Chapter 8 Frozen Fear
Aria took a deep breath. The cool, chilly air entered her nose, cooling her reptilian body and sending shivers down her arms. These shivers were caused both by the body's response to cold as well as the sweet, unmistakable feeling of her nostalgia. She took another deep breath, soaking in the scent of Frostwall. Frostwall, the crown jewel of World 3. Frostwall, the place where Koopa Kingdom history began. Frostwall. Her home.
Laughter fell upon her ears, laughter that grew in both intensity and joy. Ah, another part of home. Aria opened her eyes, looking down the frosty, glowing streets as she broke out into a run. The speed at which she ran wasn't anything to write home about, but what really excited her was her energy level. She didn't feel like stopping for a single minute. Her body was a steam engine, barreling through with purpose and at a high velocity. And yet, her steps were soft. The pads of her boots slapped against the ground, but she was so light on her feet that she could barely hear them. She had the energy and light footedness of a rabbit, and enough enthusiasm to last her the rest of her life.
"Aria!"
Aria giggled, increasing the speed of her energetic run when she heard the voice of a friend. She reached out her hand and grabbed any icy lamppost, twirling around it as she went around the corner. Her giggles increased; she could see her friends waving to her at the end of the street. She waved back, all while a flood of happy memories involving them came into her head.
Finally, she got to the group. She didn't even need to catch her breath, so she jumped right into talking to them. "Hi everybody!" She beamed as she blew a strand of hair out of her face. "I'm so happy to see you; I feel like it's been forever!"
One of her friends (Eris) gave her a puzzled look. "Aria, what are you talking about? We saw you yesterday!"
Aria blinked. Yesterday? That…that didn't sound right. She racked her brain, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with that statement. She thought for quite a long time, but she couldn't quite put her finger on the answer. It was there, certainly there, but…oh, her friends were staring at her. Would probably be best not to worry them.
"You're right!" She lifted her head and looked into their…oddly youthful faces. This again triggered the feeling that something was off, but again, Aria pushed it to the side for the sake of not worrying anybody. "Man, my silly brain must be playing tricks on me."
Her friends laughed. Their laughter could probably be heard from space, and Lord knows it was contagious enough to impact any aliens that heard it. Right as they finished was when Don (man, when was the last time she had seen Don this happy?) spoke up.
"Wanna have a snowball fight out in the park?"
"Hell yeah!" Aria covered her mouth. "Oops! Sorry, I probably shouldn't swear." She stumbled over her words, yet her happy feelings didn't fade. "I…I mean…of course! Let's go to war!"
The others nodded, and together the group made their way to the park at the center of Frostwall's bursting metropolis. Aria examined the buildings, feeling the calming effect that the blues and violets had on her. The only thing that struck her as odd was one of the signs. As she passed by that sign, she blinked and squinted at it. It…it was illegible. She couldn't quite make out what it was saying, mostly because the letters on it didn't even form a coherent word. And that wasn't even getting into the fact that some of the letters didn't even look like letters; they looked like the scribbles that cartoons sometimes showed in books when the animators didn't want to put in the effort to add in all the details that the book was supposedly supposed to show.
"Aria, come on!"
Aria did a double take, shaking her head as she turned her gaze away from the strange sign. She was going to play with friends. She could worry about figuring out the sign later; that was secondary to pelting her friends with frozen water.
"I'm coming!"
She put on a burst of speed, once again marveling at the infinite amount of energy she possessed. She didn't even stop when she reached her friend group; she barreled past them and headed straight to the park. To add to the fun, she held her arms behind her, in a similar manner to how she had seen some video game and anime characters do. This made her feel like she could conquer the world, which unfortunately had the unwanted side effect of making her feel bad when she inevitably had to come to a stop.
Oh well. Sure, that fun experience was over, but now she had another fun experience to enjoy! She bounced in place while she waited for her friends, blowing into her hands so they wouldn't freeze. She felt like she was going to explode when they finally got to her. Don gave her the cheekiest grin she'd ever seen once they all arrived.
"Okay. We're all here." He reached down into the snow. Slowly and meticulously, he formed it into a snowball. His grin grew even more mischievous as he looked right at Aria. "Now…FIGHT!" He threw the snowball at her, and it exploded as it hit her right in the nose. Aria shrieked, watching the snow crumple into a pile from her throbbing snout, before turning and running away. She needed to find a place to hide, as everyone else was forming snowballs of their own. No doubt they would spell her doom if she got hit by them.
After a minute of running, she found a tree. She ducked behind it, thanking her lucky stars that she was now effectively concealed. She grinned as she stuck her hands in the snow herself.
"You guys are going down," she muttered. Chortles left her body in a similar vein to how the vapors came out of her mouth. "You're going way down; downtown!" She grinned as she held a newly formed snowball aloft in her hand. "Prepare to meet the wrath of…"
"Aria?"
Aria did a double take, nearly dropping her snowball on the ground. She turned and gawked, not even fully comprehending what she saw.
"Ludwig?" She looked over her shoulder before crouching low and getting up close to the blue haired special. "What are you doing here?"
Ludwig chuckled and scratched at his wild blue hair…wait. His hair was much more untamed than when she last saw him. In fact, everything about him looked different! He was small, like…he was a little kid! This was weird; wasn't he a lot older when Aria last saw him? In fact…wasn't she older too? Something didn't add up. Aria focused on the ground, trying to figure out why this whole scenario was riddled with oddities and inconsistencies.
Wait. Was…was this a…
"I wanted to play with you," Ludwig said. Aria lifted her head and looked into his smiling face. "I really like it when we have snowball fights. Can I join in?"
Despite her confusion, Aria sighed and put on a smile. There was no need to worry; her mind was probably just playing tricks on her.
"Of course you can join in!" She chuckled wickedly as she stood up with the snowball in hand. "We'll be Ludwig and Aria, the Dynamic Duo! We'll whoop the butts of anyone who stands in our path to total world conquest!"
Ludwig beamed. "Yeah!" He looked past the tree. "Bring it on everyone. We're ready to take you down!"
Aria beamed. She saw Mercy and Don making their way down the path in the center of the park. Oh, wouldn't it be so satisfying to pelt them? Wouldn't it simply be amazing to totally claim victory over them, to laugh in their faces as they got down on their knees and begged for mercy? Aria could already hear their pleas now. They made her chuckle like a supervillain.
"There." She pointed to her friends. "They are our targets, Ludwig!" She grinned at him as she formed more snowballs to act as ammo. "You think you can take them?"
Ludwig returned the grin, all while his blue eyes twinkled. "In my sleep."
With one more nod, Aria and Ludwig yelled and burst out from behind the tree. Mercy and Don both gave them the deer in the headlights look as they charged. Before they could react, Aria pelted snowballs at them. They shrieked as they got caught up in a rain of snowballs.
"Yeah hah!" Aria exclaimed. "Not so tough, are you guys!"
"Feel our wrath!" Ludwig began shooting fireballs at them. "FEEL IT!"
Don and Mercy shrieked as fireballs rained down around them. Aria threw one snowball, hitting Don square in the eyes. Both enemies were forced to retreat when this happened, much to Aria's excitement.
"WOOHOO!" She jumped up and down, impressed for multiple reasons. "WE DID IT, LUDWIG!" She turned around while holding her hand in the air. "HIGH…five?" She blinked at the empty space in front of her. "Ludwig, where'd you…?"
BOOM!
Aria shrieked. The ground around her rumbled, in a way not too dissimilar to an earthquake. She looked up into the sky as her breath caught in her throat. What once was bright and blue was now dark and black.
"What's going on?" Aria's heart rate picked up. Sparks, blue sparks that made the air they floated through unbearably hot, sailed through the air. "Ludwig?" Aria bolted out of the park. She looked around, trying to see if she could locate Ludwig or any of her other friends. She saw nobody; the bustling streets were now a ghost town. A ghost town going up in flames.
"LUDWIG!" Aria breathed in a shallow manner; all enthusiasm and energy completely gone as her mind filled with terror. "WHERE IS EVERYBODY! WHY…?"
She didn't even get a chance to finish her sentence. The ground rumbled again, shaking the entirety of Frostwall in an even more intense and dangerous manner. Aria held out her arms to maintain her balance, but ended up falling anyway. She tried to pick herself back up…
When a scream erupted behind her. She turned, confusion and fear claiming her mind, and her breath caught in her throat. A big wave…a MONSTROUS wave of darkness cascaded toward the city. Looming like an eternal night, more threatening than the presence of the devil himself, Aria couldn't even run away from it. She just looked upon it with wide eyed terror. It actually took an intense bout of effort to scream.
"AHHHH!"
…
Aria gasped and sat up. Her wide eyes, rapidly beating heart, cold sweats, and shallow breathing accompanied her terror as she tried to gather her bearings. She looked around, seeing sights that were familiar. There was her dresser. There was her vanity table. There was her closet. The morning sunlight coming in through the window illuminated all of these.
"I…it was a dream?" She continued with her shallow breathing before the relief of it all being a dream washed over her. "Thank. The. Lord." She put her hand to her chest, taking in some very deep breaths. As she did this, her mind grappled with the whiplash. So strong, so potent that she still felt shaken up about it. On some level, it being a dream helped put some of the oddities into context. But still…that final image. That final jolt of fear. She…she had actually thought that she was going to die.
She couldn't even remember having a nightmare that…vivid. She did have nightmares, sure, but they were never too bad. About three-quarters of them were so tame that they didn't even wake her up. On top of that, the imagery and terror that they gave her would fade away the second she awoke, and then proceed to vanish completely as she went about her day.
Not so with this one. The one image that she had at the end of the nightmare was one that was going to stick with her for the rest of the day. It was horrible! It was terrifying! It was…
Familiar.
Shudders ran up and down Aria's spine. Her breath caught in her throat once again as an all too familiar feeling returned to her. This was the feeling she got while in Frostwall, the same eerieness that had plagued her when she saw Ludwig's fire the night before. It brushed against her heart, subtle but still very potent and deadly. Yes, deadly; it disturbed her so much, more so than reading up about the demons she hunted in her job.
She stayed still for a minute, feeling like darkness was closing around her despite the fact that it was clearly morning. She swallowed a lump. She got out of bed, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She went to her vanity table and washed her face with a wet wipe. She then proceeded to put on her makeup.
She wasn't going to let this bother her. It was a nightmare. It would fade eventually.
…
Ludwig couldn't remember the time when the dark circles under his eyes looked THIS pronounced. He felt like dropping everything and getting back in bed as he sent the comb through his precious blue locks. He didn't even remember what time it was despite looking at his clock less than three minutes prior; he was THAT exhausted. If he went out with Aria again, he was going to go out of his way to end it earlier so that he didn't go to sleep at an ungodly hour.
That is, if he went out with Aria again. Honestly, Ludwig didn't really know if he would. He had already spent twenty minutes in bed last night pondering if he should. Sure, this particular outing had been fun. But…
Ludwig growled. He hadn't come up with a concrete answer then, and he couldn't come up with a concrete answer now. Needless to say, this fact bugged him a lot.
"Good morning!"
Ludwig nodded, looking at Lemmy through the mirror. "Good morning."
Lemmy beamed as he sat down on the closed toilet. "So…we're awake. It's the next day. How did the outing with Aria go?"
Ludwig sighed and set his brush down on the sink as he sent his brother a glare. "Really? No 'how did you sleep Ludwig?' Is my social life really so important that it supersedes EVERY other conversation we can have in the moring in terms of relevancy?"
Lemmy shrugged. "I don't know if it supersedes every other conversation, but it's definitely up there."
Ludwig shook his head. "Well, fine. I'll tell you." He turned toward Lemmy and leaned against the sink. "We had a good dinner. We sang some karaoke. We had a nice walk under the moon. Overall, it was nice." He turned back around and put some toothpaste on his toothbrush.
Lemmy beamed as Ludwig stuck the toothbrush in his mouth. "That's awesome! You have no idea how happy that makes me!"
"If only that weren't true," Ludwig grumbled, all while focusing on his reflection in the mirror.
"No, seriously Ludwig, I'm really happy for you." Lemmy stood up on the toilet, making his height about level with his brother's. "Aria is an amazing person. I'd be happy for you even if the relationship doesn't develop into anything serious."
Ludwig rolled his eyes and spit into the sink. "That won't stop you from shipping the two of us like in some poorly written fanfiction."
"True," Lemmy said as Ludwig rinsed. "You two would make a cute couple." He giggled. "Plus, I get the feeling Aria wouldn't be too adverse with taking things to the next level."
"Well," Ludwig said. He put the toothbrush back in its holder. "If that's the truth, then good for her." He went back out into the bedroom, telekinetically picking up his cloak and fastening it onto his body. "I highly doubt she feels that way though. We're friends. She even said that herself; we're just friends."
"Right," Lemmy responded. "Just friends." He winked when saying that, making a little clicking sound with his tongue as he did.
Ludwig shook his head and rolled his eyes. He looked at his clock, seeing that it read nine-thirty in the morning (damn, it felt like much later). He yawned as he proceeded to make his bed, once again feeling annoyed that Lemmy didn't even lift a finger to tidy up his side of the room. Oh well, he could always get Bowser to crucify him later.
"You know," Lemmy said as he held onto one of his sock monkeys, "maybe it wouldn't be too terrible an idea to introduce Aria to the rest of the family."
Ludwig snorted. "Oh sure, that'll definitely go over well. 'Hey guys, let me introduce to you the girl who I murdered in an alternate timeline!'" He shook his head. "Get your head out of your ass, Lemmy."
Lemmy snickered. "Oh come on, we don't have to bring that up. If anything, I'd think that talking about murder would be…overkill!" Lemmy burst into laughter, slapping his knee as he did.
Despite Ludwig having found an appreciation for Lemmy's puns, he didn't laugh at this one. "Horrible. Absolutely horrible." He telekinetically fluffed his pillow while scowling. "You do realize that conversation is bound to come up eventually, right?"
Lemmy thought about this before shrugging. "Even if it does, it doesn't have to be a big deal."
Ludwig snorted once again. "Wow. Absolutely none of what you just said is right. It's actually impressive." He put his pillow back on his bed and took in a breath. "Okay! We're already, let's go and have breakfast."
"Good idea; I'm starving!" Lemmy hopped off of the bed, and together the two of them made their way out into the hallway. They didn't talk, and Ludwig wasn't about to start either because he just wanted to spend some time thinking, formulating a plan. He needed to figure out what was going to happen with Aria from here on out. It was only…
BZZT!
Both Lemmy and Ludwig did a double take. "Was that your phone?" Lemmy asked.
"Yep," Ludwig replied as he fished the device out of his hammerspace. He blinked when he saw the text was from Aino. He only grew more surprised when he read the message.
Hey Ludwig. Do you wanna hang out today?