Claimed

Chapter 5 - Faded

This is so typical. Given my track record, you'd expect to be worse than it is, but still. This is worse than I would've liked.
Yet now the shadows had stepped into the light, beaming down through the whole in the roof, something was.. Different.

It was a mystery to me. Wobbles and Injury had both been seen in the light of day earlier, when I single-handedly took them down. Yet they never looked like this in the light of the sun.

The opaque-ness of the shadows was gone, and their colour lightened, leaving us surrounded by six figures of swirling grey dust, transparent, for whatever reason, in the light of the sun.
It left me frowning. The image before us was just so familiar.
But what was it.

I didn't know.

Until Carlos raised his voice.

"Wh.. What...?" He stammered, eyes widened in shock.
"H..how? How is this..."
His eyes drifted from shadow to shadow, taking in appearances. I saw his brows knit together when his chocolate irises landed on Wobbles and Injury.
Guess he recognised them too.

"How... How're you..." He waved a hand at them helplessly, and I could almost see them rolling their eyes.

The rest of us stood in silence as Carlos searched for the words.
He let out a sharp breath in exasperation, fumbling for what he wanted to say.
When it didn't come, he looked over at me, and our eyes met.
"Mal, they.. They look like..."
I nodded slowly, urging him to continue.
"They look like.. Like you did."
I reeled back. What?
What the hell does that mean?

"You, and.. And, and Jay, and.." Carlos nodded his head towards Jay.
"And Evie. When I was, you know.." His lip trembled slightly. "Fighting.. Her. When I thought you were... Dead."
I frowned deeply. All that he could mean was his fight with his mother. And when we were 'dead'...?

It hit me like a truck. My eyes widened dramatically; a breath of relief escaped Carlos as he realised I finally understood.

When we were in the Fade.

Now that I thought about it, the swirling figures bore striking resemblance to the clouds of mist I had seen while Carlos was alone on the battlefield. Just larger, and less translucent.

"So you figured it out..." the figure before us drawled, but the low tone in its voice was suddenly gone, leaving the cold tones of a woman's voice.
All of a sudden, the steam gathered together, and a form appeared in the mist, entirely opaque.
When the haze cleared, one recognisable person stood before us.

A gasp ripped from Evies throat at the sight of her mother. The person who raised her was the very same keeping her imprisoned in that awful cave. Katelyn scowled at the Evil Queen, moving her body to shield Evie from the villain, who simply smirked.

But my gaze was quickly ripped from her as the rest of the Faders, including Wobbles and Injury, underwent the same transformation, mist becoming human.

All of the people we needed to track down. In the same place.

We stood in our compact circle, surrounded by enemies on each side.

The Evil Queen's mouth stretched into a cruel grin as Cruella, Jafar, and Maleficent joined her before us, with my mother's 'knuckleheads' keeping us hemmed in.

"We've finally got you exactly where we want you.." Cruella growled. Her mouth turned up at one corner in a vicious snarl-like grin.
"And now Auradon's best hopes are in our hands..." My mother inspected her nails; her head snapped up, emerald eyes meeting mine, "There's nothing anyone can do to stop us!" She threw her head back with a cackle that made me cringe.

Soon, she had calmed herself down.
"Knuckleheads - sieze them!" She ordered sharply, and as large, dirty hands roughly grabbed my arms, I avoided looking at the woman who raised me. Her mouth was stretched into a feral grin as I instead fixed my attention on the most prominent issue at hand.

But even as I struggled, I knew it was no use. They restrained my arms as soon as they could, keeping my fingers away from the charms at my neckline at all costs. I growled in frustration as I attempted to pull my torso from the grip of the knuckle head who had wrapped his arms around me. Looking up, I caught the lazy smile on my mother's face.
"I learned the hard way that you had those back, Mal," she drawled, and her eyes glinted, "I won't make the same mistake twice."

And soon, we were all in a position of complete vulnerability. Unable to move. I glared at my mother, fury clouding my gaze.
Her eyes became cold, and I watched as the flame of joy - however sick and twisted it's source may be - was quickly doused.
"I want you four out of the way. Now."

It was like a slap in the face when the remaining walls around us suddenly collapsed. Rocks and rubble tore through the stale air, whistling as they went.
I scream, but no sound is made as one sails towards the back of Star's head. It makes contact with the base of her neck, and she disintegrates into the same ribbons of light she formed from, which quickly dissapear.

When Evie turns around to look at me, her eyes widen in the fray of the moment as Star - or what's left of her - dissolves into the cool air. Her mouth opens into a soundless scream, her eyes flitting about in her desperation, before settling on whatever was behind me, where the wall erupted. And as I turn to see, I was met with a glimpse of a fraction of a second of the surface of the largest rock as it sailed towards my head.

And it met.

And darkness clouded my mind..

End of chapter.

So I do actually have a good excuse as to why this took me over a month. One of which is 3 weeks of non-stop exams that absolutely needed to be studied for, and the other is the big 'show week' for my school production that came just before the exams did.
But I promise that after the Christmas break, I will be back on task. And because there's no rehearsals, I'll have more writing time too.
So expect more frequent updates :)

Here are your questions :

What happened to Star? Is she dead?

What's the deal with the fade?

Why do the villains want the VKs?

How does Katelyn tie into it?

What happened to Arrow?