My Two Dads

[...]

Sam -- ~her~ Sam, the one she was familiar with, gave her a bit of a disgusted frown as she looked down at her on her desk, where she sat, as a mug, filled with piping hot coffee

"I'm not drinking from you, Mr. Stanton, and I'd appreciate a scenario in which you don't change and douse my papers in hot coffee.
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Coming back to reality would bump Robin back into another mushroom... and another...
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"You could have left the room at any time!", Victoria hissed at her, accusingly, shoving her chest as she cornered her in the dining hall. ""You could have waited until no one was looking and slithered right out the door, under the bed, whatever... instead you just laid there and let us have sex on top of you."
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"Is is so much to ask that you spend one night as my husband?" an older Sara huffed at her, storming her way back into their bedroom. "You already spend so much time over at Sam's; I didn't...I didn't marry a lightbulb!"
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"You are right," Emily said, her cheerful expression shifting blank deadpan as she stared at her, a twitch of disapproval echoing in her eyes. "A dumb animal can not be expected to be responsible for their paperwork. The fault lies with the owner. A heavy fine will have to be levied."

"You may have to be put down. You are not fit to be a dog. It is offensive to canines everywhere."
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"Spluh, dad!", a younger Robin complained, stomping down the stairs. The apartment was decked out, congratulating her for graduating high school, but she didn't seem to be in a particularly celebratory mood. "No one ELSES father insists on being tagging along for prom night as a corsage. If you were a ~normal~ dad, then my life would be SO much easier!"
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"Don't tell me you're fine with this!
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"Pervert!"
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"Disgusting piece of trash!"
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"It's very bad form to eat your dad," Sam hissed at Robin as the two crouched down, hidden in the hallway, as Tosh turned a little green around the gills.
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"I'm going to be sick"
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"Too easy," McDohl said, shaking her head as she picked Robin up. "You know, if you had even one-tenth of a spine, you might eventually amount to something.
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"You're being deliberately obtuse," Nina said coldly, swishing Robin around inside her bottle. "It is not an appealing feature."
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"The laws of physics weep at your existence," ASHLIE frowned at Robin on her computer console.
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Tink raced over to the trash can and vomited, repeatedly, as Robin pulled herself, arm after arm after armafterarmafterarm out of the jar Nina had stuffed her into. Cal, disgusted, let go of her hand and wiped it on his jeans, a smear of clay appearing. "Fuckin' gross," he muttered, and then quickly joined Tink as Robin opened an eye...and another, and another, and another. Sara tried to hold her hand and calm her down...but she [i]too rushed off for the trash can as a bulge on the side of her neck burst open, sending clay and goo and one of Nina's probes flailing across the room.[/i]
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Tereza rocked back and forth on the ground, flashing a look of despair and pleading towards Sam, as Robin bounced up and down in their apartment, excited. "Uh...," Sam said, hesitantly. "Don't you want, like...a real bed again?"

"I think there's a good space for you in with Gemma," Tereza added. "After all, I remembered how much it...irritated you that people treat you like property...but you're my friend and a person, not a thing, Will... I didn't strictly ~want~ to purchase you"
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"I need you as a friend, Will. As a colleague," a very uncertain, and Morrgainy-d up Sam said. "I'm... not certain how to handle the rest"
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"It's disgusting," a Black Air scientist said, looking with disdain at the vat of Robin he was currently experimenting with. "You'd think they'd teach them at that so-called University of theirs a little bit of basic human decency."
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"I'm really not certain how comfortable I am with blessing him," Sam prostested to Nailah, who was holding Robin in her hands, disguised as a Sam action figure.
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""What is wrong with you?" Isolde yelled at her, as she hid back in the closet. "Do you like sitting in the closet for no damn reason? I'll leave you to your misery."
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"What is WRONG with you?"
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"What is WRONG with you?"
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"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
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Natalie shuddered in disgust, as some Robin-mixed-with-money-pulp-paste splashed out of the vat and onto her.
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"You're telling me it's a person?" the general barked at Robin's mother, dressed in a military work uniform. "It's been frozen under the ice since God knows when; what on Earth IS it?"
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"Why does everyone in this room keep breaking reality," Tosh frowned, as Robin changed shapes yet again. "It's getting annoying."
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"Sweet Jesus," John whispered, as the door in Faultline's apartment opened up to reveal a Room 'O Wills Melody vomited at the sight, and the thoughts of what had gone on in there. "What. The. FUCK?" she gagged.

"Oh God, oh my God." Isabel said, the look on her face suggesting she was about to vomit "We have to stop her. We have to kill that bitch."
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Onyx frowned at her, as she tried to walk out the door. "You're making things more complicated by being stubborn and childish."
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"I don't know if I like this," Sam frowned, watching Natalie attempt to repair the Robin-Computer.
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"A leash and collar is... degrading.", Sara said, looking at her disapprovingly, fingers awkwardly and angrily twisting at an expensive leather collar with a tag reading "WILL" on it.
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"It is a satellite, Will," ASHLIE frowned at her. "It is not your friend. It is not sentient."
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"You should strengthen your sense of subjective reality being imposed on the physical world despite outside influences. It would help you not to be a puddle sitting in a bucket, too, ' ASHLIE frowned down at liquid Robin."
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Freak!
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The owners of the bakery stated at Robin -- it didn't take a genius to see what they thought of her, walking around all mutanty with that green hair and that obvious mutant swagger.
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"What is WRONG with YOU?"
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"Being drunk, and especially being drunk and disorderly is a crime. Being drunk and disorderly and a freak is even moreso," the bouncer at the bar slurred at Robin and Shari, trying to intimidate them.
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"What is wrong with you!"
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"You know what's wrong with you, Sugartits?"

Robin was in Melpomene's penthouse apartment. Her eyes flashed, for the umpteenth time, at the glowing ball above the mantelpiece. She knew, if she could just grab HOLD of it, she'd remember. She'd remember her real name, where she lived, how to get out of the apartment, how to use the phone to call Sara and tell her where she was. Mel had taken all of that from her, and hung it over the fireplace, taunting her throughout...everything.

But she couldn't grab it. She had no arms, for one; those were long since deemed unnecessary. Her feet had been forced into ridiculously high heels, and she wore almost a parody of a french maid's outfit as she stumbled around the apartment. Her tongue had been forcefully shifted into a feather duster, but with all the regular taste buds and functions still intact, meaning that she got a good mouthful of all the grime and debris as she went about cleaning Mel's apartment.

For the *umpteenth* time, Drew grabbed her ass as she walked around. "Your problem is that you love this. All of this. You love being right here under our Mistress' thumb. It's all you ever really wanted, isn't it? To be used and abused by someone who sees you for what you really are. This is what you've wanted, the whole time, and the only one who ever will give it to you thinks of you as less than nothing. A tool in her revenge. A stain under her boot. Someone who hates you and what you stand for..

He grinned, with just the hint of sadism twinkling from each eye. "Between you and me, Sugartits; you'll never break free. But even if you do, even if somehow, someway, your Goddess comes to free you, you'll have to live for the rest of your life knowing that this is part of you. And that no one will ever, ever understand you. So just give in. We'll treat you with everything you have ever deserved. And you'll love it, and you'll hate yourself for loving it. We'll take you apart piece by piece, and put you back together in our image.

Because you're a freak. And you're our freak. Forever.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin stumbles, flinching away from the memories. Had to be. At least one of them she knows happened. But there's no avoiding them. Recoiling just sends her into the next and the next and it's hard to even string coherent thoughts together when they're constantly interrupted by these flashes of being insulted, sneered at and pushed away. Answers to questions she never wanted to ask. Why Will and Sara split. What Mel had done to him. Why Null loathed his counterpart. Answers that hurt. A hurt she'd never truly had to experience growing up. One that stemmed from a world that didn't yet understand. From misunderstanding. From embarrassment. From frozen ideas of how things should be.

Everyone always told her how much like her Dad she was, but the truth is that deep down, on whatever level connected mutations to psychology, genetics to expression, she'd always taken more after her Mum. When she merges with an object she seizes control, anthropomorphizes objects. And Dad... he did the reverse. And now she knows just how much it hurt him to see that even his own daughter, in a fit of teenage angst, refused to understand. And all around her are more memories of the same sort just festering beneath everything. All this worry and prejudice and self-loathing they'd shielded her from, they'd fought to keep from ever hurting her as deeply as this. And she has no idea what to do about it. Scrambling through the tunnel the lights shining from her eyes flicker and distort from the tears as she just runs. She has no idea which direction she's even going as memories flash through her over and over.

"It's not true!" she shouts into the darkness lurking between the flickering, but it's so hard to believe. "He's taking the worst possible way!" but the only response is more disgust and aversion in the form of memories choking her. When the final memory of Melpomene hits she falls to her knees and she punches the mushy ground in lieu of the monster that took advantage of all of this and abuse it for her own twisted needs.

[...]

It was hardly the 'final' memory -- just the act in moving around here would likely have kicked up more and more spores, but Robin was running around all willy-nilly, kicking up memories that flitted and danced through the air. Humiliation, embarrassment, shame, guilt -- they grew and multiplied in here, a complete catalog of every ill-conceived glance or disgusted aside that was ever sent Will's way, not to mention horrible memories of Melopmene, of Black Air, of the US Military.


A shambling, dripping, rotting hunk of flesh scraped into view just behind her, a long knife being held in one hand. It moaned and groaned in Robin's general direction.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin is still coughing out spores when the groaning behind her makes her freeze. Slowly she gets up and twists around in one careful motion, letting out a startled scream when she sees the knife-wielding lump of rot.

[...]

It lumbered slowly towards her, swinging the knife through the air like a meat cleaver as it shambled along.

[Robin Stanton]

Think, Robin. Brain Voodoo. You're standing in a kitchen. That thing can't hurt you.

The thing swings the knife mere steps away from her.

It'll just slice up my thoughts real good with a metaphor-knife.

She instinctually takes a couple steps, backing away from the horrible monster that apparently lives down here.

But it's... this is all part of Dad. He wouldn't hurt me. Just... protect me. Probably by getting all of this horribleness to stick to me so I don't wanna be weird.

That realization makes her stumble a bit as she tries to walk backwards faster. "Ah beans. This is bad. This is real bad... Go away!" she shouts at the shambling heap of rotting stuff.

[...]

The thing matched Robin's shout with a howl of it's own, making a lunge towards Robin.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin flinches away, steeping backwards, her foot coming down on some patch of slime-mold and she slips, landing on her butt and desperately scrambling backwards across the disgusting ground.

And then a memory flashes through her. Not from the spores but herself. Rushing down the stairs in a huff, making sure each footfall is as harsh as possible to really get her point across. But this time she realizes how each thump send a message. Pushing. To create distance. Shying away. Like she's doing right now. This... thing is part of this place. It's a manifestation of all of this badness. She's reacting how it wants her to react. How it expects her to. It's scary, disgusting, rotten. Reinforcing everything about these tunnels.

"I-I'm not scared of you." she says. It would sound more convincing if she didn't sound so shaky but she wants it to be true.

[...]

The thing stands over her and bellows again; roaring loud enough that the entire cavern seems to shake; bits of it dripping off and mixing with the muck down below. It was doing it's best to scare the bejeebies out of Robin.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin is shaking a little, which in her case means she's kind of wobbling all over, but she stands her ground. Or sits her ground as the case may be.

"You're just how he sees himself sometimes. If I run away from you you're only gonna get stronger. You're just... a boogeyman." she says defiantly, shifting so she appears wrapped up in a turquoise comforter with little cartoon elephants, giraffes and monkeys on it. Everybody knows boogeymen can't hurt you under the covers. Plus this is the kind of blanket Dad would shift into when she had a bad dream or got scared at night.

[...]

With a roar, the thing slashed it's knife down, into the comforter Robin had wrapped around her, cutting a huge gash into it.

The knife did not go deep enough to stab Robin; just slashing back and forth across the blanket multiple times.

[Robin Stanton]

That did not go as well as she'd hoped, but the thing's apparent hatred for the comforter gives Robin an idea. The next time the thing slashes it's knife and has it's arm in front of it's chest she jumps up and unfurls the blanket from around herself, lifting it up and tossing it over the boogeyman to trap it's knife-wielding arm against it's chest as she wraps her arms around the blanketed monster in a big hug.

[...]

The thing roared, hacking and slashing, trying to rip the comforter to pieces.

Apparently, the same positive connotations Robin had with her dad playing the role of blanket were massively negative here? Or something?

[Robin Stanton]

That's certainly what Robin is figuring but, more importantly, she's hoping that the positive feelings she can put into this are going to be stronger than this thing. Or at least strong enough to weaken it. Channeling all of those feelings of safety and fun and love into the blanket she tries to patch up all the gashes and tears as they appear.

[...]

Robin may have underestimated just how deep Will's self-loathing went. For every tear she repaired, two more appeared in it, as the thing hacked and slashed it's way through the comforter, fluff and stuffing falling down to mingle with the spores and muck below.

It roared, biting into the comforter and tearing it apart with it's teeth, choking some of it down and spitting the rest onto the floor.

[Robin Stanton]

"Oh no. Oh no no no no!" She grabs hold of the tattered comforter and yanks it away in the same movement of turning around and bailing, sprinting down the tunnel and away from this thing as fast as she can.

[Narrator]

The thing was many things, but not fast, and Robin could get away with (most) of the comforter...at least for now.

Who knows where these caverns went to, or how deep they went? Passageways were tough to get through at normal size -- some were too thin, others too small, and they seemed to have no rhyme or reason as to where they went. The only real commonality was how foul they all smelled and how unpleasent it all was.

The moaning of the thing came from behind her, shambling forward. It clearly knew its way around these caverns; it was unlikely Robin could hide forever.

[Robin Stanton]

For the time being Robin wraps the remains of the comforter around herself, this time mostly for it's original purpose, and makes her way through the twisting passages more or less at random, contorting herself when needed to get through the more irregularly shaped tunnels. They have to lead somewhere, even if it's just back to the well she dropped down through.

[Narrator]

Robin had to walk carefully, to not kick over even more of the mushrooms. There had to be thousands of them down here -- maybe more. She had never really put together just how much shit Will had taken over the years; and the thought that she, in some small way, had contributed something to this couldn't be a very pleasing one.

As she kept going, she would eventually run into...a cave-in. Rubble was strewn about, squashing some of the mushrooms, blocking off some of the passages dead ahead.

The shambling grew louder behind her.

[Robin Stanton]

"Oh come on!" she mutters, hurrying towards the rubble to try and pull away pieces of it to try and clear the way, comforter slung over her shoulders like a cape.

[Narrator]

There was no way she could dig a path clear in the little time she had. That doesn't mean she was entirely without options, however.

She could move enough of the rocks to try to slip into the debris; perhaps worming and crawling her way through the rubble to whatever was on the other side of the cave-in. Getting up close and personal with the much wasn't an appealing option, but it was quite possible.

She could hide here before the shambling thing came through; if she could get him to go past her in his search, she'd have all the time she needed here.

Or, she could stand up to the...the thing heading her way.

[Robin Stanton]

She'd tried standing up to the thing and it hadn't gone particularly well. It hadn't hurt her directly but the blanket was, in a way, part of her mental manifestation in here and the monster had shredded it pretty badly. Hiding around here felt like it would involve huddling up against the gunk and the mushrooms in some capacity yet remain still enough to fool the monster and all it would take would be one particularly bad memory getting blown in her face and she'd risk giving herself away. No, as much as she hated the thought, trying to squeeze through the cave-in seems like the best option. If anything down here could be called 'best'.

Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts... Robin tells herself as she climbs partway up the rubble and starts squeezing herself against it, letting her shape dissolve to make it easier to find the cracks and crevices. At the same time she constantly has to pull her power back from trying to push into the rocks. She's not sure if or how that would even work in this metaphor of a world but she definitely doesn't want to try in case it does. The thought of actually merging into the fabric of this place absolutely terrifies her. In comparison trying to force herself between the fallen rocks isn't even that bad. If it wasn't for all the mold and gunk everywhere. At least she doesn't really have any eyes or nose or mouth like this. Instead she just feels the slimy claustrophobia all around her.

[Narrator]

Robin wormed her way through the rocks just in time for the hulking...thing...to enter the cavern behind her. It apparently had not seen Robin squirm into the rocks; if it had, it probably would have taken some action.

The rocks were tight, and the pockets between them was filled with the mold and the gunk. Rubbing herself against and through that sent chills down her spine, both physically (the stuff was icky!) and mentally (despair, hatred, mortification; all clearly external, but all hitting her as she squeezed through).

The sounds of the thing grew fainter as she pushed deeper into the rock, so that was a plus. And then she came to the end of the cave in...

...and found herself hanging out into space. The "cave-in" apparently was where the fissure between the two Wills had formed, and where they should have been connected instead was a chasm. Far, FAR above her -- miles, maybe -- she could just barely make out the clouds that were the "top" of this Will's mind. She couldn't see WHAT was down below her. Across the chasm was another cliff face, with a hole in it... a hole that was draining out some of the same black sludge she had been crawling though, albeit only at a trickle. The other Will's mind? Gravity and everything was twisted around here; it's possible this was where they should connect. It didn't make sense, geographically, but since when did Will's head make sense? Then again, it could also lead to somewhere else; somewhere unknown. Heck, there were technically four minds connected here; what if it led to one of the others?. What was it like in Tosh's head? In Sam's? In her own?

Four options, all of them bad. Trying to climb or fly up would be arduous, at best. Going down led to a spooky unknown; perhaps nothingness itself. Crossing the chasm led to an unexplored and potentially dangerous place, if where she had come from was any comparison. And going back meant dealing with that thing again. Four terrible options!

[Robin Stanton]

Seeing the chasm and the cliff-face with a corresponding opening across the abyss the first thought that comes to her mind is to try and hack at the cave-in, clear it all out, let the horribleness drain and maybe trick the monster into stumbling out entirely. It seems like an obvious solution, get rid of all that awfulness she just crawled through. But what if down there is where the rest of them are. What if all that would do was empty this into Tosh. Into Sam. Herself.

No, she would at least have to check what's down there first and that meant scaling down the cliff. She's had some lessons in telepathy. She'd never really paid too much attention, but she does remember the basics. Everything is thoughts and ideas and feelings. It's like English class. Boring and dumb and full of metaphors. But she is a shapeshifter and the idea of her thoughts taking on concrete form is intuitive to her. Sam probably could have rigged up something clever, flown down there, conjured up some elegant way to open up the collapse or simply willed it clear. Instead Robin channels her anger and sadness about all those horrible memories that tie in to her Dad's 'tiffing' until she's got a whole bunch of old-timey sticks of dynamite that she crams into the collapsed tunnel. Until a good dozen or so are crammed in there, fuses trailing down and in a bunch of loops slung around Robin's shoulder, finally ending in a big red plunger she's got tucked under her arm. With a look of grim determination she jumps backwards out of the tunnel's mouth, letting some fuse unfurl and catching herself against the cliff face with her feet as she begins to rappel down.

[Narrator]

Down Robin rapelled; down, down down into the mist and the fog and the dark.


This was clearly a different kind of dark, thank goodness. For while the dark and dank in the cavern had been almost unbearably sad and depressing, this was just...numb. As she kept going down, the world around her would get less and less clear. Even the rock face she was bouncing against seemed less and less solid -- or, at least, it felt less and less real each time she kicked off. The blue sky and clouds up above started fading from view, and the cold around her started to go away, too.

In fact, the only real sensation she had, as she continued to go down, was some light pressure? Steady and repetitive -- not quite like a heartbeat, but in the same sort of regular, cyclical pattern. The sensation grew stronger as she went down, and she would pause for just a moment.

This went quite a way down -- should she continue, or go back up?

[Robin Stanton]

Breathing? Squishing? Wait, wasn't she kneading a dough back in the real world? Was this the sensation of that?

No point in backing down now. She had to find out where, if anywhere, this leads before she considers dumping slime and goop into it.

[Narrator]

Robin kept rappelling down, down, down. Things got darker, darker, darker, and less and less real...

There was a light ahead, and with one final bounce, Robin entered the light...


...and found herself in a mixing bowl, being tossed and turned over and over again as giant, familiar fingers worked the dough. Above her, stood....well, herself, slowly and automatically kneading and twisting the Will-mixture she had slammed into a bowl, drooling slightly as there was clearly no lights on at home, nobody behind the wheel. Tosh stood next to her, awkwardly staring into space just above her shoulder, while Sam sat on the table, eyes closed, fingers to temples as she controlled the experience.

They weren't alone, however -- quite the crowd had started to gather, watching the three stand there, all staring blankly into space. And working in a weird tandem.

Zombie!Tosh reached over, without looking, into the cabinets, and handed Zombie!Robin a packet. Yeast, maybe? Zombie!Robin opened it up, and shook it into the Will(Robin?)mixture, kneading it in carefully and thoroughly.

[Robin Stanton]

On the plus-side, she'd been right!

On the down-side, she had no idea how to get back up.

Or if this was a good place to dump the slime-monster.

Probably not.

Also, what an unflattering angle of her own face.

[Narrator]

On the additional plus side, her Zombie!Self was being successful in blending the two Wills, at least physically. She FELT like she was being fairly integrated, at least. And since her dad never had figured out how to split himself intentionally, that physical side of the equation was probably fairly solved -- hurray!

Or, at least, it would be solved when the Zombie!People finished their work. Which, the moment, apparently involved Zombie!Tosh pouring some olive oil on top of the mixture, to keep the Wills (Robin?) hydrated.

[Robin Stanton]

Excellent work, Zombie-Me! Great technique.

It's kind of a weird sensation. Not the kneading, that was actually kind of relaxing, but being completely disconnected from what she's actually doing in the real world. And the way back there presumably being away from this back into the mindscape. Somehow. She tries to picture the ravine, trying to mentally walk herself backwards from the darkness and unreal, poorly defined rock-wall back up towards a sky wedged between a bunch of non-sensical geography.

[Will Stanton]

Her first attempt at going *in*, back to the mindscape....didn't work. The closest she logically came to "in" ended up with her flexing her *physical* form; and sort of collapsing in on her doughy self. This got her a smack from Zombie!Robin as she was flattened back out.

[Robin Stanton]

This really is the driver's seat, huh?

With her first attempt seeming to go in the wrong direction she tries something else. She knows how to relinquish control of something she's taken over. It's all about relaxing and letting herself snap back into a familiar form. Instead of grabbing and scrambling and clutching on it's all about letting go. And so she does, letting her mind go a little slack.

[Narrator]

If there's one thing these damn new-age teen kid millennial hipsters knew how to do, it was zone out. Why, in my day, we paid attention all the time! Even when we were sleeping! We always knew what was going on and were ready to jump to action at a moment's notice. Kids these days don't know how good they have it; I have half a mind to...

Ahem.

With a little bit of relaxation, a little bit of meditation, a little bit of leaning into the sensations of being kneaded and folded, and Robin was able to let this world slip through her mental fingers.

And found herself dimply holding on to a cord at the very bottom of Will's mindscape once again. Success!

[Robin Stanton]

Robin clambers up the rope/fuse a bit before turning her feet into climbing anchors and kicking the cliff to steady herself. Then she glances up to where the fuse is disappearing up above. She's not going to lure the monster out to stumble into the pit, that's for sure. Putting that thing in charge would be absolutely awful. But if this chasm is going to be merged then the tunnel should probably be cleared. All the nastyness might have been buried but that clearly did not mean it was forgotten or without effect. She's no shrink but leaving this to fester can't be good. And just making sure the tunnel connects when merged might just let it slowly spread underneath everything. That hurt is real, but it's gotten all distorted. What it needs is some perspective and dealing with.

She looks at the plunger and she scrunches up her face as she wills the payload at the other end to increase, sticks of dynamite splitting down the middle before plopping out into two. And again for good measure. Then, with a determined grin Robin slams down the plunger.

[Will Stanton]

The explosion rocked the mindscape, sending shards of rock flying in every direction as Robin cleared the cave-in.

Immediately, a torrent of the black ick started pouring out of the side of the cliff face; with the cave-in no longer there to stop it, a lot of that gunk and hatred started pouring out, like lancing a boil.

Unfortunately, gravity also worked here, and all that black gunk started pouring out...and down. Down into the chasm. Down, uh, out of the mindscape.


That probably wasn't good.

[Robin Stanton]

"Uh-oh, spaghettio..." she manages before the black goop comes down on her like a waterfall. Clinging to the cliff she squares her shoulders and stretches them out to the sides, turning her upper body into a big, inverted umbrella as she tries to contain at least some of this goop. She braces herself for the awful feelings and memories that are bound to come crashing down on her along with the goop, hoping she won't have to try and stem the tide for too long.

[Narrator]

The goop started pouring over her, coating her, requiring her to go deeper and deeper in order to try to maintain it all. Will might not have been a literal endless fount of self-hatred, but he had centuries -- millenia, really -- of it built up.

More flashes of disgust and hatred went through her mind; memories of breaking things as a toddler, dealing with the authorities as the X-Man leader; every argument with Sara or Sam, every fight with Miranda for position. Every humiliating and degrading thing done to him by McDohl, by Melpomene, by Miriam, by Black Air, by the US Military. All of it, flashing so quickly they started overlapping with one another, interrupting one another and changing one another. John wearing Black Air gear running experiments. Robin scolding a toddler Will for wetting the bed. This world's Tereza and her world's Sam sighing as they pulled Will out of another mess. Overlapping and flipping and recontextualizing...

...which means they weren't true. They couldn't be; not all of them. They had to be seen through Will's lens; festering and rotting until the worst of all possible worlds had developed. They weren't real.

Robin was real. And real things had to be stronger than fake things, right? Right?

[Robin Stanton]

She sags under the weight of it all, sliding down the cliff-face and leaving small gouges with her crampon feet. It's not real but what does that matter when Dad thinks it is? Especially here where thoughts and reality and blurry as it is. It's all horrible no matter what. Just existing, being who you are is being scowled at, hated. And she hates this. Being doused by all of that, being right here, it's so easy to be angry and disgusted at everything...


No! That kind of thinking, trying to grit her teeth while being all too aware of the awfulness of it all isn't going to work. It'll just seep into her and soak her through and through. It's bad, but this slimy infestation wants to be hated. Thrives on it. The only way to bear this is the good. The times Dad wrapped her up in a blanket. Turned into a band-aid to cover her skinned knee. Threw her up into the air as a swing-set. Turned into a BMX bike so she could off-road down a mountain with her friends. Spending her first week at Uni as a beanbag chair in her room without telling her, just to make sure she'd be alright after insisting she move to the dorms...

[Narrator]

The good thoughts clashed against the bad in a very impressive metaphorical fight words can't really do justice to and is in no way a cop-out on behalf of the narrator.

The good thoughts created a sort of...positive energy patina around Robin. That stopped the bad juju from sinking in, though it did still leave her with the problem of "what to do with it". The torrent had, at least, reduced to more of a trickle.

[Robin Stanton]

After the big initial onslaught she carefully tests her footing and tries to climb up a little, pushing up against the trickle. If she can get back up to where she blasted the tunnel open she might be able to put herself in a position where she can use the patina of good thoughts as kind of an insulation. Like a pond liner to hold some of it in the crater when everything comes back together and the gorge closes. At least she's hoping that's what'll happen when Sam is done mending things.