10/23/20 - Will Nakaba de-canonize this in a few months? Yes, most definitely. In the meantime, enjoy this tale of deception, loss, and Chaos.

In the undying words of Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson and Anakin Skywalker: "What have I done?"


† Day One †

Lancelot sold himself to the devil three times. Evil took on different forms when it stretched out its hand and so did the contracts he signed. Once a word of consent, once a slash, and once a promise. He would later fail to tell where he had missed a crossroad or where he could have taken a different turn. Only one path stretched ahead of him. Other stories will tell of his prowess and his heroic deeds, but few dare to reveal how he acquired his strength. When Lancelot stepped into the rain outside his home, his choice was made, and he took up the pen to sign and seal his fate.

"Hey Master, be careful. You see I wanna —"

The rest of Lancelot's words remained unspoken as a sound, loud as a roaring thunder, and a flash of light startled him. His heart missed a beat, and he needed to shield his eyes from the brightness. But Jericho's hand held onto his, and the warmth and familiarity of her battle-hardened skin gave him the necessary strength to make another step forward without seeing the way. If he wanted to attain the same strength as his father, he couldn't lose it over noise and a little light show.

So instead of listening to the instincts of a child, Lancelot pressed onward until the white disappeared, and the world took on a new form.

Some higher might had replaced the rainy hills outside of Benwick with the coast of a vast lake. Its surface shimmered under an unnatural sun, but not a single wave rippled the water. Everything was still. No birds sung, no buzzing of Fairy wings sounded through the trees, even Lancelot's breaths seemed to disappear in the great silence of this place.

"Woah, this must be an entirely different realm," Jericho said. "I bet the people who vanished, including that merchant from yesterday, were all sent to this place through these gateways in the rain. That explains why no one can get a trace on them."

"But what good does it do to have all these folks here? And where are they?" Lancelot asked. "I can't hear them."

His gaze skipped from left to right, in search for something that wasn't there. The lake and its surroundings emitted quietness to the point where the air stiffened under the load. Criminal scums might be hiding out of sight in preparation for an ambush. What did Jericho always say about combat against multiple foes? Use their numbers against them. When they don't coordinate their attacks, you can control the flow of battle to only face one opponent at a time.

Right. Lancelot had his spear with him, and he and Master would take on any lowly criminal without breaking a sweat. His father definitely wouldn't break a sweat.

They moved along the shore for some time, always in anticipation of an attack. Lancelot's fingers, wrapped around the shaft of his makeshift spear, cramped, and he reminded himself to ease his grip. A desperate grip only leads to an untimely loss as Jericho liked to lecture him. So he kept his hands relaxed and his eyes open as he scanned the shore to his left and the sparse undergrowth to his right for enemy signs. Nothing. If other humans or Fairies had visited this lake, they had left behind an annoyingly small number of trails. But Lancelot nevertheless placed one step after the other and continued the search. He and Jericho had come this far, farther than any of King Meliodas' or King Arthur's attempts at tracking down the missing humans, and to turn back now would equal a colossal disgrace. Adults didn't run from a challenge.

Quick, come here…

The unnatural sun with its pale light refused to move across the sky, and without clouds to disrupt the monotony, Lancelot soon lost his sense of time. His stomach growled, and Jericho sent him an empathetic smile that failed to reach her eyes. She navigated through the scree banks with great care to avoid unnecessary noise, and her weapon remained unsheathed.

Time ran through Lancelot's hands like water, and Benwick moved further and further away. He contemplated a look back, but never followed through on the idea. Nothing lay behind them but the shore of the lake. Only the way forward mattered, after all, he had a mission to fulfill.

After who-knew-how-long, Lancelot and Jericho stumbled into the first sign to confirm they hadn't been treading on the same spot. And the first sign of human activity.

"You think that the people who were send here before us built this boat, Master?"

"I'm not sure. It looks too old. And too unsafe if you ask me." Jericho tapped the rotten plank of the boat's side with her boot, and a moan that inspired little trust escaped the belly of the wooden construct. "Maybe we should go back…"

Here. Come here.

Lancelot turned his head. The lake glistened in the sun. Harmless. But not without secrets. He had heard the same voice before, its whispered promises had rung in his ears when he had woken from his dream and when he had approached the gate in the rain. A constant tugging in his gut pulled him towards the lake and its depths.

Here…

"We can't give up now!" he said. "I bet the boat can bring us to where we need to go."

Jericho's heart overflowed with doubt. Her internal screams to flee echoed through Lancelot's head, and he pinched his arm to get his heart-reading ability to stop. With little success. "And where would that be?"

"The center of the lake. I'm sure of it."

Based on sight alone, nothing suggested that anything awaited them in the middle of the lake, where the water ran deepest and the creatures below the surface held the most power. But Lancelot needed to go there. The call originated from the lake, and if anyone knew the answers to this place or the series of disappearances, the voice would.

Jericho gnawed at her lip. She seemed oblivious to the voice, and if she felt a fraction of the pull urging Lancelot towards the lake, she battled its force with blind vehemence. "But you have to stay behind me at all times."

"That's not fair! I can fight!"

"You can stay back and let me do the fighting should we run into trouble. Ban will end me if I let anything happen to you."

Lancelot kicked a stone with enough force to propel the innocent victim of his outburst fifty yards across the lake until it went under. What did all his training matter if Jericho didn't let him put his experience to use? She would still sit in Benwick without him, she had no reason to treat him like a child in need of protection. Could she not see the progress he had made over the past five years?

"Hey, Lance, look at me." The softness in Jericho's voice compelled Lancelot to face her instead of his feet. "When I was your age, I wanted to grow up as quickly as possible too. But because I didn't stop to think, I ran headfirst into trouble after trouble. I was insufferable. And I needed others to drag me out of the mess I got myself into. It's okay to rely on others for a change, no matter how old you are. And last time I checked, I got a master title to boast with while you don't, so my word is your law."

With a grin to undermine the seriousness of her tone, she helped him shove the boat from the shore into shallow water where it whipped up and down without a sound. Lancelot jumped into the boat with an excess of energy and leaned from left to right to increase the rocking until he nearly capsized. He had never ridden a boat before; in Benwick, no one saw the use in such a mode of transportation when one could fly to the other side of any river in a fraction of the time a boat would take. And Lancelot, as one of the few exceptions to the rule, had stayed away from bodies of water deeper than he was tall. In this regard, Elaine knew no mercy.

But his mother wasn't here to lecture him, and Jericho had to admit that Lancelot could row the boat across the lake faster than she could.

After a few failed attempts during which Lancelot rowed in the opposite direction of where he wanted to go, he found a rhythm with the paddle and steered the boat at an urgent but even pace. A childish grin almost found its way onto his lips before he thought better of himself. Jericho stood at the front of the boat, hunched forward and with her left hand clawed into the railing. The other hand held onto her sword.

Then, from one moment to the next, the vast view of the lake and the outskirts of forests and mountain ridges disappeared. In their stead, a thick mist hung over the lake, heavy with foreboding, empty of sound. White fingers slithered past Jericho's boots and reached for Lancelot's face. He fastened the collar of his tunic. The head of his spear collected drops of condensed water, and the hairs on his arms stood up on edge.

"This can't be normal, not even in a realm as cursed as this," Jericho said. "I can't see a thing in this pea soup."

A jolt went through the boat, and Lancelot's teeth smacked against one another. He paddled water in this and that direction, but the boat remained stuck with such a defiance that not even his advanced strength made a difference. When he risked a look over the railing, Lancelot stared into water so dark, its surface didn't reflect the sky or his face. Shadows twisted down there, ghosts and memories of days long gone. Who knew how deep the well went.

"If we've run aground, that better means there's land we can stand on." With a look towards Lancelot, Jericho added, "Stay here."

And with a hearty jump, she abandoned the safety of the boat. The water sloshed around her knees, and after a moment of panicked unbalance, she found her footing on the muddy ground below the surface. She helped Lancelot out of the boat, but when his feet touched the water, the contact drove all air out of his lungs. A feeling, both warm and cold, flooded him, a sense of insignificance next to a power far greater than his own. When he had first met the Seven Deadly Sins, their combined magic forces had rendered him speechless, but this lake outclassed them by a tenfold. Something far more ancient and formidable resided in these depths. The lake lured him with a language he did not understand, words he could not make out, but the sound rung like music and absolute cacophony in his head, pure and impure at the same time.

Jericho eyed him from the side, and Lancelot tore his gaze away from the water. But his mind could not forget what his eyes refused to look at.

Hand in hand, they advanced to where the boat had hesitated to take them. Blades of reed rocked in and out of view past the wafts of mist, but no wind brushed across the lake to move them. When they reached a gentle incline, Lancelot's feet reemerged out of the black water, and he allowed himself a sigh, despite the risk of appearing weak in front of Jericho.

And as the shores lay behind them, the mist retreated and revealed stone buildings scattered on the island in the middle of the lake. Half-decayed castles, infected with moss, cast their shadows over them, towers sprouted from the ground without sense or logic, and archways that defied gravity stretched to the sky. The structures seemed to have grown rather than stem from the hands of human architects. One gust of wind could send everything tumbling down.

Lancelot increased his grip around Jericho's hand, and she offered an encouraging squeeze.

Here, Lancelot, heeereee…

The path they followed through the ruins took a sharp turn and ended in a rotunda of gravel a handful of steps later. And at the end of the way, at the center of the island, the lake, and this world as a whole stood a creature ripped out of the foulest depths of Purgatory.

Their mere presence put a pressure on his skull that made Lancelot sick as their fingers clawed at the door to his thoughts with endless screeching and shrieking. The shape of the creature suggested a female, but she was neither human nor Fairy, nor a member of any of the other clans. Like a shadow she wavered in the air, untouchable but a physical part of this world nonetheless, able to shape her surroundings to her will and capable of merging with their darkness. Her hair and black dress curled around her figure like snakes with their own mind, like hands eager to grab what the depths of the creature's heart desired. If evil had a face, it could only look like the featureless depths of the shadow's head.

Lancelot forced his muscles to move, recalled his training, and flung his spear at the figure. In the same instance, Jericho sent forward shards of ice with her magical ability, but none of the projectiles hit their target. The creature's darkness swallowed them all, and, as if she had tasted a delicious slice of meat pie, her uncounted hands reached out in ecstasy.

A sound escaped the shadow as she began to laugh. "Two fighters for the price of one. My master is truly generous today."

"Did you kidnap all the humans who disappeared across Britannia?" Next to the shadow's voice, Lancelot sounded small and powerless, even in his own head.

Jericho tried to shift in front of him, but he stepped past her. He needed to show strength, be an adult, then the creature would have to answer his questions and solve the case. And then surely his father would praise him, right?

"All that happens is in accordance to the will of Chaos," the shadow replied. "He has brought you to me, my dear. Where else his plan may lead you remains to be seen."

Despite Lancelot's protests, Jericho shoved him behind her back and faced the shadow. "I don't know what hell you crept out of, but you won't lay a finger on him!"

"Oh." The shadow chuckled, a low, disgusting sound that reverberated in Lancelot's gut. "And you intend to protect him?"

"I made a promise to the man I love and respect the most. I don't plan to let him down."

A battery of ice shards appeared out of thin air behind Jericho, each of them the size of a human arm and sharp enough to pierce steel. The cold air bit into the skin of Lancelot's face. And in the same instance the shards shot forward, Jericho charged at the shadow.

Lancelot had seen her fight in training before, but never with killing intent, and the precision with which she wielded both sword and magic ability disabled him from doing anything other than gape. The entire time she trained him, she had withheld her true skill. He could only hope to learn a fraction of her abilities.

While the shadow let her hands deal with the frontal attack, Jericho conjured a new set of shards behind the creature. Forced to split her attention, the shadow disposed of the second wave the same way she had the first, but the diversion bought Jericho the time she needed to close the gap. She hacked through the wavering ropes faster than the hands could grab her, spinning, turning, dashing out of the path of retaliatory attacks, always one step ahead of the enemy.

Lancelot scanned his surroundings for a weapon, but aside from a collection of stones, nothing caught his eye. But before he could lunge for a sharpened rock, and before Jericho could reach the shadow, one of the hands coiled around her right wrist and twisted flesh and bone. Jericho muffled a scream, and her sword dropped to the ground with a sharp clang. The fear in her heart overflowed, the regret, the agony, the face of a young man she called brother.

Lancelot forgot the stone and dashed forward to tackle the shadow barehanded. The ropes caught him before he managed more than a few steps. His muscles protested as he tugged at his restraints, but his above human strength struggled against the hands to no avail.

The shadow moved closer until its faceless head hovered inches away from Jericho. More ropes wrapped themselves around her limps and neck, and the greedy hands caressed her skin. Ban's arrogant smirk flashed in her memory, his drunk smile, his sorrowful stare into the middle distance, and the better life he had opened for her, a chance to find everything she dreamed of except for the one adoration she failed to let go. Jericho's hazy eyes found Lancelot's.

And then, the shadow swallowed her whole.

"MASTER!"

With every ounce of strength left in him, Lancelot tore free of the shadow's grip, dove for a roll, and returned to his feet with Jericho's sword in hand. He tensed his fingers to stop them from shaking, and in a blind charge, he closed in on the shadow. She would pay, she had to atone for this, nothing else mattered as long as she died.

If she took notice of his efforts, she made no move to counter them. Instead, her hands stood still and tasted the air. The fragments of Jericho's memory whirled through Lancelot's head. With one jump he was above the shadow and aimed for her neck.

But instead of flesh, his blade tasted air as the shadow recoiled into the earth. Nothing remained of her other than the aching at the back of his head.

Dazed and shell-shocked, Lancelot dropped to his knees where the shadow had hovered. His nails dug into the dirt.

He had failed. Jericho was gone. The sound of her heart, a blizzard of emotions, sometimes loud, more often controlled – snapped away. He had insisted to investigate the disappearance of the humans, but instead of a lead, he had found an enemy capable of crushing him with no more than the turn of a hand. Jericho had trusted his instincts, she had followed him into the rain and to the center of the lake, and for this the shadow had eaten her. While Lancelot had stood aside, unable to change the outcome of the fight, unable to help or even avenge her. The small stones hidden within the crumps of dirt cut into his palms. Hot tears streamed down his face.

What a lousy prince he was.

The shadow reemerged and blocked the pale sunlight until her darkness absorbed Lancelot's small silhouette.

"So much light," she said, "and so much darkness. So full of contradicting emotions…"

Lancelot aimed a last weak swing at the enemy that never met its target.

"What are you?" he asked between two pathetic sobs.

The shadow placed a hand on his cheek. His mother did the same whenever she comforted him after an unsuccessful training session.

"You, Lancelot, can call me Lady of the Lake."