Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

76.

Evacuation seemed to go so awfully quick, a rush of prevention, and one that seemed to swirl me around like I was as lifeless as I felt. All the while, memories replayed, day to day, of a life going by. Moments great, moments awful, but the ones where I had failed seemed to replay much more now. I lost part of my body for a legacy that would decay and cease to exist someplace in the future, and just like this legacy, I would decay too someday. Hopefully the stories, the murals, the everything of myself would be passed down through the ages. Final photos taken before everybody went. The world would be a ghost town, no comfortable chairs left to sit, and perhaps the fish had gotten their wish -- they could overrun this place now, like a sunken ship. Such was the fate of ships, and I wanted to sink and have fish live in my body instead too.

A crowd passes -- all in white poncho, decorative pattern on the bottom. One looks back to me, before walking towards.

"Is this it? To relocate to a society I've never touched?" Their voice had a shake of a future uncertain.

I couldn't even think of an answer to it. I only stared, before giving a lifeless nod. There was no answers for this uncertain future, and soon, that one caught up with the rest of the family. It had others to stay with at home, cook for, love. I had accepted my lack of immedietes decades ago. Only a faded memory of one remained, a mother that vanished as quickly as she birthed me into this harsh world. I had nothing at this point -- no family, friends on their way to closer friends, belongings in storage, and an empty home. My soul seemed so empty, too.

77.

If you don't tilt a teapot far enough, the water does not spill out all of the way, and you end up drinking cold tea later. That is the same for my situation, for I am cold tea stuck in a teapot. It was my choice, but quickly, the feelings of a newfound isolation were coming over me.

An assignment of duties out of sheer emergency, and harsh words that still blessed me nethertheless.

"If you're so attached to this decaying world, then be the one who watches over and and delays the inevitable."

And such, the quiet world was mine to dwell in. Exploring around was the first thing I did -- I was given an unlimited access, but it was one that dissapointed. Wherever I went felt empty as the last room. Furniture, lights, everything as gone as the winds and the people who owned it. It all blended together into a bittersweet blue. My journey continued for hours, and except for a few exceptions, including my quarters of a room left alone, forgotten trinkets, and otherwise, it truly emerged a truth unable to be avoided. Everything and everyone had already moved onto the next world, the lands, and here I was, clinging onto what could've been so much more if I had just done my job well.

78.

As long as this city remained stagnant, I was given a gift -- a peace and quiet I had not experienced while it was alive. My mind wandered so easily, the great and the worst, but eventually to the East. I had been around this empty city as long as I could remember, but other than on official duties, not outside of it. I had a limited knowledge of the Depths, both from those missions, and from a childhood I barely remembered by now. Only little trails remained to follow.

With nobody watching, though, what laws would I be breaking if I just went down there for a while? A montonious existance was to be broken up by a new adventure, and if it was my last, well, I had already served my duties of protecting Sugarteara.

The far corner's elevator was still there as always. With a press of a shiny, luring button, the box shifted for just a second. The posters inside, for a band's visit, had faded within what little sunlight had reached it. Why they hadn't cut off access to operating this machinery, is beyond me. The mechanical purr of descent began, staring off into a bleak distance. Another shake -- on the floor of the seas. Looking out, the blue of the skies and seas seemed much more far-up than before. Nothing reached this world except the worst, the monsterous, and those who never had a chance to live to begin with.

79.

Felt like when somebody would be a teenager, and they'd sneak out of their parents' house without permission at night, and romp around with no goal except to romp. Of course, I had never had that experience, orphaned as I was, but I've heard stories of what it was like to have parents looking over you and not nurses. Every step felt like a weight in my chest being bounced from light to heavy, worries scattering in my lungs like shaking a ball filled with smaller balls around. While I could never escape those fears, jostling the fears felt freeing enough as to let me forget about the situation I was in, or at least for now. All that was there was myself, the sand scraping against my feet, rocks to bump into, and a great wall of stone right up ahead to look around inside.

Nothing except myself, myself and a few stray smallfries to pass by. A true abandoned scenery, looking off into the distance to see nothing, and feeling that great nothing in my soul. I was truly alone now, a feeling that sunk many, but for now, a break from the world felt just fine, as long as it was in a romanticizable, enjoyable way.

Lights faded behind me as I went through that great stone mass, the great plateu becoming nothing more than a small tunnel, speckles of dust surrounding me as I disturbed the lands. Holes were scattered in this stone, and sometimes as I passed one, I'd see a flash of light, or an eye staring back. Some felt real, some not. Maybe it was never real at all.

80.

And that soon turned into a neverending forever, but not because of length or a physical giving-out of my legs.

Soon, the freedom of isolation in the depths became ever-growing on the soul, encapsuling it like chains on my limbs. Like I had ran into one of the stone walls, the truth stuck out into me like spikes once more, all at once. I was alone, all alone, and nobody was here to notice that I was gone, either. If I was taken and eaten by some beast, there would not be a single soul to notice that, and my legacy would stop at that sharp spike point of isolation. Abandonment. All of it stretched out a time spent running away from my problems.

But no matter what dragged, I merely couldn't turn around yet. Much too early for that. Journey came to a stop anyways, a gradual one, entering a strangely large circle in the middle of the formation. A few other tunnels connected to this great dead end, and one could look up at the sky and...ah. Darkness had already set on the lands. And the only lights did not come from up there, but...

Those eyes in the holes again. Staring, each one blinked around and then away like fireflies. I stepped closer to one, and felt a whisper from behind that walls, not only heard, but tingling in a vibration through my body. A scratching noise. A beckon. And then, a question.

"I see you've lost it all again, solider."

"...Repeat that."

"Lost child...ran away, rainy day, found again, gingerbread."

"Does the city you claimed adopted to still stand as proudly as they claim?

Piercing voices, all through holes in the stone, and then, a shout from across the circle of fate.

"Does what reclaim you abandon you like God abandoned us?

81.

The ears felt like they could bleed at any time, the sounds quickening, as if a chorus had hoarded me in the middle to sing something truly awful. The topics changed at a second's whim, but all ceneted myself. Who was I? How did I flee the land of God's abandoned? What let me set into her realm, so respected, and what cast me aside it again to return here, of all places? Was I as glorious as they sold me as? Wait, they were selling my image?! And I wasn't even getting paid. Another problem to deal with later, how lovely.

I slowly walked into the center to try and escape the chatterbox. And then, running towards it, only to nearly stumble and trip.

"A fault, already?"

And then, voices turned into laughter. Laughter at my mistakes, my everything, quiet and then loud and quiet again. The scene was enough to make my humiliated face nearly vomit with shame, but merely fall back to the ground again, whispering for forgiveness.

"...Please, please...I'll go back home, stop...stop this! Please, I'll do anything, my God, please..."

"Please quiet down! No way to welcome a guest back home."

Through the side of a tunnel, and then into the end of the circle I had entered the arena of attack from, emerged a figure. Spindly and long, arms that barely looked like arms at all. Arms that looked more like my pathetic excuse for an arm than an arm. Was that more than two legs? And yet, this one felt more warming than anything else around me, around the suffocation of it all. Nothing felt real, until her voice beckoned again.

"Welcome home, Lobster Cookie."

82.

That feminine something, slowly crawling towards me, made the sound of pierced glass with each step of those dangling legs. Closer, and closer. The noises from the stone slowly gave out on their own to only the hushed whispers of rumoring, and eventually died into a silence towards the timing of a very long finger reaching towards to embrace the ever-cold crystal of my right shoulder. Another something went to the other shoulder, bringing me into a hug I never knew I needed as much as I did at that very moment. The coldness in my arms turned into a burning warmth of another person, and just as quickly as I was given the gift of the heat, she pulled away, only now was I allowed a crazed glimpse. The face was covered by a funeral's voided veil, but there was no face to cover to begin with, except for the slightest hints of a mouth to feed with. A silence grew so louder, until she broke it.

"Do you not remember me at all? I couldn't have left you for that long, to forget even my face..."

For now, this thing was a total stranger to me. But yet, like a stray cat happening upon family, the warmth flooded in as if what stood to protect me from the screaming assaults was someone I had known for a very, very long time.

"Would you like a refreshment, of both memory and mouth? Come inside, come inside, loveliest litle..."

The voice treaded away like a ghost's movement, and the two of us moving towards the side of a tunnel, her appendige sticking through a certain hole, and block upon block of the stone moving away to create a hole that would fit her just snugly. The insides of the stone walls were lit up warmly, and what was inside was a strange emptiness, unlike what seemed to stare back from the other tunnel's holes. But the void was a warm void, as that shuffled away into another darkness, presumably to grab something. Left with my own thoughts, the thoughts swirled around like a soup, until, as if bullet through the head, I was given a stark reminder of who this was.

83.

An empty silence after the thought came around, both around and inside my thoughts. There was no denial, the memories were there of that lack of a face, the mother's love I had ran away from in favor of awaiting fates. But...maybe I could've been born to something normal instead? And had a normal body instead? And not one covered in horns, claws, sharp teeth, and other sharpness?

Ah, there she returns. A pot of fresh juices from god knows where, something to pour it in, and...somebody at her side. Smaller, feminine, prancing along in a little poncho the color of the night skies with pink stars embroidered within every inch or so, a wonderful pattern of what none of us would reach. Heart-shaped buds emerged from the forehead...perhaps we shared the same father, a horned, absent father.

I remained as silent as I was, still peering over this entire room, existance, my exisitance as a curse, everything felt about as real as the fog my head had crashed itself into. A cup nudged against my spot at a table bare with a cloth as decorated as the child at the side's clothes, for me to grasp, and take a slight sip of.

It tasted like any other sour candy would, but as a liquid. Of course, a sour candy meant making a rather sour face at it, which was met with the honest, light laughs of the family I was with. A family I'd probably never see again, unless I chose to falsify my duties to the city I had found a family within, and just become as much as a hermit as the other guardian has been. Wonder what Mocha Ray's up to.

"You've grown so cold to traditions in the home. Spit it out outside if you must."

"No...thanks," I swallowed it down to try and cut the suffering of such a taste off, "I'll be fine," and then took another swig to repeat the mistake. Was a little better the second time. Maybe it'd be better with ice.

An exhale from my mouth, before thinking of the face I must've made, and, too, laughing along with the younger one, who hadn't stopped laughing at all at the funny faces of bad tastes.

84.

But questions weren't important, or rather, anything at that matter except for the present moment. It continued on, small talk and catching her up on things, a day becoming dusk and dusk becoming night. Great, black night. The stars didn't reach the Depths -- the Depths were not sacred enough for the stars. No light was. In the end, no matter how warm the heart is, the heart belongs to those hidden from God's light.

But I could not hide at such a time, and eventually, I had to leave for that night. With fond goodbyes, and feeling a hug for the first time in forever, I went off, searching for that great flat zone as a means to Sugarteara again. It was not hard to find, nor hard to traverse. But quickly, the warmth from that night with family for the first time in my life faded. Just as it was taken away the first time, I had to return to what I was fated for -- it was a lonely fate, but if I was to disobey it, escape the light, and find another home to be, I would be a sinner in her eyes.

Who's eyes was her's, anyways? God or...the only one left? There's no way I could disrupt her right now, alone in the temple. No way at all that I could walk in. That, too, was sealed off from me. Loneliness had set in again, a chase that I could not outdo. It was fate. God's fate. To guard this city as it stood right now was to be a one-man army, a lonely solider. Lonely, cold, my body's so cold. It's so cold at night in the water, with nobody to be around. No body heat to share. Nobody. Alone. Like a fog that I could inhale -- alone. The word that stood out -- alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone...

85.

The same room as always, the bed as stiff as ever, the light outside as dark as it was yesterday, and my body, which felt like an empty shell, still void as the city around me. My head tilted a slight upwards, focused on where the wall met the ceiling. It didn't always have that stain, did it? A stain that breached from the meeting, downwards, slight, but shouldn't be there in the first place. And even though the stain drew attention to that section just by existing, it still didn't stand out enough to be important enough to clean up. It was just there -- a stain, a stain that looked a bit awful, where nobody knew where it came from, and nobody wanted to get rid of, because that'd require being able to reach the ceiling as well.

That gazing into the stain was interrupted, however, by the sounds of something above the waters. Another thunderstorm has brought down lightning, terrorizing nobody in particular. The only people who would've given a damn were gone by now, I was too enthralled in my own misery, and I cannot read Mocha Ray Cookie's mind, nor do I know her well enough to know if she would be scared. I knew her enough to love her, my only other companion left, but I knew almost nothing about her still. She was kind, a kindness that shined with everything she did, a kindness that peered through my fighting mind and broke that mindset away with every little thing of kindness -- a kindness that seemed innate to her very form. She was just...nice, and didn't mind that I was like this. And that was enough for me to fall in love with somebody, for them to show me a compassion I never felt or was piercable by anyone else. Leader was nice. Everyone in that group was nice. But Mocha Ray was nice-nice. Sing-song voiced nice, the niceness that would check up on me and bring me flowers if she was freed from her position, I hoped. Or maybe there was something underneath that kindness -- maybe she knew what I was too.

...And of Leader -- What were they doing? The same as always? Was the team seperated by now? Is Leader ok? Without even a second thought, as if we were all together and in communications again, and by habit, I stood up and went to that small desk in the corner. I had outgrown that desk -- growing forever, but one day, I'd be too big and the heart that powered the emotions I felt and the veins and arteries would give out, like I wanted to give out so badly right now, and I'd collaspe and become one with the seas. Vallaha could reach me one day, but...now was not the day. I was still one alongside, and I could hear an automated click of the pen. As if I was some robot, I started writing out something. Something. It was something. A letter to Leader. It would probably go nowhere but on the starry sea's surfaces and be eaten by a bird, but by miracles...

86.

The pen moved like a dancer on that page, the tick noise of the stabbing point being brought out, and then in, and then out again, waiting for the next word to come, only for it to be followed by a flood of other words. The prose escaped out of me like a heart attack's explosion -- I had not spoke to another person like this in ages, and it showed, both spewing with the need to spew, and with the decay of unused thought. Continuing and continuing, with two pages finished and filed by the stroke of sleep.

That next morning, waking up, the first thought was to try and send that letter out to reach Leader. An impossible feat, for I was under the abandoned waters, and Leader's location unknown, but at that time, I was not thinking of possibilities, only that it would happen through a brute force. But once I picked up those papers, they were unregonizable from what I thought was just a simple check-in letter from last night. It seemed that a cloud had came upon me last night, one of storms and thunder.

What few sentences were regonziable through a fog of gibberish were almost chants in the text, predictions for unsightly futures, and the last sentence -- Sugarteara will rise, despite my death, and against all odds. I was certainly not dead physically, but with the abandonment of my identity's hinge, I maybe had a point when I said that I had died. But I could revive myself. Anyone could rise from these ashes, as long as there was a hand to bring them from the grave. But there was no hand now, and the claw that reached for that hand was now writing scriptures of what hopes it had to be revived.

With an embarassment growing in the heart for my declining mentalities, I filed the two sheets into a desk drawer I almost never checked, and never would again. That was the burial place for my words, and this abandoned world was my burial place.

87.

Throughout this loneliness, I had seen no trace of the fish I knew as my friend, yet hadn't noticed the absense at all. Too drowned in the drug of self-pity, until one day, that friend came back while I slept. In the small bed on the desk, made just for her, laid a third last resident of Sugarteara, and a rather peculiar gift of absense.

There was no comment on what that device was until both of us were awake at the end of that day, in the night's dim light. It was something that did not come from Sugarteara, nor from the areas above us on land. Absolutely alien, shaped like the basket that a fortune-teller's crystal ball would sit in. On each piercing root extending upwards, sat the diamond-shaped crystals, connected to each other, crimson, shimmering as brightly as my own crystal claw. The best description to this would've been "rotten food dressed in richest sauces". It emitted a small noise, indescribable, yet otherworldly. As I held it in that crystal claw, the shimmering lights from the jewels only brightened.

"What is this?"

"A very special piece from where I came from -- a healing charm, dare I say?"

"And what would I do with a healing charm? I am not injured, and I am not unwell."

"It is not for you, or any living being. It is for places, objects, to purify those places. Specially picked just for you. You see yourself as a knight, yes?"

"I am a knight for Sugarteara."

"Good, good...let this, and myself, turn Sugarteara holy like never before."

Sweet, sweet, strawberry jam-sweet lies. But before I could pinpoint these fabrications, the fish swam in front of me, the lure becoming a great red sun in front of my face. A blinding laser, and oh, did it blind me. When I regained the sights of my lonely little abode, I felt a haziness away from my body, and a knowledge of just what to do.

88.

The white cape doned again, and with the device carried hidden underneath the cape and the arm, I sprinted through the empty town. But perhaps empty was not all it was anymore.

On my way there, I found a strange thing I had never seen before -- best words for it would be a robot before robots, a stone-built shrimp animated through emotions and magic. It looked up at me as I looked down at it, and through that, came a certain understanding in the stoppings of my duties. An understanding in, that, while we were personally alone, for now, we had each other. I knelt down to this creature, and could hear a lively, mechanical hum coming from inside. It tilted its head at me, chirped, before cutting off that feeling prematurely and scuttering away to its own business.

After that, my mission continued, at midnight. The secret entrance to the temple, or was it an emergency exit? I knew my way. I was invited here plenty of times before, and I just prayed that Mocha Ray Cookie would not wake up while I did these violent neccessarities. The steps became glass-noised, approaching the Sacred Pearl. It looked a little more dead than when I was last here -- and this little gift would revive it.

All I needed to do was

Just do this and

"Do not wait, she could awake any time. Purify as your duties have told. Become the hero once more. Go on. Go on..."

But I remained at the standstill in front of the pearl, my cape fluttering in gentle wind, merely caught up in my own word salads. The out-of-body feeling felt more intense than beforehand, and then, without a thought at all, I did what I was told. The device was unhidden, thrown to the ground like juniveile popping rocks, and with that, a smoke came out of the top. And with that smoke came a light from inwards, hazing upwards, and then, my own fleeance from the scene.

89.

Disrupted from an already-unsettled sleep, Mocha Ray Cookie's jump from her resting quarters was a struggled one, nearly falling to the floor instead. Geta slipped on, a robe slammed onto the body, just in case somebody was still there, and she ran right towards the pearl -- the most protected. What greeted her was not great -- the smoke had not dismissed one bit from the magical bomb, but what parts of the pearl were obscured by the smog showed a travelling tree of red veins sprawling through whatever the smog touched of the pearl. No noise came from it, but what was once whites, yellows, pinks, shimmering had turned into a dull teal on impact, a blend into the rest of a city Mocha Ray Cookie has never seen. The roots spread along until a motionless Mocha Ray became motionful again, rushing towards it and kicking it to the side for now. That'd hurt more in the morning than now, adrenaline pumped through and through, heavy breathing now interuppted with the cries of somebody who had only known peace by now.

The veins quickly dissipated, but the pearl still remained dullen, teal and blacks swirling inside. Mocha Ray Cookie laid a hand upon the surface. Nobody answered. She was alone as always, but Sea Fairy Cookie would've answered -- a call to God at this time would certainly ring an emergency bell to Sea Fairy Cookie. But there was nothing, because with the inflictment the darkness had upon the pearl, a cloud had formed between the two's communications and in Sea Fairy herself. Corruption's roots had been laid. There was no noise from the tears of the maiden, or in the air, or anywhere. Nobody.

She already knew the culprit. There was only one person who could've gotten in. Her faith remained still, but not in Lobster Cookie. Just one action would now create a valley's fault, and sprawl into what the story of Sugarteara is usually told about -- the battle between guardians, the true fall of ancient heavens. She had been here since Lobster was a child, since Lobster entered guardianship, an utmost trust shared. And now, with no city to hold them together --

90.

It could've been a day, two days, a week, or a month, but the rest of the time between then and what would be the final explosion was spent plotting the rest of the revival with my only ally. It was through to me and through to her, but most of the action would be on my end, with her just telling me what to do. Every time we spoke, a strange nervous calm went over my body, my limbs relaxing, silently listening to what I had to do. She could not do much of her own, a small fish like it, but that was my problem to solve, after all. I would be hailed as a hero when we were done, and we would be honored more than any standing-by priestess who did nothing but watch it all fall apart.

There would be another grand entrance into the temple, but it would have to wait. There would be a signal from God first. After that, I could follow what God had birthed me to do. What was the signal, anyways? Would it be as obvious as a signal is in the sky, a smoke flare to call me over? Or would it be...

The sound of a plunge through water, the rush through to the deepest ends of the ocean. Outside of a sudden whirlpool circling downwards, I was surveying and observing a calm area of coral and floater fish, schools of them resting around and circling me. Down crashed two cookies -- one was not familiar, carrying a sleeping and small droplet in its arms, and having to balance a blue-white spiralling shell on top of that. The other was.

Already an intruder before to the city I was so loyal to -- a theft of food, but not food food, but the vaguest scraps they could find anywhere, even if it meant -- it was that damned Shark. That wall-eating Shark had returned with a friend, presumably to steal.

Halt, outsiders. Identify yourself, or leave these sacred grounds.

91.

The waters felt cold around the three of us, with the two explaining some sort of event from upstairs and up beyond the water levels. It was drastic, awful, and even repeating it would leave the metallic taste of blood I would soon re-learn back in my throat again. There was a quick greeting from myself, less the meat of my past and more the dire present, and then, a very, very long walk. It would be long, painful on everybody's feet, but a pilgrimage to where we would all seal the evil once and for all, and bring back Sugarteara as it was meant to stand.

They understood well, my blabbering a whistled, frenzied note. I had not talked to anybody in ages, the words fumbled, and I sounded like when I was a child again, a child who had nobody to talk to in the Depths where I were. And then, a long stairway to a shorter pathway, and then home -- beautiful, beautiful, desolate Sugarteara. It wasn't as damaged last time I had paid this much attention. Keep an eye out on the shark -- Sorbet Shark. That was their name. The other was Peppermint, and Peppermint didn't look like anybody I had seen since those good old days. A normal cookie was almost alien to the alien I was.

We were all quiet after that spiral stairway -- exhaustion had took the toll on everybody. And then, quiet interupted by noise. Noise from the north-left of my sight, nearby, loud, loud stomps.

92.

I had forgotten about these guardians, never used in favor of a living, emotional cookie, but still there. And now, the only ones there to watch over, and looking down at us quite emotionless. A base of a rectangle, a "heart" at the center, mechanical, and the things that held these behemoths up were two arms and fists for legs, which now crunched into the sugar crystal flooring like it was sugar glass.

"Stay back, you two!" And then -- they were frozen, and that thing was now approaching head-on, threatening to make us into crumbs.

"BACK!" And that's when they got the lesson -- rushing behind and opposite, with Sorbet's clawed, spiked arms covering Peppermint, one arm shielding innocent eyes, the other a fragile body. I went the opposite way as them -- forward, dodging a well-aimed fist aimed at my skull, and then, to the behind. My crystal claw latched onto it, and with that, I began a great giant scale. It didn't take too long, as too long meant certain death, and then, on top of the body -- the crystal claw -- the same material as this iron beast, the betrayel I was about to commit, for Sugarteara, for the TRUE Sugarteara, not this fake one where evil ruled with robed arm and nobody was here to enjoy those sacred grounds except for her greedy self, so that I could be the hero, the hero I was born to be, Lobster Cookie, because I was Lobster Cookie -- no, I am Lobster Cookie.

My claw plunged through that shielded heart, over and over again, until it toppled into death and onto the ground, some of the body resting onto the wall it had landed next to instead.

93.

Dust arose from an untouched ground, not even settling before I moved on from the succumbation of what kept me away from salvation. The two behind me remained silent, except for small gestures between the others, and, while approaching the temple itself, while I did not go back to check, had turned anxious the farther we went. And then, there it was, in front of me, and I would've entered if it wasn't for yet another opponent in the way.

Though the doors of the temple were wide open, they were sealed by something other than those doors. A barrier had been put up, letting me peer, but not go past, a pure electricity that travelled across the gap. It resonated with the sounds of otherworldly plasma.

"You two, stand back."

"You aren't going to try just passing through, are you, Lobster Cookie?"

But that was exactly what I was hoping to do, stepping a few back, and trying to run through it like a cloud. I was bounced back like a tennis ball into the net, the feeling of shocks making its way through my front, and being thrown halfway down the stairs that led up to this wall, only to stand right back up and do the same thing again, and get thrown back the entire way down the stairs. The two cookies merely watched, faces growing either a worry for my safety, or a smirk of knowing one was right in safety.

That damned ray. It was only her who could muster up this trap. But the materialized element would not be a match for what was already known in the physical, and a little bit of physical force could do the trick.

94.

My steps went backwards once again, the crystal claw raising up, the organic holding onto the crystal wrist. This weapon would be a key to the holy gates, to penetrate what was laid away from me, and what was now rightfully mine to regain control of. Right before the key would be inserted into that lock of the temple wall, it seemed that my God, my all-knowing God that guided me towards this very fateful moment, had lit a candle for me -- the wax on the crystal, emitting holy glow. And then, the mad dash towards the wall, arrow pointed at target, and making the bullseye.

Rubble from a Lobster Cookie shaped hole fell around me, looking around in the labyrinth of a basement hidden right below these stairs. My eyes darted back to Peppermint and Sorbet Shark, who, by now, looked at me as if I was mad (which I never was), coaxing them into this plunged hole, and then taking the smaller one under the comfort of my cape. Peppermint had no aura of being involved in such troubles -- I could understand the worries they had, with my claw that had just guarenteed a lovely ending even giving Peppermint a pat on the back, which seemed to soothe the soul enough. With that, we moved on, a slow walk towards the stairs. Only now did it pass the clouded head that I could've just used the side door. Fuck. But this saved some time that would be spent there, and who could blame me? It was only a matter of that time for my mission.

My party passed by so, so many things stored down here. Artifacts not moved to museums above us. Statues and paintings. I stopped in front of one of those paintings, noticing it was unfinished to the point where the canvas still showed its texture. The other side was an olive-green background, as well as the beginnings of a construction of a face aged to time.

95.

There was no light except for the object inside of Peppermint's arms, a gently sleeping beast, Sorbet Shark's eyes, and the afterburn of my claw's finishing touch to the wall. Navigation was taken by clinging to the walls, going in circles, and soft prayers that there would be some semblence of escape from this storage. Beyond my eyes, and behind a stacking of desks, drawers, and other blockade, was those stairs, seen after having passed by this at least a few times. She knew. Mocha Ray knew I was here to save her and everybody else, and she, following that othered path, was doing everything to stop it. Something had gotten into her. Was she possessed? No other explanation for following sins and not the savior for Sugarteara.

The desks were a hassle to pull out of the way of the stairs, and I had forgotten about the trap-door on top of them, hitting a head already burnt from shockwave. That door was slammed onto a clearest, light air, and then, stepping into an area I knew well enough to travel towards the pearl. Barriers, barriers, and more barriers, but there were gaps one could step through, easier for the other two, but still managable. A little bit of hurt would not matter now. This was the cost of it all. It wouldn't matter soon, no matter how electrocuted this body became.

The barriers of electricity became rare. Signs. Good signs. And then, the Pearl, in front of my eyes, and somebody standing in front of it, adjusting her headpiece, a trail of lightning travelling from the jewel to the ceiling, the source of it all. The source of power, the source of obstacle. My obstacle. Just another barrier to plow through. But as soon as I stepped through, Mocha Ray looked straight at me with an uncaring, open set of eyes. Uncaring for me, but caring for something else, enough to be on the verge of misunderstanding tears.

"Leave, Lobster. Leave before you bring wrought to the world." I had never heard her sound like this. Every other sentence heard was gentle, permission-asking favors. This was an order -- an order she would never call for. Who pulled her strings? Who taught her to disobey me?

There would be no going down without a grand fight, and with no time to reconsider drastic actions, I lunged to the charge.

96.

The two of us were thrown to the ground like gravel falling, my one claw holding her by the bottom of the neck, tip stabbed into stone ground, and the other missing a dodging head. The screams of the damned and the damning echoed through, pleads for mercy mixed with the truth of what she thought about me all along, how it was always going to come to this point. The body-wide burning of electric shock started off as a deterrant to my plight, but the longer she sent those through my choking claws, the less they were felt, taken over by the feeling of nothing.

It only escalated. Bodies thrown against the ground, what was once a catfight having become a brawl that would sever a life. Blood wept from the two of us, thrown across the room like death-day's streamers, and all anybody who was around could do was watch in awe. A relationship that one bloomed was now being torn to the same shreds as her face had become, ichor dripping from above her bangs, crown, and from her mouth and nose. And through it all, it was not set to a closing yet. No matter how gruesome our bodies became, they still molded together as arms and legs threw themselves against each other, as the tips of my hair became singed from shocks.

And then, the pillar behind her back nearly crumbling to the ground from how fast she had been thrown into it. Her body went limp, trembling, looking up at me with the image of betrayed hate. It had all become nothing. Everything we sowed was wilted, everything, nothing. The revelation. Seperation. The final strike. Strike to glory. Rapture. Salvation. I would become salvation. I would become the knight. This demon would vanish soon, the demon in front of me, a claw raising in front of her face, an astral cyan glow lighting up a battlefield covered in blood, and a second, unsighted light from behind the pillar from what would stop the unpleasant execution of this Jezebel.

97.

The Jezebel, the Cain, the two lambs besides, and the Virgin Mary. No. It was God. The God who visited, the God who led the hero.

When Sea Fairy had appeared in front of Mocha Ray, her vision was silent, blinded by closed eyes, mouth moving with no sound to come out of it. Gazing, a holy light shed upon the mortal world. Clipped through the floor, the connection becoming a trembling puddle. Staring down at me, her favorite little sinner, and the voice from that mouth audible at once.

"What I had sacrificed, but what had become of it? Taken for granted. What I left to pursue what kept me alive, you hung onto the corpse of like a maggot. You, behind me, I had laid a task. You, ahead, had joined, only to be a lockpick instead of a key. You...grasp at nothing. Put that claw down, I see it tug at the dress, and I will not answer like a mother forgiving its child's mistake. Do not plead for forgiveness. It had already been granted at a cost you will soon pay."

The ground trembled with every syllable of that voice from another.

"Selfless for selfless for the selfish. I loved the world I had sewn into the ocean's blanket of waves. But to persist...no. No. To persist it would to be laid fallen in the hopeless. Emotions suckled out of the breast. To ween you off of it had failed. Leave for dead. Pursue. Pursue your fate. My fate. Fate, fate, fate! And you will understand as I lay you for dead...now, that, unless you want to seal yourself in fate like I had almost done for everybody in this bleached coral world, you must fight against it. Fight and pursue. Pursue fate. Now, then, pursue it!"

With a single flash of light, this vision vanished from all of us, with the drop nowhere to be seen, but the pearl making the same noise as the voice had. It pulled something towards it. Then another. The ground, the stature that it was held by, everything, crumbling like cookies. Without a word, Mocha Ray had taken off, a calling whistle for the Great Ray to take her to safety. Sorbet Shark's claws grasped onto Peppermint's wrist, nearly dragging blood the way it dragged the two over to safety. But I just stood, watching, watching fate unfold from Pandora's box, watching the box seal the great legends of home away. There was nobody to take me to safety, the threads dangled, cut, for I had severed any thread of friendship with threats, and in the events of it all, had not even realized yet that I had also severed the crystal arm with it.

98.

Alone. Lost. Oh, you poor thing.

99.

I should not have underestimated either of them. The maiden was stronger than looks gave. What gave her that power, anyhow?

100.

I have an offer you cannot refuse.