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The sight before Eugene was one he was sure would haunt him well after his second death.
People he’d sworn to protect, his family and his people, fighting for their lives in the castle’s courtyard against what could only be described as a living, breathing nightmare. The kingdom that had grown from his prison to his home now sat skewered in the black rocks that had ruined his life and that of his loved ones. His home on the Island of Corona was now reduced to nothing but a pin cushion.
He was so glad Rapunzel wasn’t here to see.
Cassandra, clad in her obsidian armor, launched black rocks from the cobblestone streets, bringing down homes and businesses, tearing through everything in her wake, aiming at those who had loved her, cared for her, saved her; those who she claims treated her like dirt.
Adira and Hector stood for her command, wreaking havoc on the Sun Kingdom with glowing blue eyes, slashing their weapons at its people with no remorse. As Eugene looked along the ruins of the castle’s frontier, he knew he had only one option. “Everyone, fall back!” he screamed.
No one hesitated. The crumbling roads were flooded with citizens, guards, wounded and battered, fleeing the land across the bridge. Anywhere else was safer than right where they stood.
Cassandra watched as these people ran, ran from the place they swore to defend against any and all who dared to threaten it. A place she once swore to defend.
Within the crowds, a blur of red flashed across her view. There Eugene sprinted, Varian in tow. The red and gold-embellished suit he was wearing finally caught her eye. Eugene, the man who’d spent his whole life running from his mistakes, evading every guard who sought to have his sorry ass thrown into the brig, now bestowed in a position she had craved for so long.
Perfect. Just Perfect.
She raised her right hand with a renewed force, summoning a single spike jutting from the pavement and slicing into Eugene’s side, separating the two away from each other. He fell to the ground with a fresh, burning pain eating away at his side, staining the pristine uniform he wore. He clung to the gash, just above the scar of her mother gave him and screamed through his teeth.
He’d failed. He wasn’t fast enough and he failed.
Cass smiled seeing him squirm like a dying rodent, and seized her opportunity.
She unsheathed her sword from her back and made her way over to the Captain. Hovering over him like a hungry vulture, ready to rip her dinner to shreds with her talons, she stared directly into his eyes with an unsettling eagerness and a grin far too wide to be natural. She raised her blade above her head with a cry, but before she could swing, she was met with a splitting pain blasting through her skull and her vision going black.
She stumbled to the side, holding her throbbing head and feeling something warm soak through her hair and trickle down her cheeks and neck. She stared down at the ground and saw dots of what she could only assume to be her blood staining the ground. Lots of blood. Blood on the pavement, blood on her hands, and, turning up to find the source of her current agony, blood dripping off the hilt of King Edmund’s blade.
The Dark Kingdom’s ex-ruler glowered at her with an ugly snarl, heaving a breath from his lungs. He towers over her like a looming storm, not caring for the spark of what one could assume was terror in her eyes, and plunged the tip of his sword down at her satchel, barely missing her shoulder. A furious crack burst from the satchel slung around her body, along with a white-hot flash blinding her for what felt like an eternity.
She squinted to her right and saw her satchel in singed shreds, as well as blue marble shards scattered across the road, their noxious glow completely doused out. Equally doused were the brotherhood’s eyes, breathing in their full brown and feral green eyes once again.
The Brotherhood was free.
As the moment passed for the two soldiers to catch their breath, Edmund retreated himself to his son’s aid. “Adira!” He called. Adira perked up to hearing her name by none other than her estranged master, knelt by his son and holding a familiar black sword in his hand.
“I believe this is yours.” He tosses the obsidian blade to its rightful owner, letting it fly into her perfect grip and re-sheathed where it belongs: across her back.
Finally, within his few fleeting moments alone with his darling boy, Edmund, scoops Eugene up with his one arm, mindful of his wound and whispering nothing but promises that everything was going to be okay and that he would get better as soon as possible.
Cassandra’s eye twitched.
In less than a minute, she’d lost her weapon and her army in one fell swoop-- and at the hands of the man who created Fitzherbert, no less!
No matter. She wouldn’t need her sword for what she now aimed for. She slowly staggers to her feet and raises her arm back to send a wave of rocks in their direction, ready to tear them to shreds…
when a firm hand caught her wrist. “No!” the hand’s owner cried. Her murderous gaze shoots to Varian, looking at her in horror.
She snatches her hand away and turns to fully face him, hunched over from the sharp ache in the back of her skull and the blood beginning to stream down her face. “What do you want, kid?” she barked. “How many times do I have to keep telling you: I’m not crawling back here!” She summons a broad black rock in his direction, but he doesn’t back away as he dodges it.
“Corona isn’t my home anymore!” She continues. “How can you, with that big ol’ brain of yours, not understand that!?”
“I did, Cassandra!” Varian replied. “I did understand! I did exactly what you’re doing right now-- driving the kingdom into the ground because I couldn’t find a way to see past my own wants--my own problems, and look where it’d gotten me!” Cassandra fixed him with a narrow glare. “A permanent position as her highness’s royal pet ,” she asked, spitting the question out of her mouth.
“How about a shot at having a life?” he said flatly.
An angry heat colored her face as she was about to retort, but her voice died out in a stutter. Varian saw her hesitation to speak and took the opportunity to inch closer to her.
“Cassandra, please, you had so much here! You had a family, friends, a bright future.” Varian gestured over to Eugene, who watched the scene with his father play out. “You had someone to bicker with on a daily basis." Cassandra took a glance at her feet. She had missed teasing Eugene… but it wasn’t worth her time anymore.
“You had me!” Varian continued. “And most importantly, your father; the one who saved you and brought you to us! You had a father, Cass, who loved you more than anything!”
Now that, on the other hand…
“Oh, shut it!” she snapped. “My father lied to my face since the day he brought me here! He knew everything about her and refused to tell me! You should know that by now!” Varian resisted the urge to back away, but didn’t. He took a deep breath through his nose and said, “… you’re right.”
That was new.
“You’re right to be angry with him over it. I’d be angry, too. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to give him the chance to make it up.”
“What are you doing!?” a voice hissed. Cassandra’s eyes darted to an enraged Zhan Tiri crouched behind a now busted barrel of ale, glowering her eyes at her. “Nevermind the boy, Cassandra! You’re wasting time! Finish this!” she ordered. Cassandra froze. Zhan Tiri had been right so far; she needed to focus. She’d been doing so well up to this point. Hadn't she?
She seethed at Varian. "Stop it." Varian shook his head "No."
"Stop talking."
"No!"
"Stop it right now!"
"No!"
As Varian had her in place, they’d failed to notice Edmund nodding to Adira and Hector, the two of them giving a single nod back and weaving past the black rocks with ease and silence. Adira arms her weapon in her hand as Hector makes a silent beeline around to the opposite side.
He lowers himself on his belly, a hunger in his eyes to tear the thief of his life’s duty to pieces. Adira stood rigid against the smooth surface of an obsidian spike, almost stopping to mourn the remains of that odd amber-blasting contraption her nephew had made. "What a shame," she thought.
By the time she’d looked back up, Cassandra was truly beginning to panic, now; eyes blown out, her hands raking through her cyan hair and knees ready to buckle. This was her opportunity to take the moon witch down.
Cassandra’s hands pressed against her ears, shutting out from any and all noise, yet Varian’s desperate pleas and Zhan Tiri's orders begged to be heard. Their voices pounded against the empty walls of her skull like angry fists imprinting themselves on the surface of a wooden door.
Lies. It was all lies, lies meant to break her open further. But who was the liar?
Both of them commanded to be heard, both fighting over her without a chance at piece. She despised both of them. She wanted the noise to stop.
The Moonstone sparked at her worry. Make your choice it whispered.
She couldn't. Not now; not when she was so achingly close.
The Moonstone, Zhan Tiri, Varian, all of them fighting, screaming. They're all screaming. She's screaming.
Make it stop! Cassandra begged.
You chose this! The Moon Stone snapped, burning further into her chest.
No! I never asked for this !
“Cassandra!”
“No!”
“Cassandra!”
“Stop it!”
“CASSANDRA!”
“NO!”
“CASSIE!”
“!”
Not a moment later was a shriek that would forever sound through Corona’s mainland and a deafening crack of lightning sounding off like a gun. Cassandra stood up nearly straight, a frozen audience staring watching her, the woman holding the Moonstone in her hands and a deep, gaping hole above her breast.
Cassandra stared in disbelief at the opal in her palm. Suddenly, her armor, once sleek and black, dissolved its layers like lizard skin, leaving her near-naked in a dusted suit of gray rock. She crumpled to the ruined road on her knees, hunching over, the black color of her hair creeping from her scalp, inking the cyan back to normal from root to tip.
“C… Cassandra?” A hoarse voice whispered to her.
She didn’t have to raise her head to see the look on Eugene’s face, but she did anyway. He put up a hell of a fight with her, she owed him that much. She peeked at his stunned, pallor face, as well as his equally stunned father.
She turned to her side with a hitched breath. Hector rising to his feet, completely floored, and Adria to her other side, twin faced. She was about to question when they’d arrived at their current posts, but the white hot crackle in her hands pulled her eyes to the Moon Stone.
A burst of lighting zaps climbed up her arms like vines, scalding hot and eating away at what remained of her armor- as well as her skin, a literal hurricane forming from her hands as high-speed winds picked up and surrounded them in a veiled twister.
Cassandra screamed louder than she had in her life, louder than she had in any nightmare, hands glued to her downfall.
“Cass!” Varian cried. Eugene sat still at the sight, watching Cassandra nearly melt before his eyes as her arms burned to charcoal.
“There’s no time!” Edmund shouted. He stood, helping his son to his feet, whipping his head to the exit. “Follow me; I know the way to the others!" Adria and Hector nodded a salute to their king. “Yes, your majesty,” they said in unison. They rushed to them, Varian only being a moment later. Unfortunately, Cassandra caught sight of him. She felt her heart stop in panic, and within that panic, an idea rose in her mind. A horrible, horrible idea, but an idea nonetheless. She somehow managed to summon the strength to rip her hands apart, and snag the back of Varian’s collar in her grip.
“Ahh! Eugene!” Varian cried. The group halted and felt their stomachs fall to the ground at what was happening. Cassandra pressed her foot atop Varian back to keep him stuck to the ground and with no time to escape. Wind rushed in his ears as she brought him to her face, lighting zipping and grazing over the surface of his cheeks. “You want to take away my destiny, so badly?” she growled. She bore her eyes, green and wicked sharp, deep into his own.
“You can take it.”
She shoves the wretched stone straight into Varian’s chest, earning a blood-curdling scream from the boy as the Moonstone embedded itself through the cloth of his vest. Eugene and the Brotherhood stayed fused to the street, watching one of their own be given his devastating fate that no one had the power to end. Black rocks sprouted, shooting up from out of the ground, rippling the cobblestone paths like water, circling Cassandra and Varian like a predator.
Varian continued to scream, his throat being skinned from the force as black began to encase his body, shattering his clothes and boots like glass, sealing in his skin head to toe. The force of the wind blew his goggles off his head, sending them flying far off into Corona’s border as his rich ebony hair streamed in blue and white. With one final surge, the Moonstone blasted a final wave of energy, signaling it’s finally done claiming its host.
Eugene was at a loss. At his feet was a battered Cassandra, dried blood crusty at the ends of her hair and around her nose, life drained from around her eyes and her arms burnt black, fading up to her shoulders, and…and…
“Eugene...” a voice croaked.
The worst thing that could’ve happened… his baby brother stood shaking, clad in obsidian armor, a hideous opal forever pinned to the skin of his chest, boring a new hole inside, and an unevenly sliced ribbon of navy wrapping around his body and around his thigh like a garter. His once black hair and bright azure eyes, colored a toxic blue, except the stripe in his bangs, now an empty black. His skin was now bone white, making the freckles on his face almost looked drawn on. “What’s happening to me?” Varian whimpered.
He was helpless. They all were.
Eugene hated it so much.
“Oh, kid-” Eugene would never got to finish, as the grip his father had on his side was tightened as he hauled him up. “Come, son! We haven’t got time!” he shouted.
“What? No! We’re not leaving him here!” Eugene argued. A second pair of arms took his free arm. “We don’t have a choice, Eugene.” Adira said. “If we take him with us, it could cause more harm than good. He’s vulnerable and unstable.”
No. No, he couldn’t do this again.
“No! I’m bringing him with us! I’m not leaving him behind agai-”
A yelp snapped the group's focus to Varian, jumping back from where his first step forward caused a small crown of spikes to erupt at his unwilling command. Adira fought to keep her tears at bay. It was useless. “We have to go,” she said.
Eugene shook his arm out of her hands. “No,” he said, "I can’t, not again, I love him, I-” “Eugene.”
Eugene turns to Varian, fear-filled eyes stinging and red rimmed, trying to hold it together for him. 'Stupid kid', Eugene thought. 'Always trying to put up a face for the world, even when it's about to end'.
“It’s okay. You can go,” he whispered. Eugene’s insides began to wither like dead weeds. It was then he made a mistake he’d forever regret and broke out of his father’s arms to run for Varian.
“NO!” Varian shouted. “Stay away from me! Please!” He hugged himself, panic filling the wave of blunt rocks breaking through and barreling into the captain’s chest, launching him back to his father. Eugene held an arm around his torso; if his ribs weren’t broken before, they certainly are now.
Eugene looked to Varian with a lump in his throat. “Kid,” he tried to whisper, but instead, was met with a horrifying, non-verbal response: a red rock, taller than most of the buildings, towering over them all and bathing the kingdom crimson.
“We need to go, now!” Edmund barked. Eugene felt his stomach curl. “But… but what about Cassandra?” “What about her?!” Hector shouted. “She’s the cause of this!” “Which means she will be the end of it as well!” Eugene argued. “She’s defenseless. If we bring her with us, we’ll have insight, an upper hand, and-”
Eugene's face drained as Cassandra was not only no longer on the ground, but nowhere in sight and only a puddle of her drying blood and a trail of droplets leading away remained.
He was going to kill her.
“Eugene,” Varian called. He sounded so broken . He hugged himself tighter, nodding to his big brother with a watery smile. “Go.”
With no room for arguing, Eugene was gathered up in his father’s and Adira’s arms and hauled off to rejoin the others. In their leave, Eugene took one last glance at Varian.
The boy– a young man, now, he supposed– whose life deserved nothing but the best, full of friends, perhaps a lover or two and a family that could protect him from every harm… “We’ll get you back, kiddo,” he vowed. “I promise you.”
Varian stared at the red rock before him. He did this. He brought this rock into the world he swore to protect. The world he once wanted to destroy. When a glint of blue amongst the red blinked at him, he stepped forward.
He found himself on the rock’s glossy surface. His hair palette reversed, hair and eyes now saturated to a noxious degree and his body painted and adorned in the very things that ruined all of their lives. His breath began to quicken, his heart pounding along with the new energy of the Moonstone constricting him to it, like a mouse in a snake’s coiled grasp.
He couldn’t see, especially not the new red rocks beginning to sprout like fresh, poisonous plants and infest the kingdom with his fears. The place he once called home rumbled, distant screams and distant screams filling his ears. It was his fault for being so foolish. So naïve to think he could fix this. She wasn’t him. He couldn’t fix this by making it about him. He was an example, sure, but not the one she needed. He let this happen. It was his fault.
As the red rocks overtook the once grand island, the Brotherhood stood heaving at the end of the bridge, watching it glow a terrifying red.
Eugene felt something bloom in his chest. Something vile and angry.
She left.
Cassandra doomed the lives of everyone on earth for a shot at a destiny she thought she wanted and the instant it was taken away, she forced the problem on someone else and left.
She was going to pay .
As they made their way through the woods to the others, a glint from a shard of glass blinked at Hector’s eye and he was met with the shattered remains of Varian’s goggles resting at his feet. Sad acid-green eyes growing sadistic, he picked up the goggles, hiding them in the inside pocket of his cloak as he silently invented new torture methods once that cowardly witch was in their hands again.
~
“Rapunzel? Rapunzel?” Eugene whispered. His girlfriend’s eyes fluttered open to grace him, filling him with the most relief he’d felt in hours. “Blondie,” he smiled.
Rapunzel slowly rose to prop her elbows, letting her vision clear itself to see the other blurry things surrounding her. “Wha-what’s going on?” she groaned.
Her sight refocused, finding the lightened faces of her parents, friends… and the whole kingdom, it seemed, all stuffed into this one room and all appearing happy to see that she’s okay. She took in the warm sights and smells, and it didn’t take her long to realize she was in the Snuggly Duckling Pub.
“Thank goodness you’re okay!” Eugene said, enveloping her in his arms. She settled her head into the crook of his neck and snuggled up against it. 'Finally, A chance to breathe' Eugene thought to himself. A small, peaceful smile tugged Rapunzel’s lips, soaking in her Captain’s presence. She turned her head to the crowd of people, now stirring up a steady, light chatter in the room, until her eyes met a large red and brown blur hunched over on the stage's edge. She squinted her eyes until she noticed that it was Quirin, sat crying and shaking across the room. Her eyes widened and she removed herself from the embrace.
“Sunshine, what’s the matter?” Eugene asked. Rapunzel didn’t answer right away, scanning the room over and over gain, but couldn't find who she was looking for. She looked into Eugene’s eyes and asked softly, “Where’s Varian?”
Every noise present in that room was silenced the instant she spoke his name. All eyes were either on her or looking anywhere else. She glanced up at her parents, both of whom were hesitating with their answers, and Quirin, trembling in his spot on the other side of the room in what she guessed was anticipation.
Dread and fear clawed and began to hollow her from the inside out when Eugene’s hand brought her face to meet his. “Oh, Sunshine,” he whispered. “I don’t know if you should be-”
“No,” a low voice said. Edmund stood solemn, the focus of everyone’s attention as his eyes kept downcast at his feet. “No, son. Let me.”
“What?” Quirin managed to croak out. “What? What happened to my boy?”
Edmund gave a sad grimace, gesturing to the princess. “I wanted her to be awake for this.” Quirin shook his head. “For what?”
'I'm sorry."
Both men turned to Eugene, sitting on the bed, face twisted like a worn rag and tears pricking his eyes. “It was my fault. I hadn’t made it to him in time, I-” A hand cupped his cheek. “Eugene?” Rapunzel whispered. That made it worse.
Approaching footsteps loomed over his ears as a heavy hand landed on his other shoulder, forcing the new Captain to face Quirin’s eyes. “Where is he, Captain?” Never in anyone’s life had they heard the man look or sound so shattered. “Where is my son?”
~
Varian hugged himself, gripping his arms and sobbing at the lack of touch from his own hands. He was practically naked to the world, yet locked away all the same in the worst way possible. Small red rocks rose from nearby bushes, following him and peeking out like a hungry pest.
Pest.
Ruddiger.
Where was Ruddiger? He wanted Ruddiger. He wanted his dad. He wanted his lab. He wanted his ham sandwiches. He wanted his family, his friends, his brother, his sister, his new family-
He collapsed on his knees, trying and failing to get a grip. His breath was ragged and raked against his throat like nails on a chalkboard. He scrubbed his eyes and found a large fallen tree nearby. A large oak that was haphazardly chopped off from near its roots, a large black rock hovering over the stump. He examined it with a hum and considered; soft enough to sleep on and hard enough to punish him for his stupidity.
He sat, nestling down into it the best he could manage, and cradled himself. No one else was around to do that, anymore, anyway. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. It's my fault. I'm sorry” He repeated the mantra until he was too exhausted to continue and finally falls asleep. From the highest branch of a nearby tree, bathed in the cold, unforgiving moonlight, Zahn Tiri chuckled to herself as she eyed him hungrily.
This may not have been her initial plan at the start of this mess, but it was all she had now.
"Sleep well, little one," she whispered. "You haven't even yet begun to scratch the surface of your power." Her Cheshire smile broadened as she looked out from her perch to the devastated Corona left in a literal blaze of defeat.
This was going to be better than she'd ever dreamed of.