I don't think anyone was happy about the events of the last chapter... So let's just plow straight ahead into the next one!

Vivi swung desperately at the shield, each impact producing a sharp sound like cracking ice. Mystery's magic, red and black as it tried to crush the necromancer's power, was as different from Vivi's as his current shape was different from his usual canine form. But she couldn't appreciate the transformation. She needed to focus. With both of them working together, Benjamin wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. Even with the necromancer reciting the spell continuously in an increasingly desperate attempt to protect himself, the shield wouldn't last.

But they were out of time. Arthur shouted at them to hurry a moment before because they must be out of time.

A scream rang out before cutting off just as suddenly, Vivi's heart leaping into her throat in response. Arthur.

She swung hard, shouting in desperation and fury. This time, the green shield shattered and Benjamin was knocked off his feet as the bat connected with his stomach. Before Vivi could bring her bat back up, a flash of red, white, and black fur rushed past.

The giant fox pounced on him, numerous tails jerking sharply behind him. Mystery's jaws snapped at him. For a second, Vivi thought that he actually sank his fangs into the necromancer's throat. But the man's screams and cries of terror proved otherwise. And then Mystery yanked his head back, ripping the green amulet free and tossing it away.

An inhuman and echoing wail rang out as Vivi swung her bat down. Icy blue magic met the amulet and shattered the Eye of Osiris into fragments, breaking it physically and ending the spell with the same act.

But even as she stared down at the pieces and even though the despairing cry had faded, Vivi was shaking and blinking back tears. It was over. She broke the spell, so it was over. It was over and everything would be fine now. But why didn't she believe it? Why did she feel like something horrible happened?

Who or what caused the heart-wrenching and unnatural sound?

She didn't hear it anymore. Only Mystery's growls and Benjamin's panicked begging. The man lost a lot of confidence when his amulet broke and a giant fox pinned him to the ground, fangs mere inches from his face. Fangs that Vivi knew were sharp and strong enough to rip a man's arm off. She didn't blame the necromancer for being afraid.

After everything that he'd done, Benjamin deserved to be afraid.

"Don't kill me," begged Benjamin, eyes wide and frightened tears streaming down his face. "Please don't kill me. I'll do anything. Just don't kill me."

"After everything that you've done, I should tear your throat," Mystery growled. "How many innocent souls did you enslave?"

A blur of magenta light streaked past, ripping the prone figure out from under Mystery and bellowing in an echoing voice.

"How could you? How could you? Why?"

Screaming in pain and fear, Benjamin dangled in the grip on a ghost that seemed more fire than substance. One hand clutching his anchor and the other holding the quickly-charring shirt, Lewis glared at the terrified man. Flames danced and swirled around him, no longer confined to his head and nearly concealing his entire body. Hate, rage, and heat rolled off him in waves.

But under the burning anger in his voice was absolute agony.

"Put him down, Lewis," shouted Vivi. "You're burning him."

She needed to get her boyfriend to calm down. The man might deserve the burns from one of his victims, but she couldn't let Lewis do it. He was a kind and gentle soul. Death made his temper a lot more volatile along with all his other emotions, but it didn't change who Lewis was. He would regret hurting the man with his flames eventually.

"Where's Arthur?" Mystery's ears flattened against his head, his voice tinged with worry. "What happened to him, Lewis?"

"He's… he's…" The flames died down as his fingers loosened, dropping Benjamin on the ground. Holding his anchor tighter and curling in on himself, Lewis said dully, "I couldn't stop… I tried…" He floated back a few feet before sinking to the ground as Vivi's stomach followed suit, his voice fading to something fragile and faint. "I… couldn't… stop…"

Shaking her head, Vivi whispered, "No. Please, no. He can't be…"

But even as she spoke, Vivi knew. From the way Lewis' entire body seemed to slump and he clutched his anchor so tightly that she couldn't even see it, she knew exactly what happened. She knew what the necromancer made him do. A sob squeezed her throat, choking her. Vivi knew and she hated it.

You will grab this young man as quickly as possible and drop him off the cliff.

Arthur…

Vivi crossed the short distance almost instantly, collapsing to her knees and wrapping her arms around the grieving ghost. She buried her face in his shoulder, weeping softly. Not Arthur. She nearly lost him before, almost bleeding out when he lost his arm. She didn't find out until the aftermath, at the hospital when the doctors came to explain his condition. She didn't have time for it to sink in until after the fact. She nearly lost her best friend the same night that she lost her boyfriend. And now Arthur was gone. He was gone the same way that she lost Lewis, falling off a cliff. And Benjamin made Lewis perform the act.

How cruel could the world be? Making her watch the people that she cared about most kill each other against their will?

"I'm sorry," said Mystery softly. "I failed you again."

Taking a shaking breath, Vivi raised her head and wiped away some of the tears. Mystery stood there, one paw perched on the necromancer's unconscious body. She wasn't certain if he'd passed out from the burns that Lewis caused, shock and fear, or if Mystery did something. But Mystery remained as still as a statue of a six-tailed fox rather than a living creature, his head bowed with regret.

"It's not your fault," said Vivi, her voice choked with tears.

Shaking his skull slowly, Lewis whispered, "It's not your fault, Mystery. It's—"

"Benjamin," interrupted Vivi firmly. "The necromancer. It's his fault. No one else."

She closed her eyes, fighting against further tears. What were they going to do? What would they tell people? What would they tell Lance Kingsman? Arthur's uncle loved him like a son. Everyone could see it. It would break his heart to hear that Arthur… that he…

"We… we can't leave him… down there," said Lewis, his voice wavering and echoing in a way that sounded strangely empty. "My family didn't… They didn't get…"

Vivi opened her eyes, blinking back further tears. They didn't get closure. No one knew that Lewis died in the cave, so no one could properly mourn. They couldn't bury his body or have a funeral because no one knew that he was gone. His family were left with nothing except questions and uncertainty.

This time, they knew. They didn't have unanswered questions. It wasn't much, but they could give Lance that closure. They could all have that closure. They could bring Arthur home.

His voice still faint and the supernatural flames of his hair guttering weakly, Lewis said, "If you… if you bring the van closer, I'll… I'll go down and…"

Vivi swallowed past the lump in her throat and the ache in her chest. It made sense. Lewis could fly. He could float down and… retrieve Arthur from the bottom of the cliff. But part of her wanted to stop him. He shouldn't see that. She didn't want to see what happened to Arthur.

This didn't feel real. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be happening. She couldn't keep losing them.

But Lewis was already pulling away from her, Mystery taking his place beside her. Long tails curled around her protectively, soft and warm. She never saw Mystery like this before, in his larger form. She'd heard Arthur's description though. Now that Benjamin was no longer a threat, there was nothing left to distract her from his appearance. Any other night and she would have loved to see him in his full supernatural glory. But now…

Mystery nuzzled her gently, a cold nose brushing against her cheek. He used to do the same thing when he was a dog instead of a giant fox. Sniffling weakly, Vivi slowly pushed herself to her feet.

The van. She needed to get the van. And do something about their unconscious, slightly crispy necromancer.


Ignore the sickening dread that floating to the cliff edge caused. Ignore the way his swirling storm of emotions kept threatening to consume him. Embracing his rage and hatred of the necromancer had only served as a very short-lived reprieve from the horrible way that he felt. Ignore the way everything hurt and how every pulse of his anchor seemed to throb sharply through his entire being. Ignore his draining strength, the way his focus seemed to fragment, and that only his tight grip on the locket seemed to be keeping it together.

Ignore it.

Lewis floated down slowly, moving through the fog sluggishly. The cliff wasn't like the one that he fell from, an overhanging ledge over a giant chasm. Nor was the stone a generally smooth surface carved out by human tools and explosives. Rough stone that jutted out at random the whole way down, small gaps where rocks had broken loose and fallen away, and occasionally small ledges barely wide enough to serve as a handhold left the steep surface more chaotic. It would probably be interesting for someone who enjoyed rock-climbing, but Lewis could only stare dully.

One of the rocks stuck out further than the others. And a dark stain made him pause. It took him a few moments to realize that he was staring at blood splashed on the stone.

Arthur hit the rock on the way down. It probably explained why his scream cut off so suddenly.

Why did it feel so hard to breathe? He didn't even need to breathe. And his head seemed to be filled with static.

Lewis kept floating further down. He didn't want to reach the bottom, didn't want to see what he did. But he didn't want to leave Arthur at the bottom of the cliff either, his body battered… broken… dead.

He killed Arthur.

Arthur died.

Lewis murdered him.

That fact twisted and rearranged itself in his head, continuously rewording itself in the static filling his skull. But the truth remained the same no matter how he arranged it. Lewis couldn't escape it. He couldn't deny it. Just like the emotional agony pulsed through him, the knowledge threatened to destroy him.

Maybe it would be better if he just… disappeared…

Light glistened abruptly, his magenta glow reflecting off something in the darkness. Almost against his will, it pulled Lewis' dull gaze.

Partway down the cliff, either half or two-thirds of the way down if he had to guess, was another ledge. No more than a foot or so wide, it was barely enough room for a person to edge along without falling. And as Lewis floated a little closer, he saw another splash of blood on the thin ledge… and the glint of metal… and a dangling shape that he could barely glimpse through the fog…

Hope, tiny and fragile, stabbed through Lewis. In some ways, it almost hurt more than the rest of the emotional turmoil because of how unexpected it was and slipped through like a dagger between the ribs. It couldn't be true. He shouldn't even consider it. And yet Lewis floated a little closer.

Wedged between two rocks on the edge, partially crushed when the figure must have hit the thin ledge and tumbled over the side at just the right angle to get caught, was a familiar metal prosthetic. Dented, scratched, and sparking slightly, the arm wouldn't be operational again anytime soon. But luck let the rocks snag it and the young man attached to the arm.

Dangling limply over the sheer drop, Arthur had certainly looked better. Blood dripped down the side of his head, possibly from hitting one of the jutting rocks above. Further scrapes and scratches ran down his body. His right arm didn't look quite right either. Arthur looked like a man who'd been in a serious car accident… or like he'd fallen off a cliff.

But what made Lewis shake and the pulsing of his anchor stumble from its steady rhythm was the tiny movement of Arthur's chest and the weak and fragile sound of labored breathing.

Breathing.

Arthur was breathing.

Hope combating the more vicious emotions and leaving him feeling worse as the ghost served as their battlefield, Lewis' fingers tightened around his anchor further. It hurt, but he couldn't help the instinctive action. Arthur was breathing. He was battered, broken, bleeding, and dangling precariously over another deadly drop, but Arthur was breathing.

Arthur was alive.

A broken, ragged, and relieved sob tumbled out of Lewis. It hurt. It hurt just like everything else did at the moment. But the pain was worth it because Arthur was alive.

A grinding sound, metal sliding against stone, broke through Lewis' unfocused thoughts. The metal prosthetic might have been lucky enough to wedge between a pair of rocks and stopped the fall, but it wasn't a solid or stable arrangement. He was slipping. He was slipping

Lewis lunged for Arthur as the dented metal arm slid free and he started falling again. Releasing his grip on his anchor, Lewis caught the limp shape in his arms.

He was breathing. It felt weak, unsteady, fragile, and heavily labored, but Arthur was breathing. Lewis could feel his breathing. And, shifting the unconscious figure in his arms to a more stable position, Lewis could feel Arthur's heart beating.

Arthur wasn't dead. Lewis didn't kill him. He wasn't dead.

But he was dying.

Trying to steady himself with an unnecessary breath, Lewis tried to focus. Arthur might be breathing, but he still fell from a cliff and hit rocks on the way down. He was bleeding and could have horrible damage that Lewis couldn't see. A cracked skull. A punctured lung. Internal bleeding. Maybe something worse. He was still in danger and could still die.

Lewis did this. He did this to him.

His anchor throbbed sharply, the constant beat far less steady. And floating back up through the fog took far more effort. Lewis hurt everywhere, the static in his head seemed worse, he felt exhausted, and he couldn't identify the emotions trying to swallow him up anymore. But Arthur needed help. Without help, Arthur might still die. Lewis needed to get him back to the top.

Once he reached level ground again, he saw the van parked near the dying fire. And as Lewis gloated closer, he saw Benjamin slumped against the side of the vehicle with the front of his clothes and his now-exposed chest burned. Mystery, once more a small canine, was still glaring at the unconscious man while Vivi restrained Benjamin with duct tape around his wrists and ankles.

Good.

They both looked up as he drew closer, but he was too tired to react properly. Lewis simply carried Arthur towards the open back doors of the van.

"Lewis?" called Mystery gently. Stepping a little closer and peering at the ghost suspiciously, he asked, "Are you—?"

"He's alive," Lewis interrupted, surprising himself when his voice came out as a wispy and soft whisper. Carefully laying Arthur on the sleeping bag in the back, he said, "He needs a hospital."

Arthur looked so pale and lifeless, his damaged prosthetic still sparking slightly. As if the damage from the fall would finish him off at any moment. And Lewis did this to him. He dropped him from that cliff. He should have found a way to stop it. Even delaying a minute more would have been enough to save Arthur.

Lewis felt vaguely light-headed. Strange since his skull literally floated. And his thoughts seemed to be fragmenting further, slipping between his fingers like the fog around them.

"He's alive?" said Mystery, jumping into the vehicle.

"Wait? What?" Vivi yelped as she scrambled around to see them both better.

Sounds were acting a little funny. Muffled and distant. They could barely get through the static in his skull. And his vision seemed to be going out of focus. His hand resting on the van floor for balance looked blurry now. Wait. Why did he need help with his balance?

And why could he see the van floor through his hand? It wasn't like that before, was it?

Someone was talking, but it was too hard to hear. He couldn't seem to focus. Lewis just felt completely awful and tired and…

Like he might just disappear.

"…ewis…"

Vivi?

"…in…anchor…"

Mystery? What?

Just… leave him alone. Don't want to think. Not about what he'd done.

Hurts… Tired…

White filled his fading vision. Something forced itself right in front of him. Mystery?

"…get in… anchor…"

His anchor? The aching, cracked, and broken thing with an unsteady and uncomfortable beat?

Sluggishly slow, Lewis managed to figure out what he was being told to do. He managed to let go and withdraw into his locket. He plunged down, down, down… His thoughts and emotions grew muted and distant, a merciful relief that he desperately needed. The pain, the guilt, and the overwhelming emotional distress slipped away with the remaining fragments of his consciousness.


Mystery breathed a sigh of relief as Lewis dissolved into a magenta smoke that vanished into his anchor, though Mystery needed to snag the locket gently with his mouth before it could hit the ground. The situation wasn't ideal, but it would keep Lewis' condition from growing any worse and would give them time to deal with the damage later. He could only worry about saving one pup at a time.

He should have expected something like this though. He should have gotten a closer look at Lewis before letting him go down there, especially with how he'd been clutching at his anchor. He should have been prepared for what the fallout of his enslavement and then the traumatic acts would do to the ghost.

But if Lewis didn't go after Arthur, then none of them would have realized that he still lived. Badly hurt, unconscious, and staining the sleeping bag with his blood, but miraculously alive. He needed immediate help and Mystery doubted that he would have survived if Lewis didn't go after him.

Both of his pups were in serious condition, but at least Lewis shouldn't get any worse as long as he rested in his anchor and they could figure things out. Hopefully…

"What happened to him?" asked Vivi, glancing between Arthur and the anchor in Mystery's mouth anxiously.

Considering how badly Arthur looked right now and how Lewis barely seemed aware of his surroundings as he faded to near transparency before they managed to coax him into the locket, Mystery could understand her concern. He shared it. They cut things far closer than he would have preferred. He carefully set the heart-shaped locket in her hands, his ears flattening and his tail drooping at her little gasp of horror.

The deepest crack nearly split the anchor in half, though several similarly deep and wide cracks branched off from the center one. And other tiny thin lines crisscrossed the surface until it barely looked solid. The locket was left far too fragile and delicate by the damage. And rather than a shiny golden shade, his anchor was tarnished to a dull blackish-gray color.

None of this was comforting when you remembered that it was not a mere trinket but was instead his physical connection grounding him to the world and the manifestation of his soul

"Between the damage caused by the stress the necromancer already did by enslaving him and then being forced to nearly kill Arthur in the same manner that he died…" Mystery shook his head tiredly. "Guilt is a damaging force even for those who aren't beings composed of willpower and emotion."

They'd already seen what it did to Arthur after all, the guilt that he carried for actions that he could not control or prevent…

Vivi closed her eyes, gently hugging the anchor to her chest protectively. Her breath shook a little, but she didn't cry. Not yet. As upset as she might be seeing Arthur and Lewis in their current states, they needed her to remain strong.

"Lewis needs time to see if he can recover," said Mystery firmly, "but Arthur needs a hospital. Now. I don't know how badly he is hurt or how much time he has. We need to hurry."

Mystery might have accumulated a lot of knowledge during his long lifespan, but human medicine was not his specialty. He couldn't tell how much damage there might be below the surface. All he knew was that Arthur was unconscious, bleeding, battered enough that he could see the forming bruises already, and his breathing was labored and weak.

Determination hardening her features, Vivi opened her eyes and said, "Fine. Help me drag Benjamin into the van. We're not letting him escape after everything. Then we're breaking some speed limits to the hospital."

While Mystery would have no issue leaving the man there, the spell to compel sleep strong enough to keep him out of it for a few hours, Vivi probably wanted to force the necromancer to face justice. Though true justice would be letting him fall from the same cliff that he ordered Lewis to drop Arthur from. But Mystery would go along with most of her plan. It was a smart course of action.

But…

"I can go with you to the hospital and ensure the necromancer remains asleep until we find one, but I'll have to leave afterwards."

Vivi, already in the act of jumping out of the vehicle to grab the man, froze. Panic briefly flashed across her face.

"I used too much of my power tonight and it'll draw attention," he explained carefully. "Supernatural attention, some of which could be predatory and dangerous. And none of us are in any state to face it. Arthur and Lewis are too vulnerable."

Not to mention that she would certainly notice. Even from half a world away and after centuries, she noticed when he took on his true form to free Arthur from that dark entity. It took her months to reach the site, crossing the ocean and traveling impossible distances, but her petals proved that she was still trying to track him. Only the group's continuous travels helped ensure that she lost the scent again. But she was in the same country somewhere and she would have noticed what he did tonight.

He couldn't let her find him. Or his pups.

"Once you reach the hospital, I'll start leaving false trails to throw off anything dangerous from finding us. And I promise to return as soon as I can, Vivi," he assured.

She gave a slow and hesitant nod. She was a bright young woman and she'd seen enough by now to know that lurked in the darkness. She knew that not all the paranormal and supernatural phenomena that she investigated were safe. And she knew that Lewis and Arthur needed to be kept safe.

Still holding Lewis' anchor protectively with one hand, she grabbed the bound necromancer roughly by his shoulder while Mystery sank his teeth into the man's clothes. And the pair started dragging him into the van.

There wasn't much time for further discussion after all. Arthur may not have much time.

I haven't gotten as much feedback for the later chapters as I did the first few. While disheartening, I do understand that this is a smaller fandom than some of mine and that people aren't checking for updates as much now as they did immediately after the third video was posted. But I hope that you're still enjoying the story. Just one chapter left.