After several stressful days smattered across a couple of drawn out months, Dan had found sequestered himself inside his castle in the Ghost Zone for some well-sought out peace and quiet. When did screaming ghouls and endless mountains of paperwork become peaceful? Dan mused to himself as he readjusted his clammy grip on the Soul Shredder and tried to resist adjusting the Crown of Fire or the Ring of Madness for the umpteenth time since they had started. The heat that emanated from the Crown of Fire wasn't exactly anything to write home about, but after hours of basking in its warmth, he could feel the steady drip of sweat that trickled down his back or the sheen of ice that encased his knuckles from the Ring of Madness.
Dan itched to pull at the high-necked collar of his dark and slim-fitting leather tunic as it dug into his throat, but knew that that would most definitely draw the artist's ire. Instead, he wiggled in place where he sat upon the Skull Throne as he tried his best to de-wedge the tight-fitting black breeches which were riding up far too high, but that only served to rustle the large mossy cape draped around him. The dull teeth of the skull pauldrons bit into his shoulders, even from where they sat atop the dark leather tunic and the silver sabatons which adorned his feet pinched at his toes. These annoyances may have been small on any other occasion—barely even a footnote on the daily—but after sitting still for so long without much to do, the halfa was growing increasingly irritated with them.
Posing with the Primordial Gifts in the barely worn ceremonial robes for his portrait was kind of an annual thing that all the kings/queens did; a new portrait with a new artist for the year's Ancients Festival that celebrated the three primeval beings & their children; a time filled with parties & politics, not unlike those of the Deathday parties. Although he was not technically a full ghost (a process that would not occur until the last of his human soul died out), he, thankfully, found that he commanded more respect from his subjects than most who had been in this seat before him.
Yes, Pariah Dark was widely considered to be the very first halfa and Emperor of the Infinite Realms, considering he was the original child of the Ancients; but that did not mean he had always been on the throne. A smattering of lesser Kings (as told by the Gallery of Kings) had appeared throughout history; mostly as a result of lesser coups that didn't last for very long and Pariah Dark always ended up back on the throne. The longest coup and resulting reign (aside from his own) had lasted about a decade (which was nothing in the time of ghosts) when Fiery Freya had taken the throne.
Trolling through the Gallery of Kings was kind of fun to do some days, you could see how each King or Queen carried themselves, how they were portrayed by themselves & others, and so on. Renaissance, Gothic, Antiquity and so on; all sorts of styles painted the ghoulish royalty in varying shades of dark, grim and intimidating. Some of the world's most renowned painters' works were up there, like Gauguin and Van Gogh, Dan was surprised to find. Dan shifted again, much to the annoyance of the reptilian artist in front of him who glared & hissed a warning around the multitude of brushes poking out between his fangs.
Wincing an apology, Dan's thoughts turned to the Akiridions still holed up inside Mother whilst their enemy crept ever closer. Earlier that day, the Tarron siblings had contacted the Resistance on Akiridion-5 to present to them the wormhole prototype that Krel had built. It was fair to say that the king-in-waiting had showboated for a fair bit when it had worked and the queen-in-waiting had rolled her eyes at her brother's antics. She had snatched the boombox from Vex's hands before she threw it through the little wormhole much to her brother's chagrin (mostly on the account that his demo tape had been locked inside). Nevertheless, the test had been successful and the two Resistance fighters on the other side of the galaxy had easily retrieved the device, unharmed and in one piece. Something which had served to lighten Krel's mood, if only a little.
By the time evening had fallen that day, Dan was sat across from George at The Arcane Diner just enjoying each other's company and partaking in the two-for-one milkshake special they had going for summer. It wasn't a date—"Shut up, Mother!"—but the two had thought it nice to catch up after the whole halfa/elf-reveal-thing during the high school raid. Plus, y'know, since Dan had been spending more and more of late in his apartment on the magical floor of Babylon Towers, the food situation had kind of dwindled. As it turned out, milkshakes had been a good idea because it let the two graduates just sit and talk; the two comparing and contrasting the nuisances of elvish and ghoulish life, hidden inside a town as strange as themselves.
The tinny sounds of Elvis Presley playing over the store's speakers provided a nice background noise for Dan to finish his lime milkshake whilst George went off to the bathroom. Sucking up the last dregs of lime-stained ice cream, Dan found himself turning to look outside when a strange noise caught his attention.
POOT!
"Aja? Luug?" Dan quirked a brow at the blonde & her alien dog as they popped up in the middle of the street, encased in a cloud of violet. His brows furrowed when he noticed that she appeared rather despondent after the supposed success of the wormhole prototype that morning. Honestly, the blonde looked like the world had been ripped out from beneath her. "What're you doing here?" He mumbled to himself, sparing a glance towards the direction of the bathrooms which showed no sign of George returning.
He didn't want to ruin a perfectly nice evening, but the halfa was still concerned about the blonde; so he double-checked that no one was looking before a duplicate peeled away from him and trotted outside to see what was wrong. Duplicates, while not usually his forte (though he had been practising & getting better), were typically much easier to create when wearing one or more of the three Primordial Gifts. Doing this, he appeased not only his desire to stay put (and finish his milkshake), but to also figure out what was going on to make her look so upset.
He watched them from the corner of his eyes as Duplicate Dan knelt beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Through the link he could feel the touch of her fuzzy sweater dress beneath his fingers, could hear her muffled sniffles and Luug's worried whimpers. It did not assuage his concerns. He watched Duplicate Dan spare a glance over his shoulder, back towards the diner before the duplicate lifted the girl from the pavement and turned to lead her back home.
"All good?" George greeted as he returned, pulling Dan from the window and towards the elf as he stretched, cracking his back slightly. Heterochromatic eyes traced the lines of toned & tanned muscles that were revealed when his Sugar & Spite band t-shirt rode up, gracing the tops of his belly button. "Dan?"
"Uh, y-yep" Dan coughed, hiding his embarrassment behind a smile as he vehemently ignored the blush crept across his cheeks. Because this wasn't a date & he didn't like George like that. He didn't.
"Aja? Are you okay?" Duplicate Dan knelt down next to the queen-in-waiting where she knelt, huddled over her pet in the middle of the street and placed one hand on her shoulder.
"Mmm!" Luug whimpered sadly, nudging the girl beneath the chin in an attempt to get a reply. All he got were mumbles that ran one into the other. Duplicate Dan spared a glance over his shoulder and back towards the diner from whence he had just come; he could see the original halfa still seated in the booth by the window, sucking up the last of his lime milkshake and he could feel the shared concern flowing through their link.
"Did something happen?" Duplicate Dan tried, turning back to the blonde.
POOT!
Before he could receive a reply, the halfa and the two Akiridions were enveloped in another gaseous violet cloud and transported across Arcadia, back to the Tarron's backyard where they were greeted by a gleeful Krel. "Yes! The jump worked!" Krel cheered as Luug dislodged himself from Aja's arms and trotted off to the side whilst Duplicate Dan perched precariously on the pool's edge, still worried about the younger girl.
"Hur—hur—hurk!" Luug retched, coughing up a series of nuts and bolts that the halfa recognised as the wormhole prototype the king-in-waiting had been slaving over for the last couple of weeks.
"Eurgh!" Duplicate Dan scrunched his nose up in disgust. It was almost as bad as the farts.
"But that is absolutely disgusting!" Krel agreed, before taking note of his sister's downtrodden expression as she hugged herself tight with barely contained terror. "Aja, are you all right?"
"He's here!" Aja whimpered, "He's here!"
"Who's here?" Duplicate Dan asked.
"General Morando! He's here! On Earth!"
"Oh"
It had grown dark by the time everyone was home and locked inside the mothership. Both Tarron siblings sat huddled up together on the couch with Luug trapped between them, Duplicate Dan sat tucked into the folds of the adjacent couch, whilst both Vex and Zadra paced back & forth in front of them. Off to the side, LU—C & RK—Y fluttered about in the kitchen as they went through the motions of making supper.
"Shield activated" Mother intoned as the lights inside went dark and a blue dome erupted around the ship, encasing them inside.
"Are you quite certain?" Vex asked again of the queen-in-waiting.
"Positive!" Aja replied, slapping her thigh with her fist in emphasis.
"Er…"
"…Not to question your visual capabilities, my queen-in-waiting—" Zadra tried.
"—Luug saw him too, right Luug?" Aja interjected, annoyed that their guardians didn't think she knew what she saw. Luug whimpered in agreement and buried himself further into the folds of the couch.
"Jeepers creepers, you gloomy-Guses! Who turned out the lights?" RK—Y tried to lighten the mood as LU—C appeared from the kitchen with a tin of meatloaf (about one of the few things she could make) in her hands.
"General Morando is on Earth" Aja replied tersely as Krel ran his fingers through Luug's fur, settling both himself and the canine, if only a little.
"Morando?!" LU—C yelped, dropping the meatloaf which thunked to the floor at their feet.
"That vile, vile villain!" RK—Y growled.
"Don't panic, kiddos, we'll leave right now—!"
"—Silence!" Vex snapped, tiring of the blithering bots of the 60s.
"The talking cans are correct" Zadra piped up.
"Cans?" RK—Y gasped, taken aback at the language.
"Hey, missy!" LU—C immediately went on the defensive with hands on hips and eyes narrowed to a glare.
"Now that hurts my preprogrammed feelings!" RK—Y whined over his wife's shoulder. The two were mostly ignored, save for a twitch of the lips from Duplicate Dan who kind wanted to see the Blanks v Akiridion showdown.
"We'll return to Akiridion-5" Zadra turned to Vex, taking slight pleasure in the fact that she had to look down at the commander in order to speak to him, due to him still wearing his saggy human transduction. "With the palace abandoned, this is our best chance to retake the throne—is the wormhole generator operational?"
"Yes, but to create a wormhole large enough to fit us, will take time" Krel replied, fingers carding through corgi fur.
"We're not leaving" Aja stood up in defiance. "Morando expects us to run and hide because that's all we've done since the first secton he attacked out planet!"
"If Morando is working with Kubritz, you cannot engage them alone" Zadra implored for the queen-in-waiting to see it her way.
"I won't. I'll be doing it with all of you, together" She fired back.
"Varvatos Vex agrees with the queen-in-waiting" Vex nodded as he placed one of his feet upon the edge of the coffee table (ignoring LU—C scolding glare to get down), "General Morando stole your throne and harmed the king & queen, but tonight we shall storm the gates and show the usurper the true meaning of torture & suffering! He will beg for mercy! Which we will deny as we laugh like this! HAHA—AH!"
"Alert! Alert!" Mother jumped into view, knocking Vex over in his fright as the alarm blared throughout the entire ship.
"Varvatos Vex is in the middle of the most rousing of monologues!" The old man winged from the floor.
"I just thought you'd like to know, we've got intruders" Mother sassed.
