Chapter 9: Hel is not a place
Jane had just enough time and focus left to scribble out a quick reminder on Bruce's notepad, and tear it off before the wave of disorienting sensation and color hit her. She stumbled out of Loki's enclosure, ripping the thin white curtain halfway off of its hangings as she went, and rushed over to the sink.
"Dr. Foster?" Clint questioned, having just entered the lab to switch places with Natasha for guard duty. Tony and Natasha were already hurrying over to grab the astrophysicist before she collapsed. Natasha got there first and caught Jane around the middle just in time to keep her from cracking her head open on the metal edge of the sink.
"I saw... I s-" Jane gasped out, cutting her sentence short to wretch into the sink. She had felt it when she pulled away from Loki's mind; there was somebody else there. It was nothing like the cool, juniper and frost of Loki's presence. Not a person. It had been the most alien and horrifying feeling that she had ever experienced in her life. It had been looking right back into her. "There was something..." she gasped and choked.
"Easy," Natasha told her calmly, holding Jane's hair back out of her face while she vomited. Tony winced and reached past them to turn the tap on.
"JARVIS, tell Bruce we need him down here, now," he instructed in a carefully modulated tone.
"It was..." Jane tried again once she had coughed up everything that was left in her stomach. She was shivering as if she were still surrounded by the cold of the Asgardian forest, but at least she could stand unassisted again.
"Take your time," Natasha instructed, and Jane paused to catch her breath before continuing more clearly.
"There's something else in there!" She accepted the glass of water that Tony handed her with shaking hands, adding, "It tried to latch on to me when I pulled out of Loki's mind."
"You're saying there's someone else screwing around in that maniac's head?!" Clint summarized.
Jane was too exhausted even to acknowledge the 'maniac' remark. She just shook her head and amended the more important point, "Not someone. It was definitely not a 'someone'."
Charles jolted awake to see Wanda sitting in the armchair on his right with a book open in her lap. He was back in his bed again despite the fact that the sun's height in the sky outside indicated that it was around noon.
"How's your head?" Wanda asked, marking the place in her book with a finger in order to regard him.
"I might ask you the same," Charles replied, rubbing his forehead with one hand.
Wanda chuckled. "At least you know better than to look. I have it on good authority that my thoughts are a headache waiting to happen. Considering your episode back there..."
"Francis..." Charles said. His voice cracked a bit due to the dryness of his throat.
"Excuse me?" Wanda inquired with a frown.
"Francis, tell me about him."
"I don't..."
"You should understand. You're Wanda, it's what you do," Charles persisted, dropping his hand onto the mattress and leveling her with an intent gaze.
"Francis is your son, and my brother," Wanda recited uncertainly. "He's working with Vater and the Brotherhood. I can't tell you where-"
"Indulge me."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Charles? What's wrong?" Wanda asked, flinching slightly when his intense, blue eyes locked onto hers. "You're scaring me!"
"Oh, I don't think so. Try again. You don't want to talk about Francis? Fine. Let's try this room instead, shall we?" Charles plowed onward. "Here we are in 2013, isn't it? And it's still the same old room!" He leaned back, spreading his arms in a sweeping gesture. "Fifty one years!"
"I think you should lie down," Wanda suggested, her eyes wet and shining in contrast with her carefully controlled expression. "I can go find Hank."
"No, don't bother. I've seen him," Charles dismissed. "How about Ororo."
Wanda continued to watch him stoicly, but a muscle in her jaw twitched.
"No? She's gotten very busy, hasn't she? There must be another teacher somewhere around here. Not Sean, we've had him. Or how about his daughter? I'd love to meet her."
"Stop it," Wanda said sharply.
"They must be here. This is a school after all," Charles continued to challenge, his voice harsh.
"Please, you're not well. Just... calm down," Wanda pleaded, grabbing his shoulders. Charles leaned in closer until they were nearly nose to nose.
"No."
"There's something wrong with you," Wanda explained, with a tear rolling down her cheek. Charles followed it with his eyes, then met her gaze again with icy calm.
"You'd know."
"Mu-" Wanda began to plead but Charles cut her off with a scoff.
"Don't bother. You're good, but you're not that good. You're not the first to try this, and you are definitely not Wanda."
She studied him imploringly for a moment, seeing the resolve in the Professor's face. Then 'Wanda' broke character with a rictus grin. Her eyes became points of lightless, black nothing in a single blink. Charles reflexively reeled back away from the unnatural sight, and the aura of darkness and pressure that enshrined the being before him. The dark eyes reminded him of the monstrous Shadow King who tried to murder him in his youth, but no, this thing was even worse. Deeper and more powerful than anything he had encountered before. Charles' mind flashed unbidden to the horrifying void from Loki's nightmare.
"Damn. You've got me," the imposter mocked, drawing him out of his unpleasant reflection. "Whatever shall I do while I face down the great Professor X? But, oh! Wait!" It opened its mouth and eyes wide, holding a hand over the lower half of its borrowed face in an exaggerated parody of shock. "That's not you, is it?" It relaxed into the cushioned seat, draping its arms regally over the armrests, then added with perfect enunciation. "Not yet."
"What are you?" Charles questioned, scrutinizing the entity with no shortage of wariness. He had been trying to read it with his telepathy for a while now, but the only impression that he could pick up was an overwhelming lack. It wasn't a block, nor was it the familiar if discouraging blankness of the projections around him. It was absolutely nothing. It didn't make sense.
"Ooh, now that is the billion dollar question, my Darling," It cooed happily. "It'll be fun seeing you little bugs scurry to find out."
"In that case, what do you want?" Charles interrogated. He was feeling the dimensions of his prison with his mutation as they talked. It would be almost impossible to break for the simple reason that there were barely any boundaries. He couldn't feel any barriers pushing back against his consciousness. Charles figured that at least he could flee into the open astral plane if need be.
The entity giggled, a bubbly, playful sound that had no right to sound as downright malicious as it did. "Don't you get it yet, Charlie? I want it all." It cupped his face in both hands and stated carefully as if explaining to a small child, "I am insatiable."
Thor burst into Loki's room and leaned over his brother's reclining form. He looked so peaceful and still, as though he were merely sleeping. Thor knew better. He held his hand out to hover over Loki's for a beat before sighing and grabbing the limp hand between his own. There was no outward response, nor was there any rushing sensation pulling Thor out of his own mind to join the younger god. Loki didn't want to see him. In truth, Thor knew that he didn't really want Jane in his head either. Loki had always been a very private person. Jane was merely the safest option available to him. The closest thing to a neutral party that he could hope to contact in his current state.
"I will speak with you, Brother. I must understand what is happening, so that I may do what is right."
There was no response.
"I know that you are still angry with me, Loki. But this is your life, Little Brother, and I will not allow you throw it away again!" Thor stated forcefully. Loki's relaxed features seemed to take on a defiant air, but no. His expression hadn't changed. It was more a feeling hovering over his skin. Thor's expression darkened. Loki was really losing control if Thor was beginning to feel his emotions.
Charles rolled off of the bed and aimed himself towards the first random point outside the illusion of the mansion that came to mind. He landed on his back on the grass and coughed. That fall had turned out a bit farther than he'd predicted. Wait a minute. I'm on a lawn? Charles pushed himself up off the ground, relieved when his legs easily supported him.
"Where is this?" Charles held one hand up to shade his eyes from the bright sunlight and took in his surroundings. He was standing on a hilltop with a jagged rock formation jutting out of the ground a few paces to his right and a weeping willow twice that distance from his back- or at least, it looked a bit like a willow, apart from all the tiny lavender flowers. "Alright. So you can't hold me, but you can throw me off course." Charles jogged down the hill towards the little brook that separated his hill from the village below. He had to climb over another, larger rock formation to get there. When he reached the pinnacle, however, he had to reach back and cling to a vertical peak by the edge with both arms to keep from slipping into the endless blackness beyond. A slow clap sounded from higher on the hill. Charles ignored it, trying to pull himself back to a more secure perch on the rock.
The entity, still presenting itself as Wanda's dark double strolled closer to squat on the rock in front of him. The aura of shadow around it was progressively strengthening. "Isn't this engaging!" It met Charles' glare with an insincere pout. "Aw! Come now. You didn't think I was going to let you off thateasily," It cooed.
Charles shifted his frosty gaze down to the rock that he was still clinging to without deigning to comment.
Not-Wanda smiled and sat down on the flat surface of the outcropping, more or less completely in Charles' personal space. "Since you've got time, let's talk about the Trickster."
"I don't know what you are, or why you want him." Charles grunted as he hauled himself up to perch with the balls of his feet balanced on the edge. "But I won't help you."
"I own him."
Charles scoffed, looking away for a second before turning to lock eyes with the entity. "I disagree."
The darkness around the entity swelled and coiled, the strange intangible force that it exuded pressing painfully against Charles' consciousness. A dark cloud swept overhead, blocking out the sunlight, and Charles felt all the warmth and strength seeping out of him.
He began to gasp for breath, struggling to keep his grip on the hand-hold, but his limbs were too weak. He slipped down towards the gaping void, struggling to catch any anchor that he could grasp. Not-Wanda's hand wrapped around his wrist, stopping his descent at the last second. It yanked him up as if he weighed nothing at all, to dangle him at the entity's eye level. "You are too protective for your own good. A martyr, how boring." It tilted its head, surveying his features.
He stared defiantly back, still struggling for a foothold with which to steady himself.
The imposter smiled. "Or are you possessive. Hmm, now what would your warrior lover think about that?"
"You aren't as perceptive as you imagine," Charles responded flatly.
"Oh, no, my Dear. I don't imagine," the entity disagreed. It smirked and the pressure suddenly reversed, pulling at Charles from the inside out, until he felt his capillaries threatening to burst. It watched him gasping and choking with amusement in it's lightless eyes.
"Don't you want to return to him? Your Darling Erik is getting so worried for you. Imagine the look on his face when he learns you that died to save another."
Charles searched the dreamscape around him for a way out, anything that he could use to get back to his friends. He refused to believe that this was the end. No. It isn't. You know the future. It's too early for me to die. I'm remembered in later events, therefore, I must get out of this alive. So how do I... Oh!
"I'll have to have a little chat with him, I think," the entity considered aloud. "Unless you have something to say?"
Charles locked eyes with the imposter. "You're an empty threat to me." He sucked in a deep breath, digging his nails into the hand that was holding him up. "You see, I'm not really here." He then kicked off of the edge, dropping through the darkness of the void towards his new destination. When the light came back, he was falling through a dark-violet night sky towards a moonlit forest. Charles flipped over as he fell in order to see what was happening below, and saw Loki running through the snow at top speed with a cloaked giant hot on his heels.
"I know that you are still angry with me, Loki. But this is your life, Little Brother, and I will not allow you to throw it away again!" a familiar voice boomed through the night air.
"Go away!" Loki snapped, grabbing onto a tree branch to swing himself upwards and propel himself through a narrow gap in the wall of weathered black obsidian on his left. Charles had to admit, it was a pretty skillful manoeuvre as the hole was only just large enough for his slender form to slip through with his arms tucked against his chest. In Charles' opinion, the Trickster was being an obstinate ass regardless of his skill. Charles landed in the snow a meter or two behind Loki's pursuer just in time to see him shift into a mass of smoke and embers and flow in through the opening.
"I will not relent until I have the truth. Now face me!" Thor insisted, and lightning flashed overhead to punctuate his ultimatum.
Charles mulled it over for a moment, then climbed up to the top of the ruined wall. That's what this was. Loki had fled into the battered ruins of a sculpted palace of black glass. He was streaking up the crumbling steps on the other side of what looked like an ancient abandoned throne room. The fire creature had just reached the bottom. "You can hold it against me if you like..." Charles called out crouched in the shadows of an invading tree.
Loki's head whipped around to look for Charles, but he didn't have the time to make out a clear image.
"I'm doing this for your own good!" Charles concluded.
"What?" Loki called back, only to see that the mysterious silhouette had already vanished from his perch.
In the waking world, Loki's eyes snapped open, glowing with a brilliant, white light. One blue hand reached out, lightning fast, to grab the side of Thor's face. He felt himself being yanked out of his body in a whirl of light and color. Then he landed in the overgrown courtyard of a palace ruins at midnight.
"What in the Nine-" Thor rolled to his feet at the sound of running footsteps passing him by. There was a petite, male figure darting into the ruins. "Wait!"
The figure halted and looked back at him from just inside the entrance. He was a mortal man with dark hair and striking blue eyes. The white tweed suit and cream colored cardigan that he was wearing stood out in jarring contrast with their dark, Asgardian surroundings. Thor stared at him, he stared back.
"Who are you?" Thor asked.
Charles merely turned away and fled into the shadows.
Thor chased after him, but when he ducked into the throne room, brushing a mass of cobwebs out of the way, he found that the mortal had disappeared. Thor frowned, pondering over the possible meaning of the strange occurence until he caught sight of the two figures battling atop the crystal staircase. The smaller one ducked the cloaked man's attack and his gloved hand smashed through the stone wall where the smaller man's head would've been in an eruption of smoke and molten stone.
"Loki!" Thor shouted, grabbing Mjölnir from its place on his belt. Loki looked over at him, still lying on his stomach on the shrapnel-covered landing. He looked unfairly irritated by the realization that Thor was in his head with him. Loki's attacker lunged forwards to grab him and he rolled over the edge, trusting his adoptive brother to catch him.
Thor caught him around the waist, swinging Mjölnir with his other hand and flying them out through a gap in the ancient roof. He carried them far out into the forest with the fire giant's furious howls fading into the distance. Loki tore himself out of Thor's hold the very second that they'd landed.
"Let go of me!"
"You're welcome..." Thor eyed Loki's attire for a beat. "Brother?"
"You should not be here!" Loki spat, beginning to pace back and forth in front of Thor. "What do you want?"
"I want to know the truth. What is this?"
Loki turned to face him, smiling bitterly. "You know better, Odinson. I am never the one you come to for the truth."
"I am here now."
"For what? I am trapped here. For once it must be clear to you that I haven't done anything wrong," Loki countered.
Thor surged forward and grabbed him by the front of his tunic, pinning Loki back against a blue birch. "Enough!"
Loki actually flinched before he could catch himself, his indifferent mask slipping to be replaced by a wide-eyed stare. He mentally berated himself and forced his reaction back under control, but Thor had already noticed his fear.
"You cannot continue like this! I will have no more of this farce! You talk of my betrayal! You accuse me of indifference, and then you fight me tooth and nail whenever I show the slightest concern!" Thor yelled in his face. "It has been obvious since your arrival in Midgard that something is wrong!"
"There's always something wrong," Loki talked back and Thor knocked him against the tree trunk in reproach. "Ah!" Loki winced and averted his eyes.
"Oh, that didn't hurt," Thor chastened a tad affectionately, somewhat ruining his wrathful façade. "I will not leave this place without answers. Tell me what happened to you."
"I cannot speak of it."
"Loki."
"He will find me!"
"Who will?" Thor demanded, and thunder rumbled through the sky above them.
Loki shook his head. "I can't."
"Brother, you must-"
"He is watching. I died. I was gone. Nothing survives the Void but he-" Loki broke off, with another anxious shake of his head. "I can't tell you. He'll find us."
"Who?" Thor insisted, his sentence punctuated by another flash of lightning that sharpened his thunderous visage.
"I cannot speak of it."
"We are in your mind, Brother! Surely-"
Loki reached up and clamped a hand over Thor's mouth to silence him. "It matters not. He can reach me anywhere. Now for once in your life Thor, listen!" he hissed, as if they were hiding from some unseen menace just around the corner. "You cannot pursue this! I am the Trickster, and you are my jailer. We will speak no more of your suspicions, and if I ever return to the waking world that fact will remain, unquestioned. Understood?"
Thor looked like he wanted to argue. Loki glared ferally up at him.
"Is that understood, Odinson!?" he growled, his vicelike grip on Thor's jaw becoming almost painful. Thor finally relented. "Good. Now be gone!" Loki shoved his brother away so that he vanished in a shimmer of golden light, returning to the waking world.
"So we've got nothing to work with," Clint summarized from where he sat balanced on the back legs of his chair with his feet propped up on the counter.
"I wouldn't say nothing..." Jane responded weakly.
"The dream or, well, some details of the representation of Loki's mind might give us a few clues," Bruce offered, glancing from the surly assassin to Tony who was standing at the far end of the lab table, messing around with the holographic representation of Loki's body. They figured that he had to be just playing with it, as Bruce and Jane were the only ones present who had anything more than basic medical training.
"This isn't a counselling session, Bruce," Clint dismissed. "As desperately as he needs it."
"It was more than just a dream, anyway," Jane admitted. "He's completely conscious of what's happening to him even if he doesn't understand it any better than we do, but he's got no control over it. It's like his memories are leaking out of his subconscious, but for whatever reason, that's the thing he isn't able to notice on his own."
"What do you mean?" Bruce inquired, pushing the folder in front of him away and giving her his full attention.
"Like his appearance. When I returned to his mind for the second time, the clothes that he was wearing had changed to fit with a memory from his childhood. He didn't even notice until just before we were separated," Jane recalled. Tony finally turned away from the hologram to face them. Ah, so I guess he was listening.
"Ok," Clint remarked, grabbing up a compasslike mechanical part off of the bench behind him and beginning to toy with it.
"Hey, Winona Rider, keep your hands off the merchandise," Tony quipped, stepping forward to snatch the joint frame out of the SHIELD operative's grip. He then returned his attention to Jane, ignoring Hawkeye's annoyed scowl. "You said that his new duds matched a memory. What memory?"
"Um... Well I can't remember much of it. He wasn't even conscious of it, so..."
"So maybe it wasn't meant for him," Tony persisted. "Maybe only you saw it because it was there for you to see."
"What the fuck? That doesn't make any sense," Clint objected.
"It does. Trust me. I spend a lot of time around Professor X, he tells me stuff," Tony said impatiently as Thor came to stand in the doorway behind Jane.
The thunderer stepped closer to rest a hand on Jane's shoulder and she gave him a tired smile.
"The memory," Tony prompted.
"Oh!" Jane shook her head, trying to regain her focus. "Um, he was just a kid and he was hiding under the roots of this massive tree. There was a big, white wolf sitting above him, like it was waiting? And then Thor and his friends found him but- no wait! That was it! That's where I saw it!"
"Saw what?" Bruce prompted, exchanging a look with Clint.
Jane pulled the crumpled up piece of notebook paper out of her back pocket and flattened it out on the countertop between them. "When I woke up, all that I could think about was this symbol. I knew that I had to remember it no matter what, but I couldn't remember why. There was something off about one of the warriors. I don't remember what it was but, I think he was carrying this symbol or something similar... I don't know."
The others all crowded closer to scrutinize her sketch. The top part of the symbol looked like a compressed infinity made of two sideways triangles joined at their peaks, and there was an equally triangular capital B tucked into the gap underneath.
"Huh..." Tony said, glancing up at Thor. "You getting anything out of this, Point Break?"
Thor shook his head. "I have seen similar markings scribbled in one of my brother's journals, but I did not think to ask him about their purpose."
"At least it's something that we can look into," Bruce assured him, reaching for the paper. "I can check with- Clint?"
The archer had just snapped out of his apparent trance and snatched Jane's sketch off of the counter. "Holy shit!" he said, sounding amazed.
"Would you like to share with the rest of the class?" Tony prompted.
"I think I know this one," Clint elaborated. "Remember that vacation I took to Iceland?"
"You mean the medical leave that you used to - in no way - move on from your time as a pod person?" Tony said and Clint shot him a death-glare.
"Shut up, Stark," he snapped, then returned to the subject at hand. "I saw this one during my vacation, it's Dagaz. A Norse rune for day, and light, and transition, and probably a fuckload of other things. But that's not the point, the important thing is that it's his."
"I do not understand," Thor admitted, looking to the others for an explanation.
"Loki, the god of fire in Norse Mythology, " Clint tapped the angular infinity with his index finger. "His rune. I'm betting that if we Google this other one, we'll find it in a list of runes too."
Tony was already activating the nearest computer screen. "JARVIS?"
"Initiating an image search now, Sir," the AI replied politely and the screen was overtaken by a flurry of images.
"Ha!" Tony clapped victoriously once the screen stopped flashing. The display now declared 'match found' in big red letters with the two parts of the symbol lined up next to images of their coresponding runic counterparts. "He's right. Dagaz, or Dagr, and Berkano."
"This makes no sense..." Thor wondered aloud.
"In case it matters, according to this, rune number two here signifies birth, rebirth, regeneration and sanctuary," Tony informed the rest of the group. "There's probably more but... anyway, we can look further into that later. Why doesn't this make sense? I mean you said that you saw symbols like this in Loki's notes. Why wouldn't his own symbol make its way into his impossible dreamworld?"
Thor crossed over to join Tony in front of the computer terminal. "It is not my brother's rune, but our uncle's. This cipher was only used during our war with the Jotun's. Loki is far too young ever to have used it. He was still only a newborn babe at the war's end!"
"Whoa, whoa. Hang on," Clint interrupted while the others just stared. "Your uncle?"
"Aye. Loki's namesake," Thor confirmed, oblivious to Clint's discomfort. "I have been told many times that they share quite a likeness. Though he died in the battle of Midgard when I was a boy, so I cannot say if it is true."
Clint sat heavily in his chair, processing all the new information. Now it was Tony's turn to look nonplussed.
"You were a kid during the Viking era?" he verified, causing Clint's head to snap up in response to the sudden realization.
"Dude, how old are you?!"
Thor paused to consider human measurements of time in comparison with those used on Asgard, then scrunched up his face and shook the obnoxious mess of numbers from his head. "I am still unfamiliar with Midgardian years. You would have to ask Loki if you wish for an accurate conversion."
"How old were you when the war ended?" Jane offered helpfully. She suspected that the problem was not so much conversion as it was balancing multiple temporal rates, if their conversation back on Svartálfheim related at all.
Thor paused for a moment then answered, "Thirty five."
"Fuck," Clint responded appreciatively. Jane looked a shade paler.
"Looking good, Buddy," Tony said lightly, seeming the least affected by the news that their friend and comrade had been the age that he currently looked, over a thousand years ago.
"Thank you, my friend," Thor replied pleasantly, only for his expression to fall when he noticed Jane's shell-shocked face. "What is wrong?"
"Hmm?" Jane hummed distractedly. She snapped out of her trance and blinked, then continued more lucidly. "No. It's nothing. I'm fine," she assured standing up. "You know, I've been down here in the lab for a really long time. I think I just need to go and get some fresh air."
"Yeah," Tony breathed, not buying the fresh air spiel for a second. "Go on up. Anything but the Macallan is yours," he called after her and she gave a one-armed wave of thanks.
Thor watched her go, looking both concerned and perplexed. Tony clapped a hand over his bicep. "She'll be fine. Just give it time to sink in."
"I don't think she ever considered your age difference quite that closely," Bruce explained to the worried alien.
"It's kind of disorienting, " Clint added. "Compared to you, we were born last Thursday."
The room fell into an awkward silence while they all reflected on that thought. Finally the the silence was broken by perhaps the most unwise change of subjects in the history of tactless transitions. Predictably, this was Tony Stark's fault.
"Just out of curiosity, is anyone else wondering why Loki has lady parts?"
Bruce and Clint both turned as one to shoot the inventor an incredulous look. Thor didn't. He just reached out without a glance to grab Tony by the throat.
"Oh shit!" Tony choked out. Hawkeye shook his head, internally preparing himself to somehow stop his friends from murdering each other, while Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and focused on controlling his breathing.
Jane trudged over to the bar and plopped down on a bar stool. She picked up the nearest of the bottles that someone had left on the bartop and checked the label.
"Gin," she shrugged and poured some into her glass, hearing someone enter the room behind her. It was strange that Jane hadn't heard the elevator, but she chalked it down to her unfamiliarity with the tower's layout. She heard high-heeled boots clicking softly towards her over the floor as she took the first sip. "Hey, Agent Romanoff. I thought that you'd headed out for the afternoon," Jane greeted.
There was no response. That was weird. Jane was about to turn towards the woman now standing behind her, when she caught sight of the reflection in the polished bartop. Jane's eyes went saucer-wide and she spun to face the hooded figure, knocking her forgotten glass of gin onto the floor. Her eyes locked with two pools of molten red in that warped face, and her scream was cut short by the other woman's leather gloved hand. By the time that the nearest Avengers rushed into the room with their weapons at the ready, Jane and the frightful woman were both gone. Jane's shattered glass on the floor was the only remaining evidence that she'd ever been there at all.
A/N: Okay, so I both finished this and posted it at 4:36 in the morning. I probably missed something whether its spelling or grammar or... anyway, I'm probably going to go over it again, but I thought that I should post it now. I'm going to be a bit busy for the next few days and I didn't want to make you guys wait for too long. Well, thanks for reading. I hope you all enjoyed this. Special thanks to icanhearthedrums and Janieceal for reviewing. I crave feedback... now I must sleeeep!
-PS: I have now revised/updated this. Hopefully, I've caught everything.