DEFEND RYAN==>

You decide to help Ryan. Wow, those words sound gross even when you're internally monologuing them. Huh. Nevertheless, you leap into him, sending both him and yourself rolling on the wooden floor, and out of the way of the greaser demon's vile reach.

Ryan: That... Thing. The eye. What... What is that?

YOU: It is Apophis. The, the god of evil, you know. 

Ryan: Huhhh.... I can hear His voice buzzing in my skull... And He, He didn't even have to say anything. 

YOU: It was not exactly like that when I first saw Him, but I understand. Seeing Him is always difficult. Look for emotions to substitute for the deep existential fear that you doubtlessly feel.

Ryan: What, just substitute the idea of a loving god?

YOU: Well, His existence does not necessarily rule out the possibility of a higher power. Anything sufficiently more powerful than us could come off as a god to us. I am not convinced of His divinity

This is an interesting philosophical discussion, but the presence of an incredibly powerful assailant means that you may have to table it for later. You army crawl toward the broken sword, and once you have it, you remain on the floor, taking the opportunity to slash the ankle of the greaser demon. He screams in pain, buckling to the ground. 

Wren: Good one, Deen!

Diana: I was hoping he had something approaching an achilles tendon. Inconclusive.

Greaser Demon: You idiots! You're done! You're cooked! You've been cooked since you set foot in this gymnasium! You have literally no reason to still be fighting me, other than absolute idiocy! Why are you still doing this?

Wren: You don't know very much about people, do you? All we need is a tiny bit of hope.

The greaser demon staggers to his feet. He looks up, his long hair falling behind him, uncovering his skeletal, grinning face.

Greaser Demon: Yeah? Wow. You really schooled me. Notice how everyone who was helping you a second ago is running away from that big old eye in the sky? You people are bugs. Nice frickin "indomitable spirit," man. Everyone who isn't an idiot is trying to leave, right now, and even that won't save them. They're surrounded by cultists, who are actually capable of doing incredible things, like opening this here portal. Sorry sunshine! Sometimes it isn't a climactic battle between good and evil. Nah. It's a predator with a mouth full of fangs against a woodland critter with a broken leg.

You dig your broken sword into his midsection, and he screams with laughter.

Greaser Demon: Yeah, you got entirely too much mileage out of this thing. 

He throws it up into the portal. And then he hits you with a closed fist. It hurts really bad, and you can already tell that it'll bruise. He lunges for Alex next, slamming them against the floor, and when Ryan jumps in to help them, the greaser demon just bites him, right on the shoulder. Ryan clutches his shoulder, staggering out of the way, and the creature grabs Wren, slamming her down and climbing on top of her.

Greaser Demon: All the trouble you gave me... I think He'll understand if I dispatch the four of you mysel-

A massive noise comes from the wall to your left. You turn to look, and the greaser demon stands up, walking over with a blank expression. A car has just smashed through the wall, running over four or so cultists. Debris and sawdust float through the air. The door at the driver's seat swings open, and Tracy steps out, shaking slightly. Their hair is messy, and their left arm is wrapped in gauze. They look dazed. Sam steps out from shotgun, and helps Antimony out of the back, and into her wheelchair. She whoops excitedly.

Antimony: Dogman High, we have officially deused the ex out of your machina! 

Sam is wearing an eye patch under his sunglasses. He smiles slightly.

Sam: Dude, what happened here?

YOU: I guess the plot is always weirder on the other side.

The cultists have stopped chanting. The greaser demon looks frenzied. He looks up at the portal, and sees it closing.

Greaser Demon: No! No, keep chanting, you idiots! Keep chanting!

It's too late. The portal shuts. The greaser demon chuckles slightly. And the he collapses to his knees, and he just starts screaming, and screaming, and screaming. 

The car tire a huge hole in the wall, and your peers begin to quickly escape through it, leaving in a great river of humanity. The cultists, reading the situation rather accurately, also begin to leave. The greaser demon stands up, and walks over to the new arrivals.

He walks up toward Sam, stopping down to his height. He opens his mouth, and manages to let out the word "you," before Sam slaps him in the face, sending him staggering back, with a look of absolute rage on his face.

Tracy walks over to Alex, and clutches their broken wrist in their left hand. Tracy hisses in pain, and you watch as a black tendril creeps to their shoulder from their arm. Huh. Alex moves their wrist, which is apparently no longer broken.  

Antimony calls to you from across the room.

Antimony: Diana! Come push me out of my wheelchair! 

YOU: What?

You run over, and, with a good deal of confusion, comply.  She almost hits the ground, but then hovers just above it. 

Antimony: Oh good. I had no idea if that would work.

She floats over, and you follow. Wren, Alex, and Tracy run over the greaser demon as well. Ryan walks over, evidently punch-drunk, but emotionally, a feeling you know all too well. 

The greaser demon looks around wildly, grinning like an evil child.

Greaser Demon: I'm stuck here, did you know that? I... Cannot ever return home. I am a failure. I failed. But I still have my old friend, spite, kicking around. I am going to kill every single one of you meddling children. That is a personal assurance. 

He attacks in a whirlwind of tentacles and claws, and teeth, moving like something no longer willing to exert the energy required to adhere to the laws of physics. Your party thrashes madly in return, with fists and open palms, with feet and (judging by the taste in your mouth, you kind of blanked out for a bit) teeth. 

Antimony flies around, eyes glowing green, blasting word little fissures of green light, somehow anticipating where the assailant's attacks will land before they reach their destinations. Sam exhibits downright inhuman strength and stamina, tearing off entire limbs with singular strikes, and not showing any signs of exhaustion. Tracy, meanwhile, seems to be able to take away your friends pain, at the cost of harming themself? It's unclear?

And sure, all the rest of you do your best, of course. It seems lesser in comparison, but you're all helping! 

You wear the greaser demon down. He screams impotently, moving like a wild animal, regenerating limbs with less and less ease, striking blindly, wailing in outright rage, until eventually he collapses. 

Tracy: Okay. Everyone stand back. 

You all do, a little nervously. They walk back to the car, and start it. It roars to life, sputtering smoke. They ease it into drive, and suddenly it's roaring toward the greaser demon. By the time you understand what they're doing, they've done it. The car hits him with a massive thump, but once it's passed over the spot where he was laying, he's already gone. No body. No mess. 

The car stops. Tracy gets out.

Alex: ...okay.

Tracy: Okay. 

YOU: Wow.

Sam: So, uh... How... How was the dance.

It's quiet for a while, and then Wren laughs.

Wren: It was alright, you know. But uh... Now I'm tired, and hungry. What time is it? 

Sam pulls his cell phone out of his back pocket, and looks at it.

Wren: To be clear, if it's any earlier than midnight, I might start crying, because it feels like it's been forever. 

Sam: 10:00, sorry.

Wren: ... So am I. Look. There's, uh, a lot we need to tell you. Your dad, uh...

YOU: This conversation might go better with food. Is Litle Caesar's open?

It is. It is, and since they took Alex's mother's car, it fits all seven of you. And you drop Ryan off at the trailer park, and then you eat the pizza right in the minivan in the parking lot. And you tell Sam everything, and he cries, and then after holding an impromptu memorial service in a busted up car in a Little Caesar's parking lot, he and Tracy tell you everything, and Wren leads you in a toast to their newfound union, and "also their apotheosis, I guess." And it's late, and Alex talks at length about dysphoria, something you've never understood, and she tentatively decides on "she," while noting her prerogative to change that as many times as she needs to. 

And tomorrow you'll probably have to make some sort of statement, and time will tell what exactly what happened tonight means in the long run, and tomorrow a hundred things will probably happen, but tonight this is it, and you are happy. And Antimony give great hugs, and Wren kisses you, and it tastes like pizza, and that's all you need.

And in a house on a tall hill, an old man smiles. Because everything is going to work out. He has private assurance of that fact. The old man looks at his reflection in a giant, blue test tube. Someone in a helmet and a robe rounds a corner, and the old man asks him what took so long. 

Night has fallen on Emerald Springs, and it continues to fall until the sun rises the next morning. And so it shall be.

END OF CHAPTER THREE

END OF ACT TWO 

YOU ARE READING THE PROLOGUE TO THE FINAL ACT OF THE TERMINAL

WHICH IS TITLED:

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS (KILLER WHALE)

Your name is Ryan Hartley, and in a couple months, it'll be winter.

It has been a long, long time since you first fought alongside Wren and her friends. That was a school dance. It's funny, it was pretty horrific at the time, but it makes you feel almost nostalgic now. 

Okay, it hasn't actually been that long, you guess. But it certainly feels like it was. Just a couple years.

YOU: Just a couple years...

Crap. You totally said that aloud, like a tool. It's even worse, because you're trying to be quiet and sneaky here. You parked you car about two blocks away from the house, and walked in the cold and dark. You're just outside Hawthorne Manor now, you don't need to ruin any chance you have of sneaking in by talking to yourself like an idiot. 

You like these guys, you really do. In ways you never expected. Even Diana and Antimony have their charms, though they continue to beef with you over things you did as a middle schooler. That was ridiculous back then, and doubly so now that none of you are even in high school anymore. Whatever.

You climb the iron gate, leaping over it and falling. You think you probably sprained your ankle, but it's fine. You're really good at being quiet while injured. You walk up to the door, and pull out the key Alex had made for you. He- No, she -man you're bad at that, and it shouldn't be hard- acted like it was an incredible honor she was bestowing upon you. Like you're sir Galahad.

Sir Galahad would not enter the home of people he cared about with the intent of meeting someone there and then murdering them. 

No, that's a bad train of thought, and you desperately need to stop. You are doing this for them, you have to remember that. This is for them. You're not going to tell them that, or that you've done it. They wouldn't understand. You're not sure you understand yourself. 

Here's the thing: you've had around two years to train for your ultimate, godkilling destiny. You do some math internally... Twenty-six months? You're not great at math. But anyway, you've learned, more or less, how these powers you're cursed with work. Huge traumatic experiences speed you up on your way to "Awakening." Tracy and Sam did it after some sort of vision quest, Antimony did it after being dropped three stories by an evil god, Diana did it a couple months ago, after falling into a Crawler nest. 

But your powers don't necessarily start then. They worm through in latent and vestigial ways. Diana had prophetic dreams long before she Awakened, when she was much younger. You've seen Wren in combat, snapping into an almost trance like state, knowing when and where to attack.

They've all been blessed with these gifts. But not you.

You haven't slept well since that school dance. Because toward the end, you saw something, and He saw you. And He burned His image into the back of your eyelids. When you close your eyes, you see Him watching you. When it's quiet, you can hear Him mocking you. Sooner or later, something had to give. 

You're inside the house, hoping pretty hard that you don't run into Alex, or any of the others who might be sleeping over. You're clutching your dagger, (for some reason archaic weapons work better on supernatural stuff than modern ones) and stalking down a dark, creaky hallway. You have yet to understand the floorplan of this godforsaken labyrinth, but setting out with the intent of reaching a certain area tends to result in you reaching it, somehow. 

So it is. After about ten minutes of walking down dark hallways and cursing quietly to yourself, you come across a staircase, spiralling down beneath the ground, and you know that it's probably down there. You descend it, careful not to trip in the darkness. 

You emerge in a long tunnel. The walls are rounded, and illuminated by small, circular, green lights. It's very long, and you rush down it. After your experiences with Crawlers in the past, you have a healthy fear of subterranean areas. 

The tunnel ends in a large metal door. You know the code, because everything in this entire house has the same code, so you input it, and the door hums and opens.

The room behind it is small. Giant test tubes line the room. They glow a faint blue, and if you squint, you think you can see bodies suspended in them? Creepy. Creepier still is the guy standing in the room. He's not who you're looking for, but you know him.

YOU: Uh...

Sketch: Ah. Hello, boy.

YOU: You're... You're Alex and Wren's grandfather, right?

He smiles.

Sketch: "Sure."

YOU: What does that mean?

He smiles again, and turns away from you. He runs his hand over one of the tubes. 

Sketch: I know why you're here.

YOU: Yeah? Gonna try to stop me, old man?

Sketch: Heh. No. 

YOU: Do you know who I'm looking for? 

Sketch: I do.

YOU: Can you give me some directions, then?

Sketch: I can. There's a door to your left. Leads into another tunnel. That tunnel leads where you want to go. Hm.

YOU: What?

Sketch: I can hear Him inside you. Interesting. You may go. 

You don't want to waste any more time with this freak. You go through the door and into the next tunnel. It's basically identical to the first one. You need to avoid getting lost down here. You sprint down the hallway, swinging your dagger beside you. Another door, with the same code, of course. You input it again, and it opens. 

The room is circular, with a black square in the wall ahead of you. The room is not empty.

Oracle: AH! GREETINGS, APOSTATE! I-

You leap at the Oracle, dagger raised high. It must have been unprepared, because all it can do it stagger back slightly. You hear it's carapace crack, and feel you blade pierce whatever lies beneath it's shiny shell.

Oracle: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? 

It smacks you, and you fly, still holding your dagger, into a wall. You collapse to the ground, white pain burning through your whole body.

Oracle: WHAT FOOLISHNESS IS THIS?

You stand up, squinting through tears of pain, and you smile.

YOU: I... I thought it was ridiculous, at first. You seemed helpful, but scatterbrained. Like you really wanted to help us kids. And that was why you were pushing us into horrible situation after horrible situation, disappearing just in time to avoid the brunt of the blow. Leaving us in that nest where Diana almost died... Giving Sam and Tracy that stuff that almost killed them. And you've done this countless times, haven't you? Training six new children only to watch them die... Over and over.

It rushes at you blindly, and you fall to the ground, slashing it's leg. It stumbles back, and you leap up, kicking it into the black square. You jump in, following behind it. 

Oracle: WHAT...

You look around. You are standing on a walkway. A white square hovers at the end of it. Everything around you is pure black. Except the bodies. 

People are flying around. Clones of Diana, Tracy, Sam, Alex... Even you, are being blasted out of the sky by the massive eye of Apophis. You hear a laugh building in you, and you resist it, because if you start, you'll never stop.

Oracle: ...What are you doing?

YOU: Fight your own battles. 

You run at the Oracle, and push it. It teeters over the edge, and falls into the darkness. You watch it fall until you can't see it anymore.

You look up, and see Apophis looking back at you. You've never felt smaller, nor any more afraid.

WELL DONE, MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT.

And then He laughs, and you realize that you never ever should have done this. But it's too late. It's too late and He's working further into your head, and you know that it's going to get worse...

YOU HAVE JUST COMPLETED THE PROLOGUE TO THE FINAL ACT OF THE TERMINAL 

WHICH WAS TITLED:

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS (KILLER WHALE)

THANK YOU 

YOU ARE READING THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FINAL ACT OF THE TERMINAL 

ACT ONE (OF THREE):

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER

You awaken, in a king sized bed. Your covers are still pulled over you, but at your left, they've been pulled down. You blink your eyes. Wren's up, obviously. 

Day breaks over Emerald Springs, just outside, you can see the pale linght of a sun concealed by clouds flowing between tall pine trees. You have a little bit of a headache, and you look to the clock on the counter beside you. It says it's ten o'clock, and you have no reason to mistrust it. 

Your name is Diana Zhu. You turned 19 in November. You live in a small apartment with your girlfriends, Wren and Antimony. Evidently, both woke up before you, given that neither are currently present. In a few days, it'll be February 4th, which is Wren's birthday. You can also smell pancakes, beautiful, blessed pancakes, cooking in the kitchen.

You have a feeling it's going to be a very long day.

What do you do?

~~~

yo!!! timeskip! to make things simpler, the majority of the main cast are close to eighteen now. Diana has the earliest birthday, so she's nineteen! the first act took place in the late summer and early fall of 2017,  and now we're in the winter of 2020. there are tons of reasons for the timeskip, but the main one is that the kids were drastically undertrained and incapable of beating Apophis, even by the end of the last act, and I didn't really feel like you'd want to read two years of them training and sniping at each other, given that the previous thousands of words covered about three weeks of in-game time... but don't worry, we're gonna learn all about their two years of "fun." 

okay, im gonna say this while im directly cognizant of the fact: school starts for me in about a week! senior year! i can't wait to get senioritis and stop caring about things. (that will never happen, I'm too nervous) the point of saying this... while i transition into, you know, doing things every day, wearing jeans instead of pajama pants, and writing actual things for actual grades, parts for the terminal might be less frequent? trust me, ill definitely still be working on it regularly, and it'll continue to be the thing closest to my heart, but it won't be able to be my top priority. still at least the third, though. just saying this so that in a couple weeks if you should find yourself waiting a few days for a part, you don't think you've stopped being my favorites :> 

uhh, sidenote/addendum... since my earliest drafts of the novel trilogy that served as a prototype for the terminal, ive planned this timeskip... it was gonna be three books with a couple years chronologically between the second and third... i even made a timeline to make sure their ages and other stuff proceeded correctly... suffice to say, i planned it out thoroughly, and now we're there, and im still making myself sick with worry over how you guys are going to receive it. true tales of writing for an audience while having social anxiety! it shouldn't transfer like this, but it does!

THIS IS AMAZING WHAT. How do I love this even more than I already do?!?? First of all nooo I actually kinda LIKED the Oracle although actually I agree with Ryan but also now that seems to have been a bad move and really just HMPH. *huffy noises* I mean did you really have to kill that guy?? But Ig what's done is done. Also YESS we went full circle (another full circle!) hehee pancakes and "you have a feeling it's going to be a very long day"!!!! I wonder who's making the pancakes now...? But also whatt Diana's 19??? That feels oddly right and oddly HOW at the same time (TOH spoiler: sorta like how at the end of Owl House when I was like NOOO my precious characters they're all grown up how did this happen so quickly?!?? XD this is how my parents feel). But also heyy I'm so glad they've survived this far and hopefully none of them die in this final act and also YAYYY Diana and Wren and Antimony <333 just out of curiosity, is Deen's hair still dyed? Also I forgot is Antimony's hair dyed? But aNyWaYs btw if that wasn't clear (rereading, I feel like I very much did not make that clear :/), I fully love the timeskip. And definitely don't worry about senior year and being busy (or, in my case, busy procrastinating... though I WILL NOT do that this year I have my mind SET to it :) then my parents will have to agree, right? That's being super responsible, right? ...) and stuff! And yayy yeah school's coming up... bc summer has to end (Gravity Falls is amazing). Time for schoolwork all day every day, not to mention Chinese school starting up again, the place where I can barely understand what the teacher's saying bc for some reason I'm the only one whose Mandarin isn't getting any better (hey! Maybe it's because I don't practice! Just a thought! :/) and where I have to email my friend every week asking for help with hw and I feel sooo guilty about that and where I'm failing. The ironic part about all this is I actually LIKE Chinese school. I love Mandarin as a language, I love learning to speak it, I love going to Chinese school because being surrounded by my culture always feels like home, I love seeing some of my friends who I miss ever since I transferred schools... I Do Not like feeling like I'm failing, and I REALLY dislike having the teachers all make excuses for me and say I'm so smart and study so hard to the point where I feel so guilty bc I'm literally failing and everyone's so nice and I don't like getting what I didn't earn and don't deserve.

I do like ranting though :P I feel like I've filled your thread with way too many unnecessary words over these past months. Yup. :/ anyways please do not respond to that that was just a rant. mY pOiNt iS that this is as awesome as always, and take as much time with parts as you need. Okay bye :)

top

hee, okay, thank you! For both posts. Also heh yeah forgot to put a command in there... shout, "hello!!!!" out the window just to see if anyone shouts hello back (bc WHY NOT :D) and then go see who's making the pancakes!

YELL OUT WINDOW==>

It's around eight, you note, as you glance at your clock. Maybe someone else from you apartment is outside, going to work or something. You throw open the window.

YOU: Hello!

... Nobody's out there. You feel a little silly. Although, actually, a few stray cats are out in the parking lot. You realize some of them must be at least the second or third generation from the stray cats you remember living here when you were younger... You can't tell if that makes you a little happy or a little bit sad. Regardless, it's a pleasant emotion. Living in the same apartment complex you grew up in after years of living somewhere else is weird... You often find yourself pining for a home that's just a floor beneath you.

It's an oddly nice day. Cold and misty, yes, but nice. You can see the marsh out to the side. 

PANCAKES==> 

You can smell them and you're going crazy. You are up and ready to chow down. You're in your pajama onesie, but whatever, it's nothing Wren and Antimony haven't seen before. You can hear murmured conversation as you open your door and walk out into the kitchen. 

Wren is cooking, wearing her giant, stupid chef's hat, and that pink bathrobe, and Antimony is sipping mountain dew from a shot glass. Antimony has her hair in a messy bun, and she's wearing her onesie, which matches yours. Her came is beside her.

When Tracy was testing the extent of their healing powers, helping Antimony was one of the first things they did. That was how you learned that healing massive, traumatic injuries is not exactly safe... They were knocked out for a good three days, and they still limp a little... But it pushed Antimony in the right direction, and with some physical therapy, she got walking again! It makes you very happy. They couldn't do anything about the scars though, but Antimony wanted to keep them anyway. It all works out. 

Wren: Hey Deen! Look who's up earlier than eleven AM. 

YOU: The sensory delight of your cooking roused me, I'm afraid. How early were you up?

Wren: Uh... Four? 

YOU: Seriously? 

Wren: Yeah. I jogged, it was alright. Antimony was up too. Another trance. 

Antimony: Yep. "Six is for the dead, One, One falls, a traitor makes the treachery know, the firmament is broken, the blinded one recurs, all is lost, etc." It is honestly getting a little boring! 

YOU: I have yet to enter a trance... 

Antimony: You may have simply gotten lucky? I do not know. Whatever is speaking through me is so cryptic and terse, it is honestly only obvious in retrospect. We do not really need it in stereo.

Wren: Yeah... Like, the "One falling" is probably Ryan, right? 

It's quiet for a bit.

YOU: He is... Probably fine? Honestly, he is prone to these sort of things, disappearing for a little while is basically his M.O. 

Wren exhales through her nose. She gives you a thumbs up that means she's just tired, not frustrated with you, which is good to know.

Wren: You're probably right? I mean, he's done stuff like this before. But only for a couple weeks, not for this long.

YOU: That... Is true. It is February today... It has been about three months. 

It's quiet again. You wonder where your friend is. You also wonder when you started thinking of him as your friend... Probably around the second time he saved your proverbial bacon... He isn't really that bad, you guess. Wren turns around. She's smiling, but you can tell she's still worried. She uses a spatula to remove the pancakes from the griddle.  

Wren: Okay! Eat up, guys! We have another one of those days ahead of us.

YOU: Oh boy. Another big adventure.

Antimony begins eating pancakes like a starving rodent, enlightening you between massive forkfuls of food. 

Antimony: Yeah... Sam called. He woke up, and, um... He, uh, found his own dead body.

YOU: ....

YOU: What?

Antimony: Yeah, his own dead body. Another duplicate, probably? But, that is still very weird, right?

YOU: To say the least. Any signs of what happened?

Wren: We asked, but he just kept waxing poetic about, like, Willy Wonka. You know the guy, he's very... Guarded about these things. You know. He cries while watching Moana and then tries to act nonchalant in actual terrible situations.

YOU: That is true. Okay, so today we are detectives! Interesting.

Wren: Yeah, we were debating whether to try visiting Sam's house or the Hawthorne Manor first.

Hm. What do you think?