Chapter Text
Deep, deep in the Nahe woods, a jagged, dark portal opened. It shuddered and shook as it grew, until it was large enough for a person to pass through- and a young man in a grey warlock’s outfit stepped through. He glanced around, and smiled. He was exactly where he wanted to be.
Now, he’d never cared much about the denizens of this world. Those who called Primp Town home, those who had come here from elsewhere, those who visited regularly… none of them really mattered to him. That is, with one exception. Lemres. He hated Lemres with a burning passion. That man who shared his face and name… that man who was repulsively saccharine. Ever since he’d learned of the other world, he’d made it his life’s goal to force that Lemres to taste true bitterness.
And now that he was here… he already had a plan.
With a wave of his wand, color faded into his features- his grey hair became a sandy blonde, his hat and coat a deep green, his shirt pumpkin-orange. The bright white flames licking at his feet faded away into ordinary green shoes. Blood-red eyes shut tight, he made his way in to Primp Town…
After a short while of walking, he ran into a very familiar young boy.
“Ah- Lemres! I didn’t realize you were in town today!” Klug ran over with the excitement of a young child.
Lemres smiled. He’d done his research. He already knew the other Klug very well- and he’d studied the differences between this world and his own. This boy had a strong connection with this world’s Lemres. He could use this boy.
“Just an impromptu trip,” Lemres said. “Would you like a cookie?”
“Of course!” Klug excitedly took the dark chocolate cookie from him. “Mm-” He made a bit of a face as he bit into it, but smiled anyways. “Thank you!”
“Hehe, I’m glad you seem to like it. Why don’t we go back to my place? I have plenty more sweets~”
Klug’s face somehow split into an even wider grin. “I- I- I would love to!”
“Right this way~”
Klug trotted after him like an excited puppy. Perfect.
He’d made sure to get a perfect replica of the key to Lemres’ house here in Primp Town. He opened the door, letting them both in, and closed and locked the door behind them. He swiped one finger over the lock, setting a magic lock. He couldn’t have anyone… disturb them as he executed his plan. Especially not this world’s Lemres.
Turning back to Klug, he said, “Say, why don’t you set that book down?” Lemres indicated the counter. “It looks heavy.”
Klug glanced around a bit, looking uncertain… he couldn’t have that. He could feel the energy coming from that tome, and he knew if he didn’t separate the two of them, that book would block his spell. He couldn’t have that.
“Don’t worry, it’s safe here~ just the two of us.”
Klug nodded. “You’re right. What could possibly happen?” He set the book down on the counter, and followed Lemres to the sitting area. Perfect.
Lemres then gave Klug plenty of sweets and tea, and listened to him rant about school and his studies. He didn’t really care about anything this boy was saying, but he needed him to trust him. He needed him to think he was the real Lemres. This would leave the most wonderfully bitter tastes only if he could pull off this facade.
…but even then, he really couldn’t stand just how talkative this child was. He treasured his peaceful, quiet, alone time… and right about now, he really wanted some peace and quiet.
But nevertheless, he kept a pleasant, even smile on his face as the boy talked, and talked, and talked. Until, suddenly…
“Lemres?”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Are you alright?”
“Of course I am! Why do you ask?”
“I, ahem , simply noticed that… you’ve been rather quiet. And… while they are delicious, like always, your sweets… are quite bitter today.” Klug sat up straight and turned to face Lemres directly. “Please, if there’s anything I can do to help, I’d–”
There. The perfect window of opportunity. Lemres interrupted him.
“You know, I didn’t think it was possible for you to be even more annoying. And yet… here you are.”
“...Lemres?”
He knew what would plunge this boy into despair- and subsequently make his counterpart feel beautifully bittersweet feelings .
“What, did you think I liked you? That I cared about you? Why would I? I pity you. You and your mediocre ability.”
“You- wh–?!”
He could only imagine the face on this world’s Lemres when he realized that he hadn’t been able to protect his friends from the threat of the Outlands.
“I never cared for you. I just thought I’d be nice. But I’m over it now. I don’t need you or your annoying fawning any longer.”
Klug simply sat there, eyes wide, mouth agape.
“I do have another use for you, though.”
“...a… use? ”
Lemres smiled, and his eyes opened slightly, revealing blood-red irises. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll make a wonderfully bittersweet cake.”
“C-cake–?!”
Lemres waved his wand, and when the smoke cleared, Klug was gone. In his place was a small purple-and-yellow cake.
Finally. Silence. He picked up the cake, and put it on his counter. Everything was going according to plan. The spell would wear off in a couple days, but before then… he would use it to craft a wonderfully bitter memory for this world’s Lemres. That fool of a warlock who actually cared for these noisy children.
He moved to the couch, and sat down. He could find his next target tomorrow. He’d earned some peace and quiet.
Everything was dark. Klug couldn’t see, or hear, or feel, or smell… anything. But taste… his sense of taste was overwhelmed with bitterness. It was a kind of bitterness he’d never tasted before. The closest thing was when he tried black coffee (which he really couldn’t stand, even if he pretended to like it), but this… was still even more bitter.
But his mind still worked. And… it only supplied him with nightmares. Endless nightmares.
Always been a disappointment.
Not the best at anything.
“Look at your siblings- why can’t you be more like them?”
Don’t ask dumb questions.
“You’ll be attending Primp Magic School.”
Look at you, having to rely on a crutch. What are you, some magic-deficit loser?
You found the wand, and gave it up to those two? Really? Idiot.
“I must thank you, fool, for surrendering your body to me…”
Surrendering your body to a demon’s soul? Wow, you must be stupid.
And then keeping that book around? Such an idiot!
The horrible, horrible memories were unceasing.
Chapter Text
“Raffina! Good morning!” It was a beautiful morning, and Amitie was sitting outside, on a bench. She’d agreed to meet Sig and Lidelle here this morning- they were going to go look at flowers and bugs in the forest!
Raffina paused in her morning jog to return the greeting. “Good morning, Amitie. It’s good to see you awake at a reasonable hour, rather than sleeping in until lunchtime.”
“A-hahaha…” Amitie laughed, sheepishly. “Well, I’m going exploring with Sig and Lidelle! We’re gonna find some neat stuff!”
“I see. Well, have a good time. I need to finish my morning exercises.”
Amitie waved. “See ya~!”
The morning came and went, and come mid-afternoon, the students had returned to town. Sig was carrying a bug cage with a particularly shiny beetle, and Lidelle had taken lots of sketches of the flowers she had seen.
As they walked back to their houses, they passed Lemres- walking all by himself. Amitie waved at him. “Hi, Lemres!”
Lemres turned to face them. “Ah, Amitie, Lidelle, Sig~ Would you like some candy?”
“Would I?!” Amitie happily accepted a chocolate. Lidelle and Sig, however, politely turned him down.
As she sucked on the surprisingly bitter chocolate, Amitie asked, “Where’s Feli and Klug? They’re usually hanging out with you!”
“Ah, they’re… taking care of other things.”
“Like what?” Amitie couldn’t imagine either of them doing something other than hang out with Lemres when he was in town!
“Well, Klug’s busy with his research, and Feli’s doing some… divination,” Lemres said. “And if you’ll excuse me, I do need to be going. Here, have some more candy!” He waved his wand, depositing a chocolate cupcake in Amitie’s palms, before turning and walking away.
“Huh. I guess they’re really busy,” Amitie said. She turned to continue back towards their houses, but Sig and Lidelle’s faces stopped her in her tracks. Both of them looked… really concerned. “Wh- what’s wrong?!”
“...don’t believe him,” Sig said. “Felt… wrong.”
Lidelle nodded. “I’m not sure, but, um… that didn’t really… feel like Mr. Lemres.”
“Really?”
Both Lidelle and Sig nodded.
“I… want to ask him more questions.”
“Me too.”
“Uh… well then, let’s go follow him!”
The three students rushed to follow Lemres down the road.
As they neared Lemres’ house, they passed Raffina. She paused for a second as they passed her, before turning to follow them. “Where might you all be going in such a rush?”
“Ah- Raffina!” Amitie was rather out of breath, but not enough to stop her from talking to her friend. “We’re following Lemres!”
“Pray tell, why ?”
“Um… we t-talked to him earlier,” Lidelle said, gasping slightly for breath, “And, um, he- he didn’t feel like normal.”
“How so?”
“Um…”
“Not sure.”
Raffina sighed. “Well, I’ll trust your intuition. Let’s go.”
Lemres stopped at the doorstep to his house. He turned just in time to face the four students that had followed him. “Can I help you?” Now that Amitie was paying attention, she noticed that his voice did sound a bit… off. He didn’t sound as happy as he usually did. If anything, he sounded a bit… mad? That was weird!
“I, uh, um–” Amitie was still trying to catch her breath. “D-do you know where Klug and Feli are?”
“Well, they’re off doing their own things! I’m sure if you looked around–”
“So you don’t know.” Raffina, the only one not out of breath, cut him off.
“Well, I wouldn’t–”
“Why don’t you know where they are? They practically stick to you like glue every time you’re here in town.”
“Now, now, why don’t you have some sweets and calm down?”
“I’d rather not, thank you very much. Now answer the question. Why aren’t Feli and Klug with you?”
“Well, they’re their own people, why would you assume that I would know where they are?”
“As. I. Said. They’re always with you.”
“Well… say, why don’t you come in for a bit, so I can explain?”
Raffina sighed. “Fine. But I expect a straightforward answer.”
Chapter Text
The four students followed Lemres into his house. It was simple, with nothing out of the ordinary… except for the purple-and-yellow cake sitting on the table. While it made sense for Lemres to have sweets on the counters and tables, this cake felt… weird. Almost like it wasn’t a cake…
“How about some cake?” Lemres said, and picked up a large chef’s knife.
“Uh- um- I’m not hungry,” Amitie tried to say.
“I’m sure you have room for a small slice~”
“But, um, it would be a shame to ruin such a pretty cake!”
“Ah, but such things are made to be eaten.”
Lemres cut into the cake, making a clean slice from the center to one edge.
“But, but, s-shouldn’t you save it for an important occasion?”
“Is having you all here not such an occasion?”
He made a second cut, and removed a beautifully-cut slice of cake. The interior was a chocolate brown so dark, it was nearly black.
“Ah, ah, um…” Amitie was at a loss for words.
Finally, Sig spoke up. “...feels like Glasses,” he said.
The girls’ eyes widened, and they shared a look. So that was what felt so weird about it!
Lemres smiled and tilted his head.
“Leave him alone,” Sig said.
“Ah…” Lemres sighed. “You weren’t supposed to notice. I suppose, then, you’ll have to-” He pulled out his wand- “Become candy!”
With a wave of his wand, a cloud of smoke surrounded them- and when it cleared, only Sig and Amitie remained. A bowl of green-and-teal cotton candy sat where Lidelle had been standing, and a very fancy yellow-and-orange parfait with pink whipped cream was where Raffina had been.
Lemres’ eyebrows narrowed. “So annoying. I was hoping to take you all out with one spell. Oh well.” With another flick of his wand, he immobilized the last two students with gray bands of light. He then casually walked to the table, picked up a plate, and placed the slice of cake- her friend, Amitie thought- before walking over to her and Sig. With an unnerving smile, he used the fork to take some of the cake, and held it towards Amitie’s mouth.
“Here, take a bite… hehe, I wonder what sort of taste it has. Just how wonderfully bitter are his memories…?”
Amitie and Sig both tried to run, but with these bands of light, they couldn’t move at all! They both clenched their mouths shut, trying desperately to keep this… fake Lemres from forcing cake into their mouths.
But before anything else could happen, there was a very loud pounding on the door- and it flew open. Another Lemres, anger clear on his face, burst in- followed by Feli.
“You,” the Lemres who they’d followed snarled, venom on his voice.
“Why are you here?!” The Lemres who’d just entered said.
“That should be obvious.” The color began to drain from the first Lemres’ clothes, leaving everything except his skin a dull, ashen shade of gray, while white flames began to lick around his feet and ankles. “I’m here to make your life a miserable, bittersweet, living hell. ”
“I won’t let you hurt my friends.”
“Oh, you’re too late for that.” With a sneer, the gray Lemres stalked back towards the table, and put down the cake. “Now, just how much more bitter can I make this…” He held up a hand to smash the cake, but Lemres dove forwards to catch his hand.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I won’t let you.”
The two warlocks began fighting, using both physical and magical attacks. At some point, the bands of light around Amitie and Sig had dissipated, leaving them free to move out of the way of the attacks. But as the warlocks moved around, not noticing what was on the ground-
“Ah- be careful–!” Amitie dove forwards, scooping the cotton candy and parfait- Lidelle and Raffina- off the ground. She then ran towards the entrance, where Feli was still standing.
Meanwhile, Sig snuck behind the gray Lemres, and to the table. When they were far enough away, he gathered up the cake- Klug- and snuck back around to the door. Feli remained at the door, to watch Lemres and make sure the gray Lemres couldn’t escape, while Amitie and Sig slipped out.
They snuck around to one of the windows, and watched as the two mages fought. It was a chaotic clash of light and dark magics, colorful and gray. It felt like it took forever, but as soon as it had started, it ended- and the gray Lemres was on the ground, defeated.
“Hehehe… it seems I’ve lost. No matter. This was a good first step in my plan.”
“Your plan?”
“I’m not foolish enough to spill the beans now . Don’t worry, though. I’ll be back.”
And with that, the gray Lemres disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Lemres let out a breath, before running outside. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, but-!” Amitie held up the cotton candy and parfait.
Lemres tilted his head. “Is that… the candy that… other Lemres gave you?”
“Uh… no… mm…” Sig looked worried.
“They’re not just candy!” Amitie said. She held up the cotton candy. “This was Lidelle, and-” she held up the parfait- “this was Raffina! I don’t really know what happened, but the weird gray Lemres waved his wand and said something and then poof! They were like this! I dunno what to do now… I hope they can go back to normal…”
Sig nodded. “Yeah. Can you…?” He looked up at Lemres.
Lemres stared at them with a horrified look on his face. Turned into… candy?! He knew such a thing was possible, but the thought of it… to remove someone’s autonomy, and then to… consume them?! No, no. They weren’t going to do such a thing. He had to figure out how to return them to normal. It had to be possible…
“I’m going to inspect the magic on these sweets. Could the two of you check my house for any other candy that’s around? I want to make sure there’s not anybody else trapped there.”
Amitie and Sig nodded, before running inside.
“And Feli, could you keep an eye out? Checking this magic will take a lot of focus.”
“O-of course!” Feli said, before turning to watch for anyone who dared disturb them.
About a half-hour later, Amitie and Sig had brought all the candy out from the house, and Lemres had finished checking the spell that had been cast on the three other students. Amitie and Sig had also found Klug’s book while they were searching the house, and brought it out with them.
“It looks like there’s no magic on these other sweets, so that’s good,” he said. “Nobody else got caught up in this. Now, for the spell he cast, it will wear off in time- but I’d rather make sure everyone’s turned back to normal sooner rather than later.”
He took Lidelle’s cotton candy, and carefully placed it in a section of pavement he’d cleaned off. He waved his wand, creating a Puyo board, carefully lined up and popped just enough Puyos for his spell, and cast- “Dispel!”
When the smoke cleared, Lidelle was sitting on the pavement, dazed.
“Lidelle!” Amitie ran over to her, and gave her a big hug.
“Eek!” Lidelle tensed up and looked around. “A-Ami?”
“Yeah!”
“And- and Sig?”
“Mm-hm.”
“And-” her voice cut out as she looked at Lemres.
“Ah, it’s ok!” Amitie took Lidelle’s hands. “That other Lemres we were following wasn’t the real one! This is the real Lemres! He showed up with Feli and beat up the other Lemres and then turned you back to normal!”
“R-really?”
Sig nodded. “Really.”
“And… and you’re real, too, right?”
Amitie and Sig looked at each other. They hadn’t been expecting this sort of question…
“R-right?!”
“Y-yeah!”
“We are.”
Lidelle let out a breath. It seemed like she was feeling better.
Lemres smiled at them. “I’m glad that worked,” he said. “Let’s take care of Raffina now.”
He repeated the spell he had cast for Lidelle, and soon, the parfait had been turned back into Raffina. But when Amitie approached her to give her a hug, Raffina sprung to her feet and assumed a fighting stance.
“Aaah, Raffiiiina!”
“Decided you wanted a real fight, Lemres?”
“Ah, I’m not–”
“He’s not–”
“R-Raffina!” Lidelle jumped forwards to take her hand. “That’s the real Lemres!”
“The real Lemres, you say?”
Lidelle nodded. “Um, Ami told me, the Lemres who turned us into candy wasn’t the real Lemres…”
“Is that so?”
Lidelle nodded.
“Well then. Amitie!”
“Y-yeah?”
“Battle me!”
“Wh-wh-wha?!”
“If you’re going to defend him, then I hope you’re prepared to do so in combat!”
One puyo battle later…
Raffina dusted herself off. She’d lost, but that was, honestly, what she’d been hoping for. “It’s good to know you were telling the truth.” She turned to Lemres. “Thank you for your aid.”
“I’m glad you’re both ok,” Lemres said with a smile. “I’d like to offer some sweets, but…”
“No, thank you. ”
“I, um, I’ll pass, too…”
“I had a feeling.” With that, Lemres turned to the one remaining item- the cake. “Your intuition was correct,” he said. “This cake is Klug. But don't worry, everything will be alright! You'll all be back to normal, and then we can have some relaxing Puyo battles!”
He carefully placed the cake, the slice, and the fork all close to each other, and drew a circle around it with chalk. He reactivated his Puyo board to pop some more Puyos, and when he had enough energy, he cast “Repair!”
Wisps of light surrounded the cake, pulling the bit on the fork back to the slice, and the slice back to the cake. It stitched up the breaks in the frosting, leaving a nearly-flawless cake. All that remained was slight marring where the cut had been.
Once that was taken care of, Lemres cleaned up the circle and the pavement. He then cast, for the third time that day, Dispel.
Just like Lidelle and Raffina, when the smoke cleared, Klug was on the pavement- but while they had simply been disoriented, he was completely unconscious.
Klug felt like he was waking up from a long, long nightmare. His body was stiff and sore, but at least he could feel it… and it seemed like there was some people talking.
“...sure he’s ok?!” Amitie?
“He looks fine… but who knows how long he was trapped like that.” And… Raffina? He heard some footsteps, before a hand started gently shaking his shoulder. “Hey, Klug, get up.”
He slowly started to blink his eyes open, when he heard a third voice…
“Raffina, be careful, please–”
…and his heart dropped. Lemres. His eyes shot open, and he scrambled to his feet- and promptly fell down. Memories of Lemres’ voice echoed in his mind-
You know, I didn’t think it was possible for you to be even more annoying.
Did you really think I ever liked you?
I pity you.
“Ah- Klug, are you ok?!” Lemres was reaching out to him, getting closer- no, no, no–! He felt more like normal now, but– he had to run!
He scrambled to his feet again, and took off into the nearby woods. He didn’t know how he got turned back to normal, but he couldn’t get caught again! He had to talk to Ms. Accord- she should be back by now- wait, what if she’s evil, too?!
Who could he trust? Could he trust anyone…?
As Klug took off into the woods, Lemres reached after him. “Wait, Klug–!” He started to jog towards the woods, but Raffina grabbed his hand.
“Don’t.”
“Huh- Raffina?”
“He doesn’t know what happened. He’s just going to run again if he sees you.”
Lidelle nodded. “I, um, don’t know what he experienced before he was trapped, but… I couldn’t hear or see anything when I was trapped. He, um… probably doesn’t know about the doppelganger.”
“It was the same for me,” Raffina said. “So, stay here. We’ll explain things to him.” With that, the two girls walked into the woods.
“Ah… please be safe…” Lemres could only watch as they walked away. This doppelganger had really caused problems, huh…