Trapped

No one expected Varian to be the one to bring Cassandra down.

Varian faced Cassandra, clutching his staff tightly. He was the only one left standing. Eugene, Lance, Rapunzel... they were all knocked out or MIA. It was up to him.

"Give it up, Varian!" She stood over Rapunzel's collapsed body with a triumphant grin. "I've won!"

He grit his teeth and glared at her. "Not yet, you haven't."

She scoffed and walked down the black rock steps towards him. "There's no one left, but you, and you're raccoon."

Varian pulled the bubbling, yellow beaker out of his bag. "Remind me what your armor is made of, Cass?"

She smirked and walked behind him. "The black rocks, so that little acid trick won't work on me."

He turned and splashed the substance on her and for a terrifying moment, nothing happened. Then the amber started to spread across her armored body.

Varian stumbled back to avoid being trapped himself.

Cass stared at him in horror. "Var... you..."

He looked on with a blank expression until she was completely encased. That was when the reality of what he'd done hit him like a ton of bricks and he fell to his knees, horrifed at himself.

His stomach churned and he put a hand over his mouth to keep from throwing up. The empty beaker shattered on the ground next to him.


Rapunzel slowly came to. She blinked blurriness out of her eyes and sat up despite the splitting headache. A few yards immediately in front of her was a mass of the rock amber. The same stuff she'd rescued Quirin from and Varian had used to save Corona from the red rocks.

She saw a small figure kneeling in front of the amber. Then she saw who was trapped in the amber and she almost screamed. She shot up and ran down the slowly receding black rock steps and started beating on the amber, crying her eyes out.

She looked down at the person next to her and saw Varian, eyes wide, hand over his mouth, looking absolutely and completely horrified.

It didn't take long for her to piece eveything together. The broken glass beaker, the amber, Varian's dissociative state. Varian was the one who trapped his father the first time. Varian made the compound that had saved Corona. Varian was the one who trapped Cass.

"Varian." She whispered, almost to scared to say his name. "What did you do.

"I... I didn't know what else to do. S-she was going to... going to kill you. I didn't know what else I could do." He stared at the base of the amber.

He had just sentenced Cassandra to a fate worse than death.