Chapter Text
Shuriken didn’t know what to do. He still had the cult freaks to worry about, and even if he could find them he got woozy if he even got up to go to the bathroom because he was a fucking idiot who got hit by a car. He wished that stupid butch cowboy had been a good enough shot to kill him all those nights ago so he wouldn’t have to worry about work and Spellbook and how much he wanted to die when he saw his reflection.
He rolled over and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. Vine had dumped him onto his bed after he fell asleep on the couch. He checked the time. It was 1 in the morning, and he’d actually been sleeping that entire time. Maybe Spellbook’s car had knocked that stupid nightmare out of his head. If it wasn’t the weirdest thing he could possibly say to her he might have thanked her for that.
He was too lazy to stretch to get his phone back onto his nightstand, so he just dropped it on the floor. Then he saw it. There was something under his bed. He might not have given a shit under normal circumstances (he had a lot of random things stuffed under his bed) but what really caught his bleary-eyed vision was the color. That fuckass shade of teal, the one that the cult freaks had been wearing, the one that the horn dye note had been written in.
He dragged himself out from under his blanket and stuck his hand under the bed, and pulled out what was possibly the most ugly plushie he’d ever seen. It looked like one of the cultists, the fat one with the blindingly white teeth. The fabric felt weird, like it was made from the pelt of an animal. He really hoped that was just his paranoia fucking with him. He turned it over, and noticed the back was cut open and messily stitched back together. Next thing he knew, he was grabbing his knife out of the drawer of his nightstand, and stuck it onto the plushie, tearing into it with a few quick motions. There was another note hidden in the stuffing. Of fucking course there was. He pulled out the note and unfolded it.
‘Dear Vigilante,
I hope you didn’t rough up my decoy too much to get to this note. I truly care for all my little disciples, and I’d like if there was the slightest chance to fix him up after this whole ordeal. Do me a favor and bring him back to me if you get the chance.
Speaking of, we’ve found a place to take up semi-permanent residence as of late, and we’d like to have a little meeting with the oh so mysterious vigilante I’ve heard so many rumors about. Normally we wouldn’t put much thought into this sort of thing, but your performance in our prior meeting has caused the higher ups to reconsider. An address is on the back of this note. See you soon!’
He flipped the paper over and saw the words written on the back. It wasn’t an address exactly, but it was specific enough. Under the bridge to Lost Temple, 12:00AM, Feb 9th. Don’t be late.
Of fucking course this was happening while he was concussed.
His date with the cultists wasn’t until the next day, which was extremely lucky for him. He didn’t know how long the plushie had been in the apartment, but what if he had missed it? What would they have done to him then? The plushie proved that they knew where he lived, and they seemed more than willing to get violent with people.
Anyway, Vine and Sling refused to let him go to work so he spent the day on the couch, waiting for his fate to come. In the meantime, he searched the entire house, everywhere except his siblings’ rooms, for any more notes or plushies. Maybe he was just being paranoid but it couldn’t hurt to check.
He avoided his reflection the entire time. He told himself that it was because of the bandages wrapped around his head. He almost had a heart attack when he heard footsteps in the hall and had to scramble to pretend he had been on the couch resting all day before Vinestaff and Slingshot walked through the door.
“How was Lugar today?” He asked, sitting up and wrapping his arms around his legs, resting his head on his knees.
“He’s still alive,” Sling said bitterly, kicking off his shoes and sitting down on the couch next to Shuri. “That answer your question?”
Shuri just shrugged.
The rest of the day was oddly domestic. Sure, Vinestaff occasionally checked on him occasionally, but other than that she just watered her plants and made some shitty ramen that they ate around their shitty table Shuri and Sling had found in the street the year before. With how bad the last few weeks had been, it was kind of weird having a calm night where nobody was hitting him or yelling at Sling or pissing off Vine. But it was nice.
It was really too bad that Shuri went and ruined it when he put on his Silver Shadow mask and climbed out the window that night, off to go talk to the people who’d tried to kill him. He couldn’t be bothered to put on his full outfit, but the mask and the oversized black hoodie he was wearing would do just fine. It covered his face, and it covered the bandages, and that was more than enough for him.
It didn’t take long for Shuriken to find the meeting spot. The lost temple bridge was right above an old warehouse on the second layer. Shuri dropped into the roof, crouching down and holding his head as the impact worsened his headache. He checked his phone. 11:48, just in time.
He looked around, finding a window he could use to get inside. He’d considered just walking through the front door, but when he checked he found a vast assortment of chains, boards, and caution tape covering all the entrances. Long story short, he bashed a window (they already knew he was coming, stealth was useless at this point. He hooked his grapple to the edge of his brand new entrance, and rappelled into the warehouse. He was nearly silent as he dropped to the floor, dusting himself off.
He didn’t even notice there was someone behind him until the glowing blade of a scythe roped around him and came to rest just under his chin.
“Don’t move a muscle or you’ll choke on your own blood,” A voice with a deep southern accent said. He raised his hands slowly in a gesture of surrender as a second voice joined the first.
“Hey, glad you could join us. I remember you being a little more dressed up, though,” He said, circling around and sitting in one of three chairs in the room. “Have a seat, kiddo!” The scythe left its position at his neck, and he turned around. It was the cowboy. No, cowgirl was probably better. He hadn’t really noticed that she was a woman the first time he saw her, probably because she was built like a tank. That realization made him recognize the other guy, who was the fatass cultist.
He kept his hands up, sure he would get his throat turned inside out if he tried anything, and sat down across from Fatass. He heard the mechanical sounds of Cowgirl’s scythe turning into a gun, and cold metal touching the side of his head.
“Just in case,” She explained simply.
“Now that we’re all sorted,” Fatass said. “Let’s just skip over introductions and get to the important bits of information: You know who we are, and we know who you are.”
“Actually I don’t know who you are but who’s keeping track,” Shuriken muttered. Cowgirl barked out a laugh.
“This one’s fun, I hope we don’t gotta kill him,” She said. Fatass chuckled.
“I suppose that is true. All you need to know is that we’re part of a very large organization that’s taken interest in you as of late,” He leaned back. “Point is, you’re quite the hot topic among the big people and we’d like to give you an offer,”
“...What offer?” Shuriken asked slowly.
“We’d like to offer you a position among our ranks.”
“Ranks of what? you didn’t explain shit,” He responded immediately.
“Our church of course!” Cowgirl said enthusiastically.
“And if I don’t want to join a cult?”
“We’re not a cult,” Fatass corrected. “We’re a recognized religion in Lost Temple.”
“Aren’t cults religions like- 90% of the time?” Shuriken asked, rolling his eyes behind his mask. This conversation was only making his headache worse. He wondered if he could get Cowgirl to just get it over with and shoot him.
“Only 34%, actually.” He said. “Anyway, you really don’t have many options here. Of course the more preferable one would be you agreeing to join our church and becoming a follower of our God…”
“...But you know a bit too much for us to let you go, so the other option is us taking you in a bit more… forcefully.” Cowgirl finished, nudging him with the muzzle of her rifle.
Shuriken was silent for a moment. He didn’t really see a way out. Either he got indoctrinated into a ‘religion’ or he got shot. The second option was a tiny bit tempting but Vinestaff would bring him back just to knock him dead all over again. Then he got an idea. A stupid idea that probably wouldn’t work, but an idea nonetheless.
“Ok,” The words left his mouth before he thought it through all the way. “I’ll join.”
“Wonderful! Just one last thing. There’s a certain hazing ritual we have in the church, a sacrifice if you will.” Fatass said. Shuriken made eye contact with him, looking first into the normal eye, then the milky white eye. The one that, now that Shuri could see it up close, was fake. He glanced over and noticed that Cowgirl had a fake eye as well. All of the messages they had sent him had had an eye motif somewhere.
“Medkit! Get over here, it’s time!” Cowgirl hollered into the corner of the warehouse, lowering her gun. He took his knife out of his bag, and shoved it into the chamber of Cowgirl’s rifle. Scythe instinctively took a swing at him, and he ducked. He felt the cold metal of her mechanical fingers grip his hoodie, and hurl him onto the ground.
“Why you little- Medkit! Get your ass over here and do your job!” Cowgirl screamed. Shuri looked up and saw a third figure in a trench coat and an eyepatch, aiming and firing a revolver. The bullet barely missed, skimming his arm. He summoned a shuriken and threw it. His aim was better than his attacker, and it dug into their thigh, making them topple over. He grappled up to the ceiling, climbing out the same window he had entered through, then went back up to the bridge. He ripped off his mask and fell to his knees, holding his head. Everything hurt, but his head especially so. He sat there, holding back tears, until the pain dialed down into a manageable throbbing in his skull. He got up, and looked down at his mask. It was mostly intact, but there was a large crack in the wood.
He’d worry about that later.
He walked home in the rain. If he hadn’t been so tired he would have found the cliche of it funny, but not then. He walked past a few stores that were still open for whatever reason on the way back to his apartment. He looked through the window of one. There was a dress on a shitty mannequin inside. It wasn’t fancy, just a simple black dress, probably cheap and poorly made. He noticed that his reflection lined up with the head of the mannequin almost perfectly. He looked at himself for a long few seconds, almost spacing out seeing himself and the dress in the window, refusing to put the two ideas together. He kept walking, ignoring the feeling of dread forming in his stomach.
There was another place he stopped at, a little store with an apartment on top and a giant neon sign that read ‘DA SHOP’. Just like last time, he looked inside. It was a gear shop. They were pretty popular in places like Crossroads. Some people hated their gears and wanted a new one, so certain places would make artificial gears for them.
He heard something, and whipped around to see someone looking at him through a chain link window lowered over a counter built into the wall of the shop. The inphernal inside was around his age, with four blue horns and a prosthetic arm.
“Hey, we’re closed, come back in the morning,” He said, glaring at him. But when he saw Shuriken, his gaze softened slightly. “Jeez you look like shit. Homeless or just ugly?”
“Just ugly. Sorry, I was walking home and I’ve never really paid much attention to this place. Fake gears, huh?”
“The word for it is artificial, but yeah. Fake gears. You in the market?” He asked.
“Oh, uh- no,” Shuri said. He noticed that the inphernal was cleaning a woodstock rifle. “Is that, y’know, for someone?”
“Nah, I’m just practicing. I’ve been getting really into old models like this. I got the blueprints for this one from an old supplier who took me and my dad hunting once. It makes this really loud ‘ping’ sound when you pull the bolt,” He said. “It’s satisfying, if you’re into gun stuff.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah.”
They sat in awkward silence for a long time. Eventually, Blue horns raised the chain link shield just enough to slide the rifle to the other side of the counter.
“This is a bad neighborhood. A big gun might scare off a mugger,” He said.
“What? I can’t-” He cut Shuri off.
“Just fucking take it. Tell me how it works next time you come by, will you?” He dropped the chain link. “I’m Rocket, by the way.”
“Oh. I’m Shuriken.”
“See you later, Shuriken.” Rocket walked away, disappearing upstairs.
Shuri climbed back into the apartment through his bedroom window, chucked his mask into his closet, and sat down on the floor, holding the rifle in his lap. What the fuck was he doing, walking around with a fake fucking gear, he shouldn’t have let Rocket give it to him.
But he couldn’t go back now, not with how exhausted he was. He stuck the rifle under his bed, took off his soggy hoodie, and went to sleep.
He’d worry about everything in the morning.