Hey!
This story is now one year old! :)
Also...
Long time no see...mwahahaha (that was the Moriarty in me speaking) :)
(...what can I say to earn your forgiveness? :S)
Well, I expected to have more time than usual to write during my long-anticipated summer holiday, and I was proven wrong, as this is the end of August and I only managed to write a poor, lonely chapter in need of positive reviews (:D). I hope you like it :)
Many thanks, as usual, to the favoriters, followers, reviewers and readers (in the hope that these anonymous readers will choose to review/follow/favorite after getting their minds blown by this awesome new chapter xD)
Special thanks to WaitingForLife2Begin (I read your review when I finished writing this chapter, and added your request in post-editing :)), Summerose (Such a nice review! Thank you!), NatalySkyPot (Gracias :)), 33Vi (I know I promised to post a new chapter before the middle of July, and I am sorry to have kept you waiting :( Hopefully I'll manage to be quicker next time! I loved your review, and the nice question at the end!), and JessykLove (Thank you for this review :) this was posted as ASAP-ly as I could!).
Thanks to all again, and enjoy this 20th chapter!
Merlin and Arthur appeared in Gaius' chambers in a soundless whirlwind. The warlock immediately turned to his friend.
"You should not have come."
His remark was met by an unabashed shrug and a fierce, resolute stare. Merlin sighed, but let out a small grin. Arthur still trusted him and wished to stand at his side, even after discovering about his magic, even just after he had summoned a supposedly dead dragon. But it was not the time to rejoice. They had two mad relatives to stop.
"Are you alright?" He whispered.
Arthur rolled his eyes.
"Never been better. Come on, no time to lose. We should head to the throne room."
The two royals silently made their way out of the physician quarters. No one was to be seen. Merlin reached for Arthur's arm.
"Wait. This could be an ambush. I am going to check."
The warlock closed his eyes and reached out for life forms or spells. He was immediately assaulted by black tendrils, and had to fight to remain standing. The oppressing darkness of the possession spell oozed over him, relentlessly tearing at his magic, at his entire being. Merlin immediately pushed them away from him, forming an bright unbreakable bubble-like shield around Arthur and himself. But the foreign spell overpowered his magic sensors and blocked them from detecting any traps. He snapped his eyes open and shivered; never had he felt so magically blinded. This sensation was even worse than that of the magic-suppressing chains. Arthur grasped his shoulder and looked at him in concern.
"I am fine," He breathed out. "But Morgana's magic keeps mine from scouting out. Watch out for anything."
It felt so strange to sneak into your own castle, Arthur couldn't help but reflect. They had been walking for several minutes now, not seeing a soul. Never before had Camelot felt this lifeless.
After tiptoeing through another couple of desert corridors, his manserv-the Prince of Semloh gasped and stopped. Arthur reached for his sword.
"What is it?"
Merlin just whirled around, held out his hands and shot a white light – a stunner, Arthur recalled- toward the other end of the corridor they had just crossed.
A hollow, almost painful-sounding cackle resounded from there, making him cringe. Arthur squinted his eyes at the bright spell which had just emerged from Merlin's outstretched hands. The light suddenly fizzled out of existence in a loud bang, banished by a foreign magic. Smoke invaded the room.
"Look at you, brother. Cowering in your own kingdom. How the mighty have fallen."
An arrow-like green spell shot out from the smoke. In a blur, Arthur felt himself pulled behind Merlin, protected by a warm transparent shield. He could only gap at the wordless spells the warlock shot back at the sorceress, expertly twirling raw magic around his fingers, whilst his body subconsciously adopted a fighting stance.
After banishing another green-tinted spell, he quickly moved his hand. The smoke faded out, revealing the sorceress hiding within.
"Morgana," The most powerful warlock ever to walk Albion whispered dangerously.
"You have brought suffering and despair to the land in your mad quest for power," His whisper escalated into a deep dragon-like shout. "This shall stop, for now and forever."
Merlin let loose of the binds around his own magic, allowing Arthur and the sorceress an insight on his true power. The warlock was standing at the center of a golden storm, his eyes shining as if two stars had graced the Earth with their immortal glow. This bright magic thrummed defensively around Arthur, reminding him of the comforting sensation he always felt in Merlin's presence. His friend rose his elfin hands and steadily held them towards the sorceress. Without a word, Morgana's own magic appeared as well. A slightly duller shade of gold enveloped her, intertwined with the black tendrils Arthur knew to be the core of the possession spell. The sorceress kept her eyes on Merlin, a shadow of a smirk on her lips.
"No one can break this spell, not even the treacherous Emrys," She bit out. "Astrice!"
Three red bolts sped towards Merlin. They faded out long before reaching any of the royals, the sole haze of Merlin's magic completely dissolving the curses. Morgana let out a feral groan, and dark flames suddenly engulfed Merlin. Arthur could only observe, letting out a relieved breath, as they instantly turned into water. It solidified into ice as it flew back at the sorceress, crushing her hastily-raised shield and sending her flying into the stone wall behind her. She crumpled to the ground, and was maintained in unconsciousness by Merlin's sleeping spell.
The warlock closed his eyes and exhaled. His own bright magic rose into the air, reaching out to Morgana's. The clearer gold slowly turned around the black tendrils, securing an ethereal grip over them. With a little movement of his hand, the first tendril was detached from Morgana's magic. It immediately sought out a new source of energy, and lashed out at Merlin's core. He flicked his fingers in a complex motion, forever destroying what had caused the possession of thousands. He severed the other tendrils with the same technique, and seemed completely unfazed by the wild dark magic attacking him. A few seconds later, and the possession spell was only a bad memory.
Immediately, running footsteps could be heard around the castle, the usual frenzy before battle. The clanging of swords being hastily grabbed from the castle's reserve, and the ominous ringing of the warning bells.
Camelot was itself again.
Merlin's eyes shot open, and the heavy thrum of his magic disappeared, along with all the surreal colors surrounding the two magic users. He grinned and let out a small relieved laugh, before stumbling forward. Arthur was by his side in a blink, looking over his friend with concern.
"I am fine, Arthur," Merlin rolled his eyes. Meeting Arthur's unbelieving stare, he hesitantly added. "It's okay, I just used this form of magic for the first time...?" Arthur still did not let his friend stand up. "I swear, sometimes you are worse than Gaius. It's called exhaustion, Arthur. E-X-H...-"
"-Are you sure you will be fine, Merlin?" The King could not help but ask.
"Don't worry, dollophead," His friend went back to their usual banter, much to Arthur's relief. It meant he did feel good enough to behave like his usual, obnoxious self. "I made what I can usually See visible to regular vision, as the possession curse was blocking my magic sight. Thanks to this I was able to visualize the curse and detach it from its source of energy, Morgana," He shrugged. "I just underestimated how much energy holding it for several minutes represented. This can happen even to the great and mighty Emrys, you know."
Arthur smiled, and mock-whacked Merlin on the head.
His friend's sparkling blue eyes flashed gold again, and color returned to his cheeks. Some of this energy seemed to flow into Arthur as well, who felt the bags under his eyes disappear. They both stood up, and turned to the unconscious form of the sorceress.
"Time to finish this."
Gwaine was decidedly having a bad, bad day. First, he woke up feeling as though he had spent the previous night at the pub -which, admittedly, was a sensation he was used to-, but the annoying thing was that he could not recall spending it there. In fact, what he seemed to recall was being possessed by Morgana, of all people.
And what made his day a bad, bad day was that he seemed to remember, in the corner of his mind, that he had helped imprison his best friend and his King, and had attacked someone looking like his best friend during a forced "patrol" in the dungeons.
As soon as Gwaine recalled these rather annoying episodes, he ran to the castle -he had, for some unknown reason, woken up in Camelot's stables, face first in something brown and stinking he would rather not meet again in such closeness-. He was the first to reach the training grounds, and from there to get to the castle's stack of weapons. He hastily grabbed a sword, and was about to leave when the rest of the round table knights arrived. They all took a weapon, looked at each other, and, on a silent agreement, went out different ways to look for potential threats: they had no idea as to what had caused Morgana to release her possession. The rogue sorceress could still be in Camelot.
Gwaine decided to head for the main corridor, between the throne room and the castle's kitchen. It was the one by which he always made a detour to talk with Merlin, before the morning sword training. He was just about to reach it when he heard a swooshing sound. He turned around to see a huge form appearing in the middle of the castle. The knight blinked once, twice, before accepting for a fact that seven people had just materialized into Camelot. The weirdest fact was that the man standing closest to him looked like the one he had attacked in the dungeons – Gwaine could only hope he had not come to avenge himself, he just wasn't in the mood-.
"We are here to help you, knight of Camelot," announced the familiar looking man. "Lead the way." He had a deep voice, unlike Merlin, as well as a slightly different set of cheekbones, and curlier hair, but the physical differences stopped there. Same eye color, same pale complexion. A relative of him, perhaps?
Anyway, Gwaine sensed he was on his side. Morgana did force him to attack this man, so he must have been nice.
"You know, you people did illegally use magic to breach into Camelot's castle. Who are you?" Gwaine couldn't help but ask as he led the small group towards the main corridor.
"I am Sir Lestrade, pleased to meet a fellow knight." Gwaine shook the scruffy-looking man's hand.
"My name is Iseldir, and I am the chieftain of the druid people of the North," Answered a brown-haired man wearing long green robes. "I have come with Alaric and Mary." Gwaine identified Alaric to be the youngest boy of the group. Mary was a blond-haired druidess who smiled in acknowledgment when the knight looked at her. She was holding the hand of a man who introduced himself as Watson, John Watson.
The two other men did not have time to share their identities to Gwaine, as sounds of running footsteps could be heard from the left pathway. The group headed there without a sound. The two unnamed people, Lestrade, John, and Gwaine unsheathed their swords silently; and all ran into –
-the other Camelotian knights. Who shot a look at Gwaine.
"Nice to meet you and all," Elyan told the strangers, "but honestly, Gwaine, where did they come from?"
"Is this King Mycroft of Semloh?," Percival was looking intently at the regal looking man who, if Gwaine remembered well, had not said a word since appearing in the castle.
"And you are... Prince Sherlock?," quickly added Percival at the annoyed look the Merlin-like man shot him. The Prince let out a small satisfied smile at being recognized.
"It is us," Mycroft answered. "We have come to help King Arthur and my brother free Camelot."
This sounded a good enough explanation to the knights, who hastily bowed and continued looking for their King.
Lancelot suddenly frowned.
"Wait on. Your brother?"
And Mary's cameo to thank a new reviewer, WaitingForLife2Begin!
Gwaine did attack Sherlock in the cells (chapter 10, I believe xD). I know, I know, I published the chapter months ago, and I will understand if you can't remember :)
I also know that I keep promising this, but hopefully next chapter will be up in no time!
Keep the reviews flowing in :D
Airin9
(This story will reach its end in a couple (or more) chapters! Who would like a sequel? :))