#if I draw Lucas being cool I have the obligation to draw him failing next | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deviantnotcriminal · 3 years

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Rambling commence!

So, shadow was created from the remains of the stored magic inside the test subject’s body. During the initial split the character’s body essentially disintegrated as it’s magical stores of energy differentiated. Unlike the fragments, shadow’s magic was already in the differentiated state in the body and so when differentiated again, it became closer to that of what the fragments become when they go into the waiting void (differentiated dimension) to rest and recharge. It was also during this process that shadow became semi-sentient. The thing was that because shadow was originally pure magic, he could not draw magic from his surroundings. He could only ‘feed’ off the excess magic that was differentiated during it’s use in the fragment’s abilities. As the fragments got stronger, so did he. But because he could not draw any magic naturally, he was dependent on the fragments to remain sentient. Eventually he started to get an understand of his surroundings and could recognise the fragments based upon their souls and magic style.

When the fragments left the facility, shadow’s magic slowly dwindled as he was left to being nothing more than a thought or an idea. Not sentient, just a concept made of magic. This is how he was left for maybe 100 years. Occasionally a child or two might have come to the facility to vandalise it and they may have had some kind of magical ability that he could draw energy from, but for the most part he was left drained. That was until Lucas arrived. As Lucas sent out a ginormous volt of electric magic into the entire facility’s system to get it up and running again, even just temporarily, this magic jolted shadow awake into a fully conscious state. Immediately he tried to find the source of this power. As Lucas was continually using magic to take his notes it was easy to track him down. Shadow stayed near the fragment drawing more energy until Lucas was being called back to Vivian (who had refused to go into the facility for, personal reasons) so he could take him back to the island. As Lucas retreated, shadow followed him, out of the facility, into the portal, back to the island.

The island was like a magical battery. Ever since Lucas put up his magic dampening force field thingy at the highest point of the island, magic could very rarely get out, but it could very easily get in (through sunlight). Immediately upon setting foot on the island shadow felt energised. He was now more than conscious, and was bordering on completely sentient. He found the most intense location for magical energy was in the generator room (a cave at the base of the cliff where Lucas’ laboratory sits). Lucas had rigged it up so it would generate electricity from magical energy. It wasn’t totally efficient, but it was more eco friendly and sustainable than the gas powered alternative they had been using before the fragments had set up most of the infrastructure on the island and made repairs to heavily weathered buildings.

Shadow stayed in the generator room for the majority of his time. He took a lot of notice as to how the system worked. He noted some void souls (though he wouldn’t have known what they were at the time) were used in the mechanism to convert some of the pure magical energy into electricity. Shadow observed the mechanics of the magic used to perform this ability, and learnt to replicate it. This is how he learnt to manipulate electricity. Sometimes he would go outside to take a look at what was out there but he never really took a lot of notice. Occasionally a fragment like Lucas or Cecil would come into the generator room to make repairs. However on one occasion, Lucas came in with another fragment, Vivian. They were talking about some kind of big sparring match they were going to have later that night. (The fragments will sparr on occasion, either to settle an argument or a disagreement, sometimes just for fun and to see what kind of skills they had picked up, and sometimes they would do it for training, to push their magical abilities above and beyond, to try and get stronger. This match was for fun.) Lucas had walked up to the main transformer and had put a hand on the live wire. There were a series of sparks as magical energy shot from the generator, up Lucas’ hand, into his body. As he retracted his hand he shook it and made some remark about it stinging a bit when he does that. (As a Visual gag i may also make his hair stick up, like he’s been electrocuted) As he left shadow could see that sparks would occasionally shoot off his body (he was very charged up. Lucas did this because, when sparring, he can only produce so many electric attacks until he’s too tired to continue/focus his energy into any more. When sparring for fun, often Lucas would go down to the generator and get ‘charged up’. This works almost like taking way to many shots of espresso. He’s so hyped up on energy that he doesn’t feel tired and will not sleep. One of the fastest ways to dispel this energy is to let it out as electricity. A similar effect also happens during thunder storms, which I will touch upon in the comic because why the hell would I not?! Also if he ever got hit by lightening he would have so much energy that he would either A. Dispel it all immediately as he differentiates himself involuntarily, or B. Electrically shock anyone who comes 5 meters of him involuntarily. The only time this happens the fragments do a sparring match because eh, cool lighting + tons of sparks = really damn cool shots.)

Shadow, observing that Lucas has electricity based abilities as well, would then try to touch the generator. And it actually works. He gets super hyped up and comes fully sentient and conscious. He may even have left the cave to follow Lucas into the main part of the island, stopping to check out all of the infrastructure there. As the sparring match takes place at a different part of the island, the lights start to flicker for the first time (as a result of shadow touching the circuits out of curiosity and sending fluctuations into the system). Some of the spectators wonder what is going on with the lights but Lucas is too focused to notice. When they bring up the lights to him after the match he explains that they couldn’t be anything to do with him because he knows that’s not how his magic works. He also informs the group that he will check up on the system the next day, fearing he may have accidentally damaged it.

Lucas goes to check the system. Surprise, there’s nothing wrong with it. However over the next few weeks, strange things keep happening to the electronics around the island. Everyone keeps blaming Lucas, even to the point where Lucas grounds himself (completely rids himself of all his magical energy by differentiating himself) as the lights are flickering so everyone knows that it is definitely not him who is messing with the electronics. Luckily this does succeed in convincing the group, however when he’s in the differentiated dimension, he swears he could see someone in the distance playing with the lights. This of course was actually shadow. Who had learnt what circuits to stimulate with energy to cause his desired reactions, and who was now doing it just for fun because he had never seen the fragments arguing with each other so much. When Lucas integrated himself, he informs the group of this mysterious figure and what it looked like it was doing to the lights. Vivian and Lucas both agreed that it sounds like a ghost. And they then spend the next couple of weeks educating themselves on ghost hunting. This in turn causes Cecil to be active way WAY more than normal which gives us some nice interactions between my fave fragment and the rest of the group. Eventually the tension dies down. The lights are still flickering on occasion but it’s now become a mere annoyance. And even if it is a ghost, which Cecil is constantly at work to try and prove, when a fragment went down to the generator room it would always stop. It was only when shadow caused an entire power outage on the island that Cecil decided once and for all to do a ghost hunt.

This is where we get the fun fact that ghosts do exist on the island. There’s a few who are native Maori peoples, some who were from what the island was used for before and one WW2 pilot who says that he had crashed down on the island after failing to land his plane and had accidentally died in the process. These ghosts were the souls of humans who had failed to die. The system of death for TIOP works like this. When a human dies, their soul essentially differentiates itself a bunch of times until it’s essentially nothing but pure magic, and the person stops existing. These souls hadn’t completed the process for whatever reason. Originally Cecil wondered if it was because they were casters, this didn’t always seem to be the case. Eventually he just made the assumption that was a random occurrence. Unfortunately it was unknown if the ghosts could be helped in any way.

That’s more supposed to be a jokey thing. The weird thing for Cecil is that the readings he is getting on his equipment are very low, which matches with the form of differentiation that the humans had managed, but there was one reading that he was receiving, down near the generator, that was sending his equipment off the charts.

It was in one investigation of the cave where the start of chapter 4 kicks off. Cecil was down there with Connor for backup as they had deemed that whatever it was that was causing these readings, it was not going to be a normal human. The readings were much more similar to that of a differentiated fragment, which was a scary thought. Cecil goes into the cave with his equipment and tells Connor to wait at the mouth/go down the beach (just be outside). Connor happily obliges (Connor had quite a fear of generators and big heavy electrical stuff, or maybe even just of the cave, idk, I want to give Connor a fear of electricity but that doesn’t fully match up with lucas’ power set so I may need to work something else out. It was supposed to be that, when he got split from Cassidy, he gained this fear and that it was an important part of his character growth when he overcomes it. Idk.. I’ll work it out another day). As Cecil walks inside the dark cave, his readings get more and more intense. As he tries to communicate with shadow, all that comes out are auditory glitches.

Crap I forgot to mention. Shadow is technically not supposed to exist. The magic of which he is made from should have just dissipated into the void and should not have become conscious. So technically shadow is a ghost. And I play around with the concept that he’s not supposed to exist in a few places. I also give him auditory and visual glitches in scenes where he’s a main player/trying to interact directly with things in the physical realm. Not in a twee way but more in a ‘ohhhh shit’ kinda way. But yeah, if there are glitches in TIOP, 9/10 times it will be because of shadow in some way.

So, everything that Cecil is hearing from his equipment his just audio glitches, and as he approaches this one corner of the cave his actual readings system starts bugging out. Shadow is getting cornered and is now starting to panic. And of course, Vivian is also starting to panic (and by extension, Cecil). There would be more and more white noise as I start to use visual glitches on the comic frames itself until, nothing. It all goes black. We cut to outside where Connor is fiddling with his tech when he hears a huge zap come from behind him, along with seeing this ridiculously bright flash of light. Immediately Connor rushes to Cecil’s aid. Only to find him lying on the ground, motionless. Connor starts to freak out and tries to radio in to Mika to bring help because something’s happened to Cecil and he’s unconscious but hasn’t differentiated himself.

We then cut to Cecil in the differentiated dimension as he slowly opens his eyes (kinda effect like someone was hit over the head and they’re trying to regain consciousness) to discover he’s in the cave still. He looks around, trying to assess what happened. This is when he sees himself, lying on the floor. Lucas makes a quick gag of deja vu to himself before Cecil starts to panic about what’s happening. Here, I get to play around with the concept of fusions in the waiting void. Because I think, this is the first time that this happens. Here I will play around with the thought of two minds/voices in one head where the components of Cecil (Lucas and Vivian) will talk to each other in conversation through Cecil’s voice. Cecil will also have moments of talking with his own voice, when both Lucas and Vivian are more in sync in their mindsets. Cecil sees Connor rushing into the cave to assist him and has a quick moment of ‘aww that dork’ which quickly turns to guilt as they see him panicking, saying that he thinks Cecil got electrocuted. But then, something happens, as Cecil’s thinking to himself ‘Connor srsly, I can’t get electrocuted’ he sees his body, slowly get up off the floor, steady itself on Connor’s shoulder, and walk out the cave. We cut back to Cecil’s face which will look like: ‘O-O wtf wtf wtf WTF WTF WTF WTF WHAT? SORRY WHAT? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT!S THE FUCK IS GOING ON HOW WHO WHAT?! DGUNINIHWSXSWCAAHHHHHHHHHH’

And then we turn to chapter 4! The Visitor.

1. Yes, Shadow did possess Cecil

2. No, I do not know how he accidentally does it

3. Hell yes, hyjinks will ensue

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