Monday, August 26, 2013

Scarlett Discord and anyone I've neglected: Bells of War

Nyx was in the driving seat. She's unimportant to this story, but it was her or Scarlett, and Scarlett can hardly see through his ruined glasses. Rabe was keeping Wilhelm motivated. Charles was asleep. Finally they pulled up at a strange building. It appeared to defy physics. Nyx smiled. "We're here."
The others slipped from the back of the truck.  A man stood at the door of the unusual building, holding a black cane with a silver raven tip. His hair was long, blonde and unbrushed. He was wearing all black, apart from a navy sweater under the big black jacket. And his pants probably weren't black either, but thankfully he had trousers on over the top, so no-one could tell he was wearing Muppets boxers.
"Pons." Charles greeted coldly, nodding to the man.
Pons nodded back, but didn't speak. He pushed the door, and it swung upwards. Wilhelm shuddered, pressing his back to the side of the van.
"I'll, uh, guard this..."
Rabe grabbed his arm and roughly forced him to the door, with Pons' help.

"These are my new friends. They're Irish, and they claim ownership to this building." Pons stated warmly, gesturing to a black man with no hair and a white man with long black hair tied with a mustard yellow ribbon. They both looked up and kept their faces cold and impassive. Charles raised his hand in greeting, but no-one else did anything. Pons continued. "His name is Jay, and his is Mort."
"And you smell like dead dolphins." Mort stated under his breath.
"It's not our place." Jay mumbled under his breath.
"We were, uh, referred here by a man named Bayside Absurdity."
Wilhelm looked like he was going to faint. "Why are you sitting on the ceiling?"
"We can't get down." Jay replied miserably. Rabe was giggling into her fist. Someone walked out of a cupboard and frowned at the newcomers.
"Uh..."
The German girl calmed down, keeping a smile on her face and tossing her purple hair over her shoulder. "Aurora Jane, right?"
Aurora nodded, looking confused. Rabe approached her, still smiling, and punched her in the face. Pons caught her as she stumbled ("I don't need catching!") and grimaced, providing a pitiful 'oooh'. Still smiling, the purple-haired girl turned, dusting off her hands, and announced to the two murderers on the ceiling "We need to send out an emergency contact signal with a beacon device in this weird building."
Mort shrugged. "I need to kill someone." He tilted his head back to glare at the newcomers, and Wilhelm whimpered. "Mevolent and co."
"Same here. Aaaaanyway, that beacon, anyone know where it is?"
Aurora raised her hand, glaring.
"Wonderful!"

-----

Austin sighed softly as he sat up, wringing some odd goop out of his hair. "Ronnie?" He asked tiredly, shaking his friend, who was face down in the sludge they lay in. A shudder passed through the blond Necromancer. "Gale?" he called, getting worried now.
"I'm alive!"
"Oh thank God...Daemon?"
"Aye?"
He leaned over and picked up some of the sludge he was standing in. "Where are we? What happened?"
"A sewer." Daemon said.
"Things went a little wrong." Gale said.
"I can't remember anything..." Austin moaned. "I can't even remember what magic type I use..."
"But you can remember me, Scaroe and Hadrian?"
"I can remember some things..."

-----

Fred Mould sat on one side of the table, eyes narrowed at the three men before him. Lelenny and Corey stared, eyes wide, both with stupid grins on their faces. Mr T was painting his nails. Fred eventually sighed. "Milschman?"
"Dead." Lelenny replied with a bored shrug. "Mirage?"
Fred nodded. Lelenny deflated. Riordan had been his best friend back in the day. Corey Superwaffle put his feet on the table and grinned.
"What we've got here is abandoned headquarters, perfect for our own personal...uses..." He frowned, looking at the door in the corner. It was small, and you would have to crawl through it to get to the tunnel beyond, and it looked basically like the door from Coraline that led to the Other Mother's world. There was a thick black dust billowing out from behind it, swirling into the room and forming a shape. Fred's face slowly formed an ecstatic grin. "Sandy!" He yelled, jumping to his feet. Before them floated a figure of a very young man, made entirely of particles of thick, black dust. Instead of legs, he had a veritable tornado keeping him in the air. He seemed unsteady, as if he hadn't used his unusual power for a long time. Eyes wide, he looked around, eyes drinking in the people before him before he too grinned. "No way!" He cried, the dust swirling madly once more as he solidified. He went over to the small door and tried to prise it open, only to find it was locked. He called through it to someone.
"May! I can't open the door! I think it's locked!"
Someone else called back a reply. "We need to get through ASAP!"
Sandy bit his lip and turned to the others in the room, flashing an apologetic smile. "Hey guys..." He frowned at Fred. "You're a zombie..."
"I know. I'd rather remain dead."

-----

Scarlett and Mihai had met before. The mission during the war had been on a hot day. Scarlett wore black, as usual, and Mihai had no top on, showing the armour across his belly. There were others on the mission as well. Three Necromancers: Zafira, Auron and Jalousie. They were very different and all three from different places with different accents. Jalousie hardly spoke English, unlike his dark-skinned companion, Jasmin. Dexter Vex was at the edge of the group, talking to a young redhead named Gale. The dark-haired energy thrower wiped sweat from his forehead and wished he wasn't carrying a heavy rucksack on his back. It wasn't very practical if they got jumped and added to the strain, and he wasn't a very strong man.

They were to set up camp and attack at dawn. Mihai had to sit away from the fire. The rest were gathered close to it. Scarl was asleep already. Gale was flirting with Zafira, who was doing her best to ignore him. The Frenchmen were on patrol duty. Vex and Tenebrae were grudgingly huddled close for warmth. Orage and Guepard disappeared from sight, and Viscol frowned, suspicious. He craned his neck, trying to see where the men had gone. After a few minutes there was a crash, a flash of light and they came running back to the camp, screaming. Scarl shifted in his sleep, but didn't get up until Zaf heaved him out of the way of a shot from the enemy. They quickly recognised they were outnumbered, as well as having a Child of the Spider at the front of their ranks. Someone yelled the order to retreat. Mihai thought it was Gale. Definitely one of the Irishmen. Scarlett ran for it, disorientated, and quickly found himself separated from the others. He ran until he reached the edge of a river. He couldn't swim, or turn back, and following the river didn't appear too safe. He stopped to think, when someone ran into him, knocking him over the edge.

Mihai pulled him to the surface of the water and listened pityingly to the coughing, spluttering and desperate gasps. He had lost his glasses in the current and once he had his breath back, he was using it to curse the Romanian Mage holding onto him. Mihai dragged him to shore and lay him on the ground, checking his vitals, being very careful with his claws. Naturally, the energy-thrower was shivering. The water had been freezing. Mihai helped him sit up, but he gave a hiss of pain. He was made to lie back down, and Mihai lifted the soggy black material away from his torso. The injury that sat there made it very unlikely Scarlett was going to survive here. He bit his lip. He couldn't tell Scarlett anything, as they didn't speak the same language. As far as he was concerned, Scarlett was a dead man. The guy had a hole in his chest, for God's sake.

Mihai's black eyes locked with Scarlett's grey ones. He had picked up the beacon signal all the way from Russia. Santa stepped in to translate for him. He spoke first, after the Romanian Grand Mage whispered something in his ear. "Uh...Grand Mage Viscol wishes to congratulate someone named Scarlett on surviving some kind of wound..."
Scarlett nodded. "During the war, yeah." It was just Scarlett and Rabe talking to them. The others had gone off to do something else, something to do with the twisted physics of the building. "Mi's a Grand mage now? Tell 'im we need his help with something...well, not his help in particular, but someone's help."

((...the massive block of italics almost became Vex/Tenebrae shipping...enjoy...))

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