Parasitic Peony

Chapter Nine

The coolant gear was, in essence, a wetsuit and armour with hydraulics. Honey felt clunky walking around in it, holding a laminated photo of the sword.

"Why am I the one doing this again?" she asked.

"Because it was your idea and nobody else wants to." Lilac said with a shrug.

"Fucking witches," Honey mumbled.

"I know right?!" Caro hissed back.

They left the palace through some back entrance and came across a great lawn strewn with -surprise surprise- a shit ton of trash. It was swept to the sides for the most part, creating what looked like a network of walking trails between the pits, huge sinkholes full of oozing black sludge, most of them about half a mile wide, going on for miles.

"The Mermistantialist nuns used to weep in the streets singing hymns about how the pits were growing and one day they'd consume the whole kingdom." Caromine mused, probably bored.

"Nobody cares." Plum grumbled, definitely bored.

"Potion?" Honey sighed, just wanting to get this over with.

Moxie handed it over, pausing briefly to look her seriously in the eye and speak with no inflection, betraying less than emotionlessness. "This is dangerous. But you are strong and I have faith that you can do it. Please come back. My daughter will never forgive me if you don't."

Honey grinned smugly. "Faith? You? Please, if that's what my success is hinged on, I'm dead already."

She tipped the bottle back like a shot glass and chugged like a champion, throwing down the empty glass to shatter on the ground and screaming in pain. Caro and Lilac flinched and reached for her, but the gunslinger just held up a hand to stop them, staggered to her feet, gagging, flipped down her visor, and hurled herself headfirst into the steaming black tar.

The party watched as the splash of her exeunt simmered down.

Moxie's pocket buzzed.

She fished out a compact mirror and flipped it open, revealing the sharp and angry features of one Sea Queen Phosphora.

"Oh, so now you want to return my calls," she snapped. "Look, Phossie, now is really not the best time-"

"Actually, we're not really doing anything else until she gets out of the pit" Lilac piped up loudly. Phosphora raised an eyebrow. Moxie scowled at the younger girl and stepped farther away from the group to take the call.

"What the fuck is going on?" Demanded the sea queen. "First that thing  ravages half my capital city and nearly a dozen acres of farmland and now I find out you're all the way out in who knows where doing who knows what-"

"In Garbage Land waiting for a colleague to get out of a huge pit of acidic sludge so we can get rid of that thing and save your ass." Moxie hissed.

Phosphora blinked, elegant amber eyes first widening, then narrowing, then going blank and confused.

She sighed and massaged her temple with clawed fingers. "I don't pretend to understand the things you do," she said. "But I do know you well enough to assume you'll expect a "suitable" reward upon your return."

Moxie smirked. "I'd be more than satisfied with a bit of steamy make-up sex."

"You'll get more than a bit, I can assure you." Phosphora softened, rolled her eyes, and laughed in reply. "Alright. I'm still worried for you, but I trust your judgement in magickal affairs. Get back to the Sanctuary soon. I lo-ahem. I'll wait up. And miss you."

I love you too dried up on Moxie's lips. She blew a kiss and winked into the mirror. "I'll miss you more."

Honey dove through the sludge, brushing aside half-dissolved trash and viscera as she swam. If the sword was still intact, which it mist be, since Lilac was alive, it would be super heavy, probably sunken right to the bottom.

Her limbs were weighted down by the heavy equipment and the viscuous fluid she swam through. Honey still felt the potion's sharp bite as it spread through her veins, numbing her body to the far harsher sting of the sludge. Her breath was laboured, her vision dark.

Finally, after what felt like hours, her feet touched bottom, found hard stony ground. She rooted around in the murk, stretched out her arms for range, anything to make this exhausting task go faster.

Meanwhile, on the surface, Caromine studied her cards seriously and asked if Plum had any fours.

"Go fish."