Harmonia finally stirs from her sleep, groaning and bringing a hand to her head. "What...happened...?" Roxy and Claire are standing right by the bed.
"You were asleep like all day," Roxy says.
She feels her head, realizing her horns and ears are all gone. "Theyre... gone??" She says in confusion, starting to sit up. Claire nods.
"Yeah you look a lot less kawaii neko chan princess katana chan and more Harmonia now," Roxy smiles. Claire steps on Roxy's foot.
Harmonia stares at Roxy blankly. "heh??" She sighs and looks around, remembering what happened the night before. "I assume you guys have questions for me?"
"Nope, Porcelain already got it on the website," Roxy sighs. "How did that even HAPPEN actually, you disappearing like that. There was no darkness for either of us."
"I... i have no idea..." She says, sighing. She brings a hand to her wrist, rubbing it. "Can't believe I thought anything good of Azriel..."
"I mean, considering he's a Violence demon......" Roxy mutters.
"I'm glad you're okay," Claire leans down and gives Harm a kiss on the forehead
Harmonia leans against her. "Yeah I know I just... was happy to have someone answer my questions for once. I'm just tired of being belittled..."
"I feel that," Roxy says, sitting on the bed. "You doing alright?"
Harmonia looks at the floor, staring at her hands. "No... not really." She says with a sigh
"What's up? Talk to us," Roxy says, as Claire holds Harmonia's hand
"I just... I've spent all summer training in my free time, desperately trying to get stronger so im not just a fucking sitting duck but it means nothing because everything I go against has more powers and is fucking better than me." she says, sighing. "Im tired of always being the fucking damsel in distress or whatever but it feels like i cant fix it. Like no matter what I do, i'll be weak and the rest of the kiss will always see me as such."
Claire holds Harmonia's hand and leans on her.
KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK
Someone's at the front door lol!!!
Roxy dematerializes.
---
She rematerializes at the front door, opening it. Upon seeing Orpheus, "Whore."
Orpheus nervously scratches the back of his neck, looking into the cottage behind her. "Is. Harmonia here? I was told Harm was here, so."
"Indeedly doo buckaroo! C'mon down," Roxy starts making her way to the basement, gesturing for Orph to follow. He follows.
The basement is fucking lainpilled, computers basically everywhere. Theres enough room to walk between two separate areas, both having spinny chairs, and one area having a twin sized bed that Harmonia's laying on with Claire.
Harmonia sits up, eyes widening. "Orpheus?"
He smiles when seeing her! "Harm! Hi. SO... Did, uh?? Something happen??? Because Thrall called me and was like shoving his whole face against the camera asking if something happened because I dont fuckin know he felt a disturbance in the force or whatever. So then I asked L1M where you were and they said 'wife' so I came here. ...Did, your uhh... Horns fall off or something???"
"No uh... welll... uh..." Harmonia smils nervously. "Someone tried to assassinate me by pulling out my soul? It backfired because it ate like half of him instead but also it took my horns and wolf shit."
"That's me I'm wife," Claire smiles.
"Wow. Uh. Need a hug??? Or, I guess another hug."
"Yeah... please." Harmonia says with a nervous smnile. Orpheus fucking bearhugs her oww ow ow ow that's just a little bit too strong of a hug oww. Also yeah he smells tell him to shower.
Harmonia gasps in pain but hugs him back. "Oh god you need to shower" She says with a laugh
He DROPS her. ".Really?"
"Yes!!" She says, laughing a bit
He huffs. "Well. Look! Wrath is WEIRD I've been getting COMPLIMENTS."
"Probably because it's full of horny gay men who have musk kinks plus its full of frat boys who probably never shower so they most likely cant even smell you," Roxy says with a SMILE. A certain horny gay man sneezes somewhere else.
---
Cerberus sneezes.
---
"What she said is true actually," Harmonia says.
Orpheus blushes. "ARENT YOU THE ONE THAT LITERALLY LEFT THE SINK FULL OF BLOOD AND LEFT??? wait sorry WAIT NO LUNA ISNT AROUND YOU LEFT THE SINK FULL OF BLOOD!!!"
Roxy puffs out her chest, sucking in her cheeks with a pursed smile, one eyebrow raised. "Yes." Orpheus punches her in the fuckin balls. "AAAAACCCCKKKKKKK" She RECOILS. HE KICKS HER GENTLY. SHE STARTS (fake) SOBBING.
"OH MY GOD???" HARMONIA CACKLES.
"ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜" Roxy sobs!!!
Orpheus stops and turns to Claire with a huff. "I can't believe you live with someone who says :sob: outloud."
"I think she might have autism," Claire sighs with a playful smile.
"I LITERALLY DO!?!?@??"
"This is what autism does to the youths of today...." Orpheus gasps.
Harmonia chuckles. "Should I text Thrall?"
"What if I ate Thrall." Roxy says.
"You literally cant"
"What if i DID"
"Vored, I'd say," Orpheus smiles.
"Fr!!!" Roxy replies. Orph picks Roxy up. "ACK WHAT ARE YOU DOING," she WRIGGLES. HE SHAKES HER. "ACKKKK" flicks of static exist in the air for mere nanoseconds as shes shooketh. He tosses her on HARMONIA! SHE EXPLODES INTO STATIC and reforms behind Orpheus, placing her hands on the back of his neck and scratching him in the way that makes people uncomfortable you know what i mean. He skrinkles.
"OH YEAH ORPHEUS HEY" She says.
"WHGHHW WHAT"
"Ok so like Claire and I are doing this project involving rose are you interested" :]
"What. is it?"
"Its mostly like!! to see what the program itself can do, Claire found another version of it when we were at Raine's house, and it works by using blood that R053 traveled through and loading the R053 profiles into the program and stuff!!" Roxy smiles, "The notes about it said stuff about Sorath as well as some sort of weird religious bullshit but I'm super interested in figuring it out because it's like FINALLY we have a cool mystery to solve that isn't Marble Hornets 2 or locked behind an 18+ sign on a pirate ship!!"
"I wanna help," Harmonia sits up.
"I mean we kind of assumed you were gonna because you're here," Roxy mumbles, "But Orph has a R053 in that lil brain of his so he could potentially connect to The Machine....."
Orpheus seemed half zoned out for a good like minute but perking up with the mention of R053. "OH RIGHT yeah, that COULD happen! ...Although that would probably break. Like. Something??? I don't exactly know how functional the profile stuff is since... like. Y'know!"
"I mean considering Cody uses Writer to get in I don't really know if Eury would make much of a difference at all! It might work but even then this is Raine we're talking about he's probably prepared for every outcome"
"Raine fucking scares me." Orpheus says, "Like, dead serious. Man makes a fucking ironic passionproject fanime, turns Spider into a human, and devours an entire magic clock like it's a handful of cheezits within the same breath."
"He's fucking crazy that's why I'm not worried"
"..True. Hmm... Sure. Why not, I've got nothing better to do! ..Plus better than being at the house lmao. ...Cody's the fuckin creepypasta right? One of them. Not gonna get into how Asphodel totally kins Vriska because clocktwerk or whatever was just vriska x Jeff the killer." Orpheus sits down on the bed, tail thwapping against Harm's FACE.
"Yeah Cody's X-Virus, yknow the Ticci Toby spinoff thing?" Roxy sits on the floor criss cross applesauce
"OI-" Harmonia smacks at his TAIL.
His tail is literally bigger than her probably lol thwapthwapthwapthwapthwapthwapthwa, "Ticci toby had a SPINOFF??? Wasn't that bitch already a spinoff of like???? Fuckin???? I dunno."
"Ticci Toby was more of like. A teenager's fanfic proxy OC. The real guy was weird, I hope he's doing okay with the whole apocalypse thing. Also I'm realizing now that in the stories, Cody met Toby and Toby dated Clockwork it's all connected holy shit?? Where does Eyeless Jack come into that picture because Daniel..." Roxy is THINKING.
ORPHEUS BARKS AND LOOKS AT CLAIRE "YOUR DAD IS EYELESS JACK?????"
"I suppose he's the 'real world equivalent'?" Claire chuckles, "They do look fairly similar."
"I need a body count. Or, like, like. Like YOU KNOW KIDNEY COUNT." Orpheus says. Harmonia looks confused and GRABS ORPHEUS TAIL
"I wouldn't know. Plus, he typically eats all the organs, not just kidneys," she smiles, the creepypasta.com entry for eyeless jack showing up on one of the nearby monitors.
"HE?????!??? EYELESS JACK ATE THE FUCKING KIDNEYS?"
"Yeah in the creepypastas he did, but Daniel often makes use of the whole body."
HARMONIA BITES ORPHS TAIL
"Thanksgiving has to be interesting with this fuckin famiAABARK BARK BARK BARK AWEHH??" Harmonia's face gets REPEATEDLY SLAPPED BY ORPHEUS' PAWS. SHE TRIES TO BITE HIS PAWS!!
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHE CACKLES AND BITES
ORPHEUS STARTS WRESTLING HER
SHE FUCKING WRESTLES BACK "GRRR"
ORPHEUS TRIES TO PUT HER IN A HEADLOCK
IT WORKS
ORPHEUS TRIES TO FUCKING WRAP HIS THIGHS AROUND HER NECK
SHE CLAWS AT HIS TIGHS
he stops "ow" :(
"Whos winning" roxy asks
"ME." Orpheus BARKS
"Good fuck her up"
He resumes.
SHE BITES HIM
HE FALLS OFF OF HER AND INTO THE GROUND
SHE ATTACJKS AND KEEPS BITITNG
"AAAHH AHHHH AAAA BARK BARK AWWOOO"
"MWAHAHAHHA" BITE BITE BITE
"AaaaAAAAAAAA" SHE GEGS KICKED IN THD FUCKING CROTCH
SHE KEEPS BITITNG
"AAaaaaAAAWOOOOO"
SHE CACKLES
He FROWNS :[
She giggles and gets up. "Okie i win"
He huffs. "homophobia.."
"Nope! Anyways, what now?" Harmonia asks.
Orpheus looks at roxy.
Roxy looks at him.
He looks at Claire.
Claire looks at Roxy.
Roxy looks at Harmonia.
Harmonia looks at Orpheus.
He looks around at all 3 of them. "..." He whimpers, tail thumping against the ground. "You guys give me anxiety sometimes." He pulls out his phone and dials a number. "Hey, is this Hell Rhode's Pizza? Can I get a-"
-- Some time later!! --
Jesse throws clothes into a duffle bag, grabbing a pair of sunglasses from his dresser. Something about the air in his house felt wrong now. But it happened, so.. whatever, right? there was nothing he could do to change it- it was over. He was fine, he was. But god some days he just wanted to cry.
Max appeared, pulling out a small red pouch from his hoodie pocket, and blowing an orange dust into Jesse's face, "You're feelin passive, correct?"
Jesse inhaled sharply, coughing and rubbing his eyes. He was indeed passive, "Yeah... I don't necessarily want to bash your fucking head in right now, given what you've done I'd say I'm pretty fucking passive."
Max smiled, and clapped his hands together, "Nice- It's pizza time." Max grabs Jesse's hand, "Get ready, buckaroo!"
Jesse squints his eyes and groans, suddently they disappear in a flash of yellow distortion!
~~~~~
>!! FOREIGN OBJECT(S) ENTERING LIM_VEIL1
~~~~~
Max appears, tethered to Jesse by a firm hand-hold. Jesse blinks, the room spinning a little slower than it was initially.
"Okay so where is here, Max? You can't just abduct me like this and keep me in the god damn dark, jabroni-"
Roxy is sitting on the floor and looks to Jesse. "YOU."
Jesse's head stops doin the blurry effect, and his vision finally centers, "Me?- Oh- Me! Yeah, Greetings." He waves.
"Hi gays" Harmonia smiles.
"We are not- Well im unsure about him, but I'm only in love with my god." Max thinks about Knowingness for a second, a stupid little goofy grin flashing across his face.
Harm blinks at him. "I know a gay when I see one"
"Then you have to be talking about him because I simply could not lay with anyone but my one true lord." Max says matter-of-factly. Harmonia stares directly into Max's eyes. menacingly. "Okay well maybe I am, alright? But I can't admit to anything- just like Jesse can't admit to what he does, because he is not gay."
Jesse elbows Max in the arm, grimacing with red cheeks, "Dawg actually stop- that was said in confidence of privacy, you can't."
Max shrugs, holding his hands in the air, "Whatever-"
"Gays!" Roxy smiles "Homos!" Claire silently scarfs an entire 3 slices of pizza down in one foul swoop. Jesse grabs ahold of one of the small swivel seats, and sits down with his burning face in his sweaty palms. Max grabs a slice of pizza and throws it into Jesse's lap, sitting down amongst the wires.
"So, how's life," Harm asks.
"Eh, good for the most part. Knowingness says I'm really close to being ready for this trial thing- Pretty excited for that." Max picks up and examines a few of the wires, feeling the rubber casing protecting the actual wire. The wires feel relatively normal! Some feel like somethings flowing thru em though. Jess picks up the slice and takes a bite. He nods, not needing to steel himself to the taste. Max held one of the wires that felt like it had movement inside of it. "Hey- What are these wires for?"
Roxy perks up, "So I explained it to Orph but uhhh it's like. We have these pills called R053 that are connected to an AI that travels through your blood and latches onto your mind and some of us took these pills a while ago, I personally don't recommend, and UHHH we're trying to do stuff involving a related AI that Claire's host left behind that has stuff to do with Sorath and that's a whole different rabbit hole"
Jesse looks up from the slice before setting it down on his knee, "Wait wait- R053? I saw that word on a funky pamphlet I pulled out of my dream. Do you know anything about the Church of the Raindrops?"
Max sighs and looks over at Jesse. "Kid thinks he has superpowers or something- He's just delusional. Too much pot if I say so, but that's cool. They're satisfying as hell." Max pulls out his phone, laying back in the wires.
"Yeah most of us are ex-members," Roxy smiled, "I'm an ex-leader, Claire's an ex-executioner, and I think Harmonia's currently working there against her will. Orpheus just kinda took R053 as a part of a deal involving his ex boyfriend I think?"
Jesse's gaze fell to the floor, blinking quite hard. "I heard that if someone joins, all my kind of problems just stop happening. Is that like, for real?"
"I mean. Honestly? It's the safest bet with the apocalypse going on, really," Roxy sighs. "But it's more of a last resort to be honest."
"Yeah.." Harmonia thinks about the cult. It didnt seem that bad? Least not for its followers.. but who knows. Jesse then entered silent contemplation, setting the new record for time set outside of his head.
Max rolled onto his back, holding his phone above his face, "Jesse joins a cult part one."
"I mean hey it's better than whatever that weird dog thing's cult is, probably," Claire sighs, eating another slice.
"You mean Nicole?????? She has a name jesus christ," Roxy grumbles
Harmonia snickers. "We know you got the hots for her, Meadows."
"Yeah what of it whore," Roxy does the fucking chadface again. Jesse quietly finished his slice and got another. Max adjusted how he was sitting, tuning into the conversation.
"WHORE?? Wow. Where's your partner anyways?"
"Hibernating at my place"
"Damn"
Max turned and looked at Jesse. "Hey buddy- do me a favor?"
Jesse lifted his head to meet his gaze, "Yeah?"
"Take a look around you- You're surrounded by tech and stuff. Also that dude Cole Garnet's a cyborg."
Jesse turned his head and finally saw all of the computers. A light lit up in his face, and he was suddenly up and mobile. "Duuuude... This basement is gnarly-"
"Thanks we randomly threw a ton of computers together," Claire smiles
"Did you hear what I said about-"
"Yeah yeah- I heard you-" Jesse closely inspected the machines that made up his environment. He didn't really hear what Max said about Cole, "Truly fucking excellent- Absolutely 100%!"
Max starts doing a kind of robot impression, "JeSsE hAs LoGgEd oN tO tHe MaTriX- Seriously though, he'd out of comission for a minute. This is wonderland to him."
All the screens show similar things, mostly txt files, though some just display this symbol:
Harmonia watches Jesse, chuckling a bit. "Techies smh"
Max looks over at Harmonia, "He watched Serial Experiments Lain once when he was 12- Hell, I'm the one who recommended it to him. I just didn't know the influence would be this big."
"Oh my god thats like Roxys favorite show"
"I swear it wasn't me who put the wired symbol it was Raine he made the program," Roxy chuckles. Jesse touched one of the screens very gently, pulling his hand away before too long. He sat back down, attention on the screens. What a surreal feeling to be surrounded by all of this..
"Regardless, I think dumb little stoner likes it." Max picks something up small out of his pocket, and throws it at Jesse. It bounces off of his head, Jesse only turning and swatting a little bit before resuming staring at the screens. "Jabroni's gone tunnel vision-"