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#alsmp fanfic
cynthrey · 8 months
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"What, was there a limit to how many times I could take revenge?! You can’t stop me now! I DON’T CARE! I’ll kill him as many times as it takes! I’ll become fallen a hundred times over! I WILL NOT LET THIS GO UNTIL I SAY IT ENDS!!”
A request by my dearest @lunarsands . a progression of the fall of Myth on xer fanfic "Hellbent" part of xer saga "Afterlife: Soul Liminality"
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lunarsands · 5 months
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ALSMP Fanfic: Mirror Tenfold, Beyond the Wall - Ch 1
Characters: Scott Major, MythicalSausage, Shubble, PearlescentMoon; featuring the return of vampire!Scott but in an alternate way, and actual!angel!Sausage but cursed; with special guests Sparrow and Rusty the Copper Golem
Tags: Canon divergent, AU, crossover between two Afterlife universes with New Life SMP thrown in for good measure
WARNINGS: Blood, Violence, Injury, consensual blood drinking, PTSD, mentions of death
Summary: The Mysterious Force that keeps picking people up and depositing them into alternate universes comes for Myth and Smajor this time, and plunks them down near a new set of counterparts -- well, new to Smajor. Myth has met this other version of himself once before, in a place called Sanctuary. At least now there's someone with ten times the number of powers to keep Smajor in check, right?
The vampire returns but he’s not going to want a taste of this type of angel blood.
Follows after the events of Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All - Part Eight of the Soul Liminality Series | Part Four of The Reality Entanglement Series
(Also available on Ao3!)
[A/N: Hello, I’m back! Sorry for the delay in posting anything, I had a rough patch of writer’s block for a couple of months. I’m going to keep chipping away at it! Have yet another Soul Liminality sequel/crossover in the meantime.
How It Started: wrote a dark one shot for the fun of it. How It's Going: well, you'll see at the end of this fic…
The joy of the creative process is never knowing when an idea will perpetuate itself beyond where you thought it was going to end.]
---
Chapter One
Smajor rolled the broken clock across the floor of his new cell, then scratched at his cheek with the frayed cuff of his dingy white shirt. Myth had yet to offer a new one after slicing through the back of it, and there were probably some new rips in it as well as in his baggy black pants from landing on the rough surface of a meteorite some weeks ago. At least the brown leather shoes were holding up. Small comfort, though. There was a pervasive chill in the air from being so far underground surrounded by stone, but he didn’t bother to complain. He doubted Myth would do anything about it.
The cursed angel didn’t seem bothered by the condition of his own clothes – the sleeveless black surcoat with gray trim that he had been wearing since his previous life as a blazeborn, with short black straps down the front and a generous number of tears and holes scattered around from when Smajor had attacked back. The top two straps were torn in half from an attempt aimed at his heart. Likewise, his worn black trousers were shredded to just above the knee. His tall black leather boots had fared the best, with all of the buckled straps along the side still intact.
He had also kept the orange flame-shaped buckle, maybe figuring it worked as a symbolic stand-in for holy fire – or rather, the fires of hell.
When the clock fell over Smajor retrieved it then returned to his spot on the floor and rolled it again, this time using just enough force so that it might bump the door and roll back toward him, but not so much to make a lot of noise. Myth seemed particularly prickly today and Smajor had decided to not annoy him too much because he knew what the cursed angel was like in that mood.
But he was also so bored.
When the clock began to wobble on its way back for the umpteenth time then fell over, Smajor sighed and gave up on it. He stood and went to pick up that morning’s bucket of fresh water. He glanced toward the small window in the door, then lifted it and dumped it over his head. He hadn’t checked the temperature first so it caused an involuntary gasp. “Oh, that’s cold! Where did you get this from? Did we run out of lava or something?”
After the destruction outside their last place of residence, Myth had relocated to a less sculk-infested cavern that still had a convenient lake and lavafall nearby for him to build another obsidian cell. Smajor had, shockingly, stayed true to his word and sat quietly while Myth worked to set everything up again. At the time, Smajor had shrugged in apparent resignation, admitting that he knew full well Myth would only hunt him down again if he escaped, and – again – that he preferred to not die any more times.
Myth had graciously given the clock back to him before locking him up again, then took up his somber station at the table lit only by a soul lantern plus the eerie glow of his inverted halo. And then the dull monotony returned. Away from the sculk, Myth’s own infection had cleared up; he still had some angelic healing, it seemed.
“I got it from the far side of the lake. I felt like taking a long walk,” Myth replied. “Enjoy being soaking wet for hours, by the way.”
“Oh, so you’re getting bored, too, huh?”
“Nope. Just felt like a long walk.”
“Come on, be honest with me – you’re tired of being cooped up down here! You’ve got wings, don’t you want to get out and fly sometimes?”
“No. I’m not some bird needing to follow migratory paths.”
“But you did stick yourself in a cage with me.”
“I’m protecting the world from both of us. Just because you have no powers doesn’t mean you won’t go on a murder spree the first chance you get. And it’s not safe to be around me, either.”
“Wow, you won’t give either of us a new chance, will you?”
“Why should I? What use does the world have for me besides this? I’m already condemned, so I might as well keep you with me.”
“Well, you’re the one who assigned yourself as my warden. You could try tossing me into that portal again, then you could be free.”
“Do you want to be wandering an endless limbo maze forever?”
“Is that any different from being here forever? At least there were interesting things to look at in there. I wish I had appreciated them more. But I was also completely out of my mind at the time. Oh, and I didn’t know then that I might end up spending the rest of my immortal life entombed alive at the bottom of the world.”
“I could put you at the bottom of the Nether for a while, where there’s no water.”
“But there are sounds of life! It’s too quiet here! Aside from the random creepy cave noises. I think there was more light in that limbo dimension, too.”
“Hm. How about if you stop making noise now?”
“Oh, sorry for disturbing your intention to brood in darkness for eternity.” Smajor rolled his eyes. He scrunched up the bottom of his shirt to wring some of the water out of it. The puddle he had caused earlier was draining off through a narrow, hidden gap somewhere in the floor. He had yet to figure out how Myth had engineered the cell. Obsidian wasn’t exactly the most malleable substance. The most he could figure out was that the ichor dripping off his wings had a selective acid-like quality at times.
Smajor had no idea how that worked. There must be more to being a cursed angel than Myth was willing to utilize.
As he straightened the front of his shirt and began to reach to pull at the back of it to wring out that side, he noticed his hands seemed to have a shimmer to them. Had there been something in that water? Maybe residual glow squid ink? The shimmer then grew brighter. He grinned. “Hey, Myth— you know how there’s that glowing light whenever someone gets sent to another world?”
Myth grunted in annoyance, indicating he wasn’t interested in the conversation.
“Yeah, so, looks like it’s my turn for a family reunion with some other versions of me.” Smajor continued to grin as he walked to the door, intending to leer out at the cursed angel once he got there and then he would wave goodbye.
To his disappointment, Myth was now also limned in a brightening light. Smajor cursed.
Myth gave a long sigh and kept a grip on the hilt of his sword, although he left it sheathed as he locked eyed with Smajor. “I don’t care where this stupid magical force sends us – I’m keeping you in my sight, so don’t even think—”
His words faded into the air as they were whisked away. He only hoped it didn’t drop them into the world of the shining seraph and the version of Smajor who could call down whole meteors.
~*~
Myth squinted up through the tree leaves at the pale blue sky from where he lay on the ground, the daylight hurting his eyes. It had been much the same when he had last found himself teleported somewhere against his will, and it had been one of the reasons he hadn’t told his group of counterparts for why he had been late to the fight against the Tyrant King – or, Sausage Supreme, or one particular part of Sausage Supreme’s soul. He was still unclear on what in the world that had all been about, but he also didn’t entirely care.
He needed to find out where he was this time, and more importantly, where Smajor was. The peaceful breeze causing the leaves above to sway seemed to be tempting him to let his guard down. He refused. He fought his way into a sitting position, a few blades of grass sticking to his feathers as he pulled his wings along.
There were oak and birch trees all around. Just some random forest, in the middle of nowhere?
The bad news was he didn’t see or hear Smajor anywhere nearby. Myth surmised, however, that if his nemesis had been in the same place and woke up first, there would be no doubt he would have been trying to strangle the cursed angel while the advantage lasted.
After getting to his feet, Myth took a few staggering steps, putting a hand to his head. It might have been his imagination, but his wings felt heavier. He knew his body couldn’t possibly be that atrophied. It might be something about this world…
Or maybe it was just a side effect of the teleport. Either way, he grumbled to himself and adjusted how his wings were folded then headed off through the trees while keeping an eye out for any signs of Smajor.
He became wary when he started seeing soul lanterns hanging from the trees. The shape of a building came into view. As he got closer, he picked out some of the details of the roof, although nothing about it was familiar to him. He had just caught a glimpse of tinted glass when he thought he saw something move in the shadows to his right. He whipped around, hand reflexively closing on the hilt of his sword.
“Oh, hey, Sausage!” the shadows called in a cheerful tone. “I almost didn’t recognize you! Is this a new look to try to win Scott over? I never took you for the goth type, but those boots are pretty cool! Nice work on the scar makeup, too. Makes you look like you’ve been fighting some tough monsters!”
Myth turned around with a scowl and a frustrated expression. Great, just what he needed – to be mistaken for this world’s version of him. “Show yourself. I have a few things to explain to you.”
The voice now sounded confused. “Can’t you see me? I thought you could sense anything with your gravity-sonar.”
Myth debated whether he should make an assumption based on that comment alone. He unfolded his wings and stretched them out. “Do I really look like a gravital to you?”
“Whoa,” came the astonished response. “I thought that was a cape! You got your wings back! How? A-And why so many? And…what’s wrong with them? They’re, like, dripping—”
Myth cut the voice off by snapping his middle wings in a single flap, sending droplets of ichor splattering against the tree trunks – and onto a humanoid shape within one tree’s shadow. “There you are!” He lashed out with an empty hand to try to grab them so he could drag them out into the open.
However, his hand passed right through them as their portion of the shadow turned into swirling smoke. The smoke reformed into a vaguely more solid figure who was about twenty centimeters shorter than him. “Hey! That’s rude! Don’t tell me you’re actually fully back on Scott’s side! We agreed he was going too far with the evil plans! Sausage!”
“I’m not who you think I am!” Myth yelled back. “I only look like him! Angels don’t just get their wings back if someone cuts them off! I had to die several dozen times and just happened to revive as another type of angel to get these!!”
A sharp gasp came from the shadowy person, then they finally moved out into the light. As they did so, a pair of pale-yellow eyes became visible, along with long, grayish-brown hair and a rather unassuming outfit of a short-sleeved shirt under stonewash overalls. “Th-Those scars are real, too, then? Who are you? Why do you look so much like Sausage? And… are you on Scott’s side?” they added cautiously.
“Not on my life,” Myth growled. Then, seeing the alarmed response, he asked in a less angry tone, “I’ll try to explain, but first, who are you?”
“I’m just your friendly neighborhood shadowcrawler, Shubble!”
Myth searched his memory but quickly gave up with a sigh. “I might have known someone by that name. It’s… been a long time since I saw anyone in my world. I come from a place that didn’t have a happy ending, and I’ve been busy keeping two monsters from destroying it even more.”
“Ohh… …Wait. You’re from where, exactly?”
Myth sighed again. “Do you have any concepts of parallel universes here?”
“Do you mean like the Nether, or the shadow dimension?”
“No, I mean like an entire duplicate of everything, but with either very small or very big differences.” He flicked his top pair of wings to emphasize his point. “I was once known as Mythical Sausage, but now I just go by Myth. Because the Scott of my world wasn’t just evil with a possible hidden good side, he went full-on obsessive murderer. And I was his target. And in my world, you just keep reviving after death with new powers. Up to a point. And now he’s loose in this world. And since he wasn’t near me when I woke up here, that means he might be somewhere else. Which means the Sausage you know is in a great deal of danger.”
Shubble seemed to get an amused look on her face. “Well, I don’t know about him being in danger, he’s pretty strong. Okay, let me ask – if you’re a… six-winged angel, what is your Scott?”
“He has no powers anymore, but that doesn’t mean anyone should underestimate him. Also, a tip – he goes by Smajor, so if for some reason you run into two Scotts that look the same, use that to call him out.”
“Why ‘Smajor’?”
“Because, to put it politely, he’s a major pain in the neck.”
“Oh, ours is like that, too! Vampires, am I right?”
“Great,” Myth grumbled. “Vampire again. Didn’t need a round two of that.” Yet then he smirked and chuckled slowly. “I bet cursed angel blood won’t taste very good. Maybe it would even make him choke.”
“Cursed angel?” Shubble asked curiously.
“Why else do you think I look like this?” Myth spread his arms – and his lower pair of wings – to indicate his whole appearance.
“Well, I don’t know – angels can dress in goth style if they want, right? But, um, say – can I help you find new clothes that aren’t, like, shredded and falling apart? You might need some better cover and even some armor while you’re wandering around.”
Myth threw an irritated glare at her. “Do you really think I have time to worry about that with Smajor out there possibly hurting someone right now?”
“Sorry. It was just a thought. But we should go see Sausage – uh, my Sausage? – because he might be able to help! He keeps an eye on a lot of things around the place, so he might have seen your Scott – uh, Smajor. And then I guess figure out how you got here, and how to send you home. There’s still a second monster you have to get back to watching out for, right? What’s that one like?”
Myth didn’t answer. He waited to see if she might figure it out.
Shubble only tilted her head, momentarily looking like a dog or even a cat observing something from a different angle of perception. After a few seconds she said, “Something too scary to mention, huh? I’ll stop asking. Let’s go! I think I know the best place to find him at this time of day. And we’ll keep an eye out for this Smajor of yours on the way. At least Scott will be holed up somewhere avoiding the sun. I honestly don’t care much for the sun, either, but I’ve learned to live with it.”
It was at this point that Myth probably should have clued into something, himself, but any memory of meeting a shadowcrawler in the past was far too distant – and if Smajor had happened to become one during the long test of the limits of revival magic, he didn’t have the opportunity to learn their weaknesses.
.
After a few minutes they came to a well-worn path through the trees. As they walked along, Myth was sorely tempted to offer to fly them to wherever Shubble was leading, particularly when they passed by two people that were playfully chasing each other and appeared to be animal hybrids – one a wolf, the other a fox. They both stopped and stared, but Myth kept his head high and continued forward like he had every right to be there. He had a sneer at the ready in case they mistook him for this world’s Mythical Sausage, too. Fortunately, it seemed like they had been intimidated into keeping any such thought to themselves.
However, Shubble came to a halt. “Hey, I have to do something real quick. You can just keep going straight on this path, and I’ll catch up! I can move faster through the shadows, so don’t worry if you get really far ahead!”
The color disappeared from her features as her form darkened to blend with the shadow of the nearest tree. Myth tried to keep eyes on the slight distortion she created, yet then she disappeared completely. He returned to walking but remained alert in case this turned into some kind of trap.
Then, from behind him he heard a wolf howl, followed by a second howl and then the yip of a fox – although none of them sounded alarmed. Instead, it gave off the sense of some type of conversation.
He supposed they might be gossiping about the grim angel they had just witnessed. Far be it for him to care. Although, for half a second it struck him as odd that he hadn’t heard Shubble’s voice – but then he realized her business could have been unrelated. So, he continued onward until a mountaintop village came into view over the trees ahead of him. He narrowed his eyes. Then resentment twisted his lips. That wasn’t a village.
That was Heaven’s Reach.
There were many more buildings – all sparkling, pristine in appearance – than he had managed to build back in his home, but he recognized the meager few that matched locations with his. He moved off the path into a spot with fewer trees and spread his wings. He could obviously guess where Shubble meant they would find her Sausage. Maybe he could do some reconnaissance first and get the drop on his counterpart before he could use any gravital tricks on him.
However, as he was taking a few test flaps of his middle wings to see if the heavy feeling was still there, Shubble phased upward from the ground right in front of him. “I wouldn’t recommend that. He’s got a few measures in place against hostile flyers. Besides vampires, there are a couple of troublesome dragons around. They think they can ransack any place they want to try to get gold.”
“So, not only would I get mistaken for a creature of the night, I might be mistaken for a whole dragon?”
“Hey, you never know! Besides, it’s better that you stick with me so I can explain things.”
“Does that rule out carrying you up with me?”
“Uhm…” Shubble leaned to look around him at his wings. “No offense, but I don’t want to get any more of that stuff on me.”
“Oh, none taken at all,” Myth proclaimed sarcastically. “Let me go wash it off – oh, wait, I can’t. They’re permanently like that and I had no say in it.” He folded them down onto his shoulders, returning them to the cloak-like appearance
“Sorry” Shubble said in an awkward tone. “Let’s, uh, just keep going on the road. Ummm, can I ask what happened, though? I didn’t know angels came in, uh, that condition. Are you some kind of hybrid angel?”
“Nope, I happen to be a specific type.”
“Oh, so, doesn’t that mean you’re special?”
“No. I’m what other angels aspire not to be.”
“You know what, I’ll just ask Sausage later. He knows a lot of things that he doesn’t talk about much, either.”
“You’re really nosy.”
“Well, you know what they say about cats and curiosity!”
“What… does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m curious! Because I’m like a cat!” Shubble grinned as if the answer was obvious.
Myth stared at her, then grumbled, “I’m missing something here, but I don’t care enough to ask.”
He did, however, feel a stab of reluctance as they climbed the stairs cut into the cliffside. He quickly shut away the emotions tied to his memory of his old home, including how he himself had destroyed the church during his maddened-wither hunt for Smajor.
Shubble continued to lead the way, heading for a tower with a large sign reading ‘Hero’ down the side. Myth rolled his eyes. When she pushed the door open, he stopped and regarded the door frame with more than a little distrust. “I’ll wait out here. Not enough room for my wings.” He lifted his middle pair and fluffed up the feathers to demonstrate. In reality, he was preparing to take flight if necessary – hostile flyer defenses or not.
Shubble shrugged and stepped inside. “Hey, Sausage, there you are! Take a break from studying maps, will ya? I met someone who needs our help finding a bad guy. He’s right outside!” Her tone seemed overly cheerful. Myth took a few steps back and braced himself to hear a copy of his own voice…if not less gruff.
“Okay, you’re right. I should take a break. I’m just still trying to find the best place for that… trap…” The voice of the gravital version of Sausage trailed off as he followed Shubble outside and his gaze landed on Myth.
Shubble ran over to stand beside the cursed angel. “Hey, so, you never told me you had a dark and brooding twin brother!”
“Y-Yeah, I don’t!” A clicking sound came from Sausage’s exosuit as he switched polarity modes. “Shub, get away from him, NOW!”
“What? B-But he only looks scary,” she protested. “Give him a chance to explain—”
“Shub, move. I know who he is.”
Myth gritted his teeth and let his lip curl upward. Was this the version he had met in the limbo dimension, from before he had become a seraph? Where was his Scott, then?
Wait, no, Shubble had said Scott was a vampire. That other Scott had been a merling at the time. Then who was—
Myth was in the process of blinking from realization when suddenly Sausage was up close with an extraordinary grip of one hand on the cursed angel’s throat, a blast of gravi carrying them both away from Shubble until Myth was shoved up against one of the wooden pillars of the church. A storm cloud rapidly formed overhead, discharging a lightning bolt into the ground at Myth’s feet a moment later.
Myth let his wings droop and raised empty hands with fingers spread to show his sword was out of reach. “Ah. It’s you. Okay, well, here’s me surrendering because I can’t compete with you and your collection of ten powers.”
“What are you doing here?!” the superhero demanded. “How did you get here?! That trans-dimensional summoner version said he wouldn’t ‘bother’ you again! I should hope he didn’t change his mind to start disrupting other people’s universes!”
“It wasn’t him. It felt different. And I didn’t ask to be here! Just like I didn’t ask to be dragged into that fight at Sanctuary!”
“Which one?!” Sausage retorted. “Against that villain version, or that other angel?!”
Myth narrowed his eyes then lowered his voice almost to a growl. “My quarrel is with him alone. As long as you don’t start spewing garbage about saving my soul, we can either work together or go our separate ways, because I don’t have time to debate good and evil. I wasn’t the only one brought here from my world. I need to—” He then swore. “Or I have to assume he was also dropped here, and not some other universe.”
Myth swore again more quietly. Shubble came over and put a hand on Sausage’s elbow as if she might try to pull his arm away. “Sausage, please calm down. He said he was protecting his world from two monsters, and one of them is loose here!”
Casting a defeated glance at the ground, Myth corrected her sullenly, “Might be here. I guess I can’t guarantee he ended up in the same world as me. But I can at least try to look and then figure out… something.” His expression became pensive, then he raised his eyes to them. “Do you happen to know the location of an Ancient City in the Deep Dark?”
Sausage gave him a puzzled look, but Shubble piped up, “Yeah, I’ve seen one while traveling through the ground!”
“Good,” Myth murmured, “Then I have a backup plan.”
“Whatcha gonna find down there that could help?” Shubble asked. “There’s nothing but Wardens down there! And maybe some sculkborn.”
“Listen to me when I advise you to not go anywhere near the portal, ever,” Myth replied. He shifted his gaze to Sausage. “So, hero, I know what your powers are all about. Anything I should know about your Scott? Mine doesn’t have any powers, but don’t count him out. He can be tricky and violent given the slightest chance. He has been acting peaceful lately – aside from mouthing off – but he is not to be trusted.”
“I think I’ll keep that information to myself for now, thank you.”
“Fine. And how about letting me go, gravital with the strength of a giant who can zap me with lightning in a split second anyway?”
Sausage hesitated. Shubble patted his arm. “My instincts say we can trust him. Come on, let him go. You know I’m not a pushover, either!”
The superhero loosened his fingers, then sighed and stepped back. He then gently scolded her, “You’re supposed to stick to the night watch.”
“He was wandering around near my house! And I thought he was you! Was I supposed to ignore him?”
“No, but you could have gotten hurt. It’s not as safe for you during the day.”
Shubble gave a teasing grin. “You’re worrying too much again~”
Myth eyed the cloud that lingered overhead then crossed his arms. “Please don’t tell me you two…”
“She’s my sidekick!” Sausage blurted out. “Uh, teammate.” He looked chagrined.
Shubble, meanwhile, laughed. “That’s a big leap of logic there, Myth. We’re just teammates against the forces of evil! He’s not my type, anyway.”
Sausage spluttered for a second, then coughed. "Moving on from that topic, we should start looking for your… monster?”
“My version of Scott. I guess I didn’t make that clear,” Myth disparaged. “I think you got distracted not wanting me to know all the powers yours has.”
“Well, he’s been running around as a vampire for months and not even using any of his other powers, so it doesn’t really matter,” Sausage said in a stilted tone. “We don’t have to worry about him as much during the day, so if we locate yours before nightfall, we won’t even have to worry about him getting involved. If you want to come inside the hero headquarters and look at the maps, we can make a search plan. You and I can fly, Shubble can look while phasing through the ground.” He put a hand to his chin in thought. “Maybe we can enlist some allies along the way.”
He turned and walked back toward the white tower. Shubble smiled ruefully. “He’s gone into strategy mode. He gets like that all the time now. Kinda been a thing since our Scott went evil.”
“Well,” Myth said with an acerbic tone, “At least he seems interested in catching him instead of just killing him.” He folded his wings in tightly to fit through the doorway.
Shubble stared after him. A mix of sympathy and concern began to well up inside her.
~*~
Smajor moved quickly but quietly through the dark oak forest, shivering from the cold of his still-wet clothes combined with the constant darkness created by the dense canopy. He hoped he could find some type of shelter before a skeletal archer or zombie spotted him. There was plenty of shade to protect them from the sun, after all.
Being without powers was bad enough, but not having a chance to get armor or weapons made his freedom feel a little bittersweet.
He had felt relieved when he woke up and hadn’t seen Myth anywhere nearby. There was no doubt in his mind that the cursed angel would slay him again to keep him down and out until he had a way to cage him. This was not their world – something about the air felt off, and it wasn’t because he had become accustomed to living at bedrock level.
Maybe the shade was even a blessing so his eyes could adjust. He had to admit, the fresh air really was wonderful. He was almost tempted to stop and lay on the grass for a while. With all the trees Myth wouldn’t be able to spot him from the air, anyway…
Those thoughts were shoved from his mind as he heard someone moving behind him. Not a rattle of bones, or zombie groan, but some presence was there—
Not Myth. Myth would have already rushed him, or said something, even if the dense trees hindered his wings.
Smajor saw a brief flutter at the edge of his vision.
Whoever it happened to be was also too small to be Myth.
Then he heard his own voice from somewhere behind him say, “Ah, what’s this? I smell a poor, lost little human. I could go for a snack right about now…”
Smajor froze; a conniving smirk then spread across his face. He braced himself and didn’t even flinch when clawed fingers grabbed onto his arms, then one of the hands grasped the top of his head to tilt it and expose his neck. He waited until he felt a breath against his skin to speak, putting on an exaggerated frightened tone. “Oh, no! Not a big, scary vampire sucking my blood! Whatever will I do??”
“What in the Nether—?” came the response. The fingers gripping his hair let go, then moved back to his arm to spin him around.
Smajor smirked back at the red-eyed, white-haired and dapperly-dressed version of himself. “Hello, other me. Looks like I was right about a family reunion.”
“Is this some kind of joke? What are you – a shapeshifter? Why that form? Cyan hair? And what did you do, fall in a river?” The vampire version of Scott then narrowed his eyes as he demanded with accusation, “How did you even know I was here?!”
“I didn’t. You see, I’m a bit lost. I’m from a different universe.” Smajor held out his hands to mime some motions as he went on to explain, “I was picked up from my home and transported here. I don’t know where ‘here’ is, but I figured I might run into a different version of myself. Not the first time it’s happened. The other one I met was a fish, and then later he showed up as a sparkly dandy who could call down meteors.”
For half a second Scott looked startled at the mention of fish, then dug his fingers into Smajor’s arms again. “What are you, then? You smell human.”
Smajor shrugged despite the sharp fingernails poking through the fabric of his shirt. “It turns out that in my world after a certain number of deaths the magic that bestows powers stops working. Now I’m just a boring old immortal. But you—” He smiled greedily. “—You’re only one death in, from the looks of you. Savor it while you can – over a hundred gets tedious after a while.”
Scott released him to look him over; hearing that he possibly had no abilities made the vampire assume he could overpower him in an instant if he made any suspicious moves. “Well, you’re wrong about one thing. I haven’t died yet.”
“You’re a vampire,” Smajor said flatly. “That kind of automatically makes you dead – undead, as it were.” He kept his stance casual but an idea had taken over most of his mind and he was itching to pitch it to his double.
“…I can hear your heartbeat speeding up. Are you afraid of something?”
“The person who caused me to die so many times is probably here, too. I won’t lie, he makes me nervous – even if I’m already depowered, he keeps proving he won’t hesitate to kill me again. The rules of your world might work differently, so this time I might die permanently if he catches me.”
“This is getting elaborate if you turn out to be a shapeshifter. Who might this killer of yours be, and what does he look like?”
Smajor gave a cold smile. “I call him Myth. He’s currently an angel again. Have you ever seen a seraph before? Ridiculous number of wings and grossly overpowered – although, he doesn’t seem to have access to holy fire anymore, and his wings are covered in weird goop. He’s very grouchy-looking. I doubt you’ll miss him. He might even mistake you for me, so be careful.”
Scott’s expression became troubled and he turned away for a second to contemplate this development.
Smajor watched him carefully. “You might know a version of him named Sausage.”
When the vampire’s face changed to be startled by the revelation, Smajor lunged and grabbed him, then leaned in close to breathe on Scott’s neck and hiss into his ear, “But maybe you can help me get powers again. You wanted a snack? Help yourself – but make sure you turn me before you’re through.”
Scott seemed almost too calm as he shifted his head enough to get Smajor within his line of sight. Smajor abruptly felt his body lock up and his eyes had to refocus as he found himself getting tunnel vision. Scott easily removed the overzealous human’s hands from his arms then stepped away. “I’ll consider it,” he answered, sounding unimpressed. “I’m not just an average vampire, so I don’t know what the full effect might be. I’ve never turned anyone before.”
Smajor tried to twitch his fingers but no part of his body would respond. “What – What did you do to me?? Th-This isn’t how my powers worked when I was a vampire!”
“You’ve underestimated the type of world you ended up in. I have more than just the powers of a vampire.” Scott walked around him and trailed his fingertips across Smajor’s throat. “So, you might be getting in over your head if I try to turn you. There’s no guarantee you’ll get only vampire abilities. Are you sure you want to risk it?”
Smajor followed his double with his eyes – getting a very close view of his fangs due to the tunnel effect – until he had passed behind him. “Yes,” he insisted, nearly snarling. “I’d do anything to have powers again. I can’t stand Myth lording it over me that he won simply because my list ran out.”
“We’ll make an experiment out of it,” Scott said, smiling as he walked back into view. “But not here. We’ll make our way under the cover of the shadows to my home, and that way if anything goes horribly wrong, I’ll do you the honor of burying you where your grave can serve as a warning to others if they get too close to my lands.”
The effect on his vision disappeared; Smajor cautiously took one step forward just to make sure his body could also still move. With a smug smirk, he replied, “Lead the way.”
[ Chapter Two ]
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darkleweather · 2 years
Text
I was determined to just enjoy Afterlife without writing anything and yet...brainrot hit.
Wanna sneak peek? :D
fWhip raised his eyes from working on his crops, and sure enough, Scott was lounging in the shade, one shoulder against a tree. His black umbrella hung from one arm, and his bright red eyes were fixed on fWhip.
fWhip raised one hand in a half-hearted wave. “Hey, Scott. Need something?”
“No, not really. I was just…passing through the area and thought I’d swing by.” Scott smiled. “How are you doing?”
How was he doing? fWhip glanced around the carrot field, considering, weighing his words carefully. He had to watch what he said around the vampire…too much, and that was as good and inviting him into your house--not that Scott could fit into his house. He hoped not, anyway. He opted for cheerfully nonchalant. “I’m fine. Doin’ great, absolutely peachy. How about you? How’s the zoo going?”
Scott’s smile became a broad grin, his fangs glinting. “Oh, it’s going very well, fWhip. You should come see it sometime. I’m sure you’d enjoy the visit.”
Well that was a big nope.
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Text
Hunted (Afterlife SMP)
summary: gem is a seven-year-old forestborn who comes across another forestborn the same age as her by the name of joel. together, they run from the dullahan that has been hunting them
ao3 link
word count: 3904
warnings: major character death, talk about sinners and sins, daggers/knives/swords, death of parents
~~~
Gem ran as fast as her little legs could carry her. There was no path in this forest—most villages kept to themselves and were too afraid to venture into the wild. Gem barely glanced down at where her feet were landing as she knew the trees would move their roots out of the way. They were the ones telling her to run. The wind rustling the leaves of the trees made it easy for her to hear what they were saying: “go, go, go, go!”
She hoped her parents would understand or that the trees would tell them where she had gone. She had been happily picking sweet berries just outside her home when the trees had told her where to go. And quickly.
The trees spurred Gem on as she continued, sprinting over little rivers and vaulting over rocks. She ran for so long, huffing and puffing, that when the trees finally told her to slow down—that she was nearly there—she did not recognize the part of the birch forest she was in. And Gem had explored a good chunk of it. This was far out.
If Gen had been any regular seven year old, she might have panicked. But she was a forestborn and, as long as she was around trees, she was confident in her abilities.
“There. Over there,” the trees whispered to Gem, shaking their branches in the direction of a heavily wooded spot with a small pond underneath. “Careful, be careful.”
Slowly, Gem made her way to the pond, keeping her eyes and ears open. She hid behind a birch tree and poked her head out to see why the trees had brought her here.
The trees went uncomfortably silent. Most of the time they liked to talk amongst themselves and Gem usually fell asleep to the quiet murmurings of the trees and her parents.
That was when Gem saw him: a boy about her own age, gripping onto a branch of a tree for dear life.
“Er, hello?” Gem called up. “Are you stuck?”
“No…well, yes but not in the way you think I am,” the boy said, seemingly a little startled at the sight of Gem.
“Do you want to get down?” Gem asked. Perhaps the boy was afraid of heights. That was a common fear among humans.
“Yes, but how—“
Gem cut the boy off by floating up and holding out a hand. “C’mon,” she said with a smile. “It’s okay.”
“You’re—you’re—you’re floating!” The boy sputtered out but took Gem’s hand nonetheless.
Gem tried to pull the boy down but he wouldn’t budge. “Let go of the branch,” she said, not looking up from the grass below her.
“I am.”
“What?” Gem said, her eyebrows drawn. She then glanced up and saw that the boy was also floating. “What?” She repeated. This time it was Gem’s turn to look flabbergasted. “You’re floating!”
“I know! I can’t un-float. I want to get down.”
The breeze picked up and the nearby trees rustled. Gem’s ears perked up but the trees didn’t say anything.
“Okay…” Gem trailed off, letting go of the boy and floating up so she was eye-level with him. “Try focusing on the ground below. Remember the feeling of being bound by gravity—the grass on your feet, the feeling of walking.” She could remember her parents as a toddler teaching her how to float and stop by telling her a similar sort of thing. At this point, she was experienced enough to be able to do it without thinking much.
The boy clenched his eyes shut and took a deep, steadying breath. Slowly but surely the boy slowly made his way downwards until he landed on the grass.
He opened his eyes and grinned in triumph before his face suddenly changed. His face became pinched and he did a 360, looking at his surroundings.
“Are you alright? How long have you been up there?” Gem asked. “My name is Gem, by the way.”
The boy pursed his lips. “I’m Joel. And…” he trailed off and crossed his arms awkwardly in front of himself. “I’m fine. I-I just have to get back home.” He turned east and started walking.
Gem just managed to hear Joel mutter under his breath, “surely this had to have been a mistake.”
“Follow him,” the trees whispered to her. “Keep him safe.”
“Hey! Wait up!” Gem exclaimed, jogging after Joel. “Are you lost? I’m pretty good with directions so I can help you.”
Gem quickly caught up to Joel and caught him quickly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Oh. Um,” Gem said, backing up, unsure of what to do in this situation.
“I’m sorry,” Joel muttered, a tear managing to escape the corner of his eye. He quickly rubbed it away. “I don’t usually cry in front of strangers.”
“You can talk to me about it. Me and the trees will listen,” Gem said. Sometimes, when Gem was frustrated or upset, her parents would sit her in front of a tree and tell her to tell the tree what she was feeling. She always ended up feeling better and able to get her emotions across to her parents.
Joel seemed hesitant at first and he didn’t comment on the tree bit. But, eventually, he sighed and said, “my father left me in the woods. He fed me this soup that turned me blind and led me here. When the effects wore off, I was in this forest and I got so frightened I floated up and couldn’t get back down.”
“That doesn’t seem like a mistake,” Gem told Joel. “That seems like a calculated move.”
“I thought it might be. Or, I guess, I hoped. I should’ve seen it coming, though,” Joel said with a sigh. “My stepmom was never really happy with my floating and other weird stuff I’m able to do. She must’ve gotten it into my dad’s head that I was better off dead.”
Gem paused. Then, she asked in a quiet voice, “what kind of stuff can you do?”
“Float, I can conjure up golden carrots whenever I need…” Joel clicked his tongue. “And there was this one time when I was younger that I was finally fed up with my classmate bullying me and I swear I hurt him even though I was five feet away from him!”
The wind grew stronger. The trees chanted together, “he’s one of the forest: a forestborn. Joel is a forestborn.” Gem listened as the message travelled further away, the trees around them going back to their muttering.
“You’re a forestborn!” Gem exclaimed excitedly. She had never met a forestborn her own age. Most forestborns who lived around her were adults.
“A what?”
“A forestborn. You are one of the trees’ sworn protectors.” Gem puffed out her chest. “I’m one too.”
“It’s not just me, then?”
“Of course not, forestborns are everywhere. Anywhere there are trees, we are too. My family has a home a bit over that way.”
“Can I see?” Joel suddenly said, eyes wide.
“Of course.”
As Gem showed him the way to her home, she noticed Joel looking a little better. Well, as good as he could feel after being abandoned by his parents. She was sure her parents wouldn’t mind housing another kid. Gem surely wouldn’t mind having a brother. It was sometimes lonely when little saplings were your only age-appropriate friends.
“We’re almost here!” Gem exclaimed, noticing the wind chime she made three years ago. “C’mon!” She said, breaking out into a run, not listening to the trees as they rustled to get her attention.
Joel started running too but Gem, with her head start, was the first to get to the little hobbit hole her mom had built.
Gem glanced behind her and laughed. “Hurry up!” She banged open the door. “Mom—“ Gem came face to face with a birch and spruce tree in the middle of the room. She stopped dead in her tracks, her body going cold. Her parents. They were trees. Which only meant one thing: they were dead. But at whose hand?
Joel, unable to slow his sprint, banged into Gem’s back. “Hey!”
“Hello, little forestborn,” an unfamiliar voice drawled. A figure stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed in all black, various weapons hanging from his body. Gem spotted daggers, knives, and a sword slung across his back. The figure's eyes glowed purple. "I am here to make you atone for your sins."
"Run!" Gem shouted, quickly turning on her heel.
She ran only a couple of feet before Joel's screams pierced her ears. "Gem! I can't move, I'm stuck!"
Gem tripped over herself as she spun back around, seeing Joel stood just outside of the front door. The dark figure was slowly approaching. He pulled out one of his daggers. "Let your next life be full of pain and suffering—"
Gem shot a poisoned dart straight at the figure's neck. Shocked, he took a sharp step back, his free hand going to his wound. "You dare try to hurt a deathbringer? You only hold off the inevitable."
But the dark creature was momentarily distracted. Distracted enough to let his grip on Joel loose. Gem quickly yanked the young forestborn away from her childhood home. Goodbye, she said in her head. Something told her she would not be back here.
"Come on, let's go!" Gem then yelled and she and Joel made for the woods.
"Will he…will he chase us?" Joel panted.
Gem took a quick look behind her, only managing to catch a glimpse of the figure in the doorway of her home, purple eyes bright with rage. "I don't think he can follow us in the day. I think he's a creature of the night."
"Who was he?"
Gem wasn't too sure but the trees answered.
"Horseman," some whispered.
"Dullahan," others said.
"Death," they all said together, saying the word over and over again.
"Cut it out," Gem snapped, her emotions all over the place. A forest of trees chanting the word "death" was not helping her clear her head in the slightest. "Stop saying that."
"Who are you talking to?" Joel asked as they slowed to a jog.
"The trees," Gem replied and, thankfully, the trees' voices died down into a light breeze. She slowly began to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth, like her parents taught her.
"Can all forestborns talk to trees?"
"Yes. Although we're taught at a young age to listen to them. It might take some time for you to learn to listen.
Joel stared up at the leaves of the trees surrounding them. "You'll teach me?"
Gem took another steadying breath. That Dullahan would come after them, she knew that for a fact. They had won today by surprising him with a poisonous dart. But that was the thing about surprises: they couldn't surprise you a second time.
Gem glanced over at Joel and nodded, her mouth set in a straight line. "Everything I know."
~~~
"Stop your wiggling," Gem warned, sitting in front of Joel who was sitting criss-cross next to a dark oak tree. His eyes were clenched shut and his hands were fisted in his lap.
They were eight years old. They had not seen the Dullahan since that day in the birch forest. Gem hoped it stayed that way but she knew this peace was fleeting.
After five minutes with his eyes shut, Joel huffed out a breath and flung himself backwards so he was lying on his back. "I can't," he whined out. "Are you sure the tree is talking? It's not gone quiet?"
"It's telling you the story of an impatient boy," Gem said, the tree continuing its story as she spoke. "A boy who could never get out of his own head—who thought he could control the uncontrollable with nothing more than willpower."
Joel looked suspicious. "And what happened to him?"
"He died,” Gem said flatly. The tree hadn’t gotten to that part yet but she knew this tale. It was one her parents and the trees surrounding her home had always told her when she got frustrated by waiting. “Tried to control a hurricane but it flung him off a cliff.”
“Hurricanes can’t be controlled though,” Joel said with a wrinkled nose.
“And cats can’t be tamed,” the tree said, deviating from its story before going silent. It seemed to know that practice was finished for the day.
Joel crossed his arms. “Why can’t folktales ever have a happy ending?”
“Some do, you just have to listen for the right ones,” Gem argued. All of her favourite tales ended in Happily Ever After. They were the ones her parents told her to get to sleep at night when she was scared of monsters under the bed and plagues making their way across the forest.
Joel glanced up at the sky and shielded his eyes with his hand. Eventually, he shut his eyes and Gem, exhausted from the day and the beating sun, did as well.
Gem’s eyes flashed open. It was dark. Joel was shaking her fervently. “Gem! Gem!” He exclaimed, panic in his eyes.
Gem immediately sat up straight.
She heard the trees before Joel spoke but Joel was much louder in her ear. “He’s here. The Dullahan is here. The trees say so.”
Gem couldn’t congratulate Joel on finally managing to understand the trees because she got to her feet at once and the two of them ran, following the forest’s directions.
~~~
And so, Gem and Joel ran. Each year, they found a new forest to stay in. And, each year, the Dullahan chased them until they found a new one: an oak forest, a jungle forest, a spruce forest, a mangrove swamp.
Thirteen year olds, Gem and Joel, stood amongst a sparse forest of acacia trees. Five of the closest ones, planted in a semi-circle around the siblings, wore hay targets on their branches.
“Three, two, one,” Gem called out and Joel unleashed five poisoned darts, nearly all of them hitting their marks except for the last one which was a little to the left.
Joel grimaced.
“I think that was great,” Gem said with a small smile.
Joel didn’t return it. “Not good enough,” he said, slowly making his rounds to collect his darts. “When the Dullahan comes again, I need to be prepared.”
“You aren’t fighting him alone,” Gem reminded him. “I’m here too. We fight together, remember?” She paused before saying, “come, let’s have dinner.”
Joel seemed to want to say something but bit his lip. He shook his head. “I’m staying here until I can land these darts.”
Gem was hyper aware of the dark circles around Joel’s eyes. “What you need is sleep,” she said, making her voice as gentle as possible.
“I don’t need sleep, I need to have better aim!” Joel’s jaw was clenched.
Gem sighed. “You need rest,” she told him, a little more forcefully. “If the Dullahan arrives, you’ll fall over from exhaustion!”
“And you won’t be able to protect yourself!” Joel burst out, glaring at the ground, unable to look Gem in the eye.
Gem was momentarily stunned. “What?”
“All you’ve been doing is staying next to me. I’m not seven anymore! When was the last time you practiced with your darts? When was the last time you saw how long you could float for? When was the last time you trained at all?”
“I thought you wanted me to teach you,” Gem said, her mouth forming into a straight line. She felt her nose begin to prickle, a sure sign a cry session was in sight. But not here. Not in front of her brother. “But it seems you have outgrown your current teacher. I’ll go back to our shelter. Be back before sundown.”
Gem walked away. Joel didn’t move. They were both silent.
Gem stood in their current house: a large, hollow, tree stump. Silent tears were running down her cheeks and she quickly summoned a couple of golden carrots to munch on.
She tried to understand where Joel was coming from but drew a blank. Couldn’t he see that she was trying her best? She was terrified. All she could think of was that day six years ago when Joel was unable to move—under the Dullahan’s magic. All because Gem was too far away to stop it. Gem couldn’t allow that to happen again. They were stronger together.
And yet, here she was all alone.
Gem stood up and exited the tree stump. She and Joel should have a talk with one another. If she couldn’t understand him, he would have to enlighten her. They were no good if they were fighting.
She kicked a rock on the way and it ricocheted around the forest. “I don’t understand,” she muttered to herself.
“Suffocating him,” the tree to her right told her. “He has outgrown his pot and needs to stretch out his roots.”
“Scared,” the tree to her left said. “He saw you risk your life for him before and never wants that to happen again.”
“Look behind you!” The trees behind her yelled and Gem quickly spun around. She barely had time to process what the trees had been telling her beforehand.
"Well, well, well," the Dullahan said and, even though his face was behind a dark mask, Gem could hear his grin. "We meet again, little forestborn. This time you shall not run from me."
Gem dared not step back or move forward for she knew if she did, she'd have no choice but to stand still.
"I have a score to settle with you—you who shot a dart at me. Then I will kill you for your sins."
"Tell me," Gem said, her voice surprisingly steady. "What sins have I committed that have caused a demon to chase me and my brother?"
"I am no demon. I work for no master. I simply bring justice and balance to this world. And you," those purple eyes glared down at Gem, "are disrupting the forestborn population."
"Me?" Gem repeated.
The Dullahan unshealted one of his daggers. "I admit, you specifically are not to blame. But there is one more forestborn than need be and, well," he clicked his tongue, "one of you has to go and I am the judge."
"How is that possible?" Gem muttered, more to herself than to the Dullahan. "Forestborns are creatures of nature. There should not be more than intended."
The Dullahan shrugged his shoulders. "I do not care to dwell. Six years ago, I followed the scent of impending death and found you and your brother. The both of you escaped and only your parents paid the price."
"Do their deaths not count for the balance?" Gem asked with gritted teeth.
"I am allowed to feast on souls every once in awhile. Those that live in the underworld turn a blind eye to my…excesses. As long as I keep the balance when it counts. Besides," the Dullahan scoffed, "they were not the ones that smelled of death. And so, for the past six years, I've hunted you. I've not looked at any other forestborn. You are the one I want to kill and I will have my way."
It suddenly clicked, then. Joel. Joel was supposed to die that day when Gem had found him in the forest. His parents had left him in the woods to die, not knowing he was a forestborn.
Unease swept through Gem but she swallowed it down. She nodded, accepting this fate. "Then so be it." The Dullahan was chasing her, not Joel. It was her he wanted. Once she was gone and the forestborn population "fixed", he'd leave Joel alone. Otherwise, the two of them would continue to run until they couldn't any longer.
The Dullahan pulled down his mask and Gem could see the Dullahan's sharp teeth upturned into a grin. "I admire your bravery, little forestborn. Perhaps the gods will be kind and turn you into something less horrid. An ant might do. Or perhaps a shadow crawler. We may see each other again in another life."
"I hope you die a painful death at the hand of an angel," Gem bit out as the Dullahan crossed the short distance between them. "I pray I never see you again."
"Angels do not answer calls from sinners," the Dullahan chuckled. He raised the knife above his head and plunged it downwards. Gem closed her eyes.
"Stop! Take me instead! I was the one who was supposed to die that day!" Joel's voice sounded panicked. "Do not lay a finger on my sister," he warned in a menacing voice.
The Dullahan pulled back up his mask and rounded on Joel. "Too late," he said in a cool voice. He easily dodged every single one of Joel's poisoned darts. "Balance has been restored. Better say your goodbyes." He sheathed his dagger and disappeared into the shadows.
Gem could feel her limbs become stiff, her legs lengthening to become her roots. She smiled sadly at Joel who instantly wrapped his warm arms around her. "D-don't leave me!" He cried. "I can't do this without you. I'm sorry for what I said early—we're all trying our best."
"We were trying to protect each other," Gem said with a wry grin. "But now that the Dullahan is gone you can finally be free. Settle down somewhere. Somewhere nice, yeah?"
"I-I'll get revenge! I'll kill that monster!" Joel exclaimed, stepping back from Gem with a determined look in his eyes.
"No!" Gem said, her voice coming out harsher than she intended. She quickly softened it. "Joel, do not go after the Dullahan. He will not chase you any longer. You are only wanting to pick a fight because you are angry. And angry people never win at the end of the day. The Dullahan will eventually get what's coming for him. Promise me, okay? Joel. Look at me."
Joel sadly looked into his sister's eyes.
"Promise that you won't go after the Dullahan."
"I promise," Joel finally said.
Gem breathed out and smiled, raising her arms and seeing birch bark. "Huh," she said, feeling a newfound peace within her. "Birch. I've always loved birch trees."
~~~
Forestborn trees were silent. They did not speak to forestborns like regular trees. They stood, silent as a grave, keeping their opinions to themselves. They were alive but they were dead.
But all Joel could understand was that his sister was gone. He would never train with her ever again. They'd never lay under the trees as they listened to their folktales again. How many things had they done together that had been their last? Last meal, last joke, last hug.
Joel quickly wiped a stray tear from his eye. He had promised that he wouldn't go after the Dullahan and he would stay true to that promise. But that didn't mean he had sworn off fighting altogether.
Joel needed a fight. He was agitated and upset and angry.
So, when Joel found a stray pamphlet advertising a dojo where you could fight a red panda, he instantly started making his way over.
He didn't remember Gem's warning—"angry people never win at the end of the day"—until after the fight was over. And by then it was too late.
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badnewlifesmpideas · 8 months
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when dark fairy joey appeared, shelby would swear she would see something else in her peripheral. she'd never seen things before, and during the brief visit, she believed she was seeing things due to the dark fairy.
and yet afterwards, she still does so
the shadows in her house flickering into a whole being on occasion, something moving while she's in her Helios Pit(personal name for her mining pit), a voice that eerily sounds like her at night?
terrifies the sun out of her
and then, while out fishing, she spots it
on the other side of the river is someone who looks oddly similar to her. Same hair, same body, almost the same clothes
just... a shadow.
it's like her complete opposite.
and just before the shadow vanishes in her light, she gets a name
shadow girl
(also same anon as the one w/stacy trinkets, not gonna name myself just yet)
It's strange, that's for sure. She's not sure what to think of this "Shadow girl" figure to be honest. Sure, she calls herself Sunshine Girl, but that just makes it even creepier. What are the chances she has her complete opposite haunting her, almost like a ghost?
Hmm... she might have to look into that, that's not a terrible idea actually....
-Raven
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mchatter · 1 year
Text
I was browsing some of my docs and found an old piece I wrote while After Life smp was a thing. It's a fragment, but it made me happy at the time. I'm never going to finish it, so I thought I'd just copy it straight over and put it here
After life smp Mar 27 Shelby sat on the cliff's ledge, watching the sun set. That's what it looked like to the outside eye anyway. Realistically, she couldn't see anything in the bright light. Her shadowy form was pale and transparent, revealing the moss below her. Scott approached the cliff quietly. The look on Shelby's face was hard to discern through her weak shadows, but Scott thought he saw a frown playing on the edges of her mouth. It was no secret that she loved the beauty of the day, but she had been unable to enjoy it since her life became devoted to the shadows. It was a feeling that Scott could understand since being turned. The day was not friendly to the children of the night. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, Scott turned to watch the moon. The higher it rose, the stronger he felt. Shelby's form too, grew more saturated in the low light. It was finally their time. Scott came to stand just behind where Shelby sat. Her brow was decidedly furrowed in frustration. Loneliness had made her bitter against the daywalkers. Scott had been a target of her aggression before he was turned, but now he was one of her few friends in the world. They had begun plotting to take the day and bring shadow to the world as soon as they met in these forms but it would take some time to rally their strength, especially with their weakness to daylight. None of this concerned Scott but it consumed Shelby every morning just as the blindness consumed her. But it was now the evening and Shelby's vision had returned. Scott extended a pale hand to her. "Ready?" He asked Shelby considered the hand carefully, before accepting it and rising to her feet. Scott suddenly grinned and squeezed her hand tighter before abruptly letting it drop and leaping into the air. Shelby's vision was filled with purple and she staggered back before she realized what was happening. The purple faded and all at once she was in the air. The wind rushed past her and her laughter reached Scott, who was now safely on the ground. He watched as she teleported herself even higher into the air, her laughter fading as she got out of earshot. He jumped again and was level with her as they both started to drop back down to earth. His laughter joined her's and was carried away on the wind. Gravity could do nothing to their joy and the moonlight illuminated their smiles. The world may be against them but they had each other and that was all they needed.
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entityredacted · 2 years
Text
The Last Letter from Sanctuary part 3
Aka Shelby's awful horrible idea but for real
Some warnings: Self loathing/self depreciation, mention of unrequited love, description of a dead body, dissociation
---------------------------------------------------
"Scott!"
Scott woke with a yelp of pain as he fell out of bed from Shelby's yell. The witch had once again almost shattered his door on accident and was climbing up the ladder to his bedroom as fast as possible.
"Sorry!" she said hastily and helped him up.
"It's important, look."
"It's three in the Morning Shelby," Scott groaned as he tried to get his eye to focus on the book she was shoving in his face. He couldn't read whatever language it was in.
"Shelby I can't read ancient elvish," he told her.
"But you speak elvish!"
"Modern elvish. It's very different from whatever that is."
"Oh."
Shelby sounded a little disappointed and awkwardly turned the book around to read it herself.
"Using the deceased body of the chosen subject, blood vines, hearts of the nether and the charred skulls of long dead soldiers, the subject may be resurrected in the ritual described on page 279."
She looked up at Scott.
"Blood vine and hearts of the nether is slang for weeping vines and nether wart," Scott said uncertainly.
"What are you going to do?"
"Scott come on! You said it yourself, what if we brought him back?"
It took several seconds for Scott's tired brain to understand what Shelby meant.
"Shelby I wasn't being serious!" he half shouted.
"But I mean..."
He let his mind try and grasp the concept of Sausage coming back, what that would be like.
"He didn't love you. He never loved you and he's gone," the voice in his head whispered again.
But did it really matter? Did it matter if Sausage never loved him and never would, as long as he was back? As long as he was alive and happy and running around Sanctuary with Hermes and Bubbles, so wonderfully alive and bright as Scott remembered him?
No. No it didn't.
"Let's do it," Scott said after almost a whole minutes silence.
"When and where?"
"Tomorrow night in Sanctuary's chapel, that's where his body is, we can get the rest tomorrow," Shelby answered quickly.
"Okay then."
There were a lot of things going through Scott's head as he and Shelby laid the weeping vines in a circle around the casket with Sausage's body in it, as they forced it open and Shelby gently placed pieces of nether wart on his pale face, in his hands and on his chest. Scott couldn't help with that, he could only stare at the corpse in the casket. It had gone stiff and had long lost all its warmth and colour, Sausage's face was white and almost blue in some places.
Scott managed to help Shelby light black candles to surround the circle of weeping vines, then they sat down on their knees at the foot of the casket and Shelby spent a bit too long trying to find the right page in the massive book.
"Here," she whispered and propped the book up in front of them both.
"The chant needs to be in two languages a both of us need to smear some of our blood on the casket."
"I have a knife, so that wont be too hard," Scott told her and took a small pocket knife from his belt. He cut Shelby above the elbow and she cut him in the same place.
"You could do the elvish chant and I'll do the common," she said quietly as they smeared their blood into red lines on the casket. Scott didn't say anything, he just nodded.
Scott wasn't fully aware of what he was saying as they started chanting. He felt weirdly disconnected from everything that was happening, even from his own body. Words he didn't understand were leaving his mouth and thoughts he couldn't hear were swirling around his head. He was vaguely aware that the candles' fire had turned blue and that the weeping vines were turning black, as though they were withering.
Then both his and Shelby's chanting stopped abruptly and he felt as though he'd just woken up. He could understand his thoughts and words again, and Shelby looked like she'd been through the same thing.
"Did it work?" she asked shakily and they slowly rose to their feet.
The blood on the casket looked as if it had been burned and charred, the same thing had happened to the nether wart on Sausage's body. The body itself in the casket looked considerably less pale than before, it no longer looked like a dead body at all, more like Sausage was just sleeping.
Scott thought he must have been imagining it but he thought more had changed about Sausage. His hair looked darker in some spots and he could have sworn his nails were longer and the tips of his fingers black, but Shelby didn't seem to notice.
"Sausage? Are you there?"
No response.
"Sausage?"
Nothing.
"Sausage, are you alive?" Scott said, feeling his voice and hands trembling.
Then there was a very slight movement to Sausage’s hands. His eyes flickered open to reveal a cold, pale silver which was very different from his normal deep blue. His eyes turned to Scott and he sat up in his casket.
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belbelbells · 2 years
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In which Pearl becomes a god, because she deserves it.
When all was said and done, being dead wasn’t so bad.
Pearl wasn’t exactly happy she had died, quite the opposite in fact. She would have much rather stayed living, and she hadn’t quite finished everything she set out to accomplish. She still had farms to tend to, buildings to add the finishing touches to, animals to care for. And she still had friends who she wanted to spend time with! Or, she supposed those of them who were still alive.
From her vantage point in... what she had to assume was on top of a cloud very high above the earth - or maybe heaven, but she wasn’t convinced she would end up there anyway - she could see the remains of her friends empires. Guilded Helianthia had been razed, the beanstalks crashing down onto the houses below, caving the rooves of her beloved home. Next door Mythland was awash with red. It ran down the cobbled streets, drenched the towers and spires and castle walls. Further still the Ocean and Cod Empires were dry, no water in sight, and as she looked towards the source of the apocalypse the damage only got worse.
Rivendell was swarmed by corrupted vines that pulsed like veins. The Crystal Cliffs was showered with debris from the explosion, chunks of the mountain range raining down on the glittering city. There was almost nothing left of the Grimlands, the explosion having been so devastating that the whole empire had fallen, the ground scorched and mechanics destroyed. Across the continent everywhere else was much the same; fire, brimstone, earthquakes and loss.
And finally all was silent.
In the inbetween, that weird space where Pearl was forced to come to terms with how her world ended, she almost found some semblance of peace. For a while she waited. Thought that maybe some of the others would join her. That maybe she’d turn around one day and see a dramatic blue elf, or a colourful short man, or maybe even her neighbour and best friend. But none of them ever arrived, and so after waiting as long as she could bear she started thinking.
She didn’t quite realise she was building the house until it appeared behind her, sat comfortably amongst the cloudy sky like it had always belonged there. Of all the houses she could have chosen it was perhaps the strangest one, but it was familiar and recent and very much not like the copper and crop fields she had grown fond of. And both homes had been destroyed in somewhat of a dramatic fashion, so it seemed to fit. She stood, not having realised she’d been sat on the edge of the cloud this whole time, and went inside.
Pearl slept for a long, long time.
When she woke up again, her head had cleared a little and her heart didn’t feel quite so weighed down. In the familiar space, she found her way downstairs to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, settling down on the sofa. She was still wearing her dress and sunflower crown, and briefly considered changing into something more casual. But she liked the dress and she didn’t feel quite ready to hang it up yet, so it stayed. The TV in front of her stared, reflecting her own face back at her. It stared, and she stared back.
There was never anything on, so she finished her tea and went about her day.
It was unclear how much time passed there. If Pearl had cared at all she would have kept a calendar or something, but the passage of time wasn’t something she was all too fussed about. And after a while she realised it must not have mattered at all, otherwise she would have been given a clock or something. She passed the time on her own, drawing up plans for new builds, redecorating some of the rooms, occasionally flicking through the TV channels for something interesting. There rarely was.
And she spent a lot of time cleaning up feathers. Because now she had a pair of beautiful white wings. Pearl had no idea when they had appeared, but they were there now so she decided to make the most of it. Besides, gliding down the stairs was a lot more fun than walking.
It was like any other day. Pearl woke up, stretched, and went downstairs to make herself some tea. It could have been years since she had arrived there or she could have only arrived last week. The passage of time didn’t matter enough for her to care. She sat down on the sofa, careful not to spill her tea, and curled up in the cushions. It had been colder recently, so she grabbed a nearby blanket and pulled it over her legs to keep warm. In front of her the TV screen stared. She yawned, rubbed sleep from her eye, and stared back.
Usually when she did this her reflection stared back. They would stare at each other for a long time, or at least until Pearl finished her tea and found the energy to stand up and do something else. However today her reflection only stared for a brief, fleeting moment before the TV flickered on of its own accord. Pearl blinked, surprised, and found herself staring at a small island in the middle of a lake, surrounded by huge towering mountains all around it. On the island was a small pergola, surrounded by various flowers and fauna. As she watched, people began to appear under the pergola’s roof, some stepping out into the sunshine while others remained hidden underneath.
At first she didn’t recognise any of them. A brown-haired girl who seemed to be made of gingerbread stepped out into the garden, followed closely by a tall girl with mushrooms growing from her shoulders. Not long after them a giant fox ducked under the structure, bumping his head against the wooden beams. Following him was a tiny creature with huge eyes and antennae, fanning his green wings excitedly as he was met with the setting sun. A shadow darted to the nearby trees, hiding underneath until night had fallen. The shadow... almost seemed familiar, though Pearl couldn’t quite place why that could be. Perhaps it was something about the voice, or maybe she was simply noticing the white paper crown atop their head and making links where there wasn’t any.
She almost dismissed it all until she finally saw a familiar face. Or, as familiar as he was going to get anyway.
Sausage stepped out from the pergola, shielding his eyes against the bright sunlight and taking in the new world around him with a familiar glee. However he already had elytra attached to his back. From the looks of things they were attached to him, much like her own wings were attached to her.
Confused, Pearl sat forwards and wrapped her hands around the mug of now-cold tea. The world around them looked brand new, and it seemed like the people entering it all had some sort of powers. She watched as Sausage easily took flight, launching himself several feet in the air without rockets before gliding over the mountains beyond. A little while afterwards Katherine - covered head to toe in various flowers and blossoms - made plants grow around her ankles by only touching the ground. Some time before she had seen a small pink raccoon - who she now recognised as the Ocean Queen, somehow achieving a transformation more surprising than her growing gills and fins - scarper up a sheer cliff face without breaking a sweat.
Pearl grinned, watching her friends use their newfound powers to begin building their new homes. Some of them initially struggled to handle their abilities (which was admittedly very fun to watch. Across from Sausage was an Enderling who abused his teleportation powers and nearly died multiple times falling off his own mountain) however soon they found how to properly use their powers and began getting on with their lives. And from her cloud-top home, Pearl watched as they did.
~~~
Sausage died sometime later. He didn’t exactly die in the traditional sense; instead he vanquished the evil in the world (it was Joey, of course) and had the Enderling-turned-Axolotl-Man sing him into heaven. His performance was great, especially as it turned out that he didn’t need water to breathe, and Pearl watched as Sausage rose up in the church he built for her. Because he built a church for her. Sausage had single-handedly ascended her to sainthood, which she would have to thank him for the next time their paths crossed.
As the song came to a close, Pearl set her empty mug down and sat back, watching as the scene changed to a fight happening elsewhere. Just as she was starting to focus again, there was a knock on the door. At first she thought she was hearing things. She was in the sky, so the possibility of her having guests was slim. Still, she heard the knock again and headed to the door, more than a little confused and concerned. She had her sword on hand just in case, but when she swung open the door she was met with a familiar face.
“Pearl!” Sausage greeted, pulling her into a hug.
“Sausage!” She hugged him back, then paused and took a step backwards. “How are you here?”
“Oli sang me into heaven,” he beamed, “So I guess that’s here. It’s lovely, by the way, did you build this?”
“Aw thank you, I did. Also, did you say heaven?”
Sausage nodded. “Yep! And I guess it worked because this place looks pretty heaven-y to me.”
Pearl looked around. “Huh, I guess it does.” She paused. “Do you wanna come inside?”
With that the two of them stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind them.
~~~
Some time had passed before Pearl recieved another visitor. This time it was a man who looked suspiciously like a bee, and instead of knocking like a normal person he simply stood on her front lawn and yelled until she heard him. And still he seemed surprised when she opened the middle part of the door and peered out at him.
“I live in the sky!” she yelled, “How are you here?”
“Well, I just sort of flew here,” he said, awkwardly staring at her, “If you don’t want visitors you can always install some kind of survelliance system, or put up a ‘beware of the dog’ sign or something like that.”
She stood and opened the door normally. “You know heaven seems awfully easy to reach, all things considered. You’re the second visitor I’ve had in-” She stopped. “-well time doesn’t really exist here, but its not been very long.”
“Are you god?” the man asked.
Pearl paused. “Yeah. Why not?”
“Excellent, just who I was looking for.” He straightened his posture. “You see, I lost a dear friend of mine not too long ago, and I’m searching for him. You wouldn’t have happened to see a certain Mythical J. Sausage around here, would you?”
“Oh! You’re Sausage’s friend!”
“You know him too?” Oli asked.
“Yeah, great guy,” Pearl grinned, “He’s just sleeping, if you want to wait?”
Oli nodded and followed her inside, nodding in thanks when she closed the door behind him. However as soon as his eyes landed on the hallway he recoiled in horror.
“What on earth is this?!” he cried.
Pearl followed his gaze to the multitudes of decapitated heads decorating her hallway. They were the result of many battles with Sausage, mostly from friendly sparring matches however a few were from arguments over small things such as the toaster, washing the dishes, or just disagreements over whatever movie they’d been watching. She’d been meaning to clean them up however she hadn’t found the time to yet, and in the intervening time they had simply become another part of the decor. However to a guest, it obviously looked like Sausage and her had killed each other multiple times, which wasn’t a good look.
“Oh it’s fine, don’t worry,” Pearl said casually, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Really, are you sure? Because it looks a lot like you killed my boy! A lot!”
Pearl shrugged. “Only a couple of times. And he’s fine. He’s just sleeping.”
“Like, as in dead-sleeping?”
“No. He’s just sleeping.” Pearl absently kicked one of the heads away and turned back to Oli. She drew her sword. “You can be my new sparring partner if you want? Pass the time until Sausage wakes up?”
“Um. No thanks.” Oli began backing away slowly, reaching for the door handle and running onto the cloudy garden.
Pearl stood on the porch, watching as Oli ran towards the edge of the cloud and stood before the sheer drop. “You sure?”
“Yep, absolutely, very sure.” He glanced over the edge. “I never knew god was so bloodthirsty.”
Pearl just stood by the door, sword in hand, as Oli jumped over the edge and dissappeared into the clouds below. She stood still for a moment, before she heard a loud yawn from behind her.
“Was someone here?” Sausage asked.
“Eh, just Oli.” Pearl put her sword away. “He thought I killed you.”
Sausage laughed. “He jumped over the edge?”
“Yeah.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“I’m sure he’s fine!”
“Probably!”
And with that Pearl closed the door and went on with her day.
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theflippedpages · 2 years
Text
A Claustrophobic Cat. - Part 2/?
In the beginning, Jimmy struggled hard, pushing against the hands of the taller, crying and mewling in pain. But as Scott let his tongue wander his neck, and the blood intake grew, the cat felt more and more tired. “It’ll only hurt if you struggle harder,” Scott warned quietly as he felt the weight of Jimmy’s body now lean into his. “There you go, just relax…” Hissing with satisfaction, he pries his hands away from the cat’s, and instead wraps them around his waist, keeping Jimmy’s body still as he falls further into a state of dreamless sleep.
“Don’t…” Jimmy mumbled, his vision blurring with tears and exhaustion. Scott held onto the blue jacket and titled the cat's head further for better access. "Don't?"
"Don't leave me..." His voice wisped into soft whimpers. "Too cold... Too dark..." Finally, he dropped himself into the arms of his predator, eyes fluttered shut.
The vampire was silent for a moment, pondering the cat's tired words. Wiping off the excess blood, he pulled away from the limp body and set him down on his made bed. Jimmy didn't stir, completely drained of energy, but not quite drained of blood... yet. If I had drunk a bit further, it most likely would've sent the hybrid into a coma. With a heavy sigh, he turned to leave the tree. "Don't leave me... Too cold... Too dark..." Jimmy's words rang in his head, stopping him from walking out the splintered door. He told me to stay with him. Cats don't have too much weather resistance, do they? Not only that, but now that I've broken into his home, there could be other predators that can smell the blood I've cut into. And I'd prefer if my little blood bank didn't die.
He groaned and turned back to the sleeping creature. "Alright, I'll stay, Jim." Snatching the disk from the floor, he slid it back into the jukebox to ease the midnight silence. After tucking the cat in, he sat on the edge of the bed and began to watch over him sleeplessly. "I can't believe I'm doing this..." He rolled his eyes at his own actions. "I'm protecting the cat that I nearly kill every day, what a sight to see." He stared up into the lightless ceiling, numb to the passing time. 
"Pst!-" A whisper pried the vampire from his dark thoughts. "What are you doing here, this early in the morning?" The red eyes met the pitch black eyes of the Half-Wither. The deathly open-eyed skull face watched him from the open doorway, grinning. "You're here before me, and I didn't even tell you my plan!" The inky cape that circled the shadow-like body fluttered in the wind, the rays of the sunrise encasing him in an orange glow.
"Sausage," the vampire named, stretching his back, "what are you doing here?" 
"That's what I'm asking you," The dark creature, Sausage, eyed him with a hint of curiosity glinting in his lightless irises. "Do you have a plan for the feline today? Or did I just interrupt your breakfast?" 
Scott hopped off the bed. "I was feasting earlier... but-" 
"Don't leave me... Too cold... Too dark..." 
"Well, I got a bit carried away, I suppose."
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jinxneedssleep · 2 years
Text
The Afterlife
They called it ‘The Rapture.’ A cataclysmic event that altered the wold as we knew it. Like all things, life eventually began to die. It was something that not even the ‘Titans could avoid. Not the Ocean Queen, not her demigod brother; no one can escape death itself.
Except, it was different this time. Instead of remaining asleep for all eternity, they were called into the void.
The void is the home of all the restless spirits. There you are give a new form; a second chance per se. Only when you die ten times, is your soul finally laid to rest.
Some of the Titans were fortunate. The Guardian of the Overgrown once again able to pick flowers, the Farmer Queen becoming a Saint to reward her service.
Some were forgiven. The troubled Blood King becoming an Angel to worship his friend. The Codfather given the gift of extra protection. The Lost Emperor fulfilling the role of a protector.
Some were hapless. The Gnome was enveloped in corruption, stuck to only wander in the shadows. The pair of twins were torn apart by circumstance, a never ending feud.
Some were bizarre. The mighty Ocean Queen reduced to a small raccoon. Admittedly, still struggling to understand humans, much like her godly counterpart. The Champion of Rivendell becoming a mere moth. A sign from the Fates that it would be better to enjoy the simpler things in life. The Mezelan King was fueled by fire. A stroke to his impending ego.
One was missing. Death’s Prophet; destined to attend to the deceased as he did in life. Instead, he was replaced by four wayward souls. Known to cause hijinks to everything in their paths.
What seemed like a ceaseless cycle eventually came to a close. The void was left vacant, and the souls within ultimately found their way out. The home of their empires was soon occupied by the rulers that would later replace them.
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Note
Made up fic title: sometimes a family is just several chaotic gremlins and an exasperated (mom/dad) friend
I feel like this could be a cute fluffy afterlife fic (of like, everyone on their 1st origins) with Scott being the exasperated dad friend. Except plot twist the exasperated dad friend is also a chaotic gremlin.
Another thought I had would be a phasmogang fic with Scott and Shelby taking turns being the exasperated parent friend. Bc phasmogang gives me like, true found family vibes in that they're a group of friends who are all kinda joined at the hip and show up at each other's houses texting them like "u up?" and will just spend hours and hours hanging out together and affectionately heckling each other
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cynthrey · 2 years
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I feel like we are sleeping on this ship.
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lunarsands · 5 months
Text
ALSMP Fanfic: Mirror Tenfold, Beyond the Wall - Ch 2
Characters: Scott Major, MythicalSausage, Shubble, PearlescentMoon; featuring the return of vampire!Scott but in an alternate way, and actual!angel!Sausage but cursed; with special guests Sparrow and Rusty the Copper Golem
Tags: Canon divergent, AU, crossover between two Afterlife universes, and New Life SMP thrown in for good measure
WARNINGS: Blood, Violence, Injury, consensual blood drinking, PTSD, mentions of death, implied death
Summary: The Mysterious Force that keeps picking people up and depositing them into alternate universes comes for Myth and Smajor this time, and plunks them down near a new set of counterparts -- well, new to Smajor. Myth has met this other version of himself once before, in a place called Sanctuary. At least now there's someone with ten times the number of powers to keep Smajor in check, right?
The vampire returns but he’s not going to want a taste of this type of angel blood.
Follows after the events of Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All - Part Eight of the Soul Liminality Series | Part Four of The Reality Entanglement Series
(Also available on Ao3!)
[ Chapter One ]
---
Chapter Two
Myth wasn’t sure what his opinion was toward the feeling of warm sunlight and a fresh breeze on his wings. He’d had other things on his mind during his time in Sanctuary, but now, as he and Sausage flew over plains and forests in silence, he had the time to think about it.
However, all it did was make him bitter about how it was never going to last. He shouldn’t bother to get used to it, or even enjoy it. Freedom out in the light wasn’t his lot.
Sausage sailed downward to land on a treetop then propel himself back up into a glide with a blast of gravi. He had no visible wings, but his movements belied experience with them. Myth recalled Shubble’s comment about having gotten them back when she first saw the cursed angel – and remembered the superhero saying he had lost them.
Then he thought about how Smajor had stolen his and pinned them to the wall as a trophy… and how he had come along and destroyed them himself with his withering ability.
He wondered if this Sausage had done the same.
He wasn’t going to ask. He remembered what had happened the last time he found common ground with a version of himself – who had also happened to be a gravital at the time.
After Sausage’s next gravi boost, he glanced over at Myth once his glide leveled out. “You told Shubble there were two monsters. In Sanctuary, you only mentioned one. Have you picked up another since then, or did you mean something else?”
“What do you think I meant?”
“I think you meant yourself – and I think you meant yourself back in Sanctuary, too.”
“And what if I did?” Myth challenged, ready to sneer at another litany of possible redemption.
Sausage only shrugged instead. “It’s your business how you think of yourself. Maybe your world’s view of morality is different from mine. So, maybe it’s not my place to judge.”
“Oh? You jumped right on the judging of that ‘villainous version’ of us.”
“I guess you coming in late meant you missed the… sort of psychic memo from the Protector of Sanctuary. That wasn’t just a parallel version of all of us – it was, specifically, a piece of the Protector’s own soul, and it was his call to condemn him. But, I mean, if you want to confess to consuming a demon’s soul and intentionally destroying an entire universe, I can change my opinion of you.”
Myth decided to go back to scanning the ground. The silence that followed felt like an itch. “Maybe stop being nosy and pay attention to our actual mission. … …The only thing I intentionally destroyed was Smajor. It never stuck. The rest was collateral.”
“Ah, so that’s what the other angel meant about revenge. I wondered if it was just some angelic business between the two of you.”
“Maybe you should have asked him more about it.” Myth snapped his lower wings as if to push the topic of the seraph away, then banked to the right underneath Sausage to change his search area.
The superhero needed to execute another bounce to regain altitude, but soon pulled level with Myth again. “Would he have known anything about a portal in the Ancient City?”
Myth muttered, “You’re not going to stop, are you? It’s been a while; I don’t remember being such a blabbermouth…” He then sighed. “It leads into a limbo dimension containing a gigantic labyrinth. That’s where I first met ‘the other angel’, except he was a gravital at the time. Within that dimension he was able to regain the powers of his three previous lives – angel, wither, thunderborn – and that’s how he and his Scott were able to ‘help’—” He said the word through clenched teeth, “—me knock Smajor out long enough for us to find portals back to our own universes. I suppose it’s a good thing the same hadn’t happened to Smajor and I with our previous powers. Smajor was a gravital at the time, and I was a blazeborn, and we had much more than three or four between us.”
“Ohh! So that’s what you two’s comments were about when I got in the middle of your fight!”
“Yeeaahh,” Myth said with exaggerated, feigned-patience.
Sausage then said blithely, “You know, I think you might avoid misunderstandings better by being less grumpy and stating your case right away.”
“Hmm. Who said I wanted that? I just want to be left alone.”
Sausage uttered one note of a chuckle. “I think you’re just like the rest of us whether you want to acknowledge it or not. You’re protecting your world from yourself and Smajor, right? I’d say that does justify your mood, but you’re also doing the right thing.”
Myth was about to remind him about the cursed part of his existence, but his attention was drawn to a figure on top of a tree – not Smajor, but Shubble, who gave a little wave when she spotted him in return. Myth swooped down without comment, yet Sausage caught on and angled his descent to a different tree, then boosted over.
“Bad news, guys,” Shubble announced. “I found him, but he was with Scott – and they were on their way to Scott’s manor. I didn’t try to stop them or anything. At least we know where he is now, but that can’t be good, right?”
Sausage frowned. “Depends on what Scott intends to do with him. He might have just found himself an immortal blood bank.” He sighed with loud disappointment. “Not great for trying to convince him to give up the evil vampire thing.”
“Guess it works out for you,” Shubble said to Myth. “If he’s Scott’s prisoner, then you just need to convince Scott to hand him over. I bet he was just as weirded out to see someone who looked exactly like him! Even if they never met before like you two.”
Myth didn’t look pleased with the news. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” He glanced westward. “We probably won’t be able to get there before sunset – well, I could, assuming it’s located in the same place as in my world.”
Sausage raised an eyebrow and grinned. “What makes you think we’re slow? You know how fast I can move when I want to—”
“Because you want to buy time so she’ll be stronger at night,” Myth called him out, pointing at Shubble. “You haven’t been speedy this entire time we’ve been searching.”
“It takes a lot of energy,” Sausage grumbled. “Can’t be chomping on sugar when I need to be ready to capture someone.”
“Either way,” Shubble interjected, “We can still keep moving. We have to do something no matter when we get there. Besides, maybe someone gloomier and scarier than Scott will finally make him think twice! We can solve each other’s problems!”
Myth replied darkly, “It took an outside force to deal with Smajor when he was a vampire. If that’s what you really want, I can handle it.”
~*~
Smajor peered around at the interior of the manor with blatant bitterness. He walked off uninvited to look around, noting similarities while Scott folded up the umbrella he had used to cross the open space between the forest and his home. The vampire, meanwhile, watched Smajor with some amusement, wondering what he intended to find. He wasn’t sensing any fear like he usually did from guests; however, the thing Scott didn’t know about was the anger from this reminder that roiled beneath the surface of Smajor’s mind.
Scott followed him on silent feet, not saying a word as Smajor glanced through doorways, eventually making his way to the trophy room. There, Smajor stared up at the pair of white-feathered wings pinned to one of the walls. Scott was almost disappointed by the lack of admiration for the rest of his collection, then he heard the other make a disgusted noise.
“I remember during one of my earlier lives I came home – my home looked almost exactly like this – and Myth had trashed the entire place. I never found out if he was trying to see if I was hiding inside or if he did it out of spite. But, somehow, he forgot to wreck the dungeon. Maybe he just didn’t want to relive the memory by going down there. I suppose you have a dungeon, too?” He threw an unexpectedly nonchalant glance at his host.
Scott raised an eyebrow. “No. I’ve always convinced guests to stay by other means.”
“Really? You just collected these and let yours go on his way?” Smajor gestured to the wings. “Oh, sorry, I’m here assuming these belong to your Sausage. Maybe they’re someone else’s. I just figured you and I did some of the same things.”
“No, they’re his. But it’s difficult to keep him locked up for long.”
“What a shame. I kept mine as a renewable blood source for quite a while. Such delicious angel blood… Unfortunately, that also sparked part of our rivalry. The other part was me turning into an angel after losing my vampire life. He hated that. I had no control over it, but he didn’t care about that side of things. Oh, but it was delightful to see him get so mad anytime it came up later.”
Smajor now turned a grin toward Scott, who seemed to be looking at him as if calculating something, although Scott’s expression quickly switched to amusement again. “I can’t say I’ve had that problem. Mine just wants to play at being a superhero, so I happen to be a convenient enemy for him. But enough about them.” Scott also wanted to get away from the subject. There was definitely a fixation going on here, but figuring out how to use that to his own advantage would be a matter for after their other business. “We have our experiment to test out, and the sooner the better. If anyone comes across this Myth of yours, I’ll be the first one they try to enlist to help find you. Sausage and his little team have been trying to get me back on their side, even with the whole evil vampire thing.”
“Tell you what: you help me kill that pesky angel, and I’ll help you deal with the goody-goody hero. I did a fair number on the one gravital version I met before. If he didn’t have fishy version of me helping him, he wouldn’t have made it out alive.”
“Let’s get past the first part of this plan. Don’t get too confident about it working – I might end up just handing over your corpse to them and go about my night.”
“You paint such a rosy picture,” Smajor said with a roll of his eyes. “I look pathetic right now, but I had a perfectly wonderful reign of terror for several lives in a row. Myth just got lucky one time and was able to bring me down only because of that.”
Scott smiled to humor him. “Then come along. I let my guests have a nice, comfortable seat before having a snack.” He led the way out and down the hall to an innocuous-looking sitting room lined with bookcases and that had a currently empty deepslate fireplace to their right. Two high-backed armchairs made of dark oak and crimson cushions were in the middle of the room and faced each other, one with a view toward the far wall and the other toward the door. Matching tables sat within arm’s reach of the chairs. Short candelabras sat upon them, the candles waiting to be lit.
They had spent enough time in the other room that the sun had set, so Scott felt it would be fine to stroll over and tie back the deep red curtains in the other two walls, revealing tall, lead-framed windows. The moonlight fell on the assortment of macabre trinkets across the fireplace’s mantle.
“Ooo, spooky,” Smajor said with sarcastic admiration. “We just need a full moon for the backdrop outside, and the cliché is complete.”
“I guess the revolving door of lives took away the fun of theme elements for you,” Scott replied.
“Well, when you don’t get more than half a second to enjoy them, yes. I stopped making bases for myself, oh… Actually, my vampire one might have been the last, anyway. Life just turned into kill or be killed, and tying myself to a new place would have prevented me from hunting down Myth every time he tried to hide somewhere. I only used my manor house for a while – until, like I said, he destroyed it.”
“Fascinating. Take a seat, you can enjoy the view from this one for a little while.”
Smajor plopped himself down in the chair facing the windows, then said thoughtfully, “Myth became a vampire at one point but was too much of a coward to bite me. Missed out on some nectar-sweet floran blood, but also left himself wide open to be staked. I racked up a nice death count on him with that one. It was kind of fun looking so innocent while covered in flowers but surprising everyone with how dangerous that could really be—”
With no warning, Scott pounced on Smajor and ripped the already ragged collar of his shirt while pushing his head toward the opposite side.
“H-Hey!” Smajor protested. “You could have said something first!”
“I’ve been hungry for an hour,” Scott hissed. “You talk as much as Sausage does. Can we do this quietly?” He didn’t wait for a response, going straight to baring his fangs and sinking them in close to Smajor’s jugular – perhaps causing a small mess, but it would be the quickest way to drain him.
And the best way to distract him so he would quiet down, and then Scott could hear his own thoughts.
Meanwhile, Smajor’s brain was issuing forth conflicting orders on how to react. The time spent in utter defeat at the end of Myth’s blade told him to sit still and not struggle, because escape was impossible and death was inevitable. However, another part was telling him that this was not Myth’s style, and perhaps this time he could get away.
Of course, the feeling of fangs embedded in his skin and the way blood was trickling down his chest warned him against those odds. His body decided to act on its own with a squirm and a gasp when it seemed as if Scott was sinking his fangs deeper; or as if he was drawing the blood out in deeper draughts.
A shaky moan escaped Smajor’s throat as the vampire continued. This might not have been one of his better ideas… But then again, maybe angering an angel-turned-wither hadn’t been the best choice from the start.
Well, at least he wouldn’t be dying to Myth’s hands this time.
When Scott had deemed his double’s heartbeat to have slowed enough, he withdrew, although he kept one hand on Smajor to stop him from falling over. He scraped his fangs across his own forearm to open a short line of red, then grasped Smajor’s hair to tilt his head back. “I guess we’ll see in a few minutes if you become a vampire, or something extra, or nothing at all.”
“Y… You… You keep saying things li… like that. What d… does that mean…?” Smajor asked in a faint voice.
Scott now smirked. “I told you I’m not an ordinary vampire. I have some extra powers. You could end up with those instead. You might become a merling, or a thornling. Or a tiny, little mothling that could easily be crushed. Time to find out, because I think you’re going to simply die from blood loss if you don’t drink up…”
He pressed his wound to Smajor’s mouth, giving the dazed man little option but to start swallowing the vampire’s blood. Scott wasn’t sure if he had even heard everything he had said; or, at least, he had no reaction to it. Scott watched with a critical eye, his expression echoing Smajor’s conniving smile from earlier in the day. “If this doesn’t work, you would still make a great blood bank. Plain-old-human immortal blood is really delicious. And if the immortal part holds up, I can drink as much as I want, anytime.”
~*~
Scott hummed to himself as he looked through his clothes to find something that matched as close as possible to what he was already wearing. He reasoned Smajor had drank enough of his blood that it was possible he could turn, although he had passed out mid-swallow and the rest of the gulp had spilled out of his slack mouth. Scott had decided not to double check to make sure he wasn’t merely dead, and left him to whatever transformation might take place, in the meantime going off to fetch a change of clothes.
If this did work, then Smajor needed something to wear that was more befitting a respectable creature of the night. Scott figured they would be close to the same size. The ragged clothing Smajor had now was poorly fitted, so at most, he might be scrawnier than Scott; some new, vampiric strength might help fill him out.
With a new outfit neatly draped over his arm, Scott returned to the sitting room. A bowed head of white hair greeted him from the other chair, as if Smajor had tried to stand up only to stumble and need to sit again to steady himself. His shoulders were heaving as if with heavy breaths. There was a slight twitch, then he glanced up with piercing red eyes. He appeared ghoulish rather than revitalized, so Scott attempted to get a read on him with his various senses; at the moment he was fairly certain he was seeing only an average vampire.
“Welcome back. It seems that it worked. Congratulations, you’re a blood-sucking terror of the night again. Let’s get you looking even more the part.” He nodded to the clothes on his arm, then placed them on the chair that the other had vacated.
Smajor eyed the offering then nodded as Scott turned to a basin he had brought in earlier and wet a towel so his new cohort could clean the blood off himself. He kept one ear out, wondering if Smajor would betray him now that he had powers. All he heard, however, was the ripping of fabric, and assumed Smajor was getting rid of what remained of his shirt.
As Scott turned to offer the towel, he uttered an involuntary noise upon seeing Smajor’s bare chest and the knotted layers of scars in the vicinity of his heart.
Smajor regarded him mildly, then looked down, knowing exactly what had shocked him. “Oh, this? After a while the regeneration between lives can’t keep up and scars become permanent. Myth had a field day stabbing me several dozen times in a row in the same place. Quickest way to stop a heart, obviously. Before all that, though, I had an opportunity to give him a lovely addition.” He mimed raking claws across the right side of his face and grinned maniacally before snatching the towel from Scott to wipe off the semi-dried blood along his neck.
Scott gave no response to that, but did pluck the towel from Smajor’s hands to help, since mirrors were no longer a viable visual aid. “Sounds like quite the interesting existence you’ve led. What did you plan to do now that you have powers again? New reign of terror when you return home?”
“Hmm. I’ll consider it. I’m not sure what the surface looks like, but maybe after Myth imprisoned me in the bowels of the earth and neither of us were rampaging around anymore, the survivors were able to start to rebuilding.”
“Uh-huh…”
“If you and I deal with Myth once and for all, maybe I’ll go easy on them. I could maybe be a benevolent ruler of the night.” Smajor shrugged. “Depends on my mood at the time.”
“I see. Well, we should start coming up with a plan. If my Sausage hasn’t run into yours and seen how wicked he is, and locked him up for the crime of cruelty, then we should have a strategy to deal with both of them.”
“How about a quick stretch of the ol’ bat wings first? I could use a little more taste of freedom.” Smajor grinned with a tamer expression this time.
“Be my guest.” Scott gestured to the doorway, deciding he wasn’t keen on the idea of Smajor going out via the window. He clasped his hands behind his back and once again prodded at him with his other senses in case anything latently kicked in. So far, so good it seemed, as Smajor strolled ahead. If anything, he had an air about him as if he owned the place.
Well, he could take that attitude back home with him, too, although Scott considered the possibility that, after ‘dealing with’ Myth,  Smajor would suggest they conquer this world together as a pair of terrifying, nigh-identical vampires. He vaguely wondered what would happen when Smajor finally clued in to the powers Scott had mentioned earlier but inattentiveness might have robbed from his memory; it would take more than a measly vampire to go up against the rest of this world’s population.
“Actually,” Smajor said thoughtfully, “Speaking of a plan, I owe Myth for a dirty-handed swap when he was a vampire. Let’s start with that and see how we might keep them off guard…”
~*~
As Myth predicted, the trio wasn’t able to reach the manor until after the sun had set. They each took a direction of approach to try to get a look inside through the windows from a safe distance, but this failed to grant them any immediate clues to what Scott might have done with Smajor. They regrouped within the shelter of the bordering forest.
Myth gazed at the covered porch, the next move very obvious to him. “Is walking up and kicking in the door out of the question?”
“I mean,” Shubble flipped her hand over in the air. “I don’t need a door, and since it is night anyway, I can maintain invisibility even better.” Her form became transparent and she sank into the ground to illustrate her point.
“Just be careful,” Sausage cautioned. “Don’t let him – or either of them, if they are both in there – see you.”
Shubble sighed. “You don’t have to keep warning me. I know. The point is to scout and report back. Keep your cool, and don’t you be the one to come kicking the door in after me.” She then sank fully into the ground, not giving him a chance to reply.
Sausage exhaled loudly through his nose, his lips pressed into a concerned line. Myth rolled his eyes upward. “Are you sure you’re not—”
Sausage cut him off curtly, “What kind of hero would I be if I let my sidekick get hurt?”
“Maybe it will help you feel better about it if you saw her as a teammate and not just a sidekick. Have you two ever been in an actual fight against an enemy together? When I first met that shi—that other angel version of us, he and his Scott worked together as equals rather than be worried about which one of them was weaker.”
“We’ve done training together,” Sausage said defensively.
“Not the same thing.”
“Do mutant zombies and endermen count?”
“No. I’ve seen the type of powerhouse you are. I want to know if you’ve gone toe-to-toe with someone else like you. With all the possible powers and internal influences, the whole lot of you have good and ‘evil’ senses rattling around at the same time. Everything I’ve seen of your world so far looks intact, which means there must be a collective agreement to not level the place. If we had kept things up in Sanctuary, you could have brought the entire town down around us. You obviously can’t bring your Scott down with power alone.”
Sausage sighed. “It’s a stalemate, all right? Not one single person here is more powerful than another, aside from those who have no powers – regular villagers and even animals are the ones who need to be protected from anyone who chooses to go to the evil side like Scott has. Shubble used to work with him when she decided to favor her shadowcrawler and phantom abilities, since those work best in the darkness. But she has more of them that function in daylight, so I coaxed her over to my side.”
“The wither in you wasn’t tempted?”
“Almost.” Sausage gazed skyward. “Early on, when Scott favored his mothling abilities and I was favoring my elytrian ones, we took a long trip through The End to gather unique items to share with anyone who would have had a more difficult time travelling across it. At the time it felt like we were forging a close friendship. Then I started refining my gravital abilities, and for whatever reason, he chose to embrace his vampire side. He became a menace to anyone without powers, so I made it my superhero mission to stop him and try to remind him how fulfilling it was to use our abilities to do good things for others.”
“Hmph,” Myth grunted. “Sounds like this is the in between of my world and that other set of us and Scott that I’ve met.”
“The Protector called him The Seraph, but you’re technically one, too.”
“Technically, I don’t count.”
“You counted to turn the tide. We might have been stuck trying to wear down all those magic spells if that bracer hadn’t been destroyed by you.”
“Don’t try to paint me as some hero. It was just an obstacle to get rid of.”
“You’re really stubborn. But we all are, in our own ways, I think.”
“I’ve died almost thirty times and kept coming back to have to deal with Smajor whether I wanted to or not. Call that stubbornness if you want – or some ridiculous idea of entangled fate. I only finally got the upper hand by reviving as this.”
Sausage was about to ask him to elaborate on that, but then Shubble popped her head out of the ground. “Bad news again, guys: there are now two vampire-Scotts walking around in there. I, uh, couldn’t tell them apart from just a quick glance. They were heading for the front door, so we’ll have to come up with a plan quick if we’re going to confront them here.”
Myth uttered a growl and abruptly launched himself upward into the nearest tree. He came back down with a thin branch in his hands, which he snapped in two. He discarded the piece with the less sharp end, then began to storm toward the manor.
“Oh boy,” Shubble said apprehensively as she emerged the rest of the way from the ground. She stayed put, letting Sausage handle this one.
Sausage boosted himself after Myth with a burst of gravi, then clamped a hand around the cursed angel’s stake-bearing arm with a grip of giant-esque strength. “Hold on a second. You can’t get past Scott with only that.”
“It’s not for him.” The muscles in Myth’s arm tensed up reflexively, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to break the other’s hold.
“You still have to get past him to get at yours. Plus be able to tell them apart.”
“I’ll know. I’ve had to look at those eyes while dying almost every time, remember? They’re seared into my memory.”
A door creaked. The voice of either Scott or Smajor said, “Well, well, well. Looks like we have visitors.” The two vampires moved with identical steps off of the porch to stand side by side before their rivals. They wore identical smirks.
Myth narrowed his eyes at them while Sausage slowly let go of the cursed angel; from what Myth could see, both vampires had a nervous look in their eyes despite the smirking.
Those nervous looks had been directed at him.
He let a smug look of his own slide onto his face. Perhaps Scott hadn’t known what a cursed angel was like in person, regardless of what Smajor had described to him.
“Myth!” Sausage suddenly cried, “I’ve been marked! Don’t know which one did it—”
He was cut off as the swap was activated. The vampire that Sausage now stood beside pounced on him, able to catch him off guard enough due to the translocation to bear him to the ground. The one now next to Myth spun around on one foot with the other raised to deliver a tremendously powerful kick to his gut, knocking him right over and leaving him laying winded.
That gave him a clue toward which one he was dealing with. He remembered a kick with that kind of force from the past—
Unless the rules of this universe meant Smajor also gained ten powers when Scott turned him; Myth could think of no other way Smajor could have suddenly become a vampire. Unless they had somehow pulled off one heck of a ruse with a costume. Of course, that meant Smajor would be taken down in an instant by Sausage if he had no powers, just hair dye and…
Well, the eyes would be another story, wouldn’t they?
Myth still had a hold on the improvised stake, so he shifted to where he could get a stab in with it if the vampire he was facing went for another attack.
Except that vampire was now nowhere in sight. Instead, he saw Sausage still on the ground with his opponent straddling his chest, managing to have pinned the superhero’s arms down with his knees and currently trying to drive a dagger into a gap at the top of his exosuit. Myth started to wonder why Sausage hadn’t already used his giant’s strength to throw his opponent off – then a sudden freezing sensation began to spread over his skin on the arm where he held the stake.
Smajor couldn’t already be this proficient with multiple powers. Myth decided to risk it, and hastily transferred the stake to his other hand. “Hey, hero!” He flung the stake toward Sausage’s near hand. The superhero snapped his arm up with no issue, catching the stake while throwing his opponent off balance. Then he boosted himself up to his feet and swung; the vampire who had been on him darted away. Sausage paused a split second to press his free hand to his neck close to his jaw. He glanced at his palm, then moved in pursuit.
Myth turned his attention back to the mysterious freezing of his arm. It was spreading fast. Going on a hunch, he whipped his other fist around above where the sensation had first taken hold. He flinched as he felt a retaliatory pain to his knuckles even though he thought he had hit solid fabric, not a sharp object.
Under his breath he muttered, “Kangaroo. Snow golem. …Thornling.” He threw a harder punch, flinching again, but it was enough to knock who he hoped was Scott out of sneak mode. As the vampire returned to visibility, reeling slightly from the punch, Myth heaved himself to his feet and lashed out with a kick of his own – it landed against his opponent’s side, staggering the vampire, but Myth flinched again. His boots weren’t enough to absorb the thorns effect.
He had something better to fight with, anyway. He drew his sword, the tarnished blade barely gleaming in the moonlight yet revealing its reddish sheen.
The vampire facing him looked unimpressed, which told him for certain that this wasn’t Smajor, who had come to always cower at the sight of it being drawn. “You should know that won’t do much to me. The stick you had might have worked better.”
“No, I think it will do just fine,” Myth assured.
“We’ll see.”
Myth spread his wings then leapt forward with the sword held ready for a slash. A red haze fell over his vision; Scott turned his back on the cursed angel, then triggered the swap, leaving Myth to begin slashing at thin air – but with a sweep of one middle wing, he adjusted his balance and pivoted, continuing the slash in time to strike Scott across the arm.
The vampire yelped in pain and hopped backward, clutching his torn sleeve. He glanced down at it, lifting his hand partway for long enough to see black ichor oozing out of the wound. “What the hell kind of weapon is that?!” he screeched.
“Exactly,” Myth jeered. Then he growled out, “You’ve got angel blood in you. That’s what it does to the holy. Even when it’s a little muddled by other things.”
They were distracted by a shout from Smajor, who was frantically scrubbing at his eyes while Sausage stood poised with a small empty vial in his hand, clearly having flung the contents into Smajor’s face. Myth was the first to snap his attention back to his opponent and stabbed forward with his sword. Scott dodged then stared hard at Myth; the cursed angel was instantly locked into place, but rather than take advantage and attack, Scott ran toward Smajor.
He grabbed the identical vampire and pulled him into the tree line, ducking out of sight from the other two, which freed Myth to move again.
Smajor continued to rub at his face, but peered at Scott balefully from one eye. “Nice time to slip up with Myth. I could have avoided that holy water.” Then he clenched his teeth. “What did he mean, you have angel blood in you?!”
“I guess you did miss all my hints, but I’m sorry, you seem a little dense – especially if that’s the angel you want to kill! Are you insane?! That’s impossible!”
“I’ve killed him dozens of times! Why should it be so hard now? Also, of course I’m insane. What do you think being killed over a hundred times does to a person?”
The proclamation was so calm that Scott realized Smajor was serious about ending Myth. “What do you even expect me to do against him? You could have told me earlier that he wasn’t a normal angel!”
“I said he was an overpowered seraph with goopy wings. Doesn’t that say enough?”
“Seraphs don’t look like that!” Scott grabbed Smajor by the lapels of his borrowed shirt, then winced as the movement made the wound on his arm sting. “Or have weapons that do this!” He now tugged on his torn sleeve, shoving the wound into Smajor’s face to show him the ichor that had soaked into the fabric.
Smajor ignored it for a moment to glare accusingly into Scott’s eyes. “Well, your superhero seems to be broken. All he’s done is chase me around with a stick – up until throwing holy water in my face, that is. How long has he been carrying that around?”
He then shifted his gaze to the wound. For a second, he seemed to be analyzing it, but then he revealed what he had actually been thinking by sticking out his tongue and licking off some of the ichor. Scott snatched his arm away. Purposely feeding the other man his blood was one thing.
Meanwhile, Smajor’s expression became thoughtful. “Hm. Yeah. There is a distinct note of angel blood in there.”
Scott bristled, but then his attention was pulled aside toward the sound of Shubble’s voice as she yelled, “Don’t worry! I’ll flush them out! I think they went this way!”
He smiled in a way that he hoped Smajor would see as sinister. “Perfect. Say, did you have a Shubble in your world?”
“Might have. Wispy little shadow girl?”
“Yeah. She likes to tag along with Sausage. We can use her against him. I’ll go keep those two distracted while you catch her. Just be sure to go slow, and sneak as much as you can. She has animal senses and might sniff you out.”
“Noted. Are you going to tell me why you have angel blood?”
“I did tell you. I’m not an average vampire. I have a few extra powers. Everyone does, that’s why Shubble doesn’t look the same as a regular shadowcrawler, but also doesn’t look wolfen. Sausage was going easy on you if all he did was chase you. But he’s soft-hearted like that. Now enough talking before she hears us!” Scott then disappeared from Smajor’s sight, although he did see the underbrush move as the other headed back toward open ground.
For the moment Myth and Sausage remained where they had last been standing, tense and waiting for a sign of the vampires being ousted from the forest by Shubble. Myth figured he might as well voice his annoyance. “Holy water? You threw holy water at him? You could flatten him into the ground with one hit! What are you doing?!”
“Keeping him busy,” Sausage replied. “If I did more than just lead him around, he might have called to Scott for help, and Scott might have hit you with something worse to stall you so he could go help him!”
Having gotten a brief sample of being stuck in place with tunnel vision taking hold, Myth realized he had to agree. “All right, fair point. But if that does happen next round, you can still just flatten Smajor, then help me.”
Sausage smiled as he looked over at him, mouth opening to make some predictably blithe comment, but he was interrupted by one of the vampires swooping down from out of nowhere – or rather, from the top of a tree – and slamming into the superhero with fists leading, causing him to cry out in pain and stumble.
This was not a reaction Myth expected from someone with the resilience showed in Sanctuary. The invisibility up until collision made him assume this was Scott, confirmed by a quick glimpse of his torn sleeve, and that meant he might have abilities he could stack to hit hard enough to affect Sausage. Myth only took a single step in their direction, however, unsure what type of opening to look for where he might step in. He also kept half of his attention on alert for Smajor either being chased from hiding by Shubble, or launching his own attack.
He wondered if Smajor would have the guts to even think he stood a chance. Myth glanced along the tree line and smirked as he called out, “Did you think I would fall for the trick of switching places with someone identical to you? Or that seeing you as a vampire again would bring back memories, and make me feel terrified? Go ahead, come on out and see how cursed angel blood tastes!”
Not one twig snapped. Myth was almost disappointed that his relentless rival didn’t snark back at him like usual. He kept listening, but only heard the sounds of Sausage and Scott grappling. Somehow, despite the former’s touted strength, they seemed evenly matched, although the visible puffs of breath Sausage was exhaling and his now slowed movements indicated Scott’s snow golem abilities paired with his vampiric strength at night was keeping the superhero in check.
Scott executed a kangaroo-derived kick to Sausage’s midsection, freeing up his hands while apparently not having much impact; it was likely Sausage had taken such a kick before and kept his core muscles rock-solid during a close quarters fight. But the purpose for Scott’s move was so he could slap his hands against either side of the exosuit plating on Sausage’s right arm.
There was a crackle as it became coated in ice, then the green lights within the vent went dark. Scott made a ducking motion, becoming invisible. Sausage’s eyes darted around, alert for where the attack might come from. He raised his left arm in case he needed to compensate for the right arm with a block. Scott became visible again as he landed a punch squarely on the frozen armor piece – which shattered from the blow.
“Really?!” Sausage squawked. “Do you know how much work it takes to repair that?! Come on, now!” He started to shake the numbness from his hand that had been caused by the extreme cold. A startled cry from within the trees had him jerking his head toward the sound as he recognized it as Shubble. “No!” he yelled. Before Scott could attempt to stop him from going to her aid, Sausage dealt a blow to the vampire that was full of repelling gravi and probably more of his giant’s strength than he had intended, because it sent Scott skidding across the ground. He left a long gouge in the grass along the way until he came to a halt almost at Myth’s feet.
In the next breath there was a clicking sound from Sausage’s exosuit as he rapidly switched polarities to boost in the direction of Shubble’s voice. However, he stopped short and nearly fell on his face as Shubble, looking distinctly taller and more muscular, emerged from the brush with one arm around a flailing Smajor’s torso, holding him off the ground, with her other equally massive hand wrapped over his entire face.
“Oh no,” she said, tone dripping with dramatic sarcasm. “A big, bad vampire tried to sneak up on me! Whatever could I do! And he might try to switch places with someone so that I’d be holding them instead! I couldn’t possibly stop that from happening! …Also, no one ever seems to want to listen when I warn them that they wouldn’t like me when I shulk out.”
Smajor stopped struggling and hung in her grasp. From beneath her hand came the muffled words, “I hate all of you.”
Sausage laughed. “Good job! Well, that’s the missing jailbird recaptured. Now we can sort… this… out…”
He began to turn toward Myth with the offer of a smile, but saw the cursed angel raising his sword above the dazed Scott, who was staggering onto his feet with a hand held to his chest where Sausage’s hit had landed, his head bowed in an attempt to recover. As the blade came down, Sausage zipped forth with incredible speed and pushed Scott out of the way.
Perhaps he had intended to block it with his exosuit. Perhaps he had intended to switch to a different power in defense like in Sanctuary. Either way, he failed, and the blade cut into him as the edge made contact with his arm.
His right arm.
[ Chapter Three ]
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felicityphoenix5 · 2 years
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Send me a number between 1 and 550 and I'll give you a fanfic rec!
So I've kinda become a fanfic dealer in the past week or so? Dunno how that happened but uh. Might as well get some asks out of it!
Fandoms: Hermitcraft, Evo, 3rd and Last Life, Afterlife, 100hrs Hardcore, and Empires
Please note that;
There are no explicit fics on the list
However, there is shipping
200 and up is pretty much just solid Empires fics
I will not reply to comments, DMs or reblogs. Please send an ask, it makes it a bit easier for me to keep track of everything
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funkys-pen · 2 years
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If there was one non-benefit to Sausage’s new origin, it was that his dreams were back.
They weren’t all bad, he supposed. Some of them were pretty nice, some nights he didn’t remember dreaming at all. But when they were bad, they were bad. It was a gamble. 
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daisy-mooon · 2 years
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stuck in coffins - zanda_honest - alSMP [Archive of Our Own]
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