Chapter 48: Clashing Senses

Marius was the first to grab the Simian Witch's fists and swing her towards the pond. She got up and dashed at him. The witch tried to kick and punch him with all her might, but Marius looked unfazed. He succeeded in dodging her and hitting her at weakening points before sending her to fly into a tree.

Dårlig and Feige discreetly whistled as each made a step towards the closest Saturnium to them.

The Simian Witch and Marius both ripped off thick branches and began using them as bo staffs. She tried to impale him with her staff, but he managed to block her. He kicked her in the face, sending her a few feet back.

"Some manners they teach to royal brats!" She spat.

"Nah, I just don't discriminate when it comes to fighting. Any competitor is fair game!" Marius swung his staff at her, but she jumped in the air and plummeted towards the earth, creating a small crater that would have broken Marius bones had he not jumped out of the way.

Dårlig and Feige both picked up a Saturnium and scurried off without being noticed. The Simian Witch jumped in to crush Marius, but he got the upper hand by lifting up only two fingers and scratching where it hurt.

Her scars.

The sorceress screamed and hit Marius with a blast of magic that hit him the stomach. He fell on the ground, hugging his pained ribs while she screamed to cover the bleeding areas of her face. Gladiola rushed to check on Marius.

"His ribs are slightly injured," Gladiola said as she pulled out a bandage and wrapped it over Marius' wounds. Taking the opportunity of the witch being weakened, Feige manipulated her hair and had her locks wrap around the Simian Witch. The Simian Witch groaned from the constricting locks and the bleeding she was going through.

"That was an incredibly fast duel," Dårlig said as he unlocked the chains off Marius' wings.

"I didn't have to," Marius looked at the Simian Witch fighting against the hair with no luck. "Her ego and sense of judgment blinded her of her own unstable condition. By dodging her, I got her to wear out, and the closer she got to me, I just had to hit her where it hurts most." He looked around and found the thickest tree trunk he could spot. With Dårlig's help, they used the chains to strap the Simian Witch onto the trunk once Feige hammered her to it.

"Behave and I'll heal you," Marius chided the sorceress. She was too busy turning her head, gagging, her eyes out of space... Marius wasn't sure what happened.

"You're sure you don't have magical powers, Marius?" Dårlig asked cautiously. "Because with what you just did, hitting her right in the scars, she's going to be in a flashback trance for at least a couple hours."

"Than we camp here," Marius sighed.

Much later

The night fell in the sky. The teenagers were cuddled around a fire, either eating the meat stew that Dårlig cooked after hunting down a deer or searching for clues on how to get back to the main time stream. When he noticed that the Simian Witch had been partially awake and looking rather... shocked, Marius got up and walked up to her with a bowl full of stew. Without waiting for permission, which he assumed he wouldn't receive, he slightly pushed up the Simian Witch's chin and gently forced the stew to slip into her mouth. The sounds the sorceress' throat was making from voluntarily eating weren't satisfying enough.

"You really confuse me, hybrid," she said bitterly.

"Then we're even." Since the bowl was just a rock with a good, hollow hole, Marius threw it and managed to have it land in the pond.

"How's it possible that someone... pathetically unable to perform magic... can force me to have a look into my past?" She muttered.

"How's it possible that despite our obvious differences, we compare in our flaws?" Marius asked in the same tone. "I don't have magic, and you don't have a family to actually be with. You love your husband and son but fail to be there for them, and I love the most dangerous descendant of all times, but I put her in more danger than anyone else. How ironic are our lives?" He looked up at the night sky. The stars shined so brightly in outer space, Marius could have almost detected all the constellations if it weren't for the reality cracks getting wider in the sky. "We messed up big time. Now we'll never see the ones we love ever again."

The Simian Witch blinked. Marius wasn't sure if she was crying until he saw that she was just trying to deal with the healing pain of her scars. "What memory did you go through?" He asked.

"How can you not know? You made me see it again!"

"You think I'm some memory expert like Artemis Nightmare?" Marius looked down at his hands, plain as they always were. "Then again, considering the first and last time I did it, it was a pure accident. I ended up seeing one of Penna's memories by touching one of her Kraken Needles... and yet that never happened when I previously pulled some."

The witch stopped blinking. "How on Earth did you manage to do such an idiotically unsafe thing? I've met witches and wizards who've failed to extract those artifacts from the flesh. Even mere mortals have gotten lethal secondary effects from trying!"

"The flesh softened and I managed to pull some from her back while I kissed her... but the rest were harder to pull because the memory behind each of them was too intense. When I accidentally saw one of her memories, she was crying because Voldemort forced her to kill a girl named Emily Rosefinks..."

"The Slytherin Muggle-born? I know who you speak of." Marius glared at Silvia, who rolled her eyes. "I spent years studying her past. How she was born, how she became evil, how she had to serve her father, how she was secretly Dumbledore's protégée, how she shaped history to where we are now."

"All this time researching on your worst enemy... and you couldn't use it to see how your son grew without knowing that his mother chose revenger over him?"

The Simian Witch tried to speak up, but Marius was faster than her. "Let me ask you. Your plan to change reality just to have your family... is it really how you think it will work or because being raised evil taught you that?"

She paused and bit her lips several time, unable to find an answer. But Marius already had it. The Simian Witch did love her family, but being raised among evil sorcerers and spending most of her life with some, the idea of such atrocities being used for 'the right thing' had mixed up her definition of morality.

"Look," Marius turned to face Silvia. "Martin might not have all the years of his childhood that he can give to you, but nothing can keep you from trying explain your mistakes to him and see how you can be more involved in his life. I mean, he has a lot of friends, he wants to study in archaeology, and he really loves Ruby. Wouldn't him being happy mean more than a life without the real thing?"

She said nothing. But after four minutes of silence, she pulled her arms forward. Her chains glowed red and finally cracked from the magical heat. Marius watched without even raising an eyebrow as she rubbed her wrists.

"Once we have fixed everything, we will never speak again of what just happened," she said sternly.

Much later

The message of a fallen one = a letter from a dead person.

The shadow of a raven falling into a white horizon = send someone into the limbo realm.

Connections are remade = true love's kiss to seal everything.

"I won't lie, guys. I stink at this," Gladiola said as she shut her scrapbook closed.

"What? You got most of it right," Marius said. "'The shadow of a raven' actually refers to Corbeau. Though assuming that the universe wants him in the limbo, I guess he's worst than most people think he is."

"His mother is the daughter of Trigon and his father is an animal shapeshifter," the Simian Witch arched an eyebrow. "Why did I think I could pull the strings on him by having Auradon think he served Voldemort when Voldemort had no idea Corbeau was serving me?"

"Were you going to backstab him?" Feige asked.

"Naturally!" The witch snorted. "Unlike my son, that green-haired freak does not deserve Ruby Kyle!"

"Can we focus?" Gladiola asked. "Sure, we got the second line covered, but what of the first and last one? I don't know what dead guy would give a message and for who? And who needs to get true love's kiss?"

"Maybe Ruby and Martin need to get their first true love's kiss?" Dårlig suggested.

Meanwhile, Impius doodled with his tail on the earth's soil. Marius sighed in exasperation: "Impius, we mean a dead man. Not somebody who fell... Oh, you mean somebody who fell to his death? That's so clichéd!"

"But surprisingly, the imp came with the right conclusion." The Simian Witch grabbed the nearest Saturnium and began turning its keys. "Of all the dead people out there who had involvements with De Mort, there's only one man who should be crazily prepared into having a message in case he dies."

"Who?" Marius asked.

"You'll see." The sorceress turned the last key and the vortex opened up. "Get ready to go back to the end of the 1920s."

After the vortex travel

They landed in a foggy night, making it unable to tell which park they had arrived in. A loud, distant bell alerted that it was one in the morning.

"Are we in London?" Feige asked. The Simian Witch said nothing and merely ushered them to hide in a bush. They waited until something peculiar happened. All the lampposts in the area began to lose their lights, as if the lights had shrunk and run off to join a certain point hidden in the fog. A figure walked out of the fog, and they soon saw that a man was holding a small stick, dragging the lights in to trap them. Once the street was fully dark, he flipped the cap over the stick.

"A Deluminator," Dårlig said. "Penna used to have one."

The man walked into the park, in a rather strange, calm attitude, as if taking a stroll in a foggy night after sucking out the lights was a normal thing. His trimmed beard moved into a smile as he stared at a stone bench held up by stone demons. "Always a few minutes early," he commented. "In discretion, you still need revisions, Penelope."

Something glowed above the bench. Like ink dissolving in water, shadows formed a body and solidified. A young lady stood, dressed in a knee-length coat of black coloring with a pattern of glittering wing membranes, matching boots and tights. Under the black cloche hat with a teal band shaped like a snake swallowing itself, her black hair with teal dyes was tied in a perfect bun held by a fang-themed hairclip.

"Even using a spell bearing the capacities of an invisibility cloak is nothing to keep me off your radar, Professor Dumbledore," past Penna De Mort told the man. Feige and Dårlig covered their mouths to avoid releasing shocked gasps while the others stayed put.

Past Penna made room for Dumbledore to sit next to her on the bench. The man smiled kindly as he did so and pulled out his wand, tipping it on Penna's neck. Marius almost jumped out of his spot, but Gladiola kept him hidden.

"Why hide your injury from me?" Dumbledore asked as he tapped on the thick choker necklace Penna wore. She sighed and took it off, revealing a healing cut that went around her neck. "What was Tom's lesson?"

"Decapitating a Squib. He thought that my method was too rapid, so he taught me a slower method," she said. Dumbledore poked his wand further, but this time a white glow trailed her cut, healing it until the cut vanished, giving Penna her perfect lavender neck. She put her choker back on.

"That should do the trick." Dumbledore put his wand away. "I must admit, I'm amazed that you managed to sneak away from Tom's domain. Your potion worked better than I imagined."

Penna blinked. "You knew?"

"That you created your own potion combining the energy of a Petrificus Totalus and a mirror hit by a basilisk's stare?" Dumbledore smiled. "You still doubt that you were my best pupil yet, Penelope."

"But my paternal is the Dark Lord." Penna looked confused. "He succeeded in turning me evil. Have you not seen what I am now?" She lifted her head so anyone could see her face. She still had the same features as Penna De Mort had in the original timeline, but she looked incredibly worn out and tired.

Dumbledore looked unfazed and straightened himself on the bench. "You used to be in my Defense Against The Dark Arts class. Do you remember your boggart?"

"Yes, it turned into my father. Seeing it turn into the thing that scares me most... I was unable to perform the counter spell. Why?"

"Because when you faced your boggart, I did not see a girl fearing her father," Dumbledore said. "I saw a girl who feared becoming just like her father. Your father used to be one of my students, you know. When you were first sorted in Hogwarts, I felt the presence of the Kraken Needles behind your back and the fact that you did not lose your humanity as much as your father did was what gave me the sign of potential."

"Meaning?"

"Every time a wizard creates a Horcrux, he loses a piece of his humanity and soul. Your father, Penelope, has killed seven people for the sole purpose of immortality and he's got cobra horns sticking out of his head with smoke instead of hair, plus he has no remorse when killing. But you?" He pointed at past Penna. "You've killed 16 people, past the double of your father."

"He made me kill them!" Past Penna protested.

"And yet you still have pieces of your humanity left and it's just your demonic side that kicked in for physical transformation. At each kill, you still have your consciousness reminding you that it was involuntary. Tom is now an emptied nutshell. You still have your layers."

"So I'm not evil?" Past Penna and the hidden ones beneath the bush almost looked relieved.

"Hm, you're more of a neither good nor evil girl, Penelope." Dumbledore shrugged. "But greatness is not a smooth walk on a bridge over creeks, you know?" He pulled out a pocket watch from his jacket. "I'd say you have a good six hours to get ready before your boat leaves."

"But my potion only lasts a year."

"It's good to take some breaks. And don't worry, I'll have the mandrake rain ready before you arrive. Considering it's my specialty, none of them will believe you would have possibly dared petrifying Tom himself. But I highly recommend that you make more quantities of your potion. You'll need to use it frequently on your journey."

Past Penna nodded and the two got up. She flicked her wrist and a dark briefcase with a silver handle appeared in her hands. The young sorceress did nothing when Dumbledore lifted her chin up to place a soft kiss on her forehead.

"Take care, my dear."

"Yes, Professor." The membranes of her coat disappeared and her demonic wings sprung out. Penna ran towards the bridge, flapping their wings until they took off.

"When you get to America, wish hello for Newt or Gellert!" He shouted.

"You really take interest in strange people, Professor!" Past Penna shouted before she finally disappeared in the fog.

"Just the greatest." Dumbledore smiled in amusement. He pulled an envelope out of his jacket and placed it down on the bench. He turned his head towards the bunch and winked at Marius, startling the prince. "Not every answer is what it appears to be, your Highness." Dumbledore walked away, whistling and using his Deluminator to give the lampposts their lights back before teleporting himself away.

The time travelers got out of their hiding spot. "Oh, this guy is good," the Simian Witch said.

"I'll bite. Who the hell is Dumbledore?" Marius asked.

"He was considered one of the best wizards in his time," the Simian Witch said. "He had... some flaws, but he was still good. It did kind of shock me to find out he had connections in dark sorcerers like Voldemort, Gellert Grindelwald, and Penna."

"Penna never said anything about... what just happened to Dumbledore," Feige looked in puzzlement at the directions the past figures took off to while Gladiola picked up the envelope.

"Voldemort didn't even know," the Simian Witch shook her head.

"Uh... guys?" Gladiola held up the envelope that Dumbledore had purposely left on the bench. Their eyes widened when they saw who it was addressed to.

Penelope Svjetla Marvolo Riddle

De Mort Manor, in Malevia Village

Auradon Prep, Auradon

Late 2010s

"I'm speechless, that man is brilliant!" The Simian Witch dropped her jaw.

"He even put a sticky note on the back." Gladiola held up a tiny piece of gray paper. "'Winterfields, I know you messed up time. To fix the last two mistakes, you must go to the original timeline. On the morning with mist just like this and the human bullet ticked the snake.'" Gladiola rolled her eyes. "Yeah, he's no better than Pinkamenus."

"The human bullet ticked the snake?" The Simian Witch scowled. "Penna De Mort is immune to guns!"

Marius sat down on the bench. "The original timeline... on a misty day..." He turned to look at the Bergen and the two Troll girls. "You guys know anything?"

"I got nothing on bad weather." Gladiola shook her head.

"I can list you a lot of misty days on the Isle Of The Lost... but they mostly occur at dawn in the fall," Dårlig shrugged. "It used to be the perfect time for the pythonacondas to go hunting around the edges of the Infinite Forest of Evil..."

The Simian Witch's eyes flickered. "Didn't Ruby shoot a pythonaconda to save one of my husband's monkey ninjas?"

"Oh yeah!" Feige grimaced. "She shot Gummy."

The adult looked dumbfounded at Feige. "Penna De Mort... named a pythonaconda Gummy?"

"Hypocrite much? One of your killer marmosets was a male named Mary." Marius pointed out.

"Nah, she didn't name him, we did!" Feige pulled out a scrapbook out of her hair. She opened it to the first page, which had a picture of Feige and Dårlig, probably pre-teens at the time, hugging a baby pythonaconda in diapers (don't ask). The three gave big smiles, even the snake gave a fang-less smile.

"He was our welcome package when we first started working for Penna." Feige said before sighing in unison with Dårlig: "It was like raising a..."

"MARIUS, LOOK OUT!" Gladiola grabbed Marius with her hair and swung him out of the way, making him land on the bricked road. The other jumped out of the way when some kind of trompo made of gold swung its way and landed on the bench like a dart.

"A spindle?" The Simian Witch noticed the particular shape of the trompo and its rather metallic tip.

"GET OFF ME, YOU FILTHY POSSUM!"

They turned to look at the top of the bridge. Amanda Von Stiltskin was trying to pull Impius off her face as the imp gave her vicious scratches. Marius whistled and Impius stopped, scurried his way back to his master, and perched himself on Marius' shoulders.

"You!" The Simian Witch pointed at Amanda. "You were there, when I and my inmates escaped after Voldemort took over the Raft!"

"That can't be..." Feige looked at Amanda. "You were there when they escaped?"

"So surprised?" Amanda rolled her eyes and held out her hand. The spindle trompo levitated and flew back in her hand. "I don't blame you. Behind every man, there's the villain who created him, and behind that same villain is the devil who corrupted him. You outsmarting Voldemort? Anyone would buy that. But me collaborating with a low man like Corbeau and using the best dark wizards against themselves without them knowing they were strung by teenagers? That must be my best record!"

"Why on earth would you collaborate with Corbeau? What purpose do you have to gain if he succeeds?" Marius demanded.

"Easy." Amanda leaned on a lamppost, her arms crossed and her toothy smile doing a sadistic grin. "I got bored in Auradon. Barely a week or two after all the VKs got released and permitted into Auradon Prep, I was nauseated by their ghastly world of perfection, bright colors, and constant rule-following antics that keep me from bribing people into contracts that lead into chaos! I missed my old fun, but there was no way I'd go back to the Isle. Just to my luck, I met Corbeau Roth Logan when I spent a weekend in Jump City." Amanda chuckled. "How ironic, the son of two antiheroes who managed to suppress their dark sides... and yet gave in to the bloodthirst of his heritage. We found some common goals in our hunger to sport."

"Because that's how you see being evil?" The Simian Witch scowled. "An entertainment?"

"Yep. We set in our stage and manipulated the actors as our pawns, so that we could both get what we want: I want the world the world in chaos, he wants his pet for eternity."

"His pet?" Marius snapped. "That's how Ruby is to him? A mere pet that he can play with?"

"His demonic heritage taught him that humans, especially the powerless ones, are best off as pets. He tried to seduce her, break her heart so that her independent spirit would eventually fade away, and she'd be the obedient pet he wanted. Naturally, Corbeau was pissed when not only did she not break, but she found a better person."

"I don't need to know the rest," Marius said. "You tried to pin it on others for nearly starting a war between villains, heroes, and antiheroes to mask your real intentions. The only reason you helped us during the time travel was because you knew we'd end up with the two copies of the Saturnium and Corbeau would have a chance to steal one of them."

"Boy, you are brilliant!" Amanda applauded. The sound of knives flying in alerted her and she swung her golden spindle trompo really fast, creating a golden shield that blocked the knives. Heck, it even destroyed them.

"Don't let her near the Saturnium!" Dårlig shouted as he kept throwing the knives at a defending Amanda. Feige joined in by cuffing Amanda's wrists with her hair.

"GO!" The Troll shouted.

Marius spread his wings and flew, grabbing the Simian Witch and Gladiola. Impius let out a giddy chirp as they flew into the foggy night.

"Head for Big Bang!" The Simian Witch pointed at the west, where once the fog cleared out and they saw the city below them, they could see the giant clock from before.

Marius found a landing spot. Barely after the three put their feet on the floor, a dark green aura hit them, paralyzing them on the spot.

Corbeau Roth Logan had been waiting for them. He snapped his fingers and the Saturnium floated away from the Simian Witch and into Corbeau's treacherous grey fingers. He wasted no time for discussions and used his magic to quickly turn the keys. The vortex opened and closed once he walked his merry way in. As it disappeared, the paralysis spell dissolved and the group fell on the ground.

"Great! I didn't even see the time he set up!" The Simian Witch growled.

Impius began choking and then spit out something. Marius picked up what turned out to be the last copy of the Saturnium covered in imp saliva. "You sneaky freak!" Marius scratched Impius underneath the chin. He turned to the Simian Witch. "We know when he went... and where."

"The day Ruby and Martin officially met. But how do we know when Corbeau will strike?"

"You're Martin's mother." Marius placed the Saturnium in her hands. "Do your worst."

Yet another vortex

They screamed as the vortex opened in midair and the trio and imp crashed into a pile of rubble.

"I'm getting too old for this." The Simian Witch said as Marius helped her up. He shook his wings to get rid of the dirt.

"I hate time travel," Gladiola groaned in despair.

"Don't tell me we did not land in the time I wanted!" The Simian Witch held up the Saturnium. "I specifically set it on midnight on the day my son met his love! You know, to make sure we get a head start before Corbeau."

"Considering we have no idea when he'll strike." Marius picked up Impius and had him sit on his shoulder.

"No, the stupid hourglass put us in the right time... just not where we should be!" Gladiola hissed as she waved her hand to show the landscape they were surrounded by: an apocalyptic ancient Roman city invested with some snake themes, a few sleeping snakes there and then, and reigned by a giant volcano with a man's face for an entrance.

"This is where De Mort claimed residency on the Isle Of the Lost?" The Simian Witch was somewhat impressed.

"Yep. Far edge of the Infinite Forest of Evil, away from the main population..." Gladiola sniffed the air and groaned in disgust, "and still infested by that hideous odor of volcanic sulfur, snake droppings, and human carcasses. It's your girlfriend's house alright."

Marius was rather stunned by the décor. This was no alternate reality created by a change of the past. This had been part of the present timeline. Just seeing the ruins of an old city buried by lava now serving as the mainland of the sorceress he loved... was rather unnerving.

"I should be able to teleport us..." The Simian Witch prepared to snap her fingers... until Devil Snare vines grew from the ground and coiled around their wrists and ankles. "Was she always this hostile whenever someone stops by her land by accident?"

"Sure, the same way you destroyed half of your domain while fighting her when she snuck in to kill your son," Marius said.

Some of the nearby snakes had woken up and jumped in the air. Like those from the Tri-Relay Race, these snakes transformed into snake-headed warriors, except the main patrol surrounding the intruders were of the venomous kind.

"We mean no harm," Marius spoke to the warriors. "We accidentally landed in her terrain, we know your mistress doesn't like it, so we shall make our way. We are only trying to go to the civilization."

The snake-headed warriors hissed viciously.

"I don't speak Parseltongue, but I don't think they're saying they're saying we can go." The Simian Witch shook her head.