lostcarnival | ⇨ FAERIE TALES

"Oh, I'd never lose something so nice," she says, smiling slightly in a way that suggests she is humouring them for the entertainment of it. "We've only just begun to get to know each other."

The pillar of water lowers so that she's closer to their level, laying forward into her belly and kicking her legs.

"Did you want to come along? I can't see why else you'd be here."

"We're here to win them back from you," Peridot announces fiercely, forcing herself to take a step forward. She's bristling, gauntlet clad hand fidgeting restlessly.

Alphys shrinks back as the lady gets closer, but when she lays forward, she realizes something: Oh no, she's hot.

"U-uh- that's right! We're here to rescue our friends!"

...She doesn't actually know Jasper or Lapis but the power of friendship is always handy in these stories.

Edited 2018-05-26 22:37 (UTC)

Herbert slowly pulls out another corked flask and opens it, plucking one of his green glowing feathers to stir the mixture within.

"She's coming up behind you as we speak," he says, letting the feather dissolve, not looking up at the Lady, "following you here through the watery portal--you must not be completed your business with her. Perhaps you haaaave... less control than you think." He finally looks up as he tilts the flask back to take a drink from it and hands it sideways to Peridot.

As Herbert speaks, Malachite's gigantic head begins to emerge from the water. For a second she looks -- almost perplexed, struggling to remember how exactly she got here. But honestly? Right now Malachite is enough of a mess that she's not going to question it. She's out of the Lady of the Lake's drowning cavern, and she's going to make the most of it.

A horrid grin spreads across her snout, her lips peeling back four ways to show fangs. One giant hand follows her head and shoulders, slapping down wetly against the floor of the library to pull herself up.

Well, forget that, then. Whether or not Malachite is obeying her commands as stringently as she'd like, there's still plenty of time to learn! The Lady of the Lake watches the fusion with a look of amusements, pulling herself out of the way to allow her to surface.

"Oh, Malachite - I didn't know you were coming," she says. With that, she springs off of her water pedestal, and lands right on the fusion's back, lashing out with her seaweed hair and grabbing at Malachite's shoulders and neck.

"While you're here, could you crush these for me?"

That means you, guys.

"T-t-that's a fusion?" Alphys' jaw drops.

She hadn't known what to expect when she learned of gem fusing, only that it sounded much less horrific than her failed experiments (and maybe she could learn something from it to help them). But THIS... this makes her think of all the legends of monsters absorbing human SOULs and becoming terrible beasts with immense power. If Malachite is anywhere near the level of a monster with a human SOUL, they were in big trouble.

"W-what do we d-do now...?"

Ah. So THAT'S Malachite.

Peridot's eyes widen with alarm as the fusion emerges, craning her neck up to follow her face as it rises, and then she takes a few steps further back when it turns out that hey, this damn thing is so tall, just tilting her head back isn't going to cut it. Fear is sinking it's icy claws into her; the fusion is exactly as Amethyst described, and yet somehow worse than Peridot could have ever imagined, and for a moment? She nearly despairs, because she doesn't see how she can possibly complete her task.

Fear is only a placeholder for anger, though, and that takes back over quick enough when the fae hops up on Malachite's back. She hates seeing Lapis like this, crazed and reduced to inhabiting a fusion that she swore up and down that she never wanted to have anything to do with again. And Jasper... Much as she hates to admit it, Jasper doesn't deserve this either.

Herbert's elixir is, for the moment, forgotten. Peridot glances at Alphys, and then back up at Malachite. Her eyes narrow.

"Even though the fusion was massive, and the fae controlling her was a cruel and heartless," she starts to narrate, "the heroes had to fight. Especially the great and lovable and powerful Peridot, because she had a promise to uphold. And the earth itself heard that promise, and it gave her the power to fight harder than she ever had before... Because she wasn't going anywhere without her best friend!"

The moment before her speech ends, she takes on her dragon form, and-- wreathed in an aura of narrative-summoned Earth Spirit energy-- she launches herself right at Malachite's face.

TIME TO RUMBLE, EVERYBODY.

Malachite doesn't seem to be off put by being told by the Fae riding her to fight at all. There's a small part of her that might mostly be Lapis that doesn't want to hurt anyone, but there's also the larger part of her that wants revenge. On the Lady, for certain, but the outlet she chooses doesn't matter.

Her jaws open wide in four directions as Peridot launches herself towards her face. And once close enough, a second, just as awful set of pharyngeal jaws shoot out and grab Peridot once she's close enough to pull her fully into her awful mouth.

With the top set of hands, she raises up the water underneath herself. Herbert and Alphys will be greeted by water clones of themselves, armed with a sword and spear made of ice. Just to even the odds.

Edited (now with 100% more vore) 2018-05-27 03:05 (UTC)

Hidden among the shelves, cloaked in the stealth spell he picked up in Wismuth, Shima waits with Sans, watching the proceedings with some alarm as the plot accelerates unexpectedly. Shima had been hoping to let the others tussle with the fused gem a little longer before making his appearance, but with Peridot chomped and the added threat of the water clones, there's not going to be a better chance to show up before the others get completely pinned down.

They've got a plan though. He lowers his staff for Sans, indicating for him to hop on and hang on to the rings before he makes his approach, taking a running start, dropping his 'invisibility' only when he's within throwing distance from the disturbed pond.

"Jajaan~! Back-up's arrived! Take 'em out, Warden-san!"

He skids on his heel before spinning, using his staff to slingshot the miniaturized Sans directly at the fae hanging onto Malachite's back.

Edited 2018-05-27 03:24 (UTC)

Sans had narratively placed himself off to the side from the start, trying out the magic by suggesting to the story that he was 'so short that nobody would possibly notice him.' The Athenaeum took this in a pretty literal way, which is what has resulted in him hanging off of the end of some kid's staff like a doll.

He has a plan, though. He's not the most confident creative type, but he's recently found some inspiration - the kind that he can thank the Athenaeum for, in the first place.

"Though the skeleton's transformation took more than a second, he had found a way to upgrade his abilities with an old book of notes that his mentor had once wrote." He positions himself on the end of the staff, ready to go. "He catches the fae totally by surprise."

And... woosh.

It isn't just Sans that gets hurled at the Lady of the Lake. One minute it's a miniature skeleton, and the next, it's a full-sized skeleton werewolf, tearing right over Malachite's shoulder and ripping off the offending fae. The two of them barrel to the floor, with the Lady between Sans's jaws.

For Peridot's part of things, well... This didn't turn out to be anywhere near as cool of a move as she was hoping it would be. She'd been expecting to land on the fusion's face and do some damage to her numerous eyes with her nasty little goblin claws? She also DEFINITELY hadn't expected Malachite to have a second set of jaws hidden down her awful gullet, and they snag her right out of the air and trap her with embarrassing ease.

The dragon snarls and thrashes at first, spewing flame left and right and lashing out with her claws at any soft surface she can reach to try and force Malachite to let go of her.

"I don't know which of you is doing this but I SERIOUSLY HATE YOU RIGHT NOW," she snarls between blasts of fire.

Unfortunately down in Malachite's throat there's a lot of soft surface to reach; Malachite screams in two voices as Peridot scorches the inside of her throat, but the identical rectangular teeth of her pharyngeal jaws stay clamped down firmly on the dragon. Her crocodilian tail sweeps around at ground level as she turns in place, posing an immediate danger to the regular sized people around her.

"YOU..." she screeches, clawing at her neck. There's an obvious solution to this, but unfortunately for Peridot, Malachite is really bad at letting go.

Edited 2018-05-27 04:52 (UTC)

Shima has only just enough time to stop next to Herbert and gulp down some of the offered elixir--with a dubious look and a shrug--before they're hit with a wave of water from Malachite's thrashing tail, nearly flattened by the tail itself.

He stumbles back with a sputter and starts chanting, "--zohatta sohatta sowaka--Yamantaka-kun, you're up!"

Licks of black fire burst up around Shima, forming a giant djinn-like demon, with the head of a bull and three pairs of arms. It thumps its fists, a wild and pleased look in its eye at the fight being presented to it, tackling Malachite while she's still busy trying to keep that dragon-shaped Peridot down, looking to grapple her and keep her from any farther stomping.

Shima himself steps back a bit more, taking his chance to add some embellishment. "Phew... Lucky I've gotten good enough at this that I won't pass out from summoning him today! We'll have a smooth partnership yet!"

Edited 2018-05-27 08:19 (UTC)

True to Sans's story, the Lady of the Lake is caught totally off guard! When means she is taken down to the floor, just as intended. The two of them roll onto the stone floor together, right at the edge of the water.

Sans has his jaw around her, but his teeth don't manage to leave a mark. Instead, she grabs a hold of his skull and starts forcing his jaw open, her weed hair going for his eye socket and attempting to latch on. She doesn't know of this beast has anything in there, but she's going to find out.

Herbert is immediately incredibly cranky about this clone facing him because it's narratively forcing him to do the exact thing he was hoping to avoid. Shoving the stopper back into the bottle and setting it off to the side for anyone who ignored it like an idiot to potentially come back to, Herbert reaches into his bag and removes the hot oil sword that should absolutely not fit in there.

"Let's see how you do against your fatal weakness!" he announces, flaring out his wings. "The Oleum Blade!" Reira probably cheers over his radio. He'd feel like an idiot about it if he wasn't getting so into it. Like a stage sword fight, he slices towards his opponent's sword rather than his actual opponent--but in this case, he is actually trying for strategy, what with the rival sword being made of ice.

Overall, though, he has no actual clue what he's doing. Hopefully, in a story, this won't be too detrimental.

It's a little hard for Malachite to grapple with Yamantaka when she's trying to keep a dragon down, especially since it has a pair of hands it doesn't have to use just to stand.

But also, there's enough water that two hands larger than Malachite's own made of water join the fight to help her stay balanced and continue to grapple with the demon. It does not, however, stop Malachite's tail from thrashing around and creating large waves of water.

Herbert's water clone, on the other hand, has it's weapon and itself sliced in two from the Oleum Blade. It seems at least that strategy worked.

Unfortunately, just as the water clone starts to fall apart, it just splits into two, and both water-Herberts stab towards him.

The demon redoubles it's efforts, the extra arms it was using to shove Malachite back now having to deal with the giant water hands. It braces itself, growing even larger to match Malachite's strength, which thankfully doesn't draining Shima too badly at the moment thanks to that narrative armor the Athenaeum is providing, leaving him to help deal with fight on the ground.

"Whoa hey, that's no good!"

Shima moves to block those strikes, the ice swords of Herbert's clones clanging on the warded metal of his staff.

"Uuh, hey Doctor, you're good at chemistry right? Ya got anything up your sleeve that you could.. coat the Oilem Blade with ta evaporate these guys or something?"

Edited 2018-05-27 23:58 (UTC)

Completely unaware of anything going on outside of horrible fusion gullet-town, Peridot is having a pretty bad time. Malachite has her trapped, and even being amped up with earth spirit energy isn't really giving her an edge with breaking free from these horrible rectangle toothed throat-jaws.

It's hearing Malachite's voice(s) booming in her ears, screeching with fury, that gives her a sudden burst of inspiration. Her claws and her fire are obviously having an effect, but she has been fighting in an effort to get free and rejoin the fight outside. Maybe... She doesn't need to get out. Maybe she's exactly where she needs to be.

She just wishes she could think of a less humiliating method of pulling this off.

"Ugh... And then Peridot stopped fighting and tricked the monster into swallowing her, the creature completely unaware that in doing so, it was playing right into the hero's hands, sealing it's own doom," she groans reluctantly, and braces herself. Stars she can't believe she's doing this bullshit

"Better than, swordfighting--do you have any idea how to use this?" Herbert hisses, gesturing with the sword awkwardly at Shima. He does not, in fact, hate fighting himself because if he was fighting himselves, they too would be crap at fencing.

But as far as another thing to coat his sword with... "It's already made of hot oil!" he explains, but he transfers it to his left hand to rummage in his bag and pull out a handful of some sort of mineral, tossing it at the sword, which flares up, abruptly. "Now it's....salted! And hotter!" He's looking a bit anxious because he's starting to get really ridiculous at this point, but it's his best idea. "We'll bring these watery dopplegangers to the boiling point!"

Okay, maybe trying to bite her was a mistake. It's kind of hard to narrate any more story when there is an agitated True Fae in your mouth, and Sans hasn't got the will to just push the story in the right direction with thought alone. Mostly because having a fae try to put their tentacles in his eyes sockets is really freaking him out.

He roars, unleashing a blast of energy through his mouth, trying to burn her and her weeds before they can tangle him up. Overall, though, this is not going so well. His massive form stumbles over into a wall with a heavy impact, the Lady dragging him over as if her weeds are reins.

Oh boy, Sans definitely needs help. Shima borrows the influence of having Yamantaka summoned to shove back the clones with superhuman strength, getting them a little bit of space.

"Cool, sounds great! I'm pretty sure my science teacher demonstrated something like that in class once! We'll have ta hurry though, the Warden's just managing ta hold that fae back but it's gonna take a second for those blasts of his ta really start breaking up that stuff she's trying ta lasso him with 'n we wouldn't wanna leave him in a lurch before he's totally powered up and ready ta do some damage."

Shima readies to rush the clones.

"Just slash 'em when I say so, Doc. 'N keep charging your laser, Warden-san!"

Peridot is still rammed inside her throat, but now that she's not struggling any more Malachite is hardly even aware of her... which is impressive, considering that in her dragon form Peridot is big enough that you can see how uncomfortable that must be from the outside. Thanks, narrative suggestion!

Of course, the demon she's fighting helps too.

Malachite has been making most use of her water powers, so far -- Jasper's contribution to the fusion's fighting capabilities seems to be mostly in her immense size and physical strength. But now, as the bull-headed demon increases in size in front of her, one pair of her eyes narrows in a familiar, angry squint -- and she summons Jasper's helmet, scaled up to fit her giant head.

Malachite's component parts aren't united enough to bring Lapis's wings and Jasper's weapon together. They can't form something that matches Malachite herself, because Malachite has no stable identity of her own. So the helmet is still the same orange as Jasper's gem usually is, clashing horribly against Malachite's sea-green colour scheme.

Not that Yamantaka will have the time to admire it it. As soon as Malachite has it on her head, she's slamming the column of it forward directly into the demon's bull-head.

Edited 2018-05-28 02:43 (UTC)

Gross! But, it works well enough for Peridot's purposes; with Malachite distracted, the jaws loosen their grip, and Peridot changes back into her regular form to wriggle free. And then, with the liberal use of her claws to help control her descent, she journeys uh... Deeper.

Moments after Malachite headbutts Yamantaka, she'll suddenly feel a literal stabbing pain in her vertical abdomen, as the blade of the Vorpal Sword is thrust out through her gut from her insides. It slices in a horizontal arc, as easily as a hot knife through butter, severing the fusion nearly in half right at the waist.

At the same time:

Shima charges the clones, springing over them at the last second, staff clashing against their swords.

"Now, while I've got 'em distracted!" he shouts to Herbert.

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