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#well ending uh not sure
ew-selfish-art · 6 months
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Dpx Dc AU: Ectoplasm is required for Ghosts to be visible to the human eye- And Danny creates his own ectoplasm.
Danny is visiting Jazz in Gotham and its weird how friendly everyone is. Like, the city gets a really bad rapport, everywhere he goes there is someone trying to strike up a conversation or answer his questions about getting around to the tourist spots. A few people even pointed out restaurants and ways to find off the beaten path gems! Jazz seems to role her eyes at him, but when he brings up her 'roommate' being kind of cute she flat out laughs.
Danny then comes to understand the Jazz doesn't have a roommate and that Ghosts in Gotham don't move far from their haunts- He's just been inadvertently turning these undead folks visible by accident of generating abnormal amounts of ectoplasm.
Which, is comforting in a way, he's never walking this dangerous city alone and really, most of the ghosts have been really friendly! They disappear once he's a few blocks away from them anyway.
---
Tim Drake is having a horrible day.
He'd been given intel that one of Black Mask's guys was going to snitch but that he'd died before given the opportunity to reach out to the GCPD. He tracks down the guy's last know whereabouts and yikes. Its next to the Theater. Tim was often grateful for his childhood obsessions, this time it backfired.
Tim and Bruce get into an argument about trust and respect and, worst of all, mental health. And even though Tim was vehemently against Batman accompanying Red Robin to the alleyway - that's exactly what happens.
They arrive and Bruce is closing up faster than a clam in the contaminated Gotham Bay- Clearly being in the Alley bothers him. No fucking shit. RR gets started on collecting evidence, there are a few extra blood splatters and a single left shoe... When a kid walks into the Alley.
"Uh, sorry to intrude-" The kid looks scared shitless, and runs away. And then, all of a sudden, Batman and Robin aren't alone in the Alley.
Tim can hardly believe his eyes as the dead man appears and quickly blabs Black Mask's bank passwords and what the plan had been- and While he's over joyed to have that closure, he turns around to Batman weeping in the arms of his parents.
The ghosts fade, and the emotions are certainly charged as this was never something Bruce or Tim would have ever dreamed of happening. Ghosts in Gotham. Talking, floating, granting closure.
"RR, Bats, come in." Oracle calls into their ears.
"Reporting in, but, uh, we need a minute."
"A minute? We have a case on 4th and-"
"O, we just saw the ghosts of the Waynes. It's going to be a minute."
"...Lots of Ghost reports lately then. Any chance you saw a kid looking like he could be adopted?"
"Yeah, actually, black hair and blue eyes. He was super polite before he ran away."
"We have work to do. Oracle, lets prioritize finding our person of interest and divert Nightwing and Robin to the case on 4th." Batman cut between them on the comms and he sounded... calmer than either of them anticipated.
---
Jazz is no longer laughing when Batman appears at her door explaining that he's looking for Danny (Who already flew away from town to get a good night's sleep before class on Monday). Turns out Danny reunited the man with his dead parents just briefly- and then the second guy appears and mentions how Danny had also given a guy who'd been murdered by a Mob enough time to explain the ongoing threats the city faced.
Jazz just rolls her eyes and says that it's not like the ghosts are going anywhere anytime soon and Danny will visit in another month. When pressed, she just explains that her brother is a weirdo. No of course he doesn't have powers. Gaslight and Girlbosses her way out.
And Jazz thinks that the game is up for at least another month, obviously when Danny visits more shit will stir up, but then this new guy appears.
Unlike the other Bats who are keen on watching her from a distance, the Red Hood knocks on her door. Are her eyebrows all the way into her hairline when Red Hood asks her to send his thanks along to Danny because somehow this whole situation led to his Dad expressing remorse for his actions and apologizing? Yes, yes they are.
But Jazz can smell Dissertation Data off of these vigilantes- Who is she to send them away? Jazz welcomes Red Hood into her place for a cup of tea and a small chat.
The story then devolves into Jazz getting shit done, Danny being cute by proximity and also bringing ghosts to the party, and the Bats having trauma resolve between them.
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xlillyle · 2 months
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"We can delay the mission for another two minutes."
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Not to keep beating dead horses like I so much love to do but I am still completely Flabbergasted and Astonished at how you (Merle Ambrose) could discover the most terrifying fact that a child that is essentially under your care has been indoctrinated into a cult (which, by the way, a process that has taken over the course of years) ((by an agent that has been stationed in a direct position to make it easier to access and manipulate children, that has easily escaped your notice for such a long time)) that worships a nihilistic entity whose ultimate goal is the absolute and total destruction of Everything and Everyone around you, and your one, single, simple-sentenced response to that is to say "Oh, that's a shame. He (Duncan) always was pretty terrible. Hope he gets better someday." And then to move on from those extremely worrying and dangerous bundle of issues permanently without taking any sort of action to protect the vulnerable and make sure nothing like this ever happens again
#i love ambrose as a character but the things he does makes me clench my fists so hard blood circulation gets cut off#the absolute.... lack of care ambrose has for certain things literally render me speechless#and like okay in his uh. in his uh “defense”. there was like. other stuff going on at the time. i get that#like the end of the world for the 7th time yeah there were other things on ambrose's plate#but i dont know how many different ways to put “your children are being manipulated and kidnapped into a cult that means them harm under-#-your nose and it can absolutely happen again“ and make that stick#you... i#that is a horrifying fact to learn and the response is dismissive at BEST#like im not saying ambrose should adopt all 800 children that go to his school or whatever#but like... DO SOMETHING#you have COMPLETE AND UTTER INFLUENCE OVER THE NATIONAL GUARD. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT? USE THAT#send out watch parties! hold stranger danger assemblies! have adults regularly check in with kids! install a curfew! ANY OF THOSE THINGS?#like even if ambrose couldnt single-handedly stop a powerful cult he could at least make an effort.... AN EFFORT#ONE ATTEMPT. TO MAKE SURE ****HIS**** SCHOOL AND STUDENTS ARE SAFE........#and the fact that he says something along the lines of “well duncan was always fucked up” ☹️☹️☹️☹️#this shouldt surprise me fir the man who for 1. some reason refuses to fix the death school#2. does not care about dworgyn or mortis in the least#3. keeps trying to pressure necromancers to change schools#4. kidnapped US from earth and used us.#it really shouldnt but........ but#im gonna say it and idc (/lh) if its unpopular. ambrose should not be in power#he is incompetent at best. he is harmful at worst.#he does NOTHING 99.9% of the time and the one Tuesday where he takes action it makes something worse. he should not be in power#this post is /lh but idk. im a little angry#NOT SERIOUSLY ANGRY BUT CMON MAN. CMON BRO#if the game utilized ambrose's potential more and pointed out how useless/paranoid/rash he can be i would ascend to heaven#i would like literally one person (who isnt a villain) in the game to look at ambrose and say “wow hes kinda fucked up”#THATS THE BARE MINIMUM BUT I WILL ACCEPT THAT I WILL.#kind of unrelated but im kinda mad that the only person to correctly point out how weird ambrose is is morganthe#the murderous tyrant. the person we're not supposed to listen to. because she's evil. she couldnt POSSIBLY be right about Good Guy Ambrose!
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front-facing-pokemon · 11 months
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phant0municorn · 10 months
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goodbaye 2 dinobot(uninspired) haelooo lucifer<3
#beast wars#transformers#dinoprimal#optimus primal#dinobot#doop#im gonna dump about this au since like excluding the 1-3 and last 2 images like alot of this is almost from like a year ago by now so uh#if ur a FRIEND who has NOT finished beast wars do NOT read im literally gonna ruin some shit 4 u DONT do it. i SWEAR. ok ily bye#maximals and predacons crash land on earth yadda yadda except its 10 times worse they crash land on the wrong time where most of humanity#has already evolved lets say they crash land around 15-16 century or so. idk yet exactly maybe we may never know just know au is gothic#mostly kinda yeah u see op hes a bat and shit but when he was scanning a lifeform while being barely alive because wehn they crashed both#sides almost went up in flames literally and when op was scanning a lifeform he did scan a bat but it was full of parasites and he ended#up scanning those as well. hes like yeah hes a vampire but like not an actual one but just as scary since energon isnt as abundant as time#goes on on earth and its scarce op needs more of it or else he goes feral he has 2 eat the protoforms kinda. lucifer doesnt defect immediat#ely uhh idk if i might make this like a visual novel or something one day if i have the time or energy after a project im alredy working on#well see ok thanks bye#i also wanted 2 redesign db because it always kinda bothered me how like its just him in some western get up. i wanna commit more 2 it and#now hes a diamondback rattle snake(not sure if i want 2 specify eastern or western idk if it matters really) and op kinda like has more of#flea mouth but rins mouth is canon 2 they can coexist<3 ok now byebye#oops made it up on the spot last minute i hate doing refs but the top of lucifers head is his snake skull#i keep forgetting sm shit but also why do they fight whats the point. in the crash both golden discs were destroyed. theyre pissed off as#hell if im going down im taking u with me
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siflshonen · 2 months
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When I first saw the Volume 37 cover I thought it was more of a reference to Batman’s A Death in the Family or even the first instances of Robin dying and how much blowback it got from the readership rather than a direct nod to The Night Gwen Stacy Died, but happily assumed it could be both and didn’t dwell on it.
After further consideration, as well as revisiting the circumstances and reader response to that particular moment in Spider-Man history, now I am not so sure.
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fauvester · 1 month
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nicholas biddle, the god-favored prince of philadelphia!
beautiful and brilliant and just sweet 16!
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worstloki · 2 years
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when u've just been through the most harrowing experience of your life (your brother lied to you) (and also u got a gf) and then have no idea what the end fight of the movie is about even though you're the main character of like, life,
(source)
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camellcat · 3 months
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I'm rewatching s1 again and I think it's so fucking funny how much every other doctor except nine absolutely hates guns. nine is SO excited to shoot that goddamn dalek. he is READY he is DOWN he is soooo for it. he points a gun at rose tyler and doesn't even think about it until she scolds him for it.
and then in bad wolf where he's incredibly comfortable about holding that big ass blaster. never gets onto jack about parading around with them either. just does not bat an eye. in fact he is threatening people with it, even if it is a farce.
the others would NEVER lol
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i get that 3 body problem is pretty fuckin' bleak (novels and netflix series alike) and there are all these different factions of humanity based on how they want to solve the problem of an alien race travelling 400+ years in space to exterminate us all but. my dude. my pal. my sibling in christ. where. are the monsterfuckers?
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washing some of my crocheted stuff for the first time and im Incredibly Nervous about it. what if they come undone. what if i lose my beloved soup coaster...
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tarisilmarwen · 9 months
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Palpatine be like "Thrawn my homeboy I know I said that you'd get funding for your fighters. But I need to shift funds into the Death Star to get it finished up before that dumbass Krennic decides it needs a chocolate refinery or some other bs. Don't worry you'll get the funds next quarter, it's not like the Rebels can actually do anything to the factories now."
There was so much comedic potential that Treason skipped out on.
So much.
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tathrin · 10 months
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6... on a falling tear and 38... because they're running out of time (^ω^)
Oh how lovely and tragic, very nice choices! Thank you very much for the ask. I'll split them up into two separate posts because I'm incapable of ever writing anything succinct though, sigh! Prompt taken from this; anyone can feel free to send other numbers in at any time, I don’t care how long it’s been. (Just maybe add some context to your ask if it’s been like a month or more since I posted this, because otherwise I won’t know what to do with the random number in my inbox lmao).
#38....because they’re running out of time. [mood music anyone?]
“Never thought I’d die as a diversion,” Gimli muttered, watching as Sauron’s army poured out of the Black Gates and surrounded the two small hills on which Aragorn had arrayed their forces.
Gimli could not count the teeming numbers of the enemy that stood before him—they were too many, too foul—but Legolas had the keen eyes of the elves, and he had told Gimli that their force of six thousand was outnumbered at least ten-to-one. They were not all orcs, either, which would have been bad enough; for surely each troll should be counted six or seven times at least.
The hills would help, Gimli thought numbly, at least a little; the incline would grant the defenders an advantage over the enemy that would have to scramble to climb up at them, and the slag pools of fetid Mordor that surrounded the low hillocks would be another impediment—but it would not be enough.
They had known it would not be enough even before they set out for the Black Gates, and they had all of them come anyway. Gimli did not regret his choice to follow his friends into doom, no; but that did not make the moment of the end any less bitter. And that moment was almost here, now; they were running out of time.
The enemy paused at the feet of the hills, hissing and cursing and some of them even spitting, and Gimli spun his axe to stretch his shoulders in anticipation of the battle to come.
He stood near the front, with Aragorn and Legolas and most of the mightiest of their fighters, where the attack would surely be the thickest. He eyed one lumbering troll that was pushing its way through the milling ranks of orcs, an ugly line of drool hanging off one side of its jaw where broken teeth distorted its already ugly grin into something macabre and ghoulish.
“Gimli,” Legolas said, standing so close beside him, his voice light with echoes of distant birdsong, and Gimli could feel himself smiling in instinctive response even as his heart twisted in sorrow at the thought of what was soon to come for them both. “Gimli,” Legolas said, “may I—I would ask a very great favor of you, my friend, if you would indulge me, please.”
“Of course,” Gimli said immediately. He turned to look up at the elf beside him, standing like a slender ray of sunlight in that bleak land, and tried to hide his breaking heart behind his smile. He could not imagine what sort of favor Legolas might ask at this late juncture—or if he could, then it was a favor that need not be spoken aloud, for Gimli had already vowed to himself that he would not allow the enemy to take this elf alive for torment when the battle ended and their defeat enfolded them.
“Anything, Legolas, you know that.”
Legolas gave a strange, half-choked laugh, and pressed his free hand to his face as though smother some strong feeling; with his other, of course, he held the mighty bow of the Galadhrim that the Lady had given him, and Gimli’s heart gave another pang at the thought of three golden strands tucked away safely behind white walls far away, waiting for a dwarf who would never return to reclaim them—but then Legolas moved, and Gimli’s eyes were drawn instead to tight golden braids that swayed before him as the slender Wood-elf suddenly swayed like a falling sapling and bent down close to Gimli’s face.
He caught Gimli’s bearded cheek with his hand and turned the dwarf’s face up to meet him, and then—oh, and then Legolas was kissing him and Gimli’s mind seemed to dissolve in a blaze of starlight. His whole world narrowed down to those smooth lips pressed so tight and hungry to his own; those long fingers twined so gently through his beard to cup his chin in their narrow palm; the brush of heavy golden braids against Gimli’s shoulders as Legolas bent low over him...
Belatedly, Gimli realized that he had reached up to press his hand to the elf’s face as well; he only noticed when the pad of his thumb brushed against the tip of one long pointed ear and Legolas’s breath hitched in both their mouths.
The drew apart, Legolas swaying back upright with a last lingering flutter of his fingers against Gimli’s beard before he pulled away. Gimli’s jaw worked soundlessly around words that would not come,his wide eyes fixed so fervently on the beautiful, beardless face before him that he almost forgot the stink of the orcs and the jeers of their ugly voices in his ears.
“Forgive me the liberty, I pray,” Legolas rasped. His mithril-bright eyes shimmered with unshed tears, in that moment looking suddenly so like the pool of the Mirrormere that Gimli almost felt as though he had been transported somehow back to the hills outside Khazad-dûm, and this desperate death at the doors of Mordor made into naught but a terrible dream.
But the creeping tendrils of fear that marked the approach of the Nazgûl was no dream; nor were the thundering steps of the trolls as they began to scale the hills, nor the shouts of the orcs as they struggled to follow. In moments, the enemy would be upon them. There was so much Gimli wanted, needed, to say; but they were running out of time.
“There is—there is nothing to forgive, Legolas,” he managed to croak.
“I am relieved to hear it,” Legolas replied. “For I could not bear to die without ever kissing you, Gimli.”
Gimli reached up for those golden braids and bright eyes again. “Legolas—!”
Legolas flashed him a brief, bright, heartbroken smile, and then turned away to face the enemy as the orcs rushed towards them. Gimli raised his axe more out of habit than intention and stepped up beside the elf. “Legolas...” he tried again, but his head was reeling and he could not find the words he wished to craft; they all slipped through his mental fingers, like he was trying to scoop cave-cold water with naught but his bare hands.
Then the first troll reached them, bellowing as it knocked three soldiers of Gondor off their feet to tumble down the hill towards the waiting blades of the orcs below. Gimli growled and gripped his axe, and then suddenly Legolas was scaling the troll, blasted fool of an elf that he was!
“Legolas!” Gimli shouted again, and raced to follow him into the fight.
The troll was too slow to catch the nimble elf, but its attempts to do so blunted its attention to the axe in Gimli’s hand as he hacked at its knees. The creature roared belatedly in anger, even as thick blood wept down its legs. It reached down to try and swat Gimli away, and Legolas scampered across its shoulders and drove his long knife in deep into the troll’s eye. Even that was not enough to kill the beast, but when two Rohirrim came up with long spears the troll was too woozy with pain and blood-loss to bat the weapons away from its throat.
It went down with a thud and a cry of rage rose from the orcs in response. Legolas skipped away from the body and landed on the ground again at Gimli’s side. Shaking with fear, anger, and adrenaline, Gimli caught him by the wrist and gave the elf a shake. “Don’t do that again!” he shouted. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”
Legolas laughed, fey and unfettered, his merriment as sharp and keen as his arrows. He slashed his knife through the throat of a climbing orc and twisted easily away from the resulting spray of black blood. “Gimli, we are all going to die here,” he said, wiping the blade clean on the skirt of his tunic before sheathing it and drawing his bow once more. “Put aside your fears, my dear; we have moved beyond that now. All that is left to us is to make our deaths worthy of those that came before us, and to sell our lives dearly enough that we might hope to buy enough time for others to save all those who may come after from this Shadow.”
His arrows flew true, burying themselves in throats and eyes and black-blooded hearts even as he looked back at the dwarf more often than he did at the oncoming orcs. In Legolas’s eyes, Gimli could see the glimmer of all the years together they would never have; could see the crumbling eternity of an immortal life cut short and the unscalable chasm that lay forever between the fates of elves and dwarves, sundering them from one another for all time even unto the breaking of the world.
This, he realized, was all the time they were ever going to have.
Tears stung his eyes, hot and bitter. It was not enough. It would never, ever be enough—and it did not matter, because there was no more to be had.
Gimli shook his head, swallowing down the urge to weep; he had to focus on the orcs. There were too many coming up the sides of the hill now, too fierce; it was all Gimli could do to swing his axe in time to block their blows and cut them down. It was all he could do to keep close to Legolas’s side, the elf now reduced to fighting with nothing but his long white knife. There were maybe half a handful of arrows in his quiver yet, but even elvish speed was insufficient to allow for proper archery at sight a tight distance in this tumult.
Oh, why had Gimli not seen to it that his elf was better armed before they rode off to this final battle? Legolas was deadly with that little knife, yes, but oh it seemed so short in his long fingers. Why had Gimli not sought the armories of Gondor, and borrowed some mightier blade for his friend? Why had he not sought the forges, and made him one to suit his lanky frame?
He was such a fool. What had he been wasting his time on instead, when he could have—should have—been seeing to Legolas’s safety?
When he could have been kissing him?
Gimli growled, and swung his axe harder, and watched one burly uruk go down gurgling and clutching at its guts. Gimli swung again, and its head toppled free and he could turn to the next enemy, the next threat. Beside him, Legolas whirled and slashed in a flurry of golden braids and a black-blooded blade. He lunged over Gimli’s head to slit the throat of an orc that was angling a spear towards Gimli’s ribs as Gimli kicked-out low and took the feet out from under another orc that had managed to get a grimy hand around one of those bright braids.
“Away from him!” Gimli bellowed, and the orc feel back squealing over the stump of its arm. Gimli stepped closer to the elf—his elf—and they ended up fighting back-to-back, or back-to-shoulders at least; their disparate heights should have made them terrible battle-partners, but it was so easy to fall into a rhythm with Legolas, a balancing of their skills and statures. Legolas spun high with his short knife and Gimli swung low with his broad axe, and the enemy gave way before them.
But more came, replacing those that fell. Always more came, and the fight went on. Gimli could feel his limbs tiring, his bones aching from the weight of his blade and the blows that had glanced off his mail. A dozen small cuts he could not remember taking bled sluggishly, adding a dull sheen of red to the viscous black liquid that splattered his armor and his skin.
More came, and the Nazgûl followed, and all around them men shrieked and cowered beneath that mindless fear. Gimli fought on, so numb with grief that he barely startled at the cry that the eagles had come. That felt unreal, like something out of some other story; one that had a better ending than theirs. Despair rolled thick across the Host of the West and even Gimli, stout-hearted dwarf that he was, faltered for a moment before it—
And then Legolas laughed.
There was nothing merry in that sound, and the only brightness was the sharp brightness of a pale blade flashing out of the shadows of tall black trees. It was a laugh full of teeth, and claws, and all the dark and dangerous things that lurk within a wood. It was the sort of laugh that would send wise folk fleeing for strong walls and sturdy doors; the sort of laugh that might send children shivering to hide under their beds and wait for dawn. It was the laugh of a wild thing, untamed and dangerous, and it rang out light and sharp-edged above the gutteral shouts and screams of the orcs and the roaring bellows of the trolls.
Legolas laughed, and Gimli smiled to hear it. He lifted his head high against the weight of Mordor’s bleak despair and raised his axe high once more. Legolas was right; there was no longer any cause for fear. They had faced the end already, and the end was here; there was no sense cowering before it. Better to stand tall, and die fighting proud and unbowed, defying the power of the Dark Lord to the last.
And then—and then, on the other side of fear, after all hope seemed so long lost it was little more than a memory, everything changed.
The Nazguûl fled; the army crumbled; the towers fell.
Sauron was destroyed. And they had lived.
They lived.
Gimli could hardly process it. He turned to Legolas, still at his side, the both of them weary and blood-stained and heartsick from the tangled mingling of hope and despair, and he opened his mouth to speak—but no words came out.
He saw all their tomorrows flow suddenly back into Legolas’s bright eyes and the elf swayed, as though the sudden lifting of the Shadow had left him unsteady on his light feet. Gimli caught his hand and held him steady.
“Legolas—” Gimli began.
“Tomorrow,” Legolas interrupted him with a smile. “Let us help the wounded now, Gimli; we will talk on other things tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Gimli said, rolling the taste of the word around in his mouth; rolling the feel of it around in his mind. “Yes,” he said. “Tomorrow. To think that there will be such a thing!” He laughed from bewildered joy and squeezed his elf’s hand once, tightly, before letting go and turning back to the grim battlefield. “Tomorrow. We will talk on all things then.”
Legolas bent and pressed a light kiss to Gimli’s cheek. “Tomorrow,” he said again, the word heavy with promise, and then they walked off together into the carnage of hopes renewed and deaths well-fought.
“Tomorrow,” Gimli murmured once more to himself, and there on the bloodstained soil of the Black Land, he smiled.
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Liam hearing the news after waking up from bleeding out on the ground while Aveline killed the Arishok: i'm the what now?
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eugeniedanglars · 15 days
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the experience of watching 911 is just oscillating between “this show is so ridiculous (affectionate)” and “this show is so ridiculous (derogatory)” at 500000000 hertz
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brutal-nemesis · 6 months
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E&T: A Truly Slothful Start
*points at Erebus* Bro is NOT built for this lmao (btw I drew the sloth demon a v long time ago enjoy)
Suggested battle music: Grandma (Destruction) from NieR: Automata (spotify | youtube)
←Previous - Masterlist
Ingredients: combat whump we fight monster, amputation hehe (not gory tho!), slight drowning, undescribed eye whump
PART III: Untitled World
The things that hit him first were the suffocating darkness and the awful chill in the air.
Erebus knew he didn’t belong here. All around him, strange rock formations jutted out every which way, no sign of life among them. There didn’t seem to be any source of light, and yet everything was clearly visible, casting hardly any shadow. The silence was nearly absolute, pressing in on his ears. The only thing he could hear was the freakishly loud sound of his own heartbeat, amplified by the collar around his neck.
Wait, the collar-he reached up for it, fingers closing around the awful strip of leather that he’d been forced to wear since the start of his captivity. He had a sword, he had claws, and N...no one would make him wear another one if he broke it. So he should take it off, right? He should destroy it. He’d always hated it, the way it meant he was owned, how it let-let people put leashes on him and lead him around like a dog. She...she’d said it herself, that he had to wear it so he wouldn’t forget that he belonged to her, but now they were...not together. So it shouldn’t matter.��
But he couldn’t stop thinking about when she’d taken it off for the procedure with the envy demon, about how utterly, embarrassingly exposed he’d felt without that stupid collar. Maybe the feeling would pass, and he would just have to get used to being without it. He hadn’t worn one for the vast majority of his life, so it should be easy to adjust back, right? Besides, it was more than just a collar, it was a way for her to know if someone other than her was touching him, and that was violating, it was...it was a way for her to know he was alive. Assuming it worked, assuming whatever signal it was could be sent to another world.
Erebus lowered his hands, still chained together, as he blinked away tears. He-he was really here, in this other world with only a slim chance of ever going back. He’d take every tie to his old life he could get, no matter how painful. And if the spell on the collar worked, then…he owed it to her to let her know he was still alive. He could wear the collar for a little while longer. The muzzle, on the other hand...he didn’t mind tearing that off and throwing it away in the slightest.
Shakily, he stood, grabbing the sheathed sword in front of him. Being expected to fight was…strange. But, looking at himself now, he was practically designed for this, almost every modification giving him some sort of advantage. It made his blood run cold to think about how this had been the plan from the start, how obvious it seemed now. He wanted to lay down and sob and process what had happened, but everything was so different and strange that he didn’t feel safe enough to let his guard down like that. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he buckled the sword belt around his waist and began looking around.
Behind where he’d appeared, there was a bag lying on the ground. Inside was a cloak with holes for his wings, a knife, and a bedroll. Well, better than nothing, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about food and water or lighting a fire. Maybe that demon tongue would be coming in handy, after all. He put on the cloak, grateful to have something to help him keep warm in this place, along with the shoes he still had on from their trip to the desert.
Nothing else here, he began carefully making his way along one of the stone cliffs, leaning on it since there had never been a chance to fully heal the gash in his leg. Progress was slow, and maybe it would have been a good time to think things through, but he couldn’t stop tears from forming in his eyes at the mere thought of what had happened, so instead he just focused on the pain in his leg, flaring up brighter with every step.
Time felt impossible to grasp, as if this place was outside of it entirely, but at some point Erebus reached the end of the maze of stone. He was greeted with what looked like a vast ocean, but the water was unnaturally calm, not a single ripple on the glass-like surface. Had there been stars above, it would have been beautiful, but under the canopy of uniform blackness, it just looked like a cold, empty void. 
Erebus hesitated to step out in the open, no walls to protect him, but the silence was so absolute that he couldn’t imagine there was another living thing anywhere near him. His leg didn’t hurt quite as much anymore despite how much he’d been walking, so he was able to hobble to the water’s edge and investigate, setting the pack down to make moving around a little easier. The sword, however, still hung at his side, just in case. 
The water was clear, and as far as he could tell, there was no sign of life in it whatsoever. It was jarringly different from the seaside at home, where you could hardly take a step without spotting a shellfish or aquatic plant. Here, it was just pebbles, no broken shells or bits of dead coral among them. He crouched and dipped a finger in, finding the water both cold and salty. The ripples created by his finger traveled far, seeming to get bigger as they traveled along. Suddenly, even bigger ripples rushed to meet them from farther out, and Erebus’s stomach knotted in terror as he bolted upright, pulling out the sword, having to hold it with both hands since they were still chained.
He strained his eyes in the darkness, looking for whatever had caused the disturbance. Was that...there was something  in the water out there, he was sure of it. He took a few steps back, sword still held in front of him, watching the strange shape grow larger and larger as it approached. The moment the tip of its nose emerged, the surface of the water erupted, spraying Erebus with cold mist and shooting tendrils out into the open air that coalesced into a large sort of web. Arches of water now crisscrossed all throughout the space, severely limiting how much he could fly around, especially since he never had a chance to practice it much. In the middle of the watery network was a large bubble, and when he saw what was inside it, Erebus’s jaw dropped.
The creature was enormous, big enough to swallow him whole in one bite. Its pale gray body was long, with two pairs of flippers that were almost as big as Erebus and a webbed, spiny ridge going down its back. A cruel, curved hook jutted out from the end of its tail, almost as sharp-looking as its conical teeth. As Erebus looked at it in horror, it turned its gaze to him, its blank white eyes staring into his own identical pair. So this…this must be a sloth demon. He was supposed to fight that? 
He could leave, just run and hide, this thing couldn’t follow him through those rocky canyons, he could stop and take a moment to think, but this was an enemy right in front of him, and no matter how terrifying, it had revealed itself, no more surprises. Erebus tightened his grip. If he could-could beat this thing then he could really rest. It would be safe here. He would be that much closer to going h…somewhere that wasn’t here. He could do this. He had to.
Despite how much he was shaking, Erebus took flight and approached, finding it difficult to do so while he was holding the sword, but not enough for him to fall out of the air. The demon just watched as he flew past the jets of water, and Erebus hated those blank white eyes boring into him, which just made him loathe his own all that much more. How…how exactly was he supposed to attack it? It was so huge and he couldn’t see any kind of obvious weakness, not to mention that it was surrounded by a sphere of water. While he knew his eyes worked underwater, he could only imagine his wings would be a hindrance, not to mention the heavy sword. 
Maybe…maybe he should just retreat for now. Come up with a plan and come back. This was just…it was too much. Reassuring himself that the demon couldn’t follow him, he cautiously turned around and started to weave his way through the tendrils of-there was a sharp jerk on his wing, and suddenly Erebus was being dragged through the air, crashing into pillars of water as he went, barely registering the splash of his sword hitting the sea below as he scrambled to get his wing free of-of-it was that hook it was pierced through the top of Erebus’s wing he couldn’t get it out his fingers were slippery and freezing and useless he had to do something kick his legs flap his wings anything-
Just as those awful teeth came into view, Erebus managed to swing himself back, but the chain on his wrists was caught, wrapped around a tooth, his fall jerked to a halt, he was hanging by his wrists, the hook was gone but his wing wouldn’t work, he had to do something, that eye was so big and so close, watching him struggle, the beast’s throat humming with an ancient growl, hungry, he couldn’t just let this happen, he grabbed the tooth with his left hand and the chain with his right, he could do this, pull himself up enough to-
The great jaws snapped shut, and Erebus tumbled into the water below. 
Cold shocked his system, despite the fact that his left arm felt like it was on fire. 
He couldn’t stay down here. He had to get to the surface.
But, down there, a faint glint. Metal. His sword. His only hope of winning.
He swam towards it, progress slow and painful and-
His left hand was gone. 
There wasn’t time to mourn it. 
His remaining hand wrapped around the hilt of the sword. It was heavy, too heavy for him to swim up with. 
He was running out of air. He had to try. This couldn’t be the end. Not here. Not so soon after-
The hook pierced through his wing again, and it was all he could do to hold onto his sword this time around.
The sloth demon pulled him up and out of the water with its tail, tossing him high into the air as it opened its great jaws to swallow him whole. His wings torn and useless, all Erebus could do was flap them desperately and hope it would be enough, hope he could at least-his foot landed on one of those teeth, holding him for just a moment before he slipped, but it was enough to aim his sword hold it steady launch himself down drive that point right down into the demon’s eye paint that awful soulless white with red hear the roar of agony so loud he could feel it in his bones and now the water was collapsing falling back down the great corpse falling with it he had to get away wrench the sword out jump back splash into the water struggle to the surface to the shore drag himself out of the water collapse on the shore and breathe.
He-he’d won, but just barely, and the losses were-Erebus bit back tears, looking away from the ragged stump at the end of his left arm. There was no way he could survive six more fights like that.
This horrible, hostile place was going to destroy him, and there would be nothing left of him to go back home.
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