Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Joey… Please respond…”

Jude clutched the sill of his window with his free hand, the other one holding onto his walkie with a death grip. His extra flare gun (what sensible boy doesn't have an extra?) had long since clattered onto the wooden boards of the treehouse, and the boy had been frozen in his place with his mouth agape. Shock creeped in at the edge of his fingertips, and he only squeezed the windowsill a little tighter in response.

What Jude had just witnessed was more real than any sci-fi movie had prepared him for. And boy, had he watched a lot of those.

“Over,” he said the word out of habit, the mumble across his lips smaller than any whisper.

He forced his eyes closed for a second. It’s a dream. Joey will respond any second now. Right? However, the retina burn that lasted on his eyelids, one green line and one red, stretching up the expanse of the night sky, put dread deep down in his gut. And, he must have been imagining it, two crossing blurs that swept up and down the lines, quick as bullets. Yes, Jude was definitely imagining that part. Perhaps even the whole thing.

After what felt like an eternity, Jude finally found the courage to move himself from the window sill. He turned to grab his flaregun once more, but never let his eyes tear away from the view of the mansion. He struggled to find his voice as he spoke into the walkie talkie once more, pressing hard into the button on the side.

“Joey. Please establish contact. Over.” Silence.

“Jo I know you think this is a joke but you don’t know what I just saw! Over.” Silence.

“Joey. Mansion may be unsafe. Potential… potential additional hostiles may be inbound. Over,”

Jude paced back and forth in front of his window, voice starting to crack.

“Come to the treehouse ASAP. Over. Please, over.”

He continued to pace, keeping his eyes as trained as he could on the attic window for absolutely anything. He thought… Maybe he could see something moving… Or was it a trick of the light?

“Sister, please confirm wherabouts…!” He could feel a sob thrown behind his words, despite his attempts to stay relaxed, and anxiously set the flaregun back down to run a hand through his hair.

“Can only assume worst, if not provided with additional intel, over!”

Right. This is getting him nowhere, and fast. If the line is tapped, which Jude can only rationally assume in a situation like this, then he’ll need to stop waiting for intel. Perhaps, if he keeps talking, Joey will find it in her sisterly heart to answer him, even with just an acknowledgement!

“I assume, taking evasive maneuvers, is the thing being done, over…” despite his determination to keep talking, his throat clenches at the prospect that something might be wrong.

“Or would it be, more rational to assume, terrible things…? Over…” the boy felt tears well up in his eyes, but shook his head and continued, slowly choking more and more on his words.

“L-like, monsters invaded attic, or… Or- hrk- Byers betrayed location… or, taken hostage by-by cultists…” he starts blinking tears out of his eyes, lifting his glasses for a moment to wipe them away.

“B-beamed up by… by aliens or… Snff… O-o-over…”

Shhfshf. Shhhhssshhh - CLUNK

“Wh-”

Jude stared at the walkie talkie in disbelief. It just emitted sounds… That meant… Joey must be there!

“HELLO PLEASE SAY SOMETHING!” He shouted, tears still springing out from his eyes. He was so swept up in his emotions that he forgot his signature ‘over’.

“How.. how the Fuck do you- clik”

Oh. Oh. That. That was definitely not Joey’s voice. It was gravelly and angry, if not a bit more on the high pitched side. Jude felt all of his elatedness drain and turn into dread.

“H-huh- with- with whom am I speaking…? O-over.” He quickly reached for his flare gun again, despite not seeing the foreign voice. It made him feel just the tiniest bit safer.

Ksshht. “Where the Fuck… Am I.” The voice stressed the f on his… expletive, and Jude cringed.

“Claire-Harley manor, sir, over,” He wondered for a moment if maybe it wasn’t smart to provide this information to a stranger. “Uh, if you’re a sir, that is, over.”

“What you mean iF I’m a… Oh, god damnit. Yes I am.” A loud slamming sound jolted Jude out of his bewilderment, coming from the attic. He rushed to the window again to try and see what it was.

“Intel on loud noise, stranger! Over.”

“Kicked the door down.”

“Are… Are you hostile? Over.”

“Depends, are you?- WHOA, WHAT THE FFUCK IS THAT!?-- clik ”

“Um… Reestablish contact when you are in a safe position! Over and out.”

Jude clutched at his chest and stared, stricken, out the window. There was a stranger in their house. Well, more of a stranger than the monsters were, anyways. A talking, snarky person. A talking, snarky person that wasn’t his sister. He fought back another sob.

Come on, Jude, you’re 15 now! You can handle everything! You can keep your cool, and you can save the day. He repeated soothing words to himself, but frowned again when he realized he imagined Joey was saying it to him. His thoughts would soon be cut short, however.

BANG. A gunshot rang out from inside the mansion.

Jude jumped about ten feet in the air, the sound coming from somewhere close to the attic. It was clearly a gun, as any well-behaved child who’s definitely absolutely never played with his father’s gun collection would know.

Fear struck through him like a bolt of lightning, and he couldn’t help but imagine that Joey was still there, in danger, with an unknown aggressor… His walkie, which was gripped in his hand, gave a quick two beeps before transmitting again.

“Ok, I dunno what kind of operation is being run around here, but I’m about two seconds from shooting everything in this hive and then myselF. So start explainin’. Where. The ever living Fuck. Am I.”

“I- Oh god- Please don’t shoot my sister… I s-said, the-the Harley-Claire mansion, sir! Over..!” He felt his voice raise a few octaves in panic, abandoning his post at the window and rushing around to collect anything he could potentially use to face the stranger.

“The Harley-whatever name doesn’t tell me jack shit, bucko. And I don’t know who the Fuck your ‘sister’ is, but my threat still stands. Since you’re useless on that Front, can you tell me what these monsters are?”

“I-I don’t know! I-f… If you hurt my sister I’ll have to… hurt you ! Over,” Oh god oh god why did he say that. Threatening a stranger who has a gun? Way to go, Jude!

“Kid, I have no clue what you’re talking about. There ain’t nothing here but these monsters. Is this sister your moirail, or…?”

Moirail? Jude pauses. It must be some slang word. Hive probably is, too, now that he takes what the stranger said earlier into account.

“I, wh- no, I don’t think so… Dialect unclear, over.”

The voice sighs, loud and breathy, directly into the walkie.

“Alright. Whatever. There’s too many monsters here. You got a saFe area?”

Jude doesn’t know why he does it, but before he can think about it, he responds.

“You can hole up in treehouse, outside. Over.” As soon as the words have left his mouth, he groans. Really? Sharing his only safe area with a cursing stranger? But, he supposes that anybody who can help is going to have to do.

“Are.. Are you sure there’s nobody else in the house…? Over?”

“Nope. Just monsters, dude.” the voice pauses for a moment. “You a highblood?”

“Uh, what? Over.”

“You’re using highblood dialect. Like ‘house’. Hope you’re just twisting my frond.”

“I… don’t follow, over.”

The guy on the other side sighs again. “For god’s sake, man. Alright, Fine. I’ll make it to your dumb treehive and we’ll Figure out what color your blood is then.” he continued to put extra emphasis on his f’s, but Jude was more worried about the blood color thing.

“I hope that was not a threat, am well equipped to deal with hostiles, over,” he said, puffing his chest. It was extremely false confidence, and he hoped the stranger couldn't hear the quaver of fear in his voice.

“Alright, well, if that’s the case, then we should get along swimmingly.”

Jude heard several more gunshots throughout the house, as well as sounds of monsters roaring and screaming in pain. He shuddered.

“Um. Okay, awaiting your arrival.”

He leaned against a wall, feeling heavy against the grainy wooden planks.

“Over and out.”

Chapter Text

Jude massaged his temples after holstering his walkie talkie. He wasn’t exactly sure what any of this was supposed to mean, and he had thousands of questions that he wanted to ask the stranger that was strifing monsters all throughout his abode. Every once in a while, he heard another gunshot or lots of monster roaring. The majority of the monsters had made residence in the mansion now, so Jude wasn’t sure how the guy planned on getting out of there. His doubts were soon to be answered.

The night was becoming darker, and Jude heard a crash. He ran to his window just in time to see a blurry figure dashing across the yard, absconding from what used to be the large bay window of the living room, which had been smashed earlier by monsters. There were some hot on his tail, namely the large serpent that had been accosting Joey earlier, which was riddled with gunshot holes across its long body.

Jude leaned out through his window as far as he possibly could, before yelling out to try and distract the monsters. This caused the stranger to tilt his head up towards the sound…

The light of the leaf-pile, still burning, illuminated the boy, of a modest height and slim figure, not too out of the ordinary. That was, of course, except for the long, antler-like horns that extended his height by at least a foot. Jude knew it was rude to stare, and decided to stare anyways as the stranger ran towards his treehouse.

The Harley quickly snapped out of it, and flung open the door of his treehouse. None of the monsters had been smart enough to figure out how to climb the ladder, and he hoped that would still be the case. The horned boy rounded the tree and leaped onto the ladder, climbing it as fast as possible with a pistol holstered in his belt loop. As his hands made for the last wooden rung, a flying monster grabbed his hood and yanked him backwards, and he made a strangled sound as he struggled to hold on, his feet having lost the rungs. The flying monster continued to tug, shaking the teen’s body viciously.

“Hrrgrrk- hELP-” he choked out, arms straining. Jude lunged forward, grabbing one of his arms, and put all of his weight into pulling him up. At the last second, the winged beast let go when the stranger kicked at it, which flung both of them backwards.

Jude managed to stay on his feet as the other boy tumbled through the doorway, and slammed his door as soon as they were both in. He managed to get a better look at the newcomer when he pushed himself up from off the wooden floor.

Grey skin, eyes of unknown color, as they were covered by sunglasses. Fangs large enough to stick out even when his mouth was closed. Thick black hair that was swept mostly to one side, and of course, a long pair of antlers that had small branches off of them.

“What… what are you?” Jude asked, in a hushed tone. His mind screamed only one word: Alien.

“Ow, damn, I hit my horn…” he growled, a hint of pain behind his hostile tone.

“The Fuck do you think I am?” he said, and raised his head.

As they connected gazes, he did a double-take.

“Wh- what are you ?!” he retorted, his lips raised in a near-disgusted sneer as he stood up. Jude stared at his sharp fangs for a minute, before scrambling for his flare gun and pointing it at the alien’s face. He had unfortunately forgotten to load it, but hoped that the intruder wouldn’t notice.

“You better answer some of my questions, before I decide to burn your face off!”

“Shoot, dude.” he said, his face still contorted in confusion, but now displaying a light frown of surprise and compliance when faced with a weapon. “Uh, I mean, like shoot your questions. Not your gun.”

“I’ll ask again,” Jude said, feeling more confident in this position. “What are you?”

“I’m a troll.”

“Troll?”

“Yeah, you know, from Alternia. We conquer other planets, haven’t you heard?”

Jude tightened his grip on the unloaded flare gun, and swallowed the ball of nerves in his throat.

“Are you here to do that?”

“What? No. I dunno why I’m here.”

“Wait… Really?”

“Look, I’ve got a rebellion to take care oF. I’m definitely not here by choice.” Now that Jude could see his face, he noticed how every time he strained an ‘f’ it allowed his fangs to flash a little more.

“What’s your name?” he asked, trying to make his voice sound determined and hard.

“Dammek. Tetrarch Dammek. Hey, you can put the gun down, you know.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“Fine,” he said, and pulled his (or pa’s?) pistol out from his belt loop. He cocked it and pointed it at Jude’s face, so they were now both standing with guns aimed at each other.

“I’ve got questions for you too.”

Jude tried to keep a straight face while he stared down the barrel of the pistol. Little did Dammek know, but his gun was not nearly as deadly as the troll’s. And, either way, it wasn’t loaded.

“Okay, okay, why don’t we both put our guns down.”

“Why? AFraid?” Dammek smirked and his fangs came in full view.

“No, but you know, they say teamwork makes the dream work.”

“They don’t say that.”

“They do on Earth!”

“Earth, hmm? Does it all look like this? What a dump.”

Jude couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance as the troll insulted his home turf, but gritted his teeth.

“And what kind of primate Freak are you supposed to be?” Dammek flicked the gun up and down, which made Jude flinch.

The troll didn’t even seem fazed by having a gun pointed at him. He exuded a sense of confidence that made Jude feel very little by comparison, and had the hand not holding a gun stuffed inside his hoodie pocket. It was hard to read his face with his blasted sunglasses.

“Let’s just put our guns down, please. Earth customs. Then we can have our conversation and not have to put absolute trust in each other to not die! Because I can’t say I trust you much yet. Alien .”

“Please?” Dammek snickered. “Alright, when you put it that way, can’t be so bad. Count of three. One, two, three.” Both guns were set on the ground with care. Jude let his shoulders sag with just a little bit of relief.

“Alright. Now, where were we? What species you are?”

“Human! I’m a human, just like everyone else on earth!”

“Those toothy bastards out there human too?”

“N-no! Ugh… I mean everyone that looks like me. And not exactly like me if that’s your alien species deal.”

“Um, no. Obviously. That’d be stupid. And your name?”

“Jude! Jude Harley.” He said, and tentatively held out a hand to shake. Dammek gave him a high five instead. He recoiled, not expecting the quick action.

“Y-You’re annoying, you know that?” Jude grumbled.

“Aw, thanks. You are too.” Dammek said, before turning to look at the chaos out the treehouse window, disregarding the human.

“Should that fire down there be dealt with?” he asked, not turning his head. Jude walked up beside him to see the situation.

Down below, several monsters were dancing and jumping around the fire in some sort of strange ritualistic way.

“Whatever. If they’re dancing, they’re not harassing us. Apparently that’s a good way to distract monsters too, not just sisters! Heh...” He glanced nervously at the attic. “You said... You didn’t see anybody else up there?” He asked, trying to hide the desperateness in his tone.

“Nope. Listen. All I know is, I was just Finishing up my machine when all of a sudden it shot some Fuckin’ beams out. Then, I get sucked up into the thing, and spit out at this shitshow. Then I had to listen to you whine while I tried to Figure out who the hell’s hive I’d just crashed.”

“Oh,” is all Jude can whisper, as the gears turn in his head. “You said you’re from… Alternia, right? A-and you got… Beamed here…?”

“Yep. Anything else I need to repeat? We good? It’s my turn for a question now.”

Jude conceded, sighing. “Yeah, sure.”

“Blood color?” He asked bluntly.

“Uh, red?”

“Wow, really? You sure don’t seem like one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you talk in the stupid highblood vernacular. And, you’re not nearly as submissive as other rusties I know. I guess you put on a good show,” he said with an approving nod.

“I… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Dammek was silent for a moment, before turning to look at Jude from behind his shades with his eyebrows raised.

“C’mon. You don’t need to be ashamed. I’m not lookin’ for anything. I’m only bronze, after all.”

“Your blood is bronze…?”

“Yeah, isn’t it obvious? Look at my clothes. You’re being all confusing, though, with your teal sign. Show some lowblood pride!”

“No, seriously, you’re speaking some alien stuff at me, aren’t you? All humans have red blood.”

Dammek seriously looked shocked, and turned his head away to save face.

“No hemocaste…? My god…”

While Dammek leaned with his arms crossed against the windowsill and tried to digest the seemingly heavy information, Jude pushed himself off and grabbed a journal. He tried his best to draw the troll from behind, doing about as well as you could expect from a fifteen year-old who only traces pictures for fun, before sneaking up and plucking a hair from his head.

“Wh-what the Fuck?!” he whirled about, baring his teeth. “Don’t touch me.”

Jude ignored him, studying the thick black strand before putting it in a small jar. He flitted about the treehouse, taking notes and organizing his things.

“I never expected my first alien encounter to be like this! Under different circumstances, I could very well be dissecting you right now, sir.”

“Big talk for somebody who looks to be five.”

Jude scoffed. “Actually, I’m fourt-fifteen.”

Dammek started at that, sputtering. “Fifteen sweeps?!”

“Years! What’s a sweep?”

The troll huffed at that. “This gets us nowhere, talking about our vocabulary.”

“Sure it does. Understanding each other is important, if we’re going to go save my sister!”

Dammek leaned his back against the wall. The guy sure did like leaning.

“Yeah, and who said we’re gonna do that? I’ve got places to be, Harley.”

“Don’t test me, or I’ll make you give me a blood sample.”

“Hey, testing people is what I do best,” he flashed a quick grin, and Jude puffed up his cheeks indignantly.

“Anyways, if your palemate has something to do with getting me home, I guess I’ve got no choice but to follow you on your little adventure.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that, but you better have my back. Oh, and I’m taking the gun!”

He grabbed for it before Dammek could protest, and the troll jumped to try and wrestle it out of his grip. He snickered a little bit, despite how serious the situation probably was to the other boy, and slapped Dammek’s hands away from the pistol before stashing it in his strife specibus.

“Ugh, whatever,” he hissed, and grabbed the flare gun. “Give me your extra flares, Harley.”

Jude didn’t pick up on the implication that Dammek had known the entire time that his flare gun was empty. Instead, he just turned over the flares from his sylladex.

“Don’t worry, we can get better guns inside the house.” He turned to the alien with a little smile.

“Oh, and just call me Jude.”

Chapter Text

Jude stashed anything in his sylladex that he thought might come in handy, while Dammek rifled through the boy’s notes with a confused look on his face.

“When did you Find time to draw me?”

“Unimportant. Come on, stay focused! We need to be prepared to face monsters!”

“Those things are true beasts. I pumped that serpent-looking thing Full of lead and it’s no worse For the wear.” Dammek tossed Jude’s journal aside, and started rummaging through the drawers.

Jude stopped and made a pose like he was thinking. “Well, the serpent seems to be the biggest threat. It’s the only one that hasn’t been distracted by the fire. Also it’s… creepy.” He tried to think of anything else about it, but came up short when he flashed back to its gaping maw nearly grabbing ahold of him when he and Joey first separated.

“Creepy? I guess,” the troll replied. “I can’t seem to commune with any of them. Perhaps they’re like lusii.”

“Commune? Lusii?”

“Oh, come on. No. No, I don’t want to get sucked into this whole vocabulary thing again.”

“Hey, if you have some wacky monster talking powers I ought to know about them!” Jude’s brow furrowed, and he stared at the shade-covered eyes. After a moment of the eye-contact showdown, Dammek finally turned his head away in defeat.

“Fuck, man, Fine. Bronzebloods can communicate with beasts. My powers are, uh, not that great. But usually I can at least talk to them. Those monsters out there got nothin’ in their brains I can reach.”

“Is this power… Like... all ‘bronzebloods’ can do this?”

“To some degree, mostly, yeah.” he sounded bashful, but Jude didn’t poke him again on it. “And, you said humans here are all rusties? How good are your telekinetic powers?”

“Uh. What.”

The two of them stared at each other again, which was starting to become a frequent action.

“Do… Human rusts not have telekinesis?”

Jude shook his head. He sure wished that he did, though, because there have been many moments in his life where he was too short to reach something.

Despite the information being news to him, Dammek only smiled.

“Guess that means you’re not as powerful as I thought.”

“You better not try anything regardless. Must I remind you who has a gun and who has a flare?”

Jude gestured to the flare gun that was sticking out of Dammek’s hood pocket.

“Why don’t you put that in your strife specibus, anyways? You could drop it this way.”

Dammek’s smile faded, and he looked pensively out the window.

“I’ve got something else in there.”

“Oh.” Jude didn’t know what else to say, so he left it at that.

After several more minutes of silently packing up anything that they figured might be useful, they both stood idly by the door of the treehouse. After a few “after you”s and “no, I insist you go first”s, the two of them decided to stand side by side as Jude slowly opened the door.

They were greeted by the screeching winged beast that Dammek had kicked away earlier, and the troll did not hesitate to pull out the flare gun and shoot a fireball directly into its gaping mouth. It screamed and got blasted back by the point blank impact, before falling the long way to the ground and writhing around.

“Was that entirely necessary, Dammek?” Jude snapped. “You’ve only got three of those until we reach the house.”

“Anything that aggrieves me has hell to pay,” is all that Dammek growled in reply. The air started to smell like singed meat. Jude made a personal vow to never provoke the alien.

While the two of them grumbled at each other, monsters that were around the fire began to lumber over at the sound of a comrade screaming. They stood below the small deck of the treehouse, clawing at the base of the ladder aimlessly.

“Great! Now what, Tetrarch ?” Jude spat, and pulled the pistol out of his sylladex, pointing it shakily at the monsters. His eyes remained trained on one of the more angry looking ones, but his finger quivered against the trigger, and he hesitated to shoot.

Dammek watched this with interest, and his emotions withered into annoyance as Jude remained still.

“The hell you waiting for? Kill it. It just wants to kill you.”

“I…” Jude trailed off. Dammek raised an eyebrow as the kid slowly lowered the gun to his side.

He had tried to pull the trigger, he really had, but Jude just couldn’t do it. He had always thought if he and Joey got into some wacky situation, he would be able to step up and be heroic, but now he looked at the creatures below, and they were just that… Creatures. They breathed and felt pain, and he could finally understand why Joey was determined to be a pacifist.

Dammek sighed when Jude didn’t finish his sentence, and loaded the next flare into place. However, before he could train it on anything, Jude snatched it away, and held out the pistol for him to take.

“Just… Don’t shoot me, okay?”

“If that was my plan, I would’ve already.” he said, and gently took the gun.

Jude looked away as Dammek proceeded to shoot down all the monsters standing below.

Dammek was the first to start climbing down the ladder, after his deed was done. Despite the large amount monsters now dead, he was cautious and silent, expecting more to show up any minute. Jude followed, equally quiet, and stared with wide eyes at the bloodsoaked grass. The blood was a bright green, not unlike the insides of their mouths. He looked up when Dammek gestured for them to sneak across the yard.

Dammek slunk up towards the porch, and looked like he was contemplating coming back through the window he had originally come out of. Jude tapped him on the shoulder and brought his attention to the large serpent curled up in the room, licking its wounds.

“Let’s go up to the front of the house,” he whispered.

“‘Kay.” The troll gestured for Jude to take the lead, and they both continued onward along the side of the mansion.

As the two stepped up the stairs of the front, Jude pushed one of the double doors open tentatively. However, it seemed like nothing was awaiting them, so he pulled Dammek inside by a sleeve and let the door click closed behind them. He kept ahold of Dammek’s sleeve and tugged him toward the staircase, the two scampering up as quickly as possible.

At the top of the stairs, they could see down the long hallway, with a short monster at the end of it. Dammek tightened his hand on the pistol, but Jude pushed his hand down. It hadn’t seen them yet, and Jude’s room was close… The two crept as slowly as possible towards Jude’s door. He turned the handle slowly, and let the door drift open…

Crrreeeeeeeaaaak.

The monster, which had been turned the other way, whirled around and roared. It charged down the hallway towards the two boys, and Jude shoved Dammek inside his room before shutting the door behind them. Mere seconds later, the monster slammed against the door, and fell to the ground with a thud.

“Did… Did it just knock itselF out?” Dammek asked, a bit out of breath from the sudden experience.

Jude laid against the ground and looked underneath the crack of the door. Sure enough, a large, unconscious mouth was inches away on the other side. He gave a small sigh of relief that it wouldn’t need to be dealt with any time soon.

Standing back up, Jude turned around to see Dammek looking through his paperwork, which was scattered all over the floor and on a desk.

“Hey! That stuff is personal.” He jumped over several splayed-out piles of papers, which were all laid out in a circular fashion surrounding the spot where Dammek was currently crouched. Grabbing onto the troll’s shoulder to pull him away from the papers, he tugged. Dammek refused to budge, poring over newspaper articles and red marker circles, mouthing the words to himself.

“Come… On! None of that… Stuff… Is important- right now-”

It was all the work of one of his recent conspiracies, about how an alien had been spotted, an alien with green skin and a numbered hat.

“This is a leprechaun.”

“Come on, I’ve got other stuff- wait, what did you just say?”

Dammek pointed his claw at a fuzzy black-and-white image, which showed the stout creature, with a bowler hat and large, bug-ish white eyes.

“There’s myths about these little guys, and their weird charm-based romance.”

“...Uh.” Jude was stuck between wanting to collect more information and trying to stay on-track.

“Okay, if this is relevant later, then you can punch me. Lightly, ” He corrected himself when Dammek grinned evilly. “But right now, we’ve got bigger stuff to deal with! There’s already an alien here, so what’s another one between friends?”

“...Right.” This seemed to barely convince Dammek, but he stood up, stepping over piles of papers. “So, what’s this important intel you’ve got?”

Jude couldn’t help but contain a smile as he crossed the room, and hopped onto his bed. Two huge X-Files posters were pinned up on the wall to the side of the bed, and he carefully unpinned them and peeled them back to reveal the mess of red string and stapled-up papers behind. Newspaper clippings of various sizes, some local, and some printed from the archives at the library and off the internet. He looked back with a smug smirk to see Dammek slowly approaching and looking at various pictures.

“Hmmph, reminds me of my research on the Trizzbitch.”

“Uh, who?”

“Never mind. Rebellion stuFF.” He climbed up onto the twin-size mattress, and took a closer look at the expanse of paper across the wall. “I… I just have a question. Dunno if you can… Actually answer it…”

“Hmm?”

“I shouldn’t be able to read your language, should I?”

Jude fell silent. No, he probably shouldn’t have been able to read English.

“I’ve seen it before.” He continued, putting one hand to his temple in concentration and using the other to lift a piece of paper gently from its stapled position on the wall.

“Why would you have? As far as I know, Earth is the only place that could use it. It was created here.”

Dammek didn’t respond, staring at a piece of paper for a long time, though it was clear that he was lost in thought, looking past the paper’s contents.

Chapter Text

It was three sweeps ago, when Dammek first planted the seeds of rebellion among his fellow lowbloods.

He had just left Xefros’s hive, deciding to walk to the lowblood market that was a few blocks away from their hives. He grumbled to himself and kicked a few pebbles that littered the sidewalk. Their feelings jam had been entirely unproductive, mostly on Dammek’s part. He wasn’t in the mood, he hardly ever was. He was starting to wonder if he was cut out for conciliatory quadrants at all. Every time that Xefros offered him over, he felt more and more trapped and cagey. Talking about feelings wasn’t something he could bear easily, especially when he had to be veiled all the time because of his anti-establishment opinions. Xefros had always been the tiniest bit skeptical of Dammek’s ideas, but he was always listening whenever the bronze wanted to talk about it. Dammek sighed as he felt some rubble crackle under his feet from a collapsed part of the pathway. He couldn’t ask for a better moirail. Xefros was far too good to him.

As he continued walking with his head bowed and hood up, he realized he must’ve taken a wrong turn. He was starting to head into a neighborhood that wasn’t so poor, and he slowed down. Being caught here as a bronzeblood would mean certain culling, or at the very least getting beat into the next wipe. He turned around and started speed walking back towards the slums, hoping nobody would notice him. Unfortunately, Dammek had no such luck. He froze at the sound of a voice chanting out to him.

“Hey, there, welcome to the neiiighborhood.~”

Dammek had no choice but to turn around; if he started running the highblood would surely give chase.

A girl about his age was striding towards him confidently, her long straight hair swishing. Cerulean. Fuck. Would a tealblood have been too much to ask around here?! They were statistically less likely to violently murder him.

“What’s a liiitle bronze liiike you doing iiin thiiis part of town?” Her three eyes swept up and down his body, and he tried to keep a straight face.

“I took a wrong turn, I’m sorry. Was just on my way back downtown.”

“Were you, now?” she purred, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s nearly sunrise, you know, I could invite you in for a meal.”

“Uh, I… I appreciate the offer, but I should be getting along. My-uh, my lusus is waiting for me, you know how they get.” He mumbled, finding it hard to maintain eye contact, even wearing sunglasses.

“Oh, III certainly do. Heheheh. Yes, III think iiinvitiiing you iiin would be just… So generous of me,” she said, wearing a sickening grin. “Iiit would be such a waste for you to turn down an offer of friiiendshiiip from someone the liiikes of me.”

Dammek felt himself trembling ever so slightly, and tried to slow his hammering bloodpusher.

“Um. As mentioned, my lusus is waiting at home, as much as I’d love to.”

The cerulean girl’s eyes narrowed and her mouth turned downward, which made Dammek’s blood run cold.

“Don’t liiie to me, now, that wouldn’t be very friiiendly of a lowblood. Come, come.”

Dammek felt his legs jerk forwards in spite of himself, and he swallowed down a yelp.

The cerulean girl led him towards her hive, not too far away, and he was forced to follow her inside.

“Have you heard of me, boy? Iii’m very popular on the streaming siiites.”

Dammek stayed silent. Now that she mentioned it, he might have seen her face somewhere.

“Speak.” She snapped, and his mouth forced out some words.

“Of course I’ve heard of you, Ardata.” It sounded dull, like he was reading from a script.

“Good. Good.”

She continued to lead him through the house, to a bunker not unlike his own, with the hatch found inside the meal block. As they entered, the coppery smell of blood hit him so strong he swayed on his mind-controlled feet.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he said, not of his own volition. Yeah, there were definitely things the matter.

As the sight of the bunker reached his eyes, he was overcome with pure horror and disgust. Blood of any shade lower than jade was pooled all over the walls and floor, and several emaciated lowbloods were kept in cages.

As soon as ‘Ardata’ stepped down fully into the bunker, one of the rustbloods whimpered involuntarily. She didn’t seem to hear, and stepped over to mess with a camera sitting on a tripod.

Dammek stared at the rustblood boy, and couldn’t help but imagine if that were Xefros. The very thought made his vision cloud up with a red haze of anger.

Before he knew what was happening, he sent his own animal-controlling powers out in a fit of rage, and apparently affected something. A huge tick bounded from the corner where it had been nestled out of view and started screeching. Ardata jumped at the sound and whirled around just in time to get tackled by the thing.

Dammek suddenly found the use of his legs again as the girl struggled under the weight of the tick, writhing around in a pool of blood that wasn’t her own. The lusus wasn’t attacking her, but pinning her enough that she lost her wit and mind-controlling.

The few other lowbloods in cages looked bewildered, like they had been snapped out of trances, and Dammek yelled over the tick’s screeching for them to hurry.

The rustblood used his telekinesis and clicked every lock open, in a feat of mastery for being so obviously weakened. The lowbloods all scrambled out of their cages in fear, and Ardata continued to struggle under her lusus while the small group of captives absconded.

As they flooded out the front door, Dammek struggled to keep hold on the tick’s mind and keep Ardata pinned. She needed to stay there as long as possible if they were all to escape. Most lusii were near impossible to control, but perhaps the insect’s simplicity and Dammek’s absolute anger had combined well enough to get the tick to act.

Most of the lowbloods took off as fast as they could away, but two stuck behind helping Dammek out; a bronzeblood girl, and the rustblood boy. The fellow bronzeblood looked at Dammek and nodded, before providing as much controlling help that she could as the three continued running. Eventually they made it to a lowblood alleyway, and Dammek collapsed against a dumpster. Another rustblood that was already in the alleyway gave them a dirty look, but continued whatever it was she was doing.

The three panted over the running, the two escapees more so after being trapped there for who knows how long, weakening. Dammek’s vision felt fuzzy, but he got back up and urged the two others to follow him back to his hive. He saw the sky lightening, and pushed them to hurry before they would all get burned.

As he stumbled inside flanked by two newcomers, Dammek’s lusus growled.

“Sorry, we’ve had… A really rough night, okay?” He gave the two of them the little food he had left, and let the rustblood sleep in his recuperacoon. The bronze slept on a splaysac, and Dammek slept on the floor as best he could. The three of them crashed quickly, and it didn’t seem like very long before Dammek woke up from another nightmare near dusk and headed to the meal block for a glass of water.

In these days before the true rebellion, Dammek’s hive was not nearly as cluttered. No guns, or messy foods spilt about. Still, he clattered through his dishes to find a cup that wasn’t grimy. He wasn’t the best with cleaning his dishes.

It just so happened that Dammek saw a bright green light coming from one of his windows, and he peeked outside to see the flash receding.

Despite the sun still setting, not all the way down, Dammek was overcome by some kind of urge to investigate. Opening his door quietly as not to wake the two strangers, he saw a single piece of paper resting on the lawn, and tentatively picked it up.

The writing was illegible to him, but what stood out was the large diagram of what looked like a giant weapon. It had a base, and then a large circular opening, surrounded by two metal serpents whose mouths were closed. Different parts and pieces were displayed, and instructions in a foreign language were hastily scrawled on the back in very small print. Dammek was confused by the unfamiliar language, but his eyes seemed to involuntarily unfocus and focus back in, and when he looked again the lettering was Alternian. Hmm. Must have been a trick of the mind.

Dammek didn’t know it yet, but this would be the start of something larger than himself. He didn’t know it yet, but this would throw him and the rest of Alternia down the road of rebellion, and send him to another planet.

He didn’t know it yet, but he does now.

Dammek let his eyes come back in focus, where Jude was tapping him lightly on the shoulder.

“Mm, what is it.” he said, his mind reeling from his thoughts.

“Where could you have seen it?”

“Seen what?”

“English. Earth language. The thing that you never should have seen before in your life and can now read perfectly?” Jude said. Dammek internally cringed. His voice was so grating, it made him want to… Huh, he didn’t know what he wanted to do, actually.

“I… Can’t really remember,” he lied, thinking about the words on the blueprint for a portal.

“Hmm. Tell me if you do, that could be a lead!”

“...Okay.” Dammek wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to share this. Maybe he just wanted to figure it out for himself. Maybe the thought of something even bigger going on behind everything else that’s already happened was frightening to him. He looked at the copy of the portal blueprint that was stapled to the wall, and felt a migraine coming on.

“Before anything else, I’m gonna have to put a pause in this. I’m famished!” Jude said, and headed across the room.

Dammek turned and silently watched him rummage through his dresser drawers, suddenly feeling very insignificant in whatever this big scheme was happening around him. He wished he could feel as hopeful as Jude that they would actually change anything.

Chapter Text

Jude pushed around clothing in his drawers in search of the emergency rations that he had stashed somewhere and grumbled to himself when he couldn’t find them. He had already been unpleasantly surprised to find that he’d left his drawer slightly ajar, so he figured that his pet had been scouting out the area already. Speaking of, where was that noodly rascal? He hoped that his poor little friend didn’t go off and get himself killed, like… Snff… Frohike. He let himself stand still in a moment of silence for the Gunbird.

“...What are you doing?” Dammek asked, after Jude had stood there for well over a minute with his eyes closed.

“Grieving,” he said softly. “Grieving.”

“Hm. Well, hurry it up. I thought you were looking for food.”

The troll continued to scan over the multitude of information pinned on the wall, following the red string lines that Jude had made. The boy went back to digging through his drawers with a huff. The ‘rebel’ that had crashed through his roof was starting to really get on his nerves, what with his aloofness and awkward bouts of silence. Also, Jude was pretty sure that he had something to do with all of this monstery-portaly-Joey go missing-y stuff.

“Who’s this human?” Dammek asked, and Jude turned to see what he was looking at. His hand was stretching up to reach one of the higher pictures from where he was standing on the bed.

“Oh.” It was a picture of his and Joey’s mom, that he had found from a newspaper clipping in the library. Unlike the rest of the clippings, that one was higher up and wouldn’t have been covered by the X-Files posters.

“Uh… Just… Someone that we used to know.”

“You and Joey?”

“Yeah.”

After a second of thinking, Dammek took a quick glance at Jude, and back at the picture, like he was trying to make up his mind about something.

“She looks pretty. I mean, by your disgusting human standards,” he said, and Jude’s lip curled in disgust. Did this alien have the hots for his dead mom? Ew.

“She’s not… not important to this whole thing, kay? At least… I hope so.” Jude felt his voice grow smaller as he thought about it. Dammek didn’t pick up on any doubts he had, though.
“Shame.”

“Please stop.” Jude finally said, and turned back around to now absentmindedly look through his things for the rations. Dammek’s lips curled into a small smile at the boy’s irritated tone.

“Hah! As if I’d ever be Flushed for an alien race. Maybe pitch if I met one annoying enough. I was just commenting on something aesthetically pleasing, so hold your hoofbeasts.”

“...You just said so many words I didn’t understand. I’m just not going to try and decipher that one.”

Dammek didn’t even seem to hear him and kept rambling while Jude half-heartedly tossed clothing out of his dresser.

“I mean, I guess she’s nice, but I haven’t met her! But I’ve met you, and if you’re representative of your whole species, damn .”

“Right. Mhm,” Jude said, not actually listening, getting more and more frustrated as clothing started piling up beside the dresser.

“And that’s, like, a good damn, I guess.”

“Sure.”

“‘Cause, you’re like, really annoying. All the time.” Dammek’s voice dropped a bit lower at that, which caught Jude’s attention. He turned to face the troll, who was smirking.
“Well, I think you’re annoying too. You don’t have to talk about it, okay??” Jude snapped back. “We’ve got stuff to do, and whatever stupid rivalry you’re trying to have with me can wait.”

Dammek looked taken aback.

“Fuck, man, okay. I… I can respect that... Shit.” His face blushed bronze, and he turned back to look at the pictures on the wall, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Jude, now in a tizzy, yanked his closet door open and pushed around his hanging clothes for no reason. He couldn’t think of a reason why Dammek felt the sudden need to insult him as much as possible in the span of a couple of minutes, but the other boy had hit a nerve by talking about his mom.

As much as he tried to be optimistic about his life, unlike Joey, he still missed her. And talking about it to a snarky stranger wasn’t going to help that wound heal. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he focused back on the task at hand and stepped deeper into the walk-in closet. He was only sliding things around in there for a couple minutes when he heard Dammek yell in surprise and then a sudden scrabbling, like claws on plastic.

Jumping out of the closet with his flare gun in hand, he prepared for the worst but then quickly relaxed at the sight in front of him. Dammek was lying prone across the bed, with his shaded eyes trained on Jude’s nightstand. Jude’s ferret was staring right back at him, from his little entrance point of brightly colored plastic tubing. Jude laughed a bit at Dammek’s expense, over his first reaction to yell.

“Meet Mulder,” Jude said, and walked over to scoop up the ferret.

“Is that your lusus? I was starting to think humans didn’t have them.”

“I dunno what a lusus is.” He said sharply, still a little peeved over his last conversation with Dammek.

“Oh, guess you don’t have em, then.” he replied in an equally barbed tone. The two boys, one cradling a ferret and the other cradling his ego, stared at each other in hostile silence.

Mulder wriggled out of Jude’s grip and he let the ferret go, who shot off and went under the dresser. After a moment of silence, the boys heard crackling noises from where the pet was hidden.

“Well, if that’s just a normal animal then, watch this.” Dammek put a hand to his temple in concentration, and seconds later the ferret blankly dragged out a package of crackers that it had chewed through.

“...Whoa. Mulder, you scamp!” Jude said, scooping up the food, before checking under the dresser to find the rest of his rations stashed in a corner.

“Alright, food get. Gosh, that took a while… Thanks.” Jude looked at Dammek, who stared back cooly.

“Uh-huh. What do you have, anyway?”

Jude crossed the room once more and dumped the pile of food on the bed, which included the half-eaten crackers, a small packet of milk dust (if only they had water), several granola bars, a bag of potato chips, a very old can of SPAM, and a plastic baggy with some banana chips. Dammek looked at the stuff with a measurable amount of disgust. Jude just wondered how the ferret was able to drag the SPAM out from his drawer and all the way underneath it.

“You pick first,” Jude said, with a look of smugness in his eye. He watched Dammek squirm with hesitation and laughed.

“Does any of this actually have meat in it?” the troll grumbled.

“The SPAM does, but good luck opening the can.” Dammek snatched the can huffily and Jude sat on the bed across from him, pushing the food in between them. He then grabbed a granola bar and opened it neatly while the troll fumbled with his can. Eventually, Dammek became so frustrated with the unbudging metal that he just chomped down as hard as he could on the lid, which resulted in two neat fang-sized holes in the can and Dammek bleeding bronze from his gums. He wiped the blood off on his sleeve and mumbled some obscenities. Jude stared at the color for a bit, before breaking his gaze away.

“Okay, I know you said your blood was bronze, but part of me didn’t really believe you.”

“Well, I still only half-believe what you said about all humans having rust blood.”

“I mean,” Jude mused with his mouth full, “Depending on how much oxygen is in the blood it could be rusty. But mostly it’s brighter… Like, crimson? Or candy red? Joey told me that once when Tesseract got a cut.”

“Who?”

“Our dog. Oh, geez, I hope she’s still safe outside…”

“Do you mean that big white barkbeast that was out there? In the miniature hive? I saw it hiding.”

Jude’s ferret Mulder scurried up to the foot of the bed and put its two front paws up on the frame, prompting Jude to pick it up and place it in his lap, while Dammek was finally able to pry the lid of the can open. He used the lid as a makeshift spoon. For a few minutes, they ate in silence.

“So.” Dammek said, as he scraped the sides of the SPAM container.

“So?” Jude parroted.

“What’s our plan? What do you actually know? I mean, you’ve got all that paper over there. What’s your theory…?”

The boy stroked his ferret thoughtfully.

“Well. I haven’t found many leads on the cult. I have seen them lurking though… I think they have to be the ones who unleashed the monsters here.”

Dammek nodded, sifting through their food again while he spoke.

“I don’t really know what you mean by the cult, but you’re saying the monsters showed up right before all this serpent stuff happened?”

“Yeah, basically I got stuck in my treehouse, and Joey hid in the attic. Before… I dunno what she did, but, she must’ve set the portal off.”

“...I wonder if she went to Alternia.” Dammek said quietly, and Jude looked up.

“Would… would she be safe there?”

“...No.” He said grimly. “Alternia is a dangerous, violent place. That’s why we were rebelling, and an alien such as her would likely be culled on sight.”

Apparently, this wasn’t the answer that Jude wanted to hear, because his stark facade quickly melted away and he turned to bury his face in ferret fur. Dammek couldn’t see his eyes, but he could hear a muffled sniffle.

“Um… That isn’t to say…” Dammek started backtracking. “That isn’t to say she’s dead for sure.” Jude didn’t say anything, but it was clear he was listening.

“Something was going on right when I got transported, I’m not sure what. But… She likely met my boyfriend, and I’m sure he’s helping her out now,” he said, giving Jude’s shoulder an awkward pat. The ferret wriggled out of his grip again, and its back was wet with tears as it fell with a thump onto the carpeted floor.

Jude wiped his face with a sleeve and sighed, looking back up again at the troll sifting through his food options. His face was a bit red. Dammek held up the banana chip bag close to his shades for inspection.

“Are these like grub chips?”

“I dunno.. They’re called banana chips here.”

“Hm, shares a word, good enough for me.” He ripped open the bag with his teeth in a quite violent manner, dried banana pieces spilling on the floor. For once, Jude didn’t have the energy to comment. He watched as Dammek studied a chip before nibbling on it, and grabbed one for himself that had spilt on the bed, popping it in his mouth.

“Wwwwwoah. Sweet.” He was smiling as he chewed the chip, and Jude couldn’t help but snicker.

“Are these, like, candy?” He asked excitedly.

“No, they’re actually quite nutritious,” Jude said, feeling a bit better with something to take his mind off his thoughts.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had anything this sweet.”

“Really?”

“Lowbloods generally don’t have access to recreational foods.”

“Oh… Wow. Banana chips aren’t even that sweet. I guess your planet does need some rebellion if none of you ever get to have sugars.”

“Yeah, that’s a reason, I guess.” Dammek didn’t look convinced, and Jude could only wonder the real reasons he was rebelling. “Tell me more about this cult.”

“Right. Basically, there’s five that I have seen lurking around, but they haven’t done anything yet. I’ve got code names for them, too.”

“Oh, really? Lay ‘em on me.”

“King. That’s the one that’s always in the front. Fashionista, the tallest one.” He continued talking as he reached for the wall and pulled down a blurry photo of the five silhouettes. “Sci, the thin one, taller than King but not as much as Fashionista. And then, Carnie and Baby, the shortest two.”

“So, why? Why would they be lurking at your hive? I’m assuming Earth is more protective of its members, seeing that you’re all weaklings.” Jude rolled his eyes, but Dammek kept going. “It would be in their best interest not to get caught wandering around by your barkbeast, right?”

“Um… Sure. But Tessie wouldn’t hurt a fly. I think they’d be more worried if our babysitter or dad was around.”

“I don’t know what those are.”

“Uh… Caretakers. Usually me and Joey are alone, but our babysitter comes to visit us once a day at least.”

“In the day? Really? That’s strange.”

“Why?”
“Wouldn’t the suns scorch them?”

“Uh. No. Your planet sounds terrible. We only have one sun, and it’s mostly not harmful.” Jude smiled and took a handful of banana chips, using his other hand to cover a yawn. “Usually I’d be asleep by now, maybe that’s why I’m so grumpy.”

“At night?”

“Yeah, we humans do all our stuff during the day! It’s longer than the night.”

“Hmm…” Dammek shifted and slid the banana chip bag closer towards himself as if to stop Jude from taking any more. He put a hand over them possessively.

“Just take them if you want them, geez,” Jude grumbled.

“I think I will, Harley.”

“I told you, call me Jude. Harley sounds too formal!” The boy leaned against the wall that was covered in papers and closed his eyes. “I think maybe it’d be best if we got rest while the sun’s still down. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, and I'm wiped out.”

“...Okay, if you say so.” Dammek sounded doubtful, and adjusted his shades idly.

“So, that means get off my bed.” Jude pushed.

“This loungeplank? Uh, okay… Where are your recuperacoons?”

“Our whats?”

“Oh, man, don’t tell me you lameasses don’t have them.”

“I’m assuming we don’t, considering I don’t know what they are.”

“God DAMN it all. You idiots sleep on these springy things?” He pushed the bed with a palm. “It’s been a long time since I last practiced sleeping without a ‘coon. Ugh, I wish I did it with Xefros…” He mumbled, mostly to himself, and Jude pushed his shoulder lightly.

“Off my bed. Floor for the alien,” he said, but Dammek didn’t budge.

“Guests always get the most comfortable place! I’ve been trained in butlering, you know.”

“I- what?” Jude was caught off guard by his words and felt himself get shoved off the bed. He made a squeak once he realized he was heading for the floor, and stumbled forward. “What the-?! My room, my rules, you jerk!” He clambered back on and tried pushing Dammek off. This king of the hill continued for a few more minutes before it devolved into a tangle of arms pushing at each other, and Jude couldn’t say he was really angry anymore. He couldn’t really say he hated it either.

Eventually, though, he got the drop on Dammek by grabbing one of his horns and swinging him sideways. The troll let out a yelp and scrambled off the bed in an instant, his shades askew, admitting defeat.

“ Fuck dude! Personal space!” He grumbled, and snatched one of the blankets off the bed, scooting as far away from it as he could while still being able to keep an eye on it. He ended up beside the desk that was piled high with papers, his eyes still burning. Jude hoped that he hadn’t actually hurt the troll. He didn’t really know what nerve endings were in the horns. Really, maybe it was a bad idea to do that. Dammek, now smoldering in the corner next to the desk, leaned against the wall and kept a stony face. His shades covered his eyes, so Jude didn’t know if he was sitting there watching or actually sleeping. Regardless, he was the winner! So, to the victor go the spoils.

Jude curled up in a mess of blankets, his back to the alien, and soon found a nervous sleep.

Chapter Text

Roxy Lalonde, or Ro-Lal as Jude affectionately called her, was horribly, mind-numbingly hungover.

She fumbled for her screaming alarm clock and accidentally pushed it off the bedside stand, cringing as the hardwood floor gracefully accepted it with a ringing crash.

Oh boy. She knew this was going to be a long day.

She didn’t know the half of it.

Oh, shit, the kids! She had said she was going to drop off their groceries last night…

She rolled out of bed, and stood next to it with one hand on the wall for support as the world spun. As she stumbled into the kitchen of her apartment, she sighed a looong sigh at the state of affairs.

All the groceries, including the produce, were still in plastic bags and had been left on the floor. She bent down to look at a bag of shredded lettuce, which was wilting.

Looping the bags on her arms, she took them back to the car, hoping that the kids wouldn’t mind if their salads were a bit mushy.

Oh, right, maybe it’d be good if she got out of her pyjamas first. Hangovers, man.

As Roxy drove down the long winding road that led to the half-Harley manor, she almost felt guilty enough to turn around and get new produce. The only thing that kept her from doing so was that the kids probably didn’t care a single bit, and would just eat all the junk food she got first. She tried her best to pull the tired out of her face as she started down the mile-long driveway.

As she started catching glimpses of the mansion through the trees, she felt an eerie feeling settle in the pit of her stomach, but chalked it up to post-drinking nausea.

However, as she finally came into full view, things were certainly out of place.

If she had followed Jude’s adventures up to this point, she would know that there were supposed to be dead monsters littered about. Alas, she didn’t know the first thing about any shadow creatures with gaping maws, because there were none to be found.

As she stepped out of her car and popped the trunk, she looked at the carnage that was the front yard. Charred remains of a leaf pile left an extremely strong burnt smell, and a strange lime-green liquid was soaking in the grass right outside of Jude’s treehouse. The large bay window of the living room was shattered, and Roxy swallowed back a bit of fear. Had robbers been here? What criminals would leave this much evidence? Too bad she didn’t know any gutsy gumshoes who could take on the case. She could only figure that the kids had been too rough with their playing. They had broken a lot of things before in their wild romping, as good children do. A window this large was a new extreme though. Especially when topped off with a leaf bonfire and dumping what Roxy assumed to be paint in the yard.

With trepidation and groceries, Roxy walked up to the front door, which was suspiciously unlocked. It was Saturday, so she knew the kids wouldn’t be at school. Oftentimes they knew better than to leave the doors unlocked in such a valuable home… She yelled in surprise when something cold hit her ankle-

Oh.

“Tessie, sweetheart! What’re you doing outside?” Roxy looked down at the dog that was nosing at her feet, whining.

“Show me where the kids are please.” She asked the dog, who looked up with a confused, adorable face akin to a shrug.

She opened the door warily, still not sure what to make of the situation.

“Juuuuuuudie! Joooooosey!” She called out, and waited. She heard frantic scuffling and thumping from upstairs, and couldn’t help the breath of relief that escaped her.

-

Jude felt himself rudely awakened by Dammek gripping his shoulder and shaking him violently.

“What- hhhhg what are you doing…” he said groggily, still in the midst of a pleasant dream.

“I heard noises. I think it was a scuttlebuggy door. Outside. Somebody is here,” Dammek whispered. Jude opened his eyes at this, casting his gaze to the window that was brightly lit with sunlight.

“H-how long has it been day?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to leave you alone until you woke up naturally, but this throws an angular shaped tool in my plans,” he hissed.

From downstairs he heard the front door open, and the two boys froze.

“Juuuuuuudie! Joooooosey!”

Oh no oh no oh no, is all that Jude could think, as he rolled off the bed with an ungracious flop onto the floor, groaning a bit as he landed on his arm. He was still wearing the clothes from the previous night, so maybe he could make it look like he’s been awake. He spat in his hand and combed it through his bedraggled hair, hoping to slick it. Dammek stood by and watched in confusion and disgust, his hair still perfectly kept from sleeping in a sitting position, before Jude started shoving him towards the closet.

“Stay in here and make NO noise or Ro-lal will hear you,” he whispered, before shutting the door on the bewildered troll.

From there he threw his bedroom door open, shutting it pointedly behind him, and tried to keep his gaze casual as he looked down the stairs at Roxy, standing there with bags in her arms.

-

Tesseract pushed her way past Roxy and barreled up the stairs at an alarming pace, nearly crashing into Jude, with her tail wagging excitedly.

“Jeez…! Hi baby, I missed you! Uh,” he glanced at Roxy, “since I saw you. Several minutes ago, yeah.” He ran a (totally) casual hand over Tesseract’s back, and looked in an (absolutely) chill manner towards Ro-Lal.

“Hey, Judey!... So.” Roxy said, not sure how to approach the extreme mess that she had driven up to.

“So,” Jude said back, not for the first time in a few hours.

“Um. I brought groceries!!” She exclaimed, and started heading towards the kitchen.

Jude, not knowing that the monsters were long gone, called out after her, thinking that the serpent beast was still in the living room.

“H-Hey! Uh, how did you get past all the monsters out there?”

“The what?” Roxy stopped again, fingering at the plastic bags she had in her hands.

“The… The. Um.” He suddenly remembered there had been no unconscious monster at his door when he opened it. No ominous growling or wings flapping outside his window.

“N-never mind,” he said, and came down the stairs with trepidation to meet Roxy. She pulled him into a big hug.

“Where’s Joey? I think it’d be good if we all talked today.” She said in a high, fake cheery voice. Jude knew she was referring to the copious amounts of damage done to the house, and tried to think of something that might appease her.

“Uh. She had a… Surprise meet today with her dance class.”

“Really? I thought the classes had ended already.” Oh.

“That’s why it was a surprise! Heh. They wanted to make sure that everyone was practicing for their next advancements…?” He had no idea what he was saying at this point, but hoped that it made sense.

“Okay, sure. When’ll she be back?”

“I. I dunno. Soon, hopefully,” he said, his voice cracking.

Roxy looked at him with a stern glimmer in her pink eyes, thinking about his behaviour. It was quite clear he was hiding something. She didn’t push on it yet though, and started walking again to the kitchen. Jude couldn’t help it when he clutched one of her arms in fear as they turned the corner, and Roxy didn’t shrug him off, despite the odd look she gave him.

Alas, all that awaited them was a monstrous, monstrous mess. And yet, no serpent in sight. Jude sighed quietly, hoping Roxy wouldn’t hear. She did, but gave no implication of it.

Basically everything in the room was knocked over. Even the couches. Nothing was safe. She hopped around a toppled blue lady lamp and nearly tripped on a pillow in the process, waving her food-filled hands around haphazardly. Jude had let go no and followed behind.

The kitchen was in a similar state of disrepair, but luckily most of the things had remained fastened to the wall. She started shoving food into the empty fridge.

“Sorry I didn’t get to you guys last night,” Roxy said sweetly.

“Uh, yeah, we… missed you.” Jude wished that she had come last night, inebriated or not. She could’ve averted a majority of this crisis…

“Well, to make up for it, I’ve got a few hours before they need me at the lab! I can stay here and hang, hopefully Joey will come back so I can check in with her.”

“...Right. Hopefully.” Jude said, and let out a bated breath. He had no idea how long Dammek would be patient and stay in his room once he realized it was safe downstairs.

“...Soooooo. What have you been doing today, Judas?” She looked to him once she had finished stuffing everything into the fridge, regardless of whether or not it belonged in there.

“Just working on my newest theory,” he lied.

“Oh! The one with the green men? Have you gotten any new pictures?” She asked, smiling sweetly. Jude knew that she didn’t always understand his theories, but she always humored him.

“No, but I think they might be leprechauns.”

“Really? Can I see your work?” She said, and started heading back towards the stairs before Jude could think of a response.

-

Dammek sat in the closet with his head on the ground, trying to listen to the conversation that was taking place on the ground floor. He could only catch extremely muffled words, and growled in irritation. He figured that “Ro-Lal” as Jude had called them must be an ally, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be out of the loop.

He crept out of the closet after realizing that it was a lost cause, and laid against Jude’s bed, feeling the fabric between his fingers.

It wasn’t long before he felt the thumping of feet on the stairs, and Jude’s talking becoming louder and louder.

In hindsight, what Dammek did would be considered stupid by all parties, but in the moment he was overtaken with curiosity. He figured that Jude would be leading the person to the attic, to show them the green force field that now surrounded it. So, he leaned with his ear pressed to the door, and tried as best he could to listen to the conversation.

“No, seriously, I haven’t made much headway, it’s not important and my room is super messy and I’d be embarrassed to have you see it-” Jude was gushing, voice coming closer. The other person didn’t seem to be fazed by this.

“I want to see it, Jude! I love your little theories.” They must be female, the voice was quite high and smooth. He stopped thinking about this as soon as he realized what that meant. She was coming. Into this room. Jude was trying to stop her. It was too late to get away from the door now, their voices right in front of it. They would surely hear if he leaped away.

-

Roxy was suspicious of Jude’s behaviour to a high degree. He was trying to be avoidant about his theory, when normally he’d be spouting on about it to anyone within earshot. And with the state of the house, she was definitely going to have to determine a cause. Jude whined behind her as she placed her hand on the doorknob, and she pushed it open.

A boy was standing right there. Just behind the door.

“Hi.” He said, slouched, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets. Huge horns were over his head, and fangs poked out from his mouth. His skin was grey.

Roxy stared at his shaded face for a moment, before promptly passing out.

Chapter Text

Dammek stared with an indescribable mixture of emotions on his face down at the unconscious lady, who was crumpled uncomfortably on the floor. Jude rushed to try and pull her into a sitting position, but she was too big for his admittedly unfit self to handle.

“Guh… Can you help instead of standing there, please?” He said, straining to hold her sleeping weight, arms wrapped around her sides. Dammek shook his head lightly in shock, before grabbing her ankles.

The two boys wobbily half-carried, half-dragged Roxy down the stairs, and set her down on a loveseat in the living room that hadn’t been toppled over. Dammek continued to stare at her, and eventually Jude got annoyed with his continued silence.

“What’s your deal?? Have you never seen a girl before or something…?” He said, turning from Roxy’s slumped form to Dammek’s slouched one.

“What do you take our species For? Screw you and your ignorance. Why the hell do you know an adult ?!” he hissed, as though afraid to wake said adult.

Jude looked back and forth between the dead-to-the-world Roxy and Dammek, with a bewildered expression.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Adults take care of kids and like, the whole world.” Dammek raised his lips in a mixture of fear and confusion, before turning away to regain his composure.

“Fuck, oF course they do, because nothing can make sense on this backwards planet.” he muttered, a hand on his forehead.

“Well, whatever. If I get murdered when she wakes up, I’ll kill you,” he snapped in Jude’s general direction, still having his back to the boy. He then started to wander throughout the room, looking for the best weapon he could find.

Jude stared at the back of Dammek’s head as he stalked off, and scoffed. This whole thing was stupid and if the troll had just stayed hidden, it wouldn’t have happened this way. He looked back down at Roxy, and wondered what the heck he was supposed to do now.

His babysitter was passed out on a couch, the monsters from last night suddenly M.I.A. He had an actual alien looking for guns in his home, and hooded weirdos were stalking his family. Well. What was left of his family. He felt his heart ache for Joey’s comforting presence.

Jude might not have been the most pleasant to his sister. He may have been a pain to her, and her to he. But Joey was more than just a sibling for him; she was a reason to keep going. And hell if he was going to stop trying to bring her home, because he didn’t know what he would even be without her. It was always Joey and Jude, a package deal. They made each other better and complete.

Ugh. Stop being so mushy, he thought to himself, and went into the kitchen to see what exactly Roxy had brought. He was pretty hungry after only having a granola bar for dinner and a few crackers when he had woken up in the middle of the night. He had slept fitfully, like somebody was watching him. Heck, maybe somebody was. He had no idea whether Dammek actually ended up falling asleep the previous night, and with the cultists being nearby they might have installed some sort of weird surveillance. He tried to push that last thought out of his mind.

Opening the fridge, he could nearly contain a squeal of joy; such beautiful foody commodities! He was going to have to hide all this stuff if the monsters came back. However, he did notice a bag of shredded lettuce that was all browned. He stuck his tongue out at it, deciding he would have to make Dammek eat it. He noticed Mulder scurrying by in his tubing system, looking jealous at Jude’s haul. The boy laughed in triumph at the furry noodle.

“Hah! Hey, Dammek, Roxy brought more food!” He called, feeling a twang of remembrance for all the times that he had yelled that out to Joey.

An antlered head poked into the doorframe. “What’s the catch? Is it a puzzle to open the meal vault? I’ve helped Xefros with those.”

“Huh?” Jude said, and grabbed a carton of eggs. “I’m making an omelette for breakfast, that’s the catch. How many eggs?” He looked at the troll, who had come fully into the kitchen. In response, he looked down at the eggs.

“Huh. I can’t believe that you weirdos would have something as normal as cluckbeast ova. Three.”

Jude got to cooking, hoping maybe the smell would wake Roxy. She had passed out a lot before, but never from shock. Usually just too much alcohol. Jude laughed to himself. He tossed ham cubes and cheese onto it, and contemplated making sausage as well. Usually Joey did that part. She always said he was too young to manage much more than eggs, much to his protest. It wasn't like she was much older. He opted for toast instead, making sure there would be enough for the three of them.

Meanwhile, in the living room, Dammek was milling about, looking at the pile of guns he had gathered. It looked like a very dangerous jam-pile, and he kicked it over at the mere thought of it. Xefros would probably be very anxious to have a feelings jam in that. He was probably duly right there. Dammek frowned at the thought of his moirail being alone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Roxy start to stir, and scrambled for one of the more impressive looking shotguns, training it on the human as her eyes fluttered open.

“Jude… wh.. What the FUCK?” She screamed, sitting up and pushing herself backwards on the couch before rolling off sideways, jumping up and backing away from the armed alien.

“What the ever-loving hell are YOU?” she yelled, and Jude was out of the kitchen in a flash.

“Dammek! STOP PUT THE GUN DOWN what are you doing?! Oh goodness-” He slid to a stop right in front of the troll, slapping the shotgun muzzle away. He barely let it budge, but frowned at having Jude standing in front of it.

“Move! I’m keeping her in line.”

“Like hell you are!” Roxy said, and strode up to the two boys. She raised a hand and Dammek cringed away, like he was expecting to be beheaded. She easily wrestled the gun out of his distracted grip, and pointed it in his face instead.

“You better start explainin’ some stuff right now, Jude!” she forcefully smiled, her grin looking maniacal. Jude swallowed. This was the most upset he had ever seen her get.

Dammek looked like he was afraid for his life, and Jude side-eyed him to see bronze beads of sweat collecting on his forehead. He had none of the composure that he had when the two of them were pointing guns at each other before, possibly because neither of them had the actual intention of shooting then. Roxy’s finger was very much on the trigger, and Dammek dared not breathe. Jude squeaked out something, finding his nerves very hard to grasp.

“Can you repeat that, sweetie?” She turned her eyes on Jude momentarily, and he wanted to melt into nothing under her stare.

He never quite realized how much of a badass Roxy was.

“Uh… I made some breakfast… And we can explain...  all  this  stuff...  if  you want…”

Roxy nodded at Jude, despite having to strain to hear him as he trailed off.

“Yes. We are going to eat breakfast, and I am not letting this thing out of my sight.”

Chapter Text

Dammek picked at his omelet (apparently it was a grublette without the bugs) and tried to ignore the barrel of the weapon that was lightly pressed on the side of his head by the babysitter. Jude sat on the opposite side of the table, with his hands folded and his mouth in as straight of a line as he could muster, while the older woman shoveled eggs into her mouth as best she could with one hand held up to an alien’s head. She cleared her throat after a moment.

“So, what’s going on.” She said it more like a statement than a question, and Jude sighed.

“Where… where do I start, Roxy? Everything is going on. It’s everything.”

“Hmm. Maybe start with telling me where your sister is,” She said, and made eye contact with the boy. Her pink eyes were intense, and Jude squirmed under her gaze.

“Uh... How do I explain… Dammek?” He squeaked, and the troll raised his eyebrows as if asking permission to speak. Roxy shifted to look at the grey-skinned boy more clearly, and he gulped in turn, trying to find anything in her nearly-fuschia colored eyes. The very color was sending tendrils of shock into Dammek’s spine.

“Uh-h um. Aherm. Guh,,” he stammered, before he stopped and put a hand to his forehead in embarrassment.

“Can he speak?” she asked, flicking the pistol on the side of his head a little.

“Yeah, but he’s never flustered like that. So far he’s just been annoying and aggressive.”

Dammek growled a little at the insults, a bit of bronze flushing his cheeks, which caused Roxy to tighten her hand on the pistol; he quickly went back to stony silence.

“Uhh... “ Jude tried to ignore the confusing behavior of the troll, and bit at some of his omelette. “So, where’s Joey… Um… So last night monsters attacked the mansion, that’s why it looks like this-”

“Whoa. Hold on. Monsters?! Like this thing?” She asked, gesturing to Dammek with her free hand.

“N-no oh jeez. No, they were like… Shadowy, big monsters with green mouths…” Roxy looked at him incredulously, despite there obviously being something strange afoot already with the troll at the table.

“No, really! ” He said, and glanced at Dammek. “Right? Come on. You killed, like, ten of them.” Dammek nodded assent silently, still seeming weirded out.

“Anyways, basically, um… I got trapped in my treehouse, and Joey got trapped in her room and…” He trailed off, trying to tell whether Roxy believed him or not.

“I couldn’t even lie about this! You didn’t see all the... Ugh.. the blood outside?”

Roxy thought back to the lime-soaked grass and nodded slowly. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and in the moment she lowered the pistol that was against Dammek’s head, resting it against his shoulder. He looked at her sideways through the edge of his shades, but stayed in his seat.

“So what are you trying to say happened to Joey, if huge monsters came through the house…?” She said quietly, not looking up from the hand on her face.

“See, we can only theorize, but I think it has something to do with Dammek. She locked herself in the attic… As per my suggestion… And, uh, there was a big portal in there…”

“A portal.” She said, looking up now, witheringly into Jude’s eyes.

“Well, we think it’s a portal. And then all I saw was two beams of light and then when I got the next response from the walkie, it was Dammek.”

“What, like some kind of… Switch?” She said, and looked with interest in the troll’s direction. He avoided her piercing pink eyes. “So it’s really… Some kind of alien. Is it threatening?”

“He.” Dammek mumbled quietly, barely seeming to have opened his mouth. “And… no?”

Roxy didn’t seem convinced by his answer and kept the gun on his shoulder. Just then, Tesseract barged in the room and started sniffing the troll, nuzzling at his legs. She didn’t seem fazed by the tensity of the room, and even got a small smile out of him.

“Tessie is fine with him,” Jude offered.

“Tess is fine with anybody ,” Roxy huffed, but removed the gun, setting it down on her side of the table. Dammek remained tense, but felt some of his muscles relax despite himself as the metal was taken off his shoulder. He reached down to pat the large dog softly on the head, and a more full smile graced his face. Roxy nearly gaped at the sight of his large fangs, but Jude was more interested in the fact that this was the first time he had seen the troll genuinely smile. He shook the thought away hurriedly, back to this whole situation and the now-cold breakfast.

“Well, we need to find Joey then! Or, bring her back, I guess…” She said, trying to force some bravery into her voice. “I’m canceling my day at the lab,” she said, and started to push out of her seat abruptly before stopping.

“Um… I guess I’ll need to take you guys with me, since there’s no way I’m leaving either of you alone.”

Jude’s eyes widened. Roxy was not anywhere near a good driver, if his past experiences were anything to go by, but more concerning was how Dammek was going to go unseen with his giant horns.

“What about him? We can’t bring him in public… I’m not even sure if he’ll fit in the car well enough to sit upright.”

She looked at the troll, and his very long horns.

“Well, we’ll just need to be careful. And I don’t mind if your antler-things scrape the ceiling, my car’s pretty beat-up anyways and this is kind of important.”

Dammek’s lip curled at the mention of his horns scraping something, and thought about what his options really were anymore. He was stuck with two aliens, possibly about to go see more of them, and was going to be roped into whatever dangerous stuff they had to do to prepare for this mission (which he still was unclear on the details of). He sighed and shrugged his shoulders at the two of them, and then looked down at the untouched “omelet” on his nutritional plateau. Jude’s eyes were also trained on the plate.

“Come on, just eat the thing so we can get this over with,” he urged, and Dammek pulled a face, but dug his fork in.

The three of them walked out the door with much more confidence than they had prior, each of them wielding a handgun just for safety. Dammek trailed behind the boy and his babysitter, and nearly bumped into Roxy when she froze on the spot.

In front of them was the gravel that signified the parking space.

“My car is gone,” she said in horror. “What… The… Hell.”

Jude shouted out in alarm suddenly, training his gun on the forestry past the space, and the other two quickly did the same. Something was rustling in the bushes, and it was moving quickly. Before the three knew what hit them they were knocked onto their asses, and each’s yells were muffled as their mouths were blocked with a chloroform cloth.

Dammek’s last sliver of vision saw a big mug of a face, green and hat-clad.

He was going to punch Jude so fucking hard when they woke up.

Chapter Text

Roxy Lalonde learned many things about herself that day.

First, she learned that she was pretty good at striking fear into aliens, which she supposed was a nice thing. She also learned that she needed to pay more attention to Jude’s conspiracy theories, because now there were two honest-to-god alien species that have invaded her day.

She also learned that she was very good at holding her breath and faking unconsciousness.

Perhaps it was because of her frequent experience being passed out, but that was pure speculation.

As a green man held a chloroform cloth up against her mouth and nose, she immediately started struggling but got nowhere fast. She knew from watching too many crime shows with Jude that this was some stuff that made you pass out upon inhalation, and decided she could deal with faking something like that, her lungs starting to burn with a need for air. She had reached her daily capita of faintings, and let her eyes slip nearly shut and went limp, still keeping her eyes slit open for long enough to see the two boys behind her fall unconscious genuinely, their yells tapering out.

Three green-skinned men let their three new captives slump over, cloths abandoned, and Roxy let her back twist in an uncomfortable way to fall limp in the grass. She listened to them converse for a minute, unable to tell what they were saying in hushed, quick voices, before they stepped forward and each picked one up without trouble despite the deadweight. Roxy was a bit unnerved by their apparent strength, as the largest out of the three picked her up in a bridal carry.

They were carried for several minutes down some of the driveway, before Roxy’s carrier apparently got tired enough to un-captchalogue her car and put her in the trunk, along with the two boys. It was cramped and extremely uncomfortable, but she did her best not to move; she figured there would be no point in trying to wake the boys up and they weren’t taking these green guys (leprechauns?) in a fight any time soon. Dammek’s horns poked into her side and he groaned uncomfortably in his sleep.

The ride wasn’t as long as Roxy had expected, but it certainly was bumpy. She had to stifle her grumbles of pain as they jolted along the roads, crammed into the trunk with two kids that certainly weren’t small. When they finally screeched to a halt, causing all three bodies to jolt forward against the back seat, it was a terrifying yet welcome relief. Roxy couldn't help but shudder to think what was going to happen to them, but tried to steel her resolve as she fell back into position when the trunk door opened. Jude, who was jammed up against the trunk, started to roll out as it opened. The green guy just let him do so, and he fell to the pavement with a thud. Roxy cringed at the sound.

The three were carried into what looked like the larger manor that was across a few hills, the only neighbors that the Harleys had for a few miles. Jude had always spouted his theories about the place, but Roxy had scolded him for speaking bad of them. Huh.

Roxy listened to the chatter as they were carried up the front steps.

“We’ve got the ones boss wanted.”

“Heh, look at the dame.”

“Yeah, what a piece of work, bet Crowbar’s havin’ fun carryin that one.”

“I’d advise you shut your trap, Itchy.” the one carrying Roxy, ‘Crowbar’ allegedly, spoke, his voice gravelly and low. Roxy had to stop herself from stiffening in fear. The rest didn’t seem very serious about the affair, but the man carrying her expressed a certain graveness that made Roxy wonder what her fate could possibly be.

As the three were carried through various hallways, Roxy’s apprehension grew as they passed each green man loitering about. Were there any normal people around here??? She counted more and more of them… 14 in total. There was absolutely no way that she could take these guys. Eventually, her carrier nodded to the other two and Roxy felt her stomach drop as they started carrying the boys in a different direction, away from her. She fought back an urge to scream as they turned a corner and left her view.

…

….

…..

Jude felt his lungs rumble and he rolled over suddenly, coughing. He had been laying belly-down on a green carpeted floor, hands tied behind his back. His thoughts were fuzzy, memory foggy, as he tried to recall what was going on.

Oh.

OH.

He, Dammek, Roxy, kidnapped. Kidnapped . A powerful word in any sense, and here he lay with rough scratchy rope binding his hands uncomfortably behind his back. He turned his head the other way and saw Dammek, out cold still, his hands similarly tied. His shades must have fallen off somewhere, his closed eyelids visible. Unsimilarly, his mouth was taped.

“Dammek.” He raspily whispered, after looking around to make sure nobody was in the room. He tried to nudge the teen with his feet as best as he could, but the guy wasn’t stirring at all, so he tried backing himself up against the wall to be able to get standing.

After getting wobbily to his feet, head still spinning with the aftermath of the chloroform’s effects yet to wear off, he kicked at Dammek’s arm testily, getting no result except a light twitch. He turned to survey the room.

The room was elegant, with leather chairs and several canes scattered about. Jude knew he wouldn’t be able to wield them with his hands tied, but there didn’t appear to be anything sharp about to cut the rope. God, if only Joey were here to solve the puzzle!!

He looked back to Dammek, still unconscious on the floor, wondering what he could do. He didn’t want to hurt the troll, but needed to get him awake. His long horns were near the ground, and Jude took a second to ponder it before giving the horns a sharp kick.

Dammek gave a muffled shriek as provided by his taped-over mouth, and his eyes flew open suddenly, his shoulders shaking violently to try and reach up for his horns, but restricted by the rope. He wriggled around on the ground for a moment, probably in pain, before looking up, enraged, at Jude. He probably would have screamed in Jude’s face if it weren’t for the fact that A) his mouth was covered and B) this was a pretty tense situation, as he soon realized while his brain caught up with everything that had happened. He looked witheringly at Jude, whose mouth was not covered. Oh, the unfairness of it all.

“Dammek, what are we going to do?” He looked pleadingly at the troll, as if expecting an answer. Dammek shrugged shakily, still in a fair amount of pain, before rolling over and trying to get on his feet.

What were they going to do? He let a small puff of exasperation out through his nose. He looked at Jude, who was standing there like a lost lusus, before finally making it to his feet, wobbling similar to how Jude had. He scuffed angrily at the floor when he realized his shades were missing.

Jude stared at Dammek’s eyes, which were shockingly yellow, before looking around once more. Dammek started gesturing with his shoulders, kicking his ankles, and mumbling incoherently at Jude, which was quite irritating. The last thing that either of them needed now was a speech barrier. Dammek growled at Jude, trying to get his attention, before kicking a bit harder at his ankles.

“ What?! I don’t understand.” He snapped, before tipping his head to try and adjust his glasses hands-free.

Dammek looked down pointedly, and shrugged a shoulder up to touch his chin. Something with the tape on his mouth?

“How are we going to get it off? I don’t have my hands,” he said, staring blankly at the troll as his brows furrowed in a pissed-off manner.

He gestured with his shoulders at Jude’s face, to which Jude raised his own brows.

“What?” He said, completely lost, and Dammek growled, putting his face close to the boy’s. His eyes pointed down at Jude’s lips, and he stared intensely. God damn this was awkward.

Finally, after the same dance of “I don’t understand”s and gesturing, Jude finally got the message. Use teeth to rip tape off Dammek’s face. Easier gestured than done.

He had apprehension as he leaned in towards Dammek’s face. Just do this quickly and we can forget about it forever, yeah, he thought to himself, and Dammek leaned down a bit so that the slightly shorter boy wouldn’t have to stand on his toes. He seemed just as embarrassed by this, if not more so. It was incredibly easy to tell what his emotions were when his shades were gone, and his eyes were flying around wildly trying to look at anything except for Jude.

The boy examined the piece of tape, trying to see if there were any loose bits. Nnnope. That would be too lucky, wouldn’t it?

Dammek mumbled something, probably along the lines of “hurry up”, and Jude sighed to himself before reaching at a corner with his teeth and trying to peel it back with his front teeth unsuccessfully. He huffed in frustration before finally getting a piece to catch, and grabbing onto it, flicking his face away to finally rip the thing off. He spit the tape out with a “pleh”. Dammek stepped back, his face a bit twisted at the apparent pain of having the tape ripped off, and his familiar fangs flashed once more.

“For Fuck’s sake. Took you long enough,” he snapped, a bit of blood welling up above his lip. He licked it off before turning his head to investigate the room more fully, squinting a bit sans his sunglasses.

“HFF. Alright, turn around, raise your hands.”

Jude looked a bit startled. “Why?”

“So I can bite the ropes off, idiot.”

Ohhh. Jude thought that Dammek just wanted to be able to speak, but it made sense that whoever kidnapped them saw his teeth and decided to tape his mouth so they couldn’t escape. He still rolled his eyes as the troll insulted him. Maybe he was still mad that Jude had kicked his horn? What was the deal with those things anyways?

He turned around and raised his hands as far as his shoulders would allow, and Dammek quickly started tearing through the binding with his sharp teeth. With a final flourish, he broke the knot, but scratched Jude’s wrist with his teeth in the process.

“Yow! What the heck, dude?!” Jude’s hands flew forward to look at the damage, a bit of blood leaking out of the scratch.

“For my Face,” he sneered, “Blood For blood. Also, speaking of blood, yours is Fucking weird.” He leaned over Jude’s shoulder to watch it trailing down his arm, before getting shoved away.

“What? Just curious, jeez,” he said, and Jude looked at him scoldingly.

“So. We gettin’ my claws untied anytime soon, orrr…” he drawled, and Jude went to work getting the ropes undone. Eventually, after a few minutes of frustrated grumbling, they fell away and Dammek flexed his hands happily.

“We need to find Roxy,” Jude said matter-of-factly.

“Look at where she got us last time we trusted her.” Dammek replied, his voice stinging as he looked around, before picking up a cane and turning it over in his hands. Jude sighed and followed him across the room, jiggling the handle of the singular door. Locked. He tried to look through the fogged glass of the doorway, but Dammek pushed him aside and took a swing at the glass without hesitation.

The glass shattered under the cane’s blow, and the troll reached through the shards still stuck to the other side of the door, unlocking it from the outside.

“You’re welcome.” He said, and gestured for a disgruntled Jude to step through first.

“We should be trying a stealthy approach.”

“Fuck that. I’m tired of stealth.”

“We have no idea who we’re dealing with here!”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

“Forgot?”

Wham . Jude recoiled as Dammek punched him, hard , in the arm. He bit down on his hand to stop from yelling in pain.

“W--what was that for, jerk?!”

“Leprechauns, it’s Fucking leprechauns, Jude.”

“...”

Jude recalled their previous conversation about the green aliens, and facepalmed.

“Ugh, okay, fine. Let’s go beat up some irish rainbow dudes, I guess?”

“Right. I don’t know much about them, but they’re probably not that strong…?” Dammek looked unsure, but tried to be reassuring as Jude grabbed a cane of his own and peeked out the door, making sure the coast was clear.

“Cool. Luck filled, complicated romance here we come,” Jude huffed jokingly, but Dammek just frowned as the two boys exited out into a hallway.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing that Crowbar didn’t expect when they got to this dump of a timeline, it was that they were going to dabble in some petty kidnapping. He could basically hear the second-in-command droning on in his head in that mysterious way that he does. It is imperative that the children are unharmed, yada yada, keep them captive, blah blah blah, keep a close eye on the troll, bluh bluh what a huge asshole.

The Felt’s a buncha pool sharks. And when a shark smells blood, it gets a bit frenzied. Crowbar isn’t sure where he was going with this analogy, but basically, it’s stupid that there’s no bloodshed involved in this mission. He had really been feeling the groove of bashing in hapless carapacians’ skulls in with his maroon crowbar, but this? This was just menial work. And now they were supposed to sit around and make sure nothing happened to these kids and await their next orders. What a snoozefest.

Crowbar accidentally stepped on somebody’s toe, and he looked down to see Itchy grumbling erratically if that’s a couple words he’s ever used to describe the guy’s actions. The thing is, Itchy’s basically in a constant state of fast in any sense of the word.

“Fuck you doin here seven? Aintcha gotta pair a kiddos to coddle?” he quipped, and Crowbar had to drown the urge to sock him in the nose. He and the stout little fellow wouldn’t be very suited for a stars-diamonds-horseshoes relationship, anyways. Yikes, where did that thought come from?

“Itchy, I’ve had just about enough of your little comments today. Go find yourself a buddy to jig with and leave me well enough alone.”

The yellow-hat clad green guy looked offended, and scoffed as he disappeared, probably off to go proposition little Clover or somebody else. What a perv.

Right, back to the task at hand. Crowbar figured he probably should check in on those kids, and he wouldn’t be able to trust anyone else in this mansion to do it.

Right, so the door’s window is smashed and those two meddlesome kids are gone.

Damn it all.

“TRAAAACE!” Crowbar called, stomping off to find the lug. He’d be able to track them down, no biggie, but they were definitely gonna get a stern drubbing when he found them.

Jude and Dammek ran into an empty room when they heard a loud voice angrily shouting something, maybe a name. Or, at least they assumed it was empty. As they leaned up against the wall, Jude huffing anxiously, a glimmering figure stood up from the chair she was draped across. Both of them stood gaping as the large figure clad in black looked at them, her wide-brimmed hat not covering her white eyes in slits.

Neither Dammek nor Jude said a word, terrified in the stare-down.

Then she just… Walked out of the room without saying a thing.

Jude felt himself slide against the wall, feeling faint at his relief. Dammek clutched at his stomach like he needed to throw up, his eyes betraying his fearful expression.

“It’s… It’s okay, Dammek,” Jude squeaked, not feeling like his words were true. Either way, he rested a hand on the troll’s shoulders, which snapped him out of his trance to jolt his shoulder away and give Jude an angry look.

“It’s not Fucking okay. This planet is Filled with adults and we have no idea which ones are going to kill us!” he spat, his voice strained.

“I.. We have to… We can figure this out, Dammek!”
“We’re going to Fucking DIE here,” he growled. “I don’t know what you think we can do. We’ve been trollnapped and any one of these motherFuckers could blow our pans out beFore we could so much as protest.”

Jude stayed quiet, looking down at the ground for a minute, the empty room feeling small and uninviting.

“I… I don’t care about what you think, Dammek,” he said quietly. “We’re going to get out of here. I know it. And we’re going to get things… Back to normal! We have to.”
“What is normal?!” Dammek nearly yelled, before stopping himself.

“Is normal for me back to my shitty planet where I’ll be shipped oFF next sweep anyways?? Is normal a Failing relationship with my moirail because I’m so obsessed with this idea that things can be Fixed?? How do you know? How can we know that any of this will ever be better, Harley?!” he whisper-yelled, eyes wild with suffering.

“I just do… I just do, Dammek! We’re not going to die here, and things will be okay soon!”

“You don’t know that,” Dammek said, and he turned away to look at the door, staring at it like he was contemplating running out, before staring cooly at the dimly lit room.

“You don’t understand. You don’t get what it’s like, For my only reason to go back to Alternia to be trying to Fix something I broke and then get shipped off for a life of butlering.” He said lowly, and turned his eyes back to Jude.

“No matter whether we even get out of here, my liFe’s going to be spent suFFering until the end. And there’s no Fixing it. I’ve gone along with all this For you. You can get your Friend back. I’ll have nothing but a broken liFe to return to.”

Jude considered his words, swallowing back a retort. He adjusted his glasses with a sigh.

“No.” he said, and Dammek looked at him with a blank face.

“No? That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Jude confirmed. “It’s not going to happen that way. I see it.”

“Sure.” Dammek huffed, and ran his hand along the rough wall.

“You know what I’ve got in my striFe specibus?” He asked, quieter than ever. Jude nearly strained to hear him. He shook his head in an equally tiny manner.

Two small vials of clear liquid appeared in his hand, and he looked down at them, showing no emotion.

“Poison.” he said quietly. “For me and Xefros. If the empire ever caught us.”

Jude gave him a sober look and said nothing.

“They would torture us to no end if they caught us. We’d be…” He trailed off.

“Better off dead?” Jude suggested.

“Hmm.” He nodded, looking softly at the two bottles. “I guess my point is… wouldn’t I be better oFF dead at this point? The Forces that be sure want me dead as it is. All this monster shit and getting trollnapped, now.”

“Come on, don’t say that. I don’t- can’t you- I...” Jude fumbled for words. He had no idea what he could say that would mean anything to the troll, so he just sighed and said what he knew to be true.

“I need you. I don’t think I can do this by myself, Dammek. And I guess I don’t know you that well or anything. But your friend-uh- boyfriend…? Your... friend would miss you if you didn’t come back…” Dammek cast his eyes down at the carpeted floor.

“I wish I could know that. Like I said. You don’t understand, Jude. I don’t think that anybody on this rock does, and it’s not their job to. I’m the alien.” He closed his fingers around the two bottles, pocketing one and re-captchaloguing the other.

“... I’m scared, Jude,” he finally said after a bated silence. “How… How is any of this going to be better?”

Jude looked down at the floor as well, feeling tears prick at his eyelashes.

Crowbar stormed about in a tizzy, looking around for the kids he was supposed to be in charge of. Trace was similarly nowhere to be found, which was possibly even more irritating. Why is nobody around in this fucking mansion when they’re needed?

He stopped to let Snowman pass by like she had somewhere to be. Everyone stopped for Snowman, as is courtesy to do for a dame. Or a literal walking universe.

“Milady. Have you seen two kids? One of ‘em was presumably inside you before, but is on this dump of a planet now. Uhh. I mean, not like, inside of you. Hah, phrasing, right?” He said, stumbling behind her as she continued walking. “God fucking dammit why did I say that,” he muttered under his breath.

She gave a small tsk and came to an abrupt stop.

“Yes.”

“Yes? That’s a yes to seeing the kids?” He tried to play it cool, pushing the interest out of his voice. Her black carapacian face had a slight shine as she turned to look halfway behind her, and Crowbar felt himself get flustered.

“Yes.” She said again, softly, before starting to walk away again. Crowbar stared after her for a moment.

“W-wait, where- where did you… fuck.” She turned a corner, presumably off to go sit menacingly in a room somewhere. There wasn’t any way he was going to follow her and make an even bigger fool out of himself.

Well, time for plan b. Look in every room. It’s basically foolproof, right?

Several rooms into his extensive search, Crowbar grew even more irritated. Where the hell were these kids, and how had they managed to avoid everyone (except Snowman, apparently)? He was going to lose it if they had just been sitting in a room somewhere chatting it up. Eventually he threw open a door to find a different stranger staring him down.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Roxy stood in the center of the room, brandishing a sharp piece of glass from a shattered vase nearby. He had no idea how she got her hands untied, but just sighed. There were direct orders not to harm her; she was essential to the plan for whatever absurd reason.

“Look, as much as I want to have a stab battle right now. I’m just gonna…” He slowly closed the door on her, the last thing he saw was her body rushing towards it. She whammed into it at the last minute, the bolt clicking once more. That was somebody else’s problem now. He could hear her yelling desperately from the other side of the door, and walked off awkwardly.

Doors, doors, doors. There were entirely too many in this stupid mansion. He was starting to get tired of busting through them and looking around wildly, but such is the way of the Felt. They were not in their usual mansion on Alternia, and the layout of the place was honestly pretty confusing. Basically everyone was annoyed with him now too, as he continued to burst in on whatever they were doing. He nearly strangled Die when the guy had started running away, thinking it might be a miscreant boy. Nope. Just a weirdo.

Eventually, he returned to the original hallway that he had stormed out of, the last to be cleared. In retrospect, he probably should’ve checked this one first, but oh well. He finally happened upon the two boys as a door creaked open and the human peeked his stupid little head out, his face a bit red. Crowbar stared in disbelief, and the kid stared riiiiight back.

“Um.” he said. “Dammek.”

A muffled, distressed “what” came from the room.

“Position compromised.”

Chapter Text

Ah, now wait, hold on just a moment please.

…

Thank you.

There are some things I think warrant an explanation, so perhaps you’d like to get comfortable?

Now. You might be wondering to yourself who I am.

Well. Perhaps you know already.

My name is Doc Scratch, de facto second-in-command of the Felt. And your excellent host.

I can tell you’re brimming with questions now. Why am I speaking with you? Telling you this story? Even guiding the story to happen in this way? Well, I simply help it along at times. It’s certainly no mistake that these boys escaped, though the Felt has yet to know it.

I consider myself to be a reliable narrator. It is challenging at times, I assure you! I hold my personal reservations about certain things, of course. Things haven’t exactly gone to plan through this timeline in certain places. I am here to put things back on track, no more and no less. It could be more if you’d like, though.

I’m sure you know the blight that’s on Dammek’s mind is not in the slightest bit unjustified. In the end, all trolls aside a certain few are useless to me, once they’ve played their role out its conclusion. In fact, I’m almost certain that in the end they’ll find a bit more of a happy life in death, however contradictory that might sound. You know as well as me that it’s true.

While we speak, Roxy’s attempting to find her way out. She tries a range of things, from picking the lock with broken glass to repeatedly kicking the wall to try and make a hole. She sighs dejectedly and stays where she is, because I say so.

Now, as far as the rest of the Felt knows, including a master who I’m yet to serve, there’s a cherub portal in the Harley mansion. Jake knows it, miss Claire did at one point as well. In fact, she was tasked with creating it, much to everybody in her life’s chagrin. Of course, for her and I, this works out well. Because nobody else quite knows that without the portal’s creation, Earth itself wouldn’t have been created. Neither would I have been created, so for my master’s sake I would thank miss Claire. If she were around.

Alternia needs a young upstart, you see. Things have been stagnant for a while under this Heiress, and without Claire’s descendant, )(er Imperious Condescension would have her throne abdicated. That would simply not do at all. If that were to happen, well… our players would not be under the correct circumstances to play.
I can’t expect you to understand all of that technical jargon. But this is the way that things must be to secure my time loop.

Roxy looks like she’s going to have another fit of self awareness, and stands up, but I quickly make sure that she sits back down to contemplate her place in it all. She is not needed yet. Her mind struggles, because it wants to be willful, but I just make her sigh again.

Ah, sorry. Ms. Lalonde is giving me trouble.

Right, you might be wondering what her place is in this?

Of course, she is not meant to live this kind of life. I need her for other things. Soon it will be time for her role to be assigned. You can be here to watch, if you’d like. When the old man shows up to protect his children, you can see.

Right, that brings me to another thing with note.

Mister Jake Harley.

He loves his children. Yes, he does. Ever since the loss of his beloved wife, he’s had many grieving problems of his own. You could quite easily say that he’s lost hope here. Hah. Soon he will be ready to turn a new page in his life as well.

Jake Harley is by no means a conventional father. He is rich and lavish, but unable to provide emotionally for two kids. Perhaps having only one would be more fitting. No worry, for he shall soon forget once his new task is assigned.

I believe that is all you need to know for now. Aherm.

My apologies, it may take a moment to get back into the groove of reliable narration. I hope you can pardon any more personal asides I make, since you now know the true nature of this situation.

The Harley boy stares at Seven. Crowbar, I mean. Sorry.
And Crowbar stares back. His white eyes are wide.

Really? That’s it? He just… Found them about to sneak out? The leprechaun can’t help but feel a little peeved. The boy says something lowly to his companion, who is still behind the door, and Crowbar grips his Juju-breaker a bit tighter.

“Now, you kiddos are going to be coming with me. I’ll have you know that I’m very upset you thought you could just escape.” He growls, and the troll jumps out from behind the door, his face flushed bronze, eyes angry. Without hesitation, he uppercuts Crowbar right in the chin.

He yells and stumbles backward, in which the Harley boy takes the opportunity to snatch his maroon weapon and brandish it.

“Oh-motheroffuCK!” the green-skinned man yells, angry at his disarmament and being bested by two kids.

“You have no idea what you’re doing with that thing, kid!” He screams, and the troll grabs him and swings him inside the room, slamming the door and locking the bolt before he’s able to get back on his feet.

I decide that I agree. The Harley does not need to be in the possession of a Juju breaker at the moment. He tosses it aside carelessly, opting for the extra pistol he had stashed in his strife specibus before being kidnapped. He looks down the hallway and is faced with another leprechaun.

“Uhhhhhhhhh,” is all that Trace says, apparently having been witness to the little thing that just went down.

“H-Hi,” the boy says, before widening his eyes as he realized a shadow was looming over the guy at the end of the hall. He didn’t think it would be prudent to warn him, since that would just lead to getting re-captured, probably.

CRRSSH- thud.

After a loud sound of something bashing against the man’s skull and his body falling to the ground unconscious, the boy does a double take at the figure standing before him.

Ohh noooo, what’s he doing here? Nobody expected this.

Face red and hair sticking out in places, spectacles shining in a way that makes his eyes hard to see. He is puffing for air, the sound of wind whistling between his massive front teeth like the boy’s sometimes does.

“D-DAD?!” Jude yells, and stumbles forward, running to tackle his father.

“Mhm,” Jake says, holding Jude in a tight hug.

“I came as soon as I got the ransom call chap! Where’s Joey?” He says, his voice worried.

“Ransom call?” is all that Jude can puff out, as Jake squeezes him a bit tighter. Is it just Jude’s imagination, or are his dad’s eyes shining with tears?

He pushes himself away and looks at his father, whose face is shining with remorse.

“Dad… Joey is- is- she… The portal, and then…” He blubbers, feeling his own relief at having a savior. He knew everything would be okay!

“ Portal? ” Jake hisses, and his face contorts in confusion, then realization.

“No, no no no no…” He says, before his hands cover his face.

“It can’t happen this way! Not my wife and…” he sobs. “I.. I didn’t stop her, this can’t be right, no… no…”

Jude looks at him, not understanding, before Dammek clears his throat awkwardly.

Chapter Text

Dammek was reluctant.

There was another adult in front of him once more, another so-called savior. Two out of… However many adults there were in this hive didn’t seem like a very good ratio of good guys to bad guys, and as Jude embraced the man he felt a bit of disgust curl into his facial features.

It was clear to him by now that humans were just… Really pale for each other? All the time? But still, as Jude tried to calm the sobbing adult he felt uncomfortable. He had tried to give some cue of this, clearing his throat, but the adult had just looked at him in bewilderment before spiraling further into hysteria. At this point he was probably being loud enough to attract more of the kidnappers to come after them, and down the hall he could still hear the one guy with the seven on his hat pounding angrily on the door. He watched as Jude tried to get the adult to calm down.

“Dad- Uh. Sorry. Pa . You need to.. It’s okay, we can… Um… There are more guys and- we need to find Miss Lalonde…”

Mr. Harley shook his head, a few tears being flicked away.

“No… No.. the portal wasn’t supposed to do this… She promised. She promised and then she-” his voice cracked- “was gone and dad-blast it, you were just supposed to play the game! It wasn’t supposed to happen this way!! I did everything I could for you… Joey… Snff… Claire...”

“Game? Pa- I don’t understand.. We need to find Miss Lalonde and get out of here!” Jude started to look distraught, and clutched his “pa’s” shoulder while Dammek looked on.

“And now there’s a consort of the batterwitch and… f-f… FUCK!” he shouted, shoving a startled Jude away.

“You! Let’s go, right now! Strife me, you alien cur!” he growled, with no regard for the volume of his voice. He pointed at Dammek aggressively, his glasses shining in a way that made his eyes unseen.

“Wh- Pa? That’s probably not a good idea-”

“This is your fault you wretch! Your kind ruined this ALL!” He said, cutting Jude off. Dammek just backed up a few steps under the adult’s furious glare, a sheen of bronze-ish sweat appearing on his forehead.

“Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about…” he said slowly, placatingly, facing his hands outwardly in fear.

“Pa. PA. JAKE.” Jude raised his voice, tugging at the man’s coat sleeve as he started to step forward. He froze at his name, and looked down, guilt showing in his downward turned lips.

“Please stop,” Jude said, his arms trembling. “I’ve never seen you like this… please stop,” he repeats, his own voice cracking. “We just… We need to get out of here and find Roxy. Please..”

Jake seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, before his shoulders slumped in shame. He could tell his son was upset and scared, and what was he doing? Making it worse. He knew things that his son didn’t. He knew that it wasn’t destined for him to be a real father to the boy, or his daughter. But nonetheless, things were going far off from his plan, to the point where he was sure there were now more suspicious higher powers afoot.

Jake took a moment to collect his thoughts.

Once upon a time, he had a wonder-filled life. A wife who would spin him ‘round and ‘round, make him smile, soothe his woes. And he was happy. He escaped the batterwitch, and when she disappeared she left him her millions. They bought a mansion all their own.

Miss Claire, as she liked to be called. All the same, since you preferred to be called Mister Harley.

She was beautiful, and when she danced… Ever more so. He could feel her heart and soul in that dance. And one day, at a performance of hers, he swept her off her feet in the same way he was taken by her.

There were things, then. Things that Jake pushed out of his mind. He could still be happy! There were looming things that he knew, he shouldn’t have known. But Claire knew these things too. And Jake didn’t realize it at first.

The batterwitch was no regular monster, for when she wasn’t in the presence of the news reporters her true colors were shown. And that isn’t meant in the metaphorical sense.

Grey skin, candy-orange horns. A wicked smile of sharp, sharp teeth. And she prophesied that he and his adoptive sister were to be wed, would have two children that would save the world.

…

She stopped that from being realized.

But then, things were going up… She disappeared. When Jake thought about it… He was there. But all he could remember was a haze of green and red.

Jake pushed other things out of his head too. His adoptive sister, who he abandoned. He knew she was living in Washington, with a son. Nothing more… She had sent him a letter once explaining Crocker’s intentions, and that was when he had gone to confront the alien, right before she was gone. He had never spoken to his sister again. He was ashamed at this point, he really wanted to, but it was far too late in his mind now.

He got a new dog when Halley died, and for a while things were perfect. Miss Claire was perfect.

They had a child. She was beautiful. She was perfect. The Harley family rejoiced.

They had another child who was a bit neurotic, he had colic as a baby. But he was perfect nonetheless.

Then she was gone.

…

Jake took more and more time to come home.

He buried himself in… whatever he could. He was searching, desperately.

There was one time… One time that his wife had suggested they find a perfect island in the pacific and take the kids out to explore, when they were older.

Jake wanted to find the perfect island.

His mind warped around the concept. Something to remember her by? To cherish? To start anew with? No, not that last one.

Joey started to hate him. He saw it a little more each time he came home with new things. Jude was less forward, but he could see wariness in his son’s eyes.

Then, he found the island. But he found more than just a refuge…

He found the temple, he found the work he was destined for. A game that heralded the end of the world. He didn’t know what to do yet, but he cracked the code after many months of research and saw that he was to raise a hero…

He didn’t want it to be true. He thought maybe he could pass it on to somebody else. It was then that he founded Skaianet.

He buried himself once more, but not solely because of grief for his wife now. Now he foresaw the future, and he didn’t want it to go this way. He didn’t want his children to die in the game’s prophesied Armageddon. He wanted to be there to raise them. But instead, he just put more distance between them, hoping that when the final tie was cut it wouldn’t be as painful.

So he decided he would build them a way out. Anybody could play the game, instead of just the four who were destined to do more. He could save them. This wasn’t the way that the code was written, but still he could change it. He could save them.

Joey wasn’t supposed to go through the portal. That wasn’t his plan. She was just supposed to play the game.

“...Pa?” Jude looked up at the adult with glistening eyes, and Dammek stood awkwardly to the side. This situation had just done a complete about-face, with the adult eerily quiet as he mumbled to himself. He looked up, studying the troll without moving closer, and seemed resigned to his fate of not having a normal day.

“Let’s go get Miss Lalonde, okay mate?” he muttered softly, patting Jude lightly on the shoulder before grabbing his rifle, which apparently had been the thing he slammed over the back of the leprechaun’s head. Well, at least he hadn’t shot the stranger?

Dammek took the opportunity to step a little closer, nervously, and look at Jake’s eyes. He let out an audible sigh of relief with the realization they were only green, not pink like Roxy’s. The adult made a point to shoot him a quick, untrusting glare, but Dammek already felt much more at ease. Olivebloods didn’t have a tendency to be too violent.

Wait, didn’t Jude say all humans have the same blood color? Why are their eyes different then? He had started trailing behind as the adult confidently strode forward and Dammek tapped him on the shoulder to ask.

“Dude, I thought you said humans are only rustbloods.”

“Uh, yeah,” Jude said, more than a little bit distracted.

“How come you have different eye colors?”

Jude looked at him wearily, like he had just about his fill about biology questions throughout this whole adventure.

“I donno,” he said quietly, as they passed by the room where they had locked the man with the crowbar. From inside the room he yelled with irritation as they passed, not afraid to throw a few curses around.

“Hmph. Maybe it has more to do with personality with you dumb freaks,” he said, jabbing Jude lightly in the side, to which Jude slapped his hand away.

“This isn’t the time,” he said, rather snappily, and Dammek met his eyes. He looked to be on the verge of breaking, and his tone was very serious. His yellow irises flicked away angrily. Dammek had never noticed how bright of a color they were when his shades were on, and nearly remarked so but decided it would be better to just keep to himself now.

As they traversed through the hallway, they met a couple more leprechauns, who Jake was able to subdue with varying levels of difficulty. There was one who was incredibly slow with a two on his hat, which the group just walked past without any trouble. Dammek tried to shove him over, but he was so slow that he had barely even swayed by the time that they passed him. There was another one with a four on his hat that just tagged along behind them for a bit, chiding in information like where the rest of the “felt” was lounging after Jake bopped him on the head with the butt of his gun.

Then there was one that looked like he hadn’t slept in a very long while, and he threatened your group with a strange looking voodoo doll that he said would be very dangerous, without further explanation. Jude snatched the thing out of his hand and chucked it in the opposite direction, and while he scrambled after it Jake slammed the gun over his head. The guy with the four on his hat looked awestruck by your teamwork and kept babbling on about lucky charms or something. Dammek looked really perturbed by whatever it was that the little guy was talking about, so Jude kicked him in the shin to make him shut up.

There was one more with an oven, but when the group passed him he got spooked and climbed inside, so they just walked past him.

Eventually after about twenty minutes of walking around looking for Roxy, they heard her muffled thuds against a door. She sounded like she was giving up hope.

“Roxy! Uh. I mean,” he looked at his father, who had always insisted that he and his sister called her Miss Lalonde.

“Miss Lalonde!” he said, throwing the door open. She tumbled out from the other side, as she had been leaning against it. She was holding her arm like it was hurt.

“Judie! Thank goodness you’re okay!!” She cried, and wrapped one arm around him, before looking up and seeing Jake.

“Jak- err, Mister Harley! I can’t believe you’re here! Oop. You know. I mean, to save us in this situation. Not like, since you’re, never here or anything,” she stumbled over her words, and held out an awkward hand to shake before noticing the small leprechaun that had been following the group.

“Uh…”

“Hello miss!” he chirped in a friendly tone. Jude kicked him in the knee.

“As far as I’m concerned you’re our captive now,” he said.
“Ow. Oh. Okay? I was just followin’ youse around. I thought I could just leave anytime.”
Jude looked like he was considering it, but looked meanly back down at the green dude.

“No, I think that if you guys take us captive, we take you captive,” he said in a dismissive voice, and Dammek frowned beside him.

“This guy’s like, kind of useless though,” he said, eyeing the green alien.

“Hmmph,” the bug-eyed creature sighed crossly, and kicked Dammek in the leg halfheartedly.

“I think you’s just jealous of the mad trove I’m scopin’ outta this rube right now. Star-Diamond-Clover, I know you’re tryna make a move on this,” he squeaked smugly.

“Ew. No. Sh-shut the hell up.” he said, shuffling away from the leprechaun and Jude. “Ugh, if you wanna keep that thing put some Fucking tape over its mouth,” he grumbled under his breath.
Roxy looked at the small leprechaun again and the situation that was unfolding.

“Alright, I’m not sure what we’re stalling for! Let’s get the heck outta here,” she suggested. The assembly of guys nodded their assent, while the leprechaun looked a bit confused.

“Oh, you’re all tryna leave?” he said curiously.

“Uh. Yeah.” Jude replied, and looked down. “You’re kind of really stupid.”

“Told you,” Dammek said, and flicked Jude’s shoulder.

“You’re kind of really stupid too, Dammek! This isn’t a competition,” he said snippily, and picked up the leprechaun. It wasn’t that hard, since he was the size of a toddler. He carried the thing at his side like one would a wooden plank. The alien struggled a bit before flashing a smug look at Dammek.

“For the love of all things good, stop looking at me like that,” Dammek growled, and the group was off down the halls once more.

..

…

“Have we been this way before?” Jude said anxiously.

“...Um…” Mister Harley said little, and glanced around.

“Oh!! There’s the front door, I think… Wait, no, I don’t think so?” Roxy nearly opened a pair of double doors.

“Hmm… Maybe it is?” Jude said.

“I don’t think I ever seen that door before,” the leprechaun, apparently named Clover, said from his place in Jude’s arms.

Jake looked at the doors with apprehension.

“Looks exactly like the way I came in… I think? I can’t say I quite remember which way I came, I was mostly rushing to find you and.. Joey. Confound it.”

Jude looked very nervous all of a sudden. “I don’t know if we should open it.”

“Why?” Roxy looked at him.

“It feels really wrong,” he said, and rubbed at the back of his neck with apprehension.

…

Open the door.

Jude rubbed at his head a bit, feeling faint. What was that? No, he didn’t want to open it.

Open the door.

Jude drops Clover with a thud, and the alien protests loudly. Jude doesn’t care. He rubs at his temples with both hands. He doesn’t want to. But he does? He does. Definitely. It feels wrong but Jude wants to open the door.

Was this what Joey felt like?

Jude’s vision sways, and he glances back at the others, who have taken a step back. He is in front of the door.

Open it.

Somebody asks if Jude is okay. He doesn’t answer until a hand is placed on his arm. Dammek. Jude’s vision clears momentarily.

“Dude, what are you doing?” he asks, a bit of confusion stirring beneath his annoyed tone.

“Rrgh…” Jude clutches at his temples a little stronger now.

He wants to open the door.

He will open the door.

He will… What the hell is he doing?

No. Stop. Wait. They all are going to meet me. Come back here.

He is stepping away from the door, and the rest watch him. He is not supposed to do this.

Stop.

Open the fucking door.

Hmm. This isn’t working, is it? I didn’t account for Jude being stubborn. I suppose that I’m not the first guardian of Earth, am I? Usually I can get them to listen, though. The boy is being extremely hard headed. He must know something’s up. Well, he definitely knows now… I think it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. I will snag them soon enough.

They are allowed to leave. I think I will play the waiting game for now. Hold a passive voice, if you will. Watching these buffoons walk in circles around the mansion is getting quite boring, anyways.

Jude is staring at the doorknob like it’s sprouted a head.

“Uh… I don’t think we should open that. Let’s… Just… Go.” he says, as his headache starts to subside.

Jake watches his son with curiosity, but says little. That has been a habit of his, since he’s travelled alone for so long. However, he does put a light hand to his son’s shoulder.

“Okay, young chap.”

It isn’t long before they end up finding the real exit. Jude doesn’t go into a tizzy over this one, so everyone assumes it’s safe.

Each of them squints as the bright sun of the day hits their faces. Dammek is the first to break the silence.

“How long were we knocked out for…?” it doesn’t seem like much time has passed at all.

“I received a ransom call around yesterday at this time.” Jake says curtly. “It just so happened I was already in the states… I took the fastest travelling method that I could.” He looks down at Dammek, into his stormy grey pupils.

Jude thinks about that to himself as they run away from the house as best as they can. Clover is piggybacking on him, and Roxy’s arm is definitely hurt, but Dammek and Jake manage fine.

What happened back there? He felt so compelled to open the door, but every inch of his psyche screamed at him not to. He could feel the word ‘open’ practically burned into his brain, and he huffed wobbily as he recalled it. The others seemed to fade away in that instant, like he was the only one in a story to be narrated for. Dammek had reached through some sort of veil…

The group broke through a patch of trees and slowed to a stop. Jude felt like his body was his own again, though he was never aware that it had stopped being his. The others looked like they felt the same way.

“What was all that? Why..?” Dammek whispered to himself, but the others heard and seemed to echo his thoughts.

Jude just rubbed at his temples again.

“Was that the cult you were talking about, Jude?” Roxy sidled up to the boy as he stewed in his own thoughts and tapped his shoe with her own.

“I… I think so,” he said slowly. He wasn’t sure. They didn’t have the same tactics that the cult he had been studying had.

“Cult? Haha, no sweet cheeks. We are the Felt.” Clover hopped off of Jude’s back and peered up at Roxy. “Only the best groupa baddies this side’a the universe!” He did a little wiggling motion with his hands and struck a pose.

Jude stared at the alien, looking both bewildered and unsurprised at the same time. Honestly, he had just had too much of this stuff at this point.

“So. Apparently there’s another group of weird stalkers nearby. Nice to know,” he said dully, and sighed.

From far in the distance, the group could hear a very faint barking. Dammek perked up immediately from his slouch and looked with alertness toward the sound.

“Your barkbeast!” he said with a twinge of urgency, before pressing a hand to his temple and squeezing his eyes shut.

“It’s distressed.” he said plaintively, before getting ready to go again.

“Wait! You- How do you know that?” Jude stumbled after the troll as he started to walk.

“Yeah, how do we know you aren’t about to befuddle us?” Jake said, and tightened his grip on his rifle.

“Communion powers, you idiots.” he hissed, and glared at the man. “Your descendant’s lusus is in trouble, and you think to harass me First? It’s quite obviously scared and alone… Honestly that creature is easier to understand than you humans.” he spat, before shaking his head and starting to run in the direction of the sound.
“Wait! Dammek!” Jude called after him, before starting off as well. “You’re being dumb!”

The two adults were left behind calling out in confusion as the two boys disappeared into the forest. Clover looked at the two and shrugged, plopping down onto the grass beside them.

“Come on, we have to follow them!” Roxy said, staring at Jake.

He put his head in a hand and tried to push away all of his thoughts.

“Roxy… Do you remember what I told you when I got you a job at one of my labs?” he said through his hand.

“I- whu- that’s not important right now! Come on, what’s gotten into you? You’ve been acting so strange and not at all like the Jake I know.”

“That’s just it, Rox,” he said, looking up with confusion in his face. “I’ve been gone so long, what’s the point of trying to act like my old self? I can’t put on this strapping young gentlemanly facade anymore. Do you remember what I told you? Just answer.”

“I remember! God, how could I fucking forget, Jake?! You think that you can control my life or whatever? You think that your stupid hieroglyphs on the walls of some ruined building really dictate what I should do in this instant? Harley, you’re getting caught up in nonsense, and you’re letting your kids suffer so much for it!” she said, her voice rising.

“I’ve been trying to take care of your children for YEARS while you’re off doing whatever the fuck this important thing is that you think will save the world. And all the while I’ve watched your kids grow up and be so sad that their father just fucking abandoned them. I can’t say I’m particularly happy with you. And now you’re just going to let your son run off, like your daughter has?” She yelled in his face, and he looked taken aback for a moment, before getting hurt by her last sentence.

“Roxy… I didn’t want any of this to happen!” he said sadly, and Roxy just leaned in on him again.

“So?! Do you think that I did? Do you think I woke up yesterday and said ‘huh, I think today would be a great day to meet a zillion aliens and get kidnapped!’ It doesn’t matter if you wanted this to happen or not . The fact of the matter is that you’re not doing a damn thing about it! I’m sorry but you are no good father in my eyes,” she said, fury written all over her face.

“I wish it wasn’t this way, but-” he started, and stopped Roxy before she could jump in on him again. “I can’t do anything about it! In the end, the game… the blasted game is coming, Ro-lal. We can be ready, or we can be unprepared. The timeline won’t wait… According to my calculations, the our meteors are coming late next year.”

“Ugh!” Roxy turned away from him. “I can’t listen to this. No. You’re being a terrible person to these kids. I can’t believe you just think you can abandon them.”

She started to pace, the frustration coming off her in waves.

Jake frowns and watches him. “I’m sorry, I can’t stop the game…” he began.

“You haven’t created it yet!” She yelled at him, louder than before.

“It’s already determined everything up to this point! It’s already fucking here, Roxy.” he countered.

Roxy said nothing. She just shot a glare at Jake and turned away again, walking in the direction that the boys had run off.

“I don’t care. I’m going to what I can to make sure those kids are going to be okay. That includes Joey.” She snapped at him, before starting to run.

Jake watched as her silhouette grew farther away. He shook his head grimly, and wiped away the tears welling in his eyes.

Chapter Text

Dammek ran as quick as he could over gnarled roots and past twisting vines waiting to trip him. He was getting used to the fact that plants on this planet weren’t usually carnivorous and taking this knowledge in stride; his training with Xefros on quick movement had paid off for one of them at least. Wait, stop that thinking. Xefros learned… He just had a tougher time applying the knowledge. Stop negative thoughts. God just stop thinking about Xefros. Not the time.

The barkbeast’s plaintive cries were pounding into his head like a dagger coated in acid, and he needed to know what was going on. Stop it. Stop the noise, the pain…

Dammek had felt it before and he never, never wanted to again.

After the incident with the psychotic cerulean, the other rustbloods in Dammek’s hive had left, pledging their gratitude to him. That other bronzeblood in particular had agreed with him on quite a few rebellious sentiments, but maybe it was leftover adrenaline talking combined with the time to think about it all inside cages while watching fellow lowbloods brutally die. After he told Xefros about it, the burgundy seemed a bit more swayed by the idea of revolt. He also insisted that he’d accompany Dammek if he ever needed to go walking somewhere again.

The two walked down the broken pavement, while Dammek tried to poke holes in Xefros’s weak counter arguments against an uprising. 

“You can’t protect me Forever, you know. And really, logically! IF some indigo -” he spat the words with utter contempt- “sauntered up to us. In this political situation? What would you do in deFense anyways? Bend spoons at him?”

“Uh, well. I mean, I could like… Break his fingers, maybe? If you wanted me to.” Xefros looked up at the taller troll with something desperate for approval in his eyes. Dammek felt flustered, and turned his head away.

“It’s not like.. Er.. You know, I’m not trying to put down your abilities or anything like that. But you coming with me isn’t much help, in all honesty. It just makes there be two oF us that could get hurt.”

Xefros looked glumly down at his feet.

“No, I-I understand if I’m not helpful to you or anything,” he said, not hiding his disappointment well. However, Dammek didn’t catch on, and the two of them continued to scuff their heels on the pavement as they walked. Xefros trailed behind Dammek now.

“...I hate to have you tell me twice, but I’ve forgot-ten. Where are we going again?” his pause in the middle of his word to audibly pronounce his quirk was achingly pitiful, but Dammek decided not to voice his opinion as he scoffed at Xefros’s bad memory.

“To go meet one of the other Tetrarchs. I-F you pay attention-” he said, mimicking a pause in his speaking to match Xefros- “you might be able to catch her name, but you haven’t met her yet.”

“Oh! Um, right,” the burgundyblood said, frowning to himself as he followed Dammek.

The two strolled a bit quicker as they left the rustblood subgrub, and made their way into an area where mostly olivebloods and some lucky goldbloods made their residences. Dammek tried to ignore a feeling of paranoia that was swelling in his chest, but some of his apprehension must have bled through his shaded facade, because Xefros made a chittering, placating sound next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Just the tiniest bit of stress melted away, but Dammek shrugged his hand off and kept walking forward with determination.

Just then, a wail sounded from down the street. Though violence was normal in the lowblood areas, Dammek spun around anyways, perhaps caught by surprise. Xefros tried to stay calm beside him, but to no avail.

Dammek felt something ache in his thinkpan, and clutched at his head in irritation. At first he couldn’t put a name to the feeling, but slowly as the wailing got louder he grew more tense. Down the street a couple drunken trolls careened towards them cackling, and as they rushed past the moirails saw olive blood on their clothes. Dammek hardly held his tongue as they shoved over Xefros and continued running. “Filthy trashblood!” one of them taunted, and Xefros didn’t dignify them with a response.

Though still feeling like there was fog in his pan, Dammek was quick to help Xefros to his feet and look him over. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, gritting his teeth in anger and pain.

“Um… Yeah, I… I am. What about you?” Xefros knew better than to try and comfort him, because he’d get rejected again, but peered up at the taller boy’s face with worry.

“Uh-huh. Let’s just get to the rendezvous point, okay?” He pushed the strain off his face and turned on his heel to continue walking.

A seemingly young oliveblood greeted them as they rounded a corner, and she whispered urgently into Dammek’s ear things that Xefros couldn’t hear. He nodded with a tense expression, and the girl scurried off. The pair then doubled back, neither speaking, despite Xefros wanting to ask so many questions. Eventually they rounded upon an abandoned building and snuck through the back gate.

The meeting was rather unproductive. Although the violent and sad noises weren’t heard anymore, it was clear to Xefros that Dammek was having trouble concentrating. It wasn’t more than five minutes before he curled in on himself, clawing at his head, and became inconsolable. It was extremely uncharacteristic of him, he knew, but the pain he was feeling was unlike anything he’d experienced before. The other few trolls at the meeting were staring at Xefros expectantly, but Dammek wouldn’t let him help.

God, in hindsight, Dammek really was terrible at moirallegiance.

“Tetrarch Dammek, you need a breath of fresh air?” Xefros asked with definite edge to his voice.

The bronzeblood said nothing, and allowed Xefros to help him up and half-drag him into the back lawn ring.

“What is going on?” He asked in an exasperated tone, but the worry was written all over his face.

“I-I don’t know, okay? My pan hurts more than anything I’ve ever Fucking Felt in my liFe!” It was then that both of their heads shot up, smelling smoke.

“Oh… oh no… Is the heiress burning subgrubs again??” Xefros asked quickly, and started to back up to let the others know. Dammek cried out in pain and finally realized the force driving through his pan.
“A lusus,” he said snappily, as though that explained everything.

“What? A lusus? I don’t-” Dammek snatched his hand and started dragging him off, quickly hopping the backyard fence and beckoning for his moirail to follow.

“But what about the others-?” he asked as he started to scale it.

“They know what to do, they’re not in danger. I need to make it stop Xefros!” he yelled in irritation as the other boy landed with a thud on his strut pods beside him. He then dashed off without waiting for Xefros to regain his footing.

Burning. Screaming. Just one voice screaming, but an animal similarly yowling. Xefros caught up with Dammek to watch him frozen with indecision at the sight. The hive was up in flames, and a female voice was calling out, near the edge of the teal subgrubs. The hive’s design looked more olive in taste, though; there was a lot of greenery to catch fire. Dammek looked like he was about to sprint into the flames, and Xefros preemptively held him back, arms around the other boy’s stomach and yanking him backwards. 

“Stop! I need- to make it stop- the feeling, the lusus-” he cried pitifully, but Xefros just held onto him tighter until he stopped wiggling. He fell silent and sighed raggedly, admitting defeat, and whining incoherently about his thinkpan.

The two stood staring at the burning hive for a couple more seconds before Xefros saw the glint of a sword-carrier walking down the pavement.

“Dammek! We need to hide! It’s a tealblood,” Xefros hissed urgently, and the other boy snapped to attention.

“Shit.” 

The two backed off from the road, and Dammek hid the two of them in a prickly patch of shrubbery.

“Dammek, your horns! You can see them from out there-” 

“Whatever, just stay still and they won’t see us.” Xefros doubted this, but settled in a prone position beside him.

A young teal with reflective glasses and a sword in his holster came closer to the burning hive in curiosity. The animal’s yowling was nearly silent, and the troll’s screaming inside getting fainter. Xefros watched with quiet attention as Dammek stopped watching the hive and laid his face on the dirt ground, whining in defeat.

“What’s wrong?” Xefros whispered.

“The lusus is dying,” Dammek muttered back. “I feel it,” he gestured vaguely at his head and realization dawned on Xefros. He must have been communing with the lusus that was stuck inside the hive, maybe it was calling for help. He didn’t dare move, because the teal was already looking suspiciously in their direction, but let out a small breath of acknowledgement towards Dammek.

By now the hive was mostly a smoldering wreck, and after a couple more moments of the teal looking in their direction he crept towards a pile of rubble. Xefros watched in amazement as he bridal-carried out an extremely injured oliveblood, who looked like most of her limbs were broken. She would probably die, he mused, but stayed in his place.

As the teal made it out of the wreckage, he started a quick pace off back the way he came, looking extremely paranoid. Xefros could only wonder what he had in store for the oliveblood.

As soon as he was a speck on the horizon, Dammek got to his feet and looked around briefly before making his way into the hive himself. Xefros wanted to stay out, but reluctantly followed his moirail.

He was bent over the body of a lusus, a panther, and gently snuffing a few ashes out on its dead body. He didn’t speak a word, and neither did Xefros. The rustblood heard a small sniffle before Dammek turned around and wrapped him in a hug.

“This world is Fucking terrible,” he murmured into Xefros’s shoulder, and the other boy just pat him on the back. 

The two dragged their feet, scuffling through ashes, as they started a solemn return home.

Dammek continued to dodge his way through low-hanging branches, ducking so he wouldn’t bash his horns. The piercing sensation was too familiar, too heart-wrenching, and he wasn’t going to be stopped by indecision again. The barkbeast wasn’t in pain, but it was in very clear distress, and its cries wouldn’t let up. He could barely hear them, but he could feel them; each one a needle stabbing through his skin.

After a bit of time, he had no choice but to slow down. The pain in his side was nearly rivalling that of his pan, and both pains together were enough to drive him mad.

For a while he had heard the crashing of undergrowth behind him, which would be one Jude Harley. The boy was out of breath and unable to yell after Dammek, but had been in pursuit regardless. He was not nearly as fast or athletic, but when he saw Dammek slumped against a tree trunk trying to regain his energy he sped up and risked a yell.

“What- in the world- are you doing- Dammek?!” he panted, but the troll was already starting to get a move on again. Jude put as much effort into his sprint as he could, and reached out to snag the back of Dammek’s hood, yanking backwards.

Dammek sputtered and choked as Jude nearly stopped him in his tracks. Jude planted his feet firmly in the ground and tried to counteract the force of Dammek leaning forward, still trying to run. After a couple seconds of this, Dammek nearly choking himself, he fell back in agony with his face flushed bronze. Jude fell backwards as well and the both of them toppled over in the dirt and pine needles.

The two lay for a moment, both gasping for air and wheezing, before Jude was able to speak again.

“What has gotten into you, Dammek?” He said, in a near sigh, and rolled to gaze upon the troll who was still flat on his back shuddering and breathing heavily.

“Fuck, Fuck I can’t… I can’t , Harley! What the FUCK! Why am I here?! I don’t want this- any of this!” he yelled into the canopy, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“Stop! Stop…” Jude matched his level of volume, and grabbed his shoulder, clutching it like a life preserver. “Just stop, think. Why? Why did this happen? We need to think of things… We can’t just run into the unknown, Dammek.”

The troll didn’t respond, just opened his eyes and stared, unfocused, at the pine trees all around; towering like matriarchs, ready to bend over and swoop the two up and cradle them.

Jude tried to think.

Joey looked over one of Jude’s essays for school, a research paper, with skepticism written all over her face.

They were younger; she was 12, he was 10. But maybe not much has changed between then and now.

“I get what your goal was here, I think.” She said finally, and leaned back a little further into the plush of the living room couch. 

Jude sat on the floor in front or her, peering up for a moment, his hands paused from threading through Tesseract’s long fur.

“But I think you’re not asking enough questions,” she said after a few seconds of silence.

“What do you mean?” he asked, and she giggled.

“Exactly. What do you mean? You tell and tell and tell all of this stuff, but where’s the intrigue? Why’s it interesting? Ask questions. Have a flow. Go further than what you think we should know. Make us invested. I dunno, something like that!”

Jude pondered over this while Joey marked a few grammar mistakes with a light blue pen, and continued to try and explain herself.

“I think you need to go beyond the What and Where and When. Because even though that’s an explanation, it still doesn’t tell us why . Or how . Give it purpose. Teach me something I thought I would never know.”

Jude nodded, her words soaking in. “So what should I do?”

“It’s about aliens, right? You’ve explained what they are. You’ve given me examples of ‘sightings’. But what does that mean? You should go into the cultural significance, or why believing is important, or steps people have taken to prepare, or whatever. Heh,” she paused with a smile and looked down at the yellowish paper in her hands.

“You know I don’t care that much about your stuff, but… I care about you.” she looked into his eyes from his place on the floor, and before he knew it she was back to marking the paper with her curly-fake-cursive handwriting.

…

Did she know? That can’t be possible. 

Did she know how much that night changed his life?

Both the night that she taught him to theorize, and the night of the switch, he felt a sense of foreboding about what was coming next.

“JUDE!”

Ms. Lalonde crashed through the undergrowth quite unceremoniously, and found the two boys still laying on the ground.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” he whispered, still entrenched in thought.

“This isn’t going to go back to normal, is it?” he said, halfway to himself, but both Dammek and Roxy heard him. Neither responded, instead going still and letting his words sink in.

Chapter Text

Jude sat up shakily after a second of prolonged silence, and Dammek quickly followed suit, despite being more out of breath. 

“Come on, let’s go back to your pa,” Roxy feebly suggested, but neither boy answered her. Honestly, she thought it would be better if they didn’t turn around anyway; her spat with him was still fresh in her mind.

Jude looked at Dammek, who was still staring blankly around in some sort of fear-driven state. Like, heh, a deer in the headlights.

“No, he can follow us,” Jude said, and Roxy nodded apprehensively. “We need to get to the mansion. Dammek thinks something is wrong, and he’s probably right. I don’t want our base to be raided,” he reasoned, looking to Dammek for backup, where he was met by silence. The troll started to push himself to his feet, though, and Jude grabbed the back of his sweatshirt before he could rush off.

“We’re going together .”

Dammek grumbled a complaint about the boy under his breath, and the three started walking; Jude flicked the troll’s ear in response.

They kept up a quick-ish pace, one of them occasionally stumbling. Jude eventually found himself in a chain of hands, Dammek leading and tugging the other two along, and Roxy behind him. If the circumstances weren’t so dire, it might’ve been strange.

“What do you think is happening?” Roxy asked under her breath. 

“Maybe the leprechauns doubled back after we escaped. Or maybe the cult? I can’t be sure.” Jude replied, before stumbling as he got yanked along and caught his foot on a tree root. “Dammek, let up!” he snapped, and the troll only rushed forward faster. The barking was getting ever louder now, Tesseract in very clear distress, and this seemed to set off Dammek.

“Shut up shut up shut up,” he said angrily, and started back into a run, pulling ever harder on the other two.

Jude did just that, and ended up getting half-dragged after he fell flat on his face, rubbing his cheek with his free hand as Dammek pulled him up and let go of his hand in frustration. “Try not to be so incompetent,” he seethed, and Jude bit back a retort as the troll sprinted off. 

Roxy rubbed Jude’s shoulder sympathetically, and the two started into a run themselves.

Dammek skidded on the gravel to a halt as he finally burst through the undergrowth that was beside the driveway. The other two came in after him as he took in the sight.

The front yard was somehow in an even worse state than it had been before they were kidnapped, a lot more of the grass smoldering from the leaf-pile fire and licking threateningly at the base of the treehouse. And there, Tesseract was backed up against the trunk, whining and barking plaintively, surrounded by burning grass and… The winged beasts, slowly drawing closer.

The monsters were back and they brought guests.

From one of the windows of the house, a hooded figure flashed in view, probably a sentinel. Jude saw them, and they quickly ducked away before the others did.
“The cult,” he whispered. “They’re inside.”

“Shit,” Roxy muttered. “What are we going to do?” She gestured to her arm, which she had wrapped in a makeshift sling out of her scarf, her dominant side. “I can’t shoot.”

Jude hurried to grab the pistols that had been cast aside in the gravel when the three of them had been kidnapped, and Dammek looked murderous beside him. Roxy tried to hold him back from flying at the monsters surrounding Tesseract. She surveyed the dog from afar.

It looked like there were a couple cuts on her face, poor baby, and patches of her fur were missing. The fur near her paws appeared scorched. The flying creatures took turns lunging at her, and she did her best to snap at them or bat them away. When one flew at her and slashed her face with a wing, Dammek wrestled out of Roxy’s weak grip and grabbed the pistol from Jude’s hand.

“Stop! We can’t let the monsters know we’re here, there’s not enough ammo for all of them-” Tesseract let out a loud cry, and Dammek was gone.

He flung himself at the monsters with an angry yell, and took steady aim as he sprinted through the lightly flaming grass. Jumping to a stop in front of the dog, he unloaded a full clip on the first three monsters, and as he was reloading jumped at the other two and grabbed one’s wing, swinging it into the burning ground. The cuffs of his jeans started to smoke, but he paid no mind, stomping at the writhing, burning creature on the ground before finishing his reload to shoot the last monster several times in its gaping mouth. Jude and Roxy stared wide-eyed at the troll as he massacred the monsters, before Jude shook himself and tried not to look too awestruck. Damn this boy and his badassery! Now the monsters were sure to come running.

Tesseract flung herself at Dammek with abandon, and he happily crouched down to oblige a wiggly, fluffy embrace, despite hissing a bit through his teeth over the burning of his ankles. He picked up the dog best he could (Jude marveled at his strength) and wobbily came back to the un-burning patch of grass. 

It was then that Jude happened to look up at the shattered bay window in the living room, seeing a tiny cloaked figure peeking out from the side, almost as short as a toddler. As soon as he gasped, the figure was gone. Roxy must have seen them this time too, because she let out a small stream of expletives.

As Dammek sidled beside them and brought the dog down to the ground, he huffed and let out a real smile. 

“Alright, Fuckers. We need to go in there and regroup.”

“No, Dammek, the cult’s in there, and the monsters-”

“Who gives a shit? We can shoot every last one, if need be!” He said, looking near manic. Roxy interjected.

“No, listen! You’re lettin’ your adrenaline talk, kid. We need to have a plan. And fast because now you’ve let everyone in a mile radius know where we are.”

Dammek faltered, and nodded, averting his yellow eyes from her (ugh) pink ones. Tesseract whined, now pressed up against Jude’s legs, looking pitiful. While Roxy continued, he bent down to check her.

“I think we need to regroup, that’s for sure. I have no idea where your father is, Jude, but hopefully he’ll stop being a deadbeat and join us eventually. I’ll trust that literally anywhere is safer than here right now, so I’m not that worried.”

Jude wasn’t calmed by her words, though. He felt some kind of apprehension that he didn’t know how to explain about his pa, as though something was radically going to change soon. Wait, really? He thought that? Huh. Interesting.

Anyways, he nodded and continued to listen as he tried to stroke Tesseract reassuringly. Dammek looked at him petting the dog with eyes narrowed, like he wanted to say something, but kept his mouth shut.

“Are there any safe places that you know of, Jude?” she finished, and turned to the boy.

“Wait, wait, wait. I don’t think we should leave, Miss La- err, Roxy. It doesn’t feel right. Like. That’s probably what they want.” he gestured vaguely to the mansion, meaning the people inside. 

“What do you suggest, then?” She said, quite seriously, and Jude was taken aback. She was actually asking his advice? He was mostly just the intuition guy, in this instance at least. He would happily take the forefront if he weren’t scared shitless. Which, in case it wasn’t quite clear because of his reasonable front, he was.

Something was amiss, he knew it. This was bigger than any theory he had ever crafted, went deeper through his disaster-driven core than nearly anything. And he was terrified.

“Uh,” was all he managed as he swam through his thoughts, but he was interrupted quite rudely by the screeching of a monster.

Serpent was back, and by the looks of it, ready for vengeance.

Chapter Text

Jake Harley was tired. 

Damn, he was. 

He just couldn’t catch a break. Really. 

One minute he was out on an island in the pacific, and the next he was receiving ransom threats over his brand new comms system. 

(Of course, I have no need for money. This was simply to lure the man in.)

He was quick to make use of the transportalizers he had coded, and in a flash was back to Hauntswitch. Uh. Not exactly a flash, really. The transport wasn’t exactly optimized, so it did take a few hours of being zorped around through weird light tunnels. He really ought to get some fancy elevator music for those tunnels, because he was left to drift with nothing but the worry for his kids. Um, anyway. He digresses.

Then, when he got there, he was stricken by the terrible realization that everything had gone completely to shit. Joey had used the cherub portal and out popped another of those troll wretches, and Jude had gone and gotten himself captured by some other aliens. As Roxy stormed off, having emphatically won the “morality” argument, he was left to make empty chatter with the little green guy, Clover. 

What was even the flippin point? 

“I’m kinda bored.” the thing said to him, and he mumbled something noncommittal in response. The leprechaun had been babbling on about his other green friends, and Jake had long given up on trying to understand the half-baked creature.

“Ya think we should find my trovemate and the others?”

“Stop calling my son whatever that is, please. Also, Iunno,” he huffed, caught up in whatever hopeless thoughts he had left.

“Might be funner than this. Or else I prob’ly gotta go back to the Felt.”

At this, Jake shrugged and let the toddling alien clamber up onto his shoulders, and the little thing teased his hair in what he assumed was a playful manner. He felt uneasy, and stood up quickly so that Clover wobbled a bit and stopped messing around. 

The bushes rustled and Jake stiffened, tightening his grip on his rifle. A beast of black poked its head up, its mouth wide open to reveal green gums. Jake raised his eyebrows in surprise. It was a match to one of the trimmed hedges at his mansion. 

Oh. Oh .

Why couldn’t he catch a fucking break.

The large serpent slithered (skittered?) side to side like a terrifying centipedal snake, and Roxy bit back a scream of horror. Dammek and Tesseract leapt to one side, while Jude had to tackle Roxy out of the way from where she was frozen in indecision. She grit her teeth when she landed in the grass on her injured arm, and Jude huffed out an apology before leaping to his feet again and training his pistol at the beast. Before, when there had been time, Jude had hesitated; the beasts were still beings that certainly felt pain. But so was he, so was Dammek. Uh. And everyone else too. Without flourish or forethought, he opened fire on the long body of the serpent.

Bang, bang, bang. Bullet after bullet hit its side, until the magazine was empty. He had a few extra stashed in his sylladex, and as he dug for them, he surveyed the field, siege tactics and training flowing back into his mind. The serpent hardly seemed fazed, and it reminded him of when he would incessantly flick Joey on the shoulder until she got annoyed enough to do something back. The monster let out a low growl and had swung its head around to face the noise of the gunshots. He made as little noise as possible while he somersaulted away through the muddy grass, and barely dodged the large mouth of the creature crashing down on the ground where he had been.

Right.

They’re blind, and rely on sound. Possibly smell. As he mused this with a hand coming up to touch his neck in thought, the creature snapped its direction towards him again. 

Without sniffing? Hm. Perhaps they rely on heat as well. He looked behind him to ascertain where his friends (and Dammek) were.

The troll was busy trying to contain Tesseract, who was wildly yowling in a very undogly fashion and running in circles. Dammek seemed to be struggling to use his weird animally powers on her, and she bucked out at him when he managed to grab her by the haunches. Joey wondered what was causing this sudden change in behavior. He looked to his right. 

Roxy was up against the base of the tree, having managed to stamp out some of the smoldering grass, and batting at any monsters that got too near her. Jude smiled with pride when he saw her pistol-whip one across the head. That is, until felt a drip of saliva fall on his head. Shit.

He quickly somersaulted to the side again, but this time the serpent anticipated him and slammed its head into him and he tumbled back, winded. He looked around wildly for some sort of plan as he was finally able to shove the next magazine into the pistol, and he stared down the green expanse of the serpent’s maw. He felt a bit of sweat slip down his forehead in fear and swallowed back a whine, pulling the trigger in desperation.

The serpent screamed louder than any living thing that Jude had ever heard. Maybe that was on account of the fact that he was basically in its mouth. Unlike its body, its mouth must’ve been very sensitive, and in the noise Jude took the opportunity to shoot a few more times. 

The monster recoiled back and roared at the sky, lime-green blood gushing from its mouth. Jude looked down to see his clothing similarly covered in splotches of green blood, and he shuddered despite himself. The serpent continued screaming as it turned a quick circle, slamming into the boy’s legs with its tail and knocking him to the ground onto his back. 

Dammek was finally able to grab the wriggling dog and soothe it, and he let her go to disappear into the underbrush, still unnerved by her wounds. He turned in time to see the serpent scream with vitriol, blood pouring from its mouth in an unfamiliar color and Jude nearly keeping on his feet while he fired again. So, the inside oF its mouth is weak, Dammek thought, and pulled out his own pistol. But not before the serpent switched tactics and swept Jude off his feet, turning back around and rearing up, ready to deal a finishing blow.

Dammek saw little else than the red that clouded everything. This was a familiar feeling. 

Jude couldn’t stifle the cry of fear as he thought. This is it, huh? It was a good run. His arms were shielding his face, so maybe he wouldn’t have to know when the end would come. But seconds ticked by. 

Nothing moved. 

Nobody breathed. 

The boy looked up from where he lay on the ground, the back of his head brushing the grass, and saw Dammek with one hand outstretched. His eyes were closed. Then, he swiped his hand to the left.

Slam .

Jude removed his arms from in front of his face, and saw that the serpent had fallen, twitching, to the ground. Similarly, Dammek slumped down, drained from such concentration. Roxy watched from where she was against the tree trunk with awe. 

Jude scrambled to his feet and retrieved the gun he’d dropped, and carefully approached the fallen beast. Although it was shuddering and its legs twitched occasionally, it appeared unconscious. Blood continued to leak from the wounds on its side, and pooled by its mouth.

He needed to put it out of its misery, and so he did by pressing the gun to its head. If it had eyes, the gun would between them.

Inside the mansion, a final gunshot was heard. The smallest hooded cult member peered out the window, betraying no emotion or surprise. 

They rushed to another, and whispered some things that nobody, perhaps not even they, could hear; yet, the meaning was transferred. The other figure nodded, and rushed off similarly; they climbed up the stairs silently and approached the attic.

The door, having been busted in before they arrived, was set aside. Two others were standing before the closed portal, having broken the forcefield around it. They looked behind them to regard the new messenger, and without a word exchanged they turned to leave the room.

A final member was guarding the back door, and as all five met up they left as quickly as they had come.

However, it wasn’t before their retreating silhouettes were seen by Jude, who retrieved binoculars from his sylladex to watch as they faded out of view.

Chapter Text

Jude wasn’t one for cursing, no. Sometimes Roxy would get down to business on a few cuss words. Dammek seemed partial to them. Pa (wherever he wandered off to) might sometimes. But not Jude! Well. Usually, of course.
Today was obviously not ‘usually’. Today was somehow the entire antithesis of ‘usually’. This had to be the most emotionally and physically draining day ever, and that was coming from a boy who already had a hard time with anxiety. So screw everything! Jude was gonna cuss today!
“Wha-”

“Who... the fuck... were they?” Oh. Jude got cut off by Roxy, who was appropriately breathing heavily from the rush of adrenaline. Oh, well, uh. Frick. He missed his chance, probably.

“That was the hooded cult! I- I told you about them I showed you the pictures!! I KNEW they were bad!”
“I’m halF convinced that there’s really nobody good around here at all. Maybe I should keep a gander bulb on you two, ” Dammek piped up. His clothes were partially torn up, and he attempted (unsuccessfully) to wipe some bright green blood off his face, mostly just smearing it around some more.

Feeling ridiculously drained, Jude gestured to the others to follow, starting to walk towards the house.

“They could still be in there, we need to hole up somewhere else,” Roxy said with a firm tone. It was clear she wasn’t keen on having any more action for the time being.
“I saw them leaving. All five.” he continued forward without looking back, too tired to really care about heeding his babysitter’s advice.

“As did I.” Dammek stroked a still-whimpering Tesseract comfortingly, having procured his cracked sunglasses once more from the driveway where they were first lost. Jude scowled at his stoic expression. Roxy sighs and her shoulders come down from where they were hunched as she allows Jude to lead the group inside.

The place is somehow even more wrecked than it was when they were about to leave, things torn apart and tipped over. Some of the paintings on the walls were completely ruined in a variety of ways. Did the cult have to fight through the monsters as well, or were they working as vandals? Jude shook his head, kicking over the discarded pile of guns Dammek made earlier and heading for the kitchen, too hungry and exhausted to have any caution. Mulder was cowering in his plastic tube overhead, and Jude looked up at the ferret, watching it dash off again. Good to know that he’s good, the boy figured, throwing the refrigerator door open.

Remarkably, it seemed untouched aside from the salad bag, which had been ripped open, soggy leaves plastered to the inside of the fridge. Jude scowled at the offending greens before rummaging around. He procured himself grilled cheese materials (even the bread was in the fridge) and slapped everything together, making a total of three and a half before stepping back out into the war-torn living room.

Roxy was sitting stiffly on one of the couches, staring at nothing and ignoring Dammek. Said troll was next to his gunpile, carefully rearranging it out of nervousness and habit. He handed a sandwich to each of them before sinking down onto the other couch, tossing the other half to Tesseract.

“So, I think we need to investigate the house and see if there’re any changes… They can’t have just been hanging out here for no reason,” he said, clutching onto the burnt meal he’d made himself. Roxy nodded and Dammek just stared at things in the room, expression harder to read again with those shades on. He picked disdainfully at his grilled cheese, the one that was the closest to being not burnt.

“That’s a good idea. What the Fuck is this, by the way?” Jude just scoffed.

“Is your planet actually hell? Like, legitimately hell? You don’t have grilled cheeses?”
“It is a shithole, but I can’t say I’ve had an enjoyable time on your planet either.” he quipped back. The moment almost felt normal, as close to normal as anything could get in this situation.
“And iF you’re talking about churned moobeast compact squares, then maybe. But why is it warm?” The troll crunched into the sandwich and recoiled as the cheese came up in strings.

“So, I was going to see if there’s anything useful in Joey’s room… She would want me to use anything to help, I think.” his heart felt heavy. Well, she’d probably scold him for going in her room after this was all over, assuming neither of the two died before then.

“You need to rest, Jude. We all do,” Roxy piped up. “Before we do anything else. This is too much. God, I wish I had a drink.”
Jude frowned, but nodded. 

“How sure are you that nothing’s going to come attack us while we’re sleeping, Jude?” she asked, and he thought about it.
“I don’t think the cult will come back soon, and once Pa comes back we’ll be safer. And I don’t know… But I don’t feel like the leprechauns are going to try and get us again?” he shrugged, not sure if it was a good idea for him to be the one thinking about this. Then again, he seemed to be the intuitions guy.

Despite his initial disdain, Dammek must’ve been pretty hungry, because he’d already finished.
“IF they attack me in my sleep at this point I’ll just let them take my sorry liFe.” Jude glared at him, but looked away when he couldn’t think of anything to scold him with.

Roxy is staying in Joey’s room, and Jude and Dammek are sleeping in his room. Dammek leans against the wall, wrapped in blankets and clearly not falling asleep, and Jude sighs.

“Take the bed.”
“Huh?”

“Whatever trolls call it, like spring flat or whatever. I slept here last time, and you are right. The guest, no matter how insufferable and alien they are, gets the best sleeping area.”

Dammek lowers his sunglasses and shows his narrowed eyes, looking suspicious.
“And?”

“And what? I’m sleeping on the floor. It’s gonna suck, but it’s fair.”
“...Nothing.” he stands up, acting shifty, but still approaches anyways. Jude scoots off, taking a pillow and blanket with him to the foot of the bed.

“This isn’t really an improvement, you know. It’s no recuperacoon.”
“You don’t have to take it if you’re going to be rude.”
Dammek looks like he’s rolling his eyes, but one can never be sure with the shades. As he sits on the edge, he looks down at Jude, who’s situating a little space on the floor.

“I just don’t get what you’re aiming at.”
“What do you mean? I’m being nice! And you’ve been acting like a sad sack, so I’m worried, okay?” Jude replies, pointing to his hoodie pocket where a bottle of poison still lies. The troll breaks eye contact, fiddling with the fabric of the mattress.
“Humans are so pale, it’s sickening,” he grumbles. “That’s exactly what I mean. You can’t stick with a method of inFuriating me. It’s all over the grid here, not even staying concupiscent.”
“Okayyy, weirdo. I’m going to turn the lights off and we can put a pin on this conversation I don’t understand.”

They both lay down, each thinking of things… Monsters and portals and cults and quadrants. Neither of them fall asleep for a long time, despite the exhaustion.
“Harley?”
“Hm? Call me Jude,” he says sleepily.

“Thanks.”
“For the bed? Okay I guess,”
“Just thanks.”

“Okay, Dammek. Go to sleep.”

He doesn’t, not for a while longer at least. He thinks about everything. All the trolls left behind, and himself doing what? Is he a pioneer or a pawn? Are Joey and Xefros going to be the real heroes? How much further can this adventure go before something has to give?

He sleeps horribly when he finally does. The nightmares are unbearable a third night without sopor. Occasionally he wakes up terrified, hoping Jude will stay asleep while he hyperventilates alone.

The boy hears. He listens, and frowns.