Look for my next non-TWIL short work, hopefully coming very soon.
Where are you, miashara?

Second star to the right, straight on till morning. 

another that left me with some feeling of sanity. It now seemed as
if there were a cleft in that timeline. It started about ten years ago,

Right when he thought he went to prison the second time.

given me a lot of use. Rufius and White could not be killed with
little nuggets of lead. It was going to take a plan.

And great big balls of steel.
 

they were not gaining too much ground. The only thing I had on
my side was that I had no idea where I was going, and White
would have a hard time trapping me.

Thus proving Screw matches Alethea's skills in knowing when to
run like fuck.
 

  Three repulsed and puzzled faces, but then again I was just
being a little prick. I fall into that when I get nervous.

We've noticed.

  "You know, I don't think '*Dad*' likes me very much," I
continued. "He almost broke me in half when I punched him, and
he didn't even have the respect to coldly finish the job. I guess he's
looking for me right now. Jeez, I mean, I could understand if I had
gotten you pregnant or something. It was just a friendly punch, in
the filial spirit-"

You didn't use an ellipse. Someone cut someone else off, and
there was no ellipse. The apocolypse is upon us.
  
Note: This is a good thing.

 

  She turned to me for the first time. "Was me trying to kill
you?" she asked suddenly. Her pretty eyes were wet, but I didn't
feel like reaching out and holding her like I had thought I would.
Had something changed? I remained for the moment.

  "That would be it."

Another side of Alethea comes out. She's manipulating him, though
for her own ends or what she perceives as Screw's interests we
know not. The broad has mind control.
 

  Hmm. I had to shrug a little, because it wasn't that she
wasn't reaching me. Okay, so maybe I did remember Rufius taking
me and Zig. I really had been unconscious the whole time but that
had never stopped me from having memories before. The truth
seems to be that I am never far below the surface, even in death. I
even know some things that happened to other people in other
places during that time. My old infectious presence coming back.
Not the merusion nonsense, but my *true* power.

  The curse of excessive awareness is that you can't hide
from the truth when you really want to.

  Like now. The thing was that this situation had become so
confused and so many people had gone for the throats of everyone
around them that by now it was just revolting. Zig had betrayed me
once, Chris had betrayed us both, Alethea had ticked off another of
my own lives for some reason I'm sure she might have truly
believed on some level. Hey, in times of war, times of great

Everything has muddled until there aren't any sides, just a bunch
of selfish bastards and misguided, uninformed heros mucking
about. No good or bad, just people. 

I think there may be a moral in there. 

  "I mean, you're alive now aren't you?" she continued. "But
I thought you were dead, and it was my fault. Then I came back
here and heard Rufius asking White why a machine said your
vitals had suddenly recovered. I just about had a heart attack. He

That has to be a lie, by Alethea. Rufius asking that question is
absurd. 

Screw doesn't seem to notice this, so I'm suspicious.
 

So she woke me up one night and we got the hell out of there. I

night, and we

  "Because I was in the car that first time. White radioed him
on the CB, and they had a whole argument about it. Wells wanted
to let his students have open season on you to give you practice,
but White said no. When you killed Wells, the imposter Guy Jinn,
a man named Geese, ran off to get revenge and they couldn't stop
him either. Merusion always warps your conception of loyalty. The
fact that you managed to kill him at a immature state proved that
you had more psionic potential than anyone had originally thought.
And more intelligence, drive. This scares them and it is why they
would kill anyone to get a hold of you."

That all sounds true. She's mixing truth and lies to get the best
outcome?
 
 And why can't I

use the psionics anymore?"

You were dead, Jim. 
 

  It's just that it wasn't so easy this time. I really _had_ been
lied to, and openly betrayed. I was still angry and in emotional
disarray; explanations don't always set everything straight. How
did I know that she, like those who originally screwed with my
brain in the first place weren't still deceiving me? It would
obviously be something like this, something that made me think it
was my interests that were being looked after. A safer bet. Yet did
that change the way I felt about her? Because I knew that there was
a lot of my own past she didn't know about either. There were still
many things I was not sure of myself that it would be better for her
not to know. True, my intentions had not been to deceive, but I
could see myself telling the very same lies if I thought it would
smooth over certain circumstances. It all led back to the confused
state of frustration. So I merely held her there, and she cried semi-
dramatically into my arm.

That was just a really interesting little section. No real
comment. 
 

  Finally she said, "Oh, I wanted to stay, I would have. But
when Mom put you in the chamber, I thought that she was just
going to do to you what my father wanted to do to me. My damn
parents, they're fucking crazy. All they care about is their 'Cause.'
In White's case, it's slaving away for Rufius and killing himself
for the man's every whim. The old woman is all about 'revolution'
and leading the Cabal to overthrow the government. She doesn't
just want the Mandate out, she wants herself in. Your friend Chris
is just under her little spell, like White is under Rufius'. And the
worst thing is that they will never, ever stop, even if it means
killing each other, or us."

So White's following Rufius as the old lady follows power. Both
are more or less the same. I can  Screw and Zig set up as the
third part of the Y with Alethea in the center. Nice little
balance that. 
 

  "No!" she said, pleadingly. "I never wanted to kill you at
all! I just thought that if I could get to you first, you would forget
both of them, and take me away with you. At first I wanted to
consume your every thought and show you how selfishly you had
been living. No money, no job, no effort into life; I was going to be
your savior. But then I thought you died, and I knew the old lady
would be furious with me if she found out, even if I told her I had
just been trying to help you 'mature.' So I went back to my father,
and he said he would protect me if I obeyed him." She gestured

Wait, she was already obeying him with killing Screw thing.
There's a conflict. 

So Screw is an idealist, he's just bitter and extremely cynical.
That's an intresting combination.

And I really believe Alethea's controlling Screw's mind. Or
influencing it very powerfully. Actually that would fit another
balance, that being between the four. Rufius is the psionic
master, Screw doesn't really use them, Chris uses them
physically, and Alethea does mind stuff. 

Or something. 

I've been around dude. Was a taking a break. 

Miashara

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