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pi-cat000 · 6 years ago

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MSA time travel idea (part 21)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Vivi POV, 8, 9, 10, Lewis POV, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, Lance POV 18, 19, Lewis POV.2

Part 22: here

“We’ll be fine,” Vivi reassures Arthur for a third time, spinning to face him, backing up past the assortment of haphazardly constructed ‘keep out’ and ‘danger!’ signage. Behind her looms the cave’s gaping entrance.

“We’ve been through a ton of caves. The worst thing that could happen? We, maybe, get swarmed by some bats,” She continues upon seeing Arthur’s continued hesitation.

“Ah, how about a cave in?” He points out leerily, eyeing jagged stone formations framing the entryway.

“No seismic activity in the area, I checked,” Vivi declares, whirling to march forward, glancing back to call, “You boys coming or what.”

Mystery bounds off after Vivi, leaving him to shoot an apprehensive glance at Lewis. The larger man shrugs, putting a comforting hand across Arthur's shoulder blades, “If this has you really worried we can always wait out here while Vivi takes her supernatural readings.”

Arthur sighs, tempted to take him up on offer, “No. It’s fine. Probably best not to let Vivi go spelunking with only Mystery as back up.”

“Probably,” Lewis laughs, patting his shoulder once then stepping forward, “Just stick behind me. I’m sure this will be just as boring as all the other caves we’ve walked through.”

“Yeah. ‘Boring’…Sure. That’s not the word I’d use but, whatever, let’s go with boring,” Arthur grumbles, shadowing Lewis up to the entrance. The ground underfoot transitions sharply from spotted green to dead twigs and dusty rock.

“Creepy,” Arthur eyes the unnaturally straight line, cutting the cave off from its surroundings. Lewis snorts, amused by his muttering-at least someone is having a good time-walking into the dark like this isn’t the most unnerving place they’ve been to so far.

Just inside the dimly lit opening, he spots Vivi, who’s wrestling with a wrought iron canister holding what appeared to be old-style wooden torches.

“Hey guys, check these out! Mood lighting! ” She calls with apparent gusto. Better make that two people having a good time.

“Lewis. You still have those matches on you, right? I think there’s still oil on these.”

Lewis trades his box of matches for the wooden torch, holding it out while Vivi grapples around attempting to light it. Arthur is surprised the old torch has lasted this long. They can’t have been the only ones dumb enough to explore a ‘haunted’ cave at night. Surely, some other idiot would have used them up before now.

“Can’t we just use the flashlights?” Arthur comments in conjunction with Vivi’s resounding "YES" of triumph. The stone walls around them come to life with a flickering orange glow. High, arched ceilings, almost two stories tall, provide an abundance of space. Arthur can now see several meters down a long tunnel before darkness overtakes it again. He shivers, peering at the many cracks and holes dotting the roof and walls. Everything is coated in a thin layer of green moss which catches the torchlight, giving a green tint. In other words, it looks freaky and unnatural.

“Well, this just went up several points on the Creepy-O-Meter,” He laments, resigning himself to an evening of jumping at pebbles coming loose from the ceiling, gusts of wind, and his own shadow.

“I know! It’s great isn’t it?” Vivi twists, grinning ridiculously, now holding a torch in each hand.

“Watch where you wave those Viv,” Lewis dodges back and avoids a face full of fire, reaching out and plucking the nearest torch from Vivi, “You almost got my hair with that one.”

“Whoops sorry,” A sheepish Vivi shoots Lewis an apologetic glance before carefully lifting her remaining torch to get a better look at the cavernous structures around them. A few seconds of fascinated gawking pass, while both his friends take in their strange new environment.

“You have to admit, this is a lot cooler than a graveyard or an old house,” Vivi voices in awe, moving deeper into the tunnel. She’s got an energetic spring to her step mirrored by Mystery trotting at her heels. No attention is afforded to the spooky shadows, shrinking away from the torchlight, rushing to close in behind them. It’s admirable.

“Maybe there’ll be an actual ghost this time and not a dude playing dress up?” Lewis adds, glancing about, holding his torch higher, “Definitely has the ambience for it.”

Arthur shuffles closer to Vivi, so he’s sandwiched between the two of them. This way he’ll have plenty of warning when the freaky cave monster leaps out to get them.

“One can only hope,” Vivi laments loudly. Her voice echoes, bouncing along the slimy green walls until it’s swallowed up by the dark. Arthur shudders. Is it just him or does it feel like the cave is listening?

“Ah. Objection,” He interjects, lowering his voice, so it doesn’t jump around like Vivi’s, “A dude in a sheet is plenty scary, thanks. No need for anything esle.”

Lewis laughs from behind, also lowering his voice to a whisper, “Like weird-scary or scary-scary?”

Arthur throws a half-serious glare over his shoulder, retorting, “Both.”

Further conversation is put on pause when they hit a fork in the otherwise straightforward tunnel. The two passageways are significantly smaller, a foot higher than Lewis, and narrower, twisting away from the central shaft. Both are equally uninviting, ghostly, glowing a poisonous green in the torchlight. His shadowed silhouette, elongated in the firelight, appears to shift unnaturally, skittering away into the gloom. Arthur blinks, focusing attention on the spot. There’s nothing there but ordinary rock.

“Let’s split up,” Vivi’s announcement draws Arthur’s concentration away from studying the walls for shadow creatures.

“What?”

Lewis is nodding along, considering both passageways seriously.

“No way,” Arthur waves his arms to catch their attention, wincing at his own volume, then whispering, “Splitting up is a terrible idea. When has splitting up ever worked well for anyone.”

“If we split up we’ll cover more ground and get through the cave system faster,” Vivi points out, already searching through her small rucksack.

“Just remember to take lots of photos. Here have my spare EMF meter,” She shoves the ‘totally legit’ ghost detection devise, an audio recorder, and notepad into Lewis’s free hand, “Don’t forget to actually press record this time when stuff happens, and write a note, so we know to cross check it later.”

"Sure," Lewis pockets the equipment with a laugh,

Arthur slaps a hand over his eyes, groaning. Why are his friends a pair of walking clichés?

“Lewis. You go with Arthur. He’ll need the moral support more than I will.”

“Hey,” His protest is half-hearted.

“I’ll take Mystery down that tunnel. Let’s meet up in, say, an hour and report our findings.”

Vivi walks purposefully forward before pausing to add, “Oh and if it gets too maze-like come back here, so you don’t get lost,” Another step, “And don’t fall down any holes.”

“We’ll be fine,” Lewis reassures, amused, slinging an arm out and catching Arthur before he can duck away, “Arthur’s got my back.”

Arthur suffers the semi-headlock with crossed arms and a stony expression. It’s not that he really believes they’ll run into trouble it’s more a matter of principle at this point. All it does is make Vivi snort in good humour then hide a grin behind her hand.

“See you boys in an hour,” A cheery wave and Vivi marches away, looking for all the world like a person having the time of their life.

“You okay there Arthur,” Lewis loosens his arm, glancing down. There is genuine concern in his tone now, eyes scanning Arthur for signs of discomfort. Arthur forcibly shelves his exasperation. No need to bring down the mood. Not when this is the first time in weeks he’s been exclusively in either Lewis or Vivi’s company.

A long exhale, and he ducks to disentangle himself from the larger man’s arm, “Yeah. Come on. Let’s go poke around a dark, damp, tunnel some more.” He injects as much enthusiasm as he can muster, but it ends up more sarcastic.

Lewis hits him with a knowing smile, offering, “Here I’ll go first.”

His friend takes a confident step forward, holding the torch high to provide them with maximum visibility. Arthur follows close behind, trying not to get too freaked out at the way the cave walls seem to shift unnaturally in the uneven light. It’s just his overactive mind seeing familiar patterns where there were none. That was all.

Down the gloomy stone tunnel, they go, flickering fire illuminating Lewis’s silhouette and the narrow walls enclosing them. Nervously, Arthur picks up his pace, tailing as close to Lewis’s back as he can get. Occasionally, he bumps into the other man when Lewis stops abruptly to examine part to the scenery. Lewis doesn’t appear to mind, being more interested in sporadic wooden support beams which arise from time to time. Everything is pretty much identical until the narrow tunnel opens suddenly to reveal a spacious cavern.

It’s huge. Dotted with wicked sharp stalagmites and stalactites which both hang from the ceiling and raise up from the ground like clawed fingers, it dwarfs them both.

Lewis immediately steps out of the tunnel onto a narrow ledge extending into empty space, transfixed by the stunning view. Arthur makes to follow. Distracted, he stumbles, hand brushing against the cave walls for support. Pain shoots through the limb, and Arthur stops, staring at the appendage, confused. Had he cut himself? He doesn’t appear to be injured.

“Hey, Arthur! Come check out this view!”

Lewis is now standing near the end of the wedge-shaped platform, peering down at the steep drop. Cautiously, Arthur inches out after him, eyeing the pointed rock formations far below. The way they catch and reflect the torchlight is almost menacing.

Would be such a shame if someone were to fall.

His left leg twitches, and he almost stumbles right into Lewis. Arthur finds himself unfocussed, and he hesitates behind the larger man. What is he doing again? Why is Lewis so close all of a sudden?

His arm is completely numb. It’s tuned an unnatural sickly green colour. The same colour as the walls. That's not normal. A twitch. Arthur watches, confused when his limb jerks up. A second too late he realises that he’s not the one moving it. In an action almost too quick to follow the arm lashes out.

“Lew…” The words of warning are choked off. Lewis turns, too slow to prevent the shove but quick enough that Arthur sees his shocked, betrayed expression. Lewis tumbles backward, face frozen in confusion.

A surprised yell.

Gravity rips Lewis from where he seems to hover mid-air, dragging him down.

He drops.

His friend’s panicked horror is the last of him Arthur sees. A wet thump. The yell is cut abruptly.

Silence.

“Ouch. Right through the chest. That’s never fun,” The foreign words vibrate in Arthur's chest, accompanied by an unpleasant laugh.

Down, far below on the cavern floor, is Lewis. Unmoving. Arthur wants to scream. He needs to scream, but his jaw is locked shut. Part of his vision goes dark. With his remaining good eye, he can see his arm moving, squirming about like it’s got a mind of its own.

No. No. No. This isn’t him. IT’S NOT HIM!!!

A jaw filled with rows of shiny white teeth clamps down on the writhing appendage. A flash of bright red. His arm is twisting, being ripped away. The force of the impact spins him around, putting him face-to-face with a giant canine creature. Red. There’s lots of red. His vision is failing. A warm haze gathers over his thoughts, mercifully pulling him from reality.

“Ah Shit,” He hears himself swear over the oppressive throbbing in his head and the growls of the monster above.

“...And STOP...”

The world freezes. Arthur freezes. It’s like someone’s hit the pause button on reality. Suspended, frozen halfway between falling to his knees and standing, Arthur hangs in place. Vaguely, he recognises Mystery looming over him, also frozen, green-hued arm between his teeth. Arthur’s disembodied arm.

“Sloppy. Very sloppy.”

The voice doesn’t echo like sound should in this stone, cavernous environment. It’s detached. Footsteps dull and artificial, mismatched on the rock floor, draw closer. A shadowed figure walks around from behind. Arthur, still immobile, tracks the progress of a lanky man, sporting spiked yellow hair, a familiar orange vest and flat running shoes. Aside from the sickly, off green, skin tone, it looks like him. Another him.

The doppelganger moves up to examine Mystery and the arm dangling from his jaws, shaking its head in disappointment, “Should have known there was something weird about the dog. It’s always the pets.”

Arthur doesn’t care for whatever this creature is saying because, down below, just behind him, is Lewis body. He’d just pushed Lewis off the cliff.

“To think, that could have been me, stuck in some rotting limb. Ugh. Gross.”

He killed Lewis.

NOTE: It’s the obligatory flashback episode. It only took 30 000 + words, but Arthur finally remembers. Hope I did The Cave scene justice.

Part 22: here

#MSA #mystery skulls animated #fanfiction #fanfic #arthur kingsmen #the demon #graphic descriptions of violence #possible disturbing imagery #mind control #posession #dark #coarse language #flashback #canon character death #angst #yeah arthur's definitely in trouble

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punishandenslavesuckers · 6 years ago

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Mollymauk Tealeaf wakes up in a grave by the road ten years after he died. Things have gone a bit wrong since then and he might be the only one who can set things right… since it’s the Mighty Nein themselves who’ve gone wrong. AU: Where Molly comes back to yell at his super-powered Level 20 friends. (AO3 - part1) (AO3 - part 2) (AO3 - part3) (AO3 - part4) (AO3 - part5) (AO3-part6)

Molly opens his eyes.

The first thing he’s aware of is the splitting jag of pain in the back of his skull, radiating from a molten point of impact near the top of his head. He’s secondly aware of his broken right arm which shoots a bolt of screaming heat up his wrist to his shoulder socket. For a dizzy moment there’s nothing but the pain. Thirdly, he realizes he’s lying in a thin layer of watery mud, silt sliding around his body about half a foot deep and soaking his clothes and hair. Water is misting cool against his face.

His vision clarifies slowly, the sound of rumbling somewhere in a muffled distance and overhead there is a thin strip of daylight nearly half a mile away, shining through the gap between the two dark walls of ocean water. Too dizzy to panic, Molly registers that he’s been relocated somewhere far along the road of the Crushing Deep and he can’t remember anything about how. Nothing but fangs and wind.

Molly groans and rolls over. Hissing and gritting his teeth against a myriad jolting of broken bone, abrasions and bruises. His arms are scraped, his clothes ripped, rather like he had to grapple with a cheese grater… or a dragon with thousands of sharp, armored scales that was trying to hold him in its claws. Molly’s aching head suggests he fell hard enough to knock the details out of his brain, but at some point he was dropped here.

The question is for how long.

He paws at his hip.

The scimitars are there. He digs into the satchel belt Nott gave him, pulls a vial of healing potion and uncorks it with his teeth and downs it. Shudders as the heat slides across his broken and bleeding parts and knits them shut, mending calcium and marrow until his broken arm aches, but functions. He tosses the vial, tries to stand… falls back to his knees, shivering with adrenaline. His tail curls instinctively around his right thigh, a shudder sliding though him. He feverishly congratulates past Mollymauk on being paranoid enough to sleep in full gear while he surveys the dark, watery corridor around him.

He’s alone.

He looks behind him – there in the far distance is the light of the shore, the size of postage stamp from afar.

He looks ahead of him – the walls of water close like an arch so no sun can penetrate from above, turning the rest of the road into a dark tunnel leading into a deep, freezing blackness. All around him, he can see shadows moving in the dark waters, like humongous fish in an aquarium… but looking nothing like any fish or beast Molly’s ever seen.

“Oh bloody hell,” Molly whispers.

He forces himself up. He can’t stop shivering. He’s shaking so hard his teeth are chattering, but he doesn’t feel any cold, just the neutral warmth off Nott’s enchanted earrings as he turns and trudges toward the shore. Every step is unsteady, shivery with adrenaline. He folds his arms around him to stop the shaking. It doesn’t work. Through the raw, driving instinct to keep moving, he still has a moment of shining, hysterical clarity just long enough to think: Being dead must have been less stressful than this.

Then Nott’s voice comes bursting in his ear: “Molly! Don’t worry! We’re coming for you! Are you okay?” Then at much higher, louder volumes, “YOU CAN REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE!”

Molly shakes off his immediate heart-stopping terror at being yelled at via Sending. Then he hisses, “I’m in the Crushing Deep. I’m not hurt but hurry the fuck up.” He glances at the dark waters on either side of him. “I don’t know where that dragon went or why it dropped me.”

Then, while he’s counting his words to determine if he has enough to add more, a voice directly behind him says, “I’m right here.”

Molly hasn’t been in a fight for ten years technically. That doesn’t stop him from spinning around and slamming his right-handed scimitar to the goddamn hilt in the speaker’s gut. Blood bursts cold over his fist, dripping heavily from his knuckles, the blade humming with a terrible joy that Nott hadn’t warned him about. It surges a brief warm glow through Molly’s body, sliding like fingers through lines of muscle. But that warmth is nothing in the face of the cold, hollow dread.

Because the speaker still looks exactly like Yasha.

She tilts her head, glances at the blade in her stomach, then grins at Molly through bloody human teeth.

“Not very smart are you? Jumping out of a dragon’s claws mid-air.”

Molly slams the second scimitar up in her ribcage and wrenches, gets a satisfying huff of pain from the shape-changer.

He hisses, “Stop wearing my friend’s face!”

The monster ignores Molly, ignores the blades in her belly, grabs Molly’s jaw in two hands, and yanks him forward, slamming her mouth against his with such force his lip splits and blood floods him mouth as the thing with Yasha’s face drags a ravenous tongue between his teeth. She kisses him vicious, catching his lip between her teeth. Molly immediately rips both blades out and carves her flanks open in gaping, bloody holes. She ignores that… but when he wrenches back, she lets him go staggering.

“None of fucking that!” Molly spits blood, baring teeth.

“You didn’t hesitate.” Not-Yasha grins. “I’m surprised with you, dead thing.”

“I’m not dead,” Molly snaps, backing up, blades in a defensive cross.

“You’re a dead thing tethered here on thread spun by gods,” says Not-Yasha. Her sides are knitting back together. “There’s power in that. Power you can eatif you’re hungry enough.” She’s walking toward him, forcing Molly to back away. “I could eat you alive over and over. Until your gods give up on you and leave you a corpse at last.” She smiles and blood floods black from her mouth. “Unless they don’t. We could consume you forever, Mollymauk. Imagine.”

“Fuck off,”Molly says in Infernal to mask how gut-twisting terrifyingthat possibility is. “My friends are coming to kill you. I hear they’re strong.”

“But you’re oh sofucking weak.” Not-Yasha moves toward him again, slowly, unhurried. “They can’t protect you. Obviously. What could I do to you before they get here? You’re nothing except a thing that won’t stay dead.” Her hand comes up, spread toward him. “But before I take you to him… I need you to–“

Molly whips the scimitar across his body, blinding fast, then jumps back and to the left.

Monster-Yasha stares at the sudden bloody stump at the end of her wrist. “Hmm,” she says. “I’m going to take your guts out one at a time.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Molly hisses.

“Did you really think your orc brat was the only one bound to the Great Serpent?” She smiles and the smile becomes lipless, taut across the skull. “You should fall to your knees, dead thing. Your gods can’t protect you here.”

But before Molly can process the horrifying implications, there’s a gun shot. The monster’s head snaps back, a burst of red mist flowering from the skull and Not-Yasha staggers back a single step, her neck arched backward with the hit, but she does not fall. Molly jerks around just in time to see Nott, crouched in the road with a dimension door sliding shut behind her, as she lines up another shot and screams, “SHEILD, MOLLY!”

He activates the spell and drops to a ball with his hands over his ears. Nott fires again. She hits Not-Yasha as she starts to come back up (her body twitching horribly, splitting apart like rotten fruit peeling open–) and the shot detonates. The blast is so powerful, it ignites the air and the entire road is fire and super-heated steam, the kinetic force sucked the barrier bowed around Molly’s body. The air super-heats, so hot his bare skin blisters.

“AGAIN! SHEILD AGAIN!”

Molly brings up the other sword, activates the spell and the second wall comes up and for a split second through the smoke and steam, Molly sees something massive erupting upward in horrible jerking bursts of bone and flesh. Then she hits it with another explosive shot and this time the force is so powerful Molly is pinned flat in the mud, his shield like a bell jar on top of him, keeping out the fire. The spell sputters, flares, then dies… and the road is seemingly empty.

Molly levers himself up onto his hands and knees where he retches for a moment. His hands are sunk to the wrist in silt and fine sand, slithering sea-life writhing in the mud beneath his fingers but he’s too busy hacking up a lung to notice or care. He shakes his hair out of his face, grabs for his scimitar –

And that’s when the ground beneath him shudders.

“Oh fuck,” Molly manages before five massive claws burst from the sand and close over him in a gargantuan fist. Molly has just enough instinct to lunge for the largest visible gap between the thumb and forefinger before the dragon’s claws snap shut around his lower body. Then he’s being yanked upward with such velocity the world blurs. He sees things in wild snap shots, the water, his own forearm braced against mottle blue-white scales, the underbelly of a beast.

Pain flares through the bones in his legs and pelvis, shooting across every nerve, but he can’t focus on that. Molly’s moving so fucking fast he can’t see, being jolted, vertigo yanking his stomach out through his throat as the ground rushes and swings wildly away. He feels the mithril chain shirt is digging through his ribs, but even so he finds enough air to scream as loud as he can:

“NOTT! SHOOT IT! JUST SHOOT IT—!”

A bullet slams into the trunk of the dragon’s arm somewhere at the elbow… then detonates. The bullet blows the entire center out of it. Then, blasted free of the main body and spraying burning cold blood, it begins to fall… with Molly still gripped in its dead hold. He tears loose, driving his boot back into the fist holding him until a giant claw comes loose, then he launches straight forward, ripping free and then he’s falling free. The wind roars, tearing across his ears, the momentum ripping at his clothes and –

“Molly!”

Yasha materializes in the air directly beneath him and he slams into her chest, solid as a wall and driving the air straight out of him, but her limbs close around and the field of her levitation seizes hold of him. Then they’re rocketing backward together. Yasha wheels in reverse, downward, then spins around to right them before she comes to a messy, skidding landing in the briny mud. Their boots drag in the sludge, then they’re still on the ground.

“Good catch,” Molly pants, untangling himself.

He looks up over his shoulder and there, wheeling in the air between the watery canyon walls, gleams the flying bulk of a massive blue-black sea dragon. Dark and serpentine, born on leathery wings and magic, its eyes gleam luminous yellow, slit up the center, and even now are fixed on Molly. The back-draft of its wings like hurricane winds, batter and tear at hair and clothes. Blood pours from the severed stump of its right arm.

He snaps his fingers and both of his lost scimitars reappear in their sheathes at his hip. As he pulls both free, he shouts over the wind, “You wanna kill that thing or what?”

“Stop getting knocked around and I will,” says Yasha. Her eyes flare suddenly bottle blue and burning. She flips her weapon into her hand, gripping it two handed before planting her feet and launching with such force the mud bursts away from the point of liftoff. Molly immediately races back toward Nott who is screaming something like “GODS DAMMIT! WHY IS IT ALWAYS LIKE THIS?” and reloading frantically.

Molly reaches her, flips his blades across the back of his neck, and drags – feels that familiar burn of metal splitting and separating skin. Radiant fire ignites along the edge, like his blood is ignition fluid and the whole blade immediately goes up in light. The rite latches onto his soul, part of his very life force living now in the swords and it’s terrifying and comforting all at once. Then he’s standing side-by-side with Nott the Brave and for the first time things feel familiar.

“Just like old times,” Molly shouts over the monstrous eldritch roaring.

“THIS IS NOTHING LIKE OLD TIMES,” Nott screeches.

She fires again at the pinwheeling form of the dragon. It currently snapping its massive jaws, its enormous serpentine neck lashing back and forth at Yasha who, in the split second that it took her to move, rockets past and lumber-jack hacks her blade five feed deep into an armored shoulder. Molly feels the air shiver. There’s a flash. Then a boom that shakes the sea as a massive bolt of lightning strikes the blade like a rod, conducting holy blue fire directly into bone.

The dragon screams. Writhes in agony, electricity crackling all across its form, then in a frenzy it grabs Yasha with its one good hand. Claws her from its shoulder. Then it throws her straight through the water wall with such force Yasha hits it like concrete, the surface bursting a geyser of impact, before she vanishes deep into the horizontal sea.

“Bitch!” rumbles the dragon, spinning in the air to look down on the gunslinger and Mollymauk.

Even at nearly 100 feet away, Molly can see the vindictive gleam in its predator stare. Then the beast rears its head back, a sudden sluice of sea water spilling over from draconic jaws and Molly hears Nott whisper, “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck –!”

Molly, not thinking very clearly at his point, just snarls “FUCK YOU!” with all the Infernal hate he can gather and feels a blood vessel tear open along his neck. The dragon’s yellow eyes immediately blacken and run with darkness just in time for Nott to yell, “DRAGONS CAN’T BE BLINDED, MOLLY!” and the beast unleashes a blast of tidal waters from its throat.

Time freezes for a spilt of a split of a second. Molly thinks – Shit, this is exactly like the last time I used a Blood Maledict.– and then the water that most certainly was meant to hit them head on like a crushing geyser… misses by about ten feet and the water slams into the wall of magical ocean to their left, bursting and frothing up against the arcane barrier and flooding the ground behind them in a massive arc up the Demali road. The water is freezing cold as it rushes back downhill, soaking Molly up to his knees and nearly knocking Nott from her footing.

The dragon is shrieking and clawing at its face. It hits the earth behind them on all fours, roaring, “WHERE ARE YOU?!” It thrashes its head, spitting water and screaming, “YOU MEWLING IMP! I’LL KILL YOU! I’ll KILL YOU!”

“I’ll be damned,” Nott hisses, then grabs Molly and starts hauling him fast back toward the shore. “Run, run, run! If it gets close, it will definitely see us! You lucky fucking bastard I can’t believe that worked!”

And they sprint like hell away.

“Where’s is Caduceus!?” Molly yells as they run.

“That godsdamned dragon attacked him while we were sleeping!” Nott, Molly notices, sounds like she’s in tears. “We had to stabilize him before coming after you. I don’t know if he’ll be able to help us!”

Behind them they can hear the monster still roaring and cursing Molly in a slew of Draconic and Common.

Then there’s a thunder clap. A flash of blue light ignites the air around them. Molly’s pulse skips and he spins just in time to see Yasha erupting from the sea wall like dark screaming meteorite and slam into the dragon’s ribs. She’s yelling. Her voice echoes down the road, blood-chilling and psychotic, as she impacts and drives her sword over and over and over into the dragon’s flank like an assassin with a dagger except it’s a longsword composed of black metal and lightning.

Suddenly the phrase, ‘I’ve killed dragons before’takes on more meaning as a singular solo action.

The dragon is screaming and rearing away from the hideous one-woman onslaught. Yasha gets in two more blows, goring a massive, gushing flap of muscle open under her blade before the great drake rears up, roaring, and bats Yasha off like a cat smacking a mouse. Yasha rockets to the ground, smashing into the it. Then, before she can move from the impact zone, the giant sea dragon darts forward…. and snaps its jaws down on her. Mollymauk’s world goes absolutely cold around him. The dragon rips its head back and forth like a Rottweiler with a hare, brutalizing and snarling, then it hurls Yasha’s broken form to the side of the road where it hits in a crumpled twist of necrotic wings and shredded armor.

There she lies still.

Molly is screaming before the deed is even done. “YASHA!”

Nott grabs his wrist top stop him the second he tries to run back.

“No! Wait, Molly! WAIT! She’s in a Battle Trance! She’ll be fine! Just –!”

“I don’t bloody believe you!” Molly cries.

Nott looks stricken for just a moment, then seems to accept that. She reloads. “Fine. Get behind me.” She kneels down in the road beside him and lines up another shot. “Yasha will get up. I promise.”

She fires twice and the both shots detonate across the dragon’s armored chest, one tearing more deeply into the wounds already inflicted by Yasha, blowing a fresh geyser of blood from the beast. But Molly isn’t looking at that. He’s looking at his friend who lies dead in the road, torn and broken, her skeletal wings bent like crushed origami in the mud, her arms limp and twisted around her. Molly registers despair as a rising ache inside him – new and different from all the dread and terror leading up until now.

“She’ll be okay,” Nott says again. “It’s okay, Molly. The cavalry is coming. I know it!”

Molly, confused, starts to say, “Who’s the caval–?”

And then Caduceus Clay materializes at Molly’s side.

Molly jumps. The cleric glances at him. His eyes are entirely composed of soft green light, burning like twin stares trapped in his skull. There is plant-life growing rapidly across his armor, moss and lichen spreading and flowering, thin ferns unfurling from chinks in the plate armor and spiraling up into his pale pink mane. He stops for just a moment to touch Mollymauk’s shoulder and Molly feels an infusion of warmth through him, a light sinking into his skin like sunshine into a flower. It inhabits him completely, like someone embracing every part of him at once and Molly can’t catch his breath.

“We’re not alone out here,” says Caduceus.

Then he turns his attention to the dragon, points his staff directly at the ground… and the earth erupts.

A shunt of living wood the length and thickness of a ship’s mast slams up through the massive ribcage, spearing and driving through with such force, the creature leaves the ground and is hung momentarily impaled by a rapidly growing cedar tree. It’s branches and canopy expand with unnatural speed within the chest cavity of the creature, threatening to crack the bowed bone structures out like a fist opening inside a corn husk.

“NO!” The dragon is screaming, writhing, still alive somehow. Blood sprays from its mouth, from its perforated ribs but still it screams, “NO NO NO!”

It seizes hold of the great tree beneath it in one massive claw and with an unfathomable brute strength, it tears the entire trunk into two splintery pieces. Caduceus flinches, like he felt the blow and the dragon falls to earth on four gargantuan legs. Bleeding, still speared by the head of the tree, its branches lodged inside its chest cavity, bone gleams bare along its flanks. It’s missing one arm, drooling blood and sea foam. Psychotic, pain-feverish eyes turn on the three of them in the road and its gaze seems to punch through Molly’s soul.

“The Leviathan,” it gargles, laughing, “will have you all.”

Caduceus throws out his free hand, palm out, and pink light gathers in his fingers. He whispers something and the word pulses through the ground like a tremor and instantly thousands of vines spiral up from the mud, spraying sand, and lash themselves around the dragon’s limbs. But the bulk of the beast is too enormous and it pulls free of them, begins to advance up the road toward them.

“The Sea will swallow you whole!”

“I’m out of artillery!” Nott fires two shots directly into the dragon’s armored head, briefly knocking its skull aside before it rears back, snarling. “Clay!? Any other word from Melora?!”

“I can do something,” Molly whispers. “I think… I think I can try something.”

“No, Molly!” Nott sounds terrified. “It’s a fucking dragon! You won’t get lucky again!”

Caduceus surprised, stares at the tiefling besides him even as an ancient dragon thunders down on them. “You’re much braver than I imagined you.” His soft firbolg features kind of wrinkle. Even possessed by divine fire, it makes him strangely young as he murmurs, “I’m sorry for all of this.”

The dragon is howling, “UK’OTOA WILL CONSUME THE WORLD!”

And Molly grips the swords, feels them sing through his palms, and easy as muscle memory he leans his shoulder back into some previously untouchable membrane, suddenly tangible against his skin. He pushes through it, like you shoulder aside a veil, and side-steps through into another dimension. Time hits him like a heavy velvet curtain, smacking into and enveloping him… then it slides off like silk and he stands free and alone. The world around burns and blurs gray and white, the edges of everything fuzzy and static – Caduceus frozen in the attitude of looking down at him, Nott crouched there in the muddy road with her weapon.

Molly turns, arcane winds rushing silent around him.

He can see the dragon. Black in the strange hyper-contrast of the realm around him, moving in slow motion, one claw raised in mid-stride, the mud spraying up around its massive footfall as it begins to spring forward at the cleric and gun-slinger before it. The world is silent, utterly soundless around him. But there’s a vibration in his skull and that vibration leave a hum inside him and the hum is telling him to move, move, move.

So he moves.

He darts down the road. The water on the road separates under his boots, sprays in real-time as he touches it, then slows as he passes from contact until a thirty-foot trail of frozen sole-shaped footprints are left in the slowed waters behind him. And Molly is sprinting. Lungs burning, fast as he can, the scimitars blazing white in his fists as he reaches the dragon, still hung over him and moving so slow it may as well be holding still and he knows by instinct he has just moments. Just seconds to do this thing.

He’s directly next to the dragon’s left foreleg, like a black tree trunk beside him and sure as he knows how, Mollymauk swings both scimitars one after another directly into the ankle and the blades cleave through like a butcher’s knife through beef. Blood sprays, slows, hangs in the air and Molly spins and swings again just one more time and this time the blow slams clear through…

… and the world snaps back into color and time.

The dragon’s forearm cracks in half instantly as their full weight comes down on the limb and Molly dives right just in time to narrowly avoid being crushed. The dragon hits the ground skidding on its chest, both forelegs dismembered and dragging bloody beneath it. Molly hears shrieking. Thunderous roars as he stumbles up, running toward the water wall as the road behind him is suddenly full of thrashing, screaming dragon. Maimed and howling. Molly shoves himself back again the sea wall, the ocean soaking his shirt from behind. The magic slides up his back, shivering on skin, but all he sees is the dragon.

Its tail lashes wildly, slamming into the earth near him, whipping and slicing through the water over his head, soaking Molly where he huddles, heart hammering in his throat while the giant creature surges unstoppably through its death throes. Molly knows it’s dying. He knows because he can see where the branches of the tree have rammed up through the dragon’s back, fully penetrating the chest when the beast fell forward, driving the stake fatally deeper with its own momentum.

“Molly!” Nott is yelling from somewhere, but he can’t see her. “Molly where are you!?”

He stays frozen, pressed against the water. Anticipating the random blow that will kill him, knock him again into that black void where no memory survives. Again the tail lashes near him and he cries out, closing his eyes.

“Molly?!”

“C’mon,” Molly whispers, to who he’s not sure, “C’mon. Give me a bloody break.”

He feels something slam into the ground nearby, the shards of rock spraying across his cheek. He hears the dragon choking, a horrible deafening sound like all the steam going out in a forge and the gargle of blood and sea water. He smells it. Smells the blood soaking his boots in the salt water. He’s past the adrenaline smooth rush where the chemical makes him instinct and on to the part where it leaves him shaking. He stands there, back against the sea, swords burning in his hand, just waiting stock still and whispering…

“Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you bloody fucking…”

There’s silence. Silence.

Molly opens his eyes.

The dragon is dead. It’s laying there, still, a gleaming black and blue mountain of armor and bloody limbs. He can’t see its head from where he’s standing but the great dome of its flank is still – totally empty of breath. Molly stares. His heart hammers clean in his chest, keeps beating. And for a single, shining moment Molly’s just standing there with radiant fire in his fists, and there is something so fucking familiar, so goddamn innate about this that he knows it down to his veins that this body has stood over monsters before. Down to the blood in his veins he knowsthis…

… and then he feels the water displace at his back and before he can react, a soaking arm hooks around his waist and a hand cased in barnacles clamps over his windpipe... and Fjord says in his ear, “Don’t move.”

And pulls Molly back through a portal in the water.

“CAN YOU NOT?!” Molly is yelling before he’s even through the portal. The dimensions tear around him, a warping of reality that blinds him instantly and for a moment Molly feels his brain lock, unable to comprehend the quantum ripping around him and with a sudden violent jolt through every cell in his body, it ends. He comes to a stumbling stop, staggering, boots hitting solid ground as he jerks free the warlock gripping him. He spins away, bringing the still blazing scimitars up between them. “Stop fucking dragging me around! All of you! Bloody back off for a breath!”

“Molly,” Fjord starts to say, holding up two hands, palms spread toward him. “Molly. Listen to me.”

“No! What the fuck are you doing?!”

Molly looks wildly around, finds himself standing in… some kind of limitless space, water up to the ankles of his boots. The liquid beneath him shimmers like an oil with dark shifting reflections, seething shapes mirrored in an iridescent infinity on all sides of him. A horizon-less dark extends forever in all directions and the only point of distance at all, is Fjord, standing in front of him. There is nothing but the watery dark, Molly, and Fjord who is begging him, softly:

“Please listen.”

“Stay away from me. Why did you bring me here?”

“I tried to warn you. Godsdammit, I tried. I have a minute here.”

Molly backs away, swords still up. “No. No bloody way. You don’t get to do this too. You don’t get to sweep in at the last second like a fucking –!” Molly sputters, panic and rage stealing all coherence for an instant. “What’s the matter with you? What happened? What did you do?”

“I made it too powerful, Molly. It came through the dimensions and it was gonna consume my home. I had to do something. I said it could have me if it would just stop.” Fjord laughs, but it’s a ragged exhausted sound. “How long has it been since it took me? Do you know, Mollymauk?”

“A… a few years I think.”

“Really?”

“The others tried to rescue you.”

“I know. Have you seen Jester?”

“No.” Molly swallows. “No one has.”

Fjord nods, his eyes drifting shut, like hearing it is a relief he’d been waiting on. “Good,” he murmurs. “Good, okay.” He opens his eyes again, manages this lopsided kind of grin, almost rueful. “It’s really good to see you, Molly. You know that? I just… I honestly can’t believe you’re really here.” The smile vanishes. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this is how we meet again.”

Molly hedges a moment. “We’re still friends, right, Fjord?”

“Yes. For what it’s worth.”

Molly feels bile bite the back of his throat. “How long do you have?” He’s shivering. “How long before your patron comes?”

“Only for a minute more. Molly, I’m sorry. You died ‘cause y’all trusted me to look out for you and I didn’t. I tried to do better after that. Thought I did. Saved the world and all that but now…”

Molly lowers his voice. “I’m glad my death was a such a learning experience for all of you.”

“I don’t mean it that way.”

“Fjord,” Molly whispers, “why did you bring me here?”

“I can’t bargain with him anymore. I don’t have anything left to give,” Fjord says. “He wants you.”

Molly’s guts clench like there’s a fist in them. “What does that mean?”

“Just don’t… don’t fight it, Molly.” Fjord’s eyes glow yellow. “I’m so sorry.”

Molly backs away, a red ache opening through him and the ache is dread, so familiar to him now it feels like he’s never been without it. “Fjord?” He gets no response, raises his voice, desperation in his throat like an Infernal reverb. “Fjord! Don’t—!”

Then thing that’s living in Fjord looks at him.

The gaze cuts through Mollymauk like a blow. It cleaves through his head like red iron through ice, tunneling a burning hole in his psyche and Molly screams because there is literally nothing else he can do. Every muscle in his body goes taut and he nearly bites his tongue in half as an immediate grand mal seizure tears through him, but he’s horribly somehow still on his feet, standing there while his body goes into a series of agonizing convulsions. He drops his weapons and they extinguish.

There’s nothing except the pain. The grind of his teeth, his every muscle cramping so tight it’s like they’ going to snap like violin wire across his skeleton. It hurts. His hands are locked at his sides, fingers curled into helpless claws as his spine bends backward, his eyes rolling in his skull until he can’t see anything. He’s just… stuck there. Somewhere between dying and not-dying and he can’t even fall down. He can’t scream or speak anymore. There’s just dark and heat and the muffled sound of his voice trapped in his throat.

He barely feels it when Fjord’s hand settles around his windpipe and at the back of his head.

“Gods I’m sorry,” Fjord says, his voice hollow with horror. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Don’t come back, Molly. He’ll keep doing this if you don’t. Just go.”

Fuck you, Molly thinks. Fuck you, I don’t know how this works, gods dammit–

Fjord snaps his neck.

go to part 7

#critical role #the mighty nein #mollymauk tealeaf #mollymauk #caduceus clay #cr2 #long post

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edelwoodsouls · 7 years ago

Text

family (can be a goddess and her alien daughter) - part 1

I have no plan for this story but it was about to be deleted from my notes on ao3 and its 2:30AM and I am Tired so we’ll just have to see where this goes

Tags: Mom!Diana, Genius!Kara, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst

Words: 1,920

Also on Ao3

From the mountain Diana can see the comet the moment it breaks the atmosphere. It's small for a meteor, a strange metallic colour which shines silver in the light of the slowly rising sun. Fire snarls around it, roaring louder and more violently with increasing speed and volume.

It's heading straight for Midvale.

Diana wants to curse. Its only dawn, but the mountain is still crawling with people who want to avoid the intensity of the midday summer sun. A middle-aged couple are ambling up the path only a few metres ahead, discussing the pros and cons of marshmallows as a breakfast food; behind her she can hear the vague chatter of a school group.

The comet is still gaining speed, and now she can make out the glint of glass and metal - it isn't a comet at all. She's never seen anything like it - shaped and sleek, clearly designed for travel over great distances. Such an elegant object should surely move with more grace; instead it spins, tumbling in freefall without any sign of control.

She's still dressed in her civilian clothes, and of course this is the one time she decided to leave her costume in France. It's been two years since she came out of retirement to stop Slipknot, and the world has been as quiet as the world of men can ever be. She's not the only superhero in the world anymore, what with the appearance of that obnoxiously brightly-coloured man in Metropolis and the whispered rumours of a bat man patrolling the streets of Gotham. She's allowed herself to relax, to take a step back, letting the weight of the world rest on younger, less weary shoulders.

The couple disappear around a bend in the tree-clad path, and before she can think better of it Diana launches herself into the air.

She hasn't flown in a long time - hasn't allowed herself to - and the feeling takes her breath away. The wind tugs at her hair, whilstling past her ears like a whisper. At that exact moment the sun crests on the horizon, drowning the world in a dazzling pink-tinged light reflected off the side of every building in the city.

In moments like this, Diana almost feels like she's home.

The crack and roar of fire streaking across the sky breaks the illusion of peace. The ship has reached its terminal velocity, flames streaming out behind it like a tail. She has seconds to intervene before it crashes into the town hall.

In the end she guides it in the direction of the mountain. It groans, as if pushing against her efforts. Fire licks at her arms, but she barely feels the heat, barely notices as the sleeves of her clothes begin to smoke. The descent is entirely out of her control now, and it's all she can do to cling to the metal of the ship as they tumble.

She lets go at the last second, crashing straight into a tree. Cracks echo in her ears like blasts of lightning as the branches snap under her weight, wood scratching at her now-bare arms.

She comes to a stop, finally, hitting the earth with a thud. The breath vanishes from her lungs, a huge branch pinning her chest and impaling her stomach, and for a few seconds all she can do is lie there, desperately trying to regain her senses. She can't recall the last time her body ached quite this much - every limb and joint feels like lead, weighted and unmovable. It takes every ounce of her strength to shove the branch away from her; it goes flying down the hill.

After a few tries she manages to tug the snapped wood from her stomach. The hole left behind is a gaping red chasm that makes her shudder - it hurts to move and breathe - but it will heal quickly. She tears a strip from the bottom of her ruined shirt, tying it tightly around her torso. In seconds the material is soaked, but it will have to suffice; suddenly she can hear screams. They split the air, ringing and weighted with more grief and pain than Diana can bear to listen to.

They're coming from the same direction as the ship.

Diana's heart plunges, her body frozen in shock. This forest is private property, clustered at the bottom of the mountain - there shouldn't be anyone here.

And yet there is.

She makes it to the clearing in a matter of seconds. It's more a crater than a clearing, the mud and earth displaced easily on impact. The trees surrounding it are singed or smouldering, the ones under it flattened and splintered; they didn't stand a chance.

Now that it's stationary Diana can see the clear craftsmanship of the not-meteor. Despite its horrific arrival, and her own attempts to alter its course, the outside is pristine but for a few soot marks. It's shape is streamlined, made of a silver metal Diana can't quite identify. The glass set into the top half of it is fogged up with black, but she can still make out the vague flickering of movement within.

The screaming comes again - from inside the pod.

She jumps into the crater, then hesitates. She has no idea what could reside inside this tiny, inocuous, destructive ship. It is undoubtedly alien, and she has seen enough in the past few years to know that not all who visit this planet come in peace. The thing inside could be dangerous - it could put humanity at risk.

Nothing that dangerous could have a scream so heartbreaking.

Diana curls her fingers into the glass, hooking them around a tendril of metal and wrenching. It takes a tremendous amount of strength, but eventually the metal gives way and snaps. She throws it away behind her.

She doesn't know what she was expecting to find inside. A creature of some kind, with green skin or two heads, maybe. Human pop culture has influenced her more than she would like to admit.

She definitely isn't expecting this.

The girl inside the pod can't be older than thirteen human years. Diana can see the girl's body is thin and malnourished, even obscured as it is by the loose, pristine white dress she's wearing, curled in on herself and shaking with violent sobs. A curtain of straight red hair obscures her face; small hands clutch at her ears in pain.

With no glass between them the screams are infinitely louder, and Diana can feel her heart fracturing with every second.

She kneels, unsure of what else to do, and reaches a hand out to - she's not sure what. Comfort the girl? Let her know she's not alone?

Whatever her intentions are, they don't matter, as the second her fingers make contact with the girl's bare skin she freezes, her head shooting up to look at Diana with piercing blue eyes. There's a chasmic depth to those eyes that makes her want to shiver - eyes she recognises from the mirror every morning, eyes that can't - shouldn't - exist on a girl so young.

"Ta- tanahn rip?" The girl stumbles in her words, sobs still spasming in her lungs, but Diana has enough experience with language to know from the way her mouth forms the syllables, the way they slip off her tongue like water, that this is her native language.

But to Diana they're nothing but sounds.

It throws her momentarily. She's never encountered a language she can't speak; this girl's language is alien to her in more ways than one.

She moves slowly, wary of startling the girl, whose body now shivers with tension as the crying subsides, and puts her hand on her chest. "I am Diana."

The girl blinks, eyes wide and flickering between the hand on Diana's chest and her face. "Die-anna," she says slowly, rolling the syllables slowly. Then she puts her own hand on her chest. "Khap nahn Kara Zor-El."

"Kara?" Diana asks, picking out the one word from the girl's sentence which sounds most like a name and hoping for the best. "That's a beautiful name."

The ship whirrs and beeps suddenly, startling both Diana and the girl, who after a second of hesitation tears her eyes away from Diana to look at the screen in front of her. Symbols flash and fly, strangely shaped characters Diana can't understand.

Her eyes are drawn to the one she does recognise, emblazoned in relief on Kara's chest: the symbol of Metropolis' resident alien superhero, Superman. Shaped like an S inside a diamond, it's hard to forget.

Her thoughts are distracted when the ship starts speaking. "Iwahzrham," the voice is crackling and full of static. "Rth Ehngiuo."

Things begin flashing on the screen again, and Diana realises with a start that they're no longer alien to her - they're English. The information flashes almost faster than she can comprehend, but Kara's eyes flicker back and forth across the screen with incredible speed.

As soon as the stream of information ends, the screens going black with a quick, unhealthy-sounding fizz, Kara blinks, wiping her eyes and sniffing before looking up at Diana. "I... I am Kara Zor-El, of Krypton."

The words are fractured and awkward in her mouth, but they're English. Diana stares at the girl, unable to quite comprehend what has just happened.

"What is Krypton?" she asks, shoving her amazement down so as not to frighten the girl - she knows well enough what it's like to be watched like a freak of nature, a dancing mokey in front of a circus audience.

"My home." Kara says slowly. She begins to stand up, but her legs shake and give way under her. Diana reaches out instinctively, holding the girl up. Lifting her out of the pod, she sets her down gently to sit on its lip.

"Your planet?" Kara nods. "Are you okay?"

Kara cocks her head to the side for a second. "My body is not impaired."

Diana decides not to push - she can easily hear the tremor in Kara's voice, and there's a fragility to her figure, on a knife edge between stability and shattering into a million pieces. "Can I help you?" she asks instead.

"I must find my cousin. I am here to protect him."

"Your cousin?"

"Kal-El."

The name sounds familiar, ringing bells somewhere in Diana's head, the answer just out of reach. Before she can voice her suspicions, however, she hears the tell-tale screech of sirens in the distance, the rhythmic, struggling roar of engines speeding uphill.

Kara flinches, clasping her hands over her ears as she looks wildly around her. "Iovis ulahdh," her voice breaks with pain. "That sound. It's so- loud."

"Come with me." Diana reaches her hand out. "I can take you somewhere safe. We can find your cousin." She's not sure what's possessing her to do this, but this girl is alone and scared. Tragedy and heartbreak seem to be sewn into her very bones; every move is weighted with a grief-filled heaviness, yet at the same time a strange lightness, as if each takes her by surprise. Diana can't simply leave her to fend for herself.

Kara doesn't even hesitate, taking hold of Diana's hand instantly. Her grip is strong, clutching like a lifeline - Diana is pretty sure her bones would be cracking, splintering into shards under the pressure, if she was human.

"Hold on," she warns Kara. Just as the first emergency vehicles crest the lip of the creator, Diana launches the two of them into the air.

#wonder woman #supergirl #kara danvers #diana prince #fanfiction #i need to sleep #own work #kryptonian translation is Hard #and probably incorrect #please correct me if i'm wrong

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