A week after Pretzel and Whip first moved in, Amy, fast growing sick of their constant arguments, went out to Family Video and rented several different children's shows in the hopes of finding one both Pretzel and Whip would like. The winner was Yu-Gi-Oh!, which Whip liked because it had cute monsters, friendship, and a hero with magic powers and a strong sense of justice who made sure the bad guys got their comeuppance, and which Pretzel liked because it had gross monsters, crimes, and a hero who was a highly unstable ghost that used dark magic to mindbreak people who annoyed him. Amy had ended up banning the show within the week for her parents' sakes (apparently humans had a limit to how much yelling about card games they could take), but while it lasted it marked a turning point in Pretzel's relationship with Whip. It had been when she stopped seeing him as a threat and started seeing him as annoying-but-potentially-tolerable. Screaming at characters on a screen with your sibling really had a way of building a bond.
Maybe it was the Egypt parallels, but as they arrived in Shamar, Pretzel found herself remembering that time watching Yu-Gi-Oh!. She remembered the only light coming from the TV, the curtains drawn and closed, the air conditioning humming quietly in the background, barely audible beneath the constant chatter of the characters on the screen. That had been nice. Shamar was not nice, and within seconds of setting foot on its blistering hot sand, Pretzel concluded that she would much, much rather be watching Yu-Gi-Oh!.
"I hate it here," Pretzel declared.
"Really?" Whip asked from where he was already rolling in the sand. "I love it! It's so bright and warm and big!"
"Exactly," Pretzel said, looking up at the brilliant blue sky with disgust. "It's awful."
"You're weird," Whip said.
"You're weird," Pretzel shot back.
"Focus, guys," Amy said, studying her phone. "The storm will be hitting any minute." She tucked her phone away, replacing it with her hammer, and looked around. "We need a better vantage point."
They'd left the village after spending several hours helping with the clean-up effort. They weren't construction workers or anything, but they'd at least been able to clear some of the rubble, and in the process Pretzel discovered her already disproportionate strength had increased after absorbing Hurricane, enough to impress even Amy. Amy and Whip seemed to think this was a good thing ("it's because you leveled up," Whip said confidently), but Pretzel—well, Pretzel tried not to think about it. When it was clear there wasn't much else they could do, they'd headed back to the Mystic Ruins, where Amy had picked out the door to Shamar. She'd said it was because the news had mentioned unusual sandstorms in the area, but Pretzel wasn't ruling out the possibility that this was Amy getting back at her for the expense of the clawed up windowsill.
Amy looked around at the empty street and picked out a building nearby. She gracefully jumped her way up to the roof as if she did it every day. Maybe she did? Was building scaling part of Amy's regular workout routine? Pretzel and Whip flew after her, still debating the pros and cons of the desert. They fell silent as they joined Amy at the edge of the roof.
"Wow," Whip said, staring up at the fast approaching wall of sand. "I didn't realize it would be so big."
"We do not want to be caught out in that," Amy said, grimacing. "Pretzel?"
Pretzel nodded and reached out for the creature. She could sense it, a living presence within the storm, and she brushed against it, expecting something like Hurricane. Stupid. Reckless. She should have known better, but her previous victory had made her overconfident and now—
Light. Burning, searing light and heat and fire and it was Light Gaia, that was Light Gaia, burning into her, ripping her apart, tearing her to pieces, no no no NO—
Pretzel jerked away from the contact, but the fear stayed, the memory of claws tearing into her, of that brilliant light burning into her skin and scales and mind, reducing her to ashes, burning and burning and burning. Amy was talking to her urgently, but Pretzel couldn't hear her over the desperate pounding of her own heart. It was out there, that monster. Not Light Gaia, but horribly, horribly similar. A beast of light and fire, and it was coming closer and closer—!
"New plan," Amy decided, scooping Pretzel up and leaping down from the roof.
Whip flew after her as Amy ran down the street and ducked into an open building. There was a loud thud as the door closed behind them and they were plunged into darkness. Separated from the approaching monster, the illusory claws clenching Pretzel's chest loosened their grip, and the vice of fear on her mind eased.
"Sorry," she muttered to Amy.
"It wasn't your fault," Amy said. "I should have guessed."
"Guessed what?" Whip asked curiously. "Why are we hiding?"
"It's a, uh, fire monster," Amy explained hastily. "Pretzel, um… doesn't like fire monsters. Like how you don't like ghosts. But worse."
"Oh," Whip said. He looked over at Pretzel, expression unusually somber. "Sorry, Pretzel."
Pretzel just nodded, too worn out from the emotional rollercoaster to bother with a response. She flinched as the door rattled and reminded herself it was just the force of the sandstorm. The monster didn't know they were here. Yet.
"So what do we do now?" Whip asked Amy. "Are we still going to fight it?"
"We'll think of a plan. This thing's got to have a weakness…"
"If it's a fire monster, it's an opposite of the water monster. So if Pretzel beat the water monster…" Whip perked up. "I can beat the fire monster!"
"Wait, Whip, don't—" Amy started, eyes widening in alarm, but Whip was already flying for the door.
"Don't worry!" he called back to them. "I'll stop it!" And then he disappeared into the hail of sand.
Pretzel jumped to her feet, her fear suddenly twisting in a different direction. No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. Whip was tiny and soft and stupid, he wouldn't stand a chance against that thing. And what if it took him and made him something else? Something more like Light Gaia? She couldn't let that happen. She had to do something.
"I'm going after him," she said, and took off out the door before she could think about all the reasons she should absolutely not do that.
Wind and sand whipped against her, lashing painfully on fur and scales alike. She summoned a shadow shield, weak in the sunlight but enough to protect her from the worst of the sand, and flew upwards, squinting through the storm. There: a flash of red fur, a tug of white light. Flying towards the center of the storm, where—
Burning, furious hatred, made terrifyingly manifest. It could sense them, both of them, and it wanted to destroy. Whip was flying toward it. He could stop it, but not like that. Not by fighting it. He didn't know himself, didn't know this thing. What would it do to him? Kill him? Could it? No. It would do something worse. He was too close; it was turning on him, eyes burning, burning, burning. She couldn't let it have him.
"Hey!" Pretzel yelled over the roaring storm, pretending the scratchy crack in her voice was from the sand and not her own terror.
The monster whipped around to lock eyes with her, and Pretzel's chest seized all over again. Her wingbeats faltered, and if she wasn't frozen with fear she would have fled. It didn't matter: the monster had seen her, and now it lunged, grabbing her, claws searing her fur and scales. Pretzel couldn't scream; the sound lodged in her throat, choking her, and she could only stare up at the creature in silent terror.
It didn't speak. It only burned, burned with primal hatred and rage, searing into her mind. The claws closed tighter, digging into her, ready to tear her apart, and what then? Would she become a fragment like Hurricane had? A ghost of age-old hatred? Would any piece of Pretzel remain, or would it all be Dark Gaia? Would Whip and Amy be—
"Leave my sister alone!"
Whip slammed into the monster, and the grip on Pretzel lessened. In an instant she slipped free, the pounding pain of being torn to pieces making it frighteningly easy to turn immaterial. She fell to the ground amid the whirling sand, more shadow than person, and desperately reached for the fraying pieces of herself, reclaiming the straying strands of energy before they could dissipate, knitting herself back together with careful, painful stitches.
Only when she could feel the heat of the sand against her paws did she finally dare to look up. Whip was staring down the fragment. The furious wind and sand had stilled around them, like they were in the eye of the storm. They were talking, she could tell. The fragment was less than expressive, but she could read Whip's face clearly: confusion, fear, anger, understanding, cycling in response to whatever the monster was showing him.
Fragment, she reminded herself. This thing wasn't any different than Hurricane. She knew that, she knew she should show it the same compassion and understanding, that Whip would need to empathize with it, yet the terror clinched in her chest, and—
This thing was hatred, and anger, and it hated her. What if it convinced Whip… no, that was ridiculous. Wasn't it?
"I understand," Whip said, blinking up at the monster. He had a tendency to speak out loud even when communicating mentally. "I understand why you're angry."
Despite all her attempts at reasoning with herself, Pretzel's stomach dropped. Was this it, then? Was this the moment when—
"But this isn't right," Whip said, in that earnest way only he could. "You can't just hurt people because you don't like them. Destroying things—" he looked around at the town, covered in sand and scorched by fire. "Destroying things is never right."
And the monster… listened. It bowed its head, and faded away, and then the storm was gone, and it was just Pretzel and Whip and the silence.
She waited quietly while Whip stared off into space until he jerked back with a frightened cry. Then she approached, cautiously.
Like her, the influx of energy had changed him. Whip's fur had lightened to a softer burgundy red from its previous crimson shade, making him look more in a way like he had in that alternate timeline. The cracks on the edges of his wings had healed, adding to the similarities to the other Whip, and his two pairs of ears had become one. But he had also acquired golden flame-shaped markings on the tips of his ears, and she was pretty sure the other Whip hadn't had those.
"It's so warm," Whip said, looking dazed. "But what was that nightmare?"
"A memory of Light Gaia," Pretzel said. "You okay?"
Whip blinked up at her. "Yeah, but… what happened to the monster?"
"You, uh, convinced it," Pretzel said, hurriedly thinking of a non-Gaia related explanation. "So it decided to lend you its power. Like a video game." That should make him happy, right?
To her alarm, his face fell. "I talked to it, Pretzel. It was so angry, and I was angry too." He swallowed and looked up at her, round-eyed. "Do you think it likes me because I'm like it? If the bad guys like me, then doesn't that make me bad?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Pretzel said immediately. "It…" she huffed, trying to find the right words. "It wasn't a bad guy. It was like…" she swallowed, trying to forget the feeling of terror, to look past it and see the reality. "It was like the one I fought. It wasn't evil, exactly, just… like an animal in pain. And you took away the pain, so of course it's going to like you, right?"
"I guess so," Whip said, still uncertain. It wasn't a good look on him.
"Besides," Pretzel added, trying to make her tone more playful. "You did the same thing I did. If this makes you a monster, then I'm one too."
"You could never be a monster," Whip said vehemently.
Pretzel blinked, taken aback by his conviction and the sincerity in his eyes. Some of the tightness eased in her chest. Whip had faith in her. Of course, a cynical part of her mind argued, that would probably change when he found out the truth. But in that moment, she could almost forget how temporary all of this was.
Pretzel cleared her throat, making an effort to regain her composure. "Then the same's true for you," she said. "Come on, we should find Amy before she—"
"Pretzel!" Amy yelled, forcing her way through the sand pile that had formed in front of the door.
Pretzel cringed. Oh yeah, she was mad.
"We defeated the monster, Amy!" Whip called cheerfully, oblivious as always. Amy turned her fierce glare on him, and he cringed. "Ohhh… you're mad…"
Amy made some gargled inarticulate noises. Finally she found her words. "How am I supposed to take care of you two when you keep running off like that!?"
Pretzel bristled slightly at that. It wasn't like they were children. Well, okay, Whip acted like a child, but they were ancient! Powerful! Beings to be feared, not babysat!
"But the monster—" Whip started.
"We could've fought the monster together," Amy said sharply. She sighed deeply and ran a hand through her bangs. "Look, just—warn me next time, okay?" She glanced at Pretzel, who was biting her tongue on the "we are centuries older than you puny mortal" thing even though she really, really wanted to point it out. "I know you're capable, both of you, and this is more your thing than my thing, but I would at least like to be let in on what you two are planning. We're a team, okay?"
"Yes, ma'am," Pretzel and Whip sighed in unison.
"We love you, Amy," Whip said, hugging her like the suck-up he was. "We couldn't do it without you. Even though you can't fly and you don't have psychic powers and—"
"Where are we going next, Amy?" Pretzel interrupted loudly. "Invaluable team member Amy who is the only one who knows how to navigate this world and create an actual plan instead of just rushing into things like some people?" She glared at Whip, who had the grace to look sheepish.
"Thank you, invaluable team member Pretzel," Amy said with a wry smile. She pulled out her phone. "I was thinking we could head to Holoska next. It's accessible from the temple, and apparently there's been some odd weather there. I mean, there's been odd weather everywhere, but this is a place we can actually get to. Plane tickets are so expensive," she added under her breath.
"Holoska… Holoska!" Pretzel perked up as she remembered where she knew the name from. Oh wonderful, wonderful Holoska, land of cold and snow and ice and water, the opposite of this horrid desert. "Yes, let's go to Holoska, please let's go to Holoska, right now, immediately."
"Yay, Holoska!" Whip cheered, obliviously going along with Pretzel's excitement. The poor naive fool. "What's Holoska like, Amy?"
"You'll see," Amy said, smiling. "Come on, I think the temple's…" she shook her phone, squinting. "This way?" She started off, kicking up sand with each step.
"We're gonna save the world, we're gonna beat the monsters!" Whip chanted, zig-zagging energetically through the air. "Did you see how fast I took down that monster, Pretzel? This has to be the easiest quest ever!"
Pretzel just grimaced.
They reached the temple and headed inside. With everyone bunkering down from the sandstorm, there was no one there to stop them, and between Amy's hammer and Pretzel's… meltiness, locked doors weren't a problem. Amy left a polite note explaining the situation and some cash. Pretzel wasn't sure how useful that cash would be in this country, or if anyone here would be able to read English, but she kept those concerns to herself.
"Holoska, here we come!" Whip said cheerfully, placing his paws on the portal. "What do you think this monster will look like? A water monster or a fire monster? I hope it's another fire monster, then I can beat it up! This is gonna be so easy!"
"Don't be so sure," Pretzel muttered.
They'd been lucky so far, but if experience had taught her anything, it was to never expect things to go as, well, expected. And as much as she was looking forward to escaping the heat, it wasn't like things had gone well last time she visited Holoska. Hopefully no one would almost drown or have an identity crisis or get kidnapped this time. If they just didn't jinx it—
"Don't be so gloomy, Pretzel," Whip giggled, poking her. "What could possibly go wrong?"
Pretzel was going to kill him.
