Chapter Text
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“DARK.”
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Kris’ hands trembled as Noelle held theirs. The water was cold around their ankles, sending a chill up their spine. Kris could hear that Noelle was talking about how they had changed. About how powerful she felt when she cast Snowgrave. Her expression was crazed, like she had just barely grasped nirvana and didn’t want to let it slip through her fingers. She wanted to change. She wanted to be strong. No matter how much Kris wanted to speak and to tell her about how the soul was the reason they had changed so much, their mouth refused to cooperate. It only worked when the soul wanted Kris to say something, never when Kris wanted to say something. They felt their mouth begin to open as that unnatural voice rose up through their throat like a snake. Before they could stop it, that single word slipped free for the two teenagers to hear. The one word that jumpstarted this whole nightmarish descent.
“Proceed.”
Noelle’s eyes lit up in a way that made Kris shiver much more than any amount of cold water could. She gently pulled Kris slightly deeper into the lake; her eyes fixed on theirs the whole time.
”Proceed”
Deeper.
“Proceed”
Deeper.
“Proceed” .
Deeper.
Kris wanted this to stop, but that stupid soul kept telling them to keep going. Kris wanted to rip it out and tear it to shreds. Kris wanted to kill it for what it was doing to them and Noelle. But they were nothing but a puppet to its strings. The water was at their necks now, and yet they kept going. Kris tried desperately against the wishes of Noelle and the soul; they tried to keep their head above the water as well as Noelle’s. They gave one final desperate push to let their oldest friend breathe before their vision filled with water. Their lungs ached and their mouth opened to say the word—that same god-forsaken word… But nothing came out, as the water flooded in. Kris choked as it invaded their lungs and flowed down their throat. Their eyes stung as they were fully enveloped by the water. Seeing Noelle slightly limp, Kris fought to keep their eyes open to keep themselves conscious. Then, something caught their eyes. A familiar shape in the darkness of the lake.
A Dark Fountain.
Without another thought, Kris used the last of their strength to drag themself and Noelle over to the Dark Fountain before their vision blacked out.
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“DARKER.”
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The trip to Erid was serving the Hail Mary crew quite well. Sure, along the way, they may have unexpectedly picked up a new member, but he was settling in quite well, all things considered. At this thought, Grace gave a quick glance over to said person. Simon had been an odd arrival, overall. They’d found him in some sort of old and rusted submarine floating in space. Grace had been genuinely surprised that he was still alive, honestly. But thankfully, he was alive, and they were able to transfer him onto the Hail Mary. After an introduction that had unfortunately ended with Rocky and Armando very shaken, Grace had managed to calm the man down and explain the whole situation. It took quite a few weeks for Simon to even begin to trust them, but he had at very least been docile and had been acting relatively normal, aside from his “attacks”; The memory of which made Grace grimace slightly before he continued with his train of thought. Grace didn’t really know that much about him, aside from the fact that where he came from, the stars didn’t seem to exist anymore and that he had been some kind of death row inmate. That, and, most disturbingly, that his submarine had been made to explore some kind of ocean made of blood. Grace had tried to get more information, but he didn’t want to push it just in case it made Simon uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure he could deal with any more animosity on this ship. Rocky and Simon, unfortunately, had a rather “rocky” relationship, pun intended. It seemed that Rocky was also rather fond of keeping grudges, and Simon had unfortunately ended up on Rocky’s “shit list” . They disagreed on a lot of things, but at the very least they were able to share the space without killing each other, so Grace accepted what small victories he could get out here.
Grace was drinking a coffee and looking through the archive on his laptop, just looking for something to pass the time while the other two were sleeping, when he heard Mary over the intercom, “Blip E detected.” Grace snapped his head up almost immediately. He had to have misheard it, right? That worry was answered almost immediately after that, however, when Mary repeated what she had just said. Ryland nearly knocked his coffee off the table as he rushed up to the cockpit to check the radar. Any thoughts of a malfunction in the sensors were dashed as soon as he arrived, and he was able to confirm that there was, in fact, something to the left of the ship. He paused the ship's flight almost immediately and rushed to the airlock to assess the situation. By the time he had made his way outside the ship, he could just barely make out what seemed to be two floating bodies. As they drifted closer, he began to make out more details. They were both humanoid in shape, a fact that made Grace even more curious. One was blue and wearing what seemed to be silver armour, while the other was what he could only describe as an anthropomorphic deer wearing a white dress. Putting his confusion aside, he made his way over towards the two bodies, desperate to get them inside.
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“YET DARKER.”
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Grace dragged the two bodies into the air lock and immediately threw his helmet down and unclipped himself as he rushed the two towards the med bay. Simon had been alive, so if there was even a chance that these two were as well, Grace was going to take it. Rocky had awoken and was screeching at something that Grace was too preoccupied to focus on. He was probably just confused about the two bodies Ryland was dragging behind him, which was not exactly something Grace had any idea how to explain anyway. Grace just ignored him for now, as he placed the two onto the beds in the med bay to be assessed by Mary. His heart began to finally stop beating in his ears as the adrenaline finally began to calm down. This meant he had time to think, and so his brain finally filled up with all the questions it usually would.
First was how in the hell those two were still warm to the touch whilst drifting in space, followed closely by why the hell they weren’t frozen solid. He should have been fishing up a blue icy-pole and a deer-scicle, not two seemingly fine humanoids. Before he couldcontinue with his train of thought, Mary chimed in that she had assessed that the two were alive and was working on pulling water from their lungs.
“Water?!” Grace asked out loud, without thinking. “How could someone be drowning in the vacuum of space?”
His mind impulsively went back to Simon, and the blood ocean that he had been sent to explore. Blood certainly wasn’t water, but he couldn’t shake the connection between the two. Could they be from the same universe as Simon? It seemed a little unlikely, considering what had happened to the stars wherever Simon came from, and considering Grace doubted that deer had suddenly gotten up on two feet back on Earth, which meant they had to be from a different one. He couldn’t rule out the possibility of them simply being aliens, but he’d have to leave those questions for when the two woke up.
Grace decided that this was as good of an opportunity as any to give the kids a once-over visually. Partially to doubly make sure the two were alright, but partially to try and gain as much information as he could. He wasn’t sure if the two would even speak English, let alone give a straight answer, so any info was good info. Rocky was mumbling in the corner about being ignored, or something to that effect, and Simon was standing by the entrance, looking as confused as ever. First, Grace assessed the faces of the two. It was a bit harder to tell with the deer person, but they seemed to be young, possibly even teenagers, which shocked Ryland more than he liked to admit. His inner teacher was furious that what he could only assume were children were floating alone in space, but he pushed it down and focused on his analysis. The next question was why these young kids were out in space in the first place. They certainly didn’t seem equipped for it. He wanted to ask them, but considering the state of the two of them, it was probably best to let them wake up on their own before he pressed them with questions. Turning to Rocky and Simon, who were clearly extremely confused by the whole situation, he sighed as he began to explain how he found the two kids and their current conditions.
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“THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING”
“THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER”
“PHOTON READINGS... ”
“NEGATIVE.”
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Grace woke up to Rocky screeching at his face. It was about as pleasant as you can imagine, and near instantly caused Grace to shoot up and out of bed. As he got over his initial shock at being roused so suddenly, his mind began to put the pieces together. The only other time Rocky had talked this frantically was when Simon woke up, so, if his deductive skills were anything above that of one of his old students, this most likely meant that their two new guests were awake. And… possibly causing some damage…
Shit.
Grace quickly made his way to the med bay, following a frantic Rocky. He turned the corner to see Simon having what he could only describe as a standoff with the blue-skinned teenager, who was standing protectively in front of the deer. Though what really caught Grace’s attention was the fact that the teen was holding a MASSIVE SWORD that had VERY MUCH not been with them when they’d arrived. Wherever it had come from, it was clearly here now, and Grace would rather not find out just how sharp it was. Slowly and cautiously, Grace moved to stand at Simon’s side, the teen turning his sword to face him in particular. For some reason, Grace couldn’t seem to get a good look at the teen’s face, their hair obscuring the top half of their face, making it impossible for Grace to see their eyes properly. The deer behind the teen looked terrified, their body trembling in what only he could assume was sheer terror. He wanted to try to calm them down but didn’t know how to really approach the situation. Thinking back, Simon even had to be sedated and tied up just to get him to listen, so it was a small mercy these two were not attacking everyone in sight. Rather, they just seemed scared. Even so, though, Grace couldn’t shake the feeling that the two seemed almost… oddly calm. Like they were used to something like this.
“Hello?” Grace said carefully. He first needed to test if they knew English or not. He’d lucked out with Simon, so he was hoping whatever god decided to listen could throw him another bone. The blue-skinned teen stared at Grace, allowing him to see just a bit of red peeking through the teen’s bangs. ‘Their eyes are similar to Simon’s,’ Grace noted internally for later.
“There's no need to be scared. We aren’t here to hurt you.” Grace said, this time raising his hands in the air and trying to look as docile as possible. Unfortunately, this had the unintended effect of causing the teen to direct their attention to Simon, who was still staring the pair down, threateningly.
“Grace, we can’t trust them. Not only do we not know who they are, but they also have weapons.” Simon said, looking annoyingly ready to throw down with a teenager. Grace silently elbowed Simon and shot him a look that said, ‘Remember when you woke up?” Much to Simon's dismay. With a groan, Simon slowly stood back, grumbling to himself about Grace being too trusting. With a sigh of relief, Grace turned back to the pair of teenagers. Then, the blue one spoke.
“Where is the dark fountain?” Grace narrowed his eyes in confusion at the unfamiliar term.
“What’s a Dark Fountain?” Simon asked, saying the question that Grace had on the tip of his tongue before he had the chance to speak it himself. The teen ignored his question, though, and immediately started looking around the ship, as if expecting someone to pop out from the shadows.
“This is an annoyingly weird Dark world. Why the hell would a Dark world like this be at the bottom of the lake?” Grace could just barely make out the words as the teen mumbled under their breath, which just confused Grace even more.
‘Surely this Dark Fountain and Dark World were connected. What about the ship makes them think they’re in a ‘Dark World’ , whatever that is?’ Ryland pondered as the teen started talking quietly with the deer behind them.
“My name is Captain Dr Ryland Grace. You two are aboard the Hail Mary.” Ryland said, introducing himself in the hopes that the two teens would introduce themselves in turn, and solve at least one of his unasked questions. The teen nodded politely before the deer girl spoke up,
“H-Hello. M-My name is N-Noelle, a-and t-this is Kris.” The words came out with a bit of a stutter, but Grace got what she was saying overall. He also recognised her feminine voice, and, considering her more feminine name, he thought it was fair to assume she was a girl. Though “Kris” was androgynous enough that Grace would rather play it safe and keep them in the “they” box until further notice.
“Well then… Why the hell were you both out in the middle of space?” Simon asked bluntly, causing Grace to facepalm. Noelle frowned and looked at Kris, who just shook their head, saying something in a hushed tone that Grace couldn’t quite catch. He thought he heard the words “Wait for him”, but he wasn’t too sure. Noelle slowly nodded, seeming a bit confused and just nervously stared around the room. Grace watched as Kris’s sword suddenly DISSAPPEARED INTO THIN AIR. He nearly had an aneurysm as he watched the laws of conservation violated before his very eyes, while Kris simply stared at the three of them like they hadn’t just broken reality with a wave of their hand. With a sigh, Grace looked over to Rocky. “Gonna be a long night, buddy. ”
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“THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT”
“SEEMS VERY , VERY INTERESTING…
”“WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?”
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