Welcome home
It all happened in a quick and fluid motion. Daisy saw a monster and the monster looked back, opening all it’s eyes -so many eyes- in shock, in fear of the Hunt. Good. Something in Dasiy purred.
“What the-?” Basira gasped out as she saw Jon’s eyes. Too many -all glowed a neon green. How were there so many eyes, they shouldn’t work that way with how bones are structured? She didn’t have time to linger on the thought. In that moment, Daisy charged.
This was his place of power, but Jon’s fear of the Hunt overpowered his instincts and overwhelmed him just enough for him to appear as prey. And for as little as Daisy might be aware of what the Hunt actually was, to both her and Basira, they were clearly looking at a section 31 monster. And they killed monsters.
Daisy’s eyes burned into Jon as she went full on attack, knife out. Basira stepped aside and didn’t stop her. They had both witnessed monsters in the past, and knew how dangerous they were. Basira had a sinking feeling her friend from uni had been replaced by the monster before them. She wasn’t entirely wrong, though not completely right, but she wasn’t aware of that.
In the eyes of the two cops, Jon wasn’t Jon, but the monster they had been sent to investigate. Elias had even given them full access to all the areas just an hour before stating if there was a monster about, he would be thankful for them to deal with it.
So deal with it Daisy did. In what felt like both seconds and hours, there was a knife on Jon’s throat, digging into the flesh. Blood colored the knife then-
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"Alice ‘Dais̮͞y͆͢’̩̕ ̻̈To̻̍n̹͍͋͗n͋͜e̯͆r̦͊,̬͂ ͇̈́͝ͅr͙̺͡͝ḗ͍̫m͍̰̿͠ę̀ṃ̮̋b̰̹̈̑͘͟e͚̱͔̅̎̈̚͢r.̙̎" The static was heavy in the air. So much so that Daisy’s knife fell to the ground and Basira gasped for air.
Jon’s eyes -all of them- were locked on Daisy, pushing on her with a pressure she’d never felt before. Tears began to pour from Daisy’s eyes as she began mumbling a chain of ‘no, please don’t’ and ‘don’t make me’.
“̴͎̾Remembě̮r t͌ͅhe ̟̒U̧̾n̬̱̄kn̳̔o̺̕w̞̋i̧͍̐̍n͎͈̿͂̍͜g̲̯̈̿̽͢,̥ ̠͍͛̏rȇ̡̘͂̕͜m̈̐͢͢em̺̞̪̀͆̑b̰̚̚ͅe̡̧͂͒r̢̫̽͊ ̬̌͌͢t̡͂hẹ̪͗̓ ͔͇̦͈͉͛̓͋͑̕b̞̮͇͒̎̆u̥̅r̡i͍̫̓͒͗ͅě̤̠̋d̯͆,̬̩͕̘̆̌́̚ ̻̱̯͆̏̅ȑ̬̜̞̙̘̃̑͘͜͞e̢̤̰̝̥̖̙͊̅̌̑̉̄͜͡m̨̭͉͙̩̪͈̥̅̊̊̾̏̒̚ȩ̨̘͓̗̟͎̮̎͌̂͛̄̓̔̇ṃ̢̘̗̗̣͖̼͆͋͂̓͑̿͝b̛͙̼̗͉͕͚̅̾̅̌͋͛͟͢͡ė̡̢̬̥̲̟̂̑͗̄̑͋͟͜͠ṙ̼̜̜͈͓̗̙̅͗̽͑͐̕͘͟ ̻̤͙̝̮͈̦̲͗̑̀͛̌̽̄̕t̲̪̭̫̜̟͍̋͋͒͗͒͑̊͗ͅĥ̨͇̥̩̪̯̤͔̋͑̀͐̈́̓̕e̛̳̼͍̩̲̗̲̖̓͌͗̈̚͞ ̧̱͉͍̞͚͒̋͆̀̌͂̒͜͟͝l̨͍̲̠̩̥̹̓̊̇́͂̃̿͋ͅả͔̺͓͕̱̞͈̜͗̄̍̄͘͞͡s̝̲̫̭̹̠̞̪̀̓͒̿͒́̚t̠͚͇̖̪̝̙̤͋̏̀̎͛͑ ̢̩̪̗͉͈̮̼̌̄̎̿̀͊̄͝t͕̪̭͍̣̜̯̗͒̍̀̑̊̔̚͞i̼̯͎̘̦͉͇͋͐̔͊̄̅̾̒͢ḿ̦̮̘̣̘͗̇̐̀̾̓͘͢͢͜ę̞͎̠̱̝̱͓̾́̾̿̕̚͘͝ ̧̻̜͖͙̣̞̻̍͋̂̍̌̍́̕ẅ̡̪̼͚̠̘́̐͂̓͑͗̚͘͢͟e̛̲͕̳̳̟͒̽̽͗̆͢͢͜͞ ̡͕͉̹̯̱͎̎͌͂̇̂̄͂̚͢m̰͕͇̦̪̟̦̓̎͋̇͗̚͢ȩ̨̨͉̘̘̘͓̒̈́̀̌͐̓̎̚ṭ̬̫̳͇̮͙̍͂͌̾͗́̔͘ͅ-̨̖̙̥͖̙̘̼͊̏̑́̉͘͡”
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Both Jon and Daisy collapsed as Jon finished the last part. Neither one appeared conscious. Daisy’s face covered in tears, Jon’s eyes, all of them, closed with blood running down his neck. The wound already appeared to heal past where it would’ve needed stitches, let alone where it would’ve been considered fatal had it been on a normal human.
Basira could breathe again, and rushed to Daisy. There was still a pulse and Daisy appeared to be breathing. Basira had no idea what had just happened, but whatever she had been talking to was not Jon. The grief sunk in at that thought. It hurt to think she couldn’t remember the last time she had actually spoken to Jon, and now he was gone. Replaced by some Eye monster.
She went to call in for back up, but her walkie appeared to have been fried from whatever that static was. “Shit.”
Jon started to stir, let out a little gasping murmur.
Basira looked over at him -it. Its voice was dangerous. She could tell that much. First the thing that happened with her, then with Daisy. She might not have it in her to kill the thing, but she could make it shut up. Can't speak if unconscious. With a heavy swing of her baton, she brought it down hard onto the creature's head.
It should’ve been harder to, since this creature was wearing Jon’s face, her friend’s face, but anger powered the blow. How dare this creature pretend to be Jon. Fortunately for Jon, and unfortunately for Basira, it woke Jon up rather than knock him out further. This time it was only his normal eyes that opened, though they still contained a bit of the glow.
Basira looked furious and raised her baton again. Hell if she was going to let it hurt Daisy more.
Jon raised his hands out. “Basira wait. I can explain. First, you’ve got to let me help Daisy. If you leave her like that there will be problems.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No. -No. Not at all. This was an accident, I was startled. If she stays like that...there will be permanent damage.” Jon didn’t know what damage he was referring to, but he Knew he didn’t want it to happen. “Please, I promise to explain everything, just let me-”
“You’re a monster, you think I’m a fool that’d trust a monster.” She prepared to try her hand at knocking him out again.
“Basira please, Daisy is as much of a monster as I am. And I’m as much Jon as Daisy is Daisy. If I don’t fix this right now, she will not wake up sane, and I won't be able to reverse once that happens. Please trust me. I promise you on the Admiral that I’m not lying.”
“Fine. I want an explanation afterwards, and if you do anything more to Daisy, if she isn’t alright, I’ll make you regret it.” The Jon shaped monster did seem to not want to pick a fight when she came in, it wasn’t till Daisy scared him did things go wrong. Plus, Jon or not, the fact its panicked response lined up with Jon’s ‘I could never lie about this’ response so flawlessly that she’d seen many times while he was both sober and drunk. Somehow this monster was still Jon enough Basira was going to take a gamble. She needed answers, but before that, she needed Daisy to be okay.
Jon winced at that. “Thank you.”
Basira kept her baton on the ready while Jon hurried to Daisy. His extra eyes opened again as he started whispering something. It was an indistinguishable sounding nonsense mix of noises, like a broken melody. Basira had no idea what he was doing, but there was a low hum of static that accompanied him. Nothing like the threatening feeling from before, it almost felt comforting. It stopped and all the eyes closed again.
Daisy let out a grunt of pain. “Jon…? What?”
“I tried to negate some of what happened. I didn’t know I could even- how’s your head. ” Jon was talking fast.
“Jon, slow down, my head feels like it’s been through a blender.”
Jon let out a nervous laugh. “That's a good way to put it…” He inched back to let Basira in.
“What did you do to her?” Basira squinted to Jon. Basira cautiously went forward. Last thing she wanted to do was startle the Jon-Monster.
“Hey Basira.” Daisy smiled at Basira like she hadn’t seen her in ages. Then did a double take at the two of them, appearing shocked at something. “Wait, Jon, what happened, what’s Basira doing in uniform, where are your scars?”
“Time for that explanation I promised you, Basira.” Jon stood up from his position near Daisy to lead them to someplace more comfortable to talk. “Guess the best place to start would be, I’m still the same Jon, just some things ended up happening, so I’m a little less Human than I was a few years ago. There was an incident in the future that caused me to return to the past with memories and skills I gained through the next several years. So I’m something of a time traveler by extension?
“A side effect from the less human features is, I accidentally triggered Daisy’s memories of things that haven’t happened yet. So you could say that she is from the future now too. Only she is lacking the physical side effects for the moment…” Jon paused like he was considering something. His eyes shimmered with a green glow again while he thought completely frozen mid walk.
Daisy hummed as Basira started to look on edge. “The eye glowing is normal. He is processing too fast for a human brain to keep up. Give him a moment.” Daisy pointed as Jon started to move after about 15 seconds of his supernatural pause. “See?” was said in a fond mumble as Jon continued to talk.
“Hm, maybe a better way to put it is she has information of events from the future mixed in with her current memories? I guess either wording has the same effects really, but I’m not all that sure if the memories were how Daisy perceived the future, or if it was how I perceived them. So the memories might be lacking emotional bits that weren’t soaked in fear and are just information?“ Jon started to mumble cause he didn’t know which was the case since the distinction didn’t bother him, but might bother them?
“The fuck?” Basira got comfy on the break room couch with Daisy joining her.
“You got some new skills since last we hung out Sims.” Daisy had a grin on her face. “That was an Elias only move before. You taking notes from him now?“ Her memories were settling a little bit in an odd way. Like she could remember everything up to the Not-them attack, just as well as what she had for breakfast this morning. She wasn’t enjoying the conflicting dates floating in her mind. Wasn’t even the same day of the week.
“I got a bit of an upgrade when the world ended.“