Chapter Text
“Are you sure? This is… boring.”
Lucio doesn’t hide his disappointment at the sight when Alastor announces that they reached their destination. The forest around them looked almost just how it did when they started the trek half an hour ago; and as far as Lucio is concerned, a hole in the world has no business appearing next to a tiny peaceful creek. He says just that out loud, watching as his unperturbed magician walks straight into the ankle-deep water to start poking around a small mossy outcrop.
“Magic Sources don’t always look all that special. This one is supposed to be a common type of a magic spring, it was nurturing the forest but wasn’t strong enough to cause obvious effects around it.”
“Right, yeah.” Lucio isn’t sure if this is something Alastor has told him before. “I guess I just expected more after all those monster attacks. How is this the boring part?”
He kicks a small rock into the water. The longer they stay here, the more restless he grows; restless, but also alert, he realizes with a frown. Can he feel like there’s something wrong about this place? He sure cannot name anything wrong about it. Maybe just the knowledge of it is getting to him.
“Hey, Ala—”
With a loud crackling hiss, yellow light bursts from between the rocks under Alastor’s hand, and he carefully steps back. As the sound fizzles out, the forest grows quiet, leaving only the ripple of the creek and a low hum that pulses to the rhythm of the fading and brightening light, almost like a heartbeat. Soon, tiny fractures of light start forming in the air above the rocks, growing and merging with each pulse until they form a bright jagged line from the tiny space between the rocks halfway to the tree canopy. Despite the night being still far away, the forest feels darker, as if the fracture pulled some of the very sunlight into itself.
It’d be beautiful if it wasn’t damn creepy.
Realm Tears, as Alastor poetically called them soon after encountering the first one right under the Vesuvian Palace. The details of his explanation escaped Lucio, but what he did understand is that the merging of the Realms two months ago, while erased from memories of everyone except for five people, was not reversed flawlessly. Some places – and this is where his understanding begins to waver – that were “magically active” to begin with formed these “Tears”, causing that Lucio prefers to describe as “weird shit” to happen around them. At first, it seemed like there was only one in Valdemar’s former lair. Then, another one turned up in the Lazaret (of course it was the fucking Lazaret), and the hope was that only places Vesuvia became weakened, as it was the epicenter of the merging.
Yet here it is, on the opposing edge of the Dark Forest, seeping magic into the water and bringing out all manner of enraged beasts from the forest’s unmapped depths.
Lucio swallows thickly, right hand gripping the hilt of his sword – as if it’d be of any use if this thing decided to explode.
“This… it’s bigger than the others.” He turns to Alastor, who is frowning at the almost-end-of-the-world fracture like it’s an elaborate math problem. “You can still close it though, right?”
“Mhm. It feels similar to the ones we sealed before, just… well, larger. I might just need some more time to form a solid connection and redirect the energy channels, but the overall principle should be the same...” Alastor keeps saying something, more to himself than Lucio, but his speech becomes incomprehensible when he walks back closer to the root of the Tear. He reaches towards the fracture, not quite touching it, then pauses and turns to Lucio, raising his voice above the thrumming hum. “This might attract something from the forest! Don’t let anything sneak up on us, alright?”
Lucio grins at him, glad to have something to do and excited about the prospect of a fight.
“Nothing’s gonna get to you, Alastor! You’ve got this!”
Hand still on the hilt of his sword, he walks along the edge of the creek, watching for signs of movement from the side of the forest that leads into its center. With the hum of the Tear turning into a sound like distant thunder once Alastor begins working on it, all Lucio can rely on is vision and instinct. Older, twisted trees he can see deeper in — they’re lucky the Tear didn’t form in the ancient part of the forest — could easily hide even a large monster. They could even be a monster, he thinks, recalling an encounter from a few hours before, a creature that looked more like a bear-shaped tangle of roots and branches rather than an animal.
Minutes pass and the forest remains eerily still, yet Lucio cannot shake off the feeling of being watched. He checks on Alastor, who’s rooted in the same spot in front of the Tear, face still in concentration, eyes glowing like embers, the amber color even brighter with the pupils constricted into thin slits. He practically radiates magical power, and it’s the hottest fucking sight. Lucio is almost too distracted by it to notice when the fracture shifts.
No, not the fracture. Something inside of it.
The middle of the fracture shudders, grows and bulges, like a glowing membrane being pushed out from the inside. Within moments the surface splits open, releasing an amorphous mass the color of dark shimmering oil that spills out like entrails but slithers up the Tear. By the time it reaches a “branch” of the fracture hanging over the stream, it has begun to take on a more solid form, mismatched claws and thin hands and an undulating elongated body. It hisses and twitches, as if burned by its perch, and clumsily lands into the stream, uneven fin-like growth forming along its back when it rises up on too-many limbs.
It’s only fifteen, maybe twenty seconds from that first shift in the Tear, that the thing the Realms spat out turns and instantly lunges at Alastor.
The blade starts slicing into its body like into jelly, but the flesh (?) firms up in an instant, almost forcing the sword to get stuck in it. It’s enough to throw the creature off course, but they both end up in the stream, the long heavy tail punching the air out of Lucio’s lungs. Both scramble to get back up, and instead of getting onto his feet, Lucio uses the momentum to plunge the sword back into and through the monster’s tail, pinning it to the ground. The thing recoils with a hiss and pulls itself free by half-cleaving its own tail in half, then crawls away and into the thick hedges, leaving a trail of iridescent dark grey liquid behind.
“Lucio!—”
“I’ve got this, keep going!”
He watches the monster stalking between the trees, somehow staring at him despite not having any obvious eyes. Its form keeps shifting, numerous thin limbs merging into six, fins growing then splitting into mismatched spikes, its hide losing its unnaturally smooth shimmer as it hardens and takes on a brownish color with dark spots. What started as too clumsy and soft to properly stand now walks with confidence, as tall as Lucio himself and looks to be at least thrice his weight.
This is hardly ideal, the loose slippery rocks under his feet making for a shoddy location to take a stand. But as soon as Lucio decides to risk closing the distance first, the creature flashes its newly formed white fangs and then disappears in the shadows of the trees with what Lucio will later swear was a hissing laugh. No movement of branches or trees to give it away; there is only the crackling of the Tear – which at least finally begins to recede.
“Come on, you ugly fucker…”
The monster doesn’t catch him off-guard when it charges; what does catch him off-guard is how freakishly fast it does so. It crosses the creek in a split second, hands smashing into the rocks and vaguely feline jaws barely missing as he ducks and dodges to the side. In the same movement he grabs it by the scruff of its neck, claws of his armor crushing feather-like scales and sinking into its flesh, now dark red blood rushing out of the wounds. The thing shrieks and shakes, spikes chaotically form and break on the metal armor; it is by sheer dumb luck that none of them pierce through his ribs instead. It shakes too much and is too close to get a good stab in, so he smashes its head with the hilt of his sword instead, stunning it for long enough to let go and make some distance on the loose gravel before one of its limbs disembowels him.
He doesn’t get a break as the creature twists and lurches at him again – but in rapid movement it loses its footing, wet rocks giving way under one of the legs. It is just a momentary opening, but with the battle rush coursing through his veins, time slows enough. With an enraged shout, he lunges to meet the monster’s own movement with his sword, blade slicing through its throat and shoulder. Before he brings his sword down on the collapsed abomination to sever its mangled neck, it finally forms a resemblance of eyes. They shine like solid gold before fading into gray.
Breathing heavily, Lucio puts his foot down on the creature to pull the sword out of its lifeless body, stumbling back and almost falling on his ass in the process. The last remains of the Tear pulse for the last time before fading, the wound of the world healed.
A soft hiss startles him, but when he looks down, the corpse of the creature is falling apart, slowly turning to nothing but dark dust that shines and dissolves in the air. There goes his trophy.
Lucio is right there when Alastor wavers, arm around his shoulders to hold him steady. He’s a bit cold to the touch, the closing of the Tear has taken a lot of strength out of him.
“You alright?”
“You’re asking me?” Alastor laughs, though it’s too quiet for Lucio’s liking.
“Pshh. It barely touched me.” This isn’t completely true, but he does have more bruises and scratches from the rocks than from the monster itself. He will let Alastor fuss about those later, when he isn’t magically spent. “You did the hard part, Al, that thing didn’t even know how to use legs. Can we get out of the water now? I, uh…” He looks at his wet clothes, belatedly realizing that he just soaked Alastor’s too. “We need to start drying out before anyone shows up. And you need a snack.”
As he considers sweeping Alastor off his feet, he’s gently but insistently pulled down into a kiss.