Summary: The gang returns in the third installment of the Worldbender series!
Desperate to save her lost beloved, Zoe drags Eden and Adrien on an adventure across thirteen worlds to gather the missing pieces of Eli's soul with the help of baby super-genius Felix and snarky shapeshifter Dausi.
Meanwhile, a crippled Gabriel, an awakened Emilie, the returned Kelly and Harrison, work together to survive the others, at least until Zoe and her team return to revive Eli. But will they succeed? Probably not. Because Kelly has mind powers and pranks to play
Not to mention the pesky Blackwell witches. While most don't give any fucks, about ten on them are out for blood.
And Zoe has to cope with her past in the face of her father's budding feelings for Emilie, remembering the pain having a mother brought her.
And everyone else just wants to know what the fuck is going on.
Chapter 1: Of Towers of Doom and Zombie Flesh
Zoe jumped into the murky water, "Off to a good start." Adrien looked down at the water,
"Oh…you fell…I would rather not fall…um…" Eden created a platform that Adrien gladly hopped on to, until she destroyed it and he fell into the water with a splash.
"There's a chest over here." Zoe said, running through the swamp, "I can see it with my special eyes." She opened the chest and Adrien grinned,
"Pants!" They were pants made of pure gold, as well as a few swords and a bow with some arrows that Zoe took. He put on the pants.
"Gold? That stuff is weak as shit!" Eden pointed out, Adrien shrugged,
"Admit it. You have always wanted to wear gold pants." Nobody could argue with that.
Zoe laughed a little, "Nothing says fancy like gold pants."
Eden looked around the creepy swamp, "I legitimately worry about our future."
"Me too." Adrien agreed, taking pictures, "Look at all the trees… this looks kinda scary…? Night is coming… we were very ill prepared for this."
"Doesn't matter." Zoe replied, "Theres a huge cloud over everything." She cut a zombie in half like it was nothing, "The zombie dropped some iron! Sweet." She put it in her bag she had enchanted to be like Mary Poppins' bag.
At that moment, Adrien and Eden had been bombarded by skeletons. Neither was as experienced with a sword, so they were just hacking away and hoping not to be shot with arrows.
Adrien was trying to avoid transforming, because Plagg was still suffering from PTSD and needed some more time to recover from what Mara did before jumping back into action. Apparently this wasn't the first time he had been abused, so almost losing Adrien and ending up with another evil wielder had hurt him very deeply and even cheese didn't pull him out of this state.
"Join me on the tree." They heard Zoe say, and saw her on top of one of the trees, and Eden helped Adrien up because he was holding all of the resources like food and drink while Zoe was picking up new things.
They all sat on a branch when Eden shrieked at the man-sized spider staring at them, that Zoe shot in the eye with an arrow.
Adrien pointed forward, "There are torches that way, do you want to go in that direction?"
"Sounds like a plan." Zoe agreed, hopping down from the tree at a height that should have shattered her ankles, but didn't. "Beware of skeletons, as always."
"Of course." Adrien promised, then a skeleton dropped out of the tree right in front of him. He shrieked and sliced the thing in half, while Zoe just laughed,
"What did I just tell you?"
"I'm sorry! A skeleton just came, death from above!"
They all hopped on to a small land mass to eat. Adrien pulled out some dried jerky,
"Want some?" Zoe shrugged,
"It's that or this zombie flesh I have." She held up a lump of rotted flesh, before handing it to him, "Here. Have some zombie flesh."
"NO!" He crinkled his nose in disgust, but he accidentally pushed the backpack into the water below, and then a zombie stole it. He looked at the zombie flesh, before taking it, "How much of this do you have?"
"I've already filled up a gallon bag. That way, since we have enough zombie flesh, we can stay alive, just a little bit longer. Isn't that great?" Eden felt bile rise in her throat at the sickening meat, before taking a reluctant bite. It tasted disgusting, like expired pork.
"Isn't this cannibalism?"
Zoe just shrugged at that, and it did not make them feel better about this at all.
OoOoO
Zoe was up at the top of a tree, after Eden used her powers to create a bridge for them to walk from land mass to land mass.
"Guys! I saw something! I just need to lumberjack my way down this tree. That's what lumberjacks do, right? Climb to the top of trees and cut them down?" Adrien shrugged and she pointed to a tall structure about a mile away, "Look at that! It looks interesting."
"Wow…do you think that's where the piece is?"
"Maybe. Only one way to find out."
Eden looked down, "Oh…look at all the monsters though…" Zoe shrugged,
"I…don't have a plan for that." Adrien just groaned,
"Please plan things before you tell us we need to go die!" Adrien sat on the land mass they were on and put a finger under his chin. "What would Ladybug do?" He brightened, "Okay. So we have three options. Either we bridge to that land mass over there," he pointed to a monster infested island, "We bridge to the tower, but that's a waste of resources. Or we just walk through the water."
"Haha." Eden drawled sarcastically, "That last one is not happening."
"I like the first plan." Zoe responded, "We can't overuse our powers, because that can cause a burnout and exhaust us." That had been a fun discovery. After Heartless banished Mara to the hell spot, she fell unconscious for three days after overusing her power, which drained her immensely. And they were not in a spot where that was a safe option.
They bridged to the island mass, but the force woke Plagg up.
"Hm…? What's going on?"
"Plagg." Adrien sighed, swinging his sword around and being careful not to drop the kwami resting in his hoodie, "Go back to sleep, you need to rest."
"Do you need to transform? All you have to do is say the magic worlds."
Eden and Zoe hadn't brought their Miraculouses, so as to not drain the food supply, and they had their own form to use. Adrien wasn't so lucky.
Adrien sighed, "Plagg, claws out!" Chat Noir was in his place. That was interesting too. At Season 4, it had changed from 'Cat' to 'Chat' officially like in the french dub, because that was the name more commonly used. Personally, Zoe liked that name better, but had been forced into the English dub, but now that issue was resolved.
"Black Storm!" Plagg had taught him of his power ups as well. It was like Cataclysm that functioned like Dragon Flame, from a distance. He also had Black Hole, where he could trap enemies. And the icing on the cake was neither of those two drained Plagg like normal Cataclysm did.
All the monsters crumbled and Adrien changed back so as not to put strain on his kwami, who had already been through enough. Plagg just fell back asleep. According to Tikki, that was just how he coped, by sleeping his troubles away.
"Alright where can we go from here?" Zoe asked, and Eden was assembling a bridge of stone,
"Let's go this way." She hummed to herself, "Building a bridge in the sky…"
"So where are we going exactly?" Adrien asked, giving the sleeping Plagg a piece of gouda to cuddle with.
"Um…big tower of doom?"
They made it to the tower after a few minutes of walking.
"Don't get lost in the woods." Eden groaned, grabbing Adrien as he took another wrong turn, "The stupid, swampy woods."
They climbed up the tower and found themselves in a large chamber with a floating platform above.
"I bet that's it!" Adrien cheered, "Then we can finally get out of these fucking woods!" Zoe winnowed up, opened the chest excitedly and…
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Eden shrieked as hundreds of monsters appeared, "You just unleashed the beast when you opened that!"
"Oh this is bad! This is bad!" Zoe jumped off the ledge and into the water flooding the bottom of the tower. The others followed and they ran out at top speed, their pants weighed down by all the water they absorbed.
"RUN AWAY!"
OoOoO
They set up shelter by barricading themselves into a land mass to create a fort that Eden was keeping lite with a ball of light energy. Fortunately, Zoe had been the one with their sleeping bags.
"Guess what guys."
"What?" Zoe groaned and tore at her short hair, which was in a small braided ponytail.
"The piece wasn't in there. Just some swords."
"SERIOUSLY?!" Adrien threw his hands in the air, "Well so far this trip has throughly sucked! I'm going to sleep now, and if one of you wants to put me out of my misery, that is fine. Good night."
Eden noticed Zoe's mood severely darken and put a hand on her shoulder,
"Hey…he's here somewhere. We just need to keep looking. That's all." Zoe turned to her,
"You really think so?"
"I know so." She giggled, "Now get some sleep. You look like you got into a fight with a raccoon, the raccoon won, and it possessed you. I'll cook this zombie flesh outside the foggy fort. We'll start again in the morning."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
OoOoO
Felix took after both of his adopted parents quite a lot, he had blue eyes, brown hair, and was stubborn as hell. So he refused to be left behind in this adventure to save his Dad.
Grandpas Harrison and Kelly were busy using Kelly's mind powers to make Natalie and Gabriel miserable by planting suggestive thoughts in their heads. So they didn't notice when Felix went to Dausi's room and crossed his arms.
"Dausi, can you take me to Mama? I want to join the adventure!"
Dausi rubbed her eyes, it seemed she had just woken up. "Nope. Too dangerous." But Felix Sommers wouldn't take no for an answer.
"I'll tell Mama about your merman fetish." Dausi's eyes widened and she got dressed,
"Fine! Fine, you little blackmailing child! I have another model of the Gummi ship!"
"Thank you Dausi!" Felix giggled, "You're the best." Dausi gave him the finger,
"If your parents or grandfathers kill me, I'm going to haunt your kitchen cabinets until the day you die!" He cocked his head,
"But you do that already while looking for Girl Scout cookies." Dausi pulled out a huge case of Thin Mints to prove his point and shamelessly ate them all while brushing her hair. She took his hand,
"Come on. Let's go. Gabe is in the CCR and Kelly went down there for some reason, Harrison is bedside with Eli, and Natalie and Gorilla are at the grocery store, so this is the perfect window. Let's go."
They hopped into the Gummi ship and Felix used a pillow as a booster seat so he could actually see.
"Seatbelt buckled?" Felix bucked his seatbelt and Dausi narrowed her eyes, "Do I need to do that shit in Little Einsteins? Because I will throw you into the Lanes Between." Felix just cocked his head in confusion and Dausi sighed in relief.
"Okay then. Death by the hands of Zoe, here I come."
A/N: Chapter 1 is out. Shorter, but they will get much longer, this is just for starters. Next chapter focuses on Kelly and crew.
And remember to review for the author kwami!