Hey guys, here's chapter 20 of Misadventures of Vee. This chapter will center around Hunter. Here we go.
Scorpion's digital kunai spear shish kabobed Sub-Zero's head before slamming him to the ground in a fountain of HD blood.
"¡Coño! Can I land just one stupid hit, please?!" Luz roared. She button-mashed her controller so randomly she was basically punching it. In response, Sub-Zero spun in place, blocked, hopped, crouch-blocked, and kicked nothing.
Vee snickered at her sister's lack of skill. "Geez, this is your game, isn't it? How are you so bad?"
"Too busy with the more sophisticated things in life," Luz snooted haughtily, "such as perfecting my own Azura cosplay or reading fanfiction. Besides, how are you so good? You just found out video games existed a couple months ago!"
With dexterous fingers, Vee tapped a series of buttons on her controller while shrugging. Scorpion eviscerated Sub-Zero with a 20-hit combo. Luz was left gaping. Willow, who observed from the couch, took detailed notes for future Grudgby matches. "Interesting strategy," she mumbled.
"Finish him!" demanded the deep-voiced narrator.
"I don't know, it's mostly pattern recognition and response, stuff I learned in school," Vee answered. "Here, check this out." Another series of rapid button pushes and Scorpion presented Sub-Zero a colorful birthday cake. A rainbow flourished across the land of fire and brimstone.
"Fatality! Friendship!" the narrator growled.
Luz burst out laughing. "Oh my gosh! I've had this game forever and I had no idea you could do that! HAHAHA!"
"How could you be so cruel!" a new voice interrupted. Hunter cringed before the TV, a look of horror on his face. "And I thought Belos was a monster. I had no idea humans trapped innocent creatures in tiny boxes and forced them to fight to the death for their own amusement. And you as well, Captain? Why?!"
"What? No, no, Hunter, they're not real," Luz tried to explain.
Hunter paused. "Not real?"
"Yeah, they're more like, uhhh, puppets." Luz started a practice match and demonstrated how Sub-Zero responded to every button she pushed. "See? These are just copies of people."
"Copies?" A haunted shadow passed over Hunter's face, Vee noticed. Luz, in her eagerness, did not.
"Copies, exactly! They're fakes were made by actual people to look real and obey everything I tell them."
"Fakes? Obey everything?" The shadow got deeper.
"They're not real, they're just toys for us to play with—" Vee and Willow slapped a hand over Luz's mouth.
"I don't think you're helping, Luz," Willow warned.
Only then did Luz notice the effect her words were having on the boy.
Hunter gazed into the distance as though he was peering into a never-ending void. Moments like these had been occurring ever since the revelation at the Historical Society.
"Is he okay?" Vee whispered to Luz.
"Don't think so. I think I explained video games wrong to him. You're better at them, can you try?"
Every inch of Vee turned cold. Trust was not something Vee had in Hunter quite yet. He hadn't gone all Golden Guard on them and Luz seemed to have faith in him, but there was still a wariness Vee clung to when he was near. He didn't recognize her; he didn't realize they'd already met. That was what allowed her to keep quiet and hide behind Luz. If it weren't for whatever were these distressing episodes Hunter kept having, she would've gladly ignored him.
"Y-You know what," Vee said nervously, "Lance has got every game console ever made, he would do a way better job than me. We should ask him."
"He does? Cool, I want to see that. Don't you, Hunter?"
"Toy…" Hunter whispered hollowly, "I'm just a plaything…"
"Mom! We need a ride, ASAP! Ayuda! Existential crisis!"
Lance's Mansion…
Camilla pulled up to Lance's mansion in the car, Luz and Vee riding in shotgun while Hunter and Willow rode in back. No matter how many times she saw it, the Noceda mother still couldn't believe one of her daughter's friends lived in a place like this.
"Girls, the sun is setting and the day is almost over. Can't this wait until tomorrow?" Camilla asked her daughters.
"Under normal circumstances, yes, but..." Luz trailed off, looking at Hunter for a second, and then back at her mom, "This is an emergency."
"Yeah, and Lance is the only one that can help, so, this can't really wait," Vee added.
"Alright, but no sleepovers. It's a school night," Camilla told the twins. The kids then hopped out of the car, "I'll be back to pick you up in a few hours," she told them before driving off.
The kids walked up to the door of the mansion, although Hunter had to literally be pushed by Willow to do so. Vee rang the doorbell and within a minute, the door was answered by none other than Lance himself.
"Hey Vee," Lance greeted the basilisk with his usual friendly smile, then noticed his friend's double, "And you must be Luz... the real one," he shook Luz's hand.
"How could you tell who's who?" Luz asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Vee's hair is a lot neater and doesn't have any split ends," Lance said, making Luz look at her own hair, "Plus, her nails are nicely polished. Yours seem a little rough, like you've just been through a battle or something," he added, making Luz look at her nails, "Also, it's minor, but Vee's chest is just slightly bigger, rounder, and perkier. Yours—"
"Ok, we get it!" Luz said, covering her chest with her face turning red, Vee snickering at her sister's embarrassment.
"Those negative emotions," Ash said with an enticed tone, the shadowy creature appearing suddenly beside Lance, "I sense a strong sadness coming from the blonde one," he pointed to Hunter, "Your negativity. It's almost as delicious smelling as Lance's" he commented, almost hungrily.
"Ash, don't even think about it," Vee told the shadow in a stern voice. As uncomfortable as she was around Hunter and as much as she thought he'd probably deserve it deep down, she'd rather not make the situation worse than it already was.
"I would, but I'm on a diet. Lance's rollercoaster of emotions messed me up a little," Ash replied, "Still, what's got the witch so bummed?" he asked.
"It came from a misunderstanding about video games and what they are," Luz replied. She always wanted to meet a hym and was surprised she never ran into one in the Demon Realm. Most kids were afraid of the hym story, but whenever Abuela told her the story when she was younger, she thought it was cool.
"And I thought you'd be the best person to help us explain it to him better," Vee chimed in.
"Well, I'm flattered, but I don't have time for a history lesson," Ash said.
"I meant Lance," Vee clarified.
"Oh..." Ash said in realization.
"Yeah, I can help you out. I'm not really doing anything right now anyway," Lance replied with a shrug, stepping aside to let them in.
The five teens were in a large room filled with a ton of consoles. Everything from Pong, to Playstation and the N64, to the PS2 and the original XBOX, to the Switch and hard-to-obtain PS5 and XBOX series X/S. There were even a few of those old arcade machines that their parents played. It was like video game museum or something.
"Damn, Vee. You weren't kidding when you said Lance had every console known to man!" Luz in both shock and amazement.
"Yeah, I know. Even the rest of my friends and I still think it's unbelievable," Vee replied.
"Ok, time for a brief history lesson on the development and entertainment of video games," Lance started, "Now, video games a fairly recent in the entertainment portion of human history, being created around the 70's or the 80's. It all started with basic stuff like Pong," he gestured to one of the first consoles ever made.
"A few decades later, we got 8-bit games like Mario and Sonic, who had classic and memorable levels and characters," he gestured to the first two games for the Italian plumber and blue hedgehog, "As the years went on, the graphics advanced and so did the ability to tell stories, being able to put in voice acting and better mechancis," he gestured to a few of the Legend of Zelda games on the N64 and Tomb Raider games on the PS2.
"Eventually, we managed to install wi-fi on consoles and play locally with our friends or online against anyone in the world," he said with a smile as he gestured to the PS3, PS4, XBOX 360, and XBOX ONE, "And now, in the present day, we're still advancing in the gaming world. We've come so far that we've developed my favorite type of gaming..." he picked up a VR helmet, "Virtual Reality!"
Everyone clapped at the end of Lance's history lecture.
"So, video game characters are kind of like the characters of a story book?" Willow asked.
"That's one way to look at it," Lance replied, "Here, give it a try," he said, slapping the VR helmet on to Hunter's head and turning it on.
"Hey, what're you..." Hunter paused for a brief moment, "Whoa!" he said in amazement, "Whoa, it's like I've been transported!"
"That's the power of VR," Lance said, smiling with pride.
"Uh, hello there. I'm Hunter," Hunter said, most likely talking to the virtual people programmed within the game. The others looked between each other, and then at Hunter.
"They're not gonna reply, man. They're just going to say whatever they're programmed to say," Lance informed him.
There was brief pause. Hunter hanged his head.
"I'm just as fake as the people in this reality..." Hunter muttered to himself in a defeated tone.
Everyone was unsure of what else to do. They didn't know how to help or what was on his mind. Even Vee, who was still distrustful of him, felt bad.
*Crash*
The teens whipped their heads. Looking out of the nearest window, they saw that the sun had completely set, bringing forth the night. Out on the grass in front of the window was a pile of smashed stone. A second later, they were greeted by a pair of glowing red eyes.
Grinning at them through the glass upside-down was a fanged, well-tone-bodied creature with large barbed bat wings folded on its back. Its skin was rose pink, and had a mane of white hair. On its forehead was a crescent moon.
It opened its mouth, rock bones grinding against each other, and chuckled out in a young girlish voice, "Who wants to play freeze tag? I'm it! I'mma count to ten then come get you!" Then it ducked away.
"What was that?" Hunter asked, pulling off the VR helmet.
"A gargoyle, and a young one too," Willow answered, cautiously shepherding everyone away from the glass. "They're normally shy but something tells me this one's different."
"If she's anything like the other magical creatures we've been dealing with, then we should seriously get out of here," Vee said, already calling her mom. It had barely begun to ring when another more thunderous crash shook the yard. Through the window they saw a cell tower topple like a tree.
Vee immediately lost signal. "Uh oh…"
"Ten!" called the playful gargoyle somewhere outside. "Ready or not, here I come!"
A sense of dread fell over the group. Despite the cutesy words, this was no game. They were being hunted and there was no way to call for help.
"Wait, the wi-fi is still on," Vee said, tapping on her phone. "I can still message mom on tweeter."
"But mom can never figure out tweeter!" Luz exclaimed.
"This is all we got!" She typed furiously. Since Vee didn't have her own account, she had to resort to using her sister's.
Across town, Camilla was just getting out of her car when a tweeter notification with Luz's face chimed on her phone. "Oh, does Luz already want to come home?" She tapped the message a few too many times and ended up on Luz's tweeter page. "Ugh, carajo, how do I get back to the messages? No, not search, I don't want notifications, what the heck are Spaces? AH! I can never figure out tweeter! This is going to take a while."
Back at Lance's place, Luz stared at her sister's futile cry for rescue. If this had been a text, their mom would've replied by now. "Well, there's no real need to panic, right?" she tried to reassure everyone. "The gargoyle says she wants to play freeze tag. What's the worst that could happen?"
In a shimmer of magic Luz turned to solid stone.
"Luz!" Vee screamed.
"Got ya," snickered the gargoyle, popping out from behind the petrified girl. "Now remember, silly, you have to stay frozen there until another player tags the base. Those are the rules. No cheating," the gargoyle said to Luz like she expected the statue to understand her.
Vee couldn't believe what had happened. She had failed. She had sworn to their mother that she wouldn't let anything happen to Luz, to their Abuelo that she would protect her no matter what, and she had failed. Tears blurred her vision as she reached for the sister that had welcomed her into the Noceda family only for Lance to hold her back.
"Vee, stop, don't let her touch you!"
The gargoyle beamed at the group. "Okey-dokey, the rest of you silly-billies get another ten seconds to hide. Better hurry. One… two…"
"Run!" cried Willow and they all sped out of the game room.
"Ash, move!" Lance shouted on his way.
"Yeah, yeah, in a minute," Ash mumbled, deep in an online match. The hym had completely missed the entire scene and had no intention of going anywhere.
The four remaining four teens ran through the mansion as fast as they could. The last thing any of them wanted was to be turned into a statue. Vee had a distraught look on her face, tears welling up in the outer corners of her eyes. She wanted to go back, to somehow save her sister. Sadly, there was no time to do such a reckless thing. It was better to be safe than sorry.
"Jaune should be in the garage. He can drive us out of here," Lance said, leading the way.
When they arrived at their location, they saw a variety of cars, trucks and limos. The moon light shined through one of the garage windows, shining on several of the cars, the light ending in the passenger's side of the nearest limo. In the driver's window was the very person they were looking for.
"Jaune!" Lance called out, "There's no time to explain. There's a gargoyle chasing us and we need to get out of here now!" he blabbered as they rushed over to the driver's seat. In return, he received no response. "Dude, didn't you hear me?" Lance asked, shaking the butler's shoulder, only for the man to fall over into the moonlight, revealing him to have turned into a statue just Luz had, a scared look upon his face.
The teens all screamed in horror. When they heard a chuckle, they looked up to see the gargoyle hanging from the ceiling.
"Remember, silly old man, you're frozen until another player tags the base," the gargoyle reminded the petrified butler, and then looked at the teens, "Alrighty, you guys get another ten seconds to hide," she told them.
The teens screamed as they ran again, Lance leading them. They had gone through several rooms, Lance being sure to lock each one behind them. Eventually, the ran into a giant walk-in safe, one with a thick metal door. Lance quickly shut the door to the safe, being sure to lock it for good measure.
"Ok, that should keep us safe. Hopefully..." Lance said muttering that last part under his breath.
"What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?" Vee rambled as she paced around the small room in a panic. "We have to save Luz, we have to, we can't just leave her there!"
"Breathe, Vee," Lance soothed, wrapping her in a hug. "She'll be okay, I promise. We'll figure this out." His hold miraculously slowed her heart and for a moment Vee felt safe.
"Alright!" Willow stepped forward with a commanding posture. "Listen up, gargoyles are magically nocturnal. They can only move around during the night. Once the sun comes up, she'll turn back to stone and we can walk outta here. We just have to survive until then."
"But will Luz and Jaune turn back too if we wait?" Vee asked with a sniffle.
Willow hummed. "Good question…"
"Captain!" Hunter saluted. "I believe the gargoyle already told us the answer. Everyone remains stone until 'another player tags the base.'"
"Just like freeze tag!" Lance exclaimed. "If this is really a game, then it has to work. But what would a gargoyle use as base?"
"And how would we find it in this gigantic mansion without getting caught?" Willow added.
A gasp burst from Hunter and he whipped to face Vee. "Basilisks can turn invisible!"
"They can?" Lance and Willow said.
The same icy dread crept into Vee's veins with every step Hunter took toward her. He continued to gush about his idea of Vee transforming into a creature big enough to carry the three of them and then simply turning invisible so the gargoyle could never find them before they found the base. However, with every step closer the more Vee felt the shackles, the bars of the cage, the golden mask glaring down at her.
Vee whimpered and ducked behind Lance.
"Was it something I said?" Hunter asked, at a loss.
The mini panic attack shook Vee to the core. She'd been back there, imprisoned, it had felt so real. She had never felt more scared in her life.
"Hey," Lance's voice cut through the fog. "Remember what Miss Canis said, no bottling things up. What's wrong?"
Her head snapped to look up at him. She could tell Lance's observant mind was already racing to put the tiny pieces together. He knew about her being chained up, it had come up several times in their group therapy, but she'd never revealed who was part of it. If she gave him even one clue, he'd figure out who Hunter was instantly. "Later, I promise," she wheezed. "We have to save Luz first." Before he could argue, she stepped away from her friend. Wiping the wetness from her eyes, she said, "We'll start on the ground floor and work our way up. Nobody make a sound. I can make you invisible, not silent."
Vee scrunched her eyes and pictured in her head a nuckelavee, that way she would have two pairs of eyes to search with. As soon as the familiar band of magic began to roll over her, everything went wrong. Her guts churned and twisted and burned.
"Vee? What is it?" someone called out, but she couldn't tell who. Her magic was not her own anymore. It rolled across her in waves against her will, changing her rapidly into dozens of different creatures.
She couldn't stop it.
Her mind was going fuzzy.
Thoughts fragmented.
Her arms.
Were those…
…Crescent moons?
Willow, Hunter, and Lance huddled by the safe door, spooked by the unexpectedly gruesome transformations Vee had gone through. Usually it was just a wave of magic and she was something else. This time, it was as if the other creatures bled into each other, oozing and gushing. Then the crescent moons they'd come to fear began to sprout like freckles all across her body.
"What's happening to her?" Hunter cried.
"The Collector's magic," Willow replied. "I think she ate too much of it."
"Vee! Stop!" Lance shouted. "You have to stop!"
And she did. As if someone had thrown the off switch, the morphing halted with Vee in her human form. Her skin covered in moons, she stood absolutely still like she'd been turned to stone by the gargoyle.
"Vee?" Lance said.
No response.
He inched closer. "Can you hear me? Vee?"
A skinless arm reached out of her mouth! Endless screams came from the teens as they watched an entire second arm, torso, and head claw its way out of Vee's throat. It was another Vee in her basilisk form only red with exposed sinewy muscle and a manic glint in her crescent moon eyes.
"Who wants to play tag?" she snickered at the group. "I do!"
Then more of her impossibly climbed out, the first Vee molting away like a discarded snakeskin. The new Vee's tail was as long and thick as bus whose every move folded and stretched visible muscles. She was the most nightmarish basilisk Willow or Hunter had ever seen.
"Guys, run!" Vee ordered, the manic glint vanishing for a moment. "I can't stop it, run!" Then the madness was back and she charged.
Everyone dove out of the way. Vee smashed into the vault door and kept going, the thick reinforced steel crumpling under her immense power, until she crashed into a china cabinet in the next room. She flopped around on her tail for a bit, giggling at the disorientation.
"Oopsie-doopsie, guess I overshot it," she laughed.
She came face to upside down face with the gargoyle. "Oh boy!" the gargoyle cheered. "Now it's team freeze tag! This is gonna be so much fun!"
"No!" Vee cried on the inside, but on the outside her lipless mouth shined a row of sharp fangs and eyed the teens fleeing the destroyed safe, eager to hunt.
Together, the gargoyle and Vee's corrupted form chased after the remaining teens. As Vee slithered around, the gargoyle rode on her back. When their prey turned a corner, Vee found herself slipping, crashing into a nearby wall. From within her mind, the real Vee could see everything her body was doing.
"No! Come on, Vee, get control of yourself!" Vee told herself on the inside. She tried to tap into her own magic, to change into something small to not hurt her friends and, maybe to a far lesser extent, the Golden Guard. However, it was to no effect. Vee groaned in irritation.
The basilisk watched as her body neared an empty room. Suddenly, her body slipped and slid on something cold, she and the gargoyle tumbling hard across the room and into a marble table in the center. The wind knocked out of her, Vee rolled on to her back. From this angle, Vee could see all the damage his chase has done to the ceiling of this specific room. A circle had been cracked into this ceiling. This recent crash being the final straw, the ceiling came crashing down, landing on the basilisk's body. Suddenly, everything went black.
Despite being unconscious, Vee was somehow able to hear what was going on around her.
"We've got to keep moving and find the base," she heard Hunter say.
"What about Vee? She could be hurt," she heard Lance say with worry.
"I'm fine, Lance. Just go find the base!" Vee tried to call out, but had no control over her mouth. That's when she realized something. The crazy part of her was still awake.
Vee's body lunged out of the rubble, "Gotcha!" the crazy Vee shouted as she took a hold of Lance.
There was nothing the real Vee could do as her crazy side brough Lance towards the gargoyle. The gargoyle then touched Lance's forehead, turning the boy into a statue mid-scream. Hunter and Willow screamed at the sight of another person being turned to stone like Luz.
"Alrighty, silly-billies, he's frozen until someone else touches the base. You have ten more seconds to—"
Hunter cut the gargoyle off by stomping on Vee's tail. He had hit the part where the tail met the fins, a pressure point in the body of a basilisk. Vee screamed before collapsing on to the floor. The screamed had been in Vee's own voice. Wait a minute, she had control again? Vee smacked the gargoyle away, sending her flying through a wall. Vee then slithered towards Willow and Hunter, taking them into her grasp as they made a break for it.
Vee didn't stop until she'd slithered up the mansion's grand ornate staircase, past the second, third, and fourth floors. She didn't stop until she reached the top floor and there weren't any stairs left to climb, using her gargantuan tail to crush the path behind her. Not knowing where they were, she chose a door at random and squeezed through. For added measure, Vee obliterated the hallway behind her, not leaving any walls or ceiling for the gargoyle. Only when they were sealed in with rubble did Vee allow herself to breathe.
"Captain, run!"
Something jabbed into Vee's collarbone and elicited a burning pinch she hadn't felt in a lifetime. "OW!" The muscles in her arms convulsed and went limp. The two teens she'd just rescued dropped from her hold. Hunter immediately took a protective stance between Vee and Willow.
"Hunter, what are you doing?" Willow asked.
"I can hold her off, the Emperor's Coven trained me on how to restrain basilisks. Go!"
"They what? Why? How would they know how to do that? Basilisks are supposed to be extinct."
"Because…" The word hissed through Vee's clenched fangs. The burning pinch, the limp arms, even the stomp to her tail that had knocked the crazy side out the way, they all dragged with them vivid awful memories of the Coven researchers poking and prodding her body the exact same way, crippling her with the slightest touch. Vee tried her hardest to do the mental exercise Miss Canis had taught her and focus on the good life she had now, on her friends, on her family but each time she did her crescent moon eyes glowed and she re-experienced every moment of misery. And the memory that hurt most of all… was the day she met the Golden Guard. "Because… you put me back in chains…"
All the fight fled from Hunter. His once determined and heroic voice dropped to a pathetic squeak. "I… you… it's you?"
"I saved up magic for months!" Vee screamed, her cry mixing with the crazy persona to create an unhinged mess. "I became you, the cape, the uniform, the one person the Coven would never question and finally got out! I was free! But you hunted me down." She advanced on Hunter who scrambled back in fear until he was against the far wall. Vee bared her fangs in his face, "I begged you to let me go, told you the horrible things they were doing to me. Do you remember what you said?"
Hunter couldn't make a peep.
"You said—AAAH!" The same jolt of pain from before shot up Vee's tail, making her scream in her own voice, the unhinged mess was gone. Guilt flooded her system. Vee flinched away from Hunter and tried to cover her treacherous mouth but her arms were still wet noodles. All she could do was look back and forth between the boy who was paler than bone and Willow whose boot was still on her fin. "I'm sorry," Vee whimpered. "That wasn't me, I—I couldn't stop."
"Are you in control now?" Willow asked firmly.
Vee breathed deep and waited for The Collector's magic to make another go at her, but for now the frothing mass seemed to stay quiet. She attempted to change out of her gruesome form but the moment she touched her magic, crescent moons flashed across her vision. "Yeah," she grumbled. "But I can't change. My magic, it's… infected or something…"
"We'll fix that later." Willow marched in between them with stern authority. "It's clear that the two of you have some history. Unfortunately, we can't deal with that right now, we have to find the base and end this stupid game. You need to put aside whatever this is for now and work together. I'm not asking, you don't have a choice. We need each other right now. Understood?"
Hunter sniffled back a tear and gave the weakest salute. "Yes, Captain."
Vee nodded sullenly, filled to the brim with regret. The enraged words she'd spat were hers. Many times she'd caught herself imagining what it would be like to corner the Golden Guard and make him face his crimes. Yet now that she had she only felt terrible and exposed.
"Vee, can you still climb walls?"
Willow's question momentarily snapped her out of her despair. "Um, sure, yeah."
The witch opened a window and pointed into the night. "Search every room from the outside for the base. Don't draw any attention, don't take any risks. If you find it, tag it. If not, get back here as soon as you can."
"Got it." Vee could feel her arms now. She gave them a few flexes and slithered over to the window, hoping this plan would work. Before she went through, Vee glanced wearily at Hunter. The boy looked away, hitting Vee with another pang of guilt.
It was a tight fit. In fact, with her new bulbous tail Vee couldn't fit at all. The window frame was ripped out of the brick wall by Vee's hips, much to her embarrassment. Still, she followed the plan and slithered along the vertical wall, sniffing into each window for a whiff of magic. There were dozens of rooms in the mansion, maybe even over a hundred, but Vee spiraled her way down and investigated each one until she reached the ground floor.
Then she found Luz.
Petrified in stone in a permanent nonchalant shrug, half of her disarming smile was turned away from Vee. She wanted to go in there and hug her sister. She wanted Luz to come back to life and tell her everything would be okay. But that wasn't going to happen. Not until she found the base.
"HEY!" Ash's annoyed shadowy face popped in front of Vee's nose. The basilisk yelped.
"Ash? You're okay?"
"I wouldn't say okay. You mortals won't stop with the screaming and the smashing and being all depressed. Kinda hard to dominate online when there's a buffet of 'feeling sorry for myself' running around the house."
"But-but-but the gargoyle didn't tag you?"
"Uh, no, genius. I'm a Hym, remember? Not exactly corporeal when I'm not attached to a host." Ash demonstrated by floating through the window glass like it wasn't there. "The point is I'm not interested in playing so keep it down." He floated back inside to resume his video game.
"Ash! Wait! You're our secret weapon! The gargoyle can't touch you; you can help us find the base and end this."
Ash sunk into his gamer chair and slapped on his headphones. "Pass."
"Pass? Ash, she's turning us to stone. She already got Lance. You'll never get him back unless we win. Please, isn't Lance your friend?"
There was a pause.
Ash removed the headphones and heaved a sigh.
"Did you check the roof?" he asked.
"The what?"
"The roof, mortal. Gargoyles always spawn on roofs. Titan, have you never played a dungeon crawler?"
Vee looked down at the pile of cracked stone that had hit the ground at the beginning of this insane night, then straight up at the roof. It was the only place she hadn't checked. A seed of hope sprouted in her heart. "Thanks, Ash, I knew you cared about Lance."
"I do not!" roared Ash, though not that convincingly. His list of excuses of why he even bothered to help never reached Vee because she was already slithering up the side of the mansion. The base had to be there, it just had to be. She would find the base, tag it, and put an end to this bedlam.
"Captain!"
Vee went cold. The sheer panic in Hunter's voice could mean only one thing. Vee changed course and bee-lined for the window she'd destroyed. What she found was exactly what she feared.
Willow was a statue, frozen with her arms outstretched as if she had pushed someone out of the way. Hunter, still flesh and blood, had his arms wrapped around her and was blubbering nonsense through tears. A few feet away, waiting politely, was the gargoyle.
"Four… Five… You really should get moving, silly-billy," the gargoyle snickered. "Six… Seven…"
Without a second thought, Vee nabbed Hunter. She aimed for the roof again and moved as fast as she could.
A quick scale of the building, Vee had reached the top of the roof.
"Look around. The base has to be here on the roof somewhere," Vee told Hunter as she set him down. Hunter, however, appeared to be a babbling mess.
"I failed. I... I failed to protect the captain..." Hunter muttered to himself.
"Hey, get a hold of yourself!" Vee shouted at the boy, "The sooner we find the base, the sooner we can end this and free the others!" she told him.
"Ready or not, here I come!" they heard the gargoyle shout in the distance.
Frantically, the two started to search for the base where the gargoyle perched. That proved to be easier said than done since the rooftop was as long and as wide as a football field. None of it was flat either. It was like one of the Victorian-era rooftops. It didn't help that the tiles slipped and came loose underneath them, dozens of them under Vee's tail. That really slowed their progress.
They turned their heads and screamed. Next to them was the gargoyle. Only, it wasn't the gargoyle that had been chasing them the whole night. This one was an inanimate gargoyle, squatting on a pedestal. In fact, there was a whole line of gargoyles on pedestals. However, on the farthest corner of the roof, there was a pedestal, empty, with no gargoyle to occupy it.
"That must be the base," Hunter said.
"It has to be," Vee said in agreement, furrowing her brows in determination.
The two made a break for the base. They were so close. So close to ending this nightmare. Sadly, fate was not in their favor...
"Hey guys!" the gargoyle, the real one that had been chasing them, suddenly appeared, making the two scream and stop in their tracks, "I'm glad you guys found the base, because this is the best part of the game: fighting for the base!" she said, now standing on the pedestal.
"Alright, you tag the base. I'll keep the gargoyle distracted," Hunter told Vee.
"What? No way, I'm not gonna take that risk," Vee replied. She had already lost her sister and her friends to this thing. And while Hunter wasn't exactly her friend- far from it, she didn't want him to be turned to stone. Even if that would be cosmic justice, given their history, that wouldn't be a justified reason for doing so.
"It's ok. I trust you'll make it. Besides, I owe you big," Hunter said.
"Huh?" Vee looked at him with confusion.
"Consider this my apology for what I said and did to you when we first met back in the Demon Realm," Hunter began, "When we first meet, I said that you weren't a real person... and I'm sorry for that. If anybody isn't real, it's me. I'm just a grimwalker, a morbid copy of someone that died hundreds of years ago."
Vee was taken back by that. She certainly wasn't expecting that, least of all from the Golden Guard himself. She watched as the boy approached the beast, practically meeting his doom. As much as Vee feared him and didn't really like him, she couldn't let him be petrified. Before anything could happen, Vee raised her massive tail, and then slammed it down. The roof then cracked underneath them like an egg. In that moment, the roof had shattered, Hunter, Vee, the gargoyle, and the base falling in.
Mid-air, Vee hugged Hunter to her chest and protectively wrapped them both in her tail. She felt her huge body hit the floor and keep going. Her momentum carved a series of holes through each floor until they came a thunderous crash. Slowly, she unwrapped herself and saw she was next to stone-ified Luz and on top of the shattered remains of a Playstation 5.
"No! Mortal, what have you done?!" she heard Ash sob over the destruction. "I was about to annihilate DemonGateYeetMaster34!"
She ignored the Hym and focused on Hunter in her arms. Thankfully, it didn't look like the fall had injured him. He gawked at her, absolutely flabbergasted.
"Why?" he muttered. "Why did you do that? I said I would—"
"You have friends who care about you!" Vee practically scolded him. "Friends who know who you were, what you did, and still accept you. That makes you as real as anybody, Hunter. And that also means you decide who you are, not that you're the Golden Guard or a Grimwalker copy of a boy from a long time ago. Only you get to say who you are. You!" Vee paused to catch her breath. The angry outburst had been unexpected to say the least. She finished with a more controlled tone. "Take it from a fellow copy who was grown from fossils, if I'm a real person, then you're real too. So no crazy self-sacrificing, got it?"
There was a moment of silence. Hunter stared back at Vee with shock and awe. He sniffled back a tear and whispered, "Thank you. I'm sorry I hurt you, I—Thank you."
Vee never believed she'd ever see the Golden Guard cry, or that she'd protect him for that matter. But it was hard not to when she saw a little of her old self in the way Hunter was trying to hide his Grimwalker identity. Seeing someone going through similar struggles she had made her only want to help. It didn't occur to Vee at that second, but she wasn't scared of Hunter anymore. They weren't going to be playing Mortal Kombat together anytime soon, but… Miss Canis would call this progress.
"Cool trick!" The gargoyle burst from the rubble with a giggle, not a scratch on her rock-hard skin. She stretched a toothy grin at Vee and Hunter. "Now it's my turn, you sillies." Crouching low like a tiger, she aimed for the basilisk and the witch and—
"Enough with the tag!" Ash yelled and popped the VR helmet on the gargoyle's head.
"Huh? Where did you go?" the gargoyle said, then smiled brightly at something only she could see. "Oh boy! Look at all the new silly-billies to play with! You wanna play Freeze Tag? Ready or not, here I come." The gargoyle ran off, chasing the virtual NPCs she could never touch.
"There, I helped. Happy?" Ash grumbled.
"Ash! You did it! You're a hero!" Vee said. She tried to hug the Hym only to tumble through him and fall flat on her face.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Ash scoffed and returned to his gamer chair. "You better hope I can recover my saves when Lance gets me a new console, mortals, or I'm going to drain you all until you are nothing but emotionless husks."
"D'aww, you're our friend too, Ash," Vee replied.
"Silence!"
Hunter and Vee then realized that they were in front of the base. Nothing was in their way. They had survived the night. Exchanging one last smile, Vee and Hunter both reached out and touched the pedestal.
Noceda House…
"¡Ay, mi muñequitas preciosas!" Camilla wailed, crushing both Vee and Luz in a suffocating hug while peppering them with endless kisses. "I'm so sorry, I should've known something was wrong and come and gotten you the moment I got your message."
"Mami, calmate, we're fine, we swear," Luz assured between wheezes.
And they were. After tagging the base, everyone had been freed from stone, everything was okay. The same couldn't be said of Lance's mansion but the boy claimed it wasn't the worst that had happened to the building. Repairs would take some time, but he could comfortably stay at the guest house while he waited. The guest house somehow turned out to be even more extravagant than the mansion. It had a gold elevator! Once things had settled down, Luz had the sensible idea for Vee to message Dani and have her text Camilla to come pick them up. The woman was at the mansion in minutes. And… she didn't take what she found that well.
"You must've been so scared, Luz, turned into a statue like that," Camilla moaned, squeezing her baby tight.
"A little," Luz admitted, picking bits of rock out of her ear. "But it wasn't like it was my first time being turned to stone."
Camilla went pale.
"Uhhh, forget I said that. Hey, wasn't Vee brave tonight?" Luz quickly deflected.
It was an obvious redirecting of the conversation but Camilla went with it, no doubt filing that tidbit for future addressing. She kissed Vee on her forehead and ruffled her basilisk ears. "Sí, gracias, Vee. I knew I could count on you, mija."
"Always, mom." Vee leaned into the touch. She loved the ticklish sensation whenever her mom played with her ears. It was mostly done as a form of teasing but this time the touch was filled with so much care and warmth.
"Now, get to bed, you've had a long night." She shooed Vee out, while staying behind to monitor Luz's nightly washing of the dishes.
Halfway up the stairs Vee doubled over. She grabbed at her guts and held in a groan. For a brief instant, crescent moons flashed across her vision. The Collector's magic. Vee had to eat another helping to free the gargoyle. Willow, Lance, and Hunter had wanted to stop her but The Collector's magic was too strange and powerful to be wished out, there was no other way. It hadn't gone down easily and her body clearly wanted the cosmic substance gone, but Vee had managed to stay in control and morph back to her normal basilisk form. She just needed to concentrate. Here and now on the stairs, she did the same. Vee grasped where her tail and fin met and pinched the pressure point. The pain steadied her breath and focused her thoughts until the sickness passed.
"Vee?" Camilla called up to her. "¿Estás bien?"
"Yeah, mom," she replied with a forced smile and headed upstairs. "Just slipped. Good night, te amo."
"Okay… te amo…" Camilla said, uncertain.
Vee made it to the top and turned the corner before she had to stop and take a moment. What was happening to her, she wondered. If she kept eating The Collector's magic, would she become like the mindless monsters that had been showing up in Gravesfield? Would she become that crazy Vee who gleefully put her friends in danger?
"Thank you, Captain."
Vee perked up and turned. Light shined through the slightly open hallway bathroom door. She glanced inside and spied Hunter, hunched on the toilet, twiddling his thumbs, and blushing a harsh red. Standing over him was Willow, trimming his hair with a pair of scissors.
"Of course," Willow said. "I'm happy I found you before you made yourself bald. Why the sudden new look, by the way?"
Hunter stiffened. "My uncle—I mean, Belos—I mean, Philip has—had strict rules on hairstyles and uniforms… and diets and sleep schedules and what I was allowed to read and who I was allowed to speak with and… basically everything. That's… not healthy, is it?"
Willow shook her head.
"Thought so. He always told me what to do, who I should be. But he's not here anymore…" a small smile appeared, "that means I'm the only one who decides who I am from now on. Right?"
Willow put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up at her. "That's right, Hunter, you are," she said.
Hunter's blush somehow deepened and he looked away. "Th-thank you, Captain."
Willow withheld her snicker and resumed the haircut.
By the door, Vee found herself reinvigorated by the scene. The churning bad magic was nothing but a distant memory of indigestion. She stood up straight and determined. She was the one who decided who was, not The Collector. Her.
She slithered to bed, unaware of the crescent moon on the nape of her neck.
Ok, that's the end of this chapter. As of this chapter, Vee is now on good terms with Luz's friends. This chapter was co-written with I Write Big. This is probably the closest you're going to get to a Halloween chapter for this story. Unless we somehow adapt the first episode of the real season 3.
Speaking of which, I know most of you have seen the 6-minute sneak peek. Which version of Vee's introduction do you guys prefer? Ours, which had her earn their trust and friendship due to the basilisk incident, or the official one that's going to come out in a few days (at the time of this chapter being posted) where they just automatically get along? I know most of you are going to choose the second option.
Ok, so, the beast they interacted with this chapter was gargoyle. First one to guess what piece of media I got the idea from gets to have their idea as a future chapter. Here's a hint: it has a cult following.
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