall and kept going, kept dodging. He could do this. Distract him. Hold him off. Something. Anything.

Green.

...green?

Something green, in the corner of his eye. Green and orange.

Jack risked turning his head, risked a glance, and he caught sight of the Nerf gun - Chase’s Nerf gun - sitting on the kitchen table. Mark had been playing with the damned thing for days, and for the first time since it had resurfaced Jack was unendingly grateful that Mark had found it again. He made a detour through the kitchen, snatching it up and shoving the ziplock of foam discs into his hoodie pocket.

Disc. Pull back. Load. Click. Wait for it. Be ready.

Jack circled his way back into the living room, Anti’s laughter echoing through the apartment, and he dove behind the coffee table with his plastic weaponed primed. He was ready.

He was terrified.

Jack would be an idiot if he pretended that this entire situation wasn’t scaring him within an inch of his life. He knew - he was trying not to think - that he could die at any second tonight, and that the pixelated parasite hunting him down in his own apartment was far too strong of an opponent for him to handle, with or without Sam. With Mark, maybe he had a chance, but even those odds were slim. If he didn’t die tonight, or if he didn’t at least get stabbed, he was going to drink until morning then invite every single one of his friends over to England to have the party of a fucking lifetime.

“O͗h͢,᷄ Jȁa͚a̕a̓a̻c̈́k̘~” Anti’s distorted, chilling voice echoed through the room and sent a shiver down Jack’s spine. “W͘h̅e͔re a᷇r̰e̶ y̑ou͏ hid͛ǐnͅg̤?”

Jack caught sight of a flickering black sneaker from his hiding spot and he popped up from behind the coffee table, firing the Nerf gun at the center of Anti’s chest.

Anti barely flinched as the foam disc bounced off of him with a spark of electricity. He blinked - dark, void-like eyes - and stared down at the harmless green projectile on the floor.

“A̛ n᷄er̼f͈ d̑i͞sč? Ȓe͏a̧ll̐y̕, Ja͙c͂k̇?᷀”

Jack shrugged. He pretended that he wasn’t sweating buckets and shaking like a leaf behind the Nerf gun in his hands.

“N-Not like I’ve got anythin’ else.”

“H̆o̲w͘ v᷁e̛ry “C̰h̦a͘s̟e B̜r̵o̦d͔y” o͈f̹ y̬öu͍.”

Somehow the mention of another Ego’s name on Anti’s lips made Jack tense up. It was surreal. It was strange. They were all fake - all of them fictional - yet Anti had somehow become so much more. The concept of the living incarnation of his once-fictional character mentioning another of his still-fictional characters so casually like that...it was unsettling, to say the least. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. He just needed to hold out a little longer, just a little while longer, until Mark came back from the car. Keep talking. Keep going...

“W-Well...well…it’s t-technically his gun...s-so…”

Jack opened his eyes.

Anti wasn’t there.

“I̚ kn̴ơw̼ w̖h̖a̽ẗ y᷆o̠u᷄’͍r͖e do̕i͖n̖g̉.”

The chilling voice seemed to come from all sides at once, and Jack could make out flickers of pixels and static in the dark shadows of the room. He fumbled with the ziplock in his pocket, pulling out a foam disc to load his Nerf gun again.

“Oh?” Jack asked, his voice coming out higher than he’d intended. “Do…” He cleared his throat. “...do you now?”

“M᷅a̪r̿k̀i̟pl̻i̘e͛r᷀ i̵sn̄’t͡ c̊o͇m̕i͝n̩g͚ to͆ s̲a͙v᷀e͎ yo̫u̥.”

Jack’s blood ran cold.

“What–”

“H᷁e’̘s̎...ă li͢t̺t͖l̷e᷄ ţie͓d᷄ u̯p̉ a̳t̀ th̪e͡ m̘oͥmȩn͇ẗ́.” Anti’s distorted giggle echoed and circled in the empty air, causing goosebumps to sprout up along Jack’s arms. His breath hitched, eyes flying wildly around the room, trying to spot any sign of his doppleganger. “Y᷇o᷅u̥ wer͖e̸ṇ’t̃ p̼l̯a̿yi̟n͘g̉ fa̯ir̤, Ja̒c̉k̩a̫b᷉o͎y…” The next words came front right over his shoulder, whispered into his ear like a dirty secret. “...s̥o̾ Į le͍veͅlèd͎ t̏h̬e͕ p̭l̎ay᷊i̹n͑g̵ fi̥el͔d͙.͝ Ġot̥ ą c̋er̒t̛a͙i͇n da̢r͍k a̭cq̑ŭa̖in͊t̮a̠n̸ce̬ of̿ m̪i̎ne t͖õ ẖęl̍p̖ m̓e̺ o̢u̟t a̲ li̫t͕t᷈l̪e.”

Mark was scared to blink, staring at his own reflection in the car’s window with his jaw clenched, a vein pulsing in his neck. A figure stood just behind his shoulder, his body outlined in a familiar red and blue, looking so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. By the time his smoothie hit the concrete and burst open, splattering the ground, only fractions of a second had passed...but it felt like an eternity. He blinked.

Dark was gone.

“Mark?” Tim’s voice cropped up beside his ear, confused and a little worried.

“...hold on to me, okay?” Mark murmured, and he brought a hand up to try and shield his familiar from whatever might happen. Whoever might happen.

“I’m not here for him, you know.”

The voice, deep and echoing and so like his own but different, startled him into turning around. He hadn’t been in the reflection, but he hadn’t actually left. His name left Mark’s lips in a strained whisper.

“Darkiplier.”

“Face-to-face, at long last,” Dark nodded. He smirked, folding his hands behind his back. “And like I said...I’m only here for you. This is all coming from your mind, Mark.”

“Mark? What’re you lookin’ at?”

Tim. He sounded so innocent and confused, so worried about Mark, and what Dark was saying suddenly registered in Mark’s mind.

“Tim can’t see you, can he?”

“Tim doesn’t have to see me,” Dark corrected, raising an eyebrow in clear impatience. “I don’t want him to see me, therefore he can’t. But you…” His head tilted to the side and he made his neck pop, his shell cracking and separating for a moment. Then he leaned forward, intrigued. “...you, I can never quite hide from. Not completely. Why is that?”

“I...don’t know,” Mark shook his head, confused. Lost. Dark was here, and he was very real, and he was talking to Mark as though none of this was odd. “Maybe...uh....maybe because I made you?”

“Y̙̭o͏̖͔͙͓̼u d͇͈̭i͎̤͉ḍ̼̠̭̟̯͡n̡͕͎̙̜’̠̹̫̦͙͡t ̝ma̟k̼͎͝e̗̗̱͈̬ͅ m̰̥ḛ.”

There was an echoing fury boiling under the words, and the air around Dark seemed to darken considerably in the moment. Mark took an involuntary step back towards his car.

“I - what?”

“You didn’t make me.” Dark’s anaglyphic image was separating, tearing itself apart, and one of his echoing reflections seemed to scream silently into the cold night air. All the while, his core image remained stern and unyielding, showing barely any emotion at all. “You destroyed me - destroyed us. You stole his body. You condemned her to hell. You drove him to insanity. You ruined their lives.”

It clicked, then, what Dark was talking about. This was exactly what Mark had been scared of, worried about, when he was talking to Jack in that cafe. This was why he was regretting the creation of “Who Killed Markiplier”...or more accurately, he was regretting the addition of the character of Mark. The Mark who was an actor. The Mark who was an asshole. The fictional Mark who ruined everything and destroyed so many people…

...Dark was under the impression that Actor Mark and YouTube Mark were one and the same.

Mark blinked, and suddenly Dark was so much closer than he had been before. The darkness that had been enveloping the demon was surrounding Mark too now, and it was absolutely suffocating.

“...but, I suppose I should be thanking you,” Dark continued, a smirk finding its way onto his face. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Mark thoughtfully. “In a way, you...are the reason I exist. Your damnation of your friends led to my creation. A part of me is furious...but a part of me is more than grateful. You set the darkness free, Mark.”

Mark’s heart was pounding, rapid, in his chest and he could feel a minute panic slowly flooding his very soul. He gulped and shook his head, one hand still holding Tim close - Tim, who had fallen strangely silent, though Mark didn’t stop to question it.

Dark wasn’t here to hurt him. Dark didn’t resort to physical violence unless he had to, Mark had written him that way. While Anti went straight for the knife, Dark resorted to other means of making his point and making his mark.

This was all in his mind. Dark wasn’t physically here.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You...I’ve been seeing you, for months, but this is the first time you’ve actually spoken to me. What changed?”

Dark’s gaze trailed off to the side, toward the apartment, before settling back on Mark.

“A friend asked for a favor.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I merely agreed.”

A cry of pain broke the odd non-silence of the evening, a cry of pain that sounded all too familiar and was coming from the apartment Mark had been trying to return to. His eyes widened.

A friend asked for a favor.

A friend of Dark’s. Anti.

“Jack!”

Mark shoved away from the car and ran through Dark’s mirage of a body, the blue and red dispersing into wisps of dark smoke. Mark only made it halfway to the stairs.

“Clever boy. But you can’t leave. Not yet.”

Dark’s voice echoed in his mind, sending a blinding pain through his skull that brought him to his knees with a shout. He clutched at his head, fingers tangling in his hair and digging into his scalp. He felt rather than saw Tim tumble off of his shoulder, falling the few feet to the ground, making Mark wince in sympathy. There wasn’t enough strength in him to free himself from the mental onslaught, let alone help his tiny friend.

But he needed to. He needed to get Dark out of his head, needed to help Jack. If Dark was out here, then Anti must be in there, and he’d already seen what Anti had done to Jack the last time he had shown up. It wasn’t pretty. Mark didn’t fancy seeing a reenactment.

Get out...get out!

“Why would I? I have a job to do, Mark. You better than anyone should know that I never put in a half effort.”

Images began to surface in his mind, horrible images, memories that had never happened...memories of his friends, his real friends, getting hurt…

Please don’t. They don’t deserve this.

“Neither did Damien. Neither did Celine. Neither did William.”

“That...w-wasn’t me!” he protested, finally finding his voice, the words hoarse and weak. “You’ve got it - ngh - wrong! I’m - y-yeah, I’m Mark, but I’m n-not that Mark! I–”

“Oh, quit with your pitiful lies,” Dark sneered. “Celine is already angry enough with you as it is.”

“No, listen! I made up that version of Mark the same way I created you and Wilford and Abe – I’m just a writer, okay?!”

“Give up, Mark. Nobody can hear you. Let’s see how long you last before you begin pleading for forgiveness. I have all night…”

Hold on, Jack. I’m coming. Hold on–

Jack shuddered and shot to his feet, almost tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away from Anti, who cackled in amusement from where he’d appeared directly over Jack’s shoulder. Jack rounded on the glitch and aimed the Nerf gun at his chest, not even caring that it was basically harmless.

“What did you do?!” he demanded, his concern for his friend overtaking his fear for his own life. “Is Dark gonna kill him?”

“D̙o͕n͑’̚t b͐e͟ s͋i̧lly!” Anti smirked and rolled his eyes, playing with his knife out of sheer boredom, tossing it between his hands and flipping it in the air. It was clear he was skilled with his weapon on choice, throwing it around with ease like one would a half-filled water bottle. “O᷄l’ D̜a̩rki͈e̚ do̶ẹs̨n̈́’ť ju͊st̽ ķill̔ p̠eo᷈p̰l͌e̞. O᷀r͋ hē w͈on̎’̞t k̇i͏ll̫ Ma̻r᷊kipl̮i̧er͕, an̋y̑w̩a͕y̒.”

The knife soared a good foot or two in the air before tumbling downward, making Jack tense even as he watched Anti catch it cleanly by the handle.

“Fa͐r a͓š I̩ c̠a᷊n̅ t͂ell͚ he̟’̤s̄ p͞r̃et᷇ty̚ p̝i᷅s̱s͚e͔d͐ a̤t᷆ ṱh͔e̓ g̹uy̗. Be̘en̒ t͑oy̕īn͗’͈ w̶it’ hi̛m᷆ f̦o͐r̬ m̽o᷆nt̾h̟s̞,̈ o̊ř so̊ h͍i᷉s̝ r̓oboͅt́ s̽a᷁ẏs͍.”

Robot? Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dark had robots now?

“N̛a̡h᷾, Da͖r̓k̺’s͗ n̠o͊t̻ g̦onnå k̬i͗l͙ḽ Mar̃k̝. P͑ŕe̽t̩ṯyͅ s̒u̕r̾e ḣe᷇’d̈ r̯a̱the̗r dr̹i͖v̓ę h͂i͔m̃ t̰o̐ i͢n᷀s̷a͛nityͅ ḅefo᷾r̞e͓ tͅh͙a̓t ĥap̆p̝e̾ns.”

Jack swallowed thickly. Drive him to insanity? Could Dark do that? He was brought back to the conversation he and Mark had had almost a week ago, in the cafe. The first morning Mark had shown up.

“Dark’s more subtle,” Mark had said. “He works behind the scenes. He doesn’t deal with face-to-face conflict as much. He mostly sticks to the shadows. I mean, I gave him his backstory, I should know this…honestly, it makes me wonder if ‘Who Killed Markiplier’ wasn’t a horrible, horrible idea.”

Mark had been worried, beyond worried, about the concept of Dark actually making his move. Jack had noticed it that day but hadn’t bothered to ask about it. He was beginning to think that, perhaps, he should have pushed a little more.

“Bu̼t y̾o̲u̱ h᷁aͅve̕n̰’t̰ goṯ th᷁a͗t͓ to w᷁o͢r͊ry̽ ab̻o̱u̺t̍, Ja͖cͅka᷁b͐o̱y!” Anti was grinning again, and Jack would swear that his doppleganger’s teeth were sharp, pointed. Deadly. “A͟ft̸ëṙ t᷁o᷁n̎ig̙h̸t, you̅ w᷄o̓nͅ’̥t͂ b͐e̡ w̢OR̵r̈Yi͇N̞g a᷊BoUt a᷅N̡ÿ́T͒h̛i͙N᷇g͋.”

Anti’s distorted shadow grew around him, engulfing his side of the room in a glitching, pulsating, corrupted darkness, and from its depths shot out a dozen or so venom-green cords of light. At Anti’s command, they darted forward and curled tightly around Jack’s wrists, his ankles, his knees and elbows, his chest - his throat. Not tight enough to strangle, but with his bruises still healing, it was more than tight enough to hurt.

Jack gasped sharply and gritted his teeth, snarling and tugging against the green strings, fighting for his freedom. He had to get out. He had to save Sam, had to help Mark. But there was something...odd about the strings. With each tug against his restraints, Jack felt a little more of the fight leaving him, his will to rebel slowly draining away. His head was pounding, his throat was sore, and his shoulder was throbbing with pain...so...so wouldn’t it…

...wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?

The Nerf gun fell from his hands, tumbling to the floor with a clatter of plastic and a muffled thump against the carpet.

“No͊w be̺ a̦ go͟õd̏ li᷅t̏t᷁l͋e᷊ pup̝p͟ét, an̂d̯ ğo᷊ t̥õ s͕le̗e̥ṗ.”

Yeah...yeah, sleep sounded so wonderful right now. Jack slowly let his eyes drifted shut.

Click.

“You let ‘im go right this fucking second, or I blow your fuckin’ brains out, bro.”

[A/N] - Woot! It's done! ^^ And ending on a cliffhanger too? Shocking! :0c

This chapter actually took a lot longer to finish than I originally intended. For some reason I was really struggling to get going on it, but once I started into the ambush, it really started rolling. Believe it or not, this chapter is about twice the length of all the others. While most other chapters finish off at around ten pages in Google Docs, this one? This one hit a solid twenty. Absolute insanity.

Anyway! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and comments and critiques are always appreciated! Ta!

Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

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[Chapter List]

#SamLives #Jacksepticeye #Antisepticeye #Markiplier #Darkiplier #Sam Lives #JSE #JSE FanFic #Jacksepticeye FanFic #Sam Septiceye #Sam #Jack #Mark #Dark #Anti #Nerf Gun #Chapters #11 #Presenting Tonight's Cast Of Characters

[pixie-mage]

#SamLives - Pt.11

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Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

[This story has been edited and reposted on the official #SamLives Tumblr. The new post of Chapter 11 can be found here.]

(There is a big difference between the phone calls in this version and the updated version of Chapter 11. This version features Signe; the updated version features Robin.)

Jack hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he and Mark were planning on doing some collabs. In the few days that followed the initial video, they recorded a good nine or ten videos worth of content each, most of it consisting of two-player games. (Being able to record one session for two channels had its perks.) Jack still hadn’t gotten over his wariness of technology in that time. He had to steel his nerves before starting every session, had to take a breath before hitting ‘record’. He found himself frequently checking his facecam on the monitor to make sure nobody was in the background, and every flicker, every stutter, every lag in whatever game he was playing made his hands tense and his breath hitch.

Today was no different. After spending a good five minutes mentally convincing himself that his computer mouse wasn’t about to come to life and strangle him, he and Mark dove head-first into a new game of “Sea of Thieves”. It was just the two of them this time, with no time to schedule a play time with Bob or Wade or Ethan. At the moment, Jack was trying to fend off skeletal attackers while his friend dug up the buried treasure.

“Shit! Fuck! Fuckin’ bastards!” He took another swipe at the nearest skeleton, cutting it down. Another attacker was quick to take its place. “Hah! That’ll teach ye not to mess wit’ ol’ Jackaboy.”

He pulled out a blunderbuss and took two shots straight through the newcomer’s chest.

“DIE BITCHES! How’s that chest comin’, Markerino?”

Mark, who Jack now realized had been oddly quiet the past few minutes, let out only a distracted hum in response. Jack turned his avatar to look at Mark’s rather voluptuous character, only to find him standing still over the half-buried treasure chest. Jack chuckled, a little bewildered.

“Mark? Th’ fuck are you doin’?” he took a shot at another skeleton. “Are ye just waiting for it to unbury itself or–”

Thwack!

The familiar-yet-unexpected sound made Jack jump, his heart pounding in his chest as he whipped his head around to stare at Mark. The other YouTuber had turned his seat away from the desk, NERF gun in hand, aiming at the closed door with narrowed, focussed eyes.

What the fucking–

Jack swallowed thickly and took a slow breath, his panic ebbing away to make room for amused irritation. He swiped a small crocheted Sam from his desk and chucked it at the side of Mark’s head.

“Hey! What–?!”

“Don’t fuckin’ scare me like that, shithead!” Jack shoved Mark’s shoulder playfully. “What th’ hell was that for?”

“Target practice.”

Mark’s grin was cheeky and a little mocking.

Jack blinked at him, slowly, fixing him with a look that clearly said ‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’ He snatched the NERF gun from Mark’s hand with a barely-restrained chuckle and brandished it in the other’s face. Mark took a swipe at it, pouting and trying to take back his toy.

“Hey!”

It turned into a game of Keep Away, with Jack holding the NERF gun high above his head and Mark practically falling out of his chair and climbing over Jack in his attempt to reach it.

“I’ll use you fer target practice if you don’t–”

“Jack! Give that back, you asshole!"

“–get your head back in the game!” Jack suddenly whipped the NERF gun back at Mark, who fumbled to catch it. “I’m dyin’ here!”

Mark clutched the gun tightly to his chest and retreated to the safety of his seat, pouting and hugging the toy as though Jack might attempt to steal it from him again. He stuck his tongue out childishly before turning back to his screen - and he stifled a laugh.

“Uh…” He carefully set his precious plastic weapon on the desk, out of Jack’s reach. “Not to alarm you, but I think we’re already dead.”

Jack’s focus snapped to his own screen, and sure enough, both he and Mark were now standing on the deck of a ghost ship, waiting their turn to return to the land of the living. He threw his hands in the air and flopped backwards in his chair.

“Fuckin’ DAMMIT all!” He sank in his seat with a groan, Mark’s deep giggles permeating the air around them both. “I blame you entirely for that.”

“Yeah...heh...yeah, that’s...that’s on me. Sorry, man…” Mark still hadn’t stopped giggling, his mood far too bright to be dimmed by a death in the game.

“I’m makin’ sure everyone knows it’s your fault,” Jack bemoaned from his slouched position. “I’m gonna make you buy me a fancy-ass tombstone, an’ put one o’ those shitty rhyming couplets on it…”

He held his hands out in front of him, pretending to frame the words.

“Here lies Jack Just blame his friend Whose NERF dart brought Their bitter end.”

Mark’s only response was a slow golf clap while he pretended to be tearing up.

“Beautiful,” he told Jack, voice laced with false emotion. “Absolutely beautiful. You should’ve become a poet instead of a YouTuber. Clearly you were meant for greater things than video game commentary.”

Jack almost fell out of his chair in his attempt to chuck another Sam plush at Mark’s head.

“D’you think that cop really believed that nothing was wrong?” Jack asked Mark with a mutter later that evening.

Mark had already sent the day’s raw videos from both him and Jack to Robin, and Robin was planning on doing a little bit of content cutting before passing them along to Kathryn. There were certain things that had to be cut out from their recordings that really, really didn’t need to be shared with anyone beyond their immediate group. Not yet.

“The guy from the other day?” Mark asked, looking up from his phone. “I dunno. I mean I don’t think he believed all the anonymous tips, anyway. He was trying not to crack a smile the whole time he was explaining stuff to us.”

Apparently, some of Jack’s fans had taken Anti’s appearance on the stream at face value. They had believed (rightfully so) that it was real, and when Jack went silent on all forms of social media for more than twenty-four hours after it had happened, people had started to panic. While nobody knew for sure where Jack and Signe lived, the local police station in Brighton had gotten call after call after call from concerned teens and young adults who all claimed that a YouTuber named Sean McLoughlin had almost been killed on a livestream. If it hadn’t been for the sheer number of phone calls and the video proof that looked almost too real to have been edited, Jack was sure the police would have ignored it.

But two days ago - three days after the stream itself - a police officer had come knocking on the apartment door asking if a Sean McLoughlin or a Jacksepticeye lived there.

After explaining - through stifled grinning and amused chuckles - that a lot of fans thought he had been hurt, Mark and Jack had tried to awkwardly laugh it off and explain that, no, it was just a video, and nobody had actually gotten hurt.

(Jack was wearing makeup on his neck again for recording, thank god, otherwise the bruises might have brought on some unwanted questions. As it was...)

“I dunno man.” Jack sighed deeply and scrubbed his hands over his face, sinking back on the couch. “I swear he kept lookin’ at my neck. I’m sure he watched the video for th’ sake of the calls. Probably checkin’ to see if I really got strangled.”

“Ah, quit worrying. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Mark scrolled through Twitter again, reading a few more tweets before, “...and we’re sure we don’t want to get the police involved?”

Jack leveled him with a blank stare.

“Do you honestly think the police are gonna know how to deal wit’ a computer virus of a demon that came to life from my YouTube channel? I mean WE barely know what we’re doing and we’re fully invested in the lore of it all!”

Mark stifled a laugh.

“Okay, yeah good point,” he admitted. He shook his head, eyes falling back to his phone gain. “Fully invested in the lore...god, we sound like we’re trying to solve Five Nights At Freddy’s conspiracies. That’s how complicated this whole mess has become. Frankly, if anyone overheard what we were talking about in the cafe that first day I showed up, they’d probably think–”

Jack jolted upright in his seat, eyes wide and expression one of stunned realization.

“Holy shit.” He grabbed Mark’s arm and shook him a little, his movements suddenly intense and a brilliant grin splitting his face in two. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit what?” Mark gripped his phone a little tighter so it wouldn’t go flying out of his hands from Jack’s enthusiasm.

“Mark, you’re a fuckin’ genius!”

“Well - I mean, yeah, I thought we established that, but what the hell did I say?!”

Mark was rightfully very bewildered by his friend’s sudden change of mood. He gave Jack a quick once-over with his eyebrows raised, wondering if he should be concerned.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s!” Jack exclaimed. He looked far too excited and far too proud of himself for his own good.

“...Five Nights at–”

“Dude! Don’t you get it?” Jack leapt up off the couch, pacing, and Sam - who had been dozing in Jack’s hoodie pocket - poked his ‘face’ out with a sleepy blink, wondering what all the commotion was about. “This whole thing is too fuckin’ complicated right now, right? We don’t know what exactly Anti is, or how to stop him from comin’ back. He’s solid but he’s not. He’s made of glitches but - who the hell even knows what that means.”

“Okay…?” Mark just watched the Irishman pace the room, his phone long forgotten in his lap. “Where are you going with this?”

“Anti doesn’t make sense!” Jack was grinning like an idiot. He stopped in his tracks to turn and face Mark. “We know why he’s here but that only gets us so far! We need somebody who’s used to picking apart ridiculous bullshit to find the real answers, somebody who already kinda knows what’s going on.”

“Jack, you’ve lost me,” Mark said flatly. “Who are you talking about, Signe? Amy?”

“No!” Jack was talking with his hands, talking with his entire body, like he couldn’t contain all the energy that had built up inside him. “Five Nights at Freddy’s. Crazy timeline. Bullshit lore. There’s only one person I know who was able to tear that shit to pieces and make sense out of it.”

And then it hit Mark like a load of bricks, and he was on his feet too, his exclamation coming out as a loud and incredulous question in the same moment that Jack was busting out the same words.

“MatPat?!”

“MatPat!”

“Waitwaitwait, hold on–” Mark was trying to sort out his thoughts, pinching the bridge of his nose while he watched Jack rush around in a frantic search for his cell phone. Mark didn’t have it right now and Jack couldn’t quite remember where it had ended up. “What the hell do you mean Matt already knows what’s going on?”

“Well, okay, he doesn’t know about Anti,” Jack admitted, his ass in the air while he leaned over the armchair in the corner to see if his phone was plugged in back there. “He knows about Sam though.”

“He knows about Sam?!” Mark’s jaw dropped.

At this point, Sam had abandoned Jack’s pocket to hover a few steps behind the Irishman, watching him with quiet curiosity. At Mark’s question, Sam let out a happy little squeak and nodded, twirling through the air a little.

“Did you tell him before you told me?” Before Jack could even answer, Mark had continued: “But he posted a video like two weeks ago about how Sam couldn’t possibly exist!”

“Well, duh, he posted that because he knows about Sam,” Jack rolled his eyes and shoved away from the armchair, detouring to the kitchen. He spoke up to be heard across the apartment. “He was tryin’ to throw people off. And I didn’t tell him about Sam.” Jack returned to the living room, cell phone in hand and a sheepish smile on his face. “He...er...kinda found out on his own.”

“How?”

“Tacos and Rachel Ray.”

Mark didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“Look…” Jack huffed and came back over to Mark, sitting on the edge of the coffee table while his friend sank slowly back onto the couch. Sam settled onto his shoulder and nuzzled up against Jack’s cheek with a quiet purr. “Sam was sick, so I brought him with me for the taco-making contest. Matt was on my team. He bumped into me, I tripped, Sam almost fell out of my hood, and Matt saw him.”

“And he didn’t freak out?”

Jack’s lips twitched into a wry smile and he looked up from his phone.

“Oh, he freaked out, but not until later.”

“Let me get this straight.” Mark watched Jack carefully as he spoke. Jack nodded and went back to shakily tapping out a message to Matt. “Just so we’re both on the same page. Sam exists, clearly. Anti exists. You, me, Signe, Robin, and Matt know about Sam. You, me, and Robin know about Anti.”

“And Signe, sort of.”

“And Signe,” Mark agreed. “And Amy too, come to think of it. Is there anybody else who knows anything else, just in case we need to recruit people for a battle of the digital age?”

“Nope, nobody else,” Jack shook his head. He paused and looked thoughtful, setting his phone aside (looking relieved to get the thing out of his hands) and tapping his chin. “...though I probably should bring up that Anti mentioned being late for a date or something last time? What was the name...something...something Warfstache…?”

Mark looked like he might explode

“WHAT?!”

“Oh my god!” Jack cackled, doubling over with laughter and trying not to slip off the edge of the coffee table he was sitting on. “Oh my fucking god your face! That was PRICELESS! You fuckin’ - Haha! - f-fuckin’ believed–” He could barely breathe he was laughing so hard, his laughter sounding a little wheezy.

Mark groaned and flopped backward across the couch, a low, pained chuckled escaping him.

”Oh, you absolutely piece of shit. Fuck you.”

“Y-Yeah, I - heh - I probably...haha...deserve that one…” Jack was grinning, wiping tears from his eyes.

Sam had bounced over to Mark to make sure he was okay and was now nestled on the American’s chest, Tim’s curious little eyes watching from the arm of the couch not even a foot away. The little box tumbled forward and landed right next to Mark’s head, patting his cheek softly in what Jack assumed was a comforting motion. Another low, rumbling laugh bubbled up from Mark’s chest.

“But no, to answer your question,” Jack continued once he could breathe again. “I think that’s everyone.”

“Good. Great. Excellent.”

Mark was absolutely done. Just...done.

“Ah, lighten up, Markimoo,” Jack snickered. “Consider it payback fer that NERF scare.”

“Considering that you were implying that Warfstache is alive too, and that he and your evil twin are getting it on–”

“Hey! I only said they went on a date!”

“–I’d say we’re far from even right now.”

“Oh, fuck off! That’s totally even!”

“And what if I tricked you into thinking your Dr. Schneep guy was alive and I caught him flirting with Dr. Iplier?”

“Oh, dude, no,” Jack groaned, laughing through it. “Nooo...I mean, yeah, Henrik totally would. He’d flirt with anything that moved. But hell no.”

“See my point?”

The living room was silent for a long moment, save for the little questioning squeaks Sam was making from his position on Mark’s chest. Then Mark heard the buzzing clatter of plastic against the coffee table. Jack’s phone was ringing, but on silent. Mark cracked open one eye to glance at Jack, who suddenly looked a lot more tense than he had a moment before.

“...you good, Jack?” he murmured, watching the other YouTuber. Jack nodded stiffly, looking a little pale. “Is it MatPat? He calling back already?”

Jack swallowed thickly.

“It’s...Signe.”

“Answer it,” Mark encouraged him evenly. “Go ahead. We’re all in the room with you, it’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded, the motion a little jerky, and he reached over to press the ‘Answer’ button. He quickly put it on speaker and withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned. The phone stayed sitting on the table.

“Sean?”

“Hey Signe,” Jack murmured.

Mark could see some of the tension melt out of the Irishman’s shoulders when he heard her voice, saw the way his lips quirked into a smile at the corners and the way his eyes softened in the moment.

“Hi! I just wanted to check in,” Signe continued, a smile in her voice. “How’s everything going? How’s Sam?”

“Sam’s great!” Jack’s grin became more genuine, and he giggled when Sam bounced over to sit beside the phone. He was wiggling on the spot in excitement. “He and Tim are gettin’ along famously. He’s been so damn happy, Wiish, I can’t wait for you to see ‘em together.”

“You can thank me later,” Mark chimed in with a smirk.

“Is that Mark?” Signe asked. “Am I on speaker?”

“Oh! Yeah, you are. Sorry. Shoulda said.” Jack chuckled softly.

“No, it’s fine!” Signe giggled, the sound melodic even through a phone speaker. “Hi Mark!”

“Hi Signe!”

“How are you doing though, Sean?” Signe’s tone had turned concerned, softer than before. “You still haven’t told me what’s going on with the whole Antisepticeye thing.”

Jack stiffened. He could feel Mark’s eyes on him, his look a knowing one. It had been five whole days since he’d talked to Signe at the cafe, and while they had texted back and forth every day since (in very brief interludes, as there were still moments Jack couldn’t even look at his own TV for fear of Anti jumping out of the dimmed pixels, let alone carry his phone in his pocket all day), not once had Jack brought up the livestream. Any time she asked about it he evaded her questions and promised to explain soon and made her promise to please don’t watch the livestream, I’ll tell you when you get home, please wait until then. So far, Signe had done as he’d asked, but he could tell she was growing concerned.

“Eh…” Jack cleared his throat and shrugged, though she couldn’t see it. “I’m fine. A little worn out, but Mark an’ I have been really goin’ hard, knockin’ out tons of videos now so we can get some free time to hang out later…”

“Sean.”

And there it was, the gentle scolding of her Mama Signe voice. How she managed to make Jack feel like a misbehaving child every time she used it was a mystery to him...but it worked. Every damn time. He sighed and let out a quiet groan.

“I’ll tell you soon, I promise,” he whimpered. “I promise I will, it’s - it’s just - I can’t–” He dragged a hand through his hair, and his gaze landed on Mark. The other YouTuber had sat up in the past few minutes and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his expression a searching one. He quirked an eyebrow at the Irishman.

“One second, Wiishu,” he said softly, reaching over to tap the ‘mute’ button on Jack’s phone. He watched his friend for a long moment before speaking. “Jack...I’m not gonna push you to tell her, but - oh my god, man. It’s almost been a whole week. The longer you wait, the more likely it’ll be for her to figure it out on her own. She already told you yesterday, people have been sending her tons of tweets and tumblr messages asking about you. Didn’t she ask you why they wanted know if you’re dead or not?”

Jack nodded stiffly, wincing.

“I told you I’d help you tell her the truth.” Mark smiled reassuringly. “I meant that, okay? And - hell, I can get Amy on the line, and we can have a big ol’ Double Date Egos Theory Skype Call.”

Jack snorted out a nervous laugh, shaking his head in amusement. Double date…

“Only you would see it as a date opportunity, Mark.”

“What can I say?” Mark grinned cheekily and winked. “I’m a hopeless romantic.” His grin faded back to a soft, understanding smile and he tried to catch Jack’s eye. “Waddaya say? You up for it?”

“...I eh…” Jack stared at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt while he thought.

Was he ready to tell Signe yet? Would she even believe him? Would she freak out, or take it all in stride? He didn’t want to worry her and didn’t want to put her in danger. He had known that, once she was home, he would have no choice but to tell her - so that had been his plan. To tell her when she got home, and let her enjoy her time with her family free of any of Jack’s current stresses. Once she was back in Brighton they could clear the air and talk about how to move forward.

But Mark was right too. The longer he waited, the worse it could get.

Jack sighed heavily. His hand was shaking when he reached for his phone, but he still pressed the ‘mute’ button to let Signe hear them again.

“Hey Wiish,” he mumbled, to let her know he was back. “You there?”

“Still here, Sean.” The usual sweet lilt was in her voice, her tone smiling and her words kind.

It helped Jack with what he knew he had to do next.

“I...eh. D’you mind waitin’ a few minutes?” he asked, wringing his hands in his lap. “Mark’s gonna get Amy on a Skype call wit’ us, an’ we can all talk face-to-face, and I’ll...I’ll fill you in on what’s been, er, happenin’ in my part of the world.”

“Really?” Signe asked, sounding surprised. “You’re actually going to tell me this time?”

“I - yeah. Yeah, I am.” Jack took a breath. His nervousness was clear with every word that left his mouth. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Wait!”

Mark’s outburst made Jack jump and his head shot up.

“What–”

“My smoothie! I totally forgot my smoothie!”

Jack stared, and he heard Signe giggling on the other end of the call.

“Your smoothie,” he repeated, his lips twitching into some semblance of a smile. “You mean the one from after dinner? From, like, two hours ago?”

“Yes, from after dinner!” Mark rocketed off the couch, skirting the coffee table and grabbing his rental car keys as he went to the door. “It’s still in the car. This is super serious.”

“Super serious?” Jack repeated. He watched Tim bounce off the couch and hop curiously around the room in pursuit of Mark, doing his best to keep up. “More serious than Serious Shit?”

“YES! MORE SERIOUS THAN THAT!” Mark, who almost stepped on Tim in his haste to get to the door, let out a rather undignified squeak and immediately crouched to the ground beside the tiny box. “Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? C’mere, my little biscuit, let’s get you off the floor. I would neeeever want you to get hurt, I would neeeever step on you…”

“Oh my god, Mark, you’re such a mom.”

“What? It’s not like you’re not the same way with Sam!”

At this, Jack chucked a pillow from the couch across the room, hitting Mark in the legs to avoid hitting Tim.

“Go get your fuckin’ smoothie!”

“Fine! I will!”

Mark flipped him off and pretended to storm out of the apartment, putting Tim on his shoulder and “slamming” the door shut (only to stop it at the last second to close it with a quiet click.) Jack shook his head with a smile. Only Mark.

“Hey...Sean?”

“Hm?” Jack returned his attention to his phone, still sitting beside him on the coffee table. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask...you said Anti is real, right?”

“Yeah…” His answer was a tense one, his hands coming up to fiddle with the strings of his hoodie.

“Did…” Signe’s voice trailed off, and there was static in the speaker, like she had taken a breath. “Did he hurt you, on the stream?”

Jack swallowed thickly. He was suddenly very aware of the sore bruises on his throat, and he felt rather than saw Sam land lightly on his shoulder.

“What...eh…” He cleared his throat, and Sam nuzzled up against his jaw, little waves of reassurance and worry filtering into the back of his mind. “...w-what makes ye ask that?”

“I told you I was getting messages and asks,” she told him. He could hear footsteps in the background, movement. Like she was pacing. “And I turned them off for now, because I was going to wait until you told me what was going on. And I know you’re going to! But...I’ve been tagged in a few things too. I saw some gifs of you and Anti–”

Jack closed his eyes, his jaw clenching tightly. Oh. Hands shaking, Jack picked his phone up off the coffee table and took the call off speaker, holding the mobile to his ear and getting to his feet.

“Holdin’ me up against the...eh...th’ wall?” he asked hoarsely. His movements were stiff, his footing a little unsteady as he crossed the room to pick up the pillow he’d thrown at Mark. He squeezed the edge of it tightly in his hand, lingering there by the door.

“...yeah.” Signe took another deep breath on the other end of the line, and when she spoke again her voice was shaking. “He – Sean, he was hurting you. That...th-that was real, wasn’t it? It wasn’t Robin’s editing?”

Jack’s chest felt tight, his throat constricting from both the memory and his own emotions. He took a shaking breath and dropped the pillow into the armchair closest to him, his free hand coming up to rest against his opposite shoulder. By Sam. Sam’s tail trailed down and brushed against his fingers, helping to soothe some of the uneasiness that had begun to build inside him.

“N-No, that...that was. Um.” Real. It was real. He blinked rapidly and his grip tightened on his phone. “It really happened.”

Signe gasped sharply from the other end of the line.

“Oh, god, Sean–”

But whatever Signe had been about to say, Jack never found out, because the call was suddenly filled with static and audio distortion, Signe’s words lost in a mass of broken sound that had Jack freezing where he stood.

“...Signe?” he whispered, eyes widening. “Signe...Wiish...I need to go. Okay? I can’t...I can’t hear you, but I th-think–”

The call dropped before Jack even hit the end button, the cell phone slipping from his hand and tumbling to the floor with a quiet thump against the carpet.

There was a static in the air, a crackle, an energy to it that made the hair on the back of Jack's neck stand on end. His breath hitched. The hand that still lingered near his shoulder tensed, and he could feel Sam curl closer to his neck.

"I'm not the only one feelin' that, yeah?" Jack breathed, his eyes darting around his apartment and landing on nothing. He took an involuntary step back toward the door.

"Nuh-uh. I feel it too..." Sam's worried voice floated across the back of his mind. Jack nodded. Alright. So he wasn't crazy.

A lamp across the room sparked and popped, the bulb blowing out suddenly, and even as small of an occurrence as that was it made Jack jump. The room was plunged into darkness. Wide blue eyes latched onto the deadened lamp. "W-What the hell is going on...?" His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.

But the question he asked was one he was almost certain he knew the answer to. This static, this...tension. Electricity. He knew this feeling. It was one he was far too familiar with, one that he had experienced before.

Anti.

The room had felt much the same as this when Anti had appeared during his stream last time, when he had pinned Jack to the wall by his throat and toyed with him in front of an audience, had left him scared and shaking in a way he never expected he'd have to feel in his life. Until then he hadn't been sure if Anti was real. But now? Now there was no denying it. So the feeling in the air, the tension, the spark? It flooded him with a very real and tangible fear that wasn't without reason.

"Ďid̎ ÿo̊u m̰i͋šs̶ m̰ē?"

A voice, so close, a cold breath against his ear. Jack cried out and flung himself away from the sound, knees hitting carpet as he hurried away from his own front door now, scrambled across the living room with desperate movements, one hand clamped over Sam so he wouldn’t lose him. There, by the door, his smile just as sharp and as wicked as Jack remembered, was the glitch himself. His image crackled and distorted for a moment - Jack could see the pixels separating as he stood there - and a moment later he had flickered forward, appearing a few steps closer.

Shit...shit, shit, shit...he had half a mind to scream, to call for Mark, but at this point Mark had probably already made it down to his car and wouldn't hear anything. All he could hope for now was that he could stall long enough for his friend to make it back inside. Two on one were better odds in this situation.

"I̥ d̠on̪'t e͊v͐enͥ g̴ét a h̒e͊llo̖, J̠åc̮k̾a͈b͗ö́y?"

“Go away!”

Jack’s eyes widened and he went stiff, panic doubling. Sam had wriggled free from his spot on Jack’s shoulder and he was hovering in mid-air between the two men in the room, planting himself boldly before Anti as though he was planning on defending Jack himself.

“Sam, don’t–”

“Leave him alone, you meanie!” Sam sounded so brave, so determined, so…so angry for such a small little being. “You hurt Jack, and you made him sad, and - and–” Sam wriggled in the air and tried to make himself look intimidating. “–and I’m not gonna let you hurt him again!”

Contrary to what Jack was sure Sam had wanted, Anti didn’t look scared at all. In fact, he smiled...a gleeful smile that had Jack dreading whatever was about to happen.

“W̠e͆ll, a̒re̮n't y͞oṳ a̸ b̸ra̢v̜e lĭt͉tle t̹oa̤s̈t̤èr̔?” Anti crooned, his head tilting far to the side in a way that was eerily non-human. He held out a hand, palm-up, and the air above it distorted and warped impossibly. A worn, dark jewelry box appeared there in a flurry of pixels, its lid popped open to reveal the empty space within. “Sȯr̬r̗y t̸o b̓ur̢s̈ţ ŷou̬r͊ b᷆u̫b᷇b̍l͑ě, S̕a̺m̮my̳, b̝u᷈t...yo̔u'rē no̸t̹ ne͑e̓d̐ed f̔o͍r̈ toñḯgh̠t̡'s ća̧s̱t̎ o̱f͗ c̟har̐a͐ct̊e͓r̊s͊.”

Quicker than Jack could react, Anti glitched, vanished, and reappeared inches from Sam with the jewelry box held out before him. With one swooping motion, Anti had flicked Sam into the box, snapped the lid shut, locked it with a key and tossed the box over his shoulder to land neatly on the armchair in the corner.

“NO!” Jack sprang forward without thinking, arm outstretched as though to reach the box–

“D̹ǐd̵ I̽ s͌a̝y y̪o͚u͘ c̡o̾u͎l̦d͗ m̐o͋v̫e͕?”

Before Jack could register the giggling words, he found himself tripping head-over-heels, colliding soundly with the front of the cabinet his television rested on. A jolt of pain pulsed through his shoulder and he cried out, biting his lip, biting his tongue. Desperate fingers clutched at his aching shoulder and he gritted his teeth.

“What the fuck do you want?!” he bit out, panting and tense as he watched Anti slowly stalk toward him across the room. “You here to...to k-kill me? Hurt me? S...Strangle me again?”

“Wh͔a̠ţ d᷁ō ÿ́o̊u̖ t͔ak̓e m̉e̥ f̓or̓, a᷇ s᷀a͂di͉s͟t͊?” Anti scoffed incredulously.

Jack blinked at him, a sassy retort on his lips before he could stop himself.

“What, you - ngh - aren’t one? Could’ve f-fooled me...”

“I'̗m̺ m̛or̬e̍ ǫf a m̭a͒s᷅ochi͙s̜t̕,̘ r͖ea̪l͟l̓y,͏” Anti shrugged. Jack was surprised that Anti had even bothered to answer the question at all. “Bu͂t̢ bo͑t͐h̬ a᷊r̛e͞ p̭r̂ett͒y̎ a͘c̬c᷅u͑ra̻t̎e̍.”

Great. Good to know. Wonderful.

“N̚o̫, i͓t̋'s no͙t̘h̺i̝n᷆g s͕o̻ s͑i̔m͕pl̖e̍ as a̖l̥l̆ t᷁h̄a̓t,” Anti smirked, waving the thought away with one hand.

The air around his palm distorted and glitched, and a shining blade appeared in his hand on the way down.

Oh, fuck.

Anti was a few steps away now, and Jack scrambled backward across the floor, trying to get as much distance between himself and the glitch as possible...but he was cornered, pinned between the side of the TV cabinet and the wall, blocked in with no way out. It was starting to become a struggle to keep his breathing steady, his heart hammering away a tarantella against his ribs, his throat coarse and tight from tension.

The burst bulb from earlier had thrown the room into near-darkness, but what moonlight was coming through the living room window reflected off the sharpened blade in Anti’s hand, the light bouncing off into Jack’s eyes as the glitch knelt in front of him - close, too close - his eyes beginning to swirl with an inky blackness that Jack never wanted to see this close again.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the blade, wide as saucers, and his breath hitched when he saw it inching closer and closer to his face. The touch of cool metal against his cheek made him tense and he clenched his jaw with a gulp. It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t painful. Anti was dragging the flat side of the knife along his jawline, and Jack could hear the sound of its edge scraping against the coarse facial hair there.

“No̫…” Anti shook his head, and the sharp grin widened wickedly, appearing to split his face in two. “No, I ẖa͗v̶e m̪ůch...͛mùch᷆ b᷆i͈g͗g᷄er p̓lan̶s᷉ foͥr᷆ yõu͕, Jaͅc̻k.”

Mark was humming to himself as he made his way down to the rental car, the keys jingling in his hand. Tim sat perched on his shoulder, one tiny hand clutching the collar of Mark’s shirt, and he was trying to hum along to whatever song Mark had stuck in his head right now.

It wasn’t his fault Katy Perry’s music was so catchy.

By the time he unlocked and opened the driver’s side door, he was well into the chorus, mumbling the words in an undertone to himself and for Tim’s entertainment.

“California girls, we're undeniable! Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock~” Tim was giggling, and the sound brought a warm smile to Mark’s face. He shifted into the driver’s seat so he could reach his smoothie easier, but not before belting out the next few lyrics at the top of his lungs.

“West coast represent, now put your hands up!”

He did so, dancing in his seat, grinning and playing it up for his little biscuit’s benefit.

“Ooh, oh, ooh! Ooh…”

Something flickered in the corner of his eye, something red...or was it blue?...and he trailed off, a crease forming in his brow. Tim was still giggling softly. Had he been seeing things? With a soft chuckle, he reached over and plucked his half-finished smoothie from the cupholder, still somewhat chilled from the cool weather of the evening.

Yeah, it was probably nothing. The whole Antisepticeye thing had been keeping him on edge since he’d arrived here in England. He pushed himself out of his seat and shut the door behind him. But when he turned to head back inside, something in the reflection in the car’s window caught his attention.

Mark dropped his smoothie.

A quiet thumping rose up across the living room, a rattling that caught Jack’s attention as well as Anti’s.

Sam. Sam was trying to get out.

Anti looked away from his victim for a moment, only for a moment, some space coming between Jack’s cheek and the metal of Anti’s blade.

A moment was all he needed.

Jack lashed out with a fist and a knee, landing a punch square across the glitch’s face and driving a knee up into his gut. Anti tumbled away from him, distorting and flickering, a static-fused snarl of pain and annoyance bubbling up from his prone form. Jack shoved himself to his feet, leaping over Anti and heading for the front door. He had to get out, had to leave, had to get Sam and go–

“I d͓O̬n͈’Ṭ t̉H͠iN̼ḱ sͅO͊!”

Static, feedback, a crackle in the air, and Anti was in front of him again, seething with fury, blocking his exit. Jack was running on pure adrenaline now, veering left and heading down the hall toward the bedrooms. The bathroom. Recording room. Anything.

“y̜O̰u̯’̒R̡e̿ N̈o̽T͔ g̓O̩i᷈N̸g̽ Ản̉Y͋w̳H̤e̦R̸ë́!̉”

There he was again, cutting him off, keeping him trapped in the same room. Shit...fuck…

Mark. Mark was downstairs. He just - he needed to stall, to wait it out until Mark came back with his stupid smoothie. He could make it that long.

Jack did a one-eighty and darted back down the hallway, the rug slipping beneath his feet and making him stumble. He caught himself on the wall and kept going, kept dodging. He could do this. Distract him. Hold him off. Something. Anything.

Green.

...green?

Something green, in the corner of his eye. Green and orange.

Jack risked turning his head, risked a glance, and he caught sight of the NERF gun - Chase’s NERF gun - sitting on the kitchen table. Mark had been playing with the damned thing for days, and for the first time since it had resurfaced Jack was unendingly grateful that Mark had found it again. He made a detour through the kitchen, snatching it up and shoving the ziplock of foam discs into his hoodie pocket.

Disc. Pull back. Load. Click. Wait for it. Be ready.

Jack circled his way back into the living room, Anti’s laughter echoing through the apartment, and he dove behind the coffee table with his plastic weaponed primed. He was ready.

He was terrified.

Jack would be an idiot if he pretended that this entire situation wasn’t scaring him within an inch of his life. He knew - he was trying not to think - that he could die at any second tonight, and that the pixelated parasite hunting him down in his own apartment was far too strong of an opponent for him to handle, with or without Sam. With Mark, maybe he had a chance, but even those odds were slim. If he didn’t die tonight, or if he didn’t at least get stabbed, he was going to drink until morning then invite every single one of his friends over to England to have the party of a fucking lifetime.

“O͗h͢,��� Jȁa͚a̕a̓a̻c̈́k̘~” Anti’s distorted, chilling voice echoed through the room and sent a shiver down Jack’s spine. “W͘h̅e͔re a᷇r̰e̶ y̑ou͏ hid͛ǐnͅg̤?”

Jack caught sight of a flickering black sneaker from his hiding spot and he popped up from behind the coffee table, firing the NERF gun at the center of Anti’s chest.

Anti barely flinched as the foam disc bounced off of him with a spark of electricity. He blinked - dark, void-like eyes - and stared down at the harmless green projectile on the floor.

“A̛ n᷄er̼f͈ d̑i͞sč? Ȓe͏a̧ll̐y̕, Ja͙c͂k̇?᷀”

Jack shrugged. He pretended that he wasn’t sweating buckets and shaking like a leaf behind the nerf gun in his hands.

“N-Not like I’ve got anythin’ else.”

“H̆o̲w͘ v᷁e̛ry “C̰h̦a͘s̟e B̜r̵o̦d͔y” o͈f̹ y̬öu͍.”

Somehow the mention of another Ego’s name on Anti’s lips made Jack tense up. It was surreal. It was strange. They were all fake - all of them fictional - yet Anti had somehow become so much more. The concept of the living incarnation of his once-fictional character mentioning another of his still-fictional characters so casually like that...it was unsettling, to say the least. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. He just needed to hold out a little longer, just a little while longer, until Mark came back from the car. Keep talking. Keep going...

“W-Well...well…it’s t-technically his gun...s-so…”

Jack opened his eyes.

Anti wasn’t there.

“I̚ kn̴ơw̼ w̖h̖a̽ẗ y᷆o̠u᷄’͍r͖e do̕i͖n̖g̉.”

The chilling voice seemed to come from all sides at once, and Jack could make out flickers of pixels and static in the dark shadows of the room. He fumbled with the ziplock in his pocket, pulling out a foam disc to load his NERF gun again.

“Oh?” Jack asked, his voice coming out higher than he’d intended. “Do…” He cleared his throat. “...do you now?”

“M᷅a̪r̿k̀i̟pl̻i̘e͛r᷀ i̵sn̄’t͡ c̊o͇m̕i͝n̩g͚ to͆ s̲a͙v᷀e͎ yo̫u̥.”

Jack’s blood ran cold.

“What–”

“H᷁e’̘s̎...ă li͢t̺t͖l̷e᷄ ţie͓d᷄ u̯p̉ a̳t̀ th̪e͡ m̘oͥmȩn͇ẗ́.” Anti’s distorted giggle echoed and circled in the empty air, causing goosebumps to sprout up along Jack’s arms. His breath hitched, eyes flying wildly around the room, trying to spot any sign of his doppleganger. “Y᷇o᷅u̥ wer͖e̸ṇ’t̃ p̼l̯a̿yi̟n͘g̉ fa̯ir̤, Ja̒c̉k̩a̫b᷉o͎y…” The next words came front right over his shoulder, whispered into his ear like a dirty secret. “...s̥o̾ Į le͍veͅlèd͎ t̏h̬e͕ p̭l̎ay᷊i̹n͑g̵ fi̥el͔d͙.͝ Ġot̥ ą c̋er̒t̛a͙i͇n da̢r͍k a̭cq̑ŭa̖in͊t̮a̠n̸ce̬ of̿ m̪i̎ne t͖õ ẖęl̍p̖ m̓e̺ o̢u̟t a̲ li̫t͕t᷈l̪e.”

Mark was scared to blink, staring at his own reflection in the car’s window with his jaw clenched, a vein pulsing in his neck. A figure stood just behind his shoulder, his body outlined in a familiar red and blue, looking so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. By the time his smoothie hit the concrete and burst open, splattering the ground, only fractions of a second had passed...but it felt like an eternity. He blinked.

Dark was gone.

“Mark?” Tim’s voice cropped up beside his ear, confused and a little worried.

“...hold on to me, okay?” Mark murmured, and he brought a hand up to try and shield his familiar from whatever might happen. Whoever might happen.

“I’m not here for him, you know.”

The voice, deep and echoing and so like his own but different, startled him into turning around. He hadn’t been in the reflection, but he hadn’t actually left. His name left Mark’s lips in a strained whisper.

“Darkiplier.”

“Face-to-face, at long last,” Dark nodded. He smirked, folding his hands behind his back. “And like I said...I’m only here for you. This is all coming from your mind, Mark.”

“Mark? What’re you lookin’ at?”

Tim. He sounded so innocent and confused, so worried about Mark, and what Dark was saying suddenly registered in Mark’s mind.

“Tim can’t see you, can he?”

“Tim doesn’t have to see me,” Dark corrected, raising an eyebrow in clear impatience. “I don’t want him to see me, therefore he can’t. But you…” His head tilted to the side and he made his neck pop, his shell cracking and separating for a moment. Then he leaned forward, intrigued. “...you, I can never quite hide from. Not completely. Why is that?”

“I...don’t know,” Mark shook his head, confused. Lost. Dark was here, and he was very real, and he was talking to Mark as though none of this was odd. “Maybe...uh....maybe because I made you?”

“Y̙̭o͏̖͔͙͓̼u d͇͈̭i͎̤͉ḍ̼̠̭̟̯͡n̡͕͎̙̜’̠̹̫̦͙͡t ̝ma̟k̼͎͝e̗̗̱͈̬ͅ m̰̥ḛ.”

There was an echoing fury boiling under the words, and the air around Dark seemed to darken considerably in the moment. Mark took an involuntary step back towards his car.

“I - what?”

“You didn’t make me.” Dark’s anaglyphic image was separating, tearing itself apart, and one of his echoing reflections seemed to scream silently into the cold night air. All the while, his core image remained stern and unyielding, showing barely any emotion at all. “You destroyed me - destroyed us. You stole his body. You condemned her to hell. You drove him to insanity. You ruined their lives.”

It clicked, then, what Dark was talking about. This was exactly what Mark had been scared of, worried about, when he was talking to Jack in that cafe. This was why he was regretting the creation of “Who Killed Markiplier”...or more accurately, he was regretting the addition of the character of Mark. The Mark who was an actor. The Mark who was an asshole. The fictional Mark who ruined everything and destroyed so many people…

...Dark was under the impression that Actor Mark and YouTube Mark were one and the same.

Mark blinked, and suddenly Dark was so much closer than he had been before. The darkness that had been enveloping the demon was surrounding Mark too now, and it was absolutely suffocating.

“...but, I suppose I should be thanking you,” Dark continued, a smirk finding its way onto his face. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Mark thoughtfully. “In a way, you...are the reason I exist. Your damnation of your friends led to my creation. A part of me is furious...but a part of me is more than grateful. You set the darkness free, Mark.”

Mark’s heart was pounding, rapid, in his chest and he could feel a minute panic slowly flooding his very soul. He gulped and shook his head, one hand still holding Tim close - Tim, who had fallen strangely silent, though Mark didn’t stop to question it.

Dark wasn’t here to hurt him. Dark didn’t resort to physical violence unless he had to, Mark had written him that way. While Anti went straight for the knife, Dark resorted to other means of making his point and making his mark.

This was all in his mind. Dark wasn’t physically here.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You...I’ve been seeing you, for months, but this is the first time you’ve actually spoken to me. What changed?”

Dark’s gaze trailed off to the side, toward the apartment, before settling back on Mark.

“A friend asked for a favor.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I merely agreed.”

A cry of pain broke the odd non-silence of the evening, a cry of pain that sounded all too familiar and was coming from the apartment Mark had been trying to return to. His eyes widened.

A friend asked for a favor.

A friend of Dark’s. Anti.

“Jack!”

Mark shoved away from the car and ran through Dark’s mirage of a body, the blue and red dispersing into wisps of dark smoke. Mark only made it halfway to the stairs.

“Clever boy. But you can’t leave. Not yet.”

Dark’s voice echoed in his mind, sending a blinding pain through his skull that brought him to his knees with a shout. He clutched at his head, fingers tangling in his hair and digging into his scalp. He felt rather than saw Tim tumble off of his shoulder, falling the few feet to the ground, making Mark wince in sympathy. There wasn’t enough strength in him to free himself from the mental onslaught, let alone help his tiny friend.

But he needed to. He needed to get Dark out of his head, needed to help Jack. If Dark was out here, then Anti must be in there, and he’d already seen what Anti had done to Jack the last time he had shown up. It wasn’t pretty. Mark didn’t fancy seeing a reenactment.

Get out...get out!

“Why would I? I have a job to do, Mark. You better than anyone should know that I never put in a half effort.”

Images began to surface in his mind, horrible images, memories that had never happened...memories of his friends, his real friends, getting hurt…

Please don’t. They don’t deserve this.

“Neither did Damien. Neither did Celine. Neither did William.”

“That...w-wasn’t me!” he protested, finally finding his voice, the words hoarse and weak. “You’ve got it - ngh - wrong! I’m - y-yeah, I’m Mark, but I’m n-not that Mark! I–”

“Oh, quit with your pitiful lies,” Dark sneered. “Celine is already angry enough with you as it is.”

“No, listen! I made up that version of Mark the same way I created you and Wilford and Abe – I’m just a writer, okay?!”

“Give up, Mark. Nobody can hear you. Let’s see how long you last before you begin pleading for forgiveness. I have all night…”

Hold on, Jack. I’m coming. Hold on–

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Jack shuddered and shot to his feet, almost tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away from Anti, who cackled in amusement from where he’d appeared directly over Jack’s shoulder. Jack rounded on the glitch and aimed his NERF gun at the glitch’s chest, not even caring that it was basically harmless.

“What did you do?!” he demanded, his concern for his friend overtaking his fear for his own life. “Is Dark gonna kill him?”

“D̙o͕n͑’̚t b͐e͟ s͋i̧lly!” Anti smirked and rolled his eyes, playing with his knife out of sheer boredom, tossing it between his hands and flipping it in the air. It was clear he was skilled with his weapon on choice, throwing it around with ease like one would a half-filled water bottle. “O᷄l’ D̜a̩rki͈e̚ do̶ẹs̨n̈́’ť ju͊st̽ ķill̔ p̠eo᷈p̰l͌e̞. O᷀r͋ hē w͈on̎’̞t k̇i͏ll̫ Ma̻r᷊kipl̮i̧er͕, an̋y̑w̩a͕y̒.”

The knife soared a good foot or two in the air before tumbling downward, making Jack tense even as he watched Anti catch it cleanly by the handle.

“Fa͐r a͓š I̩ c̠a᷊n̅ t͂ell͚ he̟’̤s̄ p͞r̃et᷇ty̚ p̝i᷅s̱s͚e͔d͐ a̤t᷆ t��h͔e̓ g̹uy̗. Be̘en̒ t͑oy̕īn͗’͈ w̶it’ hi̛m᷆ f̦o͐r̬ m̽o᷆nt̾h̟s̞,̈ o̊ř so̊ h͍i᷉s̝ r̓oboͅt́ s̽a᷁ẏs͍.”

Robot? Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion. Dark had robots now?

“N̛a̡h᷾, Da͖r̓k̺’s͗ n̠o͊t̻ g̦onnå k̬i͗l͙ḽ Mar̃k̝. P͑ŕe̽t̩ṯyͅ s̒u̕r̾e ḣe᷇’d̈ r̯a̱the̗r dr̹i͖v̓ę h͂i͔m̃ t̰o̐ i͢n᷀s̷a͛nityͅ ḅefo᷾r̞e͓ tͅh͙a̓t ĥap̆p̝e̾ns.”

Jack swallowed thickly. Drive him to insanity? Could Dark so that? He was brought back to the conversation he and Mark had had almost a week ago, in the cafe. The first morning Mark had shown up.

“Dark’s more subtle,” Mark had said. “He works behind the scenes. He doesn’t deal with face-to-face conflict as much. He mostly sticks to the shadows. I mean, I gave him his backstory, I should know this…honestly, it makes me wonder if ‘Who Killed Markiplier’ wasn’t a horrible, horrible idea.”

Mark had been worried, beyond worried, about the concept of Dark actually making his move. Jack had noticed it that day but hadn’t bothered to ask about it. He was beginning to think that, perhaps, he should have pushed a little more.

“Bu̼t y̾o̲u̱ h᷁aͅve̕n̰’t̰ goṯ th᷁a͗t͓ to w᷁o͢r͊ry̽ ab̻o̱u̺t̍, Ja͖cͅka᷁b͐o̱y!” Anti was grinning again, and Jack would swear that his doppleganger’s teeth were sharp, pointed. Deadly. “A͟ft̸ëṙ t᷁o᷁n̎ig̙h̸t, you̅ w᷄o̓nͅ’̥t͂ b͐e̡ w̢OR̵r̈Yi͇N̞g a᷊BoUt a᷅N̡ÿ́T͒h̛i͙N᷇g͋.”

Anti’s distorted shadow grew around him, engulfing his side of the room in a glitching, pulsating, corrupted darkness, and from its depths shot out a dozen or so venom-green cords of light. At Anti’s command, they darted forward and curled tightly around Jack’s wrists, his ankles, his knees and elbows, his chest - his throat. Not tight enough to strangle, but with his bruises still healing, it was more than tight enough to hurt.

Jack gasped sharply and gritted his teeth, snarling and tugging against the green strings, fighting for his freedom. He had to get out. He had to save Sam, had to help Mark. But there was something...odd about the strings. With each tug against his restraints, Jack felt a little more of the fight leaving him, his will to rebel slowly draining away. His head was pounding, his throat was sore, and his shoulder was throbbing with pain...so...so wouldn’t it…

...wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?

The NERF gun fell from his hands, tumbling to the floor with a clatter of plastic and a muffled thump against the carpet.

“No͊w be̺ a̦ go͟õd̏ li᷅t̏t᷁l͋e᷊ pup̝p͟ét, an̂d̯ ğo᷊ t̥õ s͕le̗e̥ṗ.”

Yeah...yeah, sleep sounded so wonderful right now. Jack slowly let his eyes drifted shut.

Click.

“You let ‘im go right this fucking second, or I blow your fuckin’ brains out, bro.”

[A/N] - Woot! It's done! ^^ And ending on a cliffhanger too? Shocking! :0c

This chapter actually took a lot longer to finish than I originally intended. For some reason I was really struggling to get going on it, but once I started into the ambush, it really started rolling. Believe it or not, this chapter is about twice the length of all the others. While most other chapters finish off at around ten pages in Google Docs, this one? This one hit a solid twenty. Absolute insanity.

Anyway! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and comments and critiques are always appreciated! Ta!

Also find the latest chapters of this story on [Archive Of Our Own]

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#SamLives #Sam Lives #Jacksepticeye #Sam Septiceye #JSE FanFic #JSE FanFiction #Jacksepticeye FanFic #Jacksepticeye FanFiction #Sam #Antisepticeye #Darkiplier #Markiplier

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#MarkOfCain

Written By @DeanWinchester_ @KingOfHell_DSM & @AngelicOperator

The air cold around his lifeless body, encased in darkness. Silence and peace for one rare moment. He'd sought relief from the constant pain knowing he'd gave everything he had left to flee it. A red glow slowly lit the tomb his flesh burning as the demanded payment. Moments later he took a breath, eyes opened looking inhuman. Black and lifeless orbs had replaced the hazel irises. Lifting his right hand to peer at the burning mark. He was closed inside something, putting his hands against the stone cover he shoved hard to the left and sent the stone slab hurling off and hitting hard floor cracking down the middle. Sitting up he pulled the gauze away and climbed out of the coffin. Cracking his neck he looked around adjusting to this void of feeling. There was no pain just quiet. @KingOfHell_DSM

Crowley - •Crowley sat on his throne. Demon after demon complaining about something. Lucifer was out, doing hell knows what. But it played his favor. He could run Hell as he saw fit. It was what he wanted. To command and hold onto the power of the tortured souls of Hell. At this moment. He feared nothing, sure there were things that could kill him. But when his plan falls into place. It will be hard to take him out.

A smirk spread across his lips.* And there it is. What I was waiting for. *The mark of Cain had been a perfect plan. He just had to wait. And it looked like he didn’t have to wait long. With the power of his mind he called.* Come home.

Colt - -Instinctively he disappeared from the cavern and reappeared in hell's throne room. Black eyes focused on Crowley not even acknowledging the demons in the room.-

Crowley - Well..well...Colt Winchester. You surprise me. Already got yourself killed. •he chuckled and stood from his throne.• Leave us. •he ordered the other demons away. They bowed and left the room.• You have made my day I must say. •he walked down to him, standing before him. Oh his plan was falling into place. The key piece had always been Colt Winchester. And now he had him. And he wouldn’t let him go.• Follow me, I have something for you. •he walked around him and to the door. Opening it and stepping out.• I do believe you’ll love this gift. The mark is nothing without it. •hands placed behind his back. He walked through the halls of Hell. To the room where all relics are held. Stepping inside he looked through the mess of relics for the first blade.•

Colt- No speaking he turned and obediently followed, the demons they passed moved the fuck bad whispering to themselves. The torches flickered lighting the way of what seemed to be an endless corridor. Walking in behind Crowley he stood watching, recognizing a few items laying around from the many years of hunting. Lucifer came to mind for a split second but he didn't care anymore so he didn't ask if the angel had returned yet.

Crowley - The first blade laid in a box with magical ruins, that only Crowley could open. When he found it, he wasn’t about to let it just lay around. He whispered words of magic. The box, glowed a deathly black and purple. Lifting the lid, there nestled in a blood red cushion was the

first blade. Made from the bone of a donkey’s jaw. Cain had once held it. And now, now it was for the mark bearer. He gripped it, pulling it from the box. Turning he walked back to Colt.• This is what you will use. You will find it will suit you. •offering it to Colt.• Now, you will get to see some very dear people. •chuckling• Oh to see their faces. You, Colt Winchester, are you to bathe in blood. Even the blood of your family. Unless of course they play nicely.

Colt - Keen eyes never left the demon, taking hold of the gruesome looking blade he felt a surge of power. But more prevalent was the desire to kill. The mention of “family” made him look back up at Crowley his face stoic. A dead man has no family.

Crowley - It much of a talker are you? •chuckles, oh it would priceless to see the faces of his family. When the time came.• Let us first leave a little mark on the world. •motioning him to follow.• There is a prophet. That is highly guarded. He has been such a throne in my side. he lives in New Orleans. Care to have a little fun? •smirks• We will go and find him. You, •points to him.• Are going to kill him, in the bloodiest way possible.

Colt - Falling into step beside him.- I’d be happy to oblige. What makes him hard to find? Is he hidden with magic?

Crowley - •nods as the walk back to throne room.• Yes, strong magic that most demons can’t get through. But you, are different from all other demons. He has a family, they will have to be killed as well. Don’t need them running off and telling now do we? You have to brake the through the wards. I might suspect that hunters might be guarding him as well. Those are another pain in my ass. If there are any there. Take them out as well. It will get back to the other hunters in time.

Colt - No witnesses. Understood.

Crowley - nods, with a smirk. Oh this was going to perfect. Getting back to the throne room. He picked up a file, handing it to Colt.• Here is what was able to be gathered on him. •it was a small thin file.• James Conrad, 38. New Orleans, LA. I’ve explained what I know. He lives just outside the city. Once you’re caught up. We will leave.

Colt - Colt listened but didn’t really give a shit. He could finally breathe without some bullshit theatrics. When emotions aren’t a factor anymore life becomes crystal fucking clear. He’d been an idiot for looking for Jake all these years. He’d been an idiot holding on to hope their family would be fixed or atleast somewhat together. Never again would he bother with him or his bullshit. He was beyond done. Maybe a little guilt was left getting Qhuinn involved. Although Qhuinn hadn’t taken no for an answer either, so the guilt wasn’t just his to bear. He disappeared only to reappear with Crowley outside the “prophets” home. As he let go of the shit from his human life he concentrated on the job in front of him. Clutching the blade he looked at the property. Head tilting to the side as he listened and felt the power radiating off the angels on the property.- There’s three. I’ll be back. -With that he tried to materialize right inside the house but they’d put up wards. He tried to push through the invisible wall but it made little difference. So he put his blade away and disappeared, this time he reappeared and held a woman he’d grabbed from the sidewalk in town.- Here little piggy... come out, come out wherever you are! -Colt held the blade to the bitches throat.- Come on you chicken shit douchebags, I’m gonna cut her throat and continue to cut throats till you assholes come out and we handle this face to face... -The woman struggled against his grasp, whimpering and completely fucking pathetic. He wanted to tell her she was absolutely freaking ridiculous but theatrics...- Five! Four! -The woman screamed begging to be let go. - Three! -A high pitched sound rang in Colt’s ears and thrill went down his spine. The blade ran across her throat and blood sprayed from her carotid artery.- Whoops, my bad! You guys really should come on out! She looks like a fish out of water! God doesn’t care and the angels are dick bags... -The woman dropped to the ground trying to stop the blood but to late because her heart was pumping faster now and the crimson spray was relieving her of the vital fluid. Colt listened, to her last gasps.- To late! I can do this all week! -Poofs, this time the local pastor.- Pastor, do you believe in god? Angels? -His eyes black as midnight.- “I do. Let me pray for, God can help you.” -Colt laughed with no true emotion at all.- Sorry, that boat has sailed. You’re going to die by my hand if the angels don’t appear. If they appear I et you go, if they don’t I’m going to use your intestines for early Christmas decorations on this tree right here.

Ethan - -Ethan had heard rumors that Colt had now become a full fledged demon and now he knows it’s true.

With a soft fluttering of wings, he appears a few feet away from him and a man begging for his life. There is a small trip of blood running *trail down the mans neck where the first blade had made a nick in his skin.-

Colt! Put that down! What has happened to you?

-Ethans voice is commanding and firm, although he is falling apart inside.-

Colt - Ohhh fuckin' heaven does have a sense of humor. -Pat's the pastor on top of the head and shoves him away.- This isn't your fight big guy... and I'd -Starting to circle Ethan.- take a fuckin' vacation for awhile. Consider it some good advice from an old friend. -Jerks a thumb towards the house.- See some of your kin is inside and they're pissing me off. I have a job to do. So bug out or tell the rest of them to hand over the prophet... but either way I'm going to kill them all. If they cooperate I promise to make it fast and painless if not... I'm k ill em' -voice-changing to a more demonic tone.- slowly. I like the screams... I hope they fight back. -Smirks-

Ethan - -Ethan glances over at the pastor who is making a fast getaway, running down the street. Satisfied, he turns his attention back to the demon who has taken over Colt who is circling around him. Ethan crosses his arms across his chest-

Frankly, I’m not impressed. I don’t think You can get inside or you you’d already have done it.

How about you nix the badass routine and we sit down and figure shit out?

-Ethan knows he’s wasting his time, but he feels like he’s gotta try.-

Colt - -Laughs- Matter of time, the body count will rise or I'll bust through this magic. I bet I can drag a witch out here to help. It's cute you're trying to stop me. -Moves closer.- Are you hard? Cause I am. Reminds me of all those fights. I don't want to kill you, no I want you to live. -Throws the blade and buries the tip in the ground.- But the question is how far will you go? I have a lot of clarity nowadays. Not burdened with that fucking heart-wrenching love for your ass. It's amazing how liberating being a demon is. -In reach, he looks up at him.- I've not broken anymore, this is me free of all that bullshit. You'd look so fucking hot in chains... wouldn't have to deal with the bitch version of my whining. I can see why you left, no hard feelings. Hell, I'd have left me too.

Ethan - You sure are a mouthy motherfucker aren’t you? I bet you even like to talk to yourself just to hear yourself talk. -shakes his head, not letting the demon get into his head. Eyeing the knife in the ground knowing its part of his strength-

Colt - -Laughs- You like my mouth.... go ahead, try it. You fastest Ethan? I don't think you are and if you're not careful I'll have to cut your throat, drain your grace.... Now there's an idea, Ethan, human just like Andrew had been. -Shoves him back.- Remember that night on the beach all romantic, just us. Well an Andrew... did you feel betrayed your vessel wanted me too? Cause you my deal angel have always been one jealous fucker. His whimpers were softer than yours... I guess that's where we got our tastes for threesomes huh? Andrew watching and feeling what we did to eachother.

Ethan - -Ethan is usually pretty chilled, but the demon’s words cut deep. Without thinking, he balled his fist and hit him hard with a right hook.- Shut the fuck up. Andrew is not a topic you can speak of.

-He’s working on a plan and is buying some time.-

Colt - -The angel wasn't using everything he had yet and Colt's spit blood from his mouth as he picked himself up off the ground and cracked his neck.- Why? Jealous? I always did like the tender, needy fuckers. I mean look at Jake. But you, you Ethan where on a whole other level, under all that bravado is a broken angel... so fucking sweet I could mmmm savor that forever... -Using his abilities appears behind him and throws an arm around his neck tightening down his hold.- Should we go somewhere private? So you don't have to act this way for your kin inside? See, they know I'll fucking kill them so they're hiding like the bitches they are and they're not gonna shed a tear if I put you down. Join us. We can rule this mutherfucker together. Come on baby... you know you like the dark side. -Licks his earlobe.-

Ethan - You have no damn idea what you’re talking about. So...how about you shut the fuck up. -vanishes from his grasp to appear in front of him.-

I’m giving you one more chance to end this peacefully. I’m tired of talking. -He stands as a warrior. He is the angel of strength and he’s going to show him why very damn soon.-

Colt - Peacefully? You’re a prude Ethan, I don’t want to be saved. -Baring teeth he lunged at the angel tackling to the ground. Colt began whaling on him. He was out for blood, the power of the blade was so strong and he held so much pain inside. And this angel represented a life he

[myautisticpov]

New review! I told you I was coming back from hiatus!

This time it’s AUTISM RUNS AWAY, the second book in the School Daze series.

Review Summary:

Overall Opinion: 4/5 Clarity of Autism: 5/5 Stereotype or Person: 2/5 Accurate Autism: 3/5 Storylines: 2/5 Respect 4/5 Total: 3/5

Script is below:

Continuing on with the School Daze series, can the second book live up to the first?

*Intro*

If you haven’t seen my review of the first book, I would recommend checking that out before continuing.

This second book continues to follow the character of the first, though there is a greater focus on Ben’s sister, Ellie, as well as a new teacher, Rob, and a new autistic child, Ethan.

It follows a lot of the same beats as the first book, with the opening even being almost identical, only with Ellie misunderstanding Rob’s teaching methods, instead of Ben misunderstanding Mel’s.

Overall Opinion

**** - Like the last book, it’s a reasonably enjoyable read. Though it definitely lacks the cohesion of the first book. The only arc that really gets resolved is the romance between Ellie and Rob, and there’s not the same resolution to Ethan’s arc that Kyle had in the last book. But more on that later.

Clarity of Autism

***** - Stated in the text.

Stereotype or Person

** - It’s time to talk about what I have been referring to as The Jeff Problem.

If you remember from the last book, Jeff is Mel’s adult autistic brother. In the first book, he was a very minor character who mostly gave Mel motivation for her career choice. He had no character development or arc. He was just there.

“But wait,” I hear you say. “Didn’t he get a job despite his parents wishes? Wasn’t that an arc?”

Yeah, but not for him. That was another arc for Mel and mostly dealt with Mel’s relationship with her parents.

The easiest way to figure out if a character has an arc is to ask “Can you identify their Disney Princess I Want song?” and do they make progress towards that goal?

Jeff doesn’t have any wants, according to the narrative. Mel asks him if he wants things to change, and he says things are fine.

Mel then takes matters into her own hands and pushes Jeff and gets him a job. Because she’s determined that that’s what’s best for him, and that’s what he really wants.

Now, Jeff was a side character in the first book, so I let this slide. After all, most side characters aren’t as well developed in most books. But the second book only continued this trend.

I swear, Jeff has less personality than a female character in a shonen manga. Or worse, a Michael Bay movie.

So, let’s break down my main problems here, because there are a few:

He's a walking teaching tool. Seriously, everything he does is a Teachable Moment, and it’s outright stated as such by the characters who interact with him. He does something quirky and they learn not to judge him. How Disney of them. I’ll come back to this in the respect portion. In the end, Jeff ends up lacking the nuance of actual adults with autism. He’s still making the kind of mistakes that most people grow out of. Especially those with Jeff’s history, which I’ll get to in a moment. Also, the allistic characters zone in on social mistakes so quickly. I get that the narrative wants to draw attention to Jeff’s autistic traits, but it shows. Most people don’t care that much about a stranger’s quirks. Not unless they’re coded as “insane”, where the first explanation would be mental illness or disability. Mostly they’re just ignored or easily explained away and they're not as frequent.

He's completely oblivious to how his parents treat him. Like, completely. Which is part of this quite outdated and harmful stereotype that autistic people don’t know when people around them are hurting them. To be honest, it’s quite easy to read Jeff’s parents as emotionally abusive. It would explain why they refuse to let him gain independence and why he’s so reluctant to rock the boat. It’s not that he doesn’t care about getting a job, it’s that he’s scared of the consequences. But the narrative has done nothing so far to support this, so it is firmly in the territory of a honeypot. Especially since this book avoids the topic if abusive parents like Superman avoids Kryptonite.

So, I get that this is a book for Autism Parents™ to educate them on how to do better. And the problem with Autism Parents™ is that dealing with them ends up being much like being a hostage negotiator.

Most people’s first instinct when the perp answers the phone would be to tell them to get fucked.

After all, they are a terrible piece of shit.

But no hostages are getting out alive in that situation.

Instead, hostage negotiators have to approach the situation from a place of empathy and compassion - not because the perp deserves it, but because that’s how you resolve the situation peacefully.

You know, without dead hostages.

But while I can appreciate this rationally, it doesn’t make that compassion easy to find for those of us who are triggered by the kind of abuse Autism Parents TM inflict upon their children.

All of it is, instead, being used up on the kids.

And therein lies the ultimate problem. We want the hostages out alive, but the optimal approach doesn’t take long to emotionally crush us.

Which is one of the reasons why it took me so long to finish this book. The attitude was that all parents love their children and therefore aren’t capable of emotional abuse. There was one particular line where the teachers reassure a group of parents by saying that children are forgiving and will understand their mistakes.

And don’t get wrong, that’s an important message for non-abusive parents. And even abusive parents need to be gently brought around if they’re hearing this in a voluntary situation. But there’s no bringing them around here. It’s just “don’t worry, everyone makes mistakes”. Which… Yeah, I get why it’s like this, but it’s horrifically common for parents of disabled kids to be abusive. I know that this book is meant for those who aren’t, but a lot of the rhetoric seems like it would just be giving abusive parents a free pass if they read it because it is incredibly sympathetic towards parents whose actions hurt their kids, with very little regard to the psychological trauma that it can cause. Yeah, kids are resilient, but only so much. There is a reason why Jeff’s lack of anxiety as an adult is unbelievable. Speaking of...

Jeff’s autism informs everything about his character, and nothing else does. This is most obvious in the complete lack of comorbid conditions, most notably anxiety. Like, Jeff’s parents’ behaviour, in refusing to let him pursue independence, is explained by Jeff having been bullied by his boss at his first job. Which… explains his parents behaviour, but not his? Seriously? But no. No sign of anxiety. Like, at all. Not even at a work environment. Or around strangers. Yeah, I don’t buy it. That’s not how that works.

He sounds like Drax the Destroyer. Seriously. Which, again back to the anxiety thing, is a problem because our pov in the Jeff chapters is a complete stranger to Jeff. That’s not how that works. You don’t just openly admit “I don’t understand the phrase you just used” to a stranger. It paints a target on your back for bullying, which Jeff would know because we are told that he has had experience with that kind of bullying in the workplace. You nod, you work out the meaning from context, or you just make vague non-committal noises and hope that they weren’t asking you something important.

Asperger's - it's a defunct label and shouldn't be used so heavily. Like, Jeff corrects people who say that he has autism. And here’s the thing, the main difference between the labels is always touted as “did you speak before you were three?” but once you’re an adult, that’s bull. It’s largely “can you pass as NT or not?” Which Jeff clearly can’t. So why it’s used so heavily and insisted upon is beyond me, besides good old ableism. “I’m not like those other autistics.” I would cut it slack in other books for realism (because a lot of people do cling to Asperger’s out of internalised ableism), but this book is meant to be an educational tool, so no slack here. Especially not when that internalised ableism is never addressed.

In the end, Jeff isn’t a character. He seems more like a patchwork of different stories about autistic people, but put together in a way that doesn’t make sense. He’s all anecdote, and no substance. Just a collection of Teachable Moments. Just like taking a baseball bat with the word autism written on it and bashing you over the head with it. Metaphor. Seriously, Sheldon Cooper has more going on beneath his inane catchphrases. Sheldon mother-flipping Cooper.

Accurate Autism

*** - would be 2 stars if it was just Jeff, and it honestly just scraped three. There is a single scene in this book that saves it from complete annihilation by my internet reviewer powers. This scene is told from Ethan’s point of view.

I’ve spent so much of this review going on about Jeff, I haven’t even really talked about Ethan. But that’s not without reason. Ellie and Rob are the two main pov characters in this book, and they’re both very secondary figures in Ethan’s life. Rob is his teacher, and Ellie met his mum once at her bakery? As such, we’re missing the same narrative cohesion regarding Ethan that we got with Kyle and Ben.

So, as the title of the book suggests, Ethan has a problem with running away when meltdowns loom. We’ll get to the narrative arc of this more in the storylines section, but for this section it’s enough to say that in the final chapters, there is a scene from Ethan’s point of view where he runs away for the final time in the book.

This scene is really well written. It avoids the usual “autism voice” that is so, so common for autistic point of views in books. It also does a really good job of explaining things from Ethan’s point of view.

This scene is the only thing saving this section from a two star rating.

Storylines

** - They’re barely treated as human and just there to further other people’s plots.

Jeff and Ethan don't have arcs. They're there as teaching tools for the other characters.

So, I said I was going to talk about Ethan’s narrative arc here. The thing is, it’s not Ethan’s arc. It’s his teacher’s and his mother’s. It’s about his mother learning not to worry to the point of making things worse for her son, and yet even this barely has any resolution.

The arc is basically that Ethan runs away when he reaches the point of meltdown and his previous school couldn’t deal with it. They kept calling his mother, and his mother is always terrified that something is going to happen to him.

But now he’s at the school from the first book, only a year up from Mel’s class, since time has passed since the first book. His teacher is a new introduction in this book, Rob.

Rob uses his experience to help Ethan’s mother run through tactics to help avoid Ethan running away and he works to get her more at ease with Ethan being at school and visiting friends and stuff.

But that’s it.

I mean, that’s literally it. He tells her what to do, she makes some attempts, but doesn’t quite manage it.

And then Ethan runs in front of a car and Rob is injured saving him.

That… What?

I mean, I have seriously thought over this, and I can’t possibly see the resolution to Ethan’s arc. In fact, this end point should be the “all is lost” moment. The only thing that gets resolved is the romance between Rob and Ellie.

The only possible angle I think the author was going for was the fact that Rob wasn’t angry and didn’t blame Ethan? And kind of disapproved of Ethan’s parents being hard on the kid about it. But he just showed it by firmly stating that it wasn’t Ethan’s fault. Yeah, that’s not going to do anything in that situation.

Like, I came away at the end just terrified for Ethan. Especially when his dad seemed complete devoid of understanding about his son’s behaviour. Just embarrassment and anger.

That’s just… Nope. All I can picture is Ethan hiding in his room without dinner, and having all of his special interest things taken away, doing everything he can to remain silent to avoid verbal abuse from his father.

From the information given by the author, I literally cannot imagine any other ending to this scenario.

But even without that imagined resolution, the resolution we’re given is weak, and not really about Ethan as much as it’s about his parents and Rob.

Respect

**** - Pretty decent, but there are some slip-ups

While the books do well with conscious shows of respect, the subconscious ones can be just as powerful in imparting lessons.

How well can the “treat autistic people like people” lesson be imparted when the story doesn't treat autistic characters as characters. They have no arcs or character development. Allistic characters have that, but autistic ones don't.

I think the unsaid lessons can be just as powerful - if not more so - than the said lessons.

AUTISM RUNS AWAY reveals some of the inherent problems of this approach to educating people about autism. It doesn't replace a textbook, and it's not education through good representation.

Is there room for this kind of education? Maybe. But it's not a question I think I’ll be ready to answer until I look back on the series as a whole.

Overall, AUTISM RUNS AWAY gets three stars. It’s not necessarily bad representation it’s certainly shallow. Hopefully the series will pick up from here.

#actuallyautistic #actually autistic #aspergers #autism #aspie thoughts