AN: Another chapter down. This one was fun to write. Thinking we've got about two chapters left to go before this story arc is wraped up.
dogbertcarroll: They weren't expecting Lincoln to sleep in the same bed as Luan, they assumed he'd be sleeping in Luna's bed. Leni noticed something was up because after cuddling with Luan all night, Lincoln smelled funny :)
EliteSlayer103: Happy to hear I'm pushing the right buttons for you man. Buckle up, there's more fun stuff in store.
"Just keep your mouth shut, and let me do all the talking." Fiona barked, the hostility in her voice distinctly at odds with the way her palm shook as she attempted to grasp the doorknob that led to Darkness' domain.
Maggie shrugged indifferently as she watched the older girl try to master her emotions. She was an intern, it wouldn't make any logical sense to blame an fresh new hire for mistakes that clearly stemmed from failure on the part of upper management. Besides, she was still fairly confident in her unassailable logic that this whole battle between good and evil, thing, was dumb. On, like, a conceptual level. Frankly, it just seemed like there were better things they could all be doing aside from having these random punch ups in the middle of the city. A brief flash of memory, Maggie protectively holding a tiny, white haired boy against her chest as the ground shook around them, Fiona desperately screaming for help, the older girl swiftly being buried under an avalanche of the scary blonde girl's punches. Maggie suddenly found herself feeling uncharacteristically flushed, and absentmindedly adjusted the collar of her shirt.
Thankfully, her senior co-worker was too occupied with her own problems to notice. Fiona finally managed to jimmy the doorknob opened, triggering a brief burst of disorientation as time and space went sideways and orange, respectively, and when reality came back into focus Maggie found herself and Fiona seated in Darkness' office. The eldritch horror sat at his desk opposite them, hands folded neatly in front of him. There was something incredibly off-putting about how calm he appeared to be.
"Welcome back, humans." He greeted them in a low and even tone. "How did it go?"
Maggie and Fiona exchanged worried glances. Despite her earlier instructions, Fiona didn't immediately volunteer a response, seemingly considering her words. Finally, she spoke.
"We—" She began.
She didn't get to say anything further, Darkness snapped his fingers and Fiona was immediately engulfed by a fiery explosion. It was over so quickly that Maggie would have assumed she was simply seeing things, had the other girl's shriek of terror not been still ringing throughout the room. One minute Fiona had been sitting next to her, and the next she was gone. A large scorch mark and bits of blackened chair the only indicator that anything had been in that spot to begin with.
"So..." Darkness unfolded his hands, then refolded them. "How did it go?"
"Did..." Maggie ventured, hesitant. "Did you just kill her?"
"What?" Darkness didn't have eyes, per se, but Maggie got the distinct impression of someone blinking in genuine surprise. "Why would you even say that?"
Maggie gestured wordlessly towards the still smoldering remains that now occupied the same space that had previously contained Fiona only moments prior.
"Oh." Darkness gestured dismissively. "That."
"Um...yeah." Maggie replied, still not sure how she was supposed to be reacting to what appeared to be a fairly deliberate, and not at all spontaneous combustion. "People don't normally do that."
"She's fine. I already know the two of you failed miserably, I just wanted to see whether or not Fiona was going to cop to it." He clapped his hands together, decisively. "Since she was clearly going to regale me with a thoroughly uninteresting tirade of excuses, I sent her away."
"...Alive?" Maggie asked, still feeling the need for clarification in light of the devastation that was only scant inches away.
"Of course." Darkness began rummaging through his desk. "I call it 'Explosive Teleportation'. All the convenience of teleportation with all of the pain of exploding. A ha!" The embodiment of evil let out a cry of triumph, and produced a rolled up bundle of poster paper. "It's Darkness Inc.'s new flagship product. Here's the advertisement the boys in marketing put together."
Maggie accepted the posted with no small amount of trepidation, and carefully unfurled it. The image contained within depicted a small group of carefully diversified children standing in a semi-circle, pointing and jeering as a familiar looking scorch mark on the floor. "Explosive fun for the whole family!", read the tagline.
"What do you think?" Darkness asked, leaning forward expectantly.
"It...um..." Maggie swallowed nervously. "It actually says 'Expurooosion Teleportation.'"
The temperature in the room suddenly dropped several degrees, in a decidedly not metaphorical manner. Maggie found herself shivering as the view from Darkness' window suddenly depicted a light snowfall.
"Does it, now?" Darkness reached over and activated his intercom, the other end instantly picked up and responded with a series of chirps and clicks. "Hello, Jeff."More clicks, considerably more nervous sounding. "Yes, I was just looking it over. It appears you've failed me." The voice on the other end immediately responded, the tone unmistakably pleading. "I'm sorry Jeff, but I just can't tolerate this kind of sloppy work. Consider your entire department fired."
Presumably heading off any further pleas for mercy, Darkness punctuated his declaration with a snap of his fingers, his other hand still holding the intercom button. There was a loud noise on the other end, followed by screams of agony. Maggie watched as Darkness held down the intercom button for several minutes, seemingly relishing the sounds. Finally, he disengaged the intercom with a small sigh of satisfaction. Maggie was fairly certain that she could detect a new, entirely separate smell on the wind. It smelled like charcoal, and disappointment.
"Now then." Darkness turned to address her once more. "I'd like to hear your version of what happened at the park."
Maggie gulped nervously, exerting every ounce of willpower she possessed to keep from glancing fearfully at the still smoldering patch of ground next to her.
"...so then the scary girl piledrove Fiona into the ground and we all high fived."
"Why did you high five them?" Darkness asked.
Maggie coughed, suddenly nervous. "I was worried they might start hitting me next. Also, it was kind of awesome."
"I see." Darkness stroked his chin in contemplation. "I suppose I can't fault you for that, especially with Fiona exercising her special brand of uselessness. Again."
"Speaking of..." Maggie gulped audibly, "What...exactly...happened to her?"
"Nothing she won't recover from...with time." Darkness chuckled. "Technically speaking, Fiona is head of HR for Darkness Inc. I generally let her get away without doing the work that comes with the position, because it's much more amusing to watch her get beaten up by those Gigant girls. Buuuut this particular screw up resulted in a lot of paper work, so..." The pinpricks of light that seemingly functioned as the creatures eyes suddenly took on an ominous red glow. "...I decided it was time to rectify that."
"But she is...alive, right?" Maggie pressed. The older girl was annoying, but it would set a bad precedent is Darkness started casually murdering his human employees.
"Of course." Darkness reached over and activated the intercom again.
"Paperwork! Paperwork everywhere!" Fiona's beleaguered voice wailed over the tiny speaker. "It's even in my explosion wounds!"
"Close enough...I guess." Maggie said with a small shrug.
"Quite." Darkness switched off the intercom and settled back into his chair. "Now lets talk a little more about that boy you seem so fond of."
"W-what boy?" Maggie asked, trying to ignore the sudden burning in her cheeks. "I don't think I said anything about a boy."
Darkness snapped his fingers again, causing Maggie to instinctively flinch in fear. Fortunately, there was no conflagration this time. Instead, a small notebook dropped into his hand, and a pair of stylish reading glasses appeared on his face.
"You actually mentioned him a number of times." Darkness said, flipping open the notebook and glancing over the first page. "You described him as being really, really, really, really, really..." Darkness flipped the page. "...really cute."
"O-oh." Maggie stammered. "That boy." She fidgeted in her chair, pulling her legs up off the floor and into her chest, her favorite position. "His name is Lincoln. He's...um, nice."
"So I gathered." Darkness said, bemused. "But I'm more interested in what his role in this whole thing might be."
"What do you mean?"
Darkness thumbed through his notebook, slowly and theatrically. "You mentioned that those girls, one of whom was that blue girl Fiona had brawled with previously, and the other, presumably the green one, arrived at the scene appearing to be normal humans."
"Pretty normal." Maggie shrugged. "They were wearing those colors even in their normal clothing, which..." She trailed off, frowning. "...actually seems kind of weird, now that I think about it."
"Indeed. But more importantly, you said they transformed into their Gigant forms before the fight."
"One of them did." Maggie corrected him. "The blue one." She shivered slightly. "The scary one."
"And the boy, Lincoln. He was the one who facilitated the transformation." Darkness prompted.
"Y-yeah." Maggie could feel the heat begin to creep back into her cheeks. "He...k-kissed her."
"That thing humans do with their mouths." Darkness leaned back, dismissing his notebook with a wave of his hand. "I've encountered many of these pests in the past, and I can't say I recall ever seeing that particular method employed. Interesting."
"He...he said they were his...sisters." Maggie said, quietly, almost whispering the last word.
"Oh." Darkness blinked. "How...progressive. My perusal of your media had led me to believe that sort of thing was frowned upon."
"It is!" Maggie growled, breaking out of her self-made cocoon and slamming her fists down on the armrests of her chair. "It's weird! And on top of that, they—" She cut herself off, as Darkness' words sunk in. "...wait, you've seen out media?"
"I have a decent amount of downtime between Fiona's failures." He gestured to the far wall of his office, and Maggie was surprised to see a rather large, and very expensive looking television mounted there. "And you people seem to have a fetishistic love of turning the suffering of your own kind into entertainment. It's delightful."
"...Right." Maggie replied, neutrally, still bewildered by the idea of a cosmic space horror taking time out of his day to watch television. She took her seat once more, now embarrassed by her uncharacteristic outburst.
"It sounds like you don't agree with their methods." Darkness posited, his tone somewhat...softer, than usual.
"...I-I don't..." Maggie said, haltingly.
"It sounds to me..." Darkness pressed on, seemingly ignoring her reply. "That these girls might be using poor little...uh..." The notebook appeared in his hand once more, and he quickly glanced through it. "Lincoln." The notebook poofed out of existence. He leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him. "It sounds like these girls are using their poor little brother for their own gain."
Maggie fidgeted in her seat, unhappy with this line of thinking. "T-they seemed...happy...together."
"Come now, Maggie." Darkness gently reprimanded her. "From what you've told me, this Lincoln sounds like a fine upstanding young man." Darkness whipped off his glasses dramatically. "Do you really think he'd be the type to get up to illicit activities with one of his sisters? Let alone two of them?" He stood up, and began to walk around the desk, his stride slow and purposeful. "Why, a boy as nice as Lincoln...he'd probably just do whatever his sisters told him, right?" He reached Maggie, and placed one hand upon her shoulder. "No matter how...indecent."
Maggie found herself shivering as images came to her, unbidden. Those older girls manhandling Lincoln with their weird, freakish strength. Shoving his face into their oversized boobs. Pressing their lips against his...
"Noooo." Maggie whined softly, hiding her face in her knees. Darkness gave her a gentle, conciliatory pat on the back, saying nothing for a time. Maggie barely noticed, so consumed was she by the increasingly graphic places her imagination took her to.
"Tell me, Maggie."Darkness said at least. "How did you like that darkseed?"
Maggie flinched again, pulled from her visions by memories of what had happened earlier that day. "I didn't like it." She mumbled.
"Truly?"
"Y-yeah." Maggie replied. She then nodded, somewhat redundantly. "It was scary."
"Because of that girl?"
"Kinda."
Darkness clucked his tongue (did he even have one of those?) "I don't think that's true, Maggie."
Darkness stepped around her chair, and crouched down so he was directly in front of Maggie. She found herself drawn to those strange eyes of his. Like candles, flickering amid the shadowy void that was his being.
"I think you're scared because, for the first time in your life, you felt strong. Powerful. Like you were finally in control. And I think what scares you, is that you enjoyed it."
"N-no..." Maggie protested, as her mind, once again, went back to her time at the park. When her very steps caused the ground to quake. When she could effortlessly uproot trees and crush solid metal with her bare hands. When she held that sweet little boy in her hands. Completely at ease, for the first time in her life. Unafraid that he might think her weird, as was so often the case with the other kids at school, because...it didn't matter what he thought. In that moment, he was completely and utterly at her mercy. And if she wanted him to stay with her, there was nothing he could do about it.
As she ruminated, Darkness returned to his seat. He reached placed one hand upon his desk, and when he removed it a moment later, there was an object sitting there, one which hadn't been there previously. A darkseed.
"It seems to me, that what Lincoln truly needs right now...is a hero."
"Yeah?" Maggie asked, distantly. She realized she was staring at the seed. She realized, that she wasn't entirely certain as to when that had started.
"Someone who could be strong, for his sake. Rescue him from those mean sisters of his, and take him somewhere safe." He drummed his fingers on the desk. The sound was oddly soothing. "Someplace where they couldn't find him. Some...place...like..."
"Here?" Maggie supplied, still staring. "You...you could protect him, right?"
"I could." Darkness answered, nodding in agreement. "But...if you were powerful enough. I don't think I would need to. You could protect him all by yourself."
"Yeah?" Maggie felt her arm begin to twitch. She was beginning to remember how it felt, when she'd crushed that little black seed in her hand. That rush of energy, transforming her from the weird little emo girl people made fun of, if they noticed her at all, into something far greater. Something stronger.
"And I bet..." Darkness leaned forward, finally drawing her attention away from the seed. "...I bet that Lincoln would be so...so very grateful, to whomever rescued him. Why, I bet he wouldn't even know where to begin to repay their kindness." He lowered his voice, almost to the point of whispering. "I bet he'd just love them."
Maggie couldn't quite remember what happened next. One minute she'd just been sitting there. Looking at her employer. Then at the seed on his desk. Sitting there, beckoning her. Then, quite suddenly, she was on her feet, her hand only inches away, from the item in question. She very likely would have snatched it up, were it not for the obsidian-colored hand that was wrapped around her arm, holding her in place. Maggie found that she very much wanted to shake off the unwanted restraint, but one look at her employer stopped her cold. He was smiling. Genuinely smiling, not a hint of malice in place. That's what her brain told her, at least, her eyes insisted that the featureless void standing before her was incapable of such things.
"Easy now." He said, chuckling to himself. "All in good time." He slowly released her arm, and beckoned for Maggie to sit down before returning to his own seat.
"What you've seen Fiona do with these things is mere child's play." He said, picking up the seed and rolling it between his fingers. "My power of capable of so much more, even when wielded by someone as weak and frail as your kind. Before you run off to save your little friend..." He tossed the seed up and deftly snatched it out of the air as it came tumbling down. "...I think I should give you a bit more instruction. Show you what you're really capable of."
Maggie found herself nodding along. After all, it was better to be safe, than sorry. For Lincoln's sake.