othellovonryan | (no subject)

[it's like the inverted sensation of a spark lighting a fire - because the Night can be nothing else, but the chill of wintry darkness against the back of one's neck, the gentle ache of breath turning to frozen mist on the crisp evening air, the precipitous drop in temperature as the sky burns in red and pink and purple and, finally, boils away in a sea of star-pricked twilight.]

[and it's something else. a weight in the narrative in play, here. a certainty. there is narrative power in trusting your friends, your family - power Catherine Foundling knows well. for she is the Warden, who watches over all those stories, and more besides.]

[she grins at him again, but this time the smile is like mercury - liquid, cold, and bright.]

... mmm. "Greater good", right. [close enough to it. she can make it work for the story pivot; time to finish the swing.] Too bad I don't care about greater goods, in the end, and I've always hated the idea of taking some bullshit miracle's sloppy seconds.

[she heaves herself to her feet, on a rush of pure adrenaline (and a fair bit more than that, as she feels the weight of the story shift in her favor - hers, and Raphael and Ruler's alike).]

I am a villain, you pathetic slimebucket. I live by one rule. I fight for what I want and I take what I get. I am given to cruelty and promised only misery. And you have something that belongs to me. You have my friend.

So now I'm going to take him back. Fuck you--

[she hefts the spitting and spraying Bits-Breaker in one hand, and raises - nothing - in the other. nothing except thumb and forefinger. Night comes at her call, an inverted flame. snap.]

--Burn. Be ash and be dead, like your toothless empire.

[blackflame undying bursts to burning life all across the pink flesh of Kraang's presence here, spidering outwards from wherever it comes close to touching her directly.]

[Catherine hadn't been able to See Donnie as of yet. Her judge of his character was very accurate, he admitted as much, but that's what it had been. A judge of his character. Not his narrative, not his story, not the things that have tied him to a greater fate beyond just a boy too smart for his own good sometimes. Whether that was the affect of the place, or the confusion of a boy whose soul is actively tethered to an entire family of ghosts, who can say, but in the Heart, it finally makes sense.]

[Give it to the Technodrone, they don't seem to be too intimidated by the words, but considering the age and knowledge, its probably also not the first its born witness to such things.]

[But as the fire lashes out, connects to the tentacles, something becomes clear.]

[The room is Donnie.]

[The Connection that happened came from Donnie.]

[There is another presence in the room that is Donnie.]

[The Technodrone Is Not Donnie.]

[Its not a memory. Not a manifestation of all that knowledge.]

[Its not even the snake.]

[But a spark of a soul for a new entity.]

[Donnie's influence is, however, tied into the Technodrone. There is a restraint in this being that kept them from immediately go for the kill option, and that can only be in Donnie because the creature itself does not know mercy nor patience for benefitless inconvenience.]

[And that is where something slots in about Donnie's narrative role.]

[He is a creator. He makes things no one else has yet, that no one else yet can in his world. It finds the edges of what is possible and he pushes those boundaries.]

[But less expected is the connection he has to the natural world. He is a wonder with plants. He has a way with animals that the others simply don't.]

[And despite how cold he can be, the pragmatist, the introvert, the one who can listen to a sob story and not care if the person had ever once hurt him and his-]

[He adores people. He wants for connection despite how difficult people are.]

[It is perhaps the combination of all these facts that lead to one surprising fact.]

[Donnie can create life.]

[There is a robot bear, terrorizing children in a pizzeria, bemoaning the injustice of his existence, and Donnie realizes all he wanted was his OWN birthday-]

[There is a voice over the computer telling him that he was to go to sleep an hour ago and he says snooze another hour, only to have his computer shut off as the voice insists and he realizes with a start that SHELLDON has gone against his orders when he knows he's not malfunctioning-]

[There is a bed, with missiles and blades bearing down on him, he's ready to fight...only to be called father, and well at this point, he just accepts it-]

[Donnie's mystic powers could make anything that Donnie himself can make. If he has an intimate understanding of something, he can make it, and the Technodrone had given him the knowledge to make aspects of the Kraang. And with it, the more he made, the more he poured into this work...]

[Just like several other works]

[It had started to live independent of Donnie's say so.]

[But knowledge comes fast and quick and there is definitely still a threat in the room.]

[The tentacles burn.]

[They do resist, the Kraang are no joke, but they are burning and twisting and their level of danger drops like a rock because trying to lash out while dying is far easier said than done.]

[The Technodrone hisses.] The child is overstepping his bounds, I see. Fine.

[And then the Technodrone rushes forward themselves, tentacles sprouting over their other arm, lashing out to wrap around Catherine's arm with the weapon, a deadly spike forming to head for her face.]

[see, the thing is. she understands the impulse. she really does. for all the grief she gave him about it (mainly because he left "the part where this doesn't cause a diplomatic incident with every country that eats pork as part of its diet and doesn't particularly appreciate the idea of a god of pigs walking around telling the animals 'stand up on your hind legs for your dignity'" entirely in her hands), it really does make her happy to see when Hierophant does genuinely insane things like raise a pig to godhood just because It Can Be Done.]

[and because she understands the impulse she understands, likewise - she can't erase the knowledge Donnie has learned from this. no amount of burning, or killing, will completely demolish the lessons Donnie has learned.]

[and she'd really like to avoid cauterizing part of Donnie in the process, but -]

[but this spark of life he's created - this burgeoning second soul. that's not Donnie's soul, but it was made by him, and allowed to grow in him like this, and could become something more - something worse - even if she leaves it at simply burning out the influence, anyway. which she doesn't want to do - think of what Donnie could make, left to his own devices, with all he's seen of this, freed of the risk of recreating the creature that inspired it all. think of it. she doesn't want to take that away from him, not if she can help it. she will if she has to - but she doesn't want to.]

[and it's like that, that she knows what she has to do. something worse - that's a villain's job. this isn't the first time she's eaten someone else's soul, after all. and it's not a complete soul yet, anyway.]

[Catherine lunges forward, ducking the spike, and utters one word.]

Mistake.

[You damned fool, thinks Catherine, with a laugh. On a pivot where I have all the cards because you overplayed your own already, you let yourself get close enough for me to grab you.]

[and she plunges her hand into the Technodrone's chest like through water and squeezes her fingers tight, like fangs of a terrible Beast's jaw closing gently and inexorably shut around the flesh of its prey.]

[And now I've got you.]

[and she rips the piece of soul that is "the Technodrone", and all it could've become, right out of Donnie's heart entire like she's ripping out a page in a notebook.

and she swallows it whole.]

[My problem now. Build something new out of the ashes, Donnie. It's what heroes like you do best.]

[The Technodrone does not expect the hand. Too confidence in its durability, in its strength, even with the influence of Sacrifice, the creature is strong and not so easily damaged. Its facts of the heart.]

[They don't expect the hand to go through.]

[Quick to try and divert the tentacle, to stab into her-]

[But its too late for the Technodrone.]

[As its ripped away form the place its made its home, that its used to grow and taint, to warp Donnie's mind until he would do what they wanted. The potential in the creature to start the Kraang civilization anew between his abilities and mind.]

[The tentacles that had been making their attack, but hadn't burned yet, all freeze in place. The ones that were on fire smolder to ash.]

[The room]

[Gets smaller.]

[Not so vast and ominous. Still the same make up of biotech, but smaller than it was. Dimmer. Quieter.]

[Tired, in a way.]

[All that really stands out anymore is the main console.]

[Catherine - clear of the pivot now, and the extension of herself it grants - sags, relief sucking the force out of her shoulders like an hourglass eating sand.]

[a rough swallow and a hand to her head.]

[then she laughs.]

Yeah. The Hashmallim were surprised when I did that to them, too.

[slowly she hauls her limping way over to the console, one hand death-gripped on the Bits-Breaker.]

Let's see what this thing does for Donnie now that it's not doing what you want it to.

[Welcome to the console and its]

[Ooey gooey disgustingness.]

[Horrifying means of connection.]

... I've shoved my hands in worse.

[she says that - but she knows what it did to Donnie, now.]

[and still -]

[well. nothing else for it. she shoves her hands in.]

Not sure what part of Donnie you are, exactly, but I need you to help me fix you.

[Yeah, those tentacles are definitely trying to dig into her arm rather quickly, burning as they dig in-]

[On the other hand, she doesn't have to reach far before she feels a glass lens, metal, clothes on a head-]

[shit shit shit shiiiiit]

[it's not entirely a purposeful move on her part that has her grip clenching viselike around the familiar weight of that person under there and yanking him up back towards her, out of where he's buried in the console - well, having the mental wherewithal to grab him, that was a conscious, careful gesture, but the hasty yank once she found him or the sick relief that she didn't have to let it any deeper into her than that to find him - those are less considered moments in all this, to say the least.]

[but she's going to try and pull him - if not free, at least "loose" from the bowels of alien hell.]

[The Kraang are just the gift that keeps on giving. At least no Technodrone has greatly reduced the infection aspect.]

[Just the trying to connect to your mind in horrifying ways aspect.]

[But he is yankable, and she gets him about halfway before he responds, gasping, eyes snapping open with a shout because now some of the tendrils are getting pulled OUT and that is not a funtime for Anyone involved.]

[WHOOPS. hm. okay. okay. she'll pause for a second, give him a moment to breathe.]

Hey hey hey heyheyheyyy easy there, easy. Hey.

[this would be a great time for a Skyrim joke, if Catherine knew what Skyrim was to make one.]

Under normal circumstances, I'd ask if you're all right first. These aren't normal circumstances. I only just barely understand what this business you're connected to is, though, so first I'm going to ask - clearly, it's going to hurt like a devil's got you if I pull you out any further. Do you want me to, anyway? It'll get that - noise - out of your head, for sure.

[He's breathing harshly and]

[He's not exactly in a great state. He looks hurt, by more than the tendrils. He looks like he's taken a few shots to the arm and a few hits with a bad and blows to the head.]

[There is also teal on his skin, wrapped around him and looking very much like a snake.]

Cat?

Wha-no. No, no, I'm not ready for you yet, I don't know how to keep you safe-

Right.

That answers that.

[sorry, Donnie, this is going to hurt. and she grits her teeth, puts some Night into her muscles atop the Name strength, and heaves.]

[hope you like being yanked bodily out of the console the rest of the way, the hard and fast way,]

[Moving is very difficult when he's all connected, so even as he tries to resist, he just doesn't have the strength or mobility to resist.]

[Getting yanked out really is not a fun time, and there's a scream as the tentacles are all pulled out of his back.]

[There's gonna be a lot of blood.]

[Its really not a good time.]

[right, well. she has Night to call on, so she can in fact start pumping that into him from where she's grabbing him to help like. soothe and also slowly heal those wounds that. she just helped make, yes.]

[can't do much about the blood, but. well. you get used to that.]

Pretty sure I'm not the one that needs - much less needed - saving right now, kid.

[You really kind of do. At least until the sensory issues hit.]

Everyone needs saving. That snake just keeps-keeeps hurting everyone.

[Gasping and there is some relief from the pain as he tries to push himself to his feet. He's not succeeding so well.]

Where....where is the Technodrone? They went quiet.

Everyone gets hurt, Donnie. But the people who try to save everyone rarely save what they're after by trying it.

[The unbridled arrogance of many a hero's downfall, she thinks, irritably - or, sometimes even worse - their victory. some of that irritation is probably what has her putting her next response like this:]

I killed them, Donnie. They weren't going to do you any good.

Oh.

[...]

No, that's good. They were getting too unruly. That gives me more time.

I'm not trying to save everyone, that's ridiculous, its just the people who matter.

... it's not a worthless goal, Donnie.

But if you work with them to save themselves, you'll save a lot more of them than if you leave yourself to try and save them all on your own. Even if the only ones you're trying to save are the ones that matter.

[she offers him a hand up. to help.]

[and as Donnie takes it - or even as he moves as if to -

Before all five of them an orc lay on a bed, his breathing laboured

Hakram Deadhand, born to the Howling Wolves Clan. Once the Adjutant, now the Warlord. Though victory had been won, or the so the clamour outside claimed, two evils yet lay in him. One was horror in the mundane, the spine cracked by the Prince of Bones’ hand that now stilled his limbs. Light healing had made the wound livable, but little more. Sorcerous healing of so fine a thing was beyond the ken of any on Calernia save perhaps the finest mage-doctors of Ashur. None were here. And so instead the Warden had sent for another.

“It was a wound taken defeating the Prince of Bones,” Hanno of Arwad quietly said. “It is a tragedy, Warden, but I do not know if it is…”

“Unjust?” Catherine Foundling finished, fingers clenching.

It was a powerful boon, Undo. The stuff legends were made of. But like all legends, it had been dealt into hands that would not abuse it: the White Knight could not unmake what he did not see as unjust, and he was a rare kind of man. The kind that dying so others might not, the bloody pyre of heroism. Many of the Named that had died in Keter, most of them, would remain in the grave. It was not unjust to die willingly for something greater than yourself.

“He didn’t die,” the Warden said. “Instead they hurt him, White Knight, and did it where it’d cut deepest. He only just got out of that chair and now they put him back into it. For good.”

The dark-skinned man met her gaze, his face a calm contrast to her stormy one.

“He’s done so much to keep this continent standing that no one but a handful of scholars will ever know about,” she told him. “We both know how the world works, Hanno. In the books he’ll be the Warlord like it’s all he ever was, because that story fits. It’s cleaner. The rest will get swept under the rug, and they’ll just remember him as a footnote – the first Warlord in ages, broken in Keter. End of the tale.”

Her face clenched with fury and grief.

“He deserves better.”

Hanno of Arwad did not answer, though he was brave enough not to shy from her burning gaze. The White Knight was not a man whose convictions were easily moved. And yet he stepped back, when instead of trying tirade or persuasion the Black Queen of Callow got down on her knee. Catherine Foundling was a proud woman, it was known. She had held to the bone of that pride ever since, as a girl, her father had taken into the heart of an empire and the mighty had knelt around them he had told her of a way to live: we do not kneel. Her father’s truth, one he had lived and died by. Refusing compromise even in the face of death, unbending for anything or anyone.

But Catherine went down on her knee, because she was more than her father’s daughter and Hakram Deadhand mattered more to her than pride.

“Please,” she asked. “I know there are others as deserving, that you only get once a day.”

Her fingers clenched.

“And still,” she said. “Please.”

And Hanno of Arwad let conviction move him, offering a hand then another. The first to bring her back to her feet, shamed she had ever knelt before him, and the second laid on the Warlord’s side. Undo. Creation shivered, then the White Knight let out a small breath as he stepped away. The Hierophant replaced him, weaving an incantation, and after his eye ceased moving around he pulled back to give the others a nod.

“His body is in perfect condition save for the limbs cut by the Severance,” he said.

The Warden and the White Knight matched gazes for a long moment, Catherine Foundling dipping her head into a nod that said much without need for words. Hanno returned it.

“I’ll see you outside,” he said.

“Might be you will,” she agreed.

And with a mute goodbye at the Princess, Hanno of Arwad left the small room where he had brought a miracle. He was not one of the Woe, and the last evil that lay in Hakram Deadhand’s body was not the kind to be beheld by outsiders. The orc began to stir awake as the White Knight closed the door behind him, Hierophant still standing by his bedside. Hakram woke feverish and befuddled, as if did not recognize where he was. His vision swam into focus, coming to Catherine, and tension left him.

“Cat,” he gravelled. “Where are we?”

Her jaw clenched.

“Keter,” she told him, hoping.

The Dead King’s curse had been a mind-killer, but only half of it had reached him. Vivienne had caught the other. The confusion on the tall orc’s face deepened, to the horror of the others.

“What is the last thing you remember?” Masego briskly asked.

“Heading for the Arsenal,” Hakram told them. “Would someone get me out of these bindings, they-”

And the horror on his face when he saw the limbs lost to the Severance was like a blow to the stomach for them all. He fought to master his face, but the anguish was too deep and sudden to be smoothed away.

“I,” he began, then his voice broke. “How much did I lose?”

“Two years,” Indrani said.

“There might be more,” Masego said. “It is too early to tell.”

“It should have been less,” Vivienne bit out. “I caught the spell, it-”

Her words caught his eye, and the way he stiffened did not go unseen by any of them.

“You don’t remember who I am, do you?” Vivienne Dartwick softly asked.

Hakram shook his head, the hint of shame on his face burning the rest of them like acid. The Princess swallowed thickly, blue-grey eyes turning to Hierophant.

“There has to be a way,” she said. “You told us the curse is still in him, why can’t you purge it?”

“It is,” Hierophant simply said, “the Dead King’s work.”

Even from the grave, Trismegistus King’s will was not to be easily overwrit.

“There’s always a way, with curses,” Catherine Foundling said. “You taught me that. The magic fails if there’s not a way out.”

“It has a price,” Hierophant said. “And it will not bring everything back.”

“But most,” Catherine pressed.

“Most,” he conceded.

And the Warden stepped forward, but a hand was laid on her arm and she found Vivienne Dartwick’s gaze had turned to steel.

“No,” Princess said. “Not this time. Let me.”

Neither woman gave, but eventually the Warden was the one to look away. Vivienne knelt by the bed, Masego’s hand on her shoulder, and faced a hesitant Hakram.

“You don’t remember me, right now,” she told him, “but I haven’t forgotten. There’s a debt between us, Hakram Deadhand.”

“I cannot call on it,” he replied.

“You don’t have to,” she said.

And Hierophant’s other hand came to rest atop the orc’s head, his flesh eye finding Princess’ own to seek one last confirmation. A simple nod and magic billowed out like the wind. Currents of it, thick and visible to the naked eye as faint blue trails, as Hierophant bound them all together. It was not a spell, not in the way he had been taught as a boy, but something simpler. Will exercised on the world, the purest manifestation of what he had hoped to become. And through that binding, he drew out the curse as one would a poison. It fought and wriggled and tried to sink its hooks deep, but inch by inch it was drawn out of Hakram Deadhand and into the only place it could be.

Vivienne Dartwick let out a shuddering breath, accepting it whole as she closed her eyes.

The magic ebbed low, then guttered out entirely. Hierophant’s hand retreated and Hakram suddenly clutched his forehead as he let out a roar of pain. Fangs drawing blood from his own lips, he shook wildly until the fit passed and a light returned to his gaze that had been gone. It lit up the room, reflected in the others around him as their hopes soared and he let out a wounded noise at the sight of the Princess.

“Vivienne,” he said. “Gods, Vivienne, what have you-”

The Princess of Callow let out a rasping laugh, eyes opening as the curse’s foul magic flared.

“My turn,” she said. “The choice came, Hakram.”

The curse boiled out, Vivienne Dartwick’s left hand turning to ash until there was not even bone left above her wrist.

“And I judge you well worth a hand,” she finished.

Looking more fragile than anyone had ever seen him, Hakram let out a grieving curse and drew her into his arms. It was as if a dam had broken, all of them coming together onto the sickbed in a pile of limbs clutching the others tight. The Warden rested her chin atop Indrani’s head and breathed in raggedly. For the first time since she had left the Dead King’s all, it felt over. Finally over.

“Alive,” Catherine Foundling whispered.

Crippled and lost, a parade of the mangled, but they had gone through the storm and all five of them come out the other side breathing.

When she finally let herself weep in relief, she was not alone.]

[the memory leaves her ragged, too, in its aftermath, and the words, ironically, come even easier for it.]

You're not fighting alone, Donatello Hamato. Never forget that.

[He does take her hand, to try and get to his feet-]

[Then the memory comes and he jerks away from her, hissing loudly as the teal over his skin burns and sizzles.]

I-I know that! [And he does. He truly, honestly does.] That's not-not the point! The point is no one else seems to!

Don't they?

[she doesn't let go.]

Then ask yourself how I got here, to you. Did I get here alone? Or did I have help?

When the last pieces were thrown, did I still have to go it alone, or did it turn out I had help from somewhere I wasn't even looking for until then?

[That teal keeps sizzling and he's grimacing.]

I understand how teamwork works! The problem is everyone else is so willing to throw it away to die! The only way to stop it is to not let them do that!

[grabbing him by the back of the neck, palms against the underside of his jawline]

And then who's going to save you, Donnie? Who will keep you from falling apart if you're holding them so tightly back from ever trying anything again they can't ever reach you anymore?

You can't win their fights for them. You just can't. You can only help and be helped in return.

[The room shifts. Half of it is still the inside the living ship, but half the room morphs into what looks like the inside of a subway car turned into a modern Medbay.]

I don't need to be saved. I'm careful. I'm careful. [He grimaces, hissing in pain as the teal fights to remain.] I'm the weakest one, the most vulnerable, I know how to keep out of the way, I'm not the one who almost dies-

[Standing in the lair, holding back Leo as he tries to potentially attack a human teenage boy, asking where Raph is-]

[Staring into the sky as the Technodrone explodes and knowing Leo is still up there, he's alone-]

[Looking over crackling scars over Mikey and his own arms, how much worse they're on Mikey, how much worse they could have been if they hadn't helped-]

[Screens light up around the medbay, medical charts of his brothers, how bad the injuries had been.]

The world could have ended and I was the only one who didn't almost die. I don't need help.

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