Time travel to save the galaxy !! But the time traveler in question is Din Djarin and he notices literally nothing at all and subsequently does nothing to actually save the galaxy.
Every time he's faced with something that SHOULD be a give away that he's time traveled he just goes "Huh that's kind of weird. Anyways."
Nothing can shake or distract him bc he will always default to assuming things are weird and different in the core worlds and clearly he's just uneducated is all 👍
(Not that he cares to actually educate himself)
In the end the Empire wins out again and Din finally fucking looks at a news forecast for the first time this entire adventure and goes,
"Woah. Crazy how history is doomed to repeat itself, huh? Kind of fucked up tho." And the random guy he was drinking next to is like "what" and Din is like "what" And then Din shoots him bc he was a bounty. And then he proceeds in with his life for the next ?? Amount of years, continuing not to notice a single thing wrong in the universe bc why the hell would he. If/when he finally notices he also has NO idea when it actually happened. Could have time traveled yesterday, he wouldn't know (it was 5 years ago now)
Summary: Yancy helps on a hunt for some information.
A/N: And now for your regularly scheduled Visitation Day.
Chapters: 1, 2
~::~ Present Day ~::~
Yancy was with King and Eric, waiting outside the heroes’ base. They were waiting for Logic and Illinois. Both of whom were late.
“Noisy, I’s[1] get,” Yancy said. “But what happened ta[2] Logic?”
“He’s not answering texts,” King commented. “But Ills is only a couple minutes away.”
“Hey, guys!” Virgil called out as he ran over, in his black cloak.
“Uhh,” Eric commented nervously.
“Where’s Logic?” King asked.
Virgil looked nervous. “Last minute emergency, Iridescence had a little bit of a freak out, and Emile had to show up. Logic had to participate, so I’m kinda[3] his stand-in.”
“Is everyone alright?” King asked.
“Yeah, but it probably wouldn’t seem like too much of an emergency to you all, but we’re all good.” The anxious Side didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “If you all need another brainiac, I can call Bing or Oliver?”
“No, they’re watching Lunky, that’s more important,” King decided, his phone buzzing and he took it out to look at it. “You’ll do fine. But, while you’re here. Do you think you can get that camera, I need to have another look at it.”
“Hey, Eric, why don’t you take him in,” King suggested. “Need to talk with Yanc about something.”
“Y-Yeah, sure,” Eric agreed and they both went inside.
“What’s the matter?” Yancy asked.
King stared down at his phone, a single new text from Illinois:
“Marathon.”
The animal magnet watched a pair of squirrels twist up his body to perch onto his shoulders. He texted back: “Received, safe and sound.”
The instant it was received, Illinois popped out of a portal.
“Thanks, we need to talk really fast,” Illinois said.
“Did youse[4] just send youse’s[5] husband away?” Yancy asked, pointing at the door.
“He already knows, I just needed the hero gone,” Illinois corrected. “Plus, we do need that camera.”
“So, what happened?” King asked.
“We had a bit of a flight risk,” Illinois kept his voice down as he watched the door Yancy and Virgil had disappeared off to.
“Who? Some captain?” King asked.
“Dad,” Illinois corrected. “아빠.[6] He thought Wil was going to kick him out of the house, for whatever reason, so he started destroying pictures that we had of him.”
“What?” Yancy startled and King just stared at Illinois in shock. “Why?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t wanna[7] leave him alone right now,” Illinois said. “Bim’s actually been helping a lot. He really stepped up.”
“Never thought I’d see the day,” King smiled uncomfortably. “So, he doing better.”
“Bit by bit,” Illinois frowned. “Just need your guys’ help looking out for him, spend some quality time with him so he’s more likely to run to us instead of somewhere else. I’m just trying to figure out what’s actually going on.”
“Will do,” Yancy agreed, as Virgil and Eric walked out, the camera in Virgil’s hand.
Virgil startled when he saw Illinois. “I gotta[8] bring this back or Lo will throw one hell of a fit.”
“We just need to look at it, not keep it, I don’t want a soul splitter anywhere near Dark or Wil. Logic already knows.” Illinois was quick to agree as he took out one of his portal chalk and drew a massive portal to a study. “We’ll head to my place, wanna[7] keep this off the record.”
“We’ll make sure you get home safely,” King promised.
Virgil nodded and followed the group into a study. It was a little personal one with a desk and several bookcases of books.
“Y-You want a drink?” Eric asked Illinois.
“Maybe later, dulcito[9], you can get yourself one, though,” Illinois smiled as he walked over to the table that was covered in books and notes.
“So,” Illinois started as he started pulling out folding chairs. “Been doing a little bit of research on this cult.”
Virgil picked up a picture of some runes with very primitive drawings of Dark, Anti, and Mare. “Huh, weird.”
“Can you take notes to bring to Logic?” King asked Virgil.
“I gotcha[10] one, better,” Virgil smiled and pulled out his phone. He turned on the camera and propped it up so the phone could take video and audio of the entire table.
“You wanna[7] start, or should I?” Illinois said.
“I’ll go,” King said. “Okay, so Logic. At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at. It was a bunch of random cave drawings of people and a weird backwards English cipher. Some of it, misspelled, so take from that what you will.”
He then picked up a bunch of drawings from separate group of pictures. “It wasn’t until Princey brought back these that I realized what I was working with. The exact same type of cipher, just in Portuguese and other languages.”
“Wrote a whole college thesis on that stuff, thanks for the save,” Illinois butted in.
King spoke up to start talking over him. “Anyways, this cult came from Spanish conquistadors, hijacking some kinda religion in the area and perverting it into some talk about an Egg. This cult seemingly died and were wiped out, but someone found them and brought them to the States. Which is where they snuck onto Dark’s island. I think they were taking notes on them.”
“No, no,” Illinois cut in, gesturing to himself in a smug way. “I brought it up, credit where it’s due.”
The animal magnet rolled his eyes and pushed Illinois’s face away.
“How’d youse[4] know?” Yancy asked.
Illinois smiled and held up a couple pieces of paper, paperclipped together, “Police seizure notes. They found information on the Old Man. Apparently their hideout burned down, but the fire didn’t get everything.”
“Now, for the thing you’ve all been waiting for,” Illinois darted over to his desk and pulled a box out. “Found this from a contact.”
Eric opened the door as Illinois opened the box, a small sliver of red vine inside.
Once it was open, everyone heard whispering:
Plant me and I can make it all go away.
Plant me and I can make them understand.
Plant me and I can make him better.
Plant me and I can make you whole again.
Illinois was closer and Eric froze, the whispering in his own ear but he looked at Illinois and saw the color red slowly starting to take over his eyes.
“I-Ill,” Eric stammered before stumbling over and putting his hand on the box and explosions rippled out. Incinerating the sliver of vine and the whispering stopped.
Everyone snapped out of it, Illinois shaking his head as he came back to himself.
“Illy,” Eric sobbed and Illinois looked at him in shock.
“Dulcito[9], I’m so sorry,” Illinois stood up and took him into his arms. “He whispered into Eric’s hair, “thank you so much. I’m so sorry.”
It took a lot to calm the group down, Virgil sensing everyone’s panic and needing to call Emile and Yancy had to calm down from his own panic attack.
The video was stopped after the tense moment, and after everyone calmed down they started a new one. Illinois was holding a coffee and was cuddled next to Eric.
“So, I’m going to make sure if I find anymore of that vine shit and destroy it, because fuck that,” Illinois told the recording. “But onto your point, Logic. Hey, Anxiety, you still have that camera?”
“Yeah,” Virgil said, holding the camera in his hands.
“Can we see it for a bit?” Illinois asked.
“Y-Yeah?” Virgil said, holding it out, but King was the one who grabbed it first.
“Can’t get over how much this is Dad’s,” King commented as he turned the camera over in his hands.
“It’s e’en[11] got his mustache,” Yancy commented, looking at it.
“You still got that soul splitter?” Illinois asked, gently taking the camera from Yancy.
“Yeah, I like to keep it away from the Jims,” King told them. “Lunky is already too much to handle.”
Virgil started getting nervous, but before he could swipe the camera away, Illinois pointed the lens away from anyone and took the spike, smearing some portal chalk dust on the tip. Then he jammed the tip into the button and the camera shook, taking a picture of nothing. But when it did, it produced two pictures. They looked like polaroids, despite this type of camera being physically incapable of making such pictures. Illinois took one picture before it could hit the ground, and Virgil picked the second one up.
The first photo was of Dark, the picture of his face taken just before Dark realized a photo was being taken. Flecks of red and blue along the edges of either side, but most of the picture was a deep and vibrant purple.
The second photo was of Thomas. Thomas was giving the camera an awkward smile. In exactly the same spot as Dark’s picture there was a huge burst of purple, but Thomas’s picture had a rainbow halo of color around the other edges.
Virgil let out a quiet gasp as he touched the picture.
“He was meant to become me,” Virgil gasped, looking at the picture and at how much purple made up the image of Thomas. Something dawned on Virgil, something he’d thought about every once in a while. “Phantom confused me for one of you guys, maybe that’s because he saw that in me.”
Illinois was staring at Virgil, looking just so incredibly sad. “Patton?” Illinois asked.
Virgil startled.
“No, I’m,” Virgil cut off, the urge to run starting to curl his toes, “I’m not— how’d you— I’m Anxiety. That’s my name.”
“Yeah that’s your hero name, but what’s your real name?” Illinois asked.
“I need to go, coming here was a bad idea,” Virgil decided. The Side grabbed the camera and stuffed the picture into his pocket. “I need to go home. I need to . . .”
Virgil clutched the camera tighter to him as he felt some force reach out and grab him, and yank him from one spot to the other. Virgil in one moment went from standing in Illinois’s study, to the Side’s living room. His head spun from the movement and he collapsed onto the ground. Emile and Roman were on him in a moment as Thomas slowly moved over.
Illinois stared in shock, he’d been about to open up a portal when Virgil suddenly disappeared with the camera. As if neither had been in the room to even begin with.
“That was fast, I didn’t know he could do that,” Illinois looked at the spot, he couldn’t even find an aura train to suggest which direction the Side had gone.
“Serves youse right fer pryin’,”[12] Yancy commented. “Youse[4] don’t just ask one ‘a[13] the heroes their identities.”
“I only did it ‘cause[14]—” Illinois started before storming out of the room. “—nevermind.”
King followed him out, Eric already trying to calm Illinois down, the two standing in their living room in the lake house.
“I need to talk about something else,” Illinois told King. “I’ll take anything.”
“Christmas is gonna[15] be interesting,” King said.
Illinois groaned. “Nevermind. Let’s talk about Anxiety.”
King didn’t seem to care that Illinois wanted to move the subject back, “It’s weird. I spent a lot of time with him, working with the heroes, and now he’s kinda in the family.”
The adventurer huffed, “He makes 아빠[6] happy, that’s what matters to me.”
“It’s just weird, he never showed interest in anyone before, not even as a business thing,” King said. “Wil flirts with anything that moves, and Dark just didn’t.”
“It was the triplets, they always wanted to see Chase, so Dark spent time around him. Vicious cycle stuff.”
Yancy walked in, “We’s talkin’ ‘bout what a shitshow Christmas is gonna be?”[16]
Illinois let out an overdramatic groan.
“Five bucks says Bim pitches a hissy fit,” King smiled.
“He better not,” Illinois told him.
Yancy rolled his eyes, deciding to spend a little bit of time with his brothers before going back to the heroes.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Accessibility Translations:
1. I
2. to
3. kind of
4. you
5. your
6. Dad. (Used informally; phonetically can be read as: Appa.)
7. want to
8. have to
9. sweetheart
10. got you
11. even
12. Serves you right for prying
13. of
14. because
15. going to
16. Are we talking about what a shitshow Christmas is going to be?
breaking news!!! i got a uni sport membership so i can actually do some sports now and it‘s super inexpensive and i think i‘m gonna check out ballet on tuesday, man. i might even go running again WHO KNOWS so many options!!
god this is really stupid but i wanna rant. so, had that exam last week. big one, political economics, equations and graphics and economical knowledge stuff. most people failed really badly. i got a 9,25/10 which is like, very high. and YET. i feel disappointed. because in my mind i’d gotten a 9.5 or even full marks (which one guy did—and i admit this might be contributing to the overall bad feeling). but WHY am i like this. this is at one of (if not thee) most prestigious learning centers in the entire country, without counting the fact that i technically have a learning disability as well??? and i’m in a normal class ??? so like no accesibilities whatsoever (pls don’t take is as me saying getting them is bad or makes you less valuable at all). i just wish i could enjoy my wins like a normal person. but every “congratulations?!” “you’re amazing!!” “impressive” just ?? slides off of me like water but also takes me closer the breaking point. every compliment just makes me want to cry a little more, where as those two little, inconspicuous notes on the mistakes i’d made on the exam stuck to me like ghostly companions for the entire day.
