Josh opened his mouth to say something, but a deep rumbling and tremor cut him off abruptly. Dust spilled from hanging, dim bulbs and both prostitutes and soldiers raised their guns, alert and some frightened. Tyler's eyes widened, his mind rushing to find a solution quickly. Nothing came to mind and his voice caught in his throat to the point of a crushing, overwhelming silence. Boiling commotion could barely release a whisper of steam. He looked back, searching their confused expressions for some inspiration to be an all-knowing, all-powerful leader who could tell them he knew what just happened and he knew why the light bulbs above them were shattering.
Tyler ordinarily didn't correlate shattering lightbulbs with explosions unless the explosion was directly there. Even before the glass burst and someone almost shot off their foot when the first shards were flying (not a soldier, fortunately for Tyler's reputation and thankfully due to some training), the room dimmed to the point his eyes strained to see until his irises flashed red and he reached his hand out, keeping the team alert but calm. Josh took a step closer, taut and alert. "Do you hear that?" Josh whispered. Tyler closed his eyes, straining to hear the low but crescendoing murmur that concerned Josh. It sounded like a thousand spirits whispering at once, each one fighting to be heard best to the point the voices grew into frantic cries. Tyler winced and opened his eyes as Josh shook him. The darkness in the room seemed to seep out of every corner and surface, leeched to a central gravity. It violently thrashed before the room was as light as it could be, only half equipped with lightbulbs.
"Mor- how'd you -" Tyler was too shocked to ask many questions, but she was shaking and paler than usual, and the half limp Jenna in her arms told him something bad happened. The former collapsed, knees buckling as she dropped the latter. Tyler scrambled to their sides hurriedly, and Josh went next to them as well. Morgana was somewhat conscious and even managed to utter somewhat comprehensible words. He understood half of them, but Josh was quicker to catch some like 'flare', 'exploded', 'shadow traveled', 'drained'. When Tyler didn't catch anything and Morgana wheezed for breath and swallowed hard, Josh quickly repeated the last word that had been muttered. When Tyler tried to help Morgana, she weakly batted him away, murmuring, "I'll be fine, I'll be fine. I run all the time, but she- she-" Morgana tilted her chin to face Jenna and Tyler faced her again, wiping wet blonde strands that clung to her skin away from her face. She was ice cold when he took her hand quickly and moved his fingers to her wrist to check her pulse. It was faint but there, and he exhaled a soft sigh of relief. Josh looked over them, muttering the words under his breath Morgana had murmured until he was able to piece them into a somewhat accurate story.
"So, she's..like you, and they were in the capital and blew up something and trying to hightail the heck out of there, she totally drained herself by.. traveling through shadows-"
"Like I set stuff on fire and..you know." Tyler murmured, and Josh squinted, giving him a little nod of acknowledgement.
"-And the unconscious one never did that shadow thing and that distance was dangerous enough as it is and now she's..unconscious. Wait, is she the person you used to see? I feel like I've seen her before..Probably-"
"Yeah." Tyler breathed out. "It's her." He rubbed his thumb over Jenna's knuckles. Morgana coughed, but her skin regained its color gradually. She sat up, raking her fingers through her sweaty hair and forcing it back and out of her face. It, too, clung to her cheeks and sharp jaw like oily tendrils, but up close, Tyler just noticed that her roots were such a light blonde he thought they were gray hairs at first. The dark brown she colored it constantly matched her pitch-black eyebrows, but up close, he finally saw the field of light freckles splashed across her high cheekbones and nose. Her eyelashes were very long and slanted, and she was beautiful in the way an oncoming storm holds the attention of the sky; it expanded and consumed until it obliterated and left a lasting mark on everything around and below it. It wasn't the coldness that Jenna had, it was the wickedness. Morgana was bold, almost fearless, and she was as sharp as a knife. If she could survive anything, it would be be this. Tyler couldn't and wouldn't imagine Morgana coming out of something somewhat scathed. She was indestructible; she was the general. She was the one waging his war. In the name of friendship, in the name of sudden tears prickling his eyes that Tyler fought to ignore, he pulled her into a tight hug. She coughed slightly and wrapped her arms around him, mumbling. "What did I do this time?"
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project vessel (twenty one pilots)
Fanfictionwhen he was young (too young to remember), tyler was pried from his family by the government to participate in experiments known to the world as "project vessel". it failed, and he was returned to society as an outcast. with his "mentor", josh, tyle...
