A JSE Fanfic
Chapter Seven: A Change of Perspective
[This is part of an INCOMPLETE SERIES that I wrote in about 2018-2019. I don't know if I'll ever finish it, but I still think there's good stuff in it, and merit in reposting it here. Taking a break from the drama with the main characters, the detectives start digging around, and find there’s some weird things in the boys’ varied pasts. Could it all be connected?]
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It was definitely a strange case. When Detective Lydia Bowman decided to take it on, she thought it would be open-and-shut, easy. The kids said they were playing with their dad when he came to visit, and then they disappear in the night. The mother, Stacy Davidson, had no grudges, nobody who hated her, and loved her kids. Clearly, that meant the dad had gone crazy with grief and taken them. There was even precedence: the father had previously tried to off himself, back at the beginning of the divorce, because he couldn’t stand to be away from his kids and wife. History of mental instability was usually a warning sign when considering someone a suspect for a crime.

But then, Lydia and Malcolm had gone to actually question the father (Chase Brody, what a ridiculous name), and he hadn’t seemed…unstable. Okay, maybe he wasn’t in complete control of his life, judging by the state of his living room, but Lydia didn’t think he was a criminal. Her instincts said he was just kind of sad. And when you’ve been a detective for as long as she had, you learn to trust your instincts.

The police station was bustling, as usual. The city was in the middle of a crime wave, and that crazy vigilante in red wasn’t helping, despite their good intentions. Massaging her temple where a headache was blooming, Lydia slid into her desk chair with a sigh. She pushed aside a pile of paperwork and stared at her partner, sitting at his own desk across from her. Malcolm was staring very intently at his computer screen. “So, there’s no sign of the kids,” Lydia said without preamble. “And I don’t think Brody took them. Call me crazy, but it won’t change my mind. Have we reached a dead end or have you found something?”

Malcolm glanced at her. “Actually, maybe,” he said. “That doctor dude? The one who was arguing with you?”

“Mm-hmm, yes,” Lydia’s tone was calm, but her expression darkened. “That doctor dude” had been very disrespectful when the detectives were only trying to do their job. Lydia absolutely hated people like that.

“So, naturally, upon being told his name was ‘von Schneeplestein,’” Malcolm rolled his eyes, “I had to check to see if that was even a real name. Just for shits and giggles, I plugged it into our database, and, well…” Malcolm turned his computer monitor around so his partner could see. The words “MISSING PERSON REPORT” were clearly visible across the top of the page.

Intrigued, Lydia leaned closer. “August 3rd of last year,” she muttered as she read, working through her thoughts.”Reported by one Jackie Parker. Vanished after an unsuccessful operation left patient in a coma. Unsolved…” She frowned. “But…we just saw him. He certainly didn’t look missing.”

“That’s what I thought!” Malcolm nodded vigorously. “And look—” he clicked over to the picture included with the report. “Same person, only wearing glasses and healthier-looking.”

“Okay…” Lydia leaned back. “So, are you saying Brody had something to do with this guy’s disappearance, and that’s why he was with him? But why? And how?”

“I dunno.” Malcolm turned the monitor back around. “Obviously, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. There could be a very reasonable explanation, and we could be turning into conspiracy nuts. Still…I’m gonna run a facial recognition search. Just one. ‘Cause these guys are doppelgangers of each other, so things should come up for both.”

At that moment, a uniformed cop poked his head around the corner. “Sorry, Bowman, Akela,” he said. “But there’s a lady here demanding answers for her case. Name of Davis, I think.”

“Davidson,” Lydia sighed. “What perfect timing!” She pushed away from the desk and stood up. “I’ll go talk to her. When I come back, fill me in on the results of the search.” Malcolm gave her a thumbs up as she left.

Ms. Stacy Davidson was sitting on a bench in the foyer of the police station. Her curling, white-blond hair was tied up in a ponytail, and she still wore the red vest and skirt that was the uniform at the diner where she worked. She was clutching her purse tightly and tapping her feet, brown eyes darting left and right. She shot to her feet upon catching sight of Lydia. “Detective Bowman,” she trilled.

“Ms. Davidson,” Lydia nodded. “I was told you wanted to see me.”

“Yes, yes, you heard right.” Stacy was trying very hard to keep cool, but Lydia could hear the strain in her voice. “I just wanted to know if there are any updates. After all, this is a very important case, children don’t go missing often. It makes sense that, as the mother—”

Lydia cut off Stacy’s clearly well-rehearsed speech. “There hasn’t been any breakthroughs. We talked to your ex-husband, and we found nothing suspicious.”

“Really?” Stacy drawled disbelievingly. Then, catching herself, she rushed to say “I-I mean, I thought the evidence would tell the story.”

“What a child says usually isn’t very reliable. They’re very imaginative,” Lydia pointed out. “If Mr. Brody is hiding something, he’s unusually well-practiced at lying.” He had been rather nervous, but he just discovered his children were missing and the police had their eye on him. Even as a cop herself, Lydia could understand where the nerves were coming from.

“Maybe you should do some digging? Isn’t that what detectives do?” Stacy said desperately.

“That’s what we’re doing, but nothing’s turned up.” Lydia considered asking Stacy about the strange doctor who shared her ex’s face. “You don’t think that somebody who merely LOOKS like your husband could’ve taken your children, masquerading as him?” She tried to ask the question as discreetly as possible.

“Oh.” Stacy scowled. “Well, there ARE those weird friends of his. They all kind of look the same.”

“Really? How many of them are there?”

“Hard to say. I think there are…four? No…” Stacy bit her lip in thought. “No, a couple of them are gone, I think. Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know. There’s tw—no, three. Another one popped up a while ago. You’re saying one of them could’ve taken Bobby and Trevor?”

“We need to take everything into consideration. And we’re doing everything in our power to find your children. Now, if you would please, we have work to do…” Lydia tried to be as gentle as possible. Still Stacy huffed, before correcting herself with a smile and a nod. She turned and left, and Lydia sighed in relief. She was sure Stacy was a lovely lady, and she certainly cared for her kids, but she had a bit of an unpleasant streak covered by politeness, and she seemed determined to hate her ex. What did he even do?

“Please tell me you have a good solid lead,” Lydia muttered as she sat back down at her desk.

“Um…no?” Malcolm sounded very unsure.

“What d’you mean ‘um, no?’ How can you have an ‘um’ in this situation? You either have a lead or you don’t.”

“Well, I mean—okay, look, there were way more results than I thought there would be.” Malcolm gave Lydia a confused and exasperated look. “So, the first things that came up were YouTube videos. Apparently Chase Brody runs a channel called ‘Bro Average.’”

“Lame,” Lydia rolled her eyes.

“You don’t even know anything about it.”

“The name’s stupid. I can see why Ms. Davidson doesn’t like his job. What came up next?”

“I’m not done talking about YouTube yet. Because the next results were for a channel called ‘jacksepticeye.’ A gaming channel, as opposed to Brody’s trick shots. Run by a man named Jack McLoughlin. Nineteen million subscribers and counting. Seems like a nice guy, he’s donated to charity. Oh yeah, and he also looks eerily similar to Chase Brody. And knows him.” Malcolm turned the monitor around once again, showing Lydia a picture of two guys, both with brown hair dyed green, laughing at the camera. The did look really, really similar. Could’ve been twins.

“So, I just asked Ms. Davidson if her ex has any friends who look just like him,” Lydia said slowly. “And she said yes, there were quite a few. Two apparently disappeared, though. And now there are three. Maybe one of them was the doctor. By any chance, has this Jack guy vanished mysteriously?”

“No, he’s still uploading YouTube videos and doing other stuff. But there’s more.” Malcolm clicked to the next page of results. “This comes from our own database. Recognize the name?”

Lydia squinted. “Jackie Parker? Wait…didn’t they report the doctor missing?”

“Yep. Apparently, Mr. Parker went to the police academy, but dropped out in his final year. See?” Malcolm clicked over to the academy’s enrollment form, filled out. Then over to the next page, highlighting a lack of a diploma. “Shame, too, he was near the top of his class.”

“And this guy also looks like…well, all the others!” Lydia half-shouted. “How many of them are there?!”

“At least one,” Malcolm said with a slight grin. “Next page is just medical news about the doctor, confirming that yes, his real name is actually Schneeplestein, but after that—you’re gonna love this.” Two more clicks brought the detectives to a screenshot from an online news site. The headline read “Magician Gone Mad! Misfire at Marvin the Magnificent’s Latest Performance.” Beneath the bold letters was a picture of a man in a tuxedo and a mask shaped like a cat, with bright green hair. Farther down in the article was another picture of him, revealing that he also looked like…well, everyone else in this godforsaken case.

“Hmm, drama.” Lydia tilted her head. “Nothing better than tabloids picking at celebrity’s reputations.”

“Actually, this is a credible source, has a printed paper and everything. Checked it.” Malcolm leaned forward. “This guy, this famous magician guy, had some sort of psychotic break when the effects at his latest show went awry. Security had to wrestle him to the ground. And then he went in for a psych eval, and you’ll never guess who did it.” Malcolm highlighted one line of the article.

“No way. No way.” Lydia gaped. “It’s the same dude. Nobody else has that name.”

“Yep.” Malcolm grinned triumphantly.

“…okay, I know it’s literally our job to put the pieces together, but I have no idea what this could mean. They must all know each other, but is that important to the case?”

“Haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Anymore carbon copies?”

“Nah, the next few pages are all from some conspiracy website. Apparently there’s a time traveler from the 1920′s who shows up every time there’s an unsolved murder. Interesting, but complete bullshit.”

“Now now, I thought we were supposed to be open-minded to every option,” Lydia teased.

“Not to time travel!” Malcolm threw his hands up in exasperation. “I mean, yeah, theoretically we could go forward in time, but that requires a shitload of energy that we don’t have right now, and certainly didn’t have in the 1920′s!”

“Alright, I’m just messing with ya,” Lydia laughed.

“I know, I know. It’s working, too.” He scowled, then sighed. “So…should we go talk to the father again? Maybe ask if any of his clone friends were hanging around the wife’s house the day of the kids’ disappearance?”

“Maybe we could head back to the house ourselves,” Lydia suggests. “Ask the neighbors again. I know none of them saw anything, but maybe time has jogged their memories.”

“Yeah…we could try out a few new questions.” Malcolm nodded, looking thoughtful. “And I’d like to find out more about this collection of look-alikes. I get the feeling they have something to do with this whole thing. Come on, let’s go.”

“Now?”

“Do you have anything better to do?”

“…no.”

“Then yes, now.”

As the two detectives gathered up their things, Lydia couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody—or something—was watching them. And she got the impression that the source of that feeling was the computer screen…which was now glitching between the results of the search like it was reading through the information all on its own…

Part Two of The Stitched AU
A JSE Fanfic
[This is part of a completed fanfic series of mine with 24 total chapters. I started this October of 2018 and finished it May of 2021. After a strange, tragic event seemed to kill their friends Marvin and Jackie, Jack is attacked by a strange being. He and Chase visit a man named JJ who has knowledge of magic. They try to discover the truth of Anti, and are surprised to find him connected to Jackie and Marvin.]
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“You are lucky to not be dead.”

Jack couldn’t help but poke at the wound on his neck. He winced. “I’m lucky I know the best doctor in the world,” he said quietly. He didn’t want to tear the stitches.

Schneep huffed, but couldn’t hold back a smile. “Well, yes, I am a qualified doctor. But that is no reason for you to play with knives.”

“It was Halloween, bro.” Chase piped up for the first time since his arrival. He was leaning against the doorway of the hospital room, trying his best to look casual when he’d just been hovering nervously by Jack seconds before. “Pumpkin carving is a tradition, you know. How was he supposed to know he’d cut himself?”

Jack shifted uncomfortably on the hospital bed. For a moment, he wondered if he should just stay silent. But honesty was always the best policy. If what happened was real, then they had a serious threat to deal with. If it wasn’t, then they could figure out why the hell he was seeing things. “Well, actually, guys…I didn’t exactly do it myself.”

Immediately, Schneep and Chase jumped to attention. “Why? What happened?” “Should we call the police?”

“No, I…you guys are gonna think I’m crazy,” Jack sighed.

“No way, dude.” Chase shook his head. “We’d never think that.”

“I—you haven’t even heard what it is.” Jack muttered. “Okay, here goes…so, like, for a couple weeks now, I’ve had a feeling like something is watching me. But not at times when that would make sense, I mean all the time. And sometimes I’d see things out of the corner of my eye, or hear whispers that aren’t there.”

“Jack, I do not think I am the right kind of doctor for these problems,” Schneep said, half-joking.

“No, no, let me finish. So, sometimes I’d get nosebleeds out of nowhere, and sometimes I started, like, walking down to the shop or something but then a split second later I’d be back home, like there was a—a glitch in the fabric of reality. And I’d start laughing or hearing laughter for no reason.”

“Okay…so what does that have to do with this business?” Chase asked.

“So, I was doing the video, just like normal, and I’d keep hearing noises. When I went to check them out, nothing. I got another nosebleed, heard more laughing, and just…it just seemed like everything that was happening that month got dialed up to eleven. And then, after I got the pumpkin all finished and was about to do some fine cleaning…I just—I fucking have no idea how to describe it. My arm was moving on its own and it was like—it was like there was someone else in my head, like…squeezing it. And this thing was controlling my arm and it—it did the thing.”

Silence. Jack tried not to squirm as his two friends exchanged glances. They looked worried. “Jack…what I said before was joke, but I really think you should talk to a different doctor,” Schneep suggested haltingly.

“You haven’t even heard the weirdest part.” Jack shook his head. “It—he talked to me. He called me weak…and…” He swallowed nervously. He didn’t really want to talk about the things he said after he cut his throat and used his body like a puppet. So he skipped to the most important part. “Anyway, after he left, or retreated, or whatever, I saw him. And he looked a lot like me, but…wearing different clothes. He looked like a living computer glitch.”

“You sure you weren’t just…hallucinating?” Chase asked. “I mean, you’d lost a lot of blood by the time I came to check on you.”

“I know, I know, it’s a real possibility. But the weirdest thing was his neck. It was—was also cut open, but it was stitched close. With green string. But it wasn’t doing a very good job at keeping the wound closed, and the stitches were pulling apart…and I got the strangest feeling I knew him.”

Schneep walked over to the counter nearby and grabbed a pen and pad of paper. He wrote down something real quick, then came back and handed it to Jack. “I think you should check out Dr. Laurens. She is very good. Not to say you have to, but I think it would help.”

“Wait, doc, hang on a second.” Chase frowned thoughtfully. “I think…maybe…”

Schneep glared at him. “Chase, do not encourage him,” he said through gritted teeth, trying to keep Jack from hearing. “I know you are wanting to help but it will not to do this.”

“All I’m saying is—I mean—I’m wondering—” Chase stopped, gathering his thoughts. “So, I know you remember what happened a little under a year ago. I do too.”

The doctor’s expression immediately darkened. Nobody needed a reminder of what happened to Marvin and Jackie. It was bad enough that the double murder—or possibly murder-suicide, nobody could agree—got an unholy amount of media attention, given that no one could figure out what actually happened. One had a slit throat, the other held the knife, both were dead but only one was injured, and they were inside a circle drawn on the floor like some sort of ritual. How and why did they even die? And then the police found Jackie’s super suit hidden in the closet and all sorts of shady websites on Marvin’s computer. That only made things more complicated.

“Well, it can’t be a coincidence that the same kind of cut appeared on Jack nearly a year later,” Chase pointed out. “And they were probably doing some kind of magic, right? Maybe black magic? Doesn’t what Jack said sound like he got attacked by a black magic demon or something?”

Jack smiled. He hadn’t really thought of the possibility that what happened to Marvin and Jackie could be connected to the thing that attacked him, but it was nice to know that Chase thought there was an explanation besides him being crazy. Schneep, on the other hand, looked doubtful. “I do not mean to speak ill of the dead, but Marvin believed in things that could not exist. If he dragged Jackie into his shit, then that was between them. But it had nothing to do with their deaths.”

“You don’t know that,” Chase snapped. “Maybe there was some sort of sacrifice or something, and things went wrong.”

“For god’s sake, do you really think JACKIE would be part of black magic?” Schneep threw his hands up in the air. “Have you ever heard anyone speak out against evil more than him?”

“I mean…the dark side can be tempting, bro,” Chase mumbled.

“I am not being part of this. I am leaving, I have other patients to check on. Jack, please at least try to visit Dr. Laurens. She can help more that mindless speculation.” Schneep stuck around long enough to see Jack nod in agreement, then quickly left.

“Jack…you think that…” Chase hesitated, then said the next few words in a rush. “D’you think that if we find out more about what attacked you we could find out what happened to them?”

Jack hesitated. There was a bit of desperation shining in Chase’s eyes. No, actually, there was a lot. Jack couldn’t blame him. A lot of terrible shit had hit Chase at that moment in time, shit that led to…well, it made sense that he wanted his friends back. Jack did too. But also, he just really wanted to know what the deal with this thing was. Why was he targeting them? “I mean, maybe,” Jack shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. And if there’s really a demon out there, we need to protect ourselves. But how do we do that?”
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The next day, Chase and Jack found themselves standing outside a little shop on the edge of town. The window showed a display made of books, amulets, and hanging talismans. The sign identified the shop as “Jackson Magick Emporium.”

“So, this place is, like, legit, right?” Chase asked.

Jack pulled on the bandages around his neck. “I mean, as much as one of these places can be. The website seemed to know what they were talking about, and there were good reviews from people who weren’t nutters. So…let’s go in.”

A bell ding-a-linged to announce their arrival into the shop. Chase blinked. “Good god, did we just step back in time or something?” The front room of the shop looked a lot like a living room from the early twentieth century, but with the addition of a counter with a cash register and price tags on the various knickknacks scattered on the tables. It was a pleasant place, pastel blue in color and well-lit with yellow lamps. But nobody was there.

“They head the bell, right?” Jack wondered, glancing over at the little silver instrument hanging by the door.

“Don’t see how they could’nt’ve.” Chase wandered over to one of the tables and picked up the leather-bound book on its surface. He turned it over in his hands. It did look like something Marvin would’ve had. This must be the right sort of place.

“I’d advise you to put that down.”

Chase jumped, looking around for the source of the voice. A well-dressed man in a blue vest and black hat was coming out of a door behind the counter. He…weirdly enough, he looked pretty similar to Jack and Chase, just with a mustache. Did Jack have some sort of doppelganger magnet attached to him?

“Sorry,” Chase mumbled, putting the book back.

“Quite alright. You had no idea. But I must warn you that it’s very old and fragile.” The man walked around the counter and approached the two. He gave a friendly smile and stuck out his hand. “My name is Jameson Jackson, but you may call me JJ if you like. Welcome to my shop. How may I help you?”

Jack shook his hand. “Hello. I’m Jack and this is my friend Chase. We, uh…” He looked over to Chase for support, but he just shrugged. “So I went onto your website and saw that you did a thing where you could get rid of, like…evil spirits and shit.”

“Well, I wouldn’t use that type of language,” JJ frowned. “But yes, that is correct.”

“Okay, so, you see…I mean it’s been happening for a while, but last night it really…really, um…” Jack fidgeted with the bandages again. “So, I’m not wearing these for fun. You see what I’m talking about?”

JJ’s brows furrowed. “Yes, I think I’m getting the gist of it. Why don’t we go into the other room? I can make us some tea and you can tell me everything, at your own pace of course.”

The other room looked pretty much the same, but red instead of blue and no items for sale. The main piece of furniture was a table and chairs in the center, but there were a few drawers and chests along the edge for holding things, along with a small stove. Jack and Chase sat down and spilled out the whole story, starting with Marvin and Jackie’s mysterious incident last year, and ending with Jack’s account of this thing taking control of his body and seeing it afterward. By the time their tale had ended, the tea was long finished. JJ set a cup in front of each of them, then joined them at the table. He leaned forward and rested his head on his hands.

“So, do you have any idea what your friends were actually messing about with?” he asked in a quiet voice, as if afraid someone would overhear.

Jack shook his head. “No, sorry.”

“They were in a circle?”

“Yeah, with candles around the edges. Is that…is that helpful?”

“Not very, unfortunately. Most spells—or at least, most heavy-duty spells—take place in a protective circle. It’s meant to protect the casters from outside dangers and keep any misfires contained inside. Do you remember anything else? Did they discover any spellbooks or charms?”

“I don’t remem—”

Chase interrupted. “Wait, I think…I think there was some weird things. A bunch of burned paper, and…and there were two weird necklaces, but…I dunno about those ones.”

“Explain.”

“Well, Schneep—he’s a friend of ours, a doctor—showed me the police report of the crime scene. They were both wearing them, and they were when he saw the bodies, but later, when he asked the cops about where those necklaces went, they swore there weren’t any.”

“Hmm…” JJ took a sip of the tea, thoughtful. “Disappearing amulets…that is unusual. Depending on their purpose, we could guess at the spell they were trying. Hang on.” He stood up, walked over to a chest and rummaged it, then came back with a book with a red cover. He opened it, revealing that the book had been patched together with pages tied into the lining, like an old-fashioned kind of binder. They were covered with ink drawings of various amulets, with explanations of what each did. “Did your friend happen to describe them?”

“Uhhh…” Chase cast a line back into the waters of memory. “This is a recall of a recall of a glance, so don’t take this too seriously. But they were white…a bit teardrop-shaped.”

“Wait wait wait I saw those!” Jack nearly knocked over his teacup in excitement. “He was wearing them! They had these weird designs on them, and they were glowing green.”

JJ slid the book toward him. “Do you think you could identify them?”

“Maybe…I didn’t really see them that good.” Jack started flipping through the pages, then suddenly stopped. He looked around. “It’s happening again…” he muttered. “I feel like someone’s watching us…”

Chase, confused, said “What?” But JJ didn’t hesitate, shooting to his feet and dashing to the drawers, pulling them open and glancing at the contents before slamming them shut again.

“What are you looking for?” Jack asked, nervous.

“Either protection or the source of that feeling,” Jameson explained. “If you can, help me look.”

“We don’t know—oh, alright.” Jack didn’t want a repeat of Halloween night. He stood up, pulled Chase upward too, and ran toward the drawers. He figured he’d know if something was important. The drawers were filled with books and loose papers with strange writing, crude dolls with paint on them, amulets and other magickal jewelry, and so many other talismans that Jack couldn’t identify. Nothing stood out.

Until Jack heard a sudden shriek.

His head whipped around, and he saw Chase standing in front of an open drawer with a look of absolute shock and horror on his face. He held something in his hand, a pair of teardrop-shaped amulets dangling from strings. They glowed green, but the glow couldn’t mask the cracks that marred their surfaces.

“Chase! Drop it!” Jameson yelled.

Startled, Chase did exactly that. The amulets clattered to the surface. There was a sound, a sound in the back of their minds that seemed to be coming from the broken talismans. It was a high whine, punctuated with electronic-sounding crackling. Or was it laughing?

“How’d they get there?” Chase asked, breathless.

“They came with him,” Jack muttered.

It was definitely laughter. Then Jack heard, directly in his ear, “I’m so p̶ro̡u̡d, J̷ąck͝ie̴bo̢y.”

With a yelp, Jack whirled around, but nobody was there. Chase and Jameson, who’d apparently also heard something similar, were looking around wildly as well. The room seemed darker. The whine was growing louder.

“Where are you?” Jameson asked. “Show yourself!”

A giggle. “You’d lik̵e̵ that, wou̡l͞dn̕'͢t͝ yo͢u҉? A neat little ta͡r̴g̨et to throw your s͠p̛e͞l̡ls̶ at? Oh wait, I f͝or͠g̕o̶t, you don’t a̦̝̤̱̥c̗̭͝t̮̤̭̝u͈̭͓̰͈a̦ḻl̩̦͈y̠͟ have any m͏ag̢ic̢..” The voice bounced around the room, seeming to come from the corner one moment and the center the next.

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Jameson said.

“Oh, I̢̕ ̨͏k͏n̸̕o͠w̸͠.” He sounded amused now.

“What are you?” Jack cried.

“Can’t you t̶e͟ll? I’m y̕͢o̢͞͠u̷̶ , of course, J̮̪̘̯͝a̵̟̣̻ͅc̨̘̬͓͖̭̞̳̲̟k̛̼̣̝̞̹̹͍̬i̖̞̭͝e͏͓͢b̷̨̫̗̗̕o̤͔̝͖y̖͕̣.”

“N-no…” Jack whispered. “No, you’re not. If anything, you’re the anti-me.”

“ Ą̴n͢͠t͞i̶..oh, I l͟i̸̛ke̵ that. V͠e̡r̵y̛ m҉uch͝.”

“Great, you just named it,” Chase grumbled. Jack noticed his hands were shaking, and his eyes were darting everywhere.

He—Anti—laughed again, and the lights flickered at the same time. Jack felt the feeling of being watched lighten up, and the white noise seemed to shift…to Chase. “ Y̕o͞u’re putting on sųch͢ a b̷͝r̴͞av̧e fa͏͝c̶͢e, but I can taste the f̛e̵̷a҉̨r̶͝ i͝n͡ y̢o̕ur m͏̕͟i͟͠n͞d̷̸̶. It’s dȩ̴l̛ic̶i͠o͡u̡s̸͢.”

The flickering intensified. Jack’s eyes widened as Chase’s shadow shifted, contorted, then stepped away from the wall. “Chase, watch out!” Jack yelled. He started to run toward him, and Chase himself tried to turn around, but it was too late. Anti was real, and he was holding a knife to Chase’s throat.

Jack froze in place.

“ G̨ood i̢ḑea, J̷̶a̧ck͏̷i̛e̕.” Anti bared his teeth in what would’ve been a smile on anyone else, but on him it could only be seen as a threat. He did indeed look a lot like Jack, but his form was spazzing out and glitching at every moment, coming apart in pixels. The upper half of his face was hidden in shadows that twisted and writhed, strands of green light trying to form a symbol on the center of his forehead. The wound on his neck wasn’t just a cut, but a wide gash weeping blood. Green stitches were trying to keep it closed.

“What do you want?” Jack whispered.

“What do I w̶̡a͡n̵̴t̸̸?” Anti repeated the question, tilting his head like a predator sizing up its prey. “First, I want to see if y͡ou̴r f̢r҉iend he͠r̶e̡ b̵̶le̷e̢d̴̡s͟͠ like you, if your faces are t͢he ͝s̶a̡m̡e. Then…well, you͠'l̷l ͡soon fin͢d ͢o̧u̢t̵. I wouldn’t want to s̴po͠į͟l e̦̼v̖̫̱̰͇e͏̰r̤̜͝y̪̼͖̙̙̕t̥h̪͎̙̱i̖n̦̻̭̹͈̼̮͝g͢ for you.”

Chase’s eyes were wide, and he held perfectly still. The knife was glitching ever so slightly. As Jack watched, it nicked Chase’s neck and a single drop of blood trickled down his throat. Jack sucked in an panicked breath. What could he do? Was there anything he could do?

Suddenly, Anti’s smile dropped. His head snapped—quite literally, the sound accompanied by a shattering of pixels—toward Jameson. Jack realized that he’d been awfully quiet during the whole confrontation. And it was because he was preparing. Several drawers were hanging open. There was a tall blue candle burning on the table, surrounded by strange symbols written in red chalk. Jameson held a golden amulet out in front of him, a golden square with a purple gem in the center. It was emitting a faint white light. He grinned triumphantly. “What were you saying about magic?”

Anti growled. “ F̵̮͎̠̭̮̯͇͟i̛͓̦̠͖͈̥̹̞̕n͎̰̠̙̻͟e͖̱̼̬. I’ll l̶͟e͠t ̛͝yǫ͝u win t͞͠͡hiş ti̷͞m̶̧̢e. But this i̛sn'͏̶t ̧̕o̢v̵̡e͞r̛.” Reality flickered, and shattered. When everything was set back to normal, the room was light again, Chase was gasping for air, and Anti and the amulets were gone. “S͏҉e̵̡e̶ ̸yo̸͡u͟ ̧s͏o̶̡o̸͢n͢͞.” One last whisper around their minds, and they felt his presence disappear.

Silence.

After a long while, Jack turned to JJ and said, “You have to teach us how to do that.”

JJ smiled shakily. “A strong and more specific variant of the banishing. I wasn’t sure it would work. But it was better than the alternative.”

“You can say that again.” Chase almost reached up to prod the small cut on his neck, but stopped himself. “We need to tell Schneep about this. Let’s see him deny it in the face of three eyewitnesses.”

“He’ll find a way to.” Jack sighed. “But we gotta convince him. He could be in trouble too.”

And still, Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew who Anti was, and not just because he shared his face. There was something eerily familiar…like a favorite song that had been twisted and distorted into a different tune entirely.