The arguing just got worse. The two females in an obsidian hallway, one path leading to an iron door at the far end of the hall, and a wooden door behind them with light pouring in from outside through the cracks.
"Lisa," Isa calmly spoke to the blonde, with a hint of frustration creeping through, looking at the iron door at the end of the obsidian hallway. "I would advise that you should go down there."
Lisa only crossed her arms, glaring at the blood mage. "Why would I do anything else that would only hurt me?"
"Because it is worth it." Isa explained vaguely for the umpteenth time. "You know the saying: no pain, no gain."
Lisa shot the crippled brunette a glare. "After what you people did to me, I lost more than I ever thought I would!"
"I'm not here to debate morals again," Isa said sternly, her years of managing Sky City sharpened her tone. "I'm here because of the importance of choice- yes, I admit, there are variables that will put pressure on people."
"What kind of a choice is this then?" Lisa shouted.
"A simple one: leave through the wooden door behind you, and earn your freedom," Isa then pointed at the iron door far down the obsidian hallway. "Or you could go down there, because behind that door is something unimaginable, something that will benefit you; an immunity to Jess."
"So you are helping me?" Lisa scoffed, a growl bubbling in her throat. "You expect me to believe anything you say?"
"If you didn't, I wouldn't be wasting my time with someone stubborn." Isa said, earning Lisa's ire. "But not even the stubborn will reject more power."
"Why would Jess give me something like this?" Lisa couldn't understand why. "This opportunity?"
"She doesn't like you, let alone respect you," Isa said honestly. "But this is your chance to prove her wrong; it is something that will protect you from Jess, and if used right, it could protect the City."
"My Templars can handle the City." Lisa crossed her arms. "The first Templar trusted us with that power, and I don't want anything from you or your boss!"
Isa's frustration started to build up again. "Your Templars couldn't stop the hybrid ur-ghast, or Jess, or the Chaos Sorcerer!" Isa reminded harshly. "You cannot even protect yourselves-" She pointed at the iron door. "-but this will!"
"Then what is it?" Lisa demanded. "What is so powerful that Jess is willing to give it to me?"
"I cannot tell you-!"
"Of course you can't!" Lisa interrupted. "You are just one of her underlings; this is probably a trick anyways!"
Isa ignored that, she heard much worse after Sky City turned on her. "I can assure you that it is not."
Lisa threw her hands up in frustration. "Then tell me what it is!" The blonde shouted. "If I can actually leave, shouldn't you be tempting me with whatever is behind that door? Giving me vague descriptions is doing the opposite!"
"I cannot!" Isa stated firmly. "If I do, it defeats the whole purpose of this test!"
"A test?" Lisa repeated as if it is the most ridiculous thing she heard. "Why should I have to prove anything to you people?! I want nothing do with this place, or whatever it is at the end of that deathtrap of a hallway!"
"It's not a-!" Isa stopped herself and took in a deep breath, and gave the Templar a clam, if not pleading, stare. "Lisa, please, you are making a very unwise decision here."
"I made my choice." Lisa turned her back, much to Isa's irritation and horror. "I'm going to find my husband and his friends, and I will find the first Templar, and with his help I will get my daughter back!"
Isa used her blood limbs to move in front and block Lisa from leaving. "What is behind that iron door will get your daughter back!"
"Then. What. IS IT?!" Lisa yelled; letting that lingering anger PAMA infected her with blend with her voice.
"I can't tell you! Look, just-!" Isa's pleads were cut off when Lisa shoved pass her and made her way to the wooden door. "...Every mother has a primal instinct to protect her children, and if you are this great mom you claim to be, then you should go after that door!"
CRACK-!
Lisa kicked the wooden door into splinters, revealing the outside world near the Far Lands. "I don't want anything to do with that door!" Lisa stepped outside, and gave the blood mage one final glare. "Whatever is behind that door, is nothing more than a waste my time, completely worthless, and so pathetically insignificant that it would just be one of Jess' cruel torments!"
"Worthless and insignificant?" Isa repeated the harsh words as Lisa walked deeper into the Twilight Forest, making her way to the Old Builder she and her husband's friends sought out.
Isa turned around to pity the iron door at the far end of the obsidian hallway, hearing the faint crying of an 8 year-old girl.
---------
Luke groaned before opening his eyes, blinking as the brightness of the surrounding snow hurt his eyes. Dried blood clung to his shivering body as he turned around and around, trying to find anything distinct to show where he is.
He turned around; there is a massive crater, with thousands of monoliths frozen in place, not falling or making any attempt to destroy.
He turned around again; there is nothing but snow. Not a single landmark for referencing his position. The temperature dropping had only made everything worse.
He shivered as he turned back; he looked up at the hole in the sky. The clouds and large bits of matter are being sucked in, broken down to repair it as it slowly shrinks.
In shock, he turned to run away to be greeted by a single red eye horror, belonging to a being with an exoskeleton of metal: The Lost.
"Y-You...!" Luke stuttered before moving back. PAMA lunged forward, and grabbed the poor boy by the neck before he fell into the crater.
"Even when trying to get away, you meatbags somehow get yourselves killed..." PAMA said with annoyance, tightening its grip on Luke before throwing him away from the massive crater caused by Veritas, and into the hard snow. "It's like you meatbags crave death... and would be more than happy to help!"
"What do want from me?" Luke stuttered, shivering from the cold. Tense and alert as his eyes darted around to frantically look at his surroundings. Looking back at The Lost PAMA is possessing, crawling away in fear. "I don't have anything on me; I have nothing to give!"
"Being alive is what I see," PAMA said. "And that alone is a good enough reason to let you die. I could let you run, but you'll freeze to death- you won't feel the pain because your nerves would be frozen from the cold!"
At that moment, a red portal appeared behind Luke. Instinct of fear and survival took in and he ran through it. PAMA didn't have to wait long until the boy ran back out, screaming and covered in cuts and bruises while Cassie walked out in her White Pumpkin disguise, as Isa used her artificial limbs of blood to follow.
Luke didn't see PAMA's palm collide with his terrified face, grabbing his head before harshly throwing him back onto the cold ground. "You are late." PAMA stated, pointing to the monoliths and dried blood in the crater. "Limbo's energy won't linger around for long, and we need every source of power we can get for this to work."
"I had to comfort a certain, crying child." Isa hinted, making it clear that Lisa failed, shattering the hope of a little girl. Isa looked at Cassie's equipment, covered in blood. "What took you so long?"
"Oh, nothing really important~," Cassie purred in her modified, static tone before taking off her helmet. Her voice and eyes changing back to normal, letting her crimson hair flow down as she placed her helmet in her Inventory. "Just having fun!"
"Y...You're the White Pumpkin?" Luke coughed, not believing that he is seeing a frightening myth they tell children about. "You're actually real?!"
"Very real," Cassie nodded, putting on her glasses with a hint of a blush on her face. "And very flattered my reputation exceeds the Kingdom of the Ocean's boarders~."
"You're a girl?" Luke still had a hard time processing what he is hearing, especially since Scribing helped reveal the truth. "I-It's actually you!"
"Why does no one ever suspect the girl?" Cassie asked a repeated question, the one motivator for her slaughter in the Kingdom of the Ocean. "Always thinking men are the only ones with the capacity for violence."
"I-I-!" Words wouldn't come out of Luke's babbling. "Y-You drowned children in the Kingdom of the Ocean, a-and hung their parents for public display!
"That's a lie!" Cassie was offended by that remark, taking out her axe, terrifying the boy even more. "And for the record, I only killed the wives and daughters, not the husbands or the boys!"
"A man killed himself out of grief for his wife's death!" Luke argued, until he realized he sassed the woman responsible with a triple-digit body count.
"And how is it my fault he slit his own throat open?" Cassie argued, remembering the crying widower's body on the floor of a church. "Are you sure you're from the Kingdom of the Forest? Shamming and blaming the opposite gender is more like the Kingdom of the Ocean, pal."
"Oh he is from the Kingdom of the Forest," Isa nodded, giving Luke a stern stare. "In fact, he was transferred here with two others to aid the commander of the Clockwork Fortress."
"But that's not all," PAMA continued, utilizing the memories it took from the dying blood mage from earlier. "He was also thrown in prison at the Clockwork Fortress for trying to feed a starving family."
"H-How do you know about that?" Luke asked, uneasy and alert. "...Did you people Scribed me?"
The Lost PAMA is possessing tapped its chest. "Oh this body doesn't have Mana to do Scribing," It then gestured to the snow. "But they can."
"They-?" Luke yelped as multiple frozen limbs protruded from the ground, dragging him onto his back to hold him in place and covering his mouth so his screams were muffled.
"Snow is a wonderful tool." Isa commented. "It preserves the body, and the thick snow makes it so no one notices the dumping ground of bodies."
Luke recognized the dozens of people emerging from the snow, their red eyes show them being controlled by PAMA; they're the refugees who took shelter in the Clockwork Fortress. Even the limbs holding him down belonged to the family he tried to sneak cake to them when they were starving.
"It never hurts to have spares; bodies are such fragile things." PAMA then had a cruel idea. "...Do you want to know the real reason why you, Raven, and Tangle were sent to the Clockwork Fortress?"
Luke gasped for air as the frozen stopped covering his nose and mouth. "What are you talking about...?"
"I'm talking about how no one is trying to find the truth," PAMA said. "Especially since the commander of the Clockwork Fortress has been dead for months."
"S-She's not dead!" Luke stuttered, trying to be brave, but is grossed out from the bodies holding him down and the cold not helping either. "That doesn't make any sense!"
"Didn't you ever find it odd, that her status is being mentioned, but not her name, and not even a description of a physical appearance?" PAMA pointed out. "Then again, you meatbags are always blind to the obvious."
"Wait, I'm confused." Cassie interrupted. "So the commander of the Clockwork Fortress wasn't real?"
"She is real- just very dead." PAMA explained. "But officially on paper, and in the Kingdom of the Forest's government, she is still alive."
"Hold on...did Jess know?" She asked. It all made too much sense, how she promised something to the homunculus that could never be obtained.
"I thought so too, but I can say with confidence that my master didn't know either; she is very thorough in her research. If she did know, she would know about her stepmother's connection to the Clockwork Fortress."
"So she is actually dead?" Isa is amazed how something that big goes without an investigation. "How did she even die?"
"It took me while to figure out, since my collected memories show that she was healthy," PAMA said. "But after assimilating that dying blood mage, I found out that the commander heavily abused her blood magic. She had been using her own life force to fuel it, and died not too long after her deal with gaining independence for the Clockwork Fortress."
"I...I don't understand...!" Luke started to panic, losing his grip on reality. "What did you people do?!"
"We didn't do anything, meatbag," PAMA kicked the boy in the head, earning a pained scream. "Your government sold you and your companions out to a woman who was supposed to experiment on you all, but died before she could, and the cult following her had failed to carry out her final will!"
"They wouldn't do that!" Luke screamed in denial, fresh blood trickling down his face. "They're not cruel! The royal family is kind!"
"You don't know about how the commander got independence from the Kingdom of the Forest, meatbag."
"She showed Lukas' body, she killed Jess' partner!" Luke said. "There was some tough negotiations, but-!"
"But you didn't know what they were negotiating, do you?"
"N-No, but-!"
"Temptation of power." PAMA revealed, making Luke's eyes widen, hearing something that the royal family would never do. "Ever since the last commander of the Clockwork Fortress left over a decade ago with all the research, and a prized artifact, the royal family needed someone to continue of what was thought to be a dead end. And when the current commander revealed her progress with Mana, it only sweetened the deal to transfer you and your companions under her authority."
"They... they knew what was going on here?" Luke shouted in anger. "All those people, all of the blood fathered, even experimenting on my companions Raven and Tangle?"
"They had to see if the process was affected by age, gender, species, even with Classes and magic." PAMA continued. "Your group was, but admittedly flawed, experiment."
"Surely it cannot be that simple?" Isa shook her head. "Someone other than the royal family must have noticed!"
"They thought about that." PAMA agreed. "So the soldiers had Luke, Tangle, and Raven, sign blank documents before writing their own false letters back to the Kingdom so no one else in the government would notice."
"That's why they had us do that...?" Luke whispered, remembering that stacks of blank paper they signed at the bottom over and over again for days.
Cassie gave Luke a look of pity for his stupidity. "You never questioned why you were signing papers with nothing on them?"
"They told us they were training us to fill out papers!" Luke said.
Isa could only pity him at his blind loyalty. "But you never did see a single document, did you?"
"... So the royal family conspired with the commander of the Clockwork Fortress..." Luke whispered in shock, his voice losing all hope. "After everything I've done for the kingdom..."
"You meatbags still don't get it, do you?" PAMA walked around Luke, willing the bodies it is possessing to lay on the ground in a certain formation. "You don't value anything! Not even each other!"
"But why are you telling me this...?" Luke couldn't help but sob, knowing that the civilization that nurtured him, sold him out to be slaughtered. "Why tell me any of this if you are going to kill me?"
PAMA had The Lost it is possessing lay down in the snow with the others. "I just wanted you to realize that nothing will save you-" A frozen female talked, jerking her shivering head to look at Luke. He then looked to his right to hear an elderly man continue. "-And how everything you put your faith in is nothing more than a clever lie."
"Damn you, PAMA!" Luke screamed, thrashing and resisting.
"How cute." Another possessed body in the snow spoke, a male child this time. "But I am a machine: I don't have a soul to damn."
All the bodies able to speak had ordered Cassie and Isa simultaneously. "Do it now."
"Finally!" Cassie said impatiently, planting her axe in the snow and held her hand out, a red portal appearing high above Luke, as burned, blind man frozen in ice fell out. "Let's get Reginald ready."
Cassie raised her other hand, bleeding energy from Limbo into the snow. Luke panicked as multiple, jagged protrusions of crystals made out of chaotic energy erupted around him and the bodies. They caught Reginald's frozen body before easing him to be next to Luke.
"He tossed me out of the danger, just as the ice under us shattered from the weight," Isa said sadly as Reginald's body is unrecognizable, the fire from Sky City melted his skin, and fused his scorched guard uniform to his body. "He fell in and froze, preserving his damaged body and mind."
"His body is beyond repair; too much time has passed." One of the bodies spoke PAMA's words as Winslow walked out of another portal, slowly dragging a transparent skeleton construct to the ritual site. "But my master made something to help."
"What is that?" Isa asked as Cassie helped her cat drag the unusual skeleton, and lay it between Luke and Reginald. "What is it made out of?"
"Spectral Stones." Cassie answered, walking back to the group as Isa willed the blood to form a completed relay to connect the living, frozen bodies, the chaotic protrusions, and Luke and Reginald, to the skeleton in the very center. "According to Jess, Baba Yaga created these during the reign of the fourth Emperor, they are able to contain spirits and demons and undead; and with the right conditions, they can even contain souls."
"We can't save his body," PAMA's voice among the bodies grew weak as Cassie channeled the energy of Limbo through the protrusions; even the monoliths that rained down from before were attracted to the ritual site, but made no effort to open their singular eyes and wipe out anything from existence. "But we can save his soul."
Luke could only look in fear as the monoliths hovered over him, with the chaotic protrusions humming with energy, as the blood traced throughout the snow started to glow.
"If Cassie can pull it off, the monoliths will break everything in the ritual site down, and reconstruct it into the Spectral Stone skeletal frame." PAMA said. "And with your blood magic fueling the [Ritual of Binding], it will pull everyone's essence, and Reginald's soul into it."
"But why did you save me?" Luke asked Isa, how she abducted him in the secret room in the Clockwork Fortress when everyone else discovered Lukas' body. "You have enough people! Why do you need me?"
"I need a healthy body for a template for this ritual." Isa said, her cold business-like tone made Luke feel small. She then looked at Cassis and PAMA. "The bodies these two provide are very poor, and barely intact."
"I am sorry I had to resort to this," Isa apologized as the ritual started, the corrosive energy combined with blood magic caused the flesh within to turn into sludge, causing Luke to scream as his skin is melting off. "But I am a greedy person, and I will get what I want."
A/N: Man, school has been kicking my ass! Damn, am I even going to be using any of it in the adult world? Anyways, after binge-reading some video-game manga/anime/webcomics, and taking some time to relax, and even more so practicing writing, I finally manage to get this posted.
And that is what I want to bring up. I think I am going to do my first serious attempt of a story, no A/N's, just editing from the feedback I receive. Maybe far in the future, I'll just recycle these fanfics of mine, and just make something original; I won't know if I don't try. I'm just trying to find a cover, a friend of mine said she can help.
Also, I've been trying to find proper equipment because I am learning how to program, and I plan on making my own rpg game. But that won't happen for a long time. But I want to say, thank you all for supporting me, and the positive feedback.
I am aware that my votes and reads has gone down in comparison in the past, but honestly, I would rather have a small, positive, and supportive audience, rather than a toxic fan base that argues with itself, while leaving negative comments and hate emojis. So see you all in the next chapter!