Charlie and Vaggie had finished examining and directing the renovation crew for the day. Things were going along smoothly; Alastor's radio room was being perfectly situated to allow for the best radio signals possible. He could even reach other Rings with how it was set up! Alastor would be most pleased.
They were going through ideas for food to eat for lunch when they walked into their tower home. It was decided not to go for what Alastor colloquially called 'Chinese' again as Charlie didn't think she could handle Alastor chewing on raw hell hog hocks so soon. They had just gotten to American Southern cuisine when they reached the main living area and stopped in their tracks.
The entire area had been cleared away. Shelves, tables, the couch, everything . Alastor was in the middle of the room drawing something on the floor with his one arm, his shadow appendage not out. His stump was on full display. Vaggie nearly stepped forward when Charlie stopped her and pointed at their feet. Sigils and glyphs were patterned into the floor. Charlie hoped that the dark red colouring wasn't Alastor's blood.
"What are you doing?" Vaggie asked.
Alastor looked up as if he hadn't noticed them. "I'm going to use some forbidden magic!"
"Right." Vaggie turned around. "We'll leave you to it."
"Wait." Alastor's singular word was a request, an open request that Vaggie was free to ignore. The fact that he said it was a surprise. The next words were moreso. "I need your help Vaggie, Charlie."
The two women stared at him. Then Vaggie said, "We're in some kind of weirdo dimension, right?" Alastor's ears went down before popping back up along with a fake smile. Vaggie realised her mistake and rushed, "Shit! No, I'm sorry, Alastor. You caught me by surprise!"
Charlie carefully made her way through the empty spaces of the glyphs until she was in the middle with him. She took his hand in hers before pulling it into a light hug. "Please don't close up! We love seeing you happy! Don't fake emotions with us. You can trust us."
Alastor stood impassively for a moment with the fake smile. He pulled his hand free of Charlie before lifting it to settle against her cheek as a genuine smile took over. "How can I deny my beautiful butterfly?"
Vaggie flew over and joined the two of them. She wrapped both of them in her wings and soothed, "You make us so happy. Charlie's right, you can trust both of us. I'm sorry for what I said."
A warm smile greeted her apology. "I accept your apology, my little moth."
After a big group hug in which Charlie couldn't hold in a squee, they broke apart. Alastor continued to draw sigils around them. Charlie asked, "That's not your blood, is it?"
"This?" Alastor waved the brush and laughed. "Haha! Oh no, not this. No." The dials appeared in his eyes as he said, static sparking, " This is blood I'm summoning directly from the souls I own ."
"Ah." Charlie regretted asking.
"What kind of 'forbidden magic' are you using?" Vaggie queried, looking around at the glyphs.
"You'll see~" he lilted. "I want it to be a surprise! Don't you like surprises?"
Vaggie sighed. Generally it was true, Vaggie DID like surprises. Her reaction didn't quite fit the fact. Charlie knew why; Alastor's 'surprises' were VERY hit and miss. The last one - getting Vaggie to try shark demon meat - made Vaggie ill once she found out.
"What do you need our help with?" Charlie asked, pumped up to help out her groom.
"I need a touch of blood from two loved ones. Normally it's family members, but I think my two brides would do just as well," Alastor explained.
Charlie didn't like bleeding. The colour of her blood differed by what she'd been doing for the last 24 hours. It varied between deep golds and reddish-brown. It caused questions from anyone that saw it.
For this? It was fine. In fact, maybe it would help make the magic stronger!
"I need one at each side, inside the circles with the dense glyphs around them. You don't need to bleed a lot. A few drops will be enough." Alastor finished drawing around the central circle. "I'll stay here. The magic will coalesce around me. Don't worry, my dears! Everything will work as I have prepared it. No matter what, don't leave the circles and do NOT mess with any of the glyphs or sigils."
"Okay!" Charlie cheered while Vaggie simply nodded.
"Good. The ritual will start when the blood drops onto the glyph. Do it at the same time and simply let the glyphs and sigils do what they're supposed to do." Alastor crafted a black shell around himself, perfectly symmetrical at the centre of the circle.
"You ready, Charlie?" Vaggie asked as her spear appeared in her hands.
Charlie summoned her trident and positioned a prong against her finger. "Yeah."
"Okay."
At the same time, Vaggie cut her palm with her spear while Charlie pricked her finger. They both let the blood spill onto the sigils in front of them. Nothing happened beyond their blood slowly dripping on the floor.
Just as Charlie was about to say something, the blood began pooling through the bloody lines on the ground. The interconnected symbols glowed with the spreading blood, red lightning crackling from each glyph. They lifted from the ground in red and blue magicks, spinning and circling the black bubble in the middle.
Alastor's orb floated up into the air. The lightning crackled and sparked. Then, it focused on the black orb in shooting bright streaks.
The black orb was now transparent. Alastor was gasping, yelling, shivering as the lightning struck him. Charlie could see some of his skin and clothes vaporising at the magic hitting him.
"Alastor!" Charlie almost ran out of the circle.
At the same time she forced herself to stop, Vaggie yelled, "Charlie, don't! He knows what he's doing. Let it keep going."
She bit her lip. It hurt her to see him like this. But Vaggie was right. He knew what he was doing. Charlie had to have faith in him, trust him as he trusted them.
The floating glyphs eventually all came together in the middle. They coated the orb, blocking off some of the sight of Alastor in painful rigid jerking. Dark blue magic flowed into the orb, gathering around Alastor. Most of it focused around the stump of his missing arm.
Like threads knitting together, an arm began to form outward from the stump. It was a narrow thing, forming solidly even as Alastor was silently yelling in pain. Lightning flashed several times before cracks began forming. There was a bright burst of magic before the orb burst open and Alastor fell to the ground in a limp smoking lump.
Charlie managed to hold herself back until all the magic seeped out of the glyphs around them. Once she was sure the ritual was complete, she ran for Alastor, not minding the blood splashing against her hooves. Vaggie flew over as well. They both reached Alastor at the same time.
Vaggie flipped him over as Charlie checked his wounds. There were magic burns all over his body, with some bleeding through the holes in his clothes. Charlie dared to run a hand over Alastor's cheek where his monocle was cracked.
"Alastor…" Vaggie cradled him. She looked at Charlie. "Is he okay? Like, is he horribly hurt, or is it all surface injuries?"
Charlie peered more closely at the wounds. She replied, "They all seem to be sur-"
They both jumped as Alastor sat straight up. No preamble, just from the floor to sitting stock-straight. He burst out, "Goodness! That will put hair on your chest!"
"Are you okay?!" Charlie held him up as he started to waver slightly.
Vaggie did the same thing, shifting so she was directly across from Charlie before she started steadying him. She then jerked back and squeaked, "What the-?!"
Charlie followed her gaze to look at an arm. It was connected to Alastor…but it wasn't his old arm. It was a bird claw, bird feathers patterned up to his shoulder where the feathers trailed off into the flesh of his stump. Now that Charlie was looking closer, she could see stray feathers mixed in his hair now.
"Alastor…?" The two women gazed at their dazed partner, waiting for an explanation.
He lifted up his new appendage and flexed the claws a few times. "Excellent! It works." Alastor tsked as he commented, "I was hoping it would match my old arm…"
"That ritual, it was to regrow a limb?" Charlie asked.
"It was a regeneration matrix," he explained. "It would've fixed anything wrong with me."
"With a bit of a tradeoff," Vaggie said, looking at his wounds.
"Nothing good happened without a little pain!" Alastor assured her. He stretched, the feathers on the arm flexing along with it. "I'll admit, it feels strange to have a new limb instead of a shadow!"
"I'm glad you found a means that you liked to restore your arm," Charlie said.
"Hm…" Alastor was eyeing both his arms, seeming to compare them. "I wonder…" He got the Plotting Face on and snapped the claws on his new arm. From nowhere appeared a crumpled-up piece of paper and a broken pencil. His smile twitched as he noted, "It'll take a bit of practice."
"It's like a new muscle. Exercising it will make it stronger!" Charlie noted cheerily as he unfolded the paper and scratched the pencil until there was a usable chunk of lead.
"I'm going to try something." Alastor's word was his warning tone. "Be careful of golden threads!"
Charlie stiffened as he began writing on the paper with his new arm. She began, "Alastor, don't do something reck-"
She yelped as the strings appeared and began cutting into his body, the collar pulling on his neck harder and harder. He ignored them, continuing writing with his free arms even as they dug deeper and deeper. It wasn't until he stopped that they vanished. He fell to the ground, passed out as he bled so, so much.
"Charlie, how do we…?!" Vaggie grabbed Alastor and opened her wings wide like she was going to take him somewhere.
Charlie looked down at the glyph. All the symbols seemed to still be intact. Maybe…?
"Put him in the middle!" Charlie barked. She grabbed the paper and pencil to get them out of the lines and raced for her circle in the glyph.
Vaggie caught on, curling him up so he was in the middle and resuming her spot. They both dripped more blood onto the sigils. Charlie's heart was stopped, breath hitching as the seconds ticked away. Finally, finally, the glyph started the process over again.
As the matrix began its work, Charlie looked down at the crumpled paper. The writing was thick, uneven scribbles, barely legible.
She did manage to read,
' SHE MADE A DEAL WITH HEAV '