fleets: Just as promised, double update week! Just before Friday I am uploading Chapter 25! High five!

Chapter 25: Thyme's Resolve

Dark thought he should have been used to fighting things that could have come from video games or nightmarish sci-fi movies after the whole deal with Avilux (oh you know, just fighting against his undead skeleton dad, almost dying to the Goddess of Chaos, easy stuff), but going against Condor, he figured this was just one of those things you couldn't really get used to. For one thing, Condor was creepy. He didn't really remember what the guy used to look like, but he thought the guy had been a really average, forgettable person. Now he couldn't stop staring at him, kind of like how sometimes you want to turn your eyes away from gore but for some reason you just can't.

It wasn't just his single-eyed robo-head; there were black things seeping out of him, kind of like on the Hounds. Was it… safe? Like would he turn into a Condor version 2.0 if those things touched him? What the heck were they even? He didn't really want to find out.

The two Shadow Hounds in the room lunged first, dashing around and behind Hawk and Kestrel and then pouncing from behind. With quick reflexes, Kestrel dodged to the right while firing at the nearest Hound, while Bates Beta hovering nearby shot the other with his laser. Instead of focusing on the attacking Hounds, Hawk aimed a shot towards Condor himself, who deflected the shot with a clawed hand that was about three times the normal human size. Noticing Kestrel about to be attacked again by the Hound that the man had shot, Dark swiftly grabbed the Claw Shot and snagged the creature by the neck, pulling at the chain and swinging it away from Kestrel and into the wall. Bates flew over to the downed thing and shot it through the head with his laser.

Dark allowed himself a second of a breather before he fended off another Hound launching itself towards him. There were too many things going on. Too many things to watch out for. Too many enemies that could attack him and too many allies he might accidentally hit. At least one of the Shadow Hounds was down for good.

As soon as that thought passed, he noticed some movement by the Hound whose head had been blasted by Bates' attack.

Oh fuck no.

He didn't want to believe what he was seeing. Dead things were supposed to stay dead: things like this only happened in movies and video games. The other remaining hound that was circling around them, trying to find an opening of attack, suddenly stopped and perked up towards its supposedly-dead companion. It looked at the dead Hound that was now twitching its legs slightly, and walked a few steps towards it. It then threw its head back in a howl, which sounded more like a ghostly wail mixed with some horrible digital white noise.

The legs of the Dead Hound gave one final twitch, and then like a zombie dragging its body back up it stood up on all fours once again, as good as before. Even worse, the three Hounds that had been guarding the trigger room outside, the ones that Dark had encountered earlier, had somehow figured out that they could slip under the door by turning into shadow pools on the floor. Now there were five Hounds in the room along with Condor, against three of them plus the two Bates.

While all of this was going on, Hawk had attempted another strike on Condor. He fired two shots from his pistol at Condor's legs, and although it was questionable how much damage had been done, at the very least it managed to knock Condor to his knees. Taking the opportunity, Hawk held his pistol with both hands, ran up to the other man and swung the pistol down onto his head with a loud crack.

Condor fell down, and all this time he didn't put up a single struggle against Hawk's desperately brutal assault. As soon as Condor was down, Hawk shot him at least five times in the back of the head, and then some more shots everywhere else for good measure.

It was a little too easy, and whenever things seemed too easy it was often the case that it was actually impossibly difficult. Kestrel, who had seen the other Hound come back to life, slowly looked at the five hounds and the 'dead' Condor nervously.

Almost immediately there was that horrible wail, and Condor stood right back up as though he hadn't been shot a dozen times within the last few minutes. "Are you done now?"

"Tch!" Hawk's hands on his pistol shook a little from gripping it too hard. He fired several more shots at Condor, who fell down again before standing back up as though nothing had happened.

Changing targets, Dark swung his sword in an arc to move the Shadow Hounds away from him, and then aimed the Fire Rod at Condor. Before the fire could hit, however, Condor gave a single whistle (how he was still able to whistle with that face, Dark wasn't sure) and one of the Hounds tackled him with unnatural speed from the side. Kestrel shot the Hound off of him and Bates and his copy did their best to fend off the rest, but the number of enemies and their near immortal power eventually overwhelmed them.

Was it over for them? Dark gritted his teeth in frustration at their inability to do anything against Condor and his Hounds. I didn't come all this way… We didn't come all this way just to die here!

The Shadow Hounds had pinned them to the ground, and although Bates and Bates Beta were frantically trying to shoot them down there was just too many (and too many coming back to life) for them to do any real damage. The Hounds all looked towards Condor for the kill command.

Just before Condor could order the Hounds to kill them all, the door opened and someone else stepped into the room. The soles of his shoes clicked ominously on the smooth tiling, and each step was painfully loud in the heavy silence.

Hawk and Kestrel looked like they had both stopped breathing, and Dark didn't know what to think. Neither, it seemed, did Condor. "What are you doing here," he asked, and even though his voice was robotic it didn't hide the slight irritation in his voice, "Dugal."

Dugal walked over to Condor and coolly tapped him on the shoulder, an unspoken gesture telling the other man to chill out and would-he-please-get-the-hounds-to-stop-growling-at -him. "The boss said some of my old acquaintances were… being stupid," he replied casually, looking down at the three intruders who were now in a hopeless position. "I didn't actually believe him since he lies about everything, so I thought I'd make a personal visit. Turns out he was right."

He then walked slowly, purposely ignoring the anticipatory gazes of everyone in the room, towards the bomb trigger that continued to tick mercilessly towards zero. There remained an hour and ten minutes. "He also said," Dugal had his hands in his pockets and peered at the timer just in front of his feet, "that I should have a word with you if I had a problem with the idea of blowing this corner of the island to oblivion."

"And do you have a problem with that," Condor asked flatly, "sir?" The last word was delivered with much sarcasm. The hounds increased their growling slightly when Condor became alert.

"Ha. No." Dugal shrugged, a sneer on his face. "I just came to oversee the cleanup," he replied darkly, and his eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he tilted his head towards his former companions on the floor. He then turned away from their stunned expressions and gave a crisp smile towards Condor. "Just making sure the job is satisfactory to my employer."

"Then you can go help oversee the bomb placement in the lower levels, and make sure the guards are doing it right."

There was the harsh click of a pistol being reloaded, causing Condor to fall silent. "No. You don't deserve to end my men, Condor," Dugal cut him off quietly. "They've become a liability to our boss, but they once worked with me and I was responsible for them. If anyone is going to put a bullet in their heads, it's me."

"Sir," Condor complied in a somewhat lazy tone. "Just make it quick before they manage to do something," he waved his hands towards Hawk, Kestrel, and Dark who had begun to struggle under the weight of the Hounds.

"Bates! Can't you shoot him or something at least? Condor and the Hounds might be invincible, but that traitor Dugal isn't!" Dark cried out to the sentry. Bates, however, simply watched Dugal in surprised curiosity.

"I do not believe… So the circumstances are… the situation is not as manifest as it appears," Bates spoke softly to himself in awe.

"What are you talking about?!"

"No," Dugal continued, "have your hounds fetch three sets of handcuffs. Have them bound, and line them up. Besides," he cocked his head towards the timer on the floor. "We have at least half an hour to kill before we leave this place."

"Sir," Hawk's voice shook from barely-contained rage as Condor ordered a Hound to go grab some handcuffs with a tired sigh. "Sir, I… damn you sir. You're no better than him."

Dugal returned a tight-lipped smile. "No, I'm better. Better than all of you."

It only took another ten or so minutes of waiting before the handcuffs arrived in the mouth of one of the Hounds. While they had been waiting, only the barely audible beep of the timer ticking down could be heard in the room. Everyone had been deathly quiet. Dark stared at the floor while he allowed a bead of sweat to roll down his nose, Dugal stared at the ceiling with his hands in his pockets, Condor stared at the timer obsessively but with absolutely no expression on his robotic face, Hawk stared pointedly at Dugal with fiery hate, and Kestrel also stared at Dugal but with the look of a loyal dog kicked to the curb by his master.

One by one, the handcuffs were locked around the three captives' wrists, and they were forcefully pushed against the wall by the five Shadow Hounds. "Turn around, on your knees, hands behind your head," Dugal ordered gruffly as soon as they were up by the wall, "I'll shoot off all four of your limbs and have you bleed painfully to death if you don't listen. I'm also certain Condor here wouldn't hesitate to order his hounds to rip out your major blood vessels for the same effect. Do as I say and I'll make it quick."

They did so, slowly, wordlessly. They didn't have anything else to say.

The hounds backed away and took position next to their master.

"If you would please, Condor, give me some space."

Condor nodded and backed away a few steps with his hounds closely following. He may have been turned into some kind of machine-human-monster, but he still understood that this was a significant event in Talon history. It was somber and sentimental, and he wasn't one of them anymore. It was understandable that Dugal wanted to be left more or less to himself.

Casually, Dugal lifted his pistol and took careful aim, swinging it towards Dark first. His eyes watched him with all the warmth of a winter night. "Any last words?"

"Bates will you PLEASE shoot the guy now? Before I die and everything?" Dark glared angrily towards the sentry and his copy. They were fluttering around Dugal and Condor in uncontained curiosity.

"This is just fantastic. He may be someone I could have considered Lord-worthy had situations been altered. Lord Helmaroc maybe? Kind of reminds me of the old Lord Helmaroc."

"Don't you dare turn your back on me now just because you decide to fantard over this other shit-head!" Dark positively snarled.

"Just rest, fool," Bates' eye gleamed in anticipatory fascination as he watched Dugal carefully, "and observe the brilliant incendiaries to come."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Take a day off, Thyme dear. You should go enjoy yourself on the beach. I've even paid for a day at the spa."

These words echoed in Thyme's head as she slowly made her way back to Thistle's tiny fortune shop. Thistle had been unusually attentive and nice to her this morning, and while it made her happy, she couldn't help but feel that something was wrong, and terribly so. It wasn't one of those things she could put a finger on, it was just one of those things she knew was wrong without being able to explain why. Maybe it was the fact that the spa he suggested she go to was, for whatever reason, all the way on the other side of the island for no good reason. There were dozens of other spas just as good on their side of the island, so why did she have to drive all the way to the other side? Or maybe it was the fact that he'd been especially insistent that she take the day off. He'd taken her by the shoulders and then led her to her car, the gps already set to her destination, and then waved her off until he couldn't see her anymore. It wasn't a gesture he'd do often. Or ever. Or maybe it was the fact that he wouldn't look at her directly this morning. He would look up and giggle with that same old laugh of his, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.

Like… he was guilty of something and she'd call him out on it.

"Pfff, what. Like he's even capable of feeling guilty," she scolded herself for the second time this morning.

The first time she'd scolded herself was for driving back after she'd gone half way to the spa she was supposed to go to. It just hadn't felt right to her, and she couldn't help but be worried for Thistle. She hated herself for not being able to simply listen to what he said, and enjoy her day of relaxing by the beach and having the entire afternoon at the spa. Why couldn't her brain just keep things simple and not overthink things?

Like she'd noticed, too, that those silver 'Pokeball' things Thistle had been working on for the past month or so had also been conspicuously missing from their usual place on his desk. To someone who didn't know him that well, they probably wouldn't have noticed anything missing from that messy room of his, but she could tell. There were certain rules Thistle followed in organizing that 'ordered disorder,' as he fondly called it.

However, she had noticed. He'd been obsessed with playing with those things, tinkling and checking them, and then placing them back precisely in the same disorganized location on his desk. She didn't know what it meant that they had gone missing, but having those things he'd been playing with disappear so suddenly and him not even mentioning it… something was going on that he wasn't telling her.

Alright, fine, so there were probably tons of things he wasn't telling her. The only way she could describe this foreboding feeling was that it was all in her gut, and she couldn't really rationalize what was wrong with the whole picture. It wasn't something she could explain clearly: she could only give small examples of seemingly meaningless details that she'd noticed this morning.

And so she had driven back to Thistle's little shop. She walked out of the car in heavy steps, and unlocked the door to his place without ringing the doorbell: he would have already been to the facility at this hour anyway. She turned on the lights and stepped over the usual mess all over the floor, and made her way to the secret passageway that led to the…

Now what was this?

Thyme frowned when she first noticed one of Thistle's queer miniature statuettes of a one-eyed rock wasn't in its usual place. It had fallen off its usual place on the shelves and onto a box right below it.

Thistle would never be so careless as to allow that to happen.

Unless he was in a hurry.

Or unless someone else had been here.

Eyes narrowing in caution, she walked slowly to the back room where the secret passageway to the facility was located. Her sense of trepidation increased when she saw that the stairs which were almost always hidden by some moveable rubbish had been shoved aside to reveal the way down. If Thistle had been the one to use it, he would have made sure to put everything back the way it was.

Someone else had been here, she was sure of it, and someone had made his way to the facility.

She quickened her pace and boarded the underground monorail that would take her to the facility. Her eyes did a quick scan of the interior as the monorail made its way to their destination, and she noticed that the green LED lights of the clock inside the monorail was completely inaccurate. The clock didn't receive a wireless signal to set itself, so that meant that the most probable reason it was at least twenty minutes off was that a power outage had occurred.

But… a power outage? That was ridiculous. They had backup generators and were well prepared for that kind of thing. A blackout wouldn't occur unless something had seriously gone wrong.

Thyme became increasingly agitated when she stepped off the monorail at the facility and noticed a lack of guards by their usual posts. Where had they gone? She tried to be brave, pretending that she was just going to go to her office like usual and say hello to Thistle before going down to the lower lounge, but it was hard. She was scared that something bad was happening.

She was scared for Thistle, and that he'd made some awful mistake.

"Aaah!" she ducked instinctively when the blaring sirens of an alarm suddenly went off. The fire alarms! Not knowing what to do and scared for Thistle, she backed against the wall and looked frantically down the long stretch of hallway to her right and left. Where should she go? What should she do? She never felt so hopeless and alone.

Thyme reached into her bag and grabbed her cell phone, and quickly typed a message to Thistle. "Where are you?" She was about to hit send, but then she decided to add a few more words. "I'm scared for you."

She waited with the phone in her hands, pleading for it to buzz with the announcement that a new message was in her inbox. Her hands shook slightly, and she waited five minutes for the message that never came. She walked around in a small circle in place with the phone clutched against her chest. Thistle always responded quickly to any of her messages. Granted it had only been five minutes, but she had a feeling that he wasn't going to be responding any time soon, if ever.

Closing her eyes, she put the phone back in her shoulder bag and held on to her necklace. It was a small blue thing in the shape of a staff, and as she gripped it tightly it glowed white before it turned into a tall staff that was slightly taller than her head. The Staff of Byrna: it was said to be capable of protecting its wielder from any sort of harm. She'd never really had to use it, but with all of the uncertainties going on it was the only thing she could rely on at the moment.

Equipped with the mythic staff, Thyme felt better about venturing to the lower levels of the facility. She ignored the blaring alarms, noting the still very apparent absence of the guards from their usual posts. If it was a real fire alarm, shouldn't there be more of them running about? Something wasn't adding up here.

She made her way down the emergency stairs to the lower levels. Eventually, she reached a floor, just above the lowest level, where she could hear voices and frantic shouts. Not feeling exactly comfortable about walking into the chaos without knowing what was going on, Thyme peeked through the narrow window on the door of the emergency exit.

It seemed as though most of the guards had relocated to this level, and they were running about trying to figure out a way to stop the sprinklers that had turned on. A few of them were injured and stunned on the floor, and still others were trying to move some heavy boxes and crates to a drier place.

Thyme held her breath. Those crates… they couldn't be…

They were piled full of bombs.

At that moment, one of Thistle's earlier offhanded comments came back to haunt her. She knew just what was going on now. "And since you seem to want the perfect world, we can even start from scratch! Erase everything from the face of the Earth, and it'll be like Sim City in real life! How fun is that?"

"We can even start from scratch!" the memory echoed.

"Start… from scratch," Thyme whispered to herself. "Is that why I wasn't supposed to be on this side of the island today, Thistle?"

Her expression hardened. Without looking back on the bustle behind her she picked up her pace and began to run down the stairs to the lowest level of the facility. Her heart beat faster in her chest as she thought about what she might find down there.

"I have to find the Wishing Cap before it's too late. I have to find Vaati. I have to find Thistle," her thoughts whirled in her head. She slammed open the door that led to the final floor of the facility, where the experiment rooms that Vaati had been using to construct the cap were located. She could smell the greasy stench of broken machinery and the dusty perfume of smashed plaster, and she began to run. Was she too late?

Her heart sunk when she finally reached the room Vaati had been using. Its walls were dented and bent out of shape, and shattered glass was everywhere from the broken window that had once separated Vaati from the cap room. Thyme slowly leaned over the broken window to look into the cap room below, and all she could see was a succession of chaotic flashes of blue, red, silver, and purple like a dramatic light show. Within the mess, she finally caught sight of the familiar goofy toucan mask and the suit with oversized sleeves. Thistle!

She always knew what he was capable of doing, but to see him like this… so savage and without mercy, a living artillery, it wasn't something she was prepared to see. To her, even though some corner of her mind knew just how terrible he could be, he was still the silly, curious man who was always full of life and surprises. He was literally ripping the place to shreds, and the only thing that kept the room below her intact was some kind of magical force field that held the walls in place and protected it from further damage.

And then she saw it; that thing on his head. It was a light purple cap with a gold rim and a bright red jewel set in the middle. Her mind went blank. He'd made a wish already. He'd used the Wishing Cap to probably wish for something similar to godhood, based off of what she was seeing now and what he had told her earlier. Her dark brown eyes were hidden behind her bangs, but if someone saw them now they would have been filled with disappointment and sadness. I never wanted this, she though as she watched Thistle cackle and summon a wall of deadly ice pillars from the floor, do you still have your humanity? Because I'm scared you might have lost it.

Her eyes then darted towards the location he was attacking. Between the flashes and explosions of ice and fire, she saw the pale teenager who they had… er, invited forcefully… fighting for his life. Vaati was doing everything he could to defend himself, and he was so outmatched that he couldn't find an opening to give a counterattack. The sorcerer had a barrier in place and was teleporting around the room to avoid the attacks, and it was all he could do in the face of Thistle's brutal onslaught.

If someone didn't do something, he was probably going to die.

Thyme bit her lip, drawing blood. She'd always followed Thistle. She'd always been there to help whatever caught his flighty fancy because she loved to see him laugh and just enjoy living. It had been a contagious sort of energy, one she couldn't get enough of. She'd always been a little dark and cynical, never believing that someone could actually enjoy every day as much as Thistle did. She hated the world and she loved watching someone stick their finger to Life's ugly face and tell it to go fuck itself.

But now…

Had she been wrong all along? Had she been naïve and just as selfish, ignoring what kind of damage Thistle was doing to others? Was she a terrible human being? Had he changed so drastically to become this monster in the last few weeks since Vaati had arrived? Or had he always been this way and she'd refused to acknowledge it because she'd been blinded by his enthusiastic aura?

Thyme's fingers tightened around the blue staff, and the gem set in the middle cast ominous shadows as it reflected the glow from the fight below. She saw Thistle laugh maniacally, and then lift his arm into the air to summon a pitch black creature to life. The shadowy silhouette of an enormous winged worm emerged from the floor, crowding the room below and towering over the wind mage.

In that moment she made her decision. Thistle wasn't the person she once knew anymore, and it was her responsibility to set things right again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thistle was completely playing with him now. The six metal spheres that were flying around the room chaotically each had the ability to spew out either fuel or water. With Thistle's fire and ice magic, the gas spheres turned into spinning flame throwers and the water spheres turned into something that shot ice daggers every which way. It took Vaati everything he had to avoid being skewered by lethal ice shards or set on fire like a flare dancer. And while there were those metal sphere things to worry about, he also had to do something about Thistle's other attacks, like summoning pillars of ice from the floor that could easily impale him, or the other general magical energy attacks that whizzed around the room to blast him down.

There were so many possible ways to die in this room that all Vaati could do was to get his defenses up, and wait for an opportunity to do something other than teleport around the room with his shield up. He definitely couldn't attack in his position because any one of Thistle's attacks packed a nasty punch, and if even one of them hit him he was going to be in a lot of trouble.

Thistle cackled, taking a brief pause in his attacks. Vaati immediately took the opportunity and sent a volley of attacks of his own, but they were haphazard and unfocused in his frenzy to do something, anything. Thistle raised one hand and brought up a barrier that blocked all of the sorcerer's attacks, and then with the other he slowly made a motion as though to lift something off the floor. There was a low rumble, and a black shadow in the shape of what Vaati recognized as Molgera, emerged from the floor.

Vaati knew about summoning spells, but this was on a completely different scale than what he remembered. Most summoning spells recruited small monsters, like keese and stalfos. The best ones summoned Darknuts. But nothing, nothing came close to summoning a gigantic monster that took dozens of men to defeat.

This was going to hurt, Vaati thought as the worm opened its maw and charged recklessly towards him.

Just as the sorcerer brought both of his hands up to quickly come up with a spell to defend himself, another movement caught his eye. Someone else had jumped down from the broken window above and was now standing in front of him, facing the enormous jaws of the black worm fearlessly. A woman stood with her back towards him, her arms outstretched in front of her as she held the Staff of Byrna horizontally across as though to stop the attack.

Vaati's eyes widened when he recognized Thyme standing between him and Molgera. "What are you – "

Vaati never got to finish that sentence, because in an instant Molgera's jaws engulfed them both as it crashed on top of them. The worm disappeared into the floor as a shadowy mess before it disintegrated into smoke and vanished. In the middle of it all were Vaati and Thyme, miraculously unharmed and surrounded by a powerful blue shield generated by Thyme's staff.

For the first time in a while, Thistle lowered his hands and looked at them both in surprise. He turned from Thyme, to Vaati, and back to Thyme again uncomprehendingly. The wizzrobe puzzled over the situation some more, and then finally looked at Thyme with a confused expression. "Didn't I tell you to skip work today?"

His less than serious attitude seemed to provoke Thyme more and her stern gaze transformed into a full blown glare. "Thistle," she shot icily, "what are you doing?"

"I'm just having a little fun!" Thistle replied defensively, throwing his hands up in the air. "And what are you doing, Thyme? You're kind of in my way."

"I," she lowered her hands slightly, her voice softening a little, "am putting a stop to this nonsense. Before you take things too far."

"But if you do that you might, I don't know, force me to kill you?"

"If that's what it's going to take…"

"I don't want to kill you though!" Thistle whined.

"Then stop what you're doing. Right. Now."

The wizzrobe gave her a long stare, the seconds ticking by painfully slowly. During this time, Vaati debated whether or not he should take the opportunity to blast the bird away, but he figured it was going to take more than just one shot to defeat him. Thistle mulled over Thyme's words for a little while longer, and then finally gave a disappointed sigh. "We got along so well, Thyme dear," he said heavily. Thyme didn't want to believe it when she saw that his eyes had steeled over in uncompromising determination, "I'm sorry you didn't go to the beach today."

fleets: So my idea with Condor was that he'd fight kind of like the Twilight monster things in TP where they can keep coming back to life if one of them howls or something (since he and the hounds turned all creepy-gross with the twilight shard and all).

Also I am super duper sorry these past few chapters have been like, cliff-hanger marathons, but it's really difficult for me to find some other cutoff point without either making the prolonged fight scene lame (since these last several chapters have been the continuation of the same fight) OR I would have to upload a mega chapter that goes on and on until the story ends (which, while awesome, would take me forever to update the story). I hope I won't keep you guys waiting too long for the next one.

And for any of you wondering about what the heck I meant when I said I had a secret-not-secret oc otp of ThisxThy, well, yeah it's not very romantic right now is it rofl

Also everyone is totally going to die. jk. but seriously tho i kind of made everyone in a bad spot and super unhappy and stuff (mauled by bear)

Reily96: Haha yeah so these two can probably set the new record for 'going slow.' I think it was a little cuter this chapter, I mean, if you ignore the whole death threats and everything...