I hope you guys aren't the squeamish types.
Chapter 35 – Alone in the Dark (Horsebow Moon)
An intricate floor panel deep in the catacombs of Garreg Mach came alight, catching the attention of a trio of acolytes in dark garbs. The acolytes, not expecting any arrivals, immediately readied themselves for intruders.
With a flash of magical light, Dorothea appeared atop the panel with a yelp of shock. She stumbled forward as a sensation of queasiness flooded through her, placing a hand against a wall to stop herself from falling over.
"W-What in the…?" Dorothea said in her disorientation. Then, as her vision came back into focus, she said, "What just happened to me?"
She looked up and immediately realized she wasn't in the same chamber she had been in seconds before. More worryingly, there was no sign of Byleth or any of the others.
"Professor? Anna? Dimitri? Anyone?" she called out.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?" said a sinister voice as the three acolytes emerged from the shadows and encircled Dorothea.
Alarmed, Dorothea tried to ready a spell. One of the acolytes immediately raised his hands, his spell surging forth to engulf Dorothea in black energy. The singer shrieked as her body was met by overwhelming pain, the spell effectively paralyzing her. She was about to fall over when the remaining two acolytes grabbed her arms and restrained her.
Despite the pain still surging through her, Dorothea yelped, "H-Hey! Let go of me! I said let go, you creep!"
"Quite a pretty one, isn't she?" said one of the acolytes.
"What to do with such a pretty bird?" said a second acolyte.
"Bring her to the master," said the third. "He can always use more test subjects."
"W-What are you talking about?" Dorothea stammered as she tried to fight against her captors, but she could not break free as they led her down a passageway. "Hey, where are you taking me?! Let me go! Help! Someone, help!"
"Scream all you wish, pretty bird," said the second acolyte. "It will do you no good here."
Dorothea continued to struggle against the two acolytes who held her arms, but her body felt like it had just run all the way across Fódlan, and these acolytes were physically stronger than her in any event. She tried to kick at their legs, but she couldn't muster any real force behind them. The acolytes laughed at her feeble attempts to resist.
Within minutes, the acolytes led Dorothea to a dark chamber that was only illuminated by candlelight. Dark magic tomes littered the area, and on the walls were numerous shackles and chains. In the center was a stone altar, before which stood a dark mage in refined black and crimson robes. They were the robes of a Dark Bishop, a master of the dark arts.
Looking to the side as she struggled, Dorothea saw a familiar face slumped unconscious on the floor, her arms chained over her head to a wall. It was Mercedes.
"M-Mercedes!" Dorothea stammered.
This caught the attention of the Dark Bishop, who turned to look at Dorothea. The old man's face was white as snow, his hair a very pale gray. His face had several veins pulsating unnaturally across his wrinkled features. His right eye looked artificial, black as charcoal and with several symbols surrounding it. He held a short black cane in his left hand, both hands looking as though they were made of a strange black metal.
The Dark Bishop stepped away from the altar, revealing another girl laying on top of it, naked as a babe, and the sight of her made Dorothea's eyes go wide with concern.
"Flayn!"
Indeed, Flayn lay upon the altar as the Dark Bishop's spell worked upon her. Dorothea could see the girl let out a weak, painful gasp as streams of the girl's blood were drawn from cuts along her small, frail body. The blood was coalescing in a liquid ball that floated above the Dark Bishop's right hand.
"Why do you fools interrupt me?" said the Dark Bishop, his voice leaving no question to his sinister nature.
"This girl came through the transporter, master," said the first dark acolyte.
"Did she? And you thought this worthy of my attention?"
The two acolytes holding Dorothea shoved her forward, sending the singer collapsing onto her knees before the Dark Bishop as he kept the ball of Flayn's blood suspended over his hand. Dorothea wanted to get up and fry the Dark Bishop with a spell, but all the strength in her body seemed to disappear. She could barely keep herself upright.
"W-What are you doing to Flayn?" Dorothea asked, doing her best not to look afraid.
The Dark Bishop smirked at Dorothea but did not answer. He turned away from the singer and hobbled his way toward a nearby table. On top of the table was a strange apparatus with eight large vials in a circular arrangement. Seven of the vials were filled with what Dorothea could only assume was blood – Flayn's blood.
Reaching the apparatus, the Dark Bishop raised his right hand, and the ball of blood began to pour itself into the last remaining vial. Not a drop was spilled as the blood filled the vial almost to the brim. As the last of the blood entered the vial, the apparatus lowered a flap over it, sealing the vial tightly and let out a small chirping sound. Then, moving his hand, the Dark Bishop's magic caused the apparatus to levitate before him.
The Dark Bishop then turned to the acolytes and said, "Get rid of this filthy beast, and then be ready to leave this site at once. No doubt her friends will show up soon."
Dorothea would've spat at the Dark Bishop for calling her such a thing, but she found she herself too afraid to say a thing. As the Dark Bishop continued to give out orders, Dorothea's attention turned back to Flayn and Mercedes. Mercedes looked unharmed, but Flayn was a sickly pale atop the altar. The green-haired girl turned her head to look at Dorothea, and Dorothea saw the despair in Flayn's green eyes as she recognized the singer.
As the Dark Bishop finished his instructions, he tapped his cane upon the floor of the chamber. A magical circle appeared beneath his feet. Seconds later, the Dark Bishop vanished, his spell teleporting him and the apparatus away.
"You heard the master," said the third acolyte. "Kill the girl and then ready everything to move."
"Must we kill her right away?" asked the second acolyte. "Surely we can have some fun with her first."
"Yes, let's see just how loud this one can scream," said the first acolyte.
Dorothea finally found the strength to rise to her feet. She bit her lip as she stepped back from the acolytes as they approached her menacingly. She knew she couldn't beat them in a fight as she was. Her mind raced for anything to turn the tables on her captors.
It was then that a loud clanking sound stopped everyone in their tracks.
"Another guest, I see," said the Death Knight as he strode into the chamber.
Turning to face him, the first acolyte hissed, "Mind your business, Death Knight! She is our prize!"
"It is due to your foolishness that this girl is even here!" said the third acolyte.
The Death Knight made no response as he continued to move toward Dorothea. The singer could only stumble back in terror, her eyes glancing toward his menacing scythe.
The second acolyte then stepped in front of the Death Knight and shouted, "Remember your place, you savage – GRK!"
In a split second, the Death Knight's left hand shot forward and grabbed the acolyte by the neck. The acolyte grasped at the Death Knight's wrist to try and free himself. Seconds later, the Death Knight tilted his head to the side as he raised the acolyte off his feet by the neck. The acolyte let out several choking gasps as he tried to break free, but to no avail. Then, with a swift twist of his wrist, the Death Knight snapped the acolyte's neck. He released his victim, letting the acolyte topple to the ground, dead.
The remaining two acolytes, now terrified of the Death Knight, loudly panicked as they scurried away from him, retreating down one of the corridors to the chamber.
For a moment, there was complete stillness between Dorothea and the Death Knight. Dorothea was still trying to comprehend what was going on. Had the Death Knight… saved her?
Then, as if to answer her, the Death Knight turned to her and said, "Run while you can."
"W-What?" Dorothea asked as she took a step back from him.
Then, in a tone that filled the singer with absolute horror, he readied his scythe and said, "I do so enjoy a good chase…"
It dawned on her why the Death Knight had done it. He wanted to kill her himself.
A second later, Dorothea did the only thing she could think of in her terrified state: she ran.
The singer dashed to the closest corridor she could find, desperate to put some distance between her and the Death Knight, who now advanced toward her. The girl scrambled with all the energy she had left in her, almost hyperventilating as she ran. She didn't think of Flayn or Mercedes, she didn't think of where to go, she didn't think of how to fight back. She only thought one thing: she had to get as far away from the Death Knight as possible, as quickly as possible.
Dorothea made a panicked cry as she pulled herself around a corner, almost toppling over as she went down a flight of stairs, running deeper into the monastery labyrinth. In her hysteria, everything she could see was a blur, and she couldn't take in anything of her surroundings.
In the back of her mind, she knew she had to calm down. This wasn't the first time she had been forced to flee from men and women who sought her life. More than once in her time as a street orphan, she had fled from angered nobles or lecherous thieves. More than once, she had been forced to run for dear life through the alleys and sewers of Enbarr. And each time, she had escaped or outwitted her pursuers. But this wasn't Enbarr. And this wasn't some minor noble or street thug after her. After her was the single deadliest warrior she had ever known, she was in a place she could not hope to escape from, and she knew she stood absolutely no chance if she tried to fight.
Calming down was the single most impossible thing she could do right now.
Dorothea shrieked as her foot struck a raised part of the floor, and she fell into a shallow puddle of sewage. The putrid stench of tainted water and the grimy sensation of it against her skin made her cough for a second, but she couldn't care less at the moment. She scrambled to stand up and run again.
A second after she did, a crescent-shaped blast of energy flew whistling toward her.
Dorothea had just enough time to spin around and raise a quick magical ward to block the attack. Her ward shattered like glass as the force of the blast sent her tumbling through more sewage. She stopped as her body struck a wall.
For a few seconds, Dorothea was in shock. She knew the Death Knight had caught her. She whimpered desperately as she tried to push herself up and run. She screamed mentally at herself to move, crying out for her to do anything to survive.
The sensation of the Death Knight's hand grasping her throat drove her to despair, and she began sobbing and blubbering for mercy as he raised her off the sewage-soaked floor and pinned her to the wall.
"Please, please, please, don't kill me!" Dorothea whimpered. "I – I – I won't tell anyone what I saw here! I swear I – Please, have mercy!"
The Death Knight was motionless as he held Dorothea by her neck, watching the singer as her pleas grew more and more desperate.
"Please, I don't – I don't want to die! I don't – I don't – I don't – PLEASE HAVE MERCY!"
Dorothea's eyes flooded with tears as panic gripped her heart. Her words began to devolve into an incoherent series of cries and whimpers.
Then, the Death Knight said, "What does she see in you?"
In her panic, Dorothea's mind couldn't process what the Death Knight was saying. But she knew the Death Knight would show her no mercy. And there was no way out.
This was it. She was going to die…
And all she could do was continue to beg desperately for mercy.
Dorothea's pleas were cut off as the Death Knight's grip around her throat tightened. Her whimpers intensified as she tried to breathe. She grasped at the Death Knight's wrist and kicked in any way she could, but all of it was fruitless.
"No matter," said the Death Knight. "Your life ends here…"
Images of Dorothea's life began to flash before her eyes as asphyxiation began to creep up on her. She saw herself as a child playing with a discarded doll in an alleyway. She saw herself up on stage at the Mittelfrank Opera giving a stellar performance to a crowd that applauded her. She saw herself meeting Edelgard for the first time behind the stage, and then saw herself joining up with Edelgard at the Officers Academy. And then she saw herself sharing her time with Byleth and the rest of the Black Eagles, all who valued her company.
In her despair, Dorothea let out one last desperate cry.
"Put her down!" shouted a familiar voice.
The pressure on Dorothea's neck loosened ever so slightly. For a second, she didn't even realize it, didn't realize she was still alive. But then it clicked in for her as the Death Knight released his grip on her neck, and Dorothea slumped to the floor of the chamber.
She couldn't see anything in her hysteria, her vision a complete tear-filled blur. Reflexively she gasped for air and clutched her throat. And as air filled her lungs, she realized she was still alive.
Someone had saved her.
Dorothea slowly looked up at her savior, knowing it could only be one person.
"Professor…"
Writing Dorothea's panic was rather tricky. I know Bernadetta's supposed to be the panicky one, but that's often played for laughs. For Dorothea, I'm trying to make her panic much more genuine. Lemme know how well I did with it.