Chapter Text
Vincent got up and fidgeted with the bracelet that Iris dropped. He's quite nervous about the climb, honestly. It's a long way up, and a far longer way down… he'll think about that all later though, right now he needed to eat breakfast, which was a bunch of waffles provided by the inn from imports. It was nice.
He noticed his boat De-spawned overnight- it didn't really matter though, since he needed to get a sailboat anyways, which he bought at the shipwright and somehow messed with the materials of the sail and cannons and hull all via a UI menu he had. Apparently. He began to sail towards Palo Town, because he needed to upgrade his equipment but frankly cannot stand the cold of Frostmill anymore at this point. He needed rope and plenty of things to help with the climb. He's gonna have to make the climb again at some point, right? Better safe than sorry.
Once he reaches Palo Town, he puts some money in the bank for safekeeping as he looks at the bounty board for a quick moment. Huh, it's not only faces on the bounty board, but ships too… that's good to know. He goes to the accessories merchant and then proceeds to suffer. Such overpowered items… but so high over his level… oh woe the low level curse.
Hey, wait a moment. He looks over towards the sea, seeing that there's a ship that he saw on the bounty board coming towards town.
A ship that just so happens to belong to one of the Emperors of the Seas. And, while not boasting the highest bounty of them, the captain of that brig, Aisha Sectonia, is still certainly notorious - her wanted poster lists destructive and deadly crimes, and amongst them, the charges with the highest prevalence are the various murders she's committed.
What a person to have to potentially face.
He Is SO FUCKED.
Soon, those brown eyes lock on him, taking on an orange glow when the Warlock imbues her Iron Leg fighting style with magma magic. She's stanced to fight, ready to take him on right then and there.
Nothing can hold her back while things are the way they are right now, with no Grand Navy members currently around to try to arrest her…
All of the citizens nearby run off, looking for places to hide from the ruthless pirate.
Aisha could immediately notice that something was off with Vincent when she locked eyes with him. After all, he has no pupils, who wouldn't be offput by that? Not even curse users have such a trait, to simply have no pupils is something that should be physically impossible in a normal human being.
"Pick a deity and pray, because I ain't 'bout to give ya no-"
Aisha's expression shifts as her quartermaster, Cleo Tempest, sticks her arm out in front of her to hold her back.
"What are ya doin'?" Aisha asks, now confused as her body language relaxes and she returns to an idle posture.
"I can sense something about him…" Cleo answers, glancing at Vincent.
"…I see," Aisha responds. She knows exactly what that means. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, after all.
Vincent was confused. Very very confused. He was practically glued in place, not understanding what the hell is going on and why Aisha would just… stop attacking him. He knows she could squash him like a bug so why is she not? Doing that?? But also, he's mostly thankful that he is not dying at this moment as the last experience with that was not fun. So he will take this as a chance to… Ah. He is too afraid to run. Fuck.
"Interestin'… ain't seen anythin' like this much. So, he's got some of yer kin's blood in him?" Aisha asks Cleo, cocking her head in curiosity. Well, that's certainly a change of behavior…
Cleo nods, looking at Aisha, then at Vincent again. This is something rare for her too.
"I have NO fucking clue what you are talking about!" He said, completely honestly. Because he doesn't have a single inkling of a clue on what the hell is going on at this moment.
"…Come with us to my ship," Aisha suddenly says. "I'll let Cleo explain it to ya there. This ain't really somethin' we can say out in the open."
"Alright," Vincent said in a tone that sounded like his soul was nearly leaving his body, "as long as I don't get killed I'm fine with whatever I guess…!"
"I'll make sure none o' my crew does anythin' to ya," Aisha replies, beginning to walk back to her brig with Cleo trailing behind her. That's so out of character for her… just what is going on?
He's just… not gonna ask questions and follow her to the ship. What other choice does he have? She's like, level 180! He'd rather not see what happens when he makes a wrong move and runs! So he follows her to the ship, shaking like a leaf the whole way.
The pirate captain isn't making any efforts to hide those red scales covering her left upper arm, left shoulder blade, some more of the left side of her upper back, her left collarbone, and part of her neck. Those came from one thing and one thing only.
Her hair is streaked with some very light reddish-whiteish strands, too, and her right arm has a pale red skin tone, contrasting against the normal skin tone she has on every other part of her body. The scar on her right palm helps explain that…
When they get on the ship, Vincent is still shaking like a leaf, pitifully hiding his face in his scarf like that would do anything in this situation. Honestly he's kind of fearing for his life because he would absolutely die to anyone on this ship if he weren't being escorted onto it right now. Hey, well, at least it's not the shifter of fate, he tells himself internally as he tries not to shit his pants in fear.
Cleo turns to Vincent once he's on the ship, looking at him.
"Well," she says before suddenly doing away with her usual guise, revealing her true nature as a Siren.
A Siren outside of the Dark Sea. And one that doesn't act like she's about to jump at any human and try to shoot at and start casting insane spells to attack them as soon as they come close enough at that.
"I sensed that you have the blood of one of my kind in you," she continues. "Which is why I stopped Aisha from attacking you."
Well, the fact that Aisha is basically friends with a non-human might remind Vincent of something (or rather someone who's currently busy getting up to shenanigans elsewhere but would gladly come over any time), but what a way to probably give him another existential crisis.
"What." He asked plainly, in a deadpan tone. "I… I would say I don't believe you, buy I'm gonna be fully honest, I don't remember shit so I'm just… gonna take your word for it on that."
Cleo doesn't try to pry into his statement, returning to her disguised form using shapeshifting before becoming confused by something.
Well, that's the Discord call ringtone…
Vincent looked around for where the hell that sound is coming from, clearly confused as hell. Why is there a discord call ringtone? What the fuck??
This is certainly proof that contacting his friends (or having his friends contact him, as is the case here) is still possible for him in the War Seas. It was something that came with the whole spiel, after all.
"What's that?" Cleo asks, trying to figure out what's going on.
"Does it look like I have a SINGLE clue?" Vincent answered honestly, just as confused as Cleo on this.
Aisha soon looks over, equally as confused as both of them.
"What in the name o' the gods is goin' on?"
Vincent then proceeds to… accidentally pick up the call? In some form? He doesn't really know how this works. He just panicked and accidentally pressed a UI thing he didn't notice was there until it was too late.
And right after that…
"Oh, hey-"
The voice comes out sounding completely casual, and soon Prism manages to accidentally turn on her camera too, showing her face, as well as the woman standing near her.
"WHUH HUH WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING OOOON-"
"Managed to accidentally call you- these buttons are so easy to hit by accident sometimes- anyways, what are you up to?" Prism asks, holding her phone in one hand and a Brimstone Locus in the other. The woman standing next to her has a completely neutral look on her face, seeming… unbothered by this.
The first thing that was immediately noticeable to Prism was that Vex did not have a voice changer on, and sounded very much masculine. Also he was very baffled.
"WHUH- HUH- WHY IS THERE A FLOATING WINDOW TO ANOTHER WORLD OR SOMETHING. WHAT IS GOING ON"
"…gimme a moment, I'm gonna finish up some stuff and come over," Prism says before turning to Calamitas and getting the last of her items enchanted. She then hangs up to begin talking to the Witch.
"So, wanna join me in going to the War Seas?"
"Well… after everything you've told me, I guess it could be interesting," Calamitas responds.
"Alright, let's get a name for you to go by and clothing for you to wear there picked out- gotta blend in, after all!"
"Right."
After some time of sorting things out, Prism soon shows up in the War Seas with Calamitas, conveniently having put down a camp by the shoreline of Palo Town that lets both of them appear in that spot.
And Vincent had pretty much almost fainted as the call had ended at some point, confused and overwhelmed to the point he had almost faceplanted into Aisha's ship as his soul almost left his body again. Were his waffles this morning laced with insanity potions? Or something? Because this day is insanity.
Prism, now using her identity as "Lucille Rain," soon runs over, followed behind by Calamitas, who had picked "Calista Graves" as a name to go by. The cat ears and tail Lucille has are invisible to everyone except Vincent and Calista, and likewise Calista's horns are invisible to everyone except for Lucille and Vincent.
If Vincent had thought that Aisha was powerful, then she's about to look weak in comparison to Calista. The Brimstone Witch, though heavily downscaled in her power here, is still strong as all hell, being equivalent to level 250 and having had both her first and second awakenings automatically given to her. Not to mention that her mere presence intimidates Aisha's crew, as well as Aisha herself.
Nope. Yep. Vincent is full on passed out on the deck now, he's had way too much excitement for one day. And also way too many heart attacks. He's just accepted his fate of whatever the hell is next, because he is so damn confused that he's completely paralyzed from it all, since he hasn't had any time to process any of it.
Both Aisha and Cleo are silently standing in stunned confusion. They have too many questions to count, but where do they even begin with this?
Meanwhile, Lucille has just dumped a bucket of cold water on Vincent, trying to wake him up. Because of course she would do that.
The water boiled off… somehow. Almost like his brain is fried from everything happening right now in a very literal fashion.
"What in the name of cartoon logic- okay, uh. Well…" Lucille says, trying to think of another way to try to wake him up.
"You know, I would say I wasn't expecting this… but then again, you're here," Calista says, referring to Lucille.
"What in the name o' the gods does that mean?" Aisha asks, still bewildered.
"I'll let Lucille answer that," Calista answers, looking at the embodiment of chaos disguised as a not-so-regular person.
"Well," Lucille says. "Let's just say a lot of wacky and weird stuff happens when I'm around, heh."
That answer doesn't quite help Aisha's dazed state. It's so vague…
"…Thank ya, I guess?" Aisha responds.
Lucille then looks at Vincent again, saying, "Wonder when he'll wake up…"
She then puts away the Brimstone Locus she had still been holding, beginning to idle around while occasionally forming magic circles with her magics and casting harmless spells.
"Haven't seen any magics like those before," Cleo says after noticing the magics Lucille has.
"They're basically replicas of other abilities," Lucille responds. "My first magic is Love Magic, and my second magic is Brimstone Fire Magic, which Calista also happens to use."
Lucille then returns to trying to get Vincent to wake up. Yes, this includes by some of the most chaotic and obnoxious means possible. Annoying audio tracks and music? Check. More buckets of water, now with ice added? Also check.
What a brat. Then again, this is the same person who likes being spiteful and ruining people's careers by forcing events while they're possessing Nextbots, so…
Calista simply stands back, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Why are you… never mind, I shouldn't be asking that. I don't even have the right to ask that."
"Nobody does!" Lucille says. She then turns her attention back to Vincent, blasting yet another ungodly remix of the Mii Channel song on her phone.
Both Aisha and Cleo continue to stand back and watch, unsure of what to say or do. This sort of chaos wasn't what they were expecting, and they don't know what to make of it.
All those attempts to wake Vincent up only ended up in what seems to be audible dial-up noise coming from him. He's pretty much completely out for a good bit longer until the first few notes of a rickroll play and he jolts up, looks at Lucille, and uses his magic to somehow Mute the Rickroll. He looks frazzled and almost un-amused, though it's very clear he's trying not to laugh at least a little bit.
"Well, glad that you're awake again," Lucille says, snickering. "And I'm glad that worked, heh- always good to take some lessons from others."
She certainly does take notes - her first magic was inspired by a certain Glitcher in Axuremn, after all, and she created it with the intention of it functionally having the same effects as Love's abilities.
Calista, meanwhile, is glancing over at Aisha and Cleo, who have finally snapped out of their confused dazes and begun talking to each other about something unrelated to the trio.
"I need to go out and get back to lookin' for that damned girl soon," Aisha says, with clear venom in her voice. "She's goin' to pay for what she caused…"
"We'll find Abigail and put her to death like she caused your father to be," Cleo responds.
"Let me be the one kill Quill when I get the chance to finally give her what she has goin' for her," Aisha says. "It'll be my revenge to take."
Abigail Quill, one of the four Monarchs of the Seas, is who they're talking about. A girl carrying immense fame with her, even if she doesn't care for having such a title or being so renowned (in fact, she'd rather not have so much attention on her, she's too shy and socially awkward to properly handle that).
Abigail had never intended for or wanted Aisha's adoptive father to be executed after she bounty hunted him and turned him in. Yet Aisha doesn't believe that, and is dead-set on seeing Abigail suffer and die for it. This fact doesn't go unnoticed by Calista, who soon looks at the other two again.
"…I don't think I want to stay near those two any longer," she says, keeping her voice low, "especially considering what their goal is. We should go now."
"Hm. Eh, sure, whatever, why not. Today's been crazy enough already, not like there's currently a secret organization that experiments on people going around that happens to say that their goal is furthering magic at all costs while in all reality they're trying to summon some ancient power by traumatizing people and just so happen to have people in powerful positions such as Ravenna's king and subordinates, but sure whatever go try and kill your rival as if that's gonna help." Vincent said this in a casual, almost deadpan tone.
Aisha and Cleo are too focused on their conversation to take note of that, which is likely for the better.
"Eugh," Calista says, clearly disgusted. "And I had thought that some of the figures I used to work alongside were terrible…"
"Yeahhh… I still remember things like the Plaguebringer Goliath- that was one of my glimpses into how unethical a lot of Draedon's work was," Lucille responds. "And naturally he was also the one who pointed out how important I am in Terraria, saying stuff like how I'm 'an unknown factor,' 'a catalyst,' 'someone who could usher in a new age'…"
"I mean, from what little I can remember of the shit you've pulled, that tracks actually." Vincent said, shrugging.
"It really does," Calista says. "I wasn't surprised to hear her say what she really is after she defeated me in our first fight."
Suddenly, Vincent shivered, anyone who knows what a dodgeball is could have sworn they heard the noise of it hitting his head. He turned to Cleo and walked up to her.
"If you see a brig named shifter of fate, sail away without hesitation. They know you're a Siren."
"I'm already aware of that," Cleo responds.
"No, you don't get it. They're going to hunt for you in the next three days, and if you're not careful you will be captured and taken for experiments. Along with that, it's likely they will interrogate you on my location." Vincent looks haunted.
"I… see," Cleo says.
Calista then looks at Vincent, "I'll be sticking with you, then. While I may not be as powerful as I am at home, I do still have plenty of strength to offer."
"Yeah, she's literally at the minimum level Monstrous Atlanteans can spawn at," Lucille says. "Level 250 anything is no joke, I'll tell you that…"
"Thanks, but I can mostly hold my own. I would greatly appreciate the help anyways, sometimes it's really annoying to get jumpscared by animals and powerful people while just trying to get somewhere." He coughs a bit, "n-no offense."
"That's fine," Calista responds. "I'll be standing by then, and if you need it I can provide special enchantments for certain items."
"Wonder if I should try going out really far into the Dark Sea at some point," Lucille suddenly mumbles to herself. "I'd like to try my hand at fighting some super strong Atlanteans…"
"Well if you see an Omen out there don't blame me if your ship sinks," Vincent joked a bit.
"I have worse luck with other things," Lucille says, snorting. "Also, I wonder if I could run into some random weirdness and find a Legendary Beast Atlantean like that one guy did…"
"Don't fly too close to the sun now, you could suffer a great loss," Vincent chuckled at the word 'Loss' without really knowing the reason why.
"I mean, it's not like death is permanent for me anyways," Lucille responds. "It's just a minor inconvenience for me, heh."
"It's a what-now?" Aisha says, looking over in confusion. Did she hear that right?
"Oh, yeah she's like, some sort of chaos entity or something, I don't really know myself but she can't exactly die." Vincent stated plainly with a shrug.
"Sometimes I get revived right then and there, other times my death causes an entire timeline to be reset," Lucille explains. "Either way, it's something I can just come back from. Also, before you ask how many times it's happened… I stopped counting at, what, like 500-something deaths?"
"Fair enough." Vincent started to stretch before another small 'tonk!' was heard. "… Okay Apollo. That was actually kind of funny."
"I still remember the first times some of them happened," Lucille says. "Some were painful, others were kinda just annoying."
"What?" Cleo simply asks in regards to both of their statements.
"I have no idea how to explain how this works but apparently Apollo has a good throwing arm, a ball used in a children's game, and his target is directly at my noggin." This sounds relatively sane compared to the elephant in the room, Lucille.
"Meanwhile, I've met death in multiple ways, from suffering ARS to getting mauled by a space moth thing to accidentally throwing myself off of sky islands because of harpies and wyverns," Lucille says bluntly.
"I'll be damned," Aisha says. "That's… really some record ya have there."
"What in the name of the gods is ARS?" Cleo asks.
"I don't even know what she's talking about half the time, honestly, but I guess she's having fun? Or something. Curse my ass memory." Vincent kind of mumbled that last part under his breath.
"Yeah, a lot of it is just for fun," Lucille confirms.
"She has an odd idea of 'fun'," Calista adds. "Apparently that includes things such as blowing up nuclear reactors and playing around with anything that can explode in general. And she has an obsession with fighting as well."
Oh dear gods.
Vincent looks at the sky, seeing that it's almost sundown. "Speaking of, this has been an interesting encounter but I'd quite love to get to where I was trying to go before the sun fully sets… I'm trying to return something to someone."
"I'll be willing to help you with the next person you have to fight," Lucille says. "I know how annoying he is from experiences in… a different timeline."
She's absolutely not going to elaborate on that final part.
"I'll join you if you allow me, though I'll be staying out of whatever major battles you engage in," Calista says. "I will admit that I'm interested in learning more about this place while I'm actually here."
"Alright, you two can follow me to my sailboat then, I recommend doing some stretches too- it's a long climb…" he says this while beginning to walk off of Aisha's brig.
Calista nods before taking some climbing gear Lucille offers her, following Vincent.
"You're gonna need that," Lucille says, also following Vincent. "It really is a long climb, and that gear makes it easier to get up there. Also, use your Leap spell as much as you can- it makes it easier too."
"Right," Calista responds. It isn't like this will be the first time she's done some strenuous climbing, but she'll have to see what this case will be like. This will be her first time sailing, though.
Vincent lead them both to a sailboat that seems relatively well-fortified for his level, as he started fiddling with some things around it and then somehow starting to… back up the sailboat like a car? Okay, best not to question that, he's probably just using his magic to gently push it backwards anyways.
Calista doesn't even have room to question it, since she's seen too much of Lucille's absurd tomfuckery to ask anything about it.
Vincent steered carefully, avoiding rocks and islands as he sailed to the stepstones. He really hopes he can give Iris her bracelet back before sundown…