There is a Problem [Fin]

[carcinoGeneticist]

The day that Kieran had left, there had been a strange smell clinging to Xiven. It was on the curve of her neck, her hip, her breast, wrapped in the fur of her body almost as comfortably as if it had been her own smell. That night, he had breathed it in as if it was, and he’d tried to push it out of his mind as an anomaly.

But it wasn’t. It was a smell much like his own - a smell of Bog, thick and musky, unique to whatever individual had put it there. There was something oddly... familiar about it, too. That was, if anything, the oddest part of all. It smelled, for all the world, like Rhi. Which, of course, wasn’t possible. She had been de-oiled by Todd, and even if she hadn’t, there was something about this smell that made the King think male. Male, Bog, and not him. For weeks, he’d done his best to put it out of mind. Justifications centered around her part-Bog children (Othello still had a stench about him) settled into his head, keeping him calm.

But it didn’t last long.

The smell had clung to her in all the wrong places for it to have been related to one of her children - or at least he desperately hoped that to be the case. It smelled for all the world like the aftereffects of sex.

One night, his mind came to a sudden - and jolting - realization. The smell had been of one of Rhi’s children, and she had blood that was not also that of Xiven’s. Blood that could take other forms and slip into the Court unnoticed. Blood that would find Kieran and take him from his home to other places. The thought sent a shiver of revulsion down his spine. That... creature had come into his home and done something to his Queen. His first thoughts were of a desire for retribution of some kind, to lash out and get vengeance. It was his Weapon that settled those thoughts - but only for a time. This time they had gone too far, and that was to say nothing of the money that had vanished along with them. Something would have to be done.

Today, he was making his way through the winding streets of the Capital, a cloak over his shoulders and a deep fury in his heart. Rhiannon was tucked deep in his mind, somewhere between eager and terrified to see her children again. He knew where they would be - or at least had a reasonable suspicion. The streets grew dark and dirty as he stepped into the Outer Bazaar, head held high while he walked. There were sounds of people in the shadows, watching a King walk through their streets. Some of them might have even recognized him from the last time he had been here. He knew well where he was going, it was burned into the parts of his mind he shared with Rhiannon, and it didn’t take long to arrive.

Without even a knock of warning, Apocalypse kicked down the door of Seth’s old apartment.

[The Jenn]

The late morning sun filtered through the grimy window of Jak’s bedroom as he gently stroked his daughter’s side. Tabby hadn’t felt well that day, catching some bug or another from the city streets. She sniffled and sneezed and whimpered and whined, and he’d taken off work to tend her. Kieran had left to take Mili to work, and Amhal had left... maybe for work? Maybe not? It was hard to say with him.

Shushing his daughter with a fond hiss, he nosed at her lightly, making sure to keep his eye far above her small form. At almost six years old, she knew not to touch Mommy’s eye, even if the fire drew her gaze more often than not. Obligingly, she quieted her distressed noises and muttered something about ‘sick’ and ‘tired’ and ‘oww’.

To make her smile, he ‘encouraged’ Dell to wiggle her cloak wings at the girl in a little wingy dance and speak in his sister’s voice. The words were sweet, encouraging her to cheer up, even as the ‘wrongness’ of the cloak washed over the girl. Then he wiggled his paws in front of her and caused the gloves to speak with Sa’s voice, encouraging the same. Between her aunts and her Mommy cooing at her, Tabby couldn’t not smile. Even with her skin shivering all up and down her spine. Auntie Dell was just like that sometimes.

He had just gotten ready to sing her an odd three-part-harmony with her aunties when a smash made him jerk in place and move backwards. His flaming eye swiveled and saw nothing, meaning that they were out in the main room. Had that been the main door? There was a problem.

”Tabby-lovely, stay in bed,” he wheezed to his daughter, licking the side of her face before he stood and shuffled towards the door of the bedroom.

[carcinoGeneticist]

The door splintered with surprisingly little effort, Apocalypse was startled to find. Something about it suggested that, perhaps, it had been broken down at least once before. That thought passed quickly as he stepped inside. That smell - the smell he’d remembered vaguely from Xiven’s coat all those years before - was everywhere. Now that he was bathed in it, his suspicions were all but confirmed. For some reason more than just taking Kieran away, Jak had come to the Court and fucked Xiven. Fucked a woman who was, by all rights, his half-aunt.

The thought made his stomach twist oddly, the horror related to the incest taking a backseat to the horror that he had almost certainly done so in a form that was a lie. He could only begin to imagine.

“JAKODI!” the man shouted as he moved through the entryway, his muscles alive and tense with his nerves. Here he was, in an unfamiliar place, just barging the fuck in. The man he was seeking was a Joker. This was probably a bad idea - but that had never stopped him before. This time, all that was new was the incessant whimpering of Rhiannon in the back of his mind. “Where the fuck are you?” There was a growl in his voice, along with a strange sense of want that he was sure had been born of the amount of time he’d had to simply stew on this whole giant mess.

[The Jenn]

Concerned at the violence and upset in the tone, Jak hustled his way out of the bedroom in a mad shuffle, his limbs moving awkwardly in the half-bipedal and half-quadrupedal configuration. His head emerged first, flaming eyeball casting about the room until it settled on the very obvious form of the enraged human.

Enraged... and entirely familiar.

”Paaaaaale,” he crooned in concern, shuffling closer to the man with what looked like a bizarre disregard for the danger lurking in the other man’s posture. He was family, and he was upset, and he wasn’t happy in the slightest. Perhaps he could do something to help? His name had been called. He was needed for something. ”I’m heeeeere. You’ve fiiiinally come to visit! I’m so excited! What’s wrooong? Can I help? And- oh, the door. Are you drunk?”

The last time he remembered a door being broken in their house, Amhal had been... well... a tad bit intoxicated. A tad bit a lot intoxicated. Quite drunk, actually. Jak was concerned.

[carcinoGeneticist]

Before Jak had even stepped fully into the room, Apocalypse had felt something. It was cold and made his skin crawl in an utterly wrong sort of way, and he shuddered involuntarily. When he looked up at the other man... thing, there was a wariness in his slitted eyes, the brows furrowing downward in clear confusion. What the hell was that feeling? It almost reminded him of... His gaze locked on what was standing before him, as if seeing the Joker for the first time. Which, in a way, he was. This was not the child he remembered from all those years ago. So much was new - the eye, the glowing orb, the feet and tails and... oh, shit.

He was wearing his sister like a morbid cloak.

Fighting the urge to retch, Apocalypse bared his teeth slightly. “Don’t -- stay the fuck where you are,” he said, clenching a hand into a fist. “No. Not at all. Suits, you’re...” Hideous? Disgusting? Terrifying? The feeling that was flowing through him was almost worse than the one that had clung to his father. Rhiannon noticed, shivering in the back of his mind. “You came to the Court. Why? What the hell did you do to Xiven? I -- I smelled you on her. You touched her.”

And did... something to his sister. What was her name? D... something. Dell, the voice in his head provided, completely disregarding the fact that Apocalypse didn’t honestly care what her name had been. Something else had taken precedence over that particular thought process, moving on to a different sister.

The fur over Jak’s paws looked... wrong.

There was white where there should have been color, red along the bottom as if he’d stepped in red paint. It was so familiar, so... Sa. Treasa. An image flashed into his head of a Corvistowne child carrying most of the corpse of a Highland puppy, the legs stripped of skin and fur. Skin and fur that he was now looking at, fashioned into a pair of morbid gloves. The King’s mouth went dry. She had died. So many years ago now, and he had missed her. He’d missed her sweetness, missed the way she would jump onto her hind legs to kiss his cheek whenever he brought her some treat from the kitchens. Apocalypse had truly loved that little girl. “Sa. What... what did you do to Sa?!”

[The Jenn]

Obligingly, Jak stopped a handful of shuffling steps from the bedroom door. He watched the pale man in concern, the wax crusting his cheeks pulling tight at his worried expression. Not good, no, not good. Those shivers and that expression... perhaps Dell upset him? She upset quite a few people, which was a real shame. He tended not to wear her outside of their home for just that reason.

"I came to find Kiiiieran," he wheezed in a soothing tone. One of his paws came up and wiggled in the air. "I did find him, and I brought him hoooome. I didn't do anything to Aunt Xiven, though. I think she thought I was you. She acted veeeery silly. She loves you very much. And she gave me Tabby." With a simple, hopeful smile, he took another step nearer to Pale.

The way the man's eyes dilated, though, warned him that something was wrong. Very wrong. He stopped again and stared, eye flaming calmly above his head.

"Saaaaa? Oh... well. Amhalghaidh had to kill her," Jak said with a touch of regret in his tone. "She came to fiiiind us, to beeeee with us. And she was. But then she started all this screeeeaming, and she wouldn't stop, and he decided the only way to make her happy was for her to be dead. Like Dell. And now they're both sooooo much happier. Promise."

And, in unison, the two pieces of clothing chirped, "We are, Uncle Pale!"

[carcinoGeneticist]

The whole thing was just damn unsettling. In every way something could be, it would. As Jak stepped into the room, Apocalypse took a small side-step away, his gaze wary. The boy was wearing his siblings - literally wearing them. That made listening to the boy - now a man, he realized somewhat belatedly - only that much harder. The voice... Sometimes he would swear it was something he’d heard in nightmares, breathy and gasping and with just enough wheeze to make an unpleasant tingle go up his spine. Something made him wonder if perhaps he just needed to leave now.

No. He couldn’t leave. Through the disgust and the horror, some of what the Joker said reached the King. Xiven loved him? Yes. She did. She did, and it wasn’t exactly... news. Of course Jak had come looking for Kieran - Seth must have let the truth slip at some point, douchetwat of an idiot that he was, giving the Joker the knowledge of where he could find his brother. That had in turn led the pair to Apocalypse’s money and some of his belongings. Belongings which, beyond some personal value, would have been worth quite a lot on the open market. That - that he’d guessed. But there was more. So goddamn much more. In his wildest dreams - he’d never thought that... No. Not Sa, not sweet little Sa...

But the words had been plain, with no room for misinterpretation. Amhalghaidh had killed Treasa, and now Jak was wearing her skin like a pair of gloves. Revulsion, along with at least a little bit of bile, rose in the back of his throat.

What happened next threatened to turn that warning into full-fledged vomiting. The clothing was speaking to him. In Treasa’s sweet tones, a voice he hadn’t heard since... ...and in the low hissing voice of Endellion, a voice remembered only in Rhiannon’s memory. He could feel the Weapon’s horror at even the sound of that voice. Apocalypse hissed and bared his teeth, reaching almost instinctively for his Weapon, which appeared in a moment. In his hands, almost, Rhiannon appeared. “Rhi, what the fuck are you--”

“Pale, wait. W-wait. Oh, Suits... Jak, why?[/b]” she said, softly, taking a step towards the Joker even as her summoner bristled behind her, clearly itching to injure something. “And what... who... is Tabby?[/b]”

Despite himself, Apocalypse paused. He’d not even heard that part of Jak’s words. Tabby?

[The Jenn]

Watching the man's inner turmoil with some concern, Jak tried to decide how he could make this situation better. Talking didn't seem to help Uncle Pale very much. Not even Sa and Dell seemed to have much of an impact, or at least not a good one. How confusing.

Then his breath caught in his tubes with a bizarre choking wheeze when Rhi appeared. "Mooooommy!" he cried, lurching forward a handful of steps for a delighted hug. When she scampered back on instinct, a hurt expression appeared on his face before he sent it packing. If Mom didn't want to hug him, that was fine. He wouldn't push it. She probably had a reason. Maybe she just didn't like hugs anymore.

He completely ignored her question of 'why', not really understanding what she was asking, and instead focused on her second halting inquiry. "Oh! Taaaaabby's my daaaaaughter. She's such a pretty little girl! She's home sick right now and I'm taking caaaare of her. She's cuddling with Mili's baby and keeping him sleeping." Though the half-heron would probably be screaming in an hour or two. Silly little baby was always so hungry. At least Tabby nursed on her Mommy when she was little and didn't need food until she got older. This one had a beak. No nursing.

[carcinoGeneticist]

Rhiannon recoiled almost immediately from Jak, covering her mouth with a hand to try and hold back a cry. It didn’t work completely, and a short gasp of horror escaped her. The sound of his cry... He was so damn happy to see her, and she didn’t... She couldn’t... Her body started to tremble all over, a terrible reaction to the pain of her own failure. Mommy. He called her mommy still.

In an instant, Apocalypse moved in front of Rhiannon, his shoulders hunched in a subconscious effort to make him appear larger. Inwardly, he chided himself for the defensive maneuver. Even now... Of course, that movement put him in a better place to hear exactly what Jak was saying, though certain parts of it didn’t make sense. Mili? He didn’t know anyone with that name, didn’t care that she had a baby. What he did hear - and care about - was centered around Tabby. Jak had a daughter...

...he’d also just said that he’d been given said daughter by Xiven.

The hairs on the back of the man’s neck stood on-end as his fingers curled in on themselves, a barely repressed snarl on his lips. A daughter. From Xiven. He’d slept with his Queen. “She’s your fucking aunt, you...” Words failed in the face of horror and upset. The revulsion from before was still there. “Murderer. You murderer.” Even with this news in place, he hadn’t forgotten - Sa was dead, and it was because of her brothers. At this point, Apocalypse didn’t care who had done the killing, exactly. Kieran or Jak or Amhal - she was dead, and they hadn’t protected her. His finger twitched, and he mumbled a word, feeling his wrists - then hands - begin to swell, ending with the slow formation of long and deadly-looking talons. With an angry shout, the King threw himself forward, claws extended.

[The Jenn]

Xiven really was his 'fucking aunt', wasn't she? Jak had never thought about it that way before. Huh. Looked like Pale had just realized it, too, and hadn't liked it very much.

"I don't muuurder, I help," the Joker said in a reproving tone. Was that was this was all about? But hadn't he heard Sa and Dell saying they were so happy being with him now? Maybe he hadn't understood. He was about to get them to explain it more, because maybe Pale and Mommy would want to hear it from them instead, when...

...when Pale attacked him!

He let out a hoarse cry of surprise, jerking backward and nearly overbalancing as a result. He caught himself on the doorframe and swung back and inward. WHAT was going on?

His spinning eye took one look at the babies in his bed and he froze. Then he lurched back around and out the door again, slamming the bedroom shut. Wailing started up behind it, and a few confused cries. "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!"

Such anger. Such unhappiness! Concern and confusion radiated off of Jak in waves. With a whine, he jerked forward and slapped one of his hand-paws down on whatever part of Apocalypse he could reach.

Concern!!!!!

---

Once per week, he is able to touch another person and send them into a fit of near total insanity for up to one hour, at his discretion. The ‘flavor’ of insanity will depend on his mood at the time. If he is angry, they will be angry, etc. He cannot control this except by his mood.