Chapter 17: Light Under the Purple Moon.
"I used to think, that I was smart,
But I couldn't hide the, Hole in my heart
Sad as it seems, none of my dreams-"
"Stop singing that stupid fucking song!" Pokey hissed, without turning to face Salem, who leered over at him. The rotted skin on the boy's face seemed more blue in the light of darkness in her tower lair. "I swear, Master Giygas and I must've told you thousands of times not to remind us of those first four brats."
"Just because I came up with this song in my world, but someone else did in yours, doesn't mean you should connect the same here." Salem replied calmly, smirking at the small zombie. "After all, that was the song that calmed our four children."
She couldn't see the immortal zombie's eyes, but she imagined those black beads were pissed. As she turned to face Pokey, she found him looking out amongst the Grimm lake, she could see Seiros flying around the tower as well, trying to guide the more…less interested Grimm, in the correct direction.
"I'd also advise you to watch your tone while talking to me, Pokey." She continued, twirling her finger as the arm of an Apathy Grimm developed near Pokey in a position she knew he'd see. "You know very well Lord Giygas left me in charge of our operation in the event he fell."
No retort from the boy. Even though she knew quite well that the Apathy would do nothing to him, it was still a fun toy to use, because even the feel of a Grimm arm was enough to hurt him.
"And as your commander, I must advise you to be more gentle on Team MESS when you and Seiros engage them. I don't need you damaging our children, especially Moon."
Pokey let out a hiss. "Is it really necessary?" he growled. "They aren't going to turn just because of you. No matter how much you baby them and wear them down."
"Yours, Lord Giygas, and Saint Seiros' ways of trying to do what we set out to create from them were too rash, and have only served to damage my image to them. Ozpin's already been spending his time to develop countermeasures to them, and we should count ourselves lucky he hasn't succeeded."
Pokey muttered something she couldn't quite pick up on.
"In the future, I'd advise you to keep in mind who gave you a safe haven following your disastrous attempt to cause a coup against the Smash Brothers using Ridley and the Rogue Alliance. You do realize you lost one of our better alliances in Lotus cluster thanks to the stupid council reforms now allowing Villains a spot on the council to ensure they don't work for us right? Ridley and Dark Samus, alongside Samus' other villains, Wolf, and Blood Falcon were some of our better assets."
"And it would've worked." Pokey growled back. "If they hadn't conveniently chosen to invite the one Byleth who's timeline chose to work for that demonic fucking empress."
"A possibility you should've accounted for, you know." Salem smugly shot back, snapping her fingers. "You know those Gladio Swordfighters can be quite the nuisance with their branching timelines and stories."
As soon as they finished, a bubbly puddle formed on the tower floor, and out popped a weird looking jellyfish looking Grimm, it had seven red tentacles and white boney spikes along the outer rim with a glassy exterior covering its top. The grimm floated over to Pokey to stab his back with one of its sharp tentacles before floating over to Salem.
"WATCH IT!"
Salem shrugged it off as she looked into the message displayed on the Grimm's glassy shell. "Hmmm,"
Pokey finally glanced over his chubby shoulder as he watched the women's red and black eyes sparkle a little at the messenger Grimm.
"Pokey, be a dear little henchmen and go fetch Dr. Watts." Salem chuckled. "Tell him I've got a little assignment and message for him to deliver to Jacques Schnee. And while you're there, I'm sure he'd be glad to listen to your suggestions for your new mechs and robots."
Pokey grumbled something she couldn't quite make out and he stomped out of her little throne room. Once the chubby Zombie had walked out she turned her eyes back to the glassy top of her Grimm.
"The Schnees are quite the family…" she tapped her red nails against the glass as if to try and ask for better reception. "I guess those Dark Sides have some type of idea of what they want to do with people if they see fit. Though…this could be useful? Hopefully Ozpin doesn't find out though, that could get ugly really quick."
She shrugged her shoulders as the jellyfish Grimm floated in front of her face. "Yes, yes, now, show me what I am more interested in."
"Uh…Moon." Moon glanced up from his writing within the Demonrift to look up at Erick. The black-haired genius sat down across from him. Sapphire and Sarah followed suit and sat around the two of them.
"Hmmm?" he questioned, looking at his three friends with rather nervous looks. He had seen nervousness from his teammates before, but never at the seriousness of this, they all looked rather ill, as if they were tired, or even afraid.
"I uh…well…I didn't want to talk to you about this, because I didn't think it'd be…worth the worry, but Sarah and Sapphire want me to."
He raised his own eyebrow a little as he felt Sarah inch closer to him. Erick had always been a dependable friend not really ever bringing up a concern he might have had unless it was seriously bad. Suffice to say, there wasn't much for his friend to be concerned about with how much he had pushed to try and keep Erick's own darkside at bay.
"Listen, Moon. Erick's been discussing his dreams with us for a bit, he told us he was nervous about the contents, but…it was mainly me who didn't want to tell you this. But, the contents of his most recent one, followed by our near hiccup on the subway train have forced me to concede, please don't be mad at him." he looked over at Sarah.
"It's alright, there is nothing you could tell me to get mad at you, any of you."
Erick took a deep breath, before letting out a puff of air. "Okay…so, I uh…I have…a crush on Weiss. I've had dreams about her and me doing things together."
Moon shrugged his shoulders off. "That's perfectly normal, so long as your dark side never gets actual control of your body, he won't be able to exploit th-"
"Uh…how sure about that are you?" Erick asked. "B-Because…well…I've been having dreams where my darkside uh…well…violating her…very badly."
His friends looked at their leader, as they expected, their leader's one visible blue eye looked horror struck.
"That…that should be impossible." they heard Moon whisper, at this point, his voice was low enough to make them think he meant to be talking to himself. "The darkside shouldn't get access to the memories unless he…that's not how the rules work. Maybe he's been replaced…" his voice cut off as his own skin seemed to flush very pale.
"Bad…that's bad…this is really, really bad."
"Deep breaths Moon," Sapphire said calmly. As Sarah took his fisted hand. "Just…take a moment and breathe, we can figure this out."
Erick flinched for a moment as he watched his leader flinch. He had a suspicion that this would be about how Moon would take it. This was why he had kept the dreams between him, Sapphire, and Sarah. He also made sure to run this by Sarah and be in the presence just so he didn't blindside her. If she knew it was coming, he hoped she could work this out better.
"So…what do you propose we do?" Erick asked, after a moment.
Moon seemed to flinch as his mouth seemed to look like he was grinding his teeth. After a moment he closed his eyes with a distressed look on his face.
"We…we d-don't really have a ch-choi-choice," he stuttered badly. Erick remembered the last time he stuttered this badly, which was already a big red flag. "You'll…you'll need to…convince Weiss to accept a Heartbound."
The genius felt a pit, his stomach was in knots, just seeing the despair in his leader's face felt sickening. Both he and Sarah had thrown out so much to help him keep his own dark side at bay, and he just threw it away in a high stress situation that he would have solved if he just didn't panic in Weiss' presence. All he had to do was use the damn gravity dust beam, but instead, he tried to defuse a goddamn bomb when he didn't know anything about tech in this world. His own dark side was not going to let him live that idiocy down.
"Are…are you sure?" Erick asked, just trying to play along without drawing suspicion, even though his leader was in a state where he likely wasn't going to think about something too hard. "You couldn't maybe…erase my feelings?"
"Could…could that work?" Sapphire seemed mildly curious.
Moon just shook his head, "Not…not without risking damage to Erick's brain. And…I don't want to potentially…kill him." Erick felt a bit of relief, he hadn't actually considered that as a possible solution.
"So…how do you propose we go about this then, Moon?" Sarah asked, Erick could feel the hesitation in her voice, as if she was concerned that one wrong word would shut Moon down entirely. "If…if the HeartBound is the only solution."
Moon's body was shaky, but he shook his head. "Well, it'll be difficult. There's a lot we need to account for. And we really don't want to fuck this up. We're treading into something, would Weiss even be interested in dating you?"
"She does throw glances his way if you didn't notice." Sapphire replied kindly. "She also seems intrigued by his tinkering with Gaia. Maybe we could offer an incentive to her?"
"What incentive could we offer her?" Sarah asked. "She has family and friends here. She also has a duty as the heiress to that large dust company. We can't just ask her to come with us when we finish with Salem. But we can't stay here either, we clearly aren't wanted."
"I could look into the Schnee family semblance." Erick suggested, trying to make his team feel better about an unfortunate situation. "Weiss said she struggles using her glyphs, and her older sister Winter would be…not thrilled to see how little progress she's made without her. Maybe if I did some research I could offer her semblance training?"
"That's low." Moon shook his head. "You'd basically be asking her to give up her whole life just for a chance to prove something to her older sister. How…how confident are you that you could potentially woo her into something like this?"
"Uh…" Erick rubbed his black hair. "I mean…she seems mildly interested in me. I managed to hold a good conversation with her last night when I bumped into her on my way to the weapons blacksmith. She uh…she did ask if I'd be interested in having lunch with her sometime, but, how well I'd do then would be different."
That didn't seem to help, if anything, it seemed to make Moon's expression worse. His face was so pale you'd think he was going to vanish from sight like a ghost. His stomach twisted more, Moon usually had great confidence in his, Sarah's, and Sapphire's abilities, in fact, Moon had been the one to convince Sarah that he should even come with the three of them to Remnant. So seeing his leader so vulnerable and doubtful of any abilities and confidence in himself or his teammates was devastating.
Sarah, on the other hand, seemed a little relieved at his comment. Her eyes seemed to sparkle blue with hope. "That's great!" she said, clapping her hands. "Go to her and tell her you'd like to offer her lunch. Go where she wants and see what you can do! If it can be successful, we can get everything moving."
Moon seemed to shake himself into a recovery. "Sarah tha-"
Sarah cut him off with a fierce look that Erick hadn't seen before. "Let's not waste any opportunity Moon, have some faith, we can and will work this out. I promise." She turned to Erick as Moon just quieted down in agreement. "Go, get to her before someone else does, I heard Neptune and Jaune were considering asking her to the dance."
"Okay." Erick quickly stood up and shuffled out of the dorm room. Once the door closed, she then turned to Sapphire. "Sapphy, could you go watch from afar? Just to make sure everything goes well?"
Sapphire looked over at Moon, who just sort of half-heartedly nodded his head. Their blue-haired friend nodded and left the two alone.
Sarah turned to her husband, and, as she expected, Moon still looked awful. He looked ready to collapse. This is why she was thankful to have said he was done owing her unless she said so, and right now, she knew he needed his nerves to be calmed, and with Astro patrolling the event, now seemed like a good time.
"Moon, go take a seat on our bed, I'll be back in a second, we can talk about this."
She returned a few minutes later holding onto a slice of bar cake. Which she set on Moon's lap upon finding him sitting at the foot of their bed.
She watched him eat the cake slice with a small smile, as he was chewing on his final few bites, she opened her mouth to begin.
"I know that what we now have to do is…scary." Sarah calmly, placing her hand on his shoulder. "But we're prepared for it, Moon. We can ensure that what happened to…" her memory sparked a flash image of Nightmare slowly touching her with his cold hands, almost like a creepy massage. She flinched, and she could feel Moon flinch too.
"S-Sarah." Moon whispered, "If…if this…if this doesn't work. Th-Then…"
"It will work." she assured him. "We can make sure it does."
Moon still didn't seem too sure about her response. "It's…it's just…if things go wrong. How are we supposed to help Erick…when we can barely help ourselves." he squeaked out. "I mean…every time we try to hold each other's hand or…even kiss. We just…see…what I…ruined between us."
Sarah felt her own face heat up. Moon wasn't ever a forward boyfriend with her, and Nightmare hadn't made things easier, especially with what he took from both of them. And for whatever reason, it seemed to keep coming back when they tried to express their feelings. Almost as if the reminder of what happened, what was taken from them, held them back.
Her eyes seemed to dilate a bit as an idea came to her.
"Moon, I uh…I want to do something, I think it might…um…help us."
She heard Moon shuffle a bit as he set the plate down on the nightstand next to him. "W-What did you have in mind?"
"Nothing…nothing too big." She replied, noticing his nervous blush. "I…I just want you…to give me a massage."
Moon blinked in confusion, his face was even more red at this point. "A-are…are you sure?" he asked. "Y-You k-know what happens when I-."
"Just…try not to worry about it." Sarah replied, blushing herself. "If…if the memory gets too much for me, I'll ask you to stop. I promise. That…that's assuming it comes."
Moon just nodded his head. "O-Okay."
He watched as Sarah gave him a reassuring smile and laid down on the bed. He nervously looked at his girlfriend's turned face as she seemed to wait.
He simply scooted over to her and placed his hands on her back. He felt Sarah fidget a little, and her body seemed to tense up. His own memory flashed temporarily as he heard her scream. All he could see was his own hands snaking up her dress as she repeatedly screamed loudly, begging for him to stop.
As for Sarah, nothing was really happening to her, the sudden feeling of Moon's hands on her back, despite only feeling it through her dress, she could feel his hands were very cold, something that never really bothered her, but it could feel uneasy. She paused for a moment as she waited for him to start moving, but his hands remained there as if they were superglued. She turned her head a little and saw him looking frozen with fear.
"You're doing good." She sweetly encouraged him.
As if her words were enough, she watched Moon seemingly snap out of his trance. His hands fidgeted before applying a bit of pressure and moving his fingers around her back. She felt him touch tentatively and slowly. Back before Nightmare, Moon had been much more bold when cuddling with her, he used to run a hand through her hair or rub her back. He was never forward, but he at least tried to experiment.
She let out a sigh, which made Moon stop temporarily. "That was good, keep going."
"You…um…your body is tense."
"That's fine," She reassured him. "It…it has been a bit since you last…well…tried to rub my back. I'll be fine."
Moon just nodded his own head in agreement and continued, she felt her own self sigh in relief, her body relaxed, despite the initial coldness of Moon's hands, it was quite relaxing.
"Having fun?" Her eyes blinked as Dark Sarah dragged her into the voided landscape, Moon's own hands vanished, though, judging by the mindscape's occasional shake, she imagined he was still going.
Dark Sarah flipped herself upside down and crossed her shadowy hands with a furrowed look in her bloody red eyes. "I'm surprised it took you this long to actually try getting more psychical with our sweetheart again."
"You're one to talk." Sarah snapped back. "I know you don't want us to be happy. But you can't let us do anything?"
"What's the point?" Dark Sarah hissed, Sarah had to blink as her dark side sounded almost…bored? "It's not like you two can have a child anyway. So why give you any pleasure?"
"That's…not what I meant."
Dark Sarah giggled, before she snapped her own fingers as a ring of black fire surrounded the two of them. Before she could react, Sarah felt two chains attach themselves to her legs.
"I've grown weary of you and your stupid attempts repair a relationship from scratch you know?" Dark Sarah hissed, stepping up to Sarah. "My sweetheart, not so much? He seems to love showing all your…uh…features." Sarah felt her hand fist up, but she held herself back, hoping to not show weakness.
"Interesting." Dark Sarah said, floating around Sarah's body. "Normally that would've provoked your kind little heart. I guess I gotta step up my game, huh?"
Dark Sarah lashed out at her, tackling her to the ground and placing her shadowy hands around her neck. Instantly, Sarah felt a massive acidic pain around her body and neck. Her heart started racing fast and she felt ill as her throat lumped up.
"I know I can't kill you, not even here." Dark Sarah hissed. "But you know damn well I'll make you suffer. I can do so much with your body. Everything and more will be ours once you suffer."
Sarah gasped as she struggled for a bit of air. Suddenly, her head flashed the memory of Moon's distorted hegemon face. His veins thumped up and his blue eye leaked out black ooze.
"s̵̨̼͖͕̹̔̽̓͂̓͘t̸͍͎̪̥͍̄̐͐̌̔a̶̧͖̖̣̘̺͋̆̀y̵͒͐̇̚͜͝ ̴̡̯͙͖͙̤͑͌̅̽w̶̮͖̯͖̯̼͐̋̈́͒i̸̩̝̘̲̦̹̒̃͒̕ṫ̵͓̣̤̝̟̍̈́͂h̴̠̝̣̩̯́̋͌̂͝ ̵͓͍̿̔́̃̿̚ṁ̵̧̻̈́e̸̡̛͍̰͙̪̓͂̂̈̓̕ ̵͉͔̹̮̈́̏S̵̜̞͍̍̄͆̒͑͗̆a̵̢̙̞̪̎r̶͕̄̊͋̎ä̵̡̙̟̜͕́̈́͗̇̏̾͜h̴͔̫̮̖͖͂̓,̷̭̈́ ̴̡̭̯̪̥̫̣͌̽̽Į̴̝̘̲͇̇͐͠'̴̢̡̼̦̮̀̋̀̇̅̆͂l̴̛̰̼͖̝͈͗̐̑͘l̵̘͉͖͔̦̈́͋̾ͅ ̴̘̰̜͍͌̈́m̷̳͓̰̣̹̩̝̈̒̈́͗͐̋a̵͖̜̤͚͌̄͒̓̊͝͝ͅk̶̫̈̈́͑͗͗ė̶͉̙̲ ̸̡̹͖͚̦̻̬͐͑͐̆̾̃y̴̢̲̣̥̎͌͑̏̀o̶͓͎͇̫̐̏͊̉̈́̏͝u̸̙̗͒ ̵̦͖̗̜̘͛̓̆͜s̷̡͛ó̷̡̗̗̱͙̗͛ ̶̡̫͙͚͝h̸̗̀͜͝â̷͍p̴̙͍͍̲͎͑p̴̺̹̲̤͂̒̽̊̈͛y̸̜̖̦̘͐̓̊͝͝"
"STOP! PLEASE STOP!" Sarah screamed. Her eyes fluttered open as her head felt sweaty. She choked a little and tumbled onto the floor, where she promptly vomited. As usual, she didn't vomit normally, she just upchucked the black ooze that sizzled against the ground.
"S-Sarah?" Shit, she quickly stood up and brushed herself off. She turned and saw Moon, who had drawn his hands off her with a terrified look in his eyes. "I-I'm sorry! Did…did I hurt you?!"
Well this was certainly a pile of shit. "N-No Moon. Y-You were fine. Y-You just hit a sensitive spot…it startled me."
Moon looked over at her and then glanced at the sizzling carpet. "S-Sarah. What happened?"
"Dark Sarah…she just…tried to talk to me. I…I promise you didn't hurt me."
Unbelievably, Moon didn't actually seem convinced by her own response. "S-Sarah."
"Moon, I swear, it doesn't have anything to do with you." Sarah replied.
"Are…are you sure?" Moon asked. At this point, Sarah was convinced she was in yet another never ending Nightmare by her own dark side. This one would be quite mild, but it was still very off putting for Moon to still not be sure, even if she promised him.
She brushed a bit of the corrupt acidic puke off her dress before turning back to her boyfriend. Who she wrapped her arms around comfortably. "You did a great job, I just got so caught up in my head relaxing that my guard was let down for Dark Sarah."
Moon's hands wrapped around her too, pulling her close. "I…I know what you had to see while massaging me." She continued, giving him a singsong sweetness tone. "B-but, even still. You were brave enough to do it for me."
The two of them let go of each other as they looked into each other's eyes. "It…it stopped after a bit." Moon whispered. "I…I don't know if that's a sign, but your idea clearly worked. B-But s-still…seeing you…like…well…" His face was pink.
"We'll work it out, you know we always do." Sarah replied, giving him her best reassuring smile. "Remember what you were like before you had us. You know it wasn't your fault, you tried everything you could to keep him away from me."
Moon gave her a silent nod as she brushed her hand through his blond hair, revealing his scarred silver eye to her so they could see each other. "Now, are we going to stop worrying and help Erick? You know that we'll need your help to ensure everything goes right."
Moon seemed to bite his lip before nodding his head firmly. "Yes…of course."
Sarah's sapphire blue eyes twinkled for him as she started to hear muffled fart sounds alerting her to Astro. "That's great!" she replied. "Now, how about you, me, and Astro go get something to eat ourselves. Let's leave Sapphire to Weiss and Erick for now. I'm sure everything will go swimmingly with them."
Moon sort of stared into space like he was in a trance before shaking himself as the squeaky sounds of Astro's body squishing through the vents came into loud ears. "That sounds nice," he replied. "It would certainly help take my mind off it."
The recording screen of the Seer Grimm suddenly cut out. Salem's eyes flared red as she tapped the glassy head with her fingers. "Curses, seems like my scout spies are having a bit of trouble."
She sighed and just motioned the Seer out of her throne room. "I'm grateful that they're keeping themselves together, they're going to need it for what's to come. Now, let's look at the genius."
Sometimes, I sit down and ask myself why I overdo some of my chapters at times, I had to split this chapter in two because I found it to be just too much to cover in one chapter, but noticing that the bit I wanted to do in this chapter ended up being much shorter than I expected, I went back and added a few things here and there, namely the scene with Salem and Pokey. Why? Don't know.
There's still something mildly amusing about the fact that I'm still writing this story series, because I never anticipated going to 4 fics for Moon, Sarah, and Erick, I initially planned for the second story to be the final one and move onto other stuff to build my Smash Brothers Universe. Naturally, that didn't happen, probably for the better because I do not look back fondly on this series' second installment.
Actually, discussing a few things, I did get a few comments from a few people recently asking if the Dark Sides could be toned down a tad, because apparently them jumping in randomly to be the nuisance that they're designed to be apparently kills the scenes I try to make. Which...not to sound rude to those, your criticism is valid, and I can see the annoyance, but them killing the mood is kind of the point. Is it bad writing? Probably.
Oh well, that's all I've got for today, I'm always happy to explain my choices if things sound confusing.
See you all, next time.