#billykeiran

[milestonekestrel]

The Vessels AU - The Story (1/2)

Alright! Well, I've talked about the characters, so here's another probably very long post about the story!

The story is as much of a work in progress as the individual trials and everyone's fears, things are subject to change. But, for now, this is what we've got.

The story can be broken up into three parts, the disappearances, the Backwards world, and then the aftermath.

Under the cut, again.

The Disappearances:

I have a list made to catalogue this. I have many lists. The Disappearances take place over the course of many days, it is slow as the entities all approach taking a vessel differently. Some are eager, possessing the first suitable body they find, others are pickier, and slowly, they all pick their vessels until they've all found something satisfactory. They aren't manifesting themselves physically, so nobody can see or interact with them as they float through the city, looking into everyone's minds and waiting to get their chosen vessels alone.

I mentioned before, but their method of possession is forcing the vessel to breathe them in, which gives them a quick and easy way into the body and brain. This means that all of the vessels' last coherent thoughts are usually about being overwhelmed by a strange taste or sensation, feeling panicked about losing control over their body. In some cases, for example Davey, they try to call out or get help, but the possession is usually too quick for that to work, and they get snatched back to the Backwards world before anything can happen.

This all starts in basically a fictional city that everyone lives in or at least near. Its ten days after Billy has celebrated his birthday with his husband, Fergus, and very close friends Caz, Suze, Roy, Kieran, and Caz and Suze's kids, Cait and Maidie. He was also called by Fergus' friend, Bruce, who had unfortunately been unable to attend. That group is all rather close knit.

I am playing around with the idea of also having Billy meet Mhairi at the police station, after Brodie disappears. That way, another person he is very publicly interacting and being friendly with can disappear. And Billy's fear that he's going to have all of this pinned on him somehow gets worse, as does the continued emotional turmoil of having every person he has a remotely positive relationship with join the ranks as one of the many, many missing persons cases. Come on guys he's a single father he can't do this 💔 /silly

The Backwards World:

This part is all about Billy's extended (veryyy extended) stay in the Backwards world. Now, a little bit of extra information I don't believe I've mentioned is that, in the very lowest level (basically the basement) of the dilapidated building is what's basically a cave with a prison cell, of sorts, in it. This is what I refer to as Spectator Jail, and after Billy completes a trial, frees one of the vessels and the entity possessing them is displaced, the entities basically teleport the former vessel into Spectator Jail (which nobody knows the location of until much much later) and leave them trapped there, where they can only watch Billy continue on but cannot talk to him, intervene, or otherwise do anything but sit in the cell and wait for Billy to complete the last trial and the game to be over. Most of the entities zap the vessels to Spectator Jail immediately, not allowing Billy even a minute with them, because they are mean and they're haters </3. Those in Spectator Jail cannot see anything that happens inside the trials, since they are more akin to dream worlds and not actually completely real.

How the trials work specifically is as follows: Billy gets directions to the next temple by the entity he displaced, or the King, at the very beginning, and has to traverse the Backwards world to get there. Like a hike, in some ways. Once he reached the temple, he quickly learns he has to fight the vessel, because the entity is possessing them and the overall goal for the entities is to kill Billy. So, they fight him, and Billy has to get close to the vessel, make physical contact with them, and then, through means he doesn't even quite understand, Billy gets transported into the vessel's trial. This leaves him unconscious and unresponsive on the ground, but with the entity still awake, due to them possessing the body of the vessel. They will wait through the allotted time, and if/when Billy runs out of time, the entity will attack and kill him. Running out of time doesn't automatically bring him back to his body, so when this happens, Billy is usually still completely unconscious and unable to defend himself at all.

Inside the trials, which are created by the entities to emulate and subject the vessels (and Billy, by proxy) to something they fear greatly, Billy has to face whatever gets thrown at him, find the vessel, explain that the trial isn't real and get them to follow him, and then return to exactly where he spawned in. He could hypothetically get himself out alone, but that serves no purpose, as he'd only wake up with the vessel's body still possessed and probably trying to kill him. Bringing the vessel with him and escaping the trial together returns both of them to their bodies, allowing Billy to wake up and the vessel to once again have control over their body, booting the entity out. This is usually very disorienting, especially with the time limit being short and the entities very eagerly attacking Billy the second that his time runs out. A couple times, a trial was rough or a vessel was particularly stubborn, and so the time ran out and Billy woke up being actively murdered. The vessel, too, woke up, and found themselves to be murdering Billy. You can imagine the Guilt in this AU is slightly insane. There's so much.

Injuries Billy sustains in real life do not carry over into the trials, and in the same sense, injuries he sustained in the trials don't technically carry over either. However, he does remember sustaining them, and the phantom pain can get to him sometimes. He can't really die in the trials, he can go unconscious briefly, but he won't die.

ANYWAY! Now, onto the trials.

Caz's Trial:

It starts immediately after the King agrees to the deal with Billy. The King gives him directions to the first temple, which belongs to the Tide and sits near and inside a series of waterfalls. A lot of the temple designs and locations still have to be drawn out and planned, but I do at least have an idea for this one. The King makes a comment to Billy about knowing Caz and Suze, who turn out to be the first two trials he has to face.

After a trek to the temple, Billy tells the girls to keep hidden outside the temple, and then gets jumped by Vessel of the Tide Caz basically. He is able to hold his own in the fight, and then transports himself into Caz's trial.

The vessels are all very stressed out inside their trials, usually.

Suze's Trial:

Suze's trial needs to be elaborated on I fear, but the gist of it is Billy being hunted down by Suze, heavily cloaked. He doesn't even realize its her until he runs into a bear trap and has to face her down.

There is a fic I wrote about this, accessible here and detailing that moment.

Kelly's Trial:

Kelly's Trial takes place within a house, full of scattered objects and furniture, all in strange configuration. Billy has to locate Kelly, trapped and in a long sleep beneath a whirlpool of debris, of sorts. Its about escapism, really.

McLurg's Trial:

McLurg's trial follows Billy navigating a collapsing construction site, finding himself stuck at one point and having to convince McLurg to stop trying to hold everything together because one, it really does look like it could kill him, and also, Billy needs them both out of the trial and they can't leave if McLurg refuses.

Billy had met him previously, and though he didn't know McLurg well, he did sincerely want to help. That's how it goes with most of the vessels, even the ones who are barely more than strangers to Billy. He doesn't want to leave anyone under control of the entities.

Roy's Trial:

Roy's trial has a lot of imagery in my head, but I do have a slight bit of trouble translating it. A lot of these trials will get more elaboration in the future, as I keep developing them. For now, I mostly rotate until I can get my thoughts on paper.

Alex's Trial:

This trial takes place in basically a giant anthill, with giant bugs and a small Billy and Alex to get threatened by them. Billy eventually gets stuck in spiderwebs here, which is when he has to convince Alex to help him and stop trying to blend in with the bugs.

Finlay's Trial:

This trial is very very stressful for Billy. Not only because it is still one of the early ones and he's still figuring everything out, but also because this is a really big sore spot for him too. He's very freaked out in this trial, even though he knows he has to be able to think straight to get both him and Finlay out of here.

Addair's Trial:

In this trial, Addair is on fire. Like, he is kind of made of fire. Billy burns himself quite a few times grabbing him. But, the further Billy and Addair get away from the city, the more Addair's flames go out until he is merely made of ash. He looks very tired, when he goes out.

Archie's Trial:

In this trial, towards the end of it, Archie's worrying accidentally causes a blizzard while him and Billy are stranded on a frozen lake. Billy holds Archie through it, despite the size difference, and by the end of it Archie is cold, but Billy has managed to take the brunt of the chill. He does suffer for it, but better him than Archie <- in his mind, anyway.

Davey's Trial:

This trial takes place in the street, mostly, and its very empty. All the buildings around it are made of cardboard, aside from the orphanage Davey takes shelter in, which is real, and sitting on the roof of a bunch of cardboard buildings. Billy gets caught in a crowd crush in this AU, and then gets trampled and discovers that the crowd is functionally endless.

Muir's Trial:

The howling creature is indeed Muir, and Muir kind of looks like his shape form in this trial. Billy finds him, but by the time he does, he's suffered a lot of head trauma and more blunt force injuries, and it quickly gets to be too much for him. This is where Muir gets to see that sense of abandonment, and begin to face it, in a very small way, by making sure that Billy is not left to that fate. Aka, Billy gets carried by shape Muir, basically. Innes style.

Raffs' Trial:

Billy's getting jumped by multiple of his own reflections in this AU, which is the same thing happening to Raffs and what he's avoiding. Its very hard to navigate this place and basically he catches up to Raffs on accident after Raffs shatters one of the mirrors and kind of breaks down over the half-there corpse of his own reflection. Billy has to comfort him (then again, he has to comfort all of the vessels, pretty much).

Innes' Trial:

In this trial, Innes acts like he's back in the military, and treats Billy the same. Its very hard to talk to him to try to get him to snap out of it, as they can hardly hear themselves think over all the noise. Innes is also incredibly stressed out, snapping at him easily.

Bruce's Trial:

Unfortunately, one of the ones in need of the most development. It ties into hatred for an organization like the Church and also Billy might slightly be burned at the stake. So look out for that /silly

Gibbo's Trial:

Addair and Trots are two other prominent figures in this trial. This is because I am a Trotsdairbo truther, and they have a wonderfully fucked up relationship that I like to pick apart. They are each visible in each other's trials-- Addair has their charred corpses at the bottom of the crane in his, and Trots has photos of the three of them on the walls of the house in his.

When Gibbo gets transported to Spectator Jail and has the situation explained to him (as best as the others in Spectator Jail can), he breaks down and starts crying. The Guilt is very potent with him.

Martin's Trial:

The Shape appearance!! In this trial, the scales have an effect on the person standing on them where they are forced to provide the truth for any given question. And the more Martin leans towards picking the other person as innocent over them, the lower the scales dip towards the Shape for that person.

There are also a lot of epic whispering voices that are trying to prod Martin to make a specific choice.

Kieran's Trial:

There is a moment in this trial where Kieran has Billy suspended in the air. He removes Billy's ability to breathe, because he's trying to illustrate how cruel and uncaring the universe really is and how nothing is important and nothing matters with how big it is. Unable to talk, Billy grabs onto Kieran and kisses him to get his attention. In the shock, Kieran accidentally allows Billy to breathe again, just a bit, and so Billy is able to wheeze that Kieran is important to him, and matters a lot to him.

Trots' Trial:

This is another one I have written a fic about!

This house was confusing

This house was confusing. The layout was so.. It was so wrong. The hallways branched off into more paths than they should physically be abl

Trots' trial is basically a tented house, yeah. Except the bugs and infestation represent the bad thoughts Trots has, and how scared to death he is of having bad thoughts, or the bad thoughts he does have making him a terrible person.

Douglas' Trial:

Douglas' trial has a freaky corn maze, where Billy is trying to find Douglas before either of them are found and Seen to death by the "people" looking for the both of them. I say Seen to death because its funny, but it really does just. burn a hole right through you when they look at you.

Roper's Trial:

This one also needs a little more development.

Scooby's Trial:

Scooby's trial is another that needs to be elaborated on. Though I do know that not even Billy can see the bird monster, and the monster keeps trying to steal the places of the other guests at the party.

Keith's Trial:

Another trial that needs to be cooked up, sighs. Billy does remember Keith being mentioned as Shuggie's brother, and he can see the family resemblance, which is important to him as Shuggie was a sort of friend back at the police station.

Gregor's Trial:

There's a moment in this trial where Billy, to protect Gregor, drinks a spiked drink meant for him. Gregor sees, and basically grabs Billy and hides the both of them in one of the bathroom stalls while Billy has a terrible time and bad reaction to the drug. Gregor tries to calm him, and gets a little bit of a Billy Lore jumpscare as Billy implies that he had a terrible relationship with his dad by the things he whimpers.

Dalgleish's Trial:

Another trial that needs more thought. I know Billy's not having the best time traversing a sewer Dark Deception style.

Fergus' Trial:

The Storm's temple is very high up, on the edge of a cliff, and Billy, Cait, and Maidie have to climb a big staircase that leads up to it. There's no railing, and due to Vessel Fergus being able to fly, he attacks and tries to push them all off the stairs. He almost gets Billy, when the man is hanging onto the edge of the staircase for dear life and he tries to kick him off. However, Cait and Maidie both attack and steal his trident, Cait throwing it over the side of the staircase so Fergus has to fly down and catch it. After this, Billy pulls himself back up, grabs their hands, and they hurry up the stairs. The battle then continues inside the temple, after Fergus recovers the Trident, by flying straight at Billy and slamming him into the wall. The girls hide, then, and Billy fights until he gets into Fergus' trial.

Billy gets struck by lightning several times in this trial. Each time, Fergus kind of freaks out and doubles over with guilt, very nearly locking himself back in the bedroom of the house. Billy has to be very patient with him. It's kind of a side of his husband he never knew about, and feels bad for not having been able to help with before.

Devon's Trial:

Billy and Devon get to connect over both having terrible families. Their relationship after everything is kind of important to me.. they're friends. They're genderstrange together /silly.

Devon's Trial is one of the examples where Billy takes too long. And its also where things kind of heat up for Cait and Maidie.

So, Billy runs out of time, and the Prisoner uses its barbed wire to hang him in the temple, basically. He can't defend himself, but Cait and Maidie have been hiding less and trying to watch more. And Cait very much does not want to let Billy die here, so she acts before she can think, runs into the temple, and tries to throw hands with the Prisoner. Of course, she is very easily Snared and thrown into the wall.

Before any more damage can be done, Billy returns to his body, waking up to the fact that he's actively dying and can't breathe, and Devon returns to his own body to find a complete mess (Billy choking to death and an injured child laying against the wall.. uh oh).

Devon quickly gets Billy down so he doesn't die, but just then is when he gets snapped away to Spectator Jail. Billy catches his brain, laying on the ground, and then immediately ignores the fact that he almost just died in order to focus all of his worry on Cait. She hit her head pretty hard, and is scratched up from the barbed wire. She's real out of it, and Billy has to carry her out of the temple.

The Prisoner watches, and that's how all of the entities decide that now the girls are very much involved, and could be made into vessels. Children vessels are the favored kind, but its very hard to get such a child alone and also harder to make them disappear as easily as the adult vessels.

But now the girls are here, in the Backwards world, and they aren't protected under the terms of the game like Billy is.

Meanwhile, Maidie is not taking her sister being injured well. She yells at Billy, because he's the only person she can be mad at besides herself and she needs to yell. This sucks! She wants her sister to be okay! Billy understands why she yells, and despite being hurt by it, he doesn't fight back or anything.

Maidie does apologize later, after they've sat down during the hike to the next temple in order for them all to rest. Billy's voice is raspy lately and he's very out of breath, keeps adjusting his bandanna. Maidie tries to ask if he's okay, but they're both pretty focused on Cait.

Shuggie's Trial:

This trial does need to be expanded upon, too. However, I do know that while Billy's inside Shuggie's Trial, the Scarecrow walks out of the temple to find the girls. Cait's injured, Maidie's scared, the spectators can't do anything, and Billy's very much unconscious. The Scarecrow.. talks to them, though. They don't trust it for a second. What does it want?

Actually, it wants to know if they're Billy's kids. The Tide and the Hunter laugh because they know they're not, but they're not particularly inclined to share unless they could use the information to either get a leg up against Billy, or get the girls as vessels for them. They're still pretty sore, anyway, about losing Caz and Suze.

Everyone wants a child as a vessel, but the Scarecrow wants to know who's going to miss them if they're taken. If it's Billy, well then that'll be very easy to deal with. The issue with child vessels is that it's harder to make them thoroughly disappear. Though now with Cait and Maidie very readily separated from the world, and their parents? well it's like they're being offered right up to the entities! But I did say everyone wants a child vessel. and there are many displaced entities right now who think they deserve it more than the Scarecrow, who already has a vessel. and they are all siblings, and very petty.

Twenty something displaced entities, to be precise. And only two girls.

What follows is a lot of "i saw them first!" "we possessed their parents!" "I'm the oldest by six minutes!"

The Scarecrow drags Cait and Maidie into its temple, snapping that it's the one with a body right now and it found them first. The prisoner goes "oh yeah?" and manifests itself in its actual form, to yank Maidie out of the Scarecrow's arms. and it declares that it was actually the one who saw them first. The Tide and the Hunter are kind of teaming up, revealing that they had been possessing the girls' parents and using that as the reason why they should get them as vessels. More entities come in, and they're fighting. Cait and Maidie are quickly separated and just get thrown around a lot, and they can't say anything. They can see Billy motionless on the ground and they know he won't help them. Still, doesn't stop Maidie from wriggling away and running over to him, trying to wake him up. But no matter how hard she shakes him, he doesn't move at all. Maidie draws the entities' attention to him, too, and now there's a bunch of them giving him death glares even though he can't see them, and whining about the stupid game the King made them all agree to. which they all were readily agreeing to play until they lost, and now they're being sore losers about it. Maidie and Cait think these things are really shitty people. 

With the argument paused, and everyone having shifted to pouting about Billy and talking shit about him, the Infinity drifts forwards to approach Maidie and try to charm her, convince her to willingly become its vessel, because it thinks she's dumb I guess. This upsets several of its siblings, and the Infinity shrugs and says "hey, not my fault if she decides i'm the best one here."

Unfortunately several of the entities are then trying to convince the girls to become their vessels willingly. The Storm says it'll be much nicer than if they stick with Billy, who the Storm kicks and declares will be dead soon. The Scarecrow then swats it away and says it's going to be the one to kill him. Because it is surely much better than its siblings. and it agreed to the game, like they all did, so they are beholden to the rules. The timer hasn't gotten much left on it, anyway.

The Scarecrow waves its sickle around, definitely thinking about murder, and this gets Maidie to back up. So now she's surrounded the same as Cait and separated from both her sister and Billy. not like either could've helped her, but she is very worried for both of them. and herself. The entities are very insistent and they're both snapping at each other and trying to convince them to be their vessels. The girls do manage to learn about spectator jail, though! and they learn where it is. But beyond that? Not a lot they can do. At least until Billy wakes up. Maidie flinches and Cait tries to go over to Billy, because the Scarecrow throws a bit of a fit. stomps on him and points the sickle at him until Shuggie returns to his body, and then stumbles backwards as his appearance rapidly goes back to normal. He drops the sickle, and he is. very confused about everything. The Scarecrow is displaced, and very quickly kicks Shuggie to Spectator Jail. Billy stands up and panics, a bit, because of the whole. entities trying to possess the girls situation.

Billy tries to get to the girls. He tries to get the entities to back off. but the Rot shoves him, a little bit, and says the girls aren't protected by the game rules like he is. So he lunges and grabs the sickle Shuggie dropped, and then he swings it at the Infinity in order to reach and grab Maidie. It doesn't hurt the Infinity, just surprises it, makes it angry. Billy gets Maidie to stand behind him, but pointing the sickle at the entities does not threaten them in the slightest. The entities can't kill Billy, but they can hurt him. and also dogpile on Cait to thoroughly separate her from the other two.

He keeps maidie behind him, forces her towards the exit and tells her to run and run far. And then throws himself at the entities to try to get to Cait.

It's pretty clear the girls can't be hanging around the temples anymore, but Maidie only knows one other location. So. I guess she's going to spectator jail! She and Cait, when Billy fights her out and then unfortunately has to take the brunt of the entities' anger, as they get pissed off at him for taking the girls away. Billy makes them agree to a new, smaller deal. In which they leave the girls alone, and he lets them all basically punch him one time. Which significantly lowers his chances of being able to complete the next few trials, and they all know it. Also, the entities hate him a whole lot. He is able to convince them for this and continues his "fools' errand."

O'Connor's Trial:

O'Connor's Trial needs to be thought on more, but there is a moment where Billy is stuck in kind of like an hourglass sort of thing, but in the canyon. It is basically a cave of sorts that's filling with sand, and he can't get out without O'Connor's help.

This is also the first time he doesn't have the girls with him, and he feels very alone. He knows they're safer, but he does miss them. Everything hurts lately..

Those in Spectator Jail, including the girls now, are very, very worried for him.

Dobbie's Trial:

Dobbie's Trial needs to be elaborated on more.. yeahhhh. Its basically Crossy road /silly

Boyd's Trial:

Another one I need to elaborate on! Considering making the "frog in boiling water" thing a little more literal in this trial.

Dunbar's Trial:

Billy's tied to the chair here, but Boyd is not. Someone else has to carry out Billy's decisions in the buckshot roulette ripoff game (/silly) for him.

Davros' Trial:

Another trial that needs elaboration. Most of the newest ones do! This one is, as stated previously, about how cave diving sucks and is scary /silly.

Banky's Trial:

Yet another trial I'm trying to write more for. You know Vessel Banky tries to break Billy's neck with the car jack here? Crazy stuff.

Bannon's Trial:

Yeah I need more for this one too, it was created quite recently.

Anderson's Trial:

The trial begins with Billy almost being knocked off of his feet, suddenly in a room with the floor and walls spinning. It's all painted in bright colors with spiral patterns, too, and that, combined with getting hit on the head so hard before he fell into the trial, all make Billy extremely disoriented and dizzy. He tries and fails to get purchase, and instead stumbles across the room to the little tunnel in the wall opposite from him. Crawling through it, he emerges into another room, this one completely lacking a floor. He falls out of the tunnel and into the foam pit below, sinking a concerning amount.

This trial is an evil fun house, basically. I did write a fic about this one, too.

Buck's Trial:

Needs more development, but I do know Buck is getting extremely pissed about everything, and so are his clones. Billy may wanna get outta there quickly...

Sunil's Trial:

Also needs more development, but Billy is basically on a path and he is forced to keep walking. Like physically he can't stop or slow down, and he's trying to catch up to Sunil, doing the same thing.

Rennick's Trial:

The final one! This trial takes place on the Beira D, with Billy spawning in in the crumbling, flooding pontoons, and basically having to climb all the way up to Rennick's office with the rig actively sinking and falling apart beneath him. And once he gets to Rennick, he runs into the issue of Rennick's stubbornness. Rennick doesn't want to trust Billy, he's scared and angry and doesn't believe Billy.

And he doesn't end up leaving with Billy! He gets Billy trapped in a shipping container, which falls off the rig and into the ocean, trapping Billy in the water as he sinks endlessly. Rennick panics, then, and is eventually forced to follow what Billy said anyway, swimming down to the pontoons and having to trust what Billy said about the trial not being real and him not being able to drown completely. He makes it, and escapes the trial before time runs out. Billy is dragged with him, awakening disoriented.

However, The King does not count this as a pass, because, technically, Billy didn't get Rennick out of the trial. Rennick got out on his own.

And so Billy fails!

And so I will continue this in another post, because this one is simply wayyyyy too long. Anyone who read this far, thank you very much for taking interest in my silly AU.