AN: Keep reading. I know you might be tempted to close out in this chapter, but I beg you to keep reading at least to the halfway point.
If you haven't figured it out by now, this is a High Teen rating because of the bloody nature of Creepypastas. I can guarantee there won't be mature... "pleasure" scenes, but the violence will be evident.
-Crow
Slenderman walked through the forest that night. The moonlight provided enough light that anyone could really see, but even then he didn't really need it. After all, it wasn't like he actually had eyes.
His normally silent footfalls crunched slightly under the branches and various mulched plant matter on the forest floor. The spring dampness gave way to the early summer season, but a few mushroom cultures managed to survive the drier, sunnier conditions and popped out of tree trunks and fallen logs around him.
The pale, blue moonlight illuminated a light mist settled around the floor, obscuring finer details underneath, but giving an ethereal presence to the forest as it blurred everything to solid white outside of a 50 foot radius of clarity around the entity.
The forest life was silent as always whenever he was nearby, not that he really minded at all. He preferred the silence to anything else. It helped him clear his thoughts more easily than if he was bombarded with noise back at the manor.
In the back of his mind, as he walked, something bothered him.
He couldn't quite place it.
He arrived back into the mansion's clearing. The lights were on and gave a cheerful yellow glow to the otherwise depressing or unnerving outward appearance. Sally and BEN were playing the princess and the knight, respectively, around the yard with wooden swords and pretend demons. Harry was content to pet BRVR on the porch while Jeff played fetch with Smile and a stick. The Rake sat on a stump and clicked its talons like it does when it's bored.
E.J. was calmly waving to him while L.J. looked bored as usual with nothing to prank anyone with.
Slendy frowned. Everything was right, but… at the same time, something was… wrong.
Something shuddered in the air around him and he looked up to see a curious, brown barn owl swoop onto a nearby branch. He scrutinized it, curiously. The owl didn't fly away from him like most did and it just stared.
Finally, it opened its wings and flew almost directly at him before dropping a small, brown envelope at his feet. Despite his mind screaming 'don't open it!', his body didn't obey and the paper was torn open. He unfolded the piece of paper apprehensively and revealed an intricate array of symbols and geometric figures.
He began processing the possible meanings of this, when the figure glowed red!
The wind around him swirled, picking up bits and pieces of leaves and even small chunks of mulch. The disturbance died down as soon as it came and he was left with a piece of paper and a now-black symbol. "What on earth-"
*Zip!*
He jumped back as a red light flew near him and impacted a tree, leaving a black scorch mark. He wheeled around to find men and women in black robes suddenly appear and whip out sticks while shouting indiscernible phrases as jets of light erupted from their wands around them.
A group of four or five approached him, their wands drawn and glowing ominous shades of red, green, and yellow.
His tentacles wriggled from his back, before shooting out at his would-be-attackers. At the same time, he anticipated and dodged spellfire from all angles. He could feel his tentacles impacting the wizards around him and directed them towards punching a heart clean out of the chest, impaling the brain, taking out the eyes, etc.
A nasty, red spell managed to graze his suit, leaving a good sized tear and burn mark, but all-in-all, the wizards were outmatched and he found himself the victor in the center of a ring of five corpses.
He took a moment to look back at his charges and was pleased to see them holding against their opponents. Jeff's knife was slashing out and incapacitating anyone who came close. E.J. was throwing scalpel projectiles like darts with deadly accuracy. Even Sally and BEN were putting up a good fight. Sally with her brute force methods and BEN with his not-entirely-digital sword.
"Enough!"
The entity turned towards the source of the sound and was met by a sight that might possibly cause him to laugh, on any other occasion.
In the middle of the clearing was a man who looked like he was easily approaching 500. His long, white beard, gold spectacles, and blue and silver robe and pointed, conical hat reminded him comically of childish renditions of wizards and Merlin. The wizened old wizard had his own wand and raised it in the air.
The tip glowed white before a "pulse" of energy rocked across the battlefield. Slendy looked back in dismay as it changed everything. It was as thought the wizards were empowered by the blast of magical energy.
Sally stopped attacking and clutched her head as though in agony and was subdued by glowing, blue ropes of energy surrounding her and dragging her to the ground. Another witch walked up to her and held a small, sheep skull while chanting ominously. Sally's body writhed and glowed before fading away.
BEN was reduced to a glitching mess of code, much like Harry's episode, but worse. The barrier of magic kept pulsating from the old man's wand and the computer virus was bombarded with the energy. Each pulse caused his form to destabilize more and more. First into glitched blocks, then colors, then lines of binary code flittering around a space, before the final blast tore through the small figure of green text and it dissipated into green arcs of electricity.
Jeff kept on slashing as best he could, but a quick shot in the back caused his white hoodie to slash open and crimson began staining outwards. Others took advantage and white sickle-shaped spells kept shooting at the teenaged killer. After just seconds, the most infamous serial killer was a collection of bleeding ribbons strewn on the ground.
Smile was weakened by the blasts, but rushed to his master's aid before also getting caught into the fray. Slendy was horrified, but couldn't seem to look away.
One-by-one he saw his associates, colleagues, wards, and friends turned to ash, melted into blood, or just struck by some spell or another and falling over dead.
He turned back to the wizard and found the wand was no longer above his head, but pointed directly at him. He dodged left just in time for a bright, red beam of light to fly right where his body was.
He regained his footing and allowed his tentacles to emerge from his back. Focusing a couple, they shot at the aged wizard with deadly precision. He was surprised that the old man was rather agile and managed to dodge each one before they hit.
He sent a large, red wave of concussive force at the tentacles whose tips were embedded in the ground. The tentacles exploded in black ichor and retreated back to Slendy. The entity calmly glanced at them, confirming that the ichor was already staunched and new tentacle tips were already growing from the stumps.
From the man's face, he hadn't expected that and sent out various colored beams at the entity. At any other time, Slenderman might have been amused by the almost childishly bright reds, blues, yellows, reds, and greens that the spells produced. The entire time, the old man was shouting something unintelligible while firing curses and spells at him.
The faceless being couldn't make out what was being said despite his extremely acute hearing, but managed to discern "monster" and "justice" and "rescue". He chuckled mildly at the poor fool's hubris. He enacted the rule he'd engrained in most of his wards' heads;
When in a life or death situation-
-screw the witty banter.
He rushed the wizard moving swiftly, teleporting left and right to avoid spell fire. He got up to the wizards' face and saw the widening of his eyes before a black tendril impaled the wizard's abdomen and leg.
He heard a scream and turned to see several wizards converging on Harry. The young boy was being carted off kicking and flailing, but to no avail.
One of the robed figures turned back towards the manor and unleashed a jet of orange fire from their wands which quickly caught. Soon, the ancient mansion was a pyre.
He made to move towards the remaining attackers, when he suddenly realized he couldn't budge an inch. He turned back to the wizard and found the old man managed to get up and pointed his wand directly at him.
In horror, he looked down and watched as his body was slowly encased in an amber crystal obviously directed by the man's wand. Soon he was as immobile as a fly in amber, though the crystalline prison was a clear yellow, so he was perfectly able to see his surroundings.
The mob of wizards were still holding a protesting Harry in their arms, the young boy's eyes pleading for help before widening in terror seeing Slenderman's state. His flailing was ultimately useless as the wizards cast the same spell to produce bright ropes of light as they had for Sally before vanishing suddenly with the youngest ward in tow.
Slenderman could only look at the devastation in front of him. Masky and Hoodie were charred skeletons a few feet away. Toby was lying on the ground, sporting a large hole in his chest. Jeff was a pile of bloody shreds with Smile next to him. Everyone else was either exorcised, dead, or dissipated. The manor itself was now beginning to collapse from the charred supports.
The old wizard limped into his line of sight and quickly pointed his wand to himself. The wounds caused instantly healed and the man rolled his shoulders as though he'd merely succeeded in "popping" a particularly annoying ache in his neck rather than healing life-threatening wounds.
Another wave of his wand and the bloodstains on his robes were gone as well as the holes were immaculately patched without a seam.
The wizened wizard looked on at the scene, seemingly pleased at what had happened before turning to the encased entity. The man smiled before, too, vanishing. Slenderman stayed suspended and watched as the seasons changed, the bodies crumbled.
The sky erupted in fire.
The earth cracked open.
The balance swung out of control-!
*gasp!*
The bed creaked loudly in protest to the sudden shift as Slenderman shot up. He looked around the darkened room with his heart-like "core" beating a black blood-like ichor through him. It had been aeons since he, the Slenderman, had a nightmare. Let alone one that got so out of control.
He calmed himself and took a moment to confirm it all.
The house was still standing.
The earth was still spinning.
A brief pulse for life signs confirmed Harry was sleeping down the hall and was not kidnapped.
There were no wizards breaking into the-
He winced.
He felt the mansion's protections reject a particularly stubborn bird and caused it to fry from the secondary level of protection, along with the parcel or letter it carried. He made a mental note to give Smile the roasted bird's corpse in the morning.
The protections were natural to their location, set in place by him. They acted as shields to keep away intruders from getting too close to the mansion and also as redirection for satellite surveillance. It essentially blocked off their little area of space from everything in the Universe around it, like a tiny pocket dimension that let in heat and light and took up the same amount of space it seemed to "displace".
There were multiple layers, the outermost being a simple fence with a "No Trespassing" sign and a small ward that acted as an alarm trigger to who goes in or out that way. Three more radiated in from that and were further alarm triggers to gauge location and direction of the intruders. Then, after that, came the more defensive measure wards.
The first layer was a simple mental deterrent that was non-lethal and for mostly wanderers and the occasional very-lost hiker. The second layer was a more violent deterrant that acted more like an electric fence for those that managed to have enough intent to get through the first. Small creatures like those unfortunate birds would fry upon impact while more stubborn humans would probably be rendered unconscious.
The third layer involved much more lethal actions that amounted to something more like electrified razor wire, in which simply walking through it caused massive damage and specifically aimed to maim. This was for exceptionally strong or exceptionally electrically-insulated threats that might actively target the mansion.
He supposed that was the trigger for the nightmare. The bird's initial approach, triggering the alarm wards, then rejection by the first level of wards, and he'd woken up in time to feel it try again and get zapped.
It was no longer uncommon for hawks, jackdaws, ferrets, or, more popularly, owls to fly into the shields with the intent of finding the manor only to either be sent away in the process or die trying. He knew it was the attempts of the Wizarding world to get Harry, but he didn't know whether to commend them for their idiotic persistence or condemn them for their lunacy over a simple 7 year old.
Ever since around November, the wards were actively keeping these creatures at bay by actively deterring them all the way in England to rerouting them. However, since around December, they'd found a way to finally reach the ward line themselves. They never got further than the second level and most were still just redirected, but it was still a headache he intended to fix within the next week or so with new protection designs.
He laid back into the pillow and stared at the ceiling for a second, mulling over the dream. He should've figured something was off. He remembered being in the forest, but not how he got there. He walked away from the house only to walk towards the house. And even then, there were his wards doing playing about outside late at night? So many inconsistencies, but he was too engrossed in the dream to notice them.
After almost a half hour of staring at a crack on the ceiling (which he'd decided looked more like a tree than anything), he got up and headed downstairs. He paused when he got down and saw a light in the kitchen. A definite plus of being non-human was that he could walk, glide, teleport, etc. without a sound.
He peered through the crack in the door and saw Eyeless Jack asleep at the table, a plate with cold heart with marinated mushrooms next to him and papers and diagrams sprawled across the table like an intricate and scientific tablecloth. His blank, black sockets were devoid of the usual alertness and seemingly stared vacantly in space. Only the soft snores indicated he was actually asleep.
He sent a small fritz of sigma around him and the eyeless doctor jerked awake as his synapses registered the influx of radiation. He immediately found Slendy and relaxed before wiping a small dribble of black drool from the corner of his mouth with embarrassment.
Slendy chuckled. "Good Morning, Jack. Sleep well?"
Jack grinned sheepishly. "Well, sorry, I got wrapped up in my work. Ever since the breakthrough a couple months ago things have been falling into place and as a scientist, it's hard to go to sleep after that "ah-ha" moment leads to several more." He adjusted the papers and stopped, raising his head in the direction of the window. He scowled at the dark, blue hue of early morning. "Hey! What gives? It's like, 3 AM!"
"Technically morning." Slendy countered as he heated a mug of water.
"Technically, I could've slept for about four more hours." He grumbled. He raised an eyebrow over his empty socket. "So, what about you? What's got you up?"
The entity sat down at the table and put a tea bag in the mug of steaming water. He was silent for a few moments as an amber cloud of tea essence spread out in the water. After a while, he spoke. "Bad dream."
Both of Jack's eyebrows lifted. "Woah. So, the eternal question; what gives the boogeyman nightmares?"
"Madmen with the power to end the world." Slendy replied evenly, sipping his tea. Jack's face retracted back to seriousness. "These people are given a deadly weapon at age 11. They could kill anyone with a few muttered words, change the speed of light with a doodle, perhaps even f*ck with the planetary axis just because it's Tuesday night and they're bored! It's like giving a monkey a bright, red button to activate every US nuclear arms silo!"
Jack couldn't help but snicker at the comparison, but quickly composed himself. "I can see why you're upset, but look at it this way-"
The entity raised his head to angle it towards the doctor.
"-they haven't blown up the world yet."
If he had eyes, Slendy would've rolled them. "Yes, what a comfort. We're not all dead yet. Hooray."
"No, seriously, these people have been around for… ages! I mean, you said it yourself, they live like Victorian London meets King Arthur, so they've got to have been around for a pretty long time. The fact that the world is still spinning means that they're not all bad. There's got to be some people with common sense."
"Perhaps, but they seems to be dreadfully few."
"Well, there's still hope."
Slendy remained silent and sipped his tea. E.J. was honestly surprised the liquid wasn't just flowing off his blank face to the sides. His boss was a complete anatomical mystery… but, then again, so was BEN, BRVR, Laughing Jack, and even Jeff.
After a minute or two of thoughtful silence, E.J. spoke. "I just want you to know that I think there have to be some kind of redeeming feature to this place. It's not all a bunch of manipulative bastards, right?"
"Yes, but what kind of society puts so much effort into locating a single child from their world only to shove him back into an abusive home?"
"Maybe they don't know that the Dursleys were that bad. This could be like an Amber Alert to locate a missing child, but with more… magical methods."
"No. Something is wrong here. The Stalker reported that two of the Wizarding World's police were actively searching for Harry with the sole intent of bringing him somewhere only on the vague word of a single man. I don't know why, but I feel as though this "Dumbledore's" intentions aren't for the best. I mean, why else would he personally send almost three… owls, ferrets and Lord knows what else each week to die from the protections?"
E.J. hummed as he mulled over the information, but one thought kept surfacing. "Don't you think you're acting a bit like the Dursleys; A prejudiced fear of magic and the ones that have it?"
"Don't compare me to those monsters!" Slenderman growled out. Jack didn't back down, but stared back impassively at an angered entity. Slowly, the flare of initial anger died down and Slendy regained composure and thought it out.
Jack continued. "There's good and bad everywhere, Slenderman. Be it our world, the Human world, or this Wizarding world. Someone as devoted to the Balance as you should know that, at least. Let's at least let Harry get a sense of the place first when he's old enough. It is kind of like his birthright, don't you think?"
"Very well." The being mumbled, then in a louder voice added, "but we are still preparing him for the when the time comes. I have no doubts that when- not if, when- they find him, they'll redouble their efforts to keep him."
The doctor sighed. "Well, I can't say I see the logic in your paranoia, but at the same time I can't help but agree with you from a gut feeling." He picked up his materials in a neater stack of papers. "Until his eleventh, I guess we just do business like usual?"
"Agreed, we maintain his meditations, it seems to be doing a lot of good, and in the meantime scope out as much as we can about this world and any possible defensive measures against it."
"Should we try to initiate contact with them? I mean, it'd be a lot easier for Harry to learn control if he meets with these people earlier, right?"
"As usual, your logic is sound, but I don't want to risk telling too many people outside of our world about this. We don't know how they will react or how many connections this Dumbledore man has. For all we know, he could be the equivalent of a king and any wizards will report Harry's location to him. So for now, we keep this among our world. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
Jack nodded and left to bring the stack of papers back down to his lab, leaving the faceless entity to steep in his thoughts as his tea did the same.
He supposed Jack was correct. For that matter, so was his brother, annoying as he may be. Slenderman preferred solitude, secrecy, and more conservative views and these people threatened that secrecy and one of his wards, so he held prejudice against them all. Save for Harry, of course.
He weighed the options.
On one hand, he could avoid these people entirely and find some way to never encounter them ever again. Thereby, maintaining secrecy against them and working on defensive measures in secret.
On the other hand, he could allow Harry to interact with these people and learn their culture and nuances. They risk their secrecy, but at the same time have the benefit of being involved and possibly changing the society towards Balance.
He sat pondering for some time. By the time he pulled himself from his stupor and took a sip of his tea, it was stone cold and the others were at the table, watching him uneasily. What else were you supposed to do when your guardian hadn't moved from that position in over four hours?
A few more months passed since then. Slenderman met with a few protection specialists from the Council and updated the wards to stop these owls from finding them in the first place. The entity explained to them that it was just a recurring problem with stubborn animals and left it at that.
He knew the Council would eventually need to know about this, but he feared the repercussions resulting in Harry's removal from the home or possible… removal as a security hazard.
It was done before and it would probably be done again.
The weeks passed by and Harry was adapting well. His body had grown appropriately with the nutrient-rich diet Jack had suggested as well as the daily physical education course. True, he hadn't gotten around to the stabbing dummies just yet, but those could wait.
So, life at the manor went on with the usual "jobs" and "hunts" and Harry seemed to be acclimating rather well.
As the heatwaves of summer rolled in, Slendy noted that it was rapidly approaching the end of July. He alerted everyone and they prepared accordingly.
After all, Harry's birthday was just a few days away.
They'd never guess it'd go to Hell so quickly.
Happy Halloween!
Sorry this is so short. This was inspired by Luna Silverpoint's comment about how Slendy was a bit prejudiced with the Wizarding World. I agree, so I put in this chapter. Also, my younger sister (now beta-ing this story) talked about an "epic fight between Slenderman and Dumbledore", so I thought this might be fun, though a real fight wouldn't be for a while.
Also, thank you "sparrowflyaway" for pointing out that BRVR is remarkably cat-like. I know Pikachu is "the electric mouse pokemon", but I tried imagining a rat-like Pikachu as a pet and I didn't like it. I also couldn't imagine a real-life pikachu (like a chubby, yellow pikachu standing next to Harry) and a cat seemed the most appealing as a pet (no offense to rat-owners).
Also, I found this image of BRVR on Google Images from fanpop that was a skinny cat-like Pikachu with blood. I just found it a lot easier to imagine and picture running around Harry. So, I apologize if at times BRVR seems too cat-like.
Thank you for reading!
Sincerely,
-Crow