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Chapter Text

Ghoul finally stumbled out of those evil corridors that might have been a mistake to go through. He was even almost relieved to end up in an office that looked almost certainly Better Living, from the expensive black table down to the man in the grey suit staring at him, unimpressed (after a moment of panic that Ghoul missed while picking himself off the floor).

Almost.

"And who might you be?"

Ghoul could still feel the green-purple alien mask on his face, luckily. He wasn't keen on BLI knowing what he looked like.

"What's it t' you?"

"You aren't from here. The Stranger, perhaps? Is there anything under that mask?"

"The fuck are you talking about, old man? Just say I'm prisoner and take me t' be re-educated or whatever. Or, even better, show me the door. I have things to do."

"I could tell you the same thing. I'd love to let you go, but unfortunately I can't See you, and I wish to examine you further."

"Fuckin' great," Ghoul muttered. "Just what I needed after wandering in those fucking corridors for a week. Getting prodded at by Bett'r Livin'."

"Who?"

"What?"

"Who is this Better Living you speak of? I don't have the time for a new Entity right now."

"Uh? Aren't you BLI?"

"Ceaseless Watcher. I haven't met this stupid of an avatar in a while, excluding Jon. It's refreshing."

"What's an avatar."

"I swear to- Who are you?"

"Y' sure this isn't Batt'ry City?"

"I don't Know of a place like that."

That wasn't good, but what had Ghoul to lose, anyway? This place was most likely bunch of Neutrals stuck in an underground bunker, probably told that nothing outside exists.

"I'm Fun Ghoul. Where the fuck am I, then?"

"The Magnus Institute. London."

"London, England?"

"Obviously."

"Wait, is this Before??"

"Before what? It better not be the Extinction."

"What year is it?"

"Before what??"

"I gotta know if London exists right now or not. 'T's a bet?" Ghoul tried.

"How aren't you compelled?" the man asked, eyebrows furrowing even more.

"Dunno. Radiation, probably. Or magic. Whichever got me moving tattoos, prob'ly."

"What happened to cause the change from this to... wherever you come from?"

"Do I look old enough to be alive back then? I don't know."

The man seemed speechless at that, which gave Ghoul a short moment of satisfaction. Being terrible at history was useful for once.

Before the man could say anything, the yellow door appeared again, a few meters above the floor, and Blue fell out, cursing.

"Ghoulie, thank 'Stroya I found you! Fucking corridors."

"Blue! Thanks f'r coming after me. This old guy tells us we're in London."

"Cult?"

"Probably."

"I'm not in a-" The man stopped and sighed. "Well, maybe-"

"I fucking knew it!" Ghoul whooped. "See, Blue? I'm never wrong."

"It's not actually a cult, and anyway, I'm the closest thing it has to a leader around here."

"Okay, cult leader guy, where the fuck are we really?" Blue asked. "You should know, shouldn't you?"

The man almost smiled.

"Now you…you must be from the Stranger, there's no way you're human. Didn't know they did robots, too. Was only a matter of time, really."

"Who you calling strange? I'll fucking skin you and then we'll see who's human, huh? Droidphobic piece of shit!"

Ghoul grinned at the cult-leader guy while holding back Blue.

"If I let her attack you, will ya tell us where the fuck we really are, cult leader guy?"

"London. What's so hard to get about that? We're in London, I'm not a cult leader, and I can't See you which is really stressful, okay? My name's Elias -- Jonah, not cult leader guy and I want to know who the hell you two are!" Elias-Jonah said exasperatedly.

"Fun Ghoul and Blue, two killjoys. I mean, Blue's technic'ly a Droid but she escaped the City so she's one of us now. London doesn't even exist anymore."

"Yes it does. I can See every single person in this fucking city going about their day. I can See Martin bringing Jon tea instead of doing his job, and I can see a man about to murder his sister. I can See everything I put my mind to, except for you."

"Sure, Elias-Jonah. You keep telling yourself that. Now, take us to the surface so we can go home?"

Elias -- Jonah -- he said Elias first, so Elias -- stared.

"What?"

"We are above the surface."

"Then let us out of this room?"

"Door's open. And take that mask off. Prove you're human."

Ghoul sighed and shook his head.

Elias sighed.

"Compelling, forgot," he muttered. "Please?"

Blue leaned over to Ghoul.

"He won't trust us without it. I mean, he won't trust me anyhow, but you...you look normal. Relatively."

Ghoul sighed even louder and took his mask off.

Elias leaned back.

"Okay, come on. Artefact Storage must have something. If you turn out to be from the Stranger I won't be happy."

The moment they stepped out of the door, Ghoul felt a strong sense of being watched all of a sudden. Elias smiled, then frowned in confusion. Still weaker than it should be.

"You aren't serving anyone, but you certainly aren't human. What are you?" He asked Blue.

"A Droid. Are you really this stupid? I've already said it once."

"And you...your past tells me you should be strongly marked by the Spiral, but you haven't. Where are you from?"

"Zonebred t' the bone. It's so fucking Batt City Weather here, by the way, it's stressing me out."

"It's the middle of summer."

"Colder than I'm used to."

"Okay, let me rephrase. When are you from?"

"20...23? 34? 56? Nobody knows, really. Time kind of went Costa Rica at one point and since then it's been a mess, with the seasons being random an' all."

"Why did this happen?" Maybe Compelling would work now.

"What did I just tell you? Time went wrong," Ghoul said angrily. How was this man so stupid?

Jonah cursed under his breath. Maybe exerting that much power towards them was a mistake. They all but disappeared from his Sight again.

He ignored Fun Ghoul for a moment, doing a routine sweep of the Institute. Everything seemed to be in order. Martin was making tea, as usual, Jonathan was reading a statement -- the dependence was almost certain by now, good -- Tim was hanging upside down from the lights in Jonathan's office, singing, and Sasha was out researching some avatar or another.

Wait, Tim --

Ghoul cleared his throat.

"Uh, cult leader guy?"

Elias sucked an angry breath in through his teeth.

"Not. A. Cult. Leader."

"I'm uncomfortable calling you Elias, you're too formal. Mr Magnus, perhaps?"

Elias--Jonah--froze.

"Wait. How did you-"

"How did I what?

"Know my name."

"You told us."

"No??"

"Wait, was that the portrait guy? Why do you have a portrait of yourself in your office?"

"Go away, I have to make a phone call."

"Can I explore Artefact Storage?"

"No, Fun Ghoul, you may not. As much as I don't care about you, I'd rather you not unleash a Not-Them or a Leitner on all of us."

"Fine."

Jonah sighed and dialled Peter's number. He hated being bothered like this, but he wouldn't complain after having two new people to play with. Fun Ghoul had an air of the Lonely, and he wouldn't be hard to break.

"Peter!"

"Hello, Elias. I thought I told you not to bother me."

"I have two victims for you."

"Why not take them for yourself, starfish? You must be hungry by now."

"I have the staff. Anyways, I can't See them. They say they're from the future, and apparently London doesn't exist anymore."

"Really? Was it the Extinction? The Unknowing?"

"They don't know."

"Might even be the Watcher's Crown, starfish. You can hope."

"I hope not, because the way it sounded, all the fears were gone," Jonah snapped. "Along with my rule, probably. And don't call me starfish, you know we're not married right now."

Peter laughed.

"These two are really messing with your head, hmm? Look at your hand."

Jonah looked. Sure enough, there was a gold band on it. He cursed.

"Sorry, Peter. It does appear that they aren't helping my already frayed nerves, with the police officers and the Unknowing and whatnot. So, take them to the Lonely?"

"I'll see when I can come by. Don't let them wander off. I want them fresh." Jonah could hear Peter's smile, like that of a shark's.

Not letting them wander off? Easy. They should still be right...

Predictably, Fun Ghoul wandered off.

Blue smiled insincerely at Jonah.

"I'm gonna go look for him. You go back to your office."

Jonah sighed and obeyed this strange blue robot. At least he could still faintly See them if he wanted to.

Right?

Chapter Text

Ghoul didn't like the Institute.

It was enormous yet strangely pressing, and so old. Ghoul never trusted old things, they were more often than not cursed. Average things rarely made it through an apocalypse unscathed.

He must have ended up underground, because windows suddenly ceased to be on the walls. Yay.

It was stiflingly quiet, and the walls were filled with cupboards and shelves, all chock-full of uneven stacks of paper. Ghoul didn't like paper, either.

(Paper was rare After, and was mostly used for sending messages to people who weren't there. And if they weren't there, they could be dead by the time the message got there.)

All the shelves looked the same--this place could've been a slightly less pristine and more ancient Better Living building--and soon he was hopelessly lost. The walls were all but pressing in on him and the air felt so stale and bland he felt sick. It felt tinged with fear, somehow.

Someone seemed to be talking off in the distance, and Ghoul all but started running towards them. Maybe they could help. He needed to be back under the sun soon or he felt he would choke.

It took him longer than he wanted to find them, though realistically it can't have been more than a few minutes. It was an office of some sort, also filled to the ceiling with paper, and tape recorders for some reason, just like the ones Cherri had. There were two people sitting in the room, their arms filled with circular scars, nothing like Ghoul had ever seen before. Something was beeping. Ghoul didn't feel safer at all.

The long-haired one was explaining something to the other, who holding some kind of device in his hand. So that was the source of the beeping.

"Jon, did you make a radioactive tape recorder appear?"

"No, Tim," 'Jon' sighed, "I didn't do that."

"Still, maybe we should get out of here before we get radiation poisoning from whatever's making this thing go off."

"You guys can still get radiation poisoning?"

The two of them whipped around. The scars extended all the way to their faces, too.

"What sort of question is that? Yes!" Tim said, exasperatedly.

"How did you get here?" Jon asked, in that strange tone that Elias-Jonah used too, then winced. "Sorry."

"Uh...why did you do that strange voice? Don't apologise, Elias-Jonah tried it too and it didn't work."

Jon blinked.

"There's clearly a lot to unpack here, so let's start with introductions," Tim said. "I'm Tim. This is Jon. Are you the radioactive thing in the room?"

"Hi. Fun Ghoul. Yes."

"What."

"I didn't know there was this little radiation Before. Maybe that's why the air smells so empty. It's heavy, though. Someone's watching me?"

"Yeah, that'd be Elias."

"So the Unknowing happened, huh?" Jon said dejectedly.

"Not sure what that is, but I'd say the world isn't gonna end for a bit yet. I'm pretty bad at history, though, so don't take my word for it."

"So you're...a time traveler."

"Yeah. How do I get outta here? The second I finish getting lost in some weird-ass corridors I get lost in a strange ancient building, with m' luck."

"Ah. Michael. I'm sorry."

"The yellow door-corridor thing's called Michael."

"Yup," Tim said, sighing.

"So, Compelling doesn't work on you?"

"Uh...that's what the weird voice is called? Yeah, seems so. Why?"

"Just never met anyone like that. Apart from Elias, but I don't think he counts."

"So his name's Elias, not Elias-Jonah?"

"Why would you -- he introduced himself as Jonah?" Jon asked, laughing.

"...Yeah?"

"He...oh my fucking god," Tim said, doubling over. "He intro --"

"Just get me outta here, okay? This place is worse than the Underground, 't least people know what fun is over there."

"I'm offended by that," Tim said. He was wearing a shirt bright enough to be a Killjoy's, to be fair.

"Where can I get one of those?"

"Those whats?"

"Shirts."

"Uh…I think I have another one somewhere? But... don't you have shops in your future?"

"There's one shop, but Tommy banned me."

"Oh, I like you. If only you weren't fucking radioactive. What kind of fucking wasteland--"

"Come on, Fun Ghoul, I'll lead you out of here," Jon said before Ghoul either started fighting Tim or telling them things that would definitely disrupt some space-time continuum or something, displaying a surprisingly good reading of the room. Maybe he was evil like Elias-Jonah was, too.

Tim stayed there, finishing up whatever he was doing before, and Jon navigated him out of the Archives pretty soon. Another proof of his evil powers, obviously. This place was more cobwebby than Ghoul saw at first. Finally something good about this place.

"Hey, d'you think there are spiders here?"

"I hope not," Jon shuddered.

"Aw, come on, who doesn't love spiders? Look, there's one. I'm gonna introduce them to Junie," Ghoul said, ignoring Jon's expression of curiosity mixed with...fear? Oh well, apparently Before people weren't Spider-Friends. Shame.

"Who's...Junie?"

"My tattoo. She has a tad too many legs compared to your spiders, but she won't harm you. The only people who ever believed me were Kobes and Blue, for some reason. Come on, Junie, look, I have a friend for you!"

Jon was looking very pale, and Ghoul frowned.

"Is she climbing on my face again? I've told her not to do that."

Ghoul turned towards the corner with the spider again, and there was a strange plop. Jon didn't see anything for a few seconds, luckily, apart from...legs. Waay too many legs.

The plop repeated and Ghoul turned back towards Jon, a large, sixteen-legged spider tattoo crawling down his neck and diving under his collar.

"Umm...sorry about that. Apparently she finds small spiders tasty. Have you seen a blue-haired uh….what do you call Droids again? Robot? Around here? She must have gone looking for me at some point. I hope she still isn't with Elias-Jonah."

Jon blinked a few times, seeming to reboot for the third or fourth time since the time Ghoul knew him.

"No, I...haven't. Maybe I could ask Rosie?"

"Okay. I just wanna be home again, you know? This place has nice big windows. I'll stay here. Come back, okay? This is a dang'rous--" Ghoul sighed. "Well, I guess this one isn't as much. Just don't die, okay?"

"Er...okay. I'll...I'll do my best."