Chapter 10 Part Three: It's Not The Same Moon
"Oh, goddamn it."
Will had finally arrived on the battlefield, where a depressingly familiar scenario presented itself: in the center of a smoking crater, all but one fighter lay unconscious, with the remaining one valiantly yet ineffectually attacking the vastly superior force responsible for the devastation. I have been in this exact position way too many times for my age, he thought, rushing to the crater. "Okay, Nicole's here, and Marcas, and Frank," he rattled off quickly, less out of any real need to count how many people there were than to reaffirm his suspicions. "Which means," he continued, turning to the battle waging in the middle of the street, "Chrome is, uh, "fighting" Nick." The "fight", as it was, was one-sided to an unusual degree: Chrome was flinging bolts of ice at every exposed inch of flesh available to her, while Nick… was completely unaffected, as evidenced by the fact that he seemed completely absorbed by the sight of the full moon, its light unhindered by the night's sparse cloud cover.
Will looked up, taking in the shining satellite with a small frown. He was never taken in by the illusion; he knew full well that the large disk hovering barely a thousand feet or so above them was fake… at least, compared to his world, artificial moons being par for the course for the various city-sized chunks of land that made up the Spiral. Still, no matter how long he lived and traveled, he could never get used to their oddly smooth, flat surfaces. Why are you thinking about moons! Break up the fight!
Nick's remaining eye (Holy Hell, what even happened here? Will thought belatedly) began to glow a sickly green, and a raspy growl rolled throughout the battlefield, alerting the younger Wizard to his growing irritation with Chrome's assault. "Chrome, back off! I'm trying something!" he called out. Ducking under Nick's impatient swipe, the Fairy zipped over to him, out of breath and shaky.
"Fine," she said, taking quick gasps, "do whatever you're going to do. I'll look after the others. But Will—" she grabbed his arm, "—don't get too close to him, okay? Trust me." With that, she returned to the unconscious fighters, leaving him with his mentor. Hoo-freaking-rah. "Nick!" The Draconian swung his head toward him, the eye's glow becoming more substantial.
"Will." His statement was completely neutral, if somewhat terse. The glow faded, though it remained just barely noticeable. He stretched his wings and waited, watching the Sorcerer silently. The seconds crept by, both combatants stock-still save for Nick's breastplate, whose many eyes and mouths lolled lazily. Feeling the awkwardness set in, Will spoke first: "So… you have a Polymorph, then? That's… cool. You know, aside from the damage to the street… and the World ending power up… oh, and don't forget the whole "beating up three completely defenseless people maybe a fourth your size" thing, one of who, as you may recall, was your friend!"
"To be fair, I've only known her for a few hoursss now," Nick said, unbothered by his student's accusations. "Besidesss, she's hardly blamelesss in all of thisss."
"What are you talking about?"
"Jussst give it a moment."
Sure enough, a cry rose from the crater after a few seconds, and Chrome darted back toward Will, with Nicole following in hot pursuit, loosing a screech of unbridled fury. The pair zipped around the Sorcerer before Nicole managed to catch up, grab the smaller Fae by the ankle, and start twirling her around like an improvised hammer. Building enough momentum, the maddened Dark Fairy let Chrome loose, sending her crashing against a low wall and hitting the ground painfully. She tried to rush her fallen friend, only for Will to knock her down with a heavy whack to the side, and pinning her to the ground when she began to struggle.
After a minute or so, she gave up, gasping for air. "Get—" huff"—off—" puff"—of—" wheeze"—me!"
"Nicole, calm down! What the hell are you doing? Why did you attack- what is wrong with your eyes? They're like, all pupil… are you high? Were you pricked by something? Are you hallucinating right now?"
"I'm pretty sure she popped a blood vesssel or two," Nick remarked drily. Nicole only saw fit to start trying to push Will's staff off of her chest, to no avail.
"So how do I snap her out of it?" the Sorcerer asked, only to receive a dismissive shrug from his mentor.
"Hell if I know," Nick said, eye listing back to the moon. "Just hit her a few timesss in the head, that usually works in situations like this."
"Thanks, but I'd rather not mess her up further." Will shifted his staff's position, pinning his captive down more securely while alleviating some pressure, allowing her to breathe easier. There's nothing for it, I guess.Concentrating for a second, he let out a burst of magic through his staff, stunning the pinned Dark Fairy. Backing away carefully, he rushed over to Chrome. Taking stock of her prone form, he noted a bad bite mark on her arm, as well as blood running from a gash on the back of her head. Wasting no time, he got to work.
In a place beyond recount, scattered memories swirl by: the turning over of a new friend's unconscious body reveals a horrific wound; haste and panic blurring the absolute focus needed to bind flesh and restore blood for several breathless seconds, before pushing the unwelcome distractions away, to be dealt with at a later time, to allow the magic to flow forth; the relief when she stirs, replaced by shock and concern when she opens her eyes, only to again be replaced by pain and bewilderment when she lashes out, biting her in the arm deeply enough to break the skin; trying and failing to escape, and getting thrown into a wall as a consequence.
Even more faded are the ghosts of long concluded conversations:
"Chrome, if you will pleasepry yourself away from that absurdly large book, we must prepare for…"
"…ways flitting around with barely a 'hi' or 'how do you do' like she's SO much better than us, just because the Rook wanted her help on a few projects. It's not like she's her successor or anything. Someone ought to—oh, Chrome! …Um… how long were you standing there…"
"So, Lady, I believe Chrome will be an exemplary replacement."
"…"
"Of course if you have any concerns as to her ability, you only need voice them."
"No, no, Aurelain, her ability is not in question; I have complete confidence in you on that front. It's just that… I didn't know she wanted the position."
"Oh, doubtless she doesn't. Honestly, I'm not sure if she even knew I was vetting her for it. Nevertheless, she will be a more than worthy successor; I don't have a shred of doubt about it."
"Truly?"
"Lady, how long have I worked under you?"
"Nigh on twenty years."
"And how many times have I been wrong about anything?"
"Three times, if I recall correctly."
"Yes, and all within the last two years. I'm slipping."
"Aura, if you made thrice that, you'd still be far ahead even my second castellan in that regard. You have a great many years left in you."
"Doubtless on that count as well. However, I believe Chrome will be far greater than me, or even the illustrious Morgan. All that's left for me to do is point her in the right direction."
"I'll keep my fingers crossed. But I must ask, where do you plan to go?"
"I suspect I shall wander for as long as I'm able, providing aid where it is needed. All I know for certain is that teaching will NOT be a part of it."
"Hehe… well, good luck to you, my friend. So how will you break the news to her?"
"Hm? Oh, she'll know now; isn't that right, Chrome..."
Chrome!
She jerked awake, pushing Will aside for room. Getting her feet under her, she managed to stand, leaning against the wall for balance. She didn't have to look at her arm to know that Will's impromptu healing spell didn't extend there, and was still seeping blood. Willing it closed, she turned toward the silent Nicholas, who seemed enraptured by the sight of the moon. Meeting the gaze of one of the few open eyes of his breastplate for a moment, she broke away with a shudder and instead faced Will.
"Chrome, are you okay?" he was asking. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes," she responded (why did she sound so wooden all of a sudden?), "I'm okay. Did you get caught by Nicholas?"
"Caught? No, we just sort of… I guess talked, stared at that thing"—he jerked a finger at the overhead moon—"for a bit, and generally were just pointless for about five minutes, even when Nicole knocked you out."
Healing the last of her injuries, she turned toward Nicole, who was now beginning to stir. "Will, what was wrong with…" her voice trailed off unbidden, unsure of what to say.
"Look, I'll admit I'm not one hundred percent sure what EXACTLY triggered this, but something's gone wrong in Nicole's head. I'm not really a healer, so I'd do a lot more harm than good rooting around in there, but YOU are. Are you able to fix internal injuries like that?" Not looking away, she saw the Dark Fairy's jerky, almost mechanical struggles to stand. Suppressing the urge to flinch, she made her way toward her obviously injured friend.
When she finally noticed her, Nicole let out an animalistic growl in an attempt to warn her off. When Chrome kept coming, she heaved herself up through sheer force of will, stumbling and nearly falling over all over again. When Chrome was finally close enough, she lunged, only to swipe at empty air. She twisted around in time to see the Fairy flying toward the direction of the Park and the Dueling Arena. "Oh, hell no." Lifting off the ground with her now fully functional wings, she called out, "You don't get to run away, Chrome!" and zoomed after her.
Will watched all of this out of the corner of his eye, but the main of his attention was focused on Nick. Though his stance seemed placid enough, the massive Draconian's eye speared him with palpable, yet indecipherable intent. Deciding to bite the bullet, the Sorcerer said, "Look, whatever you were hoping for, it ain't happening now, so just change back so we can end this already."
"No."'
"What do you mean, "no"?"
I mean "no", Will. You sssee, I'm rather comfortable asss I am, so there's no real point in me turning back to "normal". Bessidess, what I wasss hoping for isss very much plausible still."
"Oh yeah? How So?"
"I came to Wizard City for the prossspect of an actual fight. Marcas managed to amuse me for a few minutesss, but in the end, he was too weakened from his curssse to put up much resissstance."
"Curse?"
"Look down." He did, and was surprised by the sight of little grass shootlets peeking out of the ground. "The World isss feeding off of him, even asss we ssspeak. But that isss of no concern at the moment. What mattersss now isss the now, and now—" he flung his wings out, the wave of malignant energy nearly bowling Will over, "—we battle." With that, he took to the air, soaring into the sky, before winging around and dive-bombing his stunned protégé with a booming roar.
Chrome was doing well in her fight, especially considering she was warding off a murderous madwoman who was out for blood. To be fair, contrary to her studies, Nicole's new "evilness" didn't exactly result in a power boost, just much less restraint. Her alternating swings and waves of embers, though unpredictable, were wild in their execution, making them easier to evade, and only a little more punishing than they would've been otherwise when they did hit.
More troubling were her Fireballs. The small meteors could be formed well within a second, and exploded upon impact, making a quick retreat necessary to avoid being scorched. Worse yet, the Dark Fairy had some level of control over them, even in midair; not enough to hunt her down, blessedly, but she was able to mentally push them toward her general position. In fact, at that moment, Chrome was busy dodging a veritable gatling of meteors from an increasingly irate Nicole, whose higher position allowed gravity and initial force to work together to create a much faster barrage than normal. With a scream of frustration, she abandoned her current line of attack and flew up even higher, nearly disappearing in the night sky, before a ruddy light illuminated her indistinct shape. Chrome tried to squint, but the source of the light tripled in size before her eyes, becoming perfectly recognizable: Nicole, cackling maniacally, had formed a meteor nearly her height all the way around off her index finger, and was preparing to fling it directly at her.
"Oh my Irene." She didn't know how to make fireballs herself, but she knew how to estimate distances, and comparing how large the meteor was compared to its predecessors, and judging by the explosions they made upon impact, this one was primed to take out an area… "Eight yards across," she declared, not without a hint of pride. "Approximately," she amended, before realizing what that entailed. "Oh crap."
She backed away, more than a little worried at her chances of dodging the clearly lethal spell. But Nicole was already throwing the (relatively) massive explosive. Chrome, deciding to stand her ground, fired a stream of icy energy, to no effect: the freezing beam broke apart into water and fell with several yards to go, splattering against the ground at a boil. With no real options left to her, she flew back toward the clearing she left Will, only for the meteor to sail clear over her head, hit a jutting piece of masonry on one of the higher mounds of rubble, and explode violently, sending her flying back and tumbling to the ground. She got back up with a small groan of pain, blinking black spots out of her vision. Hearing Nicole land, she faced her, noting her trembling frame and rattling breath.
"N-Nicole, you need to c-calm down."
"And you need to shut up!" In terms of vitriol at least, Nicole was in fine form. "I don't know what you did to my last spell, but this time-" she froze, her mouth dropping open in a comical o of realization. "To hell with this, I've got something more important to do." She was off before Chrome could even think to stop her, speeding toward the battleground with the faint hint of a glow (Huh?) about her. Chrome took off as well, with a bad feeling that she knew what that something was.
Will was doing well in his fight, especially considering he was battling a monstrous Draconian a magnitude of power removed from him. Leaping out of the way of another globule of flame, he directed his Sandstorm between them. In and of itself it didn't do much, as Nick simply blasted it into a wavering sculpture of molten glass. However, Will was able to control that as well, breaking the fragile construct into a tornado of small, magically charged shards that he sent flying toward the Draconian, only for him to send them flying in all directions with a shockwave. Throwing up a shield, Will managed to catch all of the shards that came toward him, only for the shield to be overwhelmed by a half-ton of Draconian flesh charging through it as if it were a paper door. Nick, grabbing the younger Wizard by the hood, took to the air too fast for Will to react. Almost immediately, Will felt a sinister drain on his energy reserves. Twisting around in Nick's grip, he saw that the mouths and eyes on the older Wizard's breastplate were open, gleefully consuming his energy at an alarming rate.
Flying higher, and higher, and yet still higher, Nick made it nearly to the moon before he began to flag, powerful cutting strokes replaced by vigorous flapping. With only several dozen yards to go, Will began to think that his mentor's Dracsona was merely a capricious sort, only for him to give one last, massive pump with his wings, propelling him forward at a frightening speed. Simultaneously, he threw Will in front of him, only to grab him by the ankles and swing him around like a makeshift bat. "Wait, Nick, WHAT THE HELL!?" he managed to yell before he was slammed through the charmed ceramic disk, shattering it like, well, ceramic.
Okay, so this asshole just smashed me through the moon, he thought, as he, Nick, and thousands upon thousands of flickering shards plummeted toward the ground. All things considered though, that could've been a lot worse; my cloak took the worst of the impact easily, and I don't think it got pierced anywhere. All I really have to worry about is hitting the ground, and I've got that covered already.He fashioned a hefty amount of sand, and sent half above him in a thick sheet to protect against falling shards while the other half broke his fall. Even so, he was winded when he hit the improvised cushion, but the impossibly loud sound of Nick hitting the ground, paired with the moon shards crashing around him like glass rain for nearly a minute, drove home the fact that he was the well better off of the two Wizards. After the last shard fell (certainly well after he was sure that that was indeed the last one), he left his refuge to sit beside the Draconian-turned-pincushion.
Pulling out a few of the larger shards embedded in his flesh, the Sorcerer began to talk to the almost certainly unconscious Necromancer. "Well, I'd hate to call this karma, but considering you caused massive amounts of property damage, and used me to do it to boot, it's hard to find another word for it. Honestly, what were you even thinking? I mean, what was the point, Nick; did you do it because you could, or did you just," he fished for a word for a bit, came up empty, and shrugged, "not like the sight of it? You never really talk about your life, so I can never be sure exactly what'son your mind in these kinds of situations. You said you're from Earth, like me, so I know you'd be used to our moon, but wasn't this a bit extreme? Or was that your Draconian instincts kicking in? Do Draconian instincts even work like that? Do Polymorphs even give you those? I mean, Lady Oriel doesn't think what you have even isa Polymorph, but I wouldn't know either way." He continued like that for a time, picking out shards while talking, all the while doing his best to ignore the increasingly worrying green glow about his prone form.
Picking out the worst of them, he stood up with a groan. "Ooooooooh sweet Jegus, that's gonna hurt in the morning." He shook his head. "Whatever. At least this is done."
"Yeah, thanksss… for that."
"No problem, man."
"…"
"…Oh crap."
Marcas, as one could imagine, was not having a good day… or night, as it were. Upon waking from his (hopefully) brief reprieve from consciousness, he was met by the maddened (and glowing?) Nicole, who's greeting of a somewhat muted Fireball to the face was mercifully interrupted by Chrome's admittedly impressive dive-bomb. The impact apparently stunning her, she offered no resistance as the Fairy pinned her down and prepared a standard healing spell. To no avail, of course, because the second confirmation of his horrible luck made itself known: the moon flashed, and then seemingly exploded, sending millions of shards flying downward, a great many of them toward their general position. With the unspoken consensus being "RUN", Chrome dragged Nicole off, leaving him and the still unconscious Phil to their own devices. He immediately attempted to get up, which brought the THIRD thing to his attention: roots of all things were binding his limbs, and considering the as yet unhealed wounds, he was in no position to free himself. "Would you look at that: I've been left here to die. Thanks a lot, you two!"
Watching the blinking rain of ceramic come closer and closer, he began to ruminate, as he often did, about what, exactly, he did wrong. Before he got too far, however, a number of events came and went in quick succession: first, Chrome zipped in front of him, equal parts annoyed and contrite. "Okay, okay, keep your hair on, I've got- what the hell?" She tried to tug the roots off of him for a second, but gave up when the main body of shards began to hit the ground only a short distance away. The noise of the deluge was nearly deafening, and their attempts to block it out made them blind to the fact that they were still in danger, a predicament punctuated by an unnervingly large chunk of moon slamming into the ground only a few short feet away. Chrome, newly alert to the danger, formed a shield above them, which worked admirably for a few seconds, deflecting any and all shards that came their way. However, the weight of dozens of the absurdly large chunks slamming into and skidding across its surface proved to be too much, as the lime green shield began to flicker and crack. With one last flash, it broke apart, giving the last few falling shards a more than ample opportunity to land on the duo (trio if you count Phil, though Phil certainly wouldn't, being unconscious); indeed, several smaller, but wickedly jagged ones were dead on course for the Fairy. Before she could expend more energy on a doomed attempt at a shield, however, another person forced their way into the situation…
I snapped back into myself, and witnessed a horrible, impossible sight: the moon, seemingly far away and above all the conflict of the day, breaking apart almost in slow motion, and its various pieces falling directly on Unicorn Way. Before I could get up, Chrome dragged me into one of the more intact houses (what smells like straw?), and then rushed off when Marcas began shouting, leaving me free to stand up. There was an enormous crash as most of the fragments began… began hitting the ground… everything was fragmented again… where was Chrome? …Run to the crater (why can't I fly?)… Chrome's standing over Marcas, holding up a shield from the shards (was it… cracking?)… The falling pieces… starting to break down the shield (have to get over there, NOW!)… It broke (but it's okay, I'm here now!)… Chrome's gonna get hit!
SHUNK-crick. Later, it'd strike me that that was a pretty weird sound given the context, but at the moment, I was only really aware that one of the smaller moon shards managed to drive itself into my thigh deep enough to break the bone. "Hrrrrrk… grrrrraaaahh…" I was well beyond words even before I got hit, but the fact that I managed not to scream or vomit was almost inspiring… not for me, obviously, because of the whole 'in excruciating pain' thing, but for someone I may tell this story to someday. Hell, I even managed to keep standing—
CRUNCH. You know, until a heftier slab got me in the ribs. Then I went down. Thankfully, that seemed to be the last of it, so I made it through that nightmare with only a severely broken and hemorrhaging leg, internal bleeding and smashed ribs, and what felt like a fractured skull. It was almost weird that I wasn't blacking out from the pain, and definitely weird that I hadn't from the blood loss (seriously, my leg was torn almost clean off; it was no exaggeration to say that I was literally dying at that point). But I was almost entirely removed from it. Not from the pain, unfortunately; that was still there in full force, in the form of unyielding tidal waves slamming into my shattered body. More like, the situation as a whole, like I had been through similar scenarios too many times to give anything resembling a damn about it now. Can't say it would be unlikely: fairy bodies are laughably flimsy, with hollow bones and slim frames and the like; given most Dark Fairies' propensity to fight, it wouldn't be out of left field for me to have been in a situation like this: bleeding out, broken to hell, and wide freaking awake, just waiting for it all to fade out.
Suddenly, a glowing pair of hands! A warm feeling washed over me, as I finally closed my eyes and just sort of coasted for a while, before a shout and a THUD snapped me out of it. To Chrome's credit, she didn't give the interruption an ounce of attention, only focusing her healing on my leg so I could sit up, which I immediately did, of course. Gulping back the massive amount of nausea, I watched as Will staggered to his feet, and followed his line of sight to see… Oh crap, that's Nicholas.
I honestly wasn't sure what I was expecting, but a ten-foot-tall Draconian with nightmare plate and hideously huge, smoking gashes on his arms and legs definitely counted as an image I wanted to remain in only my worst nightmares. His strides took him closer and closer, until he was only about five yards away (tooclosetooclosetoocloseholyCRAPheissoclose), at which point he collapsed to his knees, the previously unnoticed green glow about him blinking out. A brief burst of flame and a column of foul-smelling steam later, and an unconscious human Nicholas sat in front of us, as the sun peeked over the horizon.