Chapter Text
“WAIT”
Avery hit the ground hard, grunting as he slid on his back. He was back. Back in the grand hall, staring at the–now empty–platform as he propped himself up.
“No! No no no!” Barely phased by his aching limbs, Avery raced back to the platform. Quickly climbing the steps, he stood in the center once again but…
Nothing happened.
Frantically, his eyes darted back and forth, searching the towering ceiling and surrounding statues for some kind of hint or clue or… something! There had to be something! Some kind of puzzle he had to solve. There had to be!
But the more he looked, the less he saw. There was nothing. Nothing he could do to save him.
“No…” Avery dropped to his knees. He’d come all this way, only to be stuck once again. “NOOO!” He screamed as he slammed his fists to the ground. His body shook, pale green tears dripped as he sank slowly to the floor.
All he could think about was D3rlord. He didn’t care about whatever ‘It’ was. Why did he push him away? They could have faced ‘It’ together! But now they were both alone. Worlds apart.
Was he scared? Avery wondered. The shadow of D3rlord’s helmet made it impossible to see his face, but his voice. Though he was screaming, he didn’t sound mad. The way it trembled so slightly, He sounded… worried. For whom, Avery might never know.
Avery didn’t move, just lay crumpled on the platform. For how long he couldn’t tell, was time even passing at all? It didn’t matter, he would have stayed there till he starved to death anyway.
That’s when he heard it.
Something faint, barely above a whisper. Avery lifted his head to stare down the long corridor. Was he hallucinating? The hall was still empty and yet, the sound persisted. It sounded like a single tone, echoing down the hall, getting louder by the second. No, not louder, closer.
The longer Avery listened, the closer and louder the sound got. Suddenly he realized what the sound was; A scream. An agonizing screech echoing down the hall. It was so loud, the walls shook and Avery with them. But it wasn’t just the sound making him shake, it was the fact he recognized the voice. It was D3rlord’s.
Louder and louder the sound grew. Being made of slime, the vibrations only made Avery tremble harder. It was a horrible sensation, he felt as if he could be torn apart at any moment. All he could do was wrap himself in his arms in an attempt to keep himself together. Avery squeezed his eyes shut as his own voice joined the discordant chorus but it was drowned in the noise.
Suddenly, all at once, it fell silent.
It’s… over?
Avery slowly opened his eyes, and saw… the sky?
The hall was gone and Avery was somehow lying flat on his back in the grass. As he slowly sat up, cradling his aching head, he realized he recognized this particular grassy knoll. It was the very same place he had found that doomed mine!
Is it really over?
He slowly came to a kneeled position, taking everything in. The wind blew gently through the grass as the sun hung in the sky. To his left Avery could see a birch forest, bees bumbling lazily about, milling from flower to flower, not a care in the world. It was so… peaceful.
A glint of something shiny suddenly caught Avery’s peripheral. From a few blocks away, between the pixels of tall grass, he saw a sliver of gold. If Avery had a heart, it surely would have stopped beating. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling twice before sprinting towards it. There, lying sprawled out in a patch of dandelions, was D3rlord.
Avery dropped to his knees beside him, choking back tears. “D3rlord?! D3rlord we made it!” he put his hand on his chestplate, shaking him gently, “D3rlord?”
The gold knight didn’t move, his face still shrouded in shadows despite being under the sun. A horrible sinking feeling slowly gripped Avery, he shook him once more, “D3r? Wake up, please?” he bowed his head, slowly letting it rest on the chestplate, “No… Please don’t go.”
As the sun sank lower, the sky became a gentle shade of orange.
“Please don't go…” Avery begged again, “...Derek”
D3rlord gasped, Avery’s head snapped up, “D3RLORD?!”
The knight coughed, still gasping for breath as Avery backed off, hands still hovering ever so slightly above him.
“Oh my god! Thank god you’re alive!” Avery practically screamed as D3rlord slowly sat up.
He didn’t say anything, just surveilled the surrounding plains. His gold helmet swiveling constantly, he looked from the grass to the trees to the sky to finally look down at his own gloved hands.
Avery put a hand on his pauldron, “D3rlord? You ok?”
Delord turned, staring at Avery with eyes beyond the void of his helmet.
“Who’s D3rlord?”