You come looking for me again? What for? I thought you "wanted your money back", and now look at you. A pathetic little creature crawling and begging me for a new inspiration. Such a pity the human mind is so obscured, so obsolete. But yet they are so useful, YOU are so useful.
Don't you think I've forgotten how we ended up in our last deal. You won't be able to escape this one like before. You'll have to take it to completion, or I will do it for you. I've been gathering my force, I am not that weak shadow of my true form that you faced. I am torn between accepting or just tearing you apart and watching you rot for eternity.
Mmhhhhh...
But yes, I see it. All playing out right before my eyes, we could do so much great together, so much wrong. Ha. It could be so much fun. I can help you but you'll obey me, and you will enjoy because that's who you are.
Welcome back to the shadows where you belong, Percival.
"I am growing tired of always ending up having to take care of you." Cassandra's voice woke him up.
Once again in his room, once again no recollection of how.
He tried to move but his head hurt like crazy. So, he just stayed laying there, breathing. That's when he discovered that his chest hurt ten times more.
"Right, the branch." He thought, trying to angle himself in a way where it would hurt just a tiny less.
Cassandra stood up and helped him with a scowl one her face. Her hands trembled. Her nose was red and she didn't have any clothes to warm her.
She was still sick.
"Cass… I've, I haven't been the greatest brother, have I?" He asked while letting her tend to him.
"No." She patted his head lovingly. "But i haven't been the greatest sister neither."
"I'm sorry."
Cassandra went silent for a couple of minutes. She looked outside. It was a quiet night. Percy was growing tired of having to ask himself what day it was, or what time.
"Do you think this is what lady Vex'ahlia would have wanted for you?" She finally said.
"Boy have I been a bad brother." Percy instinctively thought.
"I, I don't know." He answered almost mumbling. "I don't think so, but she's not here to tell me that."
That sounded worse than he had intended.
"Well I'm still here, is it not enough if i tell you time and time again?"
"You are right, of course, you always are." Percy started. "But I have to do this, it doesn't matter if it tears me apart or if it ends me in the end, as long as everything is saved."
"It matters to me." She said. "From this side it looks like you are trying to kill yourself. Is that what you want? To end everything after all this time? Is that why you disappear as often? Why you appear bleeding and almost dying? Is that the way you want to go? Lost in some far away and horrible place?"
"What? No, of course not!" He said. "I have a plan, you'll have to trust me, please."
"I won't die just yet, I will crawl out of my tomb if need be." He added in his thoughts.
Vax interrupted whatever Cassandra was going to reply. She turned around instead to look at him waiting in the door, his face a pale emotionless one.
She stood up, kissed Percy's forehead and got out.
Vax entered.
"What day is it?" Percy asked letting a growl out that he had been resisting during the previous conversation.
"It's almost new year, just a few minutes off." The rogue replied while getting closer. "Now come one, up."
Vax started to help the gunslinger to get out of bed.
"I don't think I should be moving." Percy said a little confused. "Where are we going?"
Vax continued to assist him.
"I've known you for so long, I know you won't wait, and I prefer to be there and help you than letting you sneak off on your own being like this." Vax said trying to sound calm. "We are going to activate your weird machine."
"But…"
"Taryon did the last whatevers so it could function while you were sleeping." Vax interrupted him.
"Okay." Percy said while starting to move on his own.
They walked in silence through the great corridors of castle Whitestone until arriving at the lab. While going there Percy thought he should be afraid. He was actually doing this, he was going to travel back in time and fix everything. He would recover his lost friends, his lost wife, the lost lives of so many people he didn't even know. He should know them, all of them, at least all the ones that lived in Whitestone. He would be able to erase the horrible memories that haunted him at night, and during the day. Every time he smiled, the memories were there, right beside all his horrible decisions. It didn't help that for this plan to succeed he had needed to take more and more of them.
He would save everyone. Keyleth, Grog, Scanlan and Pike. And he would save Vex, oh he would save her no matter what or how. She was the best of them, if somehow, he didn't save all the others, at least by saving her she would find some way to get the rest. She was so strong, so incredible in all the ways he couldn't be.
During this walk it was the first time the Percy actually let himself remember the good times, remember the faces of Vox Machina. The pain was still there, he let himself feel it to remind himself why was he doing this, why was it so important and what would he get back.
When they got to the laboratory Doty was already pulling the lever that opened the ceiling and elevated the platform with the machine on top to ground level.
"Thank you." Percy allowed himself to tell Vax, who gently let him sit on the chair of the machine.
"You fight your way, I'll fight mine." Vax said with a sad smile. "See you on the other side Percy."
Vax gave Percy a sudden hug and as sudden as it happened it ended.
The whole contraption jerked to a stop. Percy checked around him and found his guns holstered in their compartments.
He felt a cold sensation on his head and looked up only to find that it was slowly snowing.
It was a beatiful night indeed. He made sure to remember everything, to set it in his mind. His last moments in this fucked up reality.
"Hey Percy," Vax yelled, "happy new year."
"Happy New year, and happy new life." Percy replied.
Then he started the machine.
The magic circles ignited in bright and arcane light elevating themselves from the ground and becoming thin lines of energy that quickly surrounded the machine.
The metal rings started vibrating as they relocated themselves in a sort of inner wall and started swirling in what seemed a random pattern.
The pumping machines made the Drake's blood flow to and within every pipe that was attached, giving the metal and everything around a blackish glow with a hissing sound.
Vax had to grab himself from what he found most near as the sudden surge of energy and velocity from the objects sent a wave of air around it.
Percy thought he saw movement in one of the windows of the castle, two in fact. Cassandra? Taryon?
He had no time to think as he felt a throbbing pain emerge out of nowhere in his right hand. He looked down, the ring was burning red and it felt like it would almost burst from sheer pressure.
The snow started swirling too around him, becoming a smooth sheet of white that enveloped him.
Vax yelled something, his voice lost in the cacophony of sounds.
A huge shadow hit against the machine with such a power that it almost removed it from its hinges, destroying the sheet of white.
"I see you, good try, better luck next time." The shadow spoke in Vecna's voice.
But as soon as it said it, it got torn apart from the time machine. Percy couldn't move even if he had wanted to. He was scared out of his life and felt like his soul was about to leave his body.
Around him a storm like a tornado circled and destroyed everything in its way. He could only see colours at this point, Light blues and white mixed with dark and electric blues. Everything formed a swirling vortex of sound and power.
The last thing he heard was a deafening crack that made him feel like his brain would just burst open. He instinctively protected his ears with his hands and screamed at the top of his lungs.
And then everything…
Stopped.
Five figures appeared mostly as shadows illuminated against the tornado walls by the frozen lightning.
The five of them were enormous in comparison to everything else and each of them approached from a different direction, taking their respective places.
The first to let itself be seen was an old man with a long white beard, almost bold, and a grey tunic covering his body. His eyes were completely white and his face was full of wrinkles and marks of old age. He carried a staff with an oil lantern at the top that emanated light in various directions, like a star. His face had been shaped by time and showed no sign of human emotion.
Next to him appeared the skull missing an eye of Vecna in his own robe, emanating a sickly green aura around him and looking both pleased and concerned at the situation.
Right in front of him the perfectly curved mask-like face of the Raven Queen appeared as if created out of the air around them. Her black dress relegated to the shadows cast by her feathers, though her long hands with even longer fingers reached ever so slightly toward the centre of it all.
The other two figures remained in shadows as they all looked down at Percival. The one next to the Raven Queen appeared to be smaller than the rest, with pointy ears and what it could only be a wild mane of hair. In front of him, the last shadow was a winged one with horns at the side of its large animal-like skull and a body much bulkier than the rest.
"I'm sure you are wondering why I have called you here, to this moment, in this very place." Started the old man.
"This fucker just ripped apart the fucking gate, so I'm sure that's the reason." Interrupted the winged shadow.
"Did he now?" Artagan said as he let himself be seen with his red hair and green clothing.
He looked down at Percival frozen in place.
"What door exactly did he broke?" He asked.
"What door? THE door, you moron! And why the fuck are you even here? This elf does not belong between us!" The winged shadow answered.
"The divine door, young fey." The voice of the Raven Queen announced.
"Oh... oh, now now this sounds like fun, though I do have to side with my not very charming friend here, why was I called to whatever this is?" Artagan replied seeming much more interested now.
"Silence everyone, you have all been called here for a reason." The old man said. "The gate will close again, I've taken the precaution of securing that, but this council has been reunited because of the individual that has caused all of this: Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klowolski de Rolo III."
"But you can call him Percy." Artagan added.
"I may just call him fucker." The winged shadow answered.
"This individual," The old man continued, "has not only broken the gate, but also is in the middle of bending time itself, going backwards in an attempt to rewrite history, my domain."
Time resumed for a millisecond where the storm continued to destroy anything and everything.
It stopped again.
"That's why you have been called." The old man continued. "The last ascended has asked for this individual to be removed of the current space and time continuum immediately, but his proposal has been refuted by the previous ascended."
"Ahhh I assumed it had been your intervention the one that kept me from killing him right there and then." Vecna said with poison in his voice.
"I will not let you have your way in this world, you are not the only one who has claimed the power to destroy it all." The Raven Queen replied, her face completely calm but her words full of spite.
"So, I've been called because I can technically manipulate time to an extent, and he was called because my dear melted friend over there," Artagan pointed in Vecna's direction, "wanted a companion as ugly as him."
"Something along those lines, I summoned the ascended ones and brought you two as impartial parties that may assist us in the voting of what must be done." The old man said. "I would have called for young Ioun as this much pertains to her dominion as well but she was not inclined to share any kind of arguing space with the newly ascended."
"What is there to vote old man!?" The winged shadow yelled. "This motherfucker is breaking every law that has been created just in this action alone, and I have the fucking sensation that he will break even more if we let him advance with these, and it will be something of mine, I can sense it and I will not tolerate that."
"You may call me The Hermit." The old man said.
"If he ends up travelling can I go with him, wise Hermit?" Artagan asked.
"No." The Hermit replied over Vecna's, the Raven Queen's and the winged shadow's sigh.
"Everyone is a judge here, my lord, this boy is much more entertaining than any of you." Artagan complained.
"Let's proceed with the voting please." The hermit said.
Time advance another millisecond where Percy believed to hear voices but was too afraid to even try to move.
The two ascended ones voted in favour and against letting Percival continue with his "trip." So that was one positive and one negative vote from the get go.
"The bitch queen might be even crazier than I thought. My vote is an absolute no, let him rot in here, unable to die or to live, watching everything else be corrupted." The winged shadow screamed.
"Two negative votes and one positive," The old man ignored him, "Artagan?"
"If he travels back in time will he meet a younger version of myself? Oh, what a fun and exciting idea! Let him continue, he has my approval, after all we could all use a change of style and scenario around here." Said Artagan giving a stinking eye directly to Vecna.
"We have reached an impasse, it seems." The old one said. "I shan't vote as that is not my place, but I will hear what you have to say."
"Can you keep time like this for as many hours as that may take?" Artagan asked. "I don't think we will arrive to an agreement any time soon."
"That won't be necessary noisy archfey." Vecna's voice sneaked into everyone's ears. "I have a proposition, a compromise as you will."
"I will not accept any words spoken by the Whispered One." The Raven Queen talked passionless.
"Talk." The Hermit said.
"Let him travel, but let his mind suffer the corruption he deserves, he will get what he thinks he wants but will make a sacrifice to get it." Vecna said without trying to hide his hideous smile.
"What does everyone think about this?"
"What this *corruption* might entail must be decided between he and I." The Queen said looking directly at Vecna.
"That is acceptable." Vecna replied.
"Then I'll join in the fun too, if he can travel that's great, let's wish him the best of lucks." Artagan replied almost giggling.
"I'll take that as a magnanimous yes to let Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klowolski de Rolo III continue with his time travel and potentially change the outcome of all events." The Hermit said. "He will be sent back in time to where his machination would take him, I will not interfere and neither will any of you in his journey, except for the condition just pacted."
"Let this journey commence."
Time advanced and reversed and Percy was there and he was not at the same time.
And then, everything changed.