Heyo! So I’ve been working on this over the course of the year, typically having some days where I go on a rabbit hole to find songs and then other times just throwing songs in as I hear them and see them fit. It’s finally at a place where everyone has a fair amount of music to share: I’ve been aiming for 3-5 per character and have finally reached that.
Everyone involved is a major character of the SHADOWs of GHOST trilogy, which includes: E.G.O vs A.L.T.E.R, GHOST vs SHADOW agents, and the Drifters. My goal was to find music with lyrical meanings that I thought fit my headcanons/interpretations of the skins, or music that fit their general vibes (but not necessarily music I think they’d listen to, though I did try to keep it to genres I associate with them). I’ve been fairly picky with every song and though most of them are carefully and intentionally chosen, a few are them are biases from my own music taste/favorite artists (The Warning, A7X, tøp).
I’m aiming for everyone to have 5 songs in the end and will continuously be updating (and sharing the updates as I do, hopefully). Currently, the ones who don’t have 5 are: Maya, Jules, Outcast, Riptide, Chic, Rue
Fusion and Chaos Agent are included, with Fusion having only 3 and Chaos Agent only having 1. Chaos Agent’s one song is intentional; I’m satisfied with Fusion’s only 3 but this might change.
Without further ado, here’s the individual list (with occasional comments :))
GHOST
Midas
The Fever - Foreign Figures
Glitter & Gold - Barns Courtney
Only One King - Tommee Profitt, Jung Youth
Feeling Good - Michael Bublé (a classic and obvious choice, if a bit cliche)
Gold - Imagine Dragons
Brutus
Indestructible - Disturbed
All Eyes On You - Smash Into Pieces
M.I.A - Avenged Sevenfold
This Is What I Live For - Graffiti Ghosts
Fight For My Survival - The Phantoms
Brutus was one of the more difficult ones to choose songs for, I’m not sure why. I’m not 100% satisfied but I don’t hate it either; Indestructible is really the only 100%.
TNTina
Take Cover - UNSECRET, Emily Kopp
Bomber - Girlschool
S!CK - The Warning
The Trouble - Club Danger
I Come Alive - Dorothy
Meowscles
‘Till I Collapse - Eminem, Nate Dogg
Ready For It - J.Pollock, Manwell
Ready To Play - Club Danger
Die For You - The Siege
Undefeated - Skillet
Skye
It Is What It Is - Jenna Raine
Irony - majiko
Cloudy Day - Tones And I
Wildflowers - Maddie Poppe
The Pines - Roses & Revolutions
Maya
Younger - The Aces
Best Excuse - Saint Chaos
Hero - Halestorm
After The Storm - Kali Uchis, Tyler, The Creator, Bootsy Collins
[Gravity - Against The Current] (Still unsure on this one, replaced again&again and I want to stick to Against The Current here.)
Drifters
Jules
overwhelmed - Royal & The Serpent
Conversations - Marney
Idle Worship - Paramore
Gasoline - Halsey
CHOKE - The Warning (bias pick but I also feel it fits her story well.)
Fade’s songs are entirely based on vibes if I’m being honest, though I believe Last Semester/Butterflies & Hurricanes do fit more than that. I actually do see him listening to Gorillaz and twenty one pilots :)
Kit
Running Free - Iron Maiden
Riot - Three Days Grace
Burn It Down - Skillet
Welcome To The Family - Avenged Sevenfold
Get Up - All Good Things
Cute little kitten’s built-in emote is rock/metal in game, so I had to incorporate it into his music here. A7X is for vibes and bias; okay maybe most of the songs besides Running Free are for vibes.
Siona
Runaway - AURORA
Subterranean Homesick Alien - Radiohead
Starlight - Muse
Saturn - SZA
No Roots - Alice Merton
Eternal Knight
Noble Blood - Tommee Profitt, Fleurie
Ruins - Ella Isaacson
One Time - King Crimson
Throne - Saint Mesa
Breath of Life - Florence + The Machine
I tried the hardest to match vibes with meanings for her songs for some reason, which was slightly difficult because she’s a knight and so I wanted the vibes to reflect the medieval theme. I feel Ruins kind of breaks that but the meaning fit too well with her journey and falling out with the knights.
E.G.O
Journey
Mountains - We Are All Fossils
Stand By You - Rachel Platten (biased because it’s one of my personal anthems)
Pocketful of Sunshine - Natasha Bedingfield (Journey’s personality is like the definition of sunshine so)
This Mountain - Faouzia
Marigolds - early eyes
Turk
Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
Angler - The Rills (entirely vibes + the title)
It’s My Life - Bon Jovi
Ride On - AC/DC
Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
The decision for Turk to have mainly classic rock was so easy, but not as easy for me to incorporate because I don’t listen to a lot of classic rock. Regardless I’m satisfied with the choice :)
8-Ball
Rain (from The Suicide Squad) - grandson, Jessie Reyez
Raise My Flag - ill Factor, Graham Cochrane
Losing Blood - Weathers
Stressed Out - twenty one pilots
The Unforgiven II - Metallica
Give this guy a hug bro
Remedy
Gilded Lily - Cults
Free To Decide - The Cranberries
CROW - UPIKO
Taking Care of Things - Cavetown
anemone - BAND-MAID
Give her a hug too wow. As a medical professional she’s seen a lot, and in my headcanon backstory she went through some rough patches growing up. These things made up the choices of pretty much the first four songs. anemome is a bias pick because I’m obsessed with the song, but also because I headcanon her as Japanese alongside 8-Ball and Scratch.
Cameo
Ready Or Not - HAYZ
Me Too - Meghan Trainor (such an obvious pick when i finally heard the song again)
Machine - Misterwivez
Make It Look Easy - Valley of Wolves
Little Girl Gone - CHINCHILLA
Outcast
Airhead - Honey Revenge
Six Feet Deep - Neoni, Besomorph
Walking on Water - Astyria
Running with the Wild Things - Against The Current
DISCIPLE - The Warning
A.L.T.E.R/SHADOW
Toxin
Maybe, I - Des Rocs
Used To The Darkness - Des Rocs
In The Shadows - Amy Stroup
Cold Blood - Valen
Pick Your Poison - Black Pistol Fire
Hazard
OUTLAW - Neoni
Never Say Die - Neoni
Cynical - Emei
yes & no - XYLØ
Fallin’ - Your Neighbors
Riptide
Get Over It - The Eagles
Leading The Pack - Sam Tinnesz
Come and Get It from Me - Sun Heat
The Hunter - Adam Jensen
Don't Follow - Alice In Chains
Scratch
Last Man Standing - Graffiti Ghosts
Winner - Walgrove
Hustler - Zayde Wølf
Run This Town - Konata Small, Zayde Wølf
Reckless - JAXSON GAMBLE
The last two are also shared with Zadie—I like to imagine them as an epic assassin/mercenary duo before Scratch gets tied up with the Alter Ego stuff.
Chic
Hush - The Marías
Smile For The Camera - UPSAHL
Bubblegum Bitch - MARINA
O.D.D - Hey Violet
Messy - Lola Young
Sorana
Hit and Run - LOLO
Teach Me To Fight - YONAKA
Traitor - Daughtry
Are You Ready? - Kat Meoz
Bad Reputation - Joan Jett
Rue
god sent me as karma - emlyn
Crystallised - The XX
Back With A Vengeance - Portals
mother tongue - liana flores
Technically, her whole thing is vengeance based on her skin description but in SoG there’s a little more than that going on. I already have two vengeance songs and I don’t want to make all of it about revenge. There was another song but I removed it for that reason.
Fusion
Misfit Lunatic - MISSIO
The One To Survivor - Hidden Citizens, Josh Bruce Williams
Rebel Renegade - Tommee Profitt - Beacon Light
Chaos Agent
The Reckoning - UNSECRET, Matthew Perryman Jones
And finally, what felt like the one and most obvious choice for Chaos Agent.
Thanks for checking this list out! As I said I will continue updating it as I find the last few songs or switch ones out if I see fit. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays or Happy Wednesday everyone!! Have some good food, enjoy time with family, and overall have a great day <3
Of all the worlds we have travelled, this one remains the strangest, and by far the most dangerous. It was never so much what could be seen, but what could, or could not be felt. I vowed never to return here, but my promise seems to have eluded me… after already being broken by Deo.
I don’t understand it. He knows the danger of this place just as well; it weighed on our minds for weeks, months, even years after my escape. He understands that… we both will be lost, if we are here for too long. I thought he understood. Maybe I was not clear enough, though I had made it clear a thousand times over before he departed.
If I am lucky, I will not have to fight for my life now. Maybe things have changed, if only a little. Maybe I can find someone friendly to help, unlike our recent mission. This island has changed drastically in appearance, but its unsettling air remains. Maybe I will see our old crew again, and maybe they will recognize me… if their memories are not too far gone now.
What I am certain of is that the same thing will not happen to me. It will not happen to Deo. We will find each other and leave before it does. I meant what I said before he left: I cannot lose him.
I can’t.
Signed,
?
AO3 Link
When they got around to the crash site, SHADOW had beaten them to it. Whether they happened to be in the area or they simply had a sixth sense which told them where GHOST would be at all times, Ocean knew either was a possibility. She urged her trio behind a distant rock where they could survey and think of a plan.
“I see four,” Ocean relayed. Two are guarding the door or whatever and the other two guys are just kinda walking around.”
“Great, but we’re still outnumbered,” Turk said.
“I don’t know, Ocean could count as two people if she really wanted to,” Maya joked.
Ocean shushed them as one of the henchmen’s voices carried over. “No, I know I saw someone.”
The henchman in question stopped in front of the door of a white spacecraft, its paneling adorned with orange and green highlights. As he went to step inside, the guard to his right shooed him away. Ocean turned to Turk. “You got your sniper?”
He reached for the ground and raised it up to his eye. “Always do.?
“Cool, you get first shot and we’ll take out the others. Let’s go straight in.”
Turk nodded and aimed in, waiting a moment for the perfect shot. With a loud bang, the farthest patrolling henchman hit the ground, now alerting the enemy of their presence. Ocean and Maya followed suit, taking out two more before they could fully identify where they were. With one remaining, the agents charged; Ocean hit the final SHADOW henchman with a less lethal spot and signaled towards the ship. “This is ours. You know anything about it?”
The henchman attempted to squirm out of Maya’s grasp as she restrained them; Turk helped hold them down. They finally gave up and collapsed into Maya’s arms, groaning in pain as they held a hand against their bleeding injury. “No. We were just here for parts. Wasn’t my idea. But I think there’s someone in there, we were just about to get to that.”
“Yeah? Your buddies didn’t think so.” Ocean kept her rifle pointed at them for a good few seconds, then lowering it as she stepped into the doorway of the ship. She nodded to Maya and Turk, who eased their grasps on the henchman. “Well guess what? It’s your lucky day, you’re one of us now.”
She stepped inside the ship, shrugging off a quick ‘be careful’ from Maya as she looked around the spacious interior. Though the inside seemed bigger than how it looked from outside, it was more so there was little to look at besides buttons and screws and other flashy technological attachments scattered around the walls. If someone were here, the options for a hiding spot were practically none, unless they were actually a ghost. Ocean tried a door at the very back. It would not budge. Only when she turned back in preparation to leave did she notice, in fact, a very real person huddled under the ship’s main control panel.
There sat a woman with green hair tied up into several buns, a helmet laying at her side. Realizing Ocean had noticed her, she threw up a pistol. Ocean threw her rifle to the ground and held her arms up. “Hey, it’s okay, we’re here to help.”
The woman lowered her gun slightly. “We saw the crash, it was pretty close so we thought we’d check it out.” Ocean took off her own helmet and held it at her side with a smile. “We took care of the other guys out there. They were probably gonna do something but you don’t gotta worry about it now.”
She took a step forward. Little by little, the woman continued to lower her pistol until she laid it flat on the ground. Ocean approached fully and offered a hand, pulling her out from under and helping her stand. The woman could only do so for a moment before her legs buckled and she nearly fell. Ocean helped her stay steady and stand on her own for a longer minute before giving her space once more. “I’m Ocean. Leader of GHOST. Our base is right over there.” She pointed to The Fortilla, which could barely be seen through the door of the ship. “The guys we took care of are SHADOW, our enemies. They suck. Like I said, we got it under control.”
The woman stared at her, glanced quickly at the control panel, and turned back. “My name is Sinoa. I am searching for my brother.”
Siona detached a device strapped to her side and studied it. “He landed in this place what must have been days before me, I believe. I followed him here, but he must be elsewhere.”
Ocean led her outside. “I think I saw a rift the other day but it was, like, across the island. We kinda stay around the area here so we don’t run into SHADOW.”
Once outside the ship, Siona took a long, deep breath as she took in the surrounding sights. A small smile found her face. “I haven’t breathed fresh air like this in some time. Most of the realities I visit are… different.”
Before Ocean could ask anything, the SHADOW henchman spoke. “See? I told you.”
“Shut up,” Ocean snapped. She smiled at Maya and Turk. “Hey guys, this is Siona. Good thing we got here when we did.”
Siona nodded to them, still with a smile.
“Never know for sure if that’s gonna be the last of them, SHADOW likes to be unpredictable,” Ocean continued. “You could come with us if you want, just to be safe. Always got some room in the apartments and we got you if anyone tries something with you again.”
Siona pondered this for a moment, then frowned. She glanced at her ship. “My brother…”
“I know, you gotta find him, but it wouldn’t hurt, right?”
~*~
“She was so cool! I wish she came back with us.”
Since both groups arrived and converged again in the vault room, Skye had yet to stop talking about the knight, nor had she let anyone else get a word in unless it were to add on to her points. “She said I reminded her of someone, her apprentice in her home world, I felt so honored! I really wish I could’ve told her more about the knight but-”
“Hey, wait, wait. Home world?” Ocean finally managed to get a question in. “Siona—that’s our rescue’s name—she mentioned something about different realities.
“So we got two more visitors,” Turk said. “Why didn’t the knight come with you?”
“She didn’t want anything to do with the war, which is understandable,” Journey noted.
“I think once she meets SHADOW, she’ll change her mind,” Skye enthused. “I really hope she does. Where’s the astronaut girl? I wanna meet her, too.”
After a playful warning from Journey to not scare her off before she could adjust, and a following argument from Skye that she would stay subtle (which they all knew would be a challenge in itself), Ocean took her to the blue warehouse where Jules often acquainted herself. Siona had only spoken once in the time between leaving the crash site and being left to her own devices at The Fortilla: to ask for a quiet place to collect her thoughts. Ocean quickly learned that was simply the language she liked to speak: few and formal words in favor of gestures and small, expressive noises. Another introvert to add to the mix, Ocean supposed, though even Jules seemed to find it strange.
“I wanted to maybe say hi—not that anyone would believe that—but she seemed wrapped up in something,” Jules said. “I didn’t want to bother her.”
“Where is she?”
Jules led them up to the catwalk, stopping a step or two away from the stairs. In the middle of the walkway, Siona held up a large sheet: a map of the island. Where it came from, nobody could be sure. Strange symbols and navigational patterns were marked all over it, complete with three specific circles around, looking closer, Salty Springs, Pleasant Park, and Retail Row.”
She took the marker held in her mouth and drew more, seemingly unaware of the trio’s presence until Skye stepped forward. “Hi!”
Siona’s head snapped towards her. She briefly glanced between the three women and responded with a single nod and a small, awkward smile. “Hey, we’re not bothering you, right?” Oceana asked.
Siona scanned her map, capped the marker in her hand, and set both carefully on the ground beside her. She turned to them attentively. “Cool. This is Skye and Jules, we wanted to see what you were up to. You know, make sure you were settling in okay.”
“Siona, right?” Skye stepped forward and offered a handshake; Siona simply nodded again, accepting the gesture. When she said nothing in response, Skye’s smile wavered a bit. “Welcome to The Fortilla! How do you like it? I heard you were new to the island, too.”
Siona opened her mouth to finally say something, however, she frowned and looked away at the mention of the island. She eyed her map and stared at it, seemingly lost in thought. Jules cleared her throat and followed her eyes. “What were you doing up here?”
“Charting.” Siona’s eyes lit up immediately. She reached for the device at her side, pressed a few buttons, and pointed it to the wall, where it displayed a holographic image of the island. “My ship took this satellite picture when I first entered. If I am to find my brother, I must understand the land.”
That would be the longest of her responses to the group, it seemed. The conversation carried on in the same manner, with Ocean and occasionally Jules jumping in to ask about her life before the island, her brother and his circumstances, or anything else they could think to prompt more of an answer than the ones they continued to receive. Though known for her eagerness to ambush those whose quiet personas would challenge her extroversion and excitement, Skye was the only one to back off from questioning after her initial greetings. “I gotta go,” she finally said, her voice unnaturally small. Only then did they note her distressed expression as she brushed past them and hurried off, Ollie’s wings drooping dolefully against her hat.
Ocean and Jules glanced at each other. “I’ll go see what that was,” Jules said. She said a quick goodbye to Siona and left.
“I’m sorry.”
Ocean turned back. “Huh?”
“I don’t mean to seem… disinterested. Just that, I’m not used to regular interaction. Pleasantries, aside from with my brother,” Siona explained, now with a solemn expression. She spoke clearly, careful to enunciate every formal word. “In my space travels, my speech is saved for diplomacy. We seek to solve disputes among different realities and offer aid wherever we can. Some realities are less receptive to, well, casual conversation. Anything not having to do with the issues of their homes they seek to discuss.”
“So, what, you talk to like, aliens and stuff?” Ocean asked innocently. “That’s pretty cool. I guess I get it, some people around her are too formal for me. They might as well be aliens.”
Siona hummed in amusement. “This island is ever evolving. It’s interesting to see how things have really changed.”
Ocean tilted her head. She could not identify what, but something about her words perturbed her. “What do you mean?”
That distant, far-off gleam, which several times had previously clouded her eyes, fogged them up again. Her gaze returned downwards and she searched for solace in her thoughts. Before Ocean could dismiss that question, Siona looked up with a small smile and took her hands in her own, gently squeezing them. “Thank you for allowing me to stay,” she said, deflecting further inquiries altogether. “As soon as it is deemed safe for me to do so, I will have to depart. My one goal is still to find my brother and leave. I hope you can understand.”
Behind her firm, kind front, there was something mysterious about the way she carried herself which Ocean just could not figure out. Her curious situation, her hidden desperation to find her brother, her wariness towards the island itself… She wanted to ask again, to learn all she could, but she could tell also that the short answers, at least for now, were all Siona wanted to let be known about herself. So, Ocean nodded, sure to mask the tinge of disappointment in her chest. “Yeah, of course. I gotta run and do… something, I already forgot. I’ll check on you later, okay?”
Siona nodded, and Ocean went on her way.
She breathed a sigh of relief. The usual twenty questions were over, and she could get back to work.
Siona brought the hologram map back up and studied it, running her fingers from location to location as she made a guess at how long it would take to do a thorough search between each. As much as she stressed it was to find her brother, she could not deny some of it was for her own sake. She would not know the first place to search for him, and though she knew she needed to work fast… getting to know this land again could not be so bad.”
…no. This is too risky.
The island, which she knew all too well to be vast and dangerous, now contained a new threat she had gotten involved with too soon, even if she had not meant it. Here she was, fraternizing with one side of a war, and therefore, the target of another side. Had she not learned? This was what expelled them from the last reality. Unless he were already with the enemies—SHADOW, she recalled—Deo had clearly learned more from the situation than her.
At the very least, GHOST indeed was friendly. But pleasantries could not stop her from her journey and her desire to leave as soon as possible. Any friendships she attempted would not last, not if the island had anything to say about it. Her relationships with her former crew, whom she had ventured with since the dawn of her youth, crumbled into dust with their fateful journey. Their long, grueling week spent in this same, yet much different reality… all those years ago.
Siona would not be tempted or distracted; she would not allow it. She would escape this cruel world with her brother, and the island would not interfere before that happened. She could forever swear this on the stars above.
If I am lucky, I will not have to fight for my life now. Maybe things have changed, if only a little. Maybe I can find someone friendly to help, unlike our recent mission. This island has changed drastically in appearance, but its unsettling air remains. Maybe I will see our old crew again, and maybe they will recognize me… if their memories are not too far gone now.
What I am certain of is that the same thing will not happen to me. It will not happen to Deo. We will find each other and leave before it does. I meant what I said before he left: I cannot lose him.
I can’t.
Signed,
Siona
~*~
When Ocean’s mind grasped onto something, her stubbornness left no room for arguments; she would get to the bottom of it and nothing would get in her way until all had been solved. That, however, tended to apply more to her actions than anything she could say or think. So, with the enigma that was Siona’s life and her certain unease regarding the island, she could not help but find herself stuck. She hated being out of the loop, and Siona remained full of untapped mysteries. So, she tried again for answers some minutes ago, though not as strongly as before, and only got the same things: she spent her life in space. Her brother was missing, and she needed to find him. She would stay until things calmed down, then she would need to depart.
All she could do now, she supposed, was study the stars as they glittered afar, using them as inspiration to think up her own stories to go along with the green-haired astronaut.
“Ocean?”
She smiled almost in relief when Jules’s voice pulled her out of her spiraling thoughts. “Hey. I talked to Siona some more after you left earlier. I still can’t get anything out of her, but she says she’s sorry if she didn’t seem, you know, interested.” Jules joined her in leaning against the railing. “So what happened with Skye?”
The small smile on Jules’s face vanished immediately. “I came here to talk to you about that, actually.”
That doesn’t sound good, though Ocean figured as much. She glanced behind at the Sticks building, which taunted her from across the waters all night. “Sticks to-go? You wanna grab some and talk?”
Before they knew it, they found themselves on a ledge which connected the two command buildings of The Fortilla. Ocean’s favorite spot, as she had decided during the base’s construction. She loved how it centered everything, leaving a perfect view one way towards the ocean, where the sky went through its daily phases, and another way towards the dam, which held the most breathtaking, vibrant sunrises she had ever seen, before and on the island. It allowed her a place to clear her mind when her leadership duties became too much and she found herself drowning in the confinement of The Fortilla.
Though it took waiting for their food to arrive and halfway through their walk to get past the pleasantries and awkward small talk, their conversation finally began to flow. For Jules, it was a breath of fresh air; it would often take longer for her to transition from stranger to acquaintance, and even for some of the agents she had gotten to know over her years actively amongst E.G.O and GHOST, she had trouble believing she ever even reached that acquaintance stage. It helped in the present that Ocean knew how to carry on when a topic died down, but more than that, there was something about her that made everything seem so easy.
Alas, the good feelings dimmed when Ocean brought back to light the topic they had initially come here for. “So what about Skye, huh?”
Shaken up, she considered saying. It had been a while since Jules had seen the girl so unsteady. With the circumstances, however, she could not blame her; her own time spent directly with SHADOW left her knowing the feeling exactly. Jules sighed, drumming her fingers against her knees. “Quiet people, um… they set her off now, I think. So with Siona being how she is… she trusted the wrong person in the past. It didn’t end well.”
A painful expression crossed her face. As she clearly wished not to recount the experience, Ocean jumped straight to the solution. “So we should probably keep them apart, then, if we can.”
Jules swallowed and nodded. “I don’t think Siona’s up to anything. Personally. But this other person had this hidden plan and I know it still bothers her and a lot of people, so…”
“Got it.” A comfortable silence settled between them, soon broken by Ocean. “Hey, so… I wanted to ask you something, too.”
Jules shifted and straightened her braids out over her shoulders. “What is it?”
“I just keep thinking about how I should’ve been around for GHOST, you know?” She started, her face faintly solemn. “Especially now that I’m the leader and I don’t know anything. All these people here have these things I don’t know about, and traumas, and then I go and mention them like it’s nothing and it really gets people down. Like, there was this day I wanted to get out of here and I took Turk with me up to Sweaty Sands. Across from where The Shark is. His sister died there and I made him remember that, head on.”
She took a breath. “And now with Siona being here and Skye getting upset, I still see I gotta be careful, and that is not a word in my vocabulary.”
Jules pondered her words. She grimaced at the mention of The Shark, but pushed aside her regret for the moment. “I think they’d understand that. Especially if you… admit to it. They can’t blame you for something you didn’t know.”
Ocean shrugged. “Yeah, but I should’ve known, or like, bothered to figure it out. You know?” She cleared her throat and raised her hands out in front of her, capturing the darkened sky between them. “What was it like? During The Device, maybe even before that. When the flood wall showed up, I saw that. It was like, everything was normal, and then the wall was just there. Then everything went to shit.”
The sequences of events from that dreadful day began to play at once, and as much as she hated to recall any of it… Jules let the words flow. How she and Midas knew about the strange time loop which plagued the island now and then, never with anyone knowing it had ever happened. How they managed to activate their plans in the loop, and as a result, no one ever saw the Device in progress. Her, controlling The Device from beneath the purposefully destroyed Agency, while the ruthlessness of the storm fought against its control. For a fleeting moment, the storm disappeared. Butterflies roamed the ground and rainbows glittered in the air; the island felt more peaceful than ever before. Then, the storm came back and threw its final obstacle at them: the flood wall.
The flood consumed the island. SHADOW took over, and she would belong to them. Midas would flee, and then there was The Shark.
Her throat constricted the more she spoke about it. She could not breathe, she realized. Ocean’s distant voice reminded her she could stop, but… for as much as she did not know if she could get through any more, she wanted to. She needed to.
They were back to the beginning of it all, when Midas had given her the blueprints. When he convinced her to take a job as a double agent and report all her findings to him from A.L.T.E.R’s scientists, so they could begin their task of freeing the island. The Grotto would later be seized. The Rig would be seized and destroyed. The Yacht would be seized. Midas, Skye, and TNTina would nearly perish at different points in time while she spent her time in the comfort of the enemy’s workshop.
For a moment, Rue, Sorana, and Toxin convinced her SHADOW was never as bad as she had been led to believe. Then, Sorana would take her against the wall; her truth would be uncovered, and the trust of who she dared to call a friend would once more be severed. Jules would sit in a cold, dark space, beaten and bruised and starving and waiting until her enemies decided her time would end. Storm The Agency occurred. She would be forced to watch as The Agency fell under Renegade Shadow, using details forced from her and therefore making it partly her fault. The E.G.O soldier team would finally be the ones to free her from the madness, as the agents recovered from their agony.
Only then did she stop. She could not do it anymore.
Her arms. She could feel them press against her chest and suffocate her. Ocean’s blurry hand waved in front of her. A distraction. She needed a distraction, and as if reading her mind, Ocean would give it. Now her turn, she explained her own life story and the events leading up to her role at The Fortilla. How, despite having a family, the waves felt like her only true family throughout her childhood and up until her time with E.G.O. How she had built something of a celebrity status of herself, participating in all the water sports and competitions she could find, until the glory of them wore off and she sought different thrills to spice up her life, ultimately resulting in E.G.O.
Her moments of true involvement ended up being few and far in between, limited to missions which were not quite big enough for the top agents, but too big for the henchmen. She helped in Renegade Shadow’s fall, supposedly, when the agents continued in recovery and the same E.G.O soldier team remained in charge. Then, as she did after every time of need, she retreated to the outskirts of the island, rarely to be seen until SHADOW gained their heightened egos and GHOST required a new source of motivation.
As Jules managed to calm herself, Ocean steered the topic back to their previous one. “With The Device, did you know it was going to end up like this? I mean, with the flood.”
Though Jules breathed in, hoping to stutter out a quick response, she realized she could find no clear words. Yes, she initially wanted to say. The storm was dangerous and the island itself was unstable. Midas and all the scientists she spoke with at A.L.T.E.R knew and relayed that much. Yet, they had been so close…! She had seen the clear sky with her own eyes. The purple tint of the atmosphere’s edges were gone; how could she not believe they had won, then?
All she learned in the end about their treacherous reality, however, was that the ruthless tempest could not be tamed despite anyone’s best efforts. Even after winning, they had lost. “...no. Not until after it all happened.”
“Yeah, but people are still blaming you for that.” Ocean leaned back rather aggressively, her palms slamming onto the metal ledge. Her eyes twitched; she closed them and sighed. “How did you end up in all this?
Jules took one final deep breath, calming the last of her raging nerves. “I never really had a say.” She cleared her throat, allowing her still shaking voice to grow firmer. “Midas was raised on the idea he would inherit E.G.O from our father.”
“Oh yeah, he’s your brother. I kinda forgot about that.”
“We were still young when our parents died, so the organization watched over us… we couldn’t have just left. I couldn’t have just left if I wanted to. Midas needed me.”
“Yeah, but… if at any points there’s stuff you don’t want to, you shouldn’t have to, right? I don’t know, I’m an only child so I don’t know how it goes, but it shouldn’t be one-sided. Everyone thinks he’s this epic ‘king’ or whatever, so that still makes you royalty.”
Jules stared distantly into the water below, searching for reassurance through her words. Though she could tell it was Ocean’s intention, she could find none of it within herself. Right, she wanted to say, to agree. But… “I wish it was easy like that. I guess I just hate the confrontation, so I don’t say no, especially to someone like Midas. I figured The Device would just be another easy project, then he asked me about being a double agent, and I couldn’t say no because then he’d keep nagging me about it or worse… then because I couldn’t say no it just led to even more confrontation with SHADOW, and now no one here can fully trust me either.”
To her, none of it was and would ever be easy. Ocean always presented herself with so much confidence; her convictions and determination could be felt radiating from her person. The only confidence and true content Jules knew she carried would always be when in the comfort of her workshop, wherever it would be at the time, as she tinkered away at spontaneous projects and perfected those she developed over time. Solitude, her best friend, kept her company more than any real person could so long as she did what she always loved.
She did love her brother, and she loved seeing him happy in his own way. She did not love her own need for perfection, and she sure did not love Midas’s obsession with it. His obsession with needing everything done to his perfect vision, by his word and no one else’s.
She shook her head. “I love being an engineer. I love building and creating, but I’m GHOST’s engineer specifically, I’m always being tied to Midas, I’m always getting pushed out of my comfort zone and I just can’t stand up for myself for some reason. I can’t tell anyone else like this that I’m tired of all of it.”
Ocean sat silent for a moment, her face fixing onto the distant, neverending waters alongside Jules’s. “This stupid war, right? Telling you what you have to do. Except it sounds to me like you were just being dragged along. Midas made the plays, people should be mad at him. I guess that’s also hard since he’s not here, though.”
She shrugged, offering Jules a warm, relaxed mix of a smile and a smirk. “You can always start now, right?” Noting Jules’s puzzled expression, she clarified, “standing up for yourself. Easier said than done, yeah, but if it really comes down it I know you can. You did pretty good that first time we saw each other.
As Jules considered this, she knew there was one way she could start. “Can I tell you something?”
“Shoot.”
She hugged her arms to herself, this time consciously and for comfort. She could not be sure what possessed her to be willing to tell this to Ocean, her boss now and the one with the power to exile her right there if she so pleased. She had been there for her every step of the way, though, more so than most of GHOST who knew her for so long. Perhaps she could start by owning up to her guilt; she knew she could not hold onto it forever without being eaten alive. So, it was worth a shot. “The Shark… that… it was my fault.”
Ocean stopped in the middle of chewing on a fry. She swallowed and looked at her incredulously. “Like, the explosion? Really?”
Jules nodded hesitantly, yet she shared her expression at how tame that reaction was. She expected some sort of rage—even Skye reacted with a moment of anger—but there were no hints of it. Only pure, unadulterated confusion. “They had me build the bombs they used to rig the place with,” Jules continued. “I didn’t want to, I really wish I could have stopped it, but…”
“You couldn’t.”
Jules could not fathom how much it did not seem to bother her. Just to be clear, she asked, “this doesn’t change what you think about me?”
Ocean shrugged again. “Nah. After everything SHADOW put us through in just these past couple weeks? I get it. You had to do what you had to do. And like I said, there’s… a lot more I can’t assume because I wasn’t there. I should’ve been.”
She stared downwards, lost in thought. Then, she scooped all of her trash into her empty bag and crumpled it in one abrupt motion. “You know what? I’m not sorry anymore, I changed my mind. Starting right now we’re not blaming ourselves.”
Jules could finally find it in herself to laugh. “Where did that come from?”
Ocean stood up and extended her hand. “Sometimes you just gotta not care about things. It helps with getting over the crazy stuff sometimes ‘cause then you stop worrying about everything so much.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” With still a smile, less shy and finally one of content, Jules took her hand and stood with her. “I liked getting all of that out without feeling… like I’m being judged. Thanks for the talk tonight?”
“Hey, right back at ya. I never feel like I can just talk in general anymore without it having to be important or whatever. Want me to walk you back?”
So, with both in a better mood than when they started and content with getting to know each other a little better, they set off for the apartments.
Heyo! Welcome to the SHADOWs of GHOST storyverse, my personal headcanon-filled retelling of the E.G.O/GHOST vs A.L.T.E.R/SHADOW war in Fortnite Chapter 2, Seasons 1-3.
I originally posted all my stories on @ksfnmoments , but have since decided to transfer everything regarding this storyverse over to this blog as well as releasing all future stories here. This masterpost is to help both me and you find things easier. Things included are:
All old and currently new chapters of The Tide Rises, the only currently ongoing story of my trilogy
Small one-shots featuring any of the associated characters
Preview snippets of other WIP stories
Character profiles and backstories, which will individually come out soon :)
Everything is sorted by which story or collection they are part of. I hope this helps💜
The Altered Shadows
Preview: Journey’s Introduction
Preview: Hunter and the Hunted (Cameo & Rippley)
Preview: Trick Shot (8-Ball vs. Scratch)
The Weathered Ghosts
Preview: Prologue Excerpt
Preview: The Device
Lost
Melancholic Melodies
The Tide Rises (Rework)
Origin: Vagabond
Origin: Rifted
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
The Tide Rises (Archived Version)
TTR - GHOST Log #1
TTR - Chapter 1
TTR - Chapter 2
TTR - GHOST Log #2
TTR - Chapter 3
TTR - Chapter 4
TTR - Chapter 5
TTR - GHOST Log #3
TTR - Chapter 6
TTR - Chapter 7
TTR - Chapter 8
TTR - Chapter 9
TTR - GHOST Log #4
TTR - Chapter 10
TTR - Chapter 11
TTR - Chapter 12
TTR - Chapter 13
TTR - Chapter 14
TTR - GHOST Log #5
TTR - Chapter 15
TTR - Chapter 16
TTR - Chapter 17
TTR - Chapter 18
TTR - Chapter 19 (dunno what happened to the next 3 i’ll keep looking)
Heyo! I made this document probably a year ago, typed in all the names, and left it at that. Finally got around to working on it the past week, and here I present to you the general backstories and some basic traits of all the major/semi-major characters in my universe.
Characters are in the section of whichever story they make their first appearance or have the most relevance in. Ages correspond with how ol
(Not sure how friendly it’ll be on mobile as I mostly did typed it on computer.)
Here’s the timeline of the events in The Tide Rises, actually! Everything between The Device to chapter 16 is listed here. The date for The Device was made to align with when it originally was gonna release… y’know, before Epic delayed it like 3 times, heh.
When Fade had been told Drift was around and was looking for him, he was more than a little annoyed.
Actually, annoyed was a complete understatement. He had succeeded and pushed the thoughts of his home into the corners of his mind for some time, but now, just the mention of Drift had forced them to resurface. The person who he had initially trusted to help him find a way home, who had talked to him about training and channeling his strange powers, the person from the same world hadn’t shown his face since their talk, and suddenly, he was here looking for him.
So, Fade was more than a little pissed off upon setting out to find him first and seeing him lingering near the power plant, having stopped to talk to a henchman. His kitsune mask, pink jacket, and glowing cape were discernible from a distance. Fade marched over to him, but despite his frustration, he awkwardly stood to the side in wait to be noticed. It took the henchman glancing at him several times for Drift to finally turn around. Fade spoke before he could even try. “Why did you lie to me about going home?!”
Drift was physically taken aback, enough so that he actually took a step backwards. Had he gone too far, he would have fallen into the sea. He cleared his throat, and instead of trying to avoid the question, he asked, “who told you?” He knew exactly what he was talking about.
Fade hadn’t actually expected that. Drift was the only one to not avoid the topic upon being caught. “Some agents ended up telling me on accident, and Jules showed me the storm, but why didn’t you tell me?”
Drift fidgeted with the sides of his mask and pulled it off. “Look, I just… didn’t want to get you down,” he muttered after a beat of silence. He cleared his throat and spoke louder. “I mean, I know I should’ve told you, but home, it’s… not a big deal for me. Not to say it isn’t for you, of course, but…”
Without realizing, they had begun to carry the conversation down the dock. “I’ve only been homesick twice, and it wasn’t even for SoCal,” Drift admitted. “It was for Athena, our old island. I didn’t have a lot going on for me in our original world, so… it doesn’t bother me ever. But I should've told you about the island, because I know you’re eager to get back.”
“Yeah, well now I can’t,” Fade huffed. Somewhere inside him, however, he wasn’t too eager to leave just yet. The more he got used to it, the more he didn’t mind this strange island. If GHOST were to win, he would be able to find his own adventures again without limitation, and what he was eager to do was explore the entirety of the island.
The only thought really holding his thoughts hostage anymore were the thoughts of his family. His parents, his sister… he had been gone with no contact for weeks. Somewhere in his world, he was a missing persons poster. For all his family knew, he was dead, and that thought alone hurt.
He would give anything to tell them he was alright. Alas, he could not, and most likely never could.
He sighed. “It’s… fine, though. Everyone says they just wanted to keep my hopes up, so I get it.”
The conversation again turned to silence. Drift looked around. “How did we get over here?” He mused, earning a chuckle from Fade. “Well, if you want… we can try and see what you’ve got. With the rift powers and whatnot.”
Fade glanced down at his white oni mask, which was pinned at his waist. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, letting a smile pull at his face.
They followed the dock into an empty corner and sat down before each other. “So, I’m pretty sure Luminos and Dream do something similar to what you have,” Drift explained, sliding his mask back on. “They say Luminos has really strong rift powers, but he stays hidden and doesn’t use them, and I’ve actually seen Dream do some maneuvers, plus she has a really strong connection to rift butterflies. But otherwise, yeah, no one can ever find them.”
“Maybe they hang out in the In-Between,” Fade said, though he was only half-joking. “You think they would be able to help out?”
“Don’t know, but they kinda scare me, not even gonna lie. Anyway, let’s try this out.” Fade watched in awe as immediately, pink lightning sifted through the threads of his cloak, flowing through its gold and pink highlights. In his gloved hands, he conjured pink sparks of energy, which crackled, expanded, and split into several lines of lightning that bounced around and off each other if they got too close. “So, try to focus, try to channel whatever energy you feel within yourself, and maybe something will happen. I don’t exactly know, when I figured out my own powers it just kind of… happened. And now I’m used to it.”
Fade donned his mask and did exactly that, sitting in silence as he searched himself for a spark of anything, but… he felt nothing. Not even a spark. He opened one eye and peered at Drift, who was staring straight at him.
He closed his eyes again. Maybe if he thought hard enough, he could send a signal to his hands to conjure up at least a fragment of his powers as Drift had done for his own. But, as they sat in silence, there was nothing. “This… feels like a weird yoga class,” he couldn’t help but comment.
“Yeah, I get what you mean,” Drift said with a laugh. “Worst I could say is, ‘listen to my voice. Find your center yada yada yada.”
Fade laughed as well and went back to his mind, but truth be told, he couldn’t concentrate in silence. His thoughts had already begun to wander. Where has the rift butterfly been, anyway? What if Dream somehow sent it for me, and that’s why I’m here? What if-
Before he could think too deep, there came a bout of laughter from a short distance away along the path, as well as two familiar voices. He and Drift both looked up as Jules and Ocean ambled about, talking and laughing together with wide smiles on both of their faces. Jules was recovered enough to move around freely, and it was a wondrous sight to see her spirits lifted, especially compared to the constant state of apprehension she would be in prior to GHOST’s latest battle, which had already been a week ago. An entire week without any sign of SHADOW activity…!
“Jules!” Fade called out, bouncing to his knees a little more enthusiastically than he had aimed for, and he casually regained his composure just before she turned his way. He felt a light elbow at his side, and he looked at Drift, who raised a teasing eyebrow at him. Fade shrugged, trying his hardest to look like nothing had happened. He removed his mask and set it aside, smiling as Jules and Ocean stopped before them.
“Hey, how’s the training or whatever? That’s what you’re doing, right?” Ocean asked, glancing one last time at Jules with a small smile.
Fade and Drift looked at each other again. “It’s, uh, it’s going great,” Fade started. “We-”
“Yeah, considering we’ve done absolutely nothing,” Drift cut in, earning another bout of laughter from the girls.
“We’re not intruding or anything, are we?” Jules asked.
Fade shook his head immediately. “No, ‘course not. You guys can stay and watch if you want.”
Drift raised another eyebrow at his offer, and once again, Fade shot down whatever suspicions he was still having with a shrug. “We have to be quiet though,” he urged as the two sat down.
“Oh, yeah? Well, I’m a master at that, trust me,” Ocean said. This earned a collective laugh from the other three, who all knew the opposite. She elbowed Jules, who was closest.
Closing his eyes, Fade tried to concentrate, but he still couldn’t. Truthfully, he wasn’t trying at this point. He was only awkwardly sitting here to appease Drift, who didn’t even seem to know what he was talking about. He can help me, she said, he said sarcastically to himself, recalling everything Jules had told them on his second day on the island. He’s just like me, he can help me understand my magic, he said. Knowing no one could see his face, Fade opened his eyes and ended up staring at a seam in his cloak, watching as his own purple energy flowed through.
There was another snicker from Ocean’s direction, and he looked up to find her covering her mouth with her fist, trying to control herself. “Sorry,” she said between quiet wheezes, “keep going.”
Fade himself chuckled from the absurdity of their whole situation, which only prompted Ocean to completely laugh aloud. Drift took to staring at her incredulously, as if it would urge her to shut up. Of course, that only intensified her laughter again and encouraged Jules and Fade to join in, which finally earned a chuckle from Drift.
“What’s so funny?”
Kit had found his way to the scene, and once again, he was sitting atop of his mech, which had been successfully retrieved and rebuilt, as well as given a new shine and some quality of life upgrades, such as a better motor, some brand new headlights, and stronger gears. Upon seeing him, Jules’s eyes lit up and she stood up to give him (well, his mech) a hug and a quick scratch behind the ear. “Hey, Kit.”
“What are you guys doing?” He asked, sitting down to join them. Normally, he would have settled in the center of the circle or in someone’s lap, but he enjoyed having his mech back and didn’t want to leave it any time soon. “It sounded real fun.”
Ocean shushed him. “We gotta be quiet. They’re doing some important training or whatever, so we can’t distract them.”
Kit narrowed his eyes at the group. “You didn’t sound so busy when I came over here.”
That was a big enough pebble to set off another ripple of laughter, and this time, they were all in. Kit only watched in confusion, quite literally using the hand of his mech to scratch his head. Jules finally got a hold of herself enough to encourage him to power off the mech for the time being and physically join them, and from there, they abandoned the thought of training completely. Rather, they stuck to sharing stories, whether they were the backstories of their pasts or memories of their former memories of past missions and expeditions.
It felt good to have a true break.
~•~
Sorana huffed in sheer annoyance as she stepped onto the top floor, searching to no avail so far for SHADOW’s missing leader. For half the week, she had been forced to play boss, and it was more than tiresome when faced against such an unruly team of henchmen and agents, who were completely restless and apprehensive over yet another loss.
They were on top! SHADOW was winning the war; for all they knew, they already had won. It was so effortlessly amusing watching their little pawns struggle at their tiny base, their tiny corner of the island where it didn’t seem possible they could garner any control. Then, the unthinkable happened: Jules of all people had risen up and opened a small passage of light, and the resistance had grown stronger. Jules, their submissive hostage who had doomed the island, had opened up GHOST’s tunnel of hope, and thus, given them access to their strength.
How had SHADOW come to lose everything so quickly? They had finally gained total control over the island, free to do their own bidding, only to have their victories slowly reversed by who they thought was their weakest link. Their base was a mess, they were beginning to run low on henchmen and recruit waves, and their leader was on a downward spiral.
Sorana glanced around his office, which was completely darkened save for a small sliver of sunlight shining through the tiny crack under the exit door to the helipad. She could barely make out piles of paperwork spilt across the floor, several broken writing utensils and minor office supplies, and the rough surface of his desk which had definitely seen better days. They were the remnants of a man who thrived off destruction, who had too long been accustomed to some strange sense of order that came with ruling this disorganized island.
“Sir?” She whispered, in case he happened to be lurking in the shadows, one of his best talents. There was nothing, though, so she approached the final location in the building, now the only place he could possibly be. She slowly pushed open the door to the helipad, and there he stood, staring off into the distance, surrounded by a strange aura of… solemnity. Despair.
She cautiously advanced forward and stood next to him, though making sure to keep her distance from the being who she absolutely despised, whether he was her boss or not. She gazed with him at the distant docks, sneaking a glance at him in the midst. She noted how tense he appeared as he clasped his hands tightly behind his back.
It was interesting how he had changed. Years ago, she had been hired, and he was much more stoic and cruel. He would not hesitate to kill or let his recruits fall to their own failures; he would never care if they lived or died. He wanted power, and whatever happened along the way simply happened. All that mattered in the end was the fall of Midas’s empire, and once they had achieved that, there was no point to anything. Midas was basically gone, and they had nothing to do but make sure the remnants of his monarchy never saw the light.
But they had. And now, Chaos Agent was a molten being not of destruction, but of simple unbridled uncertainty and disorganization.
Sorana thought back on their two months of their thriving glory, when they were free to do as they pleased without facing an uprising. Though now, their freedom wasn’t restricted, it was no doubt that GHOST would be on their trail the second they tried anything outside of The Authority that would help their destructive urges and motivations. She missed those two months of complete freedom. “Where did we go wrong?” She pondered aloud, hoping to finally catch a reaction from her boss. “How the hell did we lose like this?”
For a moment, Chaos Agent was still, until finally, he waved his hand dismissively and immediately went back to his tense, brooding pose. “GHOST can never recover what power they had,” he simply said.
That wasn’t an answer. She must have said that aloud this time by accident, because Chaos Agent took a glance back at her before turning away again.
That wasn’t an answer either. In fact, Sorana was surprised by his lack of one, or lack of even a retaliation to her comment. “You’re weak, you know that?” She taunted again, this time in actual hopes of spurring some sort of negative reaction. Again, nothing. Not even a hint of anything; he continued staring into the distance.
This was not Chaos Agent.
She remembered this scenario, actually. It had been the same with Toxin’s death. He had disappeared completely from Steamy Stacks, and when he did return, he was silent and brooding. Then, however, he was at least snappish and even more petulant than his typical stoic mien.
It was Rue. It had to be. And the person who he kept around who showed similarities to his former best scientist had been the cause of Rue’s demise. Rue was his most trusted, and though he never explicitly stated it or showed any indication of it whatsoever, he loved her like his daughter, everyone knew. They had history when she was but an infant, all before he had been transformed into The Chaos Agent.
He couldn’t even grieve his losses. Whatever heart he had had been destroyed in his transformation, and his care for Rue and eventually Toxin were the only remnants of a loving man he was able to hold on to.
Sorana herself couldn’t be bothered to care for anyone or anything… but, somewhere deep inside her, she felt sympathy for this destroyed being. Their losses, his losses were only sending him on a downward spiral, and truthfully, she hated to see it.
With a heavy sigh, she stepped just a bit closer (but not too close). “GHOST’s gonna rue every little thing they’ve tried to do. They don’t stand a chance.”
The pun was only half-intended, not that she expected him to laugh anyway. When he continued to stand in silence, she turned to leave. Perhaps she could handle being in charge for just a bit longer.
~•~
Oh, how he hated those sharks.
It was still ironic, really, that things had turned to this. GHOST’s oldest beloved base was modeled directly after those particular sea animals, yet here the actual beings were now, dancing around the waters as if to taunt him while they swam around the vicinity. It was a threat he had been forced to be wary of every day for two months straight, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand his conditions any longer.
He was getting desperate.
Promises, he realized long ago, were hard to keep, yet he had made multiple. A promise to tear down SHADOW alone, a promise to save his sister from their wrath, a silent promise to save GHOST… and a promise to every island inhabitant that he would defy reality and unlock their freedom, a new path of life. He hadn’t been able to uphold any of those promises thus far.
Coming up with a quick plan under pressure was one of his specialties… was. In the two months of survival his luck had scored him, he had done nothing but mope and wallow in his failures. The second he had escaped SHADOW’s grasp and wiped himself off the radar, he was lost. He had no idea how to hatch a new plan to reclaim his empire, he had no idea how he would thwart and dismantle the name SHADOW had made for themselves in the island’s center fortress.
The only resources he had to work with was a small boat stationed between the beach and a whirlpool that he dared not advance towards; a series of routers pulled from The Shark’s remains that half of the time would not power on in their waterlogged state; and a poster bearing his face that he hoped would instill in him some pride and confidence, a pride that had long since been gone. It was pride that seemed like it would stay long gone, because he hadn’t felt it since The Device’s initial success.
He was stranded and forced to peer at the remnants of one of their former bases in shame. It was all because of him that he was in his state, that his agents were adrift. All because he had the genius idea to fight the storm. All because his greatest epiphany that the storm could be fought in the first place was a complete miscalculation. All because he had counted on his sister to unlock the answers for him, all because she had failed.
No. He couldn’t pin the blame on her. He knew he couldn’t blame her, but he needed someone to throw it on so it wouldn’t fall on him. The cold truth was that he had failed, but he would not stand it. He had failed his empire. He had failed his sister.
At the very least, his agents were holding their own, as Sparkplug had informed him. He trusted them. They would take SHADOW down as he was currently failing to do, and perhaps he would one day get to call for their help and return to praise them.
…he could call for their help and return to praise them.
He had always despised the idea of asking for others' help, but he couldn't win the war on his own. That left him with a new problem, however—he was, by now, the most hated person on the island. Everyone looked at him and only saw a traitor. When everyone had counted on him, he had left them all in the dust.
There was a certain device that hadn’t left his pocket since his disappearance, however. A device that would give GHOST his location and give him the chance to assure them that he was still on their side. They would listen to reason, wouldn’t they? It wasn’t like he was waltzing in unannounced.
It was worth a try, and so he dug an earpiece out of his pockets and attempted to power it on for the first time since Doomsday.
Jules cracked a smile at the familiar childlike voice, which belonged to a certain kitten she knew she had yet to see. She had asked Meowscles about him back when he and Skye first helped her settle into The Fortilla, and he had said he’d make sure to bring Kit around one of these days. Apparently, today was that day.
She lowered her welding helmet—she didn’t need it for what she was working on, but it had just been found in another shipment of lost items—and set down a system of gears and motors she had started putting together, pushing it gently aside. She turned around, and froze at the sight before her, her hands flying up to her mouth.
There Kit was, sitting atop a mech made of scrapped metals and appliances and car parts, shaped into a design she immediately recognized from her sketchbook. She remembered sewing it together as her eyes darted around the wide-open room of the box factory for inspiration, discussing with Meowscles a way to allow Kit more mobility. He controlled it with the hand grips of a motorcycle and that wide-eyed smile only he and his father were capable of wearing, and his father approached by his side, holding the very sketchbook she had left behind at The Shark during The Device. It was flipped to the page of the creation.
She hadn’t been able to begin working on it then, seeing as complications had arisen at The Agency, and… other problems had required her full attention. They didn’t have to make it a surprise, but here they were, revealing it to her, built exactly how she had envisioned it. “That looks amazing,” she gushed, unable to help the joyous tears that sprang to her eyes. “How did-”
“It was Kit’s idea,” Meowscles said, smiling as he handed her the sketchbook. “Skye found it at The Shark, Kit saw and convinced me to help build it. We took some parts from Catty Corner.”
Kit stepped forward, outstretching the arms of the mech and enveloping her in a light hug. The metal arms rubbing against her skin was an odd feeling at first, but it was definitely something she could get used to. “I really missed you, Jules,” he said, and she reached up to scratch him behind the ear with a warm smile.
“You said ‘Catty Corner?’” Jules asked, taking a step back.
Kit’s eyes widened again, and he turned to his father. “Yeah, dad! Jules hasn’t seen yet. Can we go up there? I wanna see my robots again, too! I haven’t been there since we were last there, but that was like two weeks ago.”
Meowscles frowned. “Lynx was supposed to take you up there a few times.”
“Yeah, but she’s busy, says she’s working on her catsuit again. She didn’t touch it since the stupid SHADOW guy wrecked The Agency. Cat’s helping her this time so I was just stuck at home, since you won’t let me go out. But we can go today, right?”
“I don’t know,” Meowscles frowned, glancing at Jules and her contraption on the table. “I have to help unload some more shipments, and I don’t know how I feel about you going up there by yourself…”
“But dad, Jules is going, right? She’ll watch over me, it’ll be fine! Maybe Sparkplug will be there, too.”
“She’s busy with something here, isn’t she?”
Kit turned to her. She didn’t want to ruin his enthusiasm, and it felt like Meowscles was searching for excuses to keep him at The Fortilla. She shrugged. “I could use a break, plus I could get extra parts from the factory if I need to.”
Meowscles glanced between them and their eager smiles before sighing. “Alright. Kit, if Sparkplug is there, I’ll let you stay until later, and Cat should be able to pick you up. Call her when you’re ready, but no later than 7. Alright?”
“Alright dad,” Kit said, and Meowscles was only able to give him a quick pat on the head before he took off. “C’mon, Jules!”
Jules chuckled at his excitement, but before she could follow, Meowscles stopped her. “Jules… if Sparkplug’s there, you can come back any time if you need to. Just… let me know if you do, okay? Can I trust you?”
Her smile faltered on the last question, but she couldn’t blame him for wanting to be sure. “I promise,” she nodded firmly, and with that, they set off.
~•~
“Did you program this in?”
Jules couldn’t help but stand back and laugh as Kit rolled along the yellow steel bridge. It was a startling surprise to watch the top half of his mech body suddenly fly off and somersault onto the ground, but the worry was quickly replaced with awe as the wheel inflated and the lower half jumped on.
“Yep, I did it all by myself! Dad didn’t find out until we went to Catty the last time,” he raved, bobbing his head to a rock song blasting from a speaker she couldn’t quite identify. “I had to do it a bit in secret because they don’t trust me to do stuff alone sometimes…”
Sounds familiar, she wanted to sigh.
Sure enough, she could see through the beams of the bridge that there were a couple extra buildings, and a tall sign reading ‘GAS.’ Farther away, though she could only see the roof from where they stood, it was nice to see that the factory was still intact. There were a few cars parked around the vicinity, though there were no signs of people, except for a figure sitting on one of the picnic benches littered near the gas pumps. They wore a red cap, and that was all Kit needed to return his mech to his normal form and run over. “Hi, Sparkplug!”
The woman turned, spinning a gear around her finger, and smiled at the sight of him. “Hey, Kit, it’s been a bit,” she said. “Lots of people come by, it looks like. The robots are doing just fine. You kinda left me to handle this place by myself though, which is weird, ‘cause this Catty Corner after all.”
“I know,” Kit laughed, sitting across from her. “But dad got really busy and so did Cat and Lynx and they won’t let me come by myself. This time I got Jules to come along, though!”
Jules lingered by a large tree just a few feet away, and Sparkplug glanced up immediately at the mention of her name. She raised an eyebrow, before simply saying, “hey.”
With a slight frown at the reaction, Jules sat next to Kit. Sparkplug eyed her carefully. “You staying safe?”
“What do you mean…?”
She glanced towards The Authority, which they could faintly see the top of. “Just that I heard about the… change and all that. A lot of people are still mad about the flood.”
“Oh yeah, The Device,” Kit said. “But it was an accident, Jules, right? And dad said you never actually turned SHADOW! That those stupid guys made you, right?”
Jules frowned—this wasn’t the conversation she was hoping to have by coming here. “I… yeah, Midas and I, they… forced us to turn. I managed to get out and they just… let me go, so I’m, um… glad to be here now.”
“Sparkplug helped me out a lot while you were gone,” Kit said, and he turned to the mechanic with a smile of adoration. “She helped me build the robots and taught me a lot of things and how to fix them and stuff! She’s really cool, Jules, huh?”
She couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy as she listened to his praise, but who was she to say anything? She wasn’t around to help, how could she? If Sparkplug was there for him instead, then good for her. Kit had another person to look up to. It wasn’t a problem. So, she nodded. “Where are the robots you keep talking about?” She asked, clearing her throat.
“They’re probably all bunched up near the factory, they still tend to do stuff like that. I can go get one,” Sparkplug offered.
“No, that’s fine,” Jules said, a little sharper than she had meant to. “I’ll go find one.”
With a small wave, she set off towards the factory, which was surrounded by fencing and containers. There, a robot similar in detail to Kit’s mech turned the corner, patrolling with an assault rifle. She looked into the yard, and there were several more clustered near a vault, just as Sparkplug had mentioned. “Wow,” she breathed—where had they found all the resources to do all of this?
“Aren’t they cool?” Kit said, startling her as he showed up from behind. “Watch this- henchmen!”
All at once, the henchmen turned to him and stood at ease. They all held an assault rifle. “They keep track of everything while you and your dad are gone?” Jules asked.
“Yep! They listen to him and Sparkplug, too. We oughta get them to listen to you, too!”
Before she could say anything, he took her hand and dragged her to a garage entrance to the factory building. “Give me a hand here?”
Together, they lifted up the door and ducked inside. It had been converted entirely into a workshop, and there were extra parts hanging above a set of counters, similar parts to his mech which she assumed were replacements. “How long was this place in development?” She asked, glancing around.
“Pretty much right after we moved to The Fortilla. By the way, what were you working on in the warehouse? It looked really neat, even though it was really small.”
Jules bit her lip, a memory flashing through her head from The Device. It was fuzzy, but she remembered a sense of peace. Rainbows glistening through the air, not a cloud in the sky… then, a rush of wind, and Ohm had flown off her arm, never to be seen again. “I’m… trying to make another robot like Ohm,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t know where he is-”
“Ohm’s missing? That’s a shame,” Kit frowned. He stopped at the counters and hopped off his mech. “I miss arguing with him. He always tried to steal my food and peck me!”
Jules chuckled slightly and picked up a gear. “I miss him too… you know, I thought of him when I was… I think fifteen. I told you that once, actually, right?”
“Yeah, when I first met him, he stole my fish right away and I couldn’t catch him. Then dad told me to stop stealing his food.”
“To be fair… that was his.” Jules smirked, playfully scratching the top of his head. Kit nudged her hand away with a smile. “So he had a good reason to steal it, since it wasn’t yours in the first place.”
“Whatever.” Kit smiled, watching as she picked up a few more items from the counter and examined them, probably thinking of all the possibilities she could create out of them. It was good to have her back, and he wished he could think like her. Sure, Sparkplug was cool and all, but she didn’t know him like Jules.
Despite that… he could tell just how much she missed Ohm, and he had overheard his dad saying she could leave him if something dire called to her… well, another owl companion was dire enough, right? “You should go back and work on your skeleton thingy! For the Ohm 2.0.”
“I wouldn’t say Ohm 2.0,” she said. “I don’t want to leave you by yourself, either-”
“I’ll be fine, Sparkplug is here, remember? Really, you should go work on your thing! I’ll just work on my mech and you can probably come visit at Cat’s house, right?”
Jules glanced between him and the gears in her hand, contemplating her decision. Nothing would go wrong if she did go back, right? Meowscles trusted her, so long as she kept in touch… she sighed. “Okay. I’ll tell your dad… it’s okay if I borrow some parts, right?”
“Yeah, anything you need,” he said, climbing back onto his mech. He helped her gather a few things, plus some extra tools, and they shoved them all into a spare toolbox. Afterward, he practically shoved her over to the garage, making sure not to push her too far, though, as they hadn’t raised the door all the way up. “You should tell me when you finish it!”
“You’re sure you can-”
“Yes, I’ll be fine, Jules,” Kit urged. She nodded once and went on her way.
Kit dashed immediately back into his little workshop and gathered as many trinkets and tools as he could. Today, he was going to do exactly what she did. He was going to use the parts before him to create a vision, and he was going to wing whatever that vision was.
His eyes trailed immediately back to his mech—it would be a nice start.
Time flew by as he began to tinker with the specs of it—really, he was focused the most on the speaker system and seeing how much he could up the speed—and by the time he took a step back for a quick break, he was sure Jules was probably back at The Fortilla by now.
“Hey, Kit?”
Sparkplug ducked under the garage door. “Look, I’ll be back as quick as I can, but I remembered I have to meet with someone over near Dirty Docks about… car parts. How long do you think you can hold off on your own?”
Kit glanced at her, then back at the little contraption in his paws. “I’ll be fine! The robots will help out, right?”
Sparkplug nodded with a smile. “They’ll hold the fort well enough. This shouldn’t take long.”
~•~
It was some two hours later, and Sparkplug hadn’t returned. Kit didn’t mind, rather, he preferred having the place to himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hang out with his friends at The Fortilla, just that… well, he could never find a moment to himself in the first place. He loved his father, he loved Lynx and Catastrophe and everything they did for him, but sometimes, they were too much. It was like he had to be supervised every second—scratch that. Being supervised every second was exactly the case.
I’m gonna be a grown kit, he frowned to himself, fumbling to untangle some wiring with his paws. I wish dad would let me be on my own sometimes.
Sure, he wanted Jules to be happy and finish her own little project, but perhaps that was why he had sent her away so quickly. A few times during Catty Corner’s construction, it had only been him and Sparkplug while everyone else had issues to attend to at The Fortilla. Those times spent with her seemed to be the most freedom he had ever gotten since the flood, as she let him do his own things while checking every now and then to ensure he wasn’t up to anything too particularly dangerous.
He never had quite that freedom even at The Agency in its days; he could never escape the prying eyes of someone surveying his every move as he trotted down its halls, whether it be his father, any of his friends, even the henchmen. Jules even happened to be one pair of those eyes, though maybe with SHADOW and the flood, it was fair for her and everyone else to keep careful watch of him these days. Every minute though, especially with Catastrophe… they couldn’t keep him guarded forever, right?
Finally, he could have some peace to himself. Just me and my own henchmen.
Then, there was a distant bang.
Kit’s ears perked up as he heard a clatter of metal somewhere towards the gas station, and he knew immediately it wasn’t anything minor. He hopped onto his robot and left the factory, heading towards the source… where he found one of his robots tattered in the middle of the road. He crouched next to it and pawed once at its head, wincing as it sputtered immediately at the contact. It short-circuited, spasmed once, and went still.
He frantically spun around, looking for his other henchmen in the vicinity. They were all just as confused as him, turning side to side with their static movements as they tried to identify the source of the predicament before them. Kit flinched as another bang sounded from the distance matching a gunshot, up towards the southern mountain. Behind him, another robot fell.
Standing back up, Kit cowered into the seat of his mech, his ears pressed flat against his head as he looked around. “H… Hello…?” He cautiously sounded out, and there was no response but the sound of what he could fully acknowledge as a sniper shot, a sound that had him darting back to his room in the factory, rummaging through drawers and blankets for what could be his only hope of survival.
“Where is it?” He hissed as his robotic hands moved faster within the minute. Finally, buried deep underneath a pile of boxes, he pulled out his two prized weapons: a charge shotgun, upgraded to do deadly damage courtesy of Brutus, and a shockwave grenade launcher, the contraption thought of by none other than Jules.
There was a loud crash behind him as he stood, and he jumped into the corner, ducking into his seat as shards of glass flew inwards, luckily not reaching far enough to pierce his tire. A bullet shell rolled across the floor. A large, jagged hole gaped in the window. There was now a steady stream of gunfire ringing throughout Catty Corner as his henchmen tried to defend the place, and he recognized the weapons of the enemies, the sound matching his father’s weapon of choice.
Why is SHADOW here? He fretted to himself, putting the pieces together. He pushed open the door into the main room and ducked against the wall. He cowered further into his seat as a door slammed directly underneath him and footsteps poured inside. Items clattered against the ground, and one of the tall storage shelves just beside the balcony shook. He hopped off the mech and peeked over the railing; several SHADOW henchmen were knocking
“Take whatever you need and find the cat,” ordered an accented voice, and a woman in red ducked under the garage. She looked familiar, but he wasn’t up to date on which SHADOW agents were who. “Bring him to me, but don’t harm him, no?”
They’re after me…?
As quickly and quietly as he could, Kit jumped back onto his mech and inched over, holding up his shotgun. Two henchmen passed under, and he held down the trigger, listening to the gun hiss. He aimed for the head of one as they froze upon hearing the charge, and he released, closing his eyes as the shot rang through the building.
“There he is!” The woman shouted, and he dashed out the door behind him, leading to the outside balcony as the henchmen began to rush up the stairs. Kit slammed the door and slid against it, contemplating what to do. He pulled out his launcher and fired, counting a second before jumping into the air just as the shockwave blasted him higher. He landed on the yellow container stacked above the vault—right, the vault! That must be what they’re after…!
Actually, he didn’t even have his keycard. It was at home, but even if it wasn’t, there was no way he was going to let SHADOW get ahold of it. This was his domain.
Kit peered down over the container, watching as the henchmen poured out of the building from several different entrances. A few of his own rushed over, taking on the horde. One managed to down three before the woman in red caught up to it. She knocked it over and allowed a henchman to wrestle the assault rifle from its grasp. She stepped on it, took out some sort of pickaxe matching her color scheme, and lodged it between its parts. The robot went limp, and the focus turned to the other henchmen, which was struggling to hit its shots. Kit shot a shockwave grenade in-between it and the SHADOW agents, knocking all of them back. A group of the henchmen focused on him and rushed up the stairs to the top of the container. He shot another shockwave for himself and launched himself towards the gas station, where he could spot several more henchmen rummaging through the contents of the small shop.
His room was on the second floor—maybe he could make it! He could seek refuge and call for help-
Before that thought could be finished, he tumbled onto the ground as the top half of his mech fell. He watched as it crashed to the ground; a bullet hole had gone through the tire. It had deflated. He had no time to mourn over its destruction, and he galloped for the stairs leading to his room. Maybe he was small enough to where they couldn’t see him. He reached up for the handle, but fell short. He scratched on the door a few times before jumping up, desperately trying to take a hold of the door handle. Finally, after a few vain attempts, he hung on and bounced, trying to do anything his tiny body could do to get the damned thing open. It creaked slightly, and he jumped inside.
He slunked into the corner behind the desk as soon as the door was pushed closed. Everything had gone silent; there wasn’t a single footstep or rustle of movement outside. He had his earpiece, but… it was so quiet, they’d hear him for sure. At last, there was a single set of steps, growing closer and closer outside the building. They were a pair of boots, and there was only one person amongst the SHADOW menaces here who wore them. There was the distant engine of a helicopter… maybe backup…!
Kit crouched into a pouncing position. The footsteps were louder and louder, passing underneath the stairs into his very office. They stopped in front of the door. It creaked open again, and in stepped the woman in red, There was a twinkle behind her glasses as she scanned the room, and her eyes fell on him. He had planned to pounce, but any confidence he may have had vanished.
“Aww, the little kitty is trapped,” she sneered. He hissed as she tiptoed closer to him, and as she reached to pick him up, he swatted at her hand. She crouched down before him, and to his surprise, her smile softened. She slowly reached her hand out, stopped it just in front of his nose, and allowed him to sniff it. “I’ll be gentle now, hm?”
Regardless of her change of tone, Kit hissed again and backed further into the corner, only to find no more space. It seemed there was nothing more he could do; he struggled as she picked him up, doing so in a way his claws couldn’t quite reach her. With a loud yowl, he gave in, going limp in her arms as she tightened her grasp.
“Let’s go,” she barked to the henchmen surrounding the building. The helicopter had landed on top of the factory, and it was clear that it wasn't backup. Kit whimpered as he was carried out, no doubt about to suffer the same fate he heard Skye had faced just a couple weeks ago.
As they ascended into the air, he gazed at his broken mech lying near the gas pumps. A group of SHADOW henchmen lined up in the middle of the road, and a series of shots rang out. He closed his eyes as there was a flash, and each pump exploded, leaving behind a fiery mess. He had failed.
I’m sorry, dad… I let you down.
~•~
“It doesn’t shoot as fast…”
Jules glowered at the drum gun between her hands, firing a few more quick rounds to ensure her ears weren’t deceiving her. She could tell immediately what was off, and knew no doubt that if Midas were to randomly show his face, he would notice, too.
“I wasn’t able to locate the exact parts, but I managed to get as close as I could,” Brutus explained, watching as she glared at the gun. “I’m sorry. It’s not too noticeable.”
“Yeah, unless you’re Midas,” she sighed, setting the weapon down. “He notices everything. He’s going to notice I messed it up. I should’ve just left it alone… but I wanted to do something right, and now we’re here because I keep making everything worse and over-calculating-”
“Relax, Jules,” Brutus said, setting a hand on her shoulder.
She bit her lip, turning to him with utter desperation. “Do you think… he’s even still alive?” She asked, a question that had been nagging her for weeks now.
Brutus frowned, but before he could say anything, Meowscles rushed in. “I need to head to Catty Corner,” he said, a razor sharp edge in his voice. “Can you cover the rest of the shipments?”
“What’s the rush?”
Immediately, he eyed Jules. “Lynx called. She and Cat are up at Catty Corner. Kit isn’t there, Sparkplug’s gone, and it’s ransacked.”
“What?” Jules froze. That couldn’t be the case. No, everything was fine when I left. She had called the second they reached the yellow bridge. Kit had even spoken to confirm it. She made extra sure Sparkplug was still there when she left. Everything was perfectly fine… but he didn’t seem to believe any of that, now. “I… Sparkplug was there, Meow, I swear- I don’t know what happened-“
“Well, I’m gonna find out,” he said sharply, and he was off.
~•~
“I had nothing to do with this.”
Sparkplug scanned the area, taking in the destructive site before them. Small flames flickered where the gas pumps once stood, picnic benches were knocked over, and various mechanical parts were scattered across the roads. Robots were tattered and SHADOW henchmen were dead on their backs; there was no sign of any life. “I got caught up with a client,” she confessed—she didn’t think being gone for a little too long would lead to something like this. “It wasn’t supposed to take long, but I ended up getting stuck there longer than I wanted to. I’m sorry.”
“What client was more important than Kit?!” Meowscles growled. Catastrophe gently stroked the back of his head, trying to calm him.
“Look, I can’t say hi- their name,” she frowned. “I couldn’t reschedule, they’re really picky about when we meet.”
“Hey, we’ll figure this out, alright?” Lynx said. “You should go.”
Sparkplug sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and she headed for her car.
“You checked everywhere?”
“The vault, the factory, every room in this place,” Catastrophe said, her voice wavering. “He’s not here.”
With an aggravated sigh, Meowscles began to charge towards the factory, only to stop as a loud squawk sounded from above them.
They looked up to find Ohm, who Jules said had been missing since The Device.
“Ohm?” He questioned, holding his arm out for the owl to perch himself there. Ohm cocked his head to the side, stared him in the eye, and squawked again, flapping his wings once. “You’re back? Do you know what happened?”
Ohm nodded, and an image flashed between them, his eyes acting as a projector. A video transmission began to play, with a very familiar figure and a very familiar voice that had Meowscles clenching his fists with each word that played. It was her all along.
~•~
“Jules…?”
Jules looked up from her project for the third time of the day—she was just a few parts away from finishing the robotic endoskeleton. Skye stood at the entrance of the warehouse, a look of worry on her face. “Is everything okay? Did they find Kit?”
Skye shook her head. “They need you in the vault room. I don’t know what happened, but everyone looked pretty mad, so I told them I’d get you…”
Jules slowly set down the endoskeleton. She glanced between it and Skye once—she didn’t like the sound of that. “Okay,” she nodded, putting on a smile that wasn’t all too convincing.
She followed Skye there, and the second she walked in, she saw a familiar figure perched on Meowscles’ arm. Her eyes lit up as Ohm immediately flew to her. “You found him?” A wide smile spread across her face as the owl nuzzled his head against her cheek.
“He found us, actually,” Meowscles growled, and her smile faded as she realized the pure disdain in his eyes as he glared at her.
A light flashed before her, and she looked to her companion to find his orange eyes glowing, projecting an image before her. It was simply a wavelength, and it began to swerve and bounce as it played an audio recording, one that made her blood run cold.
“Look, I can get him to Catty Corner alone. They won’t suspect a thing. Chaos Agent was right in letting me go—the more they trust me, the more dirt I can get for you.”
It was her voice…! But she never said that, nor had she seen him since The Device. “No,” she whispered, looking up. All eyes were viciously on her, and she took a step back, shaking her head frantically. “I- I didn’t…”
“See, what the hell did I say?” TNTina spat, leaning against the vault. “All part of your ruse, huh? Pretending you-”
:Wait… but that couldn’t have been Jules,” Skye said cautiously, though even her eyes glimmered with uncertainty. Still, she took Jules’s hand tightly, feeling as she began to tremble. “It- it sounded nothing like her, that’s not even how she talks…!”
“Well who else would it be, Skye?!” Tina argued back. “Why else would she come back? Let’s see. She flooded the damn island-”
“By accident.”
“She went to SHADOW-”
“They forced her!”
“You weren’t there, Skye, we don’t know that they didn’t just leave us in the dust on purpose!”
“Neither were you!”
“Well she’s the one who blew up the damn Shark!”
Whatever chatter had begun to spark amongst the agents in the room died at the accusation, and all eyes flew back to Jules, who exhaled a sharp breath. Brutus stepped forward, resting a hand on Tina’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down. He eyed Jules warily. “That was you?”
“I… I didn’t-”
“Tina, you were eavesdropping?!” Skye blurted, immediately confirming what was hanging in the air.
Jules took another step back, fighting tears of sheer terror as every pair of eyes in the room glared at her with such venom, she thought it’d poison her then and there. Breathing heavily, she looked to Brutus, the last person she could think of who would trust her.
To her immediate dismay, he took one glance around the room and sighed. “I think it’s best if you go,” he said, scowling.
When she had first arrived at The Fortilla, everyone’s trust towards her had been nothing but certain, but now, it was official. Her greatest companion had fallen into the wrong hands… every last sliver of trust they may have had was shattered.
With no further words and a shaky inhale, Jules fled from the room, ignoring the frantic protests of Skye, and pushing past Fade and Ocean, who stood in the entrance.
Neither of them had been aware of any of the situation until the shouting match between Tina and Skye had erupted. They watched as she disappeared around a corner, and after glancing once inside the room, Fade tore after her.
Skye turned to Tina, balling her fists. “What the hell, Tina?!”
Tina raised her eyebrows, taken aback by the outburst. Skye rarely swore. Regardless, she couldn’t fight the anger in her chest.“Me?! Why do you defend her so much?!”
“Because I trust her!”
“And where did that get you last time, huh?! Prison time at The Authority?”
Skye’s glare faltered. “That was my fault, I left when I wasn’t supposed to, and-”
“Yeah, well what about the time before that?” She couldn’t stop. “You trusted Hush, and where did that lead? A bullet to the chest and weeks in the infirmary because-“
“Stop it! Just stop, Tina!” Her breath hitched at the memory. No matter the situation, it was as if she couldn’t escape it. Being held hostage in a SHADOW safehouse, all because her naivety had clouded her vision, and she put her trust into the wrong hands. And Tina had the nerve to use it against her.
Tina realized her mistake the second a pained expression crossed her face. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Look, kid, I care about you. I- we’re just trying to look out for you, but-“
“Well if you care about me so much, then why can’t you just trust me for once?!”
Skye spun around and dashed out, pleading Jules’s name under her breath as she chased afterward.
Jules hadn’t run very far, in fact, Fade found her just a few feet away from the dock she had found him at a few days prior. She was curled against the railing, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Upon noticing his presence, she shook her head, blinking rapidly. “Why can’t I just stick up for myself?” She lamented, turning her head away as he sat next to her. “Nobody trusts me, I- I don’t know what I’m going to do, SHADOW didn’t even trust me when I was there, I free up every time someone confronts me, I did nothing to try and earn anyone’s trust, I-”
“Hey, hey, what happened?” He asked softly, resting a hand on her knee.
“I don’t- I left Kit at Catty Corner because- and someone got Ohm, and it was probably SHADOW, and now they all think that I purposely got him captured.” She sniffled, trying to steady her breathing. “But I wouldn’t, I- I don’t know what I’m going to do, because no one ever believes me-”
“Hey… breathe,” he murmured, shifting to his knees. He gently moved her arms away from her chest. She looked up at him with glossy eyes, taking deep breaths as she tried to control her nerves. Fade took her hand. “...I believe you.”
Jules wanted to smile, but she couldn’t find it in herself to do so just yet. She stared into his eyes, taking the moment to calm herself further, when the shout of her name interrupted.
Skye ran forward, dropping to her knees in front of her. She wrapped her arms around her tightly, and Jules held on for dear life. “Are you okay?! I’m so sorry, I shouldn't've-”
“It’s okay,” Jules whispered, burying her face in her shoulder. “At least they know…”
“Hey, everything okay?”
The three looked up as Ocean sped down the stairs. “I got a quick rundown from Maya. We’re gonna have to do something, quick.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Fade said. “They’re not gonna let her back in there, are they?”
“Hell no, especially Tina and Meowscles,” Ocean said. She crouched down besides Jules and Skye. “Hey, I trust you, too. You made it hella clear you hate SHADOW the other day.”
Jules smiled slightly.
“If we can’t help them, we can come up with our own plan, right?”
“Jules, you know everything about The Authority, right?” Skye asked. “If we can get in, you know all the places we could find Kit, right?”
Jules looked between the three of them. Actually, she had an exact plan of every crevice in the damn place… and she knew exactly where it was. For once… she needed to take charge.
Skye always had a knack for knowing when things were wrong, and it was something she always acted on with pride. Being a fairly light sleeper, she sat up in an instant when she heard a quiet knock at the door. She glanced at the sleeping forms of Maya and Tina, who had decided to crash at her place, realizing Jules still hadn’t returned from the warehouse. After crawling out of her bed with a yawn, she poked her head outside, her senses kicking into immediate gear.
She found Jules standing in the darkness, hugging herself lightly. “Hey, Skye,” she greeted, her voice a soft whisper. “…how’s your night?”
She smiled, but Skye could see through its facade. She could see the redness in her cheeks lit only by the soft fairy lights of The Fortilla, as if she had been crying, and Skye immediately reached her arms out towards the older girl. Jules was quick to enter her embrace, and Skye could feel her body shudder every now and then with a silent cry, her breath raggedy against her skin.
“Jules, what’s wrong..?” Skye asked gently, tightening her grip around her. Jules only shook her head with a quiet sniffle. For a few minutes, the two stood in silence, drawing comfort from each other’s embrace, until Jules pulled away and wiped at her misty eyes. “Sorry, Skye, I… I just… needed someone to talk to, and…”
“You don’t have to be sorry for anything, Jules,” Skye shushed her, smiling gently. An idea popped into her head suddenly, and her smile widened as she tugged at Jules’ hand, leading her away from the apartment. “C’mon, let’s go make some hot chocolate. It always helps!”
~•~
Jules silently stared into her mug, waiting as Skye prepared her own inside the small bar near Sticks. She glanced around, admiring the strings of fairy lights glowing warmly across The Fortilla; it was a nice touch, and felt way more welcoming than anything she could have prepared for The Authority. As much as she normally liked to take pride in the gadgets and designs she came up with, she had to admit, The Fortilla in its stripped down glory was even more impressive than the fancy structure she had designed for SHADOW, especially considering GHOST most likely had little to work with. Jules only wished she had been around to help out.
Skye sat across from her, and Jules couldn’t help but chuckle as she took a sip of her beverage immediately. “Hey, you’re going to burn your tongue.”
“The best hot chocolate comes at a cost,” Skye giggled, before her laughter melted into a gentle smile on her lips as she looked up at Jules. “I’m glad to see you laughing… Are you ready to talk...?”
Jules sighed and blew on the liquid before her before taking a small sip from her own mug. “I… there’s a lot of things, Skye, and… you’re just always the first person I think of to come to.”
Skye nodded, reaching across the table to place a reassuring hand over Jules’s. “You know you can talk to me about anything, Jules..! Never fear, because Legendary Adventurer Skye is here!”
Jules chuckled once more before her frown returned, her thoughts switching to the malfunctioning drum gun sitting back in the warehouse. She thought back to the letter Midas had left her, which Chaos Agent had thrown in her face the day they both found out. I’m leaving my drum gun in your care—I trust you’ll take good care of it and put it to good use until I return.
She sighed, imagining the disappointed scowl that would no doubt cover his face when he found out she had done the contrary. Midas would rarely use such an expression towards her, but on the occasion he did… it withered Jules and locked her in her room for the rest of the night. She glanced up, realizing Skye was still gazing at her expectantly, and let the words flow as she explained. She explained how Midas had left behind his drum gun when he took off, how Hazard and Sorana had given her the idea to give it some upgrades… how she mindlessly messed around and rearranged parts in hopes of accomplishing something, recalling as they watched it malfunction at The Authority. How not even an hour ago, she tried so many times to get it to fire correctly, to no avail.
“I- I don’t know what to do anymore,” she concluded. “Weapons aren’t my expertise, and now I just ruined the gun and he’s going to be mad at me if-“
“Jules, slow down, we can fix this,” Skye stopped her. “Brutus knows a lot about building weapons and everything, right? You can take it to him tomorrow, maybe he’ll know what’s wrong and how to fix it.”
Hesitantly, Jules looked up. “I… I don’t know. I don’t really… feel comfortable talking to anyone alone yet, after… after everything.”
Skye nodded in understanding. “That’s okay, I’ll go with you,” she smiled.
Jules felt a small smile of her own tug at the corners of her lips. “Thanks, Skye.”
“Of course!” Skye beamed.
Jules reached for her mug and took a longer sip of her hot chocolate. “I still have to tell M at some point, though,” she sighed. “He… he’s going to be so… disappointed when he finds out.” She leaned back, her smile fading. “Serves me right, I guess… since all I seem to do is screw everything up.”
Skye stopped as she went to set down her beverage, nearly dropping the mug. “What.?”
Looking up to meet her eyes, Jules realized she had said her last comment out loud. Skye’s mouth hung slightly agape, and Jules froze when she reached across the table to take her hand. “Jules, you’re not a screw-up,” she murmured. “Everyone makes mistakes…”
“Yeah, well not everyone floods a whole damn island and betrays their whole family,” Jules scoffed, her other hand grasping the handle of her mug tightly.
“But that wasn’t your fault, Jules,” Skye assured, frowning. “They- they were going to kill you… you couldn’t do anything else. And I don’t know about The Device, but…”
Jules set her cup down harsher than she had meant to, shaking the table slightly. “I wasn’t- I wasn’t careful enough, Skye,” she scowled. “I obviously didn’t check my plans enough even though I know I went over them so many times! But I still messed up everything, I messed up the island, and GHOST, and- and now everybody hates me, and then there was The Shark…”
Skye’s breath caught in her throat at the mention of her former base. It was among the first to be flooded, considering how close it was to the ocean, but GHOST still believed they had somewhat of a chance. Then, before they could even begin planning to relocate as the floodwaters rose, a dreadful line of explosions had blown their last base of operations to ruins. They had managed to salvage some parts and equipment as they were forced to find somewhere new to operate, until eventually, The Fortilla was built. Still, Skye had lost her home, so many friends to destruction, and above all, her last ounce of hope. Every time that day was mentioned, it left a sickly feeling in her stomach.
“I always miss The Shark,” Skye lamented. She felt her eyes moisten, and she wiped at them quickly. “I… it was the only hope I had left for us, then when it was destroyed, I… I felt like I lost everything, Jules, especially after we thought you... betrayed us.”
She smiled up at Jules, whose face bore a mournful, even regretful expression. She reached over and took Jules’s other hand, giving them both a reassuring squeeze. “But that’s not the case, right? At least… at least now we’re all together again.”
Skye had hoped to bring a smile onto Jules’s face, but was alarmed when her frown deepened, and Jules gently pulled her hands away to bury her face in them. “God, I’m so sorry, Skye,” she sniffled. “I-I fucked up everything for you, I-”
“Jules,” Skye cooed, “no, you didn’t-”
“Skye, it’s my fault The Shark blew up!”
Skye’s eyes widened as soon as Jules had blurted out this new revelation; as much as she didn’t want to believe her… she felt anger begin to bubble in her chest, and the feeling of utter betrayal crawling up her back, just like the aftermath of The Device. “Jules… what are you talking about?” She rasped.
Jules slammed her trembling hand onto the table, the liquid in her mug bouncing with the metal surface. Tears spilled down her cheeks freely as she looked down in shame. “I made- I made a stupid comment, and they heard me, and they- they- they made me do the calculations, and help build the stupid bombs, and they blew up The fucking Shark and it’s- and it’s all my f-fault.”
She knew it was a silly thought to even consider Jules had done it on purpose, but Skye felt her fist clench. “What did you say to them…?”
Jules shook her head, unable to look her in the eye. “I… I was talking to Midas before he left… w-we were talking about GHOST, and I said… ‘the worst they could do is blow up The Shark,’ and someone was listening and they said it was a great idea and they made me in charge of building the explosives or they would have killed both of us and- I was so selfish, Skye! I shouldn’t have done it, I should have just fought back, Skye, and everything would have been fine!”
“No, please don’t say that, Jules,” Skye pleaded, jumping up from her seat and rushing to her side. “It’s- it’s not your fault… and I’m- I’m so happy you’re finally back, that you never really betrayed us, and you made- you made a horrible mistake but we know they would have killed you if you didn’t listen…! We wouldn’t have wanted that, Jules…”
“Yeah? Well we both know everyone’s made it clear they want me gone,” Jules whispered. “I- I’ve made so many stupid mistakes since The Device and I can’t take any of them back, and now everyone hates me for it… how can you just- just sit there and act like everything’s okay?!”
“Because I love you, Jules!”
Jules inhaled sharply, her tears only continuing to cascade down her face. She didn’t realize how much she needed to hear those words again until now, and for it to come from Skye even after admitting it was her fault she had lost everything… she didn’t know if she believed it, no matter how much she wanted to.
Tears had begun to trickle down Skye’s own cheeks. “I love you… I love you so much, Jules, you’re basically my sister and- and I don’t want you to be miserable!”
“I don’t deserve any of this,” Jules grumbled. “Skye, you’re so- how can you just believe in everyone like you do? How can- h-how can you believe in me after all I’ve done to you...? To everyone?”
“I know you, and you’re not a bad person, Jules,” Skye sniffled. “You wouldn’t do this on purpose… and you know what, even if you had, I still wouldn’t believe you were because-”
“You see, this is why Hush took advantage of you! Because God, Skye, you can be so fucking naive sometimes!”
Jules panted heavily for a moment before her hands flew to her mouth in horror at the realization of what she had said. Skye’s genuine kindness had only riled her up, and out of anger, she had snapped at her and blamed her for almost dying because of her trusting nature. She glanced up, catching a glimpse of Skye’s pained expression before burying her head in her hands once more. She waited for Skye to realize just how much of a miscreant she really was, and when she stood up, Jules expected her to leave. To leave her forever, after realizing just how horrible she really was.
She didn’t expect for Skye to take her hands, however, and squeeze them tightly. She didn’t expect for Skye to pull her up gently, or to wrap her arms tightly around her. Jules’s eyes widened at the contact, and though it was unexpected to her, she welcomed it, squeezing her eyes shut and resting her head on Skye’s shoulder.
Skye pulled away and looked Jules in the eye. Her lip quivered, but she kept her gaze firm. “Jules… you’re right. I’m probably the most childish and- and over-trusting person on this island… but you know what? I’m also stubborn… really stubborn, and that’s why I forgive you.”
Jules swiped her gloved hands over her damp face, her eyes widening in pure disbelief at how easily Skye could just... forgive her. “A-After… after…”
“You’re a good person, Jules,” Skye smiled through her tears. “You’ve always been there for me… but you were threatened, and scared, and people make mistakes when they’re scared… I’m hurt, I really am, that you were the one who caused us to lose everything… but I know you never wanted this. That’s… that’s all that matters to me.”
Jules felt herself trembling, unable to believe what she was being told. She wanted so badly not to be burdened with the thoughts of her mistakes, but it was so hard for her not to hate herself after everything that had happened. “Wh-What if I only make- keep making more? I…”
“I’ll help you get through it,” Skye smiled softly. “Jules, you… you work really hard, all the time… and I know you get so stressed, and… you can be careless sometimes when you do but it doesn’t define you… because mistakes don’t define anyone. We can’t always fix them but… but we can help each other through the damage.”
“B-But I’ve made so many,” Jules cried. “I’ve made so many mistakes, Skye, and- and I’ve hurt so many people, and all I- I ever do is h-hurt everyone I love because I just can’t fucking stop, Skye, I can’t do anything right, Skye!”
With a choked breath, Jules began to finally, truly weep, with stuttered gasps and broken sobs as she desperately clung to Skye, finally letting out all of the emotions she had accumulated over the month. Skye could do nothing but listen to Jules’s wails against her shoulder, and as much as it broke her heart to see her in this state… Jules needed it.
Skye let her cry as long as she needed to—maybe ten minutes or longer, but the time didn’t matter—until she once again calmed to quiet sniffles and silent shudders. “I missed you so much,” Jules whispered, her breath shaky as she gave a watery laugh against Skye’s shoulder.
Skye smiled, and slowly, they began to walk back to the apartments, never breaking contact. Together, they sat on Skye’s bed, and Jules rested her head against her shoulder as they continued to tightly hold each other. “I’m still mad at him,” Jules whispered. “Midas, when… he was the only person I could go to, and he didn’t even tell me he was going to try and leave. I didn’t know he was gone until… they threatened me.
Turning her head slightly, Skye nuzzled closer to her. “Why did he leave..? If he knew the consequences…”
“He said he was going to find a way to take down SHADOW,” Jules sighed. “I don’t think he realizes he can’t do that alone… he’s more stubborn than you.”
The two shared a quiet laugh, careful not to wake the other two women up. “I’ll have to figure out how to set things right at some point, though,” Jules said, glancing at them again. “Tina still manages to hate me, even while she’s asleep.”
Skye turned her head; Tina, while asleep, indeed had a scowl plastered on her face. “I think she always looks like that,” Skye giggled. She yawned then, closed her eyes, and let her head rest against the top of Jules’. “You’re not alone, Jules.”
Jules closed her eyes as well, feeling herself trying to drift into slumber. “I know,” she whispered, and maybe, just maybe, she would finally sleep soundly for the night.
~•~
When Sparkplug went to search for scrap metal, she didn’t expect to find gold.
She could see it glittering against the starry night sky, a stark contrast to the litter-filled shores of the beach, as if taunting her to step forward and investigate. What she didn’t see at first was that the gold coated a pair of hands, and he wasn’t just a shiny metal. He was by far the most recognizable figure on the island, whether it be talk of his powers or his face on the posters formerly plastered on every wall. And, above all, he was the most wanted.
Sparkplug had heard all of the rumors about him. A charismatic, bold, yet manipulative mastermind, a king who ruled his kingdom of GHOST; something about a device that broke the storm, yet as she looked into the distance, at the outer edges circling the island, it was clear that hadn’t happened.
Was this even the same man? His clothing slightly tattered and damp, he stared into the distance at the cornered head of the sunken Shark base, sticking out of the water. As he stood on the dock, it seemed as if he lacked that determination, and that confidence she had always heard about.
Though she’d never gotten involved in the faction war, Sparkplug had helped the son of one of GHOST’s agents design an army of robots, patrolling the former box factory near the mountains. A bright young… well, cat who was skilled in robotics. She’d stick around to listen to him and his father’s stories, sometimes about GHOST as a whole, sometimes just about their former leader. They were stories that, despite obvious feelings of anger and betrayal, were also filled with hope, a longing that he’d return.
Cautiously, she crept over. “You’re M-“
“Yes,” he curtly cut her off. He didn’t flinch at her presence, nor turn his head. Rather, in his tone of voice, it was clear to her he didn’t want her to repeat his name, so she didn’t. “I am.”
Sparkplug narrowed her eyes at him. “You know everyone’s lookin’ for you?”
His eyes trailed to a wrench sticking out of her pocket. “I can’t say I’m surprised,” he nodded to her question first. “Are you an engineer?”
“You could say that,” she said with a light smirk, pulling her wrench. “Just find me some scrap metal, and there aren’t any limitations. Is there… something in particular you need help with…?”
He looked over the waves once more. “Help me build a boat.”
“A boat,” Sparkplug repeated, suddenly skeptical of her abilities. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried a boat, I usually just work on cars.”
Without hesitation, he stepped forward and took the bolt tied to a string around her neck. Her eyes widened as the metal gilded over, glittering the same shade as his hands. “I’ll pay whatever it is you want.”
She had forgotten he quite literally controlled the gold market on the island. It would be nice to earn some extra cash, maybe invest in a garage when the floodwaters lowered… she had designed robots straight from the scraps of the junkyard, so why not a boat?
With a deep breath, she held out her hand. “It’s a deal, then. I’ll start planning some ideas and I’ll bring them to you tomorrow.”
“Then I will be here,” he said, and Sparkplug turned to head home.
“Actually, I have one more request for the deal.”
He ducked further into the shadows as she attempted to make her departure, and when she faced him again, all she could see was the eerie glow of his single golden eye. “I can’t have anyone else discovering my whereabouts,” he said, and she resisted the urge to shudder at his suddenly darkened tone. “Tell no one about our deal, or that you’ll be helping me. Don’t mention my name.”
She took another glance at his golden hands, and her perspective on his ability shifted almost immediately as she realized the consequences if she were to out him… “You have my word,” she blurted. Then, as if he were never there in the first place, he disappeared as she blinked.
