The witch had done many things in her lifetime. Some good and many, many bad. She had seen so much death, so much darkness and destruction.
She sighed, looking at the child left on her doorstep, left by parents who had made a bargain. "I couldn't just leave the child with them!" She thought to herself. "If they're willing to bargain him away, to a witch of all the people, who knows what else they would do with him!"
The witch knew she wasn't a 'good' person, but she thought she could be, if she tried hard enough. She knew she'd do anything to protect the boy, and she knew that she would never abandon him like her family did her.
The nightmares are back. Karma for once naming himself one, probably.
It was always the same. Cody was knelt over in a seeming abyss. Far emptiness as the eye can see, but he could tell that he was back in Aethelon. The blue-green hue of the ground floor of Elite Tower gave it away. But it wasn’t just that.
The marble floor was stained with blood. And he knew for certain it wasn’t his - but he was covered in it. Not just that, but the burning sensation from his nano technology was present. Cody’s vision becomes blurry, he closes his eyes, and kneels over - deciding to wait for this lucid dream to end. It was the same thing every damned time. It was a like an ugly hangover but there was no drinking involved.
Seconds feel like hours though, and he won’t wake up. He was being kept here.
Cody slowly opens his eyes to reveal he’s someplace different. It looked like Hart Plaza in Titan City, north of Universal Tower during the daytime. He looked down at himself and the blood was gone. But it was replaced with tactical gear and black longcoat from Japan - he could feel the half-skull gas mask wrapped around his face.
Cody touches the mask and attempts to remove it to no avail.
He looks around. The normally busy space is empty, yet he can hear murmuring and whispering around him. The burning sensation remained. Cody’s breathing shallows as he rises to his knees. The whispers become louder and closer, yet there’s no one around.
A gust of wind picks up from behind him, and he turns around. A storm cloud emanates from thin air approaching him. Cody could feel something was in that storm.
Before anything else, he wakes up finally on his couch - amongst the comfort of the penthouse of Universal Tower, even that did little to comfort Cody.
There’s always that fun loving kid in class, the one who always smiles, who’s always making everyone laugh even when classes are going on, the one who’s friends with everyone and seems to not have a care in the world. That’s the kind of person Jackson is.
Jackson Hindley, the son and heir of his parent’s corporations, the boy who never has to worry about anything as long as his parents are alive, the boy whose life is perfectly planned out. The boy everyone aspires to be.
The boy Mark hates.
From across the room Mark stared at Jackson and his never-ending group of friends with envy as they laughed at something the boy had said. For reasons only known to him, Mark hated Jackson and everything associated with him, whether it was the little jokes he would crack or the clubs he always participated in. Mark hated them all.
Mark and Jackson are both at the far end of the spectrum, with one of them being extremely wealthy, and the other, not so much. It wasn’t because of the money that Mark hated Jackson, but because the boy seemed to radiate so much bloody positivity. He was like a candle—no, an industrial lamp, forcing light into the darkest crevices of a building, and in the process forcing away all the rats that called those places home.
Mark represented those rats.
As someone who was brought up in a house where positivity was a foreign thing, Mark had grown accustomed to being belittled and abused every time he stepped out into the light, so he embraced the darkness where he felt safe and welcomed.
Light and darkness do not mix, when one appears the other must leave. However—
“Marcus, quit your moping and come join us for lunch.”
Daniel is Mark’s self-proclaimed best friend.
“Poor Marcus has no friends, I’m one of the only people who bother talking to him.” He had randomly said and began hanging around Mark whether the boy wanted his company or not.
“You know, one day Mark’s going to snap at you.” Another voice came in smoothly.
“Nah, not possible, Alecia. Isn’t that right, Marcus?”
“It’s Mark, Daniel. Stop with the nicknames.” Mark complained, prying Daniel’s arm off his shoulder.
“Were you staring at Jackson again? Jeez, don’t you think you're being a little weird, not to mention creepy.” Alecia joked, knowing it would piss him off.
“I’m not being creepy.” Mark defended himself, shrugging Alecia's comment off.
“Well, if you say so.” Daniel threw his arm round Mark’s shoulder again, earning a grunt from the victim, “Anyway, that’s not why we came here.”
“Yeah, come have lunch with us.” Alecia cut in.
“Hey! I was going to say that.”
“Does it matter?” Mark asked, still trying to pry Daniel’s arm off his shoulder.
“Will you join us for lunch or not?” Alecia repeated, not giving room to Mark’s question.
“Fine, I will!” He agreed.
“Yay!” Daniel rejoiced, finally taking his arm off Mark.
“Great.” Alecia grabbed Daniel’s collar and led him out of the room, “Meet us on the roof.”
Alecia and Daniel.
To Mark, both of them were right in the middle of the gauge, but he liked Alecia more. She was cool, Daniel was annoying. Thinking back, Mark had always wanted to strike up a conversation with Alecia, but Daniel was always there and he didn’t like Daniel. But now, he’s friends with Alecia and Daniel came with her, like a buy- one-get-one-free sale, except Mark didn’t want the free item.
He picked up his lunch and headed towards the door. He sent Jackson a quick glance, not expecting to make eye contact or see the boy giving him a friendly wave. Ignoring his friendly gesture, Mark turned and walked out of the classroom.
Jowi arrived home, finally returning to… his house in America? Weird. He hadn’t been trying to come here, so why did he end up here, and not in Japan, where he’d been trying to land? Even for the Infinite Refraction surrounding Gaia, this was unusual. He’d always been able to land where he had chosen on his planeswalks before. Did he maybe get sent off course by overlapping timelines? Only a problem going to his home plane, he figured. But now that he was here, he could just walk again, and go to Japan, right?
He walked around the house as he thought, looking at pictures on the walls, noting that they were still of his family, so he hadn’t ended up in someone else’s house. But, oddly… there seemed to be only pictures of him as a child. And a lot of pictures of his parents with a girl he’d never seen before.
“Well, I’ve definitely never seen her before…” he mumbled, picking up one of the picture frames, flipping it over, trying to check the date on it, if any, only to be interrupted by the lights flicking on, and a familiar voice speaking up behind him.
“Who are you… and what’re you doing in my house?”
Jowi turned to face the source of the voice, raising an eyebrow. It was clear to him now, that he’d accidentally planeswalked to the wrong Earth. His eyes settled on the figure of his mother, older, certainly, but still very clearly his mother.
“…Mom?” He asked, too stunned to think of a proper excuse, before processing that she had asked who he was, getting cut off before he could say anything else,
“You’re not my son, he’s dead. Just because you might look a little bit like him doesn’t mean you’re gonna trick me! It’s in bad fuckin’ taste to pretend to be a dead kid.”
“Dead…?” He asked, putting the picture down, “How did I…”
Dumb question. If she was here, and he wasn’t… there was an obvious answer to what happened.
“The fire… I died instead of you…” he whispered, only barely having enough time to raise his arms in defense, as the girl from the photos came from upstairs, and threw a mighty kick
Even if he did block it, the impact was heavy, sending him tumbling out of the room, and through the front of the house, rolling to a stop in the street, quickly rising to his feet, and preparing for another attack. The girl continued her assault, and came running out, wearing simple pajama pants and a top, continuing to attack the perceived intruder.
“Athena, wait!” Alayara called, as Jowi fended off her blows. The girl was good. As good as he was at her age, and probably as strong. But she was still just a teenager, battling against a hardened Planeswalker. And she was using all of Jowi’s own moves. The Tycho Style he knew all-too well.
“I won’t let you just break in, and torment my mom! I don’t know or care how you got in, or why you’d pretend to be Jowi, but-“
The elder Tycho cut her off, stepping past one of her punches, and finally counterattacking, his fist meeting her gut, and sending her tumbling down the street. She tried to get up, but winced in pain, having never been hit by someone her own strength, she’d never actually taken much damage.
“Nobody ever just listens… I am Jowi… but not the one mom would know… I’m just in the wrong world…”
Alyara raced out from the house, carrying with her, a pistol, and pointed it at Jowi, “Stay away from my daughter. I don’t know what you want, but you picked the wrong house to-“
“I wanted to direct movies!” Jowi shouted, cutting her off, “Horror movies! Because me and Karla always watched them when you weren’t home even though you told us not to! Mom… it’s me, Jowi… just not your Jowi. I’m… from another Earth. In the fire, on my birthday… you died to save me. I guess, here… I died instead.”
Athena, finally managing to shake off the blow from earlier, began to stand up, “What a load of bull! Like anyone’s gonna believe…”
She trailed off, as her attention turned to her mother, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks, as she dropped her gun,
“Do you… what did I get you for your birthday?”
Jowi sighed, reaching into his jacket, and pulling out a small locket, partially melted, “A picture of you and dad inside it… doesn’t open anymore… melted shut in the fire. It’s… all I have left of you in my world.”
Alyara took a few steps closer to Jowi, reaching out, and gently touching the side of his face,
“Your eyes… show me. And I’ll believe you. You can’t fake those eyes.”
Jowi nodded, closing his eyes, and opening them again after a few seconds, glowing a sim crimson red in the night, before his mother finally embraced him,
“My baby boy… all grown up… and I wasn’t there?”
Jowi, finally relaxing, for what felt like the first time in years, hugged his mother back,
“Just… just me, dad and Karla. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to come here… to dig up those memories of your son… I was just trying to go home. Being here… was an accident.”
Alyara just hugged her son tighter, continuing to cry into his chest, not wanting to let go of her son a second time, as Athena stumbled over,
“So… you’re my big brother, huh…? Emphasis on big, you’re almost as tall as dad.”
“I guess? I don’t… I don’t really know you, uh… Athena. But you’ve got good form. You keep your feet a little too close together though.”
She scoffed, punching him in the arm, and heading back to the house, “Come on. I’m tired, let’s just… get back in the house, and worry about all of this tomorrow. I don’t know how you got here, but if you leave and make mom cry again… I’ll kick your ass. Don’t care how I have to find you.”
Once upon a time there was a green man and a box boy. BoxBoy called him Dad but GreenMan only answered to Turkey which was weird because he had never tried turkey before. BoxBoy was proud to admit he had had it once before. But he didn't like it so he pretended to be deaf whenever the name came up. He probably was a bit deaf though. His ears were holes on the sides of his box head and most words got stuck in his leg-length long curly hair. Sometimes he picked them up for spring cleaning.
