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Yuu walks out of the kitchen, staring blankly at the chaos around their living room. Shouting, objects rattling, and some healthy fist fighting is shockingly normal for them now.
"Ahem," they cough, getting everyone's attention rather quickly. "Do we have the supplies?"
Ortho perks up, making some whirring noises and he scans the boxes. "Yup! Candles - twenty two of them, red chalk, salt, sage, paper, and pens!"
Yuu nods happily, picking up the box and beginning to unbox it. Ace and Deuce begin a tiny argument behind them before it goes quiet.
"Uh.. So what are we doing again?" Deuce asks, though his question is cut short by Ace yelling.
"Operation 'summon Sebby's boyfriend' is commencing!!" He announces like a sports commentator, clapping his hands together.
Sebek's face goes an unhealthy shade of red and he hits the back of Ace's head. "WE ARE NOT DATING!!"
"OW! Yeah, yeah, whatever!" He scoffs, rubbing his head and turning to Jack. "What's the next step?"
The wolf hums, taking out his phone and reading off something. Ortho peeks over his shoulder.
"According to my sister, we need to-"
"We're taking advice from a CHILD?" Epel cuts him off, jumping for the phone. Jack tugs it back, letting Epel stumble. "We're bouta be summoning the devil in this bitch!"
Yuu shudders, eyeing the box like it personally offended them. "I hope not, I live here."
They get a few pats on the back from Jack, though it doesn't do much to quench their fears. They already have ghosts for roommates, they'd rather not have more. Not unless they wanna start a supernatural fraternity..
Ortho floats up happily next to them, patting their head. "I'm sure the ghosts will appreciate the company!"
They grimace, but give a smile and a nod to Ortho. They're not about to tell a literal child how horrible that sounds.
"Jaaack! What are we doing?!" Epel demands, looking like the living embodiment of impatience.
"I was reading!" Jack snaps, shutting his phone off. "Y'all know how to play 'light as a feather, stiff as a board', right?"
Deuce perks up, giving an excited nod and a thumbs up. "I sure do, check it!" He walks over to Epel, picking the smaller boy up.
Obviously, Epel gets annoyed and srarts flailing around and yelling, but Deuce just begins chanting the game name.
Ace begins cheering, just adding more chaos into the small group. Yuu shrugs, walking away from Ortho to begin cheering with Ace.
".. We are never completing this ritual," Jack says, patting Sebek's shoulder.
"I know," he replies, sounding defeated.
Jack pulls out his phone again, rereading a text message. Then, he walks over to the box and brings it over to Sebek.
"Right, well, go write his name on this," he pulls out a paper and a pen. "Make a summoning circle," he turns his phone around, pointing at a drawing.
"Howl, I didn't see it proper-"
"I'll let you look at it while you do it," he cuts off, already pulling out more stuff. "Put the candles in the circles, light em, put some salt in the shape of a pentagram in the middle.."
He trails off, rechecks his phone, and continues pulling stuff out. "Put the sage on top of the salt, put the paper on the sage while it's burning, and chant this!"
He shows off his phone again, zooming in on a photo of what Sebek assumes is a spell, but..
"Jack, what does this say?" It's totally unreadable. Absolute chicken scratch written in a language he's never seen.
Jack shrugs nonchalantly, throwing his phone down onto the supplies. "Eh, dunno. Somethin Romeo and Juliet esque, I'd assume."
Sebek sweats a little. He already was unsure about doing a ritual, but the guy running the operation apparently doesn't even know what he's doing.
"Who sent you this again?" He asks, gesturing between the supplies and the phone.
"Avery," a literal child? "She got it off of.. I think some horror movie?... Or was it a psychic..?"
Sebek actually might freak out. Jack's been doing a ritual his little sister told him would work, and she got it from some sketchy source? Seriously?
"HOWL! I AM NOT DOING THAT!!" Jack's ears pin to his head and he shushes Sebek.
"Shh! Don't drag their attention!" He points to the others, excluding Ortho- he's with Grim, who are currently taking turns trying out what Deuce did. "You want this to work or not?!"
Sebek hums, thinking for a second. Jack growls. "Just do the damn ritual!"
"FINE!" Sebek yells, grabbing the chalk and his phone before going to the unoccupied open area of the living room.
He mutters as he draws, likely cursing Jack's bloodline. That's fine, as long as it gets done.
As Sebek works, the noise slowly stops and Deuce ends up wandering over to Jack. He looks, frankly, like he got hit by a bus.
"Jack, I don't think light as a feather, stiff as a board's working," he says, pointing in the direction of the group who was doing that.
Epel glares at him, flipping him off. "No shit, Deuce! You dropped me!"
.. Well, don't blame Jack, he never said to do all that. He sighs, thinking of an excuse. "Yeah, yeah, it's not the full ritual. Go do bloody Mary in the bathroom, take those two candles."
He points to said candles, waving the group off. Deuce nods excitedly, taking the candles and bolting.
Jack suddenly gets the sinking realization it might just work, so he quickly calls over his shoulder, "use Skully's name, not Mary's!"
He gets an affirmative yell from Deuce, and the other three nod. Ace quickly runs to the bathroom, leaving behind Epel.
"Bloody Mary..? Who the hell is Mary?" He mutters, staring into the floor. Ortho quickly floats up behind him and gives him a small shove.
"JUST GO DO IT!!" He yells, effectively scaring off Epel and Yuu into the bathroom.
Seeing as he's proven victorious, Ortho floats over to Sebek to check up on the ritual. He grimaces as well as a humanoid possibility can.
He grabs the chalk, fixes up a few areas based on the picture, and runs a few scans as Sebek grabs the salt and candles.
"This is definitely not gonna work," he says, not even moving as Sebek works around him. "I am sensing absolutely NO mana."
Jack rolls his eyes slightly, tossing a lighter at Sebek, who catches it with surprising grace.
"It will work," Sebek says, lighting a few candles in quick succession. "STEP BACK! MOVE!" Ortho giggles, floating away to be next to Jack instead.
Sebek lights the sage on fire, taking a few deep breaths before throwing the paper on top. He begins chanting the spell.
Ortho watches, flitting around the circle a good distance away. "Jack Howl, I'm getting a bit nervous," he says, stopping next to Jack again.
He gets a shrug in reponse, Jack watching in mild amusement. "It'll be fine, I'm more worried about the dumbasses in the bathroom. Bloody Mary does not take fifteen minutes to do."
Well, fair enough. Ortho nods, doing a quick heat scan to ensure they're still in there. Once he gets his conformation he continues watching Sebek, who's nearing the end of the chant.
"Bring back Skully Graves!" He announces, stomping out the flame beneath him. It goes eerily quiet.
Absolutely nothing. You could hear a pin drop- if Ace's indignant shouts from nearby weren't audible. Jack's ears twitch.
"Is that it-?" He asks, though he's stopped by the circle suddenly flashing a bright light and multiple items falling and shaking. "What the fuck?!"
Ortho hums, not too worried. "I'm still not picking up any mana," the glowing stops and Sebek stands there, unharmed but looking like a deer in headlights.
He hesitantly steps out of the circle and stands next to the other two, glaring holes into the floor.
"Huh, well that was anticlimactic," Jack says, flicking his tail.
Suddenly, a person falls from the ceiling into the circle, landing with a loud bang. Pure silence stretches for a second, before...
"UWAAAAAH!!" They all scream, jumping back from the figure. Ortho clings tightly to Sebek, who's clinging to Jack.
The figure yelps back, but is cut off by the other first years rushing in.
"What happen- WHO THE FUCK?!" Epel yells, immediately backing up. Yuu runs up behind him.
"AHH! THERE'S A STRANGER IN MY HOUSE!" They yelp, gripping Epel's arm so tightly it looks painful. They use their other hand to grab an empty can and chuck it at the figure.
Deuce and Ace sprint in, and they both just stare. "Holy crap, it worked! Deuce exclaims, pointing. "Bloody Mary worked!"
"Shut up, moron! THEY DID THAT!" Ace yells, pointing at the trio who actually did it.
The figure groans, beginning to sit up. Everyone flinches away from it, with the exception of Deuce, who immediately rushes forward and kicks it in the head.
It stops moving. Sebek blinks.
"You.. Knocked out Skully," he says, sounding oddly relaxed. Everyone else just sighs.
Epel raises his hand, getting everyone's attention. "If.. That's Skully, does that mean we brought back the dead? Is.. Is that illegal?" He asks, pointing to the body.
Everyone freezes. Ortho's systems whirr as he tries to figure that out. Deuce goes oddly still, a haunted look on his face. Ace grimaces.
"I CAN'T GO BACK TO JUVIE!" Deuce yells, rushing over to Epel and shaking him by the shoulders. "I don't wanna!"
Ace shrugs. "You're sixteen, you're going to big boy jail."
"NO!" He yells, continuing to shake Epel even when the smaller boy begins punching his arms.
Yuu puts their head in their hands, making a sob sound. "Am I gonna go to jail?! That's unfair, I didn't even help, it was just in my house! I don't even legally exist!" They whine.
The others pause at that, briefly wondering the logistics.
Jack's ears press down. "Surely.. Surely it's not illegal," he unsurely says. Then pauses as he remembers Deuce just knocked him out. "Well, if Deuce didn't knock him out! If we weren't going to jail for necromancy, assault's definitely landing us there!"
Deuce pauses, then turns over to Jack panicked. "IT'S- HE'S ALREADY DEAD! IT DOESN'T MATTER!"
Epel loudly sighs, "clearly he ain't dead anymore!"
It quickly devolves into bickering, everyone debating the logistics of necromancy's legality and if they'd have to go to jail.
The noise rings in Sebek's ears as he stares at Skully's limp body on the floor. He feels shockingly calm for all that just transpired.
He blinks a few times, turning to Jack and tapping his shoulder until he has his attention.
"I... Think I'm going to faint," he says, vision quickly blurring. He feels himself falling before he processes what's happening.
"Well," Epel starts, staring at the two unconscious people in the room and the carnage surrounding them. "That coulda gone better."
"No kidding.." Ace sighs, kicking over a candle. "This place looks even more haunted than usual."
Yuu hums thoughtfully, almost as if they didn't process just how insane the whole situation was.
"True, I got a whole ritual in my living room now," they drawl. The ritual almost taunts them from where it sits, perfectly drawn red lines and the smell of sage sitting stagnant.
Beside them, Jack and Ortho just stare. Jack then shrugs, unbothered. "Well, don't blame me. Ace said get a ritual, he never specified beyond that."
Ace immediately jumps to defend himself, though no one bothers listening to him. Ortho happily twirls, "I thought it was fun! True SSR bonding experience!"
"Bonding?? Ortho, we casted NECROMANCY!" Deuce shouts, pointing at poor knocked out Skully.
"Yeah! How many polycules can say they revived a member's boyfriend?" He chirps.
They all pause, considering that for a moment. Truly, he had a point, but they'd be damned if they admit he's right.
"I'm sure at least one other person can say that.. " Jack says, unsure. "I mean, my little sister knew it existed, so it can't be that rare."
Yuu hums. "I'm not from here, but I'm pretty sure this is usual enough."