#but then i changed it to Freezing Claws cuz i thought it sounded better

[rominadrawsart]

Remember when I said "Imagination does everything"

I did it again guYS-

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

Prompt: Skizz discovers Impulse is a traitor early?

well hello there :D hope this is as good as whatever you had in mind! cuz i dont think i got exactly that lol

...

You whisper to impulseSV: We need to talk. ASAP.

Skizz paces back and forth in his room, anxiously waiting for a response. He hasn’t told anyone what he saw yet; even though he knows he probably should, he just doesn’t want to face it. Something inside him is telling him it’s not true, that there has to be a reasonable explanation. He can’t spread this information before he finds out whether or not it’s true.

impulseSV whispers to you: okay, meet me at my villager hole

Skizz jumps into action and rushes out of the building. He doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going, which might be a big mistake.

He runs all the way to Impulse’s villager hole and bursts in through the non-trapped door. But Impulse is nowhere in sight.

Frowning, Skizz spots a trapdoor with a ladder visible under it that wasn’t there before. He carefully climbs down the ladder and finds himself in an almost pitch black underground room, about the same size as the interior of Dogwarts.

Skizz walks out into the middle of the room, looking around in awe.

“Skizz,” comes Impulse’s voice.

“Gah!” Skizz nearly jumps out of his skin. “Don’t do that! Where are you?”

Impulse materialises out of the darkness. “Hey. Did you come alone?”

“Yeah, I did. I gotta talk to you.”

“So talk.”

Skizz takes a deep breath. “I, uh… I saw you earlier today, meeting with the crastle people. I didn’t hear much of what you said, just something about “gaining their trust”. That… Impulse, you’re on our side, right? You’re just pretending to be friends with them?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” replies Impulse easily. Too easily.

Skizz frowns. “Impulse, please tell me it’s not true. Tell me you’re not betraying us for THEM.”

“I’m not betraying anyone,” says Impulse defensively. “You know me; I’m not capable of that. You… do know that, right?”

“I…” Skizz stares at his best friend. “A few hours ago, I’d have said no. But now… I think you’re capable of anything. Tell me the truth, Impulse. Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, of course.”

“You’re doing it again! Switching on the ol’ Impulse charm and saying exactly what the other person wants to hear. You know that doesn’t work on me, buddy. I’ve known you far too long.” Skizz narrows his eyes. “You’re a mole. You pretended to join us but you’re on their side and you’re gonna betray us for them. Am I wrong?”

After a moment, Impulse wordlessly turns away, all but confirming Skizz’s suspicions.

Skizz’s stomach drops. “Oh, god… I trusted you! You- You traitor!”

Impulse sighs. “This is just like you, Skizz: running over here to confront me alone cuz you couldn’t POSSIBLY fathom that you might’ve been wrong about me. Did it ever occur to you that maybe this world changes people? That you can’t truly trust anyone but yourself?”

“No!” Skizz snaps. “I trust Ren and I trust Martyn and Etho and I DID trust YOU!”

“And that’s gonna be your downfall.”

He suddenly shoves Skizz to the ground. Before his friend can react, Impulse brings his foot down hard on Skizz’s ankle.

Skizz screams as they both hear it crack. The pain is immense; it’s definitely fractured, if not broken completely.

“See the thing is, I can’t have you running around blabbing about this to anyone,” Impulse says casually. “But at the same time, I can’t just kill you because that would show up in chat. So I think it’s time I test out my brand new trap and see how deadly it is.”

Tears of pain and anger fall from Skizz’s eyes as he stares into the cold, harsh eyes of the man he used to call his brother. “Wh-Why, Impulse…? Why would you d-do this to me…?”

Impulse just shrugs. “I’m just playing the game, Skizz. Sorry.”

With that, he turns and walks away into the darkness.

“Impulse!” cries Skizz, his vision completely obscured by tears. “IMPULSE! DON’T LEAVE ME! PLEASE!”

He hears the click of a lever being pulled in the darkness, followed immediately by pistons moving. His breathing quickening, he rolls onto his side and pushes himself up, but as soon as he puts weight on his left ankle, he knows he’s not going to be able to use it.

A familiar growl pierces the air, causing him to freeze.

A zombie.

More growls.

A LOT of zombies.

The first one that appears through the darkness nearly gives him a heart attack. He manages to slice it down with his sword, but by then, three more have ganged up on him. Trying to back away, he finds himself completely surrounded by a horde of at least two dozen zombies.

“NO!” he screams. “HELP ME! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!”

The zombies’ claws dig into his skin, and at least two of them manage to bite his arms. Players are able to resist being turned into a zombie through a bite but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Accidentally putting weight on his injured ankle again, Skizz collapses to the ground and curls up in a ball, trying to protect his head and neck. Impulse was clever; he hurt Skizz’s ankle on purpose so he could neither run nor fight for long.

This is it for him. They’re going to kill him.

All of a sudden, a battle yell echoes in the darkness, followed immediately by the sound of zombies taking damage. Multiple zombies taking damage at once. Someone’s come to save him.

The zombies attacking Skizz move away to target this new threat, but they’re no match for whoever it is. Within a minute, all the zombies in the room have been eliminated.

“Skizz!” comes Etho’s voice. “Are you okay?!”

Severely weakened and on the verge of passing out from the pain, Skizz looks up at his friend, unable to muster the words to reply. His vision is swimming, but he can just about see two figures kneeling beside him.

Etho and Martyn. They came to save him.

That’s the last thought in his mind before he passes out.

…

“-is definitely broken. But not like he fell from somewhere and landed on it. More like someone stomped on it until it broke.”

“What?! Who would do something like that?!” “I don’t know. Hopefully Skizz can shed some light on this when he wakes up. Oh my goodness, Ren, you should have seen how many zombies there were. I don’t think it was a coincidence.”

“So… you’re saying someone tried to murder Skizzle? Broke his ankle so he couldn’t get away from the zombies?”

“Yeah, I think so. And we think it was Impulse, too. Etho and I didn’t see anyone else around except him, and the hole was under his villager place as well, so we- Oh, look! I think he’s awake!”

Skizz lets out a quiet groan, his eyes slowly opening. As his vision adjusts to the light, he registers Martyn and Ren by his side, and the interior of his bedroom back at Dogwarts behind them.

“Hey, Skizzles,” says Ren gently. “How are you feeling?”

Blinking slowly, Skizz looks down at his arms and finds them covered in bandages. Beyond them, he can see his ankle elevated in a cast. Nothing hurts anymore, to his relief.

“Alive,” he rasps. “For good or for bad.”

“What happened?” Martyn asks. “Do you remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” Skizz tries to suppress a sniffle at the traumatic memory. “It was Impulse. He’s a backstabbing traitor and he tried to kill me to stop me from telling you.”

Ren gasps, but Martyn just shakes his head, an anguished expression on his face. “I should’ve known. There were so many little clues but he explained them away so well, I just…”

“He had us all fooled,” Ren murmurs. “I’m just glad we managed to get to you before he got away with murdering you. If he had, we’d never have known, and we would’ve continued to trust him.”

“How- How did you find me?” Skizz asks. “I didn’t tell you where I was going.”

“Etho and I went looking for you cuz we hadn’t seen you in a while,” replies Martyn. “We just happened to be at Impulse’s villager pen when we heard you screaming. Luckily, Impulse had just left and I don’t think he heard you, or he might have tried to kill us too.”

His upper lip curls in an expression of disgust. “We bumped into him right there and it was like nothing was wrong. It makes me sick to think that he was up there chit-chatting to us about his villagers like everything was fine, knowing full well he’d literally just abandoned you to be murdered by a horde of zombies. That goes beyond 3rd Life; that’s… that’s just pure evil.”

Skizz nods slowly. “Yeah, something’s not right with him anymore. Whoever that was… it’s not my Impulse. Something’s changed him.”

“Well, either way, at least you’re alive and his treachery has been exposed,” Ren says. “And we will take our revenge on him for trying to kill you. As soon as he’s red, we take him down.”

“Why wait?” asks Martyn, frowning. “Why not kill him now, while he’s on yellow?”

“Because if we do, he’ll harbour a grudge and try to take revenge on US for killing him once he’s red. And if yellow life Impulse is THAT dangerous, imagine what he can do on red. It’s better to wait and come up with a plan so when he becomes red, we can take him out immediately and prevent further carnage.”

A shiver runs down Skizz’s spine. It feels horrible to be discussing killing his best friend when they had been so close only hours before. Despite everything Impulse has done, he doesn’t actually want him to die. He still loves his brother, no matter what.

Even though he’d love nothing more than to punch him in his stupid face right now.

“Skizz?” says Martyn softly. “You okay?”

Skizz clears his throat. “Y-Yeah. I think I will be.”

Eventually.