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“Lewis?! Lewis! Don’t disappear on me now, please!”
Arthur chased the fading flickers of pale pink light deeper into the...well, it wasn’t a real forest, given how small it was on the outside, but the copse of trees that he’d seen Lewis get flung into was proving to be significantly denser and thicker and creepier and bigger than it had first appeared. A distant part of Arthur wondered if it was Lewis’s doing, and if so, if Lewis was actually trying to keep Arthur from finding him.
Pink twinkled at the edge of his vision, and Arthur set his jaw and grabbed a nearby tree trunk to help him turn on a dime and charge after the light.
“We just found you again for the first time in-!” He squawked and ducked under a tree branch he almost hadn’t seen, not missing so much as a beat as he kept running. “I don’t- I don’t understand why you came back so angry, but- we can fix this, Lewis, I can’t-!”
There came a flare of magenta flame from up ahead, and Arthur backpedaled with a squeak, shielding his face from the sudden onslaught of heat and light that roared through the trees. The wind howled around him, and it almost sounded like the dying screams of a man who’d been betrayed in one of the worst possible ways.
After a long moment, though, the heat died, leaving him feeling the night chill even more keenly than before.
Arthur’s hands slowly came back down, and his eyes widened at the sight of the ash-covered clearing that had most definitely not been there just a few moments prior, just a few feet in front of him. A handful of what used to be tree stumps still flickered with pink embers, but even those cooled eerily quickly as he watched.
Lewis’s ghostly body was nowhere to be seen.
The locket meant to float over where his heart once was, however, lay half-buried in the ashes. Arthur almost didn’t see it at first; blackish-gray and flaking as it was, it was camouflaged almost perfectly.
Arthur took a shaky step forward. When he wasn’t immediately smote where he stood, he managed another, and then another, all the way until he found himself kneeling before the cracked heart in the ashes. “L-Lewis..?”
Lewis didn’t respond.
His own heart pounding in his ears, Arthur reached cautiously down and scooped the locket out of the ashes with his good hand.
Lewis still didn’t respond.
“I just...” Arthur swallowed down the lump in his throat, the instinct to get away from the terrifying poltergeist that had tried to murder him earlier that same night, and the nerves threatening to make him shake so hard that Lewis’s locket would fall. “I don’t understand, Lewis. Please, I...”
Pale smoke wafted up from the locket, but the locket itself remained cold in his hand. It might have even gotten a bit chillier.
The lack of immediate fiery rage kept Arthur from dropping the locket right then and there.
The shapes taking form in the smoke kept him from dropping it even after he realized what he was looking at.
Three distinct silhouettes appeared, none of them taller than Arthur’s forearms were long, and it quickly became apparent that he was seeing Lewis’s broad shoulders, Vivi’s deceptively petite frame, and his own unwieldy mass of hair.
The miniature Lewis and Vivi came together in a hug, then Vivi separated and headed off as if down a hill, a little Mystery hopping out of the smoke to follow at her heels.
Then Lewis and Arthur headed uphill, their path otherwise mostly parallel with Vivi’s.
Arthur- the real one- felt his blood turn to ice.
The Cave.
“That’s...” he breathed, “...that’s the last thing I remember...”
The locket in his hand pulsed once, only barely strong enough for him to feel it and certainly not strong enough for him to actually see it.
Arthur watched as smoke-Arthur hung back after a moment, letting smoke-Lewis keep going for a short ways before coming up behind him.
Smoke-Arthur lunged forward without warning, and smoke-Lewis went plummeting into the ashes below, dissipating in a silent puff as it hit the ground.
The sound that came out of Arthur’s chest wasn’t a word or a question, but it was too raw to have been meant to be anything else. It felt like his chest was collapsing, his lungs squeezing as if he’d been holding his breath underwater for too long and finally tried to take a breath, only for the entirety of the world’s oceans to pour directly through his mouth and into the one place that could kill him in a matter of minutes, if that, before overflowing back out through his eyes. “I- I couldn’t- I wouldn’t- I can’t- I would never-!”
The smoke that hadn’t yet taken on any particular shape swirled around Arthur’s prosthetic.
Slowly.
Warily.
Almost as if it was, as if Lewis was...confused.
Arthur lifted his prosthetic in a daze, a half-baked idea of giving Lewis a better look floating aimlessly through his mind. “It- I lost it in the Cave. We’d thought- it had to have been an accident. Traumatic enough for Vivi’s mind to completely erase you. Dangerous enough to take my arm and keep me from remembering what happened that night. Deadly enough to...to...”
The smoke trailed around the circumference of the port where the prosthetic met his stump, then recoiled as if burnt.
And then the smoke still wafting off of the locket sank and billowed along the ground before rising again, this time constructing a pale, hazy forest of spikes that surrounded Arthur and reached almost as high as the trees did.
Arthur’s eyes widened as a smoke-shape of Lewis- the ghostly Lewis, with the skull hovering over his chest and an extra hole in his torso- floated into view and past him, as if he couldn’t see where Arthur knelt in the ash.
The locket in Arthur’s hand pulsed again, still as dull as before.
A thought brushed up against Arthur’s mind. It wasn’t forceful, and it wasn’t attention-grabbing. If he hadn’t been watching the smoke in wordless horror in that split second before his mind could start going into overdrive, even he probably could have ignored it as if it wasn’t there.
Its inherent weakness was the only thing that kept Arthur from shrieking and clawing at the sensation of something in his head, it was in his head-
This is what Lewis was thinking when he first came back.
He wants Arthur to see this. (No, he doesn’t.)
He needs Arthur to see this just as much as Arthur needed to know where he’d gone. (This much, at least, is true.)
Arthur watched smoke-Lewis with wide eyes, and despite the inherent silence of the smoke, when the illusion’s fists clenched and its shoulders rolled back and its skull turned to look up at the sky and illusory flame erupted all along the ground-!
None of it left anything more on Arthur than a slight chill, but the rage in smoke-Lewis’s posture still made him freeze and stare in terror.
The smoke shifted, color leeching into it- but only barely. Only enough for Arthur to identify the shapes that whirled into view before dissipating again.
A pale yellow Arthur ran from a lilac Lewis, sprinting up and down and around other shapes in the smoke that briefly resolved into the haunted mansion, then the semi truck that had chased him all the way to his uncle’s shop, then the sea of spikes reborn in pastel pink.
As the smoky shape of Lewis flew past the real Arthur’s head, he caught sight of extra protrusions out of Lewis’s back that Arthur genuinely couldn’t recognize, but it wasn’t until the two shapes came to a stop over the spikes that he was able to get a good look.
Wings.
Demon wings.
There was even a thin, pointed tail lashing from under smoke-Lewis’s suit, and a pair of horns from his skull.
Those didn’t belong there.
Arthur’s gaze flickered back to the locket.
There were more cracks running through it than when he’d first picked it up. If they kept spreading, they would likely split the locket right down the middle.
Smoke-Lewis dropped smoke-Arthur, only for an orange smoke-Lance to barge into the middle and put a stop to the whole mess.
Then a larger shape rose from the smoke, quickly taking the form of whatever Mystery had been turned into and tinting a pale, sickly green as it howled, knocking the other three shapes down- as well as smoke-Vivi, who quickly ran over to join them as smoke-Lance slid out of sight.
Arthur’s mouth ran dry.
The illusion of the thing using Mystery’s body tilted its head with a nasty, evil smirk, then swiped down with one forepaw and smacked smoke-Lewis into the distance.
Its left forepaw.
The smoke let Not-Mystery, Vivi, and Arthur dissipate, instead following Lewis as he tumbled, and as soon as he hit the ashy ground, the sea of spikes rose up a third time, this time with an extra Lewis and Arthur as they were that horrible night in the Cave, frozen mid-shove.
The Lewis that had been sent flying landed on its feet, but shakily approached the frozen Arthur with as much caution as the real Arthur had used when approaching the locket.
The frozen Arthur started out the same pale yellow as the other, but as Lewis got close, the frozen Arthur’s left side turned the same sickening green as the thing possessing Mystery, and the spikes were quick to follow.
His right side remained yellow.
From his vantage point, even with the mostly-monochrome smoke, the real Arthur could see how the left side of his doppelganger’s face was warped into a nasty, evil smirk, despite the horror clear as day on the right side.
Arthur felt his stomach lurch and bile rise to his throat, and he clutched Lewis’s locket tighter to his chest to keep it out of the backsplash as his mostly-digested lunch from the day before burned its way up and out and onto the ashes in front of him. Even after he had nothing left to give, he couldn’t keep himself from retching and retching and retching.
Smoke trailed up past his eyes- though for how long, he couldn’t have said, given how he’d screwed them shut at some point- and he glanced up.
The smoky silhouettes had gone back to being doll-sized, and Arthur watched them with glassy eyes.
Smoke-Lewis (complete with demonic additions) threw smoke-Arthur down a pit, then they both froze.
Then, with a crack from the locket loud enough to hear and jagged enough to jolt it in Arthur’s hand, smoke-Lewis turned the same sickly green as whatever had gotten into Mystery, as whatever had once gotten into Arthur.
Arthur’s eyes burned wet as the smoke finally truly dissipated, leaving only himself, the locket, and the remains of his last meal in the ashes, and for a moment, he just shuddered and curled over the locket, pressing it against his chest like it would vanish if he didn’t.
Only once he could somewhat trust his voice again did Arthur sit back up a bit and open his mouth.
“I’ve been looking for you this whole time. Even before I got discharged from the hospital, I couldn’t- I had to track down the Cave, I had to.” His voice cracked. “You’re...you were my best friend, Lewis. This entire time, I’ve been trying to figure out where you went. I didn’t care if you might’ve had amnesia, or if you’d passed on, or- I couldn’t just leave you out there! I- I’d been hoping you’d still be alive, but if you were dead and, and some kind of ghost, w-we’re the Mystery Skulls! We could find a way to make it work!”
The locket cracked further, and Arthur felt horror pool in his gut as he started feeling pieces of the locket shift independently of each other.
His prosthetic came up to help cradle the breaking anchor and keep it together. “Lewis, nonononono, please, I just found you! And- and that thing in the cave, I-I-I should’ve been able to fight it off! Please, don’t go! Don’t leave!”
There came no response, and Arthur choked on a sob as he curled back over the locket, barely even able to keep his head out of the puddle he’d made in the ash.
“You know me, Lewis. You, you know how scared I am when things try to get at me, but you know the lengths I’ll go to whenever people I lo-care about are in danger, and right now you’re in danger, and Vivi’s in danger, a-and I think we’re all in trouble if we can’t get that thing out of Mystery, and...” Arthur sniffled and squashed down on the urge to just break down completely. “I just...I can’t do this alone. I’m not going back empty-handed, but I can’t- I don’t know how to fix this. I...Lewis, I need you.”
The string of babbling petered out, and Arthur just...let himself cry. Quietly, the way he’d learned to after the Cave, but otherwise unrestrained.
Slowly, Arthur became aware of a presence behind him, and he froze in the space between sobs.
A large hand came down on his back, the touch so feather-light it was almost like it wasn’t there at all. Despite this, Arthur could still feel it rotate as the presence came around to one side and lowered to the ground.
Turning his head took more effort than moving a boulder, but he managed to twist just enough to get the presence in his field of vision.
Lewis’s ghost knelt in the ash next to him, one hand outstretched over Arthur’s back and the other pressing against one eyesocket as he looked out into the distance. Pitch-dark tear tracks trickled down his skull and dripped into the ashes, and his chest lurched at uneven intervals. He was mostly visible, but Arthur could still somewhat see the trees behind him, like he wasn’t entirely there.
“L-Lew..?” croaked Arthur.
Lewis jolted and glanced down to meet his eyes.
Arthur couldn’t find it in himself to look away.
Carefully, the hand on Arthur’s back shifted to the outside of Arthur’s far shoulder- still light enough that Arthur could’ve pulled away without even trying- and Lewis scrubbed at one of the tear tracks on his skull before turning and bringing his free hand to Arthur’s face.
Arthur gasped shakily and leaned up and back, only to find Lewis’s arm in the way. Instead of pushing it away like he easily could have, though, he just screwed his eyes shut and braced himself.
Whatever Lewis needed to do, Arthur would let him.
...there came no unholy fire to scour his skin and blister his face, though. Instead, a large thumb brushed the tears away from his eyes, just as light as the touch of Lewis’s other hand on his back.
Arthur dared to peek.
Lewis’s skull had already started rebuilding the tear tracks that he’d just wiped away, but Arthur didn’t get a chance to see much more before Lewis just about collapsed into him, holding Arthur to his chest almost the same way as Arthur still held Lewis’s anchor, and a wave of emotion crashed down around Arthur’s mind- I’m sorry I’m so sorry I fucked up I fucked up bad I need you too I know you I’ve always known you I should never have forgotten you deserve so much better-!
Arthur sucked in a shaky breath, wiggled his arms free, and latched onto Lewis as tightly as he could as he started bawling right then and there.
In his flesh hand, Lewis’s anchor began to beat properly again.
They probably would have had matching tearstains on their shoulders by the time they cried themselves out, but they were only afforded a few moments more before the ground shook ever-so-slightly beneath them and a breeze tousled Arthur’s hair.
Arthur looked up and gasped at the sight of a beam of sickly green light erupting past the trees. “Vivi’s plan didn’t work.”
Lewis’s grip tightened, then Arthur found himself being manhandled into something adjacent to a bridal carry and held close to Lewis’s chest as he stood, turning to see the beam of light for himself.
“W-wait-!” Arthur managed.
Lewis glanced down, concern blatantly obvious on his skull.
“What if you need your hands free?”
Relief flashed over his face (well, his lack thereof) for a split second, then he nodded and shifted Arthur around until he sat piggyback instead.
Arthur managed a grin as he reached down to position Lewis’s anchor-still cracked, but glowing brighter with every beat and more solid than when he’d first picked it up- back where it belonged, then held on tight as soon as it was floating under Lewis’s power again. “Ready when you are.”
Lewis glanced back to meet his eyes, nodded, and leaned forward like a sprinter at the starting line, bringing his arms back to either side of Arthur.
And then they were flying.
Not in the traditional sense, mind; while Lewis was hovering a short distance over the ground, they were streaking along the ground at speeds higher than Arthur had ever driven, even counting the car chase earlier that night. They shot out from the forest-copse-whatever almost faster than Arthur could realize they were moving, and he chanced a look behind them to see the sand kicking up and a trail of magenta fire flickering in their wake.
Damn, they were going fast.
He turned his attention back to the path in front of them- then the road, as they cleared a safety barrier and turned to follow the interstate.
Tempo came up in a blink, and Lewis only slowed down enough to keep them from flying straight into any buildings as they navigated through the town to reach the beam of light, taking hairpin turns fast enough Arthur could feel the G-forces every time.
They raced around one last corner-
Mystery lay motionless on the ground, still way too big but no longer the nasty, evil green of the thing that had taken over Arthur and killed Lewis.
It quickly became apparent that the reason for this was that a completely new silhouette floated above Mystery, as green as green could be and gesturing grandly up at the beam of light with their left hand.
Lance was in the middle of pushing himself up with his shotgun, leaning heavily on it.
Vivi sat against a wall, dazed and maybe even concussed, but still glaring up at the stranger with every ounce of hatred in her body.
Arthur felt Lewis tense at the same moment that Arthur himself identified the ratty, tattered bracelet dangling from the stranger’s left wrist. There was no match on their other wrist, but it was to be expected; the matching bracelet sat snugly on Arthur’s right wrist.
Arthur’s metal fist clenched.
Lewis’s left arm shifted, and when Arthur looked, Lewis had clenched his fist, too.
They lifted from the ground without losing any speed, and Arthur only had a split second to react, but for the first time in far too long, he was at least 99% sure that he and Lewis were on the exact same page.
The stranger’s expression of malicious glee began to drop as they turned to look in Arthur and Lewis’s direction, but they were already upon them and they both lashed forward at once-
-the stranger’s jaw crunched under Arthur’s prosthetic, and he really couldn’t care less-
-pink light burst from the point where Lewis’s fist met the stranger’s gut-
-and as the stranger went tumbling to the ground, Arthur scowled and rolled his shoulder back to get the sting of the impact to dull a bit, breathing heavily. Lewis didn’t breathe for obvious reasons, but his anchor still beat with a now-familiar rage that Arthur knew from experience would have made his head pound if it was directed at him.
But then, it wasn’t anymore, was it?