#trotsdairbo

[milestonekestrel]

five nights at oil rig

[milestonekestrel]

The Vessels AU - The Story (2/2)

The second post!! YAYYY!

You'd probably need to read the first one to understand all of this. This covers the second half of the storyline for the Vessels AU.

The Everything:

So, Billy fails. He fails Rennick's trial, after making it through all of the previous ones. He and Rennick still escaped the trial. However, the King doesn't want to be beaten, and so it catches Billy on a technicality. Stressing specific wording. I wrote something about this moment!

Wow Look at his Joyous Whimsy c:

“You took too long,” the King drawled. Rennick took several steps backward, just being in the vicinity of the King made his skin prickle.

Following Billy being failed, but the King still having been displaced, it decides to make Billy into its vessel rather than kill him.

Unfortunately, the same sort of thing that happened with Cait and Maidie happens here. All of the entities want a vessel, and so, they all sort of dogpile into Billy and start fighting.

This process is.. a very highly unusual one, and strains Billy quite a lot. Described in the fic above, he seizes up, chokes, and overall has a very bad and very uncomfortable time. Also, his injuries are being forced to heal by the entities, but because they're actively fighting for control of him, the process is messed up with rapidly switching control.

Rennick flees, during this. Backs away and runs when he finds the temple's exit.

In Spectator Jail, they see this go down, and this is when the panic gets particularly bad. Though, due to the King being briefly displaced, the cell is kind of loose and Cait and Maidie are able to free everyone. They all get out of the cave, and the building as a whole. The crowd runs into Rennick, running blindly down the path from the King's temple. When they meet, Fergus tries to punch him and has to be held back. There's a fic about this moment too!

A fight is prevented, and Rennick makes it pretty clear he believes Billy's dead. That the entities killed him. Fergus refuses to believe it, and he wants to help his husband.

Just then, they all feel.. something. described in the second fic as a strange wave, an odd feeling that washes over them.

What that is is all of the entities inside Billy figuring out how to work together, all meld into one and sync up, in a way. They all control him, but something snapped into place and Billy is a proper("proper"..) vessel now!

His appearance changes, but because of how all the entities are associated with a color, and how they're all present here, the colors all meld together into white. And Billy has no real traits from any one entity, because they all cancel out, in a way. So he looks mostly normal except for all of the color stuff.

Now, as a vessel, Billy isn't really kicked into his own trial like the others. Rather, the entities have all mentally subdued him, in a way, making him feel Very Good and like he Loves the current situation and circumstances. He feels complete! That never ending sense of something being missing has finally abated! And Billy is pushed to a place where he recalls little about the depth of relationships, and ultimately will turn on even the people he loves the most if the threaten his completeness.

Which is exactly what happens when everyone gets to the King's temple, following Fergus getting Grabbed off the ground and kind of teleported into the temple by Billy (who, in vessel form, is referred to as the Everything or a Vessel for the Everything).

There's a small script I wrote for a PMV about Billy's possession and how it goes, in a way.

Now, bear with me here, but I am going to yap into the possibly confusing specifics of the Fucked Up nature of Billy's possession.

Also, I do know I said Billy isn't pushed into a trial, and that is true, but it is true because Billy kind of. Fractures, in a way, due to the clown car looking ass possession. There are three distinct Billys, at least in the PMV I scripted due to taking creative liberties. These Billys are the Everything Billy, the husk Billy, and the Orpheus Billy.

The Everything Billy is the messed up semblance of him that remains in his body after the entities take him over. He is barely Billy anymore, easily molded and directed by the entities, and far too eager to kill all of his own loved ones.

Now, the Husk and the Orpheus Billy are the part of his consciousness that is fractured from the docile Everything Billy. This Billy does go into a sort of trial. I like to compare it to the additive and subtractive color models. Everything Billy's outward appearance is comparable to that of the additive color model, where all of the colors melt together into white. Meanwhile, inwardly, Everything Billy is comparable to the subtractive color models, where every entity has their own thoughts about how to construct his trial (since it happens kind of automatically with possessions), and with the constantly switching control, every entities' aspects of a trial meld together into black. An abyss, full of dark Sludge formed by all those conflicting ideas.

The Billy that gets sent there is met by the King, retreating inward to at least establish some semblance of better control over the Abyss, and he meets Billy at a fake bar, unreasonably long, and with all the other former vessels sitting on barstools with their faces not visible. The King, behind the bar, lifts its glass to Billy. All of the other vessels lift their own, wordlessly. Billy, just now realizing he had a glass, lifts his own back to the King. Basically, and unknowingly, accepting the possession and joining the other former vessels.

However, it doesn't work entirely correctly, as nothing does when possession is this messed up. Billy drinks from his glass, and basically gets torn in half as his consciousness splinters further. Forming Husk Billy, who's basically a barely-there corpse of a man that sits at the bar and acts as a prop for the trial rather than Billy. the King is even able to control and speak through the husk, while he remains at the bar. Meanwhile, kind of all the lively, human, and unfavorable (to the entities) aspects of Billy are separated and distilled into one form of his splintered consciousness, the Orpheus Billy. The Orpheus Billy tries to fight it, but gets dragged by an invisible force directly into and through the Sludge of the trial, and out of sight and reach of the rest of him. Its like being repressed, kind of!

And, in the waking world, the Everything Billy is finally fully fractured from himself, and also finally tires of the former vessels' attempts to get him to "snap out of it." He attacks Fergus, then kind of sends out a shockwave that flings everyone away from him. And here, now that the entities and the tiny splinter of Billy have snapped into an unstable sync, is where the consequences of such a possession truly show in the Backwards world.

The entities affect and change the appearance of their temples just as much as they do the trials, so, at this point, the King's temple basically gets destroyed as it starts to warp and change. The general consensus here? for Billy? There is Too Much. Too many entities in his head, too many thoughts about too many different temples being his. And so the temple around him shifts, walls crack, break, and reform. The floor caves, the ceiling splinters. The part of the floor that Billy is standing on starts to raise up with him on it. The foundation beneath Billy's feet is as unstable as the rest of him, in this form.

And it gets Worse! While the Everything is fighting all of the former vessels, rapidly switching what weapon he uses depending on what entity is in control, which doesn't make him as uncoordinated as you'd think. It does serve to make him less predictable, but he is still kicking all of their asses unfortunately. Though, while this is happening, a physical Break forms in the Backwards world. Too Much is happening, and there is an actual, real break in the ground of the temple where the Nothing trial starts to leak through, bringing Sludge and overwhelming nothingness within it.

Eventually, the former vessels make the connection that, if they want to save Billy, they're going to have to do what he did for them. They're going to have to get close enough to make contact, and.. do something to get into some trial.

So this is what they do! One by one, and they quickly realize that what they're doing is actually taking the entities out of Billy and into their old trials, and they are each still connected to the entity in a small enough way (memories) which allows this to happen.

It is also realized, eventually, that taking the entities from Billy's head in this way causes immense pain and distress in him. However, there's no other option for the former vessels, so this is what they must do.

Rennick and Fergus are the last, and Rennick probably would've run again. Except that Fergus was counting on him, and so was Billy, and everyone else. And he knew this was his fault. So, he soldiered up and tore the King from Billy's head, thereby separating the last of the entities from him and leaving him free of them.

And.. this also messes him up a bit. Because, with the possession, the entities had basically stretched his brain incredibly thin. Billy was very harshly and abruptly beset by Too Much, too many entities in his brain, too much power, too many thoughts and desires and things and too much fracturing of his own consciousness. It was like a severe escalation, 0 to 100 immediately. But then, having that all torn from his skull almost as abruptly as it came to him? His brain had no more time to acclimate to the sudden emptiness than it did the fullness, and even then, he had barely a splinter of himself still in his head. It was suddenly, and just as harshly, Too Little.

And this, piled on top of everything else, is finally enough, and it tips Billy over the edge. He loses consciousness and falls backwards into the abyss, the floor of the temple having broken, and being too weak to hold up after he fell off his raised platform. His trial, in a way, is now physical, and he falls right into it. He sinks through the sludge and the other two fractures of his consciousness reform, leaving him laying, unconscious, in the second layer of the abyss.

The others had all fallen, but only reached the first layer. They're unconscious, too, but in the same way as Billy had been previously due to having been transported, alongside their entities, into their trials.

The Trials - Round Two:

Everybody gets a round two! This time, with the entities actively inside the trials with them and controlling several aspects of it, mostly to try and hurt them and make the trials as a whole worse. Each trial also gets a new enemy in the form of a version of Billy that the entities put in to guilt and attack the vessels. These versions of Billy are all visible dead due to some hazard present within the trial, and they are quite cruel and blame their deaths on the vessel.

The vessels all have to defeat their entity and make their way back out of the trial.

Caz's Trial:

The worse version of Caz's trial takes place on a small, jagged piece of the dock that Caz is floating in the middle of the ocean on. The waves are dark and choppy as the storm finally descends upon Caz, and the Tide swims beneath the float. Another thing bobbing in the water was Billy, bloated and drowned and dead. Caz hauled him up onto the float, only to be attacked by him. Billy, in here, repeatedly tries to drown Caz, blaming him for Billy suffering the same fate.

Suze's trial:

Suze is back in the forest, though its darker, muddier, and she seems blocked in by bramble tangles. The Hunter stalks through the trees, impossible to hear and always watching her. The version of Billy in this trial is one that died from being shot. The top half of his head is an unrecognizable mess of gore, and he relentlessly pursues Suze through the woods. Even getting his leg caught in a bear trap doesn't slow him, this time. He just continues on, not even reacting to any damage his leg sustains.

Kelly's Trial:

The house in Kelly's Trial has fallen apart, debris piled on top of furniture to strand him in what's basically become a landfill of sorts. Billy, here, is always half-asleep and keeps trying to pull Kelly down and get him to sleep, too. His body displays signs of him having killed himself.

McLurg's Trial:

In the aftermath of the collapse of the construction site, McLurg is trapped within some scaffolding. He is trapped with a version of Billy who died by being impaled by falling pipes and other machinery.

Roy's Trial:

Trying to shelter in the moldy greenhouse, Roy can see a version of Billy that got, in a way, consumed by all the mold walking around outside the greenhouse and trying to get in.

Alex's Trial:

Alex is stuck deep beneath the anthill, in the spider grove. The spiders are all after him and there's barely any light for him to see. He is being stalked by a version of Billy who was ripped apart by the bugs, his limbs only attached to his body by spiderwebs now.

Finlay's Trial:

Finlay seems to be stuck in a psych ward of sorts, being pursued now by a Billy who is just. Very diseased, and neglected and mistreated by the doctors. He seems to suffer symptoms of multiple diseases and overall just looks very unwell.

Addair's Trial:

The city is now mostly ash, and Addair has to face both the Flare and a version of Billy that's been horrifically burned to death. Also, this Billy notably sports the fire poker stab wound, still. He's covered in ash and constantly coughing.

Archie's Trial:

Archie is trapped on an even less stable frozen lake in a worse blizzard than he caused before. His version of Billy froze to death, and is very pale, blue-ish, and very very cold. There is snow stuck to his hair, skin, and clothes.

Davey's Trial:

The version of Billy in this trial was crushed. Breathes very noisily and his chest might as well be concave, honestly. My friend @pickleddandelions helped with the design and here's a quote from them: “The main idea of what he looks like I have is that he suffocated in a crowd crush before falling under and his body getting trampled. His lips and skin are tinted blue, some limbs bend in places where they absolutely shouldn't and he's covered in cuts and bruises. He looks closer to a zombie than a human. He's not fast, too many broken bones for that, but he's persistent. Immortal snail type shit” my gratitude to Pickles forever.

Muir's Trial:

Muir is stuck in a ravine that he can't seem to make it out of, and nearly gets crushed to death by a rock slide. The version of Billy here is tangled up in climbing ropes. He broke his neck in a fall, and cracked his skull.

Raffs' Trial:

The mirrors are mostly broken, and even the ones that are still intact don't help Raffs tracking the Self. The version of Billy in this trial was stabbed to death by shards of a broken mirror.

Innes' Trial:

Billy, in this trial, is a severely injured corpse that died due to bleeding out. Also, his arm seemingly got blown off at one point, and he smells very strongly of gunpowder.

Bruce's Trial:

The version of Billy in this trial still has his hands tied behind his back, and suffocated on smoke while he was burning.

Gibbo's Trial:

Gibbo is now stuck in the pit himself, and its half collapsed. Billy, in this trial, was beaten to death and looks like it.

Martin's Trial:

Martin is stuck on one side of the scales, with Billy and the Judge now judging him. This Billy was labeled as guilty, consumed by the Shape, and now functions as an extension of it.

Kieran's Trial:

The Billy in this trial suffocated and also froze due to. Being in space. Kieran is stranded on an asteroid with Billy now the one to insist that nothing matters. Kieran doesn't matter to him. Kieran killed him!

Trots' Trial:

Trots is stuck in the boiler room of the house, where the infestation stems from. Billy, in this trial, died to the insecticide stuff in the air. He looks kind of like he has rabies now.

Douglas' Trial:

Douglas is stuck in the farm. Billy in this trial died due to traumatic injury sustained by the strangers staring at him, his organs are all visible in his torso as the skin there has been burned away.

Roper's Trial:

Billy died in this trial due to a mix of drowning and traumatic injury sustained when he was pushed around by floodwater. Roper is stuck on a roof again, though this time with no method of escape and no way to swim, and the water slowly rising.

Scooby's Trial:

The house is mostly empty now, and Scooby is locked inside. He has to face the Cuckoo and Billy, who seems to have been mailed to death by the bird monster.

Keith's Trial:

Still needs development, sighs.

Gregor's Trial:

The evil Billy in this trial seems to have died to an overdose, or some other bad reaction to what was put in his drink. Nobody else at the bar really reacts to his strange, freaky appearance.

Dalgleish's Trial:

Billy in this trial died from the general bad conditions of the sewer, infected injury and general disease.

Fergus' Trial:

In this trial, Fergus is stranded in the middle of the field. The house is no longer there for cover, having been torn from the ground by the tornado. The Storm's face can be seen in the dark clouds. Billy, in this trial, was struck by lightning one too many times.

Cranstoun's Trial:

Billy, in this trial, was strangled to death by the snares. He is still wrapped up in them, they trail behind him now, mostly. He follows Cranstoun around as he tries to navigate the neighborhood, hardly able to see anything through the heavy rainfall.

Shuggie's Trial:

The evil Billy in this trial seems to have died due to electrocution.

O'Connor's Trial:

O'Connor finds himself back in the canyon, being antagonized by a version of Billy who appears to have died after being buried by sand. There's a lot of it, in his hair, clothes, and mouth.

Dobbie's Trial:

The last version of Billy in this trial is a mangled corpse, due to having been run over a lot.

Boyd's Trial:

This trial needs more development, I fear. High likelihood that the worse Billy here was burned.

Dunbar's Trial:

The evil Billy in this trial looks to have been shot in the chest with the shotgun, alongside the fact that, notably, he seems to have broken his wrists to escape being tied to the chair.

Davros' Trial:

Davros is being pursued through cave diving hell again. This version of Billy that he encounters was buried by rockfall in one of the passages. He's got a lot of rocks embedded into his skin now.

Banky's Trial:

Needs more development, I fear.

Bannon's Trial:

Also needs more development! Sighs bigly.

Anderson's Trial:

Anderson is back being forced to perform, but this time, Billy's in the crowd instead of helping him. Billy seems to be taking enjoyment in the show, at least. He seems to have been turned into a human puppet corpse.

Buck's Trial:

The Billy in this trial got his throat slit by one of the versions of Buck, doppelganger or otherwise.

Sunil's Trial:

The Billy in this trial overexerted himself, his shoes and socks have been worn away and his pants are decently ripped. He is also notably starved.

Rennick's Trial:

A shape infested Beira D, at the bottom of the ocean, this time with Rennick being hunted down by a version of Billy who seems to have gone down with the sinking rig. He's been burned, drowned, and is also slightly covered in oil.

The Abyss:

After defeating the entities and escaping their trials, the former vessels all wake up, tired and beset by phantom pain, in the abyss. They all manage to reconvene. The next step is to find Billy, and then get out of here. The girls show up, just then, and jump down into the abyss to join their parents and help look for Billy.

The Abyss works in a way where it is very hard to navigate. Just. endless void of black, where you can hardly see a person until you're close to them. They have Finlay and Addair stay close by the exit to the abyss, and call out periodically so the others could hear and make their way back to them if they got lost.

After a while of searching, spreading out to find Billy, Fergus and Shuggie find Billy. Still unconscious, and in an odd state of being half-injured and half not. Fergus carries him back, and eventually everyone gets brought back together and they all escape the abyss.

Billy remains unconscious, and they hope for him to wake up when they get back into the real world. Its oddly quiet, in the temple. No sign of the entities, though they're likely still around.

Cait and Maidie are the ones who have to lead everyone out of the Backwards world and through the false wall in the church. Once they get back into the real world, it feels.. both different and not. Surreal, a little bit. Fergus kind of collapses, slightly, and then holds Billy and looks at him. They all do, hoping for him to wake up.

He does not. Eventually, they all get very concerned. Sitting in that back room of the church, they decide a small group of them will take Billy to the hospital, while the rest go to the police or. Their families, wherever they need to go, after suddenly reappearing into the world.

The Aftermath:

Billy is in a coma. He lays in the hospital for.. a long time. It's kind of a shitshow when all of the people who've been missing for weeks abruptly re-appear. And their story is.. absolutely insane. Strange for it to be consistent among all of them, but still. Nobody wants to believe the explanation originally. The police question all of them.

Billy would actually be the best for them to question, and everyone does know it, he knows the full story. But, he is unreachable now. When the police are finally, begrudgingly, done with their questioning (for now..), the vessels can all finally go home.

Its strange trying to adjust to the world again. The police and news and everything are a constant presence in all of their lives. Even Billy gets checked on, a few times, and one of the former vessels has to tell the officer or reporter to leave, because he isn't awake yet. And at least one of the former vessels is always there at the hospital with him. In case he wakes up, or in case something goes wrong, or someone tries to bother him. They've all exchanged numbers and can call each other.

Fergus is with him the most, because Billy is his husband and he is. he really, really wants to hold him again. He wants Billy to wake up. Their house is so empty without him in it...

Sometimes, the other vessels come to the hospital to get him to get some air, take a break and go out and do something with them. Though they always get a lot of looks or questions being out in public.

There is a lot of anecdotes about this time period, for everyone! Liselotte and Addair wrestle with emotions, and both are affected by Billy being in a coma. Its Liselotte who points out how much Billy resembles their son, Tommy, also unresponsive in this same hospital. It very much hurts the both of them.

Martin is struggling with the other police officers, who, as soon as they learn of the Backwards world (after Billy wakes up, though) want to go in. Neither Martin nor any of the other vessels (nor Billy, when he wakes up) want to risk waking up the entities. They're asleep now, but nobody wants to risk it. Billy knows that, if they do wake up, he is their target.

Despite this, a handful of the other officers are a little obtuse and annoyingly stubborn.

Raffs is afraid of mirrors, because of his trial. A lot of the vessels are dealing with something like that, a lingering effect of their possession. Billy, though, has it particularly bad.

When he finally does wake up, he is immediately terrified. He is in a hospital with no recollection of getting there, and the closest hospital experience he can connect to this was Finlay's trial. The vessels have to calm him down, Fergus and Finlay get called specifically for this one. They do calm him, but Billy has a lot of experiences like this. He did not make it out of the Backwards world unscathed, and not physically either.

There is simply a lot of specific character talk here, which I can elaborate on if someone has a character they want to hear about! I can elaborate on anything, actually. If you have any requests or questions or anything, send me an ask! I'm kind of dying to talk about this AU more, I really love it.

Beyond that, this kind of ends much of the larger story! Nothing has really been planned with the aftermath so far, not beyond how everyone tries to move forward after everything. There will definitely be more of this AU.

And, because I shared the first one, here's another PMV script I made for this AU!

This is my favorite part of the song..

[milestonekestrel]

More Vesselsposting 😼

Addair in his trial, when he's Fire.

Billy having a great time in Devon, Gibbo, and Martin's trials.

A frame from the Billdair animation I did-- this is when Billy takes too long in Addair's Trial and gets stabbed by the Flare.

Everything Billy being upset that all the former vessels are trying to snap him out of it.

Two Billys..

aaand an idea for the Mob's design. This ones a freak. It can become a hydra.

[milestonekestrel]

The Vessels AU - The Story (1/2)

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

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

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

Under the cut, again.

The Disappearances:

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

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

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

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

The Backwards World:

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

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

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

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

ANYWAY! Now, onto the trials.

Caz's Trial:

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

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

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

Suze's Trial:

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

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

Kelly's Trial:

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

McLurg's Trial:

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

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

Roy's Trial:

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

Alex's Trial:

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

Finlay's Trial:

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

Addair's Trial:

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

Archie's Trial:

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

Davey's Trial:

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

Muir's Trial:

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

Raffs' Trial:

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

Innes' Trial:

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

Bruce's Trial:

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

Gibbo's Trial:

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

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

Martin's Trial:

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

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

Kieran's Trial:

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

Trots' Trial:

This is another one I have written a fic about!

This house was confusing

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

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

Douglas' Trial:

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

Roper's Trial:

This one also needs a little more development.

Scooby's Trial:

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

Keith's Trial:

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

Gregor's Trial:

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

Dalgleish's Trial:

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

Fergus' Trial:

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

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

Devon's Trial:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shuggie's Trial:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

O'Connor's Trial:

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

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

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

Dobbie's Trial:

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

Boyd's Trial:

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

Dunbar's Trial:

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

Davros' Trial:

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

Banky's Trial:

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

Bannon's Trial:

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

Anderson's Trial:

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

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

Buck's Trial:

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

Sunil's Trial:

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

Rennick's Trial:

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

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

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

And so Billy fails!

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