Ghost - Qille - The Yogscast [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: The Thing In The Window

Chapter Text

Trottimus stood unmoving in the center of the battlefield. It was over now, but the bodies strewn across the scorched field were still fresh. The air stank of blood and decay and burnt flesh. The sky was dark, clouded with the smoke from the fires.

There was so much death and destruction. And it had all started with the Ghost.

XXX

Smiffy reclined on the grass, looking up at the sky where puffy white clouds were drifting lazily. A gentle breeze blew the warm air and rustled the leaves on the nearby trees. A flower drifted over his head, and he used a bit of magic to catch it and suspend it in the air above him.

As he was staring at the flower, a shadow passed over him. He looked up to see Ross hovering above him.

“Move over, you're blocking the light,” muttered Smiffy, waving his hand dismissively.

“I figured out a new trick,” said Ross quietly, a small smile creeping onto his face.

Smiffy looked up at him, thinking back for a moment on how Ross had gotten his strange new powers. Like most things that happened to them, it had been an accident. They walked outside one morning and found a chest sitting in the middle of their newest building project. The only thing inside the chest was a small glowstone sphere.

Smiffy had picked it up first, then he had handed it to Trott, who then passed it to Ross. However, as soon as Ross held it, it started to glow. The light had surrounded him, and then it was gone. It only took them a few minutes to realize Ross had been Changed.

It was a bit shocking how quickly he harnessed his powers. Almost immediately, he was able to spawn unlimited resources without using any energy. Within a few days, his powers had bonded with him, and his magic had changed from gold to teal blue. As soon as his powers bonded, he was suddenly able to fly with ease and destroy blocks with a single touch. And as of recently, he had been studying the different properties of blocks and learning how to transmute things.

All of this passed through his mind within the span of a few seconds.

“Alright, what's your new trick?” asked Smiffy, sitting up.

Ross dropped to the ground and sat down in front of his friend. “Okay, look,” he said, holding out his hand, which began to glow slightly blue. A moment later, what looked like marble began to grow out of his skin and cover his knuckles and fingers.

“What... the f*ck is going on?” asked Smiffy, taking Ross' hand and examining it closer.

“I figured out how to turn the air around my hand into marble,” said Ross excitedly. “It's like built in armor, and it's useful for healing.”

“Really? How?” asked Smiffy, knowing that his friend was struggling to learn how to heal.

Ross pulled his hand back, and the marble turned back into air. He pushed back the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a long cut on his arm. The wound was sealed by a thin layer of marble.

“I cut my arm the other day, and it wouldn't stop bleeding, so I tried this,” he explained.

“Clever...” Smiffy muttered. He knew how hard it was for earth spirits to learn proper healing magic, so Ross' improvisation of a healing spell was impressive. “How long did it take you to figure this out?”

“Only a day,” said Ross, glancing up at his building. “But I guess since we're surrounded by marble all the time, I...”

He trailed off, his eyes fixed on one of the upper windows of the towers.

“Do you see that...?” he whispered, staring up at one of the windows.

Smiffy turned and looked up at the window. He only had to look for a few seconds before jumping to his feet.

Even though the window of the tower was incredibly high above them, they could still clearly see the silhouette standing at the window, looking down at them.

Slowly, Smiffy reached up and turned on his headset. It crackled to life, and he could hear Trott happily humming to himself.

“Trott, mate, where are you?” asked Smiffy quietly.

“Smith? Is that you?” Trott's voice replied.

“Where are you?” Smiffy repeated.

“I'm in my lab in the basem*nt. Why? Is something wrong?”

Just as Smiffy opened his mouth to say something, the silhouette in the upper window darted out of sight.

“THERE'S SOMEONE IN THERE WITH YOU! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!” Smiffy screamed into his headset. Not five seconds later, Trott burst through the front door, sprinting out onto the lawn. He tripped over Ross, and they both sprawled.

“What's going on?” exclaimed the walrus. “What happened?”

“It's back!” exclaimed Ross, standing up and pointing to one of the windows a few floors lower.

The three of them looked up to see the pitch black silhouette in the window. It was staring down at them with glowing white eyes.

They stared at it and it stared back. A minute later, however, it disappeared.

As soon as it was gone, they ran inside and up the stairs to the floor where they had seen it. As it turned out, it had been on the floor with their rooms.

They spread out to see if they could find any evidence of who the mysterious visitor had been. Smiffy began to scan the area for magic residue, Trott swabbed around for DNA, and Ross snuck off to his room to make sure nothing had been stolen. Sure enough, everything was in it's place.

A few minutes later, they gathered by the window.

“I didn't find any foreign DNA,” said Trott, looking around in case the mysterious figure teleported in.

“Well I found something that might interest you,” said Smiffy quietly. He rubbed his hands together, and purple sparks flew from his fingers. Then, in one quick movement, he flung his hands apart and the purple sparks scattered around the room before concentrating back near the center and forming the shape of a long jagged scar in midair.

“What the hell is that?” asked Trott, staring at the distortion.

“That's a jump scar,” explained Smiffy. “That's how our visitor was able to disappear so quickly. He teleported out.”

“Can you follow the jump scar and see where he went?” asked Ross, who had also been studying teleportation recently.

Smiffy shook his head. “It's too old for me to follow. However...”

He paused with a shudder. “After my little incident I've gotten a lot better at recognizing different types of magic residue. And this...”

Smiffy grimaced, feeling a bit of phantom pain in his back.

“This is Void magic.”

Chapter 2: Heartbeat

Chapter Text

After the freaky experience of seeing a silhouette manifest inside their base, the trio began to set up defenses against this mysterious intruder. Smiffy began to grow Enderbane, which Ross and Trott then planted around the outer wall and the towers. Hopefully with this, nobody would be able to teleport in or out.

As they were covering the outer walls in liquid Enderbane, Trott happened to glance towards the Nether portal. He gave a cry of shock and almost fell off the wall when he saw the silhouette lingering by the portal, staring at them with glowing white eyes.

“It looks... human...” whispered Ross, standing next to Trott and staring back at the mysterious figure.

“Why is it just staring at us...?” mumbled Trott.

“Smith, are you nearby?” Ross muttered into his headset.

“Not really, why?”

“That thing's back. It's by the-”

He stopped when the silhouette suddenly vanished.

“Did it... did it just teleport?” stammered Trott.

“Either that or it turned invisible,” said Ross with a nervous gulp. He didn't like the idea of that thing being invisible, and he still had the feeling he was being watched.

“It's like a ghost,” said Smiffy, who had come out of the building and to the wall behind them. He jumped up on top of the wall and looked out towards the portal. “I can't detect a jump scar. It could very well still be there watching.”

Trott and Ross slowly turned to stare at him.

“Why the hell would you say that?” exclaimed Trott. “We're already freaked out enough as it is.”

Smiffy shrugged and jumped down from the wall, chuckling as he headed back for more Enderbane.

XXX

It had been several hours since they last saw the Ghost, and the sun was starting to set. As soon as the first hint of darkness appeared, the trio headed inside and locked the doors.

Ross wandered around the upper towers, wrinkling his nose. It was getting close to a full moon, so his smelling was more sensitive than normal, and Enderbane smelled weird.

Somehow, he ended up wandering into Smiffy's workshop. His tall friend stood at the window, looking out. Ross took a step towards him, but then stopped, staring at his back. For a split second, he had the vivid image in his mind of Void ripping Smiffy to shreds, crawling out of his back and leaving him to bleed. It had taken him so long to be able to move properly after that, and he still had his bad days where it hurt too much to get out of bed.

And even after all of the trauma, after his back healed, the mark of the Void was still scarred into his flesh.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the terrifying memories, he cleared his throat to get his friend's attention.

Smiffy glanced over his shoulder. “Can't sleep?”

“Not really,” said Ross, walking to the window and standing next to Smiffy. “It's been a freaky day. Also, Trott's snoring again.”

“Just hold a pillow over his face until he stops squirming.”

“I tried that, it doesn't work.”

Smiffy laughed, and they fell silent for several minutes, looking out over the dark landscape. Nothing moved except the occasional zombie.

“So...” said Ross hesitantly, “do you think the thing... the Ghost... turned itself invisible instead of teleporting earlier?”

“Hard to tell,” said Smiffy. “I didn't want to get close enough to see if there was a jump scar, plus I had the opportunity to freak you guys out. But it does make sense. If it could turn invisible, it wouldn't have to worry about the Enderbane. It would just walk right through the front door.”

Ross shuddered a bit. “I wish there was a way to see invisible things.”

Smiffy was quiet for a moment. “Y'know... I think there is.”

“What do you mean?”

Smiffy turned away from the window to face his friend. “I wonder... if you mastered invisibility, would you be able to see things that are also invisible?”

Ross gulped. “Are you... asking me to learn invisibility?”

“Only if you want to,” said Smiffy. He reached into a chest and pulled out a single block of glass. “I was just thinking... you learned to transmute things by studying marble, so maybe if you study glass, you'll learn to become invisible.”

Ross took the glass. “Invisibility isn't just about making yourself see-through, it's about bending light around you so others can't see you. But...” He held the glass up to the light. “... This does seem like a good place to start.”

Smiffy smiled. “So you'll do it?”

Ross shrugged. “I see no harm in learning something new.”

XXX

Ross stayed up late into the night studying the glass. After just a few hours, he was able to turn his hands partially invisible. By late afternoon the following day, he learned to turn his whole body mostly invisible. Smiffy was ecstatic when he showed him.

“I wonder if you could learn complete invisibility by the end of the day,” joked Smiffy as he watched Ross mostly disappear for the fifteenth time.

“End of the day?” exclaimed Ross, becoming visible again. “I bet I can do it within the hour.”

“I'll have a gurney and a med kit on standby for when you hurt yourself or waste all your energy,” said Trott over the headset.

“Don't be such a killjoy, Trotty,” laughed Smiffy. “C'mon Ross, you're so close!”

“Shouldn't we be protecting ourselves against the Ghost?” asked Trott.

“I'm sure it's fine!” exclaimed Smiffy. “We haven't been possessed or suffocated in our sleep yet.”

“Too soon.”

“f*ck off, I was the one who got possessed!”

“Guys!” exclaimed Ross. “Trying to focus here.”

Ignoring the apologies, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This trick had proven to be a lot more magic intensive than any of his other skills, so he really had to focus on channeling his magic.

Holding his breath, Ross began to bend the light in the air around himself, but that was only enough to cause partial invisibility. He needed to do something different.

So he began to bend the light as close to his body as possible, almost to the point where the light scattering was under his skin.

Suddenly, everything around him seemed to change. He started seeing things in black and white, and all the sounds around him were partially muted. He could see Smiffy cheering and looking excited, but he couldn't really hear him. Glancing out the window, he saw the invisible Ghost walking around near the Nether portal, looking at some of the flowers.

He had done it. He had mastered invisibility in a single day.

Smiffy was beyond excited, screaming down his headset at Trott. He felt Ross flick him in the side of the head.

“Ah, you piece of sh*t! Turn visible again so I can kick your ass.”

He heard Ross laugh, and he became visible, appearing in front of him.

That was when everything went wrong.

The smile suddenly dropped from Ross' face, as did all the color. He swayed, staggered a bit, then fell. Smiffy lunged forward and caught him, lowering him to the ground.

“Trott! Please tell me you weren't joking about that med kit!” yelled Smiffy.

“What happened? What happened!” shouted Trott.

“I don't know, just get up here!”

“It hurts...” choked out Ross, clutching his chest.

“What is it? What hurts?” asked Smiffy.

“Can't breathe...” he gasped, shaking and grimacing. Suddenly, the pain intensified and he cried out, hyperventilating.

“Just hold on, it'll be okay,” said Smiffy quietly.

A few seconds later, Trott appeared in the elevator, hauling a med kit with him. He ran over to Ross and pulled out a stethoscope, listening to his heartbeat then feeling for a fever.

“Okay, I have no idea what's wrong with him,” said Trott quickly. “Can you carry him down to my lab?”

Smiffy nodded. “You're lucky today's not a bad day,” he muttered as he picked Ross up and carried him over to the elevator. They all zapped down to Trott's lab, and Smiffy laid his writhing friend on the table. He carefully put an oxygen mask over Ross' face, but it didn't seem to help.

“Okay, let's see what's wrong with him,” said Trott as he stuck a few sensors on Ross' chest. He flipped on one of the monitors and they watched as the image on the screen came into focus.

They stared at the screen in silence for a few seconds. That was what alerted Ross. He forced his eyes open and looked at the screen.

“The f*ck...” muttered Smiffy, reflecting everybody's thoughts. “What's happening?”

Trott looked closer at the screen. “It... it looks like part of his right lung is dissolving...”

“That's... w-where it... hurts...” gasped Ross, who was shaking with pain and barely able to stay conscious.

Trott shook his head. “It looks like... this part of your lung is dissolving back into stem cells...” he muttered, pointing to the screen. “This is fascinating, it looks like they're starting to reform into-”

“Not the time.”

Trott turned around to see Smiffy holding a cold cloth on Ross' forehead to try and keep his fever down. He was also glaring daggers at him.

“Sorry...” muttered Trott. “That was insensitive.”

Suddenly, Ross screamed and curled up on his side, clutching his chest. Trott glanced at the screen and saw that the cells had formed a clump of... something. Muscle? Tissue? Definitely not lung though. He could see veins growing out of the mass where the third lobe of his lung used to be.

“Trott, do something!” Smiffy nearly shouted, furious that Trott was paying more attention to what was happening on the screen instead of helping Ross.

“Right, right, hold on,” said Trott, running over to his supplies and selecting a powerful painkiller. He drew out a generous dose and injected it into Ross' arm.

After a few seconds, Ross seemed to relax.

“Is that better?” asked Trott. Ross gave a weak nod.

Smiffy gave a sigh of relief. “Well, at least we-”

Ross suddenly grimaced. “I think it... it- AH! sh*t, it's back...” he muttered, clutching his chest.

“What the hell!” exclaimed Smiffy.

“Uh... I think your fever burned off the medicine,” stammered Trott.

“It wasn't his fever...” said Smiffy quietly.

“What?” asked Ross and Trott at the same time.

Smiffy turned Ross' hand over and looked at his wrist. They could see gold light glowing under his skin.

“That's raw magic,” said Smiffy quietly. “That's what burned off the medicine.”

“But... why is there so much free magic? Why isn't it contained?” asked Trott, thinking back to the crash course on being a demigod that Ridge had given them after he found out about Ross.

That was when Ross raised a shaky hand and pointed at the screen. Trott turned and Smiffy looked up, and they were both shocked to see that the object in Ross' chest was finally starting to take shape. They recognized it.

He was growing a second heart.

XXX

Smiffy sat unnaturally still, watching Trott check Ross' vitals. It had been three days since he grew his second heart. It had taken two hours for the heart to completely grow and connect itself to his system, and he had been awake and in pain the whole time. After it had finished, his fever disappeared and his pulse dropped to half of what it had been before. He had fallen asleep, and he hadn't woken up yet.

“Everything still looks normal,” said Trott. He looked up, but Smiffy didn't move. He simply sat next to Ross' bed, staring into space.

“Uh... are you okay?”

Smiffy sighed a bit and shook his head. “It's my fault this happened...” he muttered. “I freaked you guys out by making jokes about the Ghost, then I asked him to learn invisibility... I was just curious, I didn't know this would happen...”

“Look...” said Trott, “I'm sure everything is going to be okay. I mean... we've all survived worse, right?”

“Not helping,” said Smiffy, facing away so Trott wouldn't see him smile.

Trott opened his mouth to say something, but right at that moment, Ross sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake and breathing hard. His eyes glowed gold for a couple seconds before returning to blue.

“sh*t!” exclaimed Smiffy, shocked by Ross' sudden return to consciousness.

“Ross? Do you feel okay?” asked Trott, reaching over and taking his friend's pulse.

“I can't... catch my breath...” he stammered.

“That's because your lung size is reduced,” said Trott.

“This is weird...” muttered Ross, holding his hand against his chest and feeling his hearts beat. “Uh... do we have any sand?”

Smiffy stared at him. “Sand?”

Ross nodded. “I think I had a dream about sand or something. I don't know, I want to study it all of a sudden.”

Trott and Smiffy glanced at each other.

“Maybe,” said Trott, “you should just rest for a bit before you start trying new magic.”

Instead of listening, Ross stood up and started looking for a clean shirt and his shoes. “I'm gonna go find some sand.”

Ross walked out the door, followed by his friends, who were both worried and a bit curious. Because they left the room without looking back, they didn't see the Ghost become visible in the corner of the room, where it had been standing and watching the whole time.

Chapter 3: Flowers

Chapter Text

Smiffy sat in the grass outside the marble towers, flipping through several different books, looking for the recipe for the pain medicine he usually made. Today was a bad day - he had woken up this morning with a crippling pain in his upper back, so bad he could barely move his shoulders, and it hurt to breathe.

He couldn't believe it had almost been nine months since the incident, and he was still not fully rehabilitated. Although Trott said that he might never recover. That the scarring was too deep to be fully healed. He preferred not to think about that.

After flipping through his books for a bit, he found the recipe for the salve that would force his muscles to relax, which would ease the pain for a few hours. At least, it would work better than the hot leaves from a Nether flower that Trott had stuck to his back as soon as he realized it was a bad day.

Glancing around, he saw that Trott was sitting in the doorway to the towers, taking apart and cleaning a machine that Ross had gotten sand in, so he was distracted. Ross was nowhere to be seen.

Holding his breath, Smiffy slowly shifted and started to stand, but before he could blink, Ross teleported directly in front of him.

“You look like you're about to stand up,” said Ross. “What do you need? I can get it for you?”

Smiffy rolled his eyes and handed Ross the book with the recipe. “Go get me these things, will you?”

Ross nodded and teleported off. Smiffy couldn't help but be impressed with how quickly he had learned to teleport, just by studying sand. However, now that he knew how to teleport, he wouldn't stop. Smiffy sat and listened to the sound of Ross teleporting around behind him and near the building. After a minute, the sound of teleporting stopped, so Smiffy turned and looked. Ross was searching through some of the chests with magic items, but he couldn't seem to find what he was looking for. He must have realized that the missing item was outside the wall, but when he tried to teleport, he seemed to hit the outer wall, then ricochet back inside.

Smiffy was worried for a second, but Ross stood up after a few seconds and flew over the wall, returning a few seconds later. Then he ran back over to Smiffy.

“What just happened?” asked Smiffy as he took the materials and started to mix them up.

“I forgot about the Enderbane,” said Ross, breathing hard. He looked a bit tired from the consecutive teleports.

“So it actually works, then,” said Smiffy, glancing up from his medicine in progress.

“Yeah, watch!” exclaimed Ross, jumping to his feet. Before Smiffy could stop him, he ran straight at the wall, tried to teleport, hit the Enderbane and was flung twenty feet backwards.

“Ross, what the hell!” shouted Trott from the doorway.

“The Enderbane works!” Ross responded, standing and laughing.

“Well you don't need to run head-first into it to test it!” Trott responded.

Smiffy rolled his eyes and started rubbing the salve on his shoulders. Almost immediately, his muscles felt looser, and he could move and breathe freely again. After waiting a few minutes to make sure it worked, he took the hot leaves off his back and stood up. A split second later, Ross teleported in front of him.

“You need to stop doing that!” exclaimed Smiffy, jumping at his sudden appearance.

“Are you okay?” asked Ross. “Your stuff worked?”

“Yeah, it worked and I feel better. I FEEL BETTER!” he shouted, turning to face Trott, who looked like he was about to stand and come over. Trott nodded and sat back down, resuming his repairs on the machine.

“Are you sure you're okay?” asked Ross.

Smiffy nodded. “Are you sure you're okay? Your nose is bleeding.”

“Oh...” muttered Ross, holding his sleeve to his nose. “I'm sure that'll stop after a while. It's all the teleporting. Just have to get used to it.”

Smiffy opened his mouth to say something, but right at that moment, they heard a loud crack. They both whipped around to see that the sound came from the door, right near Trott.

They were all shocked to see that Lalna had just teleported in. He looked pale and thin and stressed, and he wasn't wearing his lab coat or shoes. He looked like he hadn't brushed his hair or slept in days.

Smiffy and Ross watched in silence as Lalna ran over to Trott. They were a bit too far away to hear what he was saying, but it must have been important, because Trott jumped to his feet, ran inside, and came back outside a few minutes later with his doctor's bag. Then he and Lalna teleported away.

XXX

“Where do you think they went?” asked Ross as he and Smiffy crossed the drawbridge out of the compound.

“For the hundredth time, I have no idea,” said Smiffy, looking at the piece of paper in his hand then looking around to see if he could see any of the flowers they would need.

It had been a few hours since Trott left with Lalna, and they still had no idea where they had gone. The teleport was mechanical, so it didn't leave a jump scar they could follow, but it did give Ross the idea to teach himself how to follow jump scars. For the past few hours, he and Smiffy had been practicing – Smiffy would teleport, and Ross would try and follow the jump scar to find him. It was like hide and seek.

He had gotten really good at following the jump scars, but they had to stop their practice when Ross got a nosebleed and a headache, along with a feeling of vertigo that wouldn't go away. That was the reason he and Smiffy were venturing outside the walls – to find the ingredients for a solution that would make the vertigo and headaches go away.

“I still think you overdid it with all the teleporting,” said Smiffy, taking hold of Ross' hand to keep him from stumbling off the bridge and into the water.

“I know, but... it's a new thing, and it's really neat, and I just wanted to experiment,” muttered Ross. He wiped a bit of blood off his nose. “This is just... magic exhaustion. I used up too much magic in a short amount of time. I'll be better by tomorrow.”

“I don't doubt that...” Smiffy replied. He glanced over and spotted a flower that was on the list of ingredients, but when he bent over to pick it up, he stopped with a grimace. The pain from the morning had moved from his shoulders to the middle of his back, making it hurt to bend over.

“I've got it,” said Ross quickly, moving to pick up the flower. However, he seemed to have forgotten about his vertigo, because as soon as he looked down he nearly fell over.

“Well this is embarrassing...” muttered Smiffy as he grabbed Ross to prevent him from swallowing dirt. “We need Trott here to help us pick a flower.”

“Actually, I've got an idea...” said Ross with a chuckle. His hand and eyes started to glow teal blue, and the patch of dirt that the flower was on started to slowly rise into the air until it was level with Smiffy's shoulders. He reached out and plucked the flower, and Ross let the dirt fall back into place.

“How long have you known how to do that?” asked Smiffy.

“Actually, it was one of the first things I was able to do,” explained Ross quietly. “I can move blocks like dirt and stone without touching them. Never really had a chance to use it before.”

“It didn't make your vertigo worse?”

“Nope,” said Ross. “That didn't cost me any energy at all. I guess if I wanted to create a mountain it would actually cost some energy, but moving one tiny block of dirt up and down? Ha...”

Smiffy shook his head, and they continued to search for more ingredients. Luckily, they were able to find the rest fairly easily, so Smiffy mixed up the remedy as they walked back. He gave it to Ross, whose headache and vertigo went away only five minutes after using it.

When they reached the gate, however, Ross stopped and grabbed Smiffy.

“Wha-”

“Look...” whispered Ross, pointing towards the Nether portal.

Smiffy looked over and froze. The Ghost was near the portal again, but it wasn't looking at them. It was looking around, like it was searching for something. Then it bent over and picked a flower.

Suddenly, the Ghost stood bolt upright and looked directly at Smiffy and Ross. It seemed scared.

For just a second, nobody moved. Then Smiffy took a small step towards it.

As soon as he moved, the Ghost turned and teleported away.

“Let's follow it!” exclaimed Ross, grabbing Smiffy by the hand and dragging him towards the jump scar the Ghost had left.

“Wait, we should-”

Smiffy was cut off when Ross ran straight into the jump scar and teleported, dragging him along. Everything went dark, and they were surrounded by cold. Suddenly, they fell out on the other side of the jump scar.

Smiffy gasped and stood up, brushing the ice crystals off of his clothes. “Wait... where are we?”

He turned and looked around. There was a small beach behind them, but ahead of them was the shell of a burned down house. The trees had started to take over again.

“What do you think this is, mate?” asked Smiffy, turning to Ross. However, he was shocked when he saw his friend.

Ross was on his hands and knees, violently shaking and struggling to breathe.

“Ross! What happened?” exclaimed Smiffy, kneeling down next to his friend.

Ross shook his head. “Too... cold...” he gasped out. With a shaking hand, he pointed at the beach. Smiffy nodded and started dragging Ross down to the beach, biting his tongue to keep from screaming because of the pain in his back.

He managed to get Ross onto the sand, and as soon as he did, Ross took control of the sand and covered himself with it. Almost immediately, he was able to breathe again, and his shivering lessened.

“What the hell just happened?” asked Smiffy, dropping to his knees.

“I had to... pull us through the Void... to get here...” muttered Ross. “Took a lot of energy... We were exposed to Void magic... which is really cold. Sand is pretty good at... drawing out Void magic. I'll just stay here until I'm warm again... You take a look around. This is where the Ghost teleported.”

Smiffy shook his head a bit. “I was exposed to the same amount of Void magic as you, why am I not frozen solid?”

Ross shrugged. “You've been exposed to it a lot more than I have. I think you've built up a bit of an immunity.”

Smiffy nodded a bit. “Makes sense...” he muttered. After a minute, he stood up. “Okay, I'm gonna take a look around. See what I can find.”

He turned and headed for the destroyed building. It was big, like it used to be a proper house instead of a shack in the woods on the edge of the beach. He shuffled through the rubble a bit, finding what he could. He found part of a broken sword, bits of furniture, a picture frame... He wondered who used to live here, and if they died in the fire.

Then he walked out the back door, and he froze.

He could see a makeshift tombstone with flowers laid on it. Those were the same flowers the Ghost had been holding when it ran.

“Oh no...” he whispered.

The tombstone belonged to Xephos.

He had heard about what happened here. The night Void attacked, another entity from the Void had attacked everybody here. Xephos had been poisoned by Void flux and died the next morning. It had taken Ridge a long time to tell them this story.

Slowly shaking his head, he looked back towards the beach. He could still see the lump of sand that Ross was curled under. Knowing that his friend would be okay, he turned and headed deeper into the island. It took a while, but he finally found Lomadia's new house. However, it didn't look like anybody was home, so he knocked on the door.

“Hello?” he called. “Anybody home?”

There was no answer, so he tried the door. It was unlocked. After glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, he stepped inside.

The interior of the house was roomy, but it was also messy. There were clothes scattered everywhere, as if somebody had packed a bag and run out the door. Had something happened? He even checked Nilesy's bedroom only to see the same mess. Where had he and Lomadia gone in such a hurry?

That was when he happened to glance into Lomadia's room, and he noticed the crib.

“Wait a second...” he muttered, slowly stepping into Lomadia's room. Sure enough, there was a large crib set up next to her bed. That was when he noticed that some of the clothes were baby clothes. And if that wasn't a big enough clue, there was a frame sitting on Lomadia's bedside table, and the picture inside showed her smiling and holding a tiny infant with blue eyes and a tuft of blond hair.

“Oh, sh*t...” whispered Smiffy, feeling uneasy. It had been bad enough to hear that Xephos died because Ridge hadn't been there, but nobody told them that Xephos and Lomadia had a baby. And now he couldn't shake the feeling that it was his fault the baby in the picture didn't have a father.

Shaking his head, he quickly turned and left the house, closing the door behind him. Then he ran back across the island to where he left Ross. It was getting hard to see because the sun was so close to setting.

When he reached the western beach and the burned down structure, he tried not to look at the tombstone, where the Ghost's flowers still sat. He did notice, however, that there was a lot of Void magic still present inside the shell of the house.

“No, that's Void flux residue,” said the voice in the back of his mind. “That's what killed Xephos. He's dead because of you.”

“It's not my fault...” whispered Smiffy.

“What was that?” asked Ross, who was standing up and brushing the sand off of his clothes. He looked a lot better now that all the Void magic had been drawn out.

“Nothing,” said Smiffy quietly.

“Did you find out where we are?”

Slowly, he nodded, feeling a solid lump in his throat. “We're on Owl Island,” he said. “I don't think anybody's home though.”

“Oh... wonder where they went,” said Ross, looking at the teleporter on his wrist. He was calibrating it to take them back home.

“Who knows...”

“Any sign of the Ghost?”

“Nope,” he quickly lied. Ross glanced up at him as if he caught the lie, but he didn't say anything. He was too tired.

“Okay, we should get out of here,” said Ross. “Is your teleporter calibrated?”

“Yeah, it's ready to go,” said Smiffy, glancing at his device.

“Good,” said Ross tiredly. “Now at least we won't have to go through the Void to get back home. Ready?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, let's go.”

They activated their teleporters and were zapped back home. As soon as they landed, Ross started to turn off his teleporter, but a gasp from Smiffy stopped him.

“What is it?” he asked his friend. However, when he looked up, he saw Smiffy pointing at something behind him.

Slowly, Ross turned around an was shocked at what he saw.

On the outside of the main wall was a single word, burned into the marble.

“Help.”

Chapter 4: The Ghost

Chapter Text

Smiffy and Ross waited two days for Trott to come back. During those two days, they stayed locked up inside the towers, constantly scanning for signs of the Ghost.

They were certain the Ghost had left the message on the wall. Smiffy had been able to detect Void magic around the burns, and Ross noticed a few hours later that the message had disappeared. Ross tried to speculate on what the message meant – why did this Ghost need help? – but Smiffy didn't want to talk about it. He still hadn't told Ross what he discovered when they went to Owl Island.

The sun was setting when they heard the familiar crack of somebody teleporting in. Jumping up, they ran down the stairs and out the door, relieved to see Trott.

“Oh, hey guys,” said Trott, who looked tired and a bit bloodstained. “What-”

He was cut off when Smiffy and Ross hugged him.

“Uh... did something happen while I was gone?” asked Trott, confused. “Did you guys have another near death experience and realize how much you love me?”

“Well, we certainly had a frightening experience,” said Smiffy as he stood back, looking around. After a second, he grabbed Ross and Trott by the arm and dragged them inside before closing the door and sealing it with magic.

“We followed the Ghost to see where it hides,” said Ross. “We ended up on Owl Island.”

“That's interesting...” muttered Trott, narrowing his eyes.

“Where have you been, though?” asked Ross, gesturing to one of the small bloodstains on Trott's sleeve.

“Well, you guys aren't going to believe this, but Nano had a baby!” exclaimed Trott, clasping his hands together.

Smiffy smirked to hide his grimace. “I knew they were f*ck buddies!” he exclaimed, trying to act annoying to hopefully prevent Trott from mentioning Lomadia's baby if he knew about it.

“Don't joke about it, she almost died!” exclaimed Trott.

“Wait, really?” asked Ross, looking concerned.

Trott nodded. “That's why Lalna looked so freaked out when he came and got me. I got there about an hour after she had her baby, so I was only there to take care of her and make sure she didn't die.”

“So she's going to be okay?” asked Smiffy.

“Yes, she'll be fine within a month or two,” said Trott with a nod. “Now what happened with you two?”

“We saw the Ghost after you left, and we followed it to Owl Island,” repeated Ross.

“How did you follow it?” asked Trott.

“He taught himself how to follow jump scars,” explained Smiffy.

“Wait, you followed the jump scar?” exclaimed Trott. “Don't tell me you teleported through the Void...”

Ross stared unblinkingly for a minute. “Uh...”

Trott let out a very loud walrus noise. “Holy sh*t, Ross, that's so dangerous! You know how bad Void magic is!”

Smiffy narrowed his eyes, but Trott didn't see.

“Don't worry, I leeched it all out as soon as we got there,” said Ross quietly.

Trott seemed to calm down a bit. “Okay, that's good...” He turned to Smiffy. “You teleported through the Void with him, right? Did you get rid of the Void magic you were exposed to?”

It was Smiffy's turn to stare unblinkingly. “Uh...”

Trott made another distressed walrus noise. “You two would die without me here!” he exclaimed as he reached into his inventory and pulled out an ice bag that looked to be filled with sand. “Here, this will help.”

Smiffy grumbled and took the sand bag, holding it close to his chest to hopefully drain the Void magic that was supposedly sitting inside him. He couldn't quite see the logic behind this, seeing as he hadn't been experiencing any symptoms of exposure to the Void.

“So what did you find on Owl Island?” asked Trott.

Ross looked at Smiffy, who somehow managed to keep a straight face.

“I didn't find much,” he said carefully. “We landed near an old burnt down house. There was a lot of Void energy coming from there, so I couldn't really track it.”

“Hm...” muttered Trott. “That might have been Lomadia's old house, the one that burnt down.”

“Most likely.”

“Did you find anything else?”

For a split second, Smiffy thought about mentioning Xephos' tombstone and how the Ghost had placed flowers on it. A sign of respect? Love? Guilt?

Guilt. That's what prevented him from telling his friends about the tombstone.

It's my fault Xephos died, and I think the Ghost knows it...

“No, I didn't find anything else on the island,” said Smiffy evenly, “but when we got back here, there was a message burned into the wall.”

Trott's eyes widened. “What did it say?”

“It said help,” said Ross.

“Help...?” asked Trott. “That's strange... why would it ask for help?”

“Well... think about it,” said Smiffy. “It's never actually tried to hurt us. What if we just assumed it was bad?”

Ross nodded. “Last time we saw it it was picking flowers. That's not usually something a bad person does.”

Trott looked a bit uncomfortable. “Well, what should we do? We should still play it safe, I think.”

Smiffy nodded. “I think I have an idea...”

XXX

It had taken all night, but they came up with a solid plan to capture the Ghost. Smiffy spent almost the whole night building what they needed. Trott and Ross tried to convince him to rest, since he would be doing most of the work. After a while, he agreed, and the other two took over building the rest of the machines.

The next morning, they set everything up. Ross located the most commonly used jump scar left by the Ghost – this one would be the easiest to open. He and Trott set up the machines around the jump scar. They knew they would work, mainly because these were the same machines the others used to capture and destroy Strawfingers.

They set up the machines to trigger as soon as Trott hit the button. Ross stood on the other side, ready with his magic in case something went wrong. He covered his hands in sharp shards of marble, ready for a fight if it came to it.

“Are you ready Smith?” asked Trott nervously. He glanced down at the medical bag next to his feet. He had everything he needed for the aftermath of what his friend was about to do.

Slowly, Smiffy stepped forward. He looked nervous. “Yeah, I'm ready...”

“You don't have to do this,” said Ross, his glowing blue eyes wide with concern.

Smiffy shook his head. “We need to figure this out, and unless you want to wait for this Ghost to teleport in and miss the trap, I need to do this.”

Ross nodded and readied his magic.

His legs shaking, Smiffy stood in front of the machines, facing the jump scar. He glanced at Trott, who nodded. They were all ready.

Slowly, Smiffy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The sounds around him faded, and the scar on his back began to burn. The air around him started to crackle with electricity, and he could taste blood.

When he opened his eyes again, they were glowing red.

He raised his hand, and black Void magic swirled around it. The jump scar became active, and there was a sharp flash of light as Smiffy forced the Ghost to teleport in.

With a small scream, Trott pressed the button and activated the trap. There was a bright light, and they all stood back and stared at the shadow with glowing white eyes that was hovering a foot off the ground, shaking with fear as it was held in place by the trap.

Smiffy stepped back, his eyes returning to normal. Suddenly, he doubled over and coughed, spraying blood out of his mouth. Trott ran over to him and caught him as he fell, weak from using the dangerous Void magic. He dragged Smiffy away from the Ghost, and Ross came around to stand in front of it.

“Who are you?” asked Ross. “And what do you want with us?”

The Ghost looked around, clearly terrified. It was visibly shaking.

Seeing this, Ross took a small step back and let the marble melt away from his hands. His eyes returned to normal.

“It's okay, we're not going to hurt you,” said Ross, his voice softer. “You wrote that message on the wall, right?”

Slowly, the Ghost nodded. It looked less nervous.

“We can help you. Can you speak? Can you tell us who you are?”

Again, the Ghost slowly nodded. Then in a shaky voice, it started to speak.

“S-sorry... I haven't spoken in so long... My voice sounds different...” it said quietly.

“Why do you need help?” asked Trott, looking up from his half conscious friend.

The Ghost shook his head. “I... don't need help... I'm trying to help you...”

“Why do we need help?” asked Ross.

“There's a spirit from the Void hunting you. I was trapped there too... in the Void. He escaped and opened the way for me to follow.”

Ross and Trott glanced at each other. Was Void still out there somewhere?

“I'm a ghost,” said the shadow, “stuck between these worlds and the Void.”

“Why do you want to help us?” asked Ross.

“Void... he's the reason I died... He brought the Scarecrow to life and made it attack while he drew Ridge away...”

“W-what are you talking about...?” asked Ross, suddenly feeling nervous.

The Ghost tilted it's head to the side. It looked sad. Then the shadows shifted away from it's body and revealed it's true identity.

It was Xephos.

Chapter 5: A Beautiful Night

Chapter Text

Nobody said anything. For a minute, everything was silent.

Xephos waited quietly, looking sad. All the others could do was stare. Even Smiffy, who was still coughing up blood, sat fully upright at this shocking reveal.

He looked different. His hair was black as ink, his skin was a sickly mix between gray and blue, and his eyes had changed. They were now completely black with glowing white pupils. His clothes were torn, and there were ice crystals covering his whole body.

Ross was the first to recover from the shock. “How is this possible...?” he whispered.

The Ghost looked down at his feet. “I don't... really know how it works...” he muttered. “I was... killed by Void flux... and because of that... my... my soul was... trapped in the Void...” He still seemed to be remembering how to speak.

“I didn't know that could happen...” said Smiffy from his position on the ground. His voice was still weak.

The Ghost looked at Smiffy. “You... know a lot about Void magic...?”

Smiffy narrowed his eyes a bit. “I guess I do...”

Xephos nodded a bit and stared at him for an uncomfortably long time before turning back to Ross.

“You're being hunted...” he said, sounding nervous.

“By Void?” asked Trott, standing up. He still stayed right next to Smiffy in case he crashed.

Xephos nodded. “But... it's not you he really wants...”

“What do you mean?” asked Ross.

“He's trying to... get to the demigod... through you,” explained Xephos with some difficulty.

“Which demigod?” asked Smiffy. “There's a lot of them now.”

Xephos grimaced. “The Void is especially good at taking away names... I didn't remember my own name... until I saw my tombstone...”

Smiffy went pale, but nobody seemed to notice.

“He's after the really tall one...” continued Xephos. “The air spirit with three hearts.”

“Ridge?” asked Trott.

The Ghost nodded. “Ridge... He's after Ridge...”

“Why?” asked Ross.

Xephos shook his head a bit. “I can't... really remember. I think they were friends or brothers... R-Ridge banished him... He wants revenge... He wants his power back.”

“Who is it though?” asked Smiffy, his voice gaining urgency. “Who is Void?”

Xephos winced. “The Void takes away names...” he repeated.

“Then what did he look like?” asked Trott. “If you knew who he was before he became Void, you can still remember that, right?”

The Ghost closed his eyes. “Barely...” he muttered. “I remember... pale skin, and... glowing red eyes... He brought so much destruction... so much pain... And... that awful smile... It was like smiling at a Creeper...”

The trio were completely silent. They glanced back and forth at each other before slowly turning back to the Ghost.

“Xephos...” said Trott quietly. “Is it possible... that the name you're trying to remember is Israphel...?”

Slowly, the Ghost nodded. “That was his name...”

They were quiet. Then, after a second of debate, Ross stepped forward and switched off the machines holding the Ghost in place. He floated back to the ground, landing softly on his feet, and stepped forward.

“Thank you...” whispered Xephos. The shadows were starting to return and obscure his form again.

“What can we do to help?” asked Ross, taking a step away from the Ghost and standing next to his friends.

“Avoid any Void magic...” said Xephos. “And stay... stay inside at night. It's dangerous in the dark... especially since I don't know where Void is...”

“What do you mean you don't know where he is?” asked Smiffy.

“He hasn't returned to the Void in a long time...” said Xephos. “But he's out there... We're linked through the magic of the Void... I know he's still out there. Void spirits are always their most powerful at night, so as long as you stay inside when it's dark out, you should be safe...”

Suddenly, he glanced to the west. They followed his gaze and saw with a start that the sun was beginning to set.

“Uh oh...” muttered Xephos. They looked back at him and saw that the shadows had almost completely returned, and his form was starting to fade. “I can't stay in this world much longer... Be careful...”

Then he disappeared.

Trott stared at the spot where the Ghost had been before looking back at the setting sun.

“We should do what he said,” stammered Trott nervously.

Ross and Smiffy nodded; they were both starting to get nervous too. Trott ran and grabbed the valuable crystals out of the machines, and Ross picked up Smiffy, carrying him back to their base. For once, Smiffy didn't mind being carried. He was still weak from using Void magic, and he knew that if he stood he would fall flat on his face.

He was also worried about what the Ghost had said. He warned them to stay away from Void magic, yet Smiffy had been exposing himself to it a lot lately.

They reached their base and went inside, locking the door. Ross sealed it with a bit of magic before carrying Smiffy over to the stairs and gently setting him down.

“Thanks...” said Smiffy quietly. He could still taste blood, but at least he had stopped coughing it up.

“So...” said Trott suddenly, “there's something I don't understand.”

“What is it?” asked Ross, ignoring the opportunity to make a joke.

“I've heard a lot about what happened with Israphel,” he said. “But... the story always ends with him being killed by Xephos and Honeydew. Ridge was never in the picture. And you'd think Israphel being banished to the Void would be a major event, right?”

“So if he actually was banished by Ridge, then why would everybody lie about it?” asked Ross, catching on to what Trott was trying to say.

“You don't think Xephos was telling the truth?” asked Smiffy.

“I don't know,” said Trott, pacing. “He seemed like he was telling the truth, like he really thought he knew what he was talking about. But he couldn't remember Israphel's name. Void could be anybody who fits that description.”

“Yeah, but we don't know anybody else with pale skin and glowing red eyes and an evil smile who unleashed destruction on the world,” said Ross.

“We don't, but maybe Xephos did,” suggested Trott. “Maybe he only thought it was Israphel because I said the name.”

“So you don't think we can trust him?” asked Smiffy.

Trott shrugged. “I think he's trying to tell the truth, but he doesn't have his information right...”

Ross shook his head. “What must that be like? To be killed and then forced to wander the Void and the worlds as a ghost...?”

“I'd rather not find out...” muttered Smiffy.

“But he must be so confused,” said Trott. “I wonder if there's any way to help him...”

They all sighed in unison. Trott glanced out the large windows and saw that the sun had set and darkness had fallen, the only light outside coming from the moon.

That was when Ross suddenly doubled over and grimaced.

“Oh no...” he muttered, clutching his stomach, his voice cracking a bit.

“What- oh no...” gasped Trott.

In their panic, they had completely forgotten.

Tonight was a full moon.

Ross opened his mouth as if to speak, but he grimaced and let out a sharp scream before dropping to the ground, shaking and convulsing as the transformation began.

Trott ran over and grabbed Smiffy, pulling him to his feet. He was shaky, but he could at least stand.

“What do we do?” exclaimed Smiffy, keeping a death grip on Trott's shoulder.

“We can't force him outside, the door's sealed,” stammered Trott. “We have to get him to-”

Ross cut him off with a long, low howl as the Change ended. Then the werewolf slowly turned to face his friends.

Trott gulped. “Do you think you can walk...?” he whispered.

“No, but I think I can run...” replied Smiffy.

The wolf growled and charged at them, and they turned and ran downstairs into the large basem*nt. They rounded the corner and stood in front of the door to the rarely used but still functional panic room.

“How are we going to do this?” muttered Trott quickly. “I don't think he'll fall for-”

Smiffy knocked Trott to the ground just as the werewolf's claws passed through the air where his head had been seconds earlier.

“Stay back!” exclaimed Smiffy, holding out his wand and facing the werewolf. It snarled and growled, but when it tried to come closer, Smiffy shot lightning at its feet. The wolf roared in anger and distress and began to circle him.

“Smiffy...”

“Stay behind me, Trott,” said Smiffy quietly. He heard the walrus stand and fall in behind him, keeping pace as he and the werewolf circled each other.

He waited for the right moment. He had to time this perfectly.

For just a split second, the werewolf stood in front of the open panic room door. That's when Smiffy sprung into action. He lunged forward and shot lighting at the floor and the air around his lupine friend. The wolf howled and jumped back in fear, staggering back into the panic room. Then, using the lighting to force it further into the room, Smiffy stepped forward and slammed the door shut, locking it. The timer on the door automatically calibrated itself for sunrise.

Slowly, Smiffy lowered his wand. Then the adrenaline that was keeping him on his feet wore off, and he slumped against the wall, sliding to the floor. Trott was in front of him in an instant.

“Smith, are you okay? Are you injured?” he asked, taking his friend's temperature and pulse.

“I'm fine,” grumbled Smiffy, swatting his hand away. “That was terrifying...”

Trott shook his head. “That was actually really impressive, the way you got him in there,” he said, gesturing towards the locked door of the panic room. They could hear scratches, but that was about the only thing that made it through the sound proof room.

“Do you think he's gonna be okay?” asked Smiffy. “I mean... we haven't used the panic room in over a year. There's nothing in there for him to destroy...”

Trott's expression faltered, and before Smiffy could comprehend what was happening, Trott was suddenly curled up in a ball on the ground in front of him, loudly sobbing.

“I'm such an idiot, this was all my fault!” Trott shouted.

“C'mon Trott, you shouldn't-”

“I always track the moon cycle! I always prep the aftermath kit! And when we used the panic room I was the one who restocked it every month!” cried Trott. “I've been doing this for years now! I should have known tonight was a full moon...”

“Trott, it's okay,” exclaimed Smiffy, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder. “It was an accident. We were all freaking out about what the Ghost said, and it slipped our minds. Besides, nobody got hurt...”

“Except him...” muttered Trott, sitting up and staring at the door to the panic room. “There's nothing in there... He's gonna tear himself apart...”

Smiffy shook his head. “I thought he could control it...”

“We experimented with that,” admitted Trott. “The only time he had some semblance of control was when he forced a transformation. This one was involuntary.”

“What about that one time after my accident?” asked Smiffy. “You said he turned into an actual wolf and carried me out of the Void on his back.”

Trott nodded. “Yeah, but he stayed in that form for too long and used up a lot of energy. Apparently staying in true wolf form takes ten times as much energy as it does to transform normally. Also, we think the only reason that happened was because he forced a transformation while we were in the Void.”

Smiffy stared at the door, grateful that nobody had gotten mauled this time. He was also grateful that Ross couldn't use his demigod powers when he wolfed out.

“You should try and sleep,” said Trott after a few minutes of silence. “You used a lot of energy today...”

Smiffy nodded, but instead of attempting to stand and go to his room, he simply laid down on the floor outside the panic room and closed his eyes. He didn't want to be far away when Ross returned to normal.

Trott stared at his friend and shook his head. Then he went over to the spare room in his lab and grabbed a pillow and blankets from the bed. He returned to Smiffy, who was now asleep, and placed the pillow under his head, then threw the blankets over him.

Then, pulling out a chair and facing it towards the window, he sat and waited for sunrise.

XXX

By the time the sun began to rise a few hours later, Smiffy was awake and Trott had his aftermath kit prepared. They waited anxiously as the lock on the door came closer and closer to opening.

Finally, after what felt like a week, the sun rose and the lock on the door clicked open.

Trott flung the door open, but he and Smiffy were shocked at what they saw.

Blood splattered the scratched walls. There were patches of fur and puddles of blood dotted around the room. Smiffy glanced at the door frame and saw three teeth and a claw lodged into the wall.

Then they spotted Ross in the corner. He was curled up in a ball, facing away from them. There was a large pool of blood underneath him. Trott ran over to him to try and help him regain consciousness and to see where he was injured. Smiffy noticed that Ross was naked, the wolf having torn off the rest of his clothes, so he grabbed one of the blankets from the floor and covered him up with it.

As carefully as he could, Trott moved Ross onto his back so he could get a look at the injuries. He saw that Ross had ripped open the old scar on his stomach where he had been shot with a silver arrow. That one wasn't bleeding as much due to the location and shallowness of the cuts, so where did all the blood come from?

That was when Smiffy gasped, and Trott saw it.

Ross' left arm had been completely mangled between his elbow and wrist. Most of the skin was missing and bits of muscle and tendons were hanging off the shattered bone.

“Holy sh*t...” breathed Trott, feeling his blood run cold at the extent of the damage. “I... I don't know if I can fix this...”

“I have some potions that might help,” offered Smiffy quickly. “Want me to go get them?”

“In a minute,” said Trott as he searched through his medical bag for the largest piece of gauze pad he could find. He found one and wrapped the large sterile pad around Ross' entire forearm. “Can you hold this in place while I bandage it?”

Smiffy nodded and carefully held the gauze in place while Trott began to bandage. He started by wrapping the bandage around Ross' hand and working his way up his arm until he got to his elbow, where he tied the bandage off.

“How are you going to keep that from getting infected?” asked Smiffy as he carefully got his unconscious friend into an upright position.

“His werewolf and demigod blood should ward off any infection, but to be safe I'm going to start him on antibiotics,” said Trott as he pressed a smaller pad against the cuts on Ross' stomach. He started to wrap the bandage around his midsection.

“That doesn't look like it's going to heal...” muttered Smiffy, glancing at the already bloodstained bandages around his friend's arm.

“We'll give it a few days,” said Trott decisively. “He's a fast healer, so if it doesn't show signs of healing by then, we know it's not going to heal. And if that's the case, we'll...”

He paused and took a deep breath.

“... We'll have to amputate.”

Smiffy was silent, looking between Ross and Trott. After a few minutes, the walrus stood up.

“I'm going to go grab a wheelchair, and we can take him upstairs,” he said before leaving the room.

Smiffy sighed and looked at Ross. He was extremely pale, but there were dark circles under his eyes and his lips were tinged blue from the blood loss. Smiffy noticed that he had broken out into a cold sweat, so he pressed his hand against his forehead and found that – unsurprisingly – he had a fever. His breathing was labored and shaky, and his pulse, as confusing as it may be, was definitely weak.

This had probably been one of the worse full moons Ross had ever experienced.

A minute later, Trott returned with a wheelchair. Smiffy, who had greatly regained his strength after a good sleep, picked up his bleeding friend and carefully set him in the wheelchair. Then they brought him over to the elevator and went upstairs, leaving the bloody panic room behind.

XXX

It was late that night, but Ross still hadn't woken up.

Trott sat in a chair next to his bed, constantly checking the readouts on the machines and making sure the IV drip was flowing.

He sighed. What his friend really needed was a transfusion, but they didn't actually know any other humans nearby.

As Trott sat waiting for something to happen, he started to nod off. He hadn't slept at all the past two nights, so he was beyond exhausted. The only thing keeping him awake was guilt and caffeine, but even that wasn't enough.

Around midnight, Trott finally succumbed to sleep, slumping over in his chair and quietly snoring.

Because he fell asleep, he didn't see the perfectly black silhouette appear on the other side of Ross' bed. The shadow looked down at Ross, its gaze drifting down to his mutilated arm.

Slowly, the shadow reached out and gently placed a hand on Ross' injured arm. Even though he was unconscious, he still grimaced from the pain and shivered a bit from the cold the silhouette was emitting.

This didn't deter it. It took a deep breath, and black magic flecked with red began to swirl around its hand and Ross' arm.

This went on for several minutes before the silhouette stepped away. It checked its handiwork, nodded, and turned invisible before walking up the stairs and teleporting away.

Under the bandages, the bleeding stopped. The bone began to heal, and skin began to grow over the exposed muscle and tendons.

Within minutes, Ross' arm was mostly healed.

Chapter 6: Infected

Chapter Text

Trott woke with a start, nearly falling out of his chair. He hurriedly looked around and saw that the sun was rising. He sighed and shook his head. It had been 24 hours since he and Smiffy pulled Ross out of the panic room, but he still hadn't woken up yet.

Standing and stretching, Trott moved over to look at his friend. Ross was pale and shivering. His fever was still high, but at least it hadn't gone up during the night.

With a small sigh of worry, Trott turned his eyes to Ross' arm. The bandages were still bloodstained, and he could see that Ross' hand and elbow were bruised.

Carefully, Trott reached over and ran a finger along Ross' palm, testing to see if he still had feeling in his hand. Last night, he hadn't responded, but this time his hand twitched. Trott breathed a sigh of relief. It was a sign that he was healing. That he might not have to lose his arm.

Hopeful that Ross was healing, Trott started to gather clean bandages to replace the soiled ones on Ross' arm and stomach. As he was doing so, the door opened and Smiffy silently stepped into the room, carrying a few potions in his arms.

“He's not awake yet?” asked Smiffy quietly.

Trott shook his head. “No, but it looks like his arm is starting to heal.”

“Good,” said Smiffy with a sigh of relief. “Still, I brought these just in case.” He gestured to the bottles he was holding.

“Good thinking,” said Trott, kneeling down next to the bed and preparing to cut off the old bandages on Ross' arm. “It couldn't hurt to-”

He stopped when Ross shifted a bit and started coughing, looking like he was struggling to breathe. Trott jumped to his feet and Smiffy ran over to the bed; together, they carefully propped Ross upright so it would be easier for him to breathe.

After another minute of weak coughing, he stopped, even though it still sounded like he was having trouble breathing. After another few minutes, however, he started to blink his eyes open.

“Ross...?” asked Smiffy quietly, his hand on his friend's shoulder.

Ross let out a long, low groan before cracking his eyes open.

“Hey guys...” he whispered, his throat too raw to speak any louder. “W-what happened...?”

“Full moon,” said Trott, kneeling back down next to the bed and cautiously glancing at Ross' arm.

Ross' eyes widened and he glanced back and forth between his friends, his eyes scanning them for injuries. “I didn't b-... You guys are okay, right...?” he asked, trying to conceal his worry.

“Don't worry, neither of us were injured,” said Smiffy quietly. He knew that this situation was Ross' worst nightmare; the possibility of injuring or – worse – biting one of his friends was something that kept him awake at night.

Ross sighed, clearly relieved. However, when he sighed, he grimaced and glanced down at his midsection. The thin shirt he was wearing didn't conceal the bandages around his stomach.

“I uh... I ripped open the scar again, didn't I...?”

“Yeah,” said Trott cautiously, “but we're not really worried about that right now.”

“What are you... oh...” Ross finally noticed that his arm was heavily bandaged and bloodstained. “That... doesn't look good.”

“Well-” Before Trott could continue, however, Ross suddenly grimaced and got paler. Then he lurched to the side and vomited off the side of the bed. Smiffy barely managed to jump out of the way as an alarming amount of blood and other things spilled out of Ross' mouth. The fit ended a minute later and left Ross shuddering and coughing. Smiffy handed him a cup of water.

“S-sorry...” stammered Ross, shakily taking the cup and drinking, hoping to wash the taste of his own blood from his mouth.

“It's okay,” said Smiffy, taking care to step around the puddle of bloody sick. He was wearing socks, so the last thing he wanted to do was step in it.

Trott hesitated for a moment before putting a hand on Ross' shoulder. None of them wanted to look at the puddle on the floor, mainly because they all knew where the little chunks of flesh and bones and cloth had come from.

“So wha-... what happened t-to my arm...?” stammered Ross as he slowly forced himself to roll over and face Trott. “A-am I gonna lose it?”

The walrus shook his head. “Luckily, it looks like you're healing, so you will probably get to keep your arm,” he said. “So how does it feel? Are you in any more pain than normal?”

Ross paused for a minute. His entire body ached from the pain of the transformation, and he felt weak from the energy he had expended when he Changed. His throat was raw from the howling and the light burned his eyes and gave him a splitting migraine. He knew he had a high fever because of the familiar burning behind his eyes and the chills he was experiencing. His stomach hurt because he had just violently emptied it, but he was too nauseous from the pain and fever to keep anything except water down.

All of this was normal. He experienced these symptoms every month after the full moon. Usually there was a familiar pattern to this horror. An hour before the sun set, he would eat something, make sure the tracker implanted in his arm was working, and change into the least form fitting set of clothes he could find. Then his friends would wish him luck and he would jog out into the forest to transform.

He never really remembered what he did during the nights, but he would always wake up either in the forest or in his bed with his friends standing over him. It wasn't fun, but it was familiar. It was a stable pattern they had all fallen into. Usually his condition would have him bedridden for two or three days, but that was it. It was never a major inconvenience, and it was no longer as much of an emotional burden.

Until now. The last full moon had changed things. He knew that Trott and Smiffy had forgotten the brutality of the Change or the danger the wolf presented. They had forgotten the damage it could do, and now they were being forcefully reminded.

All of this went through Ross' mind before he realized he was getting distracted. Trott had asked him if he was in pain, so he focused on his newer injuries. He had torn open the scar he was left with after being shot with a silver arrow. This happened occasionally. The wolf could still feel the silver residue and would try and get it out. The wound hurt, but not much more than the rest of his body. He briefly realized it was bad that his entire body hurt as much as a gaping wound, but he pushed that thought out of his mind.

Then he focused on his arm.

Surprisingly, his arm didn't hurt. It felt cold and numb, like he had fallen asleep on it and lost circulation. He twitched his hand, and his fingers responded. So if there was no nerve damage, why could he not feel the pain he knew he should be feeling? The bandages were bloody and there were chunks of his arm in the pool of blood next to his bed. He knew he was badly injured and his arm should be in excruciating pain, but he couldn't feel anything. Why couldn't he feel anything?

“Ross?”

He snapped himself back into focus and realized that he had been silent for almost a full minute.

“Sorry, I zoned out,” he admitted. “Uh... I'm in the usual amount of pain. Still feel like sh*t.”

“What about your arm?” asked Trott.

“It's weird...” muttered Ross. “It's actually... numb. I can't really feel it...”

“Really?” asked Trott. “That's not good...”

“Maybe we should look at it...” suggested Smiffy.

“Wait...” mumbled Ross. “Wasn't... wasn't the tracker in this arm...?”

“It was...” said Smiffy quietly. Trott and Ross looked over at him and saw that he was looking at the puddle of vomit with a fresh look of horror.

Slowly, they both leaned over and looked at where Smiffy was pointing. The tracker was lodged into a chunk of flesh, partially dissolved from Ross' stomach acid.

“I think I'm going to be sick again...” whimpered Ross, quickly looking away from the remains.

Trott shook his head a bit. “Look... I need to change your bandages. Want me to sedate you first?”

Ross gulped but shook his head. “No, it's... it's fine.”

“Okay, just let me know if you want me to knock you out,” said Trott with a gentle smile.

He picked up his scissors and carefully began to cut away at the bandage. Ross closed his eyes, preparing himself for the worst. He opened his eyes again when he heard Trott and Smiffy gasp.

He expected to see his arm bloody and mutilated. He didn't expect to see it healed. All of the skin and flesh had grown back, and even though his arm was heavily bruised, it looked fine.

“What... the f*ck...?” muttered Trott, staring at Ross' arm.

“Well... I guess I always was a fast healer...” mumbled Ross.

“Yeah, but you didn't see how bad it was last night,” exclaimed Trott. “I mean... the rest of your arm should be in that puddle on the floor, not back to normal... How did that happen so fast?”

“Maybe-”

He stopped when Smiffy suddenly walked around to the other side of the bed and picked up his arm. He gave a small yelp, more out of shock than pain, and watched as Smiffy stared at his healed arm.

“What is it?” asked Trott, taking a small step away from his green friend.

Smiffy didn't answer. He simply stared intently at Ross' arm for a few more seconds. Then he turned and suddenly stormed out of the room.

“The hell is wrong with him?” asked Ross.

“No idea...” muttered Trott.

Ross looked back down at his arm. He lifted it up and moved it around, trying to get warmth and feeling back into it. The strangest thing was that he had warmth and feeling in his hand and the rest of his arm, just not in the bruised area.

“So... what's going to happen?” asked Ross. “Am I going to get to keep my arm?”

Trott nodded. “It looks like the bruising should go away. Give it a day or two and you'll be back to normal.” He sounded extremely relieved.

“Good...” muttered Ross with a yawn. The conversation and everything that had happened during it had drained him of what little energy he had acquired. Trott could see this, so he smiled and laid a cool cloth over Ross' forehead.

“Go back to sleep,” he said quietly. “I'll handle it from here.”

Ross smiled and shuffled back down into a comfortable position. He grimaced at the ache in his stomach and bones, but after a minute, he found a good position that didn't hurt. Then he was fast asleep.

Trott stepped back and breathed a sigh of relief. Ross was going to be okay.

“Now, to deal with the mess...” he muttered to himself, stepping out of the room to grab a few buckets and sponges. He put on a pair of gloves and went back to clean up the vomit next to the bed.

As he was cleaning – quietly so as not to wake Ross – he noticed something. Hidden under a strip of skin and covered in drying blood was something small and oddly shaped. He picked it up and rinsed it off, finding that it was a tiny, golden key. Next to it was a broken chain. Ross must have been wearing it when he transformed. But why was he wearing a small key?

After waiting for a minute to make sure Ross really was asleep, Trott's curiosity got the better of him. He crept out of the room and then proceeded to explore the entire building, trying the small key on any of the locks he found. However, the key was too small to open any of them, and after a while, he gave up.

He returned to Ross' room and placed the key on his bedside table before cleaning up the rest of the mess. He put the small key out of his mind, passing it off as a trinket. He wasn't sure why Ross had it or where it was from, but he decided it was none of his business.

XXX

Smiffy stormed out the front door and over to the gate. The Ghost stood there, as if it were expecting him.

“What did you do?” he growled, glaring at the Ghost.

“What do you mean?” asked the Ghost, looking taken aback.

“You healed Ross' arm with Void magic!” shouted Smiffy. “What the hell were you thinking?”

The Ghost looked shocked. “I... uh...”

“I know it was you,” growled Smiffy, stepping closer to the frightened silhouette. “I scanned his arm and it was full of Void magic. You and I are the only ones that can actually use it, so don't try and lie to me.”

The Ghost gulped. “I just... wanted to help... He would have lost his arm if I didn't-”

“DIDN'T YOU SAY TO STAY AWAY FROM VOID MAGIC?!” Smiffy screamed. “We would have found a way to heal his arm on our own!”

He stopped and turned around, his hands shaking with rage. He tried to take a deep breath and calm himself down, but it didn't last.

“I'm trying to protect you,” said the Ghost.

This set Smiffy off. He whipped around and stormed over to the Ghost, their faces inches apart.

“Listen to me you little sh*t, all of this is your fault!” he screamed. “You made us stay inside, so it's your fault that Ross hurt himself when he transformed, and you've been causing so much trouble for us! Everything was fine until you showed up! We didn't have any problems, we had no need to use Void magic or seal ourselves inside every night, and nothing was even hunting us! I don't see Void out here trying to kill me. I think he's gone and you're making everything up for some self centered reason. You're just trying to benefit yourself, you parasite!”

By this time the Ghost was trembling in fear, and Smiffy was right on top of him, his eyes full of fury.

“You don't belong here!” Smiffy continued. “You're making everything worse, you're making everyone paranoid, and now you've f*cked up Ross' arm! I don't even know what's going to happen to him because of what you did but I know I can't fix it! We don't need your help and we don't need you, so go haunt someone else!”

Smiffy took a step back and took a deep breath.

“And if I ever see you here again,” he said, his voice now dangerously quiet, “I'll send you back to the Void myself.”

Then he turned around and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.

The Ghost stood there, shocked and silent.

Then a small, menacing smile appeared on his face. For just a second, his eyes flickered red. Then he turned and disappeared.

Chapter 7: The Dark Moon

Chapter Text

Ross woke up the next morning feeling much better. He tiredly glanced around, seeing that he was alone in his room. He also noticed the tiny gold key sitting on his bedside table, so he reached over and picked it up. It looked fine. He hadn't damaged it during the full moon. He would need a new chain for it though.

With a sigh, he set the key back down and stretched, still sore but not in pain.

Then he saw it, and he froze. He stared at it for a moment, not really comprehending what he was seeing. Then he started to panic. His hearts started racing and his breathing accelerated.

“Trott...?” he choked out. He slowly sat up. “Trott!” This time he managed to yell.

He thought he heard someone coming but he couldn't help himself. “TROTT!” he screamed, his voice cracking with panic.

A few seconds later, Trott burst through the door, breathing heavily.

“What is it?” he exclaimed. “What's wrong? What happened?”

Then he saw what was wrong.

“Oh sh*t...” he muttered, quickly moving to Ross' bedside. “I... uh... SMITH!”

Smiffy ran into the room a minute later. “What's with all the screaming?”

Trott and Ross could only frantically point at the problem. When Smiffy saw it, he went pale and hastily ran over to his friends.

Carefully, he took Ross' arm and held it up, examining it closer. His arm between his wrist and elbow was perfectly black where there had been bruises yesterday. There were small red and white specks dotting the black areas like stars. Smiffy could feel the cold his arm was emitting.

Because Smiffy was so focused on Ross' arm, it took him a minute to realize that Trott and Ross were both freaking out.

“I know what you're thinking, and this isn't gangrene or a new type of necrosis,” Smiffy stated quietly.

Trott and Ross went quiet.

“What do you mean?” asked Trott.

“You know what this is?” stammered Ross.

Slowly, Smiffy nodded. “The reason your arm healed so fast is because the Ghost healed it using Void magic. And this... this is a side effect. Void magic residue.”

Smiffy stood upright and took a step back. His face was stony, but behind the mask his friends could clearly see him trying to control his rage.

“Your arm is infected with Void magic,” Smiffy continued. “It'll stay on your arm for now, but it may eventually spread. And if it spreads to your hearts, it'll kill you. And it's even worse because you're a werewolf.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Ross, seeming to have calmed down a bit.

“Void magic and lycanthropy don't exactly work well together,” explained Smiffy. “I mean... I doubt this reaction would have happened if you weren't a werewolf. Not that I'm blaming you, of course.”

Ross rolled his eyes, but Trott stepped up.

“How do you know all this?” he asked.

Smiffy grimaced a bit. “When I was... well... possessed... a few bits of knowledge leaked through. For some reason, Void knew a lot about lycanthropy, so I got a few pieces of that knowledge. That's how I know Void magic and lycanthropy don't mix. Also, remember when we teleported through the Void and you almost froze to death?”

Ross nodded. “Yeah, I forgot about that... but...” He held up his arm helplessly. “What am I supposed to do about this?”

Smiffy sighed. “Just keep an eye on it, I guess. And don't use any Void magic, because that'll cause it to spread.”

Ross relaxed a bit, relieved that he didn't know how to do any Void magic.

“Okay,” said Trott, picking up some gauze, “let me just bandage this so you don't have to look at it.”

“Good idea...” muttered Ross, glancing uneasily at his arm. It still felt numb and cold.

“Well, other than that... how do you feel?” asked Trott.

“Better,” said Ross. “Almost back to normal.”

Trott checked his vitals. “Well, your fever is gone, pulse and blood pressure look good... You can come back to work if you want to.”

Ross smiled and nodded, climbing out of bed and stretching a bit before searching for clean clothes. Trott and Smiffy left him to his business and returned to their work.

Trott went back downstairs to his lab, and Smiffy went upstairs to his workshop.

Then, after making sure Ross and Trott weren't within earshot, Smiffy turned and punched the wall. He never should have trusted that damn ghost. He didn't care if it used to be Xephos, he just cared that he put Ross' life in danger again.

With a small sigh, Smiffy healed the broken bone in his hand and went back to work. However, he couldn't focus on his work. He kept getting distracted thinking about Ross.

“We wouldn't be having this problem if he wasn't a werewolf...” muttered Smiffy, glaring at the book he was flipping through.

Then he had an idea. Glancing out the window, he saw Ross and Trott outside trying to repair a section of the wall that had been blown up by a Creeper. Using this distraction, Smiffy zapped down to the basem*nt. He grabbed a small metal tray from Trott's lab before heading to the panic room.

Trott had cleaned up all of the blood and fur and viscera, but he saw what he was looking for. There were still three teeth and a claw lodged into the wall next to the door.

It took a couple minutes, but Smiffy managed to pull the teeth out of the wall, only cutting his hand a few times on the sharp edges. The claw was lodged too deep for him to remove it with his bare hands, so he ran back to Trott's lab and snatched a scalpel, using that to dig the claw out of the wall. It took him another few minutes and some swearing, but he finally got everything that he needed.

Smiling grimly, he took the teeth and claw back up to his workshop.

XXX

Smiffy lost track of the days while he experimented with the teeth, looking for a cure. Nothing very interesting had happened in those days. Everything seemed to go back to normal; none of them had seen the Ghost since Smiffy threatened him.

With a sigh, Smiffy leaned back in his chair, tired from the late nights he spent experimenting on the teeth. It turned out the claw was useless to him. He adjusted his goggles; he had been wearing them for so long they were giving him a headache.

He still hadn't made any progress on a cure for lycanthropy, and he was pissed about it.

Just as he was trying to figure out what to do next, he heard the elevator activate behind him. Tilting his head back in his chair, he saw Trott and Ross stepping out of the elevator and walking towards him.

“What's going on?” asked Smiffy.

“This is an intervention,” said Ross.

“Smith, you haven't eaten in two days,” said Trott, staring at his green upside down friend.

“Has it really been two days?” asked Smiffy. He really had lost track of time during his research.

“Yeah, and I haven't seen you sleep in three days,” added Ross.

“That... might explain why I'm really tired,” said Smiffy with a shrug. He sat upright and turned around to face his friends.

“We just... wanted to know what you were up to,” said Trott, glancing at Smiffy's cluttered desk.

Smiffy glanced at the ground, feeling a bit embarrassed. “I was uh... trying to find a cure for lycanthropy...” he muttered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ross smile kindly. “That's really nice that you want to help, mate.”

“Yeah, why didn't you tell us that's what you were doing?” asked Trott. “We could have helped.”

Smiffy looked up at his friends. “Seriously?” he asked.

Trott nodded. “You could have used my lab if you wanted, and we've already done some experiments that could probably help. By the way, what are you using to experiment?”

Smiffy pointed to the teeth on his desk.

“Where the f*ck did you get those?” asked Ross, picking one of his teeth up and examining it. “These are really sharp...”

“I pulled them out of the wall of the panic room,” explained Smiffy with a small shrug.

Ross gave a small chuckle and put the tooth back down. “Y'know, you really don't have to do this.” He held up his arm, which was still bandaged due to how creepy it looked. “I mean... the infection isn't spreading, and we haven't seen the Ghost in a while or detected any Void magic nearby... Actually, it'll probably be safe for me to go outside during the next full moon, so we won't have to use the panic room.”

“Well, I still want to help,” Smiffy admitted. “It's not exactly fun seeing how miserable you are after a full moon...”

“Well we are halfway to the next full moon already,” said Trott jokingly. “You-”

“Wait, really?” interrupted Smiffy. “That means there's a new moon tonight, right?”

Trott and Ross nodded.

A slightly manic smile appeared on Smiffy's face. “If you wanted, we could go outside tonight and see if the Ghost was telling the truth about the darkness being dangerous.”

Trott flinched and looked like he was about to give Smiffy a lecture about why that was a bad idea and why they should stay inside and play it safe, but Ross spoke first.

“Sounds like a good idea,” he said with a shrug. Trott whipped around and glared at him. “I mean, we need to know if it's safe out there to determine if we'll need to use the panic room or not.”

Trott stammered for a moment before sighing, looking defeated. “Okay, fine,” he said. “We'll go outside tonight. But we'll bring swords, armor, potions, and whatever else we need to defend ourselves. We should raid the nearby village for more food.”

Smiffy smiled. “Perfect!” he exclaimed, shakily standing up. “Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a nap before we leave tonight. I'm exhausted.”

XXX

The night was dark, but warm. There weren't any clouds, so the stars were free to shine brightly. The melodic sound of chirping crickets filled the air.

“Okay, so this turned out to be a nice night,” admitted Trott as he walked alongside his friends. He held up a small hand-held device and looked at the screen. “And it looks like the only Void magic within miles is coming from you, Ross.”

Ross chuckled and stuck his cold arm against Trott's face, resulting in a small scream from the walrus and a fit of laughter from Smiffy.

“I f*cking hate you two...” muttered Trott, giving Ross a swift jab in the side.

They made it to the village a few minutes later. Naturally, all the villagers were asleep.

“Okay, remember the plan,” whispered Trott. “Stay low, stay quiet, and-”

“And don't wake up the iron golem,” finished Smiffy, pointing towards the lumbering silhouette, which was standing still and upright in the center of the village, its eyes dark.

“Meet back here in ten minutes with all the supplies you can find,” whispered Ross. “Okay, go!”

They snuck around the village as quietly as possible. Trott stayed outside, gathering all the crops, while Smiffy and Ross crept into the houses, looting through the chests and stealing whatever seemed valuable. Ross had fun rummaging through the pockets of the sleeping villagers and drawing on them while Smiffy would occasionally take some of their blood.

They made sure not to kill any of them – they would save that for when they're in a bad mood. Plus Ross had recently culled most of the population with a hammer during a fit of rage, so they needed to wait for the population to rebuild itself.

After they got everything they needed, they returned to the edge of the village.

“Did you wake anybody?” asked Trott hastily as he filled his inventory with potatoes and carrots and wheat.

Ross and Smiffy shook their heads, smiling giddily.

“I love doing this...” muttered Ross happily. “We should steal from these guys more often.”

“Alright, I'm glad you had fun, but we have a slight issue,” said Trott. “We're on the wrong side of the village, and the fastest way home is that way.” He pointed towards the dormant iron golem.

“This will be fun,” muttered Smiffy, rubbing his hands together. “Can we draw on him when we sneak past?”

“Sure, let's just go.”

Staying close together, they snuck towards the iron golem, knowing that the slightest noise would wake it up and set it off.

Just as they were walking past the sleeping giant, a pane of glass fell out of a nearby window and shattered loudly on the ground.

They froze, but the golem didn't. It creaked to life, it's dark eyes now glowing red. It grabbed the nearest thing to it, which happened to be Smiffy. It lifted him off the ground and started shaking him.

“AH GUYS DO SOMETHING!” he screamed.

In a panic, Ross used a bit of magic to set a nearby building on fire. The golem dropped Smiffy and ran into the building to save the inhabitants, and they ran for it, only stopping when they were halfway home.

“Well...” muttered Trott, doubled over and catching his breath, “that was an adventure...”

Smiffy laughed. “I can't... believe that actually happened.”

“Yeah, how did the window fall out like that?” asked Ross, shaking his head. “And what are the odds it would fall out right when we're trying to be sneaky?”

“Yeah... what are the odds...?” muttered Smiffy, glancing suspiciously back at the village.

“Anyways, we should probably get b- AH!” Trott screamed as an arrow sunk into his shoulder.

They whipped around and saw that in their panic, they had run right into a horde of zombies and skeletons.

“Oh sh*t...” muttered Smiffy.

Another arrow flew through the air, and Smiffy jumped in front of Trott, putting up a quick magic shield to protect them against the projectiles. Ross raised his hand, his eyes flashed teal for a second, and the ground beneath the skeletons cracked open, swallowing the skeletons and then crushing them.

“Stay back,” Smiffy said to Trott, lowering the shield and raising his wand, shooting fireballs at the advancing zombies. Trott was slightly too panicked from the fact that there was an arrow in his arm to say anything, so he just nodded.

Ross ran head first into the hoard of zombies. He wasn't afraid of being bitten – he and Trott knew from experimenting that the lycanthropy virus was easily able to destroy the zombie virus. He pulled blocks of stone out of the ground and flung them at the nearest mob, but there were too many of them. He pulled out his sword and cut down a handful, but it seemed that as soon as he killed one, two more would take its place.

“Where are all these assholes coming from?” Smiffy shouted.

“Hold on,” Ross responded. He flew up into the air, hovering over the heads of the zombies. Looking around, he saw a small cave nearby with zombies pouring out of it. “There might be a spawner in there! I'll be right back!”

Ross flew over to the cave and ducked inside. Sure enough, there was a spawner. Knowing he didn't have time to summon a pickaxe, he did a bit of magic to make his sword glow as bright as the sun. Then he jammed it into the bars, halting the spawning process. Now he knew where the spawner was in case he wanted to come back and study it.

He ran back out of the cave but jumped in fear when he saw that the zombies were almost completely surrounding Smiffy and Trott.

Because his sword was stopping the spawner, he didn't have a weapon. So he covered his hands in sharp marble and ran for the horde, ready to punch the sh*t out of them.

And then he looked down at what he had actually summoned.

The marble covering his right hand was the usual pearly white, but the marble covering his left hand was smoky and dark.

The sight of this sent him into a complete panic, and in that panic, he accidentally triggered a power he didn't know he had.

All of the zombies, along with Smiffy, Trott, and Ross, all started to float.

Ross had accidentally turned off the gravity.

Now that the zombies were floating and confused and not all moving around, Smiffy had very clear shots. He burned half of them alive and shot the other half out of the air with his bow.

As soon as Ross realized that all the zombies were dead, he found the bit of magic that was keeping the gravity from functioning and canceled it. He, his friends, and about fifty zombies all fell back to the ground.

Ross shakily sat up, quickly getting rid of the black marble covering his hand. A second later, Smiffy was in front of him.

“Did you do that?” he asked, helping him up.

Ross gave a quick nod. He felt his nose bleeding. “I didn't... know I could do that...”

Smiffy shook his head a bit and went back over to Trott.

“Okay, what do we do about this?” he asked, pointing to the arrow in Trott's shoulder.

Trott took a shaky breath. “Well... you should p-probably pull it out... but carefully... and then give me one of those healing potions we were smart enough to bring...”

Smiffy nodded and carefully pulled the arrow out of Trott's arm. Luckily, it was just a stone arrow, so it wasn't barbed, and it came right out. Trott did a lot of screaming.

“Calm down you big baby, it's not that bad,” chuckled Smiffy as he poured the potion into the wound, which quickly closed. “There ya go.”

“There's blood all over my lab coat!” exclaimed Trott, standing up and looking forlornly at his arm. “I'll have to sew this up...”

Ross laughed a bit, trying to look calm although his heart was still racing from the shock of seeing the black marble. “We uh... we should get back home before anything else weird and bad happens.”

Smiffy and Trott nodded, and they ran back home, not stopping until they were inside the marble towers.

Then they started to laugh. The spent a long time laughing at the absurdity of the night they had just experienced. They laughed because, even though there had been some close calls, they all ended up okay.

If they had known that this was the last time they would be happily laughing together over a misadventure, they would have made it last longer.

Chapter 8: Phantom Bite

Chapter Text

When Smiffy woke up the morning after their misadventure, he didn't feel very good. He sat up in bed and grimaced at the headache pounding behind his skull. He felt tired and nauseous, but he told himself that it was nothing to worry about and probably caused by the lack of sleep he had gotten the night before. They had been out late after all.

Certain that the reason he wasn't feeling well was because of sleep deprivation, he slept for another hour before going back to work. Trott and Ross made a few comments, saying it was a good thing he slept in and that he should probably do that more often, that he overworks himself too much and needs a break every once in a while.

His nausea and fatigue went away for a while, but the headache remained. He took some pain pills, but because he hadn't felt well enough to eat anything earlier, he had an empty stomach and the pills didn't stay down.

After several hours, he figured out that the bright sunlight outside was making the pain worse, so he wore his tinted goggles, which diminished the pain. He went back to work after this, trying to remind himself to drink water whenever he could handle it.

The next day, the headache was still there, and the nausea was more intense. His body was lethargic, but his mind was still alert and active. He returned to his search for a cure for lycanthropy. He knew the full moon would be here soon, and he was afraid of what would happen to Ross if he transformed while infected with Void magic, so he pushed through the pain and kept working.

That night, he couldn't sleep. His mind was active and full of ideas, and if his body wasn't so tired, he would have gotten out of bed and gone back to work. But he stayed in bed, weighed down by the heaviness of his limbs until he managed to drift off to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.

When he woke up the next morning and was blinded by the pain in his head, he thought about telling Trott. However, he knew if he did that, Trott would put him on bed rest and he wouldn't be able to work on the cure. He knew Ross would insist that he didn't need a cure, but none of them knew what the full moon might bring.

When he tried to get up to go back to work, there was a sharp pain in his back that immobilized him. He sighed in frustration. It was another bad day.

Knowing that he would be unable to move, he picked up his headset and told Trott and Ross that his back was hurting him again and he wouldn't be able to help with anything today. Trott came to check on him and offered to bring him pain medicine, but Smiffy admitted that he didn't feel well enough to eat, so any medicine would just make him feel worse.

He spent that whole day in bed, and when he woke up the next morning, he felt a bit better. However, when he tried to get up, he was stopped short by a deep pain in his abdomen. He loudly swore without realizing that his headset was still on. The next thing he knew, Trott was standing in his doorway.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

Smiffy sighed, feeling tired already. “Nothing...” he muttered.

Trott frowned. “I'm... I'm a bit concerned about you,” he said carefully. “I noticed you haven't been eating, and it looked like you had a pretty bad headache the other day.”

For a brief moment, Smiffy thought about lying, but he was too tired. “Yeah, I haven't really felt well all week. At first I thought it was because I was sleep deprived, but now I'm starting to think I picked up a virus or something.”

Trott nodded. “It's possible... You weren't sleeping so your immune system was weakened...” He stepped forward and put his hand on Smiffy's forehead. “You feel a bit warm... Wait here, I'll be right back.”

Trott left the room and came back a few minutes later with a few small bottles of medicine and a mug with steaming liquid in it.

“You can't eat because you're nauseous, right?” asked Trott. Smiffy nodded in response. “Okay, well drink this. It's tea that'll help with nausea so you can eat something and take medicine without feeling sick.”

Smiffy did as he was told and drank and ate whatever Trott put in front of him. Sure enough, he felt almost back to normal within an hour. Trott told him to take it easy and then left him to his own devices.

After taking another hour to rest, he went back to work.

XXX

Trott sat at his desk, staring at the small device in his hands and inspecting it for flaws.

“Okay, it looks good,” he said to Ross, looking up at his friend.

“We should probably put this one in my other arm,” said Ross quietly, glancing at his bandaged left arm. He was too scared to take the bandages off for too long, especially since he hadn't told the others what happened when he tried to summon marble.

“Well, if you're going to go outside during the full moon next week, you probably won't be inclined to rip this out again,” laughed Trott, looking at the tiny tracker. It had taken him a long time to rebuild it.

Ross sighed and rolled up his sleeve. “Okay, let's get this over with.”

Trott nodded and looked around, but he was unable to find his injector.

“Oh, wait...” he muttered, “I left the injector upstairs in Smith's lab...”

“Why'd you leave it up there?” asked Ross, quickly pushing his sleeve back down.

“It's in my medical bag, and I left that upstairs when I was checking on him a few days ago,” explained Trott, hopping down from his chair and heading for the elevator. Ross followed him.

They both zapped up to Smiffy's lab and found him at his desk, where he had fallen asleep. Trott grabbed his medical bag from the side of the room, and Ross went over to Smiffy, gently waking him up.

“Wha- what...?” muttered Smiffy tiredly, sitting up and looking around. He looked out the window and groaned, seeing that the sun was close to setting. “I uh... I feel asleep at noon...”

“How do you feel, mate?” asked Ross.

“I'm fine,” he muttered tiredly. “I just-”

Suddenly he doubled over, grimacing in pain. He opened his mouth to say something but instead gave a sharp cough and spit black blood out of his mouth.

“Smith!” exclaimed Ross.

“It's fine...” choked out Smiffy. “I'm sure it's fine... I- AH!”

Smiffy fell out of his chair, and Ross caught him and picked him up. He and Trott quickly carried Smiffy back into his room, and they managed to get him back into his bed before the seizure started.

He started violently shaking, grimacing as his limbs twitched and his whole body was wracked with pain.

“Ross, keep an eye on him, I'll be right back,” stammered Trott before turning and running out the door.

Ross turned back to his twitching friend. Smiffy's eyes were closed and his face was contorted in a grimace. His breathing was labored and he was clearly in extreme pain.

Taking a deep breath, Ross reached forward and carefully put his hand on Smiffy's arm, nervous about trying this new bit of magic. His hand and eyes flickered blue, and then an ache appeared in his hand and spread up his arm and into his chest. However, Smiffy started to relax and the convulsions died down.

As soon as the seizure stopped, Ross quickly moved Smiffy onto his side. Smiffy was still for a minute before slowly opening his eyes, looking dazed.

“Smith...?” asked Ross quietly. “Are you okay...?”

He just groaned and pressed his face into his pillow.

“W-what did you do...?” muttered Smiffy after a moment.

Ross glanced at his hands. “I used magic to... take your pain, I guess. I've never done it before but I figured if I did it wrong it wouldn't hurt you.”

Smiffy glanced up at him. “Where'd you learn that...?”

Ross just shrugged. “I figure new stuff out on my own every day...”

Smiffy smiled a bit and closed his eyes again, exhausted from the seizure.

A few minutes later, Trott came running back into the room, dragging armfuls of medical equipment with him. However, he stopped and relaxed when he saw that the seizure had stopped.

“I don't know why I keep bringing this stuff back downstairs,” muttered Trott, setting his equipment down. He knelt down next to Smiffy.

“Let me... save you the time...” muttered Smiffy, not opening his eyes. “I feel like sh*t.”

“Actually I was going to ask you to hold out your arm so I can draw a bit of blood and see what just caused that,” said Trott, his voice carrying a hint of salt.

“Pretty sure it was his fever,” said Ross, putting his hand on Smiffy's forehead.

“Well, I want to see what's causing the fever,” said Trott, taking out a needle.

Smiffy groaned and held out his arm, and Trott drew a bit of blood. He brought the vial over to one of the machines he brought with him.

“What do you think it is?” asked Ross as Trott started the machine.

“Not sure,” said Trott, turning back to his friends. “I mean... we know you're prone to seizures, since-”

“Wait, what?” interrupted Smiffy, attempting to prop himself upright. “When did I... when has this happened before?”

“I'm not surprised you don't remember it,” said Trott, pulling up a chair and sitting next to Ross. “A few years ago you caught something and got really sick. You were hallucinating and had a bad fever, and then you started having seizures.”

“It was pretty scary,” added Ross. “I mean... you almost died, and it took you weeks to get better.”

Smiffy grimaced a bit and laid back down. “Okay... I'm glad I don't remember this now...” he muttered.

Trott nodded a bit and stood up, going back over to his medicine bag. He came back with a small syringe.

“This is pain medicine, if you want it.” Smiffy nodded and held out his arm, and Trott stuck him with the needle.

“Thanks...” muttered Smiffy, closing his eyes and pressing his face into his pillow. He fell asleep a few minutes later.

Ross glanced at Trott. “How long before you know what's wrong?”

Trott glanced over his shoulder at the small machine. “Uh... a few more minutes. I tired to speed that thing up since last time I used it it was really slow, and you two usually end up poisoning yourselves.”

“Well it's not like-”

He was cut off when Smiffy suddenly shook himself awake and started coughing up more black blood.

“What the hell...?” muttered Smiffy staring at the blood he had coughed up. “Why does it look like that...?”

Before Trott could say anything, a small noise from behind him let him know that the blood test had finished. He whipped around and ran over to the machine, reading the results.

Smiffy and Ross couldn't see his expression, but they saw how he froze. It didn't look like he was breathing.

Slowly, Trott turned back around. He was pale and his eyes were watering. He slowly walked back over to his friends, shaking a bit and staring at the floor.

“H-here's what's g-going on...” he quietly choked out. “You're... you...” He couldn't continue.

“Trott...?” asked Smiffy quietly.

The tension in the room was so thick it could have been cut with a knife.

Trott squeezed his eyes closed and took a shaky breath. “Y-your curse... the one that makes you look the way you do... it... it's not... compatible with... with...”

“With what?” asked Ross sharply.

“Lycanthropy.”

The room went completely silent, and nobody moved.

Trott took a deep breath and continued, opening his eyes but not looking at his friends. “Your original curse and the... the werewolf virus are fighting each other... And it's not going to end well...”

“How is this possible...?” stammered Ross, his voice no more than a whisper.

“The teeth...” muttered Smiffy. Ross and Trott both looked at him and saw that he was sitting upright and staring at his hands.

“What do you mean?” asked Trott.

“The ones I was experimenting on... I cut my hands when I pulled them out of the wall of the panic room... I didn't even think...”

They were all silent for a moment before Ross stood up and stormed out of the room.

Trott glanced at Smiffy, who shook his head a bit.

“Go after him,” he said. “Make sure he doesn't hurt himself...”

Trott nodded and ran out the door, chasing after Ross. He heard the main door slam downstairs, so he ran over to the elevators and zapped down. He saw that one of the doors had been ripped off its hinges.

He ran outside, looking around until he spotted Ross. He was standing in the middle of a small field a distance from the main drawbridge. Without bothering to wonder how he had gotten so far away in such a short time, Trott ran after him, only stopping when he got close.

He stood ten feet back from his friend, who was frozen, still as a statue, staring at the setting sun. His hands were clenched into fists, and he was shaking. At first Trott thought he was shaking out of fear, but a moment later, he realized it was rage.

Trott took a single step towards his friend, but then the ground started to shake as if an earthquake started.

The tremors suddenly intensified, and Trott was thrown to the ground. The wind started to howl and all the nearby trees simultaneously caught fire and exploded.

Ross stood perfectly still in the middle of the chaos.

The ground gave another violent lurch, and Trott screamed. At this, Ross glanced over his shoulder to look at his friend.

Trott froze in horror. Ross' eyes were solid blue, glowing brighter than the sun behind him. He had triggered God Mode.

Ross turned to face forward again, and Trott heard something in the ground deep beneath them crack. The wind intensified around Ross, partially obscuring him from Trott's vision. Deep cracks appeared in the ground around them, creating a rough circle about 100 meters in diameter.

Then the giant chunk of land they were on began to rise into the sky.

Trott let out a sharp cry of fear. He was close enough to Ross to be safe from the crumbling edges, but they were getting higher by the second.

He looked back at Ross. His friend was hovering off the ground, surrounded by a swirling torrent of dust and wind.

Trott staggered to his feet, struggling to keep his balance.

“Ross!” he cried out, struggling to be heard over the wind. “You don't have to do this! I know you're upset. You think it's your fault but it's not!”

The wind was beginning to calm, and the island wasn't rising as fast as it had been before. The tremors started to get weaker.

“It's not your fault Ross! You couldn't have predicted this! None of us could have! I know you're upset but destroying things won't help. You need to calm down or you'll burn yourself out...”

The island slowly stopped ascending, freezing in place. The wind was now quiet enough that Trott could speak normally.

“Ross, you can't do this... Wasting all your energy in a fit of rage isn't going to help Smith... We need to be there for him. Both of us.”

The wind stopped, and Ross slowly sank back to the ground. He stood for a moment before dropping to his knees, weak from all the energy he had expended.

For a split second, neither of them moved. Then Ross threw his head back and let out a long, painful scream, raw and full of agony. Then he went still for a few seconds before slowly crumpling to the ground.

Trott ran forward and dropped to his knees, picking up Ross and letting him lean against him. Now that he could get a good look at Ross' face, he saw that his friend was pale as a ghost and shaking. His eyes returned to normal as he slipped out of God Mode. Trott could see that he was shaking with sobs.

“W-why did t-this h-happen...?” stammered Ross, struggling to speak as he gasped for breath.

Trott shook his head, gently rocking his friend to try and calm him down. “Shh... it'll be okay...”

“T-this is a-all my f-fault...” Ross choked out, turning and burying his face into Trott's shoulder.

Trott held him tight. “It's not your fault...” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to keep himself from crying.

Ross didn't listen to him.

“It's all my fault...” he muttered deliriously. “It's all my fault it's all my fault it's all my fault...”

Trott knew there was nothing he could say, so he held his friend and waited for the crying to stop.

While this happened, Smiffy watched from his bedroom window, where he had a clear view of the floating island.

With a small sigh, he shook his head and looked back at his hands.

“This is all my fault...” he whispered to himself.

Chapter 9: Talking to Ghosts

Chapter Text

Ross and Trott stood at the edge of the island, looking down at the ground almost a mile below. From this vantage point, they could see all the damage Ross had done in his fit of rage.

“I bet it doesn't look as bad on the ground,” said Trott hopefully, glancing up at Ross, who was leaning heavily against his shoulder. Ross just gave a small groan. He looked tired.

It had taken Ross a while to regain enough strength to walk, but seeing as that had been the first time he'd ever activated God Mode, it wasn't surprising. He had used a lot of energy, so much so that he wasn't even able to fly at the moment.

Trott glanced at the teleporter on his arm and then checked Ross'. They were both calibrated to take them back to the ground, seeing as Trott didn't have his jetpack and Ross was burnt out. After making sure everything was okay, they teleported back down, landing just outside the main wall.

When they landed, Ross glanced over his shoulder and looked up at the floating island he had created. It looked like a featureless silhouette in the air, a black shadow against a darkening sky. He then turned his gaze towards the crater in the ground where the land had come from. He decided that as soon as his magic came back, he would fill the crater with water.

They went back inside and teleported back upstairs.

“Y'know,” said Trott, “you should probably go get some rest.”

Ross shook his head. “I want to see Smith,” he mumbled. Trott stared at him for a moment before shrugging and heading for Smiffy's room, supporting his friend along the way.

Smiffy was sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for them.

“That was pretty impressive,” said Smiffy, gesturing out the window where the floating island was visible. “Remind me to never piss you off.”

Ross grimaced and sat down in the chair next to his friend's bed. “I'd rather... not do that again...” he muttered, glancing out the window as well and realizing with a pang of guilt that Smiffy had been able to clearly see the whole ordeal.

Smiffy sighed a bit, looking between Ross and Trott. “Look, I know this is bad, but it'll be okay. I'll just find a cure for lycanthropy, and we'll be fine.”

“Smith, exactly how close were you to a cure?” asked Trott carefully.

“I think I'm pretty close,” said Smiffy, moving to stand up. “I can show you what I've got so f- ah!”

With a small yelp, Smiffy collapsed when he stood, still weak from the seizure. Trott caught him and carefully set him back on his bed. Smiffy tried to speak but was cut off by a sudden coughing fit. A few splatters of blood appeared on his arm as he coughed into his elbow.

“Okay, you should not be moving around,” Trott quietly exclaimed as gently forced Smiffy to lay back down. “Or at least... you shouldn't be walking around. Especially now that you're having seizures again. You could fall and hurt yourself.”

“Well... how am I gonna get any research done if I can't get out of bed?” demanded Smiffy.

“Use a wheelchair,” suggested Ross, his voice sounding weaker than Smiffy's.

Trott nodded a bit. “A wheelchair sounds like a good idea... Okay, tomorrow you can use that to get around and keep working, as long as you keep your headset on and with you at all times.”

“Sounds fair...” admitted Smiffy.

“Good,” said Trott. He glanced out the window. “Look, it's getting late and you need sleep. You can go back to work tomorrow. I'll bring the wheelchair up in the morning. And Ross, you should get to sleep too.”

Ross didn't respond for a moment. Then he looked up at Trott, his tired eyes looking pained.

“Do you... think I could... have a moment alone with Smith?” he asked quietly.

Trott glanced at Smiffy, who gave a small nod.

“Okay, but don't take too long. You both need rest,” said Trott as he turned and left the room. He closed the door behind him, but Ross could tell he was still listening outside.

Ross turned back to his friend. “I'm sorry...” he muttered.

Smiffy rolled his eyes. “Look, it's not your fault, okay?”

“But... but it is my fault!” exclaimed Ross, looking panicked. “The only reason you were messing around with werewolf stuff is because of me-”

“Actually I've always been curious...”

“-and you got infected by cutting your hands on the teeth I left in the wall!”

“My fault for not wearing gloves...”

“I may as well have bitten you.”

This was when Smiffy slapped his hand over Ross' mouth. “If you keep trying to apologize, I will stab you.”

Ross looked at the ground. Smiffy removed his hand.

“Look,” said Smiffy tiredly, “everything is going to be okay. It's not your fault, and none of us knew this was going to happen. I mean... we can't see the future, right?”

“Right...” muttered Ross.

Smiffy gave him a small reassuring smile. “It'll be okay. I'm close to a cure, and once I find one, I can cure myself and you. Okay? No more fear of full moons.”

Ross stiffly nodded. Smiffy could tell that his mind was elsewhere, but at least he had calmed down a bit.

“Go get some sleep,” said Smiffy. “You look worse than me.”

Ross gave a small smile and stood up. He saw Trott open the door, so he turned and left.

“I'll check on you in a minute,” Trott whispered as Ross walked past. He nodded, and Trott disappeared into Smiffy's room.

Struggling to stay upright, Ross made his way back to his room, Smiffy's words still echoing in his head.

It's not your fault, and none of us knew this was going to happen. I mean... we can't see the future, right?

He made it to his room and quickly cleaned himself up before changing into something comfortable to sleep in.

... none of us knew this was going to happen. I mean... we can't see the future, right?

He flopped down onto his bed and wrapped himself in his blanket.

... was going to happen. I mean... we can't see the future...

Ross was vaguely conscious when Trott came to check on him. He heard him talking, saw him put a glass of water on the bedside table, then he left.

... I mean... we can't see the future...

He drifted off into a light, dreamless sleep.

... we can't see the future...

Ross' eyes snapped open and he sat upright in his bed, wide awake. He could tell from the change in light that he had been asleep for about an hour or so. He had an idea, and he had to know if he was right.

Taking a moment to listen, he could hear Trott snoring from the next room. The walrus was impossible to wake up when he was snoring. He also knew that Smiffy would be too tired and weak to get out of bed.

Slowly, Ross stood up. He still felt lethargic and weak, but that didn't stop him. He walked over to his door and locked it before turning back to his bed. Sitting on the bedside table was the small golden key he always kept with him. Trott and Smiffy must have seen it, but they either forgot about it or simply didn't ask about it.

He quickly made sure his headset was off, and still he put it under his pillow for good measure. Then, holding the key tightly in his hand, he stood facing the wall between his bed and window. Using the small bit of magic he had regenerated, he waved his hand and a small hidden panel in the wall opened. Inside sat a small obsidian box.

Taking a deep breath, Ross reached inside and took the box, setting it down on his bedside table. Then he used the small gold key to unlock the box. He steadied himself and reached inside, removing the box's only item.

In the palm of his hand sat the portable hole wand focus, small and unassuming except for the mark of the Void burnt into it.

Ross turned and faced the center of his room, then he closed his hand over the wand focus. It instantly heated up, and the air several feet in front of him began to shimmer.

A second later, a dark silhouette with glowing red eyes appeared. It stretched it's arms and cracked it's neck.

“Y'know,” said Void, “normally I like the dark, but I'm happy as hell to not be in that box anymore.”

“Can you see the future?” asked Ross.

This question caught Void off guard, and he stopped stretching and let his arms fall to his sides. “Uh... what?”

“The Void exists outside of time. You said so yourself. You've been following us through time, so I want to know if you knew what was going to happen to us.”

Void tilted his head to the side. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

Ross took a deep breath. “Smith is sick, and I get the feeling you knew it was going to happen.”

Void was quiet for a long moment. Normally it was difficult to read the demon's expression, but this time Ross clearly saw the look in Void's eyes change. He looked worried.

“... What's wrong with him...?” asked Void quietly.

“He's infected with lycanthropy...”

Void visibly grimaced. “Oh... I remember...” He sighed. “Look, what I'm about to tell you isn't going to be good, so just...” He glanced at the wand focus clenched tightly in Ross' hand. “Just... promise me you won't shatter the wand focus. I kinda need that to keep living.”

Ross slowly nodded and loosened his grip on the focus. “What's going to happen to him?”

“Okay... He was infected with lycanthropy, from you if I remember correctly. His curse and the virus aren't compatible so they're fighting, and it's taking a lot of his energy. He'll keep getting weaker until the full moon...”

“What happens on the full moon?” demanded Ross, struggling to keep his voice low.

Void sighed. “It'll kill him...”

That was what Ross had been afraid to hear. “And there's no cure?”

“None that he would survive.”

“If you say a silver bullet I will lock you in that box again for an eternity.”

Void shook his head sadly. “Trust me...” he mumbled, “what I had in mind is much worse than a silver bullet.”

Ross glared at him. “You aren't helping...”

Void shrugged. “There's not much more I can say.”

“Then don't say anything,” growled Ross. Then, before Void could protest, he picked up the box and shoved the wand focus back inside. Void's image disappeared, having only been a projection from the wand focus in the first place.

With a small, defeated sigh, Ross locked the box and put it back into the hidden wall compartment, which he sealed again.

He went back to bed without another thought.

XXX

Ross woke up late the next morning. It wasn't surprising, considering how much magic he had used the night before.

He stood up and hastily got dressed before stepping outside and heading up to Smiffy's workshop. There, he found Trott and Smiffy, both of them hunched over a desk, looking at something. Ross drifted over and saw that Smiffy was sitting in a wheelchair. He also looked worse than he did the day before.

“How's it going?” asked Ross softly.

“We're working on it...” Trott responded, not looking up from the microscope he was peering through. “Oh yeah, Ross, can we have some of your blood?”

“We need to try and isolate the virus from it,” explained Smiffy, glancing up at his friend.

Ross nodded and reluctantly rolled up his sleeve. “The whole demigod thing won't get in the way?” he asked as Trott stepped away from the desk and picked up a needle.

“I'll handle the magic in your blood, and Trott will handle the virus,” said Smiffy, leaning back and stretching his neck.

Ross grimaced a bit and looked away when Trott drew out some of his blood. He had never been a fan of needles.

“Okay, done,” said Trott a minute later, stepping back with his vial of blood.

“Anything else I can do to help...?” asked Ross quietly.

Smiffy shrugged. “Stick around in case we need more blood?”

Ross forced a smile, and Smiffy laughed before turning back to his research.

“Okay, well... I'll be outside if you need me,” he said, tapping his headset to indicate that it was on if they needed him. Then he turned and zapped downstairs.

The first thing he noticed was that the door was still off its hinges. He stepped over to them and set them upright, then did a bit of magic to repair the hinges and frame. As he did so, he noticed that his magic had greatly regenerated overnight. Maybe...

Walking outside, Ross held up his hands, and strings of gold and teal light began to run between them.

“Ridge, are you there?” he asked, looking intently into the bands of light.

There was no response.

Ross tried again, putting all of his focus on the communication spell. “Ridge? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, we need your help...”

Again, nothing happened.

Frustrated, Ross brought his hands together, extinguishing the spell. This was troubling. Every time he had used the spell to communicate with Ridge before, it always worked. So why wasn't it working now?

Looking up, Ross found himself at the edge of the wall. He had been wandering around while trying the spell, and he had come close to falling into the moat.

“Why couldn't I have been a water spirit, or an air spirit...?” he muttered to himself, looking dejectedly down into the water. “They know how to heal people...”

He stared at the rippling water for another minute before an idea popped into his head. Water and air spirits were the best natural healers, so if he studied things more suited to their element, maybe he could learn healing too.

Feeling hope for the first time, he kicked off his shoes and lowered himself into the water.

XXX

Trott knelt next to Smiffy, using his stethoscope to listen to his heartbeat. It was weaker than before.

“Here, drink some water,” said Trott, standing and offering Smiffy a cup. “It should help with the fever and dizziness.”

Smiffy groaned and leaned his head back. “And you can't give me any medicine for it?”

“Not until you eat something.”

“Trust me, if I tried to eat anything, you'd be cleaning it up off the floor within minutes.”

“What a pleasant thought,” muttered Trott, glancing at the research desk before looking out the window.

“Is he still out there?” asked Smiffy, rolling over to the window.

Trott nodded, spotting the dark speck that was Ross, floating in the moat. “He's been at it for an hour.”

Smiffy nodded. “I think I know what he's doing. He's trying to learn water magic so he can learn to heal.”

Trott thought about it for a second, but when he turned to speak, Smiffy suddenly screamed and spun the wheelchair around.

“What? What is it?” exclaimed Trott, jumping and turning around too.

Smiffy sighed a bit and shook his head. “I must have been hallucinating... I thought I saw something in the reflection.”

Trott pressed his hand against Smiffy's forehead. “Your fever has gone up a bit... Maybe we should take a break.”

Smiffy nodded. “Good idea...”

XXX

The Ghost stood frozen, too scared to move. He knew it was a bad idea to let himself become visible, but he was tired from the constant use of the spell. Of course, Smiffy had seen his reflection in the window. He had only just managed to turn himself invisible again before he was seen.

He waited until Trott and Smiffy had left the room before finally relaxing a bit. Then he turned and ran up the stairs until he reached the top of the building. From there, he teleported away.

Chapter 10: Echo in the Dark

Chapter Text

Ross pulled himself out of the water and onto dry land, trying to catch his breath. As soon as he pulled himself mostly onto the grass, he flopped over on his back and lay sprawled out with his legs still in the water.

He had spent at least two hours in the moat, studying the water. It was a lot harder to study than the average block because it was liquid. He couldn't take ahold of it. He had only managed to learn something from it when he stopped trying to control it.

Unfortunately, the only thing he learned was the equivalent of hydrokinesis. He learned how to control water, but he hadn't learned how to heal.

With a sigh, Ross fully pulled himself out of the water and used his new found water magic to dry himself off. He figured he should probably go back inside, but he didn't want to face his friends, so he started to procrastinate. He made some of the blocks around him float up into the air. He used the light magic that he used to turn invisible, but instead he made his hands glow as bright as the sun. Then he stood up and went to the crater he created from the floating island. Using his powers, he transformed the air in the crater into water, filling it and creating a lake.

“I guess that's enough stalling...” he muttered after staring at the water for a bit. However, instead of turning around and going back inside, he decided to turn himself invisible, something he hadn't done since he grew his second heart.

It was much easier this time, but he still winced, expecting pain. However, nothing happened. With a small smile, he turned around, only to come face to face with the Ghost.

“sh*t!” exclaimed Ross, jumping back and stumbling over the edge of his new lake. He quickly levitated, avoiding falling into the water.

“Sorry...” said the Ghost carefully. “Didn't mean to scare you.”

“Then why were you standing right behind me? Also, why are you invisible?” demanded Ross, still hovering out over the water.

“Why are you invisible?” asked the Ghost.

Ross glared at him. “Doesn't matter... Where have you been this whole time? I haven't seen you since the last full moon.”

The Ghost glanced at the ground. “Smith didn't want me hanging around...” he admitted. “I was the one who healed your arm, and Smith got mad at me for infecting you with Void magic, so he told me I wasn't welcome anymore.”

Ross was quiet for a minute. “Do you know what's going on?”

The Ghost shook his head. “No, did something happen?”

Ross bit his lip. “Smith was infected with lycanthropy, and it's killing him.”

The Ghost gasped. “What?” he exclaimed. “How did that happen?”

“I'd rather not say...” muttered Ross. “The problem is, we have no idea how to cure him...”

“Have you tried using blood magic?” asked the Ghost.

Ross stared at him. “Uh... no...”

The Ghost shrugged. “Blood magic is pretty easy to learn. I never used it myself when I was alive, but I had a friend whose boyfriend was really good at it. I wish I remembered their names...”

Ross bit his lip. “What exactly would I use blood magic for?”

“Well,” said the Ghost, “I know it can be used for a lot of different things, but you'd probably be most interested in the healing aspect.”

“There's a healing aspect to blood magic?”

The Ghost nodded. “A lot of people think dark magic is evil, but it's not if you use it right. I know blood magic can cure infections, and since lycanthropy is an infection of the blood, using it might save Smith.”

Ross was silent for a moment. He and Trott had dabbled in blood magic before he'd been Changed, but he still remembered the late nights standing over the alter and bleeding until he was too weak to stand. He also remembered the power he had felt whenever he used the blood magic. There was potential for almost anything.

“So... how would someone like me learn blood magic?” asked Ross tentatively.

“Looks like you already have,” said the Ghost, giving him an inquisitive look.

“What do you mean?”

“You've been studying water,” the Ghost stated. “Blood magic is just an extension of water magic.”

Ross silently let himself float back to the ground. “I'll think about it...” he whispered.

The Ghost nodded and disappeared, teleporting away.

With a small sigh, Ross let himself become visible again. Then he slowly trekked back home. When he got inside a few minutes later, however, he realized something was wrong. He dashed over to the elevators and zapped upstairs to Smiffy's lab. Nobody was there, so he went to the floor with their rooms. There, he found the wheelchair tipped over and Smiffy's door ajar.

He ran into Smiffy's room, expecting the worse. However, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Smiffy propped up on his bed and Trott kneeling on the bed next to him, listening to his heartbeat.

“What happened?” asked Ross, stepping into the room. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine...” muttered Smiffy, waving his hand dismissively. “N-nothing to worry about...”

“He had another seizure,” said Trott, not looking up at Ross.

“Just a small one,” muttered Smiffy, rolling his eyes. Although he tried to play it off, Ross knew he was exhausted.

Ross shook his head a bit and sat in the chair next to Smiffy's bed.

“How was your swim?” asked Smiffy quickly, trying to avoid any questions about his health.

“I learned some water magic, but nothing related to healing,” admitted Ross.

“Don't worry about it,” said Smiffy. “Trott and I should have a cure ready in no time.”

“No we won't,” said Trott, his voice a monotone.

Ross and Trott stared at him.

“What do you mean?” asked Smiffy.

“We won't make a cure in time, I will,” said Trott, standing up. “You aren't strong enough to keep working...”

Smiffy shook his head. “C'mon Trott...”

“No!” exclaimed Trott, looking stern. “It's not safe for you to keep moving around anymore. You're on permanent bed rest until we find a cure.”

“That's not fair!” exclaimed Smiffy, sitting up. However, as soon as he was upright the color drained from his face and he dizzily fell back against his pillow. “Okay, I see your point...”

Trott gave a small sigh. “Look... I just don't want you to hurt yourself.”

“He does have a point,” muttered Ross.

Smiffy closed his eyes and gave a small sigh. “Yeah, I know...”

Trott looked at his feet for a moment before looking back to his friend. “You should get some rest. It's getting late... we'll call it for the day.”

Smiffy nodded and shuffled into a more reclined position. He cocooned himself in his blankets and closed his eyes, easily falling asleep.

Trott glanced at Ross, and they quietly stood and left the room.

“So... exactly how close are you guys?” asked Ross quietly.

Trott sighed. “Not as close as I'd like... How about you?”

Ross shook his head. “I've got some ideas, but I don't know if they'll work.”

“Anything you can do, we'll take it,” admitted Trott.

Ross gave a sullen nod. “I'll do my best...”

XXX

Ross barely slept that night. He lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about how he could help. He knew water magic now – that was a good start. The Ghost had suggested he study blood magic, but he was concerned. He knew that blood magic was a slippery slope that led to the use of dark magic.

However, as he lay listening to the sound of Smiffy struggling for breath in the next room, he started to wonder if they would need dark magic. Was that was the only way to cure him in time? After a moment, it made sense. Lycanthropy originated with dark magic, so it would be logical that a cure could also be found through dark means.

Ross sighed and rubbed his eyes. He started thinking back to what Void said. That the cure for lycanthropy was something much worse than a silver bullet. But what could be worse than that?

For a split second, Ross considered opening the box and asking him. However, he thought against it. There was already enough trouble without Void in the mix.

Slowly, he started to drift into a light sleep. That almost-sleep was interrupted, however, a few minutes later.

The full moon was drawing closer with every passing day, so Ross' hearing was slowly getting better. He had been listening to Smiffy coughing and gasping for breath in the next room, so he realized immediately when everything suddenly went quiet.

Flinging himself out of bed, he teleported straight into Smiffy's room, landing at the foot of his bed. Smiffy lay perfectly still, his pale face illuminated by the light of the waxing moon pouring through the window.

He was too still.

Feeling a surge of panic rush through him, Ross sprung onto the bed and pulled Smiffy into his lap. He found a heartbeat, weak and fluttering, but Smiffy had stopped breathing.

“T-Trott!” screamed Ross, his hoarse voice shattering the silence.

He heard a loud thump from the next room followed by heavy footsteps. Trott burst into the room a second later, carrying an oxygen tank and a stethoscope. He quickly put the mask on Smiffy and turned on the flow of air, then he pressed the stethoscope onto Smiffy's chest.

After a tense few seconds, Trott gave a small nod. “He's breathing again...”

Ross sighed with relief. He carefully put his hand on Smiffy's chest and felt that he was indeed breathing again.

“Okay, let's see,” muttered Trott, listening closely. “It sounds like there's a bit of fluid in his lungs, but that's not surprising. He's been coughing up blood for a while... I don't like how his heartbeat sounds... Still weak and fast...”

Trott sighed and shook his head, but then he looked up at Ross, who was still holding Smiffy.

“It's a good thing you called me,” he said, removing his stethoscope from his ears. “How did you know something bad happened?”

“I could hear him coughing from my room,” said Ross tiredly. “It got really quiet all of a sudden, so I teleported in here and saw he wasn't breathing...”

Trott nodded. “Good thing you were listening,” he said quietly. He sounded weary.

“Look, I'm...” Ross hesitated. “I'm going to stay in here with him for the rest of the night. Just to make sure he keeps breathing.”

“That seems like a good idea,” mumbled Trott, clearly exhausted. He then turned and quickly showed Ross how to operate the air tanks, and he told him to shout if another incident happened.

When Trott left the room, Ross carefully adjusted the pillows and laid Smiffy down so he was propped upright. Then he reached over and turned off the light before carefully lying down next to his friend. He listened to Smiffy's ragged, painful breathing, becoming more motivated each second to find a cure.

“I'm sorry...” Ross whispered as he reached out and carefully took Smiffy's hand. “It's my fault this happened, but I'm going to make it right. You'll see... You're not going to die because of me...”

Smiffy gave a small grimace, so Ross used a bit of magic to take away some of his pain. Ignoring the aching sensation spreading up his arm and into his chest, he watched as Smiffy slowly became more relaxed. Finally, after what seemed like half an hour, Smiffy was breathing deeply and steadily. When it finally appeared that he had slipped into a deeper sleep, Ross stopped taking his pain. He was shaking and his entire arm had gone numb, but it was worth it.

“See?” he whispered as he laid down and closed his eyes. “I can help you... I know there's a way I can save you too...”

XXX

The next morning, Ross woke up before Smiffy. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Smiffy was still breathing with relative ease.

Silently, Ross slipped out of the bed and crept back into his room. He quickly got dressed and glanced out the window. It was cloudy and windy outside, as if there was a large storm approaching.

He left his room and took a second to check on Smiffy, who was still sleeping and breathing. Then he turned and walked over to the elevator, zapping up to Smiffy's lab. However, he was shocked to see Trott sitting at the research desk, bent over a microscope.

Not wanting to distract him from his work, Ross silently crept towards the bookcase in the corner of the room and began looking through the books, trying to determine which one held the most information on either healing or dark magic. Unsurprisingly, he found a thorough book describing everything about blood magic.

With a small nod, he tucked the book under his arm and turned to leave. However, he tripped on an errant wand core that had been laying on the ground. He sprawled with a sharp crash, and within seconds Trott was standing over him.

“Ross, what are you doing?” asked Trott, looking down at his friend.

“N-nothing!” stammered Ross, quickly hiding the book. He didn't think Trott would approve of what he was up to. “I was sneaking around because I didn't want to distract you!”

“Yeah, I'm sure that's all you were doing,” said Trott suspiciously. Ross gave him a sheepish grin.

“How's the research going?” Ross asked quickly as he stood up, hiding the book in his inventory as he did so.

Trott gave a small sigh and glanced over his shoulder at the desk. “I've tried almost everything, but there still isn't a single clue as to what the cure could be. I know the lycanthropy virus is slowed and partially killed by the cold, but it always comes back. Plus, I don't think it would be a good idea to inject liquid nitrogen into Smiffy's bloodstream...”

Ross smiled a bit and put his hand on Trott's shoulder.

“I know you can do this,” he said calmly. “You're the best doctor in the world, and the smartest person within a thousand miles. If anyone can do this, it's you.”

Trott looked up at his friend. “What, no insult to go along with that?”

“I could kick you if you wanted.”

“I'm good.”

Ross chuckled and turned back to the elevators. “I'm going to keep trying to learn healing. Don't forget to check on Smiffy, okay?”

Trott gave him a quick nod and went back to his desk. Ross turned and zapped downstairs. He pulled the book out of his inventory and began to flip through the pages as he walked outside.

XXX

Ross lay flat on his stomach in the grass a few hundred feet away from the tower. He watched with dull eyes as a small squirrel scurried down from a nearby tree.

He was still for a moment before reaching his hand out towards the squirrel, which became unnaturally still.

“Come over here,” he said to it. The animal hesitated, so he focused his magic a bit more. He still hadn't mastered the ability to control the thoughts of others, but he was getting there. The squirrel scuttled over to him and sat a foot away from his outstretched hand.

Ross twitched his fingers a bit, and the squirrel stood up and began to dance. Or... it appeared to be dancing. Ross was controlling the blood that ran through its veins, forcing it to move how he told it.

“You seem receptive enough...” he muttered. Then he lunged forward and grabbed the squirrel. The spell was broken and it started to struggle, but another wave of Ross' hand calmed it.

“There we go, just hold still. This shouldn't hurt you at all, especially if I tell you it doesn't hurt...” Ross mumbled, more to himself as he carefully reached into his inventory and pulled out a small syringe filled with a slow but deadly poison. He injected the squirrel with the poison.

“Okay, let's see if I can save your life...” Ross crooned, focusing his magic. He had gotten better with practice – he was immediately able to slow the spread of the poison. He took a deep breath and emptied his mind of everything except the desire to draw the poison back out of the wound. He could tell that he was very close. The squirrel was still upright and breathing. He was keeping the poison in one place, now if he could just draw it out...

However, as he attempted to draw out the glob of poison, it started to slip away from him as if it suddenly turned from rock to water.

“f*ck...” he muttered as he lost control of the poison, and before he could recover from his mistake, the squirrel fell over and began to seize up. Like his previous experiments, his manipulation of the poison just strengthened it. If he hadn't tried to use magic to remove it, it would have taken twenty minutes for the squirrel to start seizing.

“This is why I haven't tried this on Smith yet,” Ross growled. “If I don't get it right the first time, it'll end in disaster!” With a wave of his hand, he manipulated the blood in the squirrel's body and quickly drained the blood from its brain and heart, killing it quickly and painlessly. He picked up the carcass and threw it into the woods, knowing that the poison would quickly die without the heat of the living squirrel to keep it alive. Whatever ended up eating the squirrel wouldn't suffer.

“What a disaster...” snarled Ross, standing and pacing over to the moat. He looked down at his reflection in the still water – it had been two days since he started studying dark magic, and in that time he hadn't slept or eaten. It wasn't his choice – as soon as he started to investigate this line of magic, his appetite died faster than his experiments, and he was unable to sleep knowing that they were running out of time to save Smiffy. The full moon grew closer every day, and Smiffy was steadily getting worse.

With a sigh, he rubbed his tired eyes and knelt down next to the water, getting a better look at himself. He was pale and his face was gaunt. His eyes had dark circles under them and were bloodshot. He looked as though he were suffering a horrible illness. He knew how bad he looked, which is why he'd been avoiding Trott and Smiffy whenever it was light enough to see the details of his face.

Ross glared at his reflection, angry that he hadn't been able to do what he wanted with blood magic by now. He knew he had to do something different. He couldn't keep experimenting on squirrels and bunnies, and he definitely couldn't try his newly learned skills on Smiffy, unless his friend wanted his mind controlled. Come to think of it, he'd never tried to control the mind of a highly intelligent being. Would it be more difficult to control? Or-

He stopped with a sharp shake of the head. No, he wasn't going to try and control the minds of his friends.

He quickly splashed some water in his face. “Get a grip...”

He needed to do something different. Something he hadn't tried yet. But what? What would help him expand and master his new powers?

Suddenly, he stopped. The answer landed in his mind, as obvious as it should have been.

With a small, wolfish grin, he stood up and began to spawn in the necessary materials.

XXX

Trott stood next to Smiffy, his face grim as he started the IV. Smiffy was too sick to keep water down now, so this was the only way to keep him hydrated.

“M-maybe you s-should t-try powdered ice e-essence,” suggested Smiffy, his mind focused on possible research they hadn't considered. “It's c-cold enough a-and it w-wouldn't k-kill me...”

“I've tried powdered ice essence, and it worked for a bit, but the virus relapsed after an hour or so,” admitted Trott.

“M-maybe if t-there was a w-way to s-strengthen it...” Smiffy paused. “D-did you t-try adding v-”

He was cut off by an earsplitting explosion from outside. Trott jumped and looked out the window.

“I'm guessing that crater wasn't always there, was it?” he asked.

“N-no, but...” Smiffy turned to get a better view out the window from his bed. “But is t-that Ross in the m-middle of the c-crater?”

Trott plastered his face against the window. Sure enough, a badly singed figure was crawling out of the crater.

“What the hell was he doing?” wondered Trott.

“G-go check,” suggested Smiffy, who shuffled back into a reclined position and pulled his blankets tighter around his shivering body. “I'll be f-fine...”

Trott frowned, but Smiffy waved off his concerns.

“D-don't worry, if I n-need anything I can j-just t-tell you.” He untangled one of his hands from his blankets and held up his headpiece.

“I guess you're right...” he mumbled, glancing out the window. He saw that Ross had managed to pull himself out of the crater and was now lying face down on the ground. “Okay, I'll be right back.”

Trott hopped out to the elevators and zapped downstairs, running outside and over the drawbridge to the area where Ross had made the crater. He was still lying there, but he had rolled over onto his back and was now staring at the sky with a pissed expression.

“Uh... Ross?”

“I don't-” he paused, giving a great hacking cough. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Well, you're going to. What the hell happened?”

Ross gave a small sigh and sat up with a grimace. “Ah, I think I cracked some ribs...” He conjured some water out of nowhere and used it to quickly wash all the soot off. “I was try- what?”

He saw Trott gasp and start with fear, but he couldn't tell what the source of the shock was.

“Ross, are you... are you okay?” asked Trott carefully, his eyes flooded with concern.

“What are you talking about? Am I missing an eye or something?” asked Ross, quickly running his hands over his face.

“No, no!” stammered Trott quickly. “It's just... you look sick.”

Ross realized what he meant. “No, I'm fine,” he said forcefully. “It's just... some of the new magic I've been doing has been a bit... draining.”

He bit his lip to stop himself from smiling at the horrible blood magic pun he had just accidentally made.

Trott, however, looked scared.

“Ross... please tell me you aren't doing... Void magic...” He whispered the last two words.

Ross quickly shook his head. “I promise, I am NOT doing Void magic. I know how dangerous it is, and I don't actually know how to do it even if I wanted to.”

Trott gave a small nod. “Okay, but... what were you doing out here? Where did this crater come from?”

Ross groaned and flopped back down onto the grass, his face contorting with pain as he forgot about his broken ribs.

“Well...” he gasped after a minute, “none of my attempts at new magic have been very successful, so I thought I should go somewhere where I'd have a better chance at learning...”

Trott's eyes widened and he looked at the crater with sudden comprehension. “Oh...”

“Will you help me?” asked Ross hopefully.

Trott paused. “It'll be dangerous, but... you're sure it'll help us save Smith?”

Ross frantically nodded, and Trott smiled. He tapped his headset, making sure it was on.

“Smith, can you hear me?”

A few seconds later, a voice replied. “Y-yeah, unfortunately. D-did you f-find out what's up w-with the c-crater?”

“About that... I was just about to tell you not to worry if you hear any more explosions,” admitted Trott with a small laugh.

“The f*ck are y-you talking about?” asked Smiffy's voice.

“Ross and I are going to the Deep Dark.”

XXX

Only an hour after Ross blew up trying to make a portal, he and Trott were ready to try again. This time, Trott would be doing the dangerous crafting, while Ross stood back from him, ready with his magic. If something went wrong, then he would transmute the air in front of Trott into obsidian to protect him.

“Ready?” asked Trott, glancing over his shoulder at Ross.

Ross gave a single nod; he was standing almost fifteen feet away, hunched over due to the pain in his ribs. He was healing faster than normal due to how close the full moon was, but he knew these injuries would take a few days to completely heal.

“Alright,” said Trott, turning back to the crafting table. “Here... we... go!”

He started working, and Ross readied his magic, waiting for something to go wrong.

“Got it!” Trott suddenly exclaimed, jumping back.

Ross breathed a sigh of relief before grimacing. Breathing was especially painful when he was standing.

“You're much better at that than I am...” he coughed as he stiffly walked over to Trott.

“Yeah, I know,” said Trott, smiling and holding up the portal. He carefully set it on the ground, where it unfolded to form a small black carpet with a gray spiral on it.

“Ready?” asked Ross, edging forward.

“Hold on,” said Trott, reaching up and tapping his headset. “Smith? You there?”

A few seconds later, Smiffy replied with a weak “Yeah?”

“Ross and I are going to the Deep Dark for a bit. Do you need anything before we go?”

“N-no, I'm fine...” came the tired voice. “I was t-trying to s-sleep anyways.”

“Right,” said Trott. “We'll be back soon.”

Smiffy grumbled something inaudible, and the sound of static followed as he turned his headset off.

“Ready?” asked Trott, looking up at Ross, who nodded. Then he stepped forward onto the portal and felt the shadowy cloth of the portal wrap around him and pull him into the ground. A split second later, it opened again, and he found himself standing in a small cobblestone room. He stepped off the portal and Trott appeared next to him a second later.

“Haven't been here in a while,” mumbled Ross as he closed his eyes and pressed his hand against the nearest wall. He used his magic to look through the rocks and determine the best way to go to get to the caverns below. “We should go this way.”

He started to use magic to carve a stairway down towards the open caverns below, and Trott followed him, placing torches as they went.

“So, just let me know if you start feeling lightheaded or nauseous,” said Trott. “This place has less oxygen than the Overworld, which obviously makes it harder to breathe. Also, I know there's a lot of Void magic here, so it'll be cold. Just let me know if you arm starts doing anything weird.”

Ross glanced down at his left arm and was glad to see that no Void magic had spread past the bandages.

“Hey, I'm sure it'll be fine,” said Ross. He noticed he was walking a bit easier as the pain in his ribs slowly faded. “There's a lot more earth magic here than Void magic.”

A few seconds later, Ross broke through the stone, revealing a vast cavern darker than night below. Cold air wafted past them and up the corridor, causing the torch in Trott's hand to flicker.

Suddenly, Ross stumbled a bit, leaning against the wall. He clutched his chest as a searing pain shot through his ribs, but a second later he was able to breathe again.

“Are you okay?” asked Trott, sounding panicky.

Ross gave a small nod and slowly stood up straight. “I think... I think my ribs just healed...”

As if to reinforce this statement, Ross' eyes flashed teal, and he felt his sleep deprived body fill with energy that he hadn't known he had been missing.

“This is interesting...” muttered Ross. His hands began to glow blue; he waved his hand and a stone stairway lit by floating balls of light materialized out of thin air, leading to the cavern floor below. All the monsters nearby were vaporized by the light.

“What the f*ck?” Trott quietly exclaimed. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, now I remember...”

“What is it?” asked Ross as he started to walk down the stairs.

“Ridge told us about this!” exclaimed Trott, following Ross. “All demigods have a domain where they're most powerful. He even told us that the Deep Dark is where earth spirits are more powerful, I don't know how I forgot...”

They reached the bottom of the stairs, so Ross used light magic to create a small sphere of light, which hovered several feet above his hand, emitting a glow that stretched several feet around them. As he did this, however, an idea popped into his mind, an idea he wouldn't have had in the Overworld.

“I wonder...” he muttered to himself, stopping. He closed his eyes and focused on the light magic he was doing. And in doing that, he found that there was a way to reverse the magic.

He opened his eyes and, keeping his left hand in the air to maintain the sphere of light, he reached his right hand out towards the shadows.

“Ross, what are you-” Trott stopped with a gasp.

The shadows were moving.

A single shadow slithered forward into the pool of light. It swam over and stopped at Ross' foot. He carefully bent down and held out his hand, and the shadow moved into his palm as if it were solid.

“What the f*ck...?” whispered Trott, staring mesmerized as the shadow wound its way around Ross' fingers, moving like it was a living creature.

“Shadow magic,” mumbled Ross, staring mesmerized at the shadow he was controlling. “I think this is the same magic the Ghost uses to look the way he does. Remember when he first revealed himself, and the shadows around him moved on their own?”

Trott nodded. “This is the same thing?”

“Yeah,” said Ross, letting the shadow rise from his palm, where it floated in a perfect sphere, looking like a tiny black hole. “I can't do much with these shadows because there are things already living in them, but I'll give this a try when we get back home...”

He tossed the ball of darkness into the air in front of them, and it disappeared as soon as it was beyond the reach of the light.

“So... should we explore a bit?” asked Trott, glancing around. “I know there are structures around here.”

Ross nodded and they set off into the darkness, periodically leaving behind torches and spheres of light, although Ross knew he would be able to find his way back. The very ground beneath him seemed to speak. It told him that there was a structure only a hundred feet south of the stairway, which he and Trott quickly found and explored.

When they were halfway through the abandoned structure, however, something in the air changed.

“Hey Trott,” whispered Ross, reaching out and grabbing the walrus by the arm, “I think we should get out of here.”

“How come?” asked Trott, looking around with wide eyes.

“Something doesn't feel right,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Just stay close to me, we'll go back to the portal.”

“What's going on?” asked Trott as he clung to the back of Ross' shirt as they made their way out of the ruins.

“I think...” Ross paused and stared into the shadows. They seemed darker than before. “I think there's something out there...”

They both froze for a moment, and sure enough, they heard something creeping through the stalagmites, trying to be quiet but kicking the occasional rock.

“We need to get out of here,” Ross breathed. “Do you trust me?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Trott give a small nod.

“Then hold on.”

In one swift motion, Ross shot a bolt of fire into the darkness, and whatever was stalking them gave a sharp scream of fear. Then Ross turned and picked up Trott with one arm. Holding the light high, he ran for the stairs. Rapid footsteps pursued him.

Just as they approached the pool of light coming from the spheres by the stairs, the lurker attacked. It slammed into Ross' side, and he and Trott went sprawling. Trott landed at the foot of the stairs, safe in the light, but Ross was knocked backwards into the darkness. The light he was holding went out.

That was when it attacked.

It landed lightly next to Ross, and in the dark, he saw its purple eyes staring down at him. In the glow from its eyes, he could see it raise something long and sharp, ready to stab.

“Stay back!” shouted Ross, raising his hands and firing as much light magic as he could manage at it.

White hot light bursts out of his hands, the heat so intense it burned his palms. The light shot forward and surrounded the beast, forming a bubble around it and keeping it trapped. Ross scrambled to his feet, and Trott appeared at his side.

“What is that?” exclaimed Trott, looking at the solid sphere of light.

“Well, let's see,” said Ross. He raised his hand and lowered the intensity of the light. It remained solid enough to keep the thing inside trapped, but it allowed them to see what had attacked them.

It took them a few seconds, but when they finally processed what they were staring at, they gasped.

“Nano?” stammered Ross, stepping towards the light.

The thing that looked like Nano turned towards them, and they gasped again. She looked like Nano in size and appearance, except she was mostly covered in sticky purple flux, and her eyes were void of emotion.

“What the hell...?” muttered Ross.

Trott shook his head. “Ross, I don't think that's the real Nano.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ross, turning to his friend.

“Well, the real Nano just had a baby a few weeks ago,” said Trott. “I even went and checked on her a while ago, and she was still recovering. I doubt that in less than a week she would go from barely walking and mostly flux free to... this...” He gestured to the lookalike in front of them. She was watching them with wide, glowing eyes.

“So this is... what, a clone?” asked Ross.

“It must be,” said Trott, taking a closer look. “But I guess the sample she was made from was contaminated. But with this level of contamination, she shouldn't be alive. Also, how did she get here? How was she able to survive in the dark?”

“Why don't you ask her?” muttered Ross, not taking his eyes off the clone.

Trott looked nervous, but he stepped up to the light bubble anyways. The Nano clone stared intently at him.

“Can you speak?” he asked carefully.

“Can you speak?” the clone echoed, her voice sounding eerily similar to Nano's, but more sinister. She copied the tone that Trott had used as well.

“Well, at least we know she can talk,” grumbled Ross.

“She can talk,” said the clone, this time echoing Ross' annoyed tone.

“What's your name?” asked Trott.

The clone answered in a voice that was different than Ross' or Trott's. She had heard these words from someone else. “Specimen 5.”

Trott gulped and Ross looked startled.

“Are you the only clone, or are there more?” asked Trott.

“The sample she was made from was contaminated,” she answered, echoing Trott's words.

“Why are you down here in the dark?” asked Trott, glancing around. “How did you get here?”

Specimen 5 responded in the third voice. “I want you to stay here and wait for them. They'll come here eventually, and when they do, separate them. Knock her out and scan her brain. Learn from her, and then you'll be able to think for yourself. As for the clone, lead him to me. He's caused me enough trouble...”

Ross and Trott stared at her.

“W-who are you talking about?” asked Trott. “Who put you down here?”

“Hector.”

Ross looked at Trott and mouthed out “Who the f*ck is Hector?”

Trott glanced at the shadows surrounding them. “Who's Hector?”

“I'm the original one, not him,” she said, echoing the growling words that apparently came from Hector.

Trott frowned. “Okay... I have no idea what that means... How did you survive in the shadows for so long?”

“I wonder why you are the only one who survived... Pity you didn't inherit her powers, but it seems like you've got your own,” crooned Specimen 5, repeating Hector again. “I think I recognize your magic, or at least where it came from. Maybe that's why you can't talk on your own. I wonder... do you remember killing him?”

Everything fell silent. Ross and Trott waited for Specimen 5 to continue, but she didn't speak again. She had said everything she need to, apparently.

Suddenly, Ross gasped. A look of fear washed over his face, and the rest of the color drained from it.

“We need to leave...” he stammered, grabbing Trott by the arm and pushing him towards the stairs.

“But I have more questions for her!” exclaimed Trott, although he didn't resist Ross' efforts.

“I'll explain everything, but we need to get out of here,” whispered Ross, his voice strained. He started to back up the stairs, keeping his eyes on Specimen 5. She remained in her bubble of light, which Trott noticed was slowly fading. She would be free soon.

Ross had the same thought. As they moved up the stairs, he waved his hand and the steps they had already passed began to dissolve back into air so she couldn't follow them.

They made it back to the portal when the bubble of light popped, and Specimen 5 was set free.

“Through the portal, quick,” said Ross hurriedly. Trott stepped on the portal and reappeared in the Overworld, quickly followed by Ross, who picked up the portal and lit it on fire. “We can't go back there...”

“Okay,” stammered Trott, taking a step away and taking a deep breath. He noticed the sun was close to setting – they had been in there for at least two hours. He turned back to Ross. “What the hell was that?”

“Let's see...” muttered Ross, who took a second to collect his thoughts. “Here's what I gathered. That was a clone of Nano, who goes by the name of Specimen 5. That means she was part of an experiment, most likely made by this Hector person, whoever that is. According to him, he took a fluxy sample of something – probably hair – from Nano, hoping that a clone of her would inherit her powers. But the sample was too corrupted so the clones weren't surviving, which makes you wonder why she survived even though she was so badly contaminated.”

“So why do you think she survived?” asked Trott.

“Because of what she said when you asked her how she was able to survive in the dark,” said Ross, his voice becoming grave. “ I think I recognize your magic, or at least where it came from. Maybe that's why you can't talk on your own. He also asked if she remembered killing someone.”

Trott nodded. “And...?”

Ross looked paler than before. “I recognized her magic too. Don't tell Smith, but I went back to Owl Island after our adventure there. I found the place where Xephos was poisoned, and the magic residue there had the same sort of... signature that Specimen 5 had. Think about it. She can survive in the shadows of the Deep Dark. She has her own magic that's more powerful than flux magic. She couldn't talk without help, and Hector asked if she remembered killing someone. She was the only experiment to survive because she had help...”

Trott's eyes widened. “Holy sh*t... Is she... what, possessed?”

Ross shook his head. “I think they're the same. It needed a body after being killed, and hers was available, so they combined into one entity...”

Trott glanced around. “I hope Xephos isn't listening... I don't think he'd like that we just came face to face with his murderer...”

“The clone didn't murder him, Strawfingers did,” said Ross. “But what are you supposed to do about a Nano clone who has the soul and powers of Strawfingers?”

“Not to mention being a demigod,” muttered Trott. “I'm guessing she doesn't know about that yet.”

Ross shook his head. “And she could survive in the dark because she's a Void spirit. I know that's what Strawfingers was.”

Trott groaned. “I thought they killed Strawfingers after she attacked Xephos.”

“I thought so too...” muttered Ross, running his blistered hand through his hair. “I guess... I never knew how hard it is to kill a Void spirit...”

Chapter 11: Blood of the Dead

Chapter Text

Ross and Trott stood staring at the burnt remains of the Deep Dark portal, contemplating what they had just learned.

“If we ever manage to get ahold of Ridge, we should tell him to seal that place off,” suggested Ross. Trott nodded in agreement.

“Oh, we should probably tell Smith we're back,” he said, tapping his headset. However, he frowned. “I guess his headset is still turned off...”

Ross glanced at the setting sun. “Well, it is getting late. Let's go inside and check on him.”

Trott nodded, and he and Ross jogged back inside the compound. They entered the building and zapped up to the floor with their rooms. When they walked into Smiffy's room, however, they stopped, and Trott gave a small cry of fear.

Smiffy lay still, tangled in his blankets. There was black blood splattering his pillow and sheets, and his bedside table had been violently knocked over.

Not entirely aware of what he was doing, Ross ran over to the bed and quickly untangled Smiffy, pulling him into his arms. He wasn't breathing, and he had no pulse, but Ross could still feel life in him.

Maybe it was because he had just been in the Deep Dark or because there was more adrenaline in his body than blood, but he suddenly knew what to do.

“Stand back,” he said as he carefully laid Smiffy down. He didn't know what Trott was doing, as he only had eyes for Smiffy at the moment, but he didn't want the walrus to get in the way.

Ross rubbed his hands together and purple sparks flew from between his fingers. Then he pulled his hands apart and quickly placed them on Smiffy's chest. He felt a sharp jolt, and his arms spasmed. Smiffy suddenly gave a swift jerk and sat upright, gasping and coughing for breath. Ross reached out and caught him, pulling him into a tight hug.

Slowly, Ross became aware of his surroundings again. He was trembling, and his hands, which were blistered from the light magic he had done earlier, were bleeding again. His arms were wrapped around Smiffy, who was weakly coughing and shaking. He sounded like he was trying to say something, but there was too much blood in his lungs. Trott sat next to them with his arms around them both – he was sobbing.

They sat holding each other for several minutes, all of them trying to catch their breath from the fright. Finally, Trott let go, and Ross was able to gently lay Smiffy back down after fixing his blankets and pulling off the bloody sheets.

Smiffy looked awful. He was so pale he was starting to become translucent, there were dark circles under his glassy eyes, and his fever was dangerously high. He was barely strong enough to keep his eyes open, and he kept coughing up blood. His wrist was bleeding from where he had accidentally ripped the IV out during his fit, and his hands were shaking.

After some persuasion, Trott was able to get him to drink a few sips of water, and he seemed to calm down a bit.

“Smith, can you tell us what happened?” he asked, doing his best to stop his voice from shaking.

Smiffy gave a single nod. “I h-heard y-you g-guys get b-back... Y-you were t-talking... I'd b-been s-sleeping s-so I t-tried to g-get my h-headset...”

He glanced over at the overturned bedside table. Ross quickly set it upright again and found Smiffy's headset underneath it.

“I h-had a s-seizure w-when I r-reached for it...” mumbled Smiffy, his voice barely audible. “R-really bad one... C-couldn't breathe...”

Trott made a small whimpering noise as he bandaged Smiffy's bleeding wrist.

“I'm glad we got back in time,” mumbled Ross, his voice becoming more tired as the energy he had absorbed in the Deep Dark slowly left him.

Smiffy looked up at him. “H-how d-did you s-save me...?” he asked, his eyes becoming a bit more focused.

Ross gave a small shrug. “I think I made a Galvanic Spark,” he said quietly. “I've never done it before, but I was just in the Deep Dark, which is where earth spirits are strongest.”

Smiffy nodded a bit. “Okay, b-but what m-magic did you use?” he asked, his voice becoming stronger as this new development sparked his interest.

Ross paused and thought. What type of magic had he just used?

“I think...” he said after a moment of deliberation, “I used a mix of earth magic and light magic.”

Trott and Smiffy were both looking at him with interest now.

“Explain,” said Trott.

Ross looked at his blistered hands. No new burns had formed when he created the Spark, but his fingers were numb and his hands were shaking as if he had just been electrocuted. He realized that he had put a lot of energy into the Spark, which was why he was feeling tired again.

“Well,” he said, “earth magic has a lot of life in it, and light magic has a lot of energy in it. Life plus energy makes a Galvanic Spark, apparently.”

“Interesting...” muttered Smiffy. “S-so do y-you think you c-could use that to s-save me if t-that happens again?”

Ross felt a chill run up his spine, and the image of Smiffy laying on the ground and bleeding from the gaping wound in his back suddenly flashed through his mind. He blinked in surprise, wondering why his mind brought the Void incident to the forefront.

He gulped. “I... I knew I could save you because I still felt life in you,” he muttered, looking back at his hands. “But if you had been d-dead longer, I...” He opened his mouth to continue, but he suddenly found that he couldn't speak.

A moment later, his mind was overwhelmed with guilt and panic. He had managed not to think about it by keeping himself busy, but there was no hiding from it now, especially when he had just seen what the virus was doing to his best friend.

In a last ditch effort to calm down, Ross looked out the window, away from Smiffy. The moon was rising, and it was three nights away from being full.

With a shot of horror, he realized that Smiffy only had three days left if he didn't find a cure in time.

This sent him over the edge. His hands started shaking even worse and he started to hyperventilate. His vision became blurry and his ears started ringing. He could hear Smiffy and Trott talking to him, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. His mind was full of fear, and his heart was racing. He tasted blood and realized that he had bitten his lip so hard it started to bleed. Suddenly, it all went dark.

He came to a few minutes later and found himself sitting in the hall outside their rooms, his head between his knees and a paper bag pressed against his face. He felt lightheaded and feverish, and his skin was clammy and pale.

Suddenly, Trott knelt down in front of him.

“Ross, how do you feel?” he asked carefully.

Ross closed his eyes and groaned. “sh*tty, I guess. What just happened?”

“You had a panic attack,” said Trott, unfolding the blanket he brought with him and draping it over Ross' shoulders.

Ross grimaced. “Sorry you guys had to see that...” he whispered.

Trott shook his head. “It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're under a lot of stress-”

“We're all under a lot of stress!” exclaimed Ross suddenly. “How are you keeping it together?”

Trott looked pained. “I'm not, Ross. I'm just pretending.” There were tears in his eyes.

Ross gave a small sigh and attempted to stand up. “I need to go back to work... We're almost out of time.”

Suddenly, Trott looked stern again. “You're not going anywhere,” he said firmly. “You just had a panic attack, you need to rest.”

Ross rolled his eyes a bit. “C'mon Trott, it was just a panic attack-”

“Your mental health is just as – if not more – important as your physical health!” exclaimed Trott as he pulled Ross to his feet. “And lately it looks like you've been neglecting both. I'm putting my foot down on this!”

Ross looked shocked for a second before slowly looking resigned. “Alright, I'll do what you say...”

Trott nodded and gently led Ross back to his room.

“I'm staying with Smith tonight, so if you need me go in there,” explained Trott as Ross laid down. “Now please, get some sleep.”

Instead of responding, Ross rolled over and pressed his face into his pillow. He heard Trott turn the lights out and leave the room, closing the door.

He waited for exactly twenty minutes before moving again. Slowly, he sat up and looked around his room. Nothing had changed, so instead he looked at his hands. One of the blisters on his left hand was leaking a bit of pus. Two more on his right hand looked ready to pop.

After a moment, he clenched his fists tight, biting his lip as his hands exploded with pain. He didn't let go until minutes later, when his hands had gone numb and there was blood dripping onto his sheets. The pain had brought him back to himself. It turned the agony in his mind into something physical, something he could deal with. Something that was easier for him to deal with. Slowly, he breathed a sigh of relief before gingerly picking up a spare roll of bandages and carefully wrapping his hands, breathing shallowly and biting his tongue to keep from crying out.

“Trott will kill you if he finds out,” whispered the tiny voice from behind the wall.

“Then it's a good thing you're trapped in a wand focus and can't tell him,” Ross whispered back, staring at the bandages on his hands as blood slowly stained them.

“There are healthier ways to deal with your grief, y'know,” muttered Void accusingly. “You really should take your mental health more seriously.”

“You're one to talk, you psychopath,” snarled Ross, his mind again showing him the memory of Void bursting out of Smiffy's back.

Void didn't respond, and after a minute, Ross wondered if he had imagined the voice in the first place.

Shaking his head, he stood up, feeling a bit unsteady. Carefully, he knelt down and pressed his raw and aching hand against the floor. Then he sent a silent wave of energy through his hand and into the floor. He closed his eyes, and he was able to see the energy as it flowed through the marble and echoed back to him, telling him where everything and everyone was. He could see signs of life coming from the room next to him – one strong signal and one weak – and from the wall to his right. He couldn't see any signs of the Ghost, which meant he was probably back on Owl Island or somewhere else in the world.

He focused his echolocation on Smiffy's room, and the picture slowly became more clear in his mind. Smiffy was in his bed, clearly asleep, and Trott was sitting in a chair next to his bed, slowly dozing off yet not fully asleep.

Knowing that Trott would hear him if he made any noise, he slowly stood up. He would have to be as quiet as possible, which meant no teleporting.

First, he turned himself invisible. Then he began to hover an inch above the ground so he wouldn't have to walk.

Silent as a ghost, he floated over to his window and raised his hands, transmuting the glass into air. Then he flung himself out the window, allowing himself to fall for a second or two before catching himself. He glanced at his reflection in the nearest window, and sure enough, he wasn't visible.

Taking a quick look around, he flew towards the floating island and landed on the far side of the lake beneath it.

“This is far enough away, I'm sure...” he muttered to himself, glancing at the tower in the distance.

He looked at the ground, took a deep breath, and then thrust his hands down. There was a sharp crack and a dark stairway carved itself down into the depths of the earth.

Creating a small ball of light and holding it an inch above his hand, he carefully walked down the stairs. Deeper and deeper he went into the earth, until he finally heard the noise he was searching for.

Using his echolocation, he found where the sound was coming from and carved out a wide path that branched away from the stairway. Dry heat and an orange glow filled the stairway, and he carefully stepped towards the bubbling pool of lava.

With a wave of his hand, he transformed the air in front of him into water, which he then used to turn the lava to obsidian. Another swift wave of his hand broke half of the obsidian blocks in front of him, and he picked them up and prepared to leave.

As soon as he set foot back on the stairs, however, an idea crossed his mind. The stairs he had made led all the way down to bedrock. Maybe there was an opportunity to learn something else.

Storing the obsidian safely away, Ross crept towards the bottom of the stairs. The air grew darker and colder with Void magic until he could barely see a meter in front of his face, and every breath created a small cloud of steam.

That was when he took another step and found not stone beneath his feet, but bedrock. He shuddered with an intense feeling of vertigo, knowing that this thin layer of bedrock was the only thing keeping him from falling into the endless suffocating cold of the Void.

For a split second, he thought of the monster trapped in his wall. If he wanted to, he could probably learn about Void magic from the demon himself. The only problem was that Ross didn't trust him, seeing as he had tried to kill them all less than a year ago.

Ross shook his head, refocusing his thoughts. He needed dark magic, not Void magic. Maybe if he was truly desperate, he would look into it, but that time hadn't quite come yet.

Taking a deep breath and focusing his magic, he selected a block of bedrock that was out of the way of the stairs. Then he narrowed his eyes and focused all of his magic on the block, trying to pull it towards him. It remained firmly lodged in place, so he focused harder, looking not at the block anymore but at the magical properties holding it in place. Finally, after several solid minutes of vein-bursting concentration, he was able to see and understand the immensely powerful connection between the blocks: they were magnetic.

Realizing that he was being given an opportunity to learn already, he focused on the magnetism, how the blocks seemed to create and control the electricity around them to form the perfect, unbreakable bond. He also realized this was probably the reason compasses didn't work in the Nether: it had two layers of bedrock and therefore two magnetic fields fighting for dominance.

Taking a step back, he decided to try it himself. He attempted to magnetize himself, but this experiment ended minutes later when a chunk of iron came flying down the stairway and plowed into his leg, dislocating his kneecap.

After several minutes of loud swearing while he tried to figure out how to put his leg back together, he stood up – putting most of his weight on his left leg – and tried again. This time, he contained the magnetism to his hands instead of his whole body. He felt some of the metal items in his inventory twitch, but nothing ripped itself out of the wall and came flying at him this time.

He looked at the magnetic field surrounding the bedrock and compared it to the field around his hands. Then, after a bit of fiddling, he got them synchronized. He reached forward and pulled the block of bedrock away from the floor with extreme ease, then he stored it safely in his inventory.

Almost immediately, he felt a draft of cold air creep up around his feet. He looked down through the hole in the floor and found himself staring into the immense darkness of the Void.

He paused, frozen. He had never properly seen the Void before. He had seen extensions of it, of course, but never before had he laid eyes on the actual source. The shadows below him seemed to move, but were kept at bay by the light and the electromagnetic field of the bedrock, which was still strong and functional even with a missing piece. He could occasionally see flashes of blue light from the static discharge given off by the bedrock; it looked like a lightning storm.

After a moment, he stumbled backwards and covered the hole with a block of obsidian, shuddering at the sick fascination he had felt when looking at the seething darkness below him.

With a small sigh, he turned and ran back up the stairs, eager to learn all the dark magic the obsidian and bedrock could provide.

XXX

Ross spent the better part of two days locked in his room studying the obsidian and bedrock. They both taught him better ways to protect himself and create shields, and from the obsidian he learned how to teleport between dimensions with ease, but nothing in the magic of the blocks revealed the secrets of healing or dark virus manipulation. When he realized there was nothing more he could learn from the blocks, he snuck out and returned to the zombie spawner he had disabled earlier. He studied that, destroying it in the process. From that, he only learned necromancy. He did, however, get his light infused sword back.

Whenever he wasn't studying, he spent all of his time with Smiffy, who was fading fast. Ross couldn't do much for him, but he could keep him company and take his pain. So that's what he did. He stayed with his dying friend, talking to him and keeping him distracted from the pain.

The last time he ever did this, he sat with Smiffy all night, always keeping an eye on the moon. It was only 24 hours away from being full.

Smiffy was only barely strong enough to talk at this point, so he started using sign language to communicate when talking became too difficult. After a while though, even that was too much.

That was the moment that Ross knew it was nearly the end. And that's what scared him into doing what he did next.

XXX

Ross stared out the window as the sun rose on Smiffy's last day. Tonight was the full moon, and he could already feel its effects. The light was giving him headaches, and his hearing was so acute he could hear the frantic beating of Smiffy's heart.

He looked at Smiffy, who had drifted into a shallow and restless sleep.

“I'm doing this for you...” he whispered to his sleeping friend. Then he stood up and quietly left the room.

Glancing around, he used his magic to see that Trott was up in Smiffy's workshop, surely still trying to find a cure.

Turning, he headed back into his room and closed the door. He turned off his headset, hid it under his pillow, and opened the hatch in the wall, taking out the small obsidian box again. He opened it with his key, reached inside, and pulled out the wand focus. Void appeared standing next to him, his spectral face cloaked in shadow yet showing obvious concern.

“So... how's the search going?” asked Void cautiously.

Ross sighed and shook his head. “It's not good... I don't know how to save him...”

Void looked at the floor, his eyes guilty. “Well, I happen to know a lot about lycanthropy, including a cure.”

“You said there was no cure that he would survive,” growled Ross.

Void grimaced. “There's always a chance... I used to know a werewolf, and he managed to cure himself.”

Ross' eyes widened. “What is it?” he exclaimed loudly. “What's the cure?”

Void took a step away from him. “You're not gonna like this...”

Before he could continue, however, the door to Ross' room opened and Trott looked in. Ross turned to look at him, taking that split second to remind himself that while he held the wand focus in his hand, he was the only one who could actually see Void.

“Ross, what's going on?” asked Trott carefully as he glanced around the room, his eyes passing directly over Void without stopping. “Who are you talking to?”

Ross shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, easily hiding the wand focus. “Y'know, just... talking to myself.”

He heard Void give a small chuckle next to him, and he reminded himself not to look at the demon.

Trott fully stepped into the room. “Ross, are you okay? You look awful.”

Void nodded. “It's true. You look like you haven't slept in a week.”

“I'm fine,” assured Ross, ignoring Void. “I mean... I really haven't been sleeping much. Stress, y'know...”

Trott sighed a bit and realized that there would be no getting through to him. “Okay, just... promise me you'll take a nap or something.”

Ross nodded, and Trott closed the door. They could hear him heading back either to Smiffy's room or the elevators.

“You're a very good liar,” said Void, sounding a bit impressed.

Ross turned back to face him. “Tell me what the cure is.”

Any vestige of a smile vanished from Void's shadowy face. He looked at the ground and refused to make eye contact.

“Okay...” he muttered after a moment. “The only cure I know of is Void flux, which as I'm sure you know, kills everything. It'll kill the wolf.”

Ross paused. Somewhere deep in his mind he knew it would come to something like this.

“What happened to your werewolf friend?” he asked.

Void closed his eyes. “He died.”

For a split second, true agony was visible on Void's face.

“Is there any other cure?”

“Like I said, the only one I know about is Void flux,” said Void, his quiet voice returning to its regular cold and salty tone. “This is a virus, not a curse, so witchcraft won't work. If you wanted to try Void flux though, you'd need a demigod, and a powerful one too. I know Ridge won't help you, and since none of you are demigods it would just kill you.”

Ross wasn't sure what shocked him the most: the fact that he knew they couldn't contact Ridge or that he didn't know that Ross was now a demigod. However, he hid his shock with suspicion.

“Why are you being so helpful?” he demanded.

“I'm a f*cking prisoner!” Void exclaimed, looking exasperated. “I'm hoping to prove that I can be useful so you'll let me go. Trust me, I know you'll regret keeping me locked up here for so long...”

Ross glared at him. “You're a monster,” he snarled, his voice sounding less human than normal. “You hurt us. You almost killed Smith! He'll have those scars you gave him for the rest of his life. I can't sleep without seeing what you did to him. What you did to all of us!”

He absently clutched at the old wound on his stomach where he had been shot with a silver arrow. Void noticed this, and he took a step back, his glowing red eyes emotionless. Ross wasn't able to see it because of the shadows, but Void was smiling.

“I'm glad you don't trust me,” mumbled Void. “It's good to see that nothing will ever change between us.”

This caught Ross off guard. “What do you mean?”

Void gave a tiny chuckle. “Every day I remember more and more of who I was before I was banished. Before I became this monster. You and I have always had issues trusting each other, even if you pretended otherwise.”

Ross stared at him. “The Ghost told us you used to be Israphel...”

Void gave a proper laugh this time. Ross couldn't see the details of his face, but he could tell that Void had a wide and wicked grin on his face.

“The Ghost... he's interesting,” Void continued bitterly. “He's probably worse than me! I could learn a thing or two from that guy. And he's spreading lies about who I used to be? Ha! I love how you've got a maniac like him running around without a leash, but you keep me trapped.” He suddenly stopped, and a look of fear crossed his eyes. When he spoke again a moment later, his tone was more serious.

“I know you don't trust me, but trust me on this. He's got a plan of his own, and I don't know what it is, but I know nothing good can come from it. Whatever you do, don't listen to him. Don't listen to what he has to say, because he'll lie to you. He'll try and get you to do something horrible for his own benefit. Just... whatever he asks you to do, know that he has an ulterior motive...”

“Kind of like you?” asked Ross, his voice cold.

Void froze, a look of shock on his shadowy face.

Ross didn't give him time to think of a comeback. Instead, he put the wand focus back in the box, and Void disappeared.

Slowly, he turned and sat down on his bed, processing what had just happened. Void flux could cure Smiffy, but it could also kill him. They would need a powerful demigod to control it and remove it once it had run its course. Sure, he was a demigod, but he barely had control over his powers, and he was nowhere near as strong as Ridge, who was still missing in action.

But time had run out. He didn't have a choice.

Slowly, he stood up and picked up his headset, then he left his room. He took one step towards the elevators before pausing and heading to Smiffy's room.

Smiffy was barely alive. There was a mask over his face giving him air, an IV was hooked into his arm, and all of the monitors he was hooked up to showed increasingly negative signs. He seemed small and fragile, like he would break at a single touch.

Slowly and carefully, Ross knelt down on the bed, looking at him. Before he could do anything, however, Smiffy blinked his glassy eyes open and smiled weakly when he saw Ross.

“Hey...” he mumbled, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“Hey Smith... I... I think I found the answer. Just promise me you'll hang on a little bit longer, okay?” Ross choked out.

Smiffy reached up and pulled Ross into a hug. Ross held on tight, only letting to when Smiffy started coughing.

He sat back and slowly stood up to leave, but Smiffy grabbed his hand.

“Thank you...” he whispered, giving Ross' hand a gentle squeeze before letting go.

Ross smiled, feeling hope for the first time in weeks. He turned and walked out the door, heading to the elevators and zapping down to the ground floor. As soon as he walked out the main door, however, he came face to face with the Ghost.

“Don't do it,” the Ghost pleaded.

“What are you talking about?” asked Ross angrily as he pushed past the Ghost and walked out beyond the walls.

“I'm begging you, don't do what Void told you to do!” the Ghost exclaimed.

Ross whipped around to face him, his eyes alight with rage. “Do you have any better solution?” he shouted.

“Yes,” said the Ghost, his voice becoming unusually sinister.

Ross glared at him before turning and heading for his tunnel by the lake. However, the Ghost teleported in front of him.

“Get out of my way,” Ross snarled.

“You asked me if I had a better solution than killing yourself with Void flux, and I do,” the Ghost whispered, anger showing on his shadowy face. “You need to kill him.”

Ross froze. “What are you talking about?”

“You need to kill Smith,” said the Ghost, his voice betraying fear. “It's the only way... You... you have no idea what he'll become if he isn't killed now...”

“I have two words for you,” whispered Ross. He took a deep breath and then screamed at the top of his lungs: “EAT sh*t!”

He was blasted off his feet by the Ghost.

“YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME!” the Ghost screamed, his voice raw with anger.

Ross jumped to his feet and sent a chunk of earth flying at the Ghost, who teleported to the side to avoid it. The Ghost shot a blast of shadow magic at Ross, who flicked his wrist upwards and caused a large chunk of land to jump out of the ground, creating a wall in front of him and protecting him from the shadow magic.

Suddenly, the wall exploded and the Ghost stood behind it, holding fire in his hands. He launched the fire at Ross, who held up his arm and turned the air around it into marble, creating a large black marble shield that seemed to grow out of his infected arm.

In one swift movement, Ross pulled water from the lake behind him and froze it into spikes of ice, which he flung at the Ghost. One of the shards smashed into the Ghost's hand, extinguishing the fire in that hand.

“I'm trying to help you!” the Ghost screamed as he continued to try and injure Ross.

“Help?!” exclaimed Ross, rage burning through him. His eyes flashed teal, and both of his hearts started to beat in sync. A split second later, he found himself hovering in the air, holding the Ghost by the throat. He reached for his sword, but it wasn't there – he had left it back in his room.

The Ghost shot a blast of electricity at him, and Ross barely managed to duck to the left to avoid it. The blast was so close that it knocked his headset off. He dropped the Ghost and lowered himself to the ground to continue the attack.

“The only reason Smith got infected is because he was trying to find a cure, because he was worried what would happen to me! You trapped us inside on a full moon! You infected me with Void magic! This whole thing is your fault!” Ross screamed as he shot blast after blast of magic at the Ghost.

Suddenly, he lunged forward, his hand glowing with light magic. He slashed his arm upwards and felt the magic make solid contact.

The Ghost screamed and staggered backwards, clutching his face. Dark blood dripped between his fingers and fell to the ground.

Slowly, the Ghost looked up, and Ross saw the damage he had done. The shadows around his face had been burned away by the light, and there was a thick solid wound running up the length of the left side of his face. His left eye was bleeding and sightless.

“You'll wish you hadn't done that...” snarled the Ghost, his voice sounding more dangerous than Ross had ever heard. A second later, he teleported away.

Ross stood shaking as he gently slipped out of God Mode. He glanced at his hands and saw that he had burned them again. He also looked at the black marble shield stuck to his left arm. He hadn't noticed it in the heat of the battle, but when he formed the shield, it had formed from the center out in a spiral. The pattern on the shield looked eerily similar to the mark of the Void.

He glanced back at the spot where the Ghost had vanished. The dark blood was still there, splattered on the ground.

“Hm...” muttered Ross. “I... I didn't think ghosts could bleed...”

With that thought echoing in his mind, he turned and ran for the tunnel to the bottom of the earth.

Chapter 12: The Burning Boat

Chapter Text

Ross made his way down the stairs, descending further and further into the cold darkness. In his mind, he replayed what had just happened, trying to figure everything out.

Void told him that the only cure for lycanthropy was Void flux, which could only be harnessed by a demigod. This was concerning, because Void's werewolf friend had apparently died during the procedure.

As Ross walked, he slipped on an uneven step and grabbed the wall to brace himself. He winced in pain as the rough wall dug into his burnt palms.

He looked at his hands for the first time since the fight. There were twice as many blisters as there had been before, just because he had used light magic to burn the Ghost.

“Since when did my light magic start burning me?” he muttered to himself, staring at his hands. Then he realized that ever since the Deep Dark, most of the light magic he did burned him. Had something happened to him there?

Shaking his head a bit, he continued down the stairs. The image of the Ghost popped into his mind.

The Ghost had confronted him and told him not to listen to Void. How had he known about Void? Even if he had been eavesdropping, Ross was the only one who could see and hear the demon when they talked.

The Ghost had told him not to use Void flux, but instead to kill Smiffy. That's what set him off. He really hadn't meant to half blind the Ghost, but rage had taken over at that point.

It's because tonight's a full moon... thought Ross miserably. That was the reason he had attacked the Ghost so savagely.

He figured he'd have time to feel guilty about it later, but at that moment, he reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out onto bedrock.

After taking a second to rid himself of the feeling of vertigo, he turned to the hole in the bedrock and removed the obsidian from it. Then he sat down and stared into the writhing shadows of the Void beneath him.

After approximately an hour of staring into the Void, he felt a cold shiver run down his spine, as if all the heat had been sucked from his body. He suddenly felt nauseous, and his head and chest began to ache.

A moment later, however, the pain disappeared, leaving him feeling hollow. He wasn't sure what just happened, but when he looked back into the Void, things suddenly became clear.

Void magic was very similar to earth magic.

He knew how to manipulate earth magic. He also knew how to manipulate shadows. Why should this be any different?

He leaned forward and reached his left hand through the hole in the bedrock and down into the Void. Instantly, the cold shot through his arm, so intense it burned, but he didn't pull his arm back. Then, after a few minutes of the most intense cold he had ever felt in his life, it subsided, giving him the impression that his arm was floating in a pool of lukewarm water.

He looked down and saw black and red magic swirling around his hand. He sat back, and the cloud of magic came with him. He held it between both hands and began to dissect it, looking at how it worked and how he could control it.

Ross stared at the little cloud of magic for so long that his eyes burned. The more he picked it apart, the sicker and colder he felt. This was so different from the hot sticky blood magic he had been doing, or the smooth cool shadow magic he had learned. This had a different feel to it – it was sharp and cold, like a blizzard or a sandstorm in a frozen desert. He felt lightheaded and nauseous, and his sense of time rapidly slipped away. He didn't know if he had been learning the magic for minutes or hours.

And then something clicked. By this time, his vision was swimming and his hands were shaking, and every time he coughed a bit of blood splattered the bedrock in front of him.

“Wow, Void magic is terrible for you...” muttered Ross, extinguishing the magic and laying flat on his back. He was running a fever, which didn't help with the dizziness and vertigo. “Well... maybe it's worse for me because of the whole werewolf thing.”

For a brief second, he thought back to how Smiffy had used Void magic to catch the Ghost. He had collapsed and coughed up blood for a bit, weak from using so much energy, but after that he had seemed fine.

He wondered how Smiffy had been able to learn Void magic so quickly, but then he realized it was because of Void. The time traveling demon was from their future, and he seemed to constantly leak knowledge. That was how Smiffy learned Void magic, and how he knew what Void magic did to werewolves. Ross also realized with some small amount of bitterness that Void might have been the reason he had developed new powers so quickly, especially invisibility.

He wondered what else Void might have accidentally taught him. Was he learning Dark magic so quickly because he had spent the past nine months with the demon hiding in his wall?

He lay there thinking for another minute before a blast of clarity shot through his head like a lightning bolt.

Smith...

He quickly sat up and looked back up the stairway, but the fog was too dark to see through, so he couldn't see how light the sky was. He looked at his watch, but it didn't work down here this close to the powerful magnetic and distortional field of the bedrock. His heart racing, he reached up for his headset before realizing that it had been destroyed during his fight with the Ghost. He had no idea what time it was.

“I have to do this now...” muttered Ross, his voice cracking with panic.

Hands shaking, he sat up on his knees and held his hands out over the open Void. He took a deep breath to stop the shaking, then he closed his eyes. With his magic, he reached down into the Void.

Much to his surprise, the Void wasn't actually filled with Void flux as he previously thought. It was mostly a vast and empty vacuum, with only thick pockets of Void flux, which gave off static discharges whenever it drifted too close to the electromagnetic field of the bedrock.

His eyes still closed, Ross used his magic to search through the emptiness, looking for the nearest static discharges. There, he found a relatively large pocket of Void flux about ten meters from where he was kneeling.

Imagining his magic as two long, ghostly hands, he reached out and took a large handful of the deadly flux. He could feel the cold from it travel back up to his hands, which began to shake again.

He pulled his magic back, bringing the Void flux with him, until he opened his eyes and saw it hovering there between his hands, a swirling cloud of gaseous goop which seemed to crackle with electricity and poison.

Ross stared at it for a moment. Between his hands, he held one of the most dangerous substances in all of the Worlds. Just this handful was enough to kill ten people with ease. It was what killed Xephos.

This was the only thing powerful enough to cure lycanthropy. The only thing that could save Smiffy.

Or so he had been told. He had no idea if Void was lying to him. What if this was another act of trickery on his part? Would this actually eliminate the lycanthropy virus, or would it do something much worse?

Ross realized with a sinking feeling that he needed to test it before he attempted to use it to cure Smiffy.

And the same virus that was killing Smiffy was also running through his veins at that very moment.

It was time for the final test.

Taking a very deep breath, Ross stood up and stepped away from the hole, still holding the Void flux between his hands.

After a second of concentration, his hearts began to beat in sync, and his eyes began to glow teal. He needed to stay in God mode if he wanted to stay conscious and not kill himself.

“Please let this work...” he whispered.

Those were the last words ever spoken by Ross the werewolf.

Taking one final deep breath, he drew the Void flux into his body.

For one second, nothing happened. Then an indescribable pain shot through his body, and he instantly seized up, his limbs as stiff as marble. A second later, the pain seemed to suck him to the ground, where he fell and curled up in the fetal position, his body violently seizing.

Blasts of blue magic shot from his hands as his body tried to expel the poisonous magic, but he forced it to stop.

Through his blurred vision, he saw his magic fade from teal to black. Then the convulsions became worse, and his vision went black, but he remained conscious almost through sheer willpower.

His hearts were racing, and there wasn't a single part of his body that wasn't screaming in agony. The cold was so intense that, ironically, he felt as if he were on fire.

And then the seizures slowly stopped, leaving Ross feeling so weak he was almost certain he would never move again.

Suddenly, a sharp pain in his stomach bent him nearly in half, then he turned, propped himself up, and retched onto the ground.

His vision partially returned, and he saw that he had vomited up a pool of black blood and little bits of viscera.

He pushed himself away from the blood with limbs so weak they felt like cooked noodles. Then, with one final shaky breath, he slipped out of God mode and collapsed, unconscious.

XXX

Ross woke up some time later, laying face down on the cold bedrock with blood dripping out of his mouth. His vision was blurry, but it was slowly coming back to him.

The first thing he noticed was how weak and cold he was, barely able to move. With a groan, he tried to sit up.

That was when he saw his hand.

The Void infection had spread, turning his entire hand black so that it looked like he was wearing a glove.

Ross realized that the spread of the infection wasn't a good sign, but he didn't care. He had one single goal in his mind, and that was to get back to Smiffy.

He grabbed the nearest wall and hauled himself to his feet. He took one lurching step towards the stairs, but then he realized he would need more Void flux, seeing as the flux he had used was in a puddle on the ground along with – possibly – his virus.

With a quick and easy flick of his wrist, he reached back into the Void and got another handful of flux, which he stored in his infected arm. Then he turned and dragged himself up the stairs.

As he got closer and closer to the surface, he realized that it was much darker now than when he had gone down the stairs earlier. Night was falling, and with it the full moon would rise.

Adrenaline shot through him, and he found the strength to run up the rest of the stairs. He was too weak to fly or teleport, but he had feeling in his legs, which was good enough. Taking a painful breath, he ran back home.

Every step felt like someone was hammering a red hot nail into his heel, but he kept going, looking up at the sky, searching for any sign of the moon. The sun had disappeared, but the moon hadn't shown itself yet. There was still time.

He ran across the drawbridge, not noticing that the water froze when he went past. He didn't notice that several of the flowers he ran past withered up and died when he got near them.

He opened the door and zapped upstairs to their rooms, ready to use the Void flux in his arm.

When he opened the door to Smiffy's room, he stopped cold as if frozen in time.

Smiffy was completely still and pale, lying in his bed. He was no longer hooked up to any of the machines or IV lines. The silence in the room was overwhelming.

Trott was sitting in the chair next to the bed, his head in his hands. He looked up when Ross came in, and it was clear that he was crying.

“Ross...” he choked out, his voice barely more than a pained whisper.

“No...” gasped Ross, running over to the side of Smiffy's bed. “What... what happened...?”

Trott shook his head, his voice catching in his throat when he tried to talk. “He... he d-died about a... an hour after you left...” he sobbed. “I c-couldn't do anything to s-save him...”

Ross shook his head and knelt down on the bed next to Smiffy's body. He put his hand on his chest, but he couldn't feel any signs of life. The body was cold.

“I... I could have saved him...” whispered Ross, his hands shaking.

Maybe he could still save him. He quickly removed the Void flux from his arm and put it in Smiffy, but nothing changed. He rubbed his hands together to create a Galvanic Spark, and this time something happened, but not to Smiffy. When Ross used it, the Spark burned his hands and left long purple scars up his arms. This didn't stop him. He tried the Spark again, but again it didn't work, and it left more burns and scars. Blood was dripping down his arms, and when he started to create a Spark for the third time, Trott reached across the bed and held his hands together.

“This can't be happening...” stammered Ross, tears streaming down his colorless face. He pulled his hands from Trott's and grabbed Smiffy by the shoulders, shaking him a bit.

“Smith, please wake up!” he sobbed. “Please, please!”

Smiffy didn't respond. He didn't wake up. It was too late.

He was dead.

Slowly, Ross stood up from the bed. He took three steps backwards before he collapsed on his knees and gave a sharp sob. Trott knelt down next to him and wrapped him in a tight hug.

Together, they cried until they couldn't breathe.

XXX

It was nearly midnight when they reached the ocean.

Under normal circ*mstances, the ocean was only a 45 minute walk from their base, but these weren't normal circ*mstances. They had walked slowly and carefully, Trott holding a torch and Ross carrying the body, which was wrapped in white sheets that had been stained with the blood from Ross' arms and hands.

Trott hadn't told Ross exactly what the plan was, but he could guess. They were going to give Smiffy a burial at sea.

When they reached the beach, Trott stopped and told Ross to wait. Then he went over to a small and mostly hidden building on the sand. He opened a large door and pulled out a small wooden boat.

“Where did you get that?” asked Ross, his voice an exhausted monotone.

“I found it a few months ago,” explained Trott in a melancholy whisper. “I thought it might... come in handy...” He choked on the last few words.

They quietly moved the boat into position, and Ross gently laid Smiffy's body inside. They unwrapped him a bit, and Trott put some flowers into his hand. Ross put his wand into his other hand. They stepped back.

“Ready...?” asked Trott, his voice breaking.

Ross gave a small nod.

Together, they pushed the boat into the silent sea, which was still as glass.

They waited in silence until the boat had drifted a hundred yards from shore. Then Trott put his hand on Ross' arm, and they both wordlessly drew their bows. Ross created a small flickering fire in the palm of his hand, and both of their arrows caught.

Without a word, they took aim and let the arrows fly. They watched as the two tiny flames soared through the night and made perfect contact with the boat, which began to steadily burn. Smiffy would have loved it.

As they stood in silence watching the boat burn, Ross slowly started to recover from the shock that numbed him. Ever since realizing that Smiffy was dead, he'd had tunnel vision, but now he was becoming more aware of what was happening around him.

There was no wind. The night was cloudless. The monsters were out, but they seemed to be avoiding them.

And then he noticed something else. The full moon was high in the sky above them, but he wasn't Changing.

His cure had worked. The werewolf was dead.

I could have saved Smith...

The numbness faded and was immediately replaced with rage. The longer he stood staring at the burning boat, the more intense his rage became. He felt his hearts trying to beat in sync, but he forced them out of sync again. He couldn't lose control. Not here.

I should have gone to Void sooner, but I was a coward. A f*cking coward. This is all my-

But wait. It wasn't his fault.

As soon as he realized this, the anger and pain inside him intensified so suddenly he felt like he was going to explode. Clenching his fists tight, he turned and stormed off.

Trott heard Ross leave, but he let him go. He knew Ross would need time to work through this tragedy, so he should let him have his space.

So Trott stood on the beach alone, watching the boat burn for another ten minutes. Then, just as the fire began to burn down and the boat started to sink, the explosion happened.

Trott jumped a foot in the air and whipped around. In the distance, the sky was glowing orange and dark billowing clouds were rising into the night, blocking out the moon and the stars.

With a shot of fear, Trott realized that the fire was coming from the exact spot where their base was located.

Without hesitation, Trott sprinted back home as fast as his little legs could carry him. And when he arrived fifteen breathless minutes later, he pulled up short when he saw the destruction.

What was left of the marble towers was on fire, and burning debris was scattered for miles around. A large chunk had been taken out of the floating island, there were deep craters littering the landscape, and everything that could burn was burning. The entire top half of the tower had exploded, and another section collapsed before Trott's eyes.

He started to frantically look around, desperately searching for something – anything – that could help. He saw something glowing under a fallen tree nearby, and when he pulled it out he found it was Ross' light infused sword.

Trott looked around again. Where was Ross?! Had he been caught in the explosion, or had he caused it? And if he didn't do it, then what did?

Trott took a breath and opened his mouth to call for his friend, but right at that moment, there was another small explosion in the towers, and more debris fell.

Something small and round fell out of the sky and landed directly in front of Trott. He looked at it and realized with a shot of horror that it was a wand focus with the mark of the Void burnt into it.

And the wand focus had a large crack down the middle.

Before Trott could blink, the wand focus split open and a black cloud of swirling shadows and magic exploded out. Trott was knocked backwards by the force of the blast, and from his position on the ground, he watched in horror as Void appeared before him, fully formed and laughing.

And in the orange light of the fire, Trott finally saw the laughing face under the black hood.

Suddenly, Ross appeared next to Trott, and Void smiled and teleported away, knowing fully well that they had both seen his face.

“Ross...” squeaked Trott, breathless with terror.

Ross slowly turned to look at Trott. He was so pale that his skin was practically white. He was clearly in God mode, but instead of teal, his eyes were glowing red.

Suddenly, he lunged forward and hit Trott in the chest. Trott's vision suddenly went black and he was surrounded by a suffocating coldness.

A split second later, he found himself flat on his back on the ground. It was dark and not on fire here, and he could hear the ocean. He was violently shivering, and it was then that he realized that Ross had teleported him.

Suddenly, someone appeared leaning over him. Whoever it was was silhouetted by the full moon, but when they spoke, he recognized the voice.

“Ridge, it's me,” said Lomadia, tapping the headset on her ear. “I found Trott.”

There was a sharp crack and Ridge appeared. He leaned over Trott and put his hand on his chest, drawing out the Void magic that was making him shiver.

Trott sat up with a sharp gasp, looking around. He was on Owl Island. Ross had teleported him to the main world.

That's when he started to cry.

“Trott, what is it?” asked Ridge, his voice fairly frantic. “What happened?”

“It's him...” stammered Trott, his voice cracking with fear and pain. “Ross is Void...”

Chapter 13: Human

Chapter Text

Nothing but silence followed Trott's announcement. Silence and the wind, along with the occasional stifled sob from the heartbroken walrus.

It took a moment for Lomadia and Ridge to process what Trott had just said. They looked at each other with worry and fear; Ridge had told Lomadia all about what happened with Void. He told her about it the first time he spoke with her after Xephos died.

Slowly, Lomadia knelt down in front of the inconsolable engineer. She put a gentle hand on his shaking shoulder, and he looked up at her, despair written all over his face.

“Trott,” she said gently, “can you tell us what happened?”

“They're gone,” Trott choked out. “T-they're both gone...”

“Start from the beginning,” whispered Lomadia. “Tell us everything that happened.”

Trott gulped and took a deep breath to try and stop his shaking. He glanced past Lomadia's shoulder to see the beach and the ocean. It was a little past midnight, and the full moon was reflecting on the water. In his mind he saw Smiffy's boat.

Squeezing his eyes shut to stop the tears, he took another deep breath and thought back to when all the chaos started.

“It... it all started with the Ghost,” he stammered, doing his best to keep his voice from cracking. “We didn't know who it was at first... we thought it was Void. So we... we captured him, and...”

He stopped and glanced at Lomadia. She didn't know that the Ghost was Xephos, and in that split second he decided not to tell her. It had been bad enough for her to lose him, and he couldn't imagine she would be happy to find out that his soul had been wandering the worlds as a ghost from the Void, unable to remember most of his past life. He could at least spare her from that pain.

“As it turned out...” Trott continued, looking down at his hands, “the Ghost was a benevolent entity from the Void, and he was trying to help us. He told us that Void was still out there, even though we defeated him... He told us Void was a danger to us in the dark...”

Trott thought back to that night, exactly a month ago. When they had been trapped inside with a frenzied werewolf. A creature that's only dangerous in the dark. Ross.

“I guess he was right...”

His voice broke and he took a minute to compose himself. His eyes were burning from the tears, and he could barely breathe, but he felt like telling the story would help him put his thoughts back in place and realize what had happened. Lomadia knelt in front of him and Ridge stood behind him. Both of them were listening without making a sound.

“We locked ourselves inside, but we – I – didn't realize it was a full moon, and Ross...” He choked a bit, but he had to continue. “... he Changed. We had to trap him in the panic room, a-and he injured himself. Nearly tore his arm off... We thought he was going to lose it, but the next morning it was healed.”

“How did he heal so quickly?” asked Ridge, speaking for the first time since Trott started his story. Trott couldn't see him from where he was sitting, but he sounded anxious.

“According to... to Smith... the Ghost healed him with Void magic. And by healing him, he also infected him. His arm turned black and cold, and it radiated Void magic, but other than that it didn't seem like anything was wrong with it.

“But... Smith was worried. He... he knew Void magic and lycanthropy don't mix well, and he was worried about what would happen on the next full moon... the one tonight. So he tried to find a cure for lycanthropy using a couple teeth Ross left in the wall of the panic room, but when he pulled them out of the wall, he cut his hands on them and got infected...”

As Trott told this part of the story, his voice came closer and closer to cracking, and his eyes burned as the tears threatened to return.

“Let me guess,” said Ridge quietly, “the lycanthropy virus conflicted with Smith's curse and started killing him.”

Trott whipped around to face Ridge. “How did you know that?” he gasped.

Ridge looked like he was in pain. “I don't know if you remember, but it's my fault that Ross became a werewolf. But before I started the test, I did my research on you three, and he was the only one who could be successfully infected. Your walrus blood doesn't transmit the virus, and Smith's curse basically amplifies the virus and turns into a severe and lethal case of blood poisoning and hemorrhagic fever.”

As Ridge spoke, he watched Trott's expression become darker. Suddenly, he stood up and turned so they were facing each other. Even though Trott was half Ridge's height, he still took a step back in fear.

“Where were you?” snarled Trott, his voice now dripping with venom. “Ross and I both tried to contact you after Smith got sick, but you didn't answer.”

Ridge gulped, but he didn't know what to say.

“WHERE WERE YOU?!” Trott suddenly shouted.

“I tried...” Ridge stammered, his voice uncharacteristically weak. “I tried to get to you. I got all of your messages, but they were garbled. I couldn't understand them, but you both sounded panicked. I tried to go see you to find out what was happening, but I couldn't. Your world had been sealed off. I couldn't get in.”

Trott continued to glare at Ridge, but his anger faded as quickly as it had appeared. He turned so he was facing Lomadia again.

“What happened after Smith got sick?” asked Lomadia gently. She knew she should have tried to defuse the situation by changing the subject, but her curiosity got the better of her.

Trott took a small, shaky breath. “Ross and I started searching for a cure. At first we had hope, but every day things looked more and more bleak... We both got desperate. I started testing potentially harmful things on myself.”

As he said this, he rubbed his arm. Lomadia gently took his hand and pushed back the sleeve of his lab coat, revealing blistered and inflamed skin, covered in chemical burns in some places. They all grimaced at the sight. Ridge's hand twitched, and his eyes flashed gold for a second, then the blisters and burns on Trott's arm started to slowly clear up. Trott didn't thank him.

“If you think that's bad, you should see what Ross did,” muttered Trott as he pushed his sleeve back down, his voice a whisper.

“What did Ross do?” asked Lomadia, keeping a firm grip on Trott's hand.

“He... he...” Trott stopped. He didn't know exactly what Ross had done, just that it ended very badly. That was when a thought crossed his mind so suddenly that he staggered a bit. He whipped around to face Ridge.

“What happened when we fought Void?” demanded Trott.

“What do you mean?” asked Ridge, looking concerned.

“When we fought him in Limbo. Did you kill him?”

“Uh... I... I tried to...” admitted Ridge, not sure where Trott was going with his line of questions.

“Well you didn't,” snarled Trott. “You destroyed him, but you didn't kill him, and he stayed trapped in that f*cking wand focus! I was concerned that had happened, so I tried to find the focus and destroy it, but I couldn't find it. I thought you had been smart enough to know that's where Void's spirit would go if he was destroyed, so I thought you took it and destroyed it.

“But I was wrong. You were too f*cking stupid to realize that you can't just stab a Void spirit. I think Ross had the wand focus the whole time. I think he took it because he was curious. Because he wanted to learn more about the Void and why he Changed differently while he was in there. And he took it because you didn't. Because you were too busy worrying about what was happening here...”

Trott stopped himself, both because he didn't want to completely lose his sh*t in front of Lomadia, and because he had realized something.

“The key...” he muttered to himself. “Ross had a tiny golden key with him. It must have been for wherever he kept the wand focus...”

“Trott,” said Lomadia, gently putting her hand on his shoulder to bring him back to reality. “How do you know that Ross is Void?”

Trott froze, feeling all the blood rush out of his head.

“I saw him...” he mumbled. “The wand focus burst open and I saw his face. He knew I saw him...”

Trott sighed, feeling suddenly drained of energy. “And that's... that's it... Smith is dead and Ross is Void. They're both gone...”

A painful silence descended on them. Nobody knew what to say for a while.

“How did you end up here?” Lomadia finally asked.

“Ross teleported me here,” Trott muttered. “He completely lost it after Smith's funeral, and he destroyed our base... I guess he had a moment of clarity and realized he didn't want me there, so he sent me here... I don't know what's happening to him now... I don't know where Void went when he teleported away... I just don't know...”

Lomadia nodded at Trott, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Ridge's expression change. He looked like he had just realized something.

“Lomadia, why don't you and Trott go inside,” suggested Ridge. “It's late, it's dark, and Trott looks like he needs a strong drink...”

“Good idea,” said Lomadia, carefully putting her arm around Trott's shoulder and leading him towards her house. She glanced over her shoulder at Ridge.

“I'll be back soon,” he whispered to her. Then he turned and silently flew off. Lomadia had no idea what he was up to, but he clearly didn't want Trott to know that he had something planned.

Lomadia led Trott into her house. It was cozy, and there were only one or two lights on due to how late it was. She brought him into the kitchen and set him down at the table. Before she could say anything, another door opened and Nilesy poked his head into the kitchen.

“What's going on?” he whispered, doing his best to keep his voice low.

“Some bad sh*t went down,” Lomadia replied, glancing at Trott, who was sitting slumped over and staring at the table, his eyes empty.

Before Nilesy could respond, a small crying noise came from the far end of the hall. All three of them looked in the direction of the sound.

“He's probably hungry,” Lomadia muttered, not bothering to keep her voice down anymore. “I'll go take care of him. Nilesy, will you get Trott a drink?”

Nilesy nodded, and Lomadia left the room. There was silence for a moment before Nilesy started to move about the kitchen, pulling out a couple different bottles.

“Let's see...” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder at Trott. “You look like you've been dragged through hell and back, but you also look like you're ready to hide under a blanket until the sun stops shining... Hm...”

Trott listened to Nilesy clank around, and he thought about the description he had just given. He couldn't believe how accurate it was.

A minute later, Nilesy sat down in the chair across from him and set a steaming mug on the table.

“Here we go,” said Nilesy, pushing the cup towards Trott. “Hot cider with a generous helping of the good stuff. Cinnamon flavored. Perfect drink for someone who's tired, beaten, and depressed.”

Trott slowly took the mug in his hands and took a sip. The hot drink immediately brought warmth back into his core, and the alcohol got his blood flowing again, even when it felt like his heart had been stopped for the past few hours.

“Thank you,” Trott whispered, feeling slightly more alive.

Nilesy smiled at him. “Just so you know, you don't have to tell me anything about what happened. Unless, of course, you want to.”

Trott shook his head. He didn't want to remember. Nilesy nodded, understanding.

They sat in silence for several minutes until Lomadia came back into the room. She was holding a sleepy looking baby against her chest.

“Here,” said Lomadia as she walked over and sat down at the table next to Trott. “Hold Lux, maybe you'll feel better.”

Trott reached out and gently took the tiny infant, cradling him close. Immediately, he felt his spirits lifting as he stared at the baby, whose bright blue eyes sleepily stared back at him.

“He's still a bit small for his age,” Trott noticed. As if in response, Lux yawned. “No teeth yet either, but it's normal for preemies to start teething late.”

“I appreciate the checkup, but the main reason I gave him to you is to help you calm down,” admitted Lomadia.

Trott smiled a bit and looked back down at Lux. Unlike most four month old's, Lux didn't have any stranger anxiety. He was probably the calmest baby Trott had ever seen.

Of course, staring at Lux made him think of Xephos. Of the Ghost. Where was he now? Was he back in their world or had he escaped? That made him think of Ross.

What would happen to him? He snapped and went down the road to dark magic. At that very moment he was on the loose, destroying their world. And when their home had been reduced to ash, what would he do after that? Would he move on to this world?

In that moment, Trott could clearly see the path that would lead Ross to becoming Void. The dark magic he was using would consume him, and then Ridge would step in and banish him. When would that happen? And was it too late to stop it? Was it too late to stop Ross and turn him back towards the light?

Trott realized he only had one option. He needed to confront Ross to try and stop him from becoming Void, or he would die trying.

“Trott?” Lomadia's voice brought him back to reality.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he handed the sleepy baby back to his mother. “Got lost in thought.”

“What were you thinking about?” asked Nilesy, who had been respectfully quiet the whole time.

“About what to do next,” said Trott, sounding calm and steady for the first time that night. He slowly stood up. “I'm going back for Ross.”

Before Lomadia or Nilesy could say anything, Trott looked out the window and saw movement. There were people out there. Without waiting, he ran out the door and around the side of the house.

The three people who had silently gathered turned around when Trott suddenly appeared. He saw that it was Ridge, standing next to Parv and Strife.

“What's going on?” asked Trott quietly.

“Yeah, what's going on?” asked Lomadia, who stepped out of the door behind Trott. She was still holding Lux against her chest. When the baby saw Ridge, he started to whimper and clung tighter to his mother. Apparently Ridge was the one person he didn't like.

Ridge glanced at Parv and Strife, who were standing behind him. He turned and looked at Trott and Lomadia standing by the house, and he noticed Nilesy watching from over Lomadia's shoulder. With a small sigh, he realized he'd been caught.

“Trott, I'm sorry, but you should go back inside,” said Ridge, his voice shaking a bit.

“You're going after Ross, aren't you?” asked Trott quietly, his voice accusing.

Ridge grimaced. “We don't have a choice! You and I both know what has to happen. Why delay the inevitable?”

“It doesn't have to happen!” exclaimed Trott, stepping forward.

“Yes it does,” growled Ridge. “You're a scientist. You understand how time travel works. We are approaching a fixed point in time, and trying to change it would cause a paradox that could rip your world apart!”

“In theory,” Trott responded. “Neither of us truly knows how time travel works. Not even you. We don't know what the consequences of my actions will be, but we both know what the consequences of your actions will be.”

“Then it's a good thing you aren't coming with us,” snarled Ridge.

“And how are you going to stop me?” demanded Trott, taking a step closer to Ridge, who couldn't help but be intimidated.

“What are you talking about?” asked Lomadia, who carefully handed Lux to Nilesy.

Trott glanced at her. “Our world was sealed off until Ross teleported me here. He broke the seal when he did that, so now we can freely travel between the two worlds as long as we're here. It's a hole in the shield.”

Lomadia glanced at Nilesy, who nodded knowingly and took Lux back inside. Then she turned to face the others.

“If that's the case, I'm coming too,” she said.

“What?! No!” exclaimed Ridge, looking flustered. “Y-you're a mother! You have a baby who's already lost his father. I'm not going to let you risk your life fighting a corrupted and insane demigod!”

“Oh, so you're fine with us risking our lives?” muttered Parv sarcastically. Strife elbowed him in the ribs. Everybody else ignored him.

Lomadia stepped forward and held up her arm. On her wrist was a teleporter.

“I added a special feature to this thing,” she said, pointing to her teleporter. “It constantly scans the area around me for danger. If it determines that I'm in mortal danger, it'll teleport me home. I've tried it before, and it works. If I go with you, I won't be in danger.”

“And you can't stop us from going with you,” Trott reminded him.

Ridge looked between the two of them for a moment before sighing and shaking his head a bit. “Alright, fine. But if either of you try and stop me, I'll teleport you home before you can blink...”

With that warning, he turned and strode to the other side of the clearing behind the house, and he started doing magic that none of the others could see nor understand. Strife and Parv cautiously moved over to Trott and Lomadia.

“Do you two know what's about to happen?” Lomadia asked them.

“Not exactly,” admitted Strife. “Ridge showed up and told us he needed our help with something dangerous.”

“Also we owed him a favor,” grumbled Parv. He didn't look very happy to be here, and neither did Strife. To Trott, they both looked like they had gotten dressed in a hurry. Ridge must have woken them up, and Trott hoped he'd had enough decency to knock on their front door instead of teleporting directly into their bedroom.

“Who exactly is the corrupted and insane demigod we're up against?” asked Strife, looking concerned.

“Ross,” said Trott bluntly.

Parv and Strife suddenly looked more awake. They had both still been groggy from Ridge's rude awakening, so neither of them had questioned why Trott was on Owl Island without his friends.

“What happened?” asked Parv.

“I don't know how, but he was turned into a demigod, and he was corrupted by dark magic,” whispered Trott, making sure not to make eye contact with either of them.

“And... where's Smith?” asked Strife carefully.

Trott didn't say anything, but Lomadia, who was standing slightly behind the walrus, shook her head and dragged her finger across her throat.

Before either of them could respond, Ridge called to them from across the clearing. “Prepare yourselves. The portal is almost connected.”

“Listen,” Trott suddenly whispered, keeping his voice low so that only the three standing around him could hear. “When we get back home, I don't know what we're going to find. Ross was on a rampage, destroying everything. But that's not what I'm worried about.”

He glanced up at Ridge, whose back was turned. “Ridge is going to try and banish Ross to the Void. If he does this, it'll create a chain of events that will lead right back to here. It'll create a time loop. That's why I need your help.”

“Let me guess,” whispered Lomadia. “You want us to wait until it's almost over, then turn on Ridge before he can banish Ross?”

Trott nodded. “It's the only way. I know it's a lot to ask, and it's a lot to risk, but if I can stop Ridge from banishing him, I can make sure Void never exists. If he never exists, everything will change. Xephos and Smith will still be alive. It's starting to feel like we've been living in an alternate universe for the past year, and this is our one chance at getting everything back to normal...”

“But... how will you be able to stop Ross?” asked Parv.

Trott's mouth felt dry. “I can talk him down,” he said with slightly wavering confidence. “If I can get close enough for him to hear me, I know I can calm him down enough to drop out of God mode. I've done it before... after we found out Smith was sick...”

“That's a big risk to rely on your calming bedside manor,” admitted Strife. “How do you know you'll be able to get through to him?”

“Our best friend just died,” Trott whispered, his voice cracking. “We buried him at sea an hour ago... We're both feeling the same pain, I just need him to feel it. That grief... that pain... that love... it's what keeps us...”

Trott paused. It didn't seem appropriate, but there was no other way to phrase it. There was no better way to phrase it.

“It's what keeps us human...” he choked out. “I just need to remind him that he's a human, not a god. Not a demon. Human.”

They were all quiet for a moment, and then Ridge stepped back over to them.

“Are you ready?” he asked, his voice grim. They all nodded silently. “Good. Then follow me.”

He walked back across the clearing, and the others followed him until he came to a stop at the treeline. They could all see that the air was shimmering with magic, and it felt significantly warmer.

“This is a one way portal,” warned Ridge as he waved a glowing gold hand, and the air in front of him started to warp. “It'll disappear once the five of us go through it, and the only way to get back to this world is with your teleporters. Understand?”

They all nodded.

“Good,” said Ridge. With a final wave of his hand, the shimmering air in front of him swirled into a shimmering gold portal. He stepped through and disappeared, followed by Lomadia, Parv, and Strife. Trott took one last look around, noticing that the full moon was now close to setting. The sun would be rising soon. He hoped he would be alive to see it.

With that final thought, he stepped through the portal, and the world swirled around him. The blue light from Owl Island disappeared, and Trott found himself looking at a dark sky full of smoke, with clouds glowing red from the fires beneath them. A second later, he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Trott whipped around to see Parv standing behind him. Ten feet away, Ridge, Lomadia, and Strife stood there in shock, observing the damage.

“You okay?” asked Parv.

Trott gulped and focused on his surroundings. They were standing on what had once been a grassy field, but was now a scorched strip of earth. The air was thick and hazy, fires burned and debris was everywhere. Trott could see burnt wood, broken glass, pipes, and chunks of marble amongst other things.

“Hey Trott, any idea where we are?” asked Lomadia.

Trott took another look around. After a moment, he spotted something far in the hazy distance. In the sky, he could just see the silhouette of a large floating island.

“That way,” he muttered, pointing towards the island. “That's where the tower used to be...”

“That's where we should start looking...” said Ridge.

The small group started to walk towards the floating island. It was slow going, because the closer they got, the more debris appeared, which made it harder for Strife with his prosthetic leg. His foot kept getting caught on pieces of debris, and at one point his foot got so caught on something that he fell. When Parv helped him up and they both saw what his foot had gotten stuck on, they screamed, and the others ran over to see that the object was a human skull, blackened and burnt. They all tread a bit more carefully after this.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, they arrived at the floating island. Although the fires had intensified and the air was thicker with smoke, it had gotten colder and colder as they got closer. Now, the air was so cold that they could see their breath, and the lake beneath the floating island had frozen over.

“Void magic,” whispered Ridge. “Be careful, he could be nearby.”

As if in response, a small beeping noise filled the freezing air. Everybody turned to see that the sound was coming from Lomadia. She looked down at her teleporter and saw that a blinking green light had appeared along with the beeping noise.

“Oh f*cking-”

She never got to finish her sentence. A split second later, she was teleported away, back to Owl Island.

“So... does that mean we're all in mortal danger?” asked Parv nervously.

“Yes,” growled Ridge, his hands flashing gold. He was looking at something behind them.

They all turned around to see a dark figure hovering in the air between the lake and the island. He was partially silhouetted by the fires behind him, but through the darkness they could all see his glowing red eyes.

“What are you doing here?” shouted Ross, his voice raw and hoarse.

“What do you think we're here for?” Ridge shouted back.

Ross froze. It was almost as if he hadn't realized who was speaking to him until then. He slowly drifted a bit closer.

“You...” Ross growled. “This... this is all your fault... You're the reason all this happened...” As he said this, he violently gestured to the burning husk of the once beautiful marble towers, only a short distance away but barely visible through the smoke and fires.

By this point, Ross had drifted close enough for Trott to be able to see him properly. His face was so pale it was white, and his eyes were glowing red. His clothes were torn and burnt, so Trott could see that the Void infection on his arm now stretched all the way up to his shoulder. There was blood splattered on his hands and face. For a split second, Trott thought back to how the Ghost had described the person who would become Void. He may have gotten the name wrong, but he hadn't forgotten the pale face and glowing red eyes or the fact that he'd unleashed destruction on the world. Trott just hoped there was enough time to both stop him and save him.

“I never wanted this to happen,” Ridge suddenly shouted, jostling Trott out of his memory.

“It doesn't matter what you wanted!” Ross screamed at him. “Smith is dead! Trott's gone! I'll never see either of them again!”

Ridge hesitated, and with great effort he didn't look at Trott. He took a deep breath. “There's still time to stop this...”

“You are the cause of all the pain we had to suffer,” growled Ross, his voice lower but still loud enough to carry to them. “Everything that happened here is your fault...”

Ridge took a slight step back. It was all the incentive Ross needed. With a sharp wave of his hand, he caused the ground in front of them to explode. They were all thrown in different directions, but Ross was only interested in Ridge. He gave another sharp wave of his hand, and black magic scattered across the land. The ground started to churn, and zombies and skeletons began to claw their way out.

Trott jumped to his feet and pulled out his sword, only then realizing that it was actually Ross' glowing sword that he held in his hands. He had forgotten that he'd picked it up earlier.

The sword cut through the monsters with ease. Soon enough, Trott was surrounded by the remains of the undead. Looking around, he saw that Strife and Parv were still fighting the monsters around them, and Ridge and Ross were both hovering over the frozen lake. All Trott could see of them were bright bursts of red and gold magic as they violently fought each other.

A split second later, the gold light that was Ridge was slammed down into the ice, and the light faded. Ross hovered over Ridge's unconscious body, his smile bloody and deranged.

Without thinking, Trott dropped the glowing sword, stepped out onto the lake, and ran to help Ridge.

Ross was entirely focused on Ridge. He landed on the ice and stood over Ridge's prone body. There was nothing stopping him. His hand began to glow red, and he raised it above his head.

They were in the very center of the lake. Trott was still at least twenty yards away. He had no idea what Ross was about to do, but he didn't think he was going to make it in time.

That was when he heard the noise. It was the creaking and groaning of something immense beginning to move. The noise was coming from above him.

He slowed to a stop and looked up. The floating island was beginning to shift, and with a jolt of horror, he realized that Ross was undoing the magic that kept it in the air.

A second later, the island began to fall.

Trott did the only thing he could do. He let out a sharp scream, closed his eyes, and covered his head.

A split second later, he felt two strong, cold hands grab his shoulders, and he felt the sharp wind that accompanied being teleported a short distance. Then, not even a heartbeat later, there was a massive explosion as the once floating island smashed into the frozen lake, the heat and pressure of the impact vaporizing the ice. Trott felt the shockwave from the impact hit him, but there was something between him and the blast that protected him.

A second later, it was over. Dirt and and ice rained from the sky, and the water vapor quickly turned to fog in the cold air. The blast of wind from the crash had extinguished all the nearby fires, so the night turned dark, lit only by the faint orange glow of the coming sunrise in the east.

Slowly, Trott took a shaky breath and opened his eyes. Ross was standing in front of him, still holding his shoulders.

“Trott...” he whispered, his voice cracking. He was still pale white, and his eyes still had a red glow, but his whole demeanor had changed. He was no longer the corrupt demigod who was driven mad with grief and revenge. He was Ross.

“I... I'm so sorry...” Ross stammered, tears welling up in his eyes. “I didn't... want to hurt you... It's why I s-sent you away...”

Trott stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Ross, holding him tight. Ross gratefully returned the hug.

“I thought I'd never see you again,” Trott whispered, pressing his face into Ross' shoulder. “I thought I was going to lose you too...”

They stayed that way for a moment until Ross stepped back, wrapping his arms around himself.

“I saw his face...” he whispered.

“I saw it too,” said Trott quietly.

Ross looked at him, his eyes wide with concern. “I don't want that to happen... I don't want to be that... thing...”

“I'm not going to let it happen,” said Trott firmly.

Ross gave him an exasperated look. “Trott, I just dropped an entire island on Ridge... I might have killed him... I destroyed our home, and everything else I could find... And look...”

He held out his hands, and black magic swirled around them.

“It's not blue anymore...” he stammered. “I'm not... I'm not an earth spirit anymore, I'm a Void spirit...”

“Ross, you're not evil!” exclaimed Trott, reaching forward and grabbing his hands. “Come with me. We can get out of here and hide where Ridge can never find you... If he can't find you, he can't banish you, and none of this will ever happen. Everything will go back to normal...”

Ross looked around for a second. The swirling fog was thick and hard to see through. They both heard a sharp scream in the distance, but it was far away, and they didn't pay it much attention.

Slowly, after a moment of thought, Ross nodded. His eyes were no longer glowing red, and the air around them seemed warmer. “Okay... let's run...”

Trott smiled. He pulled one hand away and reached for the teleporter on his arm, but before he could activate it, Ross jumped and pulled his hand away with a small gasp. They both looked down to see the tip of a glowing sword coming out of his abdomen. The sword disappeared, and Ross staggered, clutching the wound as blood began to spill out.

That was when Ridge's hand appeared through the fog and grabbed Ross by the throat, picking him up and then smashing him into the ground.

Trott screamed in fear and lunged forward, trying to grab Ridge and pull him away from Ross, but Ridge turned and flicked his hand, knocking Trott backwards. He tumbled away and landed right next to a body. A quick glance told him that the body was Strife's, and Parv was lying right next to him. Neither of them were moving. They could have been dead, for all Trott knew. He didn't have time to check.

Scrambling to his feet, he saw Ross on the ground, desperately trying to defend himself against Ridge, who shot blast after blast of magic at him. Trott could see that Ridge was covered in blood and dirt, his clothes were torn and burnt, and it looked like his nose was broken along with his left arm. On the ground next to him was the glowing sword Trott had dropped. He must have found it after escaping the wreckage of the island. Trott also guessed that Parv and Strife had tried to stop him, which was why they were either unconscious or dead on the ground at his feet.

Trott started to run towards the two demigods. He didn't get very far, because Ridge saw him. When Trott was within ten feet of them, he slammed into an invisible wall, which then became visible as a transparent shimmering wall of golden light. Ridge had put a bubble around himself and Ross, and Trott couldn't reach them.

For the second time in as many days, Trott knew he was about to watch his friend die, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Ross was weak from the blood loss. He was putting all of his magic into defending himself, and even that was wearing down. He was losing.

With one final burst of light, the fight ended. Ross lay flat on his back, gasping for air and clutching the wound on his stomach. Ridge stood over him, looking just as bloodstained and winded.

“Ridge stop!” begged Trott, desperately banging on the wall.

Ridge ignored him and stalked closer to Ross.

“I'm sorry, but this is the way it was meant to be,” Ridge said, keeping his eyes focused on Ross.

“Please... don't...” Ross choked out, blood bubbling out of his mouth. “I don't... I don't want to forget...”

“You're too dangerous,” Ridge continued, ignoring Ross and Trott. “This is a fixed point in time. Even if I wanted to, I can't change it.”

“No!” sobbed Trott, smashing his fists against the wall. “Please, I'm begging you!”

“It's because of this,” continued Ridge, “I have no choice but to banish you to the Void.”

Ross was desperately trying to move away from Ridge, but he was immobilized by the pain and blood loss.

“Ross!” screamed Trott, his voice raw with agony.

Ridge took a step forward, and his hand glowed so bright it looked white.

In that last second, Ross made eye contact with Trott. He looked terrified. Then Ridge sharply pressed his glowing hand against Ross' chest, there was a sharp flash of light, and Ross was gone.

Trott stared at the spot where he had vanished. His blood was still splattered on the burnt grass.

The wall he was pressed against disappeared, and he fell forward, not bothering to catch himself. The air grew warm again, and the fog slowly started to lift. The sun was rising, but Trott didn't lift his head to look. Instead, he laid there on the scorched earth, only feet from where Ross had just been. He felt like the life had been sucked out of him.

He heard footsteps. Someone was standing over him.

“Trott...?” It was Ridge. Trott didn't look at him.

“You should have banished me too...” Trott whispered, his voice broken and empty.

Ridge didn't say anything. He simply stood there for a moment before turning and walking back over to where Trott knew Strife and Parv were. He hoped they weren't dead.

After taking a moment to gather his strength, he got to his feet and looked around.

He stood unmoving in the center of the battlefield. It was over now, but the bodies strewn across the scorched field were still fresh. The sky was still dark with the smoke from the now extinguished fires.

There was so much death and destruction. And in that one moment, Trott realized it had all started with the Ghost.

Where was the Ghost now?

Trott turned and looked over at Ridge. He was kneeling over Parv, examining him. After a moment, he must have decided he was okay, because he activated his teleporter and sent the unconscious Parv back to Owl Island. He did the same with Strife a moment later. Then he stood and walked back towards Trott.

In that split second, Trott hoped as much as he dared that this was another one of Ridge's sad*stic tests. That he would wave his hand and Ross and Smiffy would appear, alive and well. He thought back to something Ridge had said that night, when he first revealed himself to them.

I wanted to see if someone harmless was capable of becoming a monster. To see if someone self-centered was able to do something selfless. To see if someone who hated hurting people was capable of murdering his best friend.

Ross had become a monster. Smiffy had tried to cure lycanthropy, but that selfless act got him killed. And Trott... he was the one who told Ridge who Void was.

“Trott...” said Ridge, who stopped a few feet away. “I'm so sorry this happened...”

Trott looked him in the eye. “Would you really miss us if we died?”

Ridge looked shocked. “What?” he stammered.

“I don't think you would,” continued Trott. “I don't think you have the ability to care about anybody. You're a sociopath...”

Ridge looked pained. “Trott, please-”

He never got to finish his sentence. The air behind him shimmered, and in the blink of an eye the Ghost appeared.

Ridge turned around to face the Ghost, and without a word, the Ghost summoned a sword and stabbed Ridge through the chest.

Without pulling the sword out, the Ghost forced Ridge to the ground, and the sword started to glow. Ridge's eyes flashed gold, and he started convulsing. Then the Ghost started to draw the power out of Ridge's body.

Trott stood frozen in fear, only able to watch in horror as Ridge began to decay. His hands turned gray and the skin shriveled and peeled away, leaving behind nothing but dark bones. This continued all over the rest of his body until there was a final flash of blinding gold light, and the Ghost stood over a skeleton.

“That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be...” the Ghost muttered, looking at the glowing ball of light in his palm. The light that contained Ridge's entire life, his powers, everything. The Ghost held it between his hands, and the shimmering and writhing light became more stable. A thin crust that looked like glowstone began to grow around it until it was completely covered, and the Ghost was left holding a stable glowstone sphere that held the power of a demigod.

“Let's just send this back, shall we?” the Ghost muttered to himself. He waved his hands, and the sphere disappeared. Then he focused his attention on Trott.

“Sorry about that,” said the Ghost, gesturing to the remains of Ridge. “I've been waiting a long time to do that.”

Trott realized that he had fallen over and was now sitting on the ground, staring up at the smiling Ghost.

“Xephos, w-why did you do that?” was all Trott could stammer out.

“Xephos?” muttered the Ghost, looking confused. He looked down at himself. “Oh right, you still think I'm Xephos, don't you? I certainly had you fooled.”

The shadows surrounding the Ghost melted away, revealing the ghostly form of Xephos. A second later, however, his form began to change, and his disguise melted away.

“Oh gods...” whispered Trott as he looked at the true face of the Ghost. “Ross?”

“Surprise!” exclaimed Ross, smiling and kneeling down in front of Trott. “Time travel is fantastic, isn't it? I can be in three places at once.”

This Ross looked drastically different from the one Trott had just seen banished. He was much thinner, his hair was shorter and streaked with gray, and the most alarming was the fact that there were angry red burns running up the left side of his face, across his sightless left eye.

“Yeah,” said Ross, noticing that Trott was staring at his eye, “I do wish I hadn't done that...”

“How is this possible?” stammered Trott. “What happened?”

Ross' smile fell. “What I did just now... it's the reason I'm a demigod. I sent that sphere back in time. Do you remember when we found it? It Changed me, and you wanted to know where it came from. Guess you know now...”

Trott shook his head a bit. He felt overwhelmed.

“Do you want to know everything that happened to me?” asked Ross. “It might answer a few of your questions...”

Trott could only nod. Ross sat down in a more comfortable position.

“When I was banished, my body was slowly destroyed in the Void,” said Ross. “I couldn't escape. But I was angry. I wanted revenge against Ridge, so I found a scarecrow and brought it to life. But what I didn't know at the time was that I couldn't regenerate magic without a body, so creating Strawfingers severely weakened me. I had to follow her around to feed off of the chaos she caused. That was where Ridge first had contact with me. He was trying to use poison spike traps to catch my monster, and instead he found me. He thought I was just a projection... another entity from the Void. That's how he first learned about me...

“Anyways, after I nearly killed myself creating Strawfingers, I started to become disoriented and confused. I lost track of when I was and where I was, my memories and my sense of identity started to slip away... Every second, I felt more and more of myself being lost to the Void.

“I couldn't gain much energy from following Strawfingers around... She was too sneaky, and she didn't like to cause a lot of chaos at once. So I had to wander the Void in search of another way to stay alive. That's when I found myself. I found us in the Skylands.

“By this point, my memory and identity had been taken from me, and I was nothing but a shadow... a featureless silhouette with the most basic survival instincts. I found the three of us... I followed you around, trying to draw energy from you.”

“I remember...” said Trott quietly. “I kept catching glimpses of you out of the corner of my eye...”

“You were the only one who could see me,” said Ross. “It's because you were here when I was banished. You created a powerful bond between us, so strong it traveled through time, and that's why you were able to see me when even my past self couldn't.

“But... I was dying. I was running out of energy, so I had to turn to my last resort. In Limbo, I found an abandoned castle, so I used the last bit of my magic to rebuild it in the Skylands. I set a trap, and then I went dormant. You were my only hope. And luckily, you found me. Smith pulled the lever and sprung the trap, and I latched onto him. The three of us were standing in the middle of that giant spiral, remember?”

Trott nodded.

“It was the mark of the Void. I used that to teleport the three of us to a new world. Once we arrived, I went dormant again, staying inside Smith for years until he woke me up again with that lightning strike. It galvanized me. Gave me life. And... now that I have most of my memories back, I really do regret what happened to him when I was possessing him... But I did save him. He was dying of flux poisoning, and when I took over his body, he was on the brink of death. I kept him alive, only to nearly kill him later...

“I also saved myself, if you remember. I had been shot by a silver arrow, and my stitches came undone. I started bleeding out, but then I told you to go check on me. You stopped me from dying. Back then, I don't even know why I really did that, it just felt like the right thing to do.

“When Ridge destroyed my body in Limbo, he did just that. He destroyed my body, but my soul hid inside the wand focus, which my past self stole from Ridge and hid in a box in his wall. I was trapped in that wand focus for almost a year. When things started to go wrong with the Ghost – with me, again – I was able to feed off of your pain and suffering. I leaked knowledge to my past self, which helped him learn new magic so quickly.”

“So... the reason you burst out of the wand focus fully formed was because you were completely powered up?” asked Trott quietly.

Ross nodded. “After I escaped and you two learned who I was, I went back to the Deep Dark. When I went there, though, all of my memories came rushing back to me. Apparently last time I was there, it remembered me. It saved the blueprints of my body, and a copy of my memories. I had been regaining them throughout those months trapped in the wand focus, but as soon as I returned home, they all came flooding back. I knew who I was. I knew what I was. And I knew that if I wanted to make sure I exist, I had to do exactly what we spent this whole time trying to prevent. I had to lead myself down the path to becoming Void...

“Now... I spent some time in the Deep Dark, growing a new body. While I was there, I found Strawfingers. She told me how she had killed Xephos with Void flux, but she had been destroyed too. So I found her a new body. I found a fully functional and extremely powerful clone of Nano, which had everything except a soul to give it life, so that's where I put my monster. Then I took the form of Xephos to gain your trust and pity.

“I knew that getting banished was a fixed point in time for all of us. That's why I had to wait until after I was banished to kill Ridge.”

He was silent for a while, staring pensively at the skeleton. Trott sat there on the ground, trying to absorb all the information. Ross had been Void and the Ghost the whole time. How had he never figured it out? How had he never seen the signs? What truly hurt him was the fact that he had never had a chance to save Ross in the first place.

“So what happens now?” asked Trott quietly.

Ross stared at him for a moment before standing up and holding out his left hand – the one not infected with flux.

“Come with me,” suggested Ross. “We can do so much together!”

“Like what?” asked Trott. “Rule the world? Is that what you want to do now that you've killed Ridge?”

Ross dropped his hand. “I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know I can use your help.” His voice was colder.

Slowly, Trott stood up. He shook his head.

“Ross, I can't go with you. I can't join you. I'm glad you're alive, but some of the things you've done are unforgivable...”

Ross' expression became stony and cold. “Is that it? You don't want to be reminded of the past? Even though things are going to get better?”

Trott gestured to the wasteland around them. “Does this look better than the life we had before?” he exclaimed. “Ross, you're dangerous... You're unstable.”

“Unstable?” growled Ross, his eyes flickering red. “You would be unstable too if you knew what-”

Ross never finished his sentence. At that moment, the sun broke the horizon, and a silhouette appeared on top of the mound of earth that used to be the floating island. The silhouette shot a blast of white light, which hit Ross in the chest, flinging him back and knocking him to the ground.

“The Phoenix...” gasped Ross, a look of fear crossing his face. He took one look at Trott and then teleported away.

Trott stood frozen, his mind reeling from what just happened. Then he heard footsteps behind him. Slowly, he turned to see someone he didn't recognize.

A tall man had made his way down the hill and was walking towards Trott. The man had dark red hair and piercing blue eyes. His clothes were torn and burnt, and they looked a bit too small for him. He wasn't wearing any shoes.

Trott took a step back. “W-who are you?” he stammered.

The man sneered at him. “You f*cker, don't you recognize me?”

Trott was certain that his heart stopped. He didn't recognize the man, but he recognized the voice.

“Smith?”

The man smiled. “I assume that's a better surprise than finding out about Ross?”

Trott rushed forward and hugged his friend so hard he knocked them both to the ground. Smiffy laughed and hugged him back.

“You're alive!” Trott sobbed. “And you're human!”

“Yeah mate, get off me or I'm going to be a flat human,” groaned Smiffy, who was being crushed under the weight of the overjoyed walrus.

“Right, sorry,” said Trott, flopping to the side and letting Smiffy sit up.

“What a day, huh?” muttered Smiffy.

“How did this happen?” asked Trott in awe.

Smiffy took a deep breath. “Let's see... First, I was cursed to look like a green monster. Then, I was infected with lycanthropy. And then Ross filled me up with Void flux and hit me with a couple Galvanic Sparks, and then you guys burned me at midnight under the light of a full moon. To be completely honest, I have no idea why all that sh*t is necessary, but it worked. I changed. And not just back into a human...”

“What do you mean?” asked Trott.

Smiffy reached out and grabbed Trott's hand, then he held it to his chest.

“Yeah, I can feel your heartbeat,” said Trott.

“Good. Can you feel this one?” asked Smiffy as he moved Trott's hand to the right side of his chest. To Trott's surprise, there was another heartbeat.

“You grew a second heart?” exclaimed Trott.

“Getting warmer...”

Smiffy moved his hand to the center of his chest, where there was yet another heartbeat. He had three hearts.

Trott stared at him. “When you said you changed, did you mean...”

Smiffy nodded. “Yeah. I Changed. And you're never gonna guess what I turned into.”

“Fire spirit?” asked Trott.

“Close enough,” said Smiffy. He held out his hands, which began to glow a blinding white. Trott looked up and saw that his blue eyes were also glowing white.

“What in the...”

Smiffy nodded and his hands and eyes returned to normal. “Light spirit,” he said with a co*cky nod.

Trott stared at him. “Ross called you the Phoenix.”

“Rose from the ashes, mate.”

“And you've got three hearts now...”

“Four, actually,” said Smiffy. “There's a tiny little one wedged in the back of my ribcage, behind my lungs.”

Trott had to pause and put his head in his hands for a bit. Ridge had once told him a story about light spirits. He said they were so rare they had never been documented. He said they were the true opposing force to a Void spirit. But the rumors also told that light spirits are quick to burn out, because their powers are so intense the human body can't handle it. Then again, he had also said that three hearts was the maximum.

“Does Ross know who you are?” asked Trott.

“No, he doesn't,” said Smiffy, looking down at his hands. “But there are a lot of things I've figured out in the few hours I've had these powers. I know all about what happened to Ross. And I have a good idea about what's going to happen to him too.”

“What do you mean?”

Smiffy gave a wicked smile. Trott noticed that his smile hadn't changed, even now that he was a human.

“Ross may be able to travel through time,” said Smiffy, “but I can see the future.”

Trott stared at him. “You're kidding.”

Smiffy shook his head. “Trott, I was given these powers because you and I have a mission.”

“What's that?” asked Trott nervously.

Smiffy smiled. He stood up and took Trott's hand, pulling him to his feet as well. They stood there for a moment, in the ruins of their once beautiful world, the flames of a new sun shining down on them.

“We're going after Ross,” said Smith. “We're going to stop him, we're going to save him, and we are going to save the f*cking world.”

To Be Continued...