Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

…

The apartment was silent.

It had barely been a couple minutes since Curt had left, not before slamming Christian into a wall and suddenly treating them with a rage none of them had seen before. Sure, he had gotten angry, just like they all had, but this?

Christian came to, finding his head bandaged but still pounding like it was the morning after an all night bender. "Fuck," he groaned, "where's Curt?"

Ivan, still sitting beside him, helped him carefully sit up. "Went to take care of that new group, only seemed to care about that damage they caused."

Kristine's nerves were still going haywire. Why? Curt wouldn't do that, would he? Was that even still him? She honestly didn't know if she wanted it to be him or not to be him, with the first option meaning that he genuinely did that out of free will, and the second meaning that Curt was gone. "Should we…leave him be?" She asked carefully.

"We can't, right? He's gonna kill people!" Ivan retorted, obviously concerned.

"I think we gotta kill him then." Christian spoke up with a small smile on his face that was only half gleeful. Ivan turned to him "What!?"

Den nodded. "It'll be a mercy kill if anything."

Kristine looked at her. "Why are we so quick to kill Curt!?"

"We just killed a god," Ivan sighed, "shouldn't we take a break and recoup or something?"

Christian did his best to stand up, leaning on the wall and having Ivan hold out an arm just to be sure. "We'll, not exactly in the mood to have him come back and catch us by surprise, I say we do it."

They slowly all looked at each other, all deciding that, yeah, they needed to get to him. Maybe they could try to talk some sense into him again, but they were pretty sure they were gonna have to fight him. Just…

"Can we do that?" Kristine hesitantly asked. "I mean, Christian's head is still open, and Curt is strong as hell now. Us four couldn't really beat Ao on our own, can't we get some help?"

"…wouldn't know who." Den shrugged.

"Den." Christian looked over at her. She, Ivan and himself had an idea on who to ask, but it was obvious Den wasn't too happy about it.

"I said no." Den glared at him. She seemed to be feeling rather strongly about this, her surroundings starting to shift a bit, a couple extra eyes plopping up in a couple places, Kristine quickly pulling her hand back when one opened on the armrest of the couch.

Ivan tried to reason with her. "Look, I get you guys argued, but-"

"That Dino Bitch can go fuck herself!" Den interrupted. "She can shove her duties and runt talk right up her ass!"

The environment was shifting more and more. Colours were changing, the table was suddenly on the ceiling, eyes plopped up in every corner just staring unblinkingly, the ginseng was singing, and Den glared at the two men in front of her.

Kristine was insanely confused. "Who are we even talking about?"

Den whipped around, her voice loud. "Nobody!"

"Face it, we need help!" Christian yelled. "What are you gonna do, pull a Curt?! Attack us and dip?"

Den was quiet, her fists shaking with barely contained fury. Slowly, she took a deep breath, letting everything slowly return to normal. "Fine." She clearly wasn't happy about it, but she had resigned herself to having been outvoted.

She walked towards the apartment door. It started to glow as she got closer, until finally she grabbed the handle and opened it, revealing lush greenery on the other side. Tall trees, wild bushes, something flying in the distance and a roar emitting in the distance.

"Come on." Den said, stepping through, motioning the others to follow. Ivan followed first, then Christian, and finally Kristine. She didn't quite know who they were meeting, but she was just as determined as the others to face Curt…

…whatever may happen.

Chapter Text

They walked along the dirt path through the grass, mostly in silence. Finally, Kristine couldn't really take not knowing anymore, and quickened her pace to catch up to Christian. "So, what is this here exactly? Who are we meeting?"

Christian looked over at her. "Oh yeah, you have never been here! This is Raptor Island. We're going to meet an old friend of ours, Chilly."

Kristine remembered them talking about her. "Oh, the Raptor God?"

Christian nodded. "Yeah. She came here to take care of the Raptors full time, and help rebuild it after Ivan's gentrification." Christian laughed.

Ivan rolled his eyes. "Shit happens guys, that was so long ago!"

Kristine looked towards Den, who was walking ahead of the group, her head low and her hands still balled to fists. "She doesn't really seem happy about being here."

Christian sighed. "Yeah, there was a bit of a fight a bit ago. Thing is, Den and Chilly are, like, insanely young for gods, the others are all centuries, if not millenia old, and don't have a lot of patience to show younger ones around." At Kristine's confused look, he added. "Don't ask, no idea why literal immortals value their time that much."

"Anyways," he continued, "Chilly tried to get in their good graces and studied a bunch, learned a lot about god stories, and did her best to do things "properly". Den didn't. So, when the other Gods invited them, they made some jokes about Den being the "runt" of the two and "not a proper God". Chilly laughed with them cause she wanted to be liked, which hurt Den and, long story short, they aren't on good terms."

Kristine stayed silent, not sure what to say. She didn't need to however, Den breaking the silence with a mocking voice. "Oh, look at me, I'm Chilly. I'm so desperate to be liked that I'll throw my friend under the bus for not being a proper god, even though her whole thing is Chaos, which pretty much opposes properness, cause I'm so smart!"

After a few seconds of silence, Kristine spoke again. "…are you okay?"

Den sighed. "Let's just go."

After a bit more walking, they saw a sort of terrace on the side of a large tree. It was made out of wood, held together by expertly crafted knots. A giant raptor was standing at it, getting examined by someone.

She had brown hair and yellow eyes. She wore some sort of researcher uniform, with a white Polo, blue pants and black boots, the professionalism of which was noticeably contrasted by the white and black hat with Panda ears on her head. Her left arm was a claw instead of a typical human arm, though pretty much her whole skin had this shiny gleam to it as if she were scaly all over.

She was scratching the Raptors chin when they approached. "Everything's gonna be okay Brutus, the thorn's fully out." Then, she spotted them, waving to them. "Guys, Hi!" She turned back to the raptor to give him a hand signal, to which he came closer to let her climb on his snout, and gently lowered her to the ground. When she got off she waved him goodbye and turned to the group. "Again, Hi, happy to see you guys!" Then she spotted Kristine. "Oh, who are you?"

"I'm Kristine." Kristine answered, giving a small wave. Christian spoke up "New friend of ours. Kristine, this is Chilly." Chilly offered a hand, which Kristine shook. "So," Chilly looked at each of them (though not quite meeting Den's gaze), "how can I help?"

[…]

It took a bit to get Chilly caught up on it all, but when they were done explaining, she looked…concerned. "What do you mean Curt went mad?!"

"Exactly that", Ivan shrugged. "We're gonna try to get to him, talk to him, and kill him if worst comes to worst." His eyes turned away as he sad that last part, not particularly enjoying the idea.

"…" Chilly's voice turned serious. "And you're sure this is a good idea? Something strong enough to change someone like that doesn't just go away, especially if it turns out that it's tied to something else."

Den looked up. "Tied to something else?"

Chilly turned to her. "A counterpart. You know, like fire and ice, earth and air, physical and mental strength, Den, you out of everybody here should know how that works."

Den scoffed. "Oh come on, can we not do this again?!"

Chilly sighed. "I'm just saying, you should know how bad this could go, if you went about your duties properly-"

"Oh again with your stupid properness!" Den interrupted. "I get that you might've prioritized that stuff, I didn't. I had better shit to do, like not just leaving my friends for something "bigger", now are you gonna continue prancing around or are you gonna help!?"

A flash of guilt came over Chilly's face, her going quiet. Finally, she quietly spoke up. "Fine. I'll help." She looked at all of them. "But how? Where did he go?"

-----

Meanwhile, a terrified teen was running through the empty streets of Hometown. The doors of the houses were shut tight, dust of the few who tried to help them being carried away by the wind.

Their friends, where were their friends?! They got separated from their group when that guy showed up, what did he do? Were their friends-?

Before that thought could finish, they crashed into someone that suddenly appeared on the street.

They looked up and-

No…no, no, no, no, no, no!

"Davi, hey~."

That same freaky spiral guy.

As they were frozen in fear, the guy stepped towards them.

"I just want to talk."

Chapter Text

Davi turned and ran.

Well, tried to, them getting caught by the back of the collar by that guy.

"Aww, adorable." The guy seemed way too gleeful, as if he was enjoying Davis terror.

But that stopped just as quickly, his smile turning into a scowl as he threw Davi on the hard ground. Davi tried to get up, ignoring the warm blood trickling from their nose, but some glowing chains locked themselves around their wrists, binding them to the ground.

Behind him, he heard the guy.

"…you god damn-"

Davi screamed, suddenly feeling like millions of volts of electricity were shooting through them. It stopped just as quickly as it had started, but the guy clearly wasn't done.

"Do you have any idea what you did!?"

Again, Pain.

Davi tried to plead. "W-we didn't know."

It hurt.

The guy dragged them up by the hair, grinning as one of his hands slowly morphed into sharp claws, letting it rest against their throat.

"Hey, what's the matter? This'll be over in just a second."

Davi was struggling against his grasp, gritting their teeth to prepare for the inevitable sensation of getting their throat slit, when-

"Agh, Fuck!"

Davi unceremoniously dropped to the ground, the guy having accidentally let them fall in surprise. They looked to see him stagger slightly, a knife in his calf. But how-

"Curt, stop!"

Five people were running towards them, the woman with the pink hair the one having thrown the knife.

While the others surrounded the guy, one of them ran to check on Davi. He looked a lot nicer, had black hair, dark eyes and- were those antennas?

"Kid, how do you feel? Can you walk?" he asked, looking concerned.

Davi staggered to their feet. They were a bit wobbly, still in pain, but they could stand.

The Alien looking dude sighed. "Alright. Kid, go look for your friends, get everyone back home and, for your sake, throw whatever you used to get here away."

Davi nodded, turning on their heel and getting away as quickly as they could. Their friends had to be somewhere…right?

When the kid was gone, Ivan turned towards the rest of the group, who had surrounded Curt.

Chilly stepped forward, horrified now that she actually saw what the others had told her about. "What the hell happened?"

Curt pulled the knife out of his leg, ripping off part of his sleeve and tying it around the wound to stop the bleeding. "What the hell do you think," he spat, rolling his eyes, "I'm getting punished for not being in the mood to get torn up, but apparently that's such a horrible thing."

"That kid was terrified!" Ivan yelled. "You can't seriously tell me you just wanna do what Ao did to you?" Kristine asked, trying to get through to him.

Curt just scoffed. What the fuck was this supposed to be, an intervention? He didn't need this. He turned, and started to walk away, when a line of fire suddenly burst from the ground, turning the grass patches on the sidewalk to ashes and blocking his way.

"Christian." Curt turned back, his voice dangerously calm as his fingers started to grow sharper again. "Would you be so kind as to let me the fuck leave?"

"Hell no, you have officially turned into a fucking Psychopath!" Christian yelled, half laughing from nerves.

"SHUT UP!" Once again, Christian got pulled off of his feet by a red chain that suddently appeared around his neck. But unlike last time, Den was ready, growing out a tentacle from the ground to catch Christian.

"Den, throw me back!" Christian called out, using the speed and momentum to launch an attack towards Curt, which he barely managed to dodge, burning part of his arm. Curt whipped around, fingers fully sharpened, when his attack got caught by Chilly, the claws of her raptor arm digging into his forearm. Kristine joined in, using her claws to cut his side.

Curt cried out in pain, summoning two more chains to get them off of him, throwing Chilly against a wall, causing her to bleed but still being concious, and Kristine through the police station window, dust dispersing all around the room as she slowly got up again.

Ivan was trying to heal Chilly, when Curt came rushing towards him. Slightly panicking, somehow his mind went to pulling out the fucking Suitcase from the Genshin Impact adventure, holding it out infront of him as if he could actually block a strike with it. Curt didn't believe it either, already imagening Ivan being an even bigger idiot then usual when his suitcase was sliced in half, laughing as he went in for the kill, when-

his hands did nothing but slide off from the material.

Wait, didn't he just have his claws out, what the hell?

Looking back at Ivan, he saw a small grin on his face, and a slightly glowing, polygonal figure behind him.

…That fucker summoned his stan.

…

…Did Ivan really think that would help? Did he not think Curt wasn't still physically stronger then-

BANG!

BANG! BANG!

"AHH, WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Curt fell to the ground, his legs bleeding profusely.

Behind Curt, Ivan saw Kristine, looking out of the shattered window, holding a gun with shaky hands, having used Curt's momentary stillness to shoot him with one she found in one of the uniforms hanging on the rack.

Ivan dropped his stan, just in time for two of Dens tentacles to shoot out and wrap themselves around Curt. She held out her hands, motioning for the others on what they needed to do.

3…

2…

1…

Clap!

…

When the blinding light that had surrounded them slowly faded, they saw that the only thing still left was a faint blue glow, which silently got caught and absorbed by Den.

It was clear,

Curt was finished.

Chapter Text

…

They stood silent for a bit, barely registering the first few drops of rain falling. 

It was over.

They beat him. They had his soul, which was better then nothing, and nobody had to really die. And as much as they wanted a better ending, sometimes good enough would just have to do.

"Well," Ivan broke the silence, "guess this is it?"

Den nodded. "Yeah, let's go."

She slowly began walking, the others following behind. All they had to do now was go back through Chillys Portal and then head home themselves.

…something felt off.

She turned back. "Christian?"

Christian felt…weird.

It had started a bit after they defeated Curt, but now it was more noticeable, especially when he started to fall behind the others at their walking pace. He felt weirdly sluggish, and like he was breathing through a layer of syrup, kinda like being sick, just now both his nose and mouth felt clogged.

He flinched slightly when something momentarily flashed red before his eyes. The edges of his vision were going weirdly red as well. What was this, had he overexerted himself in the fight or something?

Chilly was the first to seem to realize something, her hands slowly covering her mouth as her eyes widened in terror. "No…no…" she muttered, barely audible.

Den turned to her. "Spit it out, what's happening?" Whatever this dumbass knew, she needed to tell them now.

"Chilly turned to her. "I told you," she spoke, still barely audible, "something that strong doesn't just go away."

Kristine quickly realized what that meant, walking towards Christian, who now seemed to get very nervous. "Christian? You okay, say something."

The hell was this, a bad high?!

Christians surroundings slowly started to morph and shift. The buildings slowly started to rattle, some almost glowing unnaturally from the windows, whatever dust was still flying in the air turned into some sort of gas, weird, almost human shadows with glowing white eyes and red spirals on their faces were watching him from the treeline, and his friends were slowly starting to look like old horror game monsters.

Ivan's limbs elongated, him turning from a relatively normal skin-tone to a more toxic shade of green as his eyes suddenly seemed to pierce through him. Den turned more ooz-like, the dark matter that she usually summoned for her attacks started to cover her and change her shape into something more unrecognizable as countless eyes opened up on her. Chilly turned more beastly, growing, getting more covered with scales, and now having claws on both arms. Kristine was turning more into a true wolf, her claws getting sharper, her hair growing unkempt, weird fur covering her and her eyes turning more piercing yellow. All of that should've left him pretty chill, he had seen so much bullshit for fucks sake, but something about it all had an almost primal fear bubbling up inside of him.

When Kristine came towards him, instead of worry Christian saw a sudden hunger, the version of her he was seeing unhinging her jaw to an absolutely freaky degree, as if she could bite his head off in one clean chomp. He shoved her away, stumbling and landing on his back in the process, turning to his side, pulling his legs to his chest and covering his head with his hands as if that could somehow make it all stop. He felt horrible. Afraid, shaky, and- hot? Why was he feeling hot, his whole thing was fire, how was anything hot for him? 

Kristine managed to touch his forehead, Christian flinching, but seemingly too caught up in his own head to move away much. "He's burning up." she told the others.

The realization had spread to them all at this point, they knew these symptoms. These had been Curt's symptoms. And now with nothing left from Curt except his soul, it had transferred to the next person.

…

Den stepped forward, almost uncharacteristically solemn. "Kristine, help me get him back."

Kristine nodded, each of them slinging an arm of a now barely conscious Christian over their shoulder, and…continued walking back towards the direction of the portal.

They honestly didn't know what else they were supposed to do. When Ao was gone, it transferred to Curt, and now that Curt was gone, it transferred to Christian. It was pretty clear,

There was no way they could stop this.