revivalproject | Warren Exploration

"I just got...teleported by a fucking wolf." This kind of tech wasn't anywhere near possible in his era. His boots scrape against the ground but he's back up. Pale, a little sweaty, but up. "I'll be fine. There's no way to brace yourself for teleporting when it's not a thing in your world."

He rolls his shoulders and moves on, clearing his throat and all that. Manly, unbothered (he is though). "We should keep moving though. The others are gonna be waiting and all that shit and I don't want spend the rest of my already fucking short life down here."

Keith had seen that kind of bravado before, and he left it alone, not commenting. He just nodded.

"Yeah. It took a bit of getting used to for me, too," he said, turning and continuing along the corridor. "I'd never teleported, either, until Kosmo showed me he could take me with him. It was a bit of a shock." Putting it lightly.

Yeah, that summed up Billy really well. A lot of bravado, with a short fuse behind it. Hearing that it took Keith time to adjust to it as well does help at least. It wasn't just him.

"Yeah, no teleporting wolves in 1985. No teleporting at all." Just huge creatures and possession and lots of rats and a world that was an upside down mirror of his own. He continues on after the guy, stumbling a few steps before he gets his feet back under him. "But it seems like it's a staple for wherever you're from."

"We don't exactly have teleporting in my version of home, either," Keith said. "At least, not with technology, and not with humans." He shrugged. "I found Kosmo in outerspace, and I'm not exactly sure how he does it. But, I know that Altean and Galran druids can do it by manipulating a life force called quintessence through something like alchemy. And they have to be really strong with the ability in order to make it work. It's not something everyone can do.

"So, yeah... still kind of rare even where and when I'm from," he said.

He paused now as they had gone a bit down the corridor. They were in another room again. He glanced around it for a moment, and then at Billy.

"You said 1985?" The stuff in the room looked pretty old fashioned to Keith. Maybe whatever they needed to do here to get past was something Billy could do.

Definitely 1985. The room is one that Billy is familiar with - the living room of his home before it had been completely broken. Despite that, there's furniture piled everywhere in a manner where someone could hide, with the wooden boards in the floor both littered with holes and creaking dangerously under any footsteps. There's a complete lack of windows, and the only light source is a ceiling lamp with cracks stemming out from where it meets the plaster. On one side wall, there's a door with three different locks on it.

One is a lock with a three-number combination, another is one with a chain, and then the last is with a key slot, though it looks bigger than a normal house key.

Across from it is another door with two locks on it: a deadbolt already in place, and a sliding lock already slid into place and secured.

On the far wall, between them, is one last door, and has a bar down in front of it, locked in place.

"This is my living room, kinda. The doors are wrong but this is my home in San Diego, before-"

The door with two locks gives a very sudden and violent shake from someone unseen on the other side. Billy jumps and any bravado he had earlier is gone as he stares at it.

"Open this door!" shouts a familiar voice through it. The blond goes pale at the sound of it.

"No-," he nearly moans out in horror.

This honestly felt a lot like the moment in the Trials when Keith could have sworn for a moment that he was home with his Dad again... but this wasn't his hallucination. It was Billy's, and that person banging on the door sounded angry.

"Billy?" Keith frowned a bit in concern.

"Open this door right now!!" it’s a male voice, definitely older. Like a father. The doorknob rattles aggressively as the unseen man tries and pushes against the locked door.

Billy, however, doesn’t hear Keith. He puts his hands over his ears and shakes his head as if to shake out the voice. "No—!"

The doorknob with the bar locked against it turns. "Billy?" A female voice now, scared and tentative. "Billy, baby, the door is locked and I can’t get it open—"

One of the locks starts to shift on the door with the angry man, but Billy doesn’t notice. He’s staring at the one with the female voice. "…Mom?" His voice is quiet.

Keith shifted his gaze between the two doors for a moment. It wasn't hard to figure out the aggressor in this situation, unless it was deeper than that, but Keith wasn't going to take the time to overthink this. He moved towards the first door, turning the lock back into place, and then bracing himself against it.

"Can you open that door for your mom?" he asked, not sure he was going to even get through to the guy at this point.

He looked around for any additional doors, or even windows, just in case.

"I can't——" Billy says, looking white as a sheet and just staring at the angry man's door. The deadbolt snaps back into place to keep him there a little longer. The frightened woman's door is knocked on, the handle tried again.

"Billy?! Baby where are you?" she calls out, faint through the door.

Finally he gets up, dashing over to it. Unfortunately the bar he struggles against his still locked in place, and made of steel. He's not getting that open. That means it's either the angry man's door or the one with the three locks.

"Mom! Mom it's stuck! I can't——"

'——find you.'
'You left me with——'

Neil on the other side of the other locked door bangs against it, fists pounding hard against it. "You open this door right the hell now, William!"

Keith flinched as the door he was leaning against was banged on again.

"BILLY!" he yelled. "Come on! Focus!" It wasn't that he didn't know it was hard, but this was definitely a time when Billy was going to have to work for it.

"What's the third door?"

Focus. Focus is hard. His mother is seemingly on the other side of that door. Just out of reach, again, from him. Billy doesn't realize this is a test on him. He can hear his mother pounding on the door he can't open and wants to sag against it. Wants to rip it off of his hinges.

It's Keith yelling that gets through to him, with a wild look being sent to the guy that's bright and wild.

The other door?

Right. There was a third door. Whatever one they had come through is gone, leaving them trapped in this one until they figured it out. "I.. I don't know." He darts away from his mother's door and ignores the slamming of body and fists against Keith's. The chain lock is easy and slips out with minimial effort. "There's a key slot and a number combination. I don't know--"

"How many digits for the combo?" Keith asked quickly. "On the lock. How many numbers do you need?"

Honestly, he'd offer his sword, but the bayard might not work for Billy... or, at least, it might not create a sword.

But... they'd switched bayards before back home. Maybe...? Hadn't the clone let Lotor use the black one once? Keith summoned it into his hand. If he handed it over, it would turn into a weapon that was suited for Billy's skills...

The lock. The numbers. Why did it need numbers? "There's three-"

She left me behind—

Billy remembers that night in his room, on the phone with her and pleading for her to come back for him. And she never did. He looks over hearing Keith do something off behind him. A quick look back and he has just enough instinct to catch the weapon thrown to him. In his hand, the handle and hilt of it stay the same, but the length of the blade snaps down and remorphs itself into a... housekey?

He doesn't have time to think about it as Neil continues to pound and shove at the door Keith's braced against. With some struggle, it finally slots home and he turns it. "It worked?" He near shouts, both to let the guy know and in his own surprise. It gets pulled back and he tosses it to Keith.

"A three digit number though."

Keith easily caught the bayard, the weapon shrinking back down to it's base form as he did. Once in his hand, it disappeared in a flash of light once again.

"Three digits...?"

Okay. Three digits...

"A date? The beginning of a phone number?" Keith was just shooting off ideas. "A TV channel? House address?"

A date. That echoes in his brain and he hears his mother yelling for help on the other side of the door he left.

A date.

'I don't understand? Why not—'

His breath hitches and he goes rigid for a long moment.

'Please, Mom, don't do this. Please come home——'

I miss you.

He shoots a glance over his shoulder at Keith. What was he talking about, three digits for a channel? TV channels only had two digits. But Billy thinks he knows what this combination needs. His hands shake so bad, but he tries as the locks threaten to give next to Keith where he's holding back Neil.

"You open this door right now! You better not be calling her again, she's gone! You hear me?"

The next words he could hear after that were enough to make Billy let out an angry sob as he struggled to turn the little numbers until they finally clicked into place. The lock gets torn off and hurtled to the side, and the door out swings open. It's another tunnel, but it's not the room from Billy's past, heavy with awful memories.

When Keith saw the door open for Billy, he decided to try a desperate maneuver in order for him to be able to stop bracing the door he was at. He brought out his bayard again, shifting it into its sword form, and then wedged it into the door frame to jam it closed.

"Go!" he yelled at Billy, as he was starting to realize what this was. It reminded him a lot of the Trials for the Blade of Marmora suddenly, and he had a feeling that they weren't going to be able to 'rescue' Billy's mom. It was a dream, and they had to get through it. Just like he'd been through with his dad during those trials...

And, with the blade jammed in the door, he finally pulled away and ran towards that tunnel.

Wedging the sword between door and frame worked. It helped jam it, angering Neil on the other side as it moved less. "What did you do, boy?! You open this damn door this instant!!"

Billy put his hands to his ears, shaking his head. He couldn't save his mom and get out. She was gone again. It wasn't fair.

'I don't understand——'
'I don't understand——'
'I don't understand——'

It's Keith yelling at him to go that pulls him back out in time to see the other guy making a break for his open door. Billy gets back up to his own feet and stumbles out into the tunnel. It feels... brighter out there than it did in his room. The door swings shut behind all of them, ominously clicking shut. With a little clang, the bayard clangs to the ground just outside of it.

Billy leans against the closed door, hands splayed against it, with eyes shut tight.

He failed his mom. Again.

Keith waited, a somewhat concerned look on his face. They still had more to get through, but he understood that Billy was probably going to need a moment before they could move on.

"You need a sec?" Keith's voice was quiet in reverence to the moment, giving Billy the power in the moment to decide what they should do next.

For a long moment, Billy doesn't move. He eventually slides down until he's kneeling in front of the door with his hands against it.

"I couldn't help her. Again." It's whispered so quietly. Like a secret. Not a lot of people knew what happened behind closed doors of the house on Cherry Ave. Billy, in this moment, feels so powerless. What would have happened if Keith hadn't been in the room with him? Would Neil have gotten it and finished what the Mind Flayer started?

After what feels like months when it's really only a minute, Billy leans back from the door to just stare at it, then gets back onto shaking feet. "We... we should keep going."

Keith furrowed his brow in concern. He cautiously reached out to put a hand on Billy's shoulder, but the other moved first. So, he shifted direction to pick up his bayard. He didn't need to do that, but it was a good cover move... maybe.

He then released it back into the particle storage of his armor with a flash of light, nodding in response.

"Yeah... we should." He was going to follow Billy's lead about what happened. So, he turned as well and started moving again, Kosmo back at his side. "Shouldn't be much further, I'd think? Hopefully it's not a dead end." That would mean going back...

The movement of picking up the bayard is in his peripheral vision, and Billy flinches away out of instinct. Taking another moment to get his shit straight, he turns to look at Keith. There's some unspoken gratitude that the guy doesn't ask about the room. He'll take a teleporting wolf to avoid lava over dealing with Neil again any day.

He follows after Keith and Kosmo. "Hopefully. I'd rather get back to Tommy and the others as quick as possible." There's a long pause. "Thanks. For throwing the thing at me so I could unlock the door."

Keith nodded. "Yeah... sure." He gave Billy a weak smile. He definitely understood a bit of what that had been. Maybe not the details and specifics, but Billy's reaction said a lot, and he didn't pry.

The rest of the walk seemed to be easy enough, and they soon arrived at some kind of cavern. The paths converged.

The team was back together...

Edited 2025-05-20 02:16 (UTC)

Warren Exploration - Forward Team

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