Chapter 394: 395: The pieces that fit

“What are you doing?!” yells Fresh at the snake-like man.

Patala shrugs, lifting his arms and stepping out back through the tearing seam that’s rising up through the shield. “Oh, you know,” replies the man coyly. “Just getting some fresh air.” He laughs.

This is bad.

…Sort of.

Sure, the shield was going to fall anyway. But that was going to be tomorrow or maybe even the day after. They needed that time to prepare, technically speaking. She looks around the area, people are running away, the citizens of the city are evacuating towards the castle and though she can’t hear it or see it, she’s sure that the hero, the time-frozen entity that he has been these last few weeks, has now begun moving; a statue come to life.

Her eyes wander back to the spot where the man was just a moment ago. But he’s gone now. Of course something like this would happen, just before the end.

Fresh stares for a moment longer, watching the shield tear itself apart, the crack running all the way up towards the highest branches of the world-tree, the dome starting to fade away.

Her hands loosen their grip on the broom, her shoulders drooping as she lets out a relieved sigh.

Oh well. It’s fine.

- Probably?

It’s not like they hadn’t prepared for this exact scenario. It’s just that she was expecting them to have more time. A few hours at least. It’s a good thing that she has friends who are a lot smarter and perceptive than herself. Especially Jubilee.

Fresh tilts her head, watching a lanky, cloaked figure shoot back out of the shadows, flying backwards together with a spire of dagger-like glass that chases after him, pushing him out of the darkness that he had vanished into.

“Patala,” says Jubilee, rolling their shoulders back and cracking their neck as they step out from the alley.

“Jubilee,” replies the snake-like man, catching himself, his escape having been cut off.

Jubilee bends down, grabbing some dirt from the ground, not taking their eyes off of him. “I knew you couldn’t resist being a dick one last time before the end,” they say. “Shield was gonna drop in a day anyways.”

“What can I say?” asks the man, dusting himself off. “I have a pro-active life philosophy,” he hisses, looking over his shoulder at Shamrock, who has come out on the other side of the street. Jubilee snaps their fingers, a new shard of glass shooting out straight towards him.

The man vanishes, appearing next to Shamrock who lurches forward, making a grab for him and missing as the man slithers down through his closing arms, sliding away a few steps to the side.

Jubilee looks up towards her and nods. Fresh nods back, flying off through the hole in the shield. She doesn’t want to leave her friends to deal with the man, but she knows that they’ll handle it and most importantly, they’re expecting her to handle her part in the mean time.

Fresh flies out through the shield, out into the outside world for the first time in months. It’s kind of depressing, in a way. The thing about the outside world is that… well, it’s that is has changed.

As they once saw through the crystal-ball, while observing the hero from above, the grasslands are dead. The forests are dead. The waters of the rivers, the lakes, the rich topsoil and the high grasses on fertile hilltops, everything is encased and covered in a viscous, black smear that has suffocated the landscape. Fresh looks around herself, staring at the surface of the world that is simply faded and colorless. It’s as if the light of the current cloudy day simply couldn’t reach anything anymore. Not the rocks, not the grass, not the dirt, nothing. It’s all just dead and entirely unmoving. It’s all suffocated by a covering blanket of night that can’t be washed away by the brightest rays of morning sun nor the heaviest of rains.

A dot in the landscape, a thing off in the distance breaks the stillness of the scene.

Fresh hovers in the air, watching him move. A single suit of armor, his sword dragging behind himself as he lurches towards her. The hero, Garnett. Or at least what remains of him.

This curse, this thing that she had done to the hero, to make him like he is now, it was never just about stopping him, so that he couldn’t destroy the fountain’s plans. That’s just the image that Perchta, the theatrical spirit of the fountain, was selling to her.

She still remembers the intense dream that she had back in the north. The vision of the fountain screeching in rage and anger when it became apparent that a hero was going to be summoned. That was all just an act to make her afraid, to make her believe, to make her cooperate. It was a sword to dangle over her head.

It really has been a set-up from the start. It doesn’t matter which party she looks at, the people of this world, Jubilee, the thieves’ guild, the fountain, everyone, literally everyone has had their finger in the mix, trying to push things their way from the start, from her very first day in this world.

In actuality, he, the hero, is just the clean-up crew. That’s why the fountain didn’t just have her kill him outright. Because it wanted him around to get rid of her, after her purpose had been fulfilled.

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Fresh sighs. This world really is cutthroat, no matter which way you look at it. Ever since day one, it’s been a fight for survival, for people looking to one-up each other. Here, in this place, in this central-city, things were different. It was nice here.

She looks over her shoulder.

Well… It was. Before they had arrived. Before they had quite literally brought the problems of the outside world into paradise. She supposes that now, after this year and then some weeks, that she and they themselves are no better than all of the other people in this world, dominated by the presence of the bad-thing. They’re just as desperate and greedy as they all are, there’s no point in denying it. But she supposes that there’s still a difference between them all, a thing that clearly separates them.

They’re stronger than everyone else.

Maybe not in pure terms of levels. On that basis, many of the people in this city are a titanic force that still must be reckoned with. But in their own individual ways, they’re stronger.

Fresh looks back at the approaching silhouette of the true hero, the summoned hero Garnett, who is nothing more than a shell filled with nothing but violent, mindless purpose. She doesn’t regret it, what she did to him. She did it for her family, after all. Her eyes wander towards the north, towards the east, towards the west. She doesn’t regret any of it. She’d do it all again if she could. Even knowing now what waits for the world and everyone they had met in it. Knowing all of it, she’d do it again and again and again.

The broom shoots forward as she flies to meet the man in the middle of the black-water drowned landscape, so that he doesn’t destroy the city outright.

It’s about time too, for them to make their move. If Basil’s prediction and lore is correct, then the gods, the things that sit opposite of Perchta, the fountain, in the cosmos, will make their move now, now that the time is right. The world hangs on the precipice of destruction. This is the final advent and these are the only times in which the essences of the things that are holy and good ever intervene in the mortal world. The gods only ever show themselves when things are at their most dire.

A blur of color flashes beneath herself, dashing across the landscape in a splash of unusually vivid crimson, contrasting the black ink that coats the world. A red blur runs down along the ground on well trained legs adorned with enchanted, hovering boots that let her move without ever touching the black-water. If Fresh didn’t know better, she’d say that they’re a manipulation of their own weight-reducing boots from the west. She squints, not surprised to see the red-wizard here. She was expecting her, after all. Actually, those really are a pair of her boots.

Everyone is a player in the game. Fresh shakes her head, watching as it all comes together, exactly as Jubilee, Basil and Shamrock had put together. She’s really glad to have them. On her own, she really would have been lost from the start.

The red-wizard makes a bee-line towards the hero, a leather satchel flapping against her leg as she runs, not sick, not injured, not unhealthy, not anything. The woman looks over her shoulder as she sprints with gritted teeth, pushing as fast as she can to reach the hero before Fresh can get close enough, before the man mindlessly strikes and destroys everything.

Fresh decides to let her. After all, the red-wizard has worked so hard to get here. She’s played so many roles and people, why not let her have this? It would be mean not to. She’s worked hard. She’s earned it.

Plus, most importantly, it’s vital for the theatrics of the moment. It’s important for the things that are watching them. Her eyes shoot towards the sky and while she can’t see a single soul, entity, or creation of divinity watching them, she’s sure that they’re there. However they might look, however they might be manifested into existence, the things above, the gods and Perchta are all watching, they’re hoping.

Fresh smiles.

- They’re praying.

She pushes the broom forward, shooting towards the red-wizard and the hero. A surge of unusual wind presses against herself, coming from seemingly nowhere in an instant and pushes Fresh backwards. The broomstick pulls up into the air, the otherworldly gale holding her back as the red-wizard runs on ahead entirely unhindered, as if the surge were avoiding her entirely. Fresh grabs onto the broom, pulling it steady to fight the unnatural storm that has seemingly come out of nowhere to slow her down.

Fresh beams. “It’s important to have something to believe in, isn’t it?” she asks the sky, tilting her head. She has to make a mental note to tell Basil that the gods are really real, for real. She’s sure the priestess has come to pass over her crises of faith in many ways, but she’ll certainly be glad to hear it from her anyway, she’s sure.

A great tremor shoots through the world, the ground cracks, a split running through it from one end of the horizon towards the other, the world shaking as things are set to motion.

Fresh pushes forward again, flying after the red-wizard who has crossed most of the way now and stands before the hero. The red-clad woman hovers along-side the quiet entity that ignores her as it just marches single-mindedly towards Fresh. The red-wizard frantically reaches into her bag, pulling out a glass vial, a potion.

Fresh clutches her face. “Oh nooo~” she says. “I’ve been deceived!” she croons dramatically. She carefully opens a single eye to watch as the red-wizard pours the potion into the hero’s helmet.

A wicked smile cracks on the lips of the horrible witch as she looks up towards the sky, towards where she perceives the smug faces of many gods to be staring her way right now, certain that the horrible witch has been beaten and outmatched and honestly, by herself she certainly would have been.

But maybe that’s the folly of the fountain, of the gods. They’re only afraid of the terrible witch. They apparently didn’t even bother to consider her friends, her friends who made this plan and so far, their plan is working perfectly.

Razmatazz

ALL ACCORDING TO KEIKAKU

Translator's note: (Keikaku means plan)

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