DP x DC prompt where Bruce and Tim go to investigate Amity Park, with Jason in tow, all suited up. They’ve heard a strange claim about “ghosts” there, and trying to research the town revealed a concerning government presence and tampered records.
The moment they enter the town, the ectoplasm in the air starts rapidly filtering out the corrupted ectoplasm in Jason’s system and strengthening his underdeveloped core (kinda like To Join the Whispers). Jason doesn’t tell Bruce or Tim at first since he’s kind of freaking out about how the Pit is responding to the town. Then Jason’s arm goes through a table and they don’t really have any idea what is happening and are now all freaking out about it. Danny sees this happen and immediately recognizes the same sudden, uncontrollable power displays he had after the Accident.
Danny is extremely torn because he wants to help (a new halfa?? or something close enough??? and he’s a vigilante???? hell yeah), but he’s also Terrified of Batman going anywhere near his fucking house. So he introduces himself as Phantom and tries his best to steer them away from FentonWorks while also trying to help talk Red Hood through everything and dump a lot of ghost facts on them. Going to see Frostbite is extremely tempting, but Danny’s pretty sure he can handle this. Pretty sure. (He does Not want Batman near the portal, since it means being in his gd house, and he doubts he can get Red Hood there without Batman following.)
The bats didn’t even know who Phantom was until they arrived in Amity and they’re all a Little concerned that this random, powerful ghost child is this excited about Jason essentially going through ghost puberty in record time. It’s even more concerning that Phantom doesn’t seem at all surprised that a human can be part ghost in any way, which means either Phantom is somehow human himself (somehow) or that this is just not a new occurrence in this town.
They came here to figure out wtf was happening in Amity, and Phantom’s raising about 50 more questions by the second. Bruce sees Phantom take down a mutant ghost bear ripping through town and now he’s pretty sure this ghost child (who may or may not be partially alive??) is a load-bearing feature of the town. He’s not a fan of that. Bruce is even more concerned that, upon mentioning the government presence in town, Phantom says the GIW is causing more problems for the town and is actively hunting him.
Jason’s just... having a time. He’s never felt so zen and anxious at the same time. He wants to feel skeptical about Phantom and what’s going on, but being anywhere near the kid makes him feel like he’s hanging out with his best friend since childhood, wrapped in a warm blanket and safe as can be. (And the Pit is quiet and his mind feels Clear.)
The only reason the bats didn’t attack Phantom and drag Jason away in the first place is because Jason doesn’t Want to leave and jumped to defending the kid oddly quick. They tried to drag Jason out of town but he’s turning partly-intangible now whenever someone touches him and they physically can’t.
Danny’s pretty much adopted Red Hood as his new brother and even if he doesn’t trust Batman as far as he can throw him (far), he feels like he’s doing a pretty good job juggling mentoring Red Hood and managing to derail Batman’s investigation at the same time. Tucker helped lure the Drs. Fenton out of town with a fake ghost hunting convention, and the online information for anything in Amity is so butchered (between Tucker, Technus, and the GIW each having their turn at tampering) that the bats are having to rely mostly on word of mouth for their investigation.
He’s not doing quite as good of a job as he thinks he is, though. All it took was Phantom badmouthing the FentonWorks building once in passing for Bruce to look into it. They try to break into the place the moment they think Phantom’s gone-- only the house has some Surprisingly violent security systems and Phantom appears out of no where and drags them away.
They plan to go back the next day, cause there’s definitely Something there and they’re pretty sure it’s the answers they need. (Even just looking at the weird structure on the roof pretty much promises that.)
Only... Jason’s developing core (which isn’t fully formed and is soaking up the ectoplasm in Amity like a sponge) turns out to be an electric core. It starts going Buckwild with pent up energy, and Danny is having None of that. He goes from being very happy and excited to just-- terrified and flighty.
Random sparks of electricity around the kid with the Worst track record with that stuff? Yeah, no thanks.
Danny races home and just paces endlessly, confiding in Jazz that he doesn’t know what to do and wants to help and feels awful for bailing on them-- but he doesn’t feel capable handling someone with electricity sparking off of them like water off a duck. He thinks they need Frostbite’s help, which means letting Batman into FentonWorks, which means opening himself up to the possibility (probability) of Batman finding out more about the Fentons, Danny Fenton specifically, and Phantom.
The bats are panicking because, skeptical of Phantom or not, he was the only person providing them with answers and trying to help. Jason’s stressed to high hell without the calming feeling of Phantom nearby-- AND electricity now jolting from his hands uncontrollably on top of everything. The electricity is just coming and going at random, with him having no control over it.
They go to FentonWorks, their only lead, and this time a girl with red hair answers the door. She’s clearly stressed out about something-- and she has Phantom in her house, looking dejected and still very terrified as he keeps his distance. Why Phantom is in a house that is clearly stacked to the nines with ghost hunting equipment is... suspicious.
Jason’s powers act up almost immediately after entering the house-- causing some very scary damage to the nearest light fixture-- and Jazz is like “yeah no, we need to fix this Now” and marches them straight to the portal. The entire time she’s trying to explain her parents’ work and how they have friends through this portal that can help, and it’s Quite the sell to make on the fly.
They walk past a few family pictures on the wall on the way to the lab and it’s all Tim needs to see to be like “Soooo Phantom is definitely your brother-- hey um why is your brother a ghost??” He expresses this aloud and the way Danny tries to stammer and hide it is as good of confirmation as anything.
And then they see the state of the lab. All of the ghost-hunting weapons just lying around, and the giant portal to hell-- and how Phantom is still visibly keeping his distance from the sparks coming off of Jason. There’s just building rage in Bruce as he’s putting together the parental negligence and trauma. He wants to grill the two kids about their parents (why do they have all of these ghost hunting weapons when their kid is some sort of ghost?? WHY is their kid some sort of ghost???), but now he’s faced with a teenaged girl trying to convince him to go through a mysterious ghost portal to bring his kid to some strange ghost doctor.
Jason is leery as can be of the portal (it Looks a bit too like the Lazarus Pit, and it definitely feels like death), but this girl-- Jazz-- doesn’t seem afraid of going through the portal and is making it very clear she’ll just go into this “Ghost Zone” without them and grab this doctor if she has to. The thought of the girl diving through the portal by herself (and the sparks still flying off of him, making a mess of the lab equipment), is enough incentive to get Jason to go with.
Transporting Jason is... problematic, though. He would absolutely destroy the Specter Speeder if he rides in it. They eventually settle on Danny dragging Jason through the zone by a line (wearing a giant pair of rubber gloves on top of his gloves because he is not playing around).
By the time they get to the Far Frozen, the situation is sort of... solving itself? Being in the Ghost Zone has filtered out the last of the Pit's gunk from Jason and his malformed core is settling down now that it doesn't have good ectoplasm competing with sludge. He still doesn't really have control over the electricity, and feels a bit overwhelmed with energy, but it's no longer firing on all cinders.
Frostbite's pretty bothered by meeting Jason. He recognizes him as something similar to Danny (Bruce isn't going to let the "Great One" nicknamed Phantom has slide also; hoo boy that's another for the Giant List), but... Off. He has a core but it's-- small. Delicate. It was dormant until he entered Amity, and even now it doesn't really have the power or even shape a normal ghost core should.
Frostbite is able to help with the electricity, at least, by just explaining that now that his core has formed (in what capacity it can) Jason has to be careful about pent up energy to avoid it striking out. That the electricity feeds easily off of available energy and, especially if his emotions are high, will lash out if it overflows. He has Jason let out a lot of energy in a secluded space and it feels immensely cathartic.
Jason is still not allowed into the Specter Speeder on the way back to FentonWorks.
Returning to FentonWorks (with Jason's condition stabilized after his GZ spa cleanse) opens the door for a very careful interrogation of the Fenton siblings. Each answer or non-answer they give is more concerning than the last. The straw that breaks the camel's back is learning that the portal itself killed Danny and that his parents are not in any way aware he's (half) dead because of the ever-real risk his parents will hurt him if they find out.
They haven’t even mentioned Vlad. There’s still so much.
Bruce is already mentally signing the adoption papers. Tim and Jason have accepted they're getting two new siblings and are warning the family (and Jason's planning to be as careful as he can with these new powers so he doesn't freak Danny out because knowing Why it was freaking Danny out has him wanting to wear his own pair of rubber gloves and strangle their parents with them).
Danny is just a little shellshocked that these people are nicer than he thought and are willing to help him and not make his life worse.
Also notes: Jason wouldn't have a full roster of halfa abilities. No secondary form (though the white hair tuft prob glows more, and his eyes turn green more often), probably no true flight, and no ectoblasts. He mostly gets a grasp on the electricity and intangibility, and can use invisibility sparingly. The pranks he and Danny (and later Dani) get up to are the stuff of legend.
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hey lovely hi! I wanted to ask you something about writing. First of all i love love love the way you write matt and Frank! So on point and detailed and so well observed. I wanted to know how do you understand them i mean what are your ways to study a character?
I hope I'm making sense and im sorry for being a bother 😭 love you.
hi first of all i love you sm for this oh my god?? you're not a bother at all, i could talk about matt forever. writing him true to character is the highest compliment i could ask for 🥹
several thoughts come to mind — first i think of the characters as they are individually, then as they are tied to one another; once tied together through the threads of the story, there is no separating them. just as there is no separating the choices they make now from all the choices in the past that led up to this moment. where do the boundaries of the character as laid out in the source material brush up against the boundaries of the character as i understand them & what archetypal role are they fulfilling (if relevant).
also the mutability of the boundary between archetypes: i.e. matt descends into 'hell' to bring frank out, orpheus role; matt hears & carries everything, god-like role; matt accepts this as a call to action, hero; matt takes it upon himself to punish these 'evildoers', devil; matt takes these sins upon himself, christ figure; matt is wounded in his noble pursuit, martyr figure. & how do his roles change in relation to the characters he shares a scene with — fisk (god-like in seemingly limitless influence) / matt (hero/martyr).
what life is there for a hero outside of their duty in a story like this? what room is there for him to be human? that's what i want to know. so i take what we know from what we've been given:
matt is the son of a boxer -> he grows up with the inherent understanding that two things can be true at once: hands capable of love can also be capable of violence
matt, as a child, saves an old man and loses his sight -> he accepts at a very young age the concept of heroic acts & their consequences (inevitability)
matt’s father chooses to die a 'hero' rather than live as a flawed but present father -> better to be a hero, to live and die by those familiar consequences than to be a flawed but present person (2nd ex. of heroes and their consequences, inevitability)
matt’s next father figure is violent but it is through that violence he learns to navigate an overwhelming world -> violence = love
stick leaves, like his father left, like his mother left -> to love is to lose (inevitability)
matt is only human, after all, it's what's most compelling about him as a character. and the show really did let us sit in those long moments of quiet witness to matt's undeniable humanity. he is flawed, he stumbles in fights, he can’t catch his breath, his faith buckles under the weight of his grief; he doesn't understand how to be human, how to maintain relationships, how to reconcile the darkest parts of the world and of himself with his faith in humanity and belief in redemption. the world is overwhelming to him on every sensory level. every touch is a modified blow? he lives that. he looks outside of himself for light (foggy, faith). when he reaches his breaking point, he breaks rather than turn to the people he loves because of the lessons he internalized as a child. stick left because matt loved, despite everything. despite everything, his love > his rage (bc his rage is his grief & his grief is another face of his love).
even after foggy finds out matt's secret life of physical violence, he still refers to him as "my soft-hearted partner" because it's true, matt cannot help but love & recognize humanity in others. it's because of this that he feels called to balance two unsustainably contradictory lives: using his voice to fight for redemption in court; taking it into his own hands when the law fails. taking their blood onto himself, by himself.
and that is the only touch he allows himself to experience—violence. blood on his knuckles, in his mouth, in his throat. and when his body is torn open and his secrets bared through his wounds, we get another glimpse into the reality of heroes and their consequences. foggy is not treated as an audience stand-in to giddily marvel at matt's abilities and how cool they are, he's heartbroken. he’s fucking devastated. his best friend is bleeding out on his apartment floor. he doesn't want matt to die. he doesn't want matt to be daredevil, he doesn’t want matt to be a hero — because foggy, more than anyone, understands matt's humanity and mortality. and foggy, more than anyone, selfishly wants matt to be his friend first. let hell’s kitchen take care of itself. why should matt die for a community that doesn’t love him like foggy loves him? that doesn’t know him like foggy knows him? he knew matt before he became a story. their time at columbia grounds their friendship & grounds matt to a life that is as close to normal as any comicbook story. they stay up late studying, they drink a little too much, they live together and achieve a kind of domesticity that comes easy to foggy but utterly incomprehensible to everything matt knew before foggy. we see a glimpse at a life with foggy that represents a gentle kind of safety and happiness — everything matt has been denied in his life until then. everything that the momentum of the story demands matt cannot keep (as hero).
and then there's frank. composed of rigid codes and immovable beliefs, just as much as matt, but on the other side of the line matt has drawn in the sand. that line represents matt’s faith in humanity and belief in redemption. despite living the worst of it, despite bearing the brunt of it. matt can't lose frank because matt never had frank; and yet matt and frank hold an inherent understanding of one another that no one else can. two sides of the same coin: unwavering & fatal sense of duty that walks them in a winding but inevitable line toward their respective fates; acceptance of the roles life has given them in what life has taken from them. it's not that they want to die, it's just that they’ve lived so long in the depths of their own private grief that they can’t see living outside of them.
so of course foggy doesn't want to matt to be a hero because there is no story where the hero comes home unscathed, there is no story where the hero is not brought to his knees. to love matt is to accept he could lose matt. either through death or through his inevitable transformation into something foggy may not recognize.
(now matt's unwritten rules by which he lives are bleeding into other characters' lives, consequences spiraling outward & outward)
a perilous thing began with wanting to explore this idea: a story that revolves around the moment when the hero is brought to their knees (figuratively & literally) that marks the separation of who they were before and who they must become after (transformation), if there is to be an after -> internal vs external consequences; forced passivity; how does the hero come back from that & who is he if/when he comes back from that. is he recognizable? i also wanted to look at the hero & the story through someone else's eyes, someone who could be more objective than me, more objective than foggy (whose love for matt clouds his observations, as it did in light perception). and who could objectively understand matt's actions & motivations better than frank? the anti-hero and matt's foil.
so i first look at the character through the lens of the story that’s been told and then the story i want to tell, i look at him through the lens of other characters and i assemble a picture from there. i look at matt through the events of his life, through his relationship with violence & his relationship with his very mortal body. unlike other superheroes he is not invincible, he is not bulletproof, he is not capable of flying, or softening a long fall; he is not capable of throwing his adversaries across a room, he is barely capable of saving himself from his own self-destructive choices. he has a damaged & unbearably human body. everything he can do he has fought tooth and nail for. he doesn't have superpowers like telekinesis or lasers that come out of his eyes; he has loss, he has grief, he has rage. we can all relate to that. he has a voice that is capable of giving a second chance to others (in court) but he lives and dies a thousand deaths inside of the silence at his core he can't find his way out of. his inability to communicate his grief or desires in a bearable way.
perhaps he finds redemption through saving others because he doesn't believe he, himself, is otherwise worthy of redemption. if he did, he would relinquish his duty as hero, he would live a quiet & happy life of domesticity with foggy. perhaps in another world he does. he lays down his mantle, or he lives in a world where he never had to take it up. he's just matt, foggy's soft-hearted partner.
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A Fate Determined
What a fall from grace.
He used to be quartered in a finely furnished cabin, with an entire library at his fingertips whenever he chose. He could find other scholars of the Great Ocean and consult them or banter with them. He could create marvelous experiments with his brothers, even if they sometimes had less than ideal results.
Now, he was sequestered away in the dingy underbelly of a beaten -- and most likely stolen -- warship that belonged to a band of miscreants and barbarians. Fitting, he reasoned, considering what had passed.
He was armored, even though today was not to be a day of skirmishing and combat. He had long since learned the value of maintaining some level of protection, especially in times between fighting. His associates, for he was not permitted to call them cousin nor even ally, were negotiating. With whom, the sorcerer did not know, for he was told it was not his right to know.
Being a sorcerer, most would reason that he could just pluck the information he wanted from the minds of the unwilling, and they would be correct.
If his new "boss" was not a member of the dreaded XII alongside most of the members of this miserable band. Though whether he could even refer to them as members of a Legion felt dubious. The change brought about from the Siege and these few... what, centuries now? had changed them so fundamentally. They were fracturing and breaking away. Most of the Legions were.
After all, their primarchs were beginning to abandon them, and they were without direction and unity.
His own Legion had fractured long before the others. Recent events only broke them further.
He shakes his head to clear the thoughts. He'd rather not entertain and remember what had happened.
For now, he needed to focus. The leader of this warband had instructed him to formulate a ritual to summon forth a greater daemon of Khorne, and-
A knock at his door stops his thoughts.
"Hey! Sorcerer!" comes a gruff shout. Pachua. A former member of the III, usually the one sent to fetch the sorcerer since most of the others in the band could hardly stand to be near him. The sorcerer once had a fleeting vision of Pachua holding the head of the current leader, Ukwtakun, and using it as a bargaining chip.
"Yes?" the sorcerer replied, already rising from where he had been sitting.
"You're called to the command deck," Pachua said.
"Any particular reason?" the sorcerer asked as he opened the door. "Am I assisting in navigation again?"
"Don't know, don't care to know," Pachua said with a snort. "I have other things to attend to." Before another word could be said, the other Astartes stalked off, the dim light from the overhead lumens reflecting the garish colors and fresh trophies he had recently adorned his armors with. With a sigh, the sorcerer quickly made his way through the ship, coming to the doors that opened to the command bridge.
Immediately he was greeted with an unfamiliar sight. Two Terminators, painted in crimson edged in silver, barred his way. Scripture was both etched into their plate and pinned to their armor in various scrolls. He took notice of several symbols meant to ward away the creatures of the Immaterium -- unsurprising, given that these two were of the XVII.
"Greetings," the sorcerer said to them. "Ukwtakun summoned me."
"You are the sorcerer?" one asked.
"I am." Perhaps the XVII were not aware of the changes that had befell his Legion. He knew his cerulean and gold plate seemed strange to them.
"He is speaking with our Apostle," said the other.
Apostle. The sorcerer was still uncomfortable with the word.
"May I ask that he be informed of my presence, at least?"
"We've sent word along," the Terminator said, sounding annoyed.
A silence stretched out between the three of them. While he awaited clearance to enter, his mind wandered, as did his other senses. Despite the suppression required to avoid getting killed, he could still keenly sense the auras of those around him.
A reliable talent to help avoid taking a fist or an axe to the face.
He thought it a hold-over from his time as part of the Atheanean Cult from before the Fall. Such designations were archaic, now, and his mastery over the arts of old was giving way to new talents and curiosities.
Some were not as new as he let on when he was still with the Legion, but he had wanted to keep up appearances then. Part of him did find it amusing that his ambitious brother had been right, in a way. There was more to the disciplines than what the Five Cults provided.
Soon enough, the doors opened, and the sorcerer was allowed to enter. He gave a nod of acknowledgement and respect to the two Terminators as he entered, though who he saw left him stopped in his tracks.
Standing near to the brutualized warrior that was Ukwtakun was a face the sorcerer had not seen in centuries. Scripture marched down the left side of his face, his crimson armor left unadorned aside from the occasional lines of scripture or wards that looked similar to those borne by the Terminators who had stood sentry outside. A crozius arcanum rested near his feet.
"There you are!" Ukwtakun's voice ripped him from his momentary stupor. The warrior's face was nearly bisected by a massive scar that ran from one temple to the opposite corner of his jaw. A wild swing from a Blood Angel, he had said. It nearly took his eye out. The sorcerer gave a brief bow.
"How may I-"
"I called for you hours ago," the warrior interrupted. His lips pulled into a snarl. "Where were you?"
"In study and mediatation," the sorcerer answered carefully. His eyes flicked between the berserker and his guest. The XVII Legion warrior remained stoic. The sorcerer had caught a momentary glimpse of recognition flickering across his aura, but now his was being drowned out by the ever-burning rage his current "boss" held within him.
His answer did not sit well.
"Looks like I have to remind you that you come when called for, sorcerer," Ukwtakun snarled. "You're only here because you're convenient, but I'm sure we could always replace you."
The sorcerer said nothing to this. It was true. They happened to find him as he was fleeing, and they could have butchered him, but did not.
"I understand," he said meekly.
"I don't think-"
"Is this the time for this?"
The voice came from the Word Bearer -- the Apostle -- that Ukwtakun was dealing with. It was soft yet commanding. Both the sorcerer and the berserker looked at him.
"You're on my ship, Book Thumper," Ukwtakun growled. "If I have to deal with an insubordin-
"And you are requiring my word to resupply at Ghalmek," the Word Bearer countered. "And, if my assumptions are correct, this is the sorcerer that you require to uphold your half of our bargain."
Silence. Uneasy silence. Ukwtakun's aura diminished slightly under the weight of the presence the Apostle emanated.
"I'll deal with your bookworming later," Ukwtakun spat towards the sorcerer. He nodded, already beginning to prepare himself for what was to come. If he was lucky, he would only maybe lose a limb for this.
"So you are his psyker," the Apostle said, now focusing his attention on the sorcerer. His eyes were dark, but they were warm. Open and inviting, matching the rest of his body language. "May I have your name?"
"I-"
"Doesn't deserve it," Ukwtakun said with a snort. "Ask him your questions so I can have him dealt with."
"Fine." The Apostle sighed. "You are experienced in diabolism, yes? Have you begun experimenting with the creation of bound weaponry or armor?"
"I... Yes, somewhat," the sorcerer answered. Something was strange. He recognized this Apostle from the times before the War... didn't he recognize him? He thought he saw a flicker of recognition before, but it could have been a mistake.
"Somewhat?" There was no malice or derision in the word.
"I have not been granted the space nor the proper supplies to enact the proper experimentation," the sorcerer answered. He flinched as he felt a flare from Ukwtakun, who had reached for his chainaxe.
"You filthy-"
"And if you were provided such materials," the Apostle went on, one hand gripping the arm of the berserker, "you could perform such experiments and yield positive results?"
The sorcerer hesitated. His hearts were pounding. He had not felt this much stress since-
"Are you trying to steal my sorcerer?" Ukwtakun asked, breaking away from the Apostle.
"It is not stealing," the Apostle replied cooly. "You promised me a sorcerer who would be able to assist in the binding and creation of weapons and armors, in exchange for repair and resupply at Ghalmek so that you would not have to go through the Iron Warriors while you are working with elements of the Emperor's Children."
Silence again.
"We still have need for him," the berserker said.
"It sounded to me as though you are ready to replace him." The Apostle tilted his head. "Have I misunderstood your earlier declaration of, 'you're only here because you're convenient'?"
The sorcerer found himself stunned and blinking. He stared with his mouth slightly agape at the Apostle, whom he swore gave him the smallest of smiles. Again, recognition flickered over his aura.
He does remember!
Hope flared for the first time in ages. Could he get him away? That's what it sounded like he was trying to do. He silently pleaded with whatever powers were out there that he was successful.
The berserker was shaking with barely suppressed rage. The two had their eyes locked on each other; one's face a rigid mask, the other keeping calm and composed.
"Fine!" Ukwtakun said abruptly. "Take the stupid sniveling rat. So long as you can get us our stuff, you can have him."
"Gladly. I'll have word sent that we are on the way." The Apostle grabbed his crozius and put it over his shoulder, looking to the sorcerer. "Come with me. I would like to have a conversation with you in private."
"Of course," the sorcerer said, offering a bow, "but my things-"
"Please, go retrieve them," the Apostle told him. "Allow one of the Annointed to accompany you. Abdima?"
One of the Terminators by the door put a fist to his breastplate. The sorcerer offered a salute and another bow, swiftly leaving while the Apostle and Ukwtakun shared some final words.
His mind was racing. Hope felt strange and new to him. Freedom at last from the confines of his dingy hole, freedom from the ever-present stress of existing around trigger-happy berserkers.
Freedom to experiment and allow his talents to roam free once more.
They made it back to his current room, and he sensed the unease radiating from his Terminator escort. It was, admittedly, a mess. Strange paraphanalia and a stack of old journals and musings crowded the room, which was truly only about as wide as two paces for an Astartes.
Human quarters, obviously.
For the first time in an age, the sorcerer unfurled his mind beyond the tightly bound cage he had made for himself, scooped up his belongings in a telekinetic grasp, and nodded to the Terminator. If he encountered any difficulties from the band, he expected the Terminator to help diffuse any open aggression.
As they walked back to reconvene with the Apostle and the other elements of his retinue, he dared to feel excited. Anxiety, ever-present, also flooded through him. It was not fear; it could never be. But he was uncertain. This had to be too good to be true. There was something he did not see, surely.
The thought dampened everything, even after he saw the Apostle offer him a genuinely warm smile and even as he was welcomed aboard the Word Bearer's vessel. It was called the Unitas Abyssi, and it was decorated in just the way the sorcerer had imagined any ship of the XVII would be.
Thousands of mortals moved about, offering prayers and hails as the Astartes passed by. The smell of incense burned throughout its halls. The sorcerer felt the attentions of the denizens of the Great Ocean no matter where he went. The Apostle was leading him down to his own personal chambers at the heart of the ship, the two of them accompanied by an entourage of Terminators.
The walk was a silent one, and the Terminators had been dismissed once they made it to the Apostle's quarters. Beyond the doors lay a great central chamber which had four other rooms that split off from it. The room itself was occupied by the beginnings of a garden, with various troughs and small plants slowly breaching a surface covered in strange mulches. It smelled earthy. A few benches had been arrayed around a focal point in the center, upon which a mosaic depicting the octed star of Chaos had been placed. The Apostle sat on one of them, his back facing the far wall that stood mostly blank and bare.
"Now that we are away from that blunt berserker," the Apostle had said, gesturing to a bench near to him. The sorcerer went and sat down. "May I have your name?"
"I..." he paused. "I am Zikar-Sin, sir."
"Zikar-Sin," he said, nodding. "I thought you seemed familiar. I am sure my introduction is unnecessary."
"So you did recognize me!"
"Of course," the Apostle said with a smile. "How could I forget the Son of Magnus who challenged me in the middle of a symposium to defend my intellectual and theological honor?"
"And how could I forget the Chaplain to whom I served secondment with who dared to call Prosperine food 'too sweet' after sampling nothing but sweets for an afternoon?"
“That I sampled at your insistence, need I remind you.”
Zikar-Sin smiled. "It is good to see you Ans'ar."
"The feeling is mutual. I had feared for your loss after what befell Prospero," Ans'ar said. Zikar-Sin's bright expression darkened, and his eyes turned away from the Apostle. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder, and when he looked up, he saw the face of an aggrieved friend. "I am glad to learn you live."
The sorcerer did not know how to respond to that. His mind was becoming full of thoughts of what had happened, and his brain uncomfortably reminded him of the complicity of the Word Bearers in the wake of the devastation of Prospero.
It was, after all, Horus who had ordered it done.
"I did not mean to stir up hurtful memories-"
"It's fine," Zikar-Sin said shortly. He flinched, then curled a bit into himself. "I did not mean to interrupt you."
His eyes flickered away from the Apostle. He felt him take his hand away from his shoulder.
"Where have you been?" Ans'ar asked quietly. "How did you come to be with a group of World Eaters?"
"That is a very long story," Zikar-Sin said with a tired sigh. The Apostle snorted.
"It is good, then, that I have a very long time to listen." He stood. "Wait here." He walked into one of the adjacent rooms. Zikar-Sin heard some light rummaging and the clinking of glass. When he returned, there was a bottle in one hand and two glasses for wine in the other. Zikar-Sin suppressed a snort of his own, but there was a definite glint of amusement in his face. Ans'ar caught it.
"What?"
"Are you going to light some candles and bring out flowers next?" Zikar-Sin asked with a chuckle. Ans'ar paused, then laughed himself.
"Come, now. There won't be any flowers aboard this vessel for the next few weeks at least." He sat down and poured each of them a glass. Zikar-Sin recognized the vintage from its scent alone. It was sourced from Vharadesh.
He took his glass with a small thank you. Ans'ar nodded and set the bottle down next to him.
"Now that I have cleverly socially trapped you," he said, taking a sip of his wine. "Let us hear your tale of woe."
Zikar-Sin looked down at the deep crimson of the wine inside his own glass.
He inhaled and exhaled, then took a swig of it that drained nearly half the glass. It had been far too long since he could enjoy anything with proper flavor in it.
"Alright. Let us begin in the aftermath of Terra, and Ahriman's folly."
--
Lightning danced and surged around them all. Immense power, the likes of which had only been invoked a handful of times before, pulled at all of them. It felt as though his soul was being stretched thin and pit through a sieve. The world shook.
He fell to his hands and knees, huffing and panting. His eyes burned. The tides of the Great Ocean beat against them all, smashing them upon unseen rocks and distant, unknown and intangible shores. It took immense strength to remember how to think and how to breathe.
He did not know how long this sensation would last. He did not remember what happened between being on the ground and being back on his feet, potentiality boiling around him, and screaming for his brothers as their bodies and minds were turned to dust and sealed away within their armor. Sorrow and disbelief filled him; he began to draw upon the power still roiling around him when he felt it siphoned away. A greater storm was gathering in the Great Ocean. A hurricane of fury and malice, all directed and pointed towards the thing that had started this all.
A father on his way to kill his favored son.
In the wake of the disaster, there was despair. There was anguish. There were tears, though he would never admit it to anyone else.
Despair fed into desperation. He hardly knows what he is thinking by the time he has everyone gathered.
Eighteen. Eighteen of his brothers, now damned into an existence of barely-sapient automata. Only three of his still-flesh brethren knows what he is about to attempt.
He prays. He hopes, so fervently, so desperately, that this will work. If it can work on them, then it can work on everyone, can't it? Surely it must!
The ritual begins. There is laughter. There is unfaltering focus.
And it fails.
Eighteen souls are devoured. Eighteen souls are torn free and sent into the Immaterium.
And the one who conducted it all runs.
He flees, as far and as fast as he can. He even stole a ship to leave. He grabbed only what was around him at the time; nothing but a handful of grimoires and talismans, alongside the armor he wore.
But he flees. To where, he did not know. He thinks that perhaps he will die in isolation. Or perhaps he can work on undoing his mistake, and undoing whatever had been done to the Legion-
And that is when he is found. His place of refuge boarded and searched by a band of warriors looking for things to scavenge.
And my, what a prize he was.
They were lost, having butchered their own mortal navigators and astropaths. They very nearly gave him the same fate before the Emperor's Child, Pachua, intervened. They needed a psyker. He was tired of floating aimlessly, he wanted to find a place of true war again.
And so he had been abducted and forcibly recruited, acting as navigator for a band of insane berserkers. He had learned swiftly that his psychic talents had to be suppressed as far as he could, otherwise he was going to be fighting the warband each moment he was within eyesight.
There he had remained, an exile and outcast, grieving and dreading the future of his Legion, left to fester in the underbelly of their miserable ship, until Ans'ar happened to find him.
--
Silence follows. Zikar-Sin finishes his glass of wine.
"I knew the plight of the Thousand Sons was a difficult one," Ans'ar said, "but I also know you do not deserve such mistreatment."
"It matters little what I deserved."
The sorcerer shrugged. "Though, respectfully, I disagree. My actions led to the destruction of eighteen of my brothers. Total and complete, beyond what this... this Rubric did to them." He shakes his head, then hesitates. He removed one of his gauntlets, revealing a hand that was covered in feathering. Most of the feathering was small, and some scales had begun forming upon the segments of his fingers. Small eyes blink from between his knuckles.
"Flesh Change?" Ans'ar asks carefully, leaning in closer.
"Mutation from our new patron," Zikar-Sin said bitterly. "A reminder of my failures, and a reminder of the fate most likely to consume me one day. The ritual that Ahriman conducted was supposed to scour the Flesh Change from the Legion for good. It did. But it does not mean we cannot still be 'blessed'."
The Apostle's face darkens. Most of what Zikar-Sin is speaking must surely sound like blasphemy and sacrilege to him.
"I would like to offer you something," he says slowly.
"Is it some escoteric item of note?" There is a small eye-roll.
"Better. I want you to formally join my Host."
Zikar-Sin raised a brow. "Was that not already the plan?"
"Not quite. I was willing to have you on in a manner similar to how Ukwtakun had you -- an auxiliary sorcerer we had on hand. But I would like to formally induct you into the Legion."
"You think I would forsake the Thousand Sons?"
"Have you not already?"
The question disarmed him. He was left blinking like a fool, his mind genuinely going blank.
"I... suppose I have," he said slowly, his brow furrowing.
"If you need time to think on it, then I will grant it to you. But for now I will arrange for you to be given proper rooms and a proper place for you to conduct rituals and experiments," Ans'ar said, offering more wine to him. Zikar-Sin gently declined, though the Apostle filled his own glass. "You will be given the respect and room you deserve to operate as you please. Within reason, of course, I am not going to let you take the mortal thralls and whore their lives away without purpose."
The sorcerer bit back a retort about the practices of the Word Bearers as a whole, and only gave Ans'ar a nod of acknowledgement. He handed back his empty glass and stood, sensing that their conversation was over, for now.
"I will have Abdima show you to your new rooms. I would like to speak again in a day or so about your first experiments," Ans'ar said, affecting a more business-like tone. Zikar-Sin nodded again.
"As you wish." He paused. "How should I address you in front of the others? Surely they would take offense to an outsider calling you by your name."
"You may refer to me as Apostle, as they do." Ans'ar drank from his glass, then set the empty glasses down and stood, walking over to Zikar-Sin. He put a hand on his shoulder, then pulled him in for a quick embrace. "I mean it. I am glad to see that you are alive, old friend."
The sorcerer was caught off-guard, and awkwardly returned the gesture. "As am I to see you." The Apostle pulled back, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder before he called for his Terminators -- his Annointed, as Zikar-Sin would learn to call them -- to escort him to his new rooms.
--
More freedom took some getting used to. Being able to unfurl his mind and senses and not immediately detect murderous intent aimed directly toward his person was a good change of pace. Of course, there was always suspicion, he knew it would be foolish not to expect it.
He was an outsider, but he would only be the first of many to join the 17th Host.
His presence became part of the background hum of the operations of the Host. The Annointed greeted him by name after a few short weeks, as did some of the Astartes he began working a little closer with. Some were diabolists, but they had learned sorcery through means similar to that of Kor Phaeron.
Having the natural connection to the Great Ocean and the decades of experience that Zikar-Sin could provide was invaluable.
Eventually, Ans'ar came to him with the offer again. A chance to be fully and completely repatriated into the Word Bearers. The hesitance he had from before had mostly melted by this point.
And so, Zikar-Sin was no longer Zikar-Sin of the Thousand Sons, former adept of the Cult Athaenean of the Fifth Fellowship. He became Zikar-Sin of the 17th Host, Master of Possession, as he would remain for the next ten millennia.
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