Chapter Text
Something tugged at the back of Death Knight's mind, drawing his fractured mind out of its normal bloodied haze.
At first he tried to ignore the strange pull, eager to sink back into mindless bloodlust, but the feeling would not be ignored.
He growled, annoyed at being forced into such stark, uncomfortable awareness. Looking around, he tried to discern the source.
Something called to him, pulling him towards some unknown location. Something that tugged at his tungsten heart in a way he'd not felt for nearly…two decades.
It couldn't be…
Death Knight closed his eyes and focused on the feeling.
It was faint, far far fainter than he'd ever felt it before, yet, still, there could be no doubt of what it was!
His face split in a wide smile.
His Mistress, the one to whom he'd pledged his body and soul, had been ousted from the realms of the Arena Eternal when the Trespasser defiled Her realms and destroyed Her proxy.
Normally, She would have quickly claimed another proxy to Ascend and manifest Her power, retaking Her rightful control of all the realms created by Her or Her Dreamers.
Yet, instead, it had been decades since Death Knight had felt the familiar pull of Her Command.
But now, though nearly too weak to even recognize, he again felt Her call!
After so long, at last, his Lady summoned him!
His flames flared up, surrounding him in a great plume of fire, and the stone ground beneath him split open, the resulting portal swallowing him up as he rushed to answer His Lady's call.
-
Ranger traced the edges of the worn photograph in his hands with his fingers for the thousandth time, committing each detail to memory again and again.
His wife and daughter's smiles. The gold hair they both shared. His own face. At least, how it had looked twenty odd years before he'd ended up in this strange, timeless place.
He no longer remembered what his face looked like, now. Reflections didn't work, here. They shifted and changed as you looked at them and they never showed the same thing twice.
He figured that might be the first thing he lost. The first really important thing, anyway. Who knows what kind of other stuff he'd never know he'd even forgotten?
It was, at least, the thing he first realized was gone, the thing that had made him realize he was losing his memory. Far, far too late.
Looking at this very picture, it had taken him a half second to recognize the man staring back at him.
He'd laughed at himself for being thrown off by his youthful appearance. He hadn't looked that different, had he?
That's when, with a horror that only kept growing and growing, he realized he couldn't remember what that face looked like now. Couldn't remember what any of their faces looked like now. Couldn't remember his daughter's name.
Couldn't remember his own.
He'd started writing things down, after that. Far, far too late.
He tried to summon up the determination the photo always instilled in him, but even the smiling faces looking back at him from the faded polaroid just made him feel tired.
God, he was so tired.
How long had he been in this place, fighting and dying, again and again, searching endlessly for some way out of this hell and back to his family?
Long enough that the effects of this place on his mind had all but reduced him to a shell of his former self, a sad shadow of the man who smiled back at him from the photo in his hand.
Decades, at least.
He'd killed that big Monster, Shub Ngurath, taken the glowing orb he'd torn from it, and just kept going, with no direction, no goal except “survive” and “get home”. Yet, nothing he did seemed to move him any closer to doing so.
He couldn't die in this place. Nothing could. At least, they couldn't stay dead.
He'd died more times and in more ways than he could count. Dismembered, dissolved, burned, stabbed, shot, every kind of painful, brutal death anyone could imagine, he'd been through countless times. Each time, however, he'd just find himself bursting back into existence in a flash of light, just like everything else here.
Monsters, humans, robots, cyborgs, and walking corpses all died and came back again and again and again. Sometimes they were allies, usually enemies.
He didn't know how. He didn't know why. He just knew which they were when they were them, and they knew it too. He knew when he was meant to kill and when he was meant to stop. And he knew there was no denying the Arena's thirst for blood. No use even trying. He knew it like it was written behind his eyelids every time he blinked, though he couldn't begin to understand why or how.
Nothing made sense and yet at the same time, it made complete sense. Like the paths of his mind, it was all contradictions, looping in on themselves over and over.
Regardless of temporary teamwork, there could be no true camaraderie. No true allies. Only countless enemies.
Ranger was tired. He was lonely and barely remembered the feeling of another being’s presence that wasn't either bent on killing him or being forced to kill alongside him.
Just one true ally in this place…Just one friendly face, that's all he needed. Just someone to lean on as his will wavered like this. That's all he needed to keep going.
His heart ached with longing and he gripped the photo close to his heart.
Then, something seemed to shift within him, something he couldn't fully identify. It felt almost like when he summoned the Dire Orb but…different. The same feeling of energy welling up in him, but not then drawn to his hand, releasing as the Orb would appear above his palm. Instead, it seemed to go elsewhere. Not just disappearing, but not directed anywhere he could tell.
He pondered it for a moment, then groaned.
This place was just messing with his head, as always.
He gave the photo one last look before he went to put it back into his boot for safe keeping.
Before he could do so, however, the stone ground beneath him tore open in a fiery gash, making him have to roll out of the way to avoid the flame.
An all too familiar clawed gauntlet rose up from the glowing rift, digging furrows in the rock as it pulled the chest of the body to which it belonged up out of the ground.
Driving his blade into the stone and using it as leverage, the rotting corpse in medieval armor that was the “Death Knight”, hauled the rest of his body from the portal, cackling madly.
“I heed Your call once more, Mistress!” he cried, making as much sense as anything he ever said.
Ranger had killed (or at least destroyed) hundreds, if not thousands, of similar armor clad monstrosities, though none quite so annoyingly persistent as this one, with its strange, crude cybernetics embedded in its chest and the enhanced flame powers they seemed to grant it.
As the Knight got to his feet, the wide, manic smile on his face suddenly faded to a look of shock and confusion when he spotted Ranger, then turned to a scowl.
“You!” he hissed. “Trespasser and defiler! Destroyer of my Lady’s proxy and thief of Her Dire Orb!”
“Don’t you ever take a break?” Ranger groaned.
He tucked his precious photo under the neckline of his armor, for the time being.
Death Knight raised his sword and pointed it at Ranger.
“I cannot kill you permanently, but if it is my Lady’s will that I should try, then I will deliver you a thousand deaths, then yet a thousand more, until your soul begs for the Void!”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Ranger said, picking up the machine gun from the ground next to him and getting to his feet.
“Incendimus!” Death Knight cried, launching three balls of flame at Ranger, who jumped into a dodge roll to avoid them.
Exiting his roll with a swift jump back to his feet, Ranger closed one eye to line up his shot, then pulled the trigger, sending a stream of machine gun fire into the Knight's torso.
Death Knight grunted in pain, but seemed undeterred.
“The sea of dead awaits you!” he taunted, diving forward, swinging wildly at Ranger. “I will take you to it!”
“Give it a rest, already, will you?” Ranger said, backing up, swiftly, to avoid the blade, still red hot from Death Knight's fire attack. “I'm not in the--ah!”
As he pulled sharply backwards, out of the way of a swing, the photo that had been tucked, haphazardly, against his neck pulled free, catching on the slight breeze of heated air from Death Knight's blade.
“No!” Ranger cried, grabbing for the picture, which just evaded his grasp, fluttering to the ground by the Knight's metal boot.
Death Knight glanced down with a confused hum, intrigued by what concerned Ranger so much, then huffed, disappointed to find it to be nothing more than a worthless piece of paper.
He turned his sword downward, in one hand, preparing to spear the photo through with the flame-licked blade.
A thrill of horror gripped Ranger and he screamed, his voice seeming to shake the very air around him.
“NO!”
Death Knight's body stiffened like he'd been petrified. His eyes went wide and his face slack in shock.
Ranger wasted no time in throwing the Dire Orb and detonating it when it intersected with Death Knight's head, causing his entire upper half to explode in an impressive shower of gore. The rest of his body crumpled to the blood-soaked stone beneath it.
Ranger dove to the ground, shielding the photo with his body then hastily snatching it up and holding it to his chest, protectively.
He checked over the worn photograph, ensuring it was unharmed, his heart racing in his chest.
With a sigh of relief, he found it was no worse for wear. He carefully folded it and tucked it back into his boot.
He glanced at Death Knight’s body, everything above the chest having been reduced to a bloody pulp.
He huffed.
Turning to put some distance between him and the corpse, he found himself staring straight at the same face he'd just gibbed, the wide smile across it seeming even impossibly wider and more insane than usual.
“Oh for crying out loud--!”
Ranger went to raise his gun, again, when, to his bewilderment, the Knight fell to a knee, his head bowed and arms out in a supplicating pose.
“Forgive my insolence, my Lady, for I did not recognize You in this vessel of flesh,” he said, voice dripping with reverence. “Command me once more. I am eternally at Your service.”
Ranger blinked.
“Uh…what?”
The Knight looked up at him, a look of near desperation in his smile.
“Set me upon Your enemies! Bid me spill blood in Your name!” he pleaded, grabbing at Ranger's leg. “Too long I have gone without Your guidance! Too long I have languished in Your absence, without purpose! Send me to the fields of Your foes that I might turn them to seas of blood for Your glory! Iä! Black Goat of a Thousand Young!”
Something in the last words, spoken more like an incantation than exaltation, made that same, strange feeling from earlier writhe in Ranger’s chest.
It felt almost…eager.
He shuddered.
“Get away from me, you lunatic!” he demanded, kicking the Knight off of his leg.
Thankfully, Death Knight complied, getting back to his feet.
“Forgive my enthusiasm, my Lady,” he said. “I have dearly missed Your presence, unknown as it was to me.”
He looked over Ranger with a scrutinizing eye.
“This form is…abnormal for a proxy of Yours. Until Your call, I never suspected this could be Your aspect. The last one was far more recognizable,” he said, then raised his hands, placating, adding “Not that I question Your wisdom, of course! I'm sure…this has more useful qualities than it appears.”
Death Knight gestured to Ranger’s body, a look of forced positivity on his decrepit face.
Ranger looked down at himself, then made a face.
“I'm in good shape for my forties, cut me some slack here.” he grumbled.
Well, he was pretty sure he was somewhere around his forties, anyway. Fifties, maybe?
“But now You’ve called me once again to Your side!” Death Knight beamed. “And I will see Your realms returned to their rightful ruler and Your greater machinations at last completed!”
He bowed again.
Ranger shook his head.
“Did that frag finally knock your last screw loose or something?” he asked, not really expecting any coherent answer. “You’re talking even crazier than normal. If you’re not looking for a fight, then get out of my way. I ain’t got time to chit chat with corpses.”
He pushed his way past Death Knight, who looked somewhat bewildered by the response.
“I’m no corpse,” he said, before following behind Ranger.
“Zombie, walking dead, canned meat, whatever! Just leave me alone!” Ranger said, picking up his pace.
Death Knight was undeterred, keeping only a few steps behind, tailing him like a lost dog.
Trying to ignore both growing fatigue and his new, shambling shadow, Ranger trudged miserably onwards through the vast, rocky plateaus of the area he'd been dumped after his latest round of combat.
-
Death Knight, on the other hand, could not have been happier.
He rarely questioned much of what he was doing or why and especially not when it was in service of his Mistress and especially not when he had the unprecedented honor of walking directly alongside Her avatar.
In retrospect, insomuch as Death Knight ever really experienced the concept, it was obvious that it had been Her proxy he’d fought beside and even against these past years. What else could possibly have wielded Her Dire Orb? Have stepped, unharmed, from the gore of Her previous incarnation?
He felt nearly giddy with pride. He had been granted the unimaginable honor of being allowed to spill Her blood! To face Her in combat, hundreds of times! To think he had been so blind to the incredible privilege he’d been awarded! And now he had again been blessed with Her revealing Her new Vadrigar’s identity to him, even when all the rest of Her servants and Young seemed, still, unaware.
To serve Her so directly, to be so specifically chosen as Her escort; He could imagine no greater joy
So it didn't bother him in the slightest that they'd been walking in rather roundabout circles in the time since he begun tailing his Lady's new proxy. He didn't need to question why his Lady would choose such a path, did not need to even think of it being strange. Did not have to think at all.
Not that he did much of that, regardless, of course. Rarely did battle wane for long enough for any other thought to cross his long atrophied mind. Even when it did, there was little left in his brain to think about aside from how to get back into combat again, as fast as possible.
These past years since his Lady's last proxy was destroyed and Her presence suddenly vanished from Her realms, however, had still been an outlier. He'd had to more actively choose where and when we went in search of bloodshed,as opposed to just being constantly pulled along by the guiding thread that was his Lady's desire.
The same pull that had brought him to Her, now.
The strange new form, the way Her proxy acted as though he did not recognize him as Her servant, the way he'd killed him so violently, the way he'd told him to leave, none of that mattered.
While it was abnormal for a proxy of Hers to take such a form or have an entirely unique name like this “Ranger” had, it was not unheard of, and none of it felt confusing or contradictory.
The will of Old Gods was not to be understood and what remained of Death Knight's mind would be twisted inside out if he tried to, anyway. They were beyond comprehension or explanation.
All that mattered was that his Lady desired him at Her side and he could once again give over all command to Her and escape from the uncomfortably stark lucidity he'd sometimes lapsed into in Her absence. So long as he felt Her implicit Command to accompany Her proxy, his path was clear.
Well, metaphorically speaking.
In a literal sense, his path had a crack in the stone, just big enough for him to accidentally catch the tip of his armored boot in, causing him to stumble for a moment to keep his balance.
The metal of his armor clanged loudly against itself and the stone ground as he did so.
Ranger jumped at the sudden sound and spun on his heel, pointing his gun at Death Knight's head.
Death Knight smiled, cordially, unbothered by the gun only inches from his face.
“Yes, my Lady? Do You have need of me?” he asked.
Ranger relaxed, slightly, letting the muzzle of his gun lower.
“You're still following me?” he asked, with a grimace.
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“You Commanded me to,” Death Knight replied, simply.
“The Hell I did!” Ranger said. “I haven't said a word to anybody in days, and sure as Hell not to you!”
“Your desire is Your Command, my Lady,” Death Knight said, with a small bow. “I happily obey.”
Ranger let out an exasperated sigh.
“Why do I even bother?” he groaned, turning around again and beginning to walk away “Just stop following me!”
Death Knight followed.
Ranger growled and summoned the Dire Orb to his hand, throwing it so that it flew all the way across a nearby chasm, then teleported to it, leaving Death Knight behind.
Hm.
Well, an easy enough issue to fix.
Death Knight drew his sword and stabbed it into the stone below his feet, dragging it back to tear a jagged, glowing gash in the rock, then jumped inside.
The connecting portal tore open in front of Ranger, who jumped back and away as Death Knight climbed out.
“You've gotta be fucking kidding me,” he moaned.
He raised his gun to Death Knight's forehead.
“I said, stop following me!” he hissed.
Death Knight blinked.
It had not been a true Command, but it had at least enough power behind it to indicate his Lady intended it to be obeyed.
“As You wish, Mistress,” he said, disappointed to no longer be at Her side, but nonetheless obedient to any and all instruction She gave him.
Ranger balked at him.
“Seriously? After all that, you--? Wha--why--?”
Ranger shook his head.
“You know what? I don't care,” he said, already turning and walking away from the Knight.
“Is there somewhere else You'd have me be?” Death Knight asked.
“No!” Ranger called back, not turning around to face him as he did.
Death Knight watched for a long time as his Lady's proxy disappeared into the distance, and then kept watching that spot on the horizon, unmoving from where he'd been left, long after that.
Eventually, he did some small things to pass the time -- inspecting his sword or surveying his surroundings, occasionally -- but largely just stood. He'd not been instructed to patrol, nor to defend or attack anything. It would not even be accurate to say he was waiting.
He just stood.
Either his Lady would call on him again soon and give him a task or She would not. He did not need to anticipate anything. It would be when it would be. To be sent back into battle was inevitable. It had been promised to him.
War, fire, and bloodshed without end; this he had been promised by The All Mother, and a contract with an Old God was not broken. Not by either party.
So he would serve, even if it was just by standing, and he would have his bloodshed, eventually, one way or another. There was a great sense of relief and comfort in the certainly of it all.
It was good for things to be back to normal.
-
Just when Ranger thought things couldn't get any less normal, in this place, it threw him another curve ball.
He’d walked away from the shambling tin can of skin and bone that was Death Knight with a determined stride, not slowing down to a more normal pace until he was well away and confident he was not being followed.
He let out a sigh of relief.
Finally!
Of course the first thing not trying to kill him out here would be that lunatic. So much for “one friendly face”.
Ranger blinked, steps faltering slightly, as he recalled something the Knight had said.
‘You Commanded me to. Your desire is Your Command. I happily obey.’
Right before he'd shown up, Ranger had, technically, been wishing for some kind of ally. Then there had been the strange sort of feeling like energy building up and then seeming to be sent away.
Had it…Had he…?
No.
No, he couldn't let this place or that thing start messing with his head. He couldn't start buying into any of this madness. Once it took hold of any part of him, he'd never get it back.
He'd already lost so much, already.
Just keep surviving. Keep moving forward. Straight as an arrow, never looking back, never letting himself dwell. Everything about this place tried to trap your mind if you let it wander or linger.
He had to keep focused on his goal and nothing else.
Nothing would stop him from getting home.
As he walked, the familiar fog that settled into his mind whenever he wasn't fighting began creeping into his brain.
He struggled to keep his thoughts clear, but no matter how hard he tried, he was never able to keep himself from slipping under that thick haze.
It was like trying not to fall asleep when you're dead tired. Eventually, you nod off right even noticing, only realizing you'd been sleeping when you woke up again.
Endless landscapes of grey stone blended together, mixing and melting like turpentine splashed on an oil painting, the images flowing from his eyes and through his brain only to drip out through the holes that decades in this hell had drilled through his psyche.
Each drip took with it another fragment of his mind and memory he could never regain, like water wearing away at stone.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
After walking for anywhere between a moment and a lifetime(it all felt the same), Ranger’s mind was pulled back into clarity by a shape in the distance.
It was too far to see, just yet, but it was almost certainly a silhouette of a humanoid figure.
Ranger adjusted his gun in his hands, double checking it was loaded and taking off the safety.
However, as he got close enough for the figure to come into view, he let out an exasperated cry.
“You've gotta be fucking kidding me!”
Death Knight perked up at the sound of Ranger's voice, face splitting (somewhat literally) into a wide grin.
“Have You need of me, my Lady?” he asked.
“I told you to stop following me!” Ranger shouted.
“And so have I obeyed!” Death Knight insisted. “I've waited here for Your call or return, as You wished.”
“You--Wait, you haven't moved?”
Death Knight nodded, obediently.
“That's impossible! I've been walking in a straight line! There's no way I could have circled that far around!”
What was left of Death Knight's brows knit together in confusion.
“With all due respect, Mistress…we have been traveling in circles since You called me to Your side.” He spoke with the wary concern of one explaining something they knew the other should be well aware of. “The Dreamlands twist and turn in on themselves, especially Your realms. You made them as such.”
Ranger felt like his heart dropped to his feet. All the energy drained out of him and he fell to his knees.
Of course he'd suspected. Of course, deep down, he'd known it was more likely than not, but he'd still held on to the shred of hope that it wasn't true. But now, confirmed by the rotting warrior's words, he had to accept the truth.
He'd been going in circles. Both figuratively and literally. He'd never made any progress at all. Never been in control of his own path, only ever looping around or being thrown to different places with no control of where or when.
All this time…and he had never gotten a single step closer to home.
He let his gun slide from his hand and onto the ground, despair washing over him.
“...my Lady…?” Death Knight called, voice softer than Ranger thought him capable of.
He shot Death Knight a half-hearted glare.
“Quit calling me that, would you? I'm nobody's ‘lady’, least of all yours.”
“My apologies. It is not often a proxy of Shub Niggurath does not consider itself female.”
Ranger perked up.
“Say that again,” he said.
“Proxies most often take feminine forms. I had simply assumed--”
Ranger shook his head, getting to his feet.
“No, no, that name! Say the name again!”
“...Shub Niggurath?”
“Yes! That's what that thing I killed was called! What do you know about it?” Ranger demanded, grabbing Death Knight by the shoulders. “Why did it trap me here? Why did it attack Earth? What was it?”
Death Knight looked utterly baffled.
“My Lady…‘it’ is You.”