AN: Alright, here's part two. Not sure how many chapters it'll take up, but I do have a concrete plan. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, elements, or borrowed plot ideas from any source I acquire them from, specifically KingsIsle. I merely own any original characters I create.
"Blah" = talking
"Blah" = thoughts, writing, sound effects, or flashbacks
"BLAH"= Yelling
"Adjusting for entry point. Feedback loop seems intact." The deep purple glow around Sasha's hands subsided, and with it the calculating, trance-like glean in her eyes. The two men to her left nodded, still not assured of their victory but pleased that everything was going smoothly. A few stagnant seconds passed until the glow completely dispersed into the air. "Alright, it's stable."
The hooded man and Dworgyn both nodded, with only the former coming out of his stance. The latter remained fixed in place, angling his head towards the girl and parting his mouth to speak.
"What's stable?"
The voice caught the trio off guard, and they turned down the hallway at its source.
Two humans stood between the rows of lockers. The first, a moderately tall female whose red hair shone under the fluorescent sconces, unencumbered by the sitar strapped to her back. The second, a brunette boy of similar height, eyes as purple as Sasha's. White pants running below the ankle length coattails of his Diviner's robe before tucking into boots.
Ty Stormwhisper glared coldly from beneath the brim of his pointed wizard hat. "It's been a while."
EXSEED
Eighteenth Pip: Welcome to Nightmare
Silence. Complete and utter silence.
Victoria's and Tala's breath sat transfixed in their throats, eyes focused on the ceiling high circular dome of energy before them.
Its roiling energies obscured everything. Every sound, every sight of the near one hundred fifty people locked within. It'd completely consumed them all. Even the air around it was stagnant, and difficult to draw in through labored breaths. Both were afraid to do anything, to move, lest the mysterious magic have enough sentience to chase them down. And so they sat for the better part of a minute, backs against the wall, only feet from the dome, trying to process what was happening.
When the blonde only came up short, she turned to Tala, choosing not to comment on his receding tattoos. "What…what is that thing?"
"I don't know." He offered. "I just saw it coming down and got you out."
Victoria wanted to question that decision, especially with the likes of Ambrose and the other Professors nearby. Anyone more useful than her would have sufficed.
Instead, she rose and moved towards it. When she was only a foot from the chaotic mass, she began speaking into it, voice louder with each second. "Headmaster. Headmaster! Anyone! Can anyone hear me!"
Only silence. Tala watched her hand rise a few seconds later, reaching out. "Wait. Don't." She froze mere inches away, and craned her head to him. "Let me try something first."
His eyes caught a stack of plates on the serving cart beside him, and a flick of the wrist set one into motion. The plate dove into the murky roil, what looked like a ripple spreading out from the entry point. The two waited a little while longer. Nothing. More silence.
"It went through, but..." Victoria began.
"…we don't know what happened to it." Tala picking up, calming himself before continuing. "Let's just leave it alone for now."
The blonde nodded in consent. Then, their backs were against the wall, shuffling past the spots where the domes reach was so close to the wall that it formed a thin alcove. They discharged on the other side, next to the double doors that they'd entered in earlier that night.
Victoria's eyes caught something peculiar sticking out from behind an overturned table. A foot. Attached to a raven-haired unconscious boy.
She fell on top of Fate with an alarmed shriek. "Fate! Fate, are you alright!" She hadn't realized his outburst and escape had placed him just outside the dome's range. She flipped him over onto his back and scanned his face, just as Tala came up.
"Is he alright?" The girl could only shrug, feeling his face. Not so much as a twitch, color slightly faded, skin cool to the touch. The same with his hands as well. An ear to his chest revealed a heartbeat, which dissuaded the worst outcome.
"Fate. Come on, Fate. Wake up." She chided in a hushed tone, twisting his arm, pressing on his ribcage. Anything to jolt him awake.
A full minute passed before her efforts produced results. The last push on his ribs forced a strained cough, and she fell back as his torso shot up. Color trickled back onto his skin, and the writhing pain from earlier dispersed as his hands massaged his temples. Victoria and Tala approached carefully, not wanting to startle him.
"Fate, are you alright?"
"I…I guess. I don't know. All I remember is blacking out." Victoria and Tala noticed his hands twitching, but weren't sure what to make of it, or any of it really. Tala planned to question him further, but he and Victoria were caught in Fate's sudden gasp, when they saw he'd noticed the dome behind them. "What…what is that thing!"
"We're not sure." Victoria answered, turning to it as well. "All we know is everyone else is trapped in it."
"What?" The surprise overcame his voice, and he staggered to his feet. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get them out."
"We can't do that." Tala said, holding a hand out at him. "Not until we know what that thing is. Think about it. We've been here for a few minutes, and not one person has come out yet. I can only think there's no way out." He turned back to them. "If we get stuck in there trying to help everyone, then all hope is lost. I say for now we find someone else that can help us."
Fate moved to say something, but Tala's reasoning won him over. They all exchanged glances with each other before performing a collective nod. Then, they were up, wishing those trapped inside the best of luck, and moving towards the double doors.
—o—o—o—o—o—
A deep chuckle bounced off the walls, filling the hallway and the Diviner and Theurgist's bodies with unease. The hooded man's torso rose up again. Behind him, Sasha and Dworgyn remained in their place, the former staring nervously at their two new visitors and the latter chuckling under his breath while focusing his magic and attention on the amulet.
Ty stared into the black void the hood's shadow created. His laughter dispersed as he stood erect, voice unnaturally deep and raspy. "Yes. It has been quite some time, hasn't it? You're looking well." The storm wizard bit his lip, and became more aware of the chest scar underneath his clothes. It was the same man after all.
"You know them?" Aria questioned in a hushed tone.
"The hooded one's the guy who attacked me a few months ago." He admitted, then turned his attention to the sole female ahead of him. "I guess you were right about her."
"Right about what?" Sasha asked hesitantly.
"That you were hiding something." Aria answered, a strangle luminescence buried within her irises. "Your sound changed when you answered me before about Artur. To think your secret would be this big though."
"No it's not what you think." She countered defensively.
"It's not?" Ty asked with unamused sarcasm. "Then by all means, explain what a witch thinks she's doing attacking Ravenwood."
She gritted her teeth. "You think any of this is my idea?" She pointed to the hooded man beside her. "If I don't do what he says, he's going to kill Susie."
Ty and Aria paused at her explanation, glancing at each other for a moment to see how the other took the information. The Theurgist's eyes then quickly scanned over the witch's sound, finding none of the disturbance she'd encountered before. She turned back to Ty to give him a confirming nod, but before she could start it, the hooded man's voice interrupted again.
"So you wish to place the fault on me, do you?" His coated shoulders turned to the Storm and Life Wizards, rising and falling with his laughter's return. "How easily we forget. I only recall asking you to kidnap the fairies from Unicorn Way. I wasn't forcing you then."
The breath left Aria's throat, and her faced drained of color moments later, pupils constricting. The hallway went dead silent, save for the slight rattling of the animated skeleton. Her face fell down to the floor, and a strange surge of power moved through the air.
When her face rose again, latent energy converged into a single glowing orb next to her head, its light dancing across her cold expression. "So it was you—"
The double doors to the gymnasium swung open between the two opposing groups, snapping attention from the rising tension. Three figures collapsed onto the floor with a muffled thud, two in faded Marleybone jackets and the third in a knee length dress.
The hooded man took advantage in the lapse of focus, despite his surprise at another person's appearance. He turned to Sasha with a nod, who was already holding her hands out and gathering magic from within. An inverted Storm sigil traced in the air before her palms, dispersing in a brief flash of light just as Tala, Fate, and Victoria managed to scramble to their feet. Just as they turned, a soft breeze caressed their faces, ruffling their hair and loose end of their clothes. The breeze increased with every fraction of a second, growing into gale force winds that boomed in their ears.
Their eyes squinted, and hands came up to shield faces, but the winds eventually gained strength to overcome their bodies. The spell blew them up into the air and back, sending all five skidding and flying down the hallways, locker doors rattling as they passed. Ty, Tala, and Victoria did their best to hold onto whatever they could, but the wind tunnel proved too much for their grip.
"Dworgyn, Sasha and I are moving on." The hooded man said over the roaring of the winds, turning to the hunched man. "Should I leave Rattlebones and Harvest Lord with you?"
"No need." He said with a confident smirk. "Even incapacitated as I am, I'll be more than enough to handle them."
The hood dipped down in a nod, and his hand reached out to the side, cutting a swathe through the empty space to create another rift. The skeleton and scarecrow ambled into the swirling black void. "We leave it to you then. Give us at least an hour, then you're free to do what you please." The necromancer nodded, and after a tap on the shoulder, Sasha cut off the magical winds, quickly following the summoned minions into the portal.
Ty was the first to recover from the gale's cessation, head and body coming up to see the hooded man sticking his foot into the portal. He glanced back towards the Diviner one more time, and before Ty could move, he was already through, the rift dispersing into nothingness.
The sound of shifting clothes and mild groans filled the hallway's end, with the other four rising to their feet. Upon inspection, nobody had suffered anything more than faint bruises. Nothing Aria couldn't handle later. Now, though, there were more pressing matters to attend to.
In the form of the hunchbacked man only dozens of feet away, smiling at them as he continued to pour magic into an amulet around his neck. "Well, it seems you're left with me now." Ty and Aria wasted no time focusing pips around their bodies, the latter whipping her sitar around to the front.
"What's going on, Ty?" Victoria asked. "Who are these people?"
"Not now, Victoria." He answered.
A melancholic sigh escaped the necromancer's throat, the man watching Ty tracing a Storm sigil with his finger. "Oh come now. Must we resort to violence already? Don't you wish to hear what I have to say?"
"Shut up." The Diviner barked, turning his head to Victoria. "Go grab the Professors from the gym. Tell them we're under attack."
"We can't." Tala said.
"What! Why?"
"Their all trapped." Victoria admitted. "Everybody in the gym was swallowed up by some magical force field…or something. Tala, Fate, and I are the only ones that escaped." Ty and Aria's eyes flew open at the revelation, the Storm Wizard's sigil dissipating before he could finish.
"Yoo-hoo, over here." Dworgyn said again, slightly more irate at being ignored. "I'd be more than happy to explain everything to you."
"You think we'll listen to what you say?" Ty scoffed. "After what you did?"
"Well you should. I am your ally after all."
The obvious tone in which he uttered it threw all five off kilter, mouths open but unable to respond for a few seconds. Eventually, Ty schooled his face back and was about to retort when Aria took a step forwards and held out an arm in front of him.
"He may be right, Ty."
Ty, Tala, and Victoria deadpanned at once. "What."
Aria's eyes gained a green luminescence again. "His sound is completely stable. Either he's the best liar I've ever met, or he's telling the truth."
"I don't think he's lying either." Fate said, stepping forward, voice strangely weak but retaining its firmness.
"Ah, the Exseed himself, is it? You really do have her eyes." Dworgyn remarked with a strangely reserved grin.
"How did you know he's the Exseed?" Tala asked skeptically.
"I know many things." He replied evenly. "Unfortunately, we lack the time to cover all of them, so let's focus on the here and now." He paused, clearing his throat as they warily listened in. "That man is after something in this campus, something within the Grandfather Tree. He recruited the witch and me to assist him."
"What's with the dome in there?" Victoria asked. "What's it for?"
"To seal away anyone who could disrupt the plan, namely the professors and Ambrose." He offered, hands still feeding magic into the amulet. "This barrier will be maintained for a little over an hour, enough time for him to complete his objective."
"If you're our ally, why are you helping him? Can't you take the barrier down?" Ty reasoned irately. "Nothing you do is matching with what you're saying."
"All will be revealed in time." He replied evenly. "But make no mistake. Nothing I've done up to now has been for his sake. He is merely the tool." His voice grew imperceptibly dark. "I…pursue the tinker." He craned his head slowly back around to face the quintet. "Now depart. Your friends and comrades will be safe with me. You must not waste anymore time if you wish to stop him."
Ty silently gritted his teeth, but Aria's calming hand finding his shoulder seemed to dissuade him. He spun around to the others. "Let's go." They nodded as one, the Diviner taking the initiative and moving down an adjacent hallway. They followed him one by one, until lastly Fate stepped out of Dworgyn's sight.
The old necromancer waited a few moments, allowing the silence to fill the hallway once more. Then he placed his sight back onto the gymnasium doors and began moving steadily towards them. Hands cradling the amulet, his focus managed to twist the handle and push the doors open enough for his rounded body to slip through.
He shuffled in to stand next to an overturned serving cart, the eerie churning dome at the center of his vision. All the pleasant mirth in his eyes was replaced by stony determination and frigid grimness. As if staring into the dome, he whispered.
"There's no escaping now."
—o—o—o—o—o—
Ty Stormwhisper peered around a building corner from the opening of a wooden door. Spying nothing unusual, he made a forward gesture, and the four wizards followed him out, keeping pace with his steady jog.
Birdsong twittered amongst the higher recesses of the Grandfather Tree's sprawling branches, fading into the calm night air. Victoria found it strangely reminiscent of the night she, her brother, and Tala had decided to venture into Bartleby. This time, she wasn't appropriately dressed, not having been able to find anything her size in a supply closet the group raided. Aria was of course comfortable with just her sitar, but everyone else except for Fate had managed to find a suitable weapon of choice. Ty with an amethyst-topped wooden staff, Tala and Victoria plain wooden wands.
Crossing the expanse towards the base of Bartleby encompassed a lot more navigation, provided mostly in the form of other buildings and secluding walkways and hedgerows, during which Ty decided to bring up discussion. "I'm still not sure about all this. Can we really trust him?"
"We don't have a choice." Aria noted. "There's no way you and I could take on a former assistant professor."
"Assistant professor?" Fate exclaimed, voicing the surprise of all three first years. "You mean like Mr. Runewarden?"
"I'm more interested about the 'former' part." Tala said.
The group leaped over a low row of shrubbery, onto a walkway tunneled by arching lattice covered in snaking ivy and flowers. Moonlight above and illumination from nearby streetlamps intermingled and poured through whatever holes they could, making their stone paved path somewhat visible.
They kept up their pace, Aria responding as soon as they entered. "It was about a year and a half ago. The entire school of death vanished overnight, torn from the cliffside the campus is built around."
Fate's face moved from shock to despondence. It'd always baffled him why he'd never seen a necromancy building like the others. Victoria and Tala were less surprised, the occurrence being common knowledge around Wizard City, but hearing it again was almost like hearing it for the first time. After the initial swell of newspaper and radiograph coverage, the event disappeared into ambiguity, as if it'd never happened.
"Eventually, blame began heaping upon assistant professor, Dworgyn, since he was the last seen entering and leaving the building. Investigators found he'd purchased dangerous ingredients over the days leading up to the incident from a woman named Gretta Darkkettle, who also taught at Ravenwood. He denied it, of course, but his alibi wasn't enough to convince the Headmaster. Dworgyn was jailed somewhere secure, probably Briskbreeze, Gretta was banished, and the incident was swept under the rug. The building was never found."
A seconds-long silence, then Victoria eventually asked. "So did he really do it?"
Aria could only offer a shrug. "Malorn said he's not convinced, but who really knows."
"Either way isn't important right now." Tala brought the discussion back on track, just as they reached the end of the curving tunnel and looked up at the towering bark of the great tree before them. "He helped us, and like Aria said, there's not anything we could have done to stop him otherwise. Let's focus on what we can do now."
His words gained a collective nod, and they all spread out along the tree's base, eyes scouring bark for any sign of their shrouded opponent and his group. They didn't imagine he'd be too high up in the treetops, not that visibility from their vantage point held clarity.
Fate broke more to the far right, motioning that he'd be searching by himself. He took a few more steps after he passed out of eyeshot just to make sure, then his body buckled to his knees, hands keeping his torso from slamming the ground.
Everything happened at once. Blurry vision, trembling arms and legs, cold beads of sweat slipping through pores, labored breaths he couldn't corral. He stumbled forwards, trying to gain control, when a violent cough exploded from his mouth. His eyes peeled open again to see more than a few drops of blood staining the over-ground root before him. He wiped the resulting trickle quickly upon hearing footsteps approaching, and strained some grip on himself as Victoria appeared from around the bend.
"Fate, was that you?" She asked quizzically, seeing the boy's back leaning against the tree, an oddly forced smile on his face. He shook his head as innocently as he could. She eyed him for a moment, but eventually accepted. "Over here. Tala found something."
It turned out to be a tunnel, bark frayed and peeled at its edges, a shower of burnt splinters splayed over the inside near the entrance. Aria marveled that a tunnel actually ran inside Bartleby, but Victoria, Tala, and Ty remembered the passage at once. Nostalgia and a small twinge of dread triggered nervous glances between them, but soon enough Ty sucked in a calming breath and schooled his face back into determined confidence. The two followed suit.
They couldn't truly be surprised. Here it began with the hooded man, and here it would end just the same.
As if it was fate, Victoria mused.
Silently, one by one they stepped into the charred tunnel entrance, singed air filling their lungs and forcing coughs. Fate brought up the rear, more encumbered than the others had realized, so much that Tala fell back to support him through. All were confused at the turn in his health, which seemed to come out of nowhere. All the noises he made and the occasional splotches of dried blood she'd clean in his bathroom resurfaced in Victoria's mind instantly, and that unsettling feeling returned as they drew deeper in.
The tunnels wound in just like before, sloping at times, their way illuminated by a floating pip Ty and Aria had each conjured. Occasionally they would see straw strands on the ground, probably from the scarecrow they'd seen, and ultimately that'd been the deciding factor at choosing where to turn at the crossroads.
Aria's voice sprang up just as they reached the end of the hall. "There's a sound up ahead."
"Is it them?" Victoria asked.
"No, I only hear one."
The hurried down the hall towards the light at the end, discharging into a place familiar to all except Aria. A plethora of roots snaking down from the arched ceiling shielded white washed walls. Vibrant glowing leaves drifted downwards like snowflakes, dispersing in glittering dust-like particles as they touched the grass carpet beneath.
Tala, Victoria, and Ty gazed around, replaying the struggle in their minds. Everything looked mostly the same as they remembered it, except for the strange sight at the far wall. A large door, at least twenty feet high, mystical embroidering and runic symbols carved into its solid stone. The roots and vines around it seemed broken and torn, and the trio wondered if it'd been concealed behind the whole time. Or if there were any others down here.
It was cracked open, just enough for someone to slip through, and an odd sound emanated from it. Rushing water? They weren't quite sure, but that was their most accurate guess.
Then, something more poignant caught their eye—everyone's eyes—and all drew towards the pavilion at the center of the room. The pavilion which once housed the great crystal they'd found Fate in.
And which now housed a solitary female figure, swathed in purple.
"This is as far as you go." Sasha Gryphonbane remarked.
"Why are you doing this? Why are you working for that guy?" Victoria called out as Ty and Aria readied themselves. "Aren't you Susie's sister?"
"It's because I'm her sister that I'm doing all this." She replied sorrowfully, not moving at all. "If I don't do as he says, he'll kill her and Artur."
"Then what if we beat him before that." Fate said, eyes determined and masking the weakness in his voice.
"I can't take that chance." She said. "Besides, there's no going back for me anymore, now that you know who I am. Once it gets around, I'll probably be a wanted criminal. Not that it's any different than how I've lived before." She spread her feet apart, purple eyes gaining a faint glow. "Enough of this, though. Talk won't solve anything."
"Indeed it won't." Aria spoke, taking a few steps ahead to stand before the group, swinging her sitar around to her front. She craned her neck back towards her companions and continued loud enough for all to hear. "Go ahead. I'll take care of her."
"What, by yourself?" Victoria exclaimed. "Together we would beat her easily. Why not all of us?"
"Because she was left behind to stall us." Tala answered, placing a hand on the new Pyromancer's shoulder. Sasha's lack of response told him all he needed to hear. He swiveled around to Aria. "Be careful."
"As much as I hate to share the spotlight, I'll let you have this one." Ty joked as he moved past the Theurgist, bringing about a smirk. Victoria and Fate gave her affirming nods as well, which she returned, before all four set off after the door. Ty watched Sasha carefully as they trekked across the grass. She made no move, not an inch towards them much less an effort to end their advance. The quartet slipped through the door's crack, Fate entering last, and with that they vanished from eyeshot.
After a brief silence, Aria asked calmly, still gazing at the door. "You didn't try to stop them?"
"I care nothing for his plans." She said simply. "His only requirement was that I at least hold you up. The rest, he said would only be running to the slaughter."
Aria didn't immediately respond to that, instead moving her gaze from the large door to the grass below her feet. Her hand slowly reached into a buttoned pouch on her belt, and pulled out a few oval-shaped seeds, skins browned and hardened. A second pip began to join the one she already had. Her eyes remained on the ground. "Did he speak the truth? We're you the one who attacked Unicorn Way?"
Sasha considered, but gave no quarter for deception or excuses this time. "Yes. I was."
"Your employer seems to have made an error, then. My comrades couldn't be running to a slaughter…" Aria's voice was even, normal, and all the more menacing for it. There was a pause, and then Aria's head finally rose. Just like in the hallway, her eyes were cold, but now they contained a quiet fury the likes of which Sasha had never seen.
"Because it's right here."