#end of chapter 1

[naijawhims]

New Year, New Me.

[youngbonescomic]

CHAPTER 1 Retrace [pg.11] | End

[scrapnickstf2comicupdates]

END OF CHAPTER 1 page 22

[hanahaki-au]

End of chapter 1

—First page

—Previous page

—Chapter 2

[all-forgotten-suau]

Howdy Glitch! Can you go to any AU, or can you only go to more Steven-centered ones? Your other counterparts?

[☆]don't repost my Art! reblogs are appreciated.

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[color-sanses]

[almightytallestblack]

Black stands rigid in the center of the arena, the cheers from the crowd having died out along with the final lines of Jaz’s message, now replaced with a tense and confused silence. Somewhere, James and the other performers are calling to Black in whispered hisses, wondering why he’s stopped the show. He can’t hear them. He can’t hear anything.

. . .

“So... you are running from this problem.” Fyodor questioned bluntly. Black shrugged, took a swig from his bottle, and then shrugged again with a rueful laugh,

“Yeah, I am. Because I’m a right mug. And a coward. And a bastard.”

Fyodor quietly watched Black for a moment before pulling a knife from his coat and using it to pick at his fingernails,

“I was KGB agent. Did you know this?” He questioned casually. Black set down his bottle for a moment before letting out a snicker,

“Yeah?-”

“Yes.” Fyodor interjected sharply. Suddenly, the notion wasn’t as funny to Black. “I am doing very horrible things for my country. To my country. My friends... my family. For a very long time I am thinking it is all I can do, and so I do it, and I do it very well... until I stop being coward, I stop saying “this is OK”, and I make a better life for myself. I choose my life, not life chosen for me.” 

“You say you want to be father, Black? First you should stop being clown.”

. . .

Someone in the audience begins to boo. The chorus of jeering steadily grows louder as Black remains frozen in his moral struggle. Somewhere, James tries to get to him, only to be blocked by a convenient wall of Black’s fellow performers. In the stands, the two Gugs are laughing. 

Which life should I choose?

On one side, Black thinks of the Empire, his enemies, his failures and the thing he’s been running from for decades. On the other, he thinks of his obligations, the rules he’s allowed himself to be governed by and the consequences of breaking them. The bigtop arena is being littered with thrown sacks of stadium food and glass bottles. A rock cuts through the air and gashes across his cheek, causing Black to stumble back a bit and blink. 

Who did that?

More items pelt the stagnant clown as the boos turn to laughs; if the audience wasn’t going to be supplied their entertainment, they were going to make it for themselves. Black throws his arms up in confusion as bottles and sacks of candy and more rocks bounce against him. What was happening? 

Who do these people think they are?

He had spent so long... So long trying to please these... things. They were small, and disgusting, and insignificant, and he, Almighty Tallest Black, had been stupid enough to rip out a part of himself just to make them all happy. Just to survive. He ripped himself apart and stuffed the other half in a trunk and chained it because he was too scared of being found out, too scared of the consequences... but he was bigger than them, oh, he always had been, and now in the middle of that arena his other half was beginning to wake back up and to protest against its chains. 

For a moment, he’s scared of it, scared of his life crashing back down on him and facing those things that he ran from so long ago... but then he realizes that he never really escaped, and all those burdens and responsibilities have already followed him here. There’s nothing he can lose.

It’s time to be himself again.

[claradrake]

The Awakening

Part 5

End of chapter 1

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