Chapter Text
When his soul latches onto Maggie’s, Taako can feel the world ebbing away.
He so badly wants to crumble, but he knows he can’t. There’s still something that needs to be done. So he holds on tight, so even the strongest magic in the world can’t tear him and Maggie apart, and stays that way until Merle can pull them both back.
He plows back into his body with a painful thud, and gasps desperately for air, his lungs screaming in pain. Every part of him is shaking, because in those few short moments, it’s like his body has completely forgotten him. He dry heaves once, nausea rising and fading as quickly as it came.
“Taako!” Lydia races over to him, checking him over for injuries, like this sick little game of theirs has any right to continue.
He doesn’t even think. He just dives for her, snatching the bell right out of her ghostly hands. In the distance, he hears her scream.
The world slowly closes, everything around him going dark, aside from the silver, shimmering bell. He knows it’s the thrall, and he knows that he’s playing with fire, but fire is exactly what they need to survive.
“Well, hello there, little one.” The Animus Bell says. “Aren’t you an angry thing?”
“Get them out of here.” Taako hisses.
“If you’ll have me.”
Taako grits his teeth, feeling the foreign magic assault his palms. It burns, but barely, like it’s waiting for the go-ahead.
“Gladly.”
Foreign magic always has a different feel to it. No matter how close people are, someone else’s magic just feels the slightest bit off. He could feel it when Merle was healing him, little pinpricks on his skin, prickling away at his wounds and vanishing in an instant. He could feel it when he was training Angus, a new magic that hadn’t quite found its identity yet. It was drawn to his own, tried to mimic his own, but it still had that spark of individuality.
This was a new feeling altogether, a flood compared to a lifetime of trickles. His vision swims, the world around him shifting into vague outlines of enemies and allies. There’s only one thought in his mind: revenge.
Is this what it’s like to be in the full sway of the thrall? With the Gaia Sash, he only got so far as picking it up before someone stopped him. Now no one can stop him.
Taako raises the bell of his head, swinging it down with a forceful ring. The noise only clouds his head more, leaving behind only the insistent, pulsing need to lash out.
Edward is thrown from Magnus’s body, replacing his life force with Taako’s, which Taako immediately relinquishes. Even a lich as powerful as Edward is useless against the sheer power of a Grand Relic. He looks stunned, but only for a second. Taako opens his umbrella, and in that second, Edward’s spectral form goes spiraling into the umbrella.
The umbrella moves with force, wrenching Taako’s arms forward as a wave of magic surges up his arms, before going completely still.
Once it has settled, the Umbra Staff spits out two things: a pile of ash and a glimmering crystal ball.
“No!” Lydia doesn’t even bother with the crystal ball. Apparently her priorities are elsewhere. There’s screaming, a scuffle, things that Taako doesn’t see or hear.
He turns his attention back down to the little silver bell. “How are you at destroying life forces, no replacements necessary?”
The bell chuckles darkly. “Little elf, it would be my pleasure.”
Taako can’t help smiling along. His vision sways, forming around a single lich. He moves in long, slow strides, relishing in the moment that Lydia notices him.
Her eyes grow wide, and she curls back. She’s trying to force a smile, and it sounds like she’s trying to appeal to him, but he can’t hear her. Even if he could, he wouldn’t listen. What could she even offer him? Her companionship? Her and her creepy brother kidnapped him, took him away from his family, and tried to slot him into the void Keats had left.
Taako stands over her. She’s kneeling by a pile of remains that used to be Edward, and she hasn’t made an effort to get up. Maybe she thinks it’ll help her chances with begging.
Now he knows why Lydia loved hovering over him so much. It’s so easy to feel powerful from up here. She looks so pathetic, it’s hard to believe she was ever a threat.
Taako rings the bell. Power rides on the sound waves, sending tingles of magic up his arms, a sensation that’s unfamiliar but not unpleasant. He could get used to it. He’s sure he will.
It cuts into Lydia, hitting some center of power in her chest. Her soul maybe? Hard to believe she even has one of those. Whatever it is, it splits like a walnut, bringing brief rays of light to the surface of her spectral form before she too crumbles in on herself.
The twins sit in matching piles of dust, as harmless as could be. The lone crystal ball sits atop them. Taako doesn’t even bother picking it up, instead opting to introduce it to the business end of his Umbra Staff.
It shatters like glass under the force, releasing a plume of wispy white smoke. It rises to greet him, slipping into his open mouth with a surprisingly bitter aftertaste.
Maybe the feeling of his adult headspace would hit harder if the Animus Bell wasn’t already overpowering every sense, but he can still feel the bones of the sensations. Drinking, taxes, scheduling your own dentist appointments. It barely registers.
“Taako?” Merle calls. His voice sounds so distant, even though he’s only a few paces away. Why does he look so scared, so stunned? Doesn’t he know Taako just saved his life? “Little buddy, it’s okay now. You’re safe, alright? Just put the bell down.”
When he steps forward, Taako doesn’t register that it’s his Emmy. He knows that, in the back of his mind, but all he can see in front of him is a new threat.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!” Taako shrieks, sending out a blast of magic so powerful that it sends Merle staggering. “I DON’T WANT TO BE TOUCHED! I’M SO SICK OF BEING TOUCHED!”
“Let’s keep going, shall we?” the bell prompts. It burns in his palms, itching for further destruction.
Taako doesn’t really want to, at least not here. He has to go somewhere else, find someone else, maybe a different threat. “Stay back,” he warns. He backs up, surprised to feel a door manifesting behind him. Is the bell hooked up to the entirety of Wonderland? And if that’s the case, would it be so bad to stay here, rounding up all the bad people that want the bell? He’d be doing good if he did, right?
A mannequin moves toward him, and he almost lashes out then and there. He thought Lydia and Edward controlled these creepy things! How is this one moving on its own?
“You stay back too!” he yells.
His fingers shake around the bell, which he holds out like a weapon. The edges of his vision are already starting to fray, shrinking his line of sight down to the immediate threat in front of him.
“Taako…” Merle waddles forward. He comes to an ungraceful stop when Taako turns the bell in his direction. “Buddy, it’s okay. Just put the bell down. Everyone’s safe.”
“He doesn’t know that,” the bell chimes in.
“You don’t know that!” Taako cries.
Merle continues on without really addressing his point. “Everyone’s safe for now. And we can handle whatever comes next without that bell. Isn’t that right, Magnus?”
“Exactly!”
Taako goes cold. It’s Magnus’s voice, but it’s coming out of one of those things. He spins on the mannequin, which has been inching closer alongside Merle. The bell is straining against his hold, wanting so badly to attack. A mannequin would be easy pickings. Lydia and Edward were able to command hundreds, maybe thousands of them. It wouldn’t be too hard to make this one back up.
But before he can bark an order or lash out, a third voice joins in.
“….Ko….”
It sounds so faint, but he knows that voice. How does he know that voice? He’s sure he’s never heard it in his life, but it fills his heart with joy regardless. He grasps at the familiarity, but he can already feel his sense slipping, replaced with the overwhelming rage the Animus Bell is pumping into him.
“TAAKO!”
His body lurches, his hand almost going slack around the bell. The bell responds, sending a jolt of magic through his arm that makes his body lock up. How does he know that voice? And where is it coming from?
“You need to put down the bell,” the voice says. It takes no effort from his imagination to hear the voice saying in the same tone, “you need to go to bed,” or “you need to eat your dinner before you can get your grubby hands on a cookie,” though he has no idea why.
He grits his teeth. “No.” He doesn’t want to let go of his only means of defense, nor does he want to listen to weirdos in his mind. After all, that’s the only answer. There isn’t anyone else in the room, but him, Merle, and that freaky mannequin pretending it’s Magnus.
“I know you’re angry,” the voice continues. “I’m angry too. But you can’t let these fucking relics win. The fight’s been fought, Koko.”
The flood thins, the rush of water calming enough for him to see what’s in front of him. A blurry figure approaches, striding with confidence. Taako doesn’t recognize the look of his outline.
“Shh.” The voice is so soft, bringing forth images of late-night conversations, secrets shared under pillow forts, and promises made at midnight. “You don’t have to be tough stuff anymore. It’s okay. They’re okay.”
There’s a mannequin standing in front of him, one hand held out in Taako’s direction. Doesn’t he know Taako could obliterate him with just a ring of the bell?
“Give Magnus the bell.”
Maggie? But that’s… It’s not…
Taako’s eyes move to the mysterious third pile of ash, and his stomach drops. He didn’t do that, did he? He didn’t mean to…
“I…”
“Taako.” It’s a different voice this time. Soft, deep. Maggie. Coming from the mannequin. “The bell can’t hurt me. It’s okay.”
“But…” The liches are gone, aren’t they? Why does he still want to fight? There have to be more bad guys to chase, especially when he has all this power. Wouldn’t it be a waste to give it away?
“It’s over, hotshot.”
He’s heard that phrase somewhere—a million different somewheres. Running from naptime, trying to steal someone else’s clothes. Every time he got caught. Who was he running from? The static roars, sweeping him up into a brand new tidal wave he can’t fight. He lurches, the bell tipping from his hands and into Magnus’s.
Almost immediately, his vision goes dark.
The next time Taako wakes up, he’s supremely uncomfortable.
It feels like he fell asleep in the world’s most uncomfortable wicker chair—all wooden angles with no cushion against the grain. The gentle movement of whatever he’s on top of could almost put him back to sleep, if it weren’t for the persistent pains up his arms and the too-cold night breeze pushing softly at his face.
His vision comes back to him slowly, gradually opening up the world behind him, everything in blurry detail. His eyes focus on the closest object, which turns out to be Merle. He’s walking after Taako, meaning that something is carrying him.
“He’s awake.” Merle announces. His gaze is soft as he looks over Taako. “How ya holding up, little buddy?”
Taako scowls. “I’m not little.”
Merle doesn’t blink. “How ya holding up, Taako?”
Taako groans. “I feel like…like…” Whatever he’s trying to go for, it’s not coming. “I don’t know. Insert metaphor here. Shitty.”
“Well, technically, and I don’t mean to be ‘that guy,’ but it’d be a simile.”
Taako turns his head in the other direction to see the lich floating in front of him. “Ugh, it’s you. Listen, homie, you gave me a lot of trouble with those voguing bastards.”
The lich chuckles. “My apologies.”
Taako rolls his eyes and turns to the mannequin carrying him. “Maggie, you can put me down now, punkin.”
Magnus obliges, and Taako tries not to cringe when they come face-to-face. To see Magnus, happy, expressive Magnus, trapped in an expressionless mannequin is nothing short of heartbreaking.
“You okay?” Magnus asks.
“Fine.” Taako responds. He can’t even convince himself with his response, but it’s flippant enough that no one presses the issue. “Where are we going?”
“Wherever the lich is taking us.” Magnus answers. “We agreed to trust him without you because you were unconscious. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever. Lucretia was getting real shady anyway.” If he had his credit cards with him, he’d start shredding them, but he’s pretty sure he left them behind at the Bureau.
“Well, that was easy.” Merle tries a chuckle, just for a bit of levity, but it’s clear that he’s just as worried as Magnus.
“Look, I’ve had a fucking day, week, however long I was trapped with those fuckers. The sooner I can a. get out of this forest and b. sit down, preferably with a drink, is fine by me.” He opts out of option c. which would include crying for however long he needed. It’s a need he stamps down furiously. Even something as simple as being held was enough to scare the hell out of him.
Their walk continues in silence. Taako keeps waffling between headspaces—or at least he wants to. He barely gets past the initial feeling of smallness before his heart starts to race, his throat closing like the world is ending around him, until he gives up the ghost and stays big. He feels a prickle of anger, sharp and uncontrollable. He watched those liches die, and yet he’s still afraid they’ll be coming for him any second now.
“Who’s Sissy?” Magnus asks suddenly.
“Come again?”
“You were talking to someone…” Magnus trails off awkwardly. “…when you had the bell. When you gave it up, you said, ‘okay, Sissy.’ And I was just wondering…who that is.”
“I…I don’t know.” Taako fixes his gaze behind him, watching as the Felicity Wilds get smaller and smaller, until the details fade away. Until the bigger picture gets fuzzy, and all he’s left with is a vague semblance of the cities beneath him.
He pulls his cloak a little tighter around his shoulders as a sudden breeze rolls in. The cold that closes around him is quick and harsh, on every part of him except his forearms. He rolls up his sleeves to see pink burn marks, shaped vaguely like hands. Like someone had grabbed him.
Like someone had held him back.
“It’s not important, I guess.”