Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Angus knew there was something wrong with him. He had strange gaps in his memory, he didn’t remember his family other than the fact that he had a grandfather. He didn’t know how he ended up an orphanage and after talking to the workers no one else did either. According to everyone else he just appeared one day. But even stranger than that, was how Angus never felt comfortable. At first he thought it was just the memory gaps but after living with that for months he realized how he always felt like he was trapped in his own skin. And that feeling was vastly different than the frustration of not being able to remember anything. All in all nothing in Angus’  life made sense.

Which was why he ran away.

Angus needed to understand where he came from, and why he always felt so uncomfortable. He couldn’t do that stuck in an orphanage. If he was going to be the world's greatest detective he’d need to solve his own mystery first.  

It was harder than he thought it would be. He didn’t even get to start solving the mystery. No one would take him seriously, Angus had thought he could take up solving mysteries on the side to make some gold, but no one would trust a kid to handle things like that. The only people who were willing to hire him weren’t able to pay him enough to keep him afloat. No one was willing to help him solve his own mystery either, the only people who would possibly have information for him would report him to the militia who would undoubtedly send him back to the orphanage. Which was not a risk he was willing to take, so he’d have to solve it all on his own. 

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Angus had been traveling with the caravan for a few months since leaving the orphanage. He originally wanted to travel on his own but quickly figured staying with the caravan would be easier. The other travelers kept to themselves they didn’t ask intrusive questions and having a few other people assigned to the same job made people more likely to hire Angus for small chores like cleaning or delivering a letter. Unfortunately though, the small amount of work that Angus got was not enough for him to afford to eat a decent amount. So Angus took any opportunity for free food he could get. Which was why Angus was so excited when he got to Glamour Springs. 

Flyers for ‘Sizzle it up with Taako’ were everywhere in the small town advertising free food with attendance to the show, the only thing that would actually cost money would be backstage passes and ‘swag’ which Angus wasn’t really interested in anyway. 

Only a few other travelers from the caravan were going, Angus  knew he should try to get work like the others but the promise of meal was worth way more than a few copper. 

Angus showed up the show as soon as the doors to the theatre were open, he was able to snag a spot at the front by being so early. After more and more people entered the lights dimmed and the show began. 

Taako, the wizard and chef running the show created a sense of excitement in the crowd that Angus never remembered feeling before. Every trick was performed with grace and precision that put Angus on the edge of his seat. Every joke peppered into the act made him laugh, it was the first time in years that Angus actually felt like a kid. 

After the show Taako walked through the crowd handing out samples to everyone. Since Angus was in the first row he was able get a pretty large serving. 

Angus ate the whole thing as quickly as possible, it’s been a while since he’d had a good meal. It was the best thing he had ever eaten, the cooking tasted familiar, but he couldn’t remember eating anything like it. 

After a few moments Angus started feeling off. He thought at first it was just his usual discomfort but it quickly became much worse. His vision spun, his head felt like it was exploding. He desperately looked around for help and spotted Taako quickly packing things back into his cart. Angus must be getting food poisoning, a chef would know what to do! He ran towards the cart but as he approached it started to sped away. 

Despite the pain Angus chased the cart, he didn’t know who else would be able to help. He was surprised by his own speed, even though he felt worse than he ever had before he somehow managed to start gaining on the cart. 

When he got close enough Angus leaped, his body slammed against the cart’s floor, his glasses went flying off of his face. He reached out and tried to form the words to call for help as the world around him faded to black. 

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Taako had no idea how this went as badly as it did. All it took was one tiny misstep to kill a whole town. There were children in that crowd, families. And he just fucked up and ruined it all.  He never should have tried elderberries. He knew how risky it was,being so similar to nightshade but he thought he was good enough. He wasn’t good enough. 

“Will you shut up!” Sazed growled, “Stop fucking crying, I can’t drive the cart with all that noise.” 

Taako covered his mouth and nodded mutely. The tears continued to roll down his face, he tried to stop audibly sobbing. Sazed didn’t have to help a murderer, the least Taako could do was not bother him. 

They rode through the woods, taking a long abandoned path. Every bump and snap of a branch set him on edge. A loud crash coming from the back of the cart made Taako flinch. 

“Sazed, I heard-” 

“I told you, to stop distracting me.” Sazed through gritted teeth.

Taako frowned but didn’t respond, he didn’t want to push his luck. He was just anxious and over exaggerating. 

After what felt like years the cart finally came to a jolting stop. Sazed got up. 

“I think we’re far enough now. I’m gonna go keep watch.” Sazed said coolly, not even making eye contact.  

Taako sat in the same place, waiting for what was probably hours. It had been so long since he had cried like this, and since Sazed was gone he let himself fully sob. He had ruined his life and the lives of so many others in just one night.  

He got tired of waiting, Sazed was avoiding him, he wouldn’t be surprised if Sazed had actually just left. He wouldn’t want to be around himself either. 

He stumbled to the back of the cart,wiping the tears from his face. He had to wipe his eyes again upon seeing what was in the back. 

He nearly stepped on the pair of glasses on the floor of the cart. He picked them up, somehow they weren't broken. But the glasses were not as strange as what he found next. 

A dragon, passed out on the floor. He noticed that it was breathing pretty heavy as he got closer, but the most concerning was how small it was. A child, his mind traitorously offered. He scooped it up and was filled with fear by how cold it was. But he sighed in relief when he realized that it was a silver dragon, their whole thing was ice, it would be bad if it wasn’t cold. 

How did it end up here? Did it eat some of the food? No.Taako would’ve noticed if someone in the crowd had brought a dragon, even if it was pretty small. 

He held the dragon in his lap, there was nothing he could do but wonder until it woke up. 

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For a moment Angus had thought he was dead, his pain became unbearable but then it suddenly disappeared and the world around him became nothing but darkness. 

He blinked and suddenly there was light. He was being held, the person-no the woman above him was humming, he tried to focus on her face or the tune she was humming but instead he started to hear a faint static. 

He frowned, he tired again. The static became louder and started to fill up his vision. He stopped but the static continued to grow. 

It quickly became painful, he tried to close his eyes but nothing happened. The woman felt familiar, like he knew her, maybe he did and his brain refused to let him remember. 

As the static nearly filled up the entire scene the woman suddenly pulled him close, she was yelling but her words were quickly drowned out. 

Angus woke up with a start. 

He felt strange. He no longer felt the pain he had before he passed out. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep but he knew that he shouldn’t be this tired. But even stranger was that his usual discomfort was gone. He was tired but somehow he felt better than he had in ages. But there was one more thing, his vision was blurry… His glasses! He didn’t have them

The feeling of being lifted up pulled him right out of his thoughts. 

“Oh you’re awake,”The person noted, Angus recognized the voice. “How you feeling buddy? Oh wait can you even talk?” The person wondered. 

Why wouldn’t he be able to talk? “I feel fine sir, have you seen my glasses? And uh what happened?”

“You tell me. But uh here’s you’re glasses. I don’t know how you’ll wear them though.” That made Angus frown, why wouldn't he be able to wear his glasses?

The glasses were placed on his face. But they slid down making his vision blurry again.

Angus lifted his hand- 

“What the?”

“What’s wrong?” 

“What happened to me?” He lifted his ‘hand’ and inspected it closely.  

“What was in that food?” Was he hallucinating? 

---------------------

Taako frowned, “You ate my food?”

The dragon’s eyes widened, “You’re Taako.” he noted. “Yes.Yes I ate your food. “ 

“I didn’t see a dragon in the crowd.”Taako wondered “Did someo-”

“A what?”

Taako paused, “A dragon. Are you not that?” 

“No! I’m not. I’m human!” 

The dragon(?) sniffled “I-I’m Angus McDonald, I was in the first row.. I’m human. What- what  happened to me?” 

“How old are you Ango?” 

“I don’t-I don’t know…”  

Taako picked him up, he had know idea what was going on with this kid. But he knew that his food wasn't the thing that caused it, he could just leave him. It wouldn’t be his problem anymore. But for some reason he hesitated, leaving this kid would probably get him killed. Taako didn’t want to kill anyone else tonight. 

“Don’t cry, we’ll figure this shit out.” 

Chapter Text

Angus had thought that he had wanted to figure out his past but now he was having second thoughts. Was he never human? It would explain why he had always felt uncomfortable but now after transforming he felt fine, but it didn’t explain why he was just transforming now and not any time before that. He still fully didn’t understand what had happened at the show and how he ended up at the back of Taako’s cart. Speaking of Taako…

The elf was acting pretty different from the way he acted on stage. He was constantly looking around as if he was waiting for something to happen. He was muttering under his breath and it looked like he had been crying. Was it Angus that made him so stressed? Or did something else happen? 

“I don’t think he’s coming back” He heard Taako say under his breath

“Who?” 

“Oh right. My assistant Sazed left last night but I doubt he’s coming back.” 

Angus sat up, “Shouldn’t we go look for him?” 

Taako was rifling through a box, “You can’t really ‘look’ for anything until I find some tape to keep those glasses on” 

“Aren’t you worried?” 

“Nah he’s better off- oh found it!” 

“Here ya go bud,” Taako placed the glasses on his face, “That doesn’t hurt or anything right?” 

“No it’s fine sir, but did something happen?” 

“What’cha mean?” 

“Well did something happen at the show?” Angus tried

Taako froze “Why would you think that?” 

“The food, I know it didn’t cause this but I felt pretty sick after eating it and uh you were worried when I told you that I ate it.”

Taako frowned, he turned away from him. 

“Nightshade.” 

“What?” 

“It wasn’t intentional but,” He sighed, “Instead of transmogrifying elderberries I accidentally made nightshade.”  

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Taako had really thought he could be a good person for once, by helping out some kid. But now that kid would run away, if he didn’t get himself killed he’d tell the militia where Taako was and he’d be done for. 

“That doesn’t make any sense” Angus stated firmly

“What? I know what I did. All those people got sick. There’s nothing else that could-” 

“No. I’d be dead if it was nightshade.” Angus interrupted, Taako flinched. He couldn't understand why that idea scared him so much, he just met this kid.  

“Well what happened then?” 

Angus frowned, “I’m not sure, but I think someone else slipped something into the food.” 

Taako’s mind instantly jumped to Sazed, but he quickly dropped that thought. Sazed was pretty upset but he wouldn’t kill a whole town over something that small. 

“I don’t know kid.. As far as I know it was my fault,you can stay with me or not now that you know that, I don’t care.” 

“Sir, I'm going to be the world’s greatest detective. I can help solve this.”

“It doesn’t need solving ok? Spend your energy on trying to figure out what’s going on with yourself first.” 

Angus nodded at that, the small dragon’s tail started twitching nervously when Taako brought that up. He seemed to get lost in thought. This whole situation was fucking confusing and complicated, they’d have to ditch the cart soon. Taako estimated that they wouldn’t even have a day left before they were at risk of being found. A part of him still wanted to stick around and see if Sazed was coming back but then he remembered Angus’ theory, even if it wasn’t true he didn’t want to be around that guy again. But then there was the whole thing of finding somewhere else to stay, he really doubted he could just waltz into a town with a baby dragon with no problems. 

“Hey kid?” 

Angus turned towards him, “Yes?” 

“Can’t dragons do that thing where they look like humans? Polymorphing I think it’s called?” 

Angus froze, “I think so… But I don’t know how to do that..”

Taako hummed, “I mean that's what you were doing before right?” 

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Angus paused. Was he really just unconsciously polymorphing the whole time? He didn’t really like the idea of never being human but it was becoming more and more likely. He didn't understand why he would stop doing it now and not before. 

“Maybe..” He responded. “If I was accidentally doing it why would I stop now.” 

Taako shrugged, “You ate the food and you passed out cuz of it right?” Angus nodded. “Maybe that was it.”

“But, i’ve gone to sleep before, this never happened” 

“Yeah but that’s different. It’s sorta voluntary, not like getting sick and passing out.”  

Angus frowned, that made a lot of sense actually. But he still didn’t understand how even with the gaps in his memories he wouldn’t know something as big as his own species. 

“Don’t worry about it now. You can try to look in a library or something when we get to a town” 

“Can I even go into a town?” 

“It’ll be fine,” Taako waved it off, “Maybe try to work on that polymorphing thing though.” 

“And uh when are we leaving?”

Taako shoved a bunch of random objects in a bag, “Right now.” 

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They began to walk from the cart following the run down path. Taako had simply left the cart just telling him that destroying it would be a waste of time and that they wouldn’t be stopping at any of the nearby towns anyway. They’d set camp a couple times along the path until they were far enough from Glamour Springs to not get arrested. 

Taako had given him a bag to carry and they walked through the woods, Angus was having a hard time keeping up, he still was very tired. Taako had offered to carry him but Angus refused, he didn’t want to seem like dead weight.

Angus didn’t understand why Taako was helping him, or why he trusted him so much. Angus had learned to never become dependent on anyone during his time with the caravan but a part of him hoped Taako wouldn’t get rid of him. He really wanted to trust Taako but he thought he had poisoned a whole town, Angus didn’t think that was true but he really had no evidence besides still being alive. Nightshade would’ve killed him. Whether he’s a dragon or not, he wouldn’t have survived that. 

“Alright I think we should stop now,” Taako said, bringing Angus out of his thoughts, “I think the tent stuff is your bag”

Angus nodded and opened the bag, it just had a tarp and some blankets shoved in it. 

“Are you sure this is the right stuff sir?” Angus asked as Taako took the bag from him

“It’ll work for now.” Taako took the tarp and started to build a make-shift tent with branches in between two trees. 

“Can I help?”

Taako paused,”Umm, Take one of those blankets and spread it on the ground under the tarp, we don’t wanna be sleeping on the dirt.” He suggested. 

Angus frowned but did it anyway, the task was very easy even without thumbs. Taako probably didn’t want him messing up anything important, Angus didn’t blame him, he wasn't exactly useful right now. 

“Hey Ango, you hungry?” Taako asked as he finished setting up the ‘tent’ 

“No, I’m not thank you sir.” Angus lied, 

Taako looked relieved, “Me neither.” He sat down on the blanket. 

“Can I sit outside for a few minutes? I’m not really tired yet.” 

Taako laid down, “Yeah, do whatever you want.” 

Angus walked a few feet away from the tent. He looked at the setting sun, he closed his eyes and tried to focus. He needed to figure out how to do this polymorphing thing, Taako said they’d walk for about three days then they’d be at Neverwinter. Taako hadn’t been nervous but Angus knew it wouldn’t end well if he couldn’t figure it out. No, stop overthinking. He just needed to focus. 

Focus…..

This was too hard! 

He couldn’t do it, no he’d have to. If he couldn’t do this, Taako would realize how useless he was and Angus would be all on his own again. 

Angus took a deep breath. He had been on his own for nearly a year now, if he ended alone again it wouldn’t be any different. He sighed, and looked to the now dark night sky. He’ll figure it out, it’ll be fine. 

He blinked and the discomfort he had felt for years was suddenly back. He opened his eyes and almost tripped over his own feet. 

He did it!

Angus ran into the tent, “Sir! Sir, look I did it!” 

Taako laughed, “Yeah, ya sure did bud.” He patted him on the head, 

"Good job, kid."

Chapter Text

It had been a few days since they had left the cart, the kid had learned to do the polymorphing thing, but could only do it for a few hours at a time. Taako had to catch him after he nearly passed out the first time. It couldn’t be healthy but Angus said he was fine. Taako finally put his foot down after the third time Angus fell over from exhaustion, telling him to save his energy for when they got to town. The kid had been frustrated he couldn’t do it but stopped once Taako told him to.

Taako was nervous about going to Neverwinter especially since they were only a few hours away from the main path. He knew they were days away from Glamour Springs and if they played right and didn’t stay too long they wouldn’t get caught, but the worry stayed and now he had someone else depending on him. 

He was glad to have someone else, the idea of being alone was soul crushing. He couldn’t remember a time where he had no one by his side,  he always had Sazed or someone else. Even though he was a kid, Angus was pretty smart, Taako was happy to have him around. 

They finally arrived at the end of the rundown, twisting path, to the straight path to Neverwinter.

“Should I polymorph sir?”Angus piped up

“Nah, wait for when we get close.”

Angus frowned but nodded. 

“It’ll be fine bud, I don’t think we’ll run into anyone” Taako assured. 

Taako was glad to be out of the woods, the wide open path was a nice change of pace. He could tell Angus was happy to be out of the cramped forest path as well. 

Luckily they had the path to themselves for the first couple of hours. Angus had relaxed a little after they walked for a while and not running into anyone. Taako could see the gates to Neverwinter far in the distance, they were probably less than an hour away. He looked to Angus, the kid would have to shift soon but they still had a little time. 

“Sir.” Angus’ voice cut him out of his thoughts, “Look.” he tilted his head in the direction of the city. 

Taako looked and saw four figures walking in their direction. 

“Should I…?” 

“Wait till they pass, we don’t want them seeing.” 

Angus nodded, as the people got closer Taako picked him up and tried his best to conceal him behind his robe. 

The group slowly passed by, all of them narrowing their eyes at Taako as he awkwardly smiled back. Taako sighed in relief when they were finally past.

“Hey.” one of the people grabbed him by the shoulder. 

Taako flinched as all four of them laughed, “Hey there fellas, what can I do for you?”

“Cut the shit.” A tall human man said “You got something there man?” he pointed to where Taako was hiding Angus. 

“Nope!” He laughed, “Nothing to see here” 

The man frowned, “We all saw, stop pretending. Just show us what ya got and we’ll be on our way”

Taako paused, he knew there was no way to get out of this without a scene. He took a step back, he pulled his robe slightly away to look at Angus who nodded at him. He frowned but lifted Angus up for the group to see. 

The man smiled with a strange look in his eyes, the other three had similar expressions. 

Taako took another step back and the group took a step forward. 

“Listen, you said if I showed you what I got you’d leave. Well here he is! You saw him, you can go now.” 

They all laughed again and the man stepped closer, “I’ve got an offer for you ok? We’ll pay a large sum for that..” 

“He’s not-”

“Not done yet.”The man cut in, and then continued “We’ll pay a good amount for something like that or, if you don’t want the money we can just... Take it.”  The man gestured to the rest of his group who all had their weapons drawn.

Taako sighed, he put Angus down behind him and pulled out his wand. 

“I’m offering a pretty good deal here man, we don’t need to fight” The man smiled and walked backwards as the rest of his group got closer. 

The three men all had swords and clubs drawn; they looked to their leader who nodded. 

They took another step towards him, a spray of poison came shooting out his wand and straight at their legs. 

All three of them grimaced and raised their weapons, Taako saw their leader standing a few feet behind them. Taako frowned, he’d have to fight him next. 

He had dodge multiple swipes from their swords and clubs, nearly getting hit as he raised his wand and cast magic missile. Two of the darts hit their targets straight in the chest, the last man jumped out of the way, only getting hit in the side. 

He took a step back from them to make sure Angus was still behind him as the men struggled to their feet. He looked up and saw their leader smiling at him, he frowned, this guy was gonna be a real jackass wasn’t he?

He ducked to dodge  a sword coming towards his head, as he did a club slammed him in the stomach. He aimed a firebolt to the club-wielding man, who stumbled and dropped his club but still got up. 

He noticed out of the corner of his eye the leader was gone. 

Fuck.

Taako tried to turn around but was grabbed on both his arms by one of the men. He heard shriek from behind him, he could have done more. A sword was held to his throat, he tried to reach for his wand but the grip on his arm was too secure. Angus was gonna get kidnapped by some creeps, he’s gonna die in the middle of the street, and he couldn’t do anything. He braced himself for strike. 

But it never came. 

He felt a chill in the air. 

Taako was able to easily push himself out of the man’s grip and looked at the scene in front of him. The entire group was frozen up to their torsos in a thick sheet of ice. Except for him, a few ice crystals had formed on his boots that easily broke off as he walked. 

He saw Angus, who was hunched over with exhaustion, a faint fog coming out his mouth and nose as he breathed. He reached out but suddenly stopped when he heard the sound of people running towards them. 

A large group led by a half-elf woman, all of them wearing a familiar uniform. 

The militia.

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Angus didn’t know how he did it, one moment he was being grabbed and Taako was being attacked, the next all of the attackers were covered in ice and Angus felt like he was dying. 

He could hear the muffled sound of footsteps behind him, he heard Taako who was crouching in front of him whispering something about the militia. 

Angus didn’t know if he could run from the militia now, even if Taako carried him, if they were attacked right now.. And by the look on his face he could tell Taako was thinking the same thing as him. 

He could see Taako looking back and forth between him and the woods. Angus wouldn’t blame him if Taako left him behind, he wouldn’t be able to get away if he kept him around. 

But it seemed like Taako already made his choice. 

Angus was lifted up in one arm and Taako pointed his wand with the other. 

“Hey, hey” The sheriff put her hands up, “We’re not here to fight.” 

“Then why are you here?”Taako growled

“You’re the first person-”

“People”

“Right, people. The first people to encounter the Everhoard and live.” The sheriff finished

“Okay? And what does that mean?” 

“I can explain, just come with me to the station and we can talk.” She offered

Angus felt Taako pull him closer, “If we don’t” 

The sheriff paused, “Well, I wouldn’t punish you for that. However you and your little friend will be a lot safer if you come with me.” 

“Is that a threat?”

“No! No of course not. Listen, those folks” She gestured to the four attackers who were being further restrained and taken away by the militia officers, “Are a part of a big problem happening in Neverwinter recently and they have it out for creatures like your buddy there. They’ll be a whole lot safer if you both come with me.” 

Taako sighed, “Fine.” 

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Angus had fallen asleep a few minutes after they started walking towards the station. The sheriff and the rest of her officers didn’t seem distrustful of him at all, they didn’t hear about what happened then. He still kept his wand in his hand, just in case. 

The walk to the city was nearly half an hour, then another a few minutes for them to get the station. The sheriff led him to her office once they were inside the building. 

She sat at the desk and gestured for him to sit across from her, “I have a lot of explaining to do, take a seat.”

Taako sat, “I think we should wait for the kid to wake up for that.” 

He could tell she was confused but she smiled anyway, “Oh alright, do ya need anything to eat?” She offered

Taako accepted immediately, neither he nor Angus had eaten anything besides bland shit like granola and dried fruit for the past few days. He knew that both could use a good meal. 

“Great, I’ll have someone grab something for.. Both of you?” 

“Yeah, both of us.” 

“Right…” 

The sheriff called out to someone outside of the office to grab some food, a few minutes later two meals were placed on the desk in front of him. 

“Uh how about you wake your bud? So they can eat the food while it’s hot and we can talk.”

Taako sighed, Angus needed rest but he also didn’t want to push his luck with the sheriff. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll wake him”, He nudged the dragon lightly, “Ango? Wake up bud.” 

Angus opened his eyes with a yawn, “Wha-What happened? Who were those guys?” 

“She’s about to tell us,” He gestured to the sheriff

“Yes, I’m Leslie Luxir, the sheriff of this lovely town. Those men who attacked you were members of the Everhoard.” 

“Still don’t know what that means.” 

Leslie rolled her eyes, “The Everhoard is a group, which ‘collects’ creatures like um, well you” She pointed to Angus, “They either buy them for way less than they’re worth or they kill folks who have what they want.”

“What happens to them” Angus frowned

“We, we don’t know. But we might be able to figure out now, thanks to y’all we finally captured some of them alive. Who are you anyway?” 

“I don’t see why that matters.” Taako narrowed his eyes

“Well, I just wanted to hire you both to help me solve this.” She explained, “I need a little more information about you  to do that.” 

Taako looked at Angus, the kid, despite being tired, still looked excited. He knew how Angus wanted to be a detective,  this would be right up his alley.

“If we accept.  what would be in it for us?” 

“The militia would pay for your inn room for as long you’re working for us, you’d also be paid of course. And if all goes well, we could always use some help on a few cases.” 

He could see Angus beam at that, Taako could’ve told her to fuck off and they could go on their way, but he hesitated. The kid really wanted this and it would if they stopped this gang Neverwinter would be safer for him..   

“Okay,” Taako shrugged, “We’ll help you,” Angus smiled at him. “I’m Taako and the kid’s Angus, we’re not doing this if we can get murdered or anything though”

Leslie laughed, “Oh don’t worry I won’t let anything like that happen”

They were given a key to an inn room and told to come back to the station the next day. Taako closed the door to the room. 

He threw his things on his bed, Angus hopped onto the other bed next to him. 

“Sir?”

“Yeah kid?”

“Thank you, for helping me.” 

Taako smiled, “Yeah, don’t sweat it. You helped me out today too. We’re even.” 

“I meant, in general. You didn’t have to keep me around, thank you” 

Taako faltered, did he think Taako didn’t want him around? “I’m not gonna get rid of you, you don’t need to thank me for that.” 

He smiled and continued, “I like having you around kid” 

“Thank you sir.” 

Taako laughed, “You don’t have to keep thanking me!” 

Taako wasn’t getting attached.Nope and he wasn’t worried either.He was never good with kids, he was pretty surprised when Angus still found him tolerable after their first day traveling together.

The whole Everhoard thing was pretty concerning though, how they wanted to kidnap dragons and the militia didn’t know what happened to them. Angus was a pretty smart kid though, he learned how to do ice breath only a few days after getting the polymorphing thing down. Taako trusted him and he would be there to help him anyway. He messed up last time the kid was in danger, he wouldn’t let something like that happen again. He wasn’t getting attached, he just hated being alone. At least, that’s what he told himself.   

Chapter Text

Angus woke up early, Taako was up only a few minutes later. Angus polymorphed and they went and grabbed some breakfast from a nearby tavern. Angus was not as tired as he was the day before, but he knew he wouldn’t be trying to use his frost breath anytime soon no matter how curious he was about it. 

He and Taako walked by many buildings on their way to the station, but only one caught his eye. The library, through the window Angus could clearly see the newest Caleb Cleavend novel, sitting on one of the shelves. 

He must have been getting distracted because he felt Taako nudge his arm, “You wanna go in there Anges?”

Angus shook his head, “No, we’re gonna be late.” 

Taako shrugged, “Well, that’s too bad. I wanted to get a book. But you-”

“We can go in if you want to!” Angus panicked and grabbed Taako by the arm, pulling him into the library. 

Angus grabbed the book of the shelf, Caleb Clevand had always been his favorite book series. He loved to solve mysteries and wanted to be a detective when he was older, those novels showed him that he didn’t have to wait. He could be the world’s greatest detective when he was still a kid. He had gathered a collection of the books when he was in the orphanage but had to leave them behind when he ran away, he got around to reading the newest one either. 

He walked up the front desk where Taako was waiting for him. “Did you get what you wanted bud?”

Angus nodded, “Yes, thank you sir.” 

“Great, and see we’re still right on time” Taako pointed to the clock on the wall

“Wait. Sir,I thought you wanted to get something.” 

“I looked around, nothing looked good.” Angus frowned, Taako had been standing in the same place the whole time. 

They walked into the station, Angus recognized many of the officers from last night, he got some strange looks since they no longer recognized him. 

He walked into the sheriff’s office, Leslie sat at her desk standing next to her was a human man. Angus couldn’t see his face but Leslie looked nervous talking to him. 

She and the man turned to face them as they walked in, Angus froze when he recognized the man as Lord Artemis Sterling. 

Artemis frowned, “Where’s the dragon?” 

Angus hesitantly raised his hand, “That’s me sir, I can-”

“Right the transforming thing” Artemis interrupted. “Well, let’s get started then, I don’t have all day.” 

“And who are you?” Taako asked, everyone else in the room stared. “We’re not being bossed around by some random dude.” 

Artemis scoffed and Angus wanted to disappear. “I”m not some ‘random dude’, I’m Lord Artemis Sterling, the most powerful man in the world” He said smugly

“Right…” 

Leslie loudly tapped a stack of papers on her desk, “I’ve already told him about you two, so why don’t we get to work?” 

Leslie gave them papers detailing the first sightings and actions of the Everhoard in Neverwinter. At first they seemed like a normal crime group, they showed up about a year ago and started robbing and killing people. But it quickly became obvious what their actual targets were, it all started with the Everhoard taking some pegasuses. There was a small group of them that lived a few miles outside of Everwinter for a few months every year. The creatures were protected by the city’s government and people were not allowed to be near them. But the Everhoard burst in and took them. A few of their members were killed but no one had seen anyone of the pegasuses since. 

At a glance one would think that the crime group was trying to get transportation to get an upper hand over the militia. But Angus took a quick look at their other crimes and it was clear what they were doing. 

“It’s a trafficking ring” 

All eyes were on him,”How do you know that? Artemis rolled his eyes. “We only just got the records, we still have an investigation to do.” 

“It’s obvious” Angus stated, he could see Taako smile. “After kidnapping and selling the pegasuses, they made a very large profit. They realized this and continued kidnapping creatures and earned much more money than what they got from their ‘normal’ crimes. Especially since they are the only organized group doing this in Neverwinter.” 

Leslie hummed, “That idea was one we didn’t think we had the evidence for before. But now that you’ve laid it all out I think we need to look into that further, it has a lot of merit.”

Artemis slammed the papers on the desk and got up, “I don’t have time for this,” He looked at Lesie. “I expect the Everhoard to shut down in the next week.”

“What the fuck?” Taako turned to him, “They’re a huge trafficking ring that you failed to catch in a year, how do you expect us-”

“Well, you have such a competent detective here” He gestured to Angus who shrunk in his seat. “I'm sure it’ll be easy.” 

“I’m gonna lose my job” Leslie whispered after he left the room,

“I’m sorry miss Leslie, I shouldn’t of-” 

“Kid, you were just helping. That guy was being a douchebag,” Taako interrupted, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Why was he here anyway?” He asked Leslie

“He’s my boss, I had to tell him I was bringing more people on the investigation. I didn’t think he would show up.” 

“We only have a week, but we can still try right?” Angus asked. 

Leslie nodded, “Nothing will happen to either of you if we fail, I’ll make sure you get paid for your time regardless even if it’s not much.: 

Taako frowned “Hey Anges? Can I talk to you real quick?” 

Angus nodded and Taako pulled him to the side, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” 

“What? But miss Leslie just said-” 

“ She won’t do anything to us, but that smug asshole kinda hates us now, and I don’t know what’ll happen if we fail.” 

Angus paused, “Can we try? We can leave a couple days early if it’s obvious that we can’t do it. I just want to help somehow.” 

Taako sighed, “Okay fine, we’ll stay unless we’re not making any progress after a few days. But if I say we gotta bail you need to listen okay?” 

Angus nodded,”I will” 

---------------------------------

It had been a few days since starting the case and so far they weren’t making enough progress. They all had agreed to ‘shut down’ the Everhoard; they'd need to find their main base and capture as many members as possible. Easier said than done. They were able to track down some of the buyers and interrogate them, but all of them said they met to make the deal at a second location. The Everhoard members that they captured refused to talk. So it wasn’t going great. 

But Angus had a plan. 

They were at their daily meeting with Leslie when Angus decided to bring it up, “I have an idea, we know they have some sort of ‘main base’ where they keep all the people they kidnap and where all their members stay. They’re adamant about keeping it a secret, so the only people who know about it are either members or are the one’s getting captured.” 

“And what are you suggesting?” Leslie asked

“Well, we all know that they want to kidnap me and-” 

“Yeah no, you’re not gonna be bait for a fucking crime group. “ Taako interrupted 

“Hold on just a minute” Leslie held up a hand and Taako glared daggers at her, She pulled open a drawer on her desk and took out an amulet. 

“This is a tracking amulet, we use them for undercover operations. If he holds on to this, we won’t lose track of him”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, he still could get hurt or fucking murdered even if we know where he is.” 

“We know that the Everhoard doesn’t kill the people they take” Angus argued, “and I can handle myself sir” 

“I know you can." He sighed, “We’ll find another way, this plan isn’t happening. So let’s stop talking about it” 

The meeting continued awkwardly. Angus made eye contact with Leslie, they both knew that there was no other option, he just hoped Taako would forgive him. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taako hated to see the disappointment on Angus’ face for the rest of the meeting but he knew that he was doing the right thing, Angus would thank him later. They’d come up with a different plan, one that didn’t involve using a kid as bait for a bunch of dangerous criminals. How Angus thought it was a good idea evaded him. 

After grabbing some food and settled down in the inn, Taako opted to go right to sleep, Angus sat on his bed and started reading the book he got. He slowly fell asleep, they’d have to come up with another plan tomorrow or they’d have to bail. 

------------------

Taako woke up in the middle of the night, he didn’t need that much sleep as an elf. He lit a dim lamp, he needed to plan their next move, unless they came up with some other plan, they’d be leaving the next night. Taako turned his head to check on Angus-

The bed was empty. 

Taako shot up and began looking around. He spotted a note on the nightstand.

‘ Mr. Taako, I’m sorry for going against what you told me, but this plan is the only option. I’ll give you my half of the gold for solving the case, even if you don’t want to see me again. I hope you can forgive me, 

-Angus Mcdonald. ’

Fuck! He that kid would pull something like this. He shouldn’t have trusted that sheriff, she was willing to send a kid on a death mission,  she had be allowing this. Grabbing his wand, Taako sprinted to the station, he couldn’t be too late. 

He saw her, standing outside of the station, holding a map in her hands. She folded the map up as he walked up. 

“Oh Taako! How are  you-” 

“Shut the fuck up and tell me where he is”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to..” She took a step back.

He grabbed her by the collar, “Stop playing dumb, you sent my kid to die and now you’re gonna tell me where I can find him. Capiche?” he said through gritted teeth

She nodded quickly, putting her hands up. “Okay, okay. He’s got the tracker, alright. So I can see where he is on one map.” She lifted the map up and Taako snatched it away. 

“Give that to me” He unfolded the map, Leslie leaned over his shoulder, “You can see where he is, on the dot. Right here” She pointed a red dot, moving on the map. And then she turned around. 

“We can go get him, but you can’t go rushing in there by yourself. You’ll be putting him in even more danger-” 

Taako clenched his fists and turned to her, “ You’re the one who put him in danger in first place!” 

He turned his attention back to the map, ignoring the things Leslie was saying behind him.

No, no this couldn’t be right. The dot was just there a second ago. 

“Hey? Where is it?” 

“What?” She took the map from him, “Oh no, oh shit.”

“What? What is it?”, Leslie put a hand to her forehead, “Oh fuck…. They must have already got him. They-they had to have broken it. Shit. we need to get there now.” 

Taako took one last glance at the map, remembering where the dot was last. Leslie called out to him, telling him to wait for her to gather her officers. 

But Taako was already running, he couldn’t mess up again.

Chapter Text

Angus may have made a mistake. He sat in the middle of the city, waiting for something to happen, he knew the only way to find their base would to be captured but deep down a part of him hoped that nothing would happen. But a larger part of him knew how angry Taako would be, he’d be even more angry if the plan ended up failing. 

He heard footsteps approaching and stiffened. He was grabbed by the back of the neck and lifted up, he struggled weakly to go along with the ruse. He saw a small group of people, one them being the one holding him, and only two others behind them. 

“Think this one's worth anything?” One of them asked

The one holding him shrugged, “Even if it’s not we could always trick some fool to give us more” 

The other two nodded, and Angus was shoved into a bag. 

The trip to the base felt agonizingly long. Angus squirmed trying to get into some sort of comfortable position, as he started to feel just slightly more comfortable the bag was tipped over and Angus was dropped unceremoniously onto the ground. 

The base was obviously some sort of cave, the ceiling stretched so high that even with the many candles lighting up the room Angus couldn’t see the top. Half of the room had these candles lighting it up, this half was occupied by weapons leaning against the wall, tables with various types of traps being built on them and finally several cots lining the walls for all of their members. Angus looked to the side and immediately regretted it, barely any candles were there, but Angus could still make out the hundreds of cages filling up the rest of the room. 

Angus was lifted up again and he saw an elven woman approaching. She looked at him with a thoughtful frown before smacking the man holding him across the face. 

The man flinched and nearly dropped him, the woman snatched him out of the man’s grasp and put a hand around his jaw.

“Are you fucking stupid?” She growled

“Kind of.. “ The man rubbed his face,”What’d I do this time” 

“Dragons have breath weapons, if this wasn’t a baby it would’ve frozen your ass off” She sighed, “I’ll get a muzzle, don’t scare it unless you wanna be a popsicle cause I’m not thawing you out.” 

She handed him to a different one of the members before walking away. 

The person holding him, adjusted their grip and Angus felt the tracking amulet move. He froze but it was too late. The Everhoard member grabbed the amulet and inspected it closely but frowned with a confused look on their face. 

The woman came back with a small metal muzzle in her hands and the person held out the amulet, 

“I found something, it might be worth a couple gold.” 

“Give me that” She took the amulet and gave it a quick glance before throwing it on the ground and crushing it under her boot. 

The other members gasped and she crossed her arms. “It was a tracker, the dragon was probably some rich guy’s pet, they have them all the time.” 

Angus flinched as the metal clamped around his snout, he was so screwed.

“Do you think we’ll be found?” One of the members asked

The woman shrugged, “Nah, and if anyone comes here looking it won’t be too hard to kill em” She picked him back up, and walked over to a nearby cage. “We can find a buyer for this one tomorrow, wyrmlings are in high demand, I bet we’ll find someone who’ll pay a high sum in no time.” She threw him inside and locked the door. 

Angus watched as all of the Everhoard walked away, he’d have to find a way to escape before the morning. But now that the tracker was destroyed and he couldn’t use his frost breath, that was becoming less and less likely. Were they watching the map when the tracker was broken? Would they even be able to find him? The base had way too many people inside for him to escape on his own. 

Angus looked around at all over the cages, nearly every single one had someone trapped inside. He wasn’t on his own. 

He needed a lot of luck for his plan to work, he thought to himself as he watched making sure no one was walking by. He took one last look around before shifting. 

He overestimated the size of the cage, his head hit the top with a loud bang. He froze, the people trapped near him all turned to him and stared but none of them made a sound. 

He pried the muzzle off his face, and shifted back into his dragon form, he wasn’t sure if he could use his ice breath in his human form but decided it wasn’t the right time to try something that might not work. 

He took a deep breath, he breathed on the lock causing it to freeze. He pressed his entire body against the cage door, he sighed in relief as the door came open without much noise. 

He walked by each cage, freezing each of the locks on the rows that he could reach. As he walked he noticed others following behind him after a few minutes, he realistically knew that he couldn’t free everyone, he’d just have to free enough that they’d distract the Everhoard as he got the militia. 

“What the-? Hey! We gotta problem over here.”A man stood at the end of the hallway, Angus looked behind him, only five others were free, not nearly enough to fight. 

He was so screwed, no one could find him without the tracker. And by freeing all of them, he actually just put all of them in more danger. How could he have fucked up so badly? 

Looking behind him, they were surrounded in all directions. He was lifted up, he breathed out freezing his captor’s hands and dropped to the ground. 

He sprinted away, maybe he could still get the militia in time. He could hear footsteps rapidly approaching, he wouldn’t be fast enough, he lifted his wings. He never tried it, he wasn’t sure if he even knew how. He flapped his wings, and again. He felt himself getting faster, he flapped one more time and-

He was suddenly slammed to the ground with a crushing weight. All the air left his lungs on impact. 

“Don’t try that again” A voice above him growled, he recognized it as the woman from earlier. Her boot pressing against his back, she looked around and smiled. 

“You didn’t accomplish anything, they’re all locked back up now. All you did was help me make a decision.” She alleviated the pressure and he could finally breathe again, 

“Silver pelts aren’t worth a ton but I don’t think anyone will want a pest like you alive.” She lifted him up, putting a hand around his snout. 

He struggled futilely, he was so tired. He could barely breathe, let alone use his frost breath. Was this really the end? He was too reckless, he put people in danger and now he was getting himself killed. He knew that this plan would be dangerous, but how did it end so badly? 

She walked a few steps forward, Angus could see a large table with various instruments spread out across it. His stomach dropped,the reality of his situation fully hitting him.  He was going to die here, and no one would find him, the Everhoard would continue doing horrible things, Taako would forget about him, he would die without solving a single case. 

“You’ve caused so many problems in such little time. I’m glad I get to be the one to put your ass down.” 

Angus thrashed with all force he had left, knowing that it wouldn’t do anything. 

“Yeah that’s not happening” He heard a familiar voice from behind them.

Angus only had a split second to react, he jumped out of the woman’s grip as the ground underneath her feet caved in on itself. 

Taako ran up to him, both them ignoring that cussing, trapped woman only a few feet away. 

Taako pulled him into a tight hug, “You’re so fucking stupid. Anges,don’t ever pull this shit again” 

Angus sobbed “I’m sorry, I didn’t listen and everything went so wrong, I put everyone in danger and-”

Taako pulled away, Angus could see tears in his eyes, “Fuck. I don’t care that you didn’t listen, Ango I’m not your boss. You knew how dangerous this was and threw yourself into it anyway, that’s what’s fucked up about this.You deserve to be safe too pumpkin” 

“So you’re not mad?” 

Taako laughed, “Of course I’m mad, You could’ve died, you were going to die!” He exhaled and pulled him in closer. 

Angus leaned in “Thank you for coming for me.” 

Taako held him tighter, “I’ve got your back kid, you got mine?”

Angus responded without hesitation, “Of course” 

They didn’t move when the militia burst in and started arresting all of the Everhoard members. Or when all of the cages were opened and the previously trapped trapped creatures ran in all directions. To them it didn’t matter, in that moment nothing else did.

Chapter Text

Taako knew that his life would change forever the second he saw the first person get sick at Glamour Springs. This was not the change he expected. 

After Angus almost died catching a gang, the Neverwinter militia seemed to have some sort of respect for them, even though it was Angus who did most of the work. The militia offered them more cases, Taako was directly opposed to it at first. But gave in, he let Angus go on most cases alone, but went along whenever it was something dangerous. The kid could go find lost cats or whatever but no way in hell Taako would let him run after some crazy shit like a serial killer by himself. 

And speaking of being by himself, he almost never was. A year ago Taako would’ve laughed in your face if you’d told him that he’d been sharing an inn room with a kid for months, buying that kid books and having that kid tag along on ‘adventuring’ gigs with him whenever he wasn’t working on a case

The adventuring gigs weren’t really interesting or dangerous or really much of anything at all, which was why he was fine bringing Angus along, and besides even if it ever turned out to be unsafe he knew the kid wasn’t defenceless either. But he couldn’t see it coming to that, all the gigs were just ‘guard this rich dude.’ or ‘deliver this stuff’, so yeah pretty boring shit. Having Angus around made those jobs just a little more tolerable.

Taako was glad the kid wasn’t busy for the one they were on their way to now, it was just delivering some stuff for a dude named Gundren,pretty standard shit but the thing that he really hated was how two other assholes would be coming too. Taako usually liked to go on gigs where it was just him and Angus if he brought him along, but neither of them had gotten any work in the past week, so when he saw the job on Craig’s list he took it without thinking, plus the offer had said they’d get a better gig if they did this. He just hoped the people they were stuck with weren’t annoying or anything. 

“So uh- fu-frick, we're all gonna go uh around the table and say something about ourselves.” The human fighter, Magnus started. 

He and Angus showed up fashionably late, they could see the two dipshits goofing off in the corner of the tavern, Taako thought this could be okay for a moment, but of course their demeanors completely changed when he showed up with the kid. So yeah, they were already pretty annoying. 

“He’s not two, you don’t have act all weird and you say fuck around him” 

Angus nodded “Yes, Taako does it all the time, you don’t have to worry sir.” 

Mangus looked relieved but the dwarf, Merle frowned. “Do you have to bring your kid? I don’t really give a shit or anything but isn’t that a little unsafe?” 

Magnus nodded in agreement, “Yeah, we don’t know how safe this will be, we’ll wait if you need to drop him off at an inn or something.” 

Merle looked at him with confusion, “No we won’t” 

Magnus side eyed him,”Yeah, but you don’t have to tell him that.” He said through gritted teeth. 

Taako rolled his eyes “He’ll be fine, this shit’s easy.” 

“And, I’m not exactly a normal little boy, sirs” Angus piped in 

Merle frowned “That doesn’t sound weird at all...” 

“Plus, he has a crossbow,” Taako added, the kid had started using it a few months ago. 

Angus nodded enthusiastically, pulling out the hand crossbow that Taako was ninety percent sure that he didn’t buy for him. 

He could still see some concern on Magnus’ face but it quickly was replaced with a smile, “Well I guess that’s settled, let’s go.” 

Taako almost said ‘finally’ aloud but Merle did that for him. They made their way out to the cart and started their trip to Phandalin. It was a rough start but for some reason Taako thought these guys weren’t that bad. 

-----------------------------------------------  

Angus didn’t enjoy the jobs that involved other people, it always made things more complicated. He’d have to keep his true species a secret, that was the biggest thing, but other people also would get in the way. Luckily this was an easy job, not a case or anything important like that, but it wouldn’t stop him from being bothered . 

And Magnus and Merle well, he wasn’t sure whether or not they were bothering him yet. They acted weird around him at first because of his age but Taako quickly shut that down. Now they were goofing off in the cart with Taako, not really paying him any mind. 

At least Taako seemed to like them, it made Angus feel just a little better about working with them, Taako didn’t like a lot of people. 

The cart suddenly came to stop. Taako sat up with a groan, “We there already? I wanted to nap.” 

Magnus from the front of the cart shook his head, “I think you guys should come look at this.” 

Taako and Merle grumbled getting to their feet, Angus hopped out of the cart to look at Magnus was staring at. 

Dead horses, laying in the middle of the street, taking a few steps forward Angus could spot arrows sticking out of them. He began to take another step to walk towards the horses but was yanked back by being grabbed by his collar. 

Just where he was about to step an arrow shot through the air. 

Out of the corner of his eye he could see a group of gerblins running out of the forest.  

Magnus, who had pulled him back let go and pulled out his axe. The group of gerblins readied themselves for the fight to come. 

But it was useless. 

Angus only got a few shots in with his crossbow, he could have been more useful if he could polymorph to his other form, but that wasn’t necessary. The fight was short and easy, Angus didn’t like the gerblins being killed, but Taako told him that they attacked first so it was their fault, it didn’t make him feel much better. 

“We should look at the horses,” Angus suggested, bringing attention to himself while the rest of them were looting the gerblins “We might find a clue to what happened” 

They all gave nods of agreement and Angus took the lead. 

He recognized the horses as he got closer to them, he had only seen Gundren and his bodyguard Barry for a few minutes before the two of them left to go ahead. But even from short time Angus could still recognize these horses as the ones he saw them riding that morning. 

“Sirs! The gerblins attacked Mr. Gundren and Barry.” 

Taako ruffled his hair, “Nice work kiddo, know where they are now?” 

Angus paused, looking around and noticed some blood staining the brush. “There!” He pointed

Magnus parted the brush to reveal blood and dragging marks in the dirt, it led in a single direction.

Merle sighed “Well, guess this won’t be ‘easy shit’ after all.” 

Taako rolled his eyes,”Shove it old man.”

Taako took his hand and they followed the trail, he knew that this wouldn't be easy. But Angus looked forward to solving the mystery and the possible adventure to come. 

Chapter Text

They hid the cart in the brush, and Taako had to stop Angus from taking the lead following the trail of blood. There was a disagreement on whether to bring the kid along or not, but it was a short one, the kid proved he could keep his cool. And of course he had Taako backing him up, so it wasn’t hard to get them on board. 

The trail led them to the mouth of a cave, Taako could hear the sound of rushing water as they got closer. 

“Which one of us is the most stealthy?” Magnus stopped before the cave and pulled all of them behind a tree. 

“Not you” Merle answered 

“I knew that, but which one of you can sneak around and shit?”

Angus raised his hand “It’s probably me sir, I’m a very small boy. And I am detective so-”

“You’re not going alone into a fucking murder cave” He interuppted 

“He’s not gonna go inside , just take a little peak” Merle said and Angus nodded. 

“I can do that.” Taako tried, “I’m good at being stealthy” 

Magnus and Merle both raised their eyebrows

“I’m sure that’s true, but he is a very small boy” Magnus argued

Taako put his hand on his forehead, “You’ve got to be kidding me..” 

“It’ll be fine sir,” Angus started walking towards the cave

“Fuck Yeah Ango! Rebel!” Magnus cheered 

“Stop trying to get my kid to be rebellious” He grumbled, keeping an eye on Angus who was peering around the cave’s entrance.

Merle pat him on the shoulder, “I know it’s hard, but they all gotta grow up sometime and-” 

“Guys he gave a thumbs up, let’s go!” Magnus shouted and pointed at Angus

Taako sighed, they all joined Angus at the cave entrance. Grabbing his hand as they walked inside,he leaned in close and whispered in his ear, “You’re so fucking grounded”. 

---------------------------------

Walking into the cave there were no people they could spot at first,just some wolves who were chained to the wall, they growled but didn’t bother them. As they walked through the tunnels,Taako could make out some voices in the distance. And by the look on everyone else’s faces they could too. 

All of them peered around a corner and saw a gerblin sitting on a bridge in the middle of the tunnel. Angus held a finger to his lips, telling them to be quiet, they all nodded and started to sneak around the edge of the wall.

Making their way to the bridge, Taako pointed to the bridge making a hand signal for climbing and then pointing to the gerblin and dragged a finger across his neck. He wasn’t sure if they all actually knew what he meant but the rest of them nodded. He lifted Angus up to climb the bridge, Merle followed, he grabbed on, and then finally Magnus started climbing. 

It was going great for about a minute before it all went to shit.

As they climbed Taako felt a rock become loose under his foot, he knew there was nothing he could do but hope that it wouldn’t be too loud. The rock dislodged itself from the bridge and tumbled to the ground, making loud thuds as it hit against the wall on its way down. 

Taako looked up, the gerblin was staring right at them. 

“Uhh Hail and well met my friend!” Taako forced a smile 

The gerblin paused and looked to the side, before shouting; “Intruders!” 

‘“Aw fuck”

As soon as the gerblin yelled that, a torrent of water came rushing towards them. Taako grabbed Magnus’ arm. Angus and Merle pulled themselves up onto the bridge, Angus helped pull the rest of them up. 

Looking around as he got to the top of the bridge Taako asked, “Hey, where’s the gerblin?”

Merle was brushing off his hands, “Oh, we already took care of that asshole” 

“Mr. Merle kicked them off the bridge” Angus supplied

“Great,” Magnus looked around, “You killed the guy we could’ve interrogated.” 

Merle shrugged, “They might not be dead.” 

“I think we can find more people over there” Angus pointed to a tunnel on the right. “The gerblin looked that way before they yelled.” 

They walked through the tunnel and ended up at some sort of breakroom. A couple of gerblins were sitting around, one of them seemed to be watching an unconscious human. Who Taako recognized as Gundren’s bodyguard; 

Barry Bluejeans. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Immediately upon entering the breakroom they found several weapons pointing in their direction. Angus put his hands up, the others followed suit. 

“Listen,” Taako began, “We’re uh, we’re very dangerous guys. If you just give us Barry Bluejeans,that dude you beat up” He pointed to Mr. Barry, “And tell us where the other guy with him is, we’ll be on our way.” 

The gerblin standing near Barry, rose to his feet and gestured to the gerblins to put their weapons down. 

“You four strike me, as businessmen. So how about instead of fighting, we make a deal?” 

The four of them exchanged glances, Magnus stepped forward.

“What kind of deal?”

“I want you to kill our boss” The gerblin smiled, “Listen our boss, Klarg,is a total shithead. We get no benefits, not even get dental! So yeah we want him dead.” 

The other gerblins grumbled in agreement. 

“Well sir, what’s in it for us.?” 

The gerblin laughed and looked at Magnus, “You'll get your Barry Bluejeans, alive and unha- well, relatively unharmed. And we’ll tell you everything we know about his companion’s location.” 

“And gold? Are you gonna pay us?” Taako asked

The gerblin sighed, “I’m already offering you boys a great deal. But I'm a nice guy,so how about this, I’ll pay you each a few gold pieces, and I’ll even let your kid stay here while you fight.” 

Taako laughed, “Thanks for the offer, but the kid’s coming with us.” 

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged. 

---------------------------

The gerblin, who introduced himself as Yeemick. Showed them where Klarg’s office was, but he didn’t warn them about the wolf. 

Thay made their dramatic entrance, which Taako choreographed, so it looked ‘sick as fuck’ (his words). 

But apparently it was too sick, because Klarg knew they were there to kill him and immediately sicked his wolf on them. 

It sprinted towards them, Angus shot in the face with his crossbow and Magnus kicked the injured wolf into the fiery pit in the middle of the room. 

Klarg started yelling and arguing with Magnus. Angus saw Taako’s wand glow out of the corner of his eye. 

And suddenly Klarg went from looking like he was going to kill them, to… Offering them tea? 

“Oh! My boy, it’s so nice to see you!” Klarg smiled wide, hugging him. 

Angus shot Taako a look, who smirked. “Don’t worry, he’s charmed.” 

“I am charmed! You all are so charming!” 

“Thanks buddy..”Merle said, sounding strangled. 

“And…” Klarg began, “Oh dear, this is so embarrassing! I believe I forgot your names!” 

“This is our first time meeting sir,” Angus pointed out, but they all gave their names anyway. 

“Oh right, It just feels like I’ve known you guys for years” Klarg put a hand to his forehead. 

“I feel that too, trust me” Taako said, and Magnus added “And as your new best buds, we have to tell you something..”  

“Oh I’ll get the tea!” 

“No buddy, we need to discuss this shit now” Taako said putting a hand on his arm. 

Klarg frowned, “Alright, I’ll get the tea later I guess..” 

“So the thing is Klarg,” Merle started. “We were kind of told to kill you..” Magnus completed tensely. 

Angus could see many conflicting emotions on Klarg’s face, so he jumped in between them.

“We’re not gonna do it sir!” Angus said a little too quickly. “We’re actually gonna help you.” 

“Oh of course!” Klarg exclaimed, his expression settling on relief. 

“Your employee told us to do it, uh Yeemir? Yeebick No.. It was Yee-something. What was that fool’s name?”Merle asked

“Yeemick?” Taako guessed

Merle snapped his fingers, “Yes! Yeemick”

Klarg looked at the ground, “Yeemick is a very valued employee. Are you sure it wasn’t Yeekir? He always seemed to dislike me..” 

“You can never be too sure..” Magnus shrugged

“Actually we can, It was Yeemick who told us to do it. He wanted to make a deal” Angus interrupted

“Oh?” 

Angus nodded, “He’s holding our friend captive.” Angus said, friend just sounded better than ‘employer’s bodyguard’. “And he also said he’d tell us the location of his companion.” 

“Oh dear this is quite the pickle.. I can help you guys, just please help me with this-” 

“Hey guys!” The door to the chamber opened, and Yeemick stepped part-way through. “Did you guys kill- Oh fuck.” 

“So Yeemick, It really is true.” 

“Ha ha, I don’t know what you’re talking about boss” Yeemick responded, not so subtly pulling out a club. 

“So glad we charmed that guy” Magnus whispered, as Klarg crushed Yeemick with little effort. 

“We?” Taako raised an eyebrow

“We were here for moral support” Merle said

“Fuck you guys” 

“Sir, he said we were all charming. So I think we helped a little bit.” 

“I need to get you out of here, the more time you’re around these guys the more annoying you get.” 

--------------------------------

Klarg took them back to the breakroom, where all of the gerblins had run away, avoiding Yeemick’s fate. 

He gestured to Barry who still was unconscious on the ground “So here is your Barry, I’m not sure exactly where his companion is. We already gave him to the Black Spider.” 

“Spider?” Magnus whispered 

“Yes the Black Spider, he's a fearsome foe, but you boys are such great adventurers so I’m sure you’ll do amazing!” 

----------------------------------------------------- 

They brought Barry outside of the cave, before waiting for twenty minutes for Merle to heal him. 

“It shouldn’t take this long” He whined

“I'm trying to focus over here!”

“Focus harder Merle!” Magnus grumbled

“He’s pretty fucked up sirs, It’ll take a little bit” Angus added, looking at Barry. 

“Language!” They all yelled in unison. Making Angus roll his eyes, whispering something about hypocrites. 

Taako heard a groan from his side and looked at Barry who lifted himself up, he blinked with both confusion and exhaustion, adjusting his glasses. 

“I’m Barry Bluejeans.”He looked at the four of them, who were staring without saying a word.

“We know sir,” Angus finally provided, “You’re Gundren’s bodyguard, we were hired by him too, remember?” 

Barry chuckled, getting to his feet. 

“Of course, how could I forget?”

Chapter Text

On their way back to town, Barry described to them the ‘Lost mine of Phandalin’ and how that was what Gundren was looking for. Angus figured that the black spider must have taken Gundren so he could find the mine. But how would they find the mine? That was still a problem, if they were going after Gundren. 

Well, it was a problem until Barry pulled out the map.

The map was activated with Merle’s blood, it led to Wave Echo Cave, presumably where Gundren and the black spider would be. They checked into the inn, and planned to leave in the morning. 

Angus laid down on his bed, he sighed in relief as he polymorphed. It had been a few days, he was getting better at maintaining his human form, but multiple days without morphing still left him exhausted. 

“You could just tell them, you know?” Angus looked up and saw Taako sitting on the other bed. 

Angus shook his head, “It’s dangerous.” 

“What’s more dangerous, them being annoying for a few minutes, or turning into a dragon and passing out in the middle of our job?” 

“I just don’t know if it’s a good idea..” 

“Listen, they’re both dumbasses but they’re not gonna hurt you.” 

“How do you know that?” 

Taako paused for just a moment, “My instincts, and I’m never wrong”  

Angus rolled his eyes, “I’ll be fine, I don’t need to tell them. “ 

Taako shrugged but laid down on his bed, “Just sleep on it, I’m not gonna make you do anything. But you should just tell them, it’ll make everything easier and hey,if they do turn out to be assholes you know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know.. I’ll think about it. Goodnight.” 

“Night pumpkin” and he shut off the light.  

Angus did think it over. For some reason he wanted to trust Magnus and Merle, but he knew the risk. He’d be fine if they did want to hurt him, but he and Taako needed this job. He couldn’t afford to mess this up. He decided he couldn’t tell them unless it was the last option.That was the last thing he thought before he fell into a restless sleep. 

Angus rarely dreamed. But when he did, it was always similar. All of his dreams were filled with static, this time was no different. 

Angus learned to not focus on the people in his dreams, trying to focus on what they looked like never got him anywhere and only left him waking up with a headache. 

His form in his dream changed constantly, for this dream he was in his human form.

This time the person leaned down and draped a robe over his shoulders, it was too big and the fabric draped onto the ground. 

Angus looked down,the robe was entirely static. In real life he would’ve flinched and pulled that thing right off of himself immediately, but his dreamself of course did not.

Instead he looked up at the person, they were also wearing a robe that was covered in static. They leaned down and buttoned the few buttons near the collar.  

“Ĩ̶̳͍͓̫̄͜ṭ̶̢̢͇̩̝̽̽͌͛̚͜͠ ̵̢̨̛͕̖̜̼̙̋́d̷͙̪̬̳͆́͂͆̽̔̚ǫ̵̥͓̱͖̭̯̈́͂̈́̀e̵̢̘̰̠̜̓̽͆͗̕ͅṣ̵̟̼̠̳̯̆̍̽̿͑̈́̅n̶̮͎̮̟̙̾̐'̴̛̱̭̞̊̔̔t̸̢̼̍͊̃̾̀ ̸̢͕̣̬̭̉̈͑͜͠f̶̛̭̖̘̺̗̆͗́̀̏͘i̷̳͙͔̔͐̔͂̀͜͠t̴̘̭̃̆͒”

He heard himself speak, but as always the words were indistinguishable. 

The person pushed his hair out of his face and leaned forward, planting a kiss on his forehead. 

“N̵̬̄̕ǫ̷̡̣̭̑͌̈́,̶̘̳́̅̋̾ ̷̨̲̬̟̲̟͇͊Ĩ̴̛̟̳̞̦͚͆̂̒͠t̶̝̠̎ ̸͔̹̣̪̲̉̅̉̃̃̚ͅf̴͚̝͕͖̿̂̽̒̚i̵̺̻̾͂́̊t̷̡̫̠̱̗̿̀͠ș̷̢̱̙͈͎͇́͊̏͠ ̶̬͋̿̀̍p̸̢̥̏́̽̏͝ę̷͔̤͈͙̜̐͗̈̉r̸̤͠f̴͙̬̘́̑ę̶̦͖̗̺̆̀ć̴̦͕̩͖̠͝͠ṫ̴͚̭̪͐l̴͉̖͌͝ỳ̶̪͚̮̖̣̠̲̓͛̕” The static began to hurt.

He felt himself smile, somehow it didn’t feel forced. 

̵̢̨̭̭̮͇̗̞͌̄̀͊̓̑̀̽̽̇̈̀͂ͅI̵̡̠̠̠̗̻̹̘̭͓̜͉͇̩̎̍̓͆̽̔̚ͅ'̷̭̝̖̬̰̹͉̦͉̥͍͈̽̀ͅm̸̱̙̍̊͋̈́̾̈́͂̊̒́͐͐̽̾ ̵̧̧͔̻̳͔̼̠̜͖̦̺̳̰̑ǫ̶̯̺̻̤̠̹̠̲̠̽̓̀̚n̵̨̢̰͚̫̻͓͈̭̋̎̋͒͛́̐̕͝ͅȩ̴̢̱̘̮̱̪̯̩̩͎̦͈̱̓̃̾͛͗ ̸̨͎̠̳̘̓̽̽̀̈́̐͊̓̈́̍̀͠͝ȯ̶̢̺̯̫̉̈́̾̑̈f̶̧̨̢̩͈̭̟̜̤̱͍̠͚̦̼̂̆̅̅͐͝ ̷̡̛̜̫̹͕͖͍̣̞̦̝̬̃͂̅̆͋͗͘y̶̢͚̭̯̖͕̲͑̂̓̀͌͗͐́̓̄͌ͅͅợ̴̡͐̊͑̆̊̏̋̚u̸̢̻̼͉̜̘̣̻͓̩̳͔̐̑ ̴̗̥̬͔͔̎̓͋͗͐̿͒̍̇̂͝n̶̡̢̢̤̠̝͓̖̾̎͜ͅó̷̺͈̤͕̉́̌̀́̅̈́̇̍̃̕w̶̢̳͕̬̥̠͕̺̙̟̜̤̙͍̯͊̈́͋̈̎͐ ̸̼̦̪̣̱̓͒̄̇ŗ̶̨̨̠̊̾͜i̵̱͙͇̟̬͍̙̖͙̻̺̖̙̤̺̇g̶̨̧̳̠̗͖̪̱̩̞̺̦̦̈̌̽̄͆͗͛͒͘͠h̵̡̨̝̲͉̮̣̼̻̙̮̮̖̭̮͑̏͆͂̆͌ţ̸̧̝͙̱̤̲̯̩̓̽̐̀̂̒̀̊͛͒̓̑̀̓͝ͅ?̸̡̛͉̣̗̣͈̠͕̃̄͐̒̔̈́̋̎͝"̸̛̱͓̗̫͇͇̼̝̩̼̰̃͆̐͜ ̵̱̞̲̉̿̀̂͑͘

They cradled his face in their hands

“Ÿ̶̮́̊͆̇͒̈́ͅo̶̡̩̩̠̦͇̠͆͌̈́̈́̑̔̄û̷͉̩̟͇̯'̸̣̓̏ŕ̶̳͛̀̆ḝ̸͍̱͓ ̵̥̘̹̫͑̋̓̋͘ǒ̴̡̢̘͔̫͍̣̀̊̐̂̉ǹ̵̡̢͓͇̝̃̈́̉̃͘͝ĕ̸͔͚͓̞̠͉̯̈̀̆̓ ̷̛̙̰̞̄́̓o̴̹͙̲̦̣̙̥̔͐f̸̝̟̍ ̶̺͕̈́͠u̷͈͇͙͍͗̆͂̿́̚s̴̹̭͂̍ ̸̡̯̋̓͌̀͂͝,y̴̗̰̦̝͔̰̞̽̔o̴̹̎͂̑̅͘͘̚u̵̧͇͍͎͍͇̱͗ ̵̗̺͙̃̃̆̄̏͝à̷͖̐̀͘l̵̙̟͊̿ͅẅ̶̧̝̪͎́̉͐̽͂͠ͅͅa̵̯͍̮͕̫͋̈y̵͉̟̼͌ş̴̻͔̈̆̄̀̕͝͝ ̴̛͇͑̀͜w̴̨̐͛́ě̵̖͔̫̳̐́̍̃r̶̡̛̲̩̩͌̓͐́͜e̷̼̺̮̓͑̂̈͗͝” 

The static became unbearable. 

"̸̡͔͔̓͐͗I̶̟̗̱̍͗̏ ̴̢̥̑͘l̷͍͙̐̄̈o̴͓͋͌̎v̸͕͌ȅ̴̛͇̔ ̶̝̽̊͘y̴͕͎͒͗̓õ̴̫u̶̯͜͝"̶̧͇͍̽̈

------

He woke with the feeling of his wing hitting something. 

“Holy shit Ango! It’s just me bud.” Taako was standing over him, covering his cheek where Angus had hit him.

“I’m so sorry sir! I didn’t mean to-” 

“Nah it’s good Agnes, I know it wasn’t on purpose. Plus,” He lifted his hand off his face, “I’m not even hurt.” 

“I’m still sorry, I was having a weird dream.”

“Again? I thought that hasn’t happened in a couple weeks” 

“It hasn’t, but I guess I wasn’t done with those dreams like I thought.” 

Taako sighed, “So it was static again?” 

“Yeah it always is” 

“That gives me a nasty headache, you should get some water Ango.”

“Wait, do you have those dreams too?” 

“Not dreams, dream. It’s always the same, and it’s not as often as you get them.” He explained

“Could you tell me about it? If you don’t want to i-” 

Taako patted him on the head, cutting him off. “I’m fine with talking about it. But be warned it’s not interesting or anything.” 

Angus nodded and Taako began. 

“Basically I’m just cooking in my aunt’s kitchen, the door opens and there’s this person there. But they’re like all static, and they say my name but it’s super fucking distorted and I then wake up.”

Angus blinked, “Huh.” 

“I told you it wasn’t interesting” 

“No no, I’m just trying to figure out what it means.” 

He laughed, “It’s just a weird dream Ango” 

“But don’t you think it’s weird that we both have-” 

“Hey, you two getting up soon?” He heard Magnus’ voice through the door. 

They both froze and Taako mouthed ‘Do you want to tell?’  

Angus shook his head and polymorphed. Taako grabbed his arm to stop him from falling on the floor and glared at him. 

“We’ll be out in a minute, the kid forgot how to tie his shoes.” 

Magnus laughed “It happens to the best of us. We’ll meet you in the lobby.” 

Taako turned to him as they heard Magnus walked away

“Kid you like you’re gonna fall over any minute, hell you almost did” 

Angus took a deep breath, “I’ll be fine sir, I need to get better at morphing for longer times anyway.” 

Taako shook his head, “Kid, you’re killing me” 

“I’m not an idiot-”

“Debatable” 

“I’m not an idiot, so I’m not just gonna let myself pass out. If I feel too bad, I’ll morph and I’ll tell them. But it won’t come to that.” 

Taako frowned, “You better do that okay? I’m not carrying your ass if get too tired” 

“You won’t have to, I won’t let it happen”  

---------------

Arriving in the lobby Angus saw Magnus and Merle waiting for them. 

“Morning, we’re still waiting on Bluejeans,” Merle greeted.

A door opened behind them and Barry walked out, still wearing his pajamas. 

“Just came to wish you boys luck, then I’m going right back to bed” 

“You’re not coming with us sir?” 

He laughed “Nah, I got fucked over by gerblins yesterday. No way in hell I’m gonna go toe to toe with the ‘black spider’” 

Merle frowned “Won’t it be bad for your bodyguard career if you just napped at the inn?” 

“It’d also be bad for my career if I just fucking died. No thanks, I’ll chill here.” 

“Wish that was me” Taako grumbled next to him

“We can hang if you want.” 

“Wait really?” 

“Yeah, I mean you won’t get paid but-” 

“Then why’d you even suggest that Barold.” 

Barry shrugged, and Magnus finally dragged all of them out of the inn. Angus didn’t know why but he felt disappointed by Barry staying behind. Maybe he just wanted an extra person to help fight. 

------------------------------------------------------

Angus knew he should've just listened to Taako and told Magnus and Merle the truth. He logically knew that they wouldn’t hurt him, so he tried. He tried bringing it up multiple times on the walk to Wave Echo Cave but everytime he was about to tell them he felt like his throat closed up and he couldn’t say a word. 

By the time they made it to the cave he hadn’t achieved anything except confusing them, and the pain was starting to get to him. 

Walking through the cave Angus felt himself become stiffer and stiffer. When Taako stole a pair of boots off of Merle’s dead cousin, he didn’t even have the energy to argue with him to give them back. 

He remembered the promise he made to Taako, he would have to tell them before he lost all the energy to keep polymorphing. And that was getting dangerously close. He needed to just tell them himself. 

He stopped, “Sirs I need to tell you something,” 

The rest of them stopped, “You need a break kid?” Merle asked, “The big guy can probably carry you.” 

“No I-” 

Mangus lifted him up, “Probably? He’s tiny, it’s easy. And Ango it’s no biggie I can carry you for a little while.” 

“No!” Angus yelled, making everyone stare at him, he slapped his hands to his mouth in embarrassment.. “Sorry… I wasn’t saying that I was tired, I wanted to tell you that I- I..” 

Angus froze, he noticed a strange noise. 

“Come on pumpkin, what is it?” 

“I-” The noise was clear, a horrible squelching, looking over Taako’s shoulder he saw something move. 

“Look!” 

Chapter Text

The strange blobs encircled them, the small room was becoming cramped.Angus took a step back and he felt his foot crush something. 

All of the sudden the blobs rushed towards him. He dropped to the ground, the blobs slammed against the cavern wall. Magnus pushed his way in front of him. They all drew their weapons, except for him, Angus felt like he was frozen to the ground. 

He groaned sitting up, he saw below him that there were tons of tiny glowing mushrooms. He saw spores coming off of them and floating into the air. After he stepped on them the blobs attacked him, perhaps they were related in some way? 

Looking over at the rest of them, and knowing he couldn’t fight, he’d have to try it. He needed to help somehow. 

He stood up, the world spun. But he looked down and crushed the mushrooms beneath his foot. 

The reaction was almost immediate, the blobs pushed forward. Merle slammed his hammer against one of the blobs to push it back. 

Killing the mushrooms agitated the blobs but it didn’t seem to slow them down or hurt them at all. He’d have to try something else. 

But watching them fight, Angus knew he couldn’t do anything, his crossbow bolts would just get stuck in the goo. He watched Taako cast ray of frost, slowing one of the blobs down. 

This wasn’t the way Angus wanted them to find out, but he had to do something he couldn’t sit around when he had a way to help. 

There was a moment of instant relief when he morphed, all of the discomfort he had been holding the whole day faded away. 

Angus bounded forward, using his frost breath on all of the blobs, they froze and stopped moving completely. Magnus and Merle were staring at him with wide eyes, Taako grabbed their arms. 

“Be confused later!” 

Merle blinked but brought his hammer down on the blob causing it to pop and the goo to splatter everywhere. That seemed to bring Magnus out his trance, he laughed and mimicked Merle swinging his axe down into the other blobs. 

Angus could see a figure in one of the blobs as it was killed, walking over they all looked at the definitely dead dwarf.

“Hey uh Ango?” He looked up at Magnus

“You’re a dragon bud” 

“I’m aware sir” 

“Is that, like normal?” Merle asked, “Are kids these days just turning into dragons? Is it a new trend?” 

Magnus rolled his eyes and looked at Taako “Did you fucking turn your kid into a dragon?” 

“What? No I- He’s always been a dragon.” 

“I’m pretty sure he was a boy a few minutes ago..” Merle said with narrowed eyes. 

“No He’s right, I was uh polymorphing sirs”  

“Oooh” Merle and Magnus said in usion

“Well, you know you can tell us anything, we’re best buds” Magnus lifted him up. 

Merle shrugged “Best is stretching it but sure you can tell us your secrets” 

“Thank you sirs, but shouldn’t we get back to this” He gestured to the dead dwarf which Taako was searching the pockets of,

“Don’t worry pumpkin, I’m on it.” He pulled something out of the pocket, “Damn no gold, but I found this.” He opened his hand and was holding a small rusted key. 

------------------------

Taako looked at Angus who was riding on Magnus’ shoulders as they walked, he was glad the kid finally got it over with. And that these guys were cool about it, he wouldn’t have told Angus but losing this job would put them in a pretty shitty place. 

They found an elevator, inserting the key and pressing the only button, going down. The elevator beeped and the doors creaked open. 

The room they entered had a huge machine in the center, it looked like some sort of grinder or crusher for rocks or ore. 

But the strangest thing was the orc woman who was just standing there staring at them, and pointing a giant crossbow right at them.

“What the- Why are you here?” 

“Wow, nice to meet you too” Taako rolled his eyes. 

The woman was shaking her head and muttering under her breath. 

“You know we could ask you the same thing ma’m” Angus piped up. 

She looked at him with slight surprise before shaking it away “No no, I just need to know… Are you here for the P̵̛̘̼͎͖̾͐͠h̷͙̙͠ȯ̷̧̙̺͐͐̉͑e̷͕̖͕̺̎͆̽̏͝n̵̲̪̐̈́͑i̶̲̲̼͋͑x̵̨̘͓̦͂̊̚ ̷̩͠F̷̥͙̥͚͌i̵̡̧̟̒r̶̝͛̉̕e̶̗͉̻͓̙͒͌ ̵̳̮̯̌͐̏͜ͅG̷̮̻͉͍̑̈͒̂́å̷̱̥͍͔ū̷̬̱̑͊̋n̶̳̘̹̘̹̊t̷͖͔͍̮̐͒l̷̡͗e̸̪̍t̴̨͐ ̴͈͐̈́̋?” 

They all blinked. 

“Uh gesundheit?” Merle offered

“That.That tells me all I need to know” She sighed, “You’re not here for the P̵̛̘̼͎͖̾͐͠h̷͙̙͠ȯ̷̧̙̺͐͐̉͑e̷͕̖͕̺̎͆̽̏͝n̵̲̪̐̈́͑i̶̲̲̼͋͑x̵̨̘͓̦͂̊̚ ̷̩͠F̷̥͙̥͚͌i̵̡̧̟̒r̶̝͛̉̕e̶̗͉̻͓̙͒͌ ̵̳̮̯̌͐̏͜ͅG̷̮̻͉͍̑̈͒̂́å̷̱̥͍͔ū̷̬̱̑͊̋n̶̳̘̹̘̹̊t̷͖͔͍̮̐͒l̷̡͗e̸̪̍t̴̨͐ so that’s great news. But, listen you guys need to go” 

“Nah”

“Wha-” 

“We have shit to do” Magnus barely explained

“What could you possibly-” 

“That’s really none of your business.” He said, Magnus and Merle nodded in agreement. 

“No more goofs.I don’t care what you’re doing here, but you need to go, this is very dangerous” 

“You haven’t given us any real reason to leave ma’m, in fact everything you’ve said to us so far has been vague horseshit” 

She sighed putting a hand on her forehead “I really didn’t want to do this” She backed away pulling out a small device pressing the button in the center, before sprinting out of the room. 

The machine in the middle of the room roared to life, it’s gnarly mechanical jaws snapping open. It made a chugging noise and came right for him. 

Magnus pulled him to the side, barely out of the way of the giant death machine. 

None of his spells damaged it enough, ray of frost just pushed it back a little. Angus’ frost breath was basically a way stronger ray of frost, but there was no way in hell Taako would let him get close enough to that thing to do any real damage. 

He watched the top of the machine brush against some chains that were connected to the ceiling, he had a stupid idea. 

He yelled to Merle who repeated the plan to Magnus who looked up to the ceiling with a smirk, and leaned to Angus whispering something in his ear and pointing up. 

From across the room he saw Angus pause, looking around nervously and then firmly nodding. 

Once he realized what they were doing it was too late to stop them, Taako saw Angus fly into the air, grab the chains in his jaw and rush to the ground. 

The landing was shitty, it wasn’t as bad as the last time but he still flinched. He sighed in relief when he watched Angus get to his feet.He saw Angus shake himself off and gave the chains to Magnus.

If Magnus was going with his plan he would throw the chains into the machine’s ‘mouth’. But Taako wasn’t looking at him, instead he kept watching Angus, the small dragon looked a little tired and scratched up but otherwise fine. 

Taako heard a loud metallic screech, Magnus and Merle began cheering.And when he saw Angus look up with a determined grin,Taako let go of the tension he didn’t know he was holding. 

------------------------------------------------

Walking through the hallway, a familiar voice rang through the air, “Help! I uh I need some help over here” Taako rolled his eyes when he realized who it was, what would make her think they’d help her now.  

He could hear Merle huff in annoyance as well, but Magnus sighed “We’re going that way anyway..” 

“Fine” 

Walking into the room the huge pit in the center was the first thing he noticed, next he saw the orc woman from earlier, she was tied up in some sort of webbing, that Gundren guy was there too. He wasn’t even tied up, just laying ground and looking like shit. 

“Oh darling, we have guests! How exciting!” A voice cut through the air, a dark elf man with a spider emblem on his chest stood in the middle of the room clapping. 

“Hey there uh black spider?” Merle started

“Oh yes! Zat is me! Welcome to my cave darlings” 

“Listen my man, we kinda need that dwarf you almost killed” Taako pointed to Gundren. 

“Gundren yes, he’s already served his purpose. You can take him. But tell me.. Is he the only zing you’re here for? You don’t need the P̵̛̘̼͎͖̾͐͠h̷͙̙͠ȯ̷̧̙̺͐͐̉͑e̷͕̖͕̺̎͆̽̏͝n̵̲̪̐̈́͑i̶̲̲̼͋͑x̵̨̘͓̦͂̊̚ ̷̩͠F̷̥͙̥͚͌i̵̡̧̟̒r̶̝͛̉̕e̶̗͉̻͓̙͒͌ ̵̳̮̯̌͐̏͜ͅG̷̮̻͉͍̑̈͒̂́å̷̱̥͍͔ū̷̬̱̑͊̋n̶̳̘̹̘̹̊t̷͖͔͍̮̐͒l̷̡͗e̸̪̍t̴̨͐ do you?” 

“We still can’t understand that sir,” and the black spider smiled. 

“Oh good, so you’re not members of the  ̶̧̫͔̭̩̦̐͝B̸̲͈͕̭̠̝̲̒u̶̧̗̳̐ȑ̴̑̌ͅě̷͔́̈́̂͐̉a̸̠̦͚̩̠̳̿͐̑̌͋̋̾ụ̶̰̰̺̙͂̉͗ ̴̼͋̂̌͊̃͆̕o̸̲̝̪̐͗̊̌̑̽͗f̷̢͙͍̪̰̆̉ ̷̢̺̖̲͋͛͂́̑̉͝B̴͈͕̠̘͈̈́̍̊̾̈́a̷̭͊̊̒̽̈́̐͝l̴̪̭̋̌̈́͋͘͝a̸̪̤̞̮̩̟͊̈́̃̀͑n̵̡͙͓̘̼̏̓̔̈̍̚̚ͅc̶̨͉̰̱̭̱͝ͅe̷̫͚͒̋̓͒́̎ ̵̭̪̬ then?”

Before they could respond he smiled wider, “How wonderful! Yes yes, take your Gundren. But first I need just a little more blood.” 

“Umm no?” Magnus frowned, he looked at the rest of them and they all nodded hesitantly in agreement. 

“As a dwarf and a cleric. He’s real fucked up. If you take any more blood from him he’s gonna:” He dragged a finger across his neck “Die, he’s gonna die” 

Taako nodded “Yeah and we need him to be alive to pay us soo..” 

The black spider frowned “How unfortunate..”

“Listen uh what’s your name? Like your real name?” Magnus asked

“It’s Brian,darling.” 

“Right Brian, we need Gundren, and we should probably take that lady with us too-”

“I’m Killian!” The orc woman interrupted. 

“Nice to meet you Killian!” Magnus shouted back, “We should probably take Killian with us too, and you can keep your static thingie” he continued. 

“No he can’t!” Killian yelled. 

“We’re saving your ass right now!” He shouted to her 

Brian sighed, “I’m sorry darlings but that simply won’t do” 

He pulled out a small pod and threw it at the ground, it exploded into a puff of green smoke and through the cracks of the ceiling a huge literal black spider crawled out and jumps in front of Brian. 

---------------------

Angus frees Killian from the webbing, she gets up with a ‘thanks kid’ and joins the fight. Angus hates how little he can do, he watches the fight go on without him. He skirts the edges of the cavern, watching the actual spider which ‘Magic’ Brian had introduced as Byran. Neither Magic or Spider Brian were paying him any attention. 

Angus did the only thing he could. Sneaking up to Spider Byran, he froze as many legs as he could before the spider reacted. He was only able to securely freeze three legs in place. But it was enough to slow down the spider and give Taako an opening. Taako shot Spider Bryan with magic missile. 

“Nooo! Bryan! He zas my favorite spider boy!”  Brian screamed, he swiveled towards Taako, “That- that zas your magic missile? Let me show you mine” 

With a scowl Magic Brian sends the three bolts soaring towards Taako, who falls to the ground. Angus’ eyes widen and he runs towards Merle who is already pulling out a healing potion. Before he could take the potion back to Taako, Taako staggers to his feet, wiping blood off his face and yells:

“Abraca-Fuck You!” And hits him with another magic missile sending Magic Brian back a few feet.

Angus gives the potion to Taako while Brian gets back up. 

“Thanks pumpkin, but be careful ok?” 

“Me? Sir, you’re the one who needs a healing potion-” 

A cough interrupted them, Magic Brian was standing near the edge of the pit. 

“Well it looks like my goose has been cooked huh? Well don’t worry now darlings, I have just one more trick up my sleeve” He grabs Gundren by his collar and jumps into the pit. 

Merle sighed, “Fuck,” 

But then a pair of hands grip the edge of the pit and then another identical pair of hands grips the edge of the pit. And two Gundrens pull themselves out of the pit. 

“Listen” One of them say, “I’m the real Gundren Roc-” 

“No!” The other shouts in Magic Brian’s voice, “I’m ze real Gundern Rockseeker, You have to believe me!” 

The rest of them started to suggest that real Gundren had been cursed to have a funny voice, Angus rolled his eyes and froze Magic Brian in place. 

He morphed back to his normal appearance, but despite being taller he couldn’t move. “Oh no! You have vanquished me!” 

“You’ll be fine.” Merle said. 

“I’m dying! Zis small lizard has frozen me for all of eternity” 

“Um Sir I’m not a lizard” 

“He has wings, he’s obviously not a lizard. It’s also gonna melt in like less than a day” 

“How have I been defeated so easily!? Goodbye cruel world!”  

“I’ve had enough of this shit” Taako grumbled, casting sleep making Brian pass out. 

“So the thing is.. I’m kinda supposed to kill him” Killian said. 

“But I put him to sleep!” Taako argued “I used a spell slot for that” 

Magnus lifted him up “Killian, do you really want to expose this small child to death?” 

“I mean not really.. But- Just close your eyes” 

“I still will know what happened, ma’m.” 

Under her breath he heard her mutter “It’s so fucked up I need to kill brian...He was annoying but I kinda liked the guy before he went rogue”

She sighed loudly, “I’m gonna- Okay here’s what’s gonna happen.” She pulled out a feather duster, “You guys just told me to go on ahead and you’ll kill him, and I’ll go down there” She pointed towards the pit. “And you can kill him, if you don’t. Then I won’t be in trouble soo..” 

“Got it” Merle gave her a thumbs up. She nodded and jumped into the pit. 

“Stay here!” She yelled on her way down. 

Merle pulled out his warhammer “I can’t believe we have to do her job for her.”

“What? We’re not killing him” Magnus grabbed his shoulder. 

“What? Why not?” 

“Let’s not waste anymore energy on him” Angus suggested “He’s not going anywhere, and if he knows what’s good for him we won’t see him again” 

“Yeah what the kid said” Taako added

Merle sighed, putting his warhammer away. 

“Excuse me but I would very much like to get out of the room with the dude who was harvesting my blood” Gundren interrupted 

“I mean he’s frozen, but sure let’s get out of here” 

-------------------------------------

Walking out of the room with the Brian popsicle and into the tunnel, they shared a brief conversation with Gundren explaining why Barry wasn’t with them. Before walking into the next room Taako spotted a figure out of the corner of his eye. 

He paused, “Wait, I think that dude might have some loot” He walked towards the figure not waiting for the others to follow. 

It was a skeleton wrapped in a red robe, clutching an umbrella. Her empty eye sockets seemed to be staring through him.  

He reached out but then paused, casting detect magic on the umbrella. 

He was hit with an overwhelming feeling, all different schools of magic at once.He took a step back. 

Merle took a step forward. “Dibs!” He reached for the umbrella. Taako wanted to scream for him to stop. 

Merle grabbed the handle and was sent flying across the cavern with a burst of lightning. 

“I’m next!” He said with a fake smile, despite Angus’ protests, he grabbed the handle. 

The dream he always had, repeated in the back of his mind.

He smiled and this time it was real.

Chapter Text

After getting the umbrella Gundren led them to a wide open cavern. The room was destroyed. Scorch marks scarred the wall, ash stained the ground. The room was empty aside from a single figure in the middle. The person was completely unrecognizable, nothing but ash and bone remained, they held their arm outstretched, a silvery gauntlet raised in the air. 

Taako took a step back, this didn’t look good. Everyone else seemed to share the same feeling, backing away from the middle of the room, all of them. Except for Gundren. The dwarf took a step forward. 

“This room was supposed to be filled with treasure.” He said grimly “But my pops” He gestured to the long dead figure holding the gauntlet, “Your uncle Merle” 

Merle frowned looking uncomfortable. 

“He left me something far greater than money” He took another step towards the gauntlet. 

“No!” a voice cut through the air behind them, Killian pushed forward pointing her crossbow at Gundren. 

“Don’t get any closer.” 

“This is my birthright!’ Gundren argued, “Some orc isn’t gonna stop me from getting it.” 

“You’re gonna kill us all!” 

“The only person I wanna kill is you!”

“Everyone calm the fuck down!” Magnus yelled making them both silent. 

“Gundren..” Merle began, he pointed to what once was Gundren’s father “Look at him. That thing did that, it’s gonna do the same to you. “ He spoke as calmly as possible

“No.” Gundren frowned“I’m stronger, I can handle it”

“Just think about what you’re doing for a minute Gundren” 

Gundren paused, they all held their breath, Taako held Angus tight against his chest. For a moment it looked like Gundren would step away but instead he grabbed the gauntlet.

“I’m sorry boys, but I need to do this. I need to use this and kill all those fucking orcs” 

“Sir! You’re not gonna succeed, you’ll just destroy everything” Angus yelled from his arms, Taako felt himself take another step back. 

Gundren shook his head, “I wouldn’t expect you to get it” He put the gauntlet on his fist and burst into flames. 

The next few things happened in a flash,literally. Gundren exploded into flames, but then the flames receded slightly, revealing that Gundren was still very much alive and very much on fire. 

Killian shot her crossbow, there was another explosion of flames. When the smoke cleared the crossbow bolt was lodged into the cavern wall and Gundren was gone. 

“Shit” Killian frowned “Ok- fuck we need to find him” She looked at them, “You boys wanna help me save the world?” 

Taako hesitated thinking it over, he had already put Angus in so much danger today. He looked down at the kid in question, who was staring at him with a pleading expression, like he somehow knew what was going through his head.

Taako sighed, if there was one thing he knew about Angus after knowing him for the past year.  It was that once he made up his mind about something there was nothing Taako could do to stop him. 

“We’re in” He saw Angus smile, “But you better be paying us double what that guy was giving” 

She chuckled, “If we succeed, trust me you’ll get way more than that.”  

-----------------------------------

They ran out of the cave, Angus quickly spotted a path of destruction that would lead to Gundren. They followed the path towards Phandalin, running into another cart along the way. 

The group occupying the cart had run away, most likely because of Gundren. But there was still a person remaining, an orc child was locked in a cage in the back. Angus ran other there, breaking the lock as quickly as he could without slowing down the group. The child stared at him for a moment before running off without a word. 

He heard Taako call his name, running to his side Angus looked up to see what had become of Phandalin. 

Everyone was gone, most likely hiding in the smoking buildings. The fire hadn’t spread too far yet, but Gundren stood in the center of the town, flames coming off his body, so it wasn’t likely Phandalin would be safe for long. 

Taako picked him up, Merle and Killian led the way walking up slowly to Gundren. 

“Don’t come any closer” he growled 

They ignored him taking a step closer. 

“I’ll fucking kill you, stay. Away.” 

“You’ll kill me? Your cousin? Your own flesh and blood?” Merle asked 

Gundren paused, “I- Yes, I don’t care that we’re cousins, you don’t know me.” 

“You don’t care? Gundren you’ve always cared about family, you see what that thing is doing to you?” 

Gundren turned to face them, Merle took a step towards him. 

“Just take that off, and it will get better” 

“I- I can’t, I need to do this” 

“Do what? Gundren that gauntlet it’s controlling you, you don’t want to use it” 

“I’ve had a pretty bad day… I turned into a fireball, didn’t like that” Gundren commented his other hand was on the gauntlet. 

They all nodded sympathetically, Merle took another step forward. 

“I know, that sucked. But it’s gonna be okay now. We’re all here with you, just take the gauntlet off okay? “ 

Gundren took a deep breath, “Okay.. Okay I-” 

He paused mid sentence, his eyes widening. Angus spotted a figure holding a bow in the woods

Gundren reached to his back and pulled out an arrow, holding it out for them all to see. 

For a moment time seemed to freeze. 

Angus wished it had stayed that way. 

The next moment Gundren screamed in rage and burst into flames. 

Merle reached out trying to placate him but Magnus pulled him back. 

“He’s gonna explode!” Killian screamed, “Get to the well!” She pointed to the well in the center of town. 

Angus froze, he looked around. He saw through the chaos and looked at the town, and all the houses and all the people hiding in those houses. 

“The people!” He screamed trying to squirm out of Taako’s arms “We need to help them!” 

Taako held him tighter, running to the well where Killian had already jumped in. 

“I’m sorry pumpkin there’s nothing we can do for them now” Taako whispered as he jumped down.

------------------------

Taako shut his eyes as the world turned a violent shade of orange, he knew they were safe but it didn’t stop him from being hesitant to leave the well once it was over.  

Once they finally did decide to leave, Taako had to help lug an unconscious Killian out of the well, while carrying Angus, who hadn’t said a word but continued to try to get out of being held.

Right as they all climbed out, he finally let the kid go. 

Taako pulled himself out and- 

He did a double take, he had expected something bad, maybe even horrible but he wasn’t even close to imagining what he saw   

All of Phandalin was gone. A huge circle of black glass replaced the town. In the center where Gundren once stood, a piece of glass jutted up into a vaguely humanoid shape and on what once was Gundren’s hand, was the gauntlet. Untouched. 

“Hey...kid,” He heard Merle say, snapping back to reality. 

Angus was hunched over, wings over his head, shaking. Taako’s eyes widened, he saw Merle and Magnus, trying and failing to comfort him. 

He picked Angus up, hugging him as tight as he could. Neither of them were crying, yet.

“We’re gonna get outta here real quick ok?” Angus looked up at him, they shared a silent moment of understanding, they would talk about this, later. He turned to where Merle and Magnus were watching awkwardly “Let’s grab that weird gauntlet and get the fuck out of here!” 

“You can do it!” Magnus yelled back and Merle nodded. 

“You’re the magic guy!” Merle added

“You’re a cleric!” 

“I gotta use my spells to heal her” He gestured to Killian 

Taako rolled his eyes, he knew it was just an excuse but walked towards the gauntlet anyway. 

As he approached he heard a small voice in the back of his mind, telling him to put it on. 

It was so quiet and obviously a trick, he wondered how Gundren fell for this. 

He took off his robe, wrapped it around the gauntlet and walked over to where everyone was waiting, including a now barely awake Killian.

Her eyes widened as she looked around. 

“Ah shit. Where’s the gauntlet? We need to grab before it causes anymore-” 

“I got it” He interrupted holding up the wrapped up gauntlet 

“How- How are none of you wearing it?” She murmured 

Taako shrugged. 

“What are we gonna do with it?” Magnus asked, “I mean, normally I’d take a cool weapon but I’m really interested in turning cities to glass.” 

KIllian lifted up her arm, she was wearing some sort of bracer, she tapped on it a couple times then looked up at them. 

“You’re gonna need to come with me” 

And a sphere crashed down behind her. 

They all jumped back, but instead of being sensible Killian walked over to the sphere, 

She laughed “Don’t worry, It’s our ride.” 

----

Despite their better judgement they climbed into the sphere, which began to float and fly into the sky. 

It started to fly straight towards the moon, but after only a few moments the moon began to look bigger, and bigger. 

Killian completely ignored their screaming, flying to the moon. 

Just as it looked like they would crash, the moon opened and they flew through. 

The sphere stopped, once they were inside the fucking moon. 

“We’re here” 

“Can you explain what the fuck is happening?” 

She sighed, “I can’t yet, I literally can’t, I’m sorry. But you’ll find out really soon. Now let’s go”

“Wait, just a second please ma'am” He heard Angus speak for the first time since Phandilin.

He polymorphed, “Okay, sorry about that let’s go.” 

Killian blinked, “Umm ok right, you can do that. But I have to write a report, they’re gonna know that you’re umm” 

“That’s alright miss, I understand”

Taako felt a little bad for feeling relieved, he knew that if it was up to the kid it would take months for whoever was here to learn that he was a dragon.  

The sphere opened and his mind was hit with a painfully disoreintating wave of static. 

A man approached them, wincing in sympathy.

“Here, drink some of this, it'll make it a little better” He held out a flask. 

Taako grabbed it, after the first sip he felt slightly better. 

“Was that whisky?” Merle asked 

Taako blinked recognizing the alcohol, it of course didn’t taste like that to him. He saw out of the corner of his eye the man giving a flask to Angus. 

“Hey, hey. You’re not giving my kid whisky” 

The man blinked, “He’s in a lot of pain, I wouldn’t do this normally but this only way to make it better.” 

He sighed, “Fine but never again” 

He nodded handing the flask to Angus, “No of course not. And I’m Avi” He introduced himself

Right as they finished introducing themselves, Killian walked up and led  them away, they waved goodbye to Avi. She took them to an elevator, she pressed  a button and stepped out. 

“I can’t really go down there, but I’ll see you guys when you’re done” 

Before Taako could once again ask what the fuck was going on the door closed and the elevator went down. 

They walked down a hallway, Taako heard the faint sound of music.  

As they walked more he saw a figure playing an instrument. 

Violin, he recognized. He’d always loved the sound of the violin. The song was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard, it was filled the type of sadness and longing that made miss someone he’d never met. 

And suddenly it was gone. 

He desperately tried to cling to the memory of the song, but the only thing he could remember was that he had it and then suddenly he lost it. 

The figure sighed, bringing Taako out of his head. 

Taako finally looked around, most of the room was dark but the wall behind the half-elf musician was an illuminated tank, but Taako felt the similar fuzzy feeling, like he couldn’t truly see what was inside of it. 

“Hey, you guys are here to see the director right?” 

“Yeah.. are you the director?” Magnus guessed, “We have no fucking clue what’s happening” 

He laughed, “No I’m Johann, the best musician the world has" He sighed “It’s too bad no one will ever remember my music” 

“Yeah what’s up with that?” Taako asked

“The directors on her way she’ll explain everything” 

“Yes, I will” A voice cut through, an older human woman walked into the room, “Hello, It's very nice to meet you all finally. You need to know what’s happening right? Let’s get right to it then.” 

The director handed them each a vial with a strange dark liquid, it looked like it came from the tank. 

“Drink some of this, it won’t exactly taste good but it will help you understand” 

Taako frowned, but he realised that if they wanted to kill them they would’ve done it by now. He took a sip and remembered. 

He remembered what Killian and Brian were saying, Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, the Bureau of Balance, then he remembered more. 

The wars that went on for years, the carnage, the loss. 

And finally the song, and all of its beauty.

How could he forget? 

The director stood in front of the tank, behind her was a huge jellyfish, it looked like it had a thousand galaxies trapped inside. 

“Welcome! To the Bureau of Balance!” 

Taako frowned for just a moment his grip on the umbrella and Angus' hand tightened, he felt like there was still something he couldn’t remember.

Chapter Text

“So you want us to join your cult?” He asked 

After giving them some liquid from what she explained was the voidfish’s tank the director took them all to her office and explained a little more about the bureau, it sounded like she wanted them to join. 

“Well yes I’m asking you to join, but It’s not really a cult though. The Bureau of Balance is an-” 

“Secret group made to destroy the seven deadly relics and save the world. We get it” Merle said 

“Seven?” He cut in “I thought there were eight?” 

“No..?” Merle frowned, “Did you say-” 

“It’s eight.” The director clarified, gripping her staff.  “But yes, our main goal is to destroy these relics, and prevent the general population to know of our operations” 

“Well, I’m in” He shrugged and the rest of them all made gestures of agreement “But Killian told us we’d be getting paid for grabbing that gauntlet sooo..” 

“Right. Your payment first, of course” 

She clapped her hands together. 

“Davenport!” 

A gnome ran into the room carrying a large tray with a fuck ton of gold on it. 

“Davenport, please give them their payment” 

“Davenport!” He said, nodding firmly, taking some gold off the tray and handing them each an amount way more than Taako has seen since his show. 

 He then handed the director some sort of package that she took and thanked him, lastly he handed them each some sort of token before he left the room. 

“Leon, the artificer here has a gachapon for magical items that you can use those tokens for later.”  The director explained. 

“But first let’s get right into the rest of your inoculations then, shall we?” She asked. 

They all nodded in response, still marveling over the amount of money they had. 

“Excellent, normally we’d have a test you’d need to pass. Usually a puzzle or combat type of thing but I think you’ve all already proved that you’re strong enough when you retrieved the gauntlet” 

“So.. we’re done right?” Magnus asked. 

“Not quite” She smiled “Now, don’t look at me like that. It isn’t difficult I just need to talk to each of you, privately” 

“Like a job interview?” He guessed

“Something like that” She shrugged, “And Taako you’re first.” 

-------

The director closed the door and pulled out a chair gesturing for him to sit down. He sat and she sat across from him at her desk,in front of the painting of herself. 

“So Taako, I just wanted ask you a few questions” 

“Shoot.” 

“About your past” 

Shit. 

“Well, what about it?” He asked, if she knew about what happened in Glamour springs he’d need to find a way to jump off the moon without dying, and then not getting found after-

“Your son, Angus right? How long-” 

“My what.” He interrupted, that was not what he was expecting. 

“Angus?” She repeated “You don’t consider him- “

She stopped ”I’m sorry if I misinterpreted anything, I-” 

“Nah it’s chill,” he cut in. “ I’ve been taking care of the kid but we’re not related or anything.”

“I see..” she said awkwardly, “Well, I was wondering how long you’ve been his uh guardian?” 

“Like a year?” He shrugged, has it only been a year? He felt like he had known Angus way longer than that.

She hummed, “I see, well I just wanted to ask you if you wanted Angus to be a reclaimer. As you saw when you retrieved the gauntlet, reclaiming is very dangerous work. I have a much safer position as a seeker open to him if you want” 

Taako thought it over, he wanted Angus to be safe of course. But Taako knew Angus would hate being put on the sidelines. And after the incident with the Everhoard, he knew Angus would find some way to worm his way into the danger anyway.

“I think that’s his decision” 

She nodded, “Alright, I’ll suggest it when we speak” 

“Now, did you only wanna talk about my kid? Or do you actually want to get to know the wonderful Taako?”

She smiled briefly before returning to a neutral expression. “There was just one more thing I wanted to ask you about. It also happened about a year ago..” 

Taako froze. 

“Now, I think you already know what I’m talking about. All I wanted from you was to confirm it was an accident” 

That was it? “Yeah,” He said slowly. “I wouldn’t ruin my whole career on purpose” 

She nodded, “That’s exactly what I thought” 

She took the package that Davenport gave her and pulled out a bracer similar to the one everyone here was wearing. 

“Here, put this on. Make sure it’s comfortable, because it’s permanent. “ 

He nodded and hesitantly put the bracer on. 

“Now before you go, do you have any questions for me?” 

Yes, he thought to himself. Why did she trust him? Why wasn’t he thrown in jail or killed on sight if she’d known what he’d done? 

But instead of either of those he pulled out the umbrella. 

“Do you know what’s up with this?” He asked “I didn’t think umbrellas could be used to cast spells but this-” 

“Where did you get this?” She interrupted looking incredibly tense. 

“Off a skeleton in the cave...Why? Is it dangerous?” 

She put her hands over her mouth. “It- No, I don’t know anything about this.. You should ask Leon..” 

It was such an obvious lie. “Are you sure?” 

She paused, “Did it happen, to ‘absorb’ any magic users you defeated?” She wondered 

He shook his head, “Nah.Well, actually I don’t know..” 

“You don’t know?” 

He sighed, “I got it after we fought Brian, he was the only magic user we ran into” he failed to mention they never killed Brian.

“I see..Well then, I think you should ask Leon about it still” She insisted. 

“I’ll do that.” he said awkwardly and got up 

She nodded mutely, whispering a quiet thank you under her breath. 

As he turned to leave the room he pretended not to notice the tears in her eyes. 

---------------

Angus was the last one to talk to the director. He was tense with nerves when she finally called him into her office. 

She pulled out a chair for him they both sat down, and for what felt like years the room was filled with a tense, awkward silence. 

The director cleared her throat. “So Taako told me that he’s been your fa-guardian for the past year, is that correct?”

He nodded. 

“I wanted to know what your life was like before then” 

“What about it?” 

“Basic things, let’s start with where and who you were living with before Taako”

He looked at the floor, “I was well, in an orphanage” 

“Your whole life?” 

“Well as much as I remember which was a couple.. years? but I uh ran away a couple months before I met him” 

She froze, Angus looked up at her. She looked horrified. 

“How much do you remember?” 

He paused, “Not much, I knew that I had a grandfather at some point, my name, that I was a detective, I thought I was a ten year old human. But a year ago I found out I was wrong about that.”

She was silent. 

“I mean, I should’ve realized sooner, shouldn’t I? I hadn’t aged in about three years and I still thought I was a normal boy” he laughed awkwardly trying to lighten the mood in some way. 

He failed, she still looked horrified if anything she looked more upset. 

“Angus, I am so sorry” 

“You don’t have to apologize madam, you didn’t do anything”

She stared at him for a moment, “I- I  know.. It just, it must have been very hard for you. Not even knowing your own species, I’m sorry that had to go through that”

“Let’s move on” He desperately suggested, he didn’t want any more pity. 

“Of course.” She nodded, wiping her eyes. “So you lived in the orphanage before you ran away. Did you have any foster families?” 

He shook his head. “No, no one was really interested” 

She frowned. For some she looked almost, guilty? “You’re- Based on the report KIllian gave me, it seems to me that you’re very intelligent, no foster families were interested in you? I’m surprised, from what i've seen you should’ve had people fighting over you.“ She noted

“Thank you madam, but most people would rather have younger children than older, smarter ones” 

She nodded, “Well I’m just glad that you and Taako found one another” 

He smiled, “Yes, I only wish I could've met him a little sooner though” 

“I-Me too” 

She sighed, “There was just one last thing I wanted to talk to you about. I asked Taako about it and he told me to ask you” 

“Alright, what is it madam?” He sat up straight in his chair

“I wanted to ask you Angus, if you would rather be a seeker than a reclaimer.” 

Angus paused, processing, but the director continued. 

“It’s a much safer position that I think would make use of your skills. No real ‘field work’ I’m afraid, however-” 

Angus had heard enough. 

“Thank you for the offer madam but I’d rather be a reclaimer.” 

Her brows pinched, “Are you sure? It’s a very dangerous position, and you’re still a child.” 

Angus frowned, “With all due respect madam director, I may be a child but you know I’m not a human child” 

“I’m aware. And I understand that you’re perfectly capable of doing this type of work, but that’s not my point. I’m hesitant to put you into these situations, because I don’t want to put a child through this type of thing” 

“I’ve been through worse” 

She frowned, there was a look in her eyes he couldn’t quite place. 

“I know.” 

She reached out towards him slightly but quickly retracted and put her hand back on her lap. 

She sighed, “I’m not going to prevent you from being a reclaimer but I’m just asking you to think it over.” 

“I’ve thought about it. I don’t want to be put on the sidelines” 

She shook her head, he could see the ghost of a small and almost fond smile on her face. 

“I thought you’d say that.” She pulled out a bracer. 

“It’ s permanent but enchanted to adjust with any shape shifting so don’t worry about your polymorphing” 

He nodded and put the bracer on, it felt like it always meant to be there. He was finally a part of something. 

He went to leave and the director got up as well and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“If you ever change your mind, the seeker position is open to you” 

He nodded knowing he wouldn’t be taking that offer “Thank you madam” 

“It was very nice to see you Angus” 

She gave his shoulder a squeeze and walked out of the room. 

Normally Angus would hate adults who doubted him or treated him differently because of his age. But for some reason the director was different, maybe it was  just because they’d be working together to save the world, but even after that strange interaction he liked her. 

----------------------

They went to meet Leon the artificer, who explained a little more about Taako’s umbrella which was called the umbra staff. Then he showed them the gachapon machine. 

“Simply put your token into the machine” He explained

“Here ya go” Taako handed him the token

The man’s smile faltered “No, you put it into the machine” He held the token out for Taako.

“Okay”Taako said  but didn’t take it back.

“Here, lemme show you how it’s done” Merle said, he went up to the gachapon, put the token in and then looked at Leon. 

“Huh, I guess it’s broken” 

“No, you uh need to crank it” 

“What?”

Poor Leon sighed and cranked the machine for him, out came a very small package Merle sighed in disappointment. 

“Hey now, big things often come in small packages” Leon said

“Fuck you” Merle walked over and opened the package it was small earring, he clipped it on. 

“Oooh that’s the true heart clasp! A great prize, it gives you better insight into someone’s true intentions” 

Angus thought it was very useful however Merle looked annoyed, but of course he was probably just messing with Leon. 

“Me next!” Magnus walked up to the machine, Leon looked relieved. He then turned to Leon and handed him the token. 

Leon looked too tired to argue. 

Magnus ripped open the package as soon as it fell out. An axe, he looked at it wide eyed with excitement. 

“I’m gonna kill so many fucking trees” He smiled after Leon explained his new axe, Railsplitter. 

Leon put Taako’s token in next. The item that came out was a dark purple cloak. 

“Oh the cloak of the manta ray,It allows you to swim faster and breath under water.” Leon explained. 

“Oh sick” Taako put the cloak on. 

Angus was last, Leon took the token from him, not even bothering to see if he would do it himself. 

The package that came out was identical to Taako’s. 

The robe was a dark, silvery blue but still a cloak of the manta ray. 

“Ango we match!” Taako cheered. “Well kinda.” The cloaks were different colors after all. 

Taako leaned down putting the cloak around his shoulders. 

Why did this feel so.. familiar?  

The cloak dragged behind him. “It’s too big. Do you have any other sizes?” he asked Leon. 

He frowned, “No, I’m sorry that’s the only one I got” 

“I think being a little baggy makes it look better,” Taako commented. 

“Yeah, It looks good on you Agnes” Magnus complimented. 

Merle shrugged, “You’re just lucky you got a blue one,  it goes with your whole look. Now if it was pink or red..” he shook his head. 

Angus laughed “Thank you sirs” 

Taako lifted the hood over his head and grabbed his hand. 

“Where can we go to spend all our gold?” He asked Leon

“Oh you could always take a trip to the surface, or Fantasy Costco ™ of course” 

“Costco?” Taako looked at all of them

“Costco.” They all nodded in agreement.

----

----

A couple doodles for this fic, done by me! 

Chapter Text

 On their way to fantasy costco,  Avi stopped them and offered to show them their rooms. They accepted, knowing that it wouldn’t take long. 

When Taako heard rooms he didn’t expect Avi to show them only two rooms, one for Angus and one for the three of them plus a roommate. 

Their roommate, Robbie or more well known as Pringles. Showed them inside their new room. 

It was large, but most of the room was a complete mess except for three of the four beds which were cleaned off. 

Avi made Pringles promise that he'd have the mess ‘contained’ by the time they got back from costco, a promise he didn’t think Pringles would actually keep.

Next Avi opened the door to Angus’ room across the hall. 

The room was small but so was Angus so Taako didn’t see it as a problem. But the look on Angus’ face was a problem. 

“What’s wrong pumpkin?” 

“It’s nothing sir, let’s go-” 

“Cut that shit out kid, I don’t wanna want ten minutes for them to nudge it outta you” Merle pointed to him and Magnus. 

“Just tell us what’s wrong, it’ll get us to leave you alone quicker” 

Angus sighed, “I’ve just never had my own room before.. It looks so empty..” 

“Well of course it’s empty Ango, we need to get all your stuff” Magnus  said. 

Angus frowned, “We are allowed to go get our stuff from the surface right?” He asked Avi. 

“Yeah you could go down there, but I think the director will send someone to get everything for you” 

Magnus frowned, “How does she know where we live?” 

Avi shrugged, “I don’t know, I found it’s better not  to ask about those kinda things” 

Taako pat Angus on the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it kiddo, if your stuff isn’t here when we get back we can go grab it. kay?” 

Angus nodded. “Okay..thank you”

Taako smiled “Of course pumpkin. Now, let’s get outta here and go shopping” 

----------

The loud theme song played as they walked into costco, Angus gripped his bag of gold close to his chest. Part of him didn’t want to spend his gold but another part of him needed more books. 

They barely got a second to look around before a figure popped out of nowhere.

“Hello! It’s me, Garfield the deals warlock! Here to give you such great deals they’re practically steals!” He introduced himself 

“What can you get for you today?” 

Merle decided to buy a scuttle buddy and an extreme teen bible. Angus was going to get a scuttle buddy too, seeing it’d be useful for spy work. But Taako told him to save his money and that he’d make Merle share, Angus doubted that would actually happen. 

Taako got a wand of switcheroo, and an unlimited pasta pass. 

 Magnus got a phantom fist, and bought them all stones of farspeech. 

Angus was still making up his mind, he saw two things that he wanted. One of which was something expensive but it would be very useful. 

“Ooh I see you have your eye on the astral shell! A very useful item, It let’s speak to the recently dead for about twelve seconds. It’ll be 1,200 gold please” Garfield held out a paw. 

That’d be half of his gold. Giving up that much for only one item no matter useful, stressed him out. 

“If that’s too much. How about… 500 gold and two of your scales?” 

“Excuse me? Sir I’m not-” 

“Wait,we've been here less than a day and everyone already knows? ” Magnus said 

“Oh Carey was very excited when Killian told her, she practically told everyone. Well, she didn’t tell me though, but it’s quite easy to tell if you know what to look for” Garfield smiled

“Now what do ya say?” 

“I don’t really have any spare scales sir” 

Garfield’s smile twitched 

“Well then,” Garfield pointed to his bag, “Do you have anything in there? I want to give you a wonderful deal alright?” 

Angus looked in his bag. “The only thing I have of value is-” he grabbed the book out of his bag

Wait. He didn’t want to sell that! 

But Garfeild grabbed the book from him, “Oh! Caleb Cleaveland and The Hive Mind of Haverdon, and it’s limited edition! Yes this will suffice.” 

“No!” He said a little too loudly, “I’m not selling that.” 

“Are you sure? I’m offering you a great deal” 

“I’m sure.Give it back” He growled, he felt some scales surface on his cheeks and fingertips. 

“Wow someone’s a bit possessive” 

“Give him the book back, we’re not gonna shop here if you make him cry” Magnus said. 

“Yeah, and he likes to take notes in all his books so it’s not gonna worth that much anyhow” Taako lied

Garfield rolled his eyes and handed the book back, which Angus snatched from him. “So 1,200 gold then?” 

“Fine.”  He hesaintly gave the gold to Garfield. 

He pulled out the other item he had been looking at.

Garfield’s annoyed demeanor immediately changed back to that of an overly cheery salesman. 

“Ahh the True Sight Spy Glass! That allows you to see through any disguise spells, once every day, but get this. Once you’ve used it for the day you can still use it to see if someone is using an illusion or disguise. However you won’t be able to see what they truly look like without the disguise until it recharges” 

“It’s gonna be…. 800 gold.” 

Angus didn’t want to spend too much gold, but even while the spy glass was recharging it’d be invaluable, being to immediately tell that someone was in disguise was something worth way more than money. 

He handed the money over and Garfield took it quickly. 

They walked towards the exit, Angus spotted a book out of the corner of his eye. 

A spell book, Angus remembered how useless he was when they were retrieving the gauntlet. Maybe if he learned some spells he’d be able to actually help on the next mission. 

But Taako tugged his hand, and Angus followed knowing he couldn’t afford the book anyway. 

-----

When they got back to their rooms, Angus polymorphed back to his normal form after putting his new things away. He was happy to see all of his things from the surface were brought to his room. But despite all of the stuff it still felt empty.  

Taako, Magnus and Merle all complained about being tired and went in their room to get some sleep. 

Angus decided to check out the Bureau’s library before going to bed, maybe he could find a spell book and learn some cantrips.

“Hey! It’s you!” He heard someone shout while he was walking down the hallway.

He turned around and saw a light blue dragonborn smiling and waving at him. 

She ran up to him. 

“Hello miss..?” 

“It’s Carey. Killian told me about you and your buds” 

Oh she was the one who told everyone he was a dragon. 

“It’s nice to meet you miss Carey” 

“You don’t have to be so formal kid!” She laughed, “No but seriously I’m glad to get another dragon up here on the moon, well I’m a dragon born but ya know close enough” 

Angus smiled, so that was why she was excited. 

“Could you show me where the library is, miss Carey?” He asked 

“Yeah sure!” 

----

“So what book you looking for, kid?”Carey had brought him to the library, luckily it was quite close to his room. 

“A spell book,” He answered, “I need to learn some cantrips before the next relic.” 

“Couldn’t you just ask your bud uh- the wizard- Killian told me his name..” 

“Taako?”

She snapped, “Yeah! Couldn’t you just ask Taako to teach you a couple spells?” 

Angus paused, he knew that’d be easier. But he was a part of the bureau of balance now, if he was gonna prove that he was good enough to be a reclaimer then he’d need to learn to do some things himself. 

Of course he didn’t say that aloud,  instead he responded, “Maybe, I want to look at some spells first though. Might be nice to have a head start.” 

Carey smiled , “Oh yeah well I get that. Okay actually I know nothing about magic and spells and that shit, but I get the whole ‘wanting to get a head start’ thing. Here I think there's a few spell books over here..” 

-----

Taako couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was because Merle wouldn’t stop snoring, Magnus mumbling in his sleep, or the fact that Pringles refused to go to be bed and kept fucking humming. But the point was he couldn’t sleep. 

He dramatically sighed, getting up. As he was leaving the room, Pringles didn’t even look up from whatever the hell he was doing. 

He didn’t know where he was gonna go, he didn’t know this place. Maybe there was a bench he could sit on till morning? But he walked past Angus’ room, the light was still on. 

Wait the light was still on. Fuck, that kid was so fucking dead. 

He turned around and knocked on the door. 

“Come in!” 

He opened the door. The room was a fucking mess. All of his books were stacked in a huge disorganized pile in the middle of the room. 

Angus sat on the bed. With a large book open in his lap. 

“Hey uh kid what- what’cha reading?” 

Angus looked up, “I know it’s a mess you don’t have pretend it’s normal” 

Taako sighed “Ango? How the fuck did it get so messy? It’s been a couple hours? I don’t really care about it looking good but fuck, kid this is a safety hazard” 

“My books were in a pile before and you never minded it…” He tried, 

“Never like this” 

“Ok fine I- just like being able to see all my stuff at the same time. And before I would add books one by one and it stayed neat but now I just-” 

“You got them all back at the same time and now you don’t know how to organize?” 

Angus nodded. 

“Okay well, I’m not the best at organizing either but if we work together we could at least make this not as bad” 

Angus hopped down from his bed. 

“You’ll help me? You don’t have to.I did thi-” 

“Hey, I’ll help you. That’s what we do right?” He ruffled Angus’ hair

Angus looked up at him with a wobbly smile. “Right.” 

-------

“You never told me what you were reading,”Taako said as he stacked another book, they had been organizing for a little less than an hour now. The room was already looking better. 

“Oh it was nothing”

Taako raised an eyebrow, “Nothing?” 

“Okay fine, it was a spell book” 

“You wanna learn some magic?” 

“Yes- I mean-I do yes.” 

“You don’t need some dumb book for that pumpkin. You got me! I can show you a little cantrip right now even.” 

“Now? Sir, aren’t you tired?” 

“It’s just a cantrip kiddo. And you know I don’t need that much sleep anyway.”

Taako hopped onto the bed. 

“Come here” 

He lifted Angus into his lap. 

“Here’s light, it’s easy as fuck” He cupped his hands in front of Angus and showed off a perfect light spell. They were still able to see it even with the lights on. . 

He repeated the motion again. 

“Just focus and it’ll come to you” 

Angus nodded, copying him. Nothing happened. He tried again, nothing. 

“Relax a little pumpkin, when I said focus I didn’t mean freak yourself out” 

“Ok- I’ll try again..” he copied the movement again and once again nothing. 

Angus shakily tried again. 

“Kid, you need to relax.” He put his hand on Angus’ head. 

“You’re doing fine. Just breathe” 

“Breathe..” 

“Yeah pumpkin, take a breath and try again” He brushed the hair out of Angus’ face. 

Angus took a breath, he slowly tried again. 

It was only a flicker, just a moment. But undoubtedly he did it. 

He wrapped the kid in a hug. “Fuck yeah! I told you it was easy.” 

“Here let’s try with the lights off” He cast prestidigitation turning off the lights. 

“I’ll start and then you do it” He said, he cast light. 

For a minute is just him lighting the room, then a tiny flickering light joined him. 

“Even your breathing, it’ll stop flickering.” 

The flickering stopped, the light was dim and small. Perfect in Taako’s book. 

“See kid, you’re a natural!” 

Angus laughed, the light vanished. 

Taako stood up, he lifted the blanket over Angus. 

“Get some rest, you did good today.” 

“Can we do this again?” 

“Of course, we both need some practice before the next relic” 

Angus hummed, He yawned and laid down. A cantrip was easy for him but it must've made the kid tired. 

Taako went to open the door, hopefully he could get some sleep tonight. 

“Night Ango,” 

“Goodnight sir, I love you” Angus said sleepily. 

Taako froze. 

“You- I lo- I love you too pumpkin” 

Chapter Text

Over the past couple of weeks they settled into the Bureau.Taako didn’t really talk to anyone other than Magnus, Merle and Angus. It seemed that Merle and Magnus were pretty much doing the same aside from having brief talks with a couple people. But even though he refused to admit it Angus was really popular, the kid talked to some dragonborn lady almost every day. Taako was pretty sure her name was Casey or Carey? Something like that. He also seemed to hang out with Killian and Johann, that sad violin guy. But Angus still hung out with him the most, so Taako didn’t care that he had a few new buds, he’d always be the favorite. 

Taako wasn’t as interested in exploring the base as Magnus and Angus, he’d rather just chill in his room. Merle seemed to have the same idea, it was fine Taako was used to sharing a room. That was until Merle got his stuff back, specifically his plants. Taako walked past him when he was watering them once and heard some of the shit he was whispering to them. He decided then that they both needed some alone time. 

He didn’t find most of the base interesting, except for the kitchen. He hadn’t seen such a nice one in over a year. He’d be lying if said it wasn’t tempting, but despite how many times Angus tried to prove it wasn’t him, Taako still shook at the thought of someone eating his food. He walked past the kitchen multiple times before he finally caved. It was the middle of the night, he couldn’t sleep and was craving something sweet. He looked through the cafeteria’s fridges but none of the cookies or fruit interested him. 

He found himself walking into the kitchen. He spent the next couple of hours making a recipe he hadn’t touched in years but could remember off the top of his head, a simple fruit tart.The crust was perfect, buttery with not a single crack. He spooned on the custard and arranged the berries into an ornate pattern. He looked down at it, it was beautiful. A creation worthy of a spotlight, he knew without even tasting it that it would be delicious. 

He threw it away. 

He stole some stale cookies from the cafeteria and didn’t go back into the kitchen again after that no matter how much he wanted to.  

He couldn’t think of anything else to do so Taako spent some extra time teaching Angus some magic, he was great at enchantment for some reason but aside from that Angus was pretty average at magic for his age. He was getting cantrips down after a few tries, he wasn’t even close to trying spells though Taako helped the kid study in the library, pretending know what the fuck all those pretenious books were saying. But it seemed to help Angus, so he didn’t mind. Besides he liked acting like he was good at something. 

He almost forgot about why they were there in the first place until the announcement woke him up in the middle of the night. 

“Reclaimers. Please come to my office.” The director’s calm voice was surprisingly loud and woke him from his sleep. 

“Ooooh some dumbasses are in trouble” Merle laughed and turned over to go back to bed. 

Taako sighed, the announcement repeated. 

“I hope they go there soon,” Magnus grumbled, putting his head under his pillow. 

“I don't know why she has to wake everyone to get a couple bozos to go to her office” He commented. 

“Uuuh I’m pretty sure you folks are those bozos” Pringles pointed out. 

The announcement repeated again. 

“Like you guys are reclaimers right?” 

Taako blinked, they were reclaimers. 

“Fuck” 

---

They stumbled into the office. Angus was already there, he was in his dragon form, somehow he looked kind of awake. 

The director looked incredibly disappointed. 

“It took multiple announcements to get you here and all of you except for Angus are in your pajamas.” She shook her head. 

“Hey wait a minute, he’s in his dragon form. I bet he’s actually in his pajamas” Magnus argued

“No I’m not sir” 

“That’s not important- “

“Yes it is, Ango polymorph right now” 

“No” 

The director sighed, “I don’t really care about that. I called you here to tell you about the next relic.” 

They all stood up a little straighter. 

They listened as the  director explained The Oculus, Leaman Kessler, the serial killer and the train. How one of them would need to pretend to be Leeman to get the relic back, Merle volunteered. She told them all to get dressed and meet Avi at the canon. 

Taako was quick to get dressed, being a wizard he didn’t need any fancy armor he just threw on his cloak and hat and went on his way.  

Reaching the cannon, Angus was already there. He had polymorphed, wearing his typical fancy lad clothes under his cloak. 

“You ready pumpkin?” 

Angus nodded firmly, “We’ve done this type of thing before.And besides the Rockport Slayer was a case I was actually looking into”

“You researched a serial killer without telling me?” 

Angus’ eyes widened, “Well- It was just research. I-I wasn’t gonna go after them or anything..” 

Taako knew that was bullshit but he didn’t have the energy to argue. “I know, I’m just messing with you kiddo. But you gotta tell me these things”

Angus hummed, he could tell the kid didn’t believe him “I will.. Are you ready sir?” 

“Of course, your dude’s got this reclaiming shit down pat pumpkin” He ruffled Angus’ hair. And Angus giggled. 

Magnus and Merle joined them soon after 

“Hello sirs!” Angus jumped up, waving to them 

“Did you give him coffee?” Merle asked “You’re so hyper kid, it’s like super fucking early.” 

“I’m just excited for this mission sir!” 

“That’s the spirit Mango!” Magnus cheered

“Sirs, are you ready to get the oculus?” 

“Fuck yeah!” 

“..Sure.. Sorry kid I’m kinda dead on my feet over here” 

“That’s okay sir you can wake up on the way there.” 

“Yeah nothing like a nice cannon ride to wake you up in the morning, huh Merle?” 

Merle groaned, Angus tugged on both their hands. “Come on sirs! Magnus is already in there!” 

-------

Angus remained filled with energy until they landed. The kid was real excited, or nervous, probably both. But when they crashed into the swamp he got a little more serious. 

They dragged themselves out of the nasty swamp. Washed themselves off the best they could. And made their way to Rockport. 

The city seemed to be run by Tom Boddetts. They got to the station which was unsurprisingly run by another Tom Boddett. 

“Hello!” He greeted cheerfully, “Do you have your tickets”

“I’m Leeman Kessler, I believe you’re holding my tickets for me” Merle said. 

“Oh yes!” He pulled out the ticket and handed it to Merle, “And I have your cargo too. Are these people coming with you?” 

“Yes these are my bodyguards.” 

“Even the kid?” 

“No no” Merle chuckled,”We couldn’t find a babysitter, he’s my son” 

“ My son” Taako interrupted, no one would believe Angus being Merle’s son, he was just making their act more believable, he was not jealous. 

“He’s uh Me- Leeman’s nephew. Right bud?”

Angus blinked with confusion but quickly recovered. “Yes dad!” It made his heart stop for a moment. “Uncle Leeman thanks for letting me come along!” 

“Wait, you’re brothers?” Tom asked. 

“Yep we’re all brothers. Brothers of the cloth” Merle said dramatically, reaching for his bible. 

“Ok...but you two specifically are related.” 

“We all are!” Magnus piped up, “It’s a family business”  

“Ok..” Tom held a hand to his forehead. “What’re all your names?” 

“The big guy is Diddly Kessler, The kid is uh Bo? Yeah he’s Bo Kessler and-” 

“Justin! I’m Justin Kessler” He interrupted, he didn’t want whatever stupid name Merle would come up for him. 

Tom sighed he looked like he didn’t believe a word they were saying. “Welcome aboard..” 

He helped Angus onto the train, the kid gave him a smile “Thanks dad!” for some reason it felt right, but he couldn’t get used to it, this whole thing was an act. Why did he wish it wasn’t? 

He smiled back, “No problem kiddo” 

A figure stepped out, he was wearing a very nice bowtie but was otherwise unimpressive. 

“I’m Jenkins, I will be your wizard attendant on this journey. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Chapter Text

The wizard Jenkins, took their weapons from them, then asked if they wanted a tour of the train. Luckily Angus was able to hold on to his wand and kept his crossbow concealed in his sleeve. 

Angus looked around as Jenkins gave them the tour. He wasn’t really paying much attention to what Jenkins was saying. He had of course looked at enough crime scene pictures and blueprints during his investigation to know the basic layout of the train. Instead he was trying to see anything odd or out of place. 

The only thing he noticed was the door. It was on the blueprints, but the name ‘pleasure chamber’ didn’t really give any indication to what the room was. He really hoped it was just a spa or something. 

“Excuse me sir?” He piped up, “But what is that room for?” he pointed to the door. 

Jenkins momentarily stopped getting made fun of by Merle to look at him. 

“Oh that is the pleasure chamber. I could show if you want, it’s included in your-” 

“Wait hold the fuck up bud” Taako interuppted, “You’re inviting small children into your ‘pleasure chamber’ what the fuck. I‘m right dude and I’m gonna kick your ass” 

Jenkins stopped “What- Oh. Oh! Fuck, gods no. It’s not- I use illusion magic to transport you to a different place of your choosing. The name is a little misleading..” 

Taako narrowed his eyes, “Fine whatever..” He leaned in close. “You’re not going in there alone” He whispered and he nodded in understanding, it wasn’t like he wanted to do that anyway. 

After that interaction, Jenkins showed them to the main hall, where only three other passengers were sitting around.

He saw a wizard in very odd robes looking out the window, A dwarven woman who looked kinda familiar, (she was a wrestler right?)  dozing off and then finally a half orc woman reading a book. But she wasn’t a stranger, the second he saw her he pulled Taako’s sleeve. 

“What-?” He tried to subtly gesture to her. “Oh Iris-shit.” 

Iris was a part of the Neverwinter militia, she was the only competent detective there, well aside from him of course. He and Taako had worked with her a few times on various cases. She was generally a very nice person but he doubted she was happy when they vanished without telling anyone for nearly a month. 

She was likely here to investigate the Rockport slayer as well. If they weren’t careful they’d all blow their cover. Isri made it all that more complicated. 

“What’s up?” Magnus asked. “Do you have a problem with that la-”

Taako slapped a hand over his mouth, “Shut up- shut the fuck up.” He ‘whispered’ 

“We know her..” Angus whispered, explaining. “She’s gonna kill us for disappearing” 

“You mean she’s gonna kill me, she fucking adores you. She’s gonna fucking end me.” 

“She likes you too” 

“Yeah, that’s why she’s gonna be so pissed. We vanished and as the adult it’s my fault..” 

“If I were her, I’d be ecstatic that you’re ok!” Merle said, “just try and talk to her, she probably won’t kill you” 

Taako shook his head “nope. It’ll blow our cover” 

“He’s right sir, we’ll just have to avoid her for now” 

Angus felt a hand rest on his shoulder, “Avoid who?” Asked unmistakably Iris from behind him . 

Taako’s eyes widened, “Oh wow! Iris it’s so good to see you! It’s been so long” Taako exclaimed nervously. 

“Yeah, too long.. Say, how about we catch up?”

“Sure miss! It’s so nice to see you again! How are you?” 

“How about somewhere a little more private okay..?” 

---------

Iris led them all to her sleeper car, she shut the curtain and turned to face them. She was looking right at him with a look that said ‘explain.’ 

“So uh Iris how ya been?” He tried 

She raised an eyebrow. “You wanna know how I’ve been Taako?” 

Shit, wrong thing to say. “Yes..?” 

“Well you see I’ve been pretty good, aside from the fact I thought you two were dead for a fucking month! What the hell happened? You disappeared!” 

“Yeah and we’re sorry about that..” 

“What happened?” 

“We can’t really tell you miss” 

She frowned, “Come on did I do-” 

“No, Iris right?” Merle began, “They literally can’t tell you” 

“None of us can.. It’s physically impossible” Magnus added. 

“What do you mean? Who are these chuckle fucks anyway?” 

“Magnus and Merle.” He pointed to each of them.”And they may be chuckle fucks but they’re right we literally can’t tell you anything”  

She frowned and lifted up Angus’ arm, the one with the bracer. “Well can you tell me about this? Did you join a cult or something?”

“Kinda..” 

“What the fuck does that mean Taako?” 

“You know what? Fine. We joined the Bureau of Balance, we’re reclaimers, we retrieve the grand relics. Do you understand what I mean now?” 

“Yes! Yes I get it. Gods stop it I’m gonna get a headache”

Magnus stepped forward, “I’ll try to  explain with a little static as possible. We’re part of a.. A group,and there's these things and they’re really dangerous, and there’s one of them on this train and we need to get it.” 

“Did you get all that miss?” Angus asked

“So in addition to a serial killer, there’s also a super powerful weapon on this train?” 

“Yep! And we think the serial is trying to get the weapon.” He answered. 

“Fun..” She said sarcastically. 

“Can we count on your help miss?” Angus asked 

She rolled her eyes, “Of course, besides I gotta catch this killer anyways” 

Angus smiled. 

They left the car and made their way back to the main dining car. 

Angus grabbed his sleeve, “Can I go ask around the train for clues?” 

“Sure go wild pumpkin”

“Okay! Bye dad!” Angus responded loudly and ran over to one of the other passengers. 

Merle and Magnus seemed to follow his lead and walked over to the wizard. 

Both him and Iris hung back. 

“So dad huh?” 

“Shut the fuck up.. It’s just our cover story okay? Don’t make it weird.” 

She laughed “You looked like you were imploding when he said that. You want it to be real don’t you?” 

He sighed, “Fine, yeah I do. But it’s not, so let’s stop talking about it” 

“I think if you just told him he’d love to call you that. That kid fucking loves you” 

“But what if he doesn’t wanna? I can’t freak him out” 

She sighed “You’re such an idiot of course he- wait. Is that an axe?”

“What?” He looked to where Iris was looking, the dwarf Angus was talking to,she was holding out an axe that Angus was closely examining. 

“Oh hell no”

---------------

Here's a ref for Iris!! Sorry it's a little messy

Chapter Text

When Angus went to talk to the other passengers he had a decision between two people, a dwarf who he was pretty sure was a famous wrestler or a wizard with really weird robes.He decided on the dwarf woman first, he could talk to the wizard next. 

He walked up to her, she seemed to be dazedly looking out the window. She glanced over to him as he approached. 

“Hello miss I wa-” 

“You want an autograph?” She interrupted. 

He blinked, so she was a famous wrestler. 

“I well wanted to ask you- I” 

“You don’t gotta be nervous, kid.” She pulled out a marker. He looked around for something for her to sign but before he could settle on anything she just shrugged and grabbed his arm, writing ‘Jess the Beheader’ in large blocky letters. 

“You could take a picture of it or just never wash your arm again, suit yourself” 

“You’re Jess,” He realized, “You have that axe right, miss?” He asked. 

She smiled widely. “Hell yeah I do,”  She pulled out the axe from her luggage holding it out for him to look. 

He adjusted his glasses leaning in to take a closer look. 

“Pretty cool huh? This puppy’s soul bonded to me.” 

“That’s really impressive miss” 

She hummed, “Sure is, you look as much as you want but don’t touch.” 

He nodded, “of course ma’m” He highly doubted Jess was the killer, she wouldn’t be so open about it, in showing her axe out in the open like this. One could argue she could be planning to kill him but she’d be stupid to sign her name on him then. So he decided to rule her out for now.

He was about to ask Jess if she had seen anything strange on the train but a hand grabbed his wrist yanking him back. 

He looked up to find Taako and Iris hovering over him. 

“Hey kiddo.. Do you remember what we said about talking to strangers?” 

He blinked, “Uh.. you encouraged it?” 

Taako frowned, “Okay, fine. But how about when the stranger pulls out a fucking axe.” 

“Hey man, my axe didn’t do anything to anybody. “ 

“Your name is Jess the Beheader!” Iris argued

“And?” 

Iris sighed, Taako grimaced, “Don’t pull your axe out at my kid.” 

“I’m not gonna fight a kid-” 

“What? So you’re too good to fight my kid? He’d kick your ass, right Ango?” 

“No! Can we not antagonize someone for five minutes?” 

Iris patted him on the shoulder, “Sorry kid..” 

Taako rolled his eyes, “Yeah, sorry for saving your ass. Come on let’s meet up with the others, maybe they found something” 

With a glare he nodded and followed over to where Magnus and Merle were talking with the wizard. 

Magnus seemed to spot them approaching, he smiled and looked over to the wizard, “Well, Graham it was nice talking to you!” He said loudly. 

Merle blinked but after a second he seemed to catch up, “Oh yeah! Great to meet you, good luck with your train dreams. And Pan is always open if you change your mind” He lifted up his bible. 

Graham laughed, “Thanks but no. Nice meeting you fellas” 

Merle and Magnus waved goodbye and walked over to join them. 

“Did you find anything sirs?” 

“Nope” Magnus responded. 

“Nothing, well other than he’s probably not the guy.” Merle added. 

 Iris sighed, “So we got nothing?” 

“Apparently.” Taako looked at the ground

“Excuse me,” A voice cut through their conversation

Jenkins walked up to them holding out a large platter with various, small horderves. “Would any of you like something to eat?” 

“Fuck yeah Jenkins,” Magnus clapped him on the shoulder making him almost drop the platter. 

Taako took something off the plate and took a small bite, he grimaced and as Angus was reaching to grab something for himself Taako smacked his hand, stopping him. 

“Did you waste a spell slot on this shit?” 

Jenkins stopped, “No I-I use my magic for-” He sighed, “I didn’t really come to hand out appetizers, I actually came to ask if any of you would like to use the pleasure chamber. Some of the other passengers have already and-”

“It’s that ripoff teleportation right?” Taako asked. 

“Well, it’s actually illusion magic not-” 

“Great we’re in!” Merle interrupted already heading over to the door. 

Jenkins frowned, clenching his fists.“Excellent..” 

--

They couldn’t decide on a place to visit so Jenkins suggested a garden and since they couldn’t think of anything better they agreed.

The illusion was so realistic, Angus felt like he could pick one of the flowers right from the stem, but Jenkins told them beforehand that trying to take things wouldn’t work so he didn’t try. 

“Okay listen up,” Iris said once they were inside. “We need some sort of plan going forward.” 

“I agree,” Magnus added, “We need to know what we’re doing next, we got nothing so far.” 

Taako shrugged, “We do know that the relic- sorry Iris the dangerous thing, is in a safe in the cargo. Maybe we can just grab it and do the whole murderer thing after we got the thing they’re looking for.” 

Iris shook her head, “Wish we could, but the safes all got this special lock. It needs extended contact from a staff member.”

“She’s right, the contact also needs to be an hour long” Angus tacked on, he remembered the safes from his research. 

“So we got nothing still” Merle sighed

“I would’ve been able to get some information from Jess if some people didn’t interrupt” He side eyed Iris and Taako.

“She looked like she was gonna kill you- Okay fine, we’ll talk to her as a group and see if we can learn anything. I bet we won’t though’ Taako offered 

“So we interrogate Jess and go from there?” Magnus asked. 

“That’s the plan sir,” 

“It’s not a very good one..” Merle grumbled. 

“It’s all we got for now,” Iris sighed, “Hopefully she knows something” 

“Hopefully..” He agreed. 

--- 

Taako didn’t think that wrestler would know anything, he didn’t think it was worth wasting their time talking to her. Besides he pissed her off earlier and he wasn’t in the mood for an axe to skull. But Angus was pretty adamant about questioning her, and they hadn’t found anything else so he went along with the group.  

He and Iris were at the front of the group as they walked up to Jess, who unsurprisingly looked like she was about to fall asleep again. She looked up, and smirked at Iris, completely ignoring the rest of them. 

“Came to apologize?” 

Iris rolled her eyes, “No we need to ask some questions.” 

“Go ahead, I got nothing to hide from you” 

“In private.” He glared. 

Her smirk vanished, “fine, whatever let’s get this over with.” 

--

She brought them to her sleeper car,  and shut the door. 

“First off who the fuck are you people, I’m not answering any questions until you tell me.” 

Angus held out his hand “Angus Mcdonald miss-” 

Merle elbowed him in the side, “Is his fake name, he’s Bo Kessler and I’m Le-” 

“No you’re not,” She laughed, “You’re not fooling me man.” 

Taako sighed, “The kid is Angus, I’m Taako,the lying old guy is Merle, the big guy who looks like he’s gonna explode-” 

“I’m just such a big fan Jess, can I call you Jess?” 

“-is Magnus. And the only official detective here, sorry Ango but you’re a private investigator, is-” 

“Iris, I’m Iris’ She interrupted. 

“Well I would say it’s nice to meet you folks but that’d be a lie,” She laughed, “So let’s get this over with huh?” 

“Yes, of course miss. We simply wanted to know if you noticed anything suspicious on your ride today.” 

She raised an eyebrow, “To be frank you guys are the most suspicious group I’ve seen in a while”

“Well, besides us,” Magnus said.  

She thought for a moment before shrugging, “Nah, sorry. That juicy wizard guy is odd but I don’t think he’s a criminal or anything” 

Angus frowned “Alright, I have just one more question. Why did you bring your axe on the train when you’re not allowed to bring weapons?” 

She chuckled, “You think you’re sly kid? I saw that little crossbow, the staff thought it was a toy but I know it’s real.” 

“Answer his question” He said coolly.

“Fine. Same reason as you I suppose. I’m not stupid, I’ve heard about the slayer. I could probably kick their ass with nothing but it’s good to have a little extra. Also the axe is like my brand, I can’t not have it with me” 

Iris hummed, “Fine, fair enough. If you do see anything suspicious though, you need to tell us.” 

She smiled, “I will.” 

Magnus put his hand on the door knob, “Well, it was great to meet you. Before we go could you sign something for-” 

“AAAAAAHHH” A loud screech interrupted him making them all jump. 

Magnus kicked the door open, then ran into the dining hall. 

Magnus suddenly stopped in his tracks, making them all practically slam into him. 

“Jenkins!” Magnus fell to his knees, over the de-headed and de-handed body with a recognizable bloodied bowtie.

Merle put his hand on Magnus’ shoulder, Iris blinked away whatever horror she was feeling to investigate the crime scene. 

Taako looked over at Angus who had a determined look on his face, while searching his bag. 

“You okay pumpkin?” He couldn’t think about however he was feeling right now, the kid shouldn’t be seeing this shit. 

“Hmm? Oh I’m fine. I’m just looking for something.” He seemed unphased. 

Taako paused, “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah? It’s very sad, yes, but I’ve seen plenty of bodies bef- Oh found it!” Before Taako could process that Angus pulled out a shell from his bag. 

“Just watch da- sir, this’ll be so easy!” He smiled. 

Angus wasn’t good at faking smiles, it was so empty.

Chapter Text

Angus tried to put on a smile, or at the very least he tried not to cry. He couldn't act weak here, this was just a part of the job, right? Right. He’s the world’s greatest detective, he shouldn’t be on the verge of tears because of a body. No, he had to be serious. 

He pulled out the astral shell, this could be the key to solving it all. It was only twelve seconds, yes, but he could directly ask the victim who the killer was, and they’d be out of this death trap in no time. He wondered if he had to look at the body to use the shell, the sight of it made him gag. 

“So uh kiddo, what is that exactly?” Taako asked after he pulled the shell out. 

“The key to solving the whole mystery sir!” He said with fake enthusiasm. “When you blow into it, the shell transports your consciousness to a temporary plane to speak with the recently deceased. It’s only for about twelve seconds. But still! It’ll teach us a lot!” 

Merle hummed, “So like parlay?” he asked. 

“Exactly!” He exclaimed, but then he paused. No, it really had nothing to do with that..

“No..? Doesn’t sound like a gambling thing” Jess spoke before he could. “Why’d you say that?” 

Merle shrugged, “I thought parlay meant something else too? Kid you agreed with me, does it mean some smart shit?” 

It had a second meaning, he swore it did. But for the life of him he couldn’t think of anything other than a gambling context. It was as if the other meaning was taken out of his head. 

“I can’t remem-It’s not important right now. I’ll talk to the victim, it’ll only be twelve seconds and we’ll have this whole thing solved.”

“You ready kid?” Magnus asked. 

“Yes sir!” He held the shell up. 

Taako leaned down and ruffled his hair.”Go ahead pumpkin, I’ll watch out for you” Angus smiled, for real this time. 

“Thanks si-dad!”

The last thing he saw as he blew into the shell was Taako’s shocked face as the world faded to black.

----

Angus opened his eyes, the world was in greyscale. The ‘sky’ above him was a light grey, with what looked like a huge clock face floating, counting down from twelve seconds. 

He didn’t have a lot of time, he went to get up but found he was in his dragon form. Maybe this plane prevented any polymorphing. 

He looked around and sticking out from the grey and black of this world was figured covered in red. 

[11..] 

“Excuse me!” He yelled bounding over to the figure. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but it will be for a moment” 

“I’m not who you’re looking for. "The figure said calmly the voice felt like one he had heard before,they were still facing away from him. 

Angus took another step forward, it like the person was thin wrapped in a red robe, Angus could only see their hand from under the robe, it looked to be skeletal. 

“What do you mean?” 

“The spirit you are looking for has already moved to the astral plane” 

He frowned, that made no sense. He wasn’t a ghost expert or anything, but it was common knowledge that spirits would stick around for a few hours after their demise, especially if they were murdered. 

Angus decided it wasn’t worth questioning the other spirit with, he didn’t have the time for useless arguments.

“Well, could you help me?” 

[10..] 

The figure turned to face him, they were entirely skeletal. Angus expected that after noticing their hand, but for some reason seeing a skull instead of face sent shivers down his spine, he instinctively raised his wings and took a step back. 

The spirit flinched pulling their hood up to cover their ‘face’. 

“Ang- Child, there is no reason to be scared.”Their voice was steady but had a nervous edge. 

“I can help you with what I know.” They continued, “Do you know why murders remove victims' heads? Well besides being cruel of course” 

[9..] 

“To prevent identification?”He frowned, “But that was stupid we could all tell it was Jenkins” 

“Could you?” 

He blinked, They actually couldn’t, besides the clothes, the murderer removed all identifying features.

Before he could continue the spirit asked another question. “Do you remember how the crypt safe works?” 

“One hour of sustained contact from a staff- oh shit” 

[8..] 

“Indeed.” 

“The murderer didn’t kill Jenkins, Jenkins is the killer! And he’s gonna use the hands to break into the safe." He realised, “But who was the victim?” 

“There are only so many staff on the train..” 

“The engineer!"

[7..]   

The spirit hummed. “Excellent job, you are quite smart.” They sounded almost proud?

“Thank you! I appreciate your help.” 

The spirit chuckled, “Oh I only gave you the pieces, you got it all on your own.”

[6..] 

“Do you know anything else you could tell me before I wake up?” He asked. 

The spirit paused, seeming to think. 

[5..] 

“I actually have a question for you, if you don’t mind” 

“I don’t mind, it’s only fair, you’ve helped me so much” 

The spirit nodded, 

[4..] 

“How are you?” 

He blinked, he wasn’t sure what expected a spirit to ask, but it wasn’t that. 

“You’re quite smart, but also still very young. Do you enjoy this work?”The spirit continued. 

“I do..”he said slowly, “I love solving mysteries, it’s my favorite thing!” 

[3..] 

“That’s good,” The spirit said warmly,”I’m sure ‘creatia’s very proud. I know I am.” 

[2..] 

What was this guy talking about?

“I’m sorry, I don’t really know what you mean?” 

“Oh it’s nothing.” They brushed him off. “Just remember-” 

[1..]

“there are many people who care about you. You need to care more about yourse-” 

[0..] 

The clock’s final chime interrupted him. Angus blinked awake.

He was being held by Magnus, their entire group had thankfully moved away from the body. They were facing Graham who looked much like everyone else, tired and upset.

“Welcome back pumpkin,” Taako greeted him,

 “We’re questioning, Juicy over here.” Magnus pointed to Graham. 

“He was passed out at the scene," Iris added, 

“We don’t need to question him, I know who did it” He said and all eyes were on him. “That” He pointed to the body. “Is not Jenkins, Jenkins is the killer he-” 

“Pulled a swicharoo?” Magnus asked

“Exactly sir, he’s planning to use the hands to break into the safe.” 

Merle cursed, “So who the hell is that? Please tell me you asked them” he was looking at the body

“Well I talked  to someone else-”

“What? Who were you talking to?” Taako asked urgently 

“They helped me figure out that the victim was the engineer. “ He explained, ignoring Taako’s question. 

“So where is Jenkins now?” Iris asked, 

“That’s the one thing I didn’t get, we can assume he’s aiming for the safe, if we can get there before him, he’ll be forced to confront us” 

“And it’ll be six on one," Jess added. 

“I’m here too!”Graham argued

“Sure ya are” 

Angus zoned out as they discussed a plan, he knew it was important but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being stared at. He looked all around but found nothing, finally he looked up.

He audibly gasped as he made direct eye contact with the creature on the ceiling. A huge crab stared right at him with a huge unblinking eye. 

Everyone else asked what was wrong, he couldn’t find the words to explain. He silently pointed above him. 

“Holy shit!” Taako stared at the creature, he grabbed Magnus and by extension Angus pulling them both back.

Merle watched it with horror cursing under his breath, Jess pulled out her axe with a scowl.

The crab upon realizing it had been spotted, jumped down from the ceiling to stand over them. It snapped its giant claws, Angus trembled but pulled out his wand. 

This was why he was training, he couldn’t be scared now.

Chapter Text

Taako took one look at that thing and decided there was no way they could fight it. Those huge fucking claws could snap him half, no way in hell anyone would getting close that monster. 

Magnus was putting Angus down so they could both fight but Taako grabbed his arm. 

“We need to run.” 

“What?” 

“Trust me- just run towards where the safes are” 

Angus’ eyes widened,realizing Taako’s idea “He’s right.” 

“Fine” Magnus said, “I have to hit this thing so we can that way though” 

Everyone else nodded in agreement, only Jess seemed bothered by not having to fight. 

Taako took Angus from Magnus who readied his axe. The crab snapped it’s claws preparing itself for a fight, it never got that. 

Magnus swung railsplitter, Taako didn’t even get a chance to see where the hit landed. He was already running away, he heard a loud terrible screech from behind them and Magnus yelling for everyone to keep running, he didn’t need to be told twice. 

They ran into the next car, several safes lined the walls. Jenkins sat in the middle holding the hands of his victim on the lock of one. His eyes widened and looked up at them 

“What the- fuck no!”He growled, Taako could still hear the crab thrashing and screeching, trying and failing to fit into the door. 

“How’d you do it? How’d you solve my perfect crime?” He asked desperately 

Magnus smiled, holding railsplitter which was still stained with crab blood, “A third grader helped us”

Jenkins cussed under his breath, “Whatever! I'll just-” His eyes widened, he pulled out the same rod he used to activate the magic in the pleasure chamber. “Send you straight to hell!” 

“Wow real original” Taako rolled his eyes, ignoring the vortex to what looked like it would send someone falling down into a rocky chasm. 

“Yeah like what are you a Bond villain?” Merle asked

“You should try to be a little more creative with your one liners sir”Angus piped up

Jenkins growled, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Shut up! I’ll just push into that portal and you’ll fall to your deaths, how’s that for a one liner?” 

“ A solid four out of ten” Magnus offered

“Are we gonna keep talking  or are we gonna fight this asshole?” Jess asked, exasperated.  

“Yeah can we get to the part where I kill you guys?” Jenkins asked, his wand glowing. He sent a fire bolt flying through the air, making them all duck. But they weren’t the target he realized too late, the spel hit the door behind them giving it just enough damage that the crab was able to force itself into the cramped car. 

Many things happened at once. The crab thrashed around, the car, it’s huge claw slam and broke through the wall. Jess brought her axe down on its shell, making it screech ear shatteringly loud. 

Angus jumped out his arms, shifting to his dragon form, still holding his wand in his jaws. Through all the chaos, Jenkin must to his dismay wasn’t that freaked out. His eyes widened at the sight of a dragon but then, the fucker smiled. 

“You think you’re scaring me? Do you know how valuable that thing is?”

Taako snarled, “He’s not a thing, he’s the kid that’s gonna kick your ass” He said through gritted teeth, making Jenkins laugh.

He didn’t even need to waste a spell slot on this dick, kicking him in the teeth would likely do the trick. Before he could do anything, Magnus grabbed his arm pulling down just enough that the thrashing crab didn’t knock his head off. 

“Pay attention!” Jess screamed, trying to push the crab out onto the rails through the hole it created. 

He could only manage a tiny nod of thanks to Magnus before he got up, now even more pissed at the shitty excuse for a wizard sitting in front of him. 

They didn’t plan it but their makeshift group divided in the fight, with Iris, Magnus and Jess fighting the crab monster. And him, Angus, and Merle fighting Jenkins.

It was a few minutes of trading blows, he tried to conserve his slots, mostly to be petty but also he thought he was doing fine without needing to use anything big. 

Looking back, he wished he wasn’t so petty. 

Jenkins came at him with a magic missile, splitting up the bolts to aim at each of his foes. Merle and Angus being small were both able to dodge easily, his lanky ass on the other hand not so much. 

He saw it coming, but not quick enough, he managed to open his umbrella before it hit him. It left him bruised and on his ass but not dying or anything. 

But that wasn’t the problem. Before any of them could react, a force pushed him back against the floor hard as he tried to sit up.

He looked up to see Jenkins pinning him to the floor with a spell, too strong to be a mage hand. Looking back it was likely unseen servant. The serial killer looked down at him with a smug smile. Behind him he could see that the crab had pushed its way into blocking everyone else off from the two of them. 

He reached for his staff but Jenkins kicked it away. He heard the others yelling for him to hold on. He grimaced, he could handle this. But one person wasn’t yelling, Angus, they made eye contact and he knew the kid had a plan.

“This is what you get for underestimating me.” Jenkins smiled, he just had to stall or find some way to get him to loosen up.

“I think I estimated you pretty accurately” His said with fake calmness, he even shrugged, well as much as could. 

That seemed to piss him off, “This- this didn’t have to happen. You guys were dicks! I would’ve left you alone if you didn’t treat me like shit!” 

Taako rolled his eyes. “Wow dude, you’re so fucking nice. You only kill people who you ‘need’ to for your plans and who kind of annoy you? Sounds like a pretty sound moral code to me my guy” Jenkins seethed, he saw Angus’ wand glow aiming for the crab. 

“So like, you wanna monologue? Cuz I’m like a captive audience. Get it?” He teased, Angus shot off his spell and the crab suddenly stopped attacking, Taako gave Jenkins a wide smile. 

“I’m gonna- Why haven’t I killed you?” He growled. 

Taako laughed, “You tell me” He saw Angus point his tail to Jenkins, the crab turned its head, a dazed look in its eye. 

Jenkins pointed his wand to his head, he didn’t even have the chance to try another one liner before all hell broke loose. 

The crab rushed at them. Jenkins heard it coming and jumped up in schock. He took that chance to jump out his hold and out of the way. Grabbing his staff and casting shield before Jenkins had the chance to process what was happening the crab swung down its claw at his head. 

All they could was watch as the hopeless battle between continued. Jenkins got off a few spells but nothing phased the monster’s rampage.

“You may think you won!” Jenkins yelled mid-spell. “But this isn’t the last you’ll be seeing o-” 

A swing directly to the stomach cut him off, he flew through the air and crashed through the hole in the car tumbling out onto the tracks. 

They all gaped, after a few moments when Jenkins didn’t come climbing back they all let out a collective sigh of relief knowing that it was all over. Jenkins’ wand rolled to his feet, like it was moving on its own his staff turned inside out and fucking ate the wand. 

“Huh.” 

The crab still under a spell looked to Angus as if it was awaiting another order. Speaking of Angus the kid didn’t look great, it seemed like a single spell knocked all the energy out of him. Taako scooped him up, and the kid immediately relaxed. He felt a little bad for nudging him awake. 

“We’re almost done here pumpkin. Stay awake a little longer kay?” 

Angus yawned “..kay” 

“What’d we do with this thing?” Merle asked, gesturing to the crab. 

“Ango charmed it right? We can just push it off..” Magnus suggested. 

“No, trying to hurt it will break the charm” Iris brought up. 

Jess shrugged, “That’s not really a problem right now though is it?” 

Merle frowned “Yeah.. first how do we get off this train without dying, all the staff are dead” 

“Shit” He realized. 

“Hey uhh Graham?” Magnus yelled, Graham peeked out from his hiding place. 

“Nice job guys I-” 

“Yeah thank us later. You’ve always wanted to work on a train right?” Magnus asked

“Oh yeah! I sure do love-” 

“Great, listen can you stop this one? We’re probably gonna crash pretty soon” He interrupted

“No! I’ve read books but I’ve never! No I can’t..” Graham sighed. 

It felt hopeless, but then he saw the rod, the one Jenkins used to operate the pleasure chamber and open the now closed vortex. 

“I got an idea”

--

Angus ordered the crab to stay in the car, taking the safe and unfortunately the hands with them, they left that car behind and rushed to the front of the train. 

Operating the rod he opened a portal to Jenkins’ garden, the guy wouldn’t be using it anymore anyway. The vortex slowly opened up in front of the train. He laughed with relief. 

“C’mon go go go!” Magnus hurried, rushing everyone to get off the train. 

Graham looked hesitant, and Magnus slung him over his shoulder and as well as picking Merle up and hopping off. 

Jess grabbed Iris’ hand, the two shared a smile before climbing out together. 

“Come on kiddo, let’s get the hell out of here”He whispered to Angus before they too tumbled out.

All covered in bruises and missing a couple teeth from the fall, they watched the train ride through the vortex crashing through Jenkins’ garden. 

Merle walked around healing them all. He saw Neverwinter a little bit ahead, all the guards freaking out over the commotion. In his lap he heard the safe click, finally unlocked he tossed away the hands and saw the Oculus.

Just as powerful as remembered, he thought with a smile before closing the safe back up. 

He got to his feet. “C’mon fellas we got a relic to destroy!” Magnus gave a half hearted cheer, while Merle just rolled his eyes fondly. He tapped on his bracer for a ride back to the moon

Iris wrapped him and Angus in a hug, “I have no clue what the fuck you boys are doing but it seems like you’re fighting on the right side with this.Good job, and don’t forget about me. Okay?” 

He laughed at the very idea, “I could never do that” 

Chapter Text

When they returned to Moon base the director and a few others were standing around waiting for them. There was no fanfare, no celebrations, just tired relieved smiles sent their way. The director walked up to them. 

“I’m glad to see you’ve recovered the relic, and just in time for the eclipse in a couple days as well” She said with a tired smile, “And you’re all okay right? I don’t need to grab a healer?”she asked, specifically looking at the passed out dragon in his arms.

“Nah I already got that it’s only the kid, but he’s just tired, he doesn't need any healing, I checked”Merle answered. 

The diretor looked relieved, “ Well good. How about we get you your payment and that relic destroyed so you can get some sleep?” 

They all sleepily agreed and the director brought them to her office. Davenport came to give them their payment and was the only fully awake person in the room.They decided as a group to shop and use their tokens the next day when they were more awake. 

When they finally made their way back to their room to finally get some sleep Taako noticed something off. Pringles was just gone, the guy's stuff was nowhere to be found. It was like he quietly disappeared when they were out. 

“Hey where’s Pingles?” Magnus asked before he got the chance, to the director who was on her way to her own quarters.

She frowned, “He’s being investigated currently.. He got involved in some suspicious activity” 

“Like his potions?” Merle asked, “He wasn’t exactly subtle with that” 

She shook her head, “It’s not that. I can’t exactly tell you” 

Taako wanted to protest, but he was too tired to find out what happened to a guy that always pissed him off, “He’s not dead right?”

“What? No, of course not” 

“Cool. That’s all I needed to hear.” He responded, “Now could everyone shut the fuck up so I can go to bed” 

“I’m with ya” Merle nodded, walking into the room. 

Magnus looked hesitant, but sighed and said “Yeah Okay..” a little weird for the guy but they had been awake for like twenty four hours so he’d cut him some slack. 

They both went into the room,”you coming?” Magnus asked his hand on the doorknob. 

“Yeah, in a sec, gotta put the kid to bed. You guys can start sleeping if you want, I’ll try not to wake you” 

Magnus nodded, and quietly closed the door. That left just him, an asleep Angus and the director who had stayed behind. 

“I know you’re tired but try to wake up around noon, we’re started preparations for the eclipse” 

He chuckled, “I’m not exactly the most helpful” The director frowned, “But I’m sure Maggie would love putting streamers up. Don’t know about Merle though, the guy’s not exactly tall” 

“I wanted to ask if you could provide some food-” 

“No.” He interrupted. 

“It’s not a lot. Just like one or two dishes, we don’t have any other chefs here-” 

“Correction, you don’t have any. Sorry but I’m not doing that” 

She sighed, “I understand, sorry for pushing you. I would appreciate it if you could lend a hand in a different way though” 

“It’s fine. I can like sweep some floors or whatever if you want” 

She gave a small smile, “I appreciate it.Thank you and sleep well Taako” 

“You too boss” He gave a half-hearted wave as she walked off. 

He walked into Angus’ room setting the kid’s stuff on his desk for him. Casting a quick prestidigitation to turn the lamp on, it made Angus stir, making him freeze in place. But after a second he fell back into a normal sleep. He sighed in relief setting the sleeping dragon down on the bed. He pulled the blankets over him which was when Angus decided to wake up. 

Angus yawned and blinked up at him. “Wha- where’s the oculus and Jenkins and-” 

“We got em bud, you can sleep. It’s all good”

Angus looked down, “Did I really sleep that long? I’m sorry for being so useless sir-” 

“Hey kid,look at me” He interrupted. “That’s fucking stupid and you know it. You saved the day. You’ve only ever done cantrips before and you’re like nine I’d be surprised if you didn’t pass out”

Angus sighed, “I- just need to do better”

“And you will. But you’re gonna improve at all if you don’t get some sleep ‘kay?” 

“Okay..” 

He pat Angus on the back, “Pumpkin you’re just fine in my book.”

“Thank you, for this and for just everything” Angus looked up at him. 

“You don’t have to thank me. I do this shit ‘cause  I love you, remember that. Now please pumpkin, get some sleep” The words just fell out of his mouth, he was always the most honest when tired. 

Angus leaned onto him, “I love you too si- Taako.” 

He kissed Angus on the forehead, “Good night pumpkin.The director wants us to help with some festival or whatever tomorrow so you gotta promise me you’ll sleep” 

“I’ll promise if you promise”

He chuckled, “Sure, I promise. That good enough?” 

“Yeah, good night Taako” 

He smiled warmly and left the room. He couldn’t remember why he was afraid of saying that then, it just felt right . 

-----------------------------

Angus wandered out of his room the next morning, and by the looks of it he had slept in. Everyone else had already left, he peeked into the room across from his and it was completely empty, not even Merel who usually spent most of his mornings caring for his plants was nowhere to be found. 

He walked down the empty hall until finding Carey and Killian chatting while hanging up, balloons? Wait. The eclipse, he was supposed to help prepare. Shit- 

“Oh, hi Angus!” Carey greeted him with smile

“Morning kiddo” Killian nodded at him, taping some balloons to the wall.

“Hello ma’ams! Do either of you know where the director is?” He asked, his wings and tail twitching nervously “I was supposed to help and I slept in and I-” 

KIllian sighed, “ Kid,you gotta stop getting all worked up about this trivial stuff, it’s just decorations, you don’t need be so worried”

“He doesn’t need a therapy session either babe,” Carey pat her on the shoulder, “Pretty sure she’s in her office and she’s not gonna be mad at you buddy” 

“Thank you miss Carey” He said, she gave him a thumbs up and he ran off towards the director’s office, Carey and Killian continuing their conversation.

He knew he got too nervous about dumb things, he understood that basically no one cares. But that didn’t stop the irrational fears, the fear that all his ‘small’ and ‘trivial’ mistakes would add up and everyone would hate him. 

He ended up staring up at the door to the director’s office. What if she is mad? He wondered. No, she’s not like that, he reassured himself. She won’t be mad over something so little. But he’s done other things, like being asleep when they returned from retrieving the oculus. He sighed, he had to face her eventually either way. If she wasn’t mad at him now she would be for avoiding her. 

He hesitantly tapped his tail against the door and waited for a response. 

After a moment he heard the director say, “Come in!”

He groaned, polymorphing despite his exhaustion to reach the door knob. He turned the knob open to see the director sitting at her desk, she was looking at some papers with a deep frown. She looked up and him and her expression changed to more of a slight smile. 

“Oh Angus good morning, do you need anything?” She asked

“Uhm yes sorry.I was supposed to help with the eclipse preparations and I’m sorry madam but I slept in and-”No, stop. Over apologizing was annoying too! He took a deep breath, “I’m awake now how can I help?” 

She blinked, “Oh that . There’s no need Angus, it’s alright. We’re close to finishing. You can relax.” she brushed him off

“Oh, okay. Sorry for bothering you madam” He responded awkwardly. 

He heard the director stand up before he could leave. “Wait,” She put a hand on his shoulder and turned him to face her, “There is something I need your help with.But it’s a surprise, so don’t tell anyone” 

He tilted his head, a surprise“What is it madam?”

“Yes, I know it’s not for a while but I’m working on something for candlenights and I’d like your help. “

What could skills contribute to a candlenights gift? “What is it?”

“I was thinking, perhaps a portrait of all of our members? Something we could paint, just like old times” He looked at her portrait, yeah that made sense. ‘Old times’ what did she mean by that, oh wait she probably just painted more before forming the Bureau.

“With all due respect, miss, why me? I’m not an artist” 

She frowned, “Ye- I’m sure you’ll do great. Actually,I think we can work on the eclipse first..” Her eyes widened, like she had an idea. 

“We could paint some posters maybe?”She suggested, “That way you can practice for the portrait. I was being a bit overzealous anyway, we won’t need to start working on a gift for a couple weeks at least.” She paused, “Just remember, don’t tell anyone”

He blinked, he doubted painting some posters would prepare him to create a portrait. Either way he’d be disappointing her, if he said yes and did poorly or if he refused. It was a lose lose situation for him. 

So that’s why he was so confused as to how ended up where he was. He sat across from the director at one of the tables in the cafeteria, a bunch of paints, brushes and poster paper laid out in front of them. The director explained what type of posters they would need,posters to remind people to wear sunglasses for viewing the eclipse, and posters for some of the games and food stands that would be set up.

It took him a bit to get started, he was so afraid of messing up. But eventually he started sketching, he started off with a very simple design. By the time he was finished painting his poster, the director had already finished two. 

He looked down at his own and was surprised by how much he liked it. Most of his strokes had felt like muscle memory, like he had done this before, maybe he had? He had no memory of much of his childhood. Remembering that fact made him frown. 

“Angus are you alright?” The director

He blinked, he zoned out for a second there. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something madam,” he started, it was true, she was the only person he could think of that he trusted to and could possibly give him any answers about his past. 

“Oh? Well you can ask me anything” She said

He paused, there were so many things he could possibly ask, like if the voidfish ichor hadn’t completely returned his memories. Or if there was another creature like it. But then he remembered the look on her face when he brought that up the first time, the horror and sadness and guilt? He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t want that to happen again. 

“What is...” He paused, there were tons of other things he could and wanted to ask. “What is going to happen to the bureau when we get all the relics?”It was something he was genuinely curious about, he loved living on the moon, but it wasn’t permanent. The collection of the oculus reminded him of that.

She sighed, setting her paintbrush down “I’m, I’m not sure yet. I assume that everyone will go their separate ways..”

That just made a deep pit form in his stomach, “oh.” he didn’t want to be left again. Maybe it was just the clingy child in him coming out, but the idea of never seeing the people he met here was shattering. 

She leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder, “That isn’t for sure. Just speculation. The people here Angus, they care about each other and they care about you. Even if you don’t live in the same hall, you’ll still be close. They won’t just forget about you.”She brushed his hair away from his eyes, the motion felt familiar and comforting

 “I know I won’t” 

He smiled, “Thank you madam. I still want to see you and everyone else when this is all over” 

“You will,” She pulled him into a gentle hug. “I don’t plan on leaving anyone else behind”

Chapter Text

Taako’s costume fit awkwardly, he had dressed as Magnus for the eclipse celebration, mostly because he didn’t know it was a costume party until the day before and it would be easy plus it would make Magnus happy. But he forgot that the guy’s clothes wouldn’t fit him and axes were heavy. It wasn’t a great costume, but he had the confidence to pull it off. But with Magnus and Merle’s costumes it seemed like he was the only one of their group that didn’t know. Well, except for Angus.

“Pumpkin, you know it’s a costume party right? You know I’m sure we could throw something together real quick..” He rummaged through some drawers looking for something to work with.

“But Taako, I am wearing a costume!” Angus huffed

“Uhh” He looked at the kid again, “You look the same as always hun” 

“No, I’m Caleb Cleveland! He wears a blue tie, I usually wear a bowtie”

“So you just put a tie on..” 

“Well uh” Angus looked away “I also changed my vest, it’s black instead of blue..” 

Taako sighed, “You know what? You look good, it’s fine.” 

He saw Angus frown “Um ok..” 

“Kiddo, don’t overthink it. Maybe you could uh oh! Show some scales and be like dragon Caleb? Wait, you should do that, it’d be sick.” He suggested. 

To his relief the kid brightened and brought out some scales to his face and arms.

“Is this right?” Angus asked, inspecting his appearance. 

“Yeah you look fucking rad” Taako complimented, ruffling his hair. “Now let’s go before those bozos get tired of waiting” 

---

The whole base was decorated with lights, posters and banners. Everyone was wearing their costumes and stalls lined the courtyards with various food and games. 

They walked past Carey and Killian the former yelling out “Sick Caleb costume kiddo!” Killian giving a thumbs up to show her own approval. So maybe he was the only one who couldn’t tell.

They tried to play some games but they were totally fucking rigged, Magnus sugested they use some magic to win but they were caught and banned from all the games. They all were contemplating what the fuck they would do then when the director called everyone up to the observatory to view the eclipse.   

Davenport handed them some glasses to look at the clipse, he picked Angus up to give the kid a decent view and then they waited. It wasn’t long until it started, the crowd gasped as they all watched. But then suddenly it all went wrong. 

Everyone else just dropped to the floor, passed out. Him, Angus, Magnus and Merle were the only ones still conscious. The sky turned from the eclipse to thousands of eyes opening and looking right at them. 

He held Angus tight, this couldn’t be happening, not again. They’d been here for so long, he couldn’t lose this. 

He blinked and it was over and so were those odd thoughts. The first person to stir was the director. She looked at them all with wide eyes. 

“Were you awake?”She asked 

“Yes ma’am” Angus was the first to answer, the rest of them mumbling and nodding in agreement.

“Ok.. well then we need to talk.”

---

The director rushed them to her office as everyone else was beginning to wake up. 

“What happened?” She asked right as the door shut behind them. 

Taako shrugged, “Uh well the eclipse was about to happen right?”

“But like everyone just passed out” Merle added 

“”Except us!” Magnus chimed in 

“And the sky was filled with..eyes?” Angus said hesitantly, looking at him for confirmation. 

“Eyes?” The director froze.

“Yeah! It was super weird..” He confirmed. 

“Yeah like they were staring into my soul” Magnus shivered

“Did anything else happen?” She asked, gripping her staff tightly. 

“Not really…”Merle shrugged. “Just everyone passing out and then all the eyes” 

“It was creepy sure but nothing else really happened, no.” Magnus said. 

The director nodded a frown still on her face. “I see…If anything like ever happens again, tell me immediately alright.” 

“Of course madam!” Angus nodded, “Yeah you got it” He tacked on, Magnus and Merle giving similar sentiments. 

The director thanked them and shoved them out of her office so she could make an announcement about what just happened to the whole base. 

“That was.. Fucking something alright” He said lamely after a moment of standing in silence. 

“Sure was” Merle chuckled, “I’m gonna take a nap and try not to think about it”

Taako laughed, “Oh hell yeah. Ango, you wanna get some sleep too?” he asked

“I’m not really tired yet Taako” Ango answered. 

“Okay then, try not to wake me though” He put Angus down. 

“I’m gonna stop by Johann and the void fish before I hit the hay” Magnus said “Wanna come bud?” 

Angus nodded, and Magnus took his hand. 

“Be good pumpkin” He said walking away with Merle towards their room. 

“I always am!” He heard Angus call back. 

---

Angus walked with Magnus mostly in silence to the voidfish chambers. They walked into the elevator passing a few other people and Magnus clicked the last button. They stood together silently for a moment before he decided to speak. 

“You’re friends with Johann sir?” He asked “I didn’t know that.” He liked to hang out with the musician sometimes, he never knew that Magnus did too. 

Magnus looked at him, “Yeah kinda.. I’m more friends with the voidfish to be honest though.”

“The voidfish?” Angus titled his head

He shrugged, “Yeah.. I just like coming to see it I guess.”

Angus nodded, “Oh I get that sir, the voidfish is very calming” 

Magnus gave him a slight smile, “It is.” the elevator beeped signaling it was their stop. 

They walked in the chambers, he could hear Johann playing a beautiful melody on his violin as usual. They quietly walked closer, to not disturb him. But once they were only a couple feet away from Johann, the voidfish did something..odd

It started to sing back . But not the song that Johann had been playing just a moment ago. It was calm yet sorrowful, it felt like a lullaby. It was familiar, he could picture himself being sung to sleep with the song. 

Magnus gasped at the music, breaking him out of his trance. The song ended making him feel hollow, when did it get so short?

“Ango? Kiddo you good?” Magnus had bent down to his level, giving him a concerned look. 

“Yeah! Yes sir, I’m okay.. The voidfish sung?” He asked looking up at Magnus and Johann who stood close too. 

“Yes..”Johann answered, “It’s never done that before, I need to look into it”

Magnus nodded “It put you a trance bud, but I’m glad you’re okay” He ruffled his hair, “Your dad would fucking kill me if I broke you” 

“And what? You wouldn’t be upset?” He laughed

“I would but I wouldn’t get to process it because I’d be dead” 

“You two do not seem as worried about the voidfish as I am” Johann frowned, interrupting their banter. 

“Should we be worried?” Magnus asked, “It sung. Is it not supposed to?” 

“I don’t know.. Which is why I’m concerned” Johann looked down. 

Magnus nodded, “Let’s say hi to it, see how it's doing” he suggested. Angus took his hand and they approached the tank. Everything seemed normal to him. The voidfish swam closer, pressing one tentacle against the glass. 

“Hey buddy” He heard Magnus whisper, “You wanna say hi to the kid?” The voidfish seemed to ‘say’ yes its tentacles swirling in excitement and letting out a quiet yet audible trill. “Can I lift you up to say hi?” Magnus bent down to  ask him. Angus nodded, allowing Magnus to put him on his shoulders so he was at the same level as the voidfish. 

He sat just staring for a second, he’s never been so close to the voidfish. “Uh hi?” He whispered, hesentaintley resting his hand against the glass. The voidfish put a tentacle on the other side. He smiled, “it’s good to see you again” the words came out as a whisper without much thought, but even without fully understanding he knew he meant it. It seemed like the voidfish did too, it let out a soft humm, swimming closer. 

Magnus bent down and he slipped off his shoulders. They waved goodbye to the voidfish and a stressed out Johann.Before he knew it, they were back in the elevator. 

“Magnus thank you for letting me come” He said, tugging slightly on Magnus’ hand.

Magnus smiled, patting him on the back “No problem bud, it was good to be with you” He yawned, “Maybe we could hang out some more but first I need a nap” 

Angus nodded, a lot had happened today, he’d love to investigate and maybe get to the bottom of it all. But before he could even think about any of the strange things that had happened he’d need to rest. 

Chapter Text

Hey! It's been like a year lol. A ton has happened in my life lately that kinda put me off writing for a while. But I do wanna get back into writing and I love this fic but I do wanna see if anyone is still interested before I start writing it again. If I do get some responses I'll start writing and the next chapter will be out in like 1-2 weeks. So let me know!!

Chapter Text

Taako barely got to sit down when the director called them back into her office. Shockingly he and Merle were the first ones there. The two of them sat in front of the director waiting, the only sound being the clicking of a clock and their breathing. Taako just wanted to take a nap, but the awkwardness was starting to get to him. 

Merle coughed thankfully interrupting for him “So uh should we start? I think they went and fucked off somewhere and aren’t coming” 

The director’s face stayed stern, “They’re coming.”

“I mean.. Are we sure though?” Taako asked “ They both seemed pretty tired. They’re probably sleeping. And they have the right idea, you know maybe this meeting can wait-”

“HEY! We’re here, we're here! Sorry to keep you waiting” Magnus rushed in Angus in tow. 

“We’re very sorry madam director, we didn’t hear you we were-”

“It’s alright” she interrupted Angus. “Did you both get some rest?”

“Yes, um again really sorry”

She nodded. Angus came over and sat next to him, Taako shot him a questioning look, the kid was acting like his awkward self but something seemed off, had the eyes at the eclipse really shaken him up that much? 

The director spoke again before Angus could give him a response, “I called you here because another relic has been located.” That made them all get a little more serious.

“It’s located in the city of Goldcliff, Somehow the city’s biggest criminal The Raven has gotten her hands on it. She’s causing chaos in the city”

“What’s the relic do?” Magnus asked with his hand slightly raised.

“It's called the Gaia Sash, it gives the user power over nature. She's already causing so much destruction.. if she ever got the idea to go to a forest or something well..” 

“We’ll all be fucked” Merle finished

She hummed “Essentially yes, which is why you need to leave today. But first did you all spend your payment from last time?”

“We bought some food at the eclipse fair?” Merle offered

“No, you need to get some more items before you go.” She stood up and ushered them out of her office. “Be quick and meet me in the hangar when you’re done.” 

Angus slipped into his dragon form and ran ahead towards the gachapon. It was nice seeing the kid get more comfortable polymorphing but jeez Taako would’ve appreciated a warning, dragon Angus is speedy

Leon visibly deflated when they entered. “Me first!” Merle announces and hands Leon his token. 

With some muttered curses Leon operates the gachapon, out comes a relatively small box. Merle pops it open to reveal small slippers with wings on them. Leon flips through his tome and explains that the slippers are slippies of haste, which make Merle faster when being attacked.

“Oooh they’re nice!” Merle slips them on

Mangus gets a small capsule and pulls out a green glove. Leon explains that it’s the fletcher’s mitt which helps him catch projectiles. Magnus slides it on with a smile

Taako goes up next, he takes both his and Angus’ tokens and hands them to Leon. “You wanna go first this time pumpkin?”

Angus shrugged, he looked a little far off, like he was thinking. “No you go ahead Dad” 

Magnus and Merle giggled and Magnus punched him in the arm as Taako tried to recover. “Uh-ye-Yeah you got it Ango!”

Angus gave him a slightly confused look, like he didn't know the rollercoaster he was putting Taako on by calling him that. 

Taako tries to ignore the warm feeling in chest as Leon begrudgingly operates the gachapon for him. A cylindrical capsule comes out, Taako grabs it and rips it open to find a fan.  

“Oh that’s the gustmaster 5000! It can produce a strong gust of wind about once a day, great for knocking back the people you’re fighting!” Leon explained

Taako slipped it into his pocket, that could be useful. “Alright Ango your turn get up here!” 

Angus came up next to him and they watched a tiny capsule come out of the gachapon. Switching back his human form Angus opened the capsule and pulled out a thin silver chain.

“Glasses chain right?” Angus asked, he clipped the chain on, it was silverly with tiny hourglass symbols on each side.

“Yes, this is the chain of retention, when wearing it you can use to recall any moment you’ve seen that is shorter than one minute that has occurred within the past day” Leon explained

“There’s a glasses chain in the gachapon? Angus is the only one who wears glasses!” Magnus butts in

“Yeah there’s some favoritism here!” Merle added

Angus laughed as Leon fumbled over an explanation to how the chain can be worn in many different ways and all that bullshit. 

Of course Magnus and Merle wanted to continue messing with him, Taako usually would too but they had shit to do and he didn't want the director to cut their pay for their lateness. 

Next stop, Fantasy Costco!

------

Angus had just walked through the doors when Garfield the Deals Warlock popped up. 

“Well hello there boys!” He exclaimed, his eyes lingered on Angus for a moment and he leaned in. “Just so you know dragon detective, if you shed any scales I’d be willing to buy them off you. They are pure silver after all.” 

“Noted sir” Angus nodded, pulling away and Garfield's smile widened, apparently he had learned from their last encounter and left Angus alone instead moving on to Magnus and trying to sell him a mystery bag. 

Taako ends up buying the pocket spa, Magnus makes a very good deal and buys the Mystery Bag, the Lens of Straight Creepin', and the Tankard of Potent Drink, Merle buys the ring of recall. 

Magnus opens the mystery bag and inside was a small glass sphere with water in it, swimming around in the water was a goldfish who Magnus excitedly named him Steven. 

Angus spotted a very small wooden carved box, his curiosity got the better of him and he picked the box up and slipped it open, inside were three small onyx beads. 

“Ah I see you have an eye for destruction.” Garfield appeared looking over his shoulder.

Taako laughed “Well he is traveling with us” 

“What are these?” Angus asked

“Those are the beads of eruption! When you throw one at the ground it sets off a large explosion” 

Taako swiped the box out of his hands. “Yeah no, you not carrying around tiny bombs in your pocket.” 

“What? Taako, come on sir you always tell me I’m responsible. I promise I’ll be careful” He argued, why didn’t Taako trust him?

“It’s not about how responsible you are, what if you get knocked down or something and you fucking explode?” Taako frowned, he placed the box on a high shelf. “Look for something else ‘kay?” He asked ruffling Angus’ hair.  Angus sighed “okay..” 

Angus tried not to pout as he searched the shelves for something else. It was frustrating being told what he can or can’t have. He knew deep down that Taako just wanted to protect him but he was a reclaimer too! He didn’t need to be protected. 

“Find anything yet Anges?” Magnus asked.

“Not yet..” He frowned, he scanned over this shelf another time and a glint of light caught his eye. 

“What’s this?” He mumbled under his breath, picking up the clear sphere, he could hold it in two hands but it was surprisingly heavy.

“The crystal ball of telepathy!” Garfield exclaimed, almost causing him to drop the crystal ball.  “It would allow you to telepathically communicate with anyone within 500 feet of you. You can use it as many times as you want but time used can only add up to 5 minutes a day. It’s 600 gold if you want it” 

“I’ll take it” Angus decided, it was most of his gold but telepathic communication would be invaluable. 

After checking that everyone got everything they wanted, they left fantasy costco behind and towards the hangar. 

--

The director and Avi were waiting when they arrived at the hangar.

“There is contact for you in Goldcliff, He is a seeker named Captain Bain” The director said as they got into the sphere. “He is waiting for your arrival and will help you in anyway you need”

“Got it boss!” Taako gave her a thumbs up.

“Good luck you guys” Avi waved and the director stood off to the side smiling slightly as they were launched to the world below. 

--

The ride was better this time Angus thought, he sat on Taako’s lap and looked out the window. 

“Taako?”

“Yeah pumpkin?”

“Have you been to Goldcliff before?” He asked, he looked down at the city below that was getting closer and closer as they descended. 

“Nah, it was on the tour list but cha know how that ended” Taako shrugged “Pretty city though right?” 

“Yeah it is.” Angus hummed in agreement

“Whoa!” Magnus exclaimed, his face pressed against the window. “Look at that building!”

They were landing now, they all got up to look at where Magnus was pointing. The building made Angus gasp. It towered over the surrounding building its gold and silver accents shimmering in the sunlight. 

The landing shook them off their feet, they hopped out and now were in Goldcliff.  The building they were looking at was in front of them and Angus could see huge vines wrapping around the building.

“So I’m assuming that’s where the raven is” Merle pointed

“Exactly!” A loud deep voice yelled from behind them. They turned around to a tall, strong human man, wearing armor and a captain’s badge.

“Captain Bain?” Angus asked

“Yes! I’m assuming you are the reclaimers?” Bain asked

“We are!” Magnus answered. “So the raven is in there?” He pointed back to the building behind them

“Yes! She’s holed up inside the trust building, likely trying to steal all the gold inside” 

“So like..” Taako said “Why don’t you go arrest her?”

“Well er the vines are in the way”

“We can help with that!” Magnus held up railsplitter and ran over starting to chop up the vines. He quickly started getting out of breath, barely making any progress.

“Maybe I could freeze them? Make him easier to break” Angus offered

“No that won’t be necessary kid” Merle stepped forward and leaned down, whispering at the vines. Angus tried to get closer to hear the spell, but Taako who was standing next to Merle covered his ears. 

The vines parted and they stepped forward into the trust building. The interior looked just as ornate and beautiful as the outside. With more silver and gold accents and marble floors. But even the inside was covered in vines, there was shattered glass and piles of rubble on the floor. 

“Merle never do that again” Taako grumbled with a disgusted look his face

“What are you talking about sir?”

“Nothing!” Magnus chuckled “Lets go get that sash”  

Chapter Text

The courtyard inside the trust was absolutely ransacked, vines everywhere and goddamn tree in the fountain. Taako wondered where all the gold was, did the raven take it all already? He took another step forward and a shrill alarm went off making him jump. Shit of course she had put an alarm spell on the building, just their luck.

Taako pulled out his umbrastaff readying himself for a fight. But instead of the raven showing up the tree started to shake and move. 

“That's not a tree” Angus whispered from beside him

The tree(?) stood up into a tall, bulky and vaguely humanoid figure, Angus was right it was definitely a treeant. The treeant stared at them, its body swaying as it tried to steady itself. Taako pointed his umbrastaff at it preparing a fireball. 

“Wait!” Magnus interrupted his thoughts. “Maybe he’s friendly. Hey buddy, what's your name?”

The treeant only groaned in response.

Merle nodded at that “Trent? Nice to meet ya Trent, don’t attack us please” 

Unsurprisingly Trent attacked. He charged at Merle with an ear piercing shriek. Luckily Taako was ready, he hit him with a fireball that made Trent reel back slightly. Trent ran towards Taako in response, raising his huge tree arms to crush him. Taako pushed Angus away from him and casted blink. 

In the ethereal plane Taako watched Trent run forward and attack nothing. From the corner of his eye could make out three blurry gray figures with white eyes watching him. He turned to look and they were gone.He shivered, what the fuck was that? 

He ends blink when he sees Trent going for Merle who was casting a healing spell on Magnus. He hits Trent with another fireball, it was weaker this time but it still pushed the treeant back. Instead of rushing him though Trent stops and begins holding his head and shaking. He sees Angus next to him pointing his wand at the treeant.

Whatever spell Angus had casted wore off though, Trent shrieked and lumbered towards them. Magnus ran up to Trent raising railsplitter, the axe cutting through his tree body with ease. 

Trent now in two halves on the ground just gurgled, sap was spilling all over the courtyard floors.The vines that got drenched in sap were beginning to animate, Taako cast a scorching ray killing them before they got the chance to try anything.

Merle was crying about Trent being so young or whatever and Magnus left to check out the rest of the courtyard. 

“What spell was that kiddo?” He asks Angus

Angus averts his eyes, “It was mind sliver sir”

“Mind sliver the enchantment cantrip? I don’t think we practiced that one”

Angus nods “I practiced it by myself sir, I uh I think I like enchantment” He kept his eyes on the ground and fiddled with his sleeve. 

“Hey it's all good, just be careful and all that shit” Taako tried to reassure him. “Enchantment huh? Didn’t I tell you that transmutation is where it’s at?” 

That made Angus giggle and look at least a little less anxious so Taako counted it as a win. 

“We can practice enchantment more often you want to bubeleh” 

Angus smiled “I’d like that, thank you sir” 

“Hey guys!” Magnus called out “I think the raven is up stairs” he gestured to the elevator

-----

The trust had 20 floors, they agreed to go to the top and search every floor in descending order. Angus just hoped that the raven was easy to find, this building was buckling under the pressure of all the vines. But of course it would’ve never been that simple. 

They had only gone up five floors before the elevator stopped.

“Ugh come on” Taako complained he pressed the 20th floor button several more times.

“What floor are we on?” Magus asked “Maybe we’ll have to take the stairs”

“I think we’re stuck in between floors sir” 

Taako threw his hands up “Of fucking course we are” 

Each movement they made the floor of the elevator shook and let out a loud mechanical whine. 

“We gotta get outta here” Merle frowned

“I could probably break us out” Magnus held up railsplitter “ But we need something to climb out of the elevator shaft”

“Taako can’t you use rope trick?” Angus asked

Taako snapped his fingers “Yeah! It could probably get us all the way to the top too. Though I don’t know if it’ll be stable enough to hold all of us..” Just as he said that the elevator creaked again and the floor beneath them was starting to buckle. 

“Well it looks like we gotta try” Magnus slammed railsplitter into the ceiling the elevator leaned to the side and shook violently as he pried it open. 

They climbed out and on top of the elevator, Angus looked at the drop below, he grabbed onto the nearest person which was Merle who gave him a confused look. Taako cast rope trick, a sturdy rope came down all the way from the top floor. 

Angus switched to his dragon form to climb the rope, though he wasn’t great at flying just having his wings put him at ease. Climbing up a 20 floor building was, surprise, really exhausting, and everyone complaining didn’t help. He was trying to keep positive but after getting kicked in the face for the fourth time Angus couldn’t help but get grumpy too. 

Magnus pried the doors open when they got to floor 20, Angus took a deep breath to steady himself and followed the overs into the room. It was a glass dome, Angus could see through some of the vines that it was overlooking the city. He saw a figure looking through one of the openings at what looked to be a cart race happening on the outskirts of the city. 

The figure whipped around, she had long dark hair and a wild look in her brown eyes, the raven-like mask on her face and the sash across indicaticated she was the raven. 

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The vines behind her started twisting and slinking up the walls.

Magnus lowered railsplitter slightly “We don’t need to fight okay? That sash you’re wearing it’s super-”

“NO! You’re not taking it” She yelled “You don’t understand, I’ll let you leave but if you get any closer I-I’ll ki- I’ll have to fight you” Her hands were wrapped around the sash tightly 

“Hey listen, this sash is consuming you, we’ve seen this kind of stuff before. You can’t control it” Merle stepped forward.

“You don’t don’t need the sash to rob this place “ Taako added with a shrug

“It’s not about the money it’s- I have the power to become a god. I-I can’t- this is your last chance to leave”

“You can’t! Please ma'am just take it off” Angus pleaded

The raven scowled “who even are you people!” a thunderwave sparked out of her fingers and hit all of them. Angus fell on his stomach, he struggled to his feet as the vines were already rushing towards him.

Angus ran to the edges of the room, he could sneak up on her from behind and freeze her in place. He watched as the fight continued, Magnus managed to get a punch in but was knocked down by another thunderwave. Taako was on the ground, a cold pit settled in Angus’ stomach when Taako didn’t get up. Merle was barely standing; he just kept being hit with spell after spell. Angus had to do something. 

He got behind her and put all his energy into his freeze breath. He didn't care when his body started to shake and chest began aching; he only stopped when he physically couldn’t continue. When he was finally done almost all of the raven’s body was completely encased in ice. He let out a sigh of relief and let his legs give out underneath him. He saw Magnus begin to stand up from across the room Maybe they could actually win this.

But the ice started to crack. No no no! Angus tried to back away but his vision swam and he moved less than an inch. All he could do was watch all of his hard work crumble away.

A scowling raven whipped around, pieces of ice crunched underneath her boots as she stepped towards him and bent down to his level. With one hand she yanked him up by the tail and held him up to her face. She had a calculating look in her eyes then she nodded to herself as if she decided something. She pulled Angus tightly against her chest, he could only weakly struggle against her bone crushing grip. 

“You people disgust me.” She spat “I wasn’t gonna kill you before but then I saw that you brought this child here and you made them fight? You’re dead” Angus growled and her grip only got tighter, the vines raised up to attack, he’s never felt so helpless 

A loud crash made everything stop, rushing through the broken window was a halfling woman.

“Sloane! You’re not a killer!” 

The raven dropped him completely and he fell to her feet. She looked around then into the eyes of the stranger then wordlessly turned into a gray cloud and flew away.

The world felt still for a moment all Angus could hear was his own shaky breathing. Then the halfling came forward. “Hey buddy, I’m Hurley and I’m gonna heal you and your buds everything will be okay” Her smile was warm but a little strained

“Please ma’am heal my friends first, they need it more.” Hurley’s smile twitched but she nodded.

Angus watched her heal Taako who easily got to his feet. The pit in Angus’ stomach disappeared, everything was ok. 

Chapter Text

Angus couldn’t quite remember how he got there, he remembered the raven, he remembered how helpless he was, he remembered Hurley and relaxing when he knew his friends would be safe. Now he was inside some sort of tent, his body ached and the world spun slightly has he blinked awake. 

The thin cot he was sitting on wobbled when he sat up. There were three more cots in the tent with familiar figures sitting on them. 

“Oh hey Anges you’re up!” Magnus was the first to notice him

“How ya feeling pumpkin?” Taako asked

“I’m fine” and surprisingly he was telling the truth. “What’s going on?”

“Raven totally kicked our asses kid. This is like a med tent, we were waiting for you to wake up” Merle explained

“Where’s Hurley?”

Taako raised an eyebrow “Hurley? Who’s that?” 

“She saved us?” Angus frowned at him, they just met her. How did he forget someone so quickly?

Magnus shrugged “the rest of us were pretty much out when she showed up I guess” Merle and Taako nodded in agreement.

“Hey kiddo you were super fucking tough out there, like you were the last one standing” Taako praised. 

Angus looked away “I was just lucky sir” 

“Stop being so humble kid, it's annoying,” Taako teased, Angus wanted to be honest but despite how hard he tried to hide it Taako looked proud of him, he just laughed awkwardly in response and tried not to look upset when Magnus ruffled his hair and told him he did good and Merle begrudgingly offered some words of praise as well. He hated how much he liked this feeling, he was lying, he was useless in that fight and now his friends are proud of him for nothing. 

Someone entering the tent pulled him out of his thoughts.

“Ah good you’re all awake” Captain Bain “I’m gonna be honest I’m surprised that you’re not dead”

Taako snorted “Wow thanks for your vote of confidence man, totally stoked for the rest of this mission” 

Captain Bain coughed “Anyway, what happened back there?” 

“It was just embarrassing honestly” Magnus shrugged “She ripped us apart back there”

They all gave mumbles of agreement and Merle added “We should’ve listened when she told us to leave” 

Bain’s eyes widened “She didn’t attack you on sight?”

Merle chuckled “Oh don’t get me wrong she was pissed but uh yeah she told us leave or she’d fight us”  

“Hmm You know,” Bain started “I’ve never considered what would happen if a good person could get their hands on a relic. They would have to resist the thrall of course, but imagine all the good they could do” 

“Eh it's not worth the risk” Taako brushed the idea off

“Yeah..with all do respect sir that kinda thinking is what started the relic wars in the first place” Angus muttered

Bain chuckled, it was a little strained “Oh I’m well aware don’t worry. Just imagining you know?”

Magnus cleared his throat “Well that’s great and all but where do we go from here”

“Hurley, the woman who saved us seemed to know the raven. Maybe she knows something that could help us?” Angus asked 

“Lieutenant Hurley? She just left, she’s probably heading down the road right now” 

“Any other leads?” Taako asked, when no one answered he stood up. “Welp, I guess Hurley it is then” 

-----

Taako was relieved that Hurley was pretty easy to find, they only had to walk for a few minutes before Angus pointed her out to them. They all called her name and waved her over. 

“Oh hey it’s you folks, how ya feeling?” Hurley smiled warmly 

“Great! We’re trying to track down the raven we were wondering if you could help us” Magnus got straight to the point

“I’m sorry but I don’t got any leads, did she say anything about me or the militia?”

“No she didn’t seem to want to fight us and it looked like you knew her back there” Taako pushed, guess she didn’t want to admit to knowing her.

“She didn’t want-I only know her as a perp to bust. Sorry” 

Angus furrowed his eyebrows “You called her Sloane, that’s her name right?”

Hurley stumbled over an answer. Merle sighed “we’re not gonna get anywhere like this” and cast zone of truth. 

“Where’s the raven?” Magnus asked the second it was cast

“I don’t know”

“Alright. How do you know the raven? What’s your relationship with her?” Merle cut in

Hurley looked away “I was trying to apprehend her at first. But we became very close, we’re partners. That sash it’s doing something to her, she’s never acted like this before” 

“Oh it definitely is. We’re uh part of a group that’s trying to destroy objects like that sash because they’re too dangerous and they fuck with your mind” Taako carefully explained

 By Hurely’s expression he could tell she hadn’t got any static from that so he continued. 

“Do you have leads or ideas that could help us help her?”

Hurley paused, thinking his words over, then nodded when with a determined look on her face “I got an idea, have you folks heard of battle wagon racing?” 

--

Hurley led them down alleyways and backstreets to a small garage. There’s a few battle wagons that looked like they had been stripped for parts and a big one in the middle that was covered by a tarp. 

“So Sloane, she's super competitive, but she also knows when she’s been beat. I think if you can beat her in battle wagon racing she’d give up the sash” 

“Why can’t you?” Magnus asked “I mean you seem way more experienced than any of us.

Hurley sighed “I’m a lieutenant now I can’t be doing it anymore. Battle wagon racing is technically illegal but it’s allowed to because it’s entertaining so while no one will get arrested as a member of the militia I’ll for sure lose my job”   

“So how do we beat her?” Angus asked

“Well with this puppy” She pat the wagon under the tarp “It’s pretty much guaranteed” she pulled the tarp off.

It was fucking huge, sleek and looked super dangerous. Yeah she was right, this thing could win. 

“Only problem is” Hurley interrupted their gaping “I need an arcane core which will unfortunately need a little law breaking to get”

“Yeah that’s no problem for us” Merle said

“Who do we gotta rob?” Taako asked

“The Hammerheads they’re a battle wagon racing gang nearby.Um just  I am a cop so like please try not to kill anyone” She winced

“We won’t ma’am don’t worry” Angus promised 

“Eh we’ll try” Taako shrugged 

Angus gave him a very tired look for a ten year old boy. He’d been acting off since he woke up. Taako nudged him to show he was kidding, and Angus just rolled his eyes with an annoyed smile. Taako smiled back, yeah he was fine, Taako was just getting worked up over nothing. 

Chapter Text

Approaching the base Angus could see three guards hanging out around the door.Their group paused for a moment, from the guard’s conversation he learned two of the guards were called Jerry and little Jerry, the name of the third guard standing in the booth wasn’t mentioned by the time that Merle spoke up. 

Pulling his bible out of his bag Merle whispered “Alright guys I got an idea, just stay back I’ll yell for back up if I need it” The rest of them nodded and Merle strolled up to the guards. 

Angus could just barely hear Merle trying to convert the guards to worshiping Pan, he quickly went from grand promises to threats when they weren't having it.

 Just as it looked like he would give up Merle cast Thaumaturgy creating the loud sound of a train approaching. The sudden sound made Angus flinch and little Jerry run off screaming. The remaining guards yelled at Merle as he ran away and back to their hiding place. 

“Smooth” Taako chuckled as Merle hurried back to their hiding spot.

“Oh you wanna give it a try smartass?” 

“Nah Maggie you’re next” Taako elbowed Magnus

Magnus stood up with a determined glint in his eyes, he took a step forward before looking back down at Angus “You wanna help buddy?”

Angus jumped up, finally a chance to do something! “Of course sir! What do you need me to do?’

Magnus smiled “I’m gonna try to join the gang, I need you to just hang out and make me more badass” 

“Ah so dragon form then?’ Angus asked, already ready to go. Magnus hummed in response and bent down so Angus could climb onto his shoulders. Taako made a pinched expression like he wanted to say something. Merle spoke up before Angus could.

“You mad he’s stealing your boy?” He teased

“Just be careful and shit” Taako rolled his eyes “And I’ll be your favorite, right Ango?”

“Of course!” Angus responded immediately, Taako’s eyes widened like he wasn’t expecting that answer “Oh sorry guys..” He felt a little sheepish looking at Merle and Magnus’s fake hurt at his words.

Merle just chuckled, “We know how it is kid, don’t worry about it”

Magnus shrugged, making Angus have to scramble to hold onto his shoulders “I’ll buy you so much candy Ango, let me be the favorite for like one day”

Angus almost laughed, while Merle had a sterner look on his face but still chuckled “Come on Mags he’s a boy detective! He won’t take your bribes”

“Hmm yeah sure sir! If you remember my favorites” Angus interrupted.

Magnus cheered, Merle sputtered and Taako gave him a mock disappointed look. He knew he was kidding but still felt a little bad. Of course he loved Magnus and Merle, they were saving the world together! But Taako had been there since the beginning, it was like Angus had known him forever. 

“Sorry Taako, I’ll cut it down to twelve hours if you get me the new Caleb book” Angus joked

Taako just rolled his eyes “Jeez Magnus and now I thought I was the one who would corrupt him. Now look you’ve taught him to bribe!”

Magnus rubbed the back of his neck “Sorry sorry, I just gotta try and be a fun uncle you know?”

“Yeah Yeah, go be fun by doing your plan”

With that he and Magnus left and approached the guards, Jerry seemed to be distracted looking off into the distance where little Jerry had run off to. The other guard frowned at Magnus and raised an eyebrow.

“What’cha want big guy?”

“I’m looking to join your gang my friend!”

“Oh sick,” The guard pulled out some sort of notebook “Yeah.. it's gonna be like 100,000 gold pieces”

“What the fuck” Magnus blinked

The guard winced, “Yeah sorry man, we gotta a lot of folks trying to join the hammerheads, we gotta make sure you're dedicated and shit.”

Magnus threw his hands in the air “Look at me! I’m super dedicated! I have a dragon and an axe and-”

“Wait, your pet is a dragon?”

Angus raised his wings slightly and growled, almost wanting to tell that guy off.

“Yes! And he’s not my pet” 

The guard scratched his chin “Hmm you know, I bet the boss would love this… Okay how about you join the gang but we get the dragon?”

“What no-” Magnus started but Angus nudged him with his tail, Magnus looked at him and he nodded. 

“Okay fine” Magnus frowned, still looking at Angus out of the corner of his eye

He heard Taako through his stone of farspeech as they followed the guards, and muted it.They could make this work. 

---

“I’m gonna kill that fucking kid” Taako growled as he watched them walk off with one of the guards. 

“He’s got some sort of plan..” Merle mumbled 

“Don’t care” Taako cast disguise self turning into little Jerry. He ignored Merle’s judgment and ran towards the guards before they could take Magnus and his kid away.

“Hey! Hey! It’s me!” He yelled out, stopping the guards in their tracks. Magnus looked kind of confused, probably already guessing something was up while Angus flicked his tail in annoyance, Taako knew his nerdy brat had already figured him out.

“Little Jerry!” One of the guards cheered “You came back just in time to greet our new member” 

Magnus smiled awkwardly “Nice to meet you”

“Hey I-” 

“Hey guys sorry for running away I-” Another voice rang out, interrupting him. Taako turned around and fuck it was the real little Jerry. Well shit, this just got more complicated. 

“Oh gosh shit an imposter!” Taako pointed dramatically and cast sleep. There problem solved. 

But of course it was never that simple. 

“How do we know you’re not the fake?” The guard narrowed his eyes, Jerry was already going for his knife.

“I-uh-I can prove it!”

“Ok..what’s our names?” Jerry asked 

“Well you’re Jerry and you-” He looked to Magnus and Angus for help who both shrugged. “We uh go way back..”

“I’ve known you for like two months!” 

“But it’s felt like so much longer-” 

“Just say my fucking name”

Well he was fucked, might as well try to get a surprise attack in “Taako! Oh wait, that's my name, bye!” He cast magic missile hitting the nameless guard twice and Jerry once.

Merle Jumped out from the hiding place, Magnus pulled out railsplitter and Angus jumped off his shoulders. 

Before the guards could collect themselves Taako had already cast another magic missile, this time all the bolts hit Jerry who fell down, hit his head on the pavement and seemingly passed out. 

The other guard attempted to stab him but Angus’ ice made him too slow, with one efficient blow Magnus took him out with railsplitter. 

But as the blood pooled around their feet it dawned on them that maybe it was a little too efficient. 

“Ah shit” Magnus winced “we promised Hurley we wouldn’t kill anyone” 

“Eh she doesn’t have to know” Merle shrugged

“You’re a cleric sir can’t you heal him?” Angus asked quietly 

“Hm? Oh sorry bud I think it’s a little late for that” 

There was a pause.

“So like what are we doing with this guy?” Taako coughed 

“Dig a hole?” Magnus offered, everyone mumbled in disagreement. 

Taako had a cool teleportation idea which was also rejected and Merle said to feed him to pigs which they couldn’t find. It wasn’t till Angus had suggested just tossing him off the cliffs that they were able to move on. Taako was psyched he remembered to check the dead guy's pockets which had a couple gold, a key and some lame pictures of the dude’s family or whoever. He didn’t feel guilty to be honest, maybe that was bad but that guy tried to buy his kid and Taako was not having it. 

Speaking of his kid..Angus was avoiding him. He was still in his dragon form and he could only be described as looking like a nervous stray cat. 

“No more selling yourself out as a plan” Taako broke the awkward silence between them

“I’m just trying to help”

“There’s other ways to do that pumpkin,”He sighed “You’re like a little magic prodigy, you’re super fucking smart. You don’t gotta put yourself in those positions”

“Yeah” Magnus said “You’re like a detective at what ten?” 

Angus turned away “Uh well private investigator and-” 

“At least run it by us before you do that shit” Merle added “You made your dad freak the fuck out back there, give him a little warning”

“I did not ‘freak the fuck out’”

“I’m so sorry!” Angus stopped in tracks “I never want to worry anyone I just want to be more useful and-”

“Hey hey-”Taako scooped him up. “You’re plenty useful bubeleh don’t you ever worry about that okay?” 

Angus nodded into Taako’s shoulder “Lets just finish getting this core”

Magnus frowned “yeah how are we doing that?” 

They eventually decided that Taako would keep up his disguise and that Angus would switch to his human form. He’d be pretending to bring them in as new recruits. While Angus was a kid the hammerheads were a gang so they shouldn’t care about the age of their members.

After futzing around a little trying to find the right building Merle figured out the big garage was likely where the wagons and the core were and they headed that way.

 They decided on a grand dramatic entrance by Magnus kicking the door open. All of the ruffians stood up drawing their weapons.

“Guys! It’s just me! I got some new recruits here” Taako announced before things got too out of hand. And it worked, all of them immediately went back to what they were doing and ignoring them. 

Most of them were just hanging out, one gang member was writing some papers on a desk, a couple others were working on the wagons and like two were messing with some big guy. That dude didn’t have a uniform on and had a metal helmet completely covering his head. Probably like a prisoner or something, poor guy.

“Hey lil’ Jerry where’d you get the kid?”one ruffian asked

“He’s uh- I’m watching him for the night”

“Ahh ok so these are the new guys huh?” 

“Yeah! This dude he-”Taako nudged Merle forward “He’s like real good with vehicles and that shit maybe he could like help out or something, maybe with the arcane core?” 

The ruffian winced slightly “Eehh I don’t know lil man you just met this guy-”

“Nah he’s real good, tell him something man” Taako interrupted 

Merle fumbled a little “Uh well have you guys heard of double gears?” He offered 

The ruffian snapped his fingers “Now that. That’s an idea, remind me to write that down.” He started walking towards the wagon “Well I suppose it’s not too bad to give you folks a little peak”

As they walked towards the wagon though the chained figure stood up and started to growl and claw at his helmet. Taako pushed Angus behind him and reached for his umbrastaff but it was no need. The ruffians held their prisoner down who after about a minute passed out. 

Taako couldn’t understand why but this guy seemed kind of familiar. Looking through the bars of the helmet and hearing the ruffians vague answers to Angus’ countless questions, he made eye contact with Magnus who without exchanging a word agreed.

This guy was Klarg.