Blank, grey darkness.

There were no demarcations made by any sort of change in its monotony.

“Huh… where am I?” whispered someone somewhere from within in the dull grey space, a boyish aspect to their voice. They had a notable voice, but nothing else could be determined about them because…

Well, because (as the individual said in simple-minded confusion) “It’s so dark in here.” A light, breathy note of panic fluttered beneath their voice.

A loud thump reverberated quickly in the darkness, thrumming throughout the whole space as if this person’s containment was small and tight.

“Ow!” 

A light rustling whispered through the possible closure. Perhaps it was the sound of the hair on one’s head being rubbed in smarting pain.

“Did someone capture me?” they wondered. 

“I don’t like this!” they said panickedly. 

A susurrus of fabrics whispered against walls as they tried to arrange themselves so as to obtain more space.

They must have started banging on the cage because the sound of fists hitting metal was all that could be heard for the next hour. One of the walls rattled on squeaky hinges the entire time. It must be a door.

Then, without warning, the door opened.

A flash of light illuminated the scene, blinding the person as much as the opaque grey did, making a brief glimpse available of a cowering girl. Rivers poured down her face onto a puddle of tears, currently soaking the red trimming of her pink schoolgirl skirt. The mini-lake rapidly streamed out of the locker upon opening.

Revealed was an illuminated, near-scarlet silhouette of a red-haired girl raising her hands to fend off the light. 

As her eyes adjusted, starry red gas crept in unbeknownst to her.

It cast her realization of its impending threat in an ethereal light. A beautiful moment of shock was painted across her face in real-time.

The eyes were unnaturally proportioned, akin to anime placed in the real world. Yet they matched the elaborate pig tails, each so long as to coil on the ground near her lap. 

Lengthy, narrowed eyes, ringed in dripping mascara, widened from furiously crying slits to solid, vertical ovals. Her red eyes deepened in the shade as more of the unnatural lights fluttered around her, these sparkles striating her irises with maroon stripes.

Her pursed lips wobbled, the motion only noticeable by their shadow moving on her chin.

She blinked.

Immediately, she reached for the door, trying to bring it right back to a close.

“Ohhh no!”

No!” she barked vehemently.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NOOO.” she repeated rapid-fire

No, no, NO!” The franticness and desperation growled loudly underneath her voice.

“HAHA!” she disbelievingly laughed.

“No, NO hohohohohoooo…” Uhhhh… NOOO!!!! Nice try, but, errr, NO,” she refused the gas’s advancement, trying to dissuade the gas from its encroachment, her high, unique voice adding comedy to the scene of the tiny child precariously trying to balance herself on the floors of the locker. 

Her slipper-shod shoes were trying to hook around the slippery rectangular box. Tiny fingers reached out for the door.

“Ohhh… I am way too high,” she whispered very softly. Down, down, down, her eyes dropped. There was nothing but a starry red abyss filled with clouds of the same color, all reaching out for the tiny being very, very, very high up.

She redoubled her efforts, whimpering in terror all the while.

“I recognize this! This is fucking sleeping gas! I’m not letting my captor fuckin’ roofie me. Absolutely no fuckin’ way.” A strong ‘popular girl’ drawl twanged in her otherwise falsetto boyish voice.

The potion-red gas slowly rose from the abyss to fill the rest of the air.

To her shock, the voluminous smoke was solid beneath her fingers, her fumbling for the doorway reaching the blockade of the smoke. She could not reach the locker door, for that is what she seems to have found herself in.

“What cuntbag madman designed this ballsack stuffed ‘f shit?! I hope they get pinned whining like a bitch to fuckin’ Satan’s arse!” she screamed in frustration.

She was much too crass for a child’s book series…

Alas, she was too much of a short queen, her fingers only succeeding in twiddling the sides of the door.

‘Is this karma? Is Sola-sama getting revenge?!’ she queried internally. She observes the creeping galaxy of red with no little bit of horror.

“Please, come on! Let’s talk this out! Hey! Want me to pay you back? I can do that, I promise. As a vampire knock-off, I promise my funds are quite extensive for cosplay! Really! I promise! I can just take a bit from my coffers! I’ll pay back your lunch money, Sola-sama! It’s not a problem!” she frantically pleaded. All pride, everything reminiscent of the shitty brat known and beloved by Scribble Hub High School, was dispensed with. She pressed herself as far back into the cold, unforgiving metal.

The locker was obscenely strong when it should have folded beneath her vampiric strength as easy as tissue paper. A bit of snot dribbled down her chin, whimpering and sniffling as the magic-red smoke took its time surrounding her.

“Please…” she begged.

‘What can I say to get this red smoke off my back?’ she frantically thought. 

A lightbulb of realization flickered above her head. It lit up the locker floating above the abyss, a free-floating lighthouse in stormy weather for a moment.

“I have a family!” she remembered aloud. Rather belated… “You wouldn’t hurt a girl with a family, right? Ohohoho…” she smugly said, in a ‘gotcha’ moment.

Now, the only light was the jewel-like sparkles gleaming in the tight space.

Marshmallow-thick stubs reached out of the clouds for an embrace.

She placed her hands on her hips, her lips curled up in a confident and prideful smile.

“I’m totes safe.”

The sparkles flickered out all at once.

“Oh fuck.”

Far, far, far away.

“I swear she was just in here!” Sola-sama mumbled, gesturing to the empty locker in mystified stupefaction. He ran his hand through his luscious locks again. By now, they were disorderly from the nervous habit.

“Uh-huh,” Luoir stated.

Sola-sama’s eye twitched at the disbelief echoing in Luoir’s classic sus-voice.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Not really,” Luoir said, casually stabbing a metaphorical knife through Sola-sama’s heart.

Sola-sama sighed deeply. It certainly hurt, the disbelief that he could have captured ElliePorter. He closed the door and then opened it for the fiftieth time in those ten minutes.

Nothing inside, or on the door either. Just a genuinely fun-sized box of theater popcorn with a slushie the same height as his crazy darling next to it. (The size of his crazy darling. Not the crazy vampire knock-off sh**ty brat. His true love.)

He just wanted some recompense for his lunch money. That’s all… 

Maybe prove he couldn’t keep being pushed around… but that was it!

Just in case, he did it one more time. Nothing. 

Sad UwU

(*,U_U,*)

He felt a hand rummaging through the pockets of his kimono, uncomfortably brushing against his hips.

His posture stiffened. A piercing light washed over his narrow glasses.

Slowly, with gritted teeth, he turned around to see the face of Luoir looking so studious.

‘So studious… this same man is searching his pockets to “Steal His LunCH MOnEY?!” The innocent bean did not even consider the possibility of more… disturbing possibilities for Luoir’s intentions. He had been stolen from far too often, and more importantly, he was simply inexperienced when it came to filth like Luoir.

He spun on a fine satin-covered heel, the hemline of his delicate kimono flaring dramatically. His finger rammed forward into Luoir’s forehead accusation. Tendons strained along his strong hands.

“Ow!” Luoir yelped like a beaten HelloHound. He rubbed his forehead, smarting in pain. His dome piece already had a shiny, red bulge swelling on it. To the dirty-minded, the parallels are to be ignored.

Inflammation is a bitch, you molester.

A long-forgotten past and all of the expertise that came with it welled up in Sola’sama’s soul. Glasses still shining, his grip encircled the scum’s throat and hoisted the thief bodily up into the air.

“How do you like that suffocation from where you’re at? Petty as stealing my lunch money, isn’t it?” Sola-sama asked coldly, his warlord persona creeping through. His long ponytail shed the pin and band holding it in place, whipping around in an unseen, violent current of water. 

Mayhaps it was flowing in a languid stream of molten rock instead. His hair flowed in a manner akin to a waterfall of lava, a cooling red riddled with crags of char illuminating each waving strand of hair.

Luoir’s face turned beet red. His feet dangled helplessly in Sola-sama’s irresistibly firm grip.

Switching to the man of today, a manic smile reminiscent of the yanderes he loves, and thus desired to emulate, painted itself avidly across his face. A tiny moan escaped Luoir’s lips before it was ruthlessly choked off by a glowing aura of demonic red settled into a loose chain mail of devil-red links draped around Sola-sama’s fingers.

Luoir’s clothes lit on fire, a conflagaration of deep rose-red flame flames devouring fabrics. And soon to be consuming skin.

Easily, Sola-sama thrusted Luoir’s limp body into the locker. Teeth bared, he smiled even wider, baring gums as the pale maroon locker closed on Luoir’s trembling self.

Something erect of Luoir’s literally burned away like a wick in the dark.

~How hot~

“^w^?” Sola-sama blinked rapidly in cute confusion, looking back and forth before going back to the locker. Rather unrelated to this boring narrator’s voice though.

Instead, the focus of his bewilderment was a sepia-toned teddy bear wearing sunglasses. He connected the dots before getting on his knees, not caring about scuffing his kimono to hug the bear. 

He caringly embraced the bear, bringing the paint-brush holding toy close to his chest. Painstakingly, he took care to place the warmly colored bear on the floor.

“See ya later, teach,” he said, saluting the stuffed animal. 

“Don’t worry… He winked. An assured and cocky smile played on his lips. “I can totally fix her.”

He clambered into the narrow locker, settling down onto his bottom. He hummed happily, a tuneful little ditty for only him to enjoy. 

The locker door immediately started closing off its own volition, but contrary to his surprise for Ellie Porter and Luoir, he welcomed it for himself. He had discovered the reason why they had dissapeared, after all.

He reached and closed the door, impatient to be taken all the faster.

His crazy darling was here.

A thing stood on his shoulders as he grinned widely, the hallway’s lights barely illuminating even just his shiny teeth. It nuzzled his cheek, a woven still of rough stitches and chalky leather.

Before the door closed, his eyes upturned into frigid lunar joy, only one visible through the near absent opening. 

He was staring at Tony, the head of Scribble Hub.

He reciprocated, nuzzling back into the insanity as Tony watched.

The thing’s snuggles cast a cool blue shadow across his silently shaking face.

The trembling was mocking laughter.

___________________________________________________

On a table, a black and white map was unrolled, and a red carpet was unrolled with a flourish for the small figure matching its color.

Really, though, it’s just a fun treasure map! The treasure, of course, is the friends she made along the way.

A pair of buttons stare coldly at the map. 

It’s pretty cold in the room, after all! Plastic doesn’t have a high capacity for heat, so those buttons always stare coldly.

Its lively grin shrieked, leather lips squealing together - as old leather is oft to do - as the smile widened.

The buttons disappeared.

Leaving the face eyeless.

It gripped the table, head leaning back with exuberance, gazing listlessly at the ceiling. A wheezing laughter nearly seized in its most drab chest, a horrid pain coming from something calling itself a sane woman who doesn’t worship the Stars outside of character.

Happy tears streamed down its face.

It slammed its head into the table. The sound was barely audible.

Popped eyeballs and red blood splatter across the white lines of the map, splattering with the wet smacking sounds of lips and paint spray. The many arrays of lines were arranged in whatever exists outside of the Stars’ dreams, only understandable to the toy similarly living outside. A maze of emotional emptiness and opaque fuzzy-minded white, it consumes one to see a fun adventure that grips your mind until you can exit it.

An eye of crisp, sharp contrasts unfurled in a hall like a rose of white razors and grey needles. A bulge formed, a distended womb split by a grin of broken scissors.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” the Monotone Puppet screamed with laughter. Hands were held up as it landed on its knees, monochrome blood gushing from its button eyes, which had been replaced in this interim. Monochrome blood also streamed from its nonexistent ears, jack-o-lantern nose, and stitched mouth by the gallon. 

A tsunami of beautifully painted, scarlet waves flooded the hallways.

A boy turned from the shootout, stopping in a stick-up of iamnotabot. Kureous’s gun dropped listlessly to his side. He snorted in laughter, taking his mosaic-ringed sombrero and wrapping his arm around it, held to his chest.

“What the fuck is this? LOL! Never an odd day,” he said, welcoming the flood with open arms. 

His red-checkered poncho and tasseled pants, an off-white with red yarn, were swallowed hungrily by the flood. Swept off his feet, he bodily slammed into the ground, the air knocked out of his lungs. Involuntarily, his mouth gaped out into the sanguine turbulence.

Kureous placed a hand to his mouth, tremors twitching up his bare forearm, bubbles leaking out. He started to panic, his arms and legs windmilling, failing to wade past the battering pressure of the vampire’s dream of a current. His spine scraped across the floor, black hair waving wildly under the viscous fluid. His nostrils flared, and he grimaced in pain.

More air escaped his unwittingly opened mouth in eerie tumorous masses of bubbles. Each thick mass of milky globs fleeing for the surface was lit a fleshy, bubble-gum pink in the blinding blood by the filtered light of the school LED lights.

A series of foamy crests in the river’s height heralded near-solid waves of black-red blood beneath, scraping him up from the ground like charred eggs. In a moment of whimsical, dizzying motion, he twirled around helplessly, the tips of his toes scraping across the ground in a mockery of a ballerina’s controlled en pointe. Whirling twisters danced around every part of him, akin to streaming ribbons of blackish-red fabric pinned to and twirling from his limbs, fabrics, and hair.

The boy’s eyes literally screamed with pain in the toy-borne fluid, tiny mouths, with lips grown from rich brown irises parted to gibber about his blindness. Lungs tried and failed to sob with no air left. 

Like a ragdoll, he slammed into a wall. Cracks riddled the wall, and chips of stone knocked out. 

Cheeks were split by broken gold tainted by rivers of deepened crimson. His nose cracked like a gunshot, crushed to fold against his cheek. Cartilage grounds into the immovable school building. 

Lifted up again, he was taken from the wall into a pillar.

A squeak like a styrofoam pierced through his skeletal system, like his entire body was an ear to hear this horrid sound, raising his hackles worse than if Aaqil had if the cat had been stabbed in the gut.

Crack! 

He slammed with the speed of an oncoming truck into the stone monolith, his right arm taking the brunt of the force. 

The pressure was so great that the blood beaded through his skin, forced through his pores. 

He feebly pushed himself off the pillar, an eddy picking up his chest like a sail, to get swung right into another wall. His arm was spiderwebbed with cracks, blood, and muscle squirting over his hemorrhaging body.

The waters picked him and spun him around in a playful dance. At least, up until it slammed him into the wall, then the ceiling, and finally, the floor. Sickening cracks and crunches made a symphony of senseless suffering.

His own blood coughed out and joined the river, the droplets growing sentience and cackling about internal hemorrhaging. He bounced off, eyes rolled back into his head, senseless white revealed. 

His brain was getting screamed at by the corrupted eyes. His legs and ribs folded between him and the wall, snapping and wiggling in the current.

A crude, GREY string crept toward Kureous’s body, making contact off in the distance.

He floated away like a jellyfish, boneless and at the whim of the oceans of sanguine fluid. 

He disappeared into the red liquid, the string pulling him down.

A few bubbles float to the surface.

“Blub-blub-blub.”

_________________________________________________________

Fighting against the metronome regularity, Iamnotabot’s seemingly human legs disintegrated into sharp spires and nanobots to get much better traction on the ground.

Painstakingly, she put one futuristic tread after the other. She put her hands in front of her face, a feeling of struggle visible in every iota of her body language. 

Her otherwise apathetic expression contrasted with her body language. Inspector Gadget-style, her head extended above the waters as a periscope, her hands doing the same. She took out a crystal-clear flask, amber drink sloshing in it.

Come hell or high water, she would continue her alcoholism habit. Both the title “hell” and “high water” applied to this situation. She looked at the wave of blood about to rush over her head and then down as one of her metal pieces just spontaneously liquified into sewage, with no temperature differential to match.

Indeed. They both applied.

The diamond-like glass touched her lips, and she imbibed up the alcohol. With a dose of liquid courage in her transistors, she submerged herself completely, retracting her periscopic capability. 

She trekked to the source. She intended to put a fist in the face of whoever was at fault. Her vampire sisters would have told her that if they were doing a scheme, they would only be allowed to do blood-themed disasters.

Her cybernetic eyes, each a kaleidoscope of disco lights, narrowed.

“Are those… pustules?” she said in a toneless, modal voice. Each syllable received a different stress from what a human would have chosen, more said as such: “Arre-oo. Thoze-” beep-beep-beep “-Pust-yules?”

Tiny and round bumps inside of dents had appeared all over the gold stone of Scribble Hub walls. Her magnification focused on them, her synthetic skin itching as she analyzed them.

They were eyes. Each and every little one glistening with sparkle symbols, all giving her a puppy-eyed stare.

A full-body shiver overtook her body, electricity ringing her neck to discharge her discomfort.

She did not stop her trek, though. Pink and blue lighting illuminated the abyssal red as she traveled against the onrush.

She halted.

A dullness contained within her eyes was so attractive to the puppet, even going so far as to induce a slavering. It was brought around to her scandalously-clad body, her tired gaze searching for the reason she was suddenly in extremis of agony. Something was pin-picking her. Her mascara-lined gaze roamed over her bare skin, searching for the cause of the sensation of sharp needles being jabbed into joint after joint.

There were none to be found.

Instead, she found only bronzed metal grains falling into her own body. If she ever needed to breathe in the first place, she would have inhaled in shock now. Her copper-toned exoskeleton was disintegrating into miniature sinkholes, fluttering antennae wiggling between the dead nanobots and gum-like masses of hemoglobin.

It was insects! She would recognize those antennae anywhere.

Her cheeks bulged in a mimicry of vomit, and she quickened her pace. Steel made a faster clatter, but despite no batter, she licked her lips. Beneath her segmented tongue, bumps arose, grating against the human tongue-mimicking organ.

They rolled under her touch like burgeoning eggs preparing to split.

… And they did.

Something… no. Some things wriggled on her face.

Horrified yet externally stoic, she tried to claw them out. They just retreated back into her. This time, she genuinely vomited.

She shouldn’t be able to.

As she started to turn her head from seeing the unnatural sight of oily, orange puke that came from her of all people…

Her joints and servos refused to move. Ultrasonic waves reverberated from her failing machinery…

Because of all of the other eyes staring at the puke too. All of the eyes with pale eyelashes fluttered in the current, peering from the tunnels in her metal with their ugly, wet flesh.

It was not insects! They weren’t antennae!

It was eyes! With unnatural eyelashes!

All of them shared cutesy stares at the gossamer threads of mucus in her vomit. The ocular organs pop into nasty orange fluid as they wedge between every single moving part.

A modern Tin Man rusted by FRIENDSHIP.