It was oddly quiet in Cloud Tower.
Usually there was footfall and chatter in the halls, the creaking of floorboards, the distant yelling of Zarathrustra in her lectures, bangs and explosions from spells and potions going ary... but there was none of that. Even the plumbing, which whined and whistled throughout the whole school whenever a tap was turned on was more subdued.
Riven knew that something was up when Darcy had told them they were back in their old room. As far as he knew, Griffin had been clear that they were banned from school. Given that he didn't think their appeal had worked, he had to assume that this was some kind of scam or prank that the girls were pulling. As to why he was here, that was known only to Darcy. She had said to come and so he had. Maybe having sex in her old room was a way of giving Griffin the finger?
He was putting on his clothes again, struggling with his belt buckle since his hands were still numb from the cuffs, when he heard hard rain lashing on the window he'd come through a couple of hours earlier. Goddammit, riding back was going to suck. Riven was about to unlatch the window's lock to go out, trousers still not fully done up, to rescue his bike from the rain when he stopped. Alarm bells went off in the back of his head, his muscles tensed and his heart raced as if he was preparing for a fight. Then it clicked; it was the rain. Every part of him was telling him not to go out in it. He ground his teeth as his need to check on his bike battled against the instinct warning him.
Riven chose not to open the window, locking it instead. He might have shortcomings when it came to judging the intentions of others, but when it came to danger, his gut had never steered him wrong.
Slow, heavy footsteps echoed down the deserted hallway. He moved to the door, fingers hovering over the handle, but he didn't open it. Darcy had told him to stay put when he'd been falling asleep and she would be upset if he just went wandering. If there wasn't anything wrong, then he would be pissing her off for nothing. But he was convinced something was wrong. Slowly, he opened the bedroom door just enough that the hinges didn't squeak but he could still peer through the gap.
Padding slowly down the corridor was Knut, Darcy's pet ogre, carrying his mistress in his arms. She looked tired, like she'd been working out the whole time she'd been away. Alarm bells went off in Riven's head; Knut was supposed to stay hidden and avoid any students or faculty to prevent his discovery. Riven didn't know what was going on but he knew it wasn't good. Where the hell was everyone?
He moved away from the door before she could see him and sat on the bed. His eyes scanned the room; his phantoblade was within arms reach on the bedside table but Darcy was a skilled witch so what he was really concerned with was a means of escape if they needed it. The window was no good for whatever reason so that left the door or the secret passageway behind the mirror. Riven deliberately slowed his breathing. He didn't even know why he was worried, which meant that if she asked he wouldn't be able to explain. That would piss her off for sure. But he calmed himself with the knowledge that if there was any danger Darcy was most likely better suited to deal with it than he was.
The sound of Darcy's heels meeting the ground reached his ears as she was set down. Knut lumbered off and Riven realised that she didn't want him to know that the ogre had been out in the open. And if she didn't want him to know then he was going to pretend that he didn't. Quickly, he reached for his phone and pretended to be oblivious.
"Hey," Darcy said as she slipped into the room. She was smiling sweetly and holding her shoulders back to disguise her fatigue. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah. I should be getting back to Red Fountain soon though," he said, standing up. "If I'm gone too long, Codatorta will be on my case about it."
"I'm not sure I'd want to go out in that rain…" Darcy was looking out of the window, an unsettling smile on her face. There was something different about her now. He had sensed that something had changed in her earlier, but while she had thoroughly distracted him then it was hard to miss now. "Maybe you should stay here for a while."
"Darcy?" Riven narrowed his eyes and searched for any clues in her face or demeanour, "what's going on?" Her expression betrayed nothing. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she didn't react.
"Riven, do you care about me?" She asked plaintively, still not making eye contact with him and he repressed the urge to snort in exasperation. Obviously he did, what did she get for making him say it over and over again?
"Of course I do."
"I don't know," she sighed. "It's just that time I walked in on you in your room… he was there and I saw how he was looking at you. You didn't do anything about it and I was just there, completely sidelined. Does he even know that we're together?"
"Wha- Darcy! I- no!"She waved off his protests with a shake of her head. After everything, how could she be so unsure?
"I'm just feeling very vulnerable at the moment. I need to know that you're thinking about me and how I feel."
"I always do, of course. All the time!" He yelled. Riven couldn't fathom what else she wanted from him, she had to know how committed to her he was. He had to make her happy, he knew that if he didn't that she'd cry and yell at him.
"That's not how it looked when you were with Miles…" Her eyes were filled with tears and his heart sank. It had been nothing, nothing at all, Miles had just come to ask him about bike parts when she had burst in. There wasn't any tension between the two of them, really there wasn't, Miles was just like that with everyone. He knew he could freak Riven out and he went out of his way to do it. But Darcy didn't believe that. He reached out to touch her shoulder and she flinched away.
"You know nothing happened, there wasn't anything going on." Darcy had seen the confusion in his head, knew who Miles was, but he hadn't done anything. He would never, especially not when it hurt her.
"I really hope that's true."
"What can I do to make you feel better about this?" He wanted this conversation to stop, he wanted it to end before it became the same argument they'd had over and over again. Riven was so tired of this; he just wanted her to be happy. He wanted to be happy.
"I want you on my side…"
"I am, I just want to know what's going on." He turned to look out the window, grasping at the first thing that could change the subject. "What's going on outside? The rain, it- it's not right."
"Do you promise that you are? On my side I mean." Now she finally relaxed her shoulders and cuddled into his chest as she waited for his answer.
"I promise."
"We cast a spell," Darcy answered, and suddenly she was smiling again. Her face brightened and she stood up straighter, pushing her hair behind her ear so that her face was clear.
"What? You what…?" The dread that had been festering in his gut was suddenly all he could think about. His heart was sinking and he was starting to panic. Were his instincts trying to warn him of Darcy?
"We're summoning an army to serve us." Riven took a step back from her. He was struggling to process what she had just said. "We'll need it to take over Magix."
"'Take over Magix'? Are you crazy? Griffin won't let you…"
"Griffin is no longer in the picture." Darcy turned to him. "You support me, don't you? You just said that you did..."
"Darcy, you can't go back after this. If you do this… you're done. All three of you. If you attack the city...?"
"I thought you were with me, Riven?" She was sounding hurt again. "After all your help and everything we talked about the corruption. How can you not understand? You're in this too."
He was backing away but he didn't even know where to. The strongest urge was to bolt; he thought about his bike outside and the door behind him, but there was an ogre in the hall and Darcy was between him and the window. Besides, as much as he wanted to go, he couldn't just leave her behind.
"I didn't want it like this, what happens to all the people that live in Magix?"
"Riven," she sighed and reached up to touch his face. Her hands were cold on his cheek and he shuddered as she pulled her nails over his skin. Darcy's eyes were wide and filled with confusion and tears. "Why do you have to be so cruel? You said you were on my side. What am I going to tell Icy? I promised her that you'd understand, I don't get why you'd do this to me!"
Her eyes were still tearing up, fear and panic on her face. If she was this worried about her sisters then Riven should be too. If he didn't play his cards right they would both be in trouble; he thought fast. While he couldn't think of any other explanation for what was happening other than what she'd just told him, it was hard to take this seriously. Darcy and her coven pulled stupid shit all the time for no reason other than thhat it amused them - the Miss Magix pageant came to mind. But if she wasn't messing with him… fuck, that was different.
He wanted nothing to do with taking over Magix. They had spoken a lot about what needed to change in the city, on the planet, in the universe, but he hadn't imagined this. What had happened to Griffin? Riven knew how poorly Icy had reacted to their expulsion. Taking over Cloud Tower, summoning an army - he needed to convince Darcy to stop. And she wasn't going to listen to him when she was upset.
"I'm sorry," he said desperately. "I just don't want you to get into trouble, I don't want any of you to get hurt. That's the only reason that I said anything. Darcy, I really am sorry; you need to believe me."
Darcy touched his face, pulses of her magic throbbed where it brushed his cheek. He didn't know if she believed him. He needed her to, because if she was willing to use her power on him then there was no reason her sisters wouldn't and they would take it further.
"Prove you're loyal to me," she said, her eyes glowing a soft purple as her fingers ran over his cheek. "Let me take control of you while I take you to your new room."
Riven swallowed and then nodded his head. What choice did he have? He forced himself to relax and let her probe into his mind. She'd done it many times before so he knew that the process wouldn't hurt, but there was a lot in his head that she hadn't seen before. Darcy had never taken full control before, never got to root through all the things he was ashamed of.
But he had to let her. His vision went and then his hearing and then his sense of touch. It was like being put under anaesthetic. In an instant he lost consciousness.
It felt like only moments after Darcy had bewitched him when he came to, groggy and confused. He was in a dimly lit room, the only light coming from a high positioned window on the left side of the room and two slits in the door opposite. The floor beneath him was cold stone, covered sparsely in straw. Water dripped from the ceiling, creating small puddles in the indents of the floor and making the whole place smell of damp. The only piece of furniture in the room was an old wooden chair with uneven legs. Darcy's twisted sense of humour was all over this.
With difficulty, his body aching, he got to his feet. Standing was harder than it should have been, his sense of balance was fucked from the aftermath of her spell. He hadn't been down here before but Riven could work out that he was in Cloud Tower's dungeons. He wasn't totally sure why Darcy had put him down here. It could be because she was angry with him, it could be that she didn't believe him, it could be to hide him from Icy and Stormy. Hell, it could have been a mixture of all three reasons. Darcy became angry and then remorseful on a whim. At least he still had his boots on; the straw had been here for a while and it had been mouldering in the damp for most of that time.
Almost as soon as he was upright there was a gentle knock on the door and Darcy slipped through, closing it behind her. She was bashful as she clasped her hand behind her back, looking up at him through a curtain of her hair as she took a few tentative steps towards him.
"How long have I been out?" Riven asked, rubbing his face. Things didn't feel quite real again yet, his movements were clumsy and laboured.
"Several hours, sorry." She looked at her shoes as she twisted the toe of one foot against the damp straw. "I didn't want to put you down here but Icy insisted - just for the time being, until the others trust you."
"And how long do you think that will be?" He grumbled.
"I don't know," she said, reaching up and pushing a strand of his hair behind his ear with her gloved hand. Her touch was so tender that it almost made him forget where they were. Did it matter that he was in a dungeon if he was with her? "I want to apologise to you, I want to make it up to you." Before he could say anything she had closed the space between them and was kissing him and her arms were around him.
She gently pushed him back, pushing her tongue into his mouth, until the backs of his calves came into contact with the chair. Obediently, he sat down. He hated this. He hated how, just because she knew that taking charge turned him on, she could just control him. He hadn't wanted anything sexual until she had pushed him down and started to undo his jeans, and now that was all he could think about. He just wanted to please her.
Riven closed his eyes while she freed him from his underwear and ran her tongue from the base to the tip, drooling all over his dick. He had been rock hard since she started moving him, and now she was taking full advantage by taking him as far down her throat as she could. The muscles of her throat rolled over his shaft as she choked violently, yet more spit soaking over his crotch. Her body was trying to force him out but she pushed on regardless. He moaned, his face flushing at how feeble he sounded, and Darcy slowly brought her head back up off his cock with one last obscene retching sound, her tongue tracing circles around the tip. His voice caught in his throat and caused a long, low groan to escape him.
"You like that, huh?" It wasn't Darcy's voice and his eyes snapped open as Brandon took him in his mouth again. Spit was running down his chin and his eyes were watering from the gagging. Riven leapt up, knocking the chair over and backing away. His squad-mate was still kneeling on the ground and he pulled the back of his fingers across his mouth and chin, wiping away the mixture of saliva and precum dripping down.
"What the fuck?!" Riven scrambled to pull his underwear and jeans back up, knocking the chair over as he moved. His belt was caught under the waistband on his boxers and he struggled to cover himself.
"This is what you've been thinking about, though, isn't it?" Brandon said as he got to his feet, still naked as he stretched his neck from side to side. "We fight all the time because you're attracted to me. You shoot glances at me in the locker-room and the showers because you want to fuck me."
"That's a lie!" Riven was balling up his fists, prepared to punch the bastard in front of him if he got any closer to him. What the fuck was going on? None of this was true.
"Ah, yes. You'd rather I'd fuck you."
Riven launched himself at Brandon, smashing his fist into his face and throwing him to the ground. He didn't let it up, kneeling on his chest and punching until he felt bones cracking under his knuckles. As he pulled back, Brandon's face disappeared and he was no longer on top of his teammate, but was preparing to hit Darcy instead.
She whimpered in fear, cowering away from him, tears overflowing from her eyes and mixing with the blood from her nose and mouth. Riven scrambled away, panicked at the sight of her beaten face. One eye was swelling up, making it difficult for her to open it as she stared at him in horror.
"Riven," she sobbed. "Why?"
"Darcy, Darcy I'm so…" He reached out to try and touch her but she flinched, jumping away in fear from his outstretched hand. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was you."
"What do you mean?" She was still crying, huddled in the straw bloodied and bruised. The left side of her face had been broken by his fist in several places, and her nose was gushing blood. Riven had always known he was a scumbag but he didn't realise this was a line he could so easily cross.
"I… I don't know what happened. One second you were you and then the next…" He didn't want to admit what he had seen. He didn't want Darcy to be insecure with him around Brandon too. Coward. He couldn't even bring himself to explain himself because it made him look bad.
"I need you to hold me," she wept and she reached out her hands. Riven gathered her up in his arms to hug her close and stroke her hair. He could smell the blood on her face and feel the tears as she pressed her forehead into his neck.
Riven tried to calm down his heart rate, working on breathing to a count of five. He was no good to her if he was a complete mess, it was all his fault. But as he centred himself he could feel that whoever was in his arms was no longer slight and feminine with long hair and he pulled back in horror to see his own face looking back at him.
His hands snapped back and he retreated quickly, watching as his doppelgänger mirrored his movements until both were pressed against opposite walls. Riven stared at the wet stone beneath him, avoiding eye contact with his double in shame. It was a lot harder to ignore everything he didn't like about himself when he was staring himself in the face.
When he looked back up the thing opposite was no longer his copy. It had morphed into a lumpy, monstrous humanoid, it was his shape but it no longer had his features. Pathetic eyes, red like his Raissuic mother's, stared back at him and instead of a nose and mouth it had many hanging tendrils that twitched as he stared at it and it stared at him. The body was his size and shape, lumpy and lanky in all the wrong places.
"What are you?" He demanded, but the creature only mimicked his gesture without responding. He steeled himself, refusing to let his fear show in his voice. "You're not me. I'm not a monster."
'I am not a monster. I am not a monster'. He repeated the words over and over in his head.
Slowly, Riven edged towards the thing, watching as it matched him step for step.
"You're not real," he whispered. This had to be a trick or a hallucination. He cautiously extended his hand, and then his index finger, gradually getting closer and closer to the finger of the creature mirroring him. They were millimetres apart and his breathing hitched before he pushed further. His finger tip made contact with that of the creature and Riven shuddered in horror. "How can you be real?"
He slumped to the ground, the monster doing the same. He held his head in his hands and desperately willed his eyes to stop watering. Riven needed to pull himself together. What would Codatorta say if he saw him bawling on the floor? Fuck, what would his dad say if he could see him now?
"Okay, arsehole, I have no way of defending myself right now, but I won't panic." Riven said, his voice cracking. "I won't go down so easily, there are many things I don't like about myself but I'm far from being a monster okay. I've said and done lots of things I'm not proud of but that's not all that defines me. If they can ever forgive me, I have a few friends too and they see things in me that are worthwhile."
He looked up from his hands and the creature did the same. He wasn't a good person, in fact he was sure that he was a bad person, but he didn't want to be that way. For so long it had felt inevitable that he would be a scummy guy who did scummy things, but it had become so much worse after Darcy had come into his life. Riven didn't understand her, not how she thought, not how she felt, not how she acted, but he did understand that it was his fault that their relationship had ruined the good things in his life. Saladin had given him a chance, offered him a place at Red Fountain as a way of escaping the cycle of petty theft he was stuck in at home. And here he was, squandering it like the ungrateful arsehole he was. If he got out of here he was going to appreciate how lucky he was much more.
This had to be some sort of trick. His surroundings felt dream-like and he was struggling to see past his tricked senses. Either through Darcy or her sisters or some bizarre aberration of Cloud Tower, his perception was being messed with. He didn't know what was real and what was illusion. Riven looked back up at the monster in front of him and it blurred in and out of view as he stared.
"Hey! Hey kid!" He jumped up as the voice came through from the other side of the door. Their voice was dampened by distance and Riven guessed they were on the other side of the hallway. He moved to look through the upper slat in the door and out into the corridor.
"Hello?" He wasn't sure that he trusted his own senses.
"Good, you're still alive." It was Headmistress Griffin, talking to him from behind another dungeon door. It was hard to see much through the bars on her door and the small slot in his but he was sure that it was her. Or an illusion of her.
"Not sure for how long," he replied, he had no idea what Darcy had planned for him. Or what the other two might want to do with him.
"You need to get out, quickly," she said as if it were that easy to just leave.
"Easier said than done." There was a locked door in the way and halls that could change at the whim of the witches. He looked behind him for his monstrous imitation, but didn't see it anymore. Griffin scoffed from behind the bars in her door.
"What have they been teaching you at Red Fountain? You're a specialist, this is what you've been trained for." Griffin raised her eyebrows at him. "Besides, you've been sneaking in and out of this tower for months now."
"Huh? You knew about that?" Riven had thought he'd been undetected every time he had paid Darcy a visit in her dorm. Why hadn't he ever been stopped?
"Of course I did. Even if I hadn't been able to sense you whenever you opened a window or a door, there is a barrier around the grounds. Those girls have attuned themselves to the tower; they'll know when you pass through the barrier," Griffin said, clutching the bars. "When you go through you will have to move quickly or be caught."
He nodded. This was not to time to wallow or panic, he could do those things later. He needed to be undetected for as long as possible, and his wind-rider was high up on the tower so he would be travelling on foot. And the best case scenario of being invisible until crossing the barrier was not likely. He'd have to run like he was in bootcamp again.
"Okay. My goal is to get back to Red Fountain and warn them." Icy wouldn't have dragged her sisters into anything of this magnitude without a plan so if Darcy had said they planned on taking over Magix then the whole planet was in trouble.
"That is your secondary goal," Griffin corrected, her tone making him snap to attention. "You have to stay alive. You're not a soldier yet so you have to take care of yourself."
Riven gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. He didn't like it but she was right; he might be trained but not well enough to deal with this situation all on his own. Griffin was giving him a mission and he, as a specialist, needed to see it through. Even if it was just to survive.
The first thing to do was get out of his cell. Riven inspected the lock, rubbing the dirt and grime off it to see if he could identify the model. It was sophisticated but not magical, given enough time he would be able to pick it but he didn't have any tools. If he was back on Zenith, carrying around his kit in his back pocket he'd be able to crack this no problem. Sadly he'd been trying to act like a law abiding citizen here, and now that decision had come back to bite him.
"I'm gonna work on the door," he told her and began searching the trash-filled straw heap for anything thin and rigid he could work with.
"Good man."
He sifted through the wet and damp straw. There were bits of garbage throughout, some empty drinks cans, the remains of a destroyed wooden crate, and several old newspapers that were stuck to the ground from all the runoff. Everything he touched was wet and slimy, leaving a film of grime over his fingers. Grimacing, he kicked away at the straw of the deepest part of the pile and heard a light clatter. Riven searched in the dark for the piece of wire that had just rolled across the floor. He wasn't sure what it had come from, possibly a remnant of the destroyed crate, but it was bendable and he was able to use it to feel around in the keyhole.
"They haven't created the lock that can keep me in without magic," he scoffed as he fiddled around pushing on the driver pins until they clicked into place. It took him longer than normal to do it because he was shaking, but when at last he tried the handle the door swung open. He released the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Once he was out, Riven went straight to inspect what was keeping Griffin contained.
"Leave it," she said as he tried to make sense of the strange slab of rock that was placed where a lock would normally be. "It's a very ancient and magical runic lock, your wire won't be able to do anything. I'm working on a spell to crack it but that will take more time than you have. I may have underestimated the power and ambition of those three girls but they know not to risk my skills."
"Okay, but I'll make sure someone comes for you." As he finished speaking, a spine-chilling pattering sound began to creep towards them and Riven looked around to see what was happening. This couldn't be good.
"You need to move, boy," Griffin said sharply. "The scrapers are coming."
He didn't stop to find out what the scrapers were, taking off down the corridor sprinting. Cloud Tower was not a static structure but he could rely on his sense of direction to locate an exit. He kept close to the walls to stay as inconspicuous as possible in the circumstances and moved quickly. His heart was pounding and he felt like he might vomit any minute, but at least he was moving, at least he was doing something.
There was a door in sight, one that he recognised as leading to an external staircase, and he momentarily let his guard down. Riven bolted to the handle and stepped out into the line of sight of a monster.
He froze as he saw it and it saw him. It wasn't like anything he'd ever heard about: it had an insect-like face with long, prehensile tendrils behind sharp mandibles; bowed legs held up its plated torso and its crustacean-like clawed arms. The thing's eyes followed him as he moved and it started to move towards him.
Riven tried the door and discovered that it was locked. With not enough time to pick this one before this creature reached him, he turned his attention to the tall window several meters away instead. He dashed to it and was able to throw the pane open. The critter was faster than him though, and it was behind him before he had a chance to assess the situation outside. Riven could feel in his gut that he wanted nothing to do with this monster, the primal instinct there refused to let him be caught by this thing. Instead, without a second thought, he launched himself out of the window and plummeted down the side of the tower.