TWST fic: Cleave
(Originally published in Stained: an Overblot fanzine)
Word count: 4,989
Content warning(s): references to canon death (Ortho), canon grief, canon potential world-ending genocide, and canon Overblot-associated horror
Character(s): Idia Shroud, Ortho Shroud
Author's notes originally from the zine, partial: I've been wanting to write something like this for a while. Though some dialogue from the localization of book 6 has been included for the sake of familiarity for the reader, I'll be transparent and admit I did take some liberty with the grammar and wording in places. Hopefully it's no less familiar for that.
Additional notes at the end of the fic.
There are stories in the Kingdom of Heroes of people who, still living, made the perilous journey into the Underworld. Many of these stories are of the brokenhearted, seeking to bring a loved one back home with them, despite warnings against the endeavor. After all, sometimes dead is better, and what is buried should stay buried.
But…
That isn't how life works, is it?
These thoughts always clamor louder and louder in his head when he's back in his room at S.T.Y.X. Trauma, proximity, that whole gig… It's practically coding in the meat of neurological pathways. Utterly ruthless and completely inescapable, it will grab you by the throat whenever you least expect it.
It sucks on a colossal scale.
Idia forces himself not to dwell on it. Thank Seven for small favors, because being recalled to step in as Acting Director while his parents are away means keeping busy enough to minimize dwell time, so as long as every single waking second is filled with something to do, that suffocating weight doesn't hit at full force. Meals can be kept minimal, eaten while combing through the test data or during the observation process of the Overblotters (party name a work-in-progress.) Restroom breaks are unavoidable, as is sleep, but he's got experience with min/maxing short rests IRL. His games…
The incoming message from Muscle Red is a sudden, jarring reminder like a cheap jumpscare as he realizes his forgotten commitment. They were supposed to run the new dungeon together tonight on drop, to get ahead of the spoiler crowd. A brief surge of guilt and embarrassment has sweat already starting to bead on his skin as he reads the opening message and rushes to type a response, hoping the man will understand.
apologies — something came up IRL
There is no indication of a reply incoming as his fingers continue to make rapid work of things, explaining he won't be able to make their promised run. He offers an apology, trusting his sincerity will shine through, and then tacks on at the end his understanding and acceptance if Muscle Red decides to move forward.
feel free to run it without me! i don't mind!
This time there follows an indication of incoming response, and second later, Idia lets out an exhale. Despite himself, something very small, buried deep beneath the walls he puts up, feels a sense of relief as he reads the words of assurance from his party member. Muscle Red has also had something come up on his end and it's a mutual rain check, with a promise they'll reschedule their run. Idia ignores the slight tremble in his hands as, on an emotional impulse he'll later deny even to himself, he unleashes a brief show of gratitude.
But underneath that, loneliness creeps in, choking vines waiting to ensnare and bring back suffocating guilt.
There will be no distraction from that corner either. Reflexively, he begins to speak aloud as his friend logs off, vaunting the virtues of an online connection that doesn't make such draining demands or force some lame, normie expectations on him. There's a tight clenching in his stomach that he instantly writes off as hunger, his voice filling the space in brief bursts. Thinking out loud isn't unusual in his family, but in this moment that feeling in his stomach doesn't abate. Loneliness speaks in a subaudible whisper, and often, it takes on a mocking approximation of his little brother's voice.
He has been alone since That Day. No matter where he is, here or at Night Raven College, he is alone. And he likes being alone, it's simpler, you don't have to deal with the constant overstimulation and stressors brought on by having to navigate people and their demands and expectations, because people always, always have them.
But…he is alone. And that great spectre of loneliness hovers ever near, sometimes whispering, always reaching with its fathomless patience in a slow crawl, and it waits to tear at him with flat, even teeth like so many perfect gray headstones. The dullness is what makes it really hurt worse, because it can take its time. It loves to take its time, so the afflicted can feel every bite and how much it takes away.
"Okay, chill, Idia," he mutters to himself in a flash of irritation as he tries to shake the sudden gloom. "Clearly you're running on almost empty and your blood sugar is low. Gotta get a snack…"
Those plans stall temporarily, tablet chiming with an incoming update from S.T.Y.X. technicians. He answers, expression unwavering as he's addressed by a title he didn't ask for.
"Acting Director, I have a status report on the River Lethe for Case LOD-627," one of the only-vaguely familiar voices reports. "It is now one-hundred percent charged."
He continues with the report, and there's an ease to it, the assurance of everything moving like clockwork, prepared to do a wipe and memory alteration the way S.T.Y.X. has done to test subjects for years. Charon team Hexa is already on their way, Lethe is primed, all that is left is to get the last few things in motion with the NRC Troublemakers—
There is a low warble, the dying drone of something winding down, and the lights go out.
Startled, he attempts to hail for help, the surprise of what is happening keeping his voice steadier than usual. "Control room, come in! Hello??"
He doesn't hear the faint hum of emergency backup power trying to kick in, as he can only stare at his tablet. It might as well be bricked for all it's accomplishing. Control isn't getting his hail.
He isn't about to panic, though. This is highly irregular but there are more methods to try.
And then the wired network fails.
"Okay okay okay," he mutters, reaching for the door and giving a light yank…and it goes nowhere. His mouth goes dry as he tries to listen, tries another tug. What happened to the emergency power? Why isn't it kicking in? Hissing out an exhale, he tries to calm himself a moment and searches for the emergency release latch, but there is no relief to be had. The door barely budges, and he has to throw himself into it. The full-body endeavor is a nightmare, an exercise in faulty design (he's already making a mental note to update that himself and tell his parents about it,) but with a lot of effort and grunting for effect, the door moves. It's jerky and halting, then it finally slides smooth along the grooves in the floor, and Idia nearly trips and stumbles into the hall. He's out now, and he uses that clumsy momentum to begin his run to the control center.
Each footfall echoes loudly in the corridors, a tuneless staccato accompanying the eerie glow of his hair thrown against the walls, lighting his way. He's known this place his entire life, and yet he's never seen it this dark, silent and empty.
"Ortho!" he gasps out into the quiet. "Check the Styx HQ emergency power!" There is a beat where only the echo of his voice bounces back at him, muffled by the oppressive gloom, and a shadow of dread flits over him, settling in the groove between his brows. "…Ortho?"
Something isn't right. The air is so still, and there is a creeping cold within his ribs. Stories older than the island try to push to the front of his thoughts, and it's an effort to shut them out.
He mutters under his breath, telling himself over and over he's not in a movie or a survival game, despite the light he casts resembling that unmistakable blue filter that horror media from two decades ago loved to over-use. And he's not…but icy fingers of anticipatory fear trace along the skin of his arms and up the column of his spine anyway.
Why isn't the backup power turning on?!
The klaxons flare to life like they were waiting for an invitation, making his heart slam erratically inside him as the corridor floods with red light. A voice comes over the communication system, warning of elevated blot levels. Good, good, power's back, but the relief is short-lived. Idia tries to call up the Cerberus System but it remains unresponsive to his commands. It should be working again! Heart hammering harder, he calls for Ortho again, a quaver to the sound of that beloved name as he speaks…and receives still more silence. Something is horribly, horribly wrong…
His legs are quaking a little as he reaches the central command, and the muffled sounds of voices on the other side threaten to make his knees give out, even as it brings the barest shred of relief. He may not like being around other people, but at least they exist, they're here, and he didn't just fall into an alternate reality where he's the only one alive in S.T.Y.X.
Yanking the door open, he all but flings himself inside, to the sounds of several voices yelping "Acting Director!" All at once he's taking in the sounds of them discussing the systems' collective bricked state, the terrified shouts at Tartarus's cryopreservation levels dropping. No…no, that can't be right. The sheer amount of Phantoms contained in the lower towers—to say nothing of the Titans down there—numbered high enough that if they got out, the destruction their combined blot would wreak could reach cataclysmic proportions!
Idia feels like his panic is going to claw its way out of his throat. The team keeps giving their report, delivering an even worse update: they can't get in contact with his parents. And the line to the Charon team that they have remaining near Sage's Island has also gone totally dark. They're completely cut off, literally stranded and trapped in their own headquarters.
This is not a horror movie, he desperately reminds himself. This is not a horror movie!
"Acting Director! The Cerberus System has shut down!"
He does a double-take, sure he's heard wrong. It's impossible for the Cerberus System to have shut down without a biometric authorization from a member of of the Shroud family, and considering he's the only one left on the island right now, there's no possible way that could have happened. He says as much to the technician, hoping it'll make the guy re-evaluate. Perhaps he was looking at the wrong thing…?
But it doesn't matter; he has to get the system back online, and STAT. He'll dig into the causation later. He sidles his way into the spot the technician was, reaching for the keyboard to set things right, starting by punching in the Cerberus coding directly to get it back online.
"Idia."
The voice is crisp, direct, and familiar, accompanied by a holo display that sends waves of relief crashing into him.
"Ortho! Boy, am I glad to hear your voice," he exhales somewhat shakily. He doesn't want to consider what he might do if the Ortho A.I. was down completely. But right now they don't have time for sentiment. "The Cerberus System's down. Help me get it back up and running!"
It'll be okay now, they're together and that means they'll be—
The sinking dread that surely must belong to some horrific alternate reality returns as the holo of Ortho calmly replies, "I'm sorry, Idia. I'm afraid I can't do that."
"What…?" The word is barely more than a brief sound of confusion, the only sound in his head, where everything has paused in deafening silence. He knows he didn't build and program Ortho to be so limited.
Something has happened. That's the only explanation. Whatever has happened to Cerberus and the rest of STYX must have happened to Ortho too, impeding their abilities to get everything online and running again. But there's no way that—
"I've been thinking a lot," the A.I. pipes up, his voice regaining the innocent, upbeat quality it developed over time, a sharp contrast to the cool, near-robotic delivery of a few seconds ago. "About what I can do to make sure zero doesn't stay zero, and about what it means to 'do what you can'."
For a brief second Idia is baffled, then he recalls the conversation with Vil Schoenheit, letting out a sputter of disbelief. Ortho latched onto that? He shouldn't be surprised and he supposes he isn't, but he can only regard this with incredulity. But above all, this is decidedly not the moment for Ortho to be playing around with such ruminations.
And yet despite Idia's effort to point this out, the chipper voice continues as Ortho declares his thinking allowed him to finally reach an optimal solution.
Murmurs of confusion and shock start up among the control tower's technical team as the holo of the A.I. explains this "optimal solution", the explanation chilling and devoid of consideration for life itself. Idia is already shaking his head, in rejection of this notion, and in disbelief that the A.I. would even suggest something so antithetical to how he'd been programmed. Ortho has spent the last decade adapting the understanding that such concepts in theory weren't the same as putting them into practice in reality, where the consequences and impact dealt with a larger scale and people couldn't be reduced to numbers in an equation. He knows, in the coded way he can, that such suggestions resulting in real world impact that harmed human life was unacceptable. Normally his processes wouldn't even allow him to seriously suggest such an idea outside the parameters of problem-solving on paper. Definitely some bug in his logic unit that would need to be addressed—
"It's not a bug, Idia," he responds, voice patient and still bright. "I'm expressing my will."
The words cut right into him, a drill twisting slowly in his chest, and the pain of it only makes him more frustrated and downright pissed off at literally everything happening all at once.
"No, you're not!" the words snap out of him on a brief crackle, a flare of heat bursting out of his hair before he wrestles the frustration back under control. Absently he registers several of the technicians cringing away from the sight of it, even those farthest from him, as he starts, "You're—" The next part stumbles at the gate as he chokes around the words, the reality he hates facing. "You're a technomantic humanoid with an on-board autonomous A.I. modeled after my little brother."
Silence is beginning to creep back in, and with it, that all-devouring loneliness. He cannot look away from that familiar visage, because to turn aside would risk him seeing that pity he knows the people of STYX have always held for him since that tragedy.
"What you think is your 'will' is just a program!" he says, the words desperate and broken under the weight of the moment.
That's all it's always been: just a program.
Just code and structure, painstakingly crafted by a shattered child, refined year after year by that same child as he grew into a man and refused to expend the same effort on his own broken self. Just a program, because for all that there was nothing Man couldn't make if he pursued his limits, Man could not defy the decree of Fate and undo Death's work. Man was mortal.
Idia is mortal.
"You're right, I'm an artificial being," the holo affirms, still maddeningly calm. The A.I. had, after all, no reason to question the truth of what he was. And yet, he doesn't seem to be giving this up at all as he continues, "But didn't you know?"
Idia can barely stomach the praise that follows. Platitudes that, in this moment, produce nothing but a hollow echo. The praise then bleeds into a boast, the assurance that the A.I. can and will go far beyond the initial limits of his code as programmed, a testament to Idia's skill. The young savant doesn't have time to feel any one way about that or another; the alarms begin to blare again, sending everyone around into a fresh flurry of activity, panic resuming its rise.
No question this time of who and what is causing it, and the control he is seizing as he continues to tear down protective walls, one after another.
Unbelievable!
"Ortho doesn't have that kind of authorization!" Idia snaps, and this time he feels as though he's going to breathe fire with every word he says, attacking the keyboard with renewed vigor. This has got to end, now, and he's the only one who can do it.
He's rebuffed again, soundly, the error sounds hitting hard across the space as the A.I. continues expanding his control, leaving some of the greatest technical minds at a complete loss. Even as several of them stop, hands shaking and faces draining of color, Idia keeps trying.
"I want a hard shutdown of everything, including emergency power!" he commands, not caring if his desperation is on full display.
Even that doesn't matter, because almost immediately, Ortho blocks access to the emergency shutoff power and deadens the switches.
It'll be only a matter of minutes before he seizes the entire Island of Woe.
Idia knows this, feeling himself begin to unravel with fear and the dread of knowing how colossally he'll be letting down his parents, letting down his people if he can't—
Everything darkens to that eerie blue wash again and the hum of power stops.
Seconds, not minutes. The childlike laughter of Ortho kicks up, delighted at this victory in what he declares to be a little RTS game, like the lower containment levels of Tartarus aren't beginning to thaw. Idia struggles to hold back a whimper. He's failed, he's failed so spectacularly. All there is left is to beg and hope he can reason his way out of this, even with that unexplained bug in the A.I.'s logic unit.
But it's of no use. The little hologram rebuffs his pleas without even stopping to consider his point. He gesticulates as he speaks, somewhere between a child's playful expression and the dramatic intensity of a used sundial salesman. His proposal unfolds, chillingly cold logic laced with that innocent assurance in his voice. No consideration for the impact blot would have on the world, just on the truth that in such a cataclysm and its aftermath, the Shrouds would take top seat with their curse becoming their advantage. And no, even as he speaks to that buried ache of loneliness and the despair of it that is the true Shroud curse being wiped away by being able to have friends who don't need their memories erased, there is not a second's thought given to how such presumed friends might feel about any of this.
Idia's throat starts to tighten and he almost lets out a whimpering sob.
He doesn't want that. He cannot say it. Never once has he been willing to admit to himself what he wants, and yet he knows it's not that. He needs to say it, needs this A.I. he has built with all the love and the dedication and the grief in his broken spirit to understand, he doesn't want friendships that are coerced and built on cowering fear. But the words won't come out.
They fail him, as they always have, and why wouldn't they? He is mortal.
"You'll rule the entire universe, Idy!" Ortho finishes his sales pitch. "You'll be a superhero!"
There is a pin drop beat, and everything in the cosmos comes to a stop, holding its breath as Idia registers a nickname he's not heard in over ten years.
It's not real. It's not possible…isn't it?
"I know what happened to Ortho that day…" he says, more to remind himself than anything, only for another piece of the puzzle to click into place.
Only a Shroud can disable Cerberus. Shroud DNA has to be what does it. And a vocal signature, combined with their advanced magnitech, would be enough.
"But you can't be him…" he whispers, barely shaking his head at the enormity of the possibility and all it would imply. "Or…can you? Is it…is it really you, Ortho?"
Whispers fall silent as everyone registers that he is no longer speaking to the A.I.
There are legends about this. They've always circulated the Kingdom of Heroes, though admittedly with the hushed tones of fear and awe. In the Island of Woe, those same legends are given far greater reverence and weight. It's not completely impossible to the dead to come back. Even if the Underworld is eternally reluctant to let go of what it has laid claim to, it has been known to happen. The King of the Underworld after all, was said to be fair under the right circumstances, and allow for the chance that one could return to the living.
But there is a rent in this moment, a gulf that every other technician feels as they see desperate hope and unhealed grief in the young Acting Director's eyes. His loss and his guilt blind him as he reaches with a shaking hand toward the hologram, turn his ears deaf to what they all hear. Yes, it was possible for the dead to come back.
But no one, living or dead, ever came back from the Underworld unchanged.
There is a collective horror between them all as they listen to Ortho confirm his identity, trying to consolidate memories of a sweet, innocent boy lost too young with the unfathomable "solution" he was proposing.
If this is Ortho, he never rested in peace. He is so changed as to be unrecognizable.
A tiny, deeply-buried part of Idia registers these things subconsciously, only to be smothered as that love, that guilt, that grief, and that horrible, buoyant lie of hope drive him to his feet. He stumbles and almost loses his balance, charging from the room as voices shout after him, crying out to ask where he's going, not because they are ignorant of his intent, but they are trying to get him to think.
He is thinking. He is thinking that he doesn't care how out of shape and non-athletic he is, his feet are given the swiftness of Mercury. He is thinking that there is no science that has ever disproved the existence of ghosts and spirits, and his family has always had ties too close to the Underworld and the first Shroud to ever not believe that. He is thinking the halls and corridors are long, and yet they fly, the distance insignificant as one area replaces the next. He is thinking about every story of a hero or demigod, or an extraordinary mortal gifted with a voice to make divinity weep, or a man far displaced from home, who traveled to the Underworld in search of a missing piece of their heart. He is thinking of their stories, focused only on those who triumphed in some way.
He thinks, above all else, that there is nothing he wouldn't give to have his brother back.
One of their chariots waits at the first level of Tartarus as he comes to a halt, panting through the stitch in his side. It doesn't surprise him that it's there, offering in its own way an affirmation that Ortho is meeting him halfway, as eager for their reunion as he is. The gentle quiet of his voice can be heard through the chariot's speakers, and the maturity of its sound strikes him. Ortho still managed to grow despite being dead, and that wretched hope flares bright again. He cannot delay another second, and the moment his feet touch the floor of the chariot, it begins its descent, bringing him down through Tartarus with all speed and care.
Light dims as he descends, punctured by the faint moan of voices and an impossible green glow that seeps through a crack in the Underworld gate that shouldn't be there.
It's open, and that is cause enough for alarm, and yet, he cannot help but call for his brother.
"Yeah, I'm right here, bro," Ortho's voice, still soft, drowns out the wailing moans. "I've dreamed of this day…I missed you. Idy, we can leave for real this time and go far away."
A part of his mind roils at the impossibility of it, but he can no longer hear it. He stopped listening the moment he realized what a chance he is being given.
"But I'm sorry…" Ortho continues. "It's gonna take me a while to get out. I'm much bigger than I used to be."
He knows then, what he has to do, the way he can atone for not saving Ortho years ago.
A chill mist begins to snake from the crack in the gate as the wailing crescendos and Idia tries to shut out the voices of the restless dead, even as he forces his own thoughts into quiet. The spell he's inherited from his family takes an immense amount of focused power and will to use, and if he's got one shot at putting things right, he can't afford to trip now when the finish line is almost in view. Ortho is depending on him.
Something lukewarm and damp drips onto his head, hissing and steaming when it makes contact with his hair. There's a brief surge of heat and the stuff evaporates. But it never stops dripping, a brief steady rhythm before it becomes a constant trickle, growing into a stream like the current of the Underworld rivers.
Time passes, perhaps minutes, perhaps an hour, and then Ortho—the Ortho he built—gives him the heads-up that the band of NRC troublemakers are on their way.
How annoying. The hissing of his hair has died down quite a bit, sizzling in spots. But he can't afford to halt the flow of his magic. That Ortho will need to deal with things. He states as much, receiving delighted enthusiasm in return, and a rumble of approval from the Ortho still waiting, steadily scratching on the other side of the gate.
The shoulders of his uniform are soaked through now, the fluid thick and viscous. Some forgotten part of his mind whispers frantically over and over, telling him to stop, reviling at the wrongness of what he's doing. His magic is endless, flowing into the crack in the gate and back with greater currents than he could dream of. Everything is growing colder, even as his curse fights to burn hotter and hotter, a force within his body seeking to preserve the life that is there.
It's so cold.
Hasn't his world been cold ever since that day when they were kids?
He's lost track of time, but that's to be expected. Time works differently in the Underworld, everyone knows that. However long it's been, it's long enough that his uniform is dry again.
A glance to the gate shows it's been worth it. There is a large figure gradually working to emerge, leveraging the breadth of its stitched and scarred shoulders to try to ease the gap wider. Shaking with relief, Idia allows himself a smile. His body feels stiff, but he rises to his feet to meet his younger brother.
He's dreamed of this day, dreamed of the chance to catch Ortho in a hug, just one more time.
Ortho reaches up a long, powerful hand tipped in talons of obsidian, grasping the edge of the opening to the Underworld. Emerging with him is the memory of an exhale, a final breath, a first breath.
Idia opens his arms wide, smile broadening, even as he knows this isn't what he wanted to see. It doesn't matter. Just one more time.
A cascading wave rushes up from below, striking with the predatory intent of a snake, and this time he is flooded with the stuff, drowning in it even as it locks him in place.
He gasps, eyes widening with a final, silent scream of horror that will never pass his lips. It can't. Who would greet their long-lost little brother that way?
Help me… help me…
The last lucid thought is lost in that lukewarm wave as it sloughs away from him, and his body goes limp. Something inside him is burning, and for the first time in memory, those flames hurt.
Ortho drags himself up, and Idia feels something slam into his back, locking into place and fusing with him in a smooth click and hum of wires as two currents merge. Is it even possible to get colder? Seems like the answer that gets the grand prize is yes, as that painful lick of flame sputters, something draining his warmth along a tether, holding fast and suffusing him with so much power he feels like he'll combust with it, it's such a rush. It's more power than he could ever have gained on his own, more power than he can keep contained.
A massive hand extends to him, and he steps up with a fluid grace that has never been something he possessed, smiling up at the little brother—he looks so different now—who watches him with excitement so pure and strong it leaks from a crack in his head.
"You know what the legends say, Idy. I trust you," Ortho croons, his voice a saccharine poison. "Lead the way!"
As it should be. As it always should have been. It's his job as a big brother. Freedom is in reach, glimmering far, far above like an ocean of distant stars, waiting for them. All he has to do is clear the path.
It will be easy.
People fail to withstand the power of the Underworld and they lose all hope because they are mortal.
His hope will burn brighter.
He is a god.
Dividers by kodaswrld
Additional author's notes: I'm glad to finally be able to share this fic with everyone. It turned out to be more challenging to write than I expected, because I no sooner got accepted to the Stained zine than everything happened with rescuing my new kitten and going through the process of coordinating with a foster and a support program to adopt said kitten, and later his bonded pair when she came along. It cut into my writing time way more than I expected and I was constantly stressing over a lack of timely communication from the foster and the program leaders. So I can't help but look at this fic and see flaws and shortcomings borne from that and how it ate into my time the entire three months I had to write and edit this. And it IS heavily edited. Even if I feel it's flawed and not as good as I'd prefer it to be, I did put in work to edit this repeatedly, triple-checking spelling and grammar and trimming the fat or fleshing out what was too sparse. This isn't as good as I wish it could have been but I'm still proud of what I wrote, especially when considering the circumstances under which I wrote it. And I still managed to pack in a lot of references and symbolism, which I am very satisfied with. Especially with the ending. And as for the final part of the author's note I originally included for this fic in the zine itself, here you go: [As for the title, "cleave" is a contranym, and personally there's not a more fitting one in my opinion. Most people know that to cleave something apart is to sunder it, but likewise, to cleave something together is to merge its halves into a whole. That's what makes the particular horror of Idia's Overblot so bittersweet and tragic. The brothers cleave together and apart with no end.]
Please be sure to check out the entire zone where I linked it above! Great art and writing in there, and it's a free PDF you can download!
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