Chapter Text
“So… Dark Enchantress WANTS us to MEET here?” Purple Yam asked.
Pomegranate nodded as she placed a few candles in the center of the table where the rest of the Cookies of Darkness were gathered. “Indeed.”
“WHY?”
The priestess shook her head. “She told me nothing more other than to bring you all here.”
Purple Yam frowned, frustrated at the lack of information. He looked to the others in hope that they knew anything about the reason for coming here. Strawberry Crepe and Poison Mushroom were engaged in conversation next to a very annoyed-looking Licorice, and they didn’t seem to have much to contribute. Red Velvet, who was flexing his claw out of boredom, only shrugged when Purple Yam looked at him. Pomegranate wasn’t going to be of much help; she was too busy lighting the candles. And Dark Choco was… missing from his seat.
Oh, yeah. Despite the fact that it’d been a year since then, Yam almost forgot about Dark Choco abandoning them back at the Black Citadel.
-
Purple Yam was in disbelief, as were the other Cookies of Darkness.
Licorice stood still. Poison Mushroom hid behind him, not bothering to shake off the snow that was piling up at their feet. Pomegranate’s eyes were as wide as saucers, hiding the rest of her stunned expression behind her sleeves. Purple Yam’s mouth was gaping open in shock, but you couldn’t see it behind his helmet.
Dark Choco had abandoned them.
It happened in the snowy expanse that surrounded the Cacao Kingdom. He hardly said a word as he did so. He just shoved his sword into the ground, declared that the sword no longer burdened him, and… left, leaving them all in the cold of the Cacao Valley.
WHY?!
Why did Dark Choco leave them? Yam didn’t understand. Did he want to mess with them? Was this some sort of screwed up joke?
…it couldn’t be. Dark Choco had acted with such sincerity. And he couldn’t just leave the sword behind like it was nothing, either. At least, not without the power of sheer will or something. He was practically bound to that thing.
Pomegranate collected herself and narrowed her eyes. “We must stay focused. Come. Let’s move on with our mission.”
She headed in the direction of the Citadel, which prompted the others to follow wordlessly.
-
“Attention, everyone!” A commanding voice snapped Purple Yam out of his thoughts. He looked up to see Dark Enchantress entering the meeting hall, staff in hand. She took her seat at the head of the table. “Let our meeting commence.”
A smile spread across Pomegranate’s face. “At once, master,” she said as dashed over to a counter to retrieve a tray of incense, placing it near the candles. Purple Yam cringed and plugged his nose when it was brought over. He hated the smell- it was too… herb-y for him. Or whatever the word was.
Dark Enchantress silently thanked Pomegranate before continuing. “I’m supposing most of you have guessed why we’re gathered here today.”
“No… we really haven’t!” Strawberry Crepe exclaimed nonchalantly as they fiddled with a Wafflebot arm.
The sorceress narrowed her eyes and swatted the arm out of Crepe’s hand, earning a “HEY!” from them. “Then I will explain.”
She hit her staff against the ground, and the room went completely dark. Usually, Yam would be annoyed by this, because it meant that they were going to get a glorified puppet show done by Dark Enchantress, something he really didn’t like, but his intrigue drew him in.
Everyone adjusted their seats to face their leader, who made a rising motion towards the ground. Seven glowing magical projections of cookies- her “puppets”- appeared in response. He didn’t know any of them by name, but he did recognize a few of them from the battles he fought in.
“Are any of you familiar with these seven cookies?” She asked. The room stayed quiet and she sighed. “Before you stand the members of the Cookie Alliance, a band of elite warriors and magic users of the Cookie Kingdom. Their story does not matter. What
does
matter is the threat they pose to us.”
“Despite being formed only months ago, the Cookie Alliance is already the highest-ranking squadron of fighters there is. They usually deal with the protection of the kingdom, but for some reason they’ve turned their attention to us. And, unfortunately, they’ve announced to the Kingdom citizens that they plan to take us down within the next year and a half.”
Purple Yam laughed. “Okay? What are THEY gonna do? SCRATCH US? There’s only 7 of them. Not a number WE couldn’t HANDLE.”
Dark Enchantress turned to him. “You seem to misunderstand. We’ve fought off Gingerbrave and his friends before. In other words, children. Inexperienced children. The Alliance, on the other hand, is a group of trained fighters who know what they’re doing. They’ve defeated the Pitaya Dragon, various Rollcake Stampedes, the Goblin army, and more. You six could hardly fend off Pitaya Dragon, and now that we’ve lost Dark Choco, fighting enemies will be even harder. You’re not equipped to-”
“We couldn’t get past Pitaya because LICORICE here decided it would be a GOOD IDEA to call me by NAME!” Purple Yam pointed at Licorice. “If he HADN’T, Pitaya wouldn’t have RECOGNIZED me and made the fight MORE DIFFICULT!”
Licorice hissed at him and leaned forward. “Don’t act like you didn’t screw up, too!” He snapped, getting up from his seat, which made Yam do the same. “If you hadn’t missed that one swing, we-!”
“Enough!” Pomegranate wedged herself in-between the two and shoved them both back into their seats, frowning. She stared at Purple Yam, “I would suggest being careful with your words when talking to Dark Enchantress, or else…” she turned her mirror to face him.
He glared back. As much as Purple Yam wanted to stand back up and give her a snarky response, he begrudgingly slumped back in his seat. That stupid little mirror of hers didn’t look like much, but Yam’s seen what it was capable of; Back when Dark Choco was still part of the Cookies of Darkness, he’d failed to go through with a mission, which caused Pomegranate to curse him with the mirror as punishment.
He shuddered at the memory. Choco, an otherwise tough and stoic warrior, had been brought to his knees, sobbing and begging for Pomegranate to undo the curse. Yam and the others could only stand back and watch in fear as Choco went through what must have been the most agonizing thirty minutes of his life.
Whatever he went through, Yam certainly didn’t want to go through that as well.
Pomegranate put her mirror away, satisfied that Purple Yam had backed down, and returned to her seat.
“ Ahem, ” Dark Enchantress cleared her throat with a rather annoyed look on her face. “We’ve gotten far too off-track. Let’s return to our topic of discussion, shall we?”
No one said anything as she continued. “Because of this newfound threat, and our lack of an ability to take care of them directly, we must devise a plan to eliminate them elsehow.”
That’s it?! Yam thought, getting angrier, Dark Enchantress called us down here because she was too stupid to come up with a plan herself?
Pomegranate noticed Yam’s anger, but a quick flash of her mirror caused him to hold back any comments he had.
The others weren’t as bothered as him, and immediately started volunteering their ideas. Red Velvet was the first to blurt out his. “Perhaps eliminating the commander would work,” he suggested. “I know from experience that a group without proper leadership will crumble far too easily…”
“Since they’re such an important GROUP, wouldn’t they be PREPARED for that kind of thing?” Yam countered.
“Ah. Thinking about it more, you’re correct.”
Poison Mushroom raised their hands, which were full of mushrooms. “…let’s use shroomies on new friends…!” They excitedly waved their arms, threatening to crush the plants and release the toxic fumes with their grip.
Licorice panickedly whisked them away from Poison Mushroom. “Absolutely not! Your ‘shroomies’ aren't good for anything besides hallucinogens, anyway…”
“That gives me an idea,” Pomegranate covered her mouth with her sleeve- a gesture she did whenever she was planning something particularly sinister. “Perhaps we could use my mirror on them. Or make a phantom of one of their strongest members, as we did with that pathetic Cacaoin king.”
Licorice cut in. “The phantom was born from grief, though. Unless one of them has some intense emotional baggage or something, that wouldn’t work.”
“Perhaps it’s true that my phantoms have their limits. But my mirror doesn’t, in this case.”
“Right, because your mirror has infinite power and can TOTALLY work on more than two people at once!”
Pomegranate narrowed her eyes at Licorice and held her mirror high up, aimed at him, “Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“Quiet, both of you,” Dark Enchantress demanded. “We’re here to come up with a plan, not to bicker!”
The two glared at each other before turning away with a pout, Pomegranate muttering an apology and hanging her head in shame.
The enchantress pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “This is ridiculous,” she said as the projections of the Alliance members disappeared. “Hardly five minutes in, and we’ve gotten off-track twice. A third time, and I swear I’ll feed you all to the cake hounds.”
She shook her head. “Now, does anyone have anything meaningful to contribute?”
Strawberry Crepe raised their hand- surprising, considering they usually just butted into conversations unprompted. “I do.”
Yam and everyone else turned their attention to them. Huh… now that Yam was thinking about it, they’d been unusually quiet this meeting.
The young engineer put their hand down. “It’s pretty obvious that brute-forcing our way through them isn’t gonna work. They’re prepared for that. So since we can’t attack them directly… I was thinking we should take a more stealthy approach.”
“And do you have any ideas as to what this ‘more stealthy approach’ should be?”
Strawberry Crepe nodded. “One of us joins the Cookie Alliance.”
The whole table gasped and immediately began commenting on the proposal.
“What a foolish idea.”
“Uhm.”
“...what?”
“...I don’t get it…”
How’s THAT supposed to work? Yam thought, deciding to keep his comments to himself instead of saying them out loud. He was just as confused as everyone else. The thought of any of them joining the Alliance… Ha! What a stupid idea. They’d get killed!
Crepe, meanwhile, pouted and shrunk back in their seat. They looked pretty frustrated, probably because nobody would hear them out. But would want to after they offered such a ridiculous idea?
Dark Enchantress, apparently.
“Quiet, all of you!” She thundered, slamming her staff against the ground. Everyone’s voice disappeared, the sound of the impact of the staff echoing through the room.
She sighed before looking back at Crepe. “Elaborate. Your idea intrigues me.”
Crepe perked back up and grinned at the invitation to continue. “Okay, so one of us, under the guise of a traveler, travels to the Cookie Kingdom. When they get there, we’ll make up a sob story to convince them to let us in, like Dark Enchantress attacked our village and everyone died and now we’re looking to get revenge or something. They’ll surely let us join! Gingerbrave and the other leaders are so gullible, they’ll eat it up and let us in without a second thought.”
“From there, we can prove our worth. All of us are pretty capable fighters and have something to offer to them. Plus, we can get influence by befriending people and stuff- particularly the members of the Alliance! Once we do that, we join. After that… well, we can just kill ‘em all off!”
The room was silent and Strawberry Crepe laughed nervously. “I’m obviously still figuring out the finer details… but we’ll get there when we get there, yeah?”
“Hm.” Dark Enchantress hummed in approval. “That does make sense.”
“But the question remains; who would be the one to go?” Pomegranate asked, tilting her head. “Most of them know our names and faces, and I doubt they’d be too keen on letting any of us join the kingdom, much less the Alliance. ”
“As much as I hate to say it… Pomegranate’s right.” Licorice sighed. “I’d imagine they’re on-edge from what they’re planning, too. Even if one of us pretended to have left the Cookies of Darkness, I still don’t think they’d want to involve us in their plans.”
“Ha! I knew you guys would say that.” Crepe twirled a ring around their finger as they spoke. “But I already know exactly who to send.”
“Then TELL us.” Yam snapped, getting impatient.
His tone didn’t phase them as they smiled and looked directly at him.
“Purple Yam.”
…what?
“ You will be the one to join the Alliance.”
“I’m SORRY?” He blinked. “What- why ME?”
He didn’t understand. He was as stealthy as a foghorn. Of all the Cookies of Darkness, he would be the one that stuck out the most! They’d recognize him instantly. If anything, sending him there would spell death for all of them. Why-?!
“Okay, slow down.” Crepe laughed. “Hear me out, ‘kay?”
Oops. He must’ve said that out loud.
“So like… I haven’t been in a lot of battles with you. But I know you always wear that super big helmet everywhere, right?” They tilted their head. “That means no one besides us has seen your face, and a face is the key to identifying someone.”
“Ah. Now I’m catching on.” Pomegranate joined in. “And they don’t know your name, either. I can’t recall any of us saying your name in our battles, nor you so much as speaking.”
“That’s perfect!” Strawberry Crepe beamed. “Then they know even less about you. They won’t suspect a thing!”
“B-but…!?” Purple Yam sputtered. He still refused to believe that he was the best candidate for this. “My HAIR? Armor? General APPEARANCE?! They know THAT!”
“Pfft. Nothing a little makeover can take care of.”
Oh, great. Now he REALLY wasn’t looking forward to this.
Licorice, like Purple Yam, still didn’t agree with the idea.
“I don’t know. I still think it’s kind of risky.” Licorice said. “We don’t even know if the Alliance is accepting members in the first place!”
“Maybe…” Crepe shrugged. “But we’re on a time limit. One year is all we have. And my plan can be accomplished in a year or less.”
“Do you have any better ideas, Licorice?” Dark Enchantress asked.
Licorice remained silent.
The enchantress scoffed. “I’ll take that as a no.”
She returned to the head of the table and sat down with a sigh. “It’s settled. We’ll go with Strawberry Crepe’s plan and tear the Alliance apart from the inside out, whether it be by eliminating them or… other means.”
“Ugh. FINE.” Purple Yam rolled his eyes. “Then when are we gonna START?”
She grinned devilishly. “Tomorrow.”