The Day Darquesse Left
A/N
I haven't done a serious story in a while, but I got this idea and thought it would make a good one-shot! Not really supposed to be seen as Romantic Valduggery, more of a Friendship Valduggery, but could be taken either way!
Spiderman never fails, slush puppies with extra ice and stinging nettles ~ Lucilia Venom, the organic cooking sauce lover
Darquesse staggered. She couldn't beat him. He was going to kill her if she didn't give it up. A slice of shadow slashed her arm, she yelled out in pain, but kept the smirk on her face. She flew behind a rock when he wasn't looking, checked her arm over. The cut was deep, so deep she could see bone. She healed it as best she could but couldn't get the skin to knit together. After battling for so long, her powers were growing weak. The cut was still there, still bleeding a lot, but she'd fixed the muscle, so it wasn't as bad.
Vile walked over, looked at her silently. Then he took a shadow, sent a shock wave her way. The ground reverberated, and she screamed. He sliced open her stomach, and she screamed again, but even slightly healing the wound caused her excruciating pain. She wasn't going to die today, though. She was Darquesse, and she would live forever.
Before he could send forth another onslaught of shadows, she gave a long piercing screech. Black and red smoke started leaking out of her mouth, her nose, her ears and eyes. When all the smoke was out, it rose in the sky, to create the body of the now forever living Darquesse.
Vile sent a wave of shadows her way, but they went straight through the smoke as though it weren't there. Darquesse smiled, blew Vile a kiss, and drifted away, up to the clouds.
Valkyrie woke up. She was on the floor, soaking wet, with mud all over her face. She tried sit up, but the pain from her stomach and arm was unbearable. She saw Vile and her eyes widened. She knew Vile saw her as a mere annoyance, and would surely kill her.
Gripping her stomach, clenching her teeth against the pain, she stood up. She swayed and staggered from blood loss, but still tried to get away. Vile looked at her with his head cocked, just like Skulduggery. It had been a year since Darquesse got out, and she hadn't spoken to him in all that time. She missed him.
Vile looked like he was going to keep her alive, so Skulduggery must have been in there somewhere. Valkyrie suddenly experienced something she hadn't felt in a long time: hope.
But then Vile stepped forward, readying the shadows at his side. Valkyrie staggered away, but the loss of blood caused her to fall down.
She lay on the floor, helpless, and brought up her last defence: talking.
"Skulduggery, I don't know if you're in there but, it's me. It's Valkyrie. Your partner in crime, your combat accessory. The person who would believe anything you told her, like the 8 armed octopus men." Vile went stiff, as though someone was stopping him from moving. "The girl who stole your hat. The girl who wouldn't speak to you because you adjusted her seat." She saw a tiny flicker in the armour, as someone tried to retract it. "The girl who hated all of your cars, the purple monster, the canary car, all of them but the Bentley. The girl that you always managed to outwit, and the girl who got annoyed about your ego!" An arm of the armour fell off. "The girl who was by your side when we battled Serpine and Vengous. The girl who spent a year trying to save you from the Faceless Ones. The girl you thought was a hallucination." Both arms were off now, along with a leg. "The girl who looked up to you, the girl who learnt from you, the girl who saved the world with you." All of the armour had fallen off but the helmet. "I am that girl, and you are my best friend."
And with that, the helmet clattered onto the floor. Valkyrie ran at the skeleton, enveloping him in a huge hug. She could feel the bones through his shirt, but she didn't care, because they were both who they should be, where they should be. Cain and Pleasant, the crime fighting duo, friends until the end.
"I missed you," she said, tears streaming down her face.
"I missed you too," he said, hugging her harder.