Note: Hey, we're back! No, we did not abandon this story, even though we haven't updated it in over a month. We had some difficulty writing this chapter and communicating all of our ideas how we wanted them and when we wanted them. We also decided to spend a month finishing up a major RWBY fic we had been working on for the past three years, so that's where a lot of our attention went. But now that that's done, we can dedicate our writing back to this story, so expect more updates soon. Last time we left off on a major cliffhanger, so let's see how Rapunzel and Cassandra get themselves out of this one...if they can. Enjoy.
It seemed beyond comprehension. Rapunzel was looking at herself on that table, prone and unmoving. She seemed almost like a corpse, and her mind began racing with all of the bizarre, terrible possibilities. Was she dead? Was this whole world just a strange, distorted afterlife? It almost made sense that she was in heaven with how perfect everything was—but as the world continued to distort, and as the grinning faces of the crowd turned sadistic, and as her headache only grew more intense, she began to wonder if she was really trapped in hell.
Rapunzel's first instinct was to run. She pushed herself away from the table, stumbling backward as her head felt like it would split open. She didn't get far. Eugene, still smiling and charming as ever, reached up and grabbed tightly onto her wrist.
"Oh, you're not leaving, Rapunzel," he stated plainly.
"Let…go of me!" Rapunzel gasped. She tried to pull away from him, but his grip was like a snake bite. She nearly fainted from the pain in her head.
"Sit down, Rapunzel," her father—or the thing posing as him—said gently. He took a steady step toward her, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the guards were slowly moving toward her. She saw her body laying on the trolley, and the sheer terror that overcame her was enough to still her rebellious spirit. The horde of smiling faces never stopped staring at her even as she started fighting back. None of them seemed shocked by her efforts to escape…nor were they threatened.
"Please, Rapunzel," Eugene implored her. "Fighting will only make us enjoy this more."
Rapunzel's eyes went wide. What the hell was that supposed to mean? What on earth were they planning to do to her? She responded by fighting back even more desperately. It didn't matter. Under "Eugene's" grasp, she was powerless.
"You sick son of a…" Cassandra groaned. She tried to stand up but immediately collapsed to her knees. The entire world seemed to pulse, and the only thing she could focus on were the sounds of Rapunzel's struggles. The motivated her to keep moving, keep fighting. She had to protect Rapunzel. She had promised she wouldn't let anything happen to her. She forced herself to rise up to her knees and focus on Eugene's stupid, smug face. He was hurting Rapunzel, and he was enjoying it. Cassandra growled and let out a furious cry. "Don't you touch her!"
Eugene reacted only with a curious glance as Cassandra lunged at him—and with a single punch, she drove her fist directly through his face.
Cassandra froze in shock as Eugene's head caved in beneath her fist like clay. Her fist burst directly through the back of his skull, coated in a sticky pink sludge. She thought for a second it may have been his brains, but she quickly realized that it was something else. Something deeply inhuman. Cassandra gasped and yanked her hand free, staring at her slime-coated hand in horror. Rapunzel couldn't take her eyes off of Eugene's face—that same face that she had loved and kissed reduced to a slimy, rotten crater. Even if that Eugene wasn't her own, the sheer visual of it made her want to puke. She was so terrified that it took her a while to notice that Eugene hadn't let go of her. In fact, he didn't seem to react at all.
He just kept holding onto her hand, refusing to let her leave.
Rapunzel clutched at her head, and before she could check on her, Cassandra fell to her knees. Her entire body was trembling. She saw the legs of the soldiers gradually draw closer.
"Oh, no," Frederic said, shaking his head. "I think the dissonance is getting too much for her to process."
"We can't have you passing out now," Arianna said tenderly. Cassandra's world went black and the voices faded away—but she suddenly felt someone grab her by the hair and hoist her upright. Arianna held her out in front of her, lifting Cassandra off her head despite her scrawny frame. Cassandra didn't have the strength to struggle, leaving her dangling helplessly.
"Cass!" Rapunzel gasped. She tried even harder to pull herself free, but the faceless Eugene kept her restrained. She couldn't help but stare into his broken head, and every second she saw the strange, slimy creature, the pain seemed to increase exponentially. She didn't understand it at all. Dissonance? What were these things posing as her family?
"I think these girls might need to sit down," Arianna suggested.
"Wonderful idea," Frederic nodded. "Guards, bring the chairs and some rope. We should reacquaint our guests with their other selves."
Rapunzel shut her eyes tightly but heard the sound of the guards coming toward her. She had no choice but to fight back. With the last of her strength, she pulled at the fake Eugene as hard as she could. The guards drew closer. The false Eugene's head was pointed directly at her, and even though it didn't exist, she could feel him still smiling at her. God, her head. Her head hurt so much.
"Cass, help!"
Somehow, the desperate cry managed to break through. Cassandra's eyes shot back open, and she gasped for breath. She looked down past her chin toward the false Queen who held her aloft by her throat. Rapunzel was in pain. They were trying to hurt her. She knew she had to do something. Her mind felt like it would explode, but dammit, she couldn't let them hurt her. She made a promise.
She needed to think. Escape. She had to escape.
Think, dammit, think.
Arianna's smug grin permeated her mind, and Cassandra growled in rage.
"What's wrong, Cassandra?" the Queen asked. "Not feeling so well?"
Cass glanced over to Eugene. The bastard was still holding onto Rapunzel, gripping her so tightly that he threatened to snap her wrist. Even without a face, he was somehow conscious. She couldn't kill the fake Queen. Hell, she barely even comprehended what the hell it was. How was she supposed to fight back against something like that? She had no weapon, no plan. It felt like every single one of her muscle fibers would tear off her body.
But she had her strength, and her will… and somehow, that allowed her to raise her arm over her head. "Well…well enough to do this!"
With all of her energy, Cassandra swung downwards—and she chopped Arianna's arm clean off her body. Arianna staggered backward as her arm fell off with a sickening schlick, slapping onto the ground in a pile of pink slime. Cassandra dropped to the floor and hurriedly looked around. The guards seemed shocked, freezing in place, and in that one moment, Cassandra realized that she had her one break. Before the others could react, Cassandra sprinted to Rapunzel's side. The faceless Eugene clone turned toward her just in time for her to kick him square in what was left of his face.
This time, her foot didn't go through. Instead, his head just exploded off his shoulders, flying out into the crowd of Coronans and bouncing like a soccer ball.
Rapunzel was frozen in horror as the fake Eugene finally released his hold over, slumping into a sludgy pile on the floor. Her entire mind became consumed with its image: her husband, the man she loved more than anything in the world, decapitated and reduced into a heap on the floor, spewing out sludge from his neck. It didn't matter that it wasn't the real thing. The pure shock, the smell of it, was enough to cast her into despair and twist her stomach into knots. The world seemed to blur as everything that wasn't Eugene's body turned a cold white.
That lasted maybe one second. Then, Cassandra grabbed her by the wrist and sharply pulled her back to her senses.
"Raps, come on!"
Rapunzel's legs came to life before the rest of her, pushing her into a sprint before she even realized she was moving. When she finally pulled her gaze away from Eugene's body, Cassandra had dragged her ten feet along the back of the dining room, barreling straight toward the guards. They were advancing toward her, swords in hand, a few holding ropes in order to snare them like wild animals. Rapunzel wanted to avoid them, but they didn't really have another choice. There were two exits: the one along the back of the wall past a few armed guards, or the one at the opposite end of the dining hall, guarded by the hundreds of smiling Coronans. Behind them, she heard her father's voice, firm yet frighteningly calm.
"Girls, come back," he said. "We don't want you to miss the feast."
Miss the feast? No, they would very much like to miss the feast, thanks.
Cassandra ducked her head forward as she approached the guards. They raised their arms to catch her, but they weren't anticipating her pure resolve. She ignored their familiar faces, their weapons, and her own pain, and driven solely by her desire to keep her friend safe, she started to swing. She didn't have any plan other than to swing wildly, and luckily for her, that was good enough. Their bodies were like putty, and a single hard hit was enough to send their faces splattering off them. Cassandra didn't care that they looked like the people she used to know—or maybe it was because they looked like her former co-workers that she didn't hold back.
She had to admit: The tiniest part of her always wanted to decapitate Eugene.
Somehow, she managed to break through the guards and speed toward the exit. Rapunzel barely kept up with her, looking back at what was supposed to be a normal dinner. The crowd hadn't dissipated. They didn't even move. They just kept staring at her as if nothing had ever changed. The King helped his wife recover, though she hardly seemed bothered by the fact that her arm was cut off. And Eugene…she couldn't even look at him, or it, whatever it was.
And then there were the bodies. Their bodies. It felt disgusting leaving them behind, though she didn't understand enough about what was happening to know why. Were they really their real bodies? If that was them, what were they? Where were they? Were these imposters really about to eat them, or was it all just another part of this grand illusion, this horrifying nightmare world that she suddenly found herself within? As Cassandra dragged her out of the dining hall, she realized it didn't matter. Right now, they needed to escape. They could figure out the insane details once they were sure they wouldn't be murdered.
The moment they left the dining hall, they both felt their headaches start to go away, and it only got better as they sprinted down the hallway. Rapunzel found the strength to keep up on her own, and no longer needing to drag the Princess behind her, Cassandra was able to pick up the pace. She was also finally able to rip off her shoes and fling them behind her, though being barefoot only slightly alleviated her discomfort. The stiff dress made running fast almost impossible, and she felt it constrict her breathing so much that she was gasping for breath after only a few seconds. But the adrenaline in her veins was enough to keep her moving forward, and her thoughts were clear enough to finally allow her to speak rationally.
"Hurry, Raps! We have to go!"
"Where are we going?" Rapunzel asked, panicked.
"Servant's exit!" Cassandra said quickly. "We have to get out of this castle!"
"No," Rapunzel said, thinking fast. "Go to your room. You have weapons there, right?"
"Maybe? I don't know!" Cassandra cursed. "Dammit, I told you there was something bad about this place! I said we shouldn't trust anyone!"
"You didn't predict they would be cannibals!" Rapunzel cried. "Or made of slime!"
"Oh, sorry for not seeing that one coming!" Cassandra shouted back. "Because it's so predictable that your husband's head would explode into jelly!"
The halls of the castle had always been comforting, but as the pair raced without a destination, they never seemed so claustrophobic, towering in their oppressiveness. Each frantic footstep echoed back behind them, threatening to give away their position to the swarm of imposters that was unquestionably on their trail. Cassandra led the way, making every twist and turn she could to try to confuse their pursuers instead of taking the direct route. She figured the servant's quarters had the easiest exit. If it was anything like the real Corona, it would be the least guarded, too. Then again, why was she comparing it to the real Corona? The real Corona wasn't full of shapeshifting monsters, so what the hell did she know about anything?
Cassandra kept checking behind her. She expected to see swarms of guards chasing after them, just like the giant wasps or the shapeless orbs from the Void. Yet, each time she looked, she saw no one following them. It should have made her feel relieved. Instead, it just filled her with even more dread. They weren't that good at getting rid of them, were they?
Rapunzel tried her best to keep up. The headache may have been going away, but the fatigue lingered. The trauma of seeing Eugene die was buried in her subconscious. His disgusting, slimy body lying in that heap was all that she could think about. It was a miracle she didn't pass out then and there. She tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. That was all she could do now. Keep the nightmares out. Keep the bad memories out. Just keep moving, no matter what.
She took another step—and a hand suddenly burst out of the ground and grabbed onto her ankle. It tripped her and pulled her to the ground, and she screamed in terror as more hands—monstrous, web-like tendrils—erupted out of the ground and grabbed every inch of flesh they could find.
"Cass!"
Cassandra turned around at the sound of her screams and became consumed by fear.
"Rapunzel—" She reached forward, but more hands broke through the smooth floor and grabbed her as well. She seized up and tried to pull free, but the floor shifted beneath her feet and she saw it morph and shift into a writhing sea of slime. The sludge filled in between her bare toes, and to her horror, the hands started to drag the two of them downward, pulling them into the sickening substance. "The hell…get off of me!"
"Ahh! Cass!" Rapunzel sunk into the floor, reaching out for Cassandra's help. She felt herself sinking faster and faster. Her legs were pulled sharply into the heavy slime, then her waist and her chest, and within seconds she was down to her neck. She could barely hold her arm above the surface. It wasn't water. It wasn't anything she was familiar with. It was like the floor itself was alive, slowly consuming her.
Cassandra screamed, desperately reaching out to Rapunzel as she was too consumed by the floor. The hands covered her, dragging her, beckoning her into the ground. She reached out as far as she could—and yet her fingers were still too far to touch Rapunzel's before the Princess completely sank into the beneath the world.
"Raps—"
Cassandra's head was pulled into the sludge, and the entire world went dark. The last thing she heard was something calling out her name.
When Rapunzel opened her eyes, she only saw the dark. Cruel, blistering dark. Her first instinct, helpless as it may have been, was to try to move. It quickly proved fruitless. Her arms were outstretched beside her, and her feet dangled limply in the air, toes wriggling for something to touch beneath her. She couldn't see a thing, but she felt a touch all around her, gross and wet, clinging onto her like tiny hands caressing her from all sides. Something squeezed her on the back of her neck. She couldn't even swivel her head to see it. Her binds were far too tight.
What…what the hell had happened to her?
"Oh, good. You're finally waking up."
She would recognize that voice anywhere.
"Cassandra?" she asked weakly.
A dark laugh emanated from the blackness. Rapunzel blinked, and suddenly, the room was full. Her alien surroundings became all too familiar. She was back at the dining hall, caught within the gaze of the moonlight through the open windows. But was it still the dining hall? That was impossible. The room looked nothing like the room she was in just a moment ago. All of the lights had been stripped out, casting every wall in heavy shadow. The flowers, the table, the fancy décor—all of it had been stripped away and replaced with what could only be described as webby, meaty tendrils lining every surface. The entire room was pulsing and dripping, and she was hit with a rotten, diseased stench from all directions. However, she soon realized that it was indeed the dining room, just abandoned, and she was stuck directly in its center. She could finally see her binds: long, thin strips of tendons that clung to her skin and spread out throughout the cavernous hall like webbing. Rapunzel didn't understand the dimensions of it at all. She was just pulled through the floor, wasn't she? How could she possibly end up back here?
"Don't try to think about it too hard, Raps. You might break."
She heard footsteps echoing on the floor behind her, but when Cassandra sauntered confidently into view, Rapunzel almost didn't recognize her. Her dress was gone, replaced with the sleek black outfit that she used to wear when she was the Conqueror of Corona. A long, sleek sword of black rock rested along her spine. Rapunzel didn't fully understand until Cassandra turned to look at her, and she gasped when realized that Cass's eyes were replaced with two empty, pitch-black pits.
"Y-You're not Cassandra," Rapunzel said, her frightened features contorting into a scowl.
"How astute, Raps," Cass said snidely, mockingly checking her fingernails. "You always were the smart one." The imitation was spot on, so much so that Rapunzel actually felt a pit widen in her stomach. Her tone, her mannerisms, her look—they were all almost perfectly Cass and yet…there was just something missing there, untouchable and vague.
"Who are you, what do you want, and what have you done with Cass?" Rapunzel asked forcefully. She tried to sound intimidating, but the imposter merely brushed her off. After all, what harm could she possibly do? She was tied up like a present, and the false Cassandra was acting like it was Christmas morning.
"Calm down. Jeez, there's no reason to get so feisty," Cassandra sighed. "I mean, I gave you everything you ever wanted, right? Honestly, you should be thankful, Raps."
Rapunzel sneered. "You don't get to call me that." Cassandra tilted her head, but simply smiled and approached the captive Princess. When she got close, she extended out her hand and gently caressed her cheek. Rapunzel squirmed and struggled against her restraints to no avail.
"Aww. You miss your friend. Don't worry," Cassandra said condescendingly. "I can be a perfect replacement for her. Maybe you constantly get in fights with me."
Rapunzel froze in shock. How did she—
"Oh, Raps," Cassandra cooed, patting her on the cheek a little too hard. "I know everything about you. Everything you've ever done, especially in here."
Rapunzel tried to control her shock. She knew she had to stay calm. Whatever situation she was in, she knew she could get out of it. She had gotten out of worse. Surely, she had gotten out of worse, right? She had been held captive within an evil alternate universe version of Corona before. This wasn't even that original. She could handle this. She had to keep telling herself that. She could handle this. She had nothing to worry about.
And yet, that cocky grin on the Cassandra imposter's face only grew and grew, as if feasting on her uncertainties.
"Sorry about the dinner, by the way," Cass said, taking a step back and calmly pacing away from her. "Plucking so many people from your mind at once seems to have been overkill. I'm not really used to generating that. Hopefully, we'll get better results now that I've toned things down a little."
"What are you talking about?" Rapunzel asked. "Who are you?"
"Who am I? There is no I, at least not how you'd understand it," Cassandra stated. "This form you're speaking to is just the vessel to carry our voice. We are the chairs you sit in and the sky you sleep beneath. We are what you referred to as…well, we believe you called it The Void."
Rapunzel stuttered. The Void? Again? "You're the Void? H-How can you be the Void? The Void is a place, and you're—"
"Incredibly handsome?" Cassandra laughed. "See, that's what's so fascinating about you flesh beings. You're understanding of lifeforms is so…restrictive. It's astonishing how you cannot comprehend any form of existence that does not resemble yourself."
Rapunzel tried her best to follow. A few years of wizards and time travel helped to make things easier, but she still struggled to understand just what insanity she found herself trapped in. "So, you're saying that you—all of this and that empty place we were in before—that's all alive? And you're just a part of that?"
"That's my girl," Cassandra stated. "How to best describe this? You are all what we would describe as physical organisms. You live in a material world, bound by laws that extend themselves throughout a spacetime continuum. Your bodies are products of matter and energy, and everything within you are mere products of physical and chemical interactions. We, on the other hand, are what is beyond spacetime, though beyond is a useless word in this context. You could think of us a metaphysical superorganism, a living dimension in and of itself." She paused and rolled her eyes. "God, I sound like such a nerd saying all of that. Spacetime this and quantum physics that. Who gives a shit, am I right?"
Rapunzel looked at Cassandra suspiciously. It was like she had to snap back into character. The entire façade was deeply unsettling, but her fear for Cassandra's true whereabouts overpowered everything else. If the entire castle, or hell, the entire world was alive, she could be anywhere experiencing the exact same kind of torment. There was so much she didn't understand about what was happening, but somehow, one of the many questions simmering in her mind managed to float its way up to the top and escape her lips.
"Why Cassandra?"
The false warrior seemed amused by the question. She gestured to herself, enjoying the confusion on Rapunzel's face. "Oh, this? All of this? Raps…all of this is because of you."
"Me?"
"Yep. All you," Cassandra explained. "You and I aren't supposed to coexist. We're literally worlds apart. In order to make sure you can comprehend any of this, we have to take on forms that you can understand. Unfortunately, generating things with no basis is quite difficult. The easier version is to let you give us ideas. I mean, how else do you think this all got here?"
Rapunzel tried following the best she could. It was true that she hadn't really questioned why they were in Corona. She had been far more concerned with the smaller differences. But if they were really in the Void, then she realized that the it made no sense for them to be in the castle. Actually, it made no sense that the imposter would know anything. Somehow, the Void had managed to learn about her past, her marriage, and her interpersonal relationships within seconds of her entering it. The only way she thought that was possible was if the Void had somehow read her mind. Was that possible? She guessed that it wasn't any more improbable that the shape-shifting cannibal monsters were also telepathic. The false one said that she was plucking things from her thoughts. Just how much did this place know about her…and how was she ever supposed to escape if the monster knew everything she thought?
"I don't care how you're doing all of this," Rapunzel stated. "Whatever you're planning, we will stop you."
"Stop me? Raps, I'm helping you," Cassandra explained. "All of today I gave you and Cass everything you ever wanted. Haven't you noticed that your little curse problem doesn't exist here? Time doesn't function within here. Your blue scar problem can be on hold as long as you want."
"I never asked for this," Rapunzel stated firmly. "This isn't my world and you are not my Cassandra. You can act like her, but you will never be anything like her."
Cassandra laughed, and slowly approached Rapunzel again. "You don't get it, do you? When I take this form, I don't just mimic her physically. I replicate her thoughts. Her feelings. For all intents and purposes, I am Cassandra…just like I could be Eugene or Pascal—"
"Don't you dare say their names," Rapunzel spat at her. Cassandra kept moving forward.
"Oh, right. That's still a sore spot for you. But you can forget all about that while you're here. This place can be your own personal heaven…or your hell. Maybe a little of both."
Rapunzel remained as still as a statue as Cassandra walked right up to her face, looking deep into the pools of black that made up her eyes. She tried her best to remain calm. She had assumed that the Void people were planning to eat her. That was the major implication of the feast. But they were keeping her alive. They were planning something. She just didn't know what. The only thing she did know was that she wanted no part of it.
"Look, let's forget about the dinner and try again, okay? There's no reason we can't have a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm pretty nice when I want to be. I can give you anything you want…as long as you can think of it. Want me to prove it to you?"
Rapunzel's gaze narrowed. "Trust me: There is nothing you could ever give me that I would want."
"Isn't there?" Cass asked knowingly. "Because I may just be a replica, but we both know that there's one thing I can give you that the real thing can't."
Cassandra smirked and leaned in, closing the gap between their faces. Rapunzel's heart skipped a beat when Cassandra's lips stopped just an inch in front of her own. Cassandra's words were barely a whisper, but they cut through Rapunzel's defenses like a dagger.
"Want to know what Cassandra has been hiding from you?"