Chapter Text
"Ugh... When are they coming back?" Jasper groaned, sinking deeper into his chair. "It's been hours..."
Across the plastic breakroom table, August blinked sluggishly, his head propped up on his arms. "And where is Claire? She hasn't even come back yet."
"I don't trust her," Jasper muttered. He stood up, stretching his stiff limbs. "I understand her whole situation—how she's trapped working for Doctor Barclay—but still."
"I know," August mumbled. "I just hope Mark and that Thomas guy get back soon. He had a lead, I think."
Arnold looked up from his spot. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I think he'll be back soon. With the others, I hope."
Jasper nodded. "And then we can finally make a plan to get out of here."
August shook his head. "A solid plan will probably take another few days to work out," he grumbled.
"Anything is better than being in this damn breakroom," Jasper said, pacing slightly. "Getting sick of being inside of here,"
August let out a dry chuckle. "Haha... I'm the one who should be saying that. I've been awake the longest, keeping an eye on all of your transfer chairs and making sure you got the notes to turn them off from your end." He sighed, finally sitting up straight. "But yeah, your pain is still valid, no doubt about that. We all need to get out of here. There's only so much stale candy and cheap ramen we can take before we start losing our minds."
"At least Mark gave us some decent food," Arnold said with a heavy sigh. He looked over at August, his expression softening. "Hey—thanks, dude. For being there for all of us. If it wasn't for you, we'd still be stuck in those chairs."
Jasper paused his pacing and gave August a firm, respectful nod. "Yeah. Thanks, seriously."
August smiled warmly. "Come on, guys, it was nothing."
"No! You helped us out a ton! I'm really grateful," Arnold smiled.
Leaning back in his chair, August looked up at the ceiling. "I wonder how Pete is doing..."
Arnold tilted his head. "That was the guy you were dating?"
August nodded, a faint blush dusting his cheeks. "Yeah. He was so nice to me. Helped me out a ton," he murmured. "Plus, he's really cute."
Arnold giggled.
August looked at Jasper. "You've barely talked about the person you were with in the Fallout world," he pointed out. "I know you must have been with someone."
Jasper's face went red, and he quickly looked away. "When do you think Claire is coming back?"
Arnold blinked, glancing at August, who looked just as confused.
"Dude," August said. "What's wrong? You've been dodging the question so many times. Did something happen?"
Suddenly, the intercom buzzed to life again
Motion Detected - Front door
August quickly stood up and hopped over the table. "Guys, wait here." He ran out of the breakroom. "I need to check if that's Claire or not..." He jogged up to the door and peered through the small window, his stomach twisting. If it was Claire or Barclay, he wouldn't be able to tell right away—they both probably wore the same heavy, company-branded coats.
August stepped back as a hooded figure walked up to the door and leaned forward to punch numbers into the keypad.
The door swung open, and the figure stepped inside, pulling back their hood to meet August's gaze. It was Claire. "Has that other boy gone?" she asked.
August sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders.
"Is it Claire??" Arnold yelled from the breakroom.
"Yeah!" August shouted back over his shoulder. He turned his attention back to Claire. "Yeah, he's gone. Not sure when he'll return. There is this dark creature... he's been terrorizing all of us."
"A dark creature?" Claire asked, her brow furrowing.
"Yes. I remember seeing it in the world I was in, though he didn't do anything there. I'm not sure if Arnold has seen anything. He keeps talking about this 'Danger Kid' thing, but obviously, that's not it. And I'm not sure if Jasper has seen it, since he barely wants to say anything about Fallout." August sighed heavily. "But Oliver has seen it. Literally almost every time in the world he was in, according to him. It came here, and Mark—that other guy you met—wants to help."
Claire looked like she was struggling to follow along, but she nodded anyway. "I don't understand much of that," she admitted. "But Oliver is in trouble."
"So is Venti," August added.
"Venti?" Claire blinked.
"Yes, one of the characters from the world Oliver went to," August explained. "The two of them became really close."
Claire's eyes widened slightly. "But he's here? Venti, I mean?"
August nodded.
"That could only mean Venti came from the chair," Claire murmured, pieces clicking together in her mind. "The black hole from the chair."
"That's... not a problem, is it?" Arnold asked as he stepped out to join them. "You mentioned that before, and the boys and I put two and two together. We assumed that's how Venti got here after Oliver was sent back."
"Trust me, if it was bad, you'd have noticed," Claire said grimly.
August blinked. "What does that mean?"
"From my knowledge, if the chairs were to malfunction with the black hole, it could have sucked out more than just this Venti character. It could have pulled just about everything in the universe the chairs were hooked to and pushed it out into our world," Claire explained.
August's eyes widened in horror. "Well... yeah, we definitely would have noticed that. Literally, the entire facility would have blown up if Teyvat got dropped in here..."
Claire nodded. "Right."
"Lead the way to the breakroom," Claire instructed. "Let me see how the others are holding up."
August nodded and led her over.
"And may I ask..." Claire paused, looking thoroughly confused as she stepped over the scattered shards of the broken door frame. "What happened here?" She walked into the room, taking in the wreckage.
"That dark creature I talked about," August said, following her in. "All of this was him. The vending machine, though? That was on me."
Claire shook her head. "Don't apologize for that, honey. Actually, don't apologize for anything. Your father doesn't deserve this building, or the job he has."
August walked ahead of her, gesturing to the group. "Let's start this again. Guys, this is Claire."
Arnold nodded, offering a soft smile. "Hi."
"You're his assistant, right?" Jasper asked. "I've never seen you."
Claire smiled faintly. "Well, you're from 2014, right? I... I believe I was only 19 back then. I was just starting college. I met Doctor Barclay in 2016, but he didn't show me all of this until I was in my twenties..." She looked down, her expression darkening. "That's when I slowly started to realize I had no way out... ha."
Jasper shook his head, wrapping his arms around himself. "I still can't believe it. I was 19 in 2014 too. Do the chairs preserve us or something?"
"In a sense, yes," Claire nodded. "They do. So, yeah... you'd technically be my age."
"Damn..." Jasper muttered. "I don't feel any older—"
"Yes, because the chair preserved your body from aging," Claire said softly. "But you're free to feel whatever you want right now. In the end, it... it doesn't matter. I don't know how you all will live a regular life after this. I don't even know how we'll go about it. We still have to deal with Doctor Barclay... and... it's just too much."
Motion Detected Front Door
They all froze in place.
"That can't be..." Claire whispered, spinning around to stare through the broken breakroom doorway.
"That's not..." August stammered.
"It can't," Claire said, her voice laced with disbelief. "He's away. It's the entire reason I'm even here at all."
Front door opened
They waited for what felt like an eternity. Time seemed to drag to a agonizing crawl.
Front door closed
Slowly, they heard footsteps. They weren't fast. They were heavy, dragging, deliberate steps. Eventually, a hooded figure slowly rounded the corner. He stopped, staring at the broken doorway. A heavy, furious breath escaped him as he took in the disaster. He didn't even look into the breakroom.
"CLAIRE?!" the voice bellowed. The figure backed away from the broken doorframe and marched down the hall toward the extraction rooms.
The group in the breakroom exchanged terrified glances. "Was that...?" August whispered.
"It was him," Claire said quietly. "Your father."
They waited in suffocating silence until his voice boomed again.
"WHERE ARE THEY!?"
They all knew exactly what he had found: the empty room, and the singular, shattered transfer chair tossed on the ground.
"CLAIRE!!" the voice roared again. "Where is she?!"
They heard the frantic shuffling of his footsteps coming back down the hallway.
Suddenly, a burst of harsh static buzzed from the two-way radio on Claire's hip. Her eyes widened in panic, and she frantically pulled her shirt up to dial down the volume.
But it was too late. Doctor Barclay had heard it.
He stepped into the doorway, staring them down. He slowly dragged his gaze over the boys, then settled his furious eyes on Claire.
The situation was deteriorating rapidly, and Claire knew it. Without hesitating, she stepped protectively in front of the boys.
Doctor Barclay stared her down. "Just what are you doing, Claire?" he hissed through clenched teeth. "The extraction room is a mess. The breakroom door is busted. Look at the vending machine!" He gestured wildly at the shattered appliance. "And now I see that my four subjects are out of their chairs!"
Claire was trembling, but she held her ground. "I can't let you do this anymore."
Doctor Barclay took a deep breath, reaching up to lower his hood. "Claire..." he began, his tone patronizingly calm. "We both know I cannot do that. Do you have any idea what will happen to my company—to me—if I let them go?" He pointed a sharp finger at Arnold. "And you've gone and broken his chair. It was completely destroyed. What did you do, Claire? Did you know you could have killed them by taking them out so forcefully?"
Claire let out an angry grunt. "To hell with your business! You shouldn't be doing this to teenagers, much less adults! Nothing is wrong with your business on paper, but you never asked for their consent! And when you did ask for consent, people like me in... you threatened us with death just to keep your sick little secrets hidden!"
August stood silently for a moment, his chest heaving. Then, he stepped forward.
"Son, stay out of this," Doctor Barclay warned.
"No!" August snapped. "Dad, I... I never in a million years thought you'd do something like this. I always knew you were a scientist, and I thought it was amazing. My dad can breach into different universes! But... hurting people? You've literally become a comic-book mad scientist! You're hurting others!"
"Again, this does not concern you," Doctor Barclay said coldly. "Once I deal with Claire and my other subjects, I will deal with you. For now, go back into Extraction Room 2."
"Is that all you view us as?" Jasper said, stepping up beside August. "Your... subjects?"
"You all should be on your knees thanking me," Doctor Barclay scowled. "I took you from this miserable world and placed you into worlds of fiction. Something everyone dreams of! You shouldn't be upset. You should be grateful!" He jabbed a finger at them. "I know you all found someone in those worlds. I've been monitoring you for years. Looking at all of you, none of you had any chance with anyone from this reality. You're lucky those fictional beings wanted anything to do with you."
Claire's eyes flared with disgust. "What a sick thing to say to them, Barclay. And no, they should not be grateful. Sure, they might have been happy, but you took them without consent! No consent from Arnold's parents. No consent from Jasper, or Oliver! And you got consent from August, but you conveniently left out the part where you planned to keep him locked in a chair for years!"
"I am going to tell you this one last time." Doctor Barclay took a slow, menacing step toward Claire. "Step. Out. Of. The. Way."
Claire didn't flinch. "I said I will not."
"Hm." Doctor Barclay straightened up, his face hardening. "And what do you think will happen, hm? You have no way out of here."
"We can take you on," Jasper said, balling his fists.
Doctor Barclay looked at him, amused. "You?"
"I've spent over ten years fighting off mutants, raiders, radroaches, and creatures ten times your size," Jasper spat. "You? You're nothing compared to the things Billy and I faced."
"Yeah," Arnold chimed in, finding his courage. "And I spent over five years fighting Danger Kid. You're nothing compared to him."
August swallowed hard, standing taller. "And you're a joke compared to the giant insects I had to survive."
Doctor Barclay let out a dry, mocking laugh. "Even my own son stands against me." He shook his head, looking down at them with absolute pity. "Those were all things you did inside your avatars. It was nothing but a simulation for you! Now it's just a nothing more than a thought—a feeling! You can't do any of that here. You are all just as weak as you were before you sat in those chairs!"
"Even so," Claire interjected, "it's four of us against you. One person. A frail, aging scientist."
Doctor Barclay's eyes snapped back to Claire. "Frail? Aging?"
"Is that not what you are?" Claire challenged. "You're old and fragile. One hit and you're on the floor."
"That is what you believe," Doctor Barclay said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "But I know for a fact that I am not old. Or fragile. Or weak."
He slowly lowered his arm toward the ground.
The four of them watched in confusion.
Suddenly, a massive, glowing purple hammer swirling with an unnatural, crackling energy materialized directly into his grasp. Doctor Barclay gripped the heavy handle and leveled the weapon at them.
"Ahh!?" The four of them gasped, scrambling backward.
Doctor Barclay laughed, a cruel, echoing sound. "Who's fragile and weak now?"
As he spoke, a thick, violet armor materialized out of thin air, locking into place around his body. "Thanks to the Fictional Universe, I can extract certain elements into our reality. Come on, Claire, you should have known this! Now... sadly, I will have to dispose of you. I cannot let you leave this room with what you have done."
Claire gulped hard, her knees shaking, but she absolutely refused to move away from the boys.
"It was nice working with you, Claire. But it ends now. Our business relationship is over." The doctor raised the sparking, purple hammer, ready to bring it down on his assistant. "Your turn to join the rest I have killed,"
Then, he froze.
"Wait... where is the other boy?" He slowly lowered the hammer.
"Oliver." Doctor Barclay's voice ticked up in anger. "Where is he?"
Claire stammered, unable to force the words past the lump in her throat.
"Speak!" Doctor Barclay roared. "Where is he?! He's not in here with you. Did you let him out!?"
"H-He's in another world!" Jasper blurted out.
Arnold violently slapped Jasper's arm. "Dude!" he hissed.
"Maybe it'll distract him!" Jasper whispered back frantically.
"Ugh!" Doctor Barclay grunted. He spun on his heel and stormed out of the room. But he wasn't stupid—as he passed the threshold, he casually swung the hammer upward. With a blinding flash of purple light, the shattered pieces of the door flew through the air, perfectly reconstructing themselves. The doorway was sealed.
August gasped, lunging forward and slamming his hands against the newly repaired metal.
It was locked tight.
The door never had a traditional handle; it operated via a wall panel. But no matter how frantically August smashed the button, the door refused to budge.
"ARG!" August screamed, punching the solid metal. "Now what do we do!?"
"Hey, hey, calm down, August." Arnold rushed over, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder. "If they come back, Doctor Barclay doesn't stand a chance against Venti. Or Mark, for that matter."
"Or that crystal creature looking thing," Jasper added.
Claire fluttered her eyes, rubbing her temples. "Venti and Mark you've talked about... and who is the crystal one?"
August blinked, the panic slowly receding as a realization hit him. He stepped back from the door. "You're right," he whispered. "You're so right! Dad has no idea Venti is with Ollie! And he doesn't even know Mark exists..." A wild grin spread across his face. "He is definitely not going to know what hit him!"
Arnold smiled, patting August's shoulder. "See? So what if he has a glowing hammer? There's no way he can match the raw strength of an Archon, or a Keyblade wielder!"
August let out a long breath, resting his forehead against the cool metal of the door. "I feel sick to my stomach knowing I share a last name with him."
"Oh, come on, sweetie," Claire said softly. "Don't be hard on yourself. What he did is not your fault. None of this is."
"I was his accomplice. I contributed to this," August argued.
"By that logic, we all did," Jasper pointed out.
"Yeah, but I did it willingly..." August muttered.
"You said it yourself," Claire reminded him. "That was before you knew the truth. All you saw was a cool dad with fancy gadgets. He didn't come off as evil to you. Please, do not put a single ounce of this blame on yourself."
August pushed himself off the door, his expression hardening with resolve. "Once Venti sees him, I know he'll stop him. Knowing how fiercely he loves Oliver... if my dad so much as breathes on him, Venti is going to destroy him."
~~~~~~~~
Doctor Barclay opened the door to Extraction Room 1. "Just look at what they did to my equipment," he muttered, shaking his head. "These machines cost a fortune, and they toss them around like toys!"
He stormed over to Oliver's old transfer chair. "I can't even use this one, the internal casing is dead! They broke this too! Oh, I'm definitely killing them when I'm done here." He leaned his heavy hammer against the wall. "I'll kill them, repair the chairs, and hire better assistants."
Doctor Barclay knelt down, gripped Oliver's ruined chair, and hauled it out of the way with a grunt. Dusting off his hands, he glared at the mess. "Maybe I won't pick stable subjects next time. I'll pick subjects who can't think for themselves. That way, if this ever happens again, they'll be too stupid to fight back."
He marched over to Jasper's chair and dragged it into the spot where Oliver's used to sit. Moving back to the broken chair, he violently tore out the back panel and ripped out the internal memory chip. He carried it over to the new chair, only to realize the back panel had already been forced open.
"Who the hell has been messing with all of this? Ugh, damn these kids..." He shoved the chip into the slot and hooked the chair up to the main monitor. "Let's see here..."
He reached into the wall-mounted storage panel to grab his diagnostic laptop, noticing the locker door was left ajar. "They tried to steal my laptop too?" But as he pulled the door wide, he saw the device was still sitting securely inside.
"Then who opened this and didn't take this out?" Doctor Barclay grumbled. He grabbed the laptop, wired it into the chair's mainframe, and began typing furiously, routing the commands to the massive overhead screen.
He clicked through a few menus, booting the chair into BIOS mode. He scrolled down until he found the history logs.
Avatar History Location:
1. Genshin Impact - Sub-3921 (December 2023)
2. Honmono Dimension - Sub-1 (December 2026)
Doctor Barclay scowled at the screen. "That's not what I want. Where is the option to turn on the chip I had implanted in their real bodies..." He hammered a few more keys until a new window popped up.
Tracking Chip Location:
1. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Extraction Room 1
2. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Breakroom
3. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Extraction Room 3
4. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Breakroom
5. Error
6. Error
7. Error
8. Error
9. Error
10. Error
11. Error
The doctor squinted. "Come on, I built this tracking chip so it wouldn't fail like this! Work, you stupid machine." He aggressively tapped in a new command sequence.
He glared up at the screen. "You better show me. I'm on my absolute last nerve. I have to know where he is."
1. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Extraction Room 1
2. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Breakroom
3. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Extraction Room 3
4. Doctor Barclay Corporation - Greenland Site - Lab 5 - Breakroom
5. Five Nights At Freddy's - Sub-9000
6. Soma - Sub-10
7. Soma - Sub-92
8. Minecraft - Sub-24345
9. Silent Hill - Sub-1
10. Zenless Zone Zero - Sub-4829283
11. Thomas The Tank Engine - Sub -7
Doctor Barclay froze, staring at the impossible data. "That's... that's not possible," he whispered. "How is he jumping to other worlds without the avatar?" He ran a hand over his face. "Just what have Claire and those brats been hiding from me?"
Desperate, the doctor highlighted the most recent anomalous ping and clicked Override.
"This probably won't even work, without the avatar. Let's hope it does. It's still theoretically connected to the chip,"
WARNING... WARNING... ACTIVATION OF TRANSFER CHAIR EMERGENCY WARP. WARNING... BLACK HOLE PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
"If those damn kids make me tear apart my own lab for this..." Doctor Barclay slammed the Confirm key.
~~~~
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"It's been a good run..." the boy whispered. His eyes rolled back into his head, his body went entirely limp, and he plummeted silently toward the earth far below.
With Nerraw gone, the paralyzing, suffocating hold on the group shattered instantly. But there was no time for relief. They had a much bigger problem.
Nerraw had transferred his remaining essence into the crystalline creature. Thomas was floating erratically in the air, clutching his head in absolute agony as his glowing blue shards violently glitched between light and dark.
"Thomas!" Mark yelled, flying toward him.
"C-Can you hit him with the Keyblade?!" Oliver shouted in panic.
"I can't hurt him!" Mark cried out.
Before anyone could make a move, a deafening, electrical ZAP cracked through the air.
A massive, concussive blast of energy slammed directly into Oliver and Venti, launching them backward through space. The sky vanished into a sickening blur of colors, and suddenly, they slammed hard onto a solid floor. They tumbled violently across the cold linoleum until they crashed in a heap against the heavy metal legs of a chair.
"AHGRG!" Oliver yelled, clutching his bruised arm as he frantically scrambled to his feet. "Venti?! Mark!?"
He spotted Venti groaning on the floor beside him and quickly hauled the bard up. "Venti! Are you okay?"
Venti didn't answer. He was staring dead ahead, his bright eyes wide.
Oliver followed his gaze.
They were back inside the lab. Specifically, the transfer chair room.
"What?" Oliver muttered, his head spinning as he looked around the sterile environment. Mark was gone. Thomas was gone. "Why are we back here? Did Mark send us back?"
"Who's that...?" Venti whispered.
Oliver whipped his head around.
Standing in the doorframe was someone else. Oliver's eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated panic. He instantly grabbed Venti's hand, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
It was the absolute last person Oliver wanted to see right now.
"D-Doctor Barclay..." Oliver stammered.
Venti's eyes darted between the doctor and a terrified Oliver.
The doctor's eyes narrowed into slits. "Just what the hell is this?" Doctor Barclay yelled. "Why are you out of the avatar? Why are you standing next to a fictional character in real life? What did you do to the chair?!"
Venti gasped softly. "Babe, this is him?"
"Yes!" Oliver hissed, pulling Venti slightly behind him. "Though I have no idea what the hell he's wearing..."
"It looks like armor of some sort..." Venti noted, stepping casually out from behind Oliver. "So. You're this doctor I've heard so much about, huh?" Venti smirked.
Oliver gasped. "V-Venti, wait!"
Oliver knew Venti had been ready to throw hands the moment he found out the scientist was just a regular human from his 'boring realm'... but the crackling purple armor the doctor was currently wearing definitely did not look boring at all.
"You're the character I've watched him date," Doctor Barclay sneered, analyzing Venti. "How are you manifesting in this reality? No one was in the lab to activate the black hole warp to pull you through. And that shouldn't be physically possible since Oliver isn't logged into his avatar."
Oliver had been trying to yank Venti backward by his cape, but he suddenly froze. His entire face flushed beet red as the scientist's words registered, completely drowning out the rest of the threat. "HUH?!" Oliver squeaked. "You watched us!?" Now he felt embarrassed.
Venti blinked, completely unbothered. "Hm!" He placed his hands confidently on his hips. "Well! That just means you've seen that we truly adore each other, and that I'll do anything for him, because he matters a lot to me!"
Doctor Barclay scoffed. He opened the palm of his hand, and the massive hammer vanished from the wall, materializing instantly into his grasp with a heavy metallic hum.
"The hell!?" Oliver gasped, stepping back. "Bruh what hell are you?!"
"Ehe!" Venti smiled brightly, leaning in close to Oliver. "Seems your weak-boned doctor isn't quite as weak as you thought! Pretty strong, actually! I'm impressed." Venti turned his piercing gaze back to the doctor. "But I don't approve of you taking my boyfriend, or those other people, as your little test subjects. Especially without their consent. That is decidedly not cool, and it reminds me of a certain doctor in my world that many were not very fond of."
Roaring in anger, Doctor Barclay charged at Venti, swinging the glowing purple hammer.
"Ehehe! Goodbye!" Venti chirped.
With a casual snap of his fingers, a colossal bolt of blinding lightning tore down through the ceiling, shattering the concrete and zapping directly into Doctor Barclay with the force of a bomb.
"Heh!" Venti smiled, dusting off his hands. "Well, that's taken care of!"
Oliver stood absolutely paralyzed, staring blankly at Doctor Barclay's lifeless, charred body lying in a smoking heap on the floor, looking like a well-done barbecue. Slowly, very slowly, Oliver turned his head to look at Venti.
Venti met his horrified gaze with a cheerful blink. "What? I told you I'd smite him if I got the chance."
Oliver's jaw dropped. "Then why didn't you do that with Nerraw?!"
"Ehe! That's completely different! You can't just go around smiting cosmic immortal beings! It typically doesn't end well... hehe... believe me, I know that from experience," he smiled sheepishly. "But yeah! You always said Doctor Barclay was just a mortal, and he definitely smelled mortal, so—quick, easy smite! He's dead now!"
Oliver looked down at the doctor's smoking remains, his brain short-circuiting.
"HEY, IS EVERYONE OKAY DOWN THERE?! I HEARD A NOISE!!!"
A muffled shout echoed down the hallway.
"Who's that?" Venti blinked, turning toward the door. "Come on, let's go check!"
"Venti, wait! You really should have thought this through!" Oliver cried, grabbing his boyfriend's arm.
"Huh? What do you mean? He served no use to society. And that is something I rarely say." Venti's cheerful demeanor cracked for a second, a shadow passing over his eyes. "I always regretted never stepping in to help fight Dottore. Thankfully, Nahida and the Traveler and a few others were onto him... but..." Venti looked down, rubbing his arms. "I could have done something... That... that was something that Silent Hill place forced me to realize..."
Oliver softened, but the panic was still simmering. "Venti, it's not that! Don't you remember August? That was his dad!"
Venti looked up at Oliver, tilting his head like a confused bird before the realization violently crashed into him. His teal eyes went wide. "Oh no—" He immediately clamped both hands over his mouth.
Oliver winced. He knew August was already starting to resent him, but August and his dad had lived a good life together before all this. Breaking the news that his dad was now a pile of ash on the floor... that was going to be rough.
"WHY IS IT SO SILENT DOWN THERE!? OLIVER! VENTI! DID YOU COME BACK?! DID YOU DEAL WITH HIM?!" the muffled voice yelled again.
All of this had to be put on hold.
"Come on! Quickly," Oliver urged, pulling Venti out of the smoking room. "Who knows what Doctor Barclay was doing to them while we were gone... and where the hell did he get that armor from?!"