Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Basil quietly hummed to himself as he watered his plants before going to bed. It was a warm summer night, a beautiful one at that, and cool ribbons of air flowed through his room from his opened window.

It was a month or so after Sunny had moved. He'd told the truth to everyone just before leaving. It.. Wasn't pretty. Kel seemed sad, Aubrey was angry enough that she almost punched them both, and Hero..

...Let's just say Basil was worried.

Moving on.. Basil had kept in touch with Sunny. They often talked over the phone about all that had happened, helping each other come to terms with it. They both finally had a bit of peace. The fact they'd both started therapy helped.

Basil carefully continued his watering. A faint chorus of thank yous rang through his head as he worked. Ah, right, there was that. His whole life, he'd been able to hear what plants were saying. He never brought it up to anyone. It was normal, yeah? At least it was to him.

"You're welcome! Drink up," Basil said cheerfully. He set down his watering can and stretched. Time for bed..

"Are you heading off to bed?" A particularly large strawberry plant hanging by his window asked as Basil yawned deeply. "Yeah. I'm tired." He looked out his window. "It's so nice out.."

He smiled and climbed into bed, letting sleep take him.

FARAWAY TOWN

201X

FARAWAY PARK

Hero sat on a bench, staring at the ground. Lately he hadn't been feeling very well. Of course, he was angry and sad enough from what Sunny had revealed, what he'd DONE.. But for the past week or so, he'd been feeling.. Odd. He had a low fever that hadn't gone away, and his body ached. He'd come out here to try to clear his head. It wasn't helping.

He sighed and got up. Might as well go home; Kel was probably worried.

Wait. What was..? A blazing light was lurching down from the heavens, heading...

RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. OH GOD. He turned around and ran as fast as his body could take him before the meteorite connected with the park ground, the shockwave sending him sprawling. He groaned as he got up. What..?

He hissed as he noticed a few hot rock fragments had hit against his skin. Ow.. That was gonna leave a mark. He approached the meteorite, using his common sense and not getting too close. The thing looked SCREAMING hot. It gave off a faint glow through its' many surface cracks. Ominous..

He felt a bit stronger around this hunk of rock, for some reason. It was weird. His logic was telling him to get away and call the police, but.. He didn't.

He'd stay here a bit longer.

Basil awoke with a jolt as the meteorite's shockwave traveled across town. In all honesty, it wasn't a very big shock, just.. Basil was a light sleeper, and there was something else that forced him to wake. He wasn't sure of what... But something felt very wrong.

In an act of boldness he didn't know he had, he decided he needed to investigate. "I-I'm heading out," He whispered to his plants, which wished him luck as he grabbed his garden shears to defend himself with. A painful pang of memory flashed across his mind's eye.. He stabbed Sunny's eye out with a different pair of these...

He took a deep breath. This was different. He needed to be brave. Basil quietly slunk out of his room and tip-toed through the hallway, trying not to wake Polly. His breaths turned shaky as he opened his front door, shears held tightly.

...He was really doing this.

He started off towards the park with a scared whimper.

Hero sat a few feet away from the meteorite, contemplating what had happened. He was just sitting there, and a giant fiery rock just fell from space. Right in front of him! It was crazy..!

Basil entered the park, huffing and wheezing. He held his shears close to his chest and looked around, spying the meteorite and Hero. "H-hero?! W-what are you doing here? It isn't sa-" Basil was stopped in his tracks by Hero looking over with a scarily cold expression. "You."

Basil shrunk as Hero walked over, looking enraged. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! Get AWAY."

"H-hero, I- W-what are you doing?!" Basil held up his shears, feeling more than a little threatened.

"What, are you going to KILL ME?! Like you did Mari?!" Hero roared, getting way too close to Basil, who let out a terrified cry as tears began rolling down his face.

"HERO!! Hero, are you- HERO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

Kel. He'd come to the park to see if Hero was okay. He immediately saw his older brother looking like he was about to eviscerate Basil, and dashed over to try holding him back. "Hero, stop it!! What's going on, bro?!" Hero grunted heavily as Basil got a good look at his face. It had a bit of a bluish tint to it. Something was really wrong.

"What are YOU doing? He and Sunny killed Mari. He DESERVES this," Hero spat. "And if you're going to get in my way.." He threw his younger brother off of him with a horrifying amount of skill.

"You'll have to go too."

There was no warning before Hero shot a beam of light out of his hand towards Basil. Basil screamed and held up his shears in fright; managing to catch the beam on the metal part, reflecting the shot to the ground. "W-what in- wh-"

Kel furrowed his brow and moved next to Basil. "BRO!! I was upset at them for a while too, but YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!" Hero charged towards Kel, who stuck his arms behind and to the side. "PK BALLIN'!"

Basil fell to the ground in shock and fear as a ball of energy formed in Kel's hands, roughly basketball sized. He skillfully dribbled and threw the ball at Hero, who stumbled back, dazed.

"C-C'mon Basil, we gotta go! I dunno what's gotten into him but it's BAD." Kel grasped Basil's arm and ran off, the smaller boy stumbling and breathing hard.

"W-what was THAT?!" Basil asked in fear as Kel barreled into Basil's home with him.

"I don't know!" Kel huffed, his adrenaline wearing off. "All I know if I felt a shockwave when I was trying to fall asleep, so I went to check on Hero, and.." Kel shuddered. "I knew he was mad at you, but.."

Basil hugged his gardening shears. He was scared. "W-what did you.. Do..?"

"Oh!" Kel chirped, his mood going chipper. "I recently learned I can blow stuff up with my mind!! Wanna see?!" Basil shook his head. He had to be dreaming. This could NOT be real.

"Yeah, somehow I know it's called PSI. But I dunno how. Y'know?" Basil shook his head, not following at all. "That's.." He looked at the floor. "..Not possible."

"I guess it is!" Kel said, exasperated. Basil groaned; this was giving him a headache.

"Well! Wanna go back?" Kel asked innocently. "He might be gone-zo!" He waltzed out the door shouting 'ADVENTURE' before Basil could stop him.

Indeed, Hero was no longer at the park. Kel's face went worried. "Mmm.. I hope he's at home.." He approached the meteorite. "Woah, this thing is COOL! I feel weird around it, haha. Hey Basil! Can you find me a stick to poke it with?!"

Basil shook his head wildly. "That doesn't sound safe at all!" He also felt weird around the rock. Like he was a bit stronger. It was a good weird, but he was still extremely uneasy. He just wanted to go home, go to bed, and forget this ever happened.

"Yeah, but I'm Ke- AGH!!" Kel jumped back as a strong beam of light shot from the meteorite into the sky. Basil rushed to his side, whimpering. He soon found himself hiding behind the taller boy.

The light died down after a few seconds, leaving a copper, robotic looking bee hovering before the pair. It reminded Basil of some sci-fi movie he'd seen as a kid.

"A bee.. I am not."

Oh. So it wasn't a bee.

"I.. Require the one they call.. Sunny."

"S-SUNNY! Sunny," Basil exclaimed. "W-what do you want with him?!" He gripped his garden shears tightly in fear. Kel held his fists up defensively. he was still a bit angry with both Sunny AND Basil, but.. He knew now that they were twelve, and Mari's death was an accident. ...He just wished they'd told everyone sooner.

"I am from 10 years in the future... Where all is devastation," The bug, which Basil could now reasonably assume was a beetle began.

"Giygas, the universal cosmic destroyer, has been wreaking havoc. He is the embodiment of pure evil, able to manipulate and paw his way into people's minds and hearts, corrupting all he touches.. You saw what he did to your friend there."

"H-hero?!" Kel yelped, receiving what looked like a nod.

There has.. Been a prophecy. Passed down for years and years. '3 boys and a girl, ripped apart by tragedy, will recover their bonds and savor the time they shared to defeat the cosmic destroyer'. Those boys.. I feel that they are you both, and Sunny."

Basil let out a hysterical laugh before passing out.

Chapter Text

Basil sat up to find he wasn't in the park. He was in an old, dusty forest that looked vaguely like the one behind Sunny's house. Hm. He got up and brushed himself off before walking around.

"Hello? Kel? A-are you here?" Basil called, a bit anxious. How'd he get here?

What Basil didn't realize was that he was dreaming. Kel and the beetle robot thing had taken him back to his house and laid him on his couch after he fainted from shock. Outside of his head, things were mostly calm.

"So! Buzz Buzz! What's all this about?" Kel asked cheerfully, forming a small ball of energy in his hands and passing it between his left and right. Buzz Buzz, the beetle, looked unamused. "That's PSI."

"Psh, I know that! But I dunno how I know that. Hey, how do I know that? And why can I do that?" Kel's brain, as usual, was going a mile a minute. It was truly exhausting for Buzz Buzz to listen to.

"Well; many PSI moves require a phrase to aid in focus. You'll automatically know what to say as you learn what you can do. And as you get stronger, you won't need to speak words aloud anymore." Buzz Buzz paused and landed on Basil's forehead. "Now, as for why you have this? You were born with it, of course, that's how almost all PSI users come about. I don't know why you've awakened so recently. A traumatic event could be to blame."

"Woah, sick! So I got superpowers!" Kel allowed his energy ball to dissipate. "Wait, a traumatic event? Mmm.." He thought back to the hospital. Oh jeez. He'd been really upset just after the truth came out. That might be it. "Yeah, that's probably what happened.."

The ongoing silence was pierced by a whimper from Basil's unconscious form. Buzz Buzz hovered in the air. "He's warm. That'll be useful."

"How the heck is Basil being sick useful?!" Kel exclaimed, a bit upset Buzz Buzz would say something like that. The little beetle made a sound akin to a sigh, albeit much more mechanical. "When you gain another PSI ability, your body needs to.. Adjust. This results in a fever."

Kel gasped a bit. "Wait, Basil's got superpowers too?! Wow! What can he do?!"

Buzz Buzz made another sigh-like noise. "It's PSI.. And I can check. I have the ability to see that.." He closed his eyes and opened them again a moment later. "Some latent telepathy and whatever he has coming in."

"Telelthy?" Kel asked, butchering the word entirely. "What's that??" Yet another sigh.

"He can talk to plants. Might be able to talk to people remotely, too."

"WHAT?! That's so cooooool!!" Kel gushed, looking back over to Basil. "Maybe.. Maybe this whole saving the world thing'll be alright. Is he okay?"

"I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be."

Basil was not okay.

The forest had only grown dustier and darker as he strolled through. It was much larger than the one by Sunny's house, he gathered. His legs were growing tired, and he felt warm. Too warm.. It was uncomfortable.

The crunching of a twig behind him made him jump. He whirled around to see who- or what- had made the noise. ...Nothing was there.

Basil squirmed uneasily and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Maybe the trees could help him find his way? It was worth a shot, considering nobody else was with him.

"Where am I..?" He murmured, trying to listen especially close for any responses. A cacophony of disgruntled replies filled his thoughts. "Who cares?" "Why bother?" "Doesn't matter."

How unsettling.. He whimpered a little as he continued weaving through the trees, which he noticed were growing more distorted as he went, reminding him of old Disney movies he'd watch with his friends on VHS as a kid, particularly one somewhat damaged copy of Cinderella Hero owned. A cold gust of wind blew by, making him shudder. He didn't like this.

Soon, he came across a distorted clearing; but this time it was less of a damaged VHS and more.. More like somebody had transformed the landscape into pudding and dragged a spoon through it before making it solid once again. He really didn't like this.

The flowers and trees immediately surrounding the clearing were mangled and dying, many suffering form the same distortions. A few almost.. Looked like they were bleeding.. What happened here? The sight of so many plants dying, struggling to hang on crushed Basil's spirit a little. He looked to the middle of the clearing.

The treehouse! The one they played in as kids..! And was that..?

"SUNNY!!" Basil yelled, running over. Finally, a familiar face.. A few butterflies fluttered around in his stomach as he approached the boy facing away from him. He recoiled immediately as Sunny turned around to face him. The right side of his face was caved in, and he was holding a sharp pair of gardening shears. "Basil.. Look what you've done."

"Y-you aren't Sunny.." Basil said instinctively. He'd always felt a certain way around Sunny. A certain warmth. He didn't know how to describe it, but.. This... Was not him.

"Maybe not. But look. Look at me. Look at him. He has to deal with this every day. Every single day. And it's all YOUR FAULT."

Not-Sunny's last two words echoed incessantly as Basil felt himself growing hotter. "N-no, Sunny.. H-he said he forgave me! He s-said!" He backed away as the figure before him drew the shears above his head.

"That doesn't matter. You deserve to feel the pain he did." Basil was forced to the ground by some sort of pushing feeling that came from nowhere. The.. The thing before him got far too close for comfort as it distorted further and further away from the image of Sunny, the voice it held becoming garbled and near-unintelligible.

"NOW FACE WHAT YOU'VE DONE." Basil let out a cry as the shears were driven into his eye. He felt even hotter all around as a white hot pain began radiating from his face and searing into his head. He way dying, dying, dying.. In an instant, he found himself sitting up, gasping for air.

...It was a dream. He was okay. Kel looked at him in concern. "Hey! Basil! You okay?"

Basil nodded shakily. It wasn't real. It was just his lingering guilt getting to him. He noticed he was feeling incredibly warm. He was sticky with sweat and had a light amount of phantom pain rattling around his skull. "I-I'm okay. B-bad dream.. What-" He noticed the beetle from earlier, now sitting on top of Kel's head. ...So that was real.

"Woah, dude, lay back down! You got a fever!" Kel chimed, running to the bathroom and returning with a thermometer. "Open up, my guy!"

Basil hesitantly complied as Kel jammed the thermometer into his mouth. He hummed as the gadget beeped, pulling it towards him to see the readout. "DUDE!! 104?! Is that, like, safe?"

A small robotic groan emanated from Buzz Buzz. "For a PSI user, yes, you're more resilient to high fevers." Kel sighed in relief.

"A what?" Basil asked, confused. "A PSI user. You have psychic abilities, as does Kel, as do I."

"What??"

Buzz Buzz sighed a bit. "Right; your telepathy is latent. Of course you wouldn't gain any innate knowledge from that.. You can talk to plants, yes?"

Basil tilted his head. "Can't everyone?" Kel looked at him funny. "Course not!"

The small boy shrunk a bit. "O-oh.." He looked really embarrassed. "Well, that's a PSI ability. Your fever means you're gaining another."

"Yeah! Buzzy here told me that!!" Kel exclaimed. "It's.. Buzz Buzz."

"That.. Huh?" Basil said, dumbstruck. Kel patted Basil's head. "You'll figure it out! Yo, Buzz Buzz! When's Basil gonna be better so we can get this show on the road?"

"If his fever's this high, it should break soon. You two know Sunny; yes?"

"OH YEAH, Sunny and us go way back," Kel said with a nervous laugh. "Oh. Good. You should gather him up."

"About that," Kel laughed, not knowing how Buzz Buzz would take the news that Sunny no longer lived here.

Sunny woke up from a dreamless sleep with a jolt. He didn't know what woke him up, but nonetheless, he got up and stretched, not wanting to lay awake for hours trying to fall back asleep. He had.. A bad feeling. Like a rock was at the bottom of his stomach.

Glancing at his alarm clock while putting on his eyepatch (His eye had needed to be removed. The doctors said there was no chance of it healing safely), he saw it was about.. 11 PM. Oh, joy.

Sunny sighed and went to get a glass of water, knowing he'd need to head back to sleep. Omori was standing at the kitchen, staring blankly at him in the dark.

Ah, right, he was there. Sunny's hallucinations had almost fully disappeared. Almost. Omori was still around, though.. Bugging him. He didn't seem as.. Severe, now that Sunny was trying to move on, but he was still... Well, Omori.

"Getting water?" He asked, Sunny being unable to read his tone. He nodded a bit as he grabbed a cup from the cabinet above the sink and filled it with cool tap water. He drank it very quickly; savoring the feeling of the water soothing his dry throat.

"What are you doing up?" Omori asked coolly. Sunny rolled his eye. "Can't sleep.." He whispered. Omori blinked. "Well. It might be because of Basil."

"Huh?"

Omori narrowed his eyes. "Just check your phone." Sunny apprehensively placed his empty glass in the sink and glided to his room. Omori followed closely behind, making Sunny.. Uncomfortable, to say the very least.

He swiped open his cellphone and pawed around. Sure enough, a small pile of texts had been made to him just before he woke up.

Kel: HEY SUNNY I'M REALLY SORRY FOR BEING MAD AT YOU LIKE A JERK BUT WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Kel: Basil's sick and there's a funky rock at the park and things are rly weird and we might need to save the world basically just get here plsssss

Sunny narrowed his eye. So that was what gave him his bad feeling... As much as he knew it was a bad idea, he felt a strange tugging to go back to Faraway and.. And just check up on things.

Yes, yes, he'd pop over. Just for a little bit. He really wanted to make sure Basil was okay for some reason. He returned to the kitchen with a light sigh as he checked on his phone to see if busses were running this time of night.

"Might want a weapon," Omori said offhandedly, hopping onto the counter and crossing his legs. He waved to the silverware drawer. Sunny.. Didn't like what he was implying.

"Come on. You're a vulnerable teen who's going on a bus at night after hardly going outside for four years. You're weak. Use your head." Oh. That was a good point.. Sunny bit his lip as he slowly grabbed a steak knife from the drawer, his hands trembling. He slid it into his shorts pocket, praying he wouldn't need it...

As he walked to the front door, making sure not to wake his mother, he looked at his hands for a moment. A few golden sparks flew between his fingers at his command. After getting out of the hospital, he'd had a fever for a bit and now.. He could do this. Of course, he wasn't fully utilizing the move. The few times he had, he sent out three quick swipes of this energy out, absolutely devastating whatever was on the other end of the blast.

...He didn't like that.

"Oh, PK Allegro," Omori said plainly. "You know... You could probably use it to deal extra damage if you combined it with a knife attack." He sounded quite analytical. "And you know it doesn't hurt yourself or your allies. Useful."

Sunny shook his head lightly. "...Don't." He turned and took a deep breath to steady himself before pushing open the front door.

Time for a little adventure.

Chapter Text

Sunny chewed lightly on the inside of his cheek as he boarded the bus that'd drop him off in Faraway. It was a miracle there were busses going this late.

He hung his head low so nobody could see how young he was as he dropped his fare into the payment box and took his seat. Omori came right on with him. Of course, he wasn't.. Real, not in the sense, so he didn't have to pay the fare. ...Lucky.

There was nobody else on the bus besides the driver, and.. A man that Sunny didn't feel very good around. Like his bad aura about him was piercing into his head with no mercy, trying to wrangle its' way into his very soul. It gave him a light headache. It was nigh unbearable; so he opted to sit at the back of the bus, far away from whatever he had going on.

He stayed alert as he rode, staying quiet and taking up little room, as usual. He soon noticed the man was looking at him with an expression reeking of wanting to cause trouble. Sunny uneasily gripped the knife in his pocket. It was legal to fight in self defense, right..?

He jumped a little as the man got up and strided towards him. Oh no. Oh nonono. It was gonna be fine, right? Maybe he just wanted to tell Sunny his fly was down or something stupid like that. Sunny scanned the man's face, mostly blank, and with a blue haze scattered around it. ...Not good.

Something in Sunny was telling him this was really bad. Omori stood to the side, ready to shout out instructions in case things went wrong.

"Kid. What are you doing here." The man's voice was cold, unwelcoming.. This feeling. It felt oddly familiar. He didn't like it. It reminded him of the hospital..

Sunny didn't respond. His vocal cords were frozen up from anxiety. The man suddenly lunged forward towards Sunny, who rolled off of his bus seat. Oh no, this was happening. He unsheathed his steak knife and held it out defensively. "Y-you don't want to do this..!" He sounded more scared than brave, a fact that Omori snickered at momentarily.

"Right. I need to." The man swung back, kicking Sunny in the shins. He fell over, but thankfully wasn't disarmed. He looked back up to see an ominous red glow forming behind the man's head.. He was scared. He was going to die, wasn't he...

"Sunny. Allegro. Now." Omori said, sounding more serious than usual. Sunny haphazardly got to his feet. He really didn't want to do this. He clutched his knife tightly and shed a stressed tear. "P-PK Allegro!" He exclaimed quietly, making three quick slices at the air with his knife. Each one sent a slice of golden energy and sparks flying towards his adversary.

This seemed to focus the energy more than the few experimental uses of his ability he'd tried, as the man was knocked over, the remaining two cuts fatally wounding his abdomen, forcing him to stop moving. Sunny's face went pale. ...He killed someone. Like that. Oh my God he'd killed another person and it was all his fault and-

Wait. What..?

The man's face returned to its' normal color as a red mist erupted from his eyes and mouth. His wounds miraculously closed up, and he soon took a gaspy breath. "I- What? Where.. Was I heading back home?" He sat back in his original seat, contemplating.

He didn't remember anything?

Sunny, shaken, returned to his seat, shoving the knife into his pocket again. Omori flashed him a thumbs up. "Told you that'd be effective." Sunny buried his face in his hands for the remainder of the trip.

Aubrey groaned as she woke up again. She'd been awoken by the meteorite's landing, and now she was having trouble falling back asleep. How annoying.

She cracked her neck and buried her head in her pillow. She'd go investigate whatever fell outside later. Her brain kept bothering her to go check it out, but she was exhausted from the day before, spent writing graffiti on the bathroom stalls in Othermart. Truly exhilarating.

She put a hand to her forehead, feeling a bit warm. A fever. Yippee! She groaned as she made her way downstairs for some water. It was gonna be a loooong night.

Sunny carefully exited the bus and drew his knife in case anyone else was being.. Violent. He cautiously walked to Basil's house, after checking his phone to see a text from Kel asking him to meet there. With a deep, shaky breath, he knocked on the door.

"SUNNY! Hey!" Kel said happily, throwing the door open. Basil waved weakly from the couch. "You're here! Good! Weird stuff is happening! Basil's fever just broke, so it's the perfect time to talk," Kel reasoned, pulling Sunny into the house and closing the door. He haphazardly plopped down on the floor in front of the couch, inviting Sunny to sit across from him.

"So basically, this funky meteorite fell at the park, and Hero's been weird, and we both have these funky PSI powers, a-" Sunny stopped Kel there. "You.. Too..?" His head was spinning.

"Yeah, look," Kel said, forming a little orb of energy in his palm. Sunny stared at it with a wide eye before carefully holding his own hand out and forming some sparks. Kel's eyes widened, as did Basil's.

"Wow.. You don't think Hero.." Basil whispered. Kel squirmed. "I kinda hope not. Actually.. Now that I think about it.. I hope he made it home okay. Even.. Even if he was acting really bad." A solemn nod was shared between the three boys before Buzz Buzz spoke up.

"Well. It's good to meet you, Sunny. You should all rest. Then tomorrow we can focus on finding the girl of the group, and I can guide you on your journey."

"Huh..?" Sunny reacted. "Oh! Yeah! That's right! Let me start from the beginning.." Kel said thoughtfully, explaining for a full 15 minutes. Sunny paid as good of attention as he possibly could.

"...What."

"Yeah, it- it's crazy, but, I think it might be real," Basil said, squirming. "We.. Saw this happen."

Sunny groaned and shook his head. "...I'll sleep on this."

The next morning at the crack of dawn, the trio headed out to the crash site, spirits high and willing to find answers. They did not expect to find a certain bubblegum-haired delinquent there too, observing the still-hot rock with a look of boredom.

"A-Aubrey!" Basil stuttered. She glared at them. "What are you doing here?"

Sunny whimpered a bit. He understood why Aubrey was mad. He'd.. Probably be mad too. He just hoped she wouldn't hurt Kel or basil over what HE did.

"Uh! Well, we're looking at the meteorite," Kel said brightly. Aubrey crossed her arms. "Funny. Because I'm doing the same thing. What's HE doing here?" She picked up her nail bat and pointed it at Sunny, whose face went blank.

"Oh! Well, we kind of have to save the world! See.." Kel went on a long-winded rant on everything that had happened thus far, Aubrey becoming more and more frustrated with each sentence. She eventually barked at him to stop.

"Look, I.. I don't wanna get involved with your game of DnD or whatever. You think you can just- just lie about Mari for years, come back into my life, and drop that bomb? No. You don't get to do that." Her ire was directed at Sunny in particular.

"Aubrey, they were 12," Kel said dully, trying to keep the peace. Aubrey clenched her hands on the handle of her bat and swung forward blindly. "Shut UP!!"

A clank and buzz resulted from her hit connecting with Buzz Buzz. Kel gasped loudly as Sunny and Basil zoomed over. "BUZZ BUZZ!!!" Kel cried emotionally, scooping up his robotic body.

"Listen! Listen. That girl is the one. I can sense it. Agh.." Buzz Buzz groaned.

Sunny furrowed his brow. Aubrey was the one they were looking for.. Oh no.

"I don't have much time left. Please. Take this." A small, smooth, pale blue stone materialized in Sunny's hands with Buzz Buzz's words. It was oddly symmetrical and cool to the touch, as well as very pleasant to hold. "Huh?"

"This is the Soundstone. You need to take it to- AGH- to eight different locations of power. This will allow you to grow in strength enough to defeat Giygas himself.. The first location is here in Faraway. AHH..! It hurts. I can still feel pain, even like this.. Ha.." Basil began crying a bit. As much as he felt pathetic for crying over a robot beetle, it still.. Hurt.

At this point, Aubrey was crouching over the dying Buzz Buzz with a look of dumbfoundment. "The heck..?"

"You.. Can use the stone like a compass. To find the other seven. That is all I can say now.. I'm sorry. Oh..! The pain.. My time left is brief." Buzz Buzz let out a mechanical groan and a few clicks. "Good luck.. Sunny, Basil, Kel, Aubrey.." With that, Buzz Buzz was gone...

A few moments passed. "This isn't real. This can't be real. It's.." Aubrey glanced from the meteorite, to the boys, to Buzz Buzz. "...It's real, isn't it." She began laughing hysterically as the trio helped her to the de facto meeting area of the group: Basil's house.

Chapter Text

"So what the fuck is this?!" Aubrey exclaimed once the gang was seated in Basil's living room. Sunny shifted awkwardly as Kel once again explained everything.

Well, he tried, before Basil calmly asked him to stop. He complied, surprisingly.

"So. We gotta go find these 8 places or whatever and then I can get back to NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN. Cool. Good. Let's get this over with. Make a day of it." Aubrey hoisted her bat over her shoulder. "Let's move. Where to first."

All eyes rested on Sunny and the stone that he was still clutching in his hands. He shifted a bit in his seat. "...I don't know how to use this."

Aubrey groaned loudly. "You've got psychic crap, right? Figure it out!!" Sunny whimpered anxiously as he looked down at the rock. He tried focusing on it. Come on, do something, do somethi-

Oh. He now had a faint tugging feeling on his mind. It led to.. The old hangout spot, he thought, though he could be wrong.

"Okay. I got it?" He said, confused. "Uh.. Hideout.."

"YEAH! Let's go! Adventure time!" Kel yelled as he sprinted out the front door. Aubrey groaned and jaunted after him, leaving Sunny and Basil alone.

"Er.. Sunny.." Basil said quietly. "I'm.. Still sorry about your eye..."

Sunny nodded. "It's okay. I'd rather have you alive and be missing an eye than to have them both and you be dead." Basil blushed, feeling warm all over again. Not in an uncomfortable way, though.. He liked this.

Sunny gently shook him by the shoulder, seemingly a bit drunk on feelings as well, but handling it better. "We should go.."

"Ah!! R-right! Yeah!" Basil got up and dashed out the door. Sunny followed at a brisk pace. Why was he feeling so fuzzy all of a sudden? He shook his head and worked on getting him and Basil caught up with Aubrey and Kel.

"Here we are! The hangout!" Kel smiled as he twirled. "Let's go in. This'll be easy!" He weaved through the trees to enter into the clearing before letting out an alarmed shout.

"K-kel!!" Basil stammered, dashing after him. Aubrey and Sunny cautiously entered in to see what was happening.

The Hooligans were standing guard at the lake. All of them, other than Aubrey. What they were doing up this early, nobody could guess. They all had the blue tint across their faces that Kel, Basil, and Sunny knew all too well. Something was wrong.

"Hey guys. What's up," Aubrey deadpanned. "We gotta thing to do here. Can you move?" She allowed her shoulders to relax a bit, as a show of non-hostility.

"Sorry, but no," Kim said with a certain bite to her voice that made Aubrey visibly uncomfortable. "What? Kim, why?"

"This is our Sanctuary now! Begone, before we turn you into TOAST!!" The Maverick cried, lunging forward towards Aubrey. Her eyes widened, genuinely not expecting the sudden attack.

She couldn't dodge in time and was knocked onto the ground, unable to wriggle free from the usually rather weak boy's sudden strength.

"A-aubrey! They aren't norm- Agh!!" Basil was suddenly tackled down by Kim as the rest of the teens rolled out to stop Kel and Sunny. Kel used his agility to his advantage by dodging and sprinting away, eventually climbing up into a tree. "HANG TIGHT GUYS!! I got it!!!!"

"PK BALLIN'!!" Kel roared, throwing a psychic basketball right into the heat of the fray. Kim was hit square in the face and stumbled off of Basil, becoming dazed. Basil quickly took the chance to run away from her. Alas, Charlie pinned him to the ground once more. Sunny yelped as he felt an inexplicable pain stab his leg.

Sunny haphazardly and ungracefully dodged and weaved through the Hooligans rushing at him; his small stature being kind of useful for once. He yelped and whipped out his steak knife, earning a surprised shout from Kel. "Don't stab anyone, dude!!"

"Not going to!!" Sunny wheezed as he quickly took aim of where he wanted to land a hit. From where he was standing, he could easily take down the people running for him and potentially free Aubrey. Allegro didn't hurt friends, right?

...Was Aubrey still his friend?

No matter, no time to think on that. "PK ALLEGRO!" Sunny did his best to aim his first two swipes of the usual golden energy towards the Hooligans, and another at The Maverick. One of the shots at the Hooligans missed and slammed into a tree, causing it to tumble down with a crack. The other struck the group head on, knocking them down and wounding most of them. The final strike knocked The Maverick off of a struggling Aubrey, who gave a surprised shout.

"WOAH-HO, SUNNY!!" Kel yelled enthusiastically, jumping out of the tree and helping a confused and dazed Aubrey up onto her feet. "Let's end this!!"

The teens before them were.. Not stopping. Even with their wounds and bruises, they were still trying to claw forward and attack. "Snap OUT OF IT, guys!!" Aubrey yelled, thrusting a hand forward and jumping back when she managed to summon a hot pink hexagonal barrier that the Hooligans ended up crashing into.

Aubrey stared at her hand as the teens stumbled to the ground. She felt her fever receding. "The Hell?!"

"YO!! Aubrey's got PSI!!" Kel said cheerfully. "NICE!!"

Sunny whipped his head around as Basil let out a yelp. Charlie had gotten off him to attend to her gang. Now was his chance. "Basil!!" Sunny cried as he ran over to help the taller boy up and around to the backside of Aubrey's shield. He was shaking. So was Sunny.

"S-sunny, it's fine, I-i'm used to it," Basil stammered out. Sunny furrowed his brow. "No." Aubrey shot them a guilty look before shaking her head and focusing on spreading her shield out all around them.

Basil collapsed onto his knees. "Ow.. She.. I think she hurt my leg. It feels sprained.." Sunny winced; a light pain had been blossoming in his own leg. How inconvenient. "Basil.."

"Hey!! With all due respect, now's not the time for this," Kel chimed in. "Basil!! Is your fever down? What can ya do?" Basil focused for a moment, searching his brain.

"P-PSI Pollenstorm," He whispered anxiously, jutting his hands towards the Hooligans. A torrent of pollen swirled around Basil's hands as his eyes widened. The pollen slammed effortlessly through Aubrey's shield, being PSI based and the shield being for physical attacks.

Basil put his hands down, the pollen now swirling and settling down around the Hooligans. Their eyes started watering like there was no tomorrow, a few of them fell into sneezing fits, and one by one, they fell to the ground under the combined strain of their injuries and allergies. Basil let out an alarmed cry. "I-"

"GUYS!!" Aubrey yelled as she took down her shield and crouched down by her fallen friends. "Basil, what the Hell did you do this time?!"

Basil blabbered in tears in response. Sunny patted his back, worried.

Basil, Aubrey, and Kel collectively jumped as the red mist escaped from each of the Hooligans' eyes and mouths and they regained their usual colors. Sunny watched with great intrigue as their wounds closed up. So.. This would happen when they defeated people who were like this. Was this the Giygas guy Kel had mentioned? ...Sunny didn't like that.

He was glad that people would heal, though.

"Aubrey..?" Kim croaked as she sat up shakily. "What- Oof!!" She was cut off by Aubrey hugging her tightly. "Kim! What are- What HAPPENED?!"

Kim broke away and looked at Aubrey in confusion. "I.. Don't know? Everything after last night is.. A blur..." She took off her glasses and wiped them on her hoodie before sneezing. Aubrey started to explain what she knew as the rest of the gang began coming to.

Basil, still sitting on the ground and crying a bit, leaned against Sunny's legs for support. The shorter boy crouched down to Basil's level. It was the least he could do.

Kel broke the near-silence. "Well! If this is the first Sanctuary location.." He nudged his head towards Sunny, who took note and whipped the Soundstone out of his pocket. It was glowing faintly. Sunny's eye widened as he focused on the stone, once again feeling the tugging sensation from earlier, but this time, it was much stronger, and a bit more uncomfortable. Furthermore, Kel, Basil and Aubrey seemed to feel it too, evident by them all looking over at the stone.

"That's.." Aubrey said quietly before shaking her head. "The lake. That's it. Go do whatever and we can move on. Kim, can you get everyone home?" Kim nodded and rounded up the Hooligans before rolling out, not wanting to experience any more of whatever weirdness was going on. The other teens seemed to share her sentiment.

Sunny sneezed heavily as he walked through the remnants of Basil's Pollenstorm. He couldn't imagine being the intended target. Kel and Basil followed him up to the dock of the lake while Aubrey sat a ways away, looking bored.

Sunny felt his heart swelling for some reason as he sat on the dock with his friends. A cool breeze rustled his bangs as a few notes whistled through the air. The tugging he felt had subsided, and the Soundstone had abruptly stopped glowing. He felt an overwhelming sense of calm. For some reason, he was reminded of a childhood picnic.

The three were silent for a second before Kel jumped up with an accomplished shout. "YEAH!! ONE DOWN, SEVEN TO GO!! Where to next, buddy?!"

Sunny focused back in on the stone in his hands. "...Not here. Not Faraway. Closeto. Uh.. City I live in.."

Aubrey groaned angrily. "THEY AREN'T ALL IN FARAWAY?! BULLSHIT!!" She ripped a handful of grass out of the ground.

"Oh, come on! It's an adventure!" Kel chirped. Aubrey shot him a death glare.

"I-i.. Guess we're in this for the long haul," Basil stuttered quietly. Sunny sneezed again.

"Do.. You want to recoup at my place..? We could make it our new base.. My mom isn't there much.." Sunny was quiet and hesitant in his words.

Aubrey growled. "You know what..? Better than my house.. Okay. Fine. I'm game. But JUST because we have to save the world." Kel cheered. "YEA!! I'll go pack a bag!! Friends sleepover!~" He ran out of the clearing, whooping loudly.

Sunny sneezed once more as he, Aubrey, and Basil headed off for the exit. "...I'll need to make some Allegra chicken."

"Some fucking WHAT?!" Aubrey roared as Basil laughed loudly. Sunny smiled a bit, refusing to explain any further.

Chapter Text

The bus ride to Closeto City was long and awkward. The towns were just an hour apart by bus, but with Aubrey silently stewing in her seat and their bags taking up another four seats, it was.. A bit slow and boring.

Kel rhythmically tapped his feet on the floor. "So! I was thinkin we could, like, train or something once we get to your place. It'll be like a movie!" Sunny hummed quietly. "We might break something..."

"Who cares about breaking stuff?! We've got crazy psychic powers and we're gonna save the wo-" Basil carefully placed a hand over Kel's mouth. "Please don't talk about that so loudly.." Kel pouted in mock annoyance.

Aubrey whipped out her cellphone and leaned into the uncomfortable bus seat with a grunt. An awkward silence fell over the group.

Kel pulled a Nintendo DSi out of his pocket and started playing around with the camera. "Hey guys, say cheese!" He took a selfie of the group and began playing around with the filters and such.

"You still have your DS?" Basil inquired in awe. "That's great! I remember when we used to share Flipnotes and play Mariokart.." He giggled.

"Yea! Oh, wait, hold on, I have old Flips!!" Kel exclaimed, opening the software and navigating to his gallery. "Sunny, look, here's one you made of Mewo.. And Basil made this one of a flower!! And I made this one! It's ME!!" Kel tapped on a particularly poorly made animation of a red stick figure making a slam-dunk, earning a laugh from Basil.

"Look! This one's by Aub-" Aubrey kicked Kel's ankle. "Ow!! Okay, okay, jeez, I won't show them the anime MVs you used to make.." Aubrey, still silent, turned a bright scarlet. "Kel..!"

"Oh, hey, Sunny, you do art now, right?" Basil asked cheerfully. Sunny nodded as Kel gaped at him. "Yo!! You do art? Can you draw something?!" He thrust the DSi into Sunny's skinny arms. Sunny obliged and did a very quick doodle of a bowl of fruit. Stereotypical. He laughed to himself.

"Woah, that's really good!" Kel gasped as he took the small device back. Kel was not only tall, but had notoriously large hands that swamped the poor thing. It was good that Nintendo's products weren't sentient. "Hey, that reminds me.. We should buy some stuff for our adventure, y'know?"

"Like.. What..?" Basil asked quietly. Kel laughed. "Food and stuff! What if we get stranded in the wilderness or something!" Sunny gulped. He hoped that didn't happen.

Aubrey took the lead. "If you want to do some romping out in the wilderness looking or these Sanctuary things, we'll need more than food. A tent. Toiletries. A porta-stove. Matches. Pads. Sunny, do you need those?"

Sunny whipped his head around anxiously before lowering his voice to a whisper. "Yes. I started T, but I still get.. That. For now.." Aubrey nodded roughly. "Great. Congrats on that. Double-time on those pads then. We need a first aid kit too." She switched to her phone's notes app and started writing things down.

"Orange Joe!" Kel chirped, which Aubrey begrudgingly typed in with the other items. The rest of the ride was spent drafting the list of things to buy.

"SUNNY!! Where were you?!"

Sunny tensed up as his mother rushed forward to hug him. "And your friends! They're here?"

"Sorry mom," Sunny choked. "I went to Faraway this morning. Forgot to leave a note." He squirmed away from his mom, who cooed. "Aw, my little Sunny Bunny's growing up.."

Sunny blushed as Aubrey stifled a laugh.

"Oh! Don't forget to do your chores, take your hormones, eat some breakfast.. Do you need help with the needle, honey?" Sunny's mom fussed as Sunny sighed. "I'm 17. I can give myself a T shot."

"Okay, if you insist! I'm off to work. Have a lovely day, you all~!" She left the apartment and sighed after closing the door behind her. It had been a long morning.

"So, Sunny Bunny, where should we put our crap?" Aubrey teased, testing Sunny's patience. "M-my room maybe..?" Sunny said offhandedly with a wave. He figured he might as well take his weekly T shot while the others were putting their bags away. He headed to the bathroom and grabbed all the paraphernalia he needed: The med vial, a sterile syringe, Shrek bandaid, antiseptic, cotton swabs.. Cool. He was set.

Sunny glided to his living room couch and disinfected a small area on his thigh to inject at. He didn't like needles, but this wasn't getting done any other way. Sigh. He carefully drew out the correct dosage of T from the vial and prepared to inject.

"SUNNY WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" Kel yelled, poking his head into the living room. Sunny jumped, thankfully not dropping his needle. "I-I'm taking my boy sauce..?!" Sunny blurted reflexively. Kel gave him an approving nod and sat on the couch next to Sunny, making feel awkward.

He squeezed his eye shut and got the shot over with as quickly as he could without being dangerous. He then quickly applied the Shrek bandaid, earning some light applause from Kel as Basil and Aubrey returned from the depths of Sunny's room.

"GUYS!! Sunny took his boy juice!!" Kel declared as said boy buried his face in his hands. "Kel.."

"This lad deserves a lollipop! I dunno how you stay so calm taking a needle to the thigh!" Kel exclaimed in awe as Sunny strolled to the bathroom to put the spent syringe into the sharps box. As he walked, he noticed his leg was still sore from when it started hurting for no reason. He returned to see everyone sitting on the floor around the coffee table. Oddly enough, Basil was rubbing his thigh about the same place Sunny had injected on his own body.

Aubrey slammed her palms onto the table. "Okay. Supplies. Tent, food, sleeping bags, first aid kit, pads, toiletries, porta-stove, matches. Anything missing?"

"A knife my mom won't be mad if I destroy," Sunny said, placing his steak knife calmly on the table. Kel chimed in asking for a basketball. Basil quietly and ashamedly asked for a pair of garden shears. Aubrey sighed sharply. "If we're all getting upgrades, I'll get a bat. Great. Let's go."

She got up without warning, leaving the boys to run after her out of the apartment.

Chapter Text

Aubrey inspected a heavy softball bat. Nice and metal. She swung it experimentally. Yeah, this'd work. Couldn't put nails through it, though... Shame.

"How are you all faring?" She called out, a bit frustrated she got roped into saving the world with the three people she didn't wanna see. It just wasn't fair.. But that prophecy crap the bee or whatever told Kel about seemed to fit the bill a concerning amount.

So, she was stuck here. YAY.

Sunny wordlessly walked into the aisle from the nearby camping section. He pushed a cart containing a few boxes: A tent, if the label and pictures on the front were anything to go by. One with multiple rooms. Smart. A small portable gas stove, as well as couple canisters. A few sleeping bags. And a shiny blister pack containing a Swiss Army Knife. Looks like he grabbed a steak knife too. Good idea if the folding blade thing didn't work out.

Basil came trotting into the aisle humming quietly and gently placed a sharp pair of garden shears as well as a few boxes of matches, a couple power banks for everyone's phones, and a large first aid kit into the cart. He looked at Aubrey and Sunny in exhaustion. "I tried to look for pads, but.. There's so many.." He sounded utterly defeated.

"Right. Cis dude," Aubrey noted. "We can handle it. Where's-"

"YO I GOT A FREAKIN BALL, DAWG!!!" Kel shouted as he ran into the aisle on Aubrey's side dribbling a basketball. With an enthusiastic SLAM, he bounced the ball off of the floor...

And right into Aubrey's face. She stumbled back a bit as Kel froze. "AAAAA Aubrey, I'm sorry!!" Aubrey looked like she was about to commit a felony as she picked up and threw the ball into the cart. "Don't. Do that again."

"Yes Ma'am!" Kel yelped, making Aubrey stew further.

"Whatever. Let's just raid the health and beauty section," Aubrey said, waving Sunny to head over.

Aubrey inspected a few different types of soap as Sunny shuffled awkwardly at the cart. "Who's.. Going to pay for this..?" He felt like a burden

"Me, numbskull. Anything to get this over with faster." Aubrey chucked a bottle of body wash into the cart. "Yo, Basil. What do you use?" Basil squeaked as he grabbed a bottle of lavender scented body wash and carefully placed it in the cart. Oh, so that was why he smelled nice. Sunny blushed a bit; that was an awkward thought to have.

Kel slammed multiple "EXTREME FRESH BLITZ" scented body products into the cart, followed up by a can of AXE. OH NO.

Aubrey plucked the spray out of the cart while Kel wasn't looking. She was NOT gonna potentially sleep in a tent with someone smelling of that junk. Sunny hesitantly grabbed a few products, all unscented. Yeah, matched his vibes.

Aubrey sauntered into the menstrual care section with the boys in tow. She quickly and effortlessly grabbed a pack of pads and threw them into the cart, followed by a menstrual cup. Now was a better time than ever to try one out.

"What's..?" Kel asked. Aubrey groaned and spoke with an awkward tone, like she was speaking to a small child. "It, uh. It's a cup. The blood goes IN it." She mumbled something to the effect of 'chucklenuts' under her breath as Kel came to a quick realization.

"EWW!!" Kel recoiled heavily. Aubrey sighed. "Go grab some ibuprofen, will you?!" Kel saluted and ran off as fast as he could. Basil was redder than a maple tree in the middle of fall. He was groaning a bit under his breath.

"Sunny. Grab your crap." Sunny winced a bit before grabbing the most absorbent pads he could see. That way he'd have to change them less. Just a few months and he wouldn't have to deal with this any more.. He plunged them into the cart as deep as he could.

They found Kel in the medicine department soon after. He was inspecting EVERY OTC med they HAD, one by one, looking for ibuprofen. Basil helpfully handed him a bottle of the medicine that he found rather quickly. Kel triumphantly thanked him and tossed the pills into the cart with a grin, his mind taken off of the awkwardness of earlier.

Aubrey gently slapped a box of Allegra out of Sunny's hand. No Allegra chicken. He frowned.

Next up was food. Aubrey STRICTLY enforced a 'no perishables' policy, one that Kel in particular wasn't very happy with, even though he understood why. Who knew what they were getting into? If the Sanctuaries weren't JUST in Faraway, they could be anywhere.

ANYWHERE.

It was a harrowing thought.

Sunny quietly placed a box of fruit leather into the cart, getting an upwards nod from Aubrey, who was looking at MREs and such. Basil hummed as he looked for healthy non-perishables, and Kel lamented at the store's distinct lack of Orange Joe in stock.

"Are you gonna keep crying or can we go check out?" Aubrey teased, starting to walk off. Kel yelped and ran back up to the group. Time to check out and head back to Sunny's to plan.

"It's.. Somewhere in the city," Sunny said softly, focused on the Soundstone yet again while sitting on the couch in his living room, his friends surrounding him. "I think.. The park's in that direction..?" He yawned. He felt warm.

"Good. We can go there then." Aubrey wiped some sweat off her forehead. "Damn, Sunny. Can you turn down the heating in here?"

Sunny nodded; he was feeling a bit hot too. He strolled over to the thermostat and groaned. "It's 70 in here.."

"Then why's it so hoooot?" Kel complained, rolling around on the floor of the living room. It was Basil who had the common sense to produce a thermometer from the new first aid kit and check his temperature. "105.." He said, sounding gloomy. He cleaned the thermometer and fussed over Kel and Sunny, who were 103 and 104 respectively. Aubrey snatched the device away from Basil when the others were all checked.

"I can do it myself. Don't trouble yourself." Basil sat down on the couch next to Sunny at her words. Aubrey groaned as she looked at the display. "104. What the heck happened that we all got sick at once?!"

Kel snapped his fingers. "Wait! Buzz Buzz told me that this happens when you gain a new PSI skill!! You body's gotta adjust or something." Basil nodded. "T-that makes sense! I wonder what we'll be able to do, if that's the case.. But we should really rest, weird psychic fevers or not.. I guess we're down and out for the day."

Aubrey grumbled. Another day she'd have to spend away from home..

Sunny shrugged and shifted into a curled up position on the couch, making Basil peep a bit in surprise. "I'm taking a nap." Basil awkwardly moved to the other side of the couch and leaned against the armrest. "Sounds good.."

Aubrey nodded curtly and headed off to Sunny's room to sleep on the floor or something. Though, upon seeing Kel get snuggled up with his new bright orange sleeping bag on the floor in front of the couch, she felt.. Lonely.

She hummed and gathered up her own new sleeping bag; a hot pink. She laid on the floor a bit away from Kel and dozed off.

Hero walked briskly through the streets of Faraway; with purpose and determination in his step. He was.. A little weirded out by his newfound ability to charm people into being more suggestible, and, well, being able to move things with his mind, but.. Somehow, he also didn't care.

A small grin formed on his face as he came up upon his house. He'd get the info he needed here.

His goal was.. To find and destroy Sunny and Basil. Well, maybe that was harsh.. But.. They KILLED Mari. Then FRAMED her suicide. Something whispering in his ear was telling him to take drastic measures.

That something was Giygas, willing to use any pawn he could to stop the crew from ending his oncoming reign of terror. But there was no way Hero could know that.. And no way for him to fight it.

Hero thought rationally for a moment.. Well, they were 12.. And they were scared.

"BUT THEY KILLED HER," a raspy, deep voice pounded through his head. "DON'T YOU WANT HER TO BE AVENGED? BE ANGRY." A slight drilling sensation buzzed in Hero's mind, Giygas taking advantage of his grief and gaining more hold on him without Hero even knowing.

Hero bit his lip and shook his head, feeling a bit ill. Yeah. She deserved to be avenged for what his ex-friends did to her...

With a quick clearing of his throat, Hero pushed open the door of his house to look for Kel.

Chapter Text

"Mom? Have you seen Kel?" Hero called gently into the house. His mother, watching TV with a babbling Sally on her lap, looked up at him with a light smile. "Oh! You're back! That's good.. Kel said he was going to Closeto to spend time with Sunny."

Hero made light conversation with his mother for a few minutes, masking his anger. Not only was Kel not home, but he was with SUNNY?! Even knowing he was a murderer! What a little shit..

Wait, why was he getting angry at Kel? Did he just call his little brother a little shit..?

WHATEVER. NO MATTER.

He had to get out of this. "Well, I think I better go find him! I have something to talk to him about." He discreetly cast PSI Charm, quietly calming down most of his mother's objections. She blinked a couple times, a bit dazed. "Oh, ah.. Yeah! Have fun." She turned her attention to Sally as Hero left with a betrayed expression.

Aubrey slowly walked out of Sunny's room the next morning. After napping for most of the day and having dinner, the group had turned in for the night. Everyone was pretty tired; and as of bedtime the night before, nobody had gotten over their fever. As a matter of fact, they'd all stayed at what would typically be a dangerous temperature all day.

Sunny's mom was fussing about Basil, Kel, and of course, Sunny, who all sat at the living room coffee table. "You should all rest! A fever this high is no laughing matter, oh.. And you all have it!" She seemed really worried.

"Mom, we're okay," Sunny said quietly. He didn't tell her about the nature of the group's illness, considering she probably wouldn't take 'Surprise! Your son and his old friends are all psychic and are going on a dangerous mission to save the world!' well. He rested his head against the cool glass tabletop with a light sigh.

His mother tensed a little, grimacing as she looked at her watch. She carefully placed about 30 dollars in the middle of the coffee table. "I have to go to work, but please at least order something to eat from somewhere?"

Sunny nodded, to which his mother crouched down and gave him a hug. Aubrey snickered fiercely as she sat at the coffee table... His mom was still the same, all these years later. Huggy and over-anxious. Ms Iroha gave her a quick 'Good morning!' before saying her goodbyes and heading out.

The group was silent for a second before Sunny spoke up, looking a bit anxious. "Uh.. Anyone want foo-"

"MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!" Kel chanted explosively, prompting Basil to wince and cover his ears. Aubrey visibly prickled. "Kel, shut UP!"

Kel smiled and leaned back, before realizing he was not sitting in a chair to lean back on. He lost his balance and panicked as he fell onto his back with a resounding PHWOOMPH. Aubrey absolutely lost it and started laughing harder than she had in days. Basil stifled a giggle as Sunny kept his flat expression, laughing internally.

"HAH!! What was THAT," Omori said, sitting on top of the coffee table. Right; Sunny hadn't stopped seeing him, though he'd mostly stayed out of the way since he arrived in Faraway. He figured he should talk to his therapist about it, he might need meds..

He was snapped out it by Basil placing his phone, opened to some food delivery app, on the table. "So, ah.. I guess just get whatever?"

After some light arguing, breakfast was ordered and on its' way. They had an hour to kill. Basil rocked back in forth awkwardly as Sunny tapped his fingers on the table.

"This is boring. We should TRAIN!" Kel said enthusiastically, hopping up from his position before reeling a bit from the sudden and intense movement. "It'll be fun!"

Sunny stood up slowly. "Okay." Basil followed him up, while Aubrey stayed at her spot with an eyebrow raised. "Bug off, I don't wanna."

Kel shrugged. "Okay! Sunny! Have y'ever used Allegro without a knife?"

Sunny nodded. "Yeah. But the energy ends up spreading out much more if I use my hands." Sunny waved his hands around a bit to get his point across.

"Can you use something other than a knife?"

Sunny paused. "...I don't kn-" He was cut off by Kel tossing him a pencil. "Try this! It's knifey enough!!" Sunny's face fell as he began turning red. "...Can't. Destructive."

Kel looked confused for a moment before Sunny exhaled in a rattly fashion. He strolled over to a large, somewhat tacky painting of a basket of bread affixed on the living room wall and removed it, struggling slightly from fatigue and his already low strength. Behind it, the wallpaper was singed and ripped in three hole-y swipes. Some of the glue was melted as well. It was an ugly sight.

"Y-you did that?!" Basil squeaked. Sunny nodded slowly, ashamed. "Mom doesn't know.."

Aubrey popped up and traced one of the wallpaper's burnt holes with her finger. "Damn. This PSI stuff really has some destructive potential." Sunny squirmed uncomfortably. "Y-yeah."

"Okay! Maybe we shouldn't beat the snot outta each other to train then!" Kel supposed cheerily. He turned to Basil. "Okay! Hit me with the pollen thing!"

"You just said we weren't going to b-beat the snot out of each other!" Basil protested. Kel grinned. "Yeah! You're not! Just making me sneeze!"

"And then I can make Allegra chicken.." Sunny whispered, putting the painting back on the wall. Aubrey glared daggers at him. "What is WITH you and ALLEGRA?!"

"...Allegro is one letter off from Allegra," Sunny said softly. Aubrey sputtered for a moment before giving up on trying to react to that. "Ugh..!"

"BASIL, DO THE THING!!" Kel yelped. Basil quivered where he stood. "I-I'm not giving everyone in the room allergies!!" Sunny frowned at this.

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF-!" Aubrey cast a Shield and groaned. "You want training? Try and bash this thing in or whatever! Boom! Target practice!" She turned with a sigh and trudged to the couch before sitting on it.

Kel shrugged before letting out a battle cry. "PK BALLIN'!" He thrust a psychic basketball at the shield, and due to its' nature of only blocking physical attacks, the PSI went right through and soared over to the couch, hitting Aubrey in the back of the head before fizzling out abruptly. She slowly turned around, looking furious.

"KEL..!"

"Ack, sorry Aubrey!" He replied sincerely. Aubrey hopped up onto the back of the couch and put a hand to her forehead. "Oh, wouldya look at that? My fever's done! You know what that means!" She racked her brain for a moment. "PK BASH 'EM!!" She jumped off the couch and towards Kel, swinging her fist his way. He side-stepped ridiculously easily as her now glowing pink punch collided with the carpeted living room floor and sent a small shockwave through the room, making Sunny lose his balance and fall onto his behind.

A few items in the room shook from the shock. Everyone stood in silence for a moment before Kel rushed to hug Aubrey. "AUBREY THAT WAS SO COOL!!!" She squirmed under Kel's iron grip. "Stoooop!!!"

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

"I have a Grubhub order for aaaaa, Basil Greene?" A voice could be heard from outside.

Oh, nice, the food was there.

Hero quietly seethed as he stepped off the bus in Closeto. He decided to walk through the park before starting his search, to clear his thoughts a little.

Closeto Park was quite large and peaceful. There were acres upon acres of trees and grass and pathways. A campground. A large playground. A stage for bands to play on. It was.. Really nice.

As he walked alongside the playground, something caught his attention. A young girl wearing a lavender hoodie dress, with short, choppy hair in a color similar to his own. Couldn't be older than 12. She was running up to him. What did she want..?

"Hey!! Siiiiir!!" She called out. He turned to face the kiddo as a slightly younger girl with the same color hair, but longer and neater, and tucked behind her ears, making the hearing aids she was wearing visible followed her over. She was wearing a brown sundress spotted with mint green polka dots. They looked like siblings.

"Yes?" Hero asked. His tense mood dissolved a bit; he was good with kids. Though the purple kid was giving him a particular feeling he felt a bit uneasy about.

The purple-dressed girl hesitated for a bit, her usually bold vibes stopped for a moment by something before she shook it off and kept making noise. "WELL! Me an' my sister Gracie here are trying to settle something! So we're asking people!" Gracie, the girl with the sundress nodded. "Yeah!"

"What is it?" Hero asked politely, making a glance towards the girl with the purple dress. Why did he feel weird about this literal child? She wasn't even doing anything, but there was some kind of heaviness to his mind about her.

"Okay! So, uhhhh, we were arguing about whether a Pop-Tart could be caught flying outta the toaster by a drone. I think it can!! But Gracie doesn't, and I think she's wrong!" "That's cause you ARE, Kate!!"

A woman that looked much like a grown up version of Gracie wearing a yellow dress, as well as a tired-seeming black-haired man wearing a black tee and a tidy pair of jeans jogged over to wrangle the girls. The woman was pushing a stroller with a black-haired infant sleeping inside. Hero felt a similar oddness about the man, and oddly enough, the baby too.

Wait, he recognized this feeling somehow. Those three were PSI users! Hero immediately felt the need to defend himself, but didn't know why.

"Girls! Stop asking strangers about Pop-Tarts," The mother scolded lightly. Her husband laughed gently and turned to Hero. His face fell momentarily, like he was picking up on something Hero wasn't, before he shook his head and smiled again. "Sorry about that! It's tough keeping track of six children-" His thought was interrupted by a loud THWACK followed by a shout coming from the far end of the playground. The father sighed and turned to the source.

"MASON!! DON'T HIT YOUR BROTHER WITH A STICK!"

"IT WASN'T ME, KAYLA DID IT!!" A young male voice screeched back.

"MASON!! DON'T RAT ME OUT!!" Another young voice called. The father sighed. "I should handle this.." He walked off, looking even more tired. The mother laughed. She reminded Hero of Mari.. Too much. His mood began clouding up again as the mother waved a goodbye and the children ran off, with her and the baby in tow.

"DANGEROUS," the throaty voice from earlier roared. "DON'T LET PEOPLE LIKE THEM SEE YOU. THEY WILL STOP YOU FROM AVENGING MARI."

Lies, lies, lies. All lies. The people he'd met could sense something was wrong, yes, and if one of them had read his mind they'd probably be more worried. If one of them happened to be particularly skilled in telepathy, they might have a small chance of severing Giygas's hold on him, but.. They were a regular family with their lives to focus on. Not taking down a random teen who gave them a vaguely bad feeling in public.

But Hero couldn't see that.

He hesitated for a second before shaking his head and falling to Giygas's twisted logic. He continued to stroll, specifically avoiding the family from earlier. Soon enough, he saw a flier for some 'Happy Happyism' group meeting elsewhere in the park, later that day, actually, tacked onto a wooden lightpost.

He sat in thought for a moment. Maybe he'd find Sunny and Basil there. He tugged the flier off the post and tucked it into his jeans pocket.

Chapter Text

Hero casually strolled over to the campgrounds where the meeting was taking place. ...Most people there were clad in odd, blue robes. Hero thought this odd; it was like 80 degrees out.

Someone jauntily approached him and patted his chest squarely, making him take an awkward step back. "Can I help you??"

"Oho, you already have! Blue blue.. You've come wearing blue!" The robed person said merrily. Hero raised an eyebrow. "Have you seen.. Three boys. One has an eyepatch, one is blonde and anxious, one wears an orange basketball uniform."

The cultist laughed heartily. "Oh, we mustn't focus on such menial things right now! Come! You should go see our leader; I feel he may want to meet you.."

Hero narrowed his eyes and followed this person, fully prepared to throw him out of the way with telekinesis.

One by one, the crew at Sunny's house got over their fevers, ready to test out their new skills and feeling stronger again. It was about noon at this point.

They all racked their brains for what they could now do. It seemed telekinesis was a constant between all of them except Sunny. Kel immediately opted to use this instead of his hands for as long as possible, finding it funny. Aubrey didn't seem to care, and Basil seemed a touch frightened that he could move objects across the room with just a thought.

Sunny had something called PSI HANDS α: No phrase required, usefully enough. He could summon a few (about 3) wiggly, translucent, lightly glowing red hands and will them to do whatever. He felt like it was just TK with extra steps.. Omori seemed annoyed Sunny basically got his signature skill.

Sunny also gained PSI Lifeup α; able to heal minor wounds and injuries. He was.. Actually sort of excited about being able to heal. He felt useful. He also learned PSI Hypnosis α; with a chance of failure, he could mentally coax someone into falling asleep. He wondered if it worked on himself.

Basil got the power of PK Freeze α, able to send a small blast of ice and wind out towards a foe. He quickly managed to hone it for more mundane applications, like chilling a glass of water. He seemed pleased at that. Another power he learned was PSI Magnet: He was now able to slowly leach off another's available PSI pool. While testing it out, he learned going too fast would give him a killer headache.

And Kel..?

"GUYS!! CHECK IT!!" He said joyfully, running out of Sunny's bathroom and into the living room where the others were gathered. Everyone jumped as he stuck his hand out, which was on fire.

...Yeah, Kel's fever went away while he was on the toilet, and his first instinct was to finish as quickly as possible to show his friends the power of PK Fire α. BY JUST LIGHTING HIS HAND ON FIRE WITH NO OTHER CONTEXT.

Kel also explained he now had something called PSI OffUp. He said he could feel it temporarily boosted strength, but was too hyped by his crazy new pyrokinesis to test it.

Aubrey stewed a bit; having gained the least new skills from her fever. Just Bash 'Em and telekinesis. She then realized she did, in fact, now have access to telepathy, which made her mood a bit better, though she wasn't particularly good at it.

Now that they had more energy and a small arsenal of skills, the team set out to get to the park, Aubrey pushing to get this all done ASAP. She slung her bat onto her backpack as the boys packed a few necessities in their own, and they headed out.

Sunny confusedly read out from Google Maps on his phone. "Uh.. Go right at this intersection."

Aubrey prickled. "We went right 4 times in a row." Sunny panicked a bit and tapped away at his phone, praying they weren't lost. Kel groaned loudly. "Google Maps is DUUUUUMB. Let's go do something fun and find the park later! Like.."

He gestured over to a medium sized Pride festival occurring a few streets away. Sunny tilted his head. "Kel, you want to go to Pride??"

"Well! You're trans, right? We could get you a flag! If you're not uncomfortable! You started dudebro hormones! That's something worth celebrating!!" Sunny's eyes flitted to the ground as he blushed a little.

Aubrey huffed. "Well, I'm bi, so I guess I'm part of the gayborhood. I'd be down for a short trip through. Basil?"

Basil jumped a bit, his face slightly red. "A-ah! Yeah! Sure! I-i think I'm straight though," He fibbed nervously. Aubrey shrugged, buying it. "Cool." She started strolling off towards the event.

Kel enthusiastically snuck up behind Sunny with a trans pride flag he'd bought and clipped it around him like a cape. The small boy jumped a bit as Kel began his usual noisy routine.

"LOOKIT! Cape time! This is how the vibe goes, right?" Sunny nodded and shuffled a bit. He wasn't uncomfortable, per se, just.. He hadn't been to Pride before. He was feeling a bit anxious, especially since they had other things to do and the decision to go was so spontaneous.

Basil looked around the event. It looked like a unicorn had thrown up on the two blocks of city space the fest was being held on. Rainbows, pride flags, and tinsel everywhere. He.. Was nervous. He knew his friends were accepting of this stuff, but it wasn't that he thought he might be gay that he was scared of them knowing..

It was that he thought he might like Sunny.. How would they react to that?!

"Ugh, a transgender," Someone spat towards Sunny. Ouch.

Aubrey immediately got up in their business, face scarlet with anger. "THIS IS PRIDE, CHUCKLENUTS! You deal with him being a dude or you leave!!" She started getting into a verbal squabble with the transphobe.

He shook his head as he felt a hand gently grasp his. Looking down, and back up again, he realized the owner of the hand was none other than Sunny. Basil stifled a surprised gasp and tried to find a way out while his face started to turn red.

"A-ah.. Hey! I think the park's over-!" Basil skillfully unhooked his hand from Sunny's and immediately took a step in the opposite direction, tripping and scraping his knee on the pavement. Darn shorts..!

Sunny winced as a burning pain bloomed in his own knee. He looked at it confused for a moment before crouching down to help. Aubrey was distracted by her adversary and didn't see this. Kel was busy on his phone trying to get Google Maps up and going so they could get away from this jerk.

Sunny narrowed his eye. What could he do? He didn't have bandages. The First Aid kit was at home... He knew Lifeup; but he was scared people would see that. But he really wanted to help!!

...Whatever, Basil was important.

"PSI Lifeup," Sunny whispered as he gently touched the skin near the scrape, gasping lightly as a soft green glow enveloped his hand and Basil's wound sealed up. Wow.. He did that.. He noticed the pain in his knee subsiding. ...Okay, that had happened too many times to be a coincidence. Were he and Basil sharing pain or someth-

He was distracted from his train of thought by the sight of Basil shaking slightly. Sunny cautiously helped him up. "...Are you..?" Basil brushed off his clothes with a grand gesture and a nervous smile. "YUP!! Thanks Sunny!!!"

Sunny was too oblivious to see through Basil's thinly veiled gay fear.

"Hey, guys! My Google Maps is working! You wanna head out?" Kel called. Basil nodded shakily and darted over, leaving Sunny to put away his flag cape and follow.

At last, they arrived at Closeto Park. Sitting by the main entrance was a hippie looking guy with a funky outfit, and- Uh oh, the familiar blue haze across his face. Giygas had his grip on him.

"Guys..!" Basil squeaked as the man strutted over to them with an unreasonable amount of swagger, exuding raw power. If this was JJBA, he'd probably be a Stand user. Kel grinned. "It's fine, I can set things on fire with my mind now!"

Sunny's eye widened. "There are people here," he hissed quietly, "We'd get sent to a government lab, and I don't have the energy for that today.." Kel's face fell. "Oh.."

"The Hell do you want, punk?" Aubrey said with no tact, slinging her bat over her shoulder. The man before them did a funky little jig before shouting something about peace and love and made the contradictory move of THWACKING Aubrey in the face with a ruler.

Aubrey snarled and lunged forward to bash this guy to oblivion, but he sidestepped it and whipped out a toothbrush before just... Standing there and brushing his teeth...?

"Aaagh, w-what is he doing?!" Basil yelped, solidifying in confusion and anxiety. Kel tilted his head before running up to the man and pointing. "Hey! What's that on your shirt?"

The man paused his jigging and dental hygiene. "Wait, wha-"

Kel slapped the guy upwards whilst discreetly casting PSI OffUp, which gave him juuust enough strength to make his adversary lose his balance and stumble backwards. "Okay, byeee!" Kel called as he and the group made their escape into the park while the hippie was regaining his balance.

"I can't believe Kel had a good idea!" Aubrey huffed as they ran. Sunny eyed a $100 bill on the ground nearby and pocketed it without his party noticing. Cool.

The group sat in a near-empty picnic shelter near the park's playground, which was also looking pretty vacant, save for one family still having a good time there. They didn't seem to notice the Faraway squad.

"Yo. Sunny. Where's the Sanctuary at?" Aubrey said boredly. Sunny, having trouble concentrating, sighed and tossed the Soundstone to her. "Can't focus..."

Aubrey rolled her eyes and focused on the smooth stone now nestled in her hands. "Cool. Thataway." She pointed to the direction of the campground and set the stone back down on the picnic table, where it was carefully snatched up by Sunny.

Basil absentmindedly looked over to a porta-potty a fair distance away as he heard the door open and shut. Someone must've went in. None of his business.

The group sat and rested for a few minutes as Kel produced his basketball from his backpack and dribbled it around the shelter, much to Aubrey's annoyance.

"And Alvarez shoots-!" Kel said, tossing the ball off in some random direction. It clanged hard against the porta-potty nearby. "AND HE SCORES!! YEEHAW!!"

An alarmed shout rang from the structure as a pre-teen, the same one with the purple dress Hero had talked to, in fact, clambered out. "HEY!! WHO- Huh??" Her anger quickly morphed into confusion as she looked to the playground and saw her family wasn't there. "NO WAY!! Did they.. Leave without me?!"

"SORRY KID!!" Kel screeched as he ran over to retrieve his ball. "Hey, wait, you good?"

Kate paused for a moment, unsure if she should tell this stranger her parents and siblings were missing. She was always told by her parents not to use her powers in public, BUUUT, quickly reading this guy's mind couldn't hurt, riiiiight? Rebellion!!

Yup, his intentions were pure. Okay then! "My family's missing!! I think they left without me!! Can you help me find 'em?"

"Kel, what's happening?" Basil said gently as he approached with Sunny and Aubrey, who looked confused and annoyed respectively.

"YO GUYS!! This kid's lost!" Kel said with far too much volume. Basil covered his ears. "I was thinkin we could help her out before doin' our thing! Or on the way or somethin'! It's the gamer thing to do!! She's givin off pog vibes!"

"Kel, we don't have time for that. Kid, what's your parent's cell number?" Aubrey said roughly as Kel frowned.

Kate casually spoke her mom's cell number, which Aubrey hastily punched into her cellphone. No answer. "UUUUUUGH, fine. Kid, we have things to do, you can come with, I guess? If we don't find your parents by the time we're done we'll call the police."

"Okay!" Kate said obediently. She used her telepathy to try and reach out to find her parents, but she couldn't feel them anywhere. She was a bit worried. She dashed over to a nearby bench and picked her backpack up off of it, slinging it on her back after transferring an asthma inhaler and pack of crackers to her dress pockets. With that, the group set off towards the campgrounds.

"Sooo, whatcha doin?" Kate asked innocently. Basil waved his hands around vaguely. "...Things?"

"What kinda things?"

Kel leaned down to the tike's level. "Don't tell anyone, but we're gonna save the world!" Aubrey whipped her head to Kel. "KEL!! Don't go blabbing that around to random toddlers!"

"HEY!! I'm 12!!" Kate hissed in protest as Sunny sighed and facepalmed.

As the group wound closer to the campgrounds, they all began feeling off. Basil and Kate were the first to notice something odd in the air, then Kel and Sunny, and finally, Aubrey. Sunny faintly recalled the grabbing sensation he felt on his mind from back in the bus. This was like that, but worse. He wanted to puke.

Aubrey poked her head into the campgrounds upon arrival and sputtered a bit. "The heck?!"

Everyone else stealthily peered in to see.. A mess.

Everyone in the campground was dressed in weird blue robes, save for a rare few in typical civilian clothes. Just.. Blue.

There were large patches of grass spraypainted with the stuff. A bunch of tents and even a few RVs were ALL BLUE. EVERYTHING had at least a touch of the color, it seemed.

"Why is everything bl- Yo, is that Hero?!" Kel exclaimed, pointing to the man in question. He was talking to a few other people with an annoyed expression before heading with them into an information building next to the parking lot a good distance away from the path the gang was on.

"Hey! Those are my parents!!" Kate said angrily. "Why'd they come HERE?! And why are they wearin' blue?" She stomped a bit. "This is weird!"

"Yeah, shit's fucked," Aubrey said, forcing Basil to gasp and cover the 12 year old's ears. "A-aubrey! There's a child here!" She rolled her eyes as Sunny scanned the grounds and narrowed his eye. Why was Hero in Closeto, let alone the campground?

Something was really wrong.

Chapter Text

"I propose we run in there and make some trouble. We get this kiddo's parents, we get Hero to stop doing.. I dunno, whatever, and then capture the Sanctuary." She cursed silently. "Crap. Shouldn't have said that in front of this one." She jabbed a finger towards Kate, who was stressfully sitting on the ground pawing through an old, beat up notebook, trying to keep the cover hidden from the teens.

"Hey!! I have a name!! It's KATE!!" She stood up and stomped, the notebook slipping from her hands and falling on the ground. Sunny bent down to give it back to her, but she grabbed his wrist with a surprising amount of strength. "No!! Don't touch!!" Sunny blinked and wriggled his hand away as the young girl hugged the book.

"What's so important about that book?" Kel asked sincerely. "Looks like its like 20 years old!"

Kate grumbled as she hugged the book tighter. Aubrey groaned. "Dude, who cares. Let the kid have her diary."

"H-HEY!! Diaries are for babies!!"

Omori stalked over to Kate and peeked at her notebook. "Hm, interesting. Not like I'm gonna tell you though, Sunny." He laughed as Sunny felt his mood sour. Twelve year olds.

Kate shoved her notebook back into her backpack unceremoniously. "I have an idea! What if we break in? Maybe my siblings are in the info center too!"

Kel thought for a moment. "Well, it does seem like the kinda place where the head of command would be.. Yea! Let's do it! KELSEYYYYYY ALVAREZZZZZZZ!!!" He cried triumphantly as he haphazardly ran into the campsite, attracting many people's attention. Uh oh.

"NON BLUE ONE! STATE YOUR BUSINESS!" A robed person cried, pointing a paintbrush loaded with a deep blue paint at him.

"I'm here to be BALLIN'!" Kel said with a laugh as he shoved his basketball in the air. "PK BALLIN'!" His ball was engulfed by the crackling, orange PSI of his move. He tossed it directly at his foe without thinking of the consequences, the energy fizzling out on impact and his ball bouncing back towards him. The person looked dazed for a moment, that usual red mist leaving their face, before running away from the campgrounds. Kel cheered as Kate watched in awe. He had PSI! Was that why she felt so familiar around these people?

The rest of the group ran out in fear and anger as someone grabbed Kel from behind. Sunny motioned for Kate to stay back, which she decided to not comply with if things got ugly.

"G-get off of Kel!!" Basil stammered as he ran towards his attacker. "P-PK Freeze!" He sent a blast of ice towards the robed person's face, forcing them to let go of Kel and stumble back. Aubrey cracked her knuckles and threw up a Shield, readying her bat. Sunny pulled his Swiss Army Knife from his pocket and threw it open, while Basil grabbed his shears. The four teens backed up into the center of the fray, backs together and weapons held out. More people were coming; this didn't look good.

Kate dashed over. "Lemme help!" She used a telekinetic blast to topple a few of the cultists over with a grin. "See! I can do it too!"

Sunny's eye widened as he quickly cast PSI HANDS and gently moved Kate away from the fight. "Stop! Not safe!" In his distraction, he was left open, resulting in someone going swinging for him.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!!" Basil screamed as he whirled around to take the hit for him. The person aiming for Sunny hit Basil square in the chest, bruising one of his ribs. Basil doubled over, as did Sunny, both hissing in pain.

Sunny tried to use Lifeup but was struck by another wave of pain. Why was this happening?!

Aubrey grunted and threw her Shield over to the boys before going to pummel the guy who hit Basil. Sunny groaned and tried his best to focus on healing his friend, eventually managing to cast Lifeup on him and soothing both of their pain.

Sunny narrowed his eye and gripped his knife tightly, running out from behind the shield to slash someone heading for Kel. More cultists were getting involved, things didn't look good. Not at all.

"LET! ME! GO!" Kate yelled as she punched the psychic hand holding her firmly in place by the path they'd entered from. She glared daggers at the fight in front of her and seethed. She didn't have anything other than telekinesis that could work with this much range!

Aubrey fell on her behind as she began running out of energy. Kel helped her up as the group became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people rushing at them. With a yelp, Kel ran away and back to the path, Sunny and Basil following close behind. Sunny released Kate and snatched her wrist, taking her with the group.

Everyone sat tiredly at the picnic shelter again, trying to come up with a plan.

"Alright, so purple girl is psychic," Aubrey said, annoyed. "Why didn't you TELL US?!"

Kate jumped back a little. "M-mom and dad say it's dangerous!" She looked at the ground, embarrassed. "But then you started doing it so I wanted to help!"

Kel sighed. "Well, at least we're not too beaten up. Maybe we should look at the positives! Uh... We have another person who can fight!"

"She's twelve!" Sunny protested.

"I may be twelve, but I'm not weak!!" Kate whined. "Lemme helpppp! My parents are there.."

Nobody budged. Kate furrowed her brow and dug her notebook of her backpack, slapping it on the table with a huff. "Lookit! I'll let you read my dad's book if you lemme help."

The teenagers inspected the cover quietly. The cover said "Joseph Hayes: PSI notes and observations", written in clean, black permanent marker. "AND KATE!!" in purple plus a few stickers were slapped on underneath.

"What's..?" Basil asked softly, taking and opening the book. He was slapped in the face with a long-winded introduction page. He began reading it aloud.

DATE: Sep. 18, 1994

It's been one week since I got these weird powers and burnt down my grandpa's shed on accident. In order to keep stuff like this from happening again, I'm going to experiment, take notes, and catalog everything I learn and figure out in this here notebook. Might come in handy some day. Let's start freshman year with a bang, baby!

Turning the page, Basil was met with a double page spread of notes on PK Fire. There were old black and blue pen marks making up most of the words, along with purple marker, presumably added by Kate, some old Post-Its and scraps of notebook paper being held in with tape.. Notes, charts, observations.. It was.. Thorough.

"My dad wrote this!! I found it in the attic and now I'm addin' to it!" Kate said proudly. "Now.. Can I help?? I'll let you borrow it if you promise to keep it REAAALLLL safe and give it back!!"

Aubrey sighed. "You know what kid? Fine. How can we contact you?" Sunny stared at Aubrey disapprovingly.

Kate pulled a purple marker and a piece of paper from her backpack and hummed as she wrote down her house phone on it and slipped it into the book. "There!!"

Aubrey nodded. "I'm outta juice, but.. We should go back."

Sunny sighed. "I'm tired too."

Kate snatched the notebook away. "Oh!! Oh!!! There's notes on that!!" She wildly flipped to a page on restoring energy after PSI use and pushed the book back to Aubrey. Kel peeked over and a pleased grin formed across his face. "Hey, it says soda-"

"NO. I'm NOT drinking Orange Joe," Aubrey barked. Kel smiled wider. "We don't have anything else that restores energy, Aubrey! You gotta submit to the POWAH OF ORANGE JOEEEE!" He retrieved 5 cans of the stuff from his backpack (Sunny wondered why he brought so many) and slapped them on the table. "Booyah! Let's fuel up and roll back out!!"

Sunny noticed as he drank the soda that he did feel a bit less.. Empty in his brain? He wasn't sure if it was the caffeine or what.

Aubrey begrudgingly chugged her Orange Joe; she hated the stuff and wanted to get it done with ASAP. She threw the can into a nearby recycling bin with surprising accuracy ("You should play basketball!" "Shut up, Kel.") and turned back to the group.

"Kate. What can you do?"

"Oh! I have telekinesis, telepathy, PK Freeze and Fire, Shields, Lifeup, and Magnet! Do you know those?" The preteen kicked her legs under the table.

"Yeah. Combined, we have all of those. Nothing new." Aubrey rested her head on her arms. "Idea. Sunny leads in with Allegro and HANDS to help do some preliminary damage and distraction and hold em off, then stands by with Kate to heal and assist. Kel and I are the main attack power of the group, we'll do the heavy hitting. Kate and I have Shields; we should keep those up. Basil; keep a defense going with Freeze, use Pollenstorm if you gotta. NO SUNNY, NO ALLEGRA CHICKEN."

Sunny's face fell. No Allegra chicken.

"The goal is to get to the info building, not commit multiple acts of manslaughter, k? Reserve y'all's energy; I know Kel carries concerning amounts of Orange Joe, but that's not endless." Aubrey wrinkled her nose and jutted her hand into the middle of the table. One by one, everyone placed their hands upon hers, and raised them up before running off to complete the heist, now prepared.

Chapter Text

Sunny took a deep, shaky breath. The group was standing unnoticed at the same path as before, in a formation according to the plan. Sunny stood in the lead gripping his knife, followed by Kate and Aubrey, side by side with Shields raised. Kate's looked exactly like Aubrey's, but purple instead of hot pink.

Kel was standing next to Basil behind the girls, and looked like he was going to explode with hype. Basil looked anxious.

Sunny focused on keeping his breathing steady as he ran through the plan in his head. Run in, use PK Allegro, use his HANDS to hold back the grunts. Kate would stand by with him and they'd be the healers and supporters of the group. Basil would be a secondary defense while Aubrey and Kel cleared a path to the info center. It was going to be fi-

He stumbled forth as Aubrey gave his back a gentle shove. He had to be brave.. Sunny remembered how to calm down.

Go time.

"PK Allegro!!" He ran forth and sliced through the air, channeling his power into his three golden swipes. He was immediately bum-rushed by a bunch of the Happy Happyists, but Allegro managed to stop them fairly effectively, wounding a good deal of the attackers. Sunny hurriedly cast PSI HANDS and held the meager three hands he could summon at once out, doing his best to hold as many of his adversaries back.

A few slipped through, but that's where the others came in.

"PK BASH 'EM!" Aubrey hit one of the attackers in the side with her bat, augmenting her attack with a bright burst of hot pink energy. They went flying a couple of feet. Kel was enthusiastically using PK Ballin', ricocheting his basketball against multiple robed attackers, and occasionally sending out a quick blast with PK Fire. So much for saving his energy.

Kate ran up to Sunny and stood by, ready to heal anyone who got hurt, and every once in a while using telekinesis to push back some of the oncoming crowd.

"P-PSI Pollenstorm!" Basil said anxiously, sending a large sweeping of pollen outwards towards a crowd of people in front of the info building. Nearly instantly, they were overcome by their watering eyes, scratchy throats, and sneezing. Kate gently telekinetically pushed them out of the way, forming a clear path to the entrance.

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!!" Aubrey roared, holding her offense steady as the group dashed for the front door. Kel used telekinesis to open the door and slam it shut once everyone was inside. The group deactivated their active PSI. They were met with a clean- But empty- information room. There was info on park rules and things to do on posters tacked onto the walls, as well as a front desk, but nobody was there.

The teenagers panted and huffed, all suffering a bit from the residual pollen of Basil's move. "That.. Was kinda fun," Aubrey remarked through her breaths.

Kate.. Was having problems. She coughed and hacked, wheezing with each breath. Basil looked at her, worried. "O-oh gosh, did I g-give you an asthma attack?! I'm so sor-" Kate hung her head and motioned for Basil to stop talking. She hurriedly took her inhaler out of her pocket and shook it with telekinesis. Faster than using her hands. She snatched it out of the air and took two puffs before breathing deeply. "Sorry.." She was quivering a little; one of albuterol's side effects.

"You good?" Aubrey asked with a raised eyebrow. Kate nodded. "Yeah.."

"I'm so sorry!!" Basil squeaked, feeling extremely guilty. Kate shook her head. " 'S okay.."

Sunny backed up to the wall and slid down against it, taking a deep breath. He had felt like he was going to die out there.

Kel shuddered a bit. "MAN it's cold in here! It sucks!" A small round of laughter made its' way around the team before Aubrey eyes a door behind the front desk, labeled Employees Only. She glanced back at the group. "Guess the only way we can go is through there."

Sunny wrung his hands as he stood back up. "How's everyone's energy..?"

Kel stretched and cracked an inexplicable can of Orange Joe open. "Gettin' there!"

As he finished the soda and crunched the can against his forehead, the others began looking to the door.

Sunny took the lead and breathed deeply. They were going to find Hero. Find Mr and Mrs Hayes and the rest of the Hayes children. Find the leader of this group and get them to leave so they could capture the Sanctuary. It'd be okay.

With a cry, he swung the door open, expecting to be attacked, but instead he just entered a neat, small hallway. The rest of the group clambered in after him. There were three doors inside, marked with their purposes. One led to a large meeting room; a very large one, from what Sunny could see. This was the only door with a window on it. Inside the meeting room were many robed people sitting and praying. Best not enter.

The next door was for a staff lounge. Aubrey tested the door to find it was locked. "Ugh. PK Bash 'Em." She punched the doorknob off, eliciting a few young yelps from inside.

"Wait.." Kate whispered. "That's!" She kicked the door open, and the teens went inside with her. Kate began crying. "GUYS!!"

Inside the room, huddled by a knocked over table, there sat two young boys with light brown hair; one wearing a blue hoodie, the other, a red t-shirt; both had plain jeans and white sneakers on and seemed to be in the middle of a game of the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Gracie was next to them, holding her baby brother with her mouth gaping in surprise. "Kate!!"

A young, angry looking girl, no older than 7, sat on a counter nearby. She had black hair pulled into two low pigtails, and was wearing a red t-shirt under a heavy-duty pair of overalls that had seen some wear.

Kate dashed forward and hopped up and down. "You guys are okay!! I was so worried!!" She did a little twirl. "How are you all?"

"S-scared, but okay," The blue-hoodied boy stuttered. "Kayla used all her energy up trying Brainshock on everyone." Kate gasped. "Kayla!!"

The girl on the counter, Kayla, pouted. "They locked us in here! They deserved it!!"

Kate remembered who she was with. "Oh!! Hey!! These are the people who I came here with! They got PSI too!"

"You all have PSI...?" Sunny asked quietly. Gracie stared off into space. "Everyone but me and mom. It isn't fair!" Her brother stirred in her arms. "Hey!! Lukey! Shhhh it's okay.."

Aubrey kept making glances out the door, keeping guard. "What happened to you kids?"

The boy with the red shirt spoke up. "Some guy with a blue shirt came up to our parents at the park and somehow managed to convince mom n dad to come here! AND THEN THEY JUST LOCKED US UP!!! And I dunno where they brought them!" He was absolutely seething. "I USED ALL MY ENERGY TRYING TO FIND EM!!"

"That's awful!!" Kel exclaimed. "We'll find em, don't worry! Uh, until we take down.. Whatever this is, I dunno if we can get you out of here.. There's a lotta those bad guys outside!"

Basil fidgeted with the hem of his sweater vest. That was gonna a problem, yeah..

Aubrey pointed her bat at the door as she heard hurried footsteps. Sunny readied his knife as the kids cowered away form the door; even Kayla, who'd held a strong tough-guy image thus far.

"Oh my God, I hope the kids are oka- WAGH!!" It was Joseph, the kids' father. He was wearing a blue robe that he didn't seem to particularly like.

"Get out, rob-y," Aubrey spat fiercely. Joseph sweated. "N-no, it's fine! I'm not one of them! I'm their dad!!" The pink-haired delinquent lowered her bat suspiciously. "The heck happened?"

Joseph looked between his children and these strangers. He got the same feeling from them as most of his kids; and assumed they also had PSI. It was a safe bet.

"My wife and I were approached by this young man; blue shirt, brown hair. He told us about this Happy Happyism group? And then I felt my mind being tampered with; so I resisted against it. But my wife? My beautiful Susan, oh.. She was ENSNARED. So I had to play along while they inducted us into this.. Thing. I've been trying to get her to snap out of it, but there's some sort of overbearing.. Weight to this place?" Joseph shook his head.

"Christ.." Aubrey began.

"You feel that too?" Everybody but Gracie and the baby said a variation of this at about the same time. The Hayes kids laughed at how everyone had the same reaction while Basil whimpered a bit, afraid.

"...What." Joseph reacted before shaking his head again. "Okayokayokay.. You teens, why are YOU here?"

"We're savin the WORLD! And there's a Sanctuary here- We gotta find eight of those- But there's too many blue guys, so we're gonna take em DOWN!! And we found Kate on the way and we're helping!" Kel said with no other context.

Joseph stared at him blankly. "...What?"

"Long story," Sunny said quietly as Basil nodded furiously. Joseph facepalmed. "..Okay. Yeah. If you wanna take this mess down, I'm all for it. I can get you into their leader Mr Carpainter's office. Kids, you.. Stay here. Please.. Don't get hurt." Kate saluted. "Leave it to me! Simon Says sit down!"

Kayla gasped loudly. "YEAH! SIMON SAYS!!!" She haphazardly sat on the floor with a dopey grin.

Joseph funneled the teenagers out of the room and shut the door before calling them into a huddle. "Do you have a plan?"

Kel shrugged. "Nah! I didn't think we'd get this far!" Aubrey slugged him in the shoulder. "Ow!! Aubrey!!"

Joseph sighed a bit. "Do you have anything that can deflect PSI attacks?" Everyone's blank stares told him no. "Ah.. Okay! Well! Here's an item I managed to swipe from them.." He fished a small badge with a lightning bolt on it out of an inner pocket of his robe and handed it to Sunny. "This is called a Franklin Badge; it deflects lightning. Apparently it can work on multiple people, too! You'll need this, their leader has PK Thunder. It's dangerous.."

Sunny pinned the badge to his chest with a nod before panicking. He'd caught the pin through his binder. He fidgeted with the pin for a second before Basil realized what was happening. "Is it caught on your binde- Wait.." He thought for a moment. "How long have you been wearing it." His voice was cold.

Sunny went paler than usual. "Uh.. Since the morning of the day of the meteorite strike.. Been sleeping in it t-" Basil slapped him, causing him to stagger back and Basil to put a hand to his own face, now burning with pain. "Y-YOU CAN'T DO THAT!! IT'S NOT HEALTHY!!" Tears began running down his face.

Kel and Aubrey stayed silent as Sunny stared guiltily at the floor. "Please don't cry.. I'll take it off as soon as we get home.." Basil sniffled. "Promise?"

"...Promise..."

Basil flushed with color as he hugged Sunny loosely. "Thank you.."

A moment later, Sunny had gotten the badge clipped correctly, and Joseph slipped into a falsely dopey mood. "Blue, blue! May I enter?"

"Yes."

The first thing Sunny noticed when he entered the office was Hero standing next to Susan behind Mr Carpainter's desk. Hero shot him an icy, unforgiving glare, making him shudder.

The next thing he saw was a golden, sparkling demon statue tucked into the corner. It made Sunny extremely uncomfortable; invoking a similar drilling feeling in his head. He didn't like it.

Omori reared up and grumbled at the statue. Even that little brat hated the vibes it gave off. He looked like he wanted to smash it into bits. The other PSI users in the room, other than Hero and Carpainter, shared the same sentiment, it seemed, though Joseph was masking it very well to keep up his charade.

"What is it, Joseph?" Mr Carpainter, a portly old man with a blue suit and blue hair, tapped his fingers on his desk. He looked unamused at best.

"These children have some questions about our little community!" Joseph said in a sickly-sweet voice that, though she knew it was an act, Aubrey wanted to punch him for. Carpainter shifted. "Stand by." Joseph robotically moved to stand next to his wife.

"What are your questions?"

Aubrey threateningly pointed her bat at the old man. "Shut this shit down."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, we're playing this way? So be it. PK Thunder." Aubrey yelped as a crash of lightning snaked towards her, before being attracted into and bouncing out of Sunny's badge, the attack crashing back into the man, knocking him out. He slumped onto his desk, losing the blue haze in his face as the red mist slunk out of his face. Sunny felt the odd weight in the air disappear. Susan blinked a couple times. "...Joseph?"

"SUSAN!" Joseph cried happily, swooping in to kiss Susan. "You're okay! You're okay..!"

"OH SICK!!" Kel yelled. "Knocking the Giygas outta him ended the weird mind control or whatever!"

Hero glared at him. "KEL." His voice was gravelly and a bit distorted. Kel immediately went from chipper to terrified. "Hero?"

"How could you do this?! HOW COULD YOU SPEND TIME WITH THEM?! AND YOU TOO, AUBREY?!"

Joseph blinked. "Please cal-"

"NO!" Hero screamed, using a telekinetic slam to shove Joseph against the wall. He let out a yelp as the wind was knocked out of him. Susan gasped and ran to her husband, horrified. "Joe!"

"THEY'RE MURDERERS!" Hero cried, a few tears forming in his crazed and tired eyes. "They don't deserve you. You don't deserve them. You are TRAITORS to Mari."

Aubrey furrowed her brow. "Dude, I'm pissed at them too, but they ain't tra- UGH!" She groaned as Hero forced her to the floor with his TK.

"You don't get it. I'm doing this for her!!" Hero screeched inconsolably. Sunny edged backwards, terrified, as Hero shoved Kel and Aubrey away and stomped towards him and Basil. Basil froze in terror. Hero wasn't normal. He wasn't okay. His face.. Was still tinted blue. He looked sickly and exhausted, his hair a mess and his jeans ripped at the knees.

"You two. KILLED her. WE ALL LOVED HER, and you KILLED HER. AND THEN HID IT!" Hero screamed as Sunny froze up.

"HERO DON'T DO THIS!" Aubrey yelled. Hero cried as he charged up some PSI in his hands. "They need to pay."

"PK-" "PSI HYPNOSIS!!" Sunny yelled reflexively, a blue glow surrounding his outstretched hands. Hero started to sway a bit in place, drowsy, but not succumbing. Joseph added his strength into the mix. "PSI Hypnosis."

Hero immediately gave in and fell asleep, falling forward. Everyone held in place by his TK was instantly freed. Sunny caught him using PSI HANDS and set him on the floor, sniffling and hiccuping. Basil was still frozen in place.

...They had a lot to explain to the Hayes couple, didn't they.

Joseph immediately rounded up the kids and headed outside into the now abandoned campground, sitting on an area of non-painted grass with the teens, telling the kids to go run off and play. He and Susan.. Took the truth surprisingly well. Joseph gave Sunny a pitiful look while Susan just gasped a bit and slapped her hands over her mouth, then going into mom mode and moving in to comfort everyone.

Sunny was shocked.

Everybody rested up for a while before the Hayes decided to pack up and head home. Joseph turned to the teens one last time as his family headed for their van in the parking lot.

"...Hey. If you kids need anything- ANYTHING. A place to stay, advice, PSI help, whatever.." He tapped his temple twice. "Call me."

Basil nodded shakily. "T-thank you.."

Sunny wiped his face with his hands as they watched the Hayes leave the park. "...The Sanctuary."

"RIGHT!" Kel said, suddenly reminded. "Where is it?"

Sunny retrieved the Soundstone from his pocket and focused, his mind cleared from the abrupt dispelling of the weighty feeling at the campground. He followed the mental tugging he felt towards the tent pitching lots and soon came upon a statue of two children playing set up in front of the lots.

He touched it gently and gasped a bit as he was filled with calm again, his heart feeling as if it would soar out of his chest. A few notes whistled through the breeze, and once again, the stone quit glowing. He was reminded of stargazing at night as a child.

...2 down. 6 to go.

Chapter Text

Sunny glared down at his sweaty binder sitting on his bathroom counter. He wished he could keep wearing it, but he didn't want to upset Basil further. He tugged a large hoodie on over his current shirt to help hide his chest and figured he might as well clean his binder.

He hummed lightly as he ran the sink and rinsed the garment out, then added some soap and gently scrubbed till the beige fabric was clean. He rinsed it out again and gently wrung the excess water out before tossing it over an empty spot on the towel rack to air-dry; binders didn't go in the dryer.

It was only then he noticed how his ribs were aching lightly. Annoying. He'd need to take some ibuprofen or something. And as much as it bothered him.. Maybe he'd need to take a break from binding.

He stared at himself in the mirror for a second. He'd been on testosterone for around 2 weeks, now. Some time early in his isolation, his mom had promised he'd be able to start when he was 16. He would be turning 17 in a bit over a month, but better late than never.

...He noticed, while looking in the mirror, his smell was different than it was prior. He smelled like a boy now. It was small, but he felt victorious about it. That helped offset his top dysphoria a bit as he quickly combed his hair and strolled into the living room, where everyone was watching TV. Basil was hugging a pillow to his chest, looking uncomfortable.

...Oh, right. That. On the walk home, Sunny had tried to encourage Aubrey and Kel to go do something in the city so he and Basil could discuss the problem they'd both noticed by this point. Aubrey went off to Hot Topic for some reason, while Kel returned to the park to shoot some hoops alone.

Neither Sunny nor Basil could figure out why they could feel the other's physical pain. Neither of them were consciously doing it, at least. It was just... Something they'd have to deal with.

Basil suggested asking Mr Hayes in case it was a PSI thing. Sunny filed this off for later. It was a good idea.

As they walked, they ran into a young man with a red shirt and hat asking for funding for experiments. He said he was an inventor and called himself Apple Kid. Sunny shrugged and gave him the hundred dollars he found outside the park; not planning to use it anyway. Basil looked surprised that Sunny had that much money on him, but didn't protest as the guy's face lit up and Apple Kid added Sunny on Discord.

...Strange interaction.

Anyway, the gang was now gathered back together, watching TV. Some news flash came on about Happy Happyism and how the cult rose up and was completely toppled within DAYS. Sunny walked to the bathroom again to take an ibuprofen while considering the fact that they'd dismantled an entire cult. It made his head spin..

When he returned and sat on the couch, there was an interview being held with one of the ex-members.

"So I was campin', ya know? And this Carpainter guy walks up to me. He says, he says to me, "Hey! Wanna join Happy Happyism?" And for some reason I couldn't say no! Everything else was a blur till a few days later when I snapped outta it," An oldish lady with graying hair huffed. The news anchor nodded and passed the feed back to the station.

"Next up; we'll be discussing the odd and aggressive behavior suddenly displayed by the wildlife in the park-"

Sunny made a light sigh as he grabbed one of the couch cushions and hugged it tightly. He wanted to cuddle something really bad. How irritating.. Touch starvation sucked.

"Huh? What are you doing?" Basil inquired softly. Sunny blinked. "Wanna cuddle something."

"A-ah you can cuddle me if you h-have to! I-i don't mi- Eep!" Basil stuttered with a red face before being stopped in his tracks by Sunny gently wrapping his arms around him and sliding in towards him a bit. "Thanks."

Basil looked like his brain had just crashed. Aubrey snorted.

Aubrey loudly cracked her knuckles and moved on. "Alright, it's like 5 PM already. What are we gonna do for dinner? And the next Sanctuary." Her laughter was quickly replaced with feigned boredom.

Sunny shut his eye in thought. "We have... Frozen macaroni. Chicken strips. F-"

"Macaroni? WITH THE CHICKEN S T R I P S ? Ah.." Kel yelled abruptly, confusing everyone in the room. "We're doing that!" He waltzed into the kitchen and threw the freezer open. "Aubreyyyy come help!"

"What?! Why me?!"

"Sunny and Basil are busyyyyy!" Basil blushed even harder; Sunny felt his face flushing just a touch as well. Aubrey groaned loudly and hopped up, striding off to the kitchen. "Fine. Whatever."

The next thing Basil knew, Sunny was asleep on top of him. His heart raced a little as he rustled his hair. He was kinda cute.. He looked to make sure Aubrey and Kel weren't looking over from the kitchen and quietly pecked Sunny on the top of his head, giggling to himself and blushing.

"Yo, plant boy. What's so funny?" Aubrey asked roughly. Basil stammered out his reply. "N-nothing!!"

The delinquent shrugged and slammed the frozen chicken strips into the oven.

As the group sat at the table eating dinner, Kel made a proposal.

"So before we head on over to the next Sanctuary, I was thinkin' we should train! We have that fancy notebook after all! And if we get stronger, we might be able to rush into things without a plan and be okay!"

Basil squirmed lightly. "Why not just make plans then..?"

Kel grinned. "What if we don't have time to make a plan if we're ambushed or somethin'?" Aubrey gaped at him. "Dude, you actually had a good idea for once." Kel laughed. "I try!"

Sunny nodded and fiddled with his eyepatch. "Where do we go to train? Apartment's too risky..."

Aubrey tapped her fingers against the table. "That Hayes guy and his kids have PSI. Maybe they know a good place to practice. Basil, ask him." Basil hummed nervously as he reached out with his mind and tried to contact the man. It felt a bit odd, but not unpleasant.

"Hello..? Mr Hayes..? Are you there? It's Basil, the blonde boy from the park..?" He was extremely nervous.

He jumped a little as he received a quick response echoing through his head. "Oh! Yeah! Hiya, what's up?"

"Er.. Do you know anyplace safe where we can practice with our powers?" Basil picked at his macaroni as he fired his message off.

"Well, when I was figuring things out in high school, I usually practiced in my yard, but depending where you are in Closeto, you might not have one of those.." Joseph drummed his fingers on his kitchen countertop, trying to focus on cooking dinner and keeping up his conversation with Basil at the same time. From off in the living room, he could hear Mark and Mason, the two young boys in the blue and red, arguing about Pokemon. Nothing unusual there.

He sighed as he turned and stirred a large pot of pasta on the stove and then glanced out into the yard. As a property on the suburban outskirts of Closeto, they sure had a big one. Maybe those kids would get some use out of practicing there. "If you don't have a yard, you could use mine? We live on the outskirts of town, so you might need to take the subway." The man flinched as a Wii remote soared through the kitchen archway, which he skillfully caught with telekinesis.

"ALRIGHT, who threw that?!" He called out in frustration. A disgruntled Kayla stomped through the kitchen and sat at the island. "Gracie stole my favorite Barbie."

"What's that got to do with a Wiimote!?" He asked in exasperation. Kayla groaned. "Everything!"

"Oh, really..? Thank you! Is it okay if we drop by tomorrow..?" Joseph focused on Basil's response. Yeah, he usually closed up his shop on Wednesdays.. "Sure. Here's my address- KAYLA. DON'T THREATEN TO STEAL GRACIE'S HEARING AIDS. It's a Barbie, it isn't worth her sense of hearing," he mistakenly barked through telepathy. Basil snorted in surprise back in Sunny's apartment.

"...What?" Sunny reacted as Basil gathered himself. "H-he says we can use his backyard to train tomorrow," Basil replied plainly, not divulging the accidental message. Kel clapped. "LIT!! We're gonna have a training montage!!" He pumped his fist into the air as the group finished up their food.

Everyone's attention snapped to the apartment door opening. Sunny's mom was home. "Oh, Sun-Bun!! Are you feeling better?" She glided over to the kitchen area and gave her son a hug. Aubrey laughed a bit.

"..Yeah. All are."

"Did you have a good day?" She asked as she broke away from Sunny gently. The boy thought for a moment.

"It was eventful."

Chapter Text

Slowly and hesitantly, Sunny knocked on the front door of the Hayes's home.

The group had started off that morning as usual. Breakfast, showers, etc.. Until Sunny's mom left.

Then they'd ran off to the subway station to catch a ride to the suburban block of town. It wasn't too slow, but then again, it wasn't all that fast; burning maybe an hour and a half between getting to the station, paying the fare, and riding over to the suburban station.

Sunny's mom had gotten him a refillable ride pass when they moved; just in case he wanted to explore. ...This was the first time he'd ever used it, actually. He silently thanked her as he used it to pay for everyone's fare.

It was a bit busy thanks to the crowds of commuters and summer-schoolers trying to get around.

...Sunny didn't like it.

"I'LL GET IT!!" A young voice yelled from inside the house. The sound of them scrambling to the door could be heard. Basil jumped as the front door was thrown open by Kayla. "WHO GOES- Oh. You people. What's it?"

"U-uh! C-can you get your dad..?" Basil stuttered. Kayla shrugged. "DAAAAAAD! THERE ARE PEOPLEEEEEEE!" Everyone covered their ears. How was it possible a kid this small could be SO LOUD?!

Joseph tiredly walked up to the door. "Wh- Oh! Hello!" He waved at Team Faraway with a tired smile. "Please, come in. I have a few rules I'd like you to follow if you'll be using our yard.." He moved aside and motioned for the teens to enter the living room, then strolled over to sit on the couch as the gang shuffled inside.

Sunny's eye darted around his new environment. He noticed the living room, despite the toys and Wii peripherals scattered about, felt.. Homely. The decor was a lot less tacky than the stuff his apartment had. It sort of reminded him of his old house...

Right, Mr Hayes was speaking. Sunny tuned back into the world.

"..So, I'll have to supervise to make sure nobody gets hurt, especially because Gracie's out there gardening. Don't break anything, don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it, yada yada. Okay?"

"Yeah. Sure." Aubrey's tone was choppy and to the point. Joe nodded and walked with the teens through the living room, then into the kitchen, then out the sliding back door onto the small deck. He took a deep breath of the warm summer air.

Gracie was quietly tending to a small garden that was set up against the outside wall. Otherwise, the yard was quiet and serene.

"Alright!" Joe said with a clap. "I'll sit up on the deck and supervise. Be safe."

Kel cartwheeled off the deck and did a funky little jig. "YEAH!! LET'S DO THIS!!" Aubrey narrowed her eyes. "Oh, shut up! PK BASH 'EM!" She swung her augmented bat Kel's way, who managed to side-step just in time. "Yeah!! That's the spirit!!!"

Sunny facepalmed as the two started to generally attempt to beat the snot out of each other with PSI. Joe hastily got up and waved his arms. "Hey! No beating each other up!!" Aubrey grunted and walked over to the deck, pouting. Kel shrugged and grabbed a rock off the ground. He tossed it up in the air and cast PK Ballin' on it as target practice.

Sunny shrugged. "Kel, can you throw me that rock?"

Kel nodded and beamed as he hurled the rock to Sunny with force and feeling. Sunny quickly used PSI HANDS to catch the rock. He smiled mischievously and threw it back with much more force. Kel yelped and redirected it into a tree with telekinesis. Yeah, that left a mark.

"AGH!! The poor tree!!" Basil yelped, dashing to said tree. "There there.."

Aubrey sat on the floor of the deck reading Joe's notebook. He took notice. "Hey, I used to keep a journal as a teenager! Good times.. Wonder if I still have it."

"This is yours," Aubrey deadpanned, holding the cover up to a shocked and confused Joe. "Wh- How-"

"Kate said she found it in the attic and she lent it to us." Aubrey looked over to see Sunny trying to comfort a very distraught Basil.

Speak of the devil, Kate walked out the back door just then. "HEYYYY GRACIE???"

Gracie did not hear her. Joe turned to her with a look of pure exhaustion. "Kate, explain.." The young girl's face blanked. "I found it and added to it! Sorry!" Joe sighed and facepalmed. "It's fine. Please tell me next time.." She saluted in response and ran off to Gracie to tell her whatever.

"K-kel why?! The tree's HURT!" Basil sobbed as Sunny gently rubbed his back. Kel tilted his head. "It's just a tree..?"

"NO IT ISN'T!!" Basil cried as tears rolled down his cheeks. Aubrey cleared her throat loudly. "HEY NERDS!! You want to get better at aim or what?" She hopped down from the deck after handing Joe his notebook, grabbing a bag of dirt from near Gracie's garden and smacking it down in the middle of the yard. "Hit this."

Basil wiped his tears away and walked away from Sunny, before taking a breath and shooting a quick, weak PK Freeze at the dirt bag. Aubrey nodded. "Good aim."

"MY TURN!" Kel screeched. "PK BALLIN'!" He thrusted his attack towards the dirt bag, immediately exploding it. Dirt flew everywhere. Joe yelped and ducked from his spot on the deck to avoid the flying dirt.

Kel jumped into the air, covered in hot dirt. Everybody else had mostly avoided the blast. "YEAH!! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN ABOUT!!"

Joe, flabbergasted, spoke up. "With all due respect, please don't get dirt all over the yard again?" Kel saluted and started using telekinesis to round up the mess and clean himself off.

They continued to train their aim and experiment with their powers for around 30 minutes, when Sunny began feeling feverish and shyly returned to the deck to rest. Basil softly followed him.

"..What are you doing?" Sunny asked tiredly. Basil smiled. "I don't want to leave you alone, so I'm going to sit with you! If that's okay.." The shorter boy nodded and sat with Basil at the deck. Joe gave them a small wave. "Callin' it quits?"

Sunny groaned. "Fever." Joe cringed. "Aw, yeah, I used to hate those. Always had trouble controlling my PSI during them.." He chuckled. "Gave me a really hard time."

Sunny nodded in understanding. "Any way to speed it up?"

"Nope."

Sunny furrowed his brow in frustration. "Mm..." He noticed Omori, sitting next to Joe, had a slight smile plastered on his face. What was he planning..?

"Sunny.. Don't worry about what I know. You'll see soon enough." Omori grinned and went over to pat Sunny's head. The boy had to physically restrain himself from recoiling. Omori wasn't usually this happy. It made him nervous. Just a hallucination, just a hallucination..

"What are you playing at..?" Sunny thought. Omori took his hand off of his creator's head. "Let's just say.. Soon.. I'll be able to DEFEND YOU!" He roared with a happy laugh that sounded faintly like a piano's keys being smashed. "I get to do my job better!!"

Kate sauntered up to the deck with a dopey smile. "Hey! Scribbly Josh! Can you shut up? You're kinda loud." Everyone collectively stared at the pre-teen. "Oh, oops! Yeah, Sunny has this guy following him around! I can see and hear 'im if he's being really loud." She rocked back and forth on her heels as Sunny's eye widened.

"So he's not a hallucination..?" He groaned quietly. Basil looked to him with a worried laugh. "Sunny, what's..?" The dark-haired boy shook his head. "I.." He looked towards Aubrey and Kel, busy arguing in the middle of the yard. "I had an alter ego named Omori, he gained sentience, I beat him in a fight, now he's following me around." Sunny huffed a bit. No way was he explaining any more. Basil blinked as he took this information in.

"I'm gonna call him Scribbly Josh!" Kate squealed, earning an angry stare from Omori. "I AM OMORI. DO NOT CALL ME SCRIBBLY JOSH." Kate stuck her tongue out and skipped back over to Gracie as Omori seethed.

Aubrey and Kel came over to the deck. Aubrey cracked her knuckles and sighed. "You guys ready to roll out? I think we made some good progress." She turned to Joe upon receiving a nod from the two boys. "Yo. You need your notebook back?"

Joe dismissed her with a wave. "No, no! As long as you keep it safe and return it, I'll let you reference it during your adventure. Good luck out there!"

Sunny thanked him as the team left the premises. Time to head home.

...And figure out what Omori meant.

Chapter Text

"UUUUUGH. I'm so tired. Can't we take a breakkkkkk?" Kel whined.

After getting back to Sunny's apartment, Aubrey checked the Soundstone and, using a map, determined the next Sanctuary was near a town called Threed. Though Sunny would've liked to rest up until his fever was cleared, she insisted they should get going as soon as possible. Kel got stuck carrying all the camping supplies, since Aubrey was the most intimidating to any potential attackers and needed to stay free as a defense, Sunny had a fever, and Basil was helping Sunny along.

They were going to walk there. The Closeto subway network didn't go to Threed, and for some reason, all busses there were canceled. Since none of them could drive, walking it was. Sunny felt Hellish walking under the beating summer sun with a fever. Basil would discreetly cool him down with PK Freeze at regular intervals, but it didn't stop his fever, of course. He cringed as he felt a bead of sweat drip under his eyepatch.

"No, Kel, we can't. We gotta keep moving," Aubrey said firmly. This was met with a loud groan.

"Come on! It's so hot out! Can't the Sanctuary wait an hour? We could watch a movie!" Kel exclaimed, pointing to a nearby theater with a tour bus labeled 'RUNAWAY FIVE' parked in front. Sunny glanced over; the name rang a bell. A few men were hanging out near it. Aubrey grumbled. "NO, KEL. We need to get this over with. If we hurry we might make it by sundown."

Sunny huffed and stepped away from Basil. "Aubrey.. It's so hot. I'm so tired. I'm sure Basil is. I'm sure you are. Just 15 minutes.."

Basil watched as his friends argued. It WAS really hot, and he was worried about Sunny's condition. He shuffled a bit, the other teens too focused on their argument to notice him.

He squeaked quietly as he felt something cold and noodle-y grab him and start to drag him away. Without looking to see what was happening, he started kicking and yelling. Unfortunately for him, the mook taking him silently cast PSI Hypnosis on him and teleported away before anyone could hear.

"WELL. Let's see what BASIL thinks!" Kel exclaimed, turning to where Basil once stood. He was gone. "...Where'd he go!?"

Sunny's eye widened as he stumbled over to where Basil once stood. "BASIL!" He began hyperventilating as Aubrey stayed silent in her panic.

"Are you kids okay?" A portly man in a red suit approached them with a worried look. "What happened?"

"Kid named Basil went missing. I swear, if he ditched us-" Aubrey began, being cut off by Kel. "Hey, now! Basil wouldn't do that!"

"Wait, this Basil.. He isn't a, uh, Basil Greene, is he?"

Aubrey stared at him with intensity. "How did you know that."

The man jumped, intimidated. "Sorry! Sorry. It's just that your Basil sends us a lot of fanmail.." The man sighed. "Would hate for something to happen to 'im. We'll call for help."

Kel nodded quietly. "Yeah.."

Sunny suddenly felt a pain blossoming in his wrists. He instantly knew something was wrong with Basil as he began to panic over him. Where was he? What was happening?

He reached out with his mind and felt Basil a mile or so away. How'd he move so fast..? Sunny knew he didn't have telepathy, and didn't understand WHY he could reach out and find Basil, but he didn't care. He just wanted to go save him. Badly.

Sunny, despite his fatigue and fever, twisted his face into a look of determination and ran off, letting his mind tell him where to go.

"Su- WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING?!" Aubrey yelled after him. Kel quickly caught up to Sunny and grabbed his wrist, which he desperately tried to wiggle free of. "Stop.. No.. Basil.."

"Sunny, I'm scared for him too, but the only thing we can do i-" Kel began. Sunny quietly but firmly cut him off. "No, stop..! Please, I can feel him, I CAN, please.. We need to help him.." He once again tried to free himself.

Aubrey cringed. "Maybe he was right.. You must be too warm. Shit. Let's get you inside.."

Sunny shook his head wildly. "No..!" He looked towards Kel, knowing he'd regret his next action. "PSI Hypnosis..!"

Once Kel realized what Sunny was doing, he fought as hard as he could against his sudden drowsiness. He didn't fall asleep, but his grip slackened enough for a panting and panicking Sunny to break free and sprint away. Aubrey angrily gripped a sleepy Kel's forearm and growled. "Come on. We're going after him." Without waiting for a response, Aubrey charged off.

Sunny rounded street corners and weaved through pedestrians, desperately clinging onto the feeling that he was using. His wrists ached, and he felt like maybe Basil's nose had been broken. He was in agony, but he REALLY wanted Basil to be okay. He didn't understand his feelings of affection towards him, not yet..

Aubrey and Kel were tailing Sunny somewhat closely, and though they didn't know, Omori was angrily running alongside him and yelling at him to stop, that this was reckless. Sunny didn't care. He eventually came to a Walmart and slumped onto his knees in exhaustion at the entrance, earning him a few odd looks from the occasional passerby.

Aubrey yanked him up by his sweater vest. "Just WHAT are you doing?!" Sunny didn't put up a fight this time; he was too tired from running. "Please.. Basil's in there.. He's hurt. Please," he begged incoherently. Aubrey narrowed her eyes. "How would Basil get to WALMART?!"

Kel looked at Sunny with worry. "Sunny.. There's no way to know that.." Sunny whimpered a bit as he tapped his temple. Kel tilted his head. "Headache?" Sunny shook his head. Kel tapped his foot in thought. "Oh! PSI! What about it?"

Aubrey facepalmed. "What, did- Hold on. Did Basil send you an SOS or some bull?" Sunny nodded though Basil had not, knowing any other response would get him dragged off by Aubrey.

The delinquent sighed and let go of Sunny, who quickly regained his balance. "Let's go then. Lead the way," she said firmly. Sunny honed in on this new sense he had and slowly went through the Walmart. He was in the offices.

"...We need to break into the offices."

Aubrey smiled fiercely. "SAY NO MORE. I'm on it." The trio dashed to the Walmart office and soon found themselves standing in front of the HR office door. Sunny quivered lightly; his nerves running high and a tear or two falling down from his eye. Basil was in there.

Kel froze as he heard Hero yelling from inside the room. "Hero, no.."

Aubrey's mood went South fast. "PK BASH 'EM!!" She yelled as she punched the door down. Sunny quickly took in the scene.

The room was dimly lit, and a reddish fog circulated throughout. Basil was in the center, sitting in a folding chair with his wrists bound, nose broken, and tears flowing. He looked like he wanted to puke; Sunny didn't blame him. He was feeling that same nasty weight from the campground.

Hero was standing over Basil, he had been yelling at him, but was now frozen, staring at the Faraway gang. Surrounding him were two mooks; odd-looking aliens that looked a lot like colorful mops with eyestalks and mouths.

"HERO! What are you doing?!" Kel sobbed. "Why have you been acting like this?!"

Hero shook his head and turned to his brother. "Because I have to." In an instant, Kel was thrown against the wall outside the office with telekinesis. Hero was disturbingly strong.

"PK ALLEGRO!" Sunny screamed, using his hands to swipe, since he didn't have his knife in his pocket at the moment, rather, it was with the camping things, which Kel had left with the Runaway Five. His first slice was aimed at Basil's bindings, his second and third at the mooks. The aliens were knocked out with the heat and physical force of Sunny's PSI. Basil was unhurt as he was freed and Sunny recklessly ran to him and hugged him.

"You're okay you're okay you're okay..!" Sunny muttered on loop, a sense of relief and elation rushing over him. "Sunny..! You came for me..!" Basil whispered. "How did you.."

Sunny shook his head. "I don't know. I just.. Felt you?" The two looked at each other for a moment before being interrupted by a shout from Hero. "GREAT! Sunny's here! Yes, this will work perfectly.." He laughed unstably, the blue tinge in his face deepening as he lunged towards the boys. Aubrey quickly threw a Shield over them, stopping Hero in his tracks, and pointed her bat at him. "DON'T."

Kel, by this point, had gotten up, and was fully prepared to use PK Ballin', evident by the PSI energy crackling angrily around his hands.

"I WON'T BACK DOWN. STAY OUT OF THIS!!" Hero raised a hand towards Sunny and Basil. "PK BEAM!" A bright beam of energy blazed towards them, catching Sunny's ankle. He and Basil cried out in pain.

Aubrey ran towards Hero, swinging her bat. She dodged and struggled against him for a moment as Sunny looked on in horror. As he used Lifeup on himself and Basil, he felt his fever go away. In stress, he used the new move he had access to without another thought.

"PSI Doublestop!"

In an instant, Omori ran in front of Sunny as Basil let out a surprised peep. Sunny realized he was visible, and able to touch things, to attack things.. He pointed his knife at Hero with a dark glare, who froze, realizing he was beginning to be outnumbered as Kel edged closer to him.

"Kids!" The man from earlier yelled as he and the rest of the Runaway Five ran into the office. Hero went pale as he realized, yes, he was outnumbered. With a final look of malice towards Sunny and Basil, Hero.. Disappeared, in a flash of light.

While chaos erupted around him, Sunny noticed he had dropped a large wad of bills, which he pocketed unnoticed.

"Sunny.. Thanks for saving me," Basil murmured as he and the others sat around a table at the theater.

The Five had given them a VIP pass as thanks to Basil for being a fan, and almost as a consolation gift for the things he went through.

Omori had despawned soon after the Five had entered the room, and Doublestop was incredibly draining, so Sunny didn't plan to use it again for a while. It was.. A little scary to him.

Now the group was relaxing from the ordeal at that night's Runaway Five concert. Basil, being a fan, was excited, though still shaken.

Sunny nuzzled up against Basil, not understanding what he was feeling. "Of course.." Basil turned bright red and began to stammer randomly, soon being silenced by the beginning of the concert.

"Hey, hey! Hope you kids are doing better after all that," the red-suited leader said backstage to the group after the concert. Basil nodded shakily. "Y-yeah.."

"Is there any way we can thank ya for hopping in like that? And for the pass!" Kel asked gratefully. The leader shrugged. "Unfortunately not! We're contractually bound here.. Debt of 5000 dollars."

Sunny's eye widened as he fished the wad of bills from his pocket and counted them. There.. Was enough, shockingly. He thrust the lot into the leader's hands, who gasped. The other band members gathered around in awe. "What?! My gosh.. Is this real?! Thank you so much, kiddo! Is there anything we can do as thanks?"

Aubrey bit her lip. "Can you drive us to Threed? Busses are out and walking is hard."

"Yeah, totally! You shouldn't be walking there anyway, there are ghosts," he replied casually.

"WHAT?!"

Ah, so that's why the busses were out.

Chapter Text

The ride to Threed wasn't too long. The band blasted music so loud that no ghosts bothered them throughout the trip.

The band dropped off the gang, Basil particularly starstruck, and waved their goodbyes, telling them to be safe..

Then they were alone. Sunny noticed the town was dipped in a perpetual darkness; the mood being gloomy and tense, with a faint lingering of weightiness to it, like he had experienced before. Nobody was out and about, though he could hear chatter coming from a circus tent set up across the street. As he watched the tour van pull off, he shuddered.

"Right. Cool. Let's find a hotel or whatever," Aubrey said nonchalantly, ignoring the anxiety emanating from the boys. She stomped off towards a small, not very fancy hotel building, dragging Kel with her by his wrist. He stammered in protest as they entered the hotel, Basil and Sunny trudging after them.

Inside the hotel, things weren't much better. The place was average at best, and looked like nobody had stayed there in.. A while. The receptionist at the front desk looked surprised to see the teens enter, and quickly said her greetings. "Hi! Welcome to the Threed Inn! Do you need a room? Only 100 a night..!"

Aubrey narrowed her eyes in frustration. No WAY she was paying that much. "No, we're fine." She dragged Kel out the door as Sunny quickly stammered out a sorry and left with Basil.

"WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT, AUBREY?!" Kel shouted. Aubrey rolled her eyes. "Too much. We got camping stuff anyway." Basil wrung his hands anxiously. "B-but.. It's really creepy here..!" Aubrey grunted and walked off to a more wooded area, forcing the boys to follow.

"Where are we even gonna set up?" Kel whined. "There's no campground."

"We'll fucking make one, then," Aubrey seethed back at him, before whipping around as Basil yelped in shock. "What- HOLY SHIT!"

A zombie, a horrifying one, frankly, rotting and green, had snuck up on the group, and was intent on trying to bite Basil. Sunny glared at it and gave it a good slash, hardly slowing it down. He froze up in horror, about to become the undead creature's next meal.

"DON'T YOU DARE..!" Basil screamed, throwing a blast of PK Freeze at the thing. This stunned the beast for a moment as Kel rallied his energy and cast PK Fire to deal some extra damage.

Aubrey lunged forward and dealt the final blow with her bat, caving in the zombie's skull. She nonchalantly hoisted it up with telekinesis and threw it off into the woods with a loud THUMP. "Gross."

Basil burst into tears. "Why are there zombies now?! WHY?!" Sunny placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"No matter, they seem to be weak to fire.. Kel, get a campfire set up," Aubrey ordered. Kel saluted and got to work finding wood in the nearby forest, glad to have something else to focus on. "DON'T DIE!" Aubrey yelled after him.

Sunny awkwardly took over tent setup so Aubrey could keep watch for more monsters. Here, at least, it seemed there weren't many roaming about.. But you can never be too certain.

15 minutes into the setup, Basil had joined Sunny, and was... Actually understanding the tent instructions way better. Sunny glanced towards Kel, who had gotten back from getting wood and was furiously rubbing two sticks together at his makeshift firepit of rocks.

"...Don't you have PK F-" Sunny began softly, before Kel cut him off. "YEAH, yeah, I do! I just feel like it's cheating!" He rubbed his sticks together harder, resulting in them snapping in two. He groaned and grabbed two more from beside him and started anew.

Aubrey sighed deeply. "How is it cheating?!" Kel grinned and stayed quiet. Aubrey stewed quietly as Sunny and Basil finished the tent.

By now, Kel had been trying to start a fire for 10 minutes. Basil calmly grabbed a box of matches from the unorganized pile of camping supplies laying on the ground by the tent and handed them to Kel wordlessly.

"OHHHHH RIGHT!! MATCHES!!" Kel snatched the box out of Basil's outstretched hand and struck a match against the textured side of the box, setting the small stick ablaze with a pleasing sound. He tossed it into the firepit, setting the sticks and such he'd placed within on fire. He grinned smugly. "See? NO CHEATS!"

Aubrey facepalmed and held back a yell. She silently gathered her sleeping bag and backpack and placed the in her room in the tent.

Basil saw what she was doing and slid the other sleeping bags and backpacks into the boys' room of the tent to keep everything neat. When he reemerged, he saw Kel and Sunny relaxing (Well, Sunny was more just sitting stiffly) near the fire. Basil smiled meekly and took a seat next to Sunny with a light blush scattered across his face.

Aubrey exited the tent with a huff. "Well, there's clearly something UP with this town. That.. Thing attacked us. Nobody is outside. And it's like, 3PM and dark out. I say we check out the tent. Maybe the place is creepy because the circus is here." She shuddered. "Clowns.."

Sunny stood up and brushed his clothes off. "Was wondering that too.."

"Cool, let's go," Aubrey said, leaving no room for disagreement as she walked off.

Cautiously and with weapons drawn, the teens stumbled into the tent in the center of town with a chorus of shouts. They didn't expect to get a chorus back.

In the center of the tent sat 4 terrified adults, a woman and three men, who quivered in fear for a moment before realizing the intruders to their tent were human.

"W-What are you kids doing out?!" The woman cried. "It isn't safe. There have been zombies and ghouls coming from the graveyards nonstop for DAYS.. A weird tent in the South that wasn't there before.. No more sunlight.. It's all so harrowing. You should be inside until we figure things out."

Basil slipped his shears into his pocket, seeing no threat. "Y-you don't have anything to do with this?" One of the men scoffed. "Course not. We're trying to fix it. Welcome to the Zombie Relief Corps. Now go inside, will you..?"

The teens looked at each other for a second before hesitantly exiting the tent. Aubrey huffed a bit as Kel raised his hand. "What is it, Kel."

"We're going to the graveyard, right?" Kel asked innocently. Aubrey exhaled a bit. "Guess so. Won't be easy reaching the Sanctuary with all this crap going down. Not to mention.. I think the ghosts in the tunnels are gonna block us off till they're handled."

Sunny and Basil gulped as the blonde boy took out his shears again. Time to head to the graveyard and check on things.

Chapter Text

"Okay, yeah, wow, that's not good."

Aubrey sighed and readied her bat as she spoke, standing with the boys at the northwest graveyard entrance. Inside, they could see some zombies similar to the one they were attacked by earlier, as well as.. A bunch of bees, for some reason. Kel quickly ignited a flame in his hand, only paying attention to the zombies. "Hah, easy! KELSE-" Kel shut up upon seeing a horde of monsters running towards the group. "NGH!!"

Aubrey immediately groaned and put up a Shield. "Do you always have to be this dumb, Kel?"

Kel laughed anxiously. "Well, it's my job. PK BALLIN'!" He thrusted his psychic basketball towards a mob of zombies with passion before following up with a spread out PK Fire, catching a few ablaze and forcing them to fall, never to rise again. "Yeah babey!"

Sunny, despite his terror, took a deep breath and let out a cry, using PSI HANDS to slam the oncoming zombies to the ground. What he wasn't prepared for...

Were the bees.

Kel let out a screech like a dying monkey as the group were swarmed by bees. Aubrey held her Shield strong against them, but of course, a handful were smart enough to fly around the darn thing and start trying to sting everyone.

Basil shrieked in panic and did the first thing he could think of. "PSI POLLENSTORM..!" He sent a gust of pollen away from the group and sneezed as the bees were distracted entirely. "O-oh my gosh, tha-"

"Let's move!" Aubrey hissed, running through the graveyard with a sense of urgency. She made it to the back and around a path before returning, all in maybe 30 seconds. "Nothin' there but a suspicious couple of zom- HOLY!!" A trashcan she passed by suddenly jumped towards her, a green, slimy creature within trying to reach for her before she could react.

"A-aubrey!" Sunny reacted, running into the graveyard without a second thought, taking the ghoul down with a desperate PK Allegro. He breathed heavily as he heard Omori clapping slowly behind him. Bastard.

Aubrey dragged Sunny out of the graveyard and motioned for Basil and Kel to run along with them back to the campsite.

"So," Aubrey panted, "Like I said. Zombies. Didn't do nothing but stare at me." She shuddered. "SO gross."

"HM, so it isn't the graveyard?" Kel asked, sitting down and fidgeting with a lock of his hair. Aubrey shrugged.

Sunny hummed quietly as he hovered around the group, casting Lifeup on everyone, whether injured or not. Basil gave him a bit of a confused look. "Sunny, it's alright! Nobody's hurt.."

Sunny didn't falter. "..I like to feel useful." He was gently batted away by Kel when he approached him. "Nah, man, it's fine!" Sunny fidgeted with the hem of his sweater vest. "Yeah! You don't need to heal us for us to still lo- like you!" Basil's face went scarlet at his near-slipup. Sunny tilted his head. "Basil, are you sick?"

"AAHAHAHA NO I'm good! I think I'm gonna take a nap..!" Basil quietly slunk into the tent, blushing intensely. Aubrey scoffed.

After 15 minutes of silence, Basil could be heard snoring lightly from the tent. Kel pouted while watching the fire. "...Wish we had marshmallows.."

Sunny snapped his head up upon hearing a cry from the distance, maybe the hotel?

"HELP! OH, HELP!" Sounded like a woman, but.. A bit gravelly and throaty? He looked to his teammates. Kel stood up. "Someone needs help! We're saving the world, it's our job to-"

"We don't have to do anything," Aubrey cut in. "Let them figure out their own biz."

Sunny and Kel looked at each other before standing up and heading off. Aubrey sputtered nonsensically for a moment before begrudgingly following them.

Indeed, the yells were coming from a young blonde woman in front of the hotel. "Help! Please! I need help, in my room, oh Lord.."

"Ayo! What is it?" Kel asked cheerfully. The woman almost looked like she was struggling to find words. "I need help. Please!!" Aubrey rocked on her heels, this was raising sooooo many red flags.

"Okay, lead the way!" Kel said with a smile and a clap. He jauntily followed the lady into the hotel, while Sunny kept his typical blank face, and Aubrey strongly felt that she didn't want to be here. Soon enough they reached what was presumably her room and entered-

Yeah okay it was a trap.

Before any of them realized what was happening, they were cornered by a few zombies and what looked like.. A zombie.. Dog. One by one, unable to escape, the teens were knocked out with a swift blow to the back of the head.

Basil stirred quietly from within his sleeping bag. He was slowly being interrupted from whatever dream he'd been having, what it was he couldn't remember. He felt like something was off, deep within his mind, like maybe-

"Sunny?!" Basil yelped, suddenly shooting up where he lay. He took a couple deep breaths and exited the tent. "Sunny, are-"

Nobody. Sunny, Aubrey, Kel.. Not here. Oh no oh no oh no.

They'd all left him, hadn't they..? He was too weak for them. He shouldn't have come with, he shouldn't have left his house the night of the crash, he-

Basil let out a loud cry as he felt a sudden and intense pain in the back of his head. "S-sunny..?
" He whimpered weakly. Something was wrong with him. It had to be, it had to.. What else would make his head feel like it'd been bashed out of the blue? He just.. FELT like something was very wrong. He winced as a dull, crushing pain bloomed in his upper arm, this was awful.

Basil ducked inside the tent to formulate a plan. He was terrified, but.. Kel.. Aubrey.. Sunny... He instinctively reached out with his mind as his shears, previously laying next to his sleeping bag, slipped into his pocket. ...Sunny wasn't too far.. Maybe half a mile. Doable..

He noticed he was starting to come down with a fever. Or maybe it had started when he was sleeping? Who knows...

Basil cracked his knuckles and bit his lip. Guess it was his turn to do the saving..

Chapter Text

Basil shook like a leaf as he traversed Threed's dusky streets, inching his way to the graveyard. For a moment, he was anxious Sunny was dead, why else would he be in the graveyard? But he sweeped those thoughts away under the reasoning that he wouldn't be able to track the boy down if he was dead.

...Hopefully.

But being able to track Sunny made Basil wonder. He wasn't able to do that with his other friends, even though he had telepathy. Maybe it was because he was more used to talking to plants than people with it? Or maybe it was because he like Su-

Agh, nonono. Basil gently slapped his reddening cheeks to stamp down his embarrassing thoughts. How would the others react?!

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a smell much like rotten meat. Ew, what was.. That..?

"AGH!!" Basil hopped back in terror as he looked forwards to see a zombie rushing for him. How was it this FAST?! He ran the other direction as fast as his legs and lungs could handle, but was quickly met with another. Oh no.

What could he do? His breathing quickened and destabilized as his thoughts raced. He couldn't just fight them! They were humans, or at least used to be.. But if he didn't defend himself, he wouldn't reach Sunny, and he and the others might..

He didn't want to think of that.

Well, on the other hand, he supposed, this wasn't.. Normal. Dead people.. Didn't come back. It was..

Against nature.

Basil's eyes widened as he readied his gardening shears. It.. He wasn't a bad person if he killed these, because they were against nature, and probably coming to life because of Giygas. Right? Right...

With a nervous shout, the blonde boy plunged his shears into the heart of the first zombie, cringing heavily. "Not a human not a human not a human..!" The creature's flesh was soft and fragile, disturbingly, and cold. So, so cold. And.. It almost felt like plant matter.. Basil hated it. He hated this.. THING, imitating the plants he so loved..

Another stab and the thing fell down with a screech. Basil whipped around with sudden resolve and desperately lunged for the second zombie, wanting it to all be over already. Two stabs to the heart and it too fell. Basil began crying as he stared at his hands, filthy with torn and rotten flesh.

His lungs were screaming at him, his heart was pounding, his hands were shaking.. Basil felt awful. But at the same time, a bit.. Empowered? He managed to defend himself.. Maybe he wasn't useless..?

He shook his head violently and used telekinesis to carefully fling the viscera from his hands, shears, and under his fingernails. He shuddered, it really felt a lot like when he trimmed his plants.. He didn't like that. He finished cleaning up as soon as he could and ran off again, quivering harder.

"Ngh.."

Kel's eyes opened slowly to a rocky ceiling. It was very dark in the room he was in. He hummed and used PK Fire to get some light going, wondering where the heck he was. The last thing he remembered was.. Oh no.

"GUYS!!" Kel screeched, shining his light on a hardly-conscious Aubrey and Sunny. Aubrey sat up with a start. "YOU B- Wait, where? UGHHHHH I knew it was a trick." She facepalmed and looked to Sunny, who curled in on himself. "...Five minutes..."

Aubrey narrowed her eyes and prodded Sunny's stomach with her bat. "Get up, skinny, we got kidnapped." That lady and her zombies must not've been smart enough to take their weapons. Sunny made an annoyed 'nnnn' sound and unfurled his scrawny body. "Where.."

"Looks like a cave," Kel said, stating the obvious. Aubrey threw her bat to the floor in frustration. "No shit, Sherlock!!" Her eyes rested on a heavy, metal door blocking what was presumably the exit. The thing looked old. She grinned a wild, angry smirk and charged towards it. "PK BASH 'EM!!" She recoiled as her punch didn't even make a dent. The door was too strong. She grumbled under her breath and sat back down. "God dammit."

Sunny looked at his arm, feeling a dull ache within it. It was bruised up in what looked like a hand shape. ...Oh, that wasn't good. As he woke up further and the circumstances sank in, his heart dropped to his feet. They'd been kidnapped, oh no, they were trapped and would die here. Giygas would wi-

He felt a faint calming feeling trying to push its' way over him, and narrowed his eye. He honed in on this feeling, and was able to sense.. Basil! He'd been left at the campground, but.. He was coming for them! A very small smile and a light blush appeared on Sunny's face, earning Kel's attention.

"Yo, Sunny, what's up?" Aubrey, by this point, was back at the door, angrily banging at and attacking it, trying to force it open with telekinesis, the whole kit and caboodle.

Sunny shook his head, not knowing how to explain this at all.

Basil quietly snuck through the graveyard, hiding behind tombstones and such so as not to be seen by any of the handful of zombies roaming about. The closer he got to Sunny, the more accurately he could pinpoint where he was. He was.. Underground? But alive. Yes, Basil could now tell he was alive.. That was good.

He stealthily hopped from tombstone to tombstone, looking for a way to get under there. Over the years, he had gotten good at sneaking new plants into the house without alerting Polly or his grandma, so this wasn't too hard.

Soon enough, he found a narrow path towards the back of the graveyard that led to what appeared to be a rusty hatch, unguarded. He took a deep breath, this was his only lead. As he approached the thing, he felt his fever receding and quickly decided to test out his new move, crouching to the ground.

"PK Overgrowth!" Basil let out a surprised peep as his outstretched hands glowed green and a couple little dandelion flowers grew rapidly before him. He- He could grow plants!

Basil squealed in excitement at his new move and decided to try pouring a bit more energy into Overgrowth to see what he could do. He repeated the phrase, focusing in on a nearby tree. Sure enough, as he willed, the branches began to creep towards him. Basil slapped a hand over his mouth, this was probably the coolest move he had..

With a burst of confidence, Basil threw the hatch open and descended into the dark catacombs below, hearing a distant banging.

"UGH!!" Aubrey grunted as she slammed her shoulder into the door. "THIS BLOWS!"

Sunny was sitting quietly on the dirt floor, humming a short tune. Kel was boredly making the occasional shot at the door using PK Ballin', followed by pacing around the cavey room. "This is boring! We should put some OOMPH into this!!!!!!!"

Aubrey shot a cold glare Kel's way before pounding on the door again.

"H-hello?!" Basil squeaked from the other side. He'd taken about 10 minutes to walk through the eerily empty catacombs himself, and was feeling a little cold and afraid.

Sunny perked up instantly. "Basil!" He got up and rushed over to the door, with Kel trailing behind. "Can you get in?"

Basil jiggled the door handle a bit. "Locked.. Ah!! W-wait!" He took a deep breath, with some luck, there might be tree roots or something nearby he could pry the door open with.. "PK Overgrowth!"

Basil focused as hard as he could on forcing a couple nearby roots to grow and snake to the door. With a struggling grunt, he allowed them to grip the door handle, and sloooowly pull back..

CLANK. Unceremoniously, the handle was ripped off, and the roots slowly curled into the walls and out of the way. Basil fell to his knees panting; that had taken a lot out of him.

The lock mech inside the door was utterly destroyed. Aubrey managed to kick it open with ease. Sunny raced out and fell to his knees before Basil. "Basil..!"

"Sunny.." Basil yawned, exhausted. As Kel and Aubrey caught up with them, Basil found himself growing drowsy, and quickly fell asleep, his head falling onto Sunny's shoulder.

Chapter Text

"Ng.." Basil sat up slowly, or at least, he tried. He was stopped by a light weight across his chest, which recoiled and moved away upon noticing his stirring. He looked to his right to see it was Sunny, looking at him with a concerned gaze. He'd had his arm draped across the smaller boy while he slept.

Basil went scarlet and scooched away, taking in his surroundings. They were back in the tent, and from the battery-powered lantern glowing on the floor nearby, he could reasonably assume it was night. He could also hear Kel and Aubrey snoring a bit.

The boy blinked and looked back at Sunny. "A-ah, Sunny! Are you okay?" He squirmed a bit in place and fidgeted with his hands as Sunny sat up, prompting Basil to follow.

"Yeah, I'm.. I'm okay. Are you okay..?" Sunny fidgeted with his bangs a bit as Basil quickly stammered out his reply. "A-ah, yeah! I just got really tired and relieved when I r-reached you guys, and I just.. Fell asleep??"

Sunny shut his eye and nodded in understanding. "How did you find us..? I mean.. It's good you did, but.."

"I just.. Felt you," Basil said quietly. The two stared at each other for a second before Sunny shook his head and looked at the floor. "..We should ask Mr Hayes about this.."

Basil bit his lip and retrieved his phone from nearby on the tent floor. Looking at the clock, he saw it was about 8 PM. ...Early.

"Yeah. Let's.."

"Oh no, don't tell me you made a Bind.."

Joe's voice was exasperated and tired after Sunny and Basil explained what was happening, an almost dumbfounded quality to his voice. He pinched the bridge of his nose, this was gonna be hard to discuss.

"What's a Bind?" Basil asked curiously, shifting to sitting with his legs crossed. Joe sighed. "Well, when a psychic loves someone very mu-"

"Ew!" The two teenage boys said reflexively. "Mr Hayes, we know about the birds and the bees," Sunny said, burying his face in his hands. Joe choked on his own breath. "Tha- That isn't what this is about!"

"Look, it's weird, but this happened to my grandpop and his brother, it happened to me and Susan, and now it's happening to you. When a PSI user loves someone, they can.. Ah, they can end up forming.. A connection. With the person they love. Like a significant other, or a sibling, or a friend," Joe began. "My grandpop named this phenomenon a Bind. Uh, it's usually unintentional? But from my experience and my grandpop's, yeah, it sounds like the whole sharing pain and sensing eachother lines up well with a Bind.."

Basil turned bright red and looked away from Sunny. Ah, jeez, he must've done this..! "U-uh! How do we stop it?"

Joe sighed and facepalmed a bit. "Well. When I was told by my grandpop what was going on I was able to stop it by focusing. Maybe try that?"

Basil hummed and squeezed his eyes shut, before pinching his arm to test if he'd fixed it. Sunny winced and rubbed the spot on his own. "Didn't work.." Basil said, dying of embarrassment.

Joe cringed. "Was afraid of that.. The thing is, uh, I actually don't know how this works with two PSI users..? I'm sorry."

Basil looked towards Sunny with a panicked expression. "Sunny I'm so sorry!! If I- If I had just- I- I like you okay?!" Sunny's eye widened a bit as he blushed. "...Why...?"

Basil blue-screened. "A-ah, well, I.. You're nice, a-and cute- Eep! I mean.. You still like me, even after.. All the bad things that happened.. And.. Y-you're patient, a- I need to stop talking-!" Basil slapped a hand over his mouth, feeling himself turning redder than he thought was humanly possible.

"It's okay Basil," Sunny said softly, a look of contemplation in his eye and a dusting of pink settling across his cheeks. He turned his gaze back to Basil's phone sitting in front of them. Joe was staying quiet as the events transpired over the phone.

After a moment of silence, Joe took a deep breath. "You boys okay..?" Basil sputtered incoherently for a second before Sunny responded with a firm 'yes'.

"Ah, well.. I really need to go to bed," Joe said softly. "Don't hesitate to call if you figure anything out or need help.. Bye."

Basil hung up.

Aubrey prodded Basil with the end of her bat. "Hey, numbskulls, wake up. Kel managed to make MREs without anything exploding."

Basil came to somewhat quickly, feeling something warm and comforting draped across him. He looked at what it was and scrambled upwards, mind flustered, as he realized Sunny had snuggled up with him overnight. He didn't mind, he actually sort of liked it, but.. Agh!!! The smaller boy stirred and yawned. "Basil..? G'mornin.. Sorry I di'n't ask before hugging.." Basil looked up at Aubrey, whose eye twitched a tad. "Are you guys gay or something?"

Basil awkwardly stammered out a string of incoherent syllables that sounded much like a keysmash. Aubrey groaned. "Look, I don't CARE. Just don't screw in the tent." She exited the tent sounding peeved. Basil quickly yelled back at her. "WE'RE NOT- GROSS, AUBREY..!" He buried his face in his hands for a moment before scrambling out of the tent with Sunny.

Kel was humming a dopey tune next to the fire while Aubrey sat a few feet away munching angrily on a component from an MRE. Looked like oatmeal.

"What's for breakfast?" Sunny asked softly. Kel grinned. "I made OATMEAL AND TOAST!! And NOTHING EXPLODED! Told you I could, Aubrey!!" The girl grumbled a bit under her breath. Kel waved towards a plate of toast and MREs he'd set on a nearby log. Some plastic spoons and small packets of jam were also laid out on it.

The boys both took their share of food and were a couple minutes into their quiet meal when a sudden, loud, and smokey explosion emanated form the fire. Nobody was hurt, but everyone was a bit shaken.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Aubrey roared, rearing up her bat. Kel fell to the ground in tears. "MY BEANNNNNS!!!!!!"

"Your.. What?!" Basil shrieked.

"MY BEANS! I WANTED TO TRY EATING THEM ON TOAST LIKE THE BRI'ISH PEOPLE!" Kel cried in agony. "SO I PUT SOME IN THE FIRE!"

"Kel you fucking idiot," Aubrey began, seething, "YOU NEED TO OPEN THE CAN FIRST."

Seemed like the morning was off to a typical start.

Chapter Text

It had been a long morning. First up, Aubrey had made an executive decision for the team to check out the mysterious tent at the South of the town, which.. Had happened to be alive and hostile. They beat the snot out of it with MUCH difficulty, and, after they were thoroughly bruised up and tired, the thing collapsed with a shriek and gust of red mist. They found a single jar of whatever the heck 'fly honey' was laying nearby and took it.

Then Apple Kid had called Sunny on Discord and told him he was sending an invention called zombie paper his way and that he could pick it up at the hotel. After Aubrey chewed him out for giving 100 bucks to a stranger, the gang went over to the Threed Hotel, and sure enough, a packet of zombie paper was waiting for them at the front desk.

They had dropped it off at the Relief Corps tent and told them to use it how they saw fit, and then headed back to the campsite to get ready to hunt down the Sanctuary.

Sunny quietly packed a few things into his backpack, when he suddenly felt a familiar, dull, throbbing pain rising in his lower abdomen. Oh no, was-

Basil, sitting nearby and trying to clean his gardening shears, suddenly cringed and doubled over as Sunny's own cramping worsened. Yeah, he wasn't used to this, he would have a harder time managing it.

"Aubrey. Ibuprofen. Please," Sunny grunted weakly. The delinquent raised an eyebrow and tossed him a bottle of the medication. He downed two of the pills without any water and painfully shuffled over to Basil, beginning to rub his back. "Basil, I'm so sorry..."

The taller boy shook heavily. "W-why does..?" Sunny winced as a stab of pain rocked the two of them. "...Cramps. I.. Need to get cleaned up.." Sunny snatched a pad from his bag and hissed as he stumbled out of the tent and over to a nearby gas station with a bathroom.

Aubrey looked over at the suffering blonde boy, now curled up on the tent floor, clutching his lower abdomen like his organs were about to fall out. "What's all this about?"

Basil bit his lip and waited for the current wave of pain to go down. He'd have to tell her, huh. He glanced at Kel, sitting nearby and looking at Basil with worry. "We, ah... Sunny a-and I share pain now."

"What." Aubrey said flatly. Basil winced as the pain momentarily got worse. "Y-yea- OW!! Yeah.. I-its complicated PSI junk.." He waved a hand weakly. How did Sunny deal with this?!

"Is that.. Safe..?" Kel said softly. Basil shrugged and curled in on himself further.

"Haha, you have to go wear a diaper around because of relentless bleeding. But I don't, because you made me to be CIS!" Omori laughed coarsely at Sunny's plight as the older boy grumbled and tore open the wrapper of his pad.

"I mean.. Why even try, Sunny? You're going to be stuck like this forever, aren't you? So why bother? It's usel-" Sunny had had enough of listening to Omori.

"SHUT UP!!" Sunny screamed mentally, his nerves running wild. Omori shuffled back a bit. the older boy wasn't done though. "I am a BOY. YOU DON'T GET TO SAY OTHERWISE. I'm on hormones now. I get to move on and try to be happy. SO STOP IT!!"

Omori fell to the tiled floor with a sudden thud, shuddering. Sunny heard him whimpering and quickly finished up his business (A bit of blood had leaked through his shorts, but it wasn't very visible) and dashed outside the stall to see Omori laying on the floor in pain.

"Oh jeez," Sunny reacted, making sure nobody else was in the bathroom before stooping down to his double's level. "What's up?"

"I feel like I'm on fucking fire," Omori spat, "THAT's what's up!!" He hissed as an audible crack resounded from some of his bones. Sunny jumped back in fear. "What's happening, Omori?!" Omori bit through his lip as his limbs stretched slightly longer and he continued to burn. A few minutes of silence, and Omori stood up shakily. Sunny followed suit, and the two boys noticed Omori was now about Sunny's height.

"...I'm 16 now," The monochrome double noticed, looking down at his body. He furrowed his brow, he looked.. A lot like Sunny did pre-T. It felt all wrong. "...And trans. You- YOU FUCKING- CHANGE ME BACK THIS INSTANT." Omori summoned his knife and pointed it at a confused and shocked Sunny. "I- I don't-"

A smug look plastered across Sunny's face. "Wait.. Now.. You can't make fun of me for it anymore." He laughed a bit internally. "You have to deal with it too! You- Ahahaha.. This is what you GET." He walked over to the bathroom sink to wash his hands as Omori seethed.

"STOP LAUGHING. IT ISN'T FUNNY." Omori stood behind Sunny in the mirror, looking at himself with ire. "This isn't right. This isn't me. UNDO THIS." During Omori's louder moments, Sunny could hear the faint squealing of a poorly-bowed violin.

Sunny quietly continued to wash up. "And now you know what dysphoria is like. Congrats." He shook his hands off to dry them and calmly gathered his things before leaving, Omori following and yelling all the while.

By the time Sunny reached the campsite and re-entered the tent, the ibuprofen had taken effect, and Basil seemed to be feeling better. Sunny smiled a bit. Good.

"Do you losers need a bit?" Aubrey asked roughly. The two nodded in unison; they'd need to take the rest of the day to unwind. She groaned a bit. "Fine. I'm going to my room." She cleared her throat as she crawled to her space in the tent to relax.

"I'm gonna make LUNCH!!" Kel declared, clapping his hands and scrambling outside. "Don't make beans," Aubrey called behind him.

"No promisesssss!"

Sunny laid back on his sleeping bag and considered the events that had transpired. When he was 12 and made Omori, he was meant to be an idealized version of himself. Good at hiding emotions, good at having emotions, loved by all.. And, well, cis. It almost felt empowering that he wasn't anymore.

Omori seethed nearby. "This sucks. I hate this." Sunny rolled his eyes and glanced at Basil. "You wanna take a nap? I'm really tired." Basil nodded with a shaky smile and slipped into his sleeping bag. "A-ah, if you want to hug me again this time you can! I-i mean! You don't have to- Eep!" Basil was stopped by Sunny sliding next to him and giving him a gentle hug.

The two eventually fell asleep.

"HOLY SHIT! That was EFFECTIVE!" Aubrey roared.

The crew, along with the Zombie Relief Corps, stood at the entrance to the tent in the center of town the next morning in shock. Apple Kid's zombie paper had.. Attracted every zombie in town, stuck them to the tent floor, and killed them. All of them. Every last one..

An ominous red mist that gave Sunny that weighty feeling on his mind was leaching off the zombies. Coincidentally or not, the sun was finally starting to shine in the town again.

They had almost fully purged Threed of Giygas's influence. Sunny could feel it. It gave him a feeling of accomplishment.

Kel hastily pulled the crew aside. "The sanctuary! Now's our chance!"

Aubrey's eyes widened. "Right." She sprinted back to the camp and hurriedly began putting things away. She was followed up by Kel, leaving Sunny and Basil alone to accept the onslaught of thanks from the Relief Corps, who officially disbanded right then and there.

When the boys left the tent, they saw some people walking around for the first time since they'd arrived. They were apprehensive to be outside, but overjoyed to see the sun once again.. How nice.

By the time they got back to the camp, Aubrey and Kel were ready to go and had packed up everything. Aubrey chucked a few granola bars at them and then tossed the Soundstone at Sunny. "Eat these granola bars, you need the energy. NOW LET'S MOVE!!"

Sunny choked down his granola bar and ran with the group up to the graveyard, as he felt along the tugging line the stone was telling him. The red mist had propagated here too, it seemed. No monsters attacked them as they rushed through the area, down the hatch from earlier, and down a path in the catacombs Sunny had seen earlier when Basil had rescued them, but they hadn't gone down.

The catacombs were eerily empty. The only encounter they had was with a pink pile of sentient barf towards the end of the path that Aubrey stomped on in bemusement.

From there, they climbed the ladder that was there to arrive in a beautiful valley next to a great waterfall. It would've been relaxing had it not been for the crocodiles, frogs, and little red bugs trying to attack them. They had to duck into a cave to recoup for a moment.

"This is so HARD," Kel whined, "I don't get it. There's so many!! It's like the farther we go the harder things get!"

"That's how life is, idiot," Aubrey stewed. Basil had gotten distracted form their squabbling and watched a pretty golden butterfly giving off a faint glow and fluttering through the cave. "Hey, hey, look at this lil guy.."

Basil sat down next to Sunny and stuck his finger out, Aubrey and Kel's attention grabbed. Kel gasped as the butterfly landed on Basil's finger. "PRETTY!!" The creature stayed there for a moment before fluttering out of the cave, leaving the group feeling relaxed, energized, and ready to run back into the fray. With a newfound sense of harmony, they pushed through the enemies until reaching another cave. This one had a light at the end, and the tugging led through it, so they pushed onwards.

Aubrey was the first out, since she was the quickest and had good attack power on her side. "...What."

"Huh? What's- Wow!" Basil stammered, walking out next to her. Sunny peered over his shoulder. They had happened upon a village of oddly-shaped houses, and little beige creatures with large noses, tiny feet, a single hair on each of their heads, and.. Well, overall a weirdly cute feel to them.

He blinked, dumbfounded, before Kel zoomed out of the tunnel up to one of the creatures. "Hiya! Do you speak English?"

Aubrey prepared to yell at him before being stopped by a weird, somewhat screechy and disjointed voice from the creature. She could hardly parse it. "YES, BOING! WELCOME SATURN VALLEY! ZOOM! HERE, ALL MR SATURN!"

Kel nodded, seemingly understanding the thing like it had spoken college-level English. "Alright, coolio! Thanks! I'm Kel!" He kneeled down and patted the Mr Saturn's head, which it seemed to appreciate.

Sunny stood in shock back at the tunnel exit as he quit out of focusing on the Soundstone and watched Basil and Aubrey approach Kel, Omori making a confused remark he couldn't parse. When did his life get so weird?

Chapter Text

Kel chattered away with the Mr Saturn as Aubrey gave a concerned glance around the village. The Valley was, indeed, a valley. Rocky cliffs surrounded the few houses on the lowest ground, and many ladders were propped up against them. A lot of them led nowhere..

Sunny quietly walked over to a pristine little pond towards the center of the village. Aubrey raised an eyebrow, but didn't intervene as the boy sat down and looked at his reflection.

"Mmm.." Sunny fiddled with his hair a little before looking over to Aubrey again. "Can we rest for a bit before looking for the Sanctuary?"

The bubblegum-haired girl sighed. "This place isn't it?" Sunny focused on the stone in his pocket. "No." He waved up to one of the ridges, which he could faintly see a Mr Saturn sitting on a tree stump at. There was no ladder leading up to it. Yikes.

Aubrey grumbled loudly. "I'll set up the tent.." She swiped all the camping supplies away from Kel with her telekinesis and got to work.

"So! D'you like Orange Joe?" Kel cracked open a can of the soda that he'd retrieved from his backpack and offered it to the Mr Saturn before him. Basil sat next to Kel, intrigued and confused by the interaction occurring between them.

The creature sniffed the open can before slamming its' nose onto it and slurping all the soda out. It then dropped the can onto the ground and gave a few sugar-spiked honks. Kel's face lit up.

Basil's face DROPPED. "W-what was THAT?!" Kel was too busy cheering to notice his friend's absolute horror. "Haha, yeah! Orange Joe ROCKS! You've got taste!"

He turned over to Aubrey, who was still setting up camp by the pond. "UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE!"

Aubrey flipped him off, earning an offended scoff from Kel. Basil gave an uncomfortable squeak and went to help Aubrey with the camp.

Sunny, on the other hand, had gone off to explore what the town had to offer. He found himself in one of the houses at the bottom of the valley, which seemed to be a hospital, staffed by a Mr Saturn sitting in a trash can for some reason. ...It looked oddly comfortable.

"Can.. I sit in there..?" Sunny asked awkwardly. Dr Saturn gave a boing and a response Sunny could barely understand before hopping out, motioning for Sunny to sit in the trash can. Sunny climbed in and was shocked that the thing was cushioned and indeed quite comfortable. Cat mode engaged...

Omori narrowed his eyes at him and walked up to the can, staring Sunny down. "Sunny, I'm mad."

Sunny blinked a few times before Omori kept going. "I feel sweaty and tired and I don't like it. What did you do?"

The colorful boy slumped deeper into the trash can. He actually didn't know. Tired and sweaty.. He remembered feeling like that for a couple days after starting T.. Wait.

"Maybe you're going through puberty?" Sunny offered out in his thoughts, causing Omori to gasp angrily. "WHY?!"

"I don't know! I don't even know why you're AFAB now!" Sunny thought in exasperation as he curled in on himself further. Omori glared absolute DAGGERS at his creator. "This is already MISERABLE, and now PUBERTY. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!"

Sunny furrowed his brow. "Well, now you know what you've been bullying me about!"

Silence.

Omori paused. "...Oh." An awkward quiet hung over them, only broken up by Dr Saturn tending to a pair of small potted trees in the middle of the room. Suddenly, a figure kicked the door open.

"SUNNYYYYYY!! WE GOT THE TENT SET UP!!" Kel screeched far too loudly, a Mr Saturn riding on top of his head. Sunny poked his head out of the trash can with a light hum as Kel roared with laughter, unaware of the conversation that had just occurred. "HAH! What's with the trash can? C'mon, let's go eat lunch!"

The rest of the day was pretty slow, spent exploring the village and asking how to get to the upper ridge. Slowly the gang pieced together that they needed to find an entrance to some Master Belch guy's factory, and after fighting their way over to the falls outside of the village, found a heavy, steel door behind the rushing whitewater. Bingo.

But they didn't know the password. They had to fall back to the Valley to come up with a plan. But by then, it was nightfall, and after dinner, everyone had retired to sleep for the night.

Except Sunny.

The black-haired boy stared dully at the tent above him at about 3 AM, unable to fall asleep, due to Omori making quiet grumbling sounds throughout the night. Even after being asked to stop.

"Why do you keep doing this..?" Sunny whispered, exhausted. Omori sighed. "I don't like this. I don't at all. This isn't how I'm meant to be, it's- It's miserable. I have a CHEST now. It's fucking AWFUL," Omori spat, making Sunny uncomfortable.

Right, he.. Still had that, too.. And periods, that was.. Happening right now..

Sunny curled in on himself with a shudder. He was far too aware of his body right now.. It was hellish. A high-pitched whimper escaped his throat, making him cringe heavily. Too much, too much, too much..

Omori narrowed his eyes. "Sun-" He attempted to place his hand on Sunny's shoulder but was stopped by him abruptly scrambling up and running out of the tent, grabbing his knife just in case, each step- Each THING he felt his body do descending him further into Hell. Omori ran after him, sensing he was going to do something bad.

Sunny fell to his knees by the pond in the center of town, doubling over in tears that just made it all hurt worse. His voice felt way too high, it made him feel sick. Not right... He'd scraped up his knees pretty badly, but didn't care.

He turned and looked into the water, hardly registering the face reflected onto it. He had to get this to stop. But how? He-

The knife, yes, he had a knife.. He could.. Sunny ignored Omori's alarmed screams as he lifted his shirt and slowly brought the knife up to his breasts. He could.. Cut them off. That'd help, wouldn't it?! At least one problem gone..

Omori desperately tried to convince his creator to put the knife down. If he tried to cut off his chest, he'd die of shock before even getting the CHANCE to cast Lifeup, he knew it. This was wildly dangerous.

Sunny sat poised with the cold blade of the knife pressing against his skin for a few moments, his breathing chopped into a series of dry sobs. A small droplet of blood formed and slid down his abdomen. Omori screamed and yelled in desperation.

"S-sunny..? Are.. OH MY GOSH!!" Basil cried, rubbing his eyes at first as he crawled out of the tent, until he saw the glint of the knife Sunny was holding up to his body. He reflexively thrusted it away with telekinesis as he ran over to him, resulting in it soaring over the pond and falling on the grassy ground with an unceremonious thump. "S-sunny, are you okay?! D-don't hurt yourself, please!! Please, please.." Basil fell to his knees before Sunny, crying profusely and tearing holes in the knees of his pajama pants.

Sunny teared up again before falling into Basil's arms. "Hurts.. Hurts.." He could hardly speak, his throat stung and his voice was strained. "It all.." Sunny buried his face into Basil's shoulder and wept. The blonde teared up further as he ran a hand over Sunny's head. "It's o-okay! It's okay! J-just, please, what happened..?"

The shorter boy shook his head. "T-tell later..."

Basil grimaced. "O-okay.. Please don't hurt yourself.. I-i'm here, okay?" Basil's heart was racing, he was horrified. This did not recede as he quietly and carefully walked Sunny back to the tent, who was still letting out intermittent choked sobs. He felt a slicing pain on his chest, which made him sad. Sunny must have hurt himself. The two laid down next to each other in the tent.

Basil took a deep, shaky breath. "Are you a-alright?"

Sunny shook his head. "D-dysphoric. Everything.. Everything.." The boy quivered violently as Basil put a concerned hand on his shoulder. He didn't know how to help. "It's okay, it's okay.. I don't know how to fix it, b-but I li- I love you, okay? I-it'll be okay.." He caressed Sunny's hair again, which seemed to calm him by a little bit, though obviously didn't bring him down fully.

"Do you.. Need to vent?" Basil asked, trying to be helpful. Sunny took a deep breath and tightly hugged a pillow to his chest, remembering his healthier coping skills. "L-later.. Need sleep.." Basil nodded and continued gliding his fingers through Sunny's hair. Soon enough, the fatigue overtook them both, and they fell asleep.

Chapter Text

"Wake up nerds, we got a factory to raid! Get your butts in gear, food's set!"

Sunny groaned and sat up in response to Aubrey's yelling, gently pushing Basil's arms away from him. Kel, from the other side of the tent, shot up with a cheer. "Wait, did you say food?! Yeah!!" He rocketed out of the tent at record speed.

From next to Sunny, Basil let out a tired sigh and sat up where he lay. He glanced over at Sunny. "Are you doing better..?"

Sunny bit his lip and thought for a moment before nodding. "Y-yeah..." It started to sink in what he had nearly done the night before, and it occurred to him he actually HAD ended up hurting himself. "I'm sorry.. I'm so sorry, Basil.."

Basil smiled with an air of fatigue and anxiety, yet a twinge of relief about him. "D-don't be.. I'm just glad I got woken up in time.. And that you're okay."

Sunny's eyes darted away for a moment, and he tried to change the topic. "..What woke you?"

Basil chewed on the tip of his thumb thoughtfully for a second. "I.. Don't know, actually.."

Kel suddenly poked his head in. "GUYS, C'MON!! There's food!"

Basil haphazardly stumbled up and out of the tent, Sunny following close behind.

The walk to the falls was surprisingly peaceful. Most of the mysteriously hostile animals were asleep, Sunny supposed, seeing as they were only attacked once or twice by animals they managed to tame pretty quickly.

Basil and Sunny trailed a bit behind Aubrey and Kel, both feeling a little awkward and not really saying much, contrasting heavily with Kel in particular, who was being inconveniently loud as usual.

Omori stared blankly at the ground as he trudged forward a couple feet ahead of Sunny. He'd been acting strange, almost.. Regretful, Sunny thought, and for the entire morning. He wanted to ask if he was okay, but at the moment, there were bigger fish to fry than making sure your trauma demon's feelings weren't hurt.

...Sunny felt guilty for thinking that.

Soon enough, they reached the namesake of Grapefruit Falls: The falls themselves.

Kel stood in a dazed awe at the lead of the team before pumping his fist in the air with a little hop and a shout. "YEAH!! These falls are BEAUTIFUL!"

Aubrey groaned lightly. "Yeah, yeah, let's go already.." She took a deep breath before skipping across a few boulders in the river and charging behind the falls. Kel joyfully followed suit, then Basil, Sunny, and Omori. Notably, Omori did a flip on his way through the falls, making Sunny sigh a bit internally. Show-off.

Kel cheerfully knocked on the iron door, not faltering as a booming metallic voice called out in response that made everyone else jump.

"What is the password?"

Aubrey stared at the door for a moment. "Bitch sauce."

"INCORRECT!"

Kel put on a dopey smile and took a deep breath. "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, with a side of Orange Joe!" He looked pleased as Aubrey rushed to hide her snorting and whisper of a smile with her hand.

"INCORRECT! You have one more chance before I blow you to bits!"

Sunny clasped a hand over his mouth and sunk to the ground, swimming in terror. They needed to think this through or they'd die. Or could they go back and return later? No, no; they didn't have time to mess around, and-

He felt two hands on his back. One he could tell was Omori's, as it was unreasonably cool, and the other, he soon learned was Basil's, upon shakily gazing upwards.

"Hey, hey, Sunny, it's o-okay.." Basil whispered reassuringly, sitting across from the younger boy. "L-let's.. Just sit down and think for a bit, o-okay..?" Aubrey let out a light sigh and sat down, pulling a water bottle from her backpack and taking a sip. Kel shrugged and plopped down haphazardly on the rocky ridge, sticking his legs out into the falls and enjoying the cool whitewater. Sunny felt Omori wordlessly wrap his cool arms around him in a somewhat stiff, but not unpleasant hug.

The next few minutes were spent quietly taking in their surroundings and trying to keep Sunny and Basil relaxed. This failed as a loud THUNK was heard from the door, prompting everybody to spring up with their weapons readied.

"CORRECT."

The door opened.

Basil blinked. "...What?"

Sunny, feeling the weight on his shoulders instantly dissipate, fell forward, his face burrowing into Basil's chest. A few anxious tears fell from his eye, wetting his boyfriend's shirt. Basil let out a squeak and hugged Sunny close, trying to reassure him.

Aubrey glanced at the two for a moment before awkwardly looking away, a flitter of some sort of regret in her eyes. "Uh.. Yeah. Let's go then."

Kel whooped and cartwheeled through the open door, the rest of the party in tow. They were only a mere two feet through the door when a pink blur suddenly slammed into Kel, knocking him square onto the ground.

Trouble already.

Chapter Text

"KEL!!" Basil shrieked, snapping Sunny out of his momentary stupor. He immediately rushed over to Kel, now laying on the floor laughing ferociously. A hot pink and rather rotund creature with two blobby feet and a pair of beady black eyes was jumping up and down on his stomach, in attempts to deal some damage. Basil's fear of the worst seemed to be unfounded as Kel wrapped his hands around the creature and held it up over his face with a grin. "Bahaha, that tickled! How's it goin, little guy?!"

The 'little guy' in question squeaked and squirmed, trying to free itself from the tan basketball player's grip of doom. Kel whirled around and shoved the thing in Aubrey's face. "Lookit, ain't it cute?!"

Aubrey gave a light grunt of surprise before backing up a couple steps. "Uh, Kel. Put it down. It might be poisonous or a bomb or some shit."

But Kel wasn't listening. "I think I'll name you... Jerry. Yeah! Jerry!" Kel hummed happily and tried to feed the Foppy some Orange Joe from a can of the stuff he had in his backpack as Aubrey reconsidered her life decisions.

Kel gave a confused squeak as the Foppy shut its' beady eyes and began to vibrate. "Uh, uh, SHIT! Aubrey, think fast!" He tossed it towards Aubrey, who yelled and dodged. "KEL, WHAT THE FU-"

"G-guys, look!" Basil stammered wildly, pointing to Jerry, who was now on the floor and looking like it was undergoing mitosis.

"God DAMMIT," Aubrey began, "They can MULTIPLY?!"

Sure enough, Jerry divided into two Jerries (Jerri?) and Kel let out a whoop.

“DUDE! TWO JERRIES!! This rocks!”

“Uh.. They seem.. Hostile..” Sunny pointed out as he watched the Foppies both try to collaboratively pummel Kel to death by jumping into his shins. Kel just laughed.

“Dude, they're harmless! Let's go!” Kel thundered onwards with the two Foppies trailing behind.

“KEL! FUCKING WAIT!” Aubrey hollered as she sprinted after him, leaving Sunny and Basil (And Omori) behind. The Foppies chased after them.

Sunny ground his foot into the floor. “Uh.. So should w-”

A sudden faint rumbling distracted Basil. “Hey, uh, Sunny.. Do you hear that?”

“No?”

“Wait, wait, I- I swear ther-”

Basil yelled in terror as a FLOOD of Foppies rushed in front of the boys, blocking them from advancing further into the factory. “AGH!! THERE'S MORE?!”

Sunny's eye widened as he drew his hands in front of himself, ready to attack. “Maybe.. Maybe they're still weak in numbers. Maybe- BASIL!” Sunny yelled as a sudden group of about 5 of the little beasts knocked Basil off his feet, knocking the wind out of him. Sunny felt a pain blossom in his back as he dove down to the boy.

He couldn't just attack them! He'd probably hurt Basil too... Sunny's pulse quickened as he haphazardly tried to scoop and shove the pink blobs off Basil. He was stopped by a sudden telekinetic blast throwing both him and the Foppies away from Basil, who had let out a shout as he created the outburst. “G-GET OFF M- Oh god, Sunny!! I'm so sorry!!”

Sunny stumbled back onto his feet, his face a bit flushed. “That was.. I..”

“CRINGE!” Omori shouted at Sunny. “CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE-”

Sunny furrowed his brow and dashed over to his companion, hands crackling with PSI. “We.. Better get ready to fight?”

Basil nodded as the two sized up the mob of Foppies ahead.

“KEL, I SWEAR TO- WAIT!”

Aubrey roared as Kel skipped through the factory. She suddenly stopped in pure frustration. “WILL YOU JUST- WILL YOU JUST THINK?! FOR ONCE?!”

Kel froze. “I AM thinking! I'm thinking of going and capturing the Sanctuary! Right Su- Wait, where-?”

Aubrey and Kel took a moment to stop and look at their surroundings. They were completely lost.

“Well, uh.. That's not good,” Kel noted. Aubrey's face went red as she started to cry in frustration and fell to her knees.

“Are you kidding me?! KEL. We're lost. This ENTIRE fucking trip has just been one big reminder of all the BULLSHIT from the past 4 YEARS. Mari fucking got killed, everyone left me behind, then everyone tried to be friends again and you know what? I actually WENT WITH IT. And then those two had the damn gall to have lied to us for the whole time. For FOUR YEARS. Now I'm stuck on a stupid quest with you and the people who took away my BIG SISTE-” Aubrey caught herself in the middle of her outburst. “W-Whatever. Whatever, It's-”

“No, no.. No, Aubrey, hey, it's okay! You can be mad! I was really upset too when everything happened in that hospital room! And, I mean..” Kel hiccuped a bit and kneeled down next to Aubrey, a few tears forming in his eyes. “It was a bit messed up what Sunny and Basil did, but.. We.. We would've done the same if we were a couple of dumb scared kids, right?”

Aubrey's breath hitched. “Oh.. Oh my god. I.. We.. We would've-”

Kel ignored the tears rolling down his face. He really hadn't cried in a while. He found it hard to stop the tears from flowing.

Aubrey took a ragged breath as her crying grew heavier. “MARI!!!”

Kel pulled Aubrey into a quiet hug as her wails filled the factory chamber.