A group of Fey and wizards were gathered together, each bearing a varying expression.
A gray-skinned fairy was glaring at the ground, one finger absentmindedly picking at the purple scar on his side. It writhed violently, him poking it again in annoyance.
Next to him, an Ice fairy was muttering some not-so-kind words under her breath, occasionally shooting a look of concern at the Ivory.
A cyborg was fidgeting uncomfortably, tugging his lab coat over his legs to fully conceal whatever was under the thick white coat.
A Storm fairy worriedly paced about, twin tails lashing in the air and him occasionally vanishing and reappearing a good while away.
Several people were gathered together, discussing something in low voices.
“This is not going to end well,” a blond-haired, brown-eyed wizard said, slicing his scythe in the air.
“Oh come on, what’s the worst that could happen?” his friend responded, orange eyes filled with forced determination and hair literally bursting on fire in an attempt to “warm up” the atmosphere.
“She could go insane and kill us all,” Lane responded, putting a damper on Chase’s short-lived cheeriness.
“We can take her down easily,” he responded. “Don’t be so stormy.”
The Storm Warden slowly began to clench his fists, a yellow-eyed wizard deciding he needed to interrupt.
Lucas twanged his bowstring repeatedly. “That’s what I’m scared of. We can’t just-“
“Well, I don’t like it either, but what other choice is there?” a blue-haired, green-eyed woman said.
The wizard only sighed in response.
A seemingly-young fairy spoke up, one hand tracing the purple-black streak in his hair. “I just… it doesn’t seem… it feels like we’re pushing our luck.”
“We’ve all done that before,” a voice interrupted.
Everybody immediately sprang into action.
Gale and Aly were glaring with intense hatred, Storm forced on a brave face, and Lane’s expression didn’t even change, as he had been glaring at a certain fiery punster earlier. Chase and Samantha both reacted in surprise yet quickly prepared to attack, Lucas only pursed his lips, and Luce looked like he was being accused of murder with an expression of complete guilt on his face.
The owner of the voice—a deeply scarred woman with an iron band around her wrist and a tracker around her ankle—laughed. “Calm down, will you?”
She stood directly next to a purple-eyed, brown-haired wizard, who looked both hesitant and determined, as opposed to the Voidwalker herself. Jade glared at everyone with triple the amount of hate that they were giving her… with the exception of the Academy Keeper and Ice Warden, who looked like they were just about ready to kill and her loved ones—not that there were any left—as painfully and slowly as possible.
Aly looked their new guest/captive up and down, sneering. “You seriously-“
Juniper stepped in her path. “It’s fine, alright? We need as many secure Voidwalkers as possible-“
“And she’s secure? She’s the opposite of secure. We’re keeping her locked up, sedated, guarded, and tracked for a reason!”
“You all can kill me. In fact, please do,” Jade called, being ignored by all except Gale, who raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.
“We need somebody to help us with our new… predicament about Void,” Juniper said, pretending not to have heard her sister, yet the look in her eyes—worry, desperation, and forced calm—said otherwise.
“I wouldn’t call an elemental beginning to form a ‘predicament’,” the cyborg interrupted, blue gaze filled with worry. “Looks like sh-“
“Language.”
“-it’s gonna go down.”
Aly sighed, fiddling with a crystal heart nervously, "Is there even anything we can do about it? And who would watch the kids? We obviously can't leave Storm behind this time."
The cyborg crossed his arms, clearly displeased at the idea.
Juniper sighed. “We should at least try. And about the kids… I… I don’t know.”
”Andrew can handle himself,” Kaminari said, appearing right next to her.
”WHAT THE F**K—oh it’s just you if you scare me again I kill you.”
”Calm down,” he said, flying off and vanishing again.
"Hilda knows someone," Gale responded uncertainly, "but I don't really know if-" He cut himself off, shuffling uncomfortably.
The healer stared at him and then burst into laughter.
”She hates you! If she could choose between killing Ariana, Ms. Simp, and you, she’d choose you!”
The fairy directed his gaze toward the ground, but clenched his fists slightly, clearly not enjoying the mockery.
She battled back a smirk and instead turned to the others. “So, any objections to our crazy plan of running around and looking for clues while managing her-“
She jabbed a thumb at her sister.
”-and freaking out over our children?”
”You don’t have children,” Storm pointed out.
Juniper didn’t respond.
Luce sighed, "Let's just get this over with, Storm?"
The borg pulled out his visor in response, putting it on and a rift opening minutes after.
Jade’s eyes widened, the Voidwalker seemingly torn between dashing towards the Void and running away. She settled for the former, quickly being stopped by her sister.
”Wait. Precautions.”
Juniper rummaged in her bag, pushing aside several syringes, a large collection of bottles, and a picture that she kept anyone from seeing before digging out a pair of handcuffs.
“Do you really have to-“
“Yes, we do.”
Two clicks later and they were off, the healer keeping a tight hand around Jade’s forearm.
After everyone shuffled in, Storm darted through the rift last, it promptly snapping shut behind him and reopening at the void, the group tumbling out.
A groan was the first thing everyone heard as Storm and Chase were somehow splayed at the bottom of the living pile, plastered face first against the ground.
Jade attempted to squirm out of her sister’s grasp, failing and rolling her eyes as the healer dragged her along.
A Storm fairy flew behind them, occasionally muttering unhelpful comments like, “I hate this place,” and “I really hate this place,” and “I really really hate this place” and “JADE GET BACK HERE.”
As the others got off of Chase and Storm apologetically, a few Voidwalkers watched the group, having varying opinions on their presence.
“Please Kong can I kill-“
”No.”
”Ugh.”
“Put that knife down, please.”
”Great.”
”Oh look, the gray thing. And the insane one. And the cyborg.”
A void-tainted arrow immediately zoomed towards Gale.
Instantly, another arrow knocked the first off course, a familiar voice hissing irritably from the dark, "Seriously?"
“Oh it’s Naleese. I’d hoped you’d left,” a blue-eyed man sighed, a real hiss being heard under his words. One pale finger stroked something under his suit, the hiss soon disappearing.
Immediately, another arrow was launched at Gale, this one normal, only to be knocked off course once more.
"Let me eliminate the threat," the voice hissed at Naleese.
Kong seized the archer’s wrist, snapping, “All of his friends are threats in some way—minus the one next to Ms. Insanity—and they’d notice immediately if you eliminated him. Besides, little miss Ice Warden would just blow if her hubby was hurt.”
"You guys done chatting yet or is our very presence just void to you?" Chase asked.
Naleese sighed in frustration, glaring at her fellow Voidwalkers.
Juniper tightened her grip around her sister’s arm. “Don’t you dare.”
”I-“
”Don’t. You. Dare.”
Jade didn’t respond, all she did was stare are the swirling blood that was beginning to cake around her wrists, her twisting her hands in her cuffs again.
”Oh, she’s more… unhinged… than I thought,” Kong noted, eyes narrowed.
Another voice joined the others, "Never thought I would say this... but Kong, Melanie has a point, we might want to eliminate the threat now... even if it's only some of them."
At hearing the voice Storm's eyes narrowed, clenching his fists slightly out of irritation.
“Please, they’ll attack us any second now,” he said, tensing slightly.
Before anyone could do anything, the ground rippled slightly, a few of the Voidwalkers cursing before reality itself convulsed and writhed, every drop of the element struggling to break free before stopping abruptly, as if it used too much energy in the one outburst and decided to stop.
Jade flinched, backing away and trying not to scream—but still, horrified gasps were escaping her, and she’d have fallen were it not for Juniper’s hand clenched around her bicep. The hybrid was shaking, focusing entirely on the wound around her wrists that was beginning to grow to stop herself from entirely freaking out.
Zoe smiled. “Ooh, you’re right, she really is affected. How fun.”
Naleese sighed yet again, "Are you two really going to do this? If you are I'm leaving, I don't even know why we're sticking together."
"Because the void ate the Darkshades." Cero responded bluntly.
"Actually, nevermind, I'm staying-"
“Ugh, please go,” Kong said, keeping his eyes glued on the others. “And don’t come back.”
"Gladly, except you're the one leaving." She responded, fingering an arrow.
He rolled his eyes. “Please. You can’t even retort right.”
From within the group, Storm tensed, "Are we really going to ignore the fact they just mentioned the void ate someone?" He eyed the ground warily, suddenly looking incredibly uncomfortable.
“Void…” Jade mumbled under her breath, head between her hands and eyes shut. Her next words were incomprehensible, but her fear was more than evident. Juniper was fumbling through her bag, clutching a syringe tightly in her hands.
“Should I attack them?” Kaminari’s voice whispered to the cyborg. “Or should I wait? I can only hold my vanish for so long.”
He startledly stared in the direction of the fairy's voice, but answered, "No, they can easily overpower you and if they couldn't, I think they have our answers."
“Hmph, fine.”
Zoe curled a hand around her dagger. “So… looks like we’re at a stalemate. You all move first.”
The group tentatively exchanged glances, clearly none of the agreeing with that suggestion.
Bright magenta eyes seemed to glare at both parties from peripheral vision, but when anyone looked, it appeared to have never existed at all. The scars of the remaining Sect, as well as those of the chained hybrid, the tainted ivory and cyborg, and the general bloodstream of the Shadow Warden began to throb and push against flesh.
Elsewhere, the last remaining Darkshade's omniscience detects interference.
There was silence…
And then Jade turned to the person closest to her—Juniper—and tackled her, knocking the syringe out of her hand and rounding on the next person, panting heavily.
Instantly the electricity in the tracker the hybrid wore was amplified intensely, shocking her in unconsciousness.
Storm huffed irritably, still looking slightly paranoid as he blandly informed Juniper, "I did not want to do that so don't make me do it again."
“Thank you, she’s taken care of for now… what about them?”
The healer gestures to the mildly shocked members of the sect, getting to her feet.
The borg shuffled uncomfortably, tugging down on his coat, "I don't think they'll be doing anything soon." He shot a glance at Luce, who was trembling slightly and unintentionally proving his point.
“Okay so this did nothing helpful…”
"No, it did not," he muttered in response.
Aly walked up to him, dragging Gale along - to his despise - and stated a simple question, "What now?"
"If we can't get anything out of them," Storm gestured to the other Voidwalkers, "I'm guessing we find RW, that is, if he wasn't... eaten..."
“I’m sorry, eaten?” Kaminari said, reappearing and fluttering his wings nervously.
"This was mentioned three times now?" Gale informed the Storm Fey with an arched eyebrow.
Faint hissing in those who could wield the void's minds came to rise, the tangled noise resembling something along the lines of "-let me out".
“I don’t listen, okay? Invisibility does kind of obscure hearing, what with the winds in your ear going WHOOSH-“
He flailed his arms.
“-WHOOO-“
He blasted the highly annoyed Ivory in the face for added effect.
”-WAAAAH-“
He made ridiculous gestures.
”-VROO… okay I’ll stop.”
He rolled his eyes and walked away, muttering under his breath, “Whoosh! Whooo… slammo… wa-pow…”
The sect members stared at him as if he’d grown two heads, Kaminari blissfully oblivious.
Storm watched him with an arched eyebrow, blinking slowly, "Wow, okay, uh, wait-" He frowned before a small holoscreen formed in front of his hand, him quickly typing something before it vanished, "Well that was weird..."
“Hey… Jade’s starting to move so HURRY UP,” Juniper snapped, frowning at the unconscious hybrid.
Storm eyed Jade warily before hurriedly approaching the Sect, breathing deeply, "Okay I get you guys hate us beyond belief but we have a question-"
He instantly had to dodge an arrow, followed by a throwing knife.
"Well someone woke up on the wrong side of the void..."
“We attempted to kill each other many times,” Kong said with a look of exasperation. “Two times we lost… well, third time’s the charm.”
"Can you just not try to kill us for once?" Storm asked with equal exasperation.
Cero fingered his glaive, "No."
"You don't count."
Somewhere on Jade's body, a scar lets loose a small rupture.
Void essence leaks out into the abyss, fading on contact with the... ground?
Crimson blood becomes sangria and then eggplant, invisible at the equally purple-black backdrop of the void. The wound is barely noticeable, and only the hybrid can feel its miniature sting.
Elsewhere, in the rubble of the old academy, essence newly released bolsters its power and form with what remains of the elemental energy.
It must draw the rest of itself to the area.
It must become whole.
In the minds of the Sect, monotone voice rises.
-Small incisions.
-Target those tainted with the void.
-It will be released, and the unworthy of my curse will be little more than powerless.
The Voidwalker’s eyes sprang open, crazed and terrified, her analyzing them all as if trying decide which to attack first.
Juniper immediately pinned her down, but Jade didn’t react—her eyes were glued to a world of memories, her screams diminished to become only frantic breaths.
She was whispering something under her breath, something everybody took a while to hear.
”They’re coming for me. They’re coming for me. They’re coming for me.”
Over and over.
“They’re coming for us all…”
Glances were exchanged from within the Sect, then their attention was directed back at the group, none looking friendly.
Juniper looked down at her sister frantically, attempting to pull her to her feet. “Jade, get up, get up now-“
The hybrid sat up with a gasp. “They’re coming!”
“Yes, they’re coming, get up-“
She crumpled to the ground, shaking. “They’re coming… they’re coming-“
”…Jade?”
”Stop, please-“
The rest of her words were drowned by a sob, the Voidwalker wincing and attempting to get away from Juniper, twisting her wrists against her handcuffs in a futile attempt to break free.
Storm phased next to the group, panicked, "Okay, that didn't work out the way I wanted - run."
“Jade, get up right now-“
”Get away from me!”
Juniper cursed under her breath, seizing her sister’s wrist and dragging her along, ignoring her screams and attempts to escape.
The hybrid twisted out of her grip and ran, dodging aside when the healer tried to grab her again.
”Uh… little help?”
Jade was instantly tackled by an annoyed Ice Fairy, Aly getting up with a shockingly tight grip around the hybrid's arm, "Half-Sapans..." She said that with a sarcastic tsk of disappointment, the Ice Warden paying no mind to the former Earth Warden's struggling.
Lane turned back and tackled Jade, holding her in a chokehold and dragging her away from the approaching voidwalkers.
A throwing knife forced Aly to drop her, the fairy being swarmed by Void tentacles while the hybrid was assaulted by more knives, each one pinning her to the ground but not killing her—thanks to Kong’s constant hisses.
Two archers raised their bows in unison, for once having the same goal in mind.
"Now?"
Kong shrugged. “The gray one, the cyborg, the Wardens? Threats. Insane-lady and her caretaker? Not threats. Go ahead.”
"Wait, no, the weirdo cyborg is mine." Cero said with a glare directed at Kong.
Naleese arched an eyebrow, "Still haven't gotten over it?"
"That's what I'm wondering," Storm grumbled under his breath, clearly having overheard the conversation.
Melanie rolled her eyes before pulling back on her bow, letting loose seven consecutive arrows.
Two knives flashed through the air and hit Chase and Samantha, Zoe smiling as blood spurted through the air.
That, however, earned an angry borg redirecting the void magic restraining Jade, blocking the arrows, then turning it against the Sect, leading to them having to jump out of the way.
Cero had fully unsheathed his glaive, staring at Zoe and Kong more furiously than before, "Idiots."
“Take the cyborg out, then the gray one,” was his only response, the girl taking a second to assess the field before hitting Aly.
Cero gladly rushed the borg in response, Storm barely having to lift a hand to block the Voidwalker's glaive.
"Sheesh, someone's stormy. Why can't you just drop a grudge?"
Naleese, meanwhile, tried to find an opening along with Melanie, arrows ready to be launched.
In the midst of the chaos, Aly had drawn her weapon and blocked the knife, watching for Zoe's next move.
Jade rammed into Kong, sending the two sprawling. Before he could attack, she’d rushed away, tackling Storm.
Kaminari flickered into existence and electrocuted Melanie so hard she fell unconscious and her arrows combusted, him turning to Naleese next.
Naleese responded by yanking down her hood, blending into the darkness faster than he could attack.
In the process of Jade tackling Storm, she had knocked Cero to the ground, the Voidwalker letting out a groan.
The entire area was chaos, a fairy occasionally appearing and disappearing, while a certain insane Voidwalker was attacking everybody.
Storm got up after Jade moved to attack the next person, a void tentacle raising behind her.
The hybrid screamed, attempting to run but to no avail. Her iron band stopped all magic, and her hands were still bound, Jade utterly powerless.
The void tentacle tossed her in the air before grabbing her by the ankle, hanging the hybrid upside-down in front of Jupiter.
The group took a minute to take in the situation, the majority of the Sect in the midst of groans.
Purple crystals rose up out of the ground, forming into miniature blades, splitting Kaminari off from the group and spinning around him in a sphere-like formation.
Jade, however, was still thrashing, screaming, and attempting to free her hands, soon being consoled by Juniper.
”It’s okay-“
“No it’s not.”
”Nobody’s trying to hu-“
”Oh really? Seems to me like you all would love to kill me any instant.”
”You’re safe-“
“Don’t tell me I’m safe.”
”Calm down-“
”GET AWAY FROM ME!”
Gale, ignoring the two siblings, sent a blast of Astral Magic through the void crystals, leaving a gap for Kaminari to get free.
He tumbled out, grinning. “Woo! That was awesome!”
”Are you insa-“
”No, but she is!”
The fairy gestured at the still-struggling Jade, grinning madly. “Wheeee…”
A single crystal spike jutted out of the ground behind Gale, angled straight for his heart.
It was instantly blocked by hardened ice jutting from the opposing direction, stopping the crystal from impaling properly.
Aly looked furious as the cyan energy receded, Gale cautiously taking a step out of the way.
“So… now what?” Juniper called. “This was not helpful in the slightest.”
Chase fired flames at the Voidwalker's Sect, cutting off the two groups from each other with a wall of fire that also conveniently blocked Naleese's line of sight.
"Finding RW... right after we figure out who was attacking us." Storm responded as Luce fluttered just above one last void spike.
Kaminari laughed weakly. “Haha… that’s the Puppet Master! Woooooh…”
Jade, meanwhile, was still thrashing and screaming, distracting everybody majorly.
Luce glared at Kaminari while Gale stared at Jade annoyedly, snapping his finger and causing a bind of Astral Magic to gag her - to Aly's relief.
Juniper glared at him. “Could you maybe not-“
”She’s our prisoner, is she not? Our prisoner who attacked us all on multiple occasions and is currently bound.”
”Yeah, but-“
The Ivory shot her a withering glance, "Juniper you are well aware I hold little regard towards others' well-being. If you have a problem with that, keep that to yourself."
She only glared. “Uh, Storm, can you let her-“
Jade fell to the ground in a heap, soon being dragged to her feet by the healer and standing by her side, clearly annoyed.
“So, now what? How do we find RW?”
Suddenly, crystals spiked out of the ground randomly, a response to the attacker, being unable to see the targets and hoping they all got skewered.
Everybody got out of the way, Kaminari and Jade having to be dragged off by Juniper.
”Who keeps-“
She dodged.
”-attacking us?”
”I’m dizzy whoooo…” the fairy murmured, spinning in circles.
Elsewhere, blackened liquid takes vague form.
"Are they dead yet?" a deep voice called from beyond the flames.
"How are we supposed to know, Ralph? We can't even see them!"
"I think we just got our answer," Storm responded as he darted out of the way of a crystal.
Crystal walls emerged from the wall of fire and expanded around the group until it created a black and purple crystal dome.
Aly blinked, taking in their situation, "Okay, so how are we going to break out of this?"
Chase looked at his gloved metal prosthetic, before clenching its fist, enveloping it in flames, and punching the dome wall, cracking a layer off that immediately regenerated. "Hard luck." Meanwhile, Samantha was extinguishing the wall of fire that got trapped in the dome with them.
Storm blinked at Chase's actions, clearly having a thing or two to say about that, "If I hadn't gotten paranoid over all the stupid moves you might try-"
He shook his head before powering up his lightsaber and deliquescing a rather large hole into the crystal, it rapidly seaming over itself as he turned off the device.
"Think someone can squeeze into that?"
The hole quickly neared finishing it self-repair, the hole much too small to fit through. "Not anymore," Lane snorted unhelpfully.
"Oh shut up." The trainee responded irritably.
A glowing yellow arrow whizzed into the remainder of the hole as it closed around the arrow, wedging it open. Everyone stared at the arrow for a bit, registering where it came from, before turning to Lucas, mildly surprised that the Warden had actually used his bow by choice. Lucas put away his bow and approached the glowing arrow, wrapping his fingers around it. Astral magic gathered around his hand and surged into the arrow. Astral magic pulsated throughout the dome, the layers of crystal dissolving.
"Well that works," Gale commented as he walked next to Aly, ribbon-like tail cutting through the air.
Naleese sighed in frustration from wherever she was hiding, nocking an arrow, this time aimed for Lucas.
Lane unleashed a wave of electricity on the voidwalkers behind them, rendering them all unconscious. "So that's two problems solved," he commented.
Storm raised a finger, then lowered it, "Um..."
"What?" Chase asked.
"Holycrapthekidsarehere," Samantha blurted, answering her husband's question.
"Oh."
Aly shot her a look, "I beg your pardon-"
"So that's what she was up to?" Storm interrupted with a facepalm.
Juniper looked just about ready to march over and give the kids an earful before the borg quickly added, "I'll handle it."
He phased over to where the children were stationed before a cyan rift opened and he phased back.
"Right, remind me to ground Aria, Hei, and Raiden for life."
“And the rest of them,” the healer said, looking downright murderous.
"Please tell me they have Scarlet with them and didn't just leave her at the academy," Samantha sighed.
The cyborg tensed, glancing at Gale nervously, "She er... wasn't with them-"
"WHAT‽"
A certain wizard was sitting on a rock, eating a chili dog his wife had made for dinner. He had managed to get there somehow.
”Man, nothing beats Kayley’s chili dogs!” He said.
Lane facepalmed. "Seriously?"
“Well a little birdie (Ben) told me that you guys were in the void for some reason, so I decided to come, just to kick King Kong’s @$$!”
Gale, meanwhile, was glaring at Storm intensely, "If this is your bloody spawn's fault I will be taking back my promise-"
Aly grabbed her husband by the ear and yanked him a short distance away.
"Don't. You. Dare."
In Creation, growing masses of void essence accumulate in the rubble of the Academy as minor wounds and expended magic gleans the voidwalkers' intrinsic essence from them.
Vaguely humanoid now, the dark Marvel Symbiote-like gloop continues to gnaw at the magic aura surrounding what remains of the old structure.
Jade was now attempting to throw Juniper off her to no avail, the Voidwalker muttering something that didn’t seem so pleasant under her gag.
Storm was edging away from Gale while simultaneously keeping a good distance from Jade and Lane, "I'm going to ask RW for help, looks like we aren't getting anywhere here."
The borg sent out a quick message on his visor, still keeping an eye on not one, but three so-called allies that would gladly kill him.
“Well, hurry up, she keeps—GET BACK HERE—trying to escape and it’s getting—ow!—really annoying. OH MY GOD SHE’S TRAMPLING ME-“
Jade was still attempting to escape, much to Juniper’s annoyance. The hybrid kept attempting to step on her sister, running away whenever she was given the slimmest opportunity.
"Okay, I think I’m good now," Kaminari muttered, swaying slightly on his feet.
The hiss of the void continued to drone on sharply in the ears of those cursed with its magic, now faintly audible to everyone else.
"What's that noise?" Samantha asked.
"I don't know, but whatever it is, it's making them hiss-sterical. But in all seriousness, that sound's annoying."
"Agreed. And that was wordplay, not a pun."
Meanwhile, a certain insane hybrid winced, closing her eyes tightly and clenching her fists in an attempt to stop the noise, as her hands were rather annoyedly restrained. All that did, really, was make the sound almost… joyful.
“Man, I can’t wait to render someone null and void.” Said Ansat.
A disembodied “Ba-Dum-Crash” could be heard in the background.
Another sound filled the zone- the warping rush of a rift opening from the CONSOLE.
"Okay, what do you want now?"
RW stepped out of the notably slate spacetime rip and glanced around at the group before focusing on Storm expectantly.
Jade screamed and fell over, half-sobbing, half-laughing, fighting furiously against her bonds.
"WHAT THE FU-"
Juniper exploded into pure profanity.
"Language," Chase commented.
“I THINK I HAVE THE RIGHT TO [BLEEP]ING CURSE OKAY.”
"And I swear that's the reason why our kids now know a fifth of the alphabet in swears," he replied.
"WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO TEACH THEM SOME MORE-"
The healer groaned, exhausted, while watching a terrified Jade convulse.
Storm looked downright guilty on the topic of swears, edging away from Jade synchronously before answering RW, "Thank goodness you're not dead. Anyhow, we're sorta wondering what's going on with-" Reality warped once more, finishing the statement for him, "-that and all things relevant to the topic." He bit his lip once he finished speaking, immense discomfort twisting his expression.
“Lighten the f*ck up!” Said Ansat, who was holding a lightbulb.
Another “Ba-Dum-Crash” sound played, but everybody just looked at Ansat blankly.
Their conversation was interrupted by the hybrid tackling him, more curses being yelled.
Ansat immediately rushed over.
"Calm down. Geez!"
All she did was throw him away with ease, screaming under her gag in a mixture of rage and sorrow and fear.
Fear.
Fear.
Fear.
Even Lane looked slightly alarmed.
RW stared confusedly before returning to Storm's question. "Yeah, so the whole essence thing is kinda maybe trying to writhe free of its living shackles- that would, of course, be you, Jade, Gale, and Luce. Dylan would lose his void powers, Gale wouldn't be able to EB communicate with the elemental, Luce'd be surprisingly fine, Jade is..." RW made the decapitation signal with his right thumb while grimacing. "You might be okay but I'd certainly want the whole 'half-your-body-busted-by-void-robot' thing checked out. Sorry about that, by the way." RW's crown's eye flared magenta before he continued. "Elemental is feeding off of some massive beacon of fading Creation element energy that I can't track down for some reason, and the hissing is it trying to pull away from the Voidwalkers. Because the Sect basically lives here, we'll- no, they'll be okay. I live here too, so same hat. You're all just unlucky."
Jade promptly tackled the Voidwalker again, attacking with a sort of animalistic brutality that shocked everyone.
Lane quickly reacted, trying to pry Jade off the voidwalker, quickly assisted by Samantha and Lucas, who tried to gently release her grip on the voidwalker.
One by one, she forced them off, not screaming anymore—just shaking and sobbing.
"Can- you- not?!" exclaimed RW, manipulating Jade's incredible magnitude of void scars to shake her off. Once the voidwalker had regained his footing, he groaned to himself frustratedly as if the situation was no more than being held up in traffic.
Storm glanced at him apologetically, "Er... I think we're even. As for that last bit..." He peeked behind RW and glared at Cero, who, along with a few others of the Sect, were gloating.
RW turned around, face reading a mix of exasperation and boredom. Looking at each of the Sect in turn, he muttered something unintelligible and finished with "This is the reason why I don't like you people."
“Can you [BLEEP]ing help us or what?” Juniper snarled, glaring at the Voidwalker while attempting to edge closer to her sister.
RW shrugged. "You wanna go use the console for your elemental hunting?"
"Please," Storm answered while shooting a look at Juniper.
RW stepped aside, using his scythe to tear a rift into the ground.
"Alright, get in."
“Well, first let me—JADE GET UP-oh [BLEEP].”
The hybrid had run off into the Void, a tiny trail of blood soon fading into black.
Luce immediately ran after her, soon catching up to the hybrid and cutting her off from her escape route, "Jade, no."
Obviously, she couldn’t speak, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to, as she immediately skirted around him and kept running.
This only earned her a fey step from Luce, the fairy stopping her again.
She stopped for a second to glare at him before knocking the fairy aside, running faster.
He sighed before getting up, running after her again and this time grabbing her by the arm, "No."
She continued attempting to pull out of his grasp, clearly not taking any hints.
His grip tightened, the fairy turning and proceeding to drag the hybrid back to the group, ignoring her struggles.
"I really didn't want to do this, you know."
She was downright terrified of him, however, repeatedly attacking by clawing at him, attempting to kick him, and punching him hard.
Eventually, it became too much for him to handle, tentacles of shadow binding the hybrid and turned and looked her in the eye, "Jade, I get you don't particularly like me, but I need you to calm down. I know you don't enjoy this," he gestured to her current restraints, tracker, and iron band, "but you'll never get rid of it unless you can make us trust you again. Most of us want to but can't. Maybe we're helping you the wrong way, but we all make mistakes, even me. So I'm going to ask you nicely; Can you please come? Juniper's going to worry over you and we need your help, otherwise Juniper wouldn't have brought you here."
Unfortunately, Jade could barely listen, her eyes glued to the Shadow tentacles.
Memories were drowning her now, suffocating her, torturing her…
One trigger.
No matter how miniscule.
And trauma flooded her mind.
RW awkwardly stood with his scythe at the edge of the rift, holding the fabric of the void taut. "Uh... so are we still doing this, or...?"
"We're still doing this," Storm responded, "we're just waiting for-" He didn't have to finish as a tentacle of shadow ungracefully dumped a screeching, struggling, and bound form of Jade into the rift, a bedraggled Luce walking into the clearing.
Juniper sighed. "Okay maybe I shouldn’t have brought her along-"
"You think?" Luce responded grouchily, "Can we go in the rift now or what?"
"Just hop in. This rift doesn't hold forever," responded RW, visibly bored.
The Shadow Warden promptly rushed in, soon followed by Storm, a reluctant Gale and Aly, and eventually the rest of the present group.
“Okay so what is this place?” Kaminari asked immediately.
RW closed the rift from the other side, phasing into the floor and reappearing in his office.
Storm glanced around, identifying a certain gray brick and answering, "The location of a certain primitive gray brick of a computer which can be easily slowed to the point it cannot run a single command if I'm in a mood. It also controls the universe."
Juniper blinked. “…oh.”
Storm made his way to the primitive device, opening the command console and a few additional programs.
He started typing away, with little concern towards the fraction of a possibility that he might alter the universe by mistake, and started the following string.
Const rift-location = locate(EOV);
If (var-rift-location) = true {
run(var-rift);
}
After setting up the basics, he slammed in one last command.
locate(EOV);
Suddenly, a loud clicking noise resounded through the air.
Jade was snapping to get their attention, eyes flashing with annoyance.
Finally, her sister took pity on her, vanishing the gag covering her mouth. The hybrid immediately began coughing, hacking, and gulping in air, the others still resolutely unimpressed.
Aly raised an eyebrow. “If you’re trying to get us to pity you, it won’t work.”
“No, of course. I wouldn’t expect you to care, nobody cares…”
Jade cleared her throat. “Juniper brought me along for input, remember? Though frankly, it seems more like she brought me so you all could feel better. ‘At least you’re not that person.’ Laugh it up at the prisoner who’s at your mercy!”
The healer sighed. “What did you want to say, Jade?”
“Well, you know about these things-“ she pointed to her many scars as best as she could with her hands cuffed. “-and how I’ve got a lot of them. Well, Void’s elemental is forming faster than you thought. The things keep opening up inside me, and they’re contorting like crazy.”
“So…”
“So it’s safe to say that elemental is going to form any second. Oh—and we’re all gonna die when it does.”
A ribbon-like tail smacked her at the back of the head at that, reminding her of the deity in the room was still... in the room.
"We're not going to die as long as we don't do anything stupid," he said discerningly, "However... I have to admit you're right." His discomforted expression answered the question of what the hybrid was right about, Luce and Storm sharing similar expressions.
Jade sighed. “Mind specifying?”
"The. Thing." He answered through gritted teeth, his amber gaze taunting at an amethyst.
She flinched, taking in sharp breaths and locking her knees so she didn’t crumple to the ground. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”
The hybrid looked up. “So I’m dying, aren’t I?”
This time Storm spoke, glancing up from the console momentarily.
"We can always leave you here, you know. It really depends on Juniper."
“You know what I mean. When Void forms, I die.”
He was about to retort when he stopped, a bit startled when he realized what he was suggesting, "No, I mean, the other Voidwalkers are staying here, that's how they plan on staying alive. As soon as void pulls out, it rushes back in, keeping them from bleeding out until we do something." He breathed deeply, focusing on the computer screen to avoid the groups gazes, "Since you're a Voidwalker... it'll work for you too, I guess."
Jade shook her head. “No, it’s not… I need… I want… I just- I need to go to him, okay?”
Clearly this was something she’d put as much thought as she could into, since it was the first time she’d been confident in… months? Years? More?
Yet said confidence wavered when she glanced at Juniper, who looked most reluctant to let her skip merrily off to her death.
“No. No, I’m not going to let you die.”
The hybrid clenched her fists, attempting to control the tremor that ran through her. “I need to. What do you think is better, sitting around in that—that-“
Another spasm.
”-prison? No, I’d rather die, can’t you understand that?”
The healer held her gaze before resolutely shaking her head and adding, “We’ll force you if we have to, right?”
The others muttered assent or nodded, not meeting her eyes.
Jade snarled, digging her wrists into her cuffs before speaking again. “…fine. You really hate me, don’t you, if you can’t—you won’t-“
She shuddered, eyes suddenly losing the life they’d held before. “She hates me,” the hybrid muttered to herself. “I hate her. It keeps coming. They keep coming. They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming…”
Storm turned his attention away from the hybrid siblings, gluing his gaze to the device he was typing away at, occasionally rubbing his eyes fiercely, his vision clearly bothering him.
As the group waited for him to locate the element, and to distract them from the fact the non void-tainted members of the group were concerningly fading from existence, a few found a place to wait, Luce settling near the wall.
The hybrid sidled up next to Luce, eyes glued to the ground.
“You were saying how you can’t trust me?”
He nodded.
“Well, news flash; you shouldn’t. Hell, I don’t even trust myself. You shouldn’t either. There’s no way you can trust this. So… maybe these,” she gestured at the bonds, “are necessary. Wanted even. If you freed me, who knows what I’d do? I’m a puppet, Luce, and what’s worse is I haven’t even been corrupted. Though I’m sure you’re familiar with the feeling, after all, that’s what you’re most known for.”
Luce fell silent, his gaze affixed to the ground.
After an agonizing time, he finally spoke up, "I couldn't do it by myself."
"What?"
"Not being a puppet anymore, I mean." He breathed deeply, the gust of air ruffling his mess of ginger hair, "I tried for years, never managed to break free by myself. Eventually... I gave up, I was just a hollow shell when you came along. If I was in your position, I would've said I was a hopeless case. So why didn't you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Kill me."
Jade fell silent.
“You nearly killed me. But as for why I didn’t do it… I just… I couldn’t. I don’t even know why. Maybe it was conscience. Maybe it was fear. Maybe I was just weak.”
More silence.
“But right now, I’m the hopeless case, and it’s entirely my fault. But Juniper wants me to live, so… what can I do? I’m your puppet now. You can do whatever you want to me. But I’m also theirs.”
“Who’s they?”
When she spoke, her voice was ragged. “Too many people to count.”
"You're not my puppet, the same way I wasn't your puppet. We were both puppets of our minds. Well, with the occasional interference of a dark elemental."
The last part was light-hearted, but their situation was in no way light.
They sat there before the Shadow Warden started carefully, "I don't tell most people this... especially since it's so silly... but I'm still a bit scared of Shadow. Still her puppet, I suppose."
“How could I think it was silly? And, more importantly, why are you trusting me with this?”
"Well for one, I'm Shadow Warden, I'm supposed to embrace the dark, not run from it. As for why I'm telling you..." He glanced up at her, his bright yellow gaze unreadable, "Even now, I'm still a puppet of my own fears, but I'm somehow doing this, aren't I? Believe me, it wasn't easy at first, hah, my own nephew refused to trust me."
"Your... nephew?"
"Gale, believe it or not."
She frowned. “Well, I don’t trust you, and you shouldn’t trust me, either. But at least we’re both puppets… though you’re not the prisoner here. You’re free. You’re happy. You’re brave. What am I? Waking up too scared to scream. Not even waking up because I never slept. Taking pleasure in the one moment where I wake up and realize the nightmares aren’t real. Then I realize I’m in a new nightmare… one I can’t escape from.”
That earned a harsh laugh, the laugh of someone who knows they're all screwed in the end, "I would love to believe that, really, but I'm afraid we're all the prisoner here. Storm's a prisoner of his past, Lucas is a prisoner of death, Juniper's a prisoner of your well being, Aly's a prisoner of so many personal problems I don't bother counting, and Gale may be a deity, but he's a prisoner of the elements themselves, forced to do whatever they choose, even when he doesn't realize it. Then there's me, a prisoner of my fear. You might be the only one who seems to be the prisoner, but truth is, our own weaknesses are what chains us down. In your case, it's insanity, and it can happen to anyone if we're not careful."
He paused, frowning slightly, "We all have our strengths... and weaknesses to work on." The warden breathed deeply, messing with his staff, "Never thought I'll quote that one."
Jade nodded along with each weakness he listened, clearly keeping track of… what? Her own weaknesses? Others? How to take them down?
All she did was speak again.
“Give me one strength I have, Luce. One. One that wasn’t stolen from me. One that can’t be taken or overpowered. One that can bring my brother back.”
"You."
When she was about to protest, he clarified, "A person can change with their surroundings, put up a mask and pretend, or force themselves to agree with the public. Yet deep inside, you have a sense of what you think is right, or what you think is wrong. You have a sense of something that might seem to be missing at moments, but later on, when all is well, you realize that it was never gone, simply obscured in your actions and thoughts." Luce continued, words and feelings pouring out like water, "For some, it's love, for some it's hope, for some it's unity, and for some it's family. Sometimes you feel so broken that you think that sense is broken too, but when you begin to heal, even when you're scared beyond belief, you begin to see it was never broken. What made Hunter special to you, Jade? What made you want him back more than you imagine? Only when you figure that out can you be you, and find the strength to continue, because that is the only strength no one can permanently dampen or remove."
She flinched at her brother’s name, but said only, “Well that was quite the inspirational speech. The problem is, my brother was blindsided. He didn’t know the real me. The real me killed him. The real me killed hundreds. Nobody would love the real me. And I’d rather it stay that way.”
"And was the Puppet Master the real me, then? Don't you dare say that's different, because it's all the same. Jade, while you were, let's say, four years old, what was it that you wanted above everything else? What did you want in that child innocence, the innocence of not knowing how cruel the world really was?"
“I… I wanted a lot of things. I wanted my father to come back. I wanted just to see my mother. But that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. We shouldn’t even be talking about this, I’m sure I’ll face the consequences of being weak.”
She inhaled and exhaled. “Now leave me alone before it takes over again.”
"So you wanted to be loved?" His words were gentle, caring even, "There's nothing weak about that."
"Yes, there-"
"No, there isn't, and it does matter."
"How? It's pointless."
"It's the real you."
He moved to get up, his fluffy tail brushing the ground slightly.
“People change, you know. Now get out of here.”
"Not in the way you think," he responded before leaving her, heading to the edge of the group to be alone.
The console hummed and printed a response to his inputs.
"ERROR: SYNTAX "EOV" INVALID
RUNNING annoyingAutocorrect
DID YOU MEAN
"VAR_EoV"?"
Storm stared at the screen for a total of five seconds before furiously bashing the enter key to accept the correction, holding back a scream.
"LOCATING...
FOUND
ACAD_RUBBLE_INST[WCI_MTPPFFPP]
OPENING RIFT"
A purple rift tore open behind the console, revealing the broken structure of the Academy- and Aria flying a safe distance over it. The thick purple-black spore-like mist coated the air heavily, though the rift appeared to repel it.
"WARNING: ENVIRONMENTAL RISK
RUNNING rwSpeech
PRINTING PREVIOUS INPUT
>hahahaha
>okay so that stuff might be poisonous
>or toxic
>so
>hold your breath??? or get void magic to move it
>tho that will be pretty hard
>lmao idk,,,"
Storm skimmed the printed page before glancing up at the rift and back down at the paper, "Alright so I have good news and bad news."
“Bad news,” Juniper said. “Then good.”
"Normally I would agree with you on that but..." He trailed off before getting to the point, "Bad news, the place we have to go to can possibly kill us instantly. Good news, I've found Void...?"
“…okay, what really matters is getting rid of that thing. We’ve lived through a war, how hard can it be?” the healer said, forcing on a smile.
He sighed, "All the available air around the spot is void tainted and possibly poisonous - not to mention RW has no idea if we'll be able to use Void Magic on it."
Juniper looked like she was about to speak, but whether it was to be negative or positive was unknown, as she was interrupted by Jade.
”We’re going. At least, I am.”
At that, Storm hovered his hand above a key on the keyboard, clearly about to close the rift if necessary.
"Juniper?"
The Voidwalker sighed. “You’re really gonna throw my opinion away like that-“
”Ignore Jade, I’ll go and make sure she doesn’t…”
Juniper shrugged. “Kill herself, kill us, break down, attack the elemental, etcetera.”
"You know what, I'll go," Storm exhaled deeply, currently not agreeing to this idea, "I opened the rift, it's my responsibility. Besides, I still have three failsafes to go - Jade only has one."
“STORM DREAM [BLEEP]ING CHASER, GET BACK HERE NOW. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE MULTIPLE FAILSAFES DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE SAFE, FOR ALL YOU KNOW THAT ELEMENTAL CAN MURDER YOU IN A MATTER OF SECONDS. HOW DARE YOU ATTEMPT TO GO IN THAT RIFT AND IF YOU TRY TO RESIST I’M STUFFING YOU IN A BOX AND TAPING IT SHUT.”
He blinked, glancing at Aly, "Is that reaction... normal?"
She crossed her arms, holding back a laugh, "Not in the slightest."
Then Jade rushed into the rift.
"Oh my f**king GOD." Before Juniper could even react, Storm rushed in after her, the rift snapping shut behind the two voidwalkers.
Juniper stared at the air where the rift once was before screaming a mouthful of profanity and turning a smoldering gaze at everybody so harsh they all stepped back.
“Are you going to [BLEEP]ING get to them or what?!”
As the others were being screamed at by a furious healer, Storm attempted to clear the mist where he and Jade stood using a barrier of Void Magic, some of it still leaking through as he tried to catch up to the hybrid.
The borg was cursing under his breath before yelling out, "Jade!"
“Leave me alone!” she screamed back, clearly not caring about the poison or tainted Void—on the contrary, she was practically basking in them.
He ignored her and picked up his pace, "Jade, please listen to me."
“Don’t you get it, this was the only way I could see him? Now go do… whatever, just get away from me!”
"I swear to God-" A wall of void blocked off the concerning amount of mist gathered behind the voidwalkers, "-Jade, suicide isn't the answer. Do you know who resurrected him so you can see him again?"
When the hybrid turned, her face held only one emotion—pure hatred.
She spat out each word, fists tightening even more. “And look what good that did. You killed him, I killed him, and nothing matters now! Just get away from me.”
"I know, I had a feeling that would happen. Do really you think I wanted you to suffer anymore? I'm not that kind of person, Jade."
“Yes you are. If you didn’t want me to suffer, you’d have let me die already. I’m always suffering, thanks to you, and yet you still won’t let me die? You still won’t let me go? If that’s not hatred, I don’t know what is.”
"No, that's caring, hating would be letting you die. The only reason you're suffering is that you haven't let go."
The mist was approaching dangerously close to the two, Storm trying desperately to bite down his panic.
“Let go?” she hissed. “I wouldn’t need to let go if you hadn’t killed him!”
"Jade, I didn't-" He didn't get to finish before the mist sent him into a coughing fit, having reached them by now. Between rasps, he wheezed, "I'm sorry," and a cyan rift opened up below the two, dumping them next to Juniper mid-scream.
The shining metal screaming towards Storm was the only indication Aria was approaching.
Wingbeat after wingbeat, the mist was forced away, even if only slightly- but that was enough.
"You probably shouldn't be this close to the death gas, Unc."
The healer turned, gasped, and hugged the cyborg tightly, still screaming in his ear, “YOU IDIOT! If I didn’t love you I’d hate you so much right now!”
Jade, meanwhile, only watched with… too much emotion to decipher. Hatred, anger, hopelessness, and betrayal hiding the pure heartbreak.
"Juniper, I can't bre-" On the word breathe he broke into another fit of coughs, clearly too busy near-dying to bother with questioning any form of romance.
She quickly released him. “Is he choking? What… what happened?”
As to answer her, the purple mist loomed near Aria and the still open cyan rift, which, unlike the purple one, did not have any form of repelling it.
Juniper blinked. “Does anybody know how to fix him?”
She shot a pointed glare at the others, bloodshot eyes and absolute desperation and fury making for quite the intimidating figure.
Aly stepped back, both worried and intimidated, "Well... no..."
The healer stepped forwards. “Void magic. Manipulate it. Now.”
Deep within the rubble, something festers.
The mist collapses into the center of the debris.
Soon, lashing ferrofluid-like spikes jut out of every orifice and crack in the ruin.
Essence from the voidwalkers forcefully tears out of their wounds or internal systems, flooding into the structure- soon, their powers are nearly, if not entirely drained.
What remains of the old Academy is consumed by the abyss.
A loud shriek resounds of every single being in the void, emanating from the blackened goop.
Purple echoes pulse away from the rubble, heralding destruction.
A vaguely humanoid figure arises from the rubble...
and vanishes.
After the elemental had formed the coughing had ceased in a certain borg, however, like a certain hybrid nearby, he was in complete and utter agony.
Since at the moment both voidwalkers were in the void, like the Sect they were kept alive by the sheer fact void rushed in as soon as the pseudo-elemental pulled it out to feed, but the process was not exactly painless.
Ralph looked at the cyborg and hybrid in amusement at their pain. "Pathetic. Can we kill them now?"
Aly sighed in frustration, "You again? Really?"
"Can I start with her?" the voidwalker asked.
Juniper gave him a venomous glare, Ralph gulping and stepping back as the healer slowly rose. “If you touch them, I rip out your organs and use them for my healing bi-“
Kado blinked. “Woah… hey, Juni, why don’t you-“
“Then I drain your blood and make you gargle in it-“
Storm’s weak cry of pain quickly silenced the healer, Juniper shooting Ralph one last glare and smiling slightly when he cowered.
The fairy glared, flicking her hand behind her back and causing frigid snow to fill the voidwalker's clothing. As Ralph was distracted, Aly glanced at the rest of the group, "I guess we have an elemental to find, now don't we?"
"But who's gonna watch Storm and Jade? They're not really in their element in this state," Chase asked.
At that, the Ice Warden gestured to a frantic Juniper, "They'll be fine as long as she's around."
"So let's get started," Lane declared, taking two steps ahead of the group before turning around. "Where do we start, again?"
"In theory, we should be able to get that to tell us," she gestured to the console, "in practice, however..."
"We might die if we go," Samantha said, finishing Aly's sentence.
"That, or we accidentally rewrite the universe." The Ice Warden said with a sigh.
One entity above coughed upon hearing the Ice Warden in the fact that the multiverse was already wiped once before.
The Ice Fairy was mildly startled at the voice from above, or rather, the cough from above, but made her way to the console hoping whatever gimmicks she picked up from Storm was enough to handle a brief command.
Luckily, the command the borg ran earlier was still in place, and with a sigh of relief, the warden ran it again.
The machine made an attempt to open the rift, but lashing tendrils forced it closed- the elemental had full control of its corresponding realm, having been powered to unreasonable heights.
"It's more powerful than the CONSOLE?!" Samantha exclaimed.
"So it seems," Gale muttered, deciding to make an intervention for the first time in a while.
"We are going to die doing this, aren't we?" she exhaled.
"Probably." said Ansat, getting into a stance.
"Well, I'm not sure if you haven't noticed, but we can't even get in," Lane commented.
"I can't run fast enough to get in if the brick thing can't open it for long enough..." muttered Ansat.
"Not necessarily," the Ivory responded soon after, "it really depends on how stupid of a move you plan on pulling."
Ansat stayed silent, before muttering...
"Why did Ben have to stay at the lab today...?"
Crystals spiked up around the group once more, blocking them in, for Ralph had finally gotten rid of all the snow in his clothes.
This received a very annoyed sigh from the shockingly unfazed fairy, the Voidwalker being knocked to the ground by a blast of Astral Magic.
Lucas fired another arrow through the crystals, dissolving the structure. "Okay, so guys, we have another little problem. The CONSOLE is gone."
"I really feel like kickin' some @$$ right now." said Ansat, stretching his legs. "Where's King Kong at, I'm gonna get him first!"
"Oh for fu-"
"Alyss."
The Ice Warden crossed her arms, glaring at the Ivory intensely - who, frankly, ignored her.
"I take it you won't accept any form of console?" Chase asked. "But seriously, this sucks."
"Nope, but what are we supposed to do now?"
The group looked at each other, shrugging.
What could be miles or mere inches away, a pseudo-elemental fed off all traces of itself, consuming the energy and increasing in power, holding little regard for it's plane - it knew how to leave, anyways.
Within the mind of their host, six elementals fretted over the situation to the irritation of their host, while the seventh raged over its spawn escaping before she could.
Meanwhile, two voices could be heard further away, discussing something about the void and the CONSOLE.
Aly's ears pricked slightly, the Warden glancing in the direction of the sound, "Do you guys hear something?"
The group went silent, listening carefully, aside from Storm and Jade who were twitch on the ground, drawing in shuddering breaths.
"Well let's start looking this way," one voice could be heard, faintly.
"Alright, let's stay on our guard." whispered Ansat.
"That is whispering?" Gale informed him harshly, keeping his voice at a shockingly low level of whispering, "That's nearly as bad as you talking."
"What the hell are you- does anyone else think my whispering is loud?"
"Yes," Aly and Luce informed him in unison, glaring at him.
"Well it's getting louder," Lane hissed.
"Can we just go now?" Samantha asked.
"Goddamn it, whatever! Just stay on your guard."
Elemental magic swirled between each of the groups fingertips, except for Ansat, who was warming up his legs.
"Wait, did you hear that?"
"Yeah...HEY! WHO'S THERE?"
"Jeez, tone it down, I'm standing right next to you."
The group came into view of two voidwalkers, one male, the other female.
Samantha was the first to speak up. "Wait a second, are you those voidwalkers from a few years ago? You know, when the dimensions crashed?"
"And you're those kid Wardens, I assume? I'm Normandy," the male voidwalker said.
"Well, they're clearly not kids anymore. I'm Narcissa," the other said.
"Few doesn't begin to describe the time gap, Samantha." Aly stated, still not dispersing the cyan energy concentrating at her palm, "Give us one reason why we should still trust you after... seventeen years or so?"
Normandy started, "Because, one, we don't want to die."
"And two, we hate the Darkshades too," his sister finished for him.
"We're more on a mutual status with Darkshade now... or at least, the one who isn't dead." Aly said with a shrug, "But eh."
"As of now, we're tracking down the CONSOLE!" Narcissa chirped helpfully.
The Ice Warden glanced at the rest of the group before glancing back at the Voidwalker, "About that..."
"What?"
The fairy reluctantly pointed in the direction the console used to be, "...you just missed it."
Normandy inhaled, walking a distance away, before yelling out a sentence heavily drenched in colors.
"Langu-" For some reason Gale cut himself off before finishing the scolding, seeming rather disturbed.
Meanwhile, a terrified hybrid shrank against whatever wall the Void could provide, ragged breaths being the only sigh of her even being alive. There was no rationality, no strength, nothing under the crushing pain of her life force slowly draining.
Hope? Never.
Regret? Maybe.
Hatred? Towards herself, her sister, Gale, Aly, Storm, Darkshade, Shadow, Void… even towards her brother?
Well, of course.
After all, what else was there to feel?
Juniper sat next to her, tears being held back by sheer need to do something. Slowly, hesitantly, the healer backed away from her hopeless case of a sister and reached over to help Storm, a single tear being wiped away.
And another.
And another.
And another.
The swell of bitterness, anger, hatred, sorrow, weakness, helplessness, so much helplessness… it began to rise again, Juniper furiously piercing her skin with an empty syringe so the pain would distract her. It was all she could do not to let the emotion overtake her, instead all she did was reach into her bag and turn a remote between her fingers.
Juniper glanced at her sister, whispering, “I’m sorry,” before flicking a switch and watching as electricity overwhelmed Jade, just as the Voidwalker lunged for her throat.
"Gale? You okay?" Lucas asked.
“…okay can I just leave-“
Juniper clutched Kaminari’s wrist, snapping, “Don’t you dare. We’ll need a lot of power for whatever comes next.”
"W-I'm fine," the Ivory responded, yet pressed a hand to his forehead. He then muttered something along the lines of "Shut up Shadow," paying little regard to the Astral Warden after that.
Ansat did a backflip, before doing a dynamic pose.
"Alright, what's next?"
“Void blah blah blah HELP STORM NOW.”
Aly turned to stare at Juniper, wincing slightly, "Can you please not yell? You already yelled at us for how long?"
“Yeah I’m losing my voice but I JUST KNOCKED MY SISTER OUT SOMEBODY HELP MY- HELP STORM.”
Ansat revved up.
"I can't help him, I gotta scout ahead, or some other running related activity," he said.
The best thing he knew she was at his throat, spitting out, "Help now or I put you in twice the amount of pain they’re going through."
Ansat stopped revving up. He was coated in a light blue tint.
"Fine, fine..." he said as he walked over.
"Who's gold coin is that?" Lucas asked, pointing to a conveniently fallen gold coin on the ground.
"Oh god no..."
Ansat dashed off past the coin automatically, at an astounding speed.
"What the-"
"Well he appears to have dashed Juniper's hopes of receiving help from him."
"Shut it."
"Guys, calm down. How about some of us stay behind with Juniper and the rest search for the CONSOLE?"
The healer crossed her arms. “Somebody help me with those two, somebody who can do something.”
For some stupid reason, tears were bubbling over now, her shaking from the effort to stop them. Yet a sob escaped, one she quickly gulped back.
Aly looked as if she was about to snap at someone, before pausing, frowning, and walking over to where the console was. She picked up something from the ground and inspected it for a bit before turning to Normandy, "Been a while but do you mind doing us a favor?"
"What's that?" Normandy asked.
She held out the paper to the Voidwalker, "My best guess? Where a dark elemental is looming at - I saw another one print when Storm tracked it down the first time, but that doesn't matter."
Juniper composed herself, snapping, “Somebody help me with these two and OH [BLEEP] JADE’S WAKING UP-“
Her words were cut off by said hybrid tackling her sister, the impact surprisingly weak due to the pain coursing through Jade’s body.
Normandy shrugged. "I'm not the one to ask. She is," he said, pointing to Narcissa, who was currently watching a butterfly-like figure fly around that she made of void. "Narcissa," he hissed, elbowing her.
"Huh? What?"
“Hey can somebody-“
Jade was still whaling on her sister, who looked more annoyed than actually hurt—she could’ve defended herself easily, yet that would only mean more pain for the Voidwalker.
Gale disinterestedly snapped his fingers, binding Jade with ropes of Astral.
Meanwhile, Aly sighed before gesturing to the paper Normandy was now holding, "Can you get us to the place mentioned on that?"
Meanwhile, Ansat was running through stuff, and over stuff, before skidding to a stop.
"Man, these new Flash Speed Shoes Ben made are really cool!" said Ansat. He then realized he had a problem. He ran so far that he had no idea where he was.
Normandy handed the paper to Narcissa who blankly stared at it for a good ten seconds, before opening a portal.
In which a tentacle immediately grabbed her and yanked her inside with a scream.
"Narcissa!" Normandy dashed inside the portal, in pursuit of his sister.
Some of the group looked at each other, shrugging, before entering.
Right after entry, the group was blasted with another wave of void mist- the captured voidwalker was being absorbed, or as the group understood it, eaten.
Within the gloom, it was impossible to make out the full figure of the elemental- the only visible body parts of it were the glaring magenta eyes fading in and out of the dimensional plane.
Upon sight of the apparent threat the various humanoids posed to the elemental, a shadowy tendril lashed out of the darkness and swept across the bulk of the group. It coiled around anyone it hit and constricted them, snake-like.
Those remaining consisted of Chase, Gale, Alyss, and Normandy, who was crumpled over what was left of his sister's body.
Gale took an evident step back, mild panic evident in regards to the abyssal elemental.
"How do we beat that?!" Chase exclaimed.
"I guess the same way we beat Shadow but..." Aly unsheathed her staff as it morphed into a bow, "Is anyone here actually good at Astral Magic? Besides Gale."
Kaminari blinked. “…I… think we run.”
Aly took note of the disembodied voice, pulling back on a bowstring as a weak Astral Arrow formed, "I'm going to have to agree with you but-" She let loose the arrow, it striking the void tentacle gripping Lucas and forcing the elemental to drop him, the Astral Warden's eyes widening before running for his life. "Now we run." When the cluster of males stared at her blankly, she repeated again, "NOW."
The Ice Warden took no time in fleeing, Gale blinking before bursting into flight, and getting a good distance away before Normandy and Chase sprinted off.
"Hey!" Lane yelled. "You forgot us!"
Faint gray and electric yellow mist was the only indication of Kaminari’s Fey steps, that and a lot of, “oh shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot” that was quickly silenced by everyone else.
Meanwhile, a fretting Juniper was screaming into her arms, the amount of volume rivaled only by Jade’s mess of words that switched from begs to insults to incomprehensible chaos to everything in between.
Storm was still unable to move through the pain, the healer turning a sedative back and forth, unsure whether she was to use it or not.
Aly ignored Lane, the Ice Fairy streaking down the field before veering behind a cluster of Void Crystals, running out abruptly and dashing to another random patch, then repeating the process about ten times or so until the pseudo-elemental gave up on trying to locate her and focused on the others.
Before she could reach anyone, however, a streak of gray snatched Luce up, ignoring his “ow!”’s that came from being forcibly pulled out of a Void mess.
The Ice Warden resisted the urge to facepalm before releasing another arrow at the void tentacle gripping Samantha, sprinting away from her former hiding spot just as Chase and Normandy located it, the wheezing pair having to run after her again.
“You’re welcome mister former Puppet Master, also I need a breather- HOLY FAEN NOR-“
Kaminari grumbled something else under his breath as he dodged the Void tentacles, only the fairies knowing just how profane his Norlian could be.
Luce was forced to dodge before he could even begin to tell Kaminari off, settling for running first then informing Kaminari of his misdemeanors. As the Shadow Warden ran for cover, a certain Ice Warden released one last arrow, freeing a grouchy Storm Warden.
Another blur of gray zoomed right across the elemental’s face, a tiny shock of lightning being just enough to throw it off course and turn to attacking Kaminari.
From the hiding spot, Aly muttered under her breath, "Well that works." She turned to Luce and Lucas, who had joined her an the others behind the void crystals, "Do you two mind blasting that thing? We're going to need all the help we can get."
Chase unleashed a barrage of ranged fireballs in the general direction of the flashing eyes.
The Storm fairy flashed by again, visibly exhausted from the effort of invisibility and keeping control over his lightning, yet another blast crashed into the elemental, pale yellow flashing through the area.
Lucas fingered his bowstring hesitantly, looking at the elemental, then his friends, then back at the elemental. His eyes then wandered to Narcissa's body, blood pooling around her former void scars.
If he didn't act now, his friends could end up in a worse situation than that of the fallen voidwalker. Lucas drew back the bowstring, an Astral arrow nocked in and released the string.
As the Astral and Shadow Warden blasted the elemental repetitively in its moments of distraction, the Ice Warden took note of who was missing.
"Hey, has anyone seen Gale?"
As the fighting progressed, one thing became evident to the mentioned deity, flying just out of range of the elemental, heart racing from fear, fear he tried to ignore.
Yet no one, absolutely no one, could fight an element alone, especially a dark one that gained so much power so quickly...
And every voice screaming in his head confirmed it.
DO IT!
There was one death he considered the worst, and it wasn't due to the manner of death, but what came with it.
Dying unloved, dying alone, dying in vain, dying in a matter that shattered the hearts of those who bothered to care.
He had overheard Luce and Jade speaking, one thing echoing in his thoughts.
"He's a prisoner of the elements themselves, forced to do whatever they choose, even when he doesn't realize it."
It was true, ever so true, to the point it had ruined his entire life.
A hysteric sob escaped him, tears streaming down his face.
His wish, his one wish he made before Hilda proclaimed that she hated him to the point of extremity, was big enough that it required a sacrifice - the worst death imaginable.
It came true, hadn't it?
He had always been right, hadn't he?
That no one ever loved him, no one ever cared about him, especially since Hilda had done nothing to countereffect the wish.
Norishna Kee.
Seven familiar orbs of elemental energy formed in a line in front of the pseudo-element, them bursting and fully physical forms of the elements themselves standing before the group.
None noticed the Ivory fall, life quickly draining out of him.
Most say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but not for the Ivory.
What life can a puppet ever have to see at the time of death?
Instead, all that he saw, he remembered, was that single nightmare that marked morning, the single nightmare he suffered through every night.
Falling.
Alone.
And Dying.
Yet before that last ragged breath was a small sense of relief... a tiny bit of happiness that the pain of existing... was finally gone.
Maybe this was what Jade desperately sought.
A limp body hit the ground, but only the future would tell if it was all in vain, if the existence of that broken little fairy ever meant anything.
Who knows, maybe it did.
Aly's eyes widened exponentially at seeing the elementals form and unleash a barrage of attacks on Void, before she frowned, pieces clicking together.
If the elements are here... that means...
Gale was dead.
The Ice Fairy gripped her bow, fingers curling and tightening around the cold wood, creaking slightly under pressure.
NonononononoNO!
Stinging tears made their way down the Ice Warden's cheeks, hitting the ground and dissipating at coming contact with the abyss.
However, grief never ended well with an Icetalon.
A vengeful blast of Astral struck the pseudo-elemental, the golden energy feeding off cyan as it cut through a mass of void tentacles.
A certain red-haired elemental glanced in her direction in surprise, before dodging an incoming void tentacle and launching another barrage of attacks.
A purple-robed elemental stared up at the black one, disgust filling her every movement.
”Pathetic.”
Shadow struck, a sense of joy—no, not joy, hunger—beginning to blossom as she reveled in her newfound freedom.
A green-haired, green-furred, woman rolled her forest green eyes, her cat ears, and tail flicking occasionally, "Shadow, you agreed-ARGH, FIRE!"
The firey elf had somehow figured out how to manipulate his very existence, popping into reality right next to the two elementals, "Uh, you two, we still need to deal with them." He gestured to the eyeless pseudo-elemental, trying and failing to hide his revulsion.
Lane turned his gaze towards the figure of Shadow, knuckles instantly whitening as he gripped his scythe tightly.
“Oh, calm down, we’re all on the same side here.”
”Really, Shadow?” a glowing yellow said, expression inscrutable under the harsh glow. “I seem to recall you said that before you betrayed us all.”
”Stop holding a grudge, sweetheart, we’ve got a Void to fight.”
The elemental was silent, instead casting a Supernova with little to no effort and smiling as Void was held back by it. “Where’s Storm?”
"Oh he's with Juniper," Chase replied.
The artificial elemental facepalmed the best he could. “No, the other one-“
”Wow, Astral, I’m so shocked that you want me!” a gray-skinned fairy said, shooting him a white grin.
”I just want to defeat-“
”I’m on it!”
And the Storm elemental immediately flew away, soon catching up to a starstruck Kaminari.
Fire sighed, "Show off." Red elemental energy collapsed in on him, the elf reappearing behind Void and proceeding to be a level of annoying that even Lane might try to join in on killing him.
Just as quickly, the elemental’s cheeriness disappeared and was replaced by grim anger; a shock of lightning incinerating avoid bit by bit as it was held in place by roaring winds.
”My turn.”
Darkness on darkness clashed together, Void’s tentacles lashing out toward’s Shadow’s in a terrifying dance of black.
“Hmph,” Astral sighed. “You know I could do it better.”
A blinding bomb of light knocked Void back, the glowing yellow figure looking almost… bored.
Meanwhile, a certain Ice elemental, having recently left the fallen Ivory's body, coated several lashing void tendrils in many layers of ice, forcing them to drop to the ground.
Stone and other thorny concoctions jutted from the ground and impaled the void elemental in rather questionable places, the plants setting alight and burning the disorientated flesh of Void - the doing of a rather grouchy elf.
Powerful torrents of water cut through the mist, slamming into the Void's embodiment beyond the fog. "Ice?" she asked. The yeti-like elemental wordlessly froze the torrent and took control of the spiky rod, ramming it into the elemental repeatedly.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god it’s a Storm guy and he looks like Gale and oh my god it’s a Storm element and he’s next to me-“
”Shut up.”
“Hmph, you’re just like Elektra,” Kaminari grumbled back, helping the elemental amplify all their electricity.
Falling Star Smashes were continuously cast from behind the barricade, the Ice, Shadow, and Astral Warden going unfazed by the presence of the deities.
Void continued to draw power from its remaining inhabitants, what was left of Gale’s body soon deteriorating.
Meanwhile, two Voidwalkers and a breaking healer all lay crumpled on the ground, the former too weak to breathe, let alone move or speak.
Only hatred shone in Jade’s gaze, her stubbornly attempting to get to her feet despite the pain and her many bonds, soon being held down by a sobbing Juniper.
Storm, however, didn’t move at all, his eyes shut and body completely still.
The Void pseudo-elemental took the hits with silence- something was evidently wrong.
The problem soon showed itself in the form of small yet writhing black masses embedded in the elementals, each masked by the looming dark- results of their barrage and the way their magic sourced back to them.
It had begun its infection, and very, very little could be done about it,
Once the abyssal being realized his plan was apparent, he absorbed any elemental energy remaining from the onslaught of attacks and sent even thicker mist running through the air, the gas healing the wounds of the pseudo-elemental.
One by one the attacking elementals began to fatigue, expressions twisting in discomfort but not a single complaint being muttered among them - they did choose this, after all.
Meanwhile, somehow in the midst of all of it, a couple of ghosts watched the events, their imprints not far.
A little girl gasped, rushing towards the ugly scene.
”G-Gale?”
Transparent tears began to fall, the devastation of yet another loss crushing Faith as she clutched her confused brother close.
”Who’s Gale?”
”…m-my friend.”
The boy smiled. “Can I meet him?”
Only a sob answered.
The ghost's sobs were interrupted as someone tapped on her shoulder. The tap was reluctant... almost as if they were afraid to make themselves known.
She gasped lightly, whirling around to see a little fairy, not even older than her.
Yet the gray skin and amber eyes were definite signs of…
”G-Gale? Gale!”
At hearing the name he awkwardly glanced towards the ground, fiddling with his creamy yellow tail. "That's not..." He cut himself off, continuing to twist his tail, clearly unsure what to say or how to explain things.
Maybe there was simply no point in doing so.
She cocked her head, wide green eyes filled with confusion and brimming with tears. “What do you mean?”
Connor tugged lightly on her arm, babbling out, “H-hello.”
Silence until...
"That's not my real name."
The ghost's cheeks reddened with embarrassment, the tail twisting only intensifying to the point it would've been painful if he was still alive.
“…what is?” she asked, switching from foot to foot. “Do you have one?”
"...no." He fell quite quiet after that, as if he had committed some sort of crime by speaking, by being here, by admitting a secret as simple as a name.
She was silent.
”I don’t think your name matters. What matters is you. So whatever you want to be called, I’ll still love you. Like you do me.”
At that, he quickly turned his back to her, his ragged, oversized, translucent white wings slightly brushing the floor. Tears were streaming down his face, the little fairy hugging himself to attempt to fill the emptiness that came with that word.
Love.
The only word that had a chance at breaking the Ivory.
How many times he had heard someone nudging him, encouraging him, saying that word to him?
How many times had someone hugged him, cared for him, only to betray him in the end?
His poor little heart couldn't handle that word.
Never again.
Yet nothing could prepare him for the two little sets of arms wrapping around him, the two children clutching the broken little fairy close.
At first, he tried the squirm out of the hug, the gesture feeling foreign... so foreign. Yet he eventually gave up, sobbing. The nonexistent tears faded before they hit the floor, pain, hatred, and years of suffering pooling into every drop of concealed water.
Concealed from the living, at least.
Fireballs were launched at the elemental, but they never made it past the mist. The caster was immediately grabbed by the leg and slammed on the ground repeatedly, before being lifted up and half-heartedly chucked in the general direction of the group, knocking over the Water and Shadow Wardens. A certain ice fairy feystepped out of the way of several lashing tendrils, launching astral-embedded ice shards, following in the streamline of a volley of arrows launched by the Astral Warden. The other three got back up again, unleashing blasts of their elemental magic on the void elemental. The mist was then charged with static, before a burst of light was emitted from it, bolts of electricity rushing throughout. Sparkling green stones spiked out of the ground, driving particles of Earth Magic into the mist, forcing it back ever so slightly. Ice glittered as it and shining yellow arrows rained down on the electrified mist, complemented by individual blasts of bright red and orange fire magic, glowing blue water magic, and the resonating darkness of shadow magic. The lightning coursed faster throughout the mist, and the elemental blasts doubled in intensity, the elementals enhancing the magic of the wardens. The shield of dark mist began to waver, fading, flickering, as the power of the combined elements warped it, forcing their way through.
For fractions of a few seconds, the void actually looked scared.
Then the elementals began to falter, void coursing faster through through them, their bright colors giving way to the blackness of void. The static coursing throughout the mist reduced to nothing more than static similar to that of a hot, dry day. The blasts of flames shrank to nothing more than a few fireballs. The astral arrows and ice crystals harmlessly bounced off the mist, their light fading as the expanding mist absorbed it. The relentless torrent of water simply pooled around the edges of the mist, hissing as it turned into void-like smoke as it was absorbed. The stones and thorny plants crumbled onto the ground, fading into green elemental particles that turned into black and purple. After that, the only elemental left standing was none other than Shadow. The mist pushed its way towards the group, pushing against the blast of shadow magic fighting it back. Eventually, even Shadow collapsed, leaving Luce with wisps of darkness to function with. The wardens chucked every last bit of elemental magic they had left at the growing mist, but the colored sparks of magic bounced harmlessly off the darkness of the mist, fading out as they hit the ground.
The combined voices of every victim the Void had ever taken now came to rise, a single disembodied voice echoing across the abyss, shaking the universe to its core.
A pair of bleeding magenta eyes stared down the group- one became six, six became 12, 12 became more and more until the eyes were innumerable, the pressure immense and crushing.
"It is finished."
The darkness overcame all, waves of horrid black and purple drowning the wardens and what remained of the elementals. The abyss itself was drenched in its own material, flooded with tsunami-like force. What was once perfect balance of Creation became imbalance of the nothing, a fragment of forever crushed into powder and scattered into black wind.
Hope had no place here.
Then, vision went equally dark.
The group woke up lying on a noticeably darker cloud in Skywatch with a pair of somewhat concerned time travelers standing over them.
A moan escaped a certain Ice Warden as she awoke, painstakingly sitting up and blinking in surprise at noticing the time travelers. Similarly, Luce managed a sitting position nearby, trying to piece together what had happened.
"What just happened?" Samantha asked, sitting up and brushing her hair out of her eyes.
"I feel like I was hit by a brick wall," Chase groaned.
Cloud was the first to speak; "Wakey wakey, world's about to end. Ancient just detected elemental imbalance, so Prodigia as you know it's about to go bye-bye."
“…yeah no I shouldn’t have come with you guys,” Kaminari said weakly, part of his body still invisible.
Aly was the first to show any reasonable reaction, "WHAT?"
Luce stared blankly, "...you're joking." However, something flickered across his face, which immediately led to him muttering, "Oooor you're not."
Meanwhile, two horribly weakened and heavily bandaged Voidwalkers lay on the ground.
Storm’s entire leg was covered in sterile white, black and purple beginning to soak in. Changing the bandages was both pointless and gruesome, so they let him be.
Jade was at a much worse state, black-stained bandages covering her entire body and leaving almost no room for movement, not that she was capable of doing so. Besides the occasional shudder of pain, she stayed immobile, clearly attempting consciousness but being too weak to do anything.
Juniper forced back another barrage of tears as she clutched Storm’s hand, Jade having jerked away when anybody touched her. Even in unconsciousness, even in cursed pain, even when she and the rest of the world were dying, Jade still pushed everyone away.
”Hey…” Raid muttered. “maybe leave them-“
The look she gave him made him jump back, Juniper squeezing the Storm trainee’s hand as tightly as she could.
She didn’t even speak.
Why would she need to?
The healer had seen people die before, many, too many, ones she couldn’t save, ones she’d known, ones she’d barely even seen before a last breath was taken, yet nothing could hurt as much as watching the two people she cared about most die.
Too many times her family had abandoned her. Florian died before she even saw him. Hilda pushed her away. Hunter was gone. Jade might as well have been. Connor eternally clutched his dandelion. Faith smiled forever. All the people in the healing tents, Dane and his family, all lay asleep. Storm’s heart went thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Each time it slowed.
There was no room for tears, screams, pointless begs.
There was nothing.
Nothing at all.
Meanwhile, floating not too far above the highest reaches of Skywatch were a trio of ghosts.
They had a bird's eye view of the island... but they were already regretting it.
The plants of Firefly Forest were shriveling, purple and black burning away at their leaves and causing the entire expanse to seem to be filled with a purple mist of Void infused rot. The waters of Shipwreck Shore seemed to ooze with black ink, infused by the dark elemental as something rippled beneath the waves, the sandy shores being stained black as the waves lapped at the shores. Shiverchill stood tall, but moving specks of purple hinted that the Crystal Monster population had boomed, an ominous glow pouring from the entrances of the mountain. Bonfire looked mostly the same, however, the magma was cooling, hardening into obsidian, and letting off an eerie pulse.
Then there was the Academy, gradually decreasing in elevation on its collision course with Lamplight Town. Normally, it'll be able to last a few days without a Keeper renewing the spell, but now?
In the midst of it all, there was activity on Harmony Island, and none of it good.
A shocked and devastated Faith watched the chaos, still clutching Gale—or whatever his name would be—tightly while Connor wrapped his arms around the fairy, his arms too short to go all the way around.
The fairy didn't resist the hugs this time, however, he did mutter something under his breath softly.
"It was all in vain, wasn't it? It came true, didn't it?"
“Nothing was in vain,” Faith responded. “They’ll fix it. After all… I fixed you. At least the best I could. How bad can this be?”
He cringed slightly at the word "fix," but was too distracted by the sheer devastation to protest, instead of answering, "Too bad. Way too bad."
”Just hope, Gale. Please?”
"I... don't know..."
She pulled him closer, her own tears beginning to fall and hit open air.
How hard it was to hope.
Just as Faith pulled out of his grasp, another ghost floated up to them, expression holding only bitterness and anger.
“Look at that, Gale, you’re younger than me,” Hunter snarled, looking down at the fairy. “Do you remember what you did to me when I was younger? Or do you need me to recollect it for you?”
The little fairy cringed back slightly, clutching his tail nervously. His amber gaze pooled with helplessness and flecks of anger, but made no sign of planning to protest against the older ghost.
“So do you remember?” he snapped, eyes flashing. “What you did to me and my sis-“
The ghost stopped himself, taking a shuddering breath before asking, ”Well?”
"...yes." He muttered quietly in response, avoiding Hunter's gaze.
“And now you think you deserve this?”
Hunter furiously blinked back tears, screaming now, “How do you always manage to have the upper hand on us? On J-Jade. On Juniper. My sister wants to die, but you only torture her more, yet you get the pleasure? You, who was low enough to hurt a child? You, who hurt my family over and over just for existing? You, who won’t let my sister come to me no matter how many times she begged for it? You might as well have killed us, that would’ve hurt less. Do you have anything to say for yourself or will you just hide behind the innocent like you always have?”
Only silence met his words.
The little fairy shuffled awkwardly, clearly wanting to say something... but holding it back.
What's the point of repeating something he said so many times, not once being proven wrong?
You won't understand...
And they never do.
“You think you’re so innocent? We’ve all been hurt, Gale, that doesn’t mean you can do the same to other people. Innocent people. Children. Do you do anything besides hurt? Anything?”
When he still didn’t respond, Hunter stepped closer, screaming, “Answer me!”
The fairy flinched, fighting back tears. Yet regardless, he silently took the emotional torment, knowing Hunter was right. Even if he argued for his case... Hunter would just say he deserved it, just like Hilda...
He backed away, truly unable to hold back the tears this time. It was only when a quiet Connor and a smiling Faith wrapped their arms around the hybrid did he stop glaring at Gale.
The gray fairy turned to leave with a sigh, but he barely managed to get away before turning and looking at Hunter, "I'm sorry. I know you don't care, and I know it doesn't fix anything, but I'm sorry. Even if this's in vain... I won't bother you further." He looked a little surprised at his own words, but this time he turned to leave for real, the little fairy evidentially not wanting to talk to him outside of this.
Just as the fairy was about to vanish, Hunter spoke.
“How bad was it?”
”…what do you mean?”
”My sister. How bad did it get?”
Gale looked uncertain, not sure how to word a response. Finally, he gestured to the clouds below them, making up Skywatch, "That's more of something you have to see for yourself."
“I… I can’t,” he murmured in response, pushing Faith away.
"And I can't explain something I don't understand." The little fairy paused, "Well, I can't really say that, only that I don't understand it entirely."
“You’ve been hurting her for so long, you can’t even bother trying to… to know her? Why she’s so…”
"Oh, I have." He glanced up at the older ghost, "Yet I think it did more harm then good."
He snorted. “Obviously. What good could possibly come out of your actions?”
"What good can possibly come out of your actions? Or your mother's, for that matter? Look, we can talk about this all day, but it won't change the past, nor the present."
“My actions? I…” Hunter faltered. “…fine. I just—I want to see her, but I’m…”
His next word was so quiet it may as well have just been the wind. “…scared.”
The other ghost shrugged, "Don't worry, she can't see us, but... never mind, chances are she won't notice us either." Then he quickly added under his breath, "They might be joining us soon enough, anyways."
“No, I mean, I don’t… I won’t… I can’t. I can’t see her like this, you of like people should understand—after all, doesn’t seeing any of us make you sick?”
His final words were harsh, but forced, the last remnants of his anger still stewing.
The fairy paused, "Angry? Yes. Jealous? Yes. Disgusted? No."
“Jealous? Why—why would you be jealous? Shouldn’t we be the ones jealous of you? You, the one who always seems to have it all?”
Silence.
The fairy shuffled awkwardly, finally saying, "Do you promise not to... laugh and say I deserved it?" He had fallen pretty quiet, fidgeting with his tail again.
The hybrid laughed humorlessly. “You could say the same for me. I deserve being separate from my sister. But you haven’t, so I’ll do the same for you—not because I care one way or the other how you feel.”
"My mom abandoned me when I was little," he said with a sigh, "but I guess you already know how that feels. I only became Academy Keeper because my dad died, never met him so I can't really say I miss him..." He shuffled awkwardly before continuing, "Then I met Hilda. She was pretty nice to me at first... along with Florian... but then you came along. Hilda ignored me entirely, only wanting to be with you. I was mostly upset because she promised.... she promised she'll love me even when my mom didn't. Promised she wouldn't call me a fishna and throw me out. So much for that, I guess. Shadow started messing with me, making me do things I didn't normally do and... I hurt you because of that, she turned one little bit of anger into hate... and since I didn't feel as upset anymore... I kept doing it. Hilda found out and was so angry with me that she broke her promise and started using me as a scapegoat. She stopped after a while when Jade came along, but I was so hurt and angry I guess I just thought it was unfair that she loved you two and forgot all about me. I wanted you to feel the same way, I don't know why but I did. I started losing control more and more often and hid from everyone, and the wardens were blaming me for something I didn't do... it was too much, and I took it out on you three the same way Hilda took it out on me. I mean, I could've always just talked to someone but... I was afraid they'll hurt me the same way everyone else hurt me. I was a fishna after all..."
Hunter blinked. “Wh-what’s a fishna… I’m assuming it means something else, unless she called you a fish…?”
Gale raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
”Yeah no. But seriously… it doesn’t make me hate you less, but it helps to understand. Kind of like how you didn’t bother understanding any of us. You didn’t even try… but I didn’t either. I guess we’re all the bad guys here. Even if you hurt us… badly, to say the least.”
He shrugged, "I guess when you're hurt... you can't help but hurt back. Then it only gets worse." The fairy paused, "Oh and... fishna means monster, not a fish."
He blinked. “…oh.”
Hunter glanced at the grounds of Skywatch for a split second, quickly looking away. “…is Jade a fishna?”
Gale decided to ignore his extreme accent.
"As much as I would like to say yes... are you a fishna?"
"No? I mean, at least I don't think so..."
"Then no."
“But as much as I hate to admit it, I-I don’t look at my sister for a reason…”
"Why not?" He sounded intrigued, but the fairy looked mostly disinterested.
Hunter turned away. “You wouldn’t care.”
The little fairy gazed at the activity below, "Fair point."
”But answer my question. Is my sister okay?”
"...it depends on if they," the fairy gestured to the clouds below, "stop Void in time."
Hunter groaned. “No, I mean, with her… mind…”
"Ah..." Gale trailed off, "I can't answer that... because I don't know."
The hybrid pinched the bridge of his nose, focusing on his annoyance to distract from the pain. “Just tell me what she’s done.”
"Not much to be honest... she's lashed out a few times, but to be fair, it was in either stressful or painful situations."
He blinked. “…you’re lying, aren’t you?”
The fairy shook his head, "Not this time."
Hunter buried his face in his hands, taking a deep breath to collect himself. “What has she done since I… since I died?
"Oh, that? Well... it was pretty bad at first. She was mostly kept in confinement since she'll lash out at anyone who dared come near. Juniper and Luce would spend a lot of time around her. Later she convinced Juniper to take her to see Hilda and..."
The ghost’s jaw dropped. “Sh-she’s in confinement. In confinement? What idiot thought of doing that?”
He clenched and unclenched his fists. “And? I-why is she being kept in prison—sorry, ‘confinement’? What happened to Opal and Robin and Korathius? How are Hilda and Juniper doing? What did she do when she visited Hilda?
The Ivory's amber gaze flickered with uncertainty, "That's a lot of questions."
"Get to the-"
"-point, I know. Well for starters, Jade committed war crimes and tried to kill or emotionally abuse everyone near her, but since she was... insane everyone agreed to spare her. She threatened to kill Opal, Robin, and Korathius on multiple occasions and nearly did it - they're okay right now though. Hilda and Juniper are fine but..." He horribly failed at hiding his disapproval, "...Juniper is obsessed with Storm. As for that last part... Jade had me swap Elemental Balance for her trauma... for three days."
Silence.
”I-I…”
Hunter stared at the ground, tears beginning to well. “I can’t—she—why…”
A single sob slipped out.
”So… my sister… really is a fishna?”
On the word, anger and hatred surged back, pushing away all his sorrow and regret. “How much of this did you cause? How much of it did I cause?”
The fairy was thoughtful for a minute, before answering, "I think a better question would be who started it."
“Florian. And Hilda. And you. Luce—at least while he was Puppet Master. Shadow. Void. Darkshade. The people she’s hurt. People who hurt her back. Juniper. All of you. Her family. And… and me, I guess.”
Hunter looked incredibly uncomfortable on the last word, blinking back more tears.
"Correct, but not in the way you think. I think... it's everyone's fault. Florian hurt Hilda, Hilda hurt me, I hurt you, you rubbed off your hurt to Jade, Jade hurt someone, that person hurt Jade back, then she hurt you, and you hurt me, then I hurt Hilda, and then it happened all over again." He breathed deeply, "It's everyone's fault."
“…I-I hurt her? How? B-by dying? And if you think it’s no one’s fault, why do you hurt her again and again and again?”
"That you did," he muttered under his breath, "I never said it no one's fault, I said it's everyone's. As for hurting her... talk to Shadow."
“I…”
Nobody spoke.
“I was right.”
”What do you mean?”
”You love hurting me. You’re doing it right now. You always do.”
"That's not-" He cut himself off. Was it true? Every time he ever hurt someone... he had enjoyed it, that sadistic pleasure filling him every time his knife touched flesh. Yet that was Shadow lying to him... wasn't it? That was her praise that made him feel that way... or was it really how he felt? However, he wasn't trying to hurt Hunter right now... was he? He was so confused...
“I’m such an idiot for believing you,” he snapped. “You’re such an idiot for thinking you could fool me. But…”
Hunter took in a ragged breath, swallowing back another sob. “I’m going to check on my sister. And don’t you dare come with me.”
The little fairy didn't bother to protest, but his gaze was filled with both hurt and confusion.
I'm not trying to trick him... am I?
Yet it was impossible for him to tell.
The ghost didn’t wait, him quickly floating down towards where he presumed his sister was, not excited exactly, more wanting to get it over with.
He found her rather quickly, though he wished he hadn’t.
The Voidwalker was still unconscious, though it was clear she was in pain—every time Juniper reached over she pulled away, bringing a shudder through her body.
Storm was starting to stir, the healer reluctant to knock him out again and settling for letting the cyborg attempt to wake.
Hunter wanted to linger by his youngest sister more, just so he could avoid watching Jade any further. Yet love got the best of him, the ghost soon floating over to his sister and watching translucent tears hit her limp body, gone unnoticed of course.
Sobs went unheard, words went unanswered, embraces were unfelt. There was nothing he could do to help.
Yet Jade began to shift as well, not even opening her eyes, only whispering in a voice thinner than paper, “Make it stop.”
Juniper looked over. “What do you mean? Do you want me to sedate-“
“No. I don’t want to go back. Make it stop. Please.”
”I’m so sorry, but I can’t do that. I wish I could. I really do.”
They didn’t speak, Hunter’s vision blurry through the tears.
”I miss him,” Jade murmured, her lips barely even moving, like she was attempting to conceal the words of vulnerability.
Juniper smiled sadly, still clutching Storm’s hand. “I miss him too.”
The Voidwalker’s eyes opened just slightly, two glints of green in the sea of white concealing purple and black.
”…Hunter?”
The ghost floated in as close as he could get, controlling the sobs. She couldn’t see him.
And he couldn’t really see her.
The world’s tiniest smile barely flickered across Jade’s face as her eyes shut again. “Thank you.”
Juniper frowned. “What happened?”
”Nothing. But I think it’ll stop again…”
The hybrid fell asleep, completely unaware of her brother’s pure desperation.
Maybe love was there too.
Maybe love was impossible.
Maybe there was only pain.
But at least they had each other.
At least, a little bit.
Hunter allowed himself another few seconds with his sister, at peace for just a moment, before he turned to the rest of the island.
Pure destruction covered the once-beautiful landscape.
The skies themselves had turned black and purple, a fog of darkness demolishing everything it touched.
The image was an extension of the scar-riddled patch of ground Jade had carved in, yet it was much worse now that it sprawled over miles upon miles.
Not a drop of color was visible except the slowly cooling lava of Bonfire Spire and, of course, the black and purple that had coated the entire area.
Hurricanes of Void rampaged over the ground, what remained of the majestic forests, mountains, tundras, and beaches becoming endless black that seemed almost sentient… alive.
Skywatch shook violently under the power of Void, its formerly-green beanstalk becoming a poisoned one of black that reached its tendrils upwards.
The shocked cries of people all over the landmass turned into a collective cry as Harmony Island sank under black waves, all of the treasured light fading from it entirely.
The darkness only knew one thing.
To spread.
Light was snuffed out in seconds, bathing the world in endless black.
Void’s laugh shook the entire island.