virtual-crisis
Vos non es immunis tropis
Beckett, Joshua Beckett. This is my repository for various musings and works of typescript; you want excessively developed characters, psychological/philosophical commentary and painful waits between posts? Here you are, enjoy.
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Social experiment! What is harder to write: dialogue, description or exposition?
#oh god description#I just infodump the Essentials for a scene then fill the rest of the chapter with dialogue
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The email arrived on a Tuesday afternoon in January, startling Zachary McCoy as he prepared to leave for his job at a restaurant in Gainesville, Florida.
It was from Google’s legal investigations support team, writing to let him know that local police had demanded information related to his Google account. The company said it would release the data unless he went to court and tried to block it. He had just seven days.
“I was hit with a really deep fear,” McCoy, 30, recalled, even though he couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong. He had an Android phone, which was linked to his Google account, and, like millions of other Americans, he used an assortment of Google products, including Gmail and YouTube. Now police seemingly wanted access to all of it.
“I didn’t know what it was about, but I knew the police wanted to get something from me,” McCoy said in a recent interview. “I was afraid I was going to get charged with something, I don’t know what.”
There was one clue.
In the notice from Google was a case number. McCoy searched for it on the Gainesville Police Department’s website, and found a one-page investigation report on the burglary of an elderly woman’s home 10 months earlier. The crime had occurred less than a mile from the home that McCoy, who had recently earned an associate degree in computer programming, shared with two others.
Now McCoy was even more panicked and confused. He knew he had nothing to do with the break-in ─ he’d never even been to the victim’s house ─ and didn’t know anyone who might have. And he didn’t have much time to prove it.
McCoy worried that going straight to police would lead to his arrest. So he went to his parents’ home in St. Augustine, where, over dinner, he told them what was happening. They agreed to dip into their savings to pay for a lawyer.
The lawyer, Caleb Kenyon, dug around and learned that the notice had been prompted by a “geofence warrant,” a police surveillance tool that casts a virtual dragnet over crime scenes, sweeping up Google location data — drawn from users’ GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular connections — from everyone nearby.
The warrants, which have increased dramatically in the past two years, can help police find potential suspects when they have no leads. They also scoop up data from people who have nothing to do with the crime, often without their knowing ─ which Google itself has described as “a significant incursion on privacy.”
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I dont??? Even know what kind of emotions this brings me? All i can think now is Slug-girls and i hate it
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⭐Alpha Centauri⭐, Part Fourteen
Another cobble-together part, bit of world building, bit of foreshadowing. I can’t exactly just cut from the previous part to the event it’s leading up to.
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“In fucking demon form?!”
“I really don’t see the problem here.”
“In fucking demon form?!”
“You could’ve blown it for all of us!”
I crossed my arms and one leg over the other. I was back home in my and Tyler’s dorm, with her, Nate and Carême standing around me. I looked up at the latter. He shook his head, but had a smirk on his face.
“La fortune sourit aux audacieux.” he said, in a smug tone I couldn’t understand.
“Not in this case!” Chai spat, while Nebb put up his hands in confusion.
“I’unno either, it’s French.” I said at Nebb.
“Fortune favors the bold…” Scape murmured for a moment. “Our kind have pulled more ‘risky’ antics. Some even got away with it.”
“She went into a stadium full of people in DEMON FORM! People were livestreaming!”
“And taking videos and pictures, get it right?” I quipped. Chialer did a facepalm.
“Uh, yeah, big problem with that, our mascot’s the bulldogs.” Nebb said flatly. I smirked at him, then Chai, who glared back.
“Fuck you.” she said.
“Fuck me?”
“Did I stutter? Fuck you.”
Scape shook his head, shrugging. “Taking that ‘competition’ seriously?”
Chai scoffed, Nebb retaining a look of utter confusion as she pointed a finger at me accusingly. “You cheated!”
“I took advantage of an opportunity~” I teased.
“Fuck off, you went in front of like a thousand people as a human-sized moth to challenge my twin to a fight.”
“I’ll let you wear the suit~”
Chai screeched in anger, lunging towards me… Only to fall flat on her face on the carpet. Scape shook his head, taking a sip of coffee as he pulled his shin away from her lower thigh. “I’d prefer there not be a fight in here.”
“What the fuck’s up with you two?!” Nebula sputtered, throwing up his hands.
Chai grumbled to herself, and I shrugged. “I just did it on impulse. Wasn’t even my idea to go there.”
“I’m gonna rip Bob’s throat out.”
“Do you WANT Mammon pissed off at you?” Scape chided.
“Okay but, seriously, that game’s next week.”
“And home has all the time in the world.” I mused.
Scape crossed his arms as I pulled out my phone. Dialing mom ‘n dad, dialing Polaris, conference call time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chai sat around the table eating burgers with Nebb, Scape, mom and dad in the dorm’s kitchen. When among humans, mom either dressed in conservative blouse-and-skirt combo similar to me, or straight up imitating Marylin Monroe. Dad… would switch between hippie and hobo. Today was hobo day, torn clothes and unkempt hair.
I spent a bit chatting with Polly when she arrived, then took to a sketchbook. I A-posed facing each wall of the living room, she drew me from each angle. I made a few quips about getting nude, she threw the book at me and made me bring it back to her. Typical sister stuff. Fam and friends, on the other hand…
“That’s very sweet of you to keep an eye on them,” mom said to Scape. “Nebula especially could do with knowing how to cook.”
“Hey!”
“He’s talented, naturally, but I feel he’s better suited to mixology. When he tries, he’s quite good at making soups and stews. Thin on chopping and other such hands-on stuff.” Scape mused.
“And the fact Ally got fucked up by an angel.” Tyler cut in.
Dad looked through the doorway at me as I put up a peace sign over my eye for another sketch. “I’d prefer that not happen again.” he said. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eyes, frowning.
“Ugh, damnit Cen, I was trying to get your face down.” Polly spat. A couple of the others glanced over as I let out an ‘oops’.
“So you guys able to get some materials together for it?” I said. Chai rolled her eyes.
“I’ve got some people I can call up… Your father’s got some employees with resources, surely.” mom replied.
“Wait…” Chai pointed at dad. “...You have… Employees?”
“Is that a surprise?” he quipped. I snickered and went back to making cutesy poses for a somewhat miffed Polaris.
“Frans runs his own minor circle of Hell, honey. Within the greater circle of Belphegor’s, and with its own legion of imps and lesser demons.”
“Even have a fallen angel around working for me.”
Chai gave dad that ‘are you kidding me’ look. “Y… You’re kidding me. A fallen angel?”
“Nuh, she’s real nice. Always has to wear gloves though, burns if we so much as shake hands.” Nebb said through a mouthful.
“What kind of angel?” Scape asked.
“A cherub. Not a fan of all the regimenting upstairs, so I give her nice and flexible scheduling.”
“Yeah because she’d obviously prefer literal Hell, wouldn’t she.”
“I’m told Lucifer does.”
I quivered at my new boss’ name. Polly waved for me and held up her sketch: a poster of ‘Stella’ sticking up two peace signs with a cutesy wink. That turned my face to a grin instead. “Y’allllll, you needa see this~”
Nebb readily jumped up to come look, while Chai rolled her eyes. Mom, dad and Scape just gave a ‘not now’ and went back to talking.
“Yo, you need to step up your game, Cen.” Nebula quipped.
“Hey, she graduated two years ago.” I spat.
“And I’m a lot better at art~” Polaris teased, winking. I huffed in annoyance.
“Mooooooooom, Nebb and Polly are teasing me.”
“Then why don’t you tease them back?”
“Daaaaaaaaad, Nebb and Polly are teasing me!”
“Not my problem, miúdo!”
“Chai!”
“Don’t even, Ally.”
Nebula and Polaris just snickered to eachother, the latter going to sit by dad.
“You done talking about your VIP board, papai?” she said, nudging her pictures to him.
Nebb nudged me with his elbow. “I still can’t believe you told Chai you’d let her wear the suit.”
“Oy, the bigger the suit, the more field presence. Ty’s a heavyweight that got on the team anyway, so why the home not?”
“Gee I’unno, maybe because she’s a bitter ass about you getting the mascot?”
“Thought you were saying I didn’t have it yet?”
“Come on, mom’s here. Unless the guy in charge of administration here’s a demon, it’s gonna get changed now.”
“Yeah? Prove it~” I jeered.
“Hey mom, are you gonna get the mascot changed!?” Nebb called over.
“Of course I am!” she said back, before her and the guys all laughed.
Nebb put up his hands, and I just snorted.
Rather than engage in the PTA meeting in the kitchen, we put the couch back in place and booted up some games to play. Nebb slotted a flashdrive into my Xbox, uploading a slew of mods to violate my various games with. As if I’d want triple-A shills to actually be fun.
“So, what’re you gonna do once you graduate?”
I raised a brow at him. “What’re you gonna do then?”
“Probably set up shop at home, get dad into the bootlegging trade.”
“That’s already staked by other demons though.”
“And? What’s wrong with sharing the ‘burden’?”
“Angry drunks being represented by demons of wrath.”
“Fair, but also I don’t care.”
I rolled my eyes. “...I’ve got a work contract lined up.”
“Lemme guess, some indie game company?”
“Yeah, it’s called Lucy’s Furs.”
Nebb dropped his controller on his lap, looking at me out the corner of his eye. “...Are you…”
“Don’t. Tell. The others.” I said quietly, through gritted teeth.
Nebula gulped, picking his controller back up and dropping to a whisper. “...Is he the one that saved you in the forest?”
“Yeah.”
“Beast… What kind of work?”
“He was saving my life, so he was free to not specify.”
Nebula stared at me wide-eyed, ignoring his in-game character getting beat up as a result. “Seriously?!”
“He’s the devil, of course he’d do something like that,” I glanced up to make sure none of the others were coming over. “...He gave me a replacement for my old head- caused that power surge months ago ‘cause it’s THAT much more powerful. Said he’d let me finish out college and develop my powers a bit, then he’d have things for me to do.”
“Yikes… Why haven’t you told mom?”
“What, did she tell her parents when she worked for Asmodeus?”
“She says he’s up front about what he wants from someone.”
I took an uneasy breath. “...Well I’d assume he wouldn’t want his ‘investment’ in me to go to waste…”
“Yeah, ‘cause that means you’re gonna be perfectly fine.”
“...It doesn’t.”
I paused the game suddenly as Polaris walked over. “Don’t you do enough of that for class studies?”
“We’re doing a study group right now, step off.” I said flatly.
“Yeah, that hack and slash you’ve beaten ten times is valid studying.”
“We’re observing game mechanics.” Nebb said.
“And where’re your notes?”
“Why’re you over here?”
Polly sat next to me, opening her sketchbook. “Well this’s your image, wanna be sure you want this brought in to your coach.”
I turned my gaze onto her pictures of me, narrowing my eyes. “Heeeey, you made me look fatter than I am.”
“There’s gotta be space for a person in there, and last I checked, you want that person to be Chialer.”
Chialer, on cue, followed Polly over to us. “Uhuh, I say the suit’s not big enough for that.”
I crossed my arms. “Then widen the rest of it so the proportions are right.”
“We’re only gonna make the first iteration of the suit, Cen, it’s gonna cost money for them to make other stuff.”
Nebula snickered, and I elbowed him. “At least make the antenna fuzzy.” I said.
“Deal, if the wings stick out like some back shield.” Polly quipped.
“You kidding? I won’t be able to see behind myself!” Chai complained.
“You’re planning to?”
“Did you not see the combat armor on Ezekiel’s getup? I’m gonna need to.”
“So what, you’re planning to throw hands?” Nebula retorted.
“He is, so I am.”
“He was talking about flying into his flames, so…”
“Acalme-se, bondade!” Mom said, striding in and circling behind Polaris. “Frans has things arranged, we should get this proposal to the school’s administration.”
Polaris nodded, going to the door with Tyler, mom and dad. Scape walked to the couch, but stopped there with his hands in his pockets, waiting for the door to close.
“...I’m pretty good at selective hearing.” he mused. I gulped.
“What do you mean?” Nebb asked, acting innocent. Obviously, I elbowed him again for that.
“Working for Lucifer is a dangerous game.” Scape said passively, not looking at me.
“...I don’t have much of a choice.”
“That’s how he gets you involved with him.”
“What would he even have me do?”
“A devil isn’t one without someone to combat.”
“So he’s going to have her fight more angels?”
Scape looked over his shoulder at Nebula. “Lucifer knows better than that. There’re entities far worse than the denizens of Hell…”
I lowered my head. Scape slowly moved to the door.
“...I worked for him, once. Had to go into hiding as a result.”
“That place you told Chai about?”
“Yes. The place was swarming with exorcists, witchhunters, crusaders… Hell, it was the home of crusaders. He told me to corrupt the place… Not what the catch was.”
“There’s always gonna be one, isn’t there?”
“That’s his game. Wants to see how people react to things they don’t expect.”
“Well that’s gonna be fun.” Nebula said sarcastically, leaning away from me defensively.
“I beg to differ.” I said flatly, staring blankly over my shoulder.
Scape looked at me in what I assumed was concern. “Good luck. He’ll keep you alive, but that’s only so you can do things God won’t let him.”
He bowed his head for a moment, and stepped out. Nebula let me stare at nothing for a good couple minutes, before quietly turning off the game and heading out as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, Chai had split off from my family. She went to Monty, ranted at him for a minute, and got a ride out to the northwest side of the river. Right to the frat house of Zeta Iota Phi.
“What do you want, bulldog?” one of the guys said on opening the door. Chai decked him in the face, Monty seizing up in alarm behind her as she stepped over the frat jock’s unconscious form. A couple other guys came up with shouts of ‘what the fuck?!’ and such, and Monty backed away as she punched one, grabbed him by the arm, and hurled him into two others.
“Where the hell is Z.” she demanded at nobody in particular, deadpanned and scowling.
Two guys were left in the room—one put his hands up in fear, the other shakily pointed to the living room. Chai stomped over that way as Monty sheepishly apologized to the two.
“What’s up, fuckup?” she spat.
Ezekiel, lounging with his legs across a couch, scoffed quietly. “Go away, Tyler.”
“You’re trying to go into the superbowl, huh?”
“What football team doesn’t?”
“As yourself.”
“I don’t like wearing some beaver costume.”
“Bullshit.”
He looked up at her, pausing the TV show that was on. Out of a mascot suit, he wore cargo jeans, snow boots, a hooded jacket, climbing gloves, a bandana covering his lower face, running goggles, and a balaclava to cover the gaps. Not one bit of skin was visible on his body. “You’re really throwing a fit over this?” he grumbled.
“You’re a piece of shit.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Being self deprecating doesn’t get you out of it.”
“Out of what?”
“Me taking you down a notch.”
“Why do you care?”
“You signed yourself up for the college in direct competition with mine!”
“We signed up independent of eachother, neither of us knew.”
“Fuck off, you knew.”
“No I didn’t…”
Monty sidled in, keeping distance from Chialer. “Isn’t it possible he just… really didn’t know…?”
Chai jabbed a finger in his direction. “Shut the fuck up, Bob.”
Ezekiel put a hand to his face, sighing. “Don’t bother, man, she’s not gonna be reasonable about it.”
Chialer promptly shoved him off the couch, eliciting a yelp of alarm. “All you do is steal off whatever I try to do in life!”
Ezekiel glared up at her. Monty backed away nervously, seeing how the twin’s goggles had a dull yellow glow under them… “No I don’t! It’s not my fault our lives line up by coincidence!”
Chai planted her hands on the back of the couch. “Then why did you just suddenly show up in that canyon?!”
“I already told you, I didn’t know why, it just happened!”
Monty gulped, rushing out of the room to start chatting with the frat boys—despite their hostile reception of him, he felt the need to keep attention off the twins.
Zippy got to his feet, letting out a huff of air. “You’re always tearing me down for anything I do!”
“Because you always have to do it ‘better’ than me!”
“That’s not my fault! We just happen to do similar things at the same time!”
Chai vaulted onto the couch, clenching her fists. “Then why do you go out of your way to make everything about YOU?! You go to the Ivy league school, you have a damn fraternity named after you. You have MI-fucking-T themed around you!?”
Zippy pulled down the waist of his jacket, concealing the pads of a bulletproof vest. “Yeah, I’m making the most of my situation! I didn’t tell you to come to the same metro with your underdog complex!” he spat.
Chai let out a screech of anger, springing off the couch to pounce on her twin. As they fought on the floor, Monty quivered at the noise. “Hey, how about I buy you guys drinks…? Apology for my, uh, friend throwing a fit?” he stammered.
One of the frat guys furrowed his brow, and another leaned over to try and see what the twins were up to. “Why the hell are you with that bitch anyway?”
“...I’m her ride from place to place. It’s better to just… Let her ‘talk’ with her brother.”
“‘Talk’ my ass, she’s fighting with Zeke in there!” one spat, pushing past Monty.
As he walked into the living room, the twins froze mid-wrestle just to seethe in unison: “Stay the fuck out of this.” Their voices combined for an all-the-more insidious growl, and the frat guy let out a girlish scream as he sprinted straight for the front door.
The others had gone pale. “D-drinks it is…!” one sputtered, to which Monty now more eagerly ushered them out.
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⭐Alpha Centauri⭐, Part Thirteen
School spirit, right? Thought I’d post a new part for the new semester.
....Yeah, that’s totally why it took this long.
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Naturally, we stuck around in Scape’s office for a while so my bleeding could stop and dry up. I feigned nodding off, closing my eyes and lolling my head down to the side while Ty and Scape were chatting with eachother so they would passively drop me from the conversation, unaware I was still listening.
“So your twin…. Which one is he?”
Chai scoffed. “Calls himself Ezekiel. He’s embarrassed by his real name, ‘Zippy’, ‘cause it makes him sound like a little kid.”
“Are you sure he’s embarrassed by it?”
“Why else would he take a biblical name as a human?”
“It has phonetic parallels, like yours and Alyssa’s. After all, Chialer means to cry…”
“It refers to blubber. Like on a whale.” Chai snapped.
“Blubbering is a synonym for crying, Tyler.”
“And fucking what?!”
There was silence for a minute. It was really eerie—unlike most of Earth, this office was so perfectly soundproofed that, lacking the sound of one’s breathing, it was completely silent. I shivered.
“...You know, radiant atronachs are virtually nonexistent.”
“Thanks a lot to my mom and dad.”
“Cér—” Scape cleared his throat. “...Carrie and Marcus, yes?”
“Yeah, them. Stupid fucking curse they got on all of us because one of them made a swear on the name of Leviathan that they were fuckin’ lying about.”
Scape hummed. “Non, Leviathan n'apprécie pas qu'on se moque de lui..”
My eyes opened at that. “Leviathan what?”
Both did a double-take at me. “Uh…. He doesn’t like being made fun of?” Chai said as if I should’ve known.
Scape waved a hand at her, shaking his head. “Désolé, désolé, I slipped into my native language.”
Now Chai was staring in confusion at Scape right along with me. “...You what? You’ve been talking French this whole time, though?”
I blinked in confusion, looking down at myself. “Uh… Eu pensei que vocês estavam falando em português...?” I murmured, suddenly feeling oddly self-conscious.
Scape looked between us, then chuckled. “Ah, adorable when young demons find out…. Here in Boston, everyone hears us in English,” he said. “It’s a response from Lucifer regarding the Babel incident: while language has and will divide mortal-kind for eternity, demons of Hell will remain able to understand eachother, and mortals them.”
I looked over at Chai, who was now staring at me. “....You’re French?” I said.
“You’re Portu… Portugess…?”
“Brazilian,” I corrected. “...And it’s Portuguese…”
Scape chuckled again. “Here I thought you two were better acquainted than that.”
Chai flushed a bright green—y’know, uranium under the suit and all. “W-we didn’t know about the Babel thing!”
I smirked. “Do you even know what Babel is?”
“Like you do.” she jeered. To be fair, I didn’t.
“The tower to heaven?” Scape mused. “Unsurprising, it’s not well accounted outside of biblical texts. All of humanity convened to build their way to God…” he began. Strangely, when he said a holy word like such, it didn’t bother us. Well, it did, but it didn’t cause a physical response. “God sighed, metaphorically, as they would eventually reach a point in the stratosphere lacking enough air to breathe, rather than reach Heaven. Therefore he scattered the humans, toppled the tower, and scrambled their minds so there would never be a unified ‘single language’ among mortals. Such a thing eliminates individuality, and leads to… Problematic ventures.”
“Huh.” Chai grunted, echoed shortly after by me.
“So what was that about a beast-damned prince of hell cursing your family?” I said at her.
Chai quivered for a moment. “...I’ll get into specifics some other time. Basically, I spent my childhood and teen years wandering a desert because my mom and dad couldn’t be honest with eachother millennia ago.” she explained.
I stared blankly at her, slowly looking at Scape. “.........I’m not the only one who heard that, right?”
“What, did part of that translate into a Brazilian swear word?” Chai teased.
“Portuguese.” I said flatly. “What do you mean wandering a desert?!”
“I mean I’ve had to kill people and predatory animals to survive to adulthood. If you DO reach adulthood as one of my family, Leviathan sends an aspect of itself to try and kill you where its machinations failed.”
“What. The fuck.”
Scape leaned back on the couch, arms behind his neck. “It’s true. I’ve met one of her siblings before- long time ago, but I had the luck to be right in the very place Leviathan dropped her to be ‘tried’ by survival.”
My jaw was agape as I tried to process this. Chai killing things? She was a punk archetype for sure, but BEFORE college age? Fuck, I still got freaked out seeing blood when I was a teen.
“Ooh, her? Do you mean Abby?” Chai said, suddenly looking giddy.
“Abigail, yes. The first to survive that trial if I remember right.”
Chai clapped. “Fuck yeah! That chick was forced to fend off dragons in the medieval times!”
“...You guys are weird,” I mumbled, standing up. “I’m gonna, like…”
“Not leave yet, surely?” Scape said, raising a brow. “Your hand…”
I unwrapped the cloth he’d put around my ‘stab wounds’. Nothing but little black curves marking my hand now, with some discoloration on my skin around them. “I’ll just wear gloves, yeah.”
Scape shrugged, standing up to step over and retrieve the makeshift cast from me. “Fair enough. Just be attentive as usual.”
“Wouldn’t want another angel attacking you~” Chai quipped.
I deadpanned back at her. “Not funny.”
Scape just shook his head, fighting off a smile as I walked out and crammed my hands under the waistband of my skirt. Stupid no-pocket women’s clothes.
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I went somewhere different this time: Monty’s. He was on the fraternity-saturated football team, sure, but he lived in a normal dorm building a couple blocks from mine. Not for a date this time—we’d accepted by now that romance wouldn’t really gel for us—but rather to go for a drive.
“Oh, Alyssa! Wasn’t expecting to see you coming all the way up here,” was his reaction on opening his door.
I snorted. “Yo, jus’ ‘cause I’m like, sloth levels of lazy, doesn’t mean I can’t walk place to place.”
Monty chuckled, fixing his glasses. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t reach your classes if you couldn’t. Anything you wanted?”
“Bit of a tour around the city, maybe,” I said passively, waving my clot-ridden hand. “Wanted to… Y’know, chat a bit, maybe. I’unno.”
Monty sheepishly pointed at my hand. “Uh, how did…”
“Bad tattoo—I mean—Ty cut me with her fingernails. Had the damn things shaped into claws again.”
“Again? Yeesh. I’m guessing that happens often?”
“Nah, she normally has pretty good restraint. She just got kinda… Pissed off.”
“What about?”
I waved my hand dismissively. “I’ll explain it in the car.”
For a card up Mammon’s sleeve, Monty’s car was… a pretty normal four-door sedan. I guess it helped him not stick out too much from the crowds—probably would be the same case for demons if we weren’t too ‘inherently sociopathic’ to be allowed to drive. I got Monty talking a bit about his own business ventures while we were on our way off campus, so I could think a bit about a couple things. Namely the idea of Chialer being some kind of killing machine, yikes.
“...Yeah, the keyfob for my car is, itself, a weapon for self defense. I press the button opposite the key release, it flips out a switchblade.”
“Yikes.”
“Not the most practical for a fight, but it’s good at drawing blood.”
“Great for pentagrams, I’ll bet.”
“Yeah, but then I have to clean the blade. That’s a huge pain.”
“You know from what experience?” I quipped.
Monty rolled his eyes. “I told you, you’re the first demon I’ve knowingly met outside of the Mam’ himself. I just know blood is a bitch and a half to clean, even off linoleum or stainless steel.”
I thought for a moment, then quickly poked his thigh. Monty snorted.
“...Yeah, that too.”
“What else can that thing do then? Some kinda Hell’s Army Knife or something?”
“Damn, that’d be cool to have. Nah though, it’s got a couple nifty features, but nothing too amazing. Switchblade, a precision laser for distracting cats…”
“As if that’s what it’s for.”
“You’d be surprised how many greed demons are feline. Or well… Mammon told me I would be.”
“Yeah, but those’re human toys. Demon toys aren’t shipped if they can’t be used to mutilate someone.”
“...Fair,” Monty said passively, then gulped. “It reflects light through microscopic prisms inside the keyfob so when it actually shoots out, it can burn through a lot of thinner materials with some focus.”
“Oh sweet, so a mini me.”
The car skidded to a more abrupt stop than usual, Monty slamming the brakes for a stoplight as he snickered at that. “You… Shoot lasers?”
“Yeah, I’m like, a moth and all, but my head’s basically a weaponized CRT TV.”
Monty glanced at me, then the light, then me again for a moment before back to the road. “...A TV head? Those’re real popular on the internet lately.”
“Yeah, I noticed. And yes, like that one final boss from that one high-concept RPG.”
Monty snickered again, shaking his head. “I wasn’t thinking that, but okay.”
He drove along in silence. It felt weird moving… Fast-ish? But also really slow, considering. When we were on a main street with the speed-o-meter saying 45, it felt pretty normal to me, but despite this being faster than I would normally move around, it felt sluggish. Suppose I was just distracting myself.
“What’re we driving by M.I.T. for?” I asked. As implied, we were rolling onto the Mitts campus, Monty leisurely driving amidst the various buildings and weaving by cars plastered over with new ‘Dragons’ stickers.
“Game next week, right? I’m probably not gonna be participating, but I gotta be there, so I may’s well see where we’re gonna be headed.”
Traffic started to get congested near the IT’s stadium. I didn’t say anything at first, but I did furrow my brow. “Didja notice they changed the mascot?”
“Nah, not like it’s been beavers for decades or anything.”
“Word is it’s because of a demon of pride.”
Monty zipped forward suddenly, scrambling to slam the brake and pull away to avoid a crash. “Uh…. Yikes? Aren’t they like, the most powerful?”
“Sorta…. Their prince is the devil himself.” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back.
Monty glanced at me before righting himself back onto the street. “Kinda figured…. Has that not been done before or something?”
“Probably has, I’unno. Kicker is, the jackass is my roommate’s brother.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. She was pretty pissed about it earlier today.”
“Lemme guess….”
“Oh yeah, obviously the reason I got cut up.”
Monty drove around by the parking lot for the stadium…. And rolled up to park. “Apparently there’s a pep rally going on…. Explains the traffic and all.”
“What, going into the core of enemy territory for shits and giggles?” I quipped, hesitantly getting up and out of the car.
“Well, maybe a bit of espionage. Really, I’m just caught up on studying, and football practice’s tomorrow.”
I snorted. “Aha. Aha… Yeah, uh, I got outta cheer practice early.”
We both chuckled awkwardly at that, and after a bit of second guessing ourselves (or at least me), made our way into the stadium.
And uh, beast-damn.
The Mitts’ football team was running a workout routine around the field, high-fiving people as they passed by the barriers, and whooping and shouting a ‘go team’ chant. Hundreds of M.I.T. students were convened in the stands, all cramming themselves down in front to get a close-up view of their sportsballers. Monty prodded at one to ask “shouldn’t half of you be in class?”, to which a few people giddily explained that the school was paid off to observe some random holiday that was today. This seemed really over the top, and that was exactly the point.
Leading the newly green-and-gold-clad sports team was their mascot: a golden-scaled dragon with an emeraldesque underbelly, plated on joints with pads that looked more like combat armor, and a ‘jersey’ that had to be a flak jacket painted over.
The sight bothered me in a way. That guy was winding one of the most prestigious places of learning on Earth around his claw, parading around as himself by way of a glorified fursuit. What really concerned me though was the fact it was combat-ready. He was ready to walk that suit into a gunfight, and I did not want to know why.
Then he started shouting along for the team and crowd, too.
“When I say M-I, you say T! Mass in!” “Tech!” “Mass in!” “Tech!”
“Let’s go dragons, let’s go!” “Fire with fire! Raze and blaze!”
A presumable QB tossed a football to Ezekiel, and he ran forward to throw it in a perfect arc to the guy in back. That guy crouched in place, and hurled the thing for the opposite end of the field. Ezekiel wasted no time bolting after it, the wings of his suit furling out and flapping. Too stiff to be real, but that’d have to be expensive as fuck for a costume prop. When he passed the thirty, he dove forward. By the twenty, he was sliding along the slicked astroturf. At the ten, the football landed down into his suit’s oversized paws, and he stopped his penguin slide right at the touchdown line.
The crowd roared, all the cliques shamelessly roaring like dragons as best they could, no matter how bad it sounded or how sick or hoarse they may’ve been. Monty joined in. I stared blankly as Tyler’s twin stood up to dance and twirl around.
“M-I-T! M-I-T!” “M-I-T! M-I-T!”
I sidled next to Monty, looking at his eyes from the side. Practically glazed over. Thinking on my feet, I snuck a hand into his pocket and fished out the keys delicately while he was entranced. After that, I slipped away into the away team’s locker room.
“Ty?”
“Ally? Where the home are you?”
I cupped a hand around the mic on my phone. “Mitts stadium, it’s a shitshow.”
“You think? My brother studies there.”
“No like, seriously, he’s running a pep rally. Running a pep rally.”
“What do you mean by that?” Scape cut in. Chai was still in his office, evidently.
“They’re cheering and chanting with him and all, but like…. Everyone’s glazing over. The shy guys are crowding up in front to shout, the emos and jocks are doing cheesy roars with the rest… Fucking Monty joined in with them.”
“Monty who?” “Robert, Tyler…”
“Is that not possession?”
“Is bandwagoning possession?” Scape retorted.
I furrowed my brow, fiddling with Monty’s keyfob. “Come on, he’s a demon.”
“He’s naturally charismatic.”
“Monty’s on the football team against his!”
“Yeah, that’s bullshit.” Chai said flatly.
“So a supporter of the red sox would have to be possessed to join the cheers?”
I took an agitated breath. “Okay, Ty, so ‘Zippy’’s out there riling everyone up. What would you be doing?”
“Not the best idea…” Scape murmured more distantly.
“I’ll save the ass-kicking for the game. I say give him some kinda warning of what’s to come, but it’s not like you’re gonna get anywhere with your cheer uni-”
I hung up, grinning to myself.
As I pocketed Monty’s key for later, I passively listened to the crowd.
“Bulldogs lie! Dragons fly! Bulldogs lie! Dragons fly!”
It was getting more directed against Boston U. If I caught Monty cheering along with that, he’d be catching my four hands later. But right now? They were reserved for homegirl’s reptilian twin.
“Ay! Ay! Scale-back chump!”
The crowd kept on their chant, ignoring that callout. Boring.
“DRAGONS DIE!”
That shut them up. Everyone turned to the stadium’s away team door. I did a ballerina twirl, putting up two peace signs, two hands to my left hip, posed like an anime protagonist in a triumphant freeze-frame.
“It’s MOTHS that fly!”
Several gasps passed through the crowd like snakes hissing in the bushes. I hopped back, and jogged out directly towards Ezekiel. I may’ve been smaller than him in his suit, but a humanoid moth was no less cartoony than a foam and fiberglass dragon.
The dragon crossed his arms, tilting his head back as I ran up. “Hey, missy, the furry convention’s down in the Fens.”
I got up in his face, crossing my arms right back. My eyes were already hurting from keeping wide open, but I could see him shrink back just a bit. “Yeah, they thought you got lost on your way~” I teased.
“Just who’re you supposed to be, some butterfly fresh out of a toner cartridge explosion?”
I twirled back away, my foot barely missing his stomach. Turned away from him, I struck another pose, showing off my Boston U jersey before going into a dance. “Gimme an S! Gimme a T! Gimme e-l-l A! Stella the moth! Raring to play!”
After a cartwheel, I did a handstand on my two left hands, shaking somewhat but still managing to stick up a heart symbol with my right hands. “Boston U’s star bug! The bug zapper, the astral attacker!”
I dropped back down and did a jump and spin, taking a fighting stance at Zippy as his ball team grouped up behind him, confused. I pointed two fingers at Zippy, nervous someone had noticed my right hands desyncing before. “And the dragons’ waking night-terror!”
Silence filled the air, everyone holding their breath for several moments. Then an uproar of cheers and boos, rabid Mitt supporters verbally fighting to out-enthuse the folks I excited. Obscuring as his mask was, I could feel Zippy glaring at me.
I did a cartwheel back away. “Satur-satur-saturday! Lizard vee’ Saturnian!” I chanted.
“Lizard verse’ Scribonia!” came a single voice. Monty’s, and beast-damnit that correction made me cringe.
I did another cartwheel, then a twirl in place, flupping out my wings to show off the night-sky pattern on them. “M-I-T! Boston U! Moths will slay! Drakes fall through!”
“Moths will slay!” “Drakes will flay!” “M-I-T!” “Go Boston U!” “Hell yeah Stella!” “Get her, Sammy!”
‘Sammy’. How unoriginal. I just smirked, doing another wheel, then another, belting out another cheer with each one. The pep rally turned into a split of spirits, Monty disappearing from the crowd while several people pulled their phones, or already had them out. As I hit the edge of the turf, I made eye contact with Zippy, who had an air of disgust hiding under those fake eyes. I pointed to myself then him.
“Next week, serpent boy! You better practice that crawling on your belly! You’ll need it when I’m done with you!”
“We’ll see about that, micro-mothra! You fly into my flames, you’re gonna get burned!”
I went out to the parking lot, where Monty was frantically patting himself down. I skipped up and dangled his keys out for him. “Sorryyyyy, I got some stabby thoughts about dumbhead mcgee back there. Decided to challenge him to a boxing match instead~”
Monty’s eyes went wide at the sight of me in my real form. “...Holy shit, Alyssa, you look… Wow. Can’t even be mad about the keys…”
I scoffed, dropping the ‘fob on the asphalt at his feet so he’d scramble to pick them back up and unlock his car. “Wooooow, you like some insect more than miss unconventionally attractive hispanic girl? Can’t tell whether to call you racist, superficial, or a furry~” I jeered.
Monty chuckled awkwardly. “Uh, isn’t that your… Actual self though?”
I giggled, pushing him towards the car door as I skipped around to get in the passenger’s seat. “Duh~ What better than having an actual live cryptid come up to rep a university football team?”
“Oh, I thought mothman lived in Virginia?”
I glanced around, before my fur and lower arms retracted, my body morphing to human guise once again. “I mean, you’re not WRONG about mothman, but legit, that was going around Ty and I’s dorm.”
Monty turned away as I changed, probably to be polite, then got to driving out and back to our campus. “Not gonna be that great when the bulldogs show up anyway, though.”
“Oh you’ll see, Monto, I’ve got my methods- and Ty’s gonna owe me grands when we get a new costume and merch in.”
My phone vibrated, and I pulled it out. Tyler calling, so I ignored it. I had multiple missed calls from her, Scape, and Nebula all at once… I’d take that as a stunt success.
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i really could write an essay on how shit is that we’ve completely abandoned the monster-of-the-week episode format even when rebooting shows that relied on it to replace them with grimdark edgy plotlines where nothing feels good or accomplished at the end of the day
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Some Stock Photo Sign Reminders To The RPC From Your Friendly Neighborhood Psychotic Because As Much As I Love Halloween I Am Actively Scared Of This Shit!!
happy goddamn halloween (some of these have captions)
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Will humanity ever be free of the influence of Edna Mode? Can any of us so much as consider the character design for a hero or villain without her manifesting in the room, fully aware of our sins?
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The Radium Girls were a famous group of women who worked as dial painters in the late 1910s to the 1920s. While there were dozens of women who worked in these factories, only a small group of women challenged the company they worked for over their illnesses, which they eventually came to believe (rightfully so) were due to the radium they worked with. All other medical professionals and owners of the companies were aware of the dangers, but failed to warn the dial-painters of the dangers of radium, which had previously been marketed as a miracle element. In fact, the luminosity it gave to one’s skin was considered beautiful and desirable.
The girls painted radium onto the dials of watches in the factories, and often tipped the brushes, still coated with radium, in their mouths. Other radium companies also faced lawsuits after the initial court case, as they had used similar procedures. Numerous girls died due to radiation poisoning, and their battle to recognize the source of their suffering was a long and arduous one.
Kate Moore has written an excellent book about this topic, aptly named “The Radium Girls,” that I’m reading now. So far, I’d highly recommend. It embellishes points of view and some details to kind of keep the reader in the era, but it’s very well researched and written. There are some graphic descriptions of what happens to these girls, so be wary of that.
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Counterpoint: The Devil, Lucifer, Hell-prince of Pride knows you know he's fully capable of destroying you. He lets others 'win' against him because Pride is not only a deadly sin, it's HIS deadly sin.
I think my favourite take on the dichotomy between the scriptural Devil and the folkloric Devil is “the Devil is fully capable of kicking your ass, but he chooses to act like a cowardly dumbass because wisdom and courage are virtues”.
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Date a robot with a TV or monitor head.
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⭐Alpha Centauri⭐, Part Twelve
What better way to kick off Raccoon Appreciation Day than coming out with fursuits?
...That came out wrong.
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A few months passed. I had another class to completely dissociate in and somehow still succeed at, a rare mortal I could discuss very not-human things with, and the looming dread of the day Lucifer would pluck me out of human society like Mister Miyagi snatching a fly. Slowly getting closer, day by day.
...Yes, my mind was still drifting to weeb shit now and then.
Mom made some off-handed remark about Scape sounding familiar to her, and to stay cautious about the yokai duo. Nebb and Polly were business as usual, with Polly seeing Scape as a delight of a demon and both skeptically warning me to not randomly summon fellow demons. Scape agreed on their notions, and apparently knew about Monty from the start—in fact, Monty was in Careme’s class, just a different period than me. Chialer, meanwhile, was tenser by the day.
As this last thought registered to me, we were heading out of the boys’ locker room to cheer practice. The school board demanded anyone with Chialer’s ‘trouser contents’ stay in the lane they started in as far as bathrooms went, though I was riding the median on that road.
Since the coach and squad already knew this [go Team Progressive flow, eh], I decided to embarrass Ty in a different way as we stepped onto the astroturf. “Hey how come you’ve been so pissy lately, Ty?”
The other girls cut their gossiping short. One of the few guys spat his sports drink.
“Shiiiit, her own roomie.”
Chai groaned in frustration, walking forward after having stopped for a moment. “I’m not ‘pissy’, I’m anxious. We’re running against the mitts next week.”
“Wait, really?” “You hadn’t heard?” “I thought that wasn’t until next quarter.”
I started to jog back to Chai until the coach sounded feedback on his megaphone. “Great timing to bring that up, actually, the Terriers are going up against the M.I.T. Dragons next week. And better yet? They’re competing for a place at SB fifty-one.”
Super Bowl LI? Okay, sure. M.I.T.? Makes sense. But, uh…
“I thought it was the Beavers?”
I sidled up to Ty, leaning our arms together and tugging her around to face the coach with me as he nodded. “Yeah, was. Some rich frat boy on their football team yanked some strings and got it changed.”
I yelped as Chialer gripped the back of my hand tightly with hers, digging her nails in.
“Hell, they’ve already got a suit for that mascot. My wife’s one of their department chairs, so she’d sent me pictures.”
My knees buckled together as Chai crumpled my fingers over eachother, probably clenching the other hand tightly as a fist. “Yeah, so what if they put together a stupid fursuit? We’ll just kick their asses and show them it was a waste of money!” she spat. I was stamping my heel on the field, wheezing from her vice grip.
The coach clapped, grinning. “That’s the spirit! Let’s practice our routines and lead the team to victory!”
Almost everyone shouted agreement as the coach pumped a fist in the air—but I was a little preoccupied, Chialer wasn’t in the mood, and one of the other girls…
“Oh my God, Ally, how is your blood black?!”
Chai and I both seized up. Chai’s grip loosened reflexively, and I quickly covered my right hand with the left.
“B-b-b-bad tattoo....” I sputtered out, briefly glancing down at the damage. Damn Chai cut her nails into sharp tips… Again.
The coach put a hand to his face, shaking his head. “Goddamnit…” both of us winced in pain. The power of Christ does, in fact, compel us. “Tyler, what’ve I said about cutting your nails like that?! You’re NOT getting me sued by scratching people with those on the field again.”
Ty coughed. “...I scheduled to trim them down this week.”
Coach just sighed as the other guys started whispering to eachother. “Ugh… Tyler, you go do that, I’ll be writing you up later. Alyssa, go get bandaged up, you know your parts in the routine.”
I nodded shakily, grabbing Chai by the elbow as I turned to run back to the main campus.
“Ow…” I whined after slowing to walk normally in the halls.
Chai gripped a hand on her upper arm, rolling her eyes. “...Puncture wound or wordplay?”
I glared at her, rubbing my head for a moment. “Which one do you think, asshole?”
She sighed in frustration. “Yeah, sorry. He just pisses me the home off.”
“Who, Coach Dickinson?”
“My brother. He’s the one the coach mentioned!” she spat.
“You… Have a brother…”
“That I never mentioned, yeah whatever, it’s because I fuckin’ hate him. I have a lot of siblings, but he’s the only one in my generation, ‘cause he’s my twin.”
“Oh, so he’s a pride demon,” I remarked, lowering my voice.
“You mean a smug cockhead? Because he’s a smug cockhead.”
The temptation to confront Chai with how rich that was coming from her was unbearable.
“Sooooooo, you guys are twins, pride and envy… Dunno why I never suspected that.”
“Only time E’n’P aren’t born in pairs like that is when they’re straight spawned out of the ether,” Chialer said, glancing over her shoulder. Nobody in the hall but us. “...Why are we going through the offices?”
I stopped at a door, putting up a finger after letting go of her, and knocking six times on the wood. “Goat dad’s. Nebb gave me directions.”
Chai nodded as we stood there for an awkward minute. There was eventually a deep, muffled yawn, before the door opened, with the culinary professor rubbing one of his eyes. “Alyssa…? Tyler? Not the best timing, I had locked up to take a nap…”
I put up my right hand. “She cut me with her nails.”
Scape perked up, and quickly ushered us in. “Come in then, I’ll get you some bandages…”
Chai started biting her nails down flat as I took the liberty of settling into his cushy office chair. The office’s lights and camera had been tampered with, leaving it dim and unmonitored for Scape to set up a couple soft LED candelabras. The walls looked smooth as carved stone, so black they seemed to drain any excess light. It was very comfy, and definitely very against regulations.
Scape grunted, loosening his belt as his body morphed into its more caprine form, reddish-brown fur showing around and through his clothes, and horns curling around the back then sides of his head to widely straddle his chin.
“...Just like in that dream.” I muttered to myself as he opened and rifled through a first-aid kit. He chortled heartily, smiling when he brought a roll of gauze and a scrap of some sort of dark fabric over.
“I get that a lot from your type. Very in tune with subconsciousness,” he remarked, wrapping the fabric in two layers around my hand, then binding it with the gauze like sports tape. “Now keep that on like a cast. Ichor doesn’t belong in the sewage system, trust me.”
I nodded affirmatively, but Chai raised her brows in amusement. “So you’re gonna eat it later?” she quipped.
“Best way to dispose of it,” Scape replied, seemingly oblivious to Chai’s teasing of him.
I glanced at the door. “Sooooo, Chai got mad because we’re gonna be running across her twin at a football game next week.”
“That so? She’s never mentioned her,” Scape mused, looking to her.
“...Him,” Chai corrected. “I’m… Y’know.”
Scape blinked, then shrugged and nodded. “Right, him then. I suppose it’d befit a pride demon—entering a ‘fancier’ establishment than their envy counterpart to incite jealousy…”
“Yeah, and it fuckin’ works. Bastard accomplished my goal with the sports mascots before I even started on it.”
I jumped at the opportunity to lean against Scape. “She means getting the mascot changed to her likeness, which I’m gonna do here.”
“Your mom said it’d be a competition!” Chai spat.
Scape chuckled, stepping away from me to lounge on a couch that definitely wouldn’t have fit through the door by normal means. “Well either way, that’s going to engorge his ego and power, so watch out,” he quipped.
“What?” I took on a look of confusion, now leaning awkwardly over the side of the chair. Chai smacked her fists against her thighs, breathing out harshly as her outfit shifted into her hazmat suit (she’d finished with her human form’s nails by now).
Scape gestured a hand in the air. “Pride demons live for idolatry. Even something like football mascots can greatly empower them. After all, football is adored nationwide, and ‘rugby’ across many parts of the planet.”
Chai crossed her arms as she went to sit on an open part of the couch. “So we definitely need to take him down a peg. If his team wins the superbowl, the whole world’s fucked.”
“Is that a problem?” Scape quipped.
“Ooh yeah, she can’t have someone outdo her!” I teased. Chai gave me a foul look, but Scape just laughed.
“Sure, we’re here to spread chaos, but I don’t want HIM doing that in MY home.”
“You could always work together.”
“Hell to the no!? I dunno what you’ve seen in your time, but envy and pride are like—”
“A very fragile A and B point bridged by a need for superiority?” Scape said, patting Chai on the back coyly. “There’re two kinds of twins, kiddo: those who hate eachother, and those who value one another’s strengths and help eachother’s weaknesses.”
I giggled, while the lenses of Chai’s mask glowed a bright green.
“Yikes, mind the Geiger counter,” I joked.
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Imagine hating homeless people so much u find ways to make their lives shittier instead of providing them with the resources they need
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⭐Alpha Centauri⭐, Part Eleven
What blasphemy? Two parts within three months of eachother? This must be the apocalypse.
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I effectively went on autopilot until the Friday for my date with Robbie. We went to a nicer sit-down restaurant than last time, and he took no lip over footing the bill, despite my eating habits. Three courses with an appetizer and dessert, and he had barely a third as much as I did.
He commented on the smell of weed about me this time. I was about to get annoyed, until he told me his uncle loved the stuff, though he personally wasn’t interested in trying it. I remarked how he always wore really tight skinny jeans, despite otherwise looking the image of ‘poindexter’.
“...Yeah, my legs are prosthetic.”
“Seriously? How are you on the football team then?”
He started into a story of getting caught up in a parole case for a mentally unstable man when he was young. Not ‘has trouble functioning in everyday society’ unstable, ‘assaults people with deadly force at little provocation’ unstable.
“...Why were you anywhere near him?”
“Some jackass told him some bullshit lie about me. Was stuck in a wheelchair for six years.”
“Yikes.”
I goaded him about the legs. With the school he was in, he was able to sell school supplies and toys to classmates for profit, getting his hands on a lot of stuff a kid shouldn’t. I struggled to believe it, but the mental images were fun.
“...But I’ll tell you the best part later.”
I raised a brow.
He smiled slyly, clasping his hands together. “Wanted to show you a nice view of the ocean after dinner. Cozy spot away from all the skyscrapers.”
I nodded along. Could easily be a trap. Scape could’ve been too, but I couldn’t just drop my guard after holding it up so firmly before. But for now, dinner was over, and I’d already packed a to-go box.
“Where, exactly?”
“Salem. It’s not a long drive, and I can get you back to your dorm in good time.”
I chuckled awkwardly. Asmodeus mandated early in the 1900s that demons weren’t to drive. Too easy and tempting to start running things over with reckless abandon. “Hey, long’s I’ll be back by eleven.”
“Man, and it’s nine thirty! We oughta get going then, right?”
I hesitated, but agreed to get up and go.
He took me out among the hills. An airport was a few miles away, and a major street sat just over the crest. The ocean was distant, but still glistened prettily, taking up more than half the distance to the horizon.
“...So, where are you from?”
I blinked, glancing over. Robbie was straightening out his polo, sitting on the grass nearby. Were his legs weapons? Was he marking me for some kind of sniper? Maybe he was sizing me up for weak spots lower on my body.
“Brazil.”
“Man, Brazil? They speak Portugese, right? Only ever heard you speak English.”
I scanned the skyline. “Mom started teaching us early.”
“Nice.”
There was silence for a bit as the breeze rustled the grass.
“I’ve never been, but my uncle’s had a few pretty good jobs there.”
“You live with him or something?”
“My parents are fine,” he said flatly, then turned his head away for several moments. “He’s… Important. Told me to come here in the first place. That it’d be good for my career.”
“Accounting, right?”
He sighed. “...Your roomie jokes about it, but yeah. Mercantile, selling things…. Acquiring things for people.”
My mouth twitched. “Like what for who?”
I heard a rustling behind me. My breath hilted, but I didn’t turn around, not yet.
“...Like textbooks for classmates that can’t… Afford them, and…”
I quickly looked over. His voice was wavering, and he was shaking. I was, too, but I wasn’t sat on my ass pretending to count points on my fingers.
Robbie gulped. Out of nowhere, he pulled off his shirt and threw it aside. On the front of his torso, there was a golden pentagram branded into his flesh.
“You…”
“I work for Mammon, okay? The prince of Greed,” he said shakily. “He came to pick me up as a thrall when I was eighteen. Something about a ‘natural gift’ for getting things.”
“A thrall?”
“He told me last weekend about your deal with the devil. I never knew there were actual demons here in Boston, I just…”
I knelt in front of him. “I’m not some murderous abomination, jeez…” I said, grabbing his wrists. He took a deep, shaky breath, avoiding eye contact.
“I know, I just… Haven’t met one besides him. He said… To offer you service. Selling things you can’t safely acquire yourself.”
“Like what?” I asked, turning my head to the side.
“Rides, for one. I know how you guys aren’t allowed to drive. And also… Pretty much unlimited money. Any payment method I use channels power straight from him, and… Hah… Wow.”
I perked up a bit. “So that’s…. You bought me dinner to show off, basically?”
“No! I mean yes, I… It was to make sure you wouldn’t be like, in a bad mood when I got myself to tell you…”
“That you’re basically an imp?”
He swallowed awkwardly. “...More like a mortal servant to a demon prince, it’s pretty literal… But, yeah, that you can come to me for… things.
“It’s like Amazon or Uber… You contact me, order something or ask for a lift somewhere, and I’ll see what I can do.”
I stared at him. Still shaking, and so was I. I looked to the side briefly… Then went right in for a kiss. At this point, I didn’t really know what else to do.
It lasted a good long minute, as a deep, awkward smooch. When I moved back and opened my eyes, Robbie gasped for air, blushing bright red and having to realign his glasses. “I, uh…. Thanks…?”
I gulped. “I’m… Like one tenth succubus. The rest’s sloth.”
“And I get called Bob by a lot of people, but… Just call me Monty if we’re talking… Business.”
We stared awkwardly at eachother again. I broke away in thought shortly before Monty put a hand on my shoulder.
“...If you’ve got friends that…”
“Uh, my siblings and roommate.”
“Yeah, them, just… Have them lemme know you sent them if they want… It’ll be… helpful. Mutually. I hope.”
I squinched my eyes shut for a moment, then smiled. “They’ll say Centauri sent them. Stars for Monty, huh?”
Monty chuckled. “Oughta adapt that into a business name sometime, heh…”
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⭐Alpha Centauri⭐, Part Ten
I really need to crack this writer’s block. Third of this was already ready to go, then block happened. Again.
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I had a dream overnight. Lucid as always, and everything was a blur, like a picture out of focus. I narrowed in on something, and saw the vague figure of a capra—a goat demon—shuffling away. No doubt it was Scape- I’d only seen him in human form, but when you look at a demon side-by-side to their human form, you can just tell. As he faded into the jumbled void of latent imagination and dormant creativity, I felt myself fall…
I yelped, which had to have translated to a yip outside. After a brief moment of plummeting though, I landed on something soft and fluffy, like wool… It was coating the back of some long, slender and scaly figure, that was at once moving as well. A dragon? A dragon. A reverse hammock, my body said…
I looked down the length of its body. It gently oscillated up and down like a sine wave, gentle enough that I wouldn’t notice without looking. Its scales were azure, and its wool like the midnight sky. Not quite black, but close enough a blue to deceive the less-knowledgeable.
I lifted my four hands, gently placing my palms on the serpent’s back. I wanted to see its face, what was in front… It was so far away that if it was out there, my compound eyes were too feeble, even in a dream. Carefully, I heaved myself to my feet, like a toddler trying to stand on a train set. Not the smartest move, but my wings kept me steady.
I tried to bring the beast’s head to me with my lucidity, to no avail. Instead, I began to walk along it like a balance beam, following its motion through the subconscious abyss. As thoughts soared by like stars in space, I mindlessly kept on my way. Several times, I’d pass a pair of spindly arms, grasping at the nothingness and pushing it away, though still no sign of the head.
Perhaps there was no end. Was this just my mind clung to the East and its counterparts to my kind? I wanted to know the meaning to this entity. I had to…
My eyes opened, and I took in a confused breath. My head was hung over the side of my bed, and my body sprawled across it, still fully clothed. Moments later, my 7 o’ clock phone alarm went off. Great.
Chialer wouldn’t be up yet, and by all means I wasn’t supposed to be getting up for another hour [the alarm was meant to be snoozed], but beast-damnit I got to sleep early, so I’m clim—well, flopping out of bed early too.
So I trotted out of my room…. And spent an hour watching an animated movie. One with dragons and Japanese spirits, y’know the one. In the middle of the third act, Chialer trudged out in atronach form.
“...The fuck is up with that lady’s nose?” she grumbled at the TV.
I glared at her. “What the heck is up with your fa—”
“Yo that dragon’s fucking hot.”
I thumped my fists on the couch. “He’s an ageless spirit that presents himself as a preteen! You can’t fucking say that!” I spat.
Chialer’s eyes went wide, and she gulped, turning to dart into the bathroom. “Shit, fuck, yeah, got that.” she said hastily.
“Wash your whore mouth out with soap!” I called after her, going ahead and turning off the movie. Mood was shot for watching it now, so time for slightly higher-than-normal quality ramen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So we wouldn’t be lurking around eachother all the time, Nebb and I bunked in different dorms, so I took several minutes walking myself over there. The uni campus was nice and quiet with 8 AM classes having just started, so I enjoyed the lovely sight of the last few moths flittering away to sleep for the day, trading places with butterflies and other diurnal bugs.
For a minute, I stopped at a flower garden, staring down the various butterflies. Unlike with other humans, they looked back. I could feel the nervousness and anxiety as they looked up at me: a moth fifty or so times their size, wearing the flesh of a human and walking plainly among them. I smiled.
“I wonder how many of you will be impaled on plaques by collectors with their little nails… If you live that long, even.” I said passively, my eyes going blank. From the facing side of me, the white spots of my wings faintly showed, all watching the little bugs, each making eye contact with one.
I seized up after several moments at a sudden noise. I turned around to see another student having just opened a bag of chips as they passed by several yards away. Better only the nonsapient mortals see me being… Me.
I knocked on the front door of Nebula’s dorm, getting a rude reminder of his poor taste: three jockish frat boys burst out the door, reeking of tobacco as they barged past me. “Haha, bad timing yo, we’ve got places to be!” one said.
“Date tryouts are next week, plenty time for weight watchers!”
The trio laughed as I clenched my fists. “Hey, you Nate’s sis? Y’look like it- make him get on it too!”
I let myself into the ‘dorm’ [being generous to the frat house] as they meandered down the street. Nebula was in the kitchen, combing the messy curls of his unfittingly-bright blonde hair whilst examining some liquid suicide of a drink.
“Still haven’t arse’d those dickholes?”
“I can’t just poison whoever I want, Ally, there’s these things called laws…” Nebula said passively as he glanced over.
“Then make it look like an accident, give ‘em moonshine that’ll drop them. Lucy knows we’d be doing the gene pool a service.”
Nebb put a hand to his face, setting the comb aside before taking a swig of his concoction. “You wanna fight the police, do it yourself. I’m not here for that kinda shit.”
I sighed roughly. “Whatever. Didja get that makeup assignment done?”
“Yeah, no thanks to Ty. I watched the recording I took yesterday and reenacted it as best I could.”
“Good. Any idea what we’re gonna be yelled at about?”
Nebula slid himself over to the sink to delicately dunk his glass in. Yes, delicately. “The quiz-een day-la Fronse.” he said, waving his hands pretentiously as he dipped into an offensively bad accent. “Moan sherry, you entered at zee PERFECT time.”
I rubbed my fingers on my brow in attempt to stave off a cringe-induced headache. It wasn’t working. “Careme, Careme… So he’s talking his own specialty.”
“Yup, he says he’s named after one of the great culinary innovators from there, so you know he’s serious.”
“Riiiight.”
I looked around. The kitchen was horribly ‘maintained’ by the fraternity, and a demon of sloth was far from about to fix that. Nebula took the awkward silence as an excuse to slip away to the fridge and pitch a beer can at me. With how often he did so, I caught it reflexively.
“Get drunk, what’s up,” he said, putting his hands up. Perfect timing too, since I threw the can back and beaned him in the nose with it.
“Go chat up Bear Grylls if you wanna drink piss, I actually have a sense of taste.”
“Says the stoner?”
“Yeah, for medical purposes. I don’t see dad telling you to drink alcohol for your health.”
“That’s ‘cause it’s implied.”
I sat down at the kitchen island as two other guys came in, talking to eachother. Nebb picked the beer can off the floor and popped the dent in the side into a hole he could drink out of, courtesy of a knife handle.
“Seats taken?” one of the frat guys ‘asked’, sitting next to me. His ‘buddy’ sat on his other side.
“They are now,” I quipped boredly, leaning an elbow on the counter to prop up my chin. “Bartender, gimme a solid cup of maple syrup.”
Nebb gave me a cynical look while the other two snickered. “Seriously?” he grunted.
“Yeah? Did I fuckin’ stutter?”
The guy next to me waved a hand at Nebb. “What, thought you were mister ‘two packs is nothing’ Nate?”
“Four packs of something meant to be drunk by itself.”
“Sounds like someone’s a wussy!”
The guys went into uproarious laughter. I’d cupped my hands around my mouth to make a sound akin to a vuvuzela, and reveled in how red Nebb’s face got. The next ten minutes were primarily him ‘relenting’ and drinking pancake syrup straight from the bottle, before challenging the others and myself to do so with other condiments. I got pushed to eat a whole cup of mayo, which… Ew. When I inevitably upchucked it on Nebb, only he got laughed at as he skittered away to clean himself up.
Once he was presentable again [and in new clothes], Nebula and I made our way to the main campus, where Nebb affectionately referred to Scape’s lecture hall as its ‘belly’. Chai was lurking at the side entrance, and I pulled out a cellphone to group-text the two my frustration about having to stay in human form.
“Y’think if Careme gets enough of us in his class, we won’t have to worry about that?”
“Nah, security cameras. And the doors are windowed.”
“Fucking home.”
I glanced over my shoulder as we skulked through the halls, ensuring nobody would catch onto our whispering and muttering.
“Why’s he want us in this class anyway?” Chai grumbled.
Nebula puffed out his chest haughtily, speaking up. “He believes the more students attend his class, the more chances they’ll get to have his greatness rub off on them!” he said, teasing at nobody in particular. Chai and I both rolled our eyes, but I quickly pulled out my phone again as I got an email notification.
] (AUTOCORRECTED) You’ll be seen as under the protection of an elder demon. Makes things safer for us.
I caught Nebb’s eyes in my periphery, and we both nodded. Chai stared at us in confusion for a moment, before pulling her phone out to read the message.
When we entered the lecture hall, it was set up like a recording studio for some Iron Chef-lookin’-ass cooking show. Scape waved Chai and I down to the podium at the front, surrounded by plug-in kitchen appliances stood on three layers of tarps.
“Bonjour, salut, everyone, we have two new students in the class!” the professor said. “They’ve been taking the class online before, but now they’ve gotten a schedule opening to start showing up in person!”
Our new classmates nodded along as Nebula set the ‘make-up assignment’ on a metal folding table, before finding a seat. I was pondering what sort of job to say I had quit to make room for that excuse.
“And who better to help out in today’s lesson?”
My blank expression turned to a frown. Nevermind, I was thinking up excuses to get out of that.
“Uh, I missed this part’a the syllabus. What’re we doing?” Chai said, leaning an arm on my shoulder.
Scape planted his hands on a stove, smiling warmly at us. “Crème brûlée. Should be easy for you, yes?”
Never-nevermind. This class might just be my favorite.
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8) The 'hero' prefers to give the antagonist a fate worse than death. Make them suffer for what they've done, reasonable or not.
Superheroes that are like “if we kill them we’re just as bad as they are uwu” ? Micro dick energy
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anyway here’s floridaman
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