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我宣布一件事！此设大家都可以使用，
（这是人外，人外！请不要以正常人类身体结构做教科书式对比）
不过老规矩需要讲一下大致规矩
⭕二改/绘制/cos/存图
❌商用/梦女原女/改成四不像/私自拉郎配
但各位最好使用之前联系我或私信沟通~
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I think I have a thing for evil men played by Julian Sands cause I’m rewatching Jackie Chan Adventures and Valmont got my feelin’ something.
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Float like a butterfly
Chapter 2: One foot in a grave
Sun was slowly descending towards spiky fir tree tops when Jade was awakened by a loud roar. Sounded like someone was revving a truck right inside the house.
“Eeesh, piece of garbayge!” Sweet hissed and kicked something hollow.
Jade looked out to see Sweet standing next to the kitchen window. On a counter was a black plastic barrel connected to a big empty fishtank.
“God dammet, you are not a spaceship!” She kicked the barrel again. “This thing is going to either blow up or fly away.”
“What’s that?” Asked Jade.
“Dad’s external filter,” Sweet replied briefly. “Trying to get it to work but I guess it re-qualified itself as a jet engine.”
She attempted to restart it one more time and it roared again, making floor under Jade’s feet tremble.
“Why do you need a filter for an empty tank?”
“Because you need bacterial system to form before introducing animals. I guess I have to get a new one. Tohru, you want something from the center?”
Her friend only rolled in the bed, not responding. Looks like he was tired from carrying their bags all night and even pump’s horrible shrieks didn’t wake him up.
“Wanna go?” Sweet offered Jade. “Going to be fast, half an hour or so.”
“I’m gonna tell my uncles!”
Meanwhile, Sweet wiped her hands and jumped through the open window. On that side of the house they had a metal cage of a woodshed. In the same cage she kept an old yellow bike with a sidecar. When Jade approached an open sidecar, it was still radiating heat like an oven.
They went all the way downhill very fast, but this time Sweet swerved the opposite way from the school and onto a brick road leading along a narrow but fast river. Reeds and flowers with white and purple flowers decorated the shore. Suddenly, Sweet stopped the bike, seeing a dirty bearded man on the sidewalk. He screamed at any passerby, desperately trying to get people’s attention.
“Cryptidoptera isn’t a dark force or a harbinger! She’s guarding you from the real enemy! Look around! Dragons and demons are among us!”
“And yet ‘nother holy fool,” Sweet muttered. “The townspeople lost their marbles when shadow people appeared. This one isn’t local, but still.”
“See?! Demons!” The man pointed at the crowd. “Look!”
He reached out and grabbed a young boy. He looked like a regular Romani kid: tan skin, curly black hair, long eyelashes. But his eyes weren’t black as usual, but bright yellow, like ones of a cat. His right cheek was slashed with a wrinkly dark scar from forehead to neck.
Sweet got off the bike and walked up to the guy, looking determined.
“Hey!” She yelled. “Hands off my little brother! Vadim, your mom is waiting!”
The man was going to lose his grip, but changed his mind, placing his hand on the boy’s neck. His bloodshot eyes scanned Sweet. Looks like he figured out her bluff.
“That’s a demon!”
“A dragon, right?”
“Y-yes!”
“And if I’m his sister what does it make me?” Sweet asked nonchalantly. “Let him go, or else… “
She made a nonhuman gutteral growl and inhaled, preparing to shoot fire. The man shrieked like Sweet’s squeaky chicken toy and dropped the boy, disappearing in the reeds.
“Thanks!” The boy exhaled loudly and got up. “Are you actually a dragon?”
Sweet cleared her throat and said in a deep male voice.
“No, I just learned to imitate dogs and voices of adults since I had to be home alone,” she sounded almost like Tohru, but less raspy. Or was it the voice he had when he was younger? “I can also roar like a lion.”
“Too bad,” the boy shrugged. “You’d make a good dragon.”
“Or a death metal singer,” Jade suggested.
The boy looked back at the old man making his way through reeds.
“Unholy creature!”
“Unholy creature yourself, cattail poltergeist!” Sweet yelled in response.
“Yeah?” Jade raised her eyebrow. “Never learned the difference between reed and cattail. Are cattails fluffy or corn dog shaped?”
“Familiar question. Cattail has a cut,” another voice said. An identical boy appeared behind the sidecar. The only difference was the lack of scar on his cheek. “I’m Reed, and he’s Cattail.”
“Cool names,” Jade mumbled.
“Our nation’s ancient custom: naming children after plants.”
“Like Kazbek’s family, huh?” Sweet said. “They have a thing to name people after locations. Mom Saying, grandpa Taganai, uncle Enisei.”
“Yep!” Cattail nodded. “And our mom is Marigold, dad is Chestnut, we also have grandma Malva…”
“Sundew, Flax, Rue, Oak, Horsetail…” Reed continued. “We, like, have sixteen cousins!”
“Dang! And Jackie is complaining about me! Try having fifteen more nieces! I’m Jade, Jade Chan. So, you aren’t related?” Jade looked at Sweet.
She stared into the distance as if trying to remember something before shaking her head.
“Ah? No, no. I just figured out he will get scared if the kid isn’t alone. Chestnut, huh… So, where are you guys going?”
“To the Zircon Mall. Mom told us to find sundew for our aunt. Ash drowned the last one.”
“Not aunt, sundew. The plant, not the cousin,” Cattail felt the need to clarify.
“You want a ride?”
Reed squeezed himself onto the driver’s seat between Sweet’s arms, while Cattail sat next to Jade. The girl noticed that one eye on his right side is milky blue. Cattail moved his head more than brother, providing that his field of vision is significantly narrowed.
“So what’s a Cryptidoptera?” Jade asked, remembering the mad man’s words.
“She’s a local urban legend. Combination of words “cryptid”, a made up animal like Bigfoot, and “lepidoptera”, a butterfly,” Sweet replied. “Akin to your Mothman. Comes to people at night to give them hallucinations.”
“I saw her!”
“Yeah? I lived here for eleven years and never saw her. Although, they also say she can shapeshift. Eh! They also say that sort of stuff about Bigfoot. Bigfoot is a cephalopod, so we couldn’t find bones, oh and it can be invisible, and read minds, and time travel, and it’s an alien from another dimension! And Nessie’s baby daddy.”
The bike, roaring, crawled up to a parking lot of a panel house and stopped. Mirror windows or Zircon Mall were shining through a dense lilac bush surrounding the block. A poster on the side of the building demonstrated a drawing of a familiar monster racing a sport car.
“Your beast doesn’t fly yet? We’ll fix that!” Sweet translated. “Car parts, paint job, yadda yadda… Some say she’s a demon, some think she’s a superhero. But in one night three adult men died to her claws. Only after their death people found out they have a good bit of a shady past.”
The girl glared at an inflatable waving man at the main entrance before pushing the door open. The air in the mall was cold and smelled of sea water. Right at the door was a massive artificial waterfall with a sculpture of a horse with fish fins. The jokey was a mermaid in a helmet decorated with horal branches for horns. Fountains and waterfalls were everywhere, and until they got to the escalator Jade counted six. Did the mermaid plan this building so she had a lot of water to breathe?
“Hey, Sweet!”
The girl demonstratively looked in front of herself, not reacting to the voice. It was Kazbek. A young man sat behind the cash register of a gift shop. Rows and rows of flowers bouquets, plushies and balloons sat on shelves behind his back.
“Yo!”
“The hell you need, Cashback? I’m trying to mind my business.”
“You forgot your bandana at school.” Kazbek put a red cloth on the counter before going back to sorting a box of balloons into jars by size. “And yeah, about dad’s ball. You don’t have to pay.”
“Why so?”
“Oh, uhm, mom ruined it a long time ago. Dropped in a paint bucket and faked the autographs. I mean, she’s an artist, so it’s not hard for her. Dad isn’t even mad, he’s planning to make another one and sell it. Oh! Wait, is that true that you’re in a relationship with…
“Are you a dummy? No! He’s like my dad’s age!”
“Ah, thought so,” Kazbek mumbled. “Well, you like girls anyway.”
“Where. The hell. Did you get the idea?” Sweet snarled. “I told you, I faked it so I could run away from mom, got to San Francisco and find T!”
“Wait, so you do know each other?!”
“When my parents lived in Japan, he lived across the street and worked as a babysitter for a bit. Looking back, it’s very unlikely that his gang would accept a kid, but I’d rather live under a bridge than with this adder.”
“Why do you hate your mom?”
“Mind your business, flower boy,” Sweet said sharply.
“What are you doing?” Jade asked, looking at jars on Kazbek’s counter.
“Going to make a photo zone for a book store.”
“You’re not working in dad’s school?”
“I realized it’s not a career I want for myself. I want to be an artist, like mom.“ Kazber avoided looking at Sweet and rustled with a purple foil roll. "I like wrestling, but I won’t build a career there. Dad knew you guys would visit and he planned to orchestrate this whole circus to humiliate Sweet.”
“He knew?”
“I thought you guys got the invitation to the competition.”
“Maybe Uncle deleted it?” Jade shrugged. “But why Sweet?”
Kazber looked at the older girl and pressed his lips together so hard his jaws ached.
“You don’t know yet? When it comes to strength, I’m the best in the school. But I lack the confidence for practice. Ellie, however. She used to be a honey badger in her past life.”
“She tried to attack Tohru,” Jade mentioned.
“And she probably would’ve won,” Kazbek side eyed his rival. “That’s why dad is afraid I look bad in comparison. Anyway, dad thinks I should be a fighter, despite freezing up during sparring sessions. But, uh, I mean it’s not a big deal if I’m not, especially because of fear. Sweet’s dad was an ichthyologist, and-”
“And?” Sweet glared at him, clenching hand into a fist.
“And what? She’s currently setting up a tank.”
“Really? You don’t have the sei-” Kazbek put hand on his mouth and continued to methodically prepare balloons and holographic tiles, looking at a drawing of the photo zone.
“The what?” Jade insisted, but Sweet dragged here away by the hood. Reed and Cattail followed them to the doors of a pet shop. An empty fish tank with a fake human skull sat on the counter on one side. When Jade turned to look at it, she felt something tug on her hood. Thinking it’s Sweet again, she turned around and locked eyes with a big white cockatoo.
The group went past shelves with dried dog food and frozen mice, finding themselves surrounded by tall glass boxes filled with all sorts of creatures. Jade looked at a school of piranhas and fat orange cichlids, while Sweet sat down to look at a big hairy tarantula.
“Can I help you?” A man in jeans overalls and a green puffy vest approached Jade.
“We need an external filter, one twenty,” Sweet stood up, eyeing piranhas behind man’s back.
Noticing the older girl, the man nodded.
“I don’t have them on sale at the moment. But… I can lend you one of our own, I guess. Wait a minute.”
He turned around and disappeared behind the doors of staff room.
“That’s a sea snake! Reed, look!” Cattail tapped the corner of a big tank, overgrown with plants. A small orange and black creature squirmed in the corner.
“I think it’s a worm,” Reed replied.
“That’s a loach,” Sweet identified the creature.
“You know your stuff, huh?”
“Well, my dad was doing his research at home, so…”
“Was?” Reed asked, but Cattail immediately cut him off by pinching his elbow.
A talk fat man with greasy white hair appeared out of the staff room. His plaid shirt was adorned with a golden badge reading “administrator”.
“Did my package reach you?” he inquired, waving to follow him. His office was quite dark and gloomy. The walls, floor and even ceiling were dark gray. Sweet stood, pressing her side against the wall.
“Yup, I guess. It’s going to hatch soon,” She replied, stopping her glance on another tank, almost invisible in the poorly lit room. Something moved in it, but Jade couldn’t see anything but waving seaweed.
The store owner handed Sweet a box wrapped in parchment.
“One more thing new owners of your house found. Your father documented his research for the book. I think you might want to continue it.”
“You know I’m not working in his specialty.”
“Why?” Jade asked again.
“That is an entirely different matter. Take a close look when you have a minute.”
Dark water in the tank splashed, exploding with a fountain of warm stinky spray. Sweet jumped in the opposite direction, Jade could’ve sworn her mane of reddish brown hair even fluffed up like a tail of a scared cat.
“I’m fully aware that your trauma prevented you from pursuing the career you wanted. But his research is adjacent to your current one.”
“What trauma?” Jade kept asking.
“Ichthyophobia, mate,” Sweet replied.
“According to official reports, Elliott, her dad, was eaten by piranhas,” the man shook his head. “A gruesome death, really. Skeleton is all they recovered.”
“Mr. Abyss was there, too,” Ellie added.
“Just Fred,” the man corrected her, sliding a lid on a tank.
“We were sailing in the Amazon River. Our boat bumped into a mangrove root or something and capsized. I fell out and bonked my noggin. When I came back, Fred was dragging me away from the shore. Camera lady said he couldn’t be saved, because the darn fish severed his aorta.”
Jade felt shivers running down her spine. Her parents were both alive and she couldn’t imagine losing them. Moreover, seeing them mauled by bloodthirsty creatures.
Fred pulled a box out of his closet and instructed Sweet.
“Keep in mind, the filter sucks small garbage in and it can get stuck, so put a sponge around the pipe.”
“Yes, I’m aware, thanks.”
“Wait, so, what I’m getting is that you’re scared of fish. Then why would you want an aquarium?”
“Frogs. I like amphibians.”
“Makes sense.” Jade scrubbed a spot on the tile with the tip of her sneaker. “And what brought you to the Urals, Fred?”
“I was born and raised here,” Fred smiled. “My gramps still lives here. I used to fish in the lake with him back when I was called Fyodor.”
“Sweet said the lake is cursed!”
“That’s probably true. But I lived during the Soviets. That’s the time you couldn’t believe in gods or devils. But you can hear cries if you listen.”
“Alright, I’m gonna get going.” Sweet put the box on her wide shoulder, holding the parchment in another hand. “I’m better make dinner in time, before the old man got cranky.”
“Sure,” Fred turned towards Cattail and Reed. And you two, go to the third floor, Ash is waiting for you.”
The twins looked at each other nervously and ran for the exit.
***
The bike groaned and stopped under the roof of the log shed. Jade jumped out of the sidecar and hurried into the house, while Sweet unpacked the groceries: apples, salad, fish sticks, pasta and several loafs of garlic bread.
“And you keep your mouth shut about you know what,” she warned the girl.
“I’ll be mute as a fish.”
“I’m gonna bite ye, I swear to god,” Sweet rolled her eyes and put the box on the open window and pulled a foldable BBQ mangal from between the logs.
“Jacki-i-i-e-e!” A creaky voice could be heard from inside the house. “Ask her if she’s got a facts! I need to look up information about the demon!”
“Uncle! It’s “fax”, not “facts”! It doesn’t get you information, it only copies the documents! If you want to find books, use the internet!”
“You won’t find anything on the internet.” Sweet shouted into the window. “I tried. Cryptidoptera is a mix of different creatures. Tail of ahuitzotl, head of tatzeleurm, body of a dragon, heck, butterfly wings! There’s nothing about her in particular outside of our town’s rumors. Even locals can’t make up their minds, some say she has the face of an eel and bat wings.” She hissed in annoyance, trying to fasten rusty metal bolts holding the mangal together.
“That doesn’t narrow anything down!” Jackie held head in his hands.
“Nonsense! You just have to think harder!” Uncle pulled his suitcase up into the sofa and unzipped it. The suitcase was stuffed with books.
“I thought we’re only taking clothes?” Jackie moaned. “No wonder it was so heavy.”
“You want uncle to defeat the demon? Then Uncle needs to do his research!”
Tired, Jade sighed and sat on a bench under a tall water barrel. In the corner of her eye, she could see something move in the forest undergrowth. Two human figures, barely taller than her, crawled along the edge of the clearing. Reed and Cattail? Jade watched as the two communicated with gestures and turned away from the house. The girl slowly and quietly followed them. The boys got between two dense rows of young pines and ran on all fours.
“They are the guys who banished Shendu, as Elodea said. That means Hadal will follow. We need to make sure he doesn’t harm Meadowsweet.” Cattail hissed, sitting on his knees under an uprooted Siberian pine.
“Charcoal can handle Hadal,” Reed waved dismissively. “Smoking Mountains beat Freezing Depths all day any day.”
Reed shook a stag beetle of his arm and crawled along. Jade followed the boys trying to keep a reasonable distance, hidden behind the wall of sedge and fireweed. The ground became softer and smelled of rotting leaf litter. But the twins, seemingly, weren’t disgusted by dirt touching their hands, squeezing itself between fingers.
A snap of a branch made Jade freeze and slowly turn her head back. Far away, on the other side of a long firebreak, a branch shook and a head of a dark brown deep peaked out, barely visible against black fir thicket. The deer looked wrong. Its face was covered in gray lichen, Siberian clematis and pea wrapped around its antlers. A big fly agaric grew behind its left ear. Jade knew sick animals are not to be messed with, and she couldn’t figure out which exact malady struck the poor animal. It wasn’t mange, but something else entirely. The fur looked more like a tree bark or Cryptidoptera’s scales. And its underbelly had a sort of greenish dusting, like dry moldy bread. The deer stretched its neck to grab rowan berries hanging overhead. Then blinked, licked its fangs and retreated back into the dark woods.
As Jade turned back towards the direction of the twins, they, of course, we’re already gone. She chased after them, but their tracks cut abruptly, as if they just disappeared into thin air.
Panicking, Jade turned back to follow her footprints, but stopped. Her classmate told a story once. An encounter with a CWD infected deer. The animal, driven insane by prions, attacked his dad, breaking his arm. Oh, and not to mention a jackdaw in the deer’s stomach. Deer absolutely can eat meat if they want to, despite being herbivorous.
“Herbivorous?” Jade froze. The deer had fangs. Not small needle like fangs of a muntjac, full blown, thick canine teeth and jagged carnassials. That definitely wasn’t a deer.
Jade went the longer way, around the swampy area and back up the hill, but the house was nowhere to be seen. Quite the opposite, the forest became thicker and darker. Pines became twisted and rotten, cones on them grew in size. Jade realized that she probably missed the correct path while running.
Underfoot, she saw plants completely devoid of chlorophyll, semi transparent and pale pink, the color of chicken meat. Round gray mushrooms popped, sending clouds of green spores. Finally, the forest brightened, and the girl found herself standing before a stone monument made of four carved pillars fluffy with sphagnum. Moss concealed the original image and Jade approached the statues in an attempt to get a better look.
“Here you are!”
Jade jumped, hearing a familiar voice nearby. Sweet stood behind her, with Jackie a bit father away, panting.
“Where did you go?” The young lady looked at the girl with concern.
“How’d you find me?” Jade asked, still spooked.
“Followed your tracks, of course.” Ellie replied nonchalantly. “What is this place? I’ve never been here.”
“Looks like a pagan altar,” Jackie said.
“Not surprised, then. We’ve got a pleny of em around.”
Jackie wiped off a layer of moss on one of the pillar, revealing crooked deer antlers.
“Your shamantology can wait until after dinner.” Sweet raised her upper lip. “Let’s go, the coals are getting cold.”
“Besides, there’s a zombie deer walking around!”
“Zombie?”
“Yes! With dog teeth and all fungal… and with scales for fur.”
“Chestnut?” Sweet muttered.
“What?”
“Thinking out loud, nevermind.”
***
The meat sizzled on the grid, juice dripping down on burning coals, raising back as clouds of vapor. Sweet was occupied with cooking, hunched over the mangal. The darkness gathered around the yard, circling flower patches lit by lanterns. Creatures of the woods shrieked and rustled, flying from one tree to another. Jade screamed when a dark shadow of a bat zoomed past her forehead. The bat circled one if the lanterns, then disappeared into the woods.
“Yes, the filter is working just fine,” Jackie came out if the house, drying his hands with a towel. “If it’s not a secret, why would you need a tank that big? Are you going to buy a goldfish or something bigger?”
“Oh,” Sweet looked up from the meat for the moment. “Fred found an egg of a sea dragon and I’m planning on hatching it.”
Jackie froze, hearing such a statement.
“And when it does,” Sweet continued, “I'mma feed you to it.” She turned the grid and sighed. “I’m gonna breed frogs. Jade didn’t tell you?”
“Two separate dragons tried to kill me lately!”
“Heh, didn’t think bout that. My bad.”
“Jackie-e-e!” Uncle cried again. “Help me put the hook on the line!”
Sweet turned her head like an owl.
“What hook?! What line?! I can say “no fishing” in ten different languages, which one is your first one?!”
“Wait, but Mr. Abyss was fine. Maybe we could ask Uncle just to release the fish he catches, if you’re afraid.”
“Afraid,” Jackie echoed.
“Oh, Jade. Did you know that plainfin midshipman, using its swimbladder, can produce sounds so loud it can be heard on land?” Sweet looked at Jade intensely.
“What’s that about?”
”About fish being mute,“ Sweet clicked her teeth. “For the thousandth time, the lake is possessed.”
“But Fred…”
“…is an exception. He knows the rules. A normal person can fish out something so dire a DNA test won’t recognize your remains.”
“You know any plants?” Jade attempted to change the subject. “What’s Elodea?”
“An aquatic plant. You can find one in my fish tank. The fluffy one.”
“And what kind of plant is Hadal?”
“That’s not a plant,” Sweet whispered, tensing up. “It’s an oceanologic term. You have the sunlit zone, the twilight zone, abyssal - the eternal darkness - and hadal, the deepest parts of trenches. Not only sunlight, but not every submarine reaches this hell.
She put a slab of meat on a plate, her other hand reaching for a bucket of uncooked chicken. The piece she grabbed wasn’t properly cut and she, not looking at the table, grabbed a knife.
“Dang!” She put the tip of the finger in her mouth, licking off blood mixed with sauce and soot. “Can you get cotton from my bottom drawer real quick?”
Jade nodded, jumping up the porch and into the room with that strange swampy smell. The drawer in the corner was filled with rolls of cotton. Enough to fill several plushies. Jade grabbed one of at least twenty pieces and hurried back.
“Why do you need so much cotton?”
“Fo ftuff my veg,” Sweet rolled a ball and pressed to a properly licked finger.
“Stuff your leg?”
“Yup, to fill the sock so people don’t find out It had rotten off.”
“Joking again, I see.”
Sweet silently yanked off the knee high sock. A flurry of cotton flew around, revealing scarred calf ending with a deformed stub with two bones still attached and whitened skeletal foot. The structure was held together by silver hinges: ankle, tarsus and toes. Toenails were replaced with short silver claws.
“Oof!” Jade jerked away. “Creepy!”
“Yup! You could say I’m one foot in the grave.”
She curled her skeletal toes. Despite having no muscles, they moved smoothly.
“Is that magic?” Jackie asked. “We should tell Un-”
“Ey, don’t fix things that aren’t broken. It moves, that’s what matters. Would be worse if it was limp.”
“How did it happen.”
“No idea.”
“You don’t remember how you lost your leg?”
“The leg story is a long one. Well, after my dad died, my mom blamed it on me. So, living with her became unbearable. Especially when she invited her new boyfriend and his bratty daughter. Mom didn’t get in their way of bullying me. I only knew Tohru has to be somewhere in San Francisco, and I was willing to risk it to get there. Fred disappeared, because mom threatened him to get arrested for pedophilia, since he tried to get me away from her. So, T was so far my only option. I met a girl named Alsou. She told me her cousin lives in San Francisco. Parents sent him away because she’s gay and locals here tried to stone her. And we conjured a plan: to pretend we’re lesbians so her dad gets us a ticket. But in order to do that I had to lose weight. Hate her butt…
“I think it’s a good thing,” Jackie noted. “She cared about your health.”
“And even when my weight went below fifty kilograms…”
“Nevermind.” Jackie flinched. Sweet was a good inch taller than him, so that would make her extremely underweight.
“… she kept insisting that her dad won’t believe she fell in love with a fatty. I didn’t realize what it’s coming to. Alsou invited me for a walk in the woods. It was a trap. A bear trap in particular. Her cousin wasn’t in California. She was in my house. Yulia, my stepsister of two weeks, pulled an elaborate prank to snap a picture of me kissing a girl. The two accused me of harassment. Their dads, my mom and two more men started a trial, while I tried to break free from the trap, unsuccessfully. Months of starvation weakened me and I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t convince my mom, either. She took hubby’s side. Alsou fake cried saying she would rather be blind than see me again. Long story short, they decided to bury me in a ditch. Step daddy started to chop my leg off with a shovel and I blacked out.” Sweet put both hands on her chest. “Woke up with a normal weight and all what implies, a year and a half later. But without meat on my foot. As for mom, people say she ran to the police saying Cryptidoptera got me. Her husband, his bro and friends we’re all dead by the time police got there. Crushed like eggshells. And Alsou tried to drive away in dad’s car, but fell off the road and got her eyes poked out by sticks. Call me cruel, but be careful what you wish for.”
“Did she describe Cryptidoptera?” Jade dipped steak in thick ketchup.
“Nah,” Sweet threw, looking at the goals. “Said nonsense bout gray monsters with fish heads. I guess I should consider that a karmic justice for all the trouble she and her cousin caused me. I wish Kazbek got a bit of it, too.”
Jade shivered and pulled her hood up.
“Mom tries to act like nothing happened. Like she never approved of them trying to kill me. Some people say she also lost her memory, but I think she’s faking it.”
Sweet froze with her head raised, listening. A hollow howl rang over the forest, like wind in pipes or a distant train horn. Then, again, louder and closer. This time more like a person rehearsing a church chanting. The invisible singer stretched the notes professionally, putting them together into a sad melody. Birds, crickets and mice in the underbrush suddenly became quiet. All of the forest, except for the creaking pines slowing rocking back and forth in the wind, stopped to listen. The sang then abruptly turned into a painful shriek and fell silent.
***
In a blue patch of night sky, fat moths that used to hit against the glass all the evening scattered around into their home crevices in the siding. Fluorescent star stickers faintly glowed on the dark ceiling. Wind faintly rustled with sea glass and seashells on strings of a curtain.
Jade laid down, unable to sleep. After the noisy San Francisco dark forest felt unnervingly quiet. No car lights in the window, no sounds of neighbors. Every time she tried to relax, a sudden sound yanked her out of the sleep. Rusty screech of a swing. In the woods? Or was it a bird? A hoot of an owl. A mysterious howl. A cracking of branches.
Jade clenched and unclenched her fists, making a conscious effort to make sure all of her body parts are as relaxed as possible. Slowly, her body became numb and her head dizzy. But just as she was about to fall asleep…
She shivered again. Something pulled her back out. Sharp, like a bucket of ice cold water. Jade sat up, listening.
Scratch.
The sound from upstairs. Someone was in the attic. The girl left her room and behind the next door. Jackie and Uncle were sound asleep. Tohru was sleeping, too. His snoring was heard from across the house. Sweet wasn’t there. Neither her, nor a blanket and a pillow. So, it seems she decided to sleep farther away from the sounds of a rocket engine coming out of Tohru’s mouth.
Another sound was heard from upstairs. Footsteps. But they were wrong. Tap-tap, short pause, tap-tap. Someone was moving two feet at the time. A second pause, another double step. Unless Sweet was walking on all fours, it clearly wasn’t her.
Jade ran for the main door. On the table, she found Uncle’s shoulder bag. Producing a pufferfish, she put it in front of her like a gun and started to scale the ladder.
The attic was full of old junk. A wardrobe without doors, a small plastic skeleton, a moose antler and a big pile of old clothes. Jade stopped to look at the clothes. It was the first time she saw a Soviet school uniform. It was a chocolate brown dress with a lace collar and a white apron. She chuckled, imagining tall and broad shouldered Sweet in a lace dress going to beat up some upperclassmen with a metal chair. Putting the set aside, she found a horse blanket. That’s strange. There were no stables around the house. A word was embroidered on the blanket, and the girl had to shake off a whole herd of dust bunnies to read “Sushie”.
“Achoo!”
Jade raised her head and saw two opalescent glowing eyes looking at her from the ceiling. Cryptidoptera hang upside down on a wooden beam. Jade directed her weapon at the creature, slowly retreating towards the window. The monster bared her teeth at the pufferfish, realizing she’s cornered.
“Don’t come closer, or i-”
The creature looked like a shadow against the wall, only eyes and teeth visible in the dark.
“Nnno,” she exhaled. “Let. Go.”
Jade lowered her magic weapon. The creature’s pose immediately relaxed and she licked her lips with a snake tongue. Jade demonstratively put the pufferfish down and pushed it away. Dried fish rolled down the stairs into the corridor, faintly rustling. Cryptidoptera studied the girl carefully. Jade raised her hand an waved. The monster mirrored her gesture.
“Oh, you’re not bad at all.” Jade took a step closer.
Cryptidoptera shook dust off her wings and approached the kid and stretched her neck, most part of which was previously hidden under a thick mane. The creature lowered her head, allowing the girl to touch her. Scales were dry and rough like concrete. Feathery antennae twitched back and forth at the slightest air movement.
“Ja-a-ade!”
Upon hearing the old man’s voice, Cryptidoptera arched her back.
“You gotta move, or Uncle will find you,” Jade whispered, pushing her towards the window. The creature silently snaked out of the small hole, crawled onto the roof and flew away.
“Jade!”
Little girl rad downstairs and almost collided with Uncle.
“What were you doing up there? And why is my pufferfish on the floor?”
“I- I kept hearing sounds outside and got upstairs for a good vantage point. And fish, uh… I took it for safety measures. You know, demons and stuff. You have to be ready.”
“Ri-i-ight,” Uncle patted niece’s head. “But next time don’t take Uncle’s things without permission.“
“Wait, why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I can’t sleep when it’s so quiet. Even Tohru’s snoring as a background noise doesn’t work! The second I close my eyes I’m starting to think about demons!”
“Don’t worry, Uncle. Go to sleep. You know there are no demons you can’t manage. If you find Cryptidoptera, you’ll banish her in a blink of an eye!”
Uncle thought for a moment, looking down at his pufferfish, hummed and walked back into his room.
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Jade added as soon as the door locked behind him.
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New ‘Jackie Chan Adventures’ Fanfic - 'The Sky Between;’ first 2 chapters up!
Summary:
Five years after the last of the Demon Sorcerers were sealed away, Jade decides to practice her magic by using a Chi spell to find her old flip-camera, only to learn that someone else had found it first. All the while, a plot begins to unfold behind the scenes.
~Or~
Jade accidentally becomes video-pen-pals with Hsi Wu, and things spiral from there.
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Love, Frost and Sky
Eng. Although I didn’t have time to make the art in time for the New Year, I did make art with Hsi-Wu and Eleanor’s ship and a winter theme, ala Post. New Year’s Art. Frost with love, as they say.
Happy New Year 2026!
Rus. Хоть и к самому новому году я не успела сделать арт, но зато сделала арт с шипом Ши-Ву и Элеоноры и с зимней тематикой, аля пост. Новогодний арт. Мороз с любовью, как говорится.
С наступившим 2026 годом!
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Answer
oh I like both!! of course atla is like, a long term fandom of mine. but I always enjoyed the james cameron movies (never got what all the hate is about) and the recent one is a banger imho! no real deeper reason. sexy semi furry aliens, funky colors and nonstop interpersonal and intergenerational drama go brrrr :D
also I genuinely think james cameron following his dream and making movies about his weird horny cat people planet when everyone is ridiculing him for it is strangely valid? especially in today’s cinema world where everything needs to be as safe as humanly possible.
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Don’t let us down, ISO.
Eng. Let’s add a little creepiness~
In general, if we touch on the topic of Jimmy, aka ISO, I have an idea that he could have gone over to the side of evil on the initiative of the dark forces, in my case Jimmy is in the possession of the demons of darkness, especially the Yishi-De. And even after the events of the “J2 Revisited”, he remained himself, despite the promise of his younger self. At first, he’ll continue to play the “good guy” role, but only for a time. After all, fate itself has orchestrated future events. But it’s only a matter of time. How long will this trust last?
Perhaps few people understood what I said, but to be more precise, Jimmy met half-breeds when he was still a 13-14 year old boy and under their influence he honed his dark powers, but he kept his petty self’s words in fact, he just doesn’t realize it yet.
Rus. Немножечко нагнем жути~
А вообще если затрагивать тему с Джимми, ака ISO, у меня есть мысля о том, что он мог перейти на сторону зла по инициативе темных сил, в моем случае Джимми во владении демонов тьмы, в особенности Ищи-Де. И даже после событий серии “J2 Revisited” он остался собой, несмотря на обещание его молодой версии. Лишь первое время будет продолжать соблюдать роль “хорошего парня”, но лишь на время. Ведь судьба сама распределила будущие события. Но тут лишь вопрос времени. Долго ли будет ещё длится доверие?
Возможно мало кто понял из мною сказанного, но если быть точнее, то Джимми познакомился с полукровками еще будучи 13-14 летним пацаном и под их влиянием он и оттачивал свои темные силы, но слова мелкого себя он по фактам сдержал, просто сам ещё не осознаёт.
ves. without text
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Jharkhand Wins First Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Title
JCA Officials Celebrate Historic T20 Victory at Children’s Stadium
Key Points:
Jharkhand cricket team captures maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy championship
JCA secretary Saurabh Tiwari credits players for historic achievement
Tata Steel vice president attends trophy celebration ceremony in Jamshedpur
JAMSHEDPUR – Jharkhand claimed its first-ever Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title with a stellar…
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Chapter 8 of JCA ↺ is finished, I hope you enjoy!
Taglist: @atlas-affogato, @iamtoothandclaw, @waddieishere
If you would like to be added to the taglist, just comment~
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JCA ↺ chapter 8 update, the writing is finished, editing and artwork need still to be done but depending on how long it takes me to get that finished, I’m aiming for the chapter to be uploaded as early as as Tuesday or as late as next Saturday
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nother fun little au I told @nancyheart11 I’d write and haven’t gotten around to yet
Au where in Demon Realm pt2 Jade and Hsi Wu go through the door at the same time and the magic glitches. They both get out, but all of Hsi Wu’s powers are transferred to Jade.
Now there’s 1 Sky Demon Jade and 1 Ex Demon Hsi Wu who’s stuck in his Seymour form because he just lost all access to his magic
Shenanigans, obviously, ensue