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I'm glad to hear nobody was hurt.

"Apecian!" Michael cried, turning his attention to his partner.

"What?" the Homunculus asked, looking at the human.

"You can't be serious!" he protested. "You're seriously going to... to cut your head off and toss it to the spider?"

"Why not? I mean, I've been incinerated, drained by a vampire repeatedly, stabbed in various vital organs, crushed by falling object, been a falling object, and a couple other things I'm forgetting right now, and I've taken some of your wounds. What's a head more?" Apecian asked.

"I... you..."

"My head, your head, spider's head. You really want to get in a fight with the monster spider?" Neither of them were paying any attention to the monster while they were talking to each other.

The blue line continued underneath the door. The PA system came to life once more. "Thank you for following the instructions," the voice said. "For that, you have been awarded ten minutes time to prepare before entering the room. Once you are finished preparing, or time has run out, please proceed to the first phase of your punishment."

“WEEPING ANGEL!” they said, practically together.

“Jack, don’t take your eyes off that statue for a second,” said the Detective, feeling focused and alert for once in his life.

Jack very nearly rolled his eyes. “Thanks so much. I’ve totally never heard of a Weeping Angel before. Just shouted that because I felt like it.” Sighing, he continued, “Any ideas?”

The Detective bit his lip, thinking. Angels could move when you were looking at them. . . That which holds the image of an angel. . .

He did have an idea.

“Jack, I’ve got a plan.”

“Fantastic!”

“Walk out of this room and leave me here.”

“Less fantastic. You do realize these things don’t just grab one victim and leave, right? And since when are you the type for the big, heroic sacrifice?”

“I’ve got a plan, Jack, and very little time to explain it. Now, go ahead and blink. I need your eyes in the best possible condition for this. Ready?”

“Now,” said Jack. The Detective stared at the angel. The light was beginning to hurt his eyes, and he was feeling the sting of holding them open.

“Good. Now you?”

“I just nodded,” the Detective said. “Ready? I’m going to blink. . . Now!”

He screwed his eyes shut, and felt the moisture return to them.

"Alright," the Detective said. "Now, I'm going to walk over to you, and you're going to hand me that flashlight without moving the beam from the statue. Then, without looking away from the Angel at any point, you are then going to walk out of this room, and leave me here."

Jack scoffed. "You can forget that right now."

"Oh, come on, Jack- I've got a plan. Don't have time to explain it now, though. Rest assured, you hit the nail on the head when you said I'm not one for heroic sacrifices. One more blink before we start. You first. Ready?" They blinked, and the Detective edged toward the flashlight. As he reached out, the Detective prized the flashlight from his hands. Suddenly, the beam wavered, as the Detective chuckled. “We’re literally passing the torch!” he said. Jack just steadied the beam, sighing.

“Now leave,” he told Jack, “and don’t take your eyes off it for one moment.”

“I still don’t understand-”

“No, I didn’t expect you to. Trust me when I say that I have a plan- now get out!” the Detective snarled.

Jack edged his way back toward the door, sparing the Detective a final, concerned glance before shutting it.

“Now, angel- let’s get down to business, shall we? You can’t move when you’re being seen, can you? Well, since you can’t speak, let’s prove that, shall we?”

The Detective switched off the flashlight.

A half second later, he switched it back on again, and the angel stood before him. The Detective took a worried half-step back. Bit closer than he’d been expecting.

“Right, no worries there, then. Now, second fact is, that which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel. But everyone knows that,” he said, devilish grin breaking onto his face. He practically lived for these moments. “So the really clever bit is that angels count as someone looking at you. And you may not be an Angel, given that you just showed up at random. Maybe you’re a hallucination, maybe something I don’t even know about yet, but I reckon,” he said, straining not to blink but loving every second of his moment in the spotlight, “You still have to play by the rules.”

The Detective bent, placing the flashlight on the floor, and illuminating the angel, light bouncing off the cabinet behind the Time Lord.

“Oh, and, guess what?” he said, stepping out of the way of the cabinet and clapping a hand on the statue, staring over its shoulder at the face of the angel’s reflection in the medicine cabinet.

“‘That which holds the image,’ remember? So reflections still count.”

which was located at the end of the hall.

In fact, it didn't seem to be alive. It looked like some medieval statue, and was in fact covering its eyes. The odd shapes looked like parts of wings, as far it was possible to tell.

He quickly stepped backwards towards the door, not losing sight of the creature.

"Who are you talking to?" asked Jack, brow furrowing in concern. "And why couldn't this have happened in the cafeteria?" he added in a mutter, looking around the room for the smelling salts.

"Fella over here in the corner," said the Detective, still staring at the figure, not blinking. "Time Lords have slightly better night vision- not surprised you can't see him. Looking for something?" he asked, catching Jack's searching gaze in his periphery.

"Salt, iron- anything that'll sting the occult," he said.

The Detective nodded, considering. "Not a bad idea, considering where we are. Might add flashlight to that list, so we can get a good look at our mute friend. I can see him as is, though, so I'll be the one keep an eye on him and stay near the door. You have a look around. I suggest you start with the cabinets over there, since they're accessed pretty regularly."

As Jack went to search in the room, the Detective addressed the figure once more. He stood straight, looking as intimidating as it was possible to look in a hospital gown and a trench coat.

"Who are you, then?"

Maz stopped in her tracks.

'Dude, you, uh, hear that?'

Yocherry's walking had slowed down to a gentle padding. In the darkness, his glowing head-fungus was like a distant, fog-choked lamppost.

'Yeah, boss.'

'Um. Yeah.' Maz glanced left to right. 'So, uh.'

'It was a crack, boss,' Yocherry said, grinning at her. 'Gonna stop for every random noise, are we?'

'Well-'

'Whoa!' Yocherry exclaimed, freezing in his tracks. He turned around, further grinning at Maz. 'A footstep!'

'Shut up, dude.' She muttered bitterly, sending Yocherry into a giggling fit. 'But, um, dude. What cracked?'

Yocherry shrugged, stopping to let Maz catch up. 'Something broke, I expect.'

'Thanks, dude,' Maz said in a voice dry enough to host tumbleweeds and cacti.

Just realized this is a canonical RP, and I therefore don't have permission to participate in it.

Could I participate under canonical quarantine, so I don't affect anything critical, pending Permission?

Or should I just duck out on this one?

The room was too dark for details, but it seemed like an humanoid shape, with two odd forms behind it, each one which seemed starting from where the shoulders of the shape should be.

"We should leave," said Jack darkly. "I've seen this movie before, and it never ends well."

He walked over toward the door of Medical, pausing and looking back for his partner.

"Yep, good idea. . ." said the Detective absently, shrugging into his coat and shoving aside the curtains to examine the row of hospital beds, strangely silent in the dark.

It seemed like the silence had devored everything beyond the two Agents' eyes. The room itself appeared to be shrinking in the darkness, as the shadows slowly advanced towards them.

Jack Riggs and the Detective turned slowly to face one another.

The silence was almost a sound of its own for a moment. One could've heard a pin drop. Both of them turned into the darkness of Medical, curtains drawn on one side of the bed, pale against the sudden shadows of the room.

"Nice place you have here," said the Detective drily.

Jack shushed him.

"Okay, guessing this doesn't happen often. . ." the Detective murmured to himself, raising his hands defensively when Jack shot a look at him.

Both were listening keenly. After another moment of the utter silence, the Detective's irritated squint became a thousand yard stare, and his face grew pale.

"Do you hear anything?" he said softly, still staring vacantly into the dark.

"Not a thing," Jack said, shifting back to a more comfortable position in his chair by the Detective's bedside. "Power outages happen on occasion, even in HQ. Someone's probably on their way to fix it."

The Detective rolled his eyes.

"Jack, what happens in a power outage? People freak, or at least get irritated. Often, people get scared. After all, most species have some fear of the dark," he said, plucking the IV from his arm, sitting up on his hospital bed and grabbing his coat from its edge.

"They're not wrong," said the hunter ruefully, raising an eyebrow before looking at the Detective. "So?"

"So. . . The irritated and the fearful aren't known for their vows of silence," he said, looking Jack dead in the eye.

"So why can you practically cut this one with a knife?"

I think you underestimate the extraterritoriality's status in Shadowrun, making the megacorps their own 'nations', owing nothing to no one. There are plenty zones where the abscence of government lead to the worst. And even in zones with government, they pretty much do their own thing.

And that leads me to my actual point. People worshipping the bottom line, who already failed at all levels in self-regulation, like the current crisis proves it, can litterally cannot be trusted.

If one these companies decided to do something ammoral like storng-arming me to buy their products or anything like this, I'd have absolutely no answer. and forget about voting with my wallet, these dudes will have taken it a long time ago.

There would be nothing stopping them to do that, and even if they didn't use actual violence, indiret pressures can do the job pretty quickly. Competition with some rules already crashed pretty hard, it's a no-brainer that competition without rules will end with an even worst result.

You're right, competition is everything. Thing is, once all the rules are gone, morality is one of the first things thrown under the bus. And the rest follows very quickly.

So this was the first time that she saw a wand. I got it now.

HG

"Well, what if we don't—"

"Emiran, shut up for once in your life and just focus," hissed Naya, racking the slide on her Carnifex and taking up a position against the far wall.

"Fine," grumbled the Time Lord, checking the power indicator on his pistol and sidling up to his side of the corridor. "Let's just walk into the blindingly obvious trap set by a crappy Saturday morning cartoon Suvian villain. Gods, sometimes I wish I could decide to retire already and do something normal with my life."

"But then you'd miss Terabyte and me," said Naya. "Seriously. Retiring sets you back quite a bit."

"Point taken," said the Guardsman, grinning as he slowly moved up the corridor. Naya kept up with his advance, pistol at the ready, carefully watching the corridor for movement.

"Great," Ajax said, moving to another door. "Let's try this again."

Not sure why people think the "stick" was supposed to be a firearm, though; it's a wand.

Thank you for the laser shovel

“You might want to grab you brace for this.”
Should be "your"?

Voldemort went on to claim that Harry was now the only remaining horcrux, because in order to use the Stone to regain a body, he needed to reabsorb the others, and that he regained his sanity in the process.
This confused me very much, until I realized that Voldemort regaining his sanity had happened off page already even before he had arrived at the Dursleys’ and thus should be "had needed" and "had regained" (past perfect).

I love the flashback, but I’m not quite sure about the logistics there. This is set in the outskirts of a village in the countryside (woods behind the house), so Mr Rosenberger has a legal reason to possess a rifle or shotgun (to protect his chickens or such), but would he carry it when he visits the neighbors to share brandy and stories? So he ran home to get his firearm, but then arrived at the same time as Ix’s father? Well, finding the man who was trying to find his daughter may have been easier than finding the girl.

HG

The werewolf expected to bite a Muggle and actually didn’t realize that Ix is a witch when she told him that she isn’t Caitlyn, so Mr Rosenberger must be a Muggle neighbor and can’t carry a wand. Since carrying weapons is quite restricted in Britain and little witches don’t watch Muggle TV, it’s plausible that Ix had never seen a firearm.

HG

The spider began stepping forward. Its pedipalps glistened wetly. A drip of oozing blood trickled from a mandible, dropping to the floor.

'It's so old. So old. So old and hideous.'

Its steps were large and shaky. The eight eyes, glinting in the emergency lights, darted in all directions. There was a sweet, sticky, alien stench. It was bearing down like a collapsing wall.

'I want to evolve, I want to evolve, let me evolve, I want to evolve. The flies grow stale, the webs grow weak, I want to evolve, I want to evolve, I want to evolve. Can't you see how horrible it is?'

It was oppressively hot and humid. The walls glistened with sticky liquid, and the floor was softly bumpy. The red emergency lights shone, sludgy, off the bumpy, veiny, pink surfaces constructing the room. Fleshy walls ran far ahead, sloping downwards, until they were absorbed into total, noisome blackness. With an odious moaning of wind, a scalding breeze blew harshly in from the shadows. Only slightly ahead - one step away from the hard, cold floor of Generic Surface - the floor moved and writhed, a single, colossal entity. It was a tongue.