#12: AFRAID by THE NEIGHBORHOOD
The man in front of him has his face. His hair is longer and slightly unkempt, allowed to curl around his face and neck. On the left side of his throat is a massive, bright red scar; horizontal and only running across half the neck, as if someone had taken a blade to him but stopped halfway. He looks wearier, graying shadows below his tired eyes, but that doesn't detract from the absolute fury he looks at Dirk with.
His glasses are also missing, which means Dirk has to bear the full brunt of his glare as he's effortlessly lifted off the ground by the hand that has him in a chokehold. His older self has a few inches on him, and he kicks on instinct as his feet stop touching the ground.
The older Dirk pulls his arm back – Dirk still in his grasp – and then throws him into the wall across the room.
There’s a crash and an explosion of pain on his back as everything goes black for a moment. When Dirk comes to, everything is spinning and bright, and there is the sound of concrete crumbling. Everything hurts, his right shoulder is searing, and something warm is trailing down his forehead.
"Strider!" he hears One yell.
"I'm not going to kill him," his older self says, so quietly it should be impossible to hear him, but Dirk does. Not faintly, not from a distance, but like the man's voice is beamed straight into his head. "Just throw him around a little."
"My fucking house."
"I'll fix it."
One moment, the guy is inside the house and away from Dirk's line of blurring sight, and the next he's outside, standing in front of the hole on the wall caused by Dirk getting punted through it. His white coat makes looking at him even harder with the sunlight outside. Fuck, Dirk's got a concussion.
A wall of ice suddenly rushes at older-him from behind. The man sidesteps easily without looking, but the ice keeps going, lunging towards Dirk. He flinches back, but it soars over him instead, encasing him in a dome and putting him away from his other self's reach.
"Can you people stop fucking up my house!" One yells, their voice muffled.
Dirk lets out a huff, reaching up as a trail of blood gets into his eye. He wipes it off as said eye starts stinging.
On the other side of the ice wall, something bright explodes, and suddenly the dome around Dirk splashes into a puddle on the ground. Flames roar around him, making him draw back again as the memory of being burned immediately snaps to the forefront of his mind.
The wall of fire goes down. Across him, his other self has his hand out. Did he cast that?
But that's Three's ability, when did – magic sharing due to the patchwork soul. Motherfucker.
Unlike Three, though, Other-him doesn't even look winded using another classpect's magic. He looks bored, almost, expression impassive as he focuses on Dirk.
Another glacier rushes into existence, this time faster than before, wrapping around Dirk and lifting him high into the air and away from his older self's reach. Below, his older self ducks as One lunges from behind and aims a kick at his head. They flip mid-air with their flight and kick their other leg out at him, but he grabs it, slamming them to the ground – or would have if they hadn't suddenly dissolved into black shadows and snaked around his arm, popping back into existence like their little clown had done once when the shadows reached his shoulder. They blast him with a faceful of ice, and he's thrown back, instantly melting it with fire.
Other-him reaches for something by his hip, which Dirk soon realizes is a sword – two, actually; a daishō – only for a blast of blue energy from the house to nail him in the face, melting his skin off and leaving scorched flesh, though it quickly heals, regenerating scarily fast. When Dirk turns to whoever's climbing out the broken wall, it's Hal, one hand raised, its blaster activated, glowing as it readies itself to fire again.
Strangely, his older self actually hesitates and sheaths his sword back.
"Would appreciate it if I didn't have to blow a hole into your head," Hal says.
Other-him tilts his head down in a show of surrender, the mannerism so foreign on him he must have picked it up someplace else.
One sighs and lets the glacier they've summoned shrink until Dirk's back on level ground. "If you attack him, I'm kicking you out," they threaten his other self, who stays right where he is. One huffs. "Always the house. Always."
Thankfully, the pieces on the ground are starting to levitate, coated with gold energy as Seven starts setting things back into place from inside. He's effectively locking everyone out until they go around the house, but that's probably what he's going for, annoyed at them brawling.
Dirk wipes the blood trailing down his head again as his vision tilts once more. He looks up as he feels the weight of someone's stare on him, meeting his other self's eyes.
"...where are your glasses?" Dirk blurts out. He knows he broke the signal flare, but he can't imagine himself going around barefaced for years.
"It broke," Other-him says, "When you broke the other pair. Physical alert to supplement the magic one in case I was in a situation unable to access my magic."
Oh, Dirk fucking hopes he was constantly unable to access his magic, because what the hell was that?
The man turns away, marching off.
"Hey, where the hell are you going?" Dirk starts towards him, only to be held back by One's hand on his arm. Cold washes over him and instantly pushes all the pain in his body out: his vision clears, the stinging in his head abates, his dislocated shoulder wrenches itself back into place, and it doesn't even hurt.
"Strider," One says when other-him doesn't answer. He stops when they speak. "Where are you going?"
"He wants to go home, he can't drift as-is. He'll just end up at my point in time on Earth," other-him says, "I need a time player."
Like hell he's going anywhere near Three.
"I'm going with you," Dirk says. When his other self turns back to look at him, he meets the glare head-on.
"You have a concussion," the man says.
"I don't.”
"I'll give you one."
"Enough." One steps forward, standing in front of Dirk. He goes quiet at that. "You're not going anywhere on your own. May I remind you, you're still a criminal around these parts. You –" They turn back to Dirk. " – are not going anywhere near him. He's going to break you into pieces since he can put you back together anyway."
Dirk looks over their shoulder at his other self. The guy is impassively listening, just watching Dirk silently.
"I can go with him," Dirk insists.
"Are you dense?" One thwaps him on the head. Thank god he's no longer concussed. "I just said he would try to kill you."
"He can't kill me, I'm his past self."
Behind One, his older self just continues looking at him, not bothering to comment.
"Yes he fucking will if he wants to," One says. "You're staying here. We'll go find Three."
"Where is your brother?" Other-him finally asks.
One whirls around to face him. "I don't know. We'll send someone to find him."
"No."
One grits their teeth. "And why is that not a viable option?"
"Then he won't come back. He's avoiding that, isn't he?" He angles his head towards Dirk. "We'll be here forever."
"I'll go, then."
Other-him raises an eyebrow.
One crosses their arms and glares at him, but after a minute, they strangely relax, relenting. "Fine. I'll send Seven with you."
"Pass," Seven says, poking his head out the small hole still being filled in on the reassembling wall. "No thank you."
"Seven," One grits out.
"I'm the youngest brother, I'm not equipped to handle this." He pulls himself back into the house, and the crack in the wall is filled with remaining debris, sealing shut.
One makes an irritated noise, but deflates right after, too tired to stay mad. "At least Three only needs to reverse time on that and it'll be fine."
Dirk glances to Other-him. Can the guy not reverse time, then? Was the power-sharing limited?
One turns back to the man. "The Guardian will be watching you. Do not cause any trouble, I might not be able to get there fast enough to bail you out," they say.
He takes a moment to answer. "I'll be fine, One."
"Whatever. Be quick about it before Four eats someone."
Other-him nods. A second he's there and the next he's not. Dirk doesn't even blink; it's like a harsh cut where something just disappears.
One sighs loudly, pulling at their hair.
"Sorry," Dirk says.
"It's fine. It's fine," they say. "You okay?"
"... yeah."
They nod. "Go rest or something. You took a hit to the head," they say. "If you're going to sneak out to follow him, don't let me see it or I'll kill you myself."
#
24 HOURS AGO
He's in somewhere called Sun City. Specifically, 34th Street, Xingchen, Sun City, Kisaragi 3042. The lady Davesprite had asked had been nice enough to provide him the street address and the zip code. She probably thought he was lost on the wrong highway while looking for someplace else.
As much as he isn’t an expert on where places on Earth are, he’s pretty sure a whole island called February would stand out. Especially one where there are weird girls who try to eat complete strangers as a first meeting. Going around and trying to find newspapers or maps cements his suspicion that he’s in a completely different place again, not Earth nor his old timeline that he somehow managed to get dragged back into.
In all honesty, a random universe makes more sense than that one, since that was supposed to be gone. Here, it just feels like he took a wrong turn down the road in a big and unfamiliar city and thus ended up in a completely different street, not take a new route and somehow end up backwards.
As lovely as it is to not be in a completely empty area with nothing but lava and gears around him, though, he still has no idea what the hell he’s going to do here. Which way is Earth? Is he stuck here forever like when he’d fallen to Earth from the game? If he got blipped here, is he alone or are other people with him again?
At least nothing here (outside of that girl) seems to be dangerous. It’s…mundane, almost. Familiar. It’s not Texas, but the streets filled with homes and people walking around existing in their day to day lives reminds him of home. Actual home, not the island or NYC. His earth which was alive.
But he still needs to figure out a game plan. The last thing he remembers from New York was getting dragged into a rift; everybody then was hiding from SHIELD, and he needs to get back to help them. Sure, he may not be all that useful since they had their own Dave, and he was kind of redundant, but still. More people on a team was always helpful.
Except –
Well, where the hell is he even going to begin here?
It’s not like on Earth where he had Eridan and Hal and Roxy and Anshu. This is a completely new place. He’s got nobody to talk to and nobody to point him in the right direction. This shit already looks exhausting.
Recon should be the best course of action for now. He doesn’t know anything, so he’s going to learn as much as he can about this town – and so he goes flying around Xingchen until sundown drenches the whole city in darkness. Nobody bats an eye at him being a sprite, but that’s probably because there are a lot of people here with wings of their own flying around. He’s not exactly an oddity, which is good, because he would like to not have a repeat of SHIELD grabbing him and sticking him in a birdcage.
He finds posters advertising places and maps of certain sections of Kisaragi. Nothing is helpful except for the knowledge that he’s on an island, again, though he doesn’t know what to do with that quite yet. There are humans and trolls all over the city, pointing to a hybrid society, which, while interesting, is again something he doesn’t yet quite know what to do with.
The one upside to all of this is that there are vending machines that drop food off for free here. He’s not hungry, as sprites don’t need sustenance, but something to chew on would be nice about now, so he grabs as many packs of chips as he can carry before heading to one of the hills ahead. A good vantage point might be helpful to him, somehow.
The street leading up the slope isn’t empty, but it’s not crowded either. Plenty of people are walking down or up it, talking with their friends; there are a few benches here and there under some of the lampposts, though they’re sadly all taken. There’s one up ahead that’s only occupied by one person, and since people around here know how to mind their own business, he figures he might as well take a break there and give himself a reprieve from flying.
“That’s a lot of loot,” his seatmate says as soon as he sits down. Davesprite freezes, turns to the voice, and sees sharp panther teeth on a deceivingly soft (and familiar) pretty face.
“Oh, come on,” he groans.
“You’re not very good at not being noticeable,” Wind-girl says. “But I suppose that’s not your fault. You’re a sprite, and you’re very bright, orange pop.”
“Go away,” he says.
“Why? This is a public area,” she says.
“You’re being a nuisance.”
“I’m not, I just want to see when the lights come on.” She motions to the city far below them. “They’re very pretty.”
“I’m sure.”
“I’m serious.” She chuckles. “It should be around…” She fishes for a phone from the pockets of her dress (her dress has pockets, he’s heard Jade complain about skirts having no pockets so many times). “...two minutes.”
He eyes her warily as she tucks her phone back away, expecting her to bring a knife out or something, but she only folds her hands on her lap and faces forward. There is something in the way she sits, shoulders back, spine straight, feet crossed at the ankles; it’s very…princessy, somewhat. Far be it from him to throw rocks at glass houses given that his brother was a millionaire, but right now, that only gave him red flags.
But she’s not doing anything right now so he rips open one of the chip packs, looking down at the city as he tries to pinpoint the streets he’s wandered and the landmarks he’s seen. Two minutes later, the whole town lights up. Fairy lights turn out to be strewn on railings and towers, the street lamps come on, and the fountain at the very center of town with an angel statue is lit.
So she wasn’t lying. Huh.
Wind-girl is smiling when he takes a look at her.
“I don’t lie,” she says. “I’m not fond of lying. It makes for very shady business and drives away repeat clients. I have built my work on honesty.”
“Lying by omission is still lying.”
“I have not uttered a single untruth,” Wind-girl says, which is technically true because then by omitting, she wouldn’t be saying it. Fucking lawyer-speak. “I only offer fair exchanges.”
“Bullshit,” he says, and she laughs. “What the hell do you even want with me, anyway?”
“Your wings are lovely,” Wind-girl says. “And you don’t need them to fly, since you’re a sprite. You can also grow them back, can’t you? I’d like one.”
“What for?”
“Because they look pretty,” she says, tilting her head (like a bird).
“...that’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“......yeah?”
“.........yeah.”
They both stare at each other, Davesprite baffled that she wanted to eat his wing just cause, and her seemingly not understanding exactly why he couldn’t grasp the concept.
She was going to eat his wing. Just because she wanted to.
“I like pretty things,” Wind-girl says eventually through the awkwardness. “I like collecting them.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between collecting and eating.”
“Ah, well. I can collect differently from most people,” she says, smiling, almost preening.
“Your Thief of Heart shit.”
“Yup.”
“Hm.” He pops a chip into his mouth, crunching down loudly. “So, what, if you eat my wing, do you grow one too?”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “I’ve never grown another arm from having eaten someone else’s before.”
“Then why the hell do you want to eat my wing when you don’t even know if you can keep it?”
“Oh, but I will,” she says, with a certainty that doesn’t make any sense. “I can tell you how it works.”
“For a price.”
“Of course.” There’s that amiable, but blank, empty smile again. “Nothing’s free in life, Strider.”
He’s going to interact with her past, he just knows it. She knows his name and she hid her timeline from him. There’s no reason for either of that unless it’s timeline shenanigans, even if she’s doing the bare minimum to preserve the timeline…that or this was supposed to happen. Who fucking knows with the timestream (he does, he’s supposed to know, but he hasn’t had to be the time player in years, and god – does he have to think about this shit again? Ugh.)
He eats a few more chips as he thinks her offer over. Clearly, she operates by trade, and that’s probably how she’s gotten some of the powers in her arsenal, by an exchange. It’s a simple and understandable business model, a boon for a price.
But there are other models of operation out there.
“How about I lend you my wings for 24 hours,” he says. “Both of them.”
“A rental?” Wind-girl raises an eyebrow.
“Hear me out,” he says. If he plays his cards right, he might only need 24 hours anyway. “You can keep both of them for 24 hours. Hell, do whatever you want with them, ‘cause you’re right, they’ll grow back anyway. But, in exchange, you gotta help me for 24 hours. Anything I ask, you gotta help me.”
“You wanna look like a worm for 24 hours?” Wind-girl asks.
He pauses. While having feathers has always been annoying (not-real-Dave this and not-real-Dave that, feathers what feathers haha no that Dave is totally normal), at least it kind of completes a look for him. Looking like a worm…hm.
“48 hours,” Wind-girl bargains.
“You want me to look like a worm for 48 hours? What, because it’s funny?”
“Nope.” Wind-girl reaches into the air beside her, her hand flashing magenta, and curls her fingers around something. She pulls, and when she does, something is in her grasp.
A pendant, he realizes, when she opens her hand to show it to him. It’s a simple unobtrusive necklace with a flat circular black pendant, the space insignia carved into it.
“48 hours,” she says. “And you can have legs.”
His gaze snaps back up at her. She grins, knowing full well she’s dangling play-pretend normality in front of him.
48 hours in a place where nobody knows him, without the stupid fucking wings.
“What’s your name?” Davesprite asks.
“Four.”
“...okay, Four,” he says. He’s heard weirder. “You get to rent my wings for 48 hours and in exchange you help me with anything I ask for those entire 48 hours, and I get to have legs.”
“I accept your terms.” She passes the pendant to her left hand and holds out her right. “Do we have an agreement, Dave Strider?”
He looks down at her hand, deliberating. He could very well be making a deal with the devil here.
But he needs to get the fuck out of this place. That’s priority numero uno right now.
“Do you have to use those bear traps?” he asks.
“Well, it’s that or my teeth, which will take slower.”
“Ah, fuck, fine.”
He shakes her hand.
#
Kisaragi island is the afterlife of the universe he’s found itself in. It’s ruled and overseen by Four’s oldest sibling One, an Heir of Doom. The mention sets off a realization in Davesprite’s head as to where he’s seen Four’s face before, because he swears he has, and it turns out that she looks eerily like Hal’s Angeles friend. Sadly, this appears to be a coincidence because Four has no idea who the fuck that is.
“Is your name actually Four?” he asks, adjusting the collar of his jacket. It’s been literal years since he’s had actual clothes instead of the weird meld-thing being a sprite has going on. He has a sneaking suspicion that this pendant isn’t just for giving a sprite a disguise or whatever Four might have had use for it, but complete transfiguration. His sword got ejected out his chest, and all the other crow traits he had merged with him have disappeared.
“No, it’s my title. I’m the fourth of my siblings, so I’m Four,” she answers from outside the changing room of the shop they’re in.
“How many siblings do you have?”
“Six. There were seven of us.”
Were. She lives in an afterlife. He can put the picture together.
But that’s not his business; he checks how he looks in the mirror instead, already feeling a wave of nostalgia for days at malls, trying out clothes and seeing what fits, waiting for his brother to finish getting whatever he needs and meeting him at the register so they can go home.
They don’t have any raglans with discs printed on them here, so he settles for a blank one with red sleeves. Familiar enough. Good enough.
He pushes the door open. Four is currently turning around in front of a nearby mirror next to the changing rooms, admiring the massive white-and-orange wings on her back. He hadn’t even realized how big they were now that he no longer looks like a sprite. Those things can topple over rows and rows of shelves without even trying, and the only reason they haven’t is because Four has made them go incorporeal.
“You done checking yourself out?” he asks.
“Do you have everything you need?” she asks back, not bothering to turn towards him, instead spreading one wing out to smooth out some of the primaries. Strangely, getting bitten by her bear traps hadn’t even hurt that bad, after the initial spike of pain when the teeth sunk in. His wings just disappeared from his back and reappeared onto her. She was probably just fucking with him and scaring him with all the showing off of the damn things.
“Yeah, sure.” He grabs the clothes he’s hung from the hook behind the room door. Four had told him to grab whatever he needed since this was a no-payment shop anyway (they have that here in addition to the vending machines, what the hell), as many as he wanted. He was only going to be in this form for forty-eight hours, but he sure wasn’t going to be caught unawares by any other shenanigans that were going to be thrown his way. He wasn’t expecting a cannibalistic car salesgirl ghost, and now look at his situation; anything could happen.
There are also no-payment food establishments here, and Four insists on stopping by one since it’s easier to talk sitting down anyway, so he follows her lead to a little shop that serves noodles. They pick out a quiet corner to sit in while Four eats, happily slurping up her food while Davesprite waits across her.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asks.
“I’m a sprite.”
“I saw you eating chips earlier. Even if you don’t need to, sometimes it feels good to, just ‘cause it’s memory. Or we associate it with good stuff,” she says. “I’m a ghost and I still eat.”
“I don’t exactly have the best memories with food, so I’ll pass.”
“Make new ones, then,” she says, bluntly. If she could see behind his glasses, she’d see the unimpressed look he gives her, but sadly he’s not lowering his aviators, and she’s not bothering to look up at him, instead focusing on her noodles.
“Could One help me get back to my universe?” he asks instead.
“One by themself, no. They’re a hero of Doom, not a hero of Space,” she says.
“Is there anyone who can?”
She hums. “Complicated question.” She sets her empty bowl down, grabbing a napkin to wipe her mouth. “None of the people here are equipped to send you back, but if they had outside help, I think they could chart you a way home.” Before he can say Great, then let’s do that, she lifts a finger to interrupt. “Problem is, the guy who can help you isn’t here.”
“Where is he?”
“In another universe,” she says. “These universes are not supposed to cross; the only reason they have is by accident, so it’s going to be really difficult sending people back. It’s like putting a lightbulb in your mouth. Easy to get in, hell to get out.”
So he could very well be trapped here, and if they call another person in, that guy could get trapped in. Wonderful.
“How does it work, exactly?” Davesprite asks.
“Ahh, you want to see if you can reverse-engineer it,” Four says, nodding to herself, confident in her assessment. Psh. “Well, first, the guy has to get here and establish a connection with your universe. He needs to pinpoint the right time, though. The right place, you can skip if you’re really desperate; but if you want to be super precise, you’ll need someone with space magic.”
She points up.
“For Space magic, you can try to convince our First Guardian, but he hates everyone who’s not from here, so good luck with that,” she says, and then points to him. “For time magic, you’re a time player and you’re pretty good with hitting specific spots in time.”
So all he would really need is that guy who establishes connections. The space magic he doesn’t really need, he can fly to New York in a pinch.
“Before you ask, no, I don’t have a way to call the guy we need,” Four says. “I’m a ghost, not a god. I’m retired.”
Dave snorts. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”
“Godtierdom’s not just about getting powers and then fucking off to nowhere, Dave, it’s about being a god,” she says. “That’s what Skaia made us for, and that’s why the reward of the game is to rule. It’s not even really a reward, we’re just parts of the Genesis Frog that perpetuates its creation, its existence, and then eventually, its end, when we’ve cultivated the world enough to let it thrive and bring forth the next session.”
“And you’re dead so you’re retired.”
“No, I’m retired ‘cause I’m retired,” she says.
“Sure, whatever,” he says. “Is there anyone who can call this guy, then?”
“You’d have to take it up with my siblings. Like I said, I’m retired. Someone coming in from another universe? That’s official business.”
Davesprite frowns, slowly, not that she sees more than his eyebrows dipping. “Then why are you bothering with me?” he asks.
“As a private citizen, I can do what I want,” she says. “If I use my magic, that’s my business.”
“Anything I should know about what you want?” he asks, seconds away from ripping off the pendant.
“Careful. Making a deal means that if you break it, you are punishable by Skaia itself.” Four wags a finger. “That’s why I said to watch your words around certain players. You take that off, who knows what’ll happen.” She giggles when his frown deepens. “Relax, Strider. The terms of our deal hold; the only thing I’ve done outside of it is hide you from the First Guardian when you fell here.”
…okay, that doesn’t sound so bad.
“Why?” he asks.
“‘Cause I wanted these.” Four points to his wings, spreading them slightly on her back, before winching them back in. “He would have torn you to pieces, and these are so nice. It would have been a waste letting them get destroyed.”
“You talk like an organ trafficker.”
Four laughs. “I suppose I do,” she muses. “But what can I say? My specialty is in finding value in the parts of people.”
“You just see something shiny and you want it.”
“I have eyes. I’m supposed to be looking,” Four says. “Why wouldn’t I use them to admire, then?”
“...fair enough.”
Four shrugs. “Besides, if I really wanted to find a practical use for it, I could,” she says, then puts her hands together, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth slightly as she thinks. “Let’s see…”
The wings on her back are lit up in quick succession by a flash of black, gold, and green. The waves of magic wash over it in films, their respective insignias appearing briefly, before they dissipate, leaving the wings as they are.
“Come on,” Four says, getting to her feet. “Let me show you.”
He follows her out the diner, expecting her to go down the street, but she goes around the building instead, headed for the back. Past the alley, it’s nothing but grass, trees, and patches of empty earth that indicated that people liked to hang out here. With the night time, the whole place is empty now.
Four stops a good distance away from the diner. Dave stops beside her, and then takes a few steps back so she can’t immediately attack him.
She spreads his wings, and then, they rapidly disassemble, feathers flying off the bone and tearing into one of the branches on the tree ahead. They cut through effortlessly, which is something feathers should absolutely not do, before circling back around and flying in a circle around the field. The speed with which they’re flying is stirring the air up into a mini-tornado.
Four thankfully breaks it up before it can get dangerous, calling the feathers back to her. They attach seamlessly, the wings flap once, and then she winches them in.
“If I really wanted to let them have another purpose, sure, I could do that,” she says. “But they’re pretty, and I like them enough even if they’re just like that.”
She shrugs, again, smiling, tucking her hands behind her back as he’s learning she’s wont to do. It’s a habit of hers.
“Do you ask people for parts of them just ‘cause too?” he asks.
“Sure,” she says. “They can always say no, I’m not pushy.”
Doubt.
Something must give his thoughts away, because she laughs.
“Sometimes, if I really want it, I’ll be a little more persuasive. But a deal is only a deal if both parties agree to it,” she says. “People don’t have to give me parts of them. Most of my deals have actually been people making the offers, because they didn’t think those parts of themselves were too important.”
Davesprite looks to his wings on her back. They’ve never done anything for him: he doesn’t need them to fly, he’s a sprite; they’re heavy when they’re corporeal; in order to safely interact with a world built for non-winged humans, or just a world without birds as big as him, he needed to tuck them in and make them intangible. They’re just useless cosmetic things on him, marking him odd and different and another self from a defunct, unimportant timeline.
Perhaps, if he hadn’t jumped into that sprite kernel, it would have been easier for his friends to see him as Dave too, because he looks human instead of some game guide who was a weird mishmash between a dead crow and himself.
“They’re pretty cool,” Four says, bringing a wing around her. “I could smack people with these things. Look at them, they’re very nice under light, aren’t they? Very smooth and soft too, it’s like a huge pillow.”
“Make a birdsona like every other normal person.”
Four laughs. “Maybe that’s what I’m doing and I saw the opportunity to get wings and I took it,” she says.
Yeah, he guesses he can’t argue with that. Besides, whatever her reasons are, he’s getting a pretty decent deal.
“Where do your siblings live?” he asks, bringing the topic back to more important matters,
“Hm. Which one?”
#
The nearest brother Four has lives by the beach, which is miles away from Xingchen. Four takes to the air and he follows her lead. The missing weight of his wings has him leaning forward too much for the first few minutes, and Four has to pull him back upright, but he gets the hang of it eventually.
"Why can't we just teleport there?" he asks, floating beside her at the same speed she's currently gliding through the air, having fun with the new wings on her back.
"That would tip the guardian off. I'm hiding us by void powers, but because it's not my specialty, my control with it is kinda weak. Space magic, on the other hand, is the First Guardian's specialty. If I slip a bit, he can pinpoint us down to the millimeter, and you're ribbons," she says. "Besides, this is so fun."
"I'm starting to think your decisions are all for fun."
"And I'm right," Four says. "There's not much we can do about it right now anyway – don’t worry too much, you're not the only person from another universe here."
That makes him turn to her abruptly. "My siblings have been aware of the others for a while. I’m sure they’ve been discussing options on how to help our guests get back home.”
"Then let's get there faster."
“Yes, I imagine that’s why we’re flying,” she says, making a flash of irritation go through him again. “Time doesn't work right on Kisaragi anyway. When you return, no time will have passed. We’re moving as fast as we can, don’t stress."
Huh. Now that she mentions it, the whole place feels…weird. Like something has been put over him, akin to a weighted blanket. It’s not suffocating, but it's there.
"This place isn't exactly in time suspension, but it operates differently from the living world," Four says. "No time that passes here is of consequence to the living." She turns to him, mischievous. "Except of course, what you experience."
That is not ominous at all.
It's hours from Xingchen to the ocean. Four is annoying the whole while, cartwheeling and flipping through the air and swooping down every chance she gets. If he didn’t need a guide to get him to where he needs, he’d be leaving her behind at the first chance.
They land outside a modest two-story house with a massive garden at the back. The lights are off, though with it being ass o’clock in the morning, that’s no surprise. Four rings the doorbell once, twice, and on the third time, yells, “Brother, are you home?”
No answer.
Yeah, just his luck.
Four flies up to the windows on the second floor, peering in and going around the house, but when she returns, she’s shaking her head. “Nobody’s home,” she says. “Brother must be away. He’s a busy guy, so I have no idea where he would be right now.”
“What does he usually do?”
“He’s a historian, but he works from home. If he’s anywhere, it’s usually an emergency and a meeting has to be had with the others or with the First Guardian,” she says. “I suppose we can go to Hivetown to One.”
“That’s the eldest, right?”
Four nods.
“Well, lead the way, then, I guess,” Davesprite says.
Four nods, kicking off to the air with a flap of wings. Davesprite nearly gets knocked to the ground when he tries to follow her, and he has to flip himself over upright with how careless she is; she laughs at him.
“Do take note that Hivetown is massive,” she warns. “And One lives on the very edge of the island. It’s another several hours before we get there.”
“Fly faster then,” he says.
In response, Four pumps the wings harsher, lunging forward, the wind nearly rips his glasses off, and he has to hold onto them to keep them on. He clenches his jaw, but when he turns to her, there’s an expression of wonder on her face. Oh no.
“You’ll be fine!” she yells, and pulls up sharply, shooting to the clouds. He looks around, trying to spot where she’s going to exit, neck almost snapping to the side when she bursts through said clouds meters away from his left. “Holy shit!” she cackles. “Your wings are great!”
“We’re trying to get to Hivetown,” he calls back. “Stop playing around.”
Four throws him two thumbs up. “Okay! Race you then!”
And then she’s gone, zipping up and flipping over, flapping the wings powerfully again to rush forwards. Davesprite makes an annoyed noise, pushing himself on at top speed to catch up after her. Unfortunately, she’s already had a head start and their speed is a near-match, so the gap remains steady.
Come on, he’s a sprite. He’s got this. Davesprite makes himself go incorporeal to kill wind resistance – to his surprise, his clothes go incorporeal with him, which, thank god – and he’s gliding smoother and faster, rocketing forward to catch up to Four.
She grins as soon as he’s right next to her. “That’s the spirit!”
“You’re the ghost.”
She laughs again. A wave of gold washes over her whole body, and because life sucks, she gets even faster.
“That’s not fair!” he yells after her, straining to close the gap.
“Get creative, Strider!”
“You’re supposed to help me!”
“Ask, then.” She flips around so she’s flying backwards to throw him a salute, before turning forward to keep going. “Use your head! Go on!”
How the hell would she even be able to help him? She’s a Thief. If he remembers what he learned at the island right, Thieves aren’t built for distributing powers to others, that’s what Rogues are for. But he needs a speed boost…
“An enchantment?” he calls out.
Gold light washes over him and suddenly he feels like he’s hopped up on ten cups of caffeine. Everything looks so clear, so bright, he can probably feel everything in the air right now.
He glides on and has to hold onto his glasses again. Four’s cackles warp in the air around him, wings flapping once more to keep the gap between them. Davesprite responds by pressing down on the magic around him, urging it to push him forward again. He’s closing in.
Four dives; he zips down after her since he still needs her to show him which way One’s house is. She zig-zags through the air, pinging back and forth with him at his heels, little bursts of wind in their wake with how fast they’re moving. She zips up again, and he goes with her, but when she zips from left to right, he shoots forward in a straight line, gritting his teeth and bracing to run into her – he doesn’t because she pulls up short and flaps rapidly in aborted movements while he keeps going.
He turns, flying backwards, and flips her off. She snickers, following after him, so he turns and focuses on making sure she can’t catch up, smug.
Okay, maybe this is a little fun.
#
They both end up landing somewhere still stuck at nighttime despite the fact that they’d left Sun City when it was dawn. Four tells him that Hivetown experiences the flipside of Sun City, so if it’s daytime there, it’s nighttime here, which is not helping the fact that his sense of time is already dampened by Kisaragi being in pseudo-time suspension.
Four finds them both a patch of grass to sit down and collapse on, exhausted. Davesprite’s knees buckle as soon as his feet touch ground while Four falls over face-first on the grass.
“How – ” Dave inhales, trying to catch his breath. “How far to your sibling’s house?”
“We’re in…uhhhh…” Four pauses as she tries to remember. “Kagamine city. The border’s two cities over.”
Davesprite closes his eyes to focus on the timezone here. It’s around one in the morning, so they’ve been flying a while if they’ve bypassed the actual evening time of Hivetown. Since Four’s quiet for the first time in a while, he lets himself relax into the grass, resting. They’re far away from the general neighborhood, nobody’s here to yell at them.
He must have fallen asleep at some point, because when his eyes snap open, he’s waking up. Fatigue still lines his limbs, but he’s no longer shaking all over.
He sits up. Beside him, Four is fast asleep, eyes closed and wings pulled in like a blanket over her.
“Hey, get up.” He shakes her shoulder. Her singular visible eye snaps open. “We’ve got somewhere to be, don’t sleep on the ground.”
“Eughhhh, fine.” She groans, pushing herself up and sitting. “Let’s go eat something first, though, I’m tired.”
“Something’s open this early?”
“Sure,” she says. “Hivetown’s for the nocturnal folks.”
Davesprite frowns, looking back around at the quiet houses. “Then where the hell is everyone?”
Four grins. “Partying.”
#
Kagamine city is loud as fuck.
Walking onto the main street blasts neon lights and clashing music straight at Davesprite that instinctively has him ducking his head and winching his wings in – if he still had them, that is. He pauses at the lack of it behind him, again, looking to where Four is currently sticking to the sidewalk and carefully scoping out whatever building isn’t as occupied as the others. She pauses and then points to a small building that declares itself to be a pub, which has a second floor and a veranda that is currently empty.
Both of them duck inside, and Dave relaxes at the lack of music and the half-empty room. The employees are wiping up the counters and cleaning up unoccupied tables, so business must be slowing down with the morning nearing.
He heads for an empty table at the corner while Four gets their food, coming back with two trays, one of which she slides to him. He’s too tired to ask her any questions, and she’s answered most of what he’s wanted on their way to her brother’s house earlier anyway, so they eat in silence. Four’s eye is drooping slightly, and she yawns every few minutes, prompting Davesprite to bite down a yawn of his own.
The clock on the wall ticks into the morning. The pub empties. Davesprite drifts in and out of consciousness, slumped over the table while his companion similarly dozes off in her seat. Surprisingly, none of the employees ask them to leave, but maybe that’s something to do with Four being a retired god.
When he comes to, again, it’s to muffled conversation. Several feet away from them, an employee is talking to a man in a red shirt with long dark hair reaching down his waist. He’s nodding at something the girl is saying, glancing towards Davesprite’s table, and then back to her.
Davesprite kicks Four’s leg.
“Ah! What?” She startles awake.
He motions to where the man is. “You know him or is that trouble?”
Four turns to where he’s pointing. “Oh! That’s my brother, actually. The one whose house we went to.” She twists around her seat so she can wave at him properly. “Frati!”
“Dio mio.” The man marches over and swats Four on the head. She winces. “È tutta la notte che vi cerco! Che hai – ” He stops abruptly as he remembers Davesprite is sitting there. Davesprite himself lifts a hand and waves awkwardly. The man (who’s also got red eyes, neat, though his are a darker shade) grimaces and bows his head. “Sorry, Dave.”
Great, another guy who knows his name and he has no context to. His timeline is also completely out of sight, which, ugh, but whatever. Davesprite’s here and apparently this guy can help.
“What did you do,” the man continues, turning his glare back to Four, or more specifically, Davesprite’s wings on her.
“It was a deal,” she says, and when he looks alarmed, she sighs. “It’s a rental. I help him for 48 hours, he lets me borrow them.”
The man relaxes immediately. “Good,” he says. “That’s…good.” He looks around the empty pub. “What are you both doing here? The First Guardian said he couldn’t find you since you hid yourselves.”
“He would have torn Strider to shreds,” Four mourns.
“Apparently, she wanted my wings before he could do that,” Davesprite says, narrowing his eyes at her even if she can’t see it.
The red-eyed man mirrors the expression, scrutinizing his sister. “Four,” he says sternly, in a way that tells Dave he means something more than what he’s currently saying, but since the guy’s a stranger, Dave has no idea what the hell that hidden meaning is.
“I’m not planning anything untoward,” Four says innocently.
Davesprite tenses. Oh, she is absolutely planning something nefarious.
The man turns to him. “Don’t make any more deals with her. You need anything, tell me.”
“Hey! That’s unfair.” Four draws a knee up and kicks her brother in the stomach. He draws back, but she still catches him enough to leave a dusty print on his shirt. He makes a face. “Outside interference is restrictive, don’t hamper the free hand of the market!”
“Shut the fuck up, your buzzwords are giving me secondhand embarrassment,” her brother grits out at her. “The First Guardian’s given me a time limit on how long I have to find you two.”
“Don’t tell him. He’s going to tear Strider apart, I’ve told you.” Four smiles and looks back at Davesprite. “He doesn’t exactly have that many people batting for him here.”
“Then we’ll take him back to One’s,” her brother says. “So long as he stays on Kisaragi, we can argue for his safety. I would like to not have my guts ripped out in thirteen and a half hours, please.”
“Ahhhh, I see.” Four says, smiling impishly. “We can take him back to One’s, but we don’t need to tell M. You’ll be fine. You’ll live. If he knows, Strider’ll just get turn to cat food.”
“M will behave.”
Four’s briefed him on how this world works. M is the First Guardian, known to be a stickler for rules and could get violent about it. Maybe a guy like that knowing where he is really isn’t a good idea.
“Four said you could help me get home,” Davesprite says.
“I can’t, I’m afraid,” the man says.
“I said he could call someone who can,” Four corrects. Her brother freezes, and then pales.
Not a good sign. With how much of a habit Four has of just not mentioning things, Davesprite is starting to realize that maybe whoever can help him is more of a danger than actual help after all.
“I…I don’t have the signal flare,” Four’s brother says.
“Just get it from that other guy,” Four says. “I don’t know why you gave it to him, anyway, you were supposed to look after it.”
“His old pair got lost in the ocean,” the man says. “But…look, whatever. Let’s just get back to the house. You can tell One, they can help you.” He gives Four an empathic look, and she relents with a lift of her shoulders.
“Eh. I’m pretty sure the Guardian already knows you’ve found us anyway, you’re not hidden.” Four pats her brother’s arm in comfort. “Like I said, you’ll be fine.” She turns back ot Davesprite. “Strider, though, I doubt.’
Her brother huffs, gently prying her hand off. “I think we’d have a better chance of not pissing him off if Dave was at One’s,” he says. “M likes his things in order, and I think it would worry him less if we were back at the house.”
“Am I gonna get guaranteed safety if I went with you?” Davesprite cuts in.
The man takes too long to answer, while Four shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “We never know with our First Guardian, he’s very unpredictable.”
“Cool,” Davesprite says. “Then I think I’ll take my chances out here until you have a sure way to get me home. That, or you ban him from wherever we’re going. Like a safe zone.”
“I…think we can arrange that,” the man says. “I’ll tell One to have their house be neutral ground. As long as you’re in there, there can be no violence – ”
He stiffens, again, eyes wide. His right hand goes to his left wrist, thumb tracing over…oh god, what the fuck is that? His hand looks like it’s rotting from the wrist, purpling and blackened skin spreading from the joint and down to his palms. In fact, now that Dave notices that, the guy doesn’t look like he’s doing all that well, to be honest. There’s a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead that Davesprite had just thought was from walking around outside, but it’s clear there’s something wrong with him. His lips are ashen and there are dark shadows under his eyes. He looks like he’s a second away from keeling over.
Four sobers. “Brother?”
“Ah,” he says. “He’s here.”
#
PRESENT
With Three nowhere in the house to help with restoring the broken wall, the whole thing has to be held in place by Seven at the moment. The guy is certainly more than happy to hold it hostage so One can’t ask him to go see surveil Dirk’s older self, which leaves the god frustratingly trying to fix it themself temporarily.
Dirk doesn’t ask why they’re not keen on following Other-him. He wouldn’t follow his brother’s murderer to places alone either. Instead, he looks out his window, adjusts the borrowed shades on his face, and hops out. The skies are clear, but he can’t see anyone flying, which means his other self must be searching on foot. The nearest neighborhood is just up ahead, so Dirk flies over towards it, staying in the air and looking down as he tries to spot a blond mullet and a white coat.
Of all the fucking outfit choices. Seriously.
Unfortunately for him, the city is huge, so he has to keep alert for any sign of who he’s looking for. Hivetown in the morning is lethargic and quiet, but even with these few people in the streets, he’s not seeing any signs of his other self. If it were him…hm. If it were him, he’d be hiding under awnings, so Dirk dips low into the streets, flying through each one painstakingly until the noon sun climbs high in the sky. He’s going to give himself sunburn, but he’s lived on a hellish waterworld for sixteen years, he can survive this.
Other-him is nowhere to be found in this city, however, and neither is Three. A thought strikes him, and he stops mid-flight only a few meters away into the border of the next city. The First Guardian can’t look for the wind sister right now so he’s sent Three…does Dirk dare risk calling the cosmic entity down knowing full well the man can tear his limbs apart, especially with no one out here to vouch for him? Dirk’s not even sure if he’d survive that death, it’d probably be just in some way.
Perhaps as a last-minute choice, if the sun goes down and he still can’t find his other self. With that in mind, he continues his search, even stopping to ask the few locals out on the streets if they’ve seen a guy who looks like him, just in a white coat and with longer hair. None of them have seen anyone, sadly, so he asks if any of them have seen a guy with long dark hair and red eyes instead.
A lady brightens in recognition as he mentions that. “Guy with the fucked-up forearms?” she asks, and then motions to her left hand. “With a busted wrist?”
He tamps down the instinct to wince at that. Three was in a bad way after he’d helped bring Dirk back from his accidental drift; Dirk had forgotten that he was prone to magical poisoning whenever he overused Prince of Heart magic.
“Yeah, did you see him?” he asks.
“He was also looking for someone else.” The woman points behind her, down the street. “Some girl; I didn’t see her, but he was asking people around, and I saw him leave.”
“Did he describe what the girl he was looking for looked like?”
The woman’s eyes widen, freezing up.
“He left home looking for his sister, I’m looking for him because he’s sick right now and shouldn’t be walking around,” Dirk backtracks quickly so he doesn’t sound like a creep. Ah, fuck, what did the wind-girl look like so he can bluff? “I’ve only seen his sister in photos, I know she has – ” He motions to one side of his face. “ – hair that covers one eye, but that’s it. I need anything to find him before he makes himself worse.”
“He went down the road,” the woman says, expression warier by the minute.
Well, at least there’s a direction. He takes to the air again to see the layout of the highway: the main road forks into several streets ahead, which means Three could have gone anywhere. How hard is it to find one guy who dresses mostly in red, anyway?
Dirk visits every establishment that is still open to ask for Three’s and his other self’s whereabouts. A few people have seen Three walking around but have no idea where he went other than his general direction, which is farther and farther into Hivetown. Nobody at all has seen his other self, which is even more frustrating, because how did a man that imposing manage to walk past others without making a scene?
…it’s the lack of glasses isn’t it? Absolutely, it has to be. A guy in pointy anime shades is easy to remember, but a blond dude in a white coat who looks like he needs sleep could be any college student on the road. People would be minding their own business. Whatever he’s doing, they’re not asking, especially with that resting bitch face.
Maybe they went to Sun City. Four usually hangs out by Three’s house, so if she’s found some person and decided to hide them, it’s more likely for her to be on the other side of the island. With that in mind, Dirk heads over to the island’s flipside, glancing down every now and again to make sure he doesn’t miss the people he’s looking for while he’s going past.
The sky above him slowly turns from bright to a grayer blue, then to pinks and violets. There’s sadly no sightings of either Three or his other self in Sun City when he asks around, and after a few hours, he takes a break and gets a bottle of water from one of the free vending machines. There’s a bench nearby for him to sit, so he does that, leaning back and closing his eyes to rest. He's running out of time here. And patience. How fucking good at hiding is he anyway, that he's giving himself trouble with this?
He needs to focus. Clear his head. Do something.
…if he could pinpoint his other self’s location for even a moment, it’d be easier to find him.
He just needs to picture it clearly, step into the mind of the person he wants to drift with. There was a huge gap between him and his other self, clearly. The guy had extra years of experience and a whole different classpect under his belt, along with whatever baggage he has from the war. As people, they were completely different, and Dirk had no plans of ever becoming him if he could help it.
But he was still a Dirk Strider; there was something that bound them together. A common denominator.
He draws in a breath, tuning out the noises of the city around him, trying to focus, trying to let all the thoughts he’s kept in the backburner of his mind rise to the surface: the blinding pain of the heat on his throat, the anger and annoyance that was there during that fight, the surety that he needed to destroy the person standing in his way despite how familiar he was. He could envision this, picture this, become this.
But there were still those years between him and his other self, years where Dirk had no idea what would happen to him, years that would influence how the man was now. Whatever he imagines isn’t ever going to measure up to that: the weariness, the disillusionment, the hopelessness. He’s a child trying to grasp at straws, at things he doesn’t understand.
He should just go back and mind his own business, give this up. Besides, what the hell is he even doing out here?
Dirk’s eyes snap open. “What the fuck.”
It’s laughable, to an extent, how much a young man of his hubris thinks he can even begin to approach the level of skill needed for him to drift. As if the gap he needs to cross can be breached by simple assignment – as if genetics, personality, or magic are enough to overcome the gulf of tragedy.
“What the hell. Get out of my head.”
Ah, but isn’t this what you wanted? You wanted to drift, right? Well, drift – out into a vast unknown you have no idea how to overcome. Come out to sea, Prince. Drown.
“Stop.”
The –
– world snaps back into existence around him. Dirk blinks as he realizes that though his eyes had been open and he could see everything around him, he wasn’t truly seeing anything. He clutches his head, a pressure beginning to build between his eyes.
Okay, so trying to drift with his other self just gets him forced to feel and think things he absolutely isn’t feeling or thinking. Great. Wonderful. Maybe lucid semi-possession is kind of worse than completely losing time. Why the hell no one has Old Yeller’ed the man when he’s running around with this kind of ability, Dirk has no idea, but honestly, he’s probably made all of them sympathetic to his absolutely tragic plight of, oh, killing someone.
If the guy’s still scrounging around his head, Dirk hopes he hears that. The man is a murderer. He has absolutely no sympathy to spare for him.
Which is exactly why Dirk has to find him before he finds his old victim. Who the hell knows what he's going to do?
…would he really reach to that level of depravity? Could he really kill someone who was just trying to protect his world? If this guy is supposed to be his future self, is he really that far gone? What on earth happens to him?
Whatever, he’ll deal with that later. Dirk stands, staggering slightly as he takes a few steps forward and continues on his search.
He’s not going to turn out like that. Not if he has anything to say about it.
#
He turns out to be some war criminal who apparently once killed Four’s older brother (aptly named Three), and he’s back from his exile. He’s also the only person who might be able to help Davesprite return back to his world, which, uh, fucking sucks.
“Yep,” Four says cheerfully as Davesprite sits in his chair listening in silent horror at her retelling. Since the pub they were in earlier was closing down for the morning, they moved to a 24-hour bar down the street and holed up in one of the private rooms. “He killed Three. Tore his soul to pieces, in fact. It took forever to put him back together, and he’s not even all back right now.”
Davesprite turns to the man they’re talking about, sitting next to his sister with a decomposing wrist while his free hand is downing a shot of whiskey in one go. He makes a face, but gulps it down. “Helps with the pain,” he says when Dave stares at him for too long.
“What even happened to that?” Davesprite points to his wrist.
“When your soul is torn to shreds, it has to have something to hold it back together,” Four answers in his place when the guy says nothing and instead stands to get something else from the bar downstairs. “A godtier body is tailored to hold the soul and the magic of the person inside, so when there’s something else that shouldn’t be there in it, especially one that is so corrosive, it kind of melts you from the inside out.”
“Is he going to be okay, then?”
“Who knows?” Four shrugs. “Either he melts completely or he explodes if you shake the pieces too hard. Like a cocktail.”
The guy is a living bomb. What the hell. What the fuck. What is wrong with these people?
“So the only guy who can help me get back home is a serial killer – "
"Not a serial killer, there was no series of murders."
" – your brother's gonna pop like an inflatable if he gets shaken too hard, and your radioactive dog is gonna chew me to shreds if he finds me."
“Our First Guardian is sentient and humanoid, actually,” Four says. “And he's omniscient to an extent. The second Three found you, he already knew. Chances are, he’s letting you be because you’re not going off to the living world. It’s always safer for outsiders to stay on Kisaragi."
“So, what, he knows I’m staying in the play pen and it’s fine?”
“He’s a busy guy. If he knows you’re staying here, then he’s got one less thing to worry about. I think he just viewed you as some dog off a leash, but now that he knows you’re staying in an approved area and you mean no harm, he’s laying off,” she says. “If I had to guess what he’s thinking, I’d bet on that, at least.”
“And you are an effective better.”
Davesprite nearly jumps out of his fucking skin when someone’s suddenly siting next to him. The man beside him is completely paper white, from his hair to his eyelashes to his skin. His eyes are a bright green, the eye-searingness of his palette only offset by the darker shade of his green vest over a white dress shirt. He’s sitting in the booth beside Davesprite, arms crossed.
“I couldn’t care less about what you do, because our goals align. I want you off this island and you want to go home. Great,” the man says. “What concerns me is when someone – ” He levels Four with a glare. “ – hides your presence, and so I don’t know where you are, or if you could unknowingly be doing untold damage when unsupervised.”
Four lifts her hands in surrender. “I needed something from him.”
“Your little trades, yes.” The First Guardian scoffs.
The door to their private room opens and Three walks in with a tray of food and a bottle. Oh, he’s planning to get plastered tonight.
He’s not even surprised at the sudden appearance of the First Guardian as he sits down, instead holding the bottle out to him. The First Guardian makes a face.
“You know I hate that shit,” he says.
“Hey, your loss,” Three says, setting the bottle back down.
“If you throw up, I’m letting you choke on your own vomit.” The First Guardian turns his nose up in distaste. “Back to the matter at hand – Strider, you’re in luck that your ticket back home is here so quickly. After Three’s done with his little meltdown, or even before that if you’re up for it, we can head back to One’s house to begin discussing our options.”
“Uh.” Davesprite looks between the Guardian, Three, and Four. “Not to be excited, but I’m hearing this guy’s a criminal, right?”
“He is.”
“Yeah, see. You can imagine why I’m not looking forward to that,” he says. “Can I rent an apartment?”
“You are welcome to so long as you make no protest to our attempts to send you home,” the Guardian says.
“I'm not going to, I just don’t want to be in the same room as a guy who’s known to tear people’s souls to shreds.”
“Then you can be housed elsewhere.” The First Guardian nods. “I appreciate that you’re quite reasonable about this.”
“I don’t like being lost.”
The Guardian hums. Compared to the horror stories Four has told him, the man doesn’t actually seem that hostile or dangerous, even if he pings the uncanny valley sense in Davesprite’s head. And hey, who’s he to judge based on appearances? He’s part bird. Most of the time, at least, though not now.
“See, Three, you should make better friends,” the First Guardian chides.
“Mm, yeah, whatever,” Three says, more focused on his food than the conversation. “Everyone’s going home soon, anyway, what does it matter.”
“And hopefully everyone stops trying to make my job worse for me,” the First Guardian says with a sigh. “You and your siblings, I swear to – ” He stiffens for a moment, and then huffs. “There it is.”
“What?” Davesprite asks, just as Four and Three also lift their heads.
“Part of the reason why outside elements shouldn’t be staying in another universe for an extended period of time is because it will invite more in. Sometimes, those elements aren’t always the friendliest, or the most caring of the inhabitants who live in the universes they fall in.” The First Guardian stands. “There is something that's gotten stuck in the rift you’ve fallen from.”
That doesn’t sound good. Four stands with the Guardian, and after a sigh, Three also stands, though he still looks sickly and in pain. In fact, he looks even worse even though he’s tried to get some food in him, and some alcohol to numb the ache of his injury.
“If you’ll excuse me,” the Guardian starts, but both gods turn to him with meaningful looks, and he amends: “Very well, you do have your duties.”
“Hey, guy who doesn’t know his way around here.” Davesprite waves his hand. “If you take a while, I’m gonna be lost in fuckass nowhere.”
“I can keep an eye on him,” Four volunteers, an expression of mischief back on her face. Davesprite would rather not go anywhere with her when she looks like that, but he would also rather not be left to wander by himself if something goes wrong. And in his experience, things always go wrong: he played a game and his timeline got doomed, he jumped into a kernel and he got demoted to a fake version of himself, he fell to a new timeline and that went to shit too.
The First Guardian doesn't protest thankfully, and only nods. In a zap of green light, all four of them disappear from the bar and into the empty field he’d nearly crashed onto yesterday. It's evening here now.
Davesprite looks ahead to where the First Guardian is at the head of the group. The man looks up, so he follows the man's lead, peering up at the sky.
From the pulsing crack overhead, a huge spider leg is poking through.
Oh, something is about to go bad really fast.
#
Dirk sees the breach before he hears someone scream.
From where he’s at, the break in the sky is a flashing, sputtering hole that’s barely visible. The massive pitch black spider leg that pokes through it, however l, is crystal clear even this far away. Something’s gotten into the island, and it’s fucking huge.
It’s also an outside threat that could spell danger for Kisaragi’s inhabitants. Where danger is, the gods go; Three’s no doubt headed to that crack in the sky right now.
Dirk leaps to the air, flying forwards in a burst of energy he hadn’t even known was still in him. The spider leg has touched ground now and appears to be patting around, though with how huge it is, it’s moving very very slowly, a horrorterror constrained by the weight and gravity of a world designed for creatures much, much smaller than it. Below him, people are screaming in shock, several of them pulling their phones out to start recording or pointing the sight out to the people around them.
He leans forward as much as he can, willing his body to fly faster. He’s flown through deep space to get to people before, this is nothing. Kisaragi might be huge, but he can cover this distance.
The spider leg starts pushing, like the horrorterror is trying to push itself up from the hole it’s fallen into. Dust and debris explodes into the air as it comes down, trashing whatever ground it’s hitting. Dirk hopes it’s not an occupied area, or that people have been evacuated, at least. He retrieves his sword from his sylladex, keeping it in one hand as his destination gets nearer and nearer.
In the dim evening, the flash of bright green up ahead is eye-catching. The First Guardian has arrived, though there’s no sign of the gods yet, if they’re not already there. The spider leg draws in and then crashes down as it tries to push off again, kicking up more of the ground. Dirk grits his teeth as he draws nearer – nearer –
Out in the corner of his eye, a streak of white shoots up into the sky. He turns to it sharply, watching as it rises higher and higher, cresting to a peak meters above the hole in the sky where the horrorterror has fallen to. As Dirk himself speeds closer, he realizes that the white is his other self’s coat billowing in the wind.
The man unsheathes the katana on his hip, raising it high above his head as he reaches the apex of his flight.
A crack of thunder and a flash of pink lightning – and the horrorterror’s leg is split off the joint, black and violet blood spurting from the wound as the severed appendage hurtles down towards the ground. In seconds, it’s wrapped in green light and abruptly shrunk, shot back into the hole in the sky, which warps and seals back up though a small line remains. His older self continues his lightning-fast descent to the ground, landing in a crouch, still in the afterpose of his swing.
On the ground are four figures: the white-and-green form of the First Guardian, a girl which must be Four, a blond boy, and Three. Dirk descends and touches ground several meters away from them, closer to the forest than to the clearing.
His other self has landed right in front of Three, who’s frozen in place, body tense and expression carefully blank, though there’s quiet terror in his eyes. Dirk watches as his other self stays kneeling for a few more seconds, and then stands, right hand going to the sheath on his hip while the left swings his sword to the side, blood flying off of it and splattering on the ground. Strangely, the stains that remain on the blade are eaten by dark energy and burnt off, and when the sword is cleaned again, his other self tilts the sheath up properly so he can slide the blade back into it.
The man’s white coat is splattered with blood, as are the rest of his clothes and his face. He holds Three’s stare for a moment, the air tense –
“Hello, – ”
He inclines his head down and says something, a name, but though Dirk is sure he hears it, it leaves his awareness before he can even grasp what it is.
But Three relaxes, lifting his head as he returns the greeting.
“Hello, Dirk.”