Part Twenty-One 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. The group gains a couple of new allies, just in time for a new enemy to confront them.]
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With a small ding! the doors to the elevator opened, and Jack stepped out onto the ground floor. He looked left, then right, then down at the note in his hand. "Investigating Storage Room 1, first floor, 3:00. On the right side, look for nameplate."

They’d been in the Sanctuary for almost two weeks now. There had been no sign of trouble, but none of them had dared leave the building anyway. The result was a mixture of stress and boredom. But yesterday, something finally happened. Yvonne met with them and said that the magicians had finally gotten around to analyzing the strings. After some talking, Jack had volunteered to meet up with the magicians and relay the information back to the others. Of course, now that he was here he was feeling somewhat nervous, but he pushed that aside.

Folding the note and putting it in his pocket, Jack turned right and soon found the door they had directed him to, identifiable by a nameplate on the wall nearby. At a glance, it didn’t look too different from any other door in the Sanctuary. It didn’t have any of the numbers that the hotel-like rooms did, but then again, not all of them did. He wouldn’t have paid any attention to it at all, which might’ve been the point.

After a couple seconds, the door opened, revealing Delyth standing there. “Oh good, you’re here,” she said. “You’re early.”

Jack laughed nervously. “Well, I wanted to make sure, y’know? Is being early a problem?”

“No, not at all. Please, come inside.” Delyth stepped away so that Jack could walk into the room, closing the door behind him as soon as he had.

Contrary to its door, the room beyond was MUCH stranger than the rest of the Sanctuary. It was dimly lit, with only a few lamps dangling from the ceiling casting concentrated beams of yellow light onto the floor. Not that there was much floor space at all. The room was filled with boxes. Neatly stacked, bigger ones on the bottom, all made out of metal with a coppery sheen. Each box had a label and what looked like a colorful warning symbol, like the sort that was put onto hazardous materials. Jack couldn’t remember if the symbol had a specific name, but he remembered it was a diamond made of four colors. These symbols were similar, except they were circular, divided into four colorful sections with another circle in the center.

In the middle of the room was a table. Delyth was quick to guide Jack over towards it. Yvonne was already there, as well as an older man with dark hair and a beard, both of which looked like they’d been hit by lightning. The man was wearing a coat that was decorated like a labcoat, but dark blue and with a symbol of a four-pointed star on the lapel. Oh the table was one of the coppery boxes, about the size and shape of a shoebox, and a strange device with several large lenses attached.

“Jack, this is Mr. Griffin, he’s one of the wizards studying at this Sanctuary,” Delyth explained.

“Pleasure to meet you, young man,” the older man said in a precise British accent.

Jack couldn’t help but stare. “Uh, yeah, the pleasure’s all mine. You…you’re a wizard, then?”

“I’m not what you were expecting, I understand,” Griffin laughed. “It’s alright, I get that reaction a lot, I’m very used to it.”

Jack laughed a bit as well. “Well, as long as I’m not the first.” He sighed, then returned to the seriousness of the moment. “Anyway, what’ve you found?”

“Well, I’ve examined these strings—”

“We’ve examined them,” Yvonne interrupted. “I helped, don’t forget.”

“Yes, Bell has been very helpful,” Delyth said, sounding as though she’d rather not admit it. “Her knowledge as a soul magician is valuable.”

Yvonne puffed herself up proudly.

“Anyway, we’ve examined them,” Griffin continued. He tapped the side of the box, and Jack leaned forward to look at it. The box actually had a lid, though he hadn’t noticed it since it was made of glass, giving a clear look into the inside of the box. The strings tangled about, writhing like worms and slamming against the sides. “These are not actually physical strings.”

“They’re not physical?” Jack asked, confusion obvious. “But…they can, like, touch things. Interact with them.”

“That’s true, but they’re not made of actual matter,” Griffin explained. “You see, magic can become solid, if concentrated enough. So they’re more like energy than anything else.”

“I…but…isn’t there a thing about how you can’t touch energy? Isn’t that what e=mc2 is all about? Something like that?”

“Magic follows its own rules,” Delyth said. “Just accept that if you take enough magic together, it can become a tangible thing.”

Jack nodded slowly. He figured it was best not to think about this too much. “Okay. So they’re just magic?”

“They’re more than just magic, actually,” Griffin said, suddenly grave. “They’re very dark magic.”

Delyth nodded. “From what we’ve figured out, the strings were most likely caused by a black magic spell backfiring. Terribly backfiring.” She sighed. “That’s the cost of dark magic. It may seem easy, but when it goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. Not to mention the effect it’ll have on a magician’s mind and soul.”

“A spell backfiring…” Jack muttered. “We…thought that Marvin and Jackie cast a spell. And we thought that it went wrong, too.” He paused. “Transference.”

“It’s all my fault!” Yvonne suddenly blurted out. She slammed her hands on the table, looking pale. “That book was in my shop. Marvin saw it, he wanted to borrow it, and I-I didn’t think anything of it! When he gave it back, it looked fine, but he could’ve easily copied—”

“Bell!” Delyth looked shocked. “You had a book with a transference spell in your shop?”

“Yeah,” Yvonne mumbled. “I thought it would sell for a lot. I never would’ve dreamed it could lead to all…all this. If I knew, I never would’ve stocked it.”

“You shouldn’t have been selling a book with that spell in the first place!” Delyth scolded. “Think of all the harm it could do!”

“Well, it’s not really my fault if someone wants to buy it, is it, Mae?” Yvonne said angrily. “If someone showed up looking for a book like that, then they knew exactly what they were doing. There are warnings with each spell and they’re very descriptive, if anything happened, it was on them!” She stopped, then slowly deflated. “At least, that’s what I thought at the time. If I knew…if I knew…”

“There’s never just one person responsible for a spell backfiring,” Griffin said. “Nor the consequences of it. Your Marvin friend shouldn’t have used the spell in the first place.”

Yvonne took a deep, shaky breath. “A-anyway, that’s what the strings are probably from. That spell going tops-up.”

Jack was silent for a moment, watching the strings in the box as they wriggled. “But…okay, if they’re just magic, that’s fine. But why are they moving? Why do they…it seems like they always make a beeline for Jackie and Marvin, why is that?”

“Ah. Well…” Griffin paused, stroking his beard. “This is where Ms. Bell comes into play.”

“Right.” Yvonne straightened her shoulders, collecting herself. “Jack, this—” She patted the device with the lenses “—is one of the many tools we use in soul magic. We, uh, don’t really know what souls are, to be honest. But we know that with this, we can at least see them. It helps us visualize souls into something more…tangible.” She slid two of the lenses into place and angled them so that Jack could look through them at the strings. “Go on, have a peek.”

Jack hesitated, then leaned over. He gasped. His view of the strings had suddenly been magnified by a thousand percent. He could see that the glowing strings were actually woven together of smaller threads, which appeared translucent when looked at individually. Caught in the woven threads, too small for anyone to see with the naked eye, were tiny, broken lights. Blue and red. They couldn’t have been bigger than dust motes, and there weren’t that many of them, but they shined with light.

“This is…kinda fucked up, honestly,” Yvonne said. “The bits of light you’re now seeing are actually bits of…soul.”

“Holy fuck…” Jack had to take a step back.

“I used a similar device to look at Marvin when he was at my flat,” Yvonne explained. “And his soul looked…broken. My only thought is that when he and Jackie performed the transference, both their souls were broken. And bits of them got mixed in with these strings, which must be the magic cast by the transference. It probably had nowhere to go, so it solidified.”

“That…that must be the case,” Jack breathed. “I mean, they’re even the same colors.”

Silence.

Jack, noticing the sudden quiet, looked around. All the magicians were staring at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“What do you mean…colors?” Delyth asked.

“The, uh, the lights are red and blue. Just like Marvin and Jackie’s souls,” Jack explained.

“Wh—” Yvonne choked.

“You can…can you see souls?” Griffin asked.

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” Jack tapped the area below his left eye. “Only with this eye, though. JJ and I think that when he used his magic to replace the one I lost, it kind of overcompensated.”

“And…these souls have colors?” Griffin asked again, looking very interested in this.

“Yeah. Of course.” Jack looked back and forth at the others. “Are they…not supposed to?”

“Even with the Lens, all souls appear colorless,” Yvonne said in a hushed tone. “Even to soul magicians like me. They’re all…white light.”

“Oh. I guess…I’m special, then? Because they definitely have color to me.” Jack closed his right eye. “Yeah, I can see all yours now. Delyth’s is purple like her magic, Yvonne’s is blue with a bit of purple, Mr. Griffin’s is bright, and I mean BRIGHT, yellow, and mine is green. Huh. Also all yours are kinda…sparkly? Mine isn’t. Yours kinda looks like how JJ’s is, but different.”

“Wait, can you see—are you maybe seeing our magic?” Griffin gasped. “That’s incredible!”

“Uh, thanks, I guess. I had no say in it.” Jack opened his eye and laughed. “It’s a bit ironic that I can see all these colors and you guys can’t, I’m actually slightly colorblind.”

“Okay, but the soul bits in the strings match Marvin’s and Jackie’s,” Yvonne hurried to say. “The colors here are the same as the colors of their souls?”

“Yeah.”

“That confirms it, then,” Delyth nodded. “The strings are attracted to them due to having parts of them inside. They want to be reunited.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing in principle,” Yvonne said slowly. “Except for the fact that Marvin got a lot more angry and attack-y once some of those strings got together with him.”

“I suspect that’s the black magic,” Griffin said.

“Okay, but is there any way to get rid of them?” Jack asked, a desperate note in his voice. “These fucking strings are causing all sorts of trouble.”

“Hmm.” Griffin furrowed his brow and looked up at the ceiling. “I know we looked into that, but I think I left the notes in the other room.” He reached down and tapped the top of the box. It turned an opaque, coppery color, the same as all the rest. “I could go get them now, if you’d like.”

“Nah, that’s fine, I could go get them if you want.” Jack took a few steps back.

“Oh. Well, if you’re offering, then that would be great, thank you,” Griffin nodded. “They should be next door, in the Investigative Room. I doubt I left them in a drawer or anywhere, so they’re probably out on a surface.”

“Alright.” Jack turned around. “I’ll see you later, then.” He hurried to leave. Those strings…he wasn’t eager to spend much more time with them.
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There was a wide open area in the basement of the Sanctuary. At first glance, it looked like a gymnasium, except without the bleachers and basketball hoops. It was also much bigger, with a small climbing wall at one end, an archery shooting range at the other, and a wall in between lined with strange perforations. Delyth explained it was made for agents who wanted to practice spells in their spare time. However, it had sat empty for the entire time they’d been here. But that was fine. Schneep actually preferred it empty.

He pushed open the doors to the room, automatically tensing, searching for anyone. He didn’t think anyone was there. Or at the very least, that strange sixth sense that let him know when people were around was telling him the room was empty as always. He sighed, relaxing, and walked into the approximate center of the room.

Now that things were relatively peaceful—well, actually, that was a stretch, it was better phrased as “now that there was no one actively trying to kill them”—he’d thought it would be best to practice this magic of his. Strange, how things had changed to the point where he readily accepted his new magical abilities, when just a few years ago he would’ve denied it to the ends of the earth. Schneep laughed to himself. Well, time flies.

He started this practice by summoning and vanishing his scissors a couple times. It was still unclear where they came from and went off to when he wasn’t using them. All he knew was that if he reached to the side he could feel their handles, seemingly hovering in midair right where he needed them. Perhaps the scissors were stored in some sort of pocket dimension that only he could access.

What was interesting was that other things could come from this pocket dimension. Shortly after arriving at the Sanctuary and getting frustrated with the unfamiliar layout, Schneep had wished for something that could help him know where things were. He’d reached out, and suddenly found something there. A long, thin stick, that could extend in length. Bringing it to Jack confirmed his suspicions: it was a cane. Exactly what he’d needed. Unusual, he thought, that he’d found it at the exact moment he was thinking about it. Perhaps the pocket dimension could provide what he wanted? But it didn’t provide anything other than the scissors and the cane so far. Well, he was still working on that theory.

Second matter of business. Simple jumps, to get him warmed up. That was what he decided to call this teleporting or whatever it was. The act of walking somewhere and having the world around him change, so he was somewhere else entirely. It was sort of like portals, except Schneep didn’t need a fancy gun to jump, he just did it at will.

He jumped back and forth across the width of the room a couple times, touching the wall to orient himself. Then across the length. Then from corner to corner. He never really got tired from the jumping. And last practice, he realized it didn’t even need to be on solid ground. Though that had been an accident, and he’d ended up landing flat on his face. Moments like that were why he practiced alone.

Schneep paused for a moment, reaching out to feel the base of the climbing wall. Perhaps…? Bracing himself, he took a step forward, and ended up not on the floor, but falling through the air. Fear instantly shot through him, and he waved his arms wildly until his hands brushed against something. That texture—! He tried to grab, and—

“OW!” Schneep gasped. His arm felt like it was being yanked out of its socket. His fall was suddenly stopped when he managed to find one of the climbing wall’s holds, but the sudden change of speed had caused a shot of pure pain through his shoulder. God, he hoped that wasn’t dislocated.

Kicking his legs a bit, he managed to jump back down to the floor, where he immediately started rubbing his shoulder. He’d been aiming for the flat bit at the top of the climbing wall, but it appeared he missed. Luckily he was close enough to find that hold, otherwise he’d have to deal with falling all the way to the floor. Even though the climbing wall was half the size of most, it was still twenty feet tall.

Schneep didn’t allow himself to pause. He wanted to try one more thing before stopping for the day. Walking over to the side, he found the perforated wall of the gym area, and walked along it until he found a control panel. There was a touchscreen on it, which wasn’t much use to him, but there was also a button and a dial. He’d asked Delyth about it earlier, and she explained the button was to start or stop the “course” and the dial was to time it, with the maximum being thirty minutes. Twisting the dial, he set it to about five minutes, then hit the button.

“Projectile training course set for: four minutes.” An automated voice rang out through the gym area. “There is: one minute before start time.”

“Alright, here we go.” Schneep took a deep breath, and jumped back to the middle of the room, tensing with anxiety. He’d have to be careful here.

“Thirty seconds remaining before the projectile course fires,” said the automated voice. Then after a while. “Ten seconds remaining. Nine. Eight.”

Schneep bounced on his feet, ready to move at any moment.

“Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three.”

There was a slight humming sound coming from the wall. He braced himself.

“Two. One. Firing.”

The darts of magic started to fire, each hole making a chnk! sound as they shot and the darts themselves causing a whhst! sound as they passed through the air. Schneep started moving, listening carefully for the noise of each one firing and flying forward. He started running, then skidded to a halt as there was a chnk! from a space near him. The dart whizzed past his face in a gust of air. He ducked just in time to avoid another, then turned around and jumped to what sounded like a safe spot.

Four minutes was not a very long time, but it certainly felt that way as Schneep dodged, ducked, and jumped across the room. He tried not to think too much, just listen and notice the small signs of the nearby darts. Eventually he got into a rhythm, jumping whenever he heard several chnk!s in the area around him.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Soon, one of the darts hit him in the leg and broke his concentration. “Ah!” He instinctively leaned down to clutch at the spot, but that just brought him right into the path of another whhst! “Fick!” And everything broke down from there as a quick barrage of about a dozen darts soon knocked him to the ground. He jumped to another area, only to get knocked right in the chest the moment he arrived and knocked down once again.

“Projectile course finished,” the automated voice said. “Thank you for participating.” A loud beep signaled the end of the course.

Schneep sighed. He wasn’t sure what those darts were, other than pure magic, but he knew that they hurt. It reminded him of the time Chase had dragged him to a paintball match, and he was sure that there would be similar bruises left over. Wincing, he climbed to his feet. “Need more practice on that,” he said to himself.

Well, there was always tomorrow. He turned and headed for the nearest wall, following it to the exit.
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“Chase. Chase. Chase. Chase. Chase.”

Ignoring the repeated, nagging sound of his own name, Chase rolled over and pulled the blanket over his face. What time was it? Probably sometime in the afternoon, judging by the light coming in from the bedroom window. Also, who opened the window? The curtains at the Sanctuary were pretty good for blocking out light, they must be open if he could see light even behind his eyelids. Good thing this bed had thick blankets, too.

“Chase. Chase. Chase.” Now something was poking him with every repetition. It soon became something shaking him. “Chase. Chase.”

Finally realizing he wasn’t going to stop, Chase groaned and pushed away the covers. He opened his eyes and looked over to see Jackie standing by the side of the bed. Staring at him. Was he…was he there the whole night? Because apparently he didn’t sleep anymore—or at least, not as much, and not when Chase or JJ were watching. The thought was…disturbing. “What is it, Jackie?” he asked, sighing.

Jackie didn’t answer for a while, just blinked. It was a solid thirty seconds before he asked, “When are we leaving?”

Chase had been about to go back to sleep, but that question sent a shot of nerves through his heart that woke him right up. “Um…I don’t know. Wh-why? Do you want to go somewhere?”

“I need to find the rest of us,” Jackie said insistently. “I know I’m out there, but I can’t tell where.”

“…right.” Chase sat up. “Well, uh…I mean, is this really that importa—”

“Yes.”

Chase fell silent. There were moments when Jackie just acted a bit unusual, but there were also too many moments like this, moments that left him with a crawling feeling across his skin, and he could see how Jackie was once part of Anti. “Um…okay.” Chase inched away. “Well, I don’t know when we’re leaving, so don’t ask me.”

Jackie looked disappointed, but wandered away to look out the window. Chase paused, then glanced at the clock on the wall. 3:00 on the dot. He sighed. It was pretty late, but given how he hadn’t gone to bed until six in the morning last night and had trouble getting to sleep once he did, he wanted to pull the covers up and try to get another hour or two. But he was also pretty hungry, so he should get some food while he had the energy to. So he climbed out of bed and left the room.

The magicians had been providing them with groceries when they asked, as well as anything else they needed. Chase left the bedroom, waving a hello to JJ sitting on the living area’s sofa, and headed straight for the kitchenette. He opened one of the cupboards and took out a box of cereal. The brand was unfamiliar, something generic and probably store-brand, but the bits of cereal were coated in sugar and that’s what mattered. He took out a bowl and spoon and poured.

“You should take a shower.”

Chase yelped, spilling some of the cereal, and looked up to see Jackie had followed him and was now standing in the middle of the living room and watching him. “Jesus, don’t do that,” Chase breathed, setting down the cereal box.

“I don’t think you’ve used the shower since we’ve been here,” Jackie continued. “That’s not good.”

“Uhh…” Chase leaned to the side so he could see JJ around Jackie.

JJ set down his book—something that Yvonne had given him a few days ago—and said, 'Well he’s not wrong. But anyway, can you handle this right now?'

Chase nodded slowly, then leaned back into place and looked at Jackie. “I think I’m fine, Jackie. It’s not like I smell or anything. Uh…right?”

“You lie in bed a lot,” Jackie said bluntly. “Has that always been a thing with you? I think it has, for some time. I remember that. You should at least move to somewhere else. Actually use the other rooms.”

And then sometimes there were these moments. Moments where Jackie seemed almost normal, talking in the same way and giving the same advice he did years ago, before that black magic spell had killed him and created Anti. Honestly, these moments made the whole situation creepier. Chase took a moment to respond. “Well…maybe I WILL take a shower, then.”

“That’s a start.” Jackie’s eyes slowly drifted to the side, and then he turned away, walking around the room in an aimless manner.

JJ waved in Chase’s direction for his attention. 'You alright?'

Chase let out a breath, and nodded. 'Yeah, I’m fine,' he responded in sign. They’d learned from experience over the last two weeks that Jackie would butt in on the conversation if Chase started talking out loud.

Jameson raised an eyebrow. His expression was hard to read under his new mask—this one was black, and had also been provided by the magicians once he’d asked for one—but if Chase had to guess, it was probably concerned. 'I was thinking maybe if we switched places, he might give you a break.'

'You mean if you pretended to be me? I’m pretty sure he’d be able to tell. We have some very obvious identifying features.'

JJ huffed. 'I suppose you’re right. And we can’t get Jack or Henrik to do that, since the same can be said for them. Maybe if Henrik covered up his scars?'

'I get the feeling he’d be able to tell anyway.' Chase sighed, and headed for the fridge, grabbing the milk. He was turning back around when he noticed it. Jackie had suddenly stopped walking and was now standing, shoulders tensed, in the middle of the room. “Um…Jackie? Are you alright?”

Jackie didn’t respond. Instead, he turned on his heel and walked right to the door, opening it and leaving the room.

“Wh—Jackie!” Chase put the milk down on the nearest counter, JJ stood up, and the two of them quickly followed him into the hallway.

Jackie had taken a turn to the left, moving quickly and purposefully towards the stairs at the end of the hall. “Hey! Jackie!” Chase and JJ broke into a run. Jackie glanced over his shoulder, then started sprinting as well, reaching the stairwell in no time.

“Stop!” Chase paused in the entrance to the stairwell, watching as Jackie ran down the stairs two at a time. “Where the hell are you going?!”

JJ pulled up next to him. 'Should I stop him?' He flicked his fingers, making a blue disc of magic appear.

Chase shook his head. “No, let’s follow him first.” And they started running again.

Jackie headed down all three flights of stairs to the ground floor, pausing for a moment as if getting his bearings before taking the right hallway. “Wh…what?” Chase panted. That hallway would only lead deeper into the Sanctuary. What could he possibly want down here? He glanced over at JJ, who looked just as confused.

From farther down the hall, they heard a “What the—” and then someone screamed.

Jameson’s eyes widened. 'Isn’t that—'

Chase immediately broke into a dead sprint.

Farther down the hall, a door was swinging wildly, and someone was lying on the floor as if they’d been knocked over. A few loose papers were scattered around. Chase gasped. “Jack!” He hurried to his friend’s side and helped him stand up. “Are you okay?!”

“Fine,” Jack said shortly, rubbing his arm. “Was that—was Jackie just here?”

“Yeah, ran all the way down here,” Chase said. “What were you doing here?”

“It was that thing, that thing about the, uh, strings,” Jack explained.

Jameson, having just caught up in time to hear that statement, looked shocked. He whirled towards the swinging door and grabbed hold of it, rushing inside.

“Did he go in there?” Chase asked, also pointing at the door.

“Uh, I think so?” Jack gasped slightly. “But that’s where—”

A loud clattering sound came from inside. Jack and Chase glanced at each other, then ducked into the room.

Inside, Jackie was struggling with the three magicians already inside. Yvonne had her arms wrapped around his, while Delyth’s eyes were lit up purple and her hands held out in a defensive position. Griffin clutched the copper box with the strings inside, holding it protectively while JJ covered him with a shield. A stack of other boxes had been knocked over and were now strewn across the floor.

“What’s going—Jackie, stop!” Chase stepped in front of Jack. “You’ll hurt them!”

“I d̛on’t ̛ca̛re,” Jackie hissed. “Give me back!”

“You two get out of here!” Delyth said to Jack and Chase. “This could get messy.”

“No—” Jack started to protest.

There was a flash of red light, and Yvonne suddenly cried out. She stumbled backward, now bleeding from a cut that had appeared across the left side of her face. With his arms free, Jackie lunged towards Jameson and Griffin, eyes fixed on the box. Jameson threw his hands forward, and the shield expanded outward, pushing Jackie to the ground. He hissed again and made a sharp gesture. A slice of red light cut through the air and right through Jameson’s shield, making it flicker and die. Jackie started forward again, only for Delyth to block him with a crystalline shield of her own.

“Fuck this!” Yvonne wiped the blood out of her eye and lunged right at Jackie, managing to grab him again. He shrieked, the sound full of rage, and more red light flashed. Yvonne suddenly dropped again. She clutched her leg, which was now bleeding.

“I said for you to get out!” Delyth snarled. “This is danger—”

There was a sudden, almost inaudible snap! sound, and then there was another person in the room. Schneep appeared directly behind Jackie, hitting him hard on the back of his head with the butt of a cane. Jackie crumpled to the floor, clearly breathing but now unconscious. Schneep let out a long breath. “Please say that was the correct thing to do,” he muttered.

“Hen! That was—where’d you come from?” Jack gasped.

“I was passing by,” he explained. “On the way to the elevator back to the rooms, which may I say, very inconvenient to have an elevator just to get to the basement, but it worked out this time. I could tell there was a fight, so I decided to step in.”

“Wait, how’d you know to hit Jackie?” Delyth asked, lowering her shield. “I thought you were blind.”

“I am. Do you not see this?” Schneep waved the cane in her general direction. “But it seems part of my magic is knowing where people are. And who they are, too. Which is very lucky.”

Jameson clapped his hands for attention. 'May I suggest we continue this conversation after getting this young lady some medical care?'

“Yes, great suggestion,” Yvonne said. “I am bleeding quite significantly.” Her tone said it was a joke but her face betrayed her real worry.

Delyth sighed. “Yes, of course. There’s a small clinic with supplies further down the hall. We’ll finish this up in there.”
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It didn’t take too long for them all to relocate to the clinic and get Yvonne taken care of. They also took Jackie there as well, setting him down on one of the clinic’s three beds. Once Yvonne’s wounds were wrapped up, everyone immediately returned to the matter at hand. Chase and JJ explained how Jackie had suddenly left the room and ran downstairs, and Jack told the others the information about the strings he’d found out just before Jackie appeared.

“Did he somehow sense the strings, perhaps?” Schneep speculated. “But then why hadn’t he reacted before? They’ve been here the whole time.”

“That may be my fault,” Griffin admitted. “The crates we keep magical artifacts in are designed to keep any magical signals from escaping, but if we need to look at them, the spell to make the crates transparent allows a small bit to get out.” He shook his head slowly. “I’ll have to add that warning to their container.”

“They weren’t even visible for that long,” Yvonne muttered. “And it sounds like Jackie realized they were here after barely a minute. Well, what d’you expect, when they’re part of his soul?”

“Can we talk about these soul strings in more detail?” Chase asked. “Like, for example…how do we get rid of them?”

“Oh, I-I still have those notes I was supposed to get.” Jack reached into his hoodie pocket and took out some crumpled pieces of paper. “Sorry, I kinda…dropped them when Jackie pushed me away, then didn’t really pay too much attention when I picked them up.”

“It’s fine, just hand them over.” Griffin held out his hand, and Jack passed over the papers. He began uncrumpling them.

'What do you think will happen to the parts of their souls that are stuck inside the strings?' JJ asked, his expression drawn and worried. 'Will they disappear? Would that hurt?' Jack translated for the part of the room that didn’t understand sign.

“That’s a…very good question,” Delyth said. “Bell?”

“Don’t ask me, Mae, this has never happened before!” Yvonne said defensively. “Maybe we could ask the guy with deus ex soul vision.”

Jack hesitated. “Maybe…the bits will just go back to the full person?” he suggested tentatively “I mean, it’s hard to know which ones belong to who, since whenever I look at Marvin and Jackie their colors are all mixed up—”

Yvonne’s head shot up. “Wait, does that mean their souls are mixed up?!” she shrieked.

“Well, I think…” Jack trailed off. “I…hadn’t thought of…”

Silence fell in the room, only broken by the occasional ruffle of paper as Griffin continued to smooth them out. “Well, I…suppose that makes…sense,” Schneep said haltingly. “Jackie has…abilities now. Magic. He never had them before. If magic is in the soul, perhaps having bits of Marvin gave him…some of that?”

“But is there a way to undo it, then?” Chase asked with more than a hint of desperation in his voice. “Is there a way to make them better?”

More silence. Everyone looked at Yvonne, the only soul magician, but she had nothing to offer, so she looked over at Griffin. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “Well…I’m sorry, but I don’t think so,” he said as gently as possible.

Chase’s expression visibly fell. Jameson, standing nearby, reached over, offering his hand. After a moment, Chase breathed in deeply, and took the hand. “Right. I guess…that was stupid to think.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Jack said gently. “It was hopeful, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But there may be a way to improve this situation a bit,” Delyth suddenly said. “The strings…they’re black magic, and I don’t doubt that’s affecting your friends. If we get rid of them, perhaps we could stop them from being so oddly hostile…and prevent this Anti from ever returning.”

Chase looked up, and slowly nodded. “Okay then. How do we do that?”

“It would need to be strong magic,” Griffin said, looking over his notes. “But it’s not impossible. We may be able to burn them with an intense blaze, freeze the spell inside, or take them apart until they cease to function…either way, I don’t think just one magician will have enough power for that on their own.”

“Okay, so we next work on figuring that out,” Schneep stated. “How? If you need help, I will offer.”

'I will as well,' JJ added.

“We’d need to try,” Griffin muttered. “Just…try many different things. That’s the only way I can see forward.”

“The old trial and error,” Yvonne said. “Well…I’ll help too, if you need it.”

Chase let out a long, long sigh. “I…I’m done for the day. This was a lot for just a few minutes, and I just woke up.”

“Oh yes, by all means, all of you return to what you were doing,” Delyth said. “We’ll come tell you if we need anything, and remember you can ask us for anything as well.”

And slowly, they dispersed. Chase and JJ took Jackie back up to their room, while Jack and Schneep returned to theirs. Yvonne remained in the clinic for a while longer before retreating to her room, too. Nobody said anything as they left.

There was no way to reverse this. The fact was slowly sinking in to all of them. Whatever Jackie and Marvin had done, it could not be undone.

Yet maybe, just maybe, they could salvage something from this.

Just maybe.

Part Six of the Switch AU
A JSE Fanfic
[This is part of an ongoing fic series I started in April 2019. In a short break from the current problems facing the group, Marvin gets a cat.]
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“I don’ recognize t’is part of town,” Marvin muttered, staring out the car window at the streets whizzing by. Not too intently though, he still wasn’t used to how fast cars went now. “Are you goin’ t’finally tell me what we’re doin’ here?”

“Hang on a moment, we’re almost there, just let me park.” JJ carefully maneuvered the small car into an empty space, turning it off with a twist of the keys. “Alright, here we are!”

Marvin looked out the front window at the store they’d parked in front of, reading the name emblazoned on the sign. He squinted. “Is…is t’is a pet store?”

“Surprise!” JJ smiled, accompanied by a joyful fluttering of fingers. “I wanted to get you a pet!”

Marvin blinked. “Why?”

JJ’s smile faltered a bit before he recovered his cheer. “Well, I thought it would help you adjust to this new…environment. And also…” His joyful expression fell once more, becoming serious. “I sometimes worry about you being home all by yourself. It might get lonely, you know, and I can’t keep asking the others to stop by even though they keep saying they’d be happy to.”

“Oh, so you’re saying t’at I can’ be alright wit’out you?” Marvin chuckled as JJ suddenly started stammering excuses. “It’s alright, I know what y’mean. Are you sure about t’is? Pets can be difficult to take care of. I’m okay wit’out one.”

“Well, yes, but also…small animals are cute.”

Another chuckle. “Alright. I s’pose I can’ change your mind once you’ve got it made up. Lead the way.”

JJ paused. “I’d hoped you be a bit more enthusiastic, to be honest.” Marvin didn’t answer, just shrugged. JJ exhaled a puff of air, then continued. “Well, we can’t do anything just sitting in the car. Come on.” He opened the door and stepped out, and Marvin soon followed.

The inside of the pet store was about what you’d expect, a main reception desk and walls covered in cute posters about the adoption process and how to take care of your animals. A few workers wearing blue shirts and nametags were milling about. One immediately walked up to JJ and Marvin. “Hi, can I help you?” she asked.

JJ looked over at Marvin, who gave an indifferent shrug. “Well, we’d like to adopt today,” JJ explained.

“Oh that’s wonderful! Do you know what type of animal you’re looking for? We have dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, snakes, hamsters and gerbils—”

“Cat,” Marvin jumped in before she could list every possible pet that existed. Yeah, cats could take care of themselves. He didn’t have to devote himself to that.

“I’m a cat person, myself,” the worker—her nametag read Kendra—said with a laugh. “If you would follow me through this door I can show you our cat kennels.

Marvin was expecting walls lined with cat carriers, and there were a few side rooms of that. But Kendra instead led them down a hall to a large room with wide windows that was entirely taken up by cat condos and trees, multilayered carpeted platforms with scratching poles and little houses to hide in. There were even a few mounted on walls. Around the perimeter of the rooms were benches for visitors and baskets of cat toys. Naturally, there were cats everywhere, of all shapes and sizes. Brown, white, black, tabby, calico, short-hair, long-hair, and every -hair in between. There were already some people inside interacting with them; what looked like a mom and two kids and an elderly couple.

“This is our playpen. Not all our cats are out right now, but this is a good place to get to know them,” Kendra explained. “If you don’t find one who appeals to you, I can take you into their actual kennels. We also have a selection of toys, beds, and other entertainment items, if you want to check those out.”

“Well,” JJ started, “we might not—”

“Jems, you can go look at those,” Marvin interrupted. “I’m goin’ t’stay in here for a while and see what happens.”

JJ gave him a look, but then said, “Okay, if you insist. Come get us if you need anything. Miss, if you can show me where that is…”

JJ left the room with Kendra, and Marvin immediately walked over and sat on a bench in a corner, near one of the cat trees. He watched the others in the room play with the cats, petting them and picking them up and dangling cat toys in front of their faces. That all seemed well and good, he supposed. But he didn’t really feel any urge to join in himself. So he just watched.

There was a slight movement in the corner of his eyes. He glanced over at the cat tree nearby. There was a pair of green eyes hidden inside the shadows of one of those little house-structures that sat on the tree. They were looking at him. Marvin stared at the eyes for a while more, then looked away, turning back to the room at large. He watched the pair of children entertain a black kitten with a laser pointer for a while. Weren’t they supposed to be bad luck? A cat like that would need a home, maybe if he had to get one he could pick that one up. But didn’t kittens require special care?

There was another movement. Marvin looked back over to the cat tree to see one had climbed out and hopped to the ground. It was mostly shades of brown and tan, with some darker brown stripes. Its muzzle and chest were white. Marvin presumed that its belly and paws were white as well, but given how it was sitting in that “loaf” position, and how its fur was extremely long and poofy, Marvin couldn’t exactly see its paws. Overall, it looked a bit like a burnt marshmallow. A marshmallow that was staring directly at Marvin.

Marvin, in turn, blinked at it. “What is it?” Obviously, the cat did not answer, and after it didn’t move for a while Marvin turned away again. But only a minute later, there was a warm, soft ball pressing next to his leg. He startled, and looked down to see the cat was now a ball of fluff sitting next to him on the bench. He raised an eyebrow. “What? D’you want attention? I can’ really tell, I don’ speak cat body language. I have trouble enough with the human kind.”

The cat kept staring at him with its big green eyes. After a moment, he gently set his hand on the cat’s back. When there was no reaction, he slowly began petting the length of it. The cat squinted its eyes, and after a while, started purring. “You wanted t’at? Well, I don’ mind. You’re very soft, a lot of fluff. Pleasant to touch. And you’re a han’some cat as well.” After a while of petting, Marvin stalled. He hesitated, then started petting the cat’s head.

With a stall in the purring, the cat opened its mouth wide and yawned. Then it shook itself, causing Marvin to sharply withdraw his hand, and climbed to its feet, stretching. Marvin thought it would leave next, but instead it padded even closer and clambered onto his lap, standing there. “Oh!” Marvin gasped, surprised. “Y’could warn a man first.”

The cat kept eye contact, sitting on his lap. And now that it was out of the “loaf” position, Marvin noticed something. He was right about the belly and paws being white, but also…while its left front leg was as expected, its right front leg ended in a stump. Marvin blinked. “Oh, I see. Y’have trouble in t’at area, then? Well, you’re not alone in the world, Mr. cat.” He reached out and scratched the cat below its ears. It squinted its eyes, then it stood up again, walked closer, and vaulted onto its two hind legs, placing its front paw on Marvin’s chest. “Hey! T’is is a nice jacket, don’ get your fur all over it,” Marvin chuckled, maintaining the ear-scratching.

Another slow blink from the cat. This time, followed by a soft sound, a small “mrrp.”

“Oh my goodness,” Marvin whispered, eyes wide. “T’at was the best sound.” His chest was suddenly light and bouncy inside. “Okay, you’re comin’ wit’ me.” He scooped up the cat, which didn’t wiggle at all as he carried it across the room, out the door of the playpen and into the hallway. From there, it was luckily only a short wandering before he found an open archway that led to a room full of various pet products, and as he walked inside he caught sight of JJ and the worker from before, Kendra. She was holding what a leash and talking to him. “—once they’re harness-trained you can take them outside for walks, like you can with dogs. But of course, training takes—” The worker glanced over as Marvin walked inside the room. Her eyes widened. “Sir, you can’t take the cats out of their kennel area!”

“Why not?” Marvin asked. “T’is one is doin’ fine.”

JJ looked over, and the moment he saw the bundle of fluff in Marvin’s arm his face lit up. “Did you find one you like, Marvin?”

“Well, I’d say t’is pretty kitty found me, act’ally.” Marvin bounced the cat a bit. “Walked up to me.”

JJ gasped, covering his open mouth with a hand. “That’s adorable,” he whispered.

Kendra seemed to have recovered from the shock of seeing a cat in an area it wasn’t supposed to be. “That’s Trio,” she said with a smile. “He’s a rescue. Got hit by a car, unfortunately, and a stranger brought him here. He’s a five-years-old Siberian, and he’s a pretty quiet cat. Liable to snuggle with you while you’re sitting, or even sleeping in bed. He’ll go after laser pointers and other toys, but not as enthusiastically as other cats.”

“T’at sounds wonderful,” Marvin said, distracted by the fact that the cat was now pressing his face into Marvin’s neck. “Trio’s an odd name, why is it?”

“Well, because of the…ah…you know…his, ah…situation…” Kendra seemed reluctant to continue, especially when Marvin’s head shot back toward her with a hard stare.

“I understan’ t’at people often name cats after t’eir features,” he said slowly. “But you didn’ see any problem with t’at particular name?” You know, like the only thing unique about this cat was his legs. Like that was the only thing about him that mattered.

“I didn’t name him,” Kendra hurried to say. “And it’s only temporary, if you adopt him, you can change it.”

JJ looked at Marvin, clearly trying to keep a calm expression. “Do you want to? Adopt him, I mean?”

Marvin looked down at the cat’s tiny face. “Y…yes,” he said, his voice a bit softer than normal. He looked back up at JJ’s excited face and frowned. “You knew this would happen, didn’ you?”

“That you’d get emotionally attached to one and love them? Well, I hoped it,” JJ said, a big grin on his face. “I know you were reluctant, but you’re reluctant about a lot of things, Marvin. A cat’ll be good for you.”

“Yes, yes, alright,” Marvin rolled his eyes. “Let’s finish t’is process so we can take him home already.”

About a half hour later, Marvin and JJ were back in the car. There was now a cat bed, a scratching post, and other cat materials in the back seat. Marvin, in the passenger seat, had a cat carrier on his lap with a burnt marshmallow-colored ball of fluff inside. The ball of fluff had a new green collar with a silver label, and was meowing intently at Marvin. “It’s only for a little while,” Marvin responded. “I t’ink we live close by. T’ough don’ ask me how we get home, I don’ know.” More meowing. “Calm down, Mister, it’ll be fine. I can give you a new toy to distract you, if ye want.”

“Did you just call the cat ‘Mister’?” JJ asked, amused, as he started the car.

“Yes, his name is Mr. Fluffington, and he deserves your respect,” Marvin said without even looking up.

“I see. Well, tell Fluffington it’s nice to meet him.”

“Mr. Fluffington, who do you t’ink you are?”

JJ laughed. “Yes, alright then, Mr. Fluff.”

Marvin looked back down at the newly christened Mr. Fluffington. “Jems says it’s nice to meet you. Ye’ll be seein’ a lot of him.” Fluffington meowed. Marvin grinned. “He likes you.”

“I’m glad. And I’m glad you like him too.”

“I wasn’ expectin’ it, if I’ll be honest.” Marvin unzipped the lid of the carrier just enough to reach inside. “But…I t’ink I’ll be happy to have him around.”

Mr. Fluffington nuzzled Marvin’s hand and he laughed. JJ smiled as he watched. He knew this would be a good idea. These two seemed like they would get along perfectly.

Part Ten of the Inverted AU
A JSE Fanfic
[This is part of a fic series I wrote from December 2018 to August 2021. It seems Stacy's got herself wrapped up in this situation with Anti. Though it seems as if she might've gotten wrapped into it eventually, given who, exactly, is involved in this single group causing a lot of the criminal trouble in the city.]
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Honestly, Stacy had been expecting an abandoned warehouse. She didn’t know if there were any even in the city, but the creepy-crazy atmosphere of the whole night had told her 'yes, that is totally where we’ll go next.' Her second guess was a run-down ruin of a house in the suburbs, probably the site of a suspicious death. But what wasn’t even on her list of guesses was this: a perfectly normal office building in the middle of the city.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” Anti asked. She’d froze in place just outside the door.

“Um, won’t the people inside notice us?” Stacy asked. “And stop us because we’re, uh, not supposed to be there?”

“Hmm…no. Now come on.” He didn’t even bother to open the door, just dissolved, taking Sam the eye with him, and reappeared on the other side as if taunting her with his noticeable-ness.

Feeling her face getting hot and hating it, Stacy pulled open the door and rushed inside. There was a reception desk, and a waiting area full of chairs. It was very gray and boring. There were two people in the waiting area and one behind the desk. The two were staring intently down at their phones, and the receptionist was enthralled by his computer screen. Anti ignored them all and walked right to the elevator. As Stacy followed him, she realized something: those people were awfully interested in their electronics; they didn’t even glance up at the sound of footsteps. It was like…they COULDN'T…

The elevator doors closed the moment Stacy was inside. She glanced nervously at Anti, who pressed the button for the top floor, then folded his arms and stopped moving altogether. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. As if sensing her unease, Sam darted around Anti and started bumping her arm affectionately. They looked up at her, their pupil wide, then nuzzled her further. Stacy smiled. Okay, maybe she can wait to see what happens.

Ding! The doors opened, and Anti and Stacy stepped out onto the top floor. It was completely dark, but that didn’t last long. A series of red, green, and blue LED lights flicked on. Mostly hanging from the ceiling, though a few were strung on cables on the walls. Stacy gasped as the vivid lighting revealed a dragon’s hoard of technological devices. Racks of CPUs acted as walls dividing the wide open space of the floor into rooms. A few were freestanding, more like pillars. Monitors were mounted on the walls, attached to the CPUs, dangling from the ceiling, everywhere. Cables and wires connected everything: red, yellow, white, black, grey, blue, thick, thin, rubber, plastic, bundled, individual—every variation you could imagine.

“Welcome to my hub.” Anti stood in the middle of the first “room,” arms spread wide. “You’re the only person who’s seen it so far.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stacy said softly. She looked around in awe, taking in the blinking lights on the CPUs and the multitude of cables. A few of the monitors switched on all by themselves, showing nothing but vague shapes in static. Sam flew about, looking at every little thing. “How-how does this place even WORK?”

“I ma͝ke̡ it work,” Anti said matter-of-factly. “It’s just dead wires without me. Now c’mon, we need to get your arm fixed. And your forehead is starting to bruise too.”

At this point, Stacy had begun to tune out the constant throbbing from the burn, and she’d completely forgotten about the sticky pain from where her head hit the shelf and knocked her out. But Anti’s words brought it back in full force. She winced. “Oh, that’d probably, um, be a good idea, huh?”

“Probably.” Anti rolled his eyes, then turned and walked through a gap in the CPU “wall,” letting Stacy follow. She was really starting to get sick of him doing this.

Passing through a few more “rooms,” they came to one on the outside of the building. Stacy could tell because one of the walls was covered in black trash bags, but one had started to slip, revealing a window with a nice view of the city outside. This area had a table sitting near one of the walls of racks. On the table was another computer monitor, of course, and various medical supplies. Mostly bandages, though there was also a needle and thread, some bottles, and… and… “Is that a knife?” Stacy squeaked.

“No. This͠ i̶s a ͏k͡nif̶e̛.” Anti waved around the knife he’d been brandishing back at the diner. Stacy jumped. Where did it come from? Did it just appear and disappear at will? “That’s a scalpel.”

“It has dried blood on it!”

“Yes. Actually, I didn’t mean to pick it up. It just… hi͝tchęd͡ ̡a ̕ri̡de͏ last time, so I pulled it out and kept it as a souvenir.”

“Somebody STABBED you and you KEPT it?”

“Yes.” Anti glitched over to the table and started fiddling with the bottles. “Now hold on while I find the burn salve.”

Stacy shut her mouth, remembering why he’d even brought her here in the first place. Awkwardly, she stood by the one exposed window and waited. Sam zoomed over to hover by her head. They scooted closer to the window, peered, out, then shrank back, partially hiding in Stacy’s curtain of blonde curls. “Not a fan of heights, huh?” she muttered. “Don’t worry, my son isn’t either. I understand.” With a single finger, she reached up and gently patted the eye. They were kind of sticky, but…not unpleasantly so. Sam’s pupil squished, like they were closing their eyes, and their optic nerve swished happily.

“Got it!” Anti yelled triumphantly. “Get over here!” Stacy flinched, then crept over to the table, Sam still in her hair. Anti twisted open the lid of a jar, revealing a bluish-white paste. “This is supposed to be rubbed on the area of burning, then you put a bandage on it because at that point it becomes a normal burn, and you don’t want that to get infected I assume.”

“I can—I can do that myself, thanks,” Stacy said hastily.

Anti raised an eyebrow. “Didja think I wa̛n̢t͢ed͡ to do this for you? Fuck no. You’re d͏e͢fi͞n̨i̛tȩly̡ doing this yourself.” He pushed he jar of salve into her hands.

“Oh…” she had, indeed, thought that. She didn’t know why…maybe his creepy vibe just made her think he would be the type to invade personal space. Apparently, it was the opposite.

While Stacy carefully smeared the paste on the burn area, wincing every time the cool salve touched the still-hot flesh, Anti picked up a roll of bandages from the table. Frowning at it, he carefully unwrapped the scarf from his neck. Stacy paused momentarily as she stared at the bloody bandages around his throat. Then, he unwrapped those as well, and she gasped, dropping the jar.

His head whipped toward her, much faster than it should’ve been able to. “What?”

“Your neck! What the fuck?!” Stacy almost reached out, then stopped halfway. “It’s—are you—how—”

“Oh.” Anti poked the cut. Stacy couldn’t help but cringe, resisting the urge to touch her throat. The deep slice ran all the way across his neck, bleeding profusely. He should’ve been dead…or was he already? “I forget about it until the bandages start getting super wet. It’s very inconvenient.”

“But—how—but—” Stacy stammered. “Does it hurt? Are you in pain?”

“P͡a̧i̶n..̛.̕” Anti said the word like it tasted new in his mouth. “No.”

“Th-that’s not possible. Are-are you sure?”

“Of course.” Anti unrolled the bandages. “If I’ve ever felt pain, I don’t remember it. It took me a long time to get that I was the odd one out. What’s it even for?”

It took a while for Stacy to find her voice again. After three attempts, she finally succeeded in stammering, “It-it-it’s supposed to tell you when something is-is wrong. With your, uh, your body.”

“No, no, I get that part.” Anti waved away her words. His knife reappeared, and he cut a length of bandage away from the rest of the roll. “What I don’t get is when people are in so much pain that they can’t function. Why? You can’t fix the problem if you can’t move.”

“I don’t know enough about biology to answer that,” Stacy muttered.

Anti wrapped the new bandages around his neck injury. Immediately, the clean white cloth began showing speckles of red. “You finished with the burn?” he asked. When Stacy nodded, he handed the roll to her. “Take that then. Thanks for breaking the jar, by the way.”

“Sorry…” Stacy mumbled. “You can—you can get another, right?”

“Eventually.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Now, if you’re all fixed,” Anti grabbed his scarf, “you can show yourself out.” And he disappeared, breaking into pixels that faded away.

“Wha…” Stacy stood there awkwardly, staring at the spot where he’d been just moments before. Did he seriously just…he went to all the effort of getting her here, fixing her burn, and then he leaves her? Well, he hadn’t seemed too eager to have her tagging along in the first place, but he could have at least told her how to get out. She could probably figure it out. Probably.

Sam followed her as she tried to retrace her steps back to the elevator. They’d passed through three or four rooms of varying sizes on the way, and they’d turned once. It couldn’t be that hard.

And with this in mind, Stacy proceeded to get totally lost.

With a sigh, she stopped, standing in the middle of a square room. “Sam, you wouldn’t happen to know the way out, would you?” she asked. The little eye hovered, seeming to squint. Then they turned, and slowly flew through a gap into another room, as if saying “I THINK it’s this way…”

It was not that way. The room beyond was a dead end; it had no more gaps in the walls of CPUs. There was an unusually high concentration of monitors here, practically covering every surface, including all over two CPU pillars in the middle. But these monitors weren’t showing static. They were constantly flickering, never staying on one image for more than a couple seconds. Stacy stepped closer to one. It was showing…websites. Social media, mostly. As she watched, it became an Instagram account, then an explore page on some blog site, then a YouTube video, then a screen from Twitter, then another YouTube video. This was interrupted by a local news website, with an article about recent trouble in the city.

“Oh my god,” Stacy whispered. Were all the screens like this? She turned and watched the ones on the pillars in the center of the room. These ones were different. They looked like security monitors. Every one showed a still image of a room. There were little labels in the bottom right corners of each screen, identifying them. Operating room, left hallway, loading dock, training room, conference room…walking around the pillars, Stacy counted twelve rooms under surveillance, from various angles.

“Sam, this is…interesting, but it’s not the way out,” she said. And right now, she really wanted to get out. “Let’s go.” She turned away.

The little eyeball flew at her face, bonking against her cheek. “Ah! What—” Stacy tried to swat them away, gently of course, but Sam just bonked even more insistently at her hands. “What is it?” Stacy hissed. Sam darted away, zooming in front of a screen and tapping it with their nerve-tail.

Stacy narrowed her eyes. “Sam, did you want me to come in this room?” The eye responded by tapping frantically.

It didn’t make sense. Sam had never been in this hub before, how would they have known where this room was? And how would they know it had something of interest to Stacy in it? Maybe Sam was psychic. They were already a sentient floating green eyeball, what’s being psychic compared to that? Well, it didn’t matter. Sam wasn’t going to let Stacy leave until she saw whatever was on this monitor. She leaned in close…

“Chase?!”

“S̸o y̢ou̡ ̷dǫ ̶know ͏hi͝m.͡”

Stacy shrieked. She spun around with too much force and ended stumbling, almost following to the floor. Anti was next to her, the air around him full of spasms and glitches. He was staring at her intently. Hastily, Stacy backed away.

“I was looking you up,” Anti said casually. A screen next to him turned to static, then began rapidly switching between images. “Facebook status single, but you have two kids. Constantly searching for new jobs, been denied for everything so far because you never finished college. And if you go back far enough, there’s a certain someone who appears in a lot of pictures you’ve posted.” He pointed to the monitor that showed the security footage. “That’s not actually who you think it is. All of them look pretty similar, so I don’t blame you for thinking it was your—”

“Stop!” Stacy screamed. Anti took a step back, eye widening. “You—you shouldn’t know these things! This is my life! This is—it’s a violation of privacy! You shouldn’t—don’t—leave me alone! Leave everyone alone!” Then she turned and ran.

She couldn’t find the way out. Why couldn’t she find the way out? It shouldn’t be this difficult. But the endless racks of computers and the never ending screens of static and the cables and wires that could be tripped upon—it made the floor a maze. Twists and turns, and Stacy just kept running. Until finally she reached another dead end. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she collapsed to the ground, leaning against one of the racks. She put her head in her hands.

Something bumped against her head. Stacy looked up to see Sam, their iris curved downward in a sad expression. They gently rested their “head” against hers. It was sweet.

A screen on the wall fizzed, and Anti appeared beside her. She squeaked, then edged away. Anti stood perfectly still, the glitches and distortions around him fading away. Sam flew toward him, circling around him a couple times before coming to rest on his shoulder. Anti glanced at them, then…smiled. A gentle smile. It faded away when he looked back at Stacy. “I’m…sorry.”

Stacy stared at him. “No, you’re not.”

“I…maybe.” Anti sat down. “I didn’t mean to make you freak out. I wish I didn’t. Does that mean I’m sorry?”

“Don’t know,” Stacy said honestly. “You were—you were spying on me.”

“No. I was investigating you. You reacted so strange when I showed up at your diner, and then when you gave me your name you were about to say something else, before you changed it. I wondered if you were connected to that trigger-happy maniac. Or, maybe trigger-angry would be a better description.” He laughed at his own comment.

Stacy bristled. “Chase isn’t a maniac.”

“Of course you would say that, he’s your husband.”

“Well, I mean, we—we’re not married anymore. We got a, um, divorce.”

“And why did you do that?”

“I…” Stacy trailed off. It was two years ago that they’d divorced. Or rather, when she asked for a divorce. Why had she done it…? Her excuse was that he was terrible with finances, and that they’d gotten married early and she’d fallen out of love.

But…she remembered when she first told Chase she wanted to be separated. He’d pleaded with her, begged her, to reconsider. She gave it another shot. And she watched him more closely. He was away a lot, always obsessed with his stupid YouTube channel, needing to get the views, needing to constantly up the ante to get the attention he craved. The kids would ask when their dad would be home, and she’d have to tell them over and over that she didn’t know. She told him a second time that she wanted a divorce, and this time, she didn’t let up. He told her he couldn’t live without her. He said that the kids were his as much as hers. He threatened to kill himself if she went through with it. It…scared her, actually. And after the proceedings went through, and the court ruled he wasn’t fit to raise kids, he sent her a video in an email, subject line: “this is your fault.” Watching it…

“But that doesn’t give you the right to-to spy on him!” Stacy blurted out, as if Anti was somehow able to read the thoughts that had been running through her head. “And-and what about those people downstairs? You—it’s like you hypnotized them or something!”

Anti blinked, slowly. The first time she’d seen his eyes close at all. “I'̧m̷ ͏no̢ţ a̢ filt͠hy͝ ͠fųc͡ki̧n̶g ̡hypn̷o͝tis̨t,” he growled. “N̨o̵t l̸ik̵e͡ s҉͎̞̹͔̬̻͡o̵̤͕͔͔͈m̷̭̳͍̫̤̦e̛҉̹̲̤͍ pe͏̧o̧p̡̕͠l̸̸ę͢. Those in the lobby were just in a trance. They came out of it the moment we left, and weren’t aware that time passed. No harm done.” He paused. “ U͠͏͞n͏͟l͏͝i͢k͞e ş̢o͞m̧e͏ p̛͞eo̵̶pl̕e̷’s t͟͞r̕ic͡k̷̕s̕.”

That still didn’t sound good. “But-but it was still mind control.”

“No, it wasn’t. If they wanted, they just needed to look away from their screens to break the trance. That’s happened to me before. It’s just easier if they don’t notice me.”

“Oh.” That was…underwhelming. “So, so then why are you spying on Chase?”

“Not just him.”

Six screens in the room blinked away their static. They flickered through a variety of images. Stacy’s eyes darted to and fro, taking in everything. On one monitor, there were pictures of Chase, interspersed with what looked like news reports. On another, Stacy recognized the man in the cat-shaped mask, Marvin, along with strange symbols and nonsense words.

“How much do you know about the situation in the city?” Anti asked.

“Like, on the news?” When Anti nodded, Stacy continued. “I know there’s been some disappearances lately. A…I mean, I don’t want to freak my kids out, but…a concerning amount. And there are a lot of criminal gangs, but they’re being taken out by each other. And some people are…they’re worse than disappearing.” She swallowed nervously.

“The news doesn’t cover everything,” Anti said darkly. “The people who are ‘worse than disappearing?’ They’re coming back in pieces. The gangs and mobs aren’t being taken out by each other, but by one psycho who decided one day that h̸͞ę knew what was best. And the ones going missing are just labelled as such because they never find the bodies. This place has gone to s̨͟hit͡, Stacy. And your ex is involved. He’s part of this whole little group, the same guys I rescued Sam from. They’ve been causing trouble all this time, so I ͡wa͏tch͢ them, trying to keep track of all five’s antics so I can stop them. F̧or̨ ͡go͡o̸d̕.͞”

“What?! No no no no, Chase isn’t—even he wouldn’t get involved with—”

“You know, he’s awfully fond of that gun of his, right?”

Stacy shuddered. “Y-yes. He—after we got a divorce, he—”

“Sometimes, the only way to get out your frustration about your shitty life is to make sure nobody gets to be happier than you.”

“I—I don’t—” Stacy stuttered. She didn’t want to believe him. But she was starting to. And she hated that. “He is my kids’ father.”

“You couldn’t have known. And maybe he was different, before. Humans change. Circumstances change.”

“You’re not helping!” Stacy hissed.

“I’m not?” Anti sounded faintly curious. “Oh, well. Do you still want to leave?”

“…yeah,” Stacy muttered. She stood up. “I don’t—I don’t know what to do. I-I need a new job, I need to understand this,I-I-I—”

Anti glitched into an upward position. Sam jumped off his shoulder and zoomed toward Stacy, bopping her head. That got a small grin from her. “You may be going into shock,” Anti said casually. “You should probably get home before everything comes crashing down.”

“I don’t—how do I get there from here?” Stacy asked softly.

Anti’s head tilted to the side. The distortion increased, and some of the nearby monitors flickered. “Am I ALLOWED to give you directions on your phone?”

“O-oh!” Stacy reached into the pocket of her uniform. She’d completely forgotten about her phone in all this craziness. That was a miracle for this day and age. “Y-yeah, I guess. I just thought—I mean, I know it’s ridiculous, but I thought you’d, uh, walk me there, like you walked me here?”

“I can’t keep this body stable for much longer,” Anti said. “And that was a special case. To show you the way and how to fix the burn.”

“Wh-what was that first part?” Stacy asked faintly.

Anti rolled his eyes. “Think of everything you’ve seen this evening. Is it too far to tell you that I’m not a physical entity and I’m just copying someone’s body for a short period of time?”

“Uh…that’ll probably make more sense when I think about it later. But…whose body?”

“Not important.” The way Anti said those two words left no room for discussion, but Stacy noticed the sixth monitor suddenly switch off completely. It must’ve been a touchy subject. “Now come on, I’ll get you back to the elevator.”

An ironically short walk through the technological maze later, the two of them were standing back in front of the elevator. The door opened on its own. “There’s nobody downstairs except for the receptionist right now,” Anti said.

“How do you—”

“This building has security cameras. The system is easy to hack, fo̢r ͞m̡ę. Now, are you going to throw a fit about putting him in a trance, or are you going to take the risk of him asking you who you are and how you got up there?”

Nervousness about social interaction. He’d only known her for a few hours, and he already knew exactly what to say. Stacy sighed. “No, you-you can do that.” She stepped into the elevator. “Well…goodbye.” Anti waved a bit, and Sam bounced up and down in the air. The doors closed behind her.

What would she do with all she’d learned tonight? How would she fit into this new world she’d discovered? Just yesterday she’d been a struggling single mom with a crappy waitress job, now she was unemployed and knew that her ex was a criminal. Was it better to know this?

Maybe it was. Because she also knew that there was somebody out there trying to fix this messed-up city. Sure, he was an asshole and struggled with relating to the people he was trying to keep safe, but he was TRYING, and that was what mattered. He could get better.

And at the very least, her life had just got a hell of a lot more interesting.

Part Nine of the Inverted AU
A JSE Fanfic
[This is part of a fic series I wrote from December 2018 to August 2021. Stacy doesn't expect anything odd to happen at her night shift, but that changes when a strange, familiar-looking man walks in, acting odd. Things quickly go upside-down, and she gets swept up in a fight...with magic.]
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Even though The Dish and Glass was a twenty-four hour diner, it almost never got visitors in the wee hours of the morning. This was something that Stacy knew, having been stuck at that job for nearly three years. When she worked the night shift, she expected that she’d be alone with the chef, spending the whole time worrying about the sitter she’d hired to watch the kids. Not like she expected them to be awake from the hours of midnight to six in the morning, but it was better safe to be sorry, and the sitters she got usually gave her ugly looks for making them stay up so late for nothing.

Of course, after tonight, she would wish the only problem she had was nasty babysitters.

It was two o’clock. Stacy was behind the counter, taking stock of the coffee mugs. She didn’t really have a reason to, but nobody was around to talk to except Richard, the chef, and he was busy in the kitchen doing who knows what. She was bored. The bright lamps overhead shone a monotonous white light down onto the red and white booths and tables. The plate glass window showed the blue-black night outside. The city was dark.

The easy listening music that always played in the diner was broken by the pleasant ding! of the door opening. Stacy was pretty sure her shock was showing on her face. Luckily she was facing away from the entrance, or the customer might’ve noticed it. Then they might’ve told the manager, who might’ve fired her for unprofessional behavior, then she’d be alone and jobless with two kids who absolutely needed the best in life—she shook her head. The manager wasn’t even here, he’d gone out for who knows what; nobody ever told her. And looking shocked wasn’t worth reporting, let alone being fired over. She tried to ease the knot of anxiety as she turned around to face the customer.

“Hello, welcome to the Dish and—” Stacy froze. It couldn’t be no it couldn’t not here no no no—

“Lady, you alright? Didja have a stroke or something?”

Stacy shook herself internally, then plastered a smile on her face. “Of course I’m alright, sir! Welcome to the Dish and Glass, can I get you anything?”

The man shrugged. “Coffee. I can seat myself.”

“Sir, that’s not really our…policy…” Stacy trailed off. He’d already walked away and sat at one of the window booths. Honestly, there was no reason to stop him, what with him being the only one in the entire diner. It wasn’t like she’d lose track of him.

As she busied herself with the coffeepot, Stacy tried her best to stare at the customer without him noticing. The resemblance… it was more than uncanny. If it wasn’t for a few key differences, she could’ve sworn she was staring right at her ex-husband. Same brown hair, same build, same blue eyes—actually, eye. This stranger had only one. Where his right eye should have been, there was an eye-patch, one of those white square ones with four strings instead of two.

Something was…off about him, Stacy decided. She wasn’t sure what it was. He looked ordinary enough. He wore a black t-shirt, blue jeans with holes in the knees, and black tennis shoes. A green scarf was wrapped securely around his throat. He’d worn a ragged black backpack into the diner, but he’d taken it off and put it on the table, where he was now rummaging around inside. Still, despite how utterly normal all of this was…he gave Stacy an uneasy feeling. Maybe it was just the resemblance to HIM that was bothering her.

But she had a job to do. The coffee was ready, piping hot and poured in one of the mugs she’d been counting earlier. She set it on a plate and walked over to the booth where the customer was sitting. Upon catching sight of her, he immediately froze in place like someone had pressed the pause button. Stacy set the coffee on the table, trying to ignore his stare, and asked, “Would you like any cream? Or sugar?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? I mean, we have those available—”

“I don’t need̴. ANYthing.”

Stacy flinched at his sharp tone. “Alright, sir. If you do, just call for me.” She forced herself to calmly turn around and walk at a normal pace back to her spot behind the counter. She could still feel the man staring at her. Had he blinked at all during that entire exchange?

She started fiddling with the cash register. It wasn’t her job to count the change, it was the manager’s. But she pretended to be busy. There was no doubt about it, this guy was giving off a vibe that she wasn’t fond of. She could almost feel it, like static electricity. Or maybe that was just the electric humming from the overhead lights. It was usually there, but Stacy noticed it kicked up. Maybe something was wrong with the wiring? If it broke, would they take the replacement costs from her paycheck?

He was still watching her. She glanced over and saw him sitting unnaturally still, eyes on her. Nope, there was no blinking there at all. Seriously unnerved, Stacy closed up the cash register, double checked that the drawer was secure, then swung open the kitchen door and hurriedly walked through. Richard, the chef, looked up when she entered. He was on his phone. “What’s up? ‘S there a customer?”

“I mean, yeah…he just wanted coffee, though. Now he’s just…sitting there…” Stacy shuddered. “He creeps me out.”

“Really?” Richard strolled over and looked through the tiny round window in the kitchen door. Stacy pushed her head next to his. The man was now rummaging in his backpack again. He pulled something out. “Please tell me that’s not a gun…” Stacy muttered.

“Nah.” Richard squinted. “Looks like a tennis ball or something. Green, round…it’s kinda glowy. Maybe it’s, like, a novelty bouncy ball?”

“He doesn’t seem the type…” Stacy muttered.

“People can be wrong, Stace. Maybe you’re just expecting a creep to walk in at two in the morning, so your brain is tricking you.”

“Maybe…” She was pretty sure her instincts were correct here. The man had stared at her for way too long to be innocent.

“What’s goin’ on here?”

Richard and Stacy jumped, then simultaneously turned around to see Rosa, the manager. She’d just entered through the back door. Now she was staring at her two employees with a combined expression of annoyance and curiosity.

“There’s a, uh, customer here,” Stacy explained. “I was getting a weird feeling from him. Rich says it’s nothing.”

“Let me see.” Rosa pushed her way past them to peer through the porthole. She frowned. “He seems normal enough. That eye-patch is a bit suspicious, but we shouldn’t judge. He order anything?”

“Just coffee.”

“Well, we’ll keep an eye on him. In the mean time Stacy, d’you mind taking out the garbage in the kitchen? It’s overflowing.”

“I, uh, yeah, sure.” Stacy awkwardly backed away from the door, heading out. Picking up the garbage on the way, she couldn’t help but think that it was nowhere near overflowing. But Rosa probably had good reason. She just had to…had to remember that.

She threw the bag from the can into the dumpster in the alley, the dim light from a flickering bulb over the diner’s back door barely allowing her to see. For a split second, she allowed herself to slump. This job…she needed it, but god did it suck. Creepy guy comes in the diner? Let’s keep an eye on him, forget that he makes you uncomfortable. By the way, you still have to serve him.

A small sound came from the ground near her feet. An animal sound…? Stacy looked down and saw a cat curling around her ankles. Mostly black, with a few white spots, including four arranged in an almost perfect diamond on its forehead. It wasn’t a small cat, actually it was fairly big height- and length-wise, but it was so thin. Stacy felt a pang of sympathy for it. “Hey little guy,” she cooed.

The cat gazed up at her with big green eyes. It meowed again. Stacy bent over to pet it, and it leaned against her and purred. A faint smile curled around her lips. Animals weren’t allowed in the diner, nor in the apartment building where she lived with her kids. She missed them. “I wish you could come with me,” she sighed. But already she was worried about Rosa noticing she was taking too long. If she came back into the diner with a cat when that was explicitly against the rules, she’d get another warning. And too many warnings meant losing her job.

Oh well. Sadly, she turned around and looked at the cat again..only for it to turn into a streak of dark fur and zoom past her into the diner. “What the hell!” she cried, darting inside.

“What? What happened?” Rosa asked. She and Richard were cleaning the kitchen counters, probably under the assumption that nobody else was coming.

“There was a stray cat, it-it ran inside,” Stacy explained.

“Oh shit!” Rosa’s eyes widened. “We can’t have dirty strays in here. Richard and I will look for it. You go back out there and attend the customer.”

Stacy almost asked to switch places with one of them, but she didn’t want to push her luck with letting the cat inside. She swallowed her words and pushed through the kitchen door back into the main body of the diner.

“—to do next. I’m thinking we get you to safety. I know a place.”

She froze. In a split second, she took in two things and made two conclusions: 1) the diner was still empty except for that one guy, 2) that one guy was talking to somebody, 3) if there was no one else in the diner then the guy was talking to himself, 4) if the guy was talking to himself then he was crazy and possibly dangerous, though that wasn’t a guarantee, but with the feeling she got from him it probably was. Instinctively, Stacy ducked down so that she was hidden behind the counter. She immediately felt stupid.

“Don’t l͠o͝o̵k̶ at me that way, I can protect it!”

She immediately stopped feeling stupid. That VOICE. That wasn’t…there was something…

Stacy’s attention was caught by the kitchen door easing its way open. The black cat poked its head through. It looked at her and narrowed its eyes in an…almost human way. Then it slipped through the door and headed around the counter and out into the dining area.

The man continued. “You don’t NEED that toxic shit, do ya? Cause I don’t want to turn right back around and scoop up a bucketful. That a no? Alright, we should probably—” Suddenly, he fell silent.

Time seemed frozen. The electric humming in the lights was definitely getting louder. It grew in intensity. Stacy shrank back.

A series of events happened in quick succession. Richard and Rosa burst through the kitchen door, cried out “Where’d the cat—?!” “Who the hell is—?” The overhead lights burst with an electric fritz and glass sprayed everywhere. It was dark for less than a second, then a flash of violet light lit everything up in startling intensity. The light was accompanied by a shock wave, and somehow Stacy was thrown from her hiding spot. She hit her head hard against the edge of a shelf on the other wall, and everything went black.

When she woke up, the first thing she noticed was the sticky, throbbing pain coming from her forehead. She almost groaned, but then she heard the laughing and thought better of it. Her head and limbs were twisted at awkward angles, but she was filled with a weakness and simply couldn’t move them. She opened her eyes. The diner was dark, except for a pulsing green light and a steady purple glow. She couldn’t see much from her spot on the floor, but the kitchen door was ajar and an arm was sticking out. It was surrounded by a puddle of dark liquid.

“ I̴ş ̛̕ţ̨h̸̕a̢҉t͝͡ ̨͞al͏͝l̵̢ ͠҉y͢o̶̶͠u̧͢͠ ҉g̡͠oţ̷͟,̢ ̧̕k̴̨i͡t҉t͞y̛͞ ̶c̨̕a̢̨t?̴”

It sounded like the words were being spoken through a buffering voice call made using a broken app. But the voice itself—the mocking, arrogant voice—was familiar. Stacy finally found the energy to push herself into a kneeling position. Her head was filled with a thick syrup, but the few thoughts that penetrated that syrup were those of curiosity. She crawled over to the counter and peeked over the top.

Someone was standing on one of the tables. Dully, Stacy recognized the scarf a moment before she saw his face. It was the man from before, but… this was impossible. The air around him was fizzing and breaking with distortion, creating shadowy duplicates and an almost glitchy effect. It seemed like the green light was coming from him. He was looking down at the source of the purple light. Another man. He had his back turned to Stacy, so she couldn’t see much… was he wearing a cape? The purple glow was coming from his hands. Stacy thought he must’ve been holding a flashlight or something, but there was no sign of anything like that.

“I have plenty more tricks up my sleeve,” spat another voice. Similar to the glitching man’s but not quite the same. It must’ve been the other one.

“W̛e̕l̸l, ̴I'̴m ͝sur͢e͝ ͞you͠ d̶o͠,” said the one on the table. The distortion increased for a moment as his head cracked to the side, then glitched back into place. He pointed something toward the caped man, and Stacy held back a gasp. Where did he get a knife?! “W̨hy ͠d͟on̶'҉t ͝yo͏u u͢s͏e th̴e͟m? ̕I͞'m sur͝e̵ yo̕u’re j͞u̷s҉t̸ itchin̢g ͏to.̨” A twisted grin. “G͡o ahȩa̶ḑ.͡ I͝ wa҉̧n̵͟͝na͠͠ s҉̶̥̖e̛̦̳̯e̘̹͍̤̠̞̕͞.”

“I—” Stacy could hear the hesitation in the other man’s voice. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to, more like he did want to but knew he shouldn’t. “N-no-not yet. You’re gonna tell me where you hid it. Do you have it? You’re trying to taunt me into blasting it, huh?!”

“Oh̢ ҉ye̵s,͡ th̴at makes p̶̴̡e̢͟r̷̵f͞e̛ct ҉͡ se̸ns͞e̛.” The words were harsh, biting. “C͝o͠ngratul̷at̡i̧ons̛, yo̵u̶'͡ve҉ ̵f̡i͟g̨ure͟d out ̡m̡y p̨lo͞t͡.҉ P͠retend͟ to ̨get̴ ͝t͞ḩem away, only t̶o͝ t͠r̨i҉ck̛ ̸you ͟i̴nt̸o k̶įl̨ling͡ t̷hem̡ ҉yours͞elf. ̵Al͝l ͝t͏h̨is̵ ̡t͞ime͡,̢ ̷I've̢ ̷be̕en̡ a ̢ca͞rto͠on ͢vi͝llai̷n w̧it̵h ̢a͢n ̨el̷ab̢o͞ra̡te ҉s̛che̕m̕e̛.͞ O͡h wai͠t̢,̛ tha͞t’s ҉yo͝u ͟a͏nd̕ y̕ou̕r li̧tt̨l͝e g͡ro҉u҉p͡ of̷ fr̛i͞end̸s.”

A hiss. An honest to god hiss, like a threatened cat. “Oh, we’re the bad guys here, aren’t we?”

“Hm̸m,̸ ͝I do̧n't̴ know. ͡Havę you͏ noti̡ce҉d̨ th͠ȩ ̸w̶a̵l̕ķing̨, talk̷ing͠ evi͠l d͏octǫr̴ ͡tr͝o͠p͝e ҉y̕ou̷ ̵h͢a͏ņg ̡o͠u͏t wi͠t̸h?”

“And how are you any better?”

“I͢͏͖̖͕̯̩̙ ̴̴̨̢̛̝̰̼̥̜ a͡t̸ l̷eas̨t k̨̛͢n͞o̢w͏̧ t̷ha͞t I'̷m fucked̷ ̕i͟n̕ th̢e ͠he͟a̴d.”

The caped man let out a horrible screech. A dark violet energy beam blasted from his hands toward the one on the table. The air crackled, and he was gone. Stacy thought for a second that he was gone, only for him to materialize on a different table on the other side of the diner. He laughed, the same one from before. “W̨ow̴,͞ ̶that̴ ̢di̴d n̕o͠҉t̛h̨̛in̴̨̧g͞!͠”

The caped man turned towards him, and Stacy could just make out his face. Or rather, the mask hiding his face. It was shaped like a cat, and colored black. Four shapes, two red and two white, were in the middle of the mask’s forehead. Creeping out from underneath the mask were lines on the man’s cheeks—scars, Stacy realized. What the hell…?

Another blast of purple energy. Once again, the glitcher dissolved and reappeared on another table. And again, the same result. And again. This time, the man popped into existence standing on the counter, inches away from the spot where Stacy was watching. She exhaled sharply. The man turned his head slightly and looked down. His one visible eye had changed color; its sclera was black and the iris was acid, electric green. Stacy couldn’t help but stare at it. The distortion, the energy blasts, the creepy voice…that kind of shit was only supposed to be in movies and YouTube videos. Yet here it was, impossibly, in real life.

The man’s eye widened slightly, then he looked back to the masked man. “Y̨o͠u g҉on͟na do ̴th̛is̛ ҉forev̧e̡r̴,̡ ̕mag̷ic bo͟y?̷” he jeered. ”P͢lay ͝c̛at an̶d ̧mo͝use̸?”

“Shut up!” Another blast, and Stacy flinched as it passed so close to her. Just as before, the man glitched away. But now he appeared behind the masked man. Before he could react, the glitcher plunged the knife into his backside, quickly withdrawing it. The masked man roared and let out a spray of purple liquid that burned the walls of the diner like acid. It had no effect, as the other one disappeared once more.

“H̢e̛y͏ lady,” a voice whispered in Stacy’s ear. She let out a small squeak, then spun around. The man was crouching right next to her. His eye had gone back to normal, and the distortion seemed to have lessened somehow. “ Y͡ou need to get the f̴u̴ck̡ out of here.”

“Who—how—what—” Stacy stuttered.

“That’s not important. Come on.”

“Wh-wh-what about Rich and Rosa?” she asked.

“Dead. Ripped apart by the shockforce spell.” Then, as an afterthought, “Sorry.”

“I…” Stacy trailed off. They couldn’t be…this couldn’t be real. It was probably just a bad dream. A very realistic bad dream…

“Oh for—there’s no time for shock!” He grabbed her arm. Before she could protest or pull away, he was running around the counter and toward the exit, dragging her behind him. She cried out.

The masked man’s head whipped toward them. “Hey! You aren’t leaving yet!” Stacy looked toward him, only to see a long whip of violet fire snapping toward her. A lashing agony spread through her arm. She screamed and fell. The glitcher instinctively dissolved to avoid the fire, but he reappeared in the same spot as he realized he’d let go of her. He stopped in his tracks and made to grab her again. A shield of purple fire appeared between him and her.

“Alright, fine, if you’re gonna make me do this.” The masked man rolled his eyes. “Tell me where the eye is, and the waitress can live to tell the police about this disaster. Not that they’ll believe her.”

Stacy’s heart stopped. She looked up at the glitcher with pleading eyes. He stared back at her, considering. “W͞hat'͡s yo̸ur g͞ame҉,M͡arv͟in͏?̛” he asked. “If ̸I’m ͠t̢he͠ ͠b̷ad ̸g͡uy,͏ ̶w̢h̷y ͟d̵o͏ ҉y̢o̵u th̶in͢k̨ I’d care?̶”

“Fair point.” The masked man—Marvin—shrugged. “Or, it would be if you hadn’t just fucking stabbed me to get her out. If I believe Jackie, you like to play the long game usually.”

The glitcher nodded, slightly. “A̡lri̕ght̵,̷ I̶'l͡l̸ g͝iv̛e̡ you̧ ͠a ch̷an͝c͠e̢.” He turned to Marvin. “Y͢ou can ha͏v͟e͏ them.̧..if y̕o͝u͝ ͡can̡ ͡ca̢tch t͟h̸em͢!” He threw something. A round, green object sailed through the air, over the counter and through the ajar kitchen door. Marvin cried out, then dashed to follow it. With the loss of his focus, the purple fire wall disappeared. “Come on!” the glitcher hissed to Stacy, then turned and bolted out the door. She scrambled to her feet and ran after him.

The city was still dark. Stacy glanced at her watch: 2:18 a.m. Only a little over ten minutes ago, she’d been idly sorting through the coffee cups, and now she was running from an insane fire-thrower wearing a cat mask, following a guy who could seemingly break the world at will. Her arm was burning. Rosa and Richard were dead. Her world was crashing around her.

She looked up to see the glitcher staring at her. The distortions had entirely disappeared. “Yeah?” he sounded impatient.

“Yeah—yeah what?” she stammered.

“He hit you, didn’t he? With the fire?”

“Um…” Stacy touched her arm. A bit of her uniform was burned away, and the wound was letting out a bit of smoke. “…yeah.”

“Well that sucks,” he said casually. “That’s a black magic burn. It’ll keep burning until either you eventually die somehow or a cure is administered. And that means I gotta take you to my place and fix it.” He sighed. “Okay, come on.” He turned on his heel.

“W-wait! I have questions!” Stacy hurried to catch up until she was matching his quick pace. “Who—what are you?”

“I see you corrected that one. Good.” He continued walking. Every so often they’d pass under a street light, and she’d see that she was on his blind side. Still, despite that, Stacy felt like he was staring at her. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? That’s impossible.”

“Is it? Is it really? Well, maybe it is and I’m just not telling you.” He giggled to himself.

Even though he’d just saved her life, that laugh was still really creepy. “And-and that other guy? Marvin?”

“Black magic magician that gives black cats the bad name they have. I stole something away from him and his friends, and they want it back.”

“What? Was it that green thing you threw?”

He grinned evilly. “No.” Still walking, he pulled at his scarf. For a moment, Stacy could see that underneath the scarf there were bloodied bandages wrapped around his neck. And then something glowing, green, and round shot out from where it had been hidden within the cloth of the scarf. It hovered in the air, easily keeping up with them. Stacy gasped. It was an eye. A green-scleraed, blue-irised eyeball with an optic nerve like a tail. The main body of the thing was about the size of a tennis ball. As she stared at it, its iris deformed slightly, curving upward. She got the impression that it was happy. “This little guy is Sam,” the man explained. “I broke into the guys’ main hideout and found them in a tank of green toxic fluid. They were curled up at the bottom and looked scared, so I broke the fucker and lettem out.”

“And…these guys…they want this Sam back?” Stacy hesitantly reached out toward the eyeball. It nudged her hand, then started nestling it like a pet would. It was actually kind of adorable. “Why?”

“Hell if I know. Some of them have major control freak problems, so maybe that’s it. But they sent Mr. Goodbye Kitty after me, so they’re serious about getting them back. The thing you saw me throw, that was a ‘copy,’ to distract him. He’ll grab it, take it back to their little lair, and then it’ll disappear. Thought it would buy me time to get you fixed.”

“Why didn’t you just-just teleport me?” Stacy asked.

“It’s not t̢ęl͟e̸port̷ing. It’s…well, you can call it glitching, that’s close enough. And it can’t affect most living things. Sam is somehow an exception.”

“It affects you.”

“Oh? Who told you I͡ w͏a̧s l̷̢͡į̷v̵i̴n̶g̸?” He smiled.

Stacy shuddered. She almost stopped in her tracks and ran the other way, but if he was right about the burn never healing, then she needed all the help she could get. “Okay,” she said quietly. They walked in silence for a moment through the empty city streets. But there was one more question bugging Stacy. “Wh-what-what’s your name?”

“Antisepticeye.”

“Oh.” Weird name…

“People call me Anti, if that’s too long for you. And you?”

“I’m Stacy. Stacy Bro—Davidson.”

He—Anti—faltered, turning to fully look at her for the first time. “Say that again.”

“Stacy Davidson,” she repeated, softer.

Anti stared at her for a moment longer, then turned away. “We’re almost there,” he said, and sped up.

Stacy sped up as well. Why had he been so interested in her name? Did he know something about her? Or about…? She shook her head. Don’t dwell on the past. Dwell on the present. However strange it may be.

And maybe the future too. She had the feeling it was about to get a whole lot stranger.