Clear skies

Hey. Been a while, huh?

The day after the second fight at the Tower, Robin called me to ask if I'd meet her at her office at AMU.

The door turned out to be unlocked, and I entered to see her in a black dress, staring out the window. Afternoon light streamed through it, painting the room in amber.

She turned to face me, and her face lit up with a tired smile. She looked beautiful.

"Hey, Addie."
"Hey, Robin. What's the special occasion?"
She rolled her eyes. "C'mere."

I walked towards her. Somehow, it took me by surprise when she hugged me.

"Thank you for keeping me safe."
"Uh- yeah," I stammered as I realized how tightly she was holding me.
She leaned back and looked up at me. "You're cute," she said, smiling.
"I love you," I blurted out, and my eyes widened.
"I love you too."
I gave a nervous laugh. "Oh. Okay, um… good."
She smiled, punching me lightly in the arm. "Addie, you dork."
"What?" I said defensively.
"We've been through the end of the world together. You gave up everything for me. I always knew."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because I was scared, dummy."

That was a while ago, now. Suffice to say we're very happy together.

Since then, ARC and the Archive have entered an uneasy alliance, brought together by our shared experiences at the dead tower. The Forest has been kept in check by the revived Newborn, though it's become a more active player than it has been in a very, very long time, and together our two groups are working to research the Forest, to find ways to hold it back.

It isn't lost on me how far I went to get Robin back when ARC and AMU ended up as allies in the end anyway. But that was a long time she was around. A long time that she was with us, safe albeit overworked, instead of kept in a cramped cell and watched constantly.

I don't care if it's selfish. To me, that's all that matters.

Back in the tower

It was around the time the tower came into view in the distance that we arrived at a clearing where the Forest's influence was weaker, around which were former office buildings, now overgrown with vine-snapped wires and rotting flesh. There were a number of people there, Samuel included, but before we could chat, strange green blurs began to move incredibly quickly around the area.

"Those blurs are Green Men," I said. "They're plant people- well, not people, they're anomalies manifested directly by the Forest- never mind, point is, they're gonna try to kill us all and the people here can't take them on."

"Got it!" Kareena said, then let out a "WHOOOOOO!" as the tank's treads rolled over one of the Green Men, producing a sound somewhere between crunching leaves and breaking bones.

"Well, at least somebody's enjoying the apocalypse," Jenn muttered.

"Everyone plug your fuckin' ears," Kareena said as she lowered the tank's cannon, waited for one of the blurs to move past her line of sight, and fired. I couldn't tell if it actually hit the Green Man, but it certainly made a sizable hole in one of the buildings.

Just after that, a bolt of lightning struck in the middle of the clearing, and Dr. Daniel Ferris appeared. I lost track of what happened after that. There was a lot going on- a lot of shouting, a lot of fighting, a lot of strange anomalous bullshit that hurt to look at. Suffice to say that we made it out.

I don't know how long it took- time didn't seem to work right in the Forest- but as the tank moved forward, something huge came into view, something of an impossible color shot through with patches of gray and silver and red. It smelled like woodland rain and rotting meat.

It was the tower.

We were finally here.

What had once been KRAKEN headquarters was covered in bone and flesh meeting as one with rusted metal, in flowers of hues nowhere to be found on the electromagnetic spectrum, in vines that reached out towards us like tentacles until Robin cut them away with her machete. Untold billions of cold, dead wires covered the ground, long since snapped by Forest vines.

We got out of the tank.

A lot of other people had just arrived there as well, by some bizarre coincidence, or by supernatural means, or... something. Either way, with that, the new group was made up of, well, basically everyone who had entered the Forest and not died.

I couldn't see Robin's face behind the gas mask, but I could tell from the way she carried herself as she led our small contingent of ex-ARC agents to the tower, hacking away more and more vines, that she had no interest in dealing with the Forest's bullshit. I didn't feel nearly as confident as she looked while I did the same, and where her determination would normally be reassuring, I instead found it unsettling.

The inside of the tower looked much the same as the outside, but with far more space for vines to stretch across; as outside, the floor was covered in layers upon layers of dead wires and cables.

As we waded through the detritus to a door whose sign would have read BASEMENT ACCESS if it weren't partially covered, I still saw that bitter, unnerving determination in Robin's walk.

I took her hand. "Robin."
"What is it?"
"Be safe. Please."
She turned to me, her shoulders relaxing. "Yeah. I will."
 

We stood there for a moment.

I heard a crunching sound from behind us and turned around. Pouring in from the hole was a flood of people who had clearly been in the Forest for far too long.

"Motherfucker," Jenn muttered as she got her pistol out. Practically everyone else seemed to have the same idea; people all around me were pulling out guns, knives, hell, the multiple swords I saw weren't even the most surprising weapons.

 

Leo and I followed Jenn's lead.

"Those of you who can't fight, come on," Robin said, beginning to hack away at the vines.

More and more of the infected swarmed in. One of them grabbed onto my leg, and with a degree of cool under pressure I didn't even know I had in me, I put my gun directly to its temple and pulled the trigger.

You really never get used to the sound of what happens when a bullet enters a human head at point blank.

Grimacing behind my mask, I kicked the body away. As I did, I caught something out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Dr. Ferris talking to Robin.

"You need a hand?"
Robin turned to him. "Yeah, that'd be much appreciated, thanks."
"Cool. HELLFIRE, help her out for a second, don't be a dick about it."
"...Excuse me?"
"You ever host a Dying Man shard before?"
"No...? Wait, what?"
"First time for everything. Have fun with him, he's a charmer." He looked to me and said as he dissected one of the infected that had nearly reached me in a flurry of rose petals, "You should really pay more attention to the battlefield."

I felt a mixture of bewilderment, gratitude, and annoyance, but before I could figure out which one to listen to, a number of roots suddenly came down from the ceiling, one of them managing to curl around his arm and snap it. He cried out in pain and tossed the cane he'd been holding in our general direction, Robin grabbing it out of the air. 

"That's what's left of the Newborn," Dr. Ferris said. "Use it well."

 

As Dr. Ferris destroyed the roots and teleported away, and we continued to fight off more infected, I felt a presence enter the tower that I knew immediately wasn't one of them. I've never been able to detect auras or whatever other bullshit, I don't have any supernatural powers, but I knew on instinct that Hell itself was walking into that tower.
 

"Everyone, get through! Door's open!" Robin shouted.

I turned around, and I ran. I could feel the presence behind me, still walking at a steady gait yet keeping up with my sprint.

As all of us flooded down into the basement, the presence followed.

A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind, sharp claws digging into my flesh.

"So, this is where the hunt ends."

And then I knew who it was.

"Turn around," she said, releasing her grip.

I complied.

Daisy Krenson towered over me, seemingly even more than she once had. There was an eyepatch over her scarred left eye; her filthy black hair was tied into a ponytail, and she wore a tattered gray overcoat over her torn suit. She was breathing heavily, the gashes in her clothing exposing toned, powerful, bloodied flesh. Her right eye glowed red, shining with malice.

Her lips curled back to bare her teeth (her lips were black, like a dog's; her ears, her teeth, her face, it was all far too sharp).

"I told you to turn around. I didn't tell you to look me in the eye." She slammed me against the wall by the chest, knocking the breath out of my lungs. "Don't you dare act as though we're equals, after all you've put me through. You abandoned all of us, and for what?"

Jenn walked slowly, quietly, towards Krenson, but in one fluid motion, Krenson released me, turned around, drew her pistol, and fired into Jenn's shoulder with frightening precision.

"That was a warning shot."
"This-" Jenn gasped in pain. "This isn't you."
"You don't know me."
Jenn involuntarily slumped against the wall. "You're… you're right. I don't know you, not the Daisy I'm looking at. But I know who you used to be."
"Listen to me," Krenson said, stepping forward and staring her down. "I don't care that your precious Robin killed the Newborn. Not really. To be perfectly honest, I have to respect the force of will that represents." She grabbed Jenn's wrist as she started to reach for her gun. "But you made a deal with a devil for her, and I won't let you traitors bring back the devil you killed." Suddenly, she twisted Jenn's arm with a stomach-churning crunch and took the gun from her limp hand before it could fall to the floor.
She turned to me, smiled, and raised it.
"You don't know how long I've waited for this."

I didn't hear the shot, didn't feel the bullet enter. I slipped in and out of consciousness, my hearing fading in slowly to the sounds of screaming and shouting and Leo and Robin saying my name over and over. I tried to tell them I was fine, but the words wouldn't come out.

What I'm about to recount is what I've been told afterwards.
 

As Leo and Robin stood over my unconscious body, Robin turned to Krenson and screamed, "You FUCKING PRICK," before charging at her with her machete in hand.

Robin's mouth moved on its own. "Language," said the Dying Man shard known as HELLFIRE. His flame spread across Robin's body, enveloping her machete.

Robin was too enraged to think clearly, and Krenson was fast. She growled like a dog as she dodged backwards, firing a shot into Robin's chest that she didn't even feel as HELLFIRE took over, trading fireballs and slashes from weapons formed of black mist with Krenson's shots until she ran out of ammo and threw the gun at Robin's forehead, which she, again, ignored as she/HELLFIRE forced an unarmed Krenson to slowly back away, unable to attack her directly or risk being badly burned. As Krenson backed up against the same wall that Jenn was slumped against, she suddenly felt a knife in her side.

"I'm so sorry, Daisy," Jenn said, drawing it back out, blood spurting from the wound. "It shouldn't have had to end like this."

Daisy fell forward without a sound, her body charred and mangled to hell and back. At around that time, I finally started to exit the shock I was in.

"Now," HELLFIRE said, "allow me to do what I've been asked to do."

With that, HELLFIRE led Jenn, Leo, and myself back to clearing away the vines, his fire making short work of the plants. It was… well, it was very strange seeing "Robin" act so distant, even though I knew it wasn't actually her in control.

We fled deeper into the basement. The tree at the heart of the tower, like a grotesque Yggdrasil, grew outwards from here. On the ground knelt a young man with long black hair, some sort of vambrace on his arm, and…

"The Dagger," I muttered to myself. "That's… that's the Dagger."

The kid, Kai, was holding it tightly, scrawling some sort of runes on the ground, barely seeming to notice anything around him, or maybe just too overwhelmed to react.

The cane containing the last remaining fragment of the Manufactured Newborn was in the hand of the one who had killed it, and the one who had performed the ritual to bring it through was performing a ritual to brick it back. It was only natural, maybe, that that was when it happened.

There was a low rumble before a tower of metal and cables erupted from the ground beneath the tree. The tower was so massive that Robin only barely dove out of the way in time to avoid being smashed against the basement ceiling, hitting the ground as the cane in Robin's hand was merged into the rising tide. As the tower rapidly expanded outwards in a nightmare of cables and wires, past and future fought once more.

Somehow, we managed to escape the crossfire, the two Fears balancing one another even as they fought. It was a long trek back out of the Forest, but it seemed that the Newborn's rebirth had made it possible to escape, the anomalous properties of the area becoming less potent through the counteracting influence of the Newborn. We emerged, finally.

I don't know how to feel about Krenson's death. She made her choice, I suppose. I mean, I barely knew her myself; I only really knew what she meant to Jenn. But it seemed like she meant a great deal to her. And now she's dead.

There won't be a funeral for Krenson, just like there weren't funerals for the others. Far too many have died for that to even make sense.

I don't know. Even to the bitter fucking end, I just don't know.

In the Forest

Like the other AMU agents, I had been equipped with an anomalous gas mask, specially designed to counteract the effects of the Forest and its spores. However, those spores clouded the lenses, and when I cleaned them off, it became apparent that the AMU group had been split up, though I hadn't heard the sounds of footsteps going in any direction but my own. I'm going to have to chalk that up to the Forest's anomalous geometry.

I was left with Jenn, Leo, and Robin as the three of us made our way into the depths of the Forest. It was equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking- crumbling, abandoned homes overrun with mushrooms and vines, deer with hundreds of eyes and sharp teeth, people with ragged clothing and green-glowing scars all over their bodies.

That was when I caught sight of a man with long brown hair and a cane.

"Huh," he said. "You're the ARC agents who joined AMU instead, right?"
"Right," Jenn said. "And you are…?"
"Dr. Ferris. Not. Mr. Ferris."
"…Okay," Jenn said. "And Dr. Ferris is?"
"A friend of Malkator's," he said. "I research the Fears."
"Oh, I've read all about you," I said. "You built the Extractor that lets you harness the Fears' powers, right?"
"Wait, you can do that?" Robin asked. "I feel like that would've helped a lot of problems in the past…"
"It's not as easy as it seems. That kind of power attracts much stronger enemies, people with powers of their own."
"What, like a guy with birds inside him that can rip your friend's eye out?" Jenn said, her arms crossed.
Dr. Ferris scoffed. "I'm not talking about Nests."
Jenn glared.
"So, how does it work?" Leo asked, though I got the feeling it was at least partly to change the subject. "The Extractor, I mean."

"It's really pretty simple- well, in principle, anyway. It drains eldritch energy from a given sample, like, say, an Intrusion spider, then it amplifies it, then it compresses it into what I call a Cell, basically an eldritch battery. Then I have to get it back out, which-"

 

And that's when the tank showed up.

The tank's hatch opened, and a teenage girl popped her head out.

"Need a ride?"
I blinked. "What."
"I'm Kareena," she said.
"Huh," I said, squinting in confusion.

"You're with Kai, right?" Dr. Ferris said.
She gave a thumbs-up. "Well, was. We got separated from him while we were entering the Forest."
"We?" I asked.
"Me and Royce. Come on, you need to get to the center of the Forest, right?"
I glanced at Leo, who shrugged.
"Fuck it," Jenn said. "Why not."
"Is there even enough seating in here for all of us?" Robin asked.
"I'd say a lack of elbow room is preferable to dying," I said as I climbed into the tank.

"Well, I've got work to do," Dr. Ferris said. "See you around."

 

And then he vanished. Because, yes, he can do that.

With that, we drove to the heart of the Forest- the tower where KRAKEN had summoned the Manufactured Newborn.

Lightning strikes twice

Hi. I'm back.

Allow me to fill you in on what happened since my last post.

Moira died. I still don't know who killed her, but it didn't take long before there was a shootout between AMU and the combined forces of KRAKEN and the White Comet. I ran for cover, as did Robin and Leo. We weren't there for our firepower, after all. Jenn, however, shot some people on the other side, and she killed at least a few of them. It wasn't pretty, but it had to happen. They weren't going to let us into the Forest, and it was going to be bad enough just getting there.

Pretty soon, KRAKEN got taken out, and the White Comet fled.

We had dealt with our human enemies, but we still had a Forest to enter and a Convocation to deal with on its outskirts.

The birds stood vigil on the treetops, outlined in flashes of lightning and screaming in the sounds of thunder. At the same time, a young woman in a red dress walked out of the Forest with unnatural movements and a huge black dog with burning eyes padded into our midst.

The Convocation. The Wooden Girl. The Black Dog.

Our work was cut out for us.

 

We turned to an AMU higher-up named Dr. Eiffel, expecting a command to retreat. She didn't give it. We stood there, knowing that any of the three Fears could kill us in an instant, until, finally, something happened.

There was a voice from behind- the voice of Cimbrius Tviblindi, de facto director of AMU.

"Excuse me," he said as he pushed past Avie.

"Mr. Tviblindi, what are you doing here?" asked Dr. Eiffel. "It's dangerous!"

Tviblindi grinned. "Don't worry about me, Cassandra." Slowly, he took the sunglasses from his eyes.

 

Behind were not the eyes of a blind man, but the eyes of the Blind Man. Avie's account describes him as having had white voids instead of eyes, but what I saw was just a... blank patch of skin where his eyes should have been.

The others knelt before him, save for one Professor Malkator. Leo, Robin, Jenn and I glanced at each other and did the same. 

 

"There is no time for formalities, my children," the Blind Man said. "I am here to ensure your passage into the Forest. There will only be a short window for your survival. Do not hesitate."

The Blind Man and Black Dog approached one another, the Black Dog growing larger with every step until it was three times its original size.

 

The two of them stared at one another, the Blind Man with eyes that were not there and the Black Dog with eyes that burned like coals.

 

Neither made a sound.

 

The silence was finally interrupted by a cold and bitter wind, accompanied by the sound of a child singing "Alouette." The Cold Boy had arrived, and was standing by the Blind Man's side.

 

The Blind Man threw his cane at the Black Dog as it leapt towards him; midair, the cane transformed into a golden spear, piercing the Black Dog's hide.

The Convocation fell like a thunderbolt upon us, but a wall of ice blocked their descent. The Wooden Girl outstretched her hand, sending a number of strings towards us, but from nowhere, her form was blocked by that of a black mass of feathers, an anomalous being called Valravn that dug its claws into her wooden skin.

With the Fears entangled in combat, Dr. Eiffel gave the order, and we ran into the Forest.

Return to Seattle

We're fucking doing it. For... some reason. I guess the fine folks in the upper echelons of AMU genuinely believe that we can do something to deal with the Forest, even now. Or maybe they just know that if we don't go here, the alternative is that we end up consumed by the Forest anyways.

So we're at Seattle.

(What a way to spend Thanksgiving. Jesus. And last year this time I was trying not to get shot to death by ARC guards for making it obvious that I wanted my friend out of paramilitary confinement.)

Somehow, even now, it still manages to surprise me when I'm directly involved with these things instead of waiting on the sidelines. Even after a year of chasing and being chased by eldritch horrors and their servants (and, when push comes to shove, their enemies), it still manages to catch me off-guard. A deep part of me still says that this isn't right, I'm a college student, not an agent of an anti-anomaly organization turned agent for a pro-anomaly organization.

Oh, Jesus, I think the Forest cultists are here.

Let me back up. I've been a little busy, between making updates about my own experiences, dealing with paperwork, and trying not to get murdered by elder gods, but there are people who have decided to fucking worship the evil Forest that turns people into cannibal cavemen with plant matter for brains. They call themselves the White Comet, and they're working with KRAKEN.

The leader of the White Comet is a servant of the anomaly known as the Ivory Woman, a chalk outline of a woman whose presence brings only destruction and pain, with no clear motive or meaning beyond that. Said servant's name is Moira.

And now Moira is explaining what happened to her to make her join the White Comet. She doesn't seem to want to, though. She seems to be... in pain.

I think it's Avie. They're somehow ripping the secrets out of her.

This is fucked up.

OK. Things feel tense. Signing off now.

Captured, uncovered, wounded

They did it. They actually fucking did it.

The fine folks here at the Archive kidnapped two ARC field researchers who were out looking for information- I don't know the specifics of where they found them, how they knew they worked for ARC, how they got away with it, anything like that.

The agents didn't want to divulge any information at first. Obviously. But they did once it became clear what the alternative was.

I don't want to go into the details here. Suffice it to say it would've been quite unpleasant if they hadn't complied.

So we- yes, I'm including myself here- we went to ARC West headquarters, here in Washington, and we cut off the serpent's head. 

There were some survivors. They seem to have fled to the Midwest Branch. We're not interested in following them, though. The important thing is that they can't bother us here anymore.

Or near the Forest. 

Hope

I'm tired of hopelessness. I'm tired of scrambling through the dark like a scared animal. I'm tired of feeling like I'm just a tiny cog in something so huge I can't even understand it.

I need to remind myself why I keep fighting. There is light in my life, even with all the darkness around me.

When I look at Jenn, I think of how much she trusts me. She gave up so much when she turned against ARC. She didn't even trust the Archive- still doesn't- and yet she believes in me.

When I look at Leo, I remember how long we've been friends, how he's never steered me wrong, how he told me exactly what I needed to know when he knew I was getting in over my head after ARC first contacted me.

When I look at Robin, I think of how much she means to me. Of course it's awful that AMU is trying to turn her into a weapon, but Leo and Jenn and I, we saved her from ARC. We saved her from questionably-legal imprisonment by a shady and utilitarian paragovernmental organization. We saved her from that, and we aren't going to give up on her now.

The past was flawed, and the present is painful, but we can make the future better as long as we remember who we're doing it for.