Title-- Subreality: Shard
Rating and Warnings-- PG-13 for nongraphic death & violence. Oh, also vulgar language.
Species and Characters-- Species are humans, modern-day on Earth. Specific chars are Sasha, a therian, her unnamed boyfriend, and Jack, the ringleader of a vigilante force.
Summary and Notes-- Please note that this is the equivalent of a very rough sketch of an outline of a .. thing. I had to get the concept down in words so it would stop chewing on my brain. The situation is thus: It is possible, with enough willpower and training, to warp reality into something called 'subreality' - almost a different dimension that overlaps ours. Subreality can be manifested in the physical realm as almost a different layer of reality, and thusly normal people ('sheep') either avoid that area subconsciously, or don't see what goes on there even if they're present. There are several gangs who use subreality to wreak havoc and chaos in the world, bringing monsters to life and adopting terrifyingly surreal powers to get what they want. However, a man named Jack takes up residence in a particularly besieged city and begins gathering allies to him to combat these gangs. Training his recruits in the theory and manipulation of subreality, as well as combat techniques in subreality, where weaponry and technology are useless, Jack builds up a guerilla force - including a new recruit, Sasha, a therian who joins his side when he promises her that he can teach her to physically shapeshift. She agrees, on the condition that he doesn't let anyone she knows get dragged into this surreal war. Jack, so far, is the most powerful vigilante of his little group, but most of the others never thought about things like alternate realities before he found them; Sasha, on the other hand, is rather knowledgeable in such concepts and shows great promise.


She'd been curled up, her head on her lover's chest, both of them asleep. There was no forewarning sound, until the crack of shattering glass as the bullet sank into her temple. The shot had been fired from outside her window.

Her eyes opened, and everything was unedged, vivid color. The blinds and the broken window and walls couldn't be seen, but there was a boiling mass of dark red and black that sufficed as her would-be assassin's body. Her head pounded, blood seeping past her ear and soaking her shoulder.

Her familiar leapt for the shooter, and she watched as the black in his aura began to bleed into the green-brown of the cold earth. Without hesitation, she pushed herself out of the bed, through the garden-level window, pulled herself up, and sank a handful of claws into the shadow's breast. It crumpled.

There was shouting; it was in two voices. Her eyes opened and her hand shakily lifted to her temple - there was blood. But she was alive. Her lover was clutching her now, crying into her hair, begging her not to leave him.

She peered past his protective arms, dizzy from the pain stabbing through her skull. There was a dead man outside.

She hadn't moved from the bed to kill him. And she wasn't dead, though the bullet should have drilled into her brain.

"What the hell did you do to me?!" She went to shove him against the wall, and he let her.

"I told you. I unleashed you."

"Fuck that!" Her voice cracked. "You-- that bastard tried to kill me! He could have killed my boyfriend!"

"But he didn't."

"I killed him." She had fisted his shirt, pushing him back, eyes flashing and knuckles white. "I killed a man."

Jack smiled a little. "You killed a demon of a man. The human part of him had been consumed long ago. How else could he know to kill you, if he didn't operate on our level?"

She punched him, a short and hard hit to his solar plexus. He coughed, but didn't retaliate. "You fucker," she snarled. "You're playing games with me. It's one fucking thing to twist my mind, but you put my boyfriend in danger. You swore no one else would get dragged into this!"

He caught his breath. When he spoke, his voice was as calm as ever, and his hands still hung lax at his sides. "I'm sorry. I thought I'd concealed your home well enough." Genuine regret was in his eyes as he looked down at her. "It won't happen again."

She had to ask. "How the fuck do you know? How can you be sure? What if someone links me to him, and kills him?" She fought back the tears that threatened to spring up at the mere thought. She didn't have many people close to her, but she loved those who were dearly.

"I can only do my best, personally and with my allies. There's only one way to guarantee his survival, as much as any mortal's survival can be guaranteed--"

"Don't fucking say it."

"...you got shot in the head, and you lived. It was at point-blank range, with a high-powered rifle." He didn't move as she cringed away from him, touching the new scar on her temple. It had already healed in thirty-some hours. "Your brains should have decorated your walls. Instead, you lived, eliminated the threat, and didn't even need to see a doctor--"

"Don't."

"If he were one of us... he'd be that much harder to kill."

"I said fucking don't." She punched him again, same place. He absorbed the blow by leaning away from the wall, then letting the impact shove him back a few inches. "What's he to you anyways?! What am I to you, you manipulative bastard?!"

He rubbed his chest gingerly, but his face showed no pain. "What you are to me? Surely you know by now."

"No," she spat, "I don't. All I know is you're trying to gather more wanna-be Batmans to save Gotham from the baddies."

He sighed. "Don't trivialize this."

"Answer me, dammit."

"I wanted you because you're young, unattached, flexible..."

"Sounds like you got me out of the Personals section," she snapped.

"...and because you are passionate, intelligent, and know how to shapeshift and control ch'i already."

"Yeah right." She grabbed his shoulders and glared. "And it's just icing on the cake that I'm therian, huh?"

He smiled wryly. "I was keeping my eye open for a therian, admittedly. You were the first one I'd found locally that might work; relatively unknown in the area, prone to being alone, and self-aware. You'd never suppressed your animal instincts, like most have had to do in living with humans."

"Why therian?"

"I wanted a shapeshifter. You're... more than I had honestly hoped for. You have a familiar, you can use your ch'i, you can conceive of the concept of subreality easily... and not only are you a therian, you are also a freeform shifter. You can take more than one shape to heart."

"You're not answering me. Why did you want a shapeshifter?"

He chuckled and lifted a hand to his chest, drumming his fingertips on his collarbone. "These bodies are overrated. All of the fabulous monsters are humanoid; all of the heroes wear a human face. We flaunt ourselves as top of the food chain, the lords of the planet. But in subreality, there's no guns, there's no tech, there's no nothing. Just us, and our ch'i. Either we learn to use ch'i to function, or we die."

"But with a shapeshifter..." She let him finish it.

"...we have an ace. We have someone who doesn't need ch'i. Someone who can take by surprise any human who thinks he's safe."

"I'm your attack dog."

He smiled, an expression both rueful and sad. "Yes. You are my ace, my secret weapon."

"I think I'm coming to hate you." She shoved him away and turned to leave.

He sighed and pushed away from the wall. "...wait." She didn't, but he kept speaking. "I warned you about all of this, yet you took me up on my offer anyways."

"You told me," she said coldly, pausing in the doorway, "that you could give me the ability to physically shapeshift."

"And I can," he replied. "In subreality. It is physical, but you'll never be able to shapeshift in a crowd of random people. Subreality is formed when we twist it into being. Half the time, it makes us invisible to the mundane sheep. The other half the time, it just keeps them away from us. And if it's only one or two sheep..."

"I know," she hissed.

"I gave you your dream, Sasha." He wasn't about to let up. "You can go out in the mountains, become a wolf, and hunt. You can race across the front range here as a cheetah. If you're alone, you can curl up in your bed as a lioness. That's what I promised you, and that's what you have. I warned you about what the price would be."

She turned, slowly, until her body faced to his left, and she could glare sidelong at him. "And you swore no danger would ever come to those I love."

His face tightened. "It will not happen again."

"What use would you have for him." Her voice was flat.

He didn't expect that. "He's half-animal too, isn't he? And he's as smart, and knowledgeable, as you."

She snorted. "He's not a therian. If he could shapeshift, it'd be into a goldfish or something. He's not a warrior, Jack."

"He would be for you." He smiled sadly again. "Look, whatever you might think, I'm not trying to make your life miserable. There's a reason you said yes; there's a reason they all say yes, when I approach them."

"And why is that." Still flat-voiced.

"Why do we glorify the things we do? Look at our movies, our music. Danger is a thrill. Being outside the herd, a mark of pride. Fighting for our lives - fighting for a good cause, even - are things that make us feel alive. In this society, Sasha, you've seen the sheep. They're not alive any more - they're just automatons, going about the cycle endlessly, and stupidly. Rightly, it's they who should be calling their lives subreality."

"You and your attempt at sounding noble," she scoffed, but her voice was softer now.

"Listen, Sasha. I'll make you a deal. No matter what you say to it, I'll keep doing everything in my power to keep your boyfriend safe - and everyone else you love."

"...I'm listening." Her shoulders were slumped; she'd been defeated, reminded why she stepped into this situation in the first place. A lion's tail protruded from the seat of her ragged jeans and coiled around her thigh, tufted tip flicking.

Even though he was starting to get used to having a therian on his side, it still fascinated him when she did partial shapeshifts. "Let me do some research on your boyfriend. If I think he'd make a good one-of-us, you and I can approach him. We'll teach him all that I teach new recruits..."

She was growling, softly, wordlessly, in denial.

"...but with one catch. He won't ever have to take orders, or fight, except in self-defense or emergencies. He can be like the National Guard - backup when all else is lost, but no more."

She turned fully, now, to face him. Her eyes were the deep brown of a lioness's eyes, slit-pupiled and narrowed. "You would show him everything, teach him everything, for no price except what he would do anyways - help in crises."

He nodded.

"There has to be some catch. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for that."

"I am not evil, or a capitalist, Sasha." He sighed. "The only person who would pay would be you, in guilt, but you're paying that price already."

"Then why would you do this for him?"

"For you," he said simply. "Because I almost got you killed, through my smugness about how well I'd hidden you away from them. Because if your boyfriend dies, because of our deal, you and I will both want to kill me."

She frowned, then turned and walked away.

"I'll research him," he said to her back, with a silent nod.