Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The war ended on the day that magic died.

At first it was a miracle. The last defenders, the very few left upright as the final shifting nightmare bore down on them – stood there, dazed with a joy they barely dared acknowledge as the Sand collapsed. It still washed easily across the failing walls, but as little more than a dusty tide that lay still where it fell. Across the realm, in infirmaries that had been poised on the dreadful conversion to unquiet morgue, shocked staff watched as even their most Tainted patients awoke, asking for water in tired – but human – voices.

More reports rolled in. The unquenchable fires that advanced ever-closer to Icaria's panic-abandoned streets had died, washed away suddenly by the very ocean they had fed upon. Even the Khaz, the dwarven strongholds beset by hellfire-twisted earth, saw their tormentors fall apart, lava-born horrors shattering to twisted obsidian fragments in the blink of an eye.

The white-faced man, the bleached shadow with bloodlight in his eyes, had gone; swallowed – some said – by the very magic he had warped to his own vile ends.

It was a deliverance. And it was a curse.

Across the world, magic died. Perfectly-tuned crystal apparatuses, fine turns of delicately-worked gold and glass, all sang to the same shrill sound and shattered, falling to glittering dust as the etheratic links within broke away all at once, and took their altered possibility with them. Amulets failed, cracked or simply faded to impotent jewellery; potions spoiled in their vials, suddenly nothing more than a thin soup of strange ingredients; and golems toppled, lifeless as toys.

Towers fell, as the grasping fingers of gravity and wind-stress took back their hold on each once-defiant edifice. Vis nodes flared and died, a deadly autumn drawing down around the silvered leaves above; and the careful balance of alchemical exchange ruptured, once-airborne shapes dashed apart on the hungry ground below, gasping the agony of final breaths no long deterred by a lifestone's vanished touch.

So many dead, in both the war and the two-faced aftermath, and blame bloomed like bloodied roses. See what magic has brought; and see how it has abandoned us.

The blame burned, and those who had once been so respected, so pivotal in a world now snatched from their fingers – they burned with it. There were no spells anymore, no potions to turn aside blade or bow or worse, and magery died quickly, betrayed by its own confiscated nature.

In its place, as the mania died back, as guilt's cold claws began to curl down out of the shadow of hasty revenge, new voices raised. They promised logic, promised a fresh wisdom for a new age of science and of reason. And maybe they really did mean it in those early days; the horror-survivors, determined that the new world they had found themselves in would not make the same mistakes again. A truly fresh start, built around the bright hope that they raised up to guide them.

But it was a thing born in ashes and death, and the lingering agony of a betrayal not yet forgotten.

You know what they say about good intentions.

-

(* Note - Zephos is being deliberately spelled differently to my usual 'Xephos'. This is for Reasons)

Chapter Text

He remembered the light.

That moment when the detonations had caught, as the ground bucked like an enraged beast and he had plunged down into the shielding embrace of the waves, dragging Honeydew along with him, as the water lit up with refracted incandescence and the earth burst apart behind them.

Mostly though, he remembered running – their careful caution abandoned, as the air howled around them with the repeated, escalating shriek of rising alarms.  Remembered his own frantic heartbeat slamming against his ribs as he chivvied the dwarf forward, scrambling up through sleek corridors and out into the cracked-open outer shell of the underground complex. Remembered yelling into his comm, curt with fear as Lalna lagged behind, as they hauled themselves out over the edges of the initial crater and dived into the welcoming sea; the scream of tortured mechanisms reaching a fever-pitch behind them – and the world went white.

It had been close. Far too close, if he was being honest with himself.

Zephos blinked hard and the memories fell away, replaced with the much more everyday sight of the particle accelerator's glassy curves. New after-images sketched across his vision as a little point of brilliance shot past again and vanished back into the darkness of its tunnels. That seemed to be working fine, then. He stood back up, closing the panel he had been inspecting, and rubbed at his face.

How long had it been since he last slept? Properly slept, in an actual bed, not hunched up in a corner or propped back against a panel as exhaustion forcibly took its toll?

Too long. But he already knew what he was going to see if he closed his eyes, what he would hear, if he got too far away from the humming, lulling clicks and whirring of machinery down here.

'I would miss you if you died.'

Who wrote that on a sign? More specifically, who wrote that on a sign – linked up to the kind of defence grid that reduced half a mile of landscape to a smoking crater?

Well. Ridgedog, apparently. But that didn't exactly make the thinking behind it any clearer.

Zephos slid the multitool into one pocket of his hazsuit and pulled himself back out of the tube access well. His latest fix was a bit of a bodge-job – although what wasn't in some way, out here? – but it should hold for now. He headed for the stairs up, trying to focus on the ever-lengthening list of repairs and replacements that he needed to do. The bunker was running again – just about, he added to himself, as he ducked under a dangling sheath of dead wiring and nearly put his foot through yet another hole in the floor. Most of Ridge's missile assault had been weird rather than particularly destructive, although he still wasn't sure what all of it had actually done.

Which made no sense. If he'd had that capacity, if he had the resources to make things that specialised, why were they still alive? Even half of that barrage, if deployed with conventional explosives, would have reduced this part-cannibalised relic of a building to rubble, and them with it. So why hadn't he?

"What game are you playing?" Zephos muttered as he took the last few steps at once, then winced as a sharp jolt of pain cut behind his forehead. He caught onto the wall, curling his fingers against the rough concrete as he screwed his eyelids shut again. There was something he was missing, here.

There usually was. A scowl rose onto his face, half-bidden, as he contrived to glare at the inside of his own head. This was different, though, to the usual empty echo under his thoughts, the blunt way his early memories just stopped, back in that evening of freezing, personal-genesis.

But this was recent. Some piece of understanding, some raw hole in his mind, where something should be.

"You alright there?" The voice was like a cold slap and Zephos jerked around, eyes snapping back open as he focused on Honeydew's familiar figure. The dwarf's beard clashed horribly with the haz-suit, and the combination managed to look staggeringly out of place in the stern corridors, but he managed to find a smile in response. Honeydew was ever a reassuringly solid presence, and a welcome anathema to half-realised thoughts of mystery.

"Headache," he said by way of explanation, and to divert the worried look beneath those caterpillar brows. Honeydew watched him for a moment, not even trying to disguise the concern in his eyes, then nodded slowly.

"Alright. Lalna's knocking back the painkillers like fuckin' skittles, but y'might be able to snag one. I'm gonna see if anything on the farm survived. We need…" he trailed off and shrugged, as a small grin of resignation twitched behind the ginger braids. "Hell, we need everything, as per bloody usual, so no change there." He hefted the sack slung across his broad shoulders and headed back towards the outer door; or at least, towards the wedged sheet of crumpled metal that was currently functioning as a door.

Zephos went the other way, down the split in the abrupt-angled corridor, and ducked through another bent doorway into the main upper room. It was a mess still – the walls and machinery were pitted and scarred where the sudden influx of Ender-hands had wrenched chunks away at random, some bits of equipment still-sparking madly, some gone dark. Broken crates had been roughly pushed back together, half-finished sides sagging open to spill little rivers of wires and metallic shapes out onto the floor.

Most of the lights were still working though, and they had managed to get power back on up here. Watching his footing on the erratic floor, Zephos stepped carefully inside and headed for the narrow bed that had been pushed up against one wall. It had been a compromise to make sure Lalna was at least near to a bed when he fell over, but meant he could rootle through blueprints and boxes without much need to move, and Honeydew could usually be relied on to follow basic technical instructions for anything further away.

Lalna himself was lying on his front, propped awkwardly over the edge of the mattress as he dug around in a box of components on the floor. Several different layers of wire and scavenged circuitboard parts were already strapped around his left arm, and he was holding another transistor in his mouth, squinting as he angled the early-skeleton of another powerglove back and forth, looking for a point of attachment.

"How's it going?" Zephos asked, carefully, as he stepped over to the bed. He didn't really want to look at the state of Lalna's back, but it was fairly obvious from even a slight glance that nothing had much improved. His friend's habitual labcoat was crumpled up on the bed to one side of him, and while he was technically bare to the waist, very little of his torso was visible beyond the sea of bandages that wrapped him like a shroud. Beneath that was a mess of angry flesh, blistered and weeping from the vicious backlash of the other compound's detonation.

It wasn't healing well. Zephos' gaze strayed over to the other little box sat on a shelf next to the bed, and the ever-dwindling supply of blue-tinged tablets sat within. He didn't like to think about what would happen when they ran out of painkillers. Lalna had pretty much screamed himself unconscious the first night, after the exhausted pair of them had dragged him back into the comparative safety of their own base, slamming the door on the accusatory hellfire-glow that seemed to follow them back; as they peeled half-melted haz-fabric from raw skin, trying to find anything that even resembled sterile bandages in their partly demolished home.

Lalna glanced up as he approached. The circles around his eyes were darker than ever, and creased at the sides with baseline-pain, but he managed a humourless smile.

"Had worse. Nearly got the basic circuits started so – " he flexed his hand, then winced as the motion shifted his shoulder and an unpleasant shiver ran down his arm. " – fuck." He groped for the box again, grabbed another pill and bit down on it as if he bore it a grudge. Zephos sat down, very carefully, on the edge of the bed, and tried not to look at the tinge already forming through the new bandages.

"Accelerator's up again," he said. "But it's sucking up most of what the reactor's putting out. If we divert – "

"No," Lalna cut him off, shaking his head. "We need to get back up to full power. We need – "

"We need medical equipment," Zephos replied firmly, ready for the glare that Lalna shot him in response. "Lalna, we still don't know what was even in some of those things Ridge hit us with. You're not healing properly."

"It's fine," Lalna snapped, but winced again and backed down slightly. "Alright, it's not… fine-fine. But I can fix it, alright? I just – I need something to work with, and cybernetics isn't your area."

Zephos shifted awkwardly.

"Look… I could go for help," he suggested, trying to ignore the flutter of distaste that the words cast across the back of his own mind. "There's got to be someone else out here."

"Sipsco goons, and a great smoking hole in the ground? Yeah. Real helpful." Lalna snorted, as he jammed the transistor into place with a little more force than was necessary and glared down into his box of wires. "There wasn't supposed to be anyone else out here; that was the whole point, remember? Being our own bosses; dealing with our own mistakes. We can handle it."

I remember. Zephos laced his fingers together, gripping until he could see the knuckles whitening through his skin. How long had they been out here now, anyway? Getting on for a year, at least. It had been spring when they arrived, following old roads in a possibly-older truck, crammed awkwardly with whatever they had managed to scrape together. That hadn't mattered much though – they could improvise. They were good at that, they'd always been good at that.

Too good. Too often. Too many times, pulled away from their own work, their own projects, with the smoothed-over corporate tones informing them that 'you are being temporarily seconded to another division'. Which division started to matter less and less; Zephos had barely even heard of some of them, and others only in whispers – but then there they would be, hustled into another once-pristine lab or testing ground or menagerie, to stare out across the latest little devastation, the latest time it had all gone – terminally – wrong for someone else. And Lalna would catch his eye, the twinned gleam of resignation and curiosity lighting in his friend's gaze, and they would begin.

It was just clean-up, at first. They were new arrivals, entirely expendable, and there was a weird freedom there, somehow – knowing that no one was even expecting you to survive; let alone succeed. You could do almost anything when you were dead already, and they took full advantage of that. Lalna always seemed to live on the edge of perpetual disaster anyway, poised on the finest line between catastrophe and revelation with most activities, so pulling success out of someone else's chaos came easily enough to him, and Zephos learned very fast.

Sometimes he wondered about that skill, as new fields folded open out of the madness around him, settling neatly into place with less effort than he felt they really should need – as if his mind were grasping desperately at any fresh information presented, building rapid understanding in place of the yawning blankness where the rest of his life should have been.

But they'd gotten good, and the Labs really liked results. So there were more chances, more and more options opened to them. More equipment. More assistants. More subjects.

More blind eyes, turned aside in corporately-tactical disinterest – but even more again fixed tightly onto them with a very eager sort of hunger. Everything and anything could be justified then, for the brightest rising stars in that bloody constellation. Zephos remembered the exact moment, the fragment of broken time when he had met Lalna's stare across the latest table, under the harsh-white lamps of overhead lights that painted hollow shadows around his cheeks, and felt his own breath catch in his throat at the mirrored expression there.

When did it all stop being a game?

So they had… left. A thin edge of smile crooked his lips at the phrasing – so terribly simple a description for what they had done, or how they had done it. But it had worked, and they had left, in a wake of sirens and charred air and a hundred other memories that he didn't even want to acknowledge existed, let alone think back on.

"…ephos?"

Zephos blinked, pulled back out of his bubbling thoughts, and winced again as another jolt of pain cut across his vision.

"Ah – yeah, sorry." He rubbed at his face, frowning again. "It's just… oh for Pete's sake, I'm worried, Lalna. Your back looks like melting ham, some of our walls are only still upright because they're trying to fall through each other, and we're making repairs that even Honeydew can see aren't going to hold for more than a week. On the reactor. So, yeah, I'm panicking a little, over here."

Lalna laughed. It was a slightly mad chuckle even by his standards, struck through with pain. He shook his head.

"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing." He craned round, catching Zephos' gaze. "Really."

He wanted to believe it. Zephos sighed and ran a splayed hand back through his hair, dislodging a few tangles in the slightly-overgrown locks.

"…alright. But you'd better be alright, you know?" he muttered, casting a longing look at the box of painkillers. "And what about Ridge?"

Lalna's eyes narrowed at the name, just a little.

"Forget Ridge. We dealt with him," he said sharply, but Zephos couldn't be sure who the shaken-surety in his voice was supposed to convince. "Even if he survived; between our nuke and his crazy defences? He's got nothing."

"If he is – " Zephos hesitated, unsure exactly how to end that sentence in the weird whirl of half-formed suspicions that were dancing through his mind. " – working with Sipsco, though?" he finished, lamely. Lalna turned round further, and the bloom of pain on his face as the dressing creaked only added to the sudden steel in his eyes.

"Then we take them out too. No stupid treaty this time. You said it yourself, Zeph – it's them or us right now. Nuke first, ask questions later."

Zephos tried to ignore the tightening sensation in his stomach, as Lalna flopped back and began to search through wires again.

Squeamish now, Zephos? Really?

It wasn't that. It was just... He couldn't stop his thoughts tracing back across the year, to their various encounters with the other residents of this unexpectedly-populated slice of wilderness. It had generally been a fairly hostile set of interactions, true, along with the casual ease they had all disregarded that ridiculous 'treaty', after –

After… what?

Sipsco set something off. Wiped out their base. The thought arrived late, somehow, and seemed to clang oddly against the rest of his mind. He knew what had happened – that had happened, of course – but while even his memories from the labs remained viciously clear-cut, this one was strangely blunt. Blurred. Not quite… right.

"You remember the bomb going off?" He hadn't really meant to ask, but the words slid free before he really noticed he was speaking, and there was no taking it back. Lalna made a slightly exasperated noise.

"What?"

"A few months ago."

"Well, yeah. Of course." A frown sank into the blond scientist's features. "Those Sipsco idiots set something off, wiped out their base." His frown deepened – and there it was, the moment Zephos had been looking for without realising it; an odd flicker somewhere in the depths of his expression that dragged blankness behind it, before he blinked and shrugged dismissively. "Nutters."

It was almost word-for-word the same. Zephos tried not to let it show on his face, as Lalna turned back to his glove, but the faint nausea was twisting in his gut again. It shouldn't be the same, they never –

- there was Sips himself, with his partner's shaking arm slung over his shoulders, looking down the length of Lalna's extended weapon. Even by his usual standards his face was pale, skull-lit in the plasma's flickering light, and the stare that met Zephos' was stretched wide.

"H-hey there, guys," he managed, as Sjin folded even further against him, wracked by the kind of desperate laugher that edged dreadfully close to a final rattle. "There's… uh, there's no crazy wormhole thing under our base…" he trailed off, but before he could say anything else a new voice broke into the halting conversation, and the tension shifted in the raw shock of it.

Ridge's lightly-accented tones were familiar enough now – in person – but this time his words just seemed to form in Zephos' mind of their own accord, dragging down against all his other thoughts with a doom-bell finality.

'This is bad.'

Images bloomed across his vision, unbidden – an indistinct, darkened space and howling winds, pouring down towards something in the centre – and he was vaguely aware of Lalna letting out a hiss of surprise, knowing with some sense he didn't truly possess that the other man was seeing, and hearing, exactly the same thing. But the images were nothing – nothing – to the shard of understanding that plunged into his mind, so hard he had to bite back a yelp, as incepted knowledge burst into terrible life between his eyes.

This is bad. This will eat the world.

'I need help.' –

"Dammit Zeph!" Lalna growled, wincing as Zephos shot upright so fast that the bed jolted hard, bouncing off the back of his unfolding knees. "Watch what – christ, you alright?" Worry dropped into his voice, most likely as he focused on what Zephos knew his features were doing, but he couldn't focus on that right now. A nova of brilliant pain had burst in his temple, blazing a tight, hot agony across his forehead, and he clutched at it, half-surprised when he couldn’t feel the throbbing beat under his fingers.

What the holy shit was that? The sudden surge of memory – it had been memory, slamming home into the weird gap in his recent recollections so hard that the connection screamed – was already fading, taking detail back with it into the blurring fog, but something had been there. Acid curled at the back of his throat as Zephos gulped at air, shaking his head as he lurched awkwardly towards the stairs.

"Headache," he managed, and right then he honestly didn't care if Lalna believed him or not. The pitted metal was rough under his fingers as he half-climbed, half-scrambled up and dislodged another rudimentary door before plunging out into the cool night air.

What the hell? What the actual fuck had that been about? He clambered up onto the main deck, where the sad wreckage of the missile launcher leaned drunkenly against itself, and stopped, trying to get a grip.

Something had happened, hadn't it? Something about that bomb, the bomb he couldn't remember properly. Something about Ridge.

Other than him being holed up alone in what was meant to be the goddamn Black Site, somewhere that Lab-rumours said would make anything they had seen – or done – look like children's games in comparison.

And where they had – entirely by accident, on their part at least – set up their own base nearly on top of?

Zephos leant against a crumbled section of wall and looked out across the ravaged landscape, mostly hidden by falling night. In the distance, an evil red glow still filtered up into the darkening sky. Much of the crater had still been molten when they'd fled, and there were certainly still fires burning somewhere underground.

Nuke first. Ask questions later.

Would that even be enough? The chill breeze of late evening ghosted across the back of his neck, and he shivered, hugging his arms against himself. He couldn't shake the deep, churning worry that they had just done something very, very stupid, but equally he couldn't put his finger on why. The last he had actually seen of Ridge was the gleam of tarnishing armour, splattered with molten rock as he had vanished back into the subterranean safety of his compound. Still moving after taking a bucket of lava to the chest was worrying enough – although who knew what that power-armour was capable of – but there had been no sign of him being actually present during their own incursion.

Perhaps he had gone back to wherever Sipsco had holed up.

Or perhaps he'd been lying, burned half-alive somewhere else in that maze, hearing the alarms of his own gleefully-vindictive defences going off. Unable to move, unable to do anything but hear his own recorded voice counting down.

Or –

– as the befrocked figure swung back, hanging on empty air, and Zephos realised he could see through him, in parts. Random sections of his face and chest seeming to flicker in and out of existence like a bad film, even as he glanced down into the unmaking storm beneath them.

"I can't stay… connected long enough to fix this." There was strain to his voice – effort and, under that, a weird edge that was almost akin to disgust. He shoved the ominous box into Zephos' arms and his eyes gleamed, twin points of glittering darkness so much deeper than they should be. His fingers flickered as he gestured down towards the maelstrom below. "Try and have it drop into the anomaly." –

The half-memory broke like a glass and Zephos jerked away from the wall, swivelling to stare round wildly at the rooftop, but it was as empty as it had been a few moments ago. He shivered again – less from temperature this time – and pressed the heel of one palm into his still-throbbing forehead. The images were fading already, back into that weird fog that seemed to shroud his clear memories of the incident, but they left weight behind them, dragging down against his thoughts all the harder.

He turned back towards the dulled-crimson glow, burning in the distance like a hellfire-nightlight, just out of view, and swallowed.

"Just… stay dead, Ridge," he muttered, hair prickling on the back of his neck as the breeze swept him again – but this time, it brought a liquid laughter with it.

Behind you. Teehee.

There was no time to move, barely time to breathe, as hands closed firmly around his shoulders and Zephos felt the sudden-cold prickle of a needle sink into his neck. He went to cry out – Lalna! Honeydew! – but nothing came, as a numb ice flooded his veins, his limbs going leaden, and he was dimly aware of crumpling back into waiting arms as his world snapped closed like a trap and dragged the night in behind it.

---

Chapter Text

“Any of you buggers following me this time?”

Honeydew shouldered the makeshift front door open, wedging himself across the gap as he glanced back and squinted through the darkness behind, looking for any signs of pursuit. Blowing up half the area with fuck-knows what didn't seem to have put off the local creeper population, and he'd had enough narrow scrapes with those hissing bastards to last several lifetimes by now. Nothing came, so he nodded to himself, and shoved his way past the leaning metal sheet and into the base-proper.

It was almost as dark in there, but the faint light leaking down the narrow corridors was enough for his dwarven vision to make use of, and he headed back towards the main room, his iron boots raising alternate dull thuds and twinned metallic clangs from the patchwork floor.

“Anyone still awake?” he called out more cheerfully than he really felt, but he was pretty used to that. Still, it had been a good trip – the farm was a write-off, sure, but so was everything else, and local non-exploding wildlife had taken refuge in the relative shelter of the wreckage. It'd been a good while since they'd had a decent meal. Something in here would surely be hot enough to cook on; ideally not in a radioactive way.

Lalna looked up as he entered the main room. The scientist was still flopped out on the bed, and the wires wrapped around his arm were starting to look a bit more like the start of a glove.

"You took your sweet time,” he said, shortly, and Honeydew tried not to bristle at the tone. He'd been through a lot, he reminded himself. Was still a git, sure, but it was understandable git-ery, right now, so he tried a grin.

“Sweet time, but for sweet loot.” The bag swung down from his shoulders and he plonked it onto the most stable-looking crate. “Got a couple of chickens, and eggs. Which is a bit like eating their whole family, I suppose, but that's better'n us havin' to start on your boots.”

Lalna grunted in response and Honeydew had to push down on the urge to clock him one.

“Zephos still faffing about with the reactor?” he asked instead. He was quite looking forward to elaborating the whole tale to him. His friend had been so preoccupied recently – which was understandable enough – but a good chicken dinner should do the trick there.

Like old times. Proper old times, he corrected himself, trying to ignore the odd twinge that the thought triggered. When they'd been out in the middle of a different chunk of nowhere, Honeydew laughing as a fumbling Zephos tried to inexpertly roast their latest catch over the firepit, succeeding only in getting himself covered in grease and feathers and singeing his little beard. You'd have thought he'd never lit a proper fire before.

He had gotten the hang of it quick enough, though; he always did. Honeydew couldn't stop his gaze doing a quick circuit around the room, passing across the faintly-threatening technological grins of the stacked machinery, and the thick cables that wound down through holes in the floor. It had been ages now since he'd actually needed to show his friend how to do anything.

Other than how to sit the fuck down and relax, once in a while. Anyway. He shook himself, pushing away the settling cloud of mood, and realised Lalna had spoken.

“What?”

“I said I don't know where he is.” The blond man jerked a thumb towards the stairs, still not looking up. “He went out. After you left.”

Honeydew blinked.

“Why?”

“Dunno.” Lalna shrugged, winced, and went back to his glove. Honeydew felt a frown digging into his face as he followed the gesture, heading up the pitted stairs and out onto the roof.

There was fuck-all up here except craters – but again, old memories stirred, and he remembered how he had used to find Zephos sitting in out the dark, sometimes, staring up at the sky with a wet-bright gleam in his eyes. He had never been able to explain why he did it – unresponsive during and seemingly puzzled afterwards – and Honeydew eventually just settled for sitting quietly beside the silent figure, keeping an eye out for monsters; until his friend snapped out of it, coming back into himself with a sharp intake of breath, sudden as a shock every time.

It had been a long time since that had happened, though. The moments of midnight contemplation had become less frequent as time had rolled on, as their wandering had taken them further and further across the world, even as they skirted the edges of whatever weird war the more civilised bits seemed to all be tangled up in. And – as far as he knew, anyway – never since the Labs. He had thought maybe Zephos had found something there, something a bit like what he had lost.

Honeydew had been happy for him, even if it all went well over his own head.

But the roof was definitely empty now. He checked both levels, peering over the remaining fences at the darkened grass below, but there was no sign of anyone, and a coil of concern began to twist up through his thoughts as he made his way back downstairs. He had taken a while. Maybe Zephos had come out there looking for him?

From the roof, though?

Lalna looked up as he came back inside, raising himself a little further on his elbow to crane up at the open doorway. He was chewing on another pill, and Honeydew couldn't help but look at the dwindling handful still visible in the little box.

“Not there?”

“No.” Honeydew stomped back down to floor level, brow furrowing as he looked around at the chaotic room, in case anything immediately obvious wanted to jump out at him. “How long's he been gone?”

Lalna shook his head.

“Dunno.”

“Dunno?” Honeydew turned back, glaring, as the scientist flopped forward again, lank strings of hair falling over his face as he reached back towards his box of wirey crap. “How the fuck d'you not - ?”

“I can't stand up anymore.”

Silence descended, thick as pigs, and Honeydew felt his stomach lurch as he looked more closely at Lalna. The man's face was pale, bordering on greenish, and there was a sheen of sweat spread out across his tensed features. His hands were visibly shaking as he grasped at another bit of circuit, just out of reach, and his lips were pressed so tightly together they may as well be missing entirely.

“Well... shit,” he muttered and ducked forwards, pushing the errant part into Lalna's shivering fingers. This close, there was a faint sweet-sickly smell in the air, layered ominously between the more usual scents of machine oil and sweat, and Honeydew had to force himself not to recoil.

“This is bad, isn't it?” he asked quietly, really not needing an answer. Lalna didn't look up this time, his fever-bright eyes twitching even as they fixed on the half-started glove.

“I can fix – “ The rest of his words cut off in a hiss of pain, his fingers curling into a spasm as he dropped the last wire and groped again for the box, grabbing at another pill.

“Y'need to slow down with them things,” Honeydew added gruffly, at a loss for anything else to say. Lalna shoved the little shape into his mouth, biting down with an audible crunch, and laughed. It wasn't a good sound.

“Why?” he managed, spitting bits of pharmaceutical dust, and Honeydew started to back away.

“I'll – I'll get the things cooking...” he managed, knowing his voice had gone tight, even as he grabbed the bag of limp poultry and fled back into the corridor, with the halting crack of Lalna's laughter following him – accusingly – into the gloom.

I don't know what to do.

He slammed the bag down on top of the disused furnace just above the reactor stairs and began aggressively searching through the nearby crate for something that would burn, feeling heat prickle at the edges of his eyes.

“Goddamit, Zephos,” he growled, as much to drown out the fading echo of that laugh as an actual need to speak. “Where the fuck are you?”

-

Cold.

It took a while for anything approaching a clear thought to break into the fog that seemed to envelop his mind, but sensation was starting to get through. He was cold, all the way down the back of him, where his bare skin was pressed against some chill surface. Probably metal. It felt like metal.

Metal. There was a tin-taste in his mouth, and some sort of chemical aftertaste across the back of his throat. He was…

Several realisations coalesced in rapid succession. He was cold because he was lying flat out on a metal surface, wearing little more than his shorts – and he couldn't move.

Zephos' eyes snapped open, and harsh white light met him like spears, his pupils contracting sharply as he gave a hiss of pain. There was an unyielding softness tight across his limbs, bound across his chest, his forehead, his wrists, pinning him against the metal below. The pressure on his ribs was slightly constricting, shortening his breath, and he tried to will himself not to panic.

Where was this? He remembered –

Behind you. Teehee.

No. No, no no no; they'd blown the damn place up! Twice! That wasn't the kind of thing you just shook off. He remembered –

He remembered the light. And the cold, and the snow, on the ground and on his clothes and nothing in his head but the light and a fading-fading-fading sense of something – somewhere – else; gone now, vanished into the –

'This will eat the world.'

Malfunction. Falling, or something like it, as even that aftermath-incandescence winked out and took him down with it. Oblivion curled its tails around him and there wasn't even space for fear anymore.

'I need help. Antimatter explosives, as fast as you can.'

– he frantically punched at the keys as he felt the heel of one boot slide over into empty, grasping air, as the twisted gravity of the place began to tighten its grip around him, and he felt himself start to lose contact with the ground –

This is bad. This will – this will – this – is bad – this –

Pain cut across Zephos' head like a saw, blooming brilliant points of agony in his pinioned temples, and the broken thoughts whirled up into a serrated, clawing storm of fragmented time. He was dimly aware of his fingers clenching so hard his knuckles screamed; of his fixed-down limbs shaking, joints creaking against themselves; and bloody pain in his cheek. His head felt like it was about to rupture and even his eyeballs ached, throbbing along to the battering gale of shattered memories smashing against his skull from the inside.

And then there were firm hands, pressing gently to either side of his face; twin points of cool solidity in a world that suddenly seemed formed entirely from molten memory, and he grasped for the sense of it, trying to draw focus from the comparative stability there.

"Breathe, Zephos." The new voice was weirdly reassuring and Zephos felt some of the tangled tightness in his chest unlatch, as if the words were managing to speak directly into his shivering muscles. He bit down on his lip as the storm receded, the maddening swirl of half-seen recollection pouring away, back into the recesses of his mind. He managed to draw a long, shuddering breath and the hands relaxed, patting at his cheek before moving away.

“Better. This has screwed you up quite badly, hasn’t it?” the voice continued, almost lulling in its smoothed tones, and Zephos blinked, squinting up against the bright light above at the backlit shape hanging over him. He knew that voice.

The figure moved, angled differently against the illumination and realisation hit home like a train, shattering the strange moment of calm, as the reality of his situation hammered back into place. Zephos failed to swallow a strangled cry as Ridge moved round to the side of him and leaned over, the long fingers of one hand hovering over his face.

"I might be losing my touch." Ridge tugged on Zephos' right eyelid, peering down as if he was staring right into his head, and a thin smile crept onto the looming man's lips. "Or you're just better at shaking it off, second time around."

He wasn’t wearing the power-armour, some tiny part of Zephos brain that wasn’t being swamped out by the rising fear noted; clad instead in an unusually understated shirt, with the sleeves rolled back to his elbows. He looked fine. How could he look fine? Not that long ago he’d been doused in molten rock and possibly-nuked.

Oh god...

He tried to squirm away, but the restraints were good. Very good, but he knew that already. He'd seen them before – like this, a thin figure strapped immovably to the clean, clinical surface of the medical tables, as the scrub-clad shapes closed in. Just a clone. Barely even finished. Just a copy, and not even a very good one of those.

"Procedural success rate at seventy-eight percent. Let's see if we can't bring it up to eighty before the weekend, shall we?" Brightmeer's voice was as cool as ever – clear, instructive – as he cast a last glance across the assembled figures and gave a small nod, reaching down to the slim tray of waiting instruments.

Lalna passed over their notebook as he craned forward, already pulling his own mask up into place, the gleam of curiosity bright in his eyes.

"I bet we could do it faster, though," he muttered, as they both began to watch. "I've already got some ideas…"

"Ridge!" Fear broke his voice, and Zephos struggled to get it back under control as he peered around, trying to see past his own eyebrows to where the other man had vanished from view again. "Oh god – Ridge, I’m – I’m sorry! About your – about the Black Site, we didn’t – ”

A chuckle curled down over him, sending a wave of goosebumps rising across his bared skin.

“No you’re not. Well, right now, maybe – but that’s rather under duress.” Ridge appeared again at his other side, and ducked down to prop his elbows casually onto the table. “What was it: ‘Nuke first; ask questions later’?” He grinned, and the gleam in his eyes was like an approaching blade. “It’s very late, now. Did you think of any questions?”

“What are you?” Zephos hadn’t really meant to ask, but the words had been circling his tongue for so long, and leapt to the fore before he could stop them. Ridge’s grin widened as he leaned in until he was whisper-close.

“I think you’ve figured that out. Somewhere in all this mess, here. “ A couple of fingers tapped lightly against Zephos’ forehead as if in punctuation, then the smile dropped from those elegant features and Ridge straightened back up. When he spoke again there was a strange edge to his voice. Older, somehow. Wearier.

“You were a mistake, you know. A failed gamble.” He laughed, but there was no humour in it now. “Not my first, I’ll admit, but you did so disappoint me, Zephos. Such a pity."

He reached down again very suddenly and his thumb and forefinger pressed against Zephos' chin, digging into the soft flesh under his jaw; breath caught in his tightening chest, the half-sense words buzzing around him like invisible insects – barely understood – and then Ridge's grip released as he stood back, shaking his head.

"And yet here you are. At last, showing a bit of initiative. Finally something I can use."

"I’m not – " Zephos started, but Ridge’s eyes narrowed slightly, impaling him on a glare, and his voice died in his throat.

“I already know what you’re not,” he said quietly, each word like a lead weight in the air, dragging every other sound down with them, unheeded. “But I'm tired of this game. I think it's time for something bigger, and I'm giving you a real opportunity to take part."

"I – don't want to," Zephos managed, but his own words were just met with another cool chuckle.

"Wasn't suggesting you had much of a choice." Ridge moved back behind him again, and brought his hands down on the table either side of Zephos' face with a metallic slap that echoed strangely around the confined space.

"That's not how it works, you see. I'm bored, Zephos. Completely, utterly, tediously bored of this." His fingers tensed, squeaking slightly as they dragged against the smooth surface. "All this. Pointless little half-mortal life – and for what? I tore myself apart for this damn world, and it does nothing. Doesn't even know."

Zephos' heart skipped several beats as Ridge angled over until he could meet his gaze – bright in its depths with a dark fury that sent shivering fronds of raw fear twisting into place around his thoughts.

Oh god. He's insane.

"Ridge – please, I'll – I’ll do whatever you want – " he gasped, desperately placating, but was cut off as Ridge laughed again, loose curls dancing around his brow as he shook his head. He tilted forward, so close that his slow breath washed down over Zephos' face.

"Oh, I know – this time you definitely will. It's not going to be as elegant as I'd like, but I'm running low now, thanks to your little bucket trick." He stood back, fiddling with his shirt sleeves as he stepped out of sight, and a faint, metallic tinkle broke the air.

"So, we're going to have to do this the difficult way."

The harsh white light of the room dimmed as lips pressed suddenly against Zephos’ forehead – just for a moment, but the contact burned, lingering acid-hot beneath his skin like a scald and he let out a yelp as Ridge drew away.

“You will fight it,” he said softly. “You will beg, and you will scream – but you will lose.”

Metal gleamed, fever bright, as a thin scalpel blade appeared in his hand and he held it up, examining the edge. Zephos whimpered, half-choked against the bindings as blind terror surged up through his mind, reflecting a mirrored, icy paralysis down the immobilized length of him. Ridge smiled, and he ran the blunted side of the blade gently cross Zephos’ cheek, leaving a caress of cold shiver behind it.

“But don’t worry,” he murmured, his voice velvet with dire assurance. “I would miss you if you died."

-

Lalna was throwing up again. Honeydew held onto the man's shoulders as tightly as he dared, adding his own layer of support to the shuddering form as a fresh retch bent him like a hinge. There was no ignoring the smell emanating from his back now, overpowering the acrid scent of forgotten, burning chicken from further back into the bunker. The bandages were stained scarlet-yellow in cracking patterns, and he was shivering horribly even beyond the heaves.

The pill box was upturned – empty – on the floor, but he blindly groped for it anyway, and Honeydew shook at him, for want of anything better to do.

"I told yeh to go easy on that," he growled, but Lalna just made an indistinct sound and jerked aside. He drew a shaking hand across his mouth, succeeding in little more than smearing powdery residue further across his too-pale lips. His features were knotted in pain and Honeydew helped him topple back onto the bed again, trying to find somewhere he could safely put pressure.

"I – I can't – " he muttered, and even those few words were slurred, as his head lolled back. Honeydew hesitated. He had nothing that could help here.

Except his axe. The thought sank though him like a stone, taking his stomach with it as he looked down at Lalna's twisted face. Fuckin' hell. He had his differences with the man – only t'be expected, given everything else, but… christ no…

It was at that point that the upper door blew in. Honeydew jerked around as the dented metal pin-wheeled across the room, slicing through a bundle of sparking cables, and took out a light. He'd barely had time to grasp for a weapon that wasn't there, when the familiar voice rang out and relief nearly took his balance.

"Hello? Knock-knock – anyone home?"

"And where the balls have you been?" Honeydew started, but froze as the tall figure ducked in through the bent doorway. His eyes widened.

It was definitely Zephos, but he looked awful. His clothes were askew, his shirt missing entirely, and there was a network of bloody lines sketched all over him, like someone had been trying to draw an outline map of his veins directly onto his skin. The patterns were more smeared around his face, but it was his eyes that drew the attention – wide and wired, burning with a maniac energy as he swivelled around, jigging from side to side as small spasms shivered and danced down his limbs.

"Shit – what happened to you?" Honeydew gaped up at his friend, who was now clinging to the doorframe with white knuckles, swaying back and forth as he stared down at the room below. He didn't look surprised by any of it. He looked high, if anything, and rather like he'd been in a fight with something made of needles.

"Sorting," he said quickly, and there was a new, sharpened edge to his voice. "Things out. New ideas."

"You alright? You look like hell warmed up."

Zephos looked up, unblinking, and his stare was suddenly remarkably pointed. A slightly bloody grin spread across his face and he near-skipped down a few more steps, rolling his shoulders as if to some unheard tune.

"Better than alright. Better than ever. Better." He held up a half-clenched hand and stared at the fingers, shaking so hard that the vibrations danced down his arm, then tightened the full fist and let out a bark of sudden laughter.

"Friend – you've got no idea – "

“Lalna's fuckin’ dying!” Honeydew snapped, harder than he might have meant to against the strange delight plastered on the opposite features – then recoiled in surprise as Zephos suddenly lunged, jumping down the last flight of stairs to land with a liquid grace in front of the scientist's crumpled figure. He dropped into a splayed-knee crouch, peering forward with vague curiosity as he reached out and gripped Lalna's lolling chin tightly.

“Really? C'mon, Lalna; did I say you could do that?”

“Zephos, geeze, that's a bit – " Honeydew started, surprised at the callous tone, but his own weak protestations died as Zephos unfolded upright, clamped his hand down on the back of Lalna's neck and physically – effortlessly – swung him up off the bed, ramming him face-first into the wall. Lalna cried out, his voice cracking with pain and disbelief, as Zephos dug his free fingertips underneath the upper edge of the soiled bandages and ripped them away like wet paper.

Honeydew bit down on a gag as the extent of the degrading tissue was revealed, a horrendous, whorled rainbow of putrefying shades – and a small part of him not paralysed by shock was impressed that Lalna had been moving at all in that state. Zephos tilted his head to one side, making a small tsk sound.

"I said you needed something medical. You've gotta learn to listen to me, Lalna. That's going to be important."

Lalna made a horrible sound, a half-choked gurgle, but Zephos' arm was solid, and the scientist's weak struggles didn't even shake it. The taller man shook his head, and Honeydew could see his eyes, glittering darkly in the strange expression that settled onto his face, tugging his features at unfamiliar angles.

"Let's see…" He brought his free hand round again and slammed the flat palm against Lalna's suppurating shoulder, as a fresh, full scream broke from the scientist's cracked lips –

– and went on, louder and more urgent as the air seemed to shiver around Zephos fingers and the mess beneath started to writhe. Soured blood and half-dry fluid began to pour downwards, as if gravity had taken an abrupt, enhanced interest; dragging the discoloured tissue along for the ride in a horrible wave of shifting flesh that left deeper, raw crimson exposed behind it. Zephos fingers twitched again – Lalna's cry notching up a few more levels – but now there was skin blooming under his hand, pouring out across the split-apart expanse of opened torso in a tide of reforming dermis. The pale surge lapped up against the edges of cleared wound, shivered for a moment, and then sealed with the faintest of seams.

He let go and stepped back, examining his own fingers in impossibly-mild interest, as Lalna collapsed at his feet, gasping like someone half-drowned.

"Don't be dramatic. It doesn't suit you," Zephos said, dismissively, and proffered his hand back down; but the scientist flinched away, scrambling awkwardly back onto his feet alone. He was breathing heavily and still sweating – but his face was flushed now and he certainly looked better.

"Wh – what – what the fuck was that?" Lalna found his voice again, a little rough maybe, but certainly stronger than the horrible breathy gasps of earlier. Zephos glanced down, lips thinning as he folded his hand back, and met the other wild gaze.

"You're welcome."

"Who the hell are you?" Lalna had got fully upright now, clutching back at his own torso as if he couldn't believe what he was touching. "What are you?"

He scrubbed frantically at his mouth, staring down at the filthy mess of bandages barely inches from his feet, and Honeydew realised he was shaking violently.

He wasn't feeling entirely stable, himself, if he was being honest. Every gut instinct he had was screaming that this was definitely Zephos in front of him, but it was bloody obvious that something had happened. Less obvious was… anything else. He went to speak, but Lalna got in first – lunging, this time, to lock his hands emphatically onto Zephos' shoulders.

"What. Did. You. Do?" he growled, but Zephos leaned forward, bringing his hand back up to lock against the back of Lalna's head as if the attempt at restraint wasn't even there, and pressed his forehead onto his own.

"Don't worry about that," he said calmly, as Lalna tried unsuccessfully to pull out of the grip again, scrabbling at his unmoving arms. He looked up, meeting Zephos' gaze – and sagged, all resistance draining out of his stance at once. He gulped, wide-eyed, and some of the returned colour leached back out of his face.

"Oh god… Zeph, what did he do to you?"

Zephos laughed quietly. It was a strange version of the sound; just for a moment there was a faint echo there, as if the shade of another voice curled about his own, too distant to really hear.

"Don't worry. About that," he repeated, and his words were black silk now, tightening in the air. "It's been a long day for you, Lalna. Sit down."

He stepped back and Lalna moved like a puppet along with him, guided firmly back to the bed – silent now, but watching the taller figure warily, with the kind of expression he more usually reserved for unstable reaction mixes.

Honeydew wasn't entirely sure yet if that was excessive. It – he – was Zephos, after all; never mind whatever weird shit he’d suddenly got hold of. He located his own voice, from where it seemed to have taken refuge behind a few walls of surprise.

"You… alright there, friend?" he asked, carefully. Zephos turned again, with that sudden speed his movements seemed to have now, and his face lit up like a sunrise as he met Honeydew's gaze. The expression was still a bit manic, but it seemed genuine enough.

"Oh, yes. Yes." And then he was next to him, catching an outflung arm around Honeydew's shoulders. This close, the bloody lines that covered his body were clearly just lines, already rubbing away from skin that was smooth and whole beneath them, and Honeydew felt a small dart of relief at the sight. Zephos swung them both round, sweeping his free hand out to sketch some invisible panorama against the patchwork wall.

"It's incredible," he breathed. "Just – I can't even – I've got so many ideas, friend. You're not going to believe it."

"Well, I'll… give it a go, y'know." Honeydew replied, a little awkwardly, and shrugged under the twitching grip as he tried a small chuckle. "Always do, right?"

"You do," Zephos said quietly, his arm tightening again for a moment, then he stepped away very suddenly, striding out into the middle of the battered room with his fingers trailing in the air as if he were running them through water. A fresh smile rose onto his face, bright and real and remarkably unnerving.

"It's nearly tomorrow," he announced. "Grab anything you might still like from this hole, and pack your boots. We're going back."

"To the Labs?" Lalna piped up again, scorn just managing to sneak in around the wariness in his voice. "We didn't exactly leave on good terms, remember?"

"You worry too much, Lalna." Zephos shot another look down at him, and the scientist flinched under the weight of it. "I can fix that, if you like."

"N-no – I'm fine," Lalna replied quickly, stumbling a bit on the words. He pulled his discarded lab coat out from underneath him and stared down at the crumpled fabric, determinedly avoiding Zephos' eyes. "You'd better have a damn good plan, though."

Zephos laughed again. He held up one hand, fingers curled inwards as faint-fractal patterns began to twist like half-seen smoke in the captured air.

"Not really. But I'm feeling… creative right now." The patterns snapped out as he darted over again, grabbing onto Lalna's shoulder hard enough to yank the man forward, the other hand clamping down onto one of Honeydew's arms like a vice. Zephos leaned in between them, glancing from side to side conspiratorially, and grinned like a demon.

"Besides. What's the worst that could happen?"

---

-
The lovely Ytoti of tumblr did a 24hr comic based on this chapter (it is delightfully dark)!
Pages are here: http://ytoti.tumblr.com/post/64015556210/i-participated-in-the-24-hour-comics-day