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greenninjagal-blog · 2 years

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Here Comes the Sun pt3

What’s up! If you missed Part One you can find it [here] or if you need a refresher, Part Two is [here!]

Summary: After failing to properly kidnap Patton Hart, Virgil returns to his guild, empty handed. It goes about as well as he expected it could. (Which is to say, not good at all.)

Words: 3555

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Chapter 3: Cloudy

Getting back to Chimera Tongue’s Second Guild Hall is much easier without having another person with him or caring about his own self preservation and dignity. He’s freezing, miserable, covered in mud and still in pain from the fight by the time he reaches the castle on the outskirts of Oak Town, but at least he stopped crying.

Instead, he just looks like an ironically drowned sea rat as he shuffles through the front door, with his arms wrapped around himself. The Guildhall is a rowdy, loud mess: too many people with too many smarmy expressions and hidden agendas in a too close room. He knows of at least four members who have restraining orders, another two with criminal records that fall just short of third degree murder, and he’s pretty sure there’s a manhunt going on in the southern regions for another and he tries very hard not to look any closer because he knows that he’s going to find more about the other members.

“Look who’s back!” Someone jeers.

“Looking a little worse for wear, Window Washer!” Someone else adds and Virgil carefully flips both of them off.

Someone else grins at him. “No bike? Remus is going to tear you apar--”

Virgil sends a disk of water at them, sharp and hard and it shaves off the tip of their hair before they can finish.

He feels solid, and it’s awful. His breathing is off, raggedy and too fast to match the shaking in his knees. He gets the feeling if he stops walking he’ll collapse and Chimera Tongue isn’t exactly known for being shark free waters-- he knows as least three of them have been itching to find him at a moment of weakness and get payback for anything Virgil’s said or done over the years.

He gathers up whatever is left of his inner strength and stalks his way through the open area before someone gets the great idea to start a fight over who bashed in more Star Burst’s members’ faces after Envy took care of their proud and shining guildmaster. He just wants a bath and his bed and some peace and quiet so that he stops feeling like his chest is going to explode into mist under a boot that's no longer there.

“Virgil,” a voice stops him before he can slip down the hall to the stairs that lead to the room he shares with Remus. He’d be relieved-- honestly he’s not sure what mess of an explanation he was going to give Remus even after his long miserable trek-- but unfortunately he knows that voice and he knows what it means. He freezes in place cursing his luck, as he spots one of Shadow Force leaning against the wall, flicking his knife in his hand.

“Malice,” Virgil says.

The mage didn’t look to be more than a few years older than Virgil, all things considered, with greasy black hair and thin lips that could twist into the worst looking grins. His entire body is covered in various scars in various levels of healing criss crossed and hatched through his body so thoroughly Virgil had been pretty sure it was just the stitching that was holding his rag doll body together for so long. The worst of them was the gashes through his left eye that slashed over his nose and ended just short of the corner of his mouth, looking like someone had tried to hack his face right off, and only managed to get his eye.

Said eye that had been unsalvageable, and long since been replaced with a magic lacrima that seemed to stare at nothing and everything at once.

((Virgil had only ever seen one person mistake that for a weakness. He hadn’t seen what the guildmaster had done with the slivers of flesh that had been left over from the battle.))

“The Master is looking for you,” Malice says with a crooked grin. “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

The words are friendly, but there’s nothing pleasant in his expression. Virgil feels a lot like a canary right before a cat pounces on it and tears out all its feathers and organs. Malice spins a finger in the air, causing his blade to freeze and spin as well; a very obvious threat and Virgil swallows down the terror in his throat.

“I suggest you start pleading now,” Malice suggests smugly. “Because I don’t think any excuse you could make is going to cover this one.”

Thunder echoes faintly over the yelling from the main hall and he reaches up to tug on his hood again. Malice points him through the halls up the back staircase to the private office and chambers of the guildmaster. It’s far quieter up here, but the silence is oppressive and dangerous and Virgil feels it constrict around his chest. Malice follows him just a step behind, just a soft breath away, just one sharp twist of his knife--

Virgil’s body boils but he forces it to keep its shape, to keep his legs moving forward, to keep his hands still and his lungs breathing. Thunder rumbles again, but it’s distant and softened by the knowledge that it can’t help him here and now because Malice knows.

((Virgil learned not to fear a knife that slashes through his liquid body. The hand is much more dangerous and the color orange is hard to miss once you know about it. There’s a reason he doesn’t tell anyone.))

The study that Guildmaster Clay calls his own has ornately decorated double doors with carved Chimeras on them, with tongues sticking out between sharpened fangs. They’re impressive and intimidating and Virgil still stutters in his step at the sight of them, fighting the urge to run away as fast as he can because he doesn’t want to die, not like this, not without Remus, please no--

Malice grabs his arm, digging his nails in as a warning, and then yanks Virgil forward and pushes him through the doors into the Chimera’s den.

Virgil hits the floor like his body is made of wet sand, hissing in pain where his body is still sore from the battle with Roman. There’s snickering from all around him, telling him that at least a few of the other Shadow Force members are there as well, lounging in the shadows and enjoying being colossal creeps.

((He hopes Remus isn’t here. He hopes and he prays and he begs internally that Remus wasn’t going to have to see this--))

There’s only one overhead light on in the room and it shines down like a spotlight directly on Virgil leaving no place for him to hide. Before he can even think of standing up there’s a crackle of energy from his left and Virgil doesn’t even get a chance to scream; his body floods with the feeling of wrongwrongwrongnopleasestop as a horrific buzzing threads through his limbs locking them in place, and making his vision burst with colored lights.

Virgil doesn’t need to see Pride’s face to know that he’s looking delighted. He still remembers the twisted expression he’d made the first time he realized that his electricity could do this to Virgil, could prevent him from casting his magic, keep him from moving, keep him from screaming.

“You aren’t so tough now, Little Conductor,” Pride had whispered, cupping Virgil’s face all those months ago, electricity buzzing between his palms straight through Virgil’s ears. “Don’t fight too hard against it; I’d hate to see my electricity accidentally force all your electrons apart and cause you to splatter right here in my fingertips! I don’t think even you can recover from that one.”

Pride was one of the worst. He didn’t know when to stop-- or maybe he did and just didn’t care. He pulled this trick on Virgil more times than he could count and Virgil let it go because the motto of Chimera Tongue was to “Overcome or Abandon”, and Virgil couldn’t just leave.

Pride loved that about him. Loved that for all Virgil could wipe out the whole guild in a monsoon of his own making, Pride could still make him fall to his knees at Pride’s feet and gasp for mercy, if Pride allowed him even that.

“Virgil,” Guildmaster Clay says from somewhere in front of him as Malice closes the heavy wooden doors with a thunk. “Welcome back.”

The electricity hums through his body, preventing him from responding more than a pain whimper. Pride slides out from the shadows, walking deliberately around Virgil’s blindspots, with only the sound of his boots on the floor telling Virgil where he is. Energy ripples through his body and Pride maneuvers him around, like a living doll, forcing him on his knees with Malice at his back and facing the dark emptiness where thinks that his guildmaster might be. When Pride’s done he takes a step back, as if to admire the artwork he’s created with the intention of destroying it. He’s dressed in a new outfit-- dress shoes, freshly ironed pants, a silk shirt perfectly tailored to his figure, and a black half cape over his shoulder adorned with gold and silver epaulets that match the magic rings on his fingers.

If Virgil wasn’t too busy feeling his heart fluttering frantically in his chest, clawing its way up his esophagus like Guildmaster Clay wouldn’t rip it out if he saw it, he’d might have been bold enough to ask whose recently burned flesh scent was wafting off of him.

Virgil doesn’t hear any jangle of metal. He can’t tell if that’s because his heart is beating too fast, too hard, too loudly, or if Remus truly wasn’t invited to this Shadow Force meeting. He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

“I believe you were supposed to have a guest with you,” the guildmaster says, quaintly. “Explain.”

Virgil gasps as the electricity recedes enough for him to work his own mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t-- I’m sorry.”

“Explanation, Virgil,” the guildmaster says. Lightning strikes the building causing the lights to flicker twice, but all it does is draw a laugh from wherever Envy is in the darkness to his left.

“I was attacked,” Virgil said, quickly. “Two more members… his friends... came… I’m not… I can’t fight multiple people by myself.”

“So you ran away instead,” he says, and Virgil knows better than to argue. His neck aches painfully as the electricity makes another around close to the poison in his system. Virgil hisses through the pain, hoping that Pride doesn’t give in to his curiosity the way that he’s always wanted to.

They had theorized over Virgil’s spasming body that hitting the bubble of poison in him with the electricity would cause it to burst and spread across all of Virgil’s body-- and Virgil can’t flush it out the way he flushes out the mud. It would make him solid, it would make him struggle, it would probably immobilize him forever, if it doesn’t outright kill him.

It’s a bomb.

“Pride,” Virgil gasps. The electricity jerks around his limbs, buzzing and bubbling and Virgil feels it miss the contaminant again, just barely. He doesn’t think Pride would kill him, not without their Guildmaster’s permission, not without gloating first, not without giving him a chance to beg pleasenoRuleFourRuleFourRuleFour but their Guildmaster isn’t telling Pride to stop and the electrical charge misses again and again and-- “Pride! Please! Please don’t--I’m sorry!”

“Pride,” Guildmaster Clay says and immediately the tracks of lightning redirect themselves leaving a decent berth around the area of Virgil’s neck. He wants to sob in relief but he doesn’t have the oxygen to do it.

The darkness in front of him shifts, and bright orange eyes peek from it, glowing like some type of monster before it tears apart its prey. Guildmaster Clay doesn’t look to be more than a decade older than Virgil, clean shaven and well dressed and he’d made the Top Ten Wizards Bachelor’s List in Sorcerer's Weekly four times in a row, the top five each time. In public he had a smile that could melt butter-- when he had first offered Remus and Virgil a place in his guild it had been like a rockstar asking them to stand on stage and perform with him.

A dream come true.

A place where Remus could be as weird and insane as he wanted to be and as long as he didn’t murder someone, he could stick around. A place where Virgil would be welcomed, rainy days and all. A chance for both of them to be part of a team of the new ages brightest mages, traveling around the world and being adored by everyone they helped.

Guildmaster Clay steps forward into the light, and Virgil tries to jerk back but his body doesn’t listen to him. He towers over Virgil, eyes warm with venom and a smile laced with danger. He reaches out a hand and places it heavily on Virgil’s neck, and the rain pounds against the stone exterior trying to get in and thunder roars so loudly the distance covered windows rattle in their frames.

“You failed me, Virgil,” he says.

“Please--” Virgil gasps, “I’m sorry, I’ll... I’ll do better! Please don’t--”

“Shhh,” Guildmaster Clay says, “Don’t lie to me, Virgil. I gave you a chance to prove yourself to me, to get this removed from your body, but…”

He rolls his thumb over Virgil’s collarbone, pressing on where the bone would be if Virgil had bones and such a simple motion has Virgil gasping in pain because he can feel the poison swirling around inside of him.

Virgil’s head swims, his vision darkening as the pain spreads through him, stretching around his throat, wrapping his esophagus until he can’t breathe, and his mouth opens to babble whatever his guildmaster wants to hear because please don’t kill him, please stop, please, please, please, Rule Four--

“You can’t help it, can you?” Guildmaster Clay says sympathetically. “Failing again and again and again...You know I don’t stand for failures in my guild. I’ve given you so many chances, Virgil.”

“I’m sorry,” Virgil whimpers. “Please--”

He squeezes, digging his nails into Virgil’s body in warning and in threat and Virgil’s mouth snaps shut so quickly he almost bites off his tongue.

“Envy, Malice,” Guildmaster Clay says, and somewhere behind Virgil he hears both of them stiffen at the address. “Go collect our guest.”

Envy lets out a whoop, jumping in the air and twirling around in the darkness. Her heels race towards the door, all excitement without hesitation, the twisting edges of her black bows dancing in the corner of Virgil’s vision like snakes. “Shoulda sent me first, Boss! Come on, Mal! Come on, come on, come on! Before He changes his mind!!”

“How many pieces do you need him in?” Malice asks, boredly.

“One piece, I’m afraid,” Guildmaster Clay says. “But do what you want with his…” He stares down at Virgil with a smile that misses all of the friendliness. “Friends.”

Virgil can’t see him but he can picture the excitement in his eye; Malice always had a thing about drawing blood with his knives, about launching his blades through the air and hearing his victim gasp when they plunged into their bodies, about finding weak points in his prey and taking them apart.

He doesn’t care about them; about how Patton’s eyes had lit up at the sight of Virgil in his home, at the strangle tingling warmth in his expression when he thought that their meeting had been by chance circumstance and not by design; the way that Logan’s tone had turned curious and pleasant despite the fight, despite Virgil kidnapping Patton, acting like the way that he had surely broken a few of his ribs not more than a minute before meant nothing. Virgil should hate Roman for everything he’s done-- or not done-- to Remus and he definitely shouldn’t concern himself over the way that his passion had flared up and his first instinct upon breaking an unbreakable spell was to check on his companions, before even retaliating against Virgil.

Virgil tells himself he doesn’t care about them, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t. But there’s a sickness in his stomach that can’t be caused by lightning or the hand on his neck or the poison that is going to kill him one day very soon. He doesn’t care about them, can’t care about them, but the mental image of Envy laughing when she takes their only defenses and Malice methodically removing Logan’s batlike wings just to hear him scream has Virgil’s jaw clenching.

The doors open and close behind them, sounding briefly like the jaws of death opening and closing with Virgil still waiting in its maw.

“As for you…” Guildmaster Clay says, eyes glowing orange like a warning, like a caution, like a threat, that Virgil somehow missed two years ago when he had first met Fiore’s number one Poison Mage. There’s a twisting, wriggling, thrashing feeling under his skin-- something foreign, something bad, something solid making its place where Virgil’s atoms are and he’s barely aware of the way he shrieks.

The electricity in his body recedes but Virgil’s body is boiling. It hurts. He can feel the way his body becomes something else, the way bits and pieces of himself suddenly belong to someone else, the way that Virgil is being unmade right in front of his own eyes with no way to stop it.

“Let’s settle on calling this strike two, Virgil,” his guildmaster says, removing his palm from Virgil’s neck and letting Virgil’s form hit the ground like wet clay. His vision blurs and he can’t tell if it’s the stinging, piercing, stabbing pain or his tears that are making it that way.

Guildmaster Clay steps over him, his polished shoes clicking on the floor in a way that makes Virgil’s head ring and he fades into shadows somewhere near the door.

“Don’t let it come to three strikes,” he hears faintly. “I have business to attend to. Get out of my study.”

Virgil drags himself up, shaking and wanting to throw up. The lights flicker as lightning hits the building, distant and unhelpful and far too late. Pride is still there in the room somewhere in the shadows and Virgil thinks he can hear that muffled laughter as he stumbles to his feet, his body still bubbling even though the electricity is gone. There’s mud stains on the floor where he was, impossible to miss.

He’s shaking, every part of his body tingling, his atoms vibrating. His knees feel weak, he feels sick. It’s all he can do not to collapse into a puddle.

“And Virgil?” Guildmaster Clay says, freezing Virgil’s trembling form right before his hands touch the door.

“S-sir,” he whispers.

“Please remind Remus of the terms of his contract,” the man says. “I’ll let him slide just this once, family business and all withstanding, but I would hate for him to do something he regrets. Breaking magic binding contracts like his can be so…unpleasant.”

((Remus, screaming like his skin was melting, like he was being ripped apart from the inside out, like something was borrowing deep in his bones nesting in his soul where he couldn’t peel it off, black ink fusing with his flesh the moment he finished signing on the dotted line and Greed laughing his wheezing, terrible chortle--))

“Yes sir,” Virgil says in a voice that doesn’t sound anything like his own.

“I provide a lot of leniency to both of you, Virgil.” The Guildmaster says. “Don’t disappoint me again. Neither of you will like what will happen.”

Virgil doesn’t remember making his way out the doors or towards the end of the hall, although smears of mud on the stone floor and the wall suggest that he stumbled and fell there. His lungs are screaming for air but there doesn’t seem to be any as he clutches the ornate railing with both his hands and he leans with all that he has, tasting how his lips curl into a smile despite how he wants to cry. His body is shaking, his limbs wishy-washy and fluid and the relief of the feeling is intoxicating.

Stupid but intoxicating. He’s alive. He’s alive, alivealivealive. And the news thrums through his mind so loud he can’t possibly think anything else. He can’t breathe, he can’t stand, but he’s alivealivealive, and he didn’t break his promise to Remus.

His neck shudders with pain and he brings a trembling hand up to the area that Guildmaster Clay had been touching, gently prodding. His pulse flutters somewhere around there, frantic but present.

He’s alive. He’s okay. Remus isn’t going to be alone.

But when he closes his eyes, he can only see that little apartment that Patton lives in: that homeliness, that soft look of concern when he had first seen Virgil and offered whatever he needed to dry, that worry even after Virgil kept attacking them again and again and again.

He hasn’t dreamed about being a Star Burst member in eons, but just for this moment, alone in this stairwell, Virgil presses his own hand to his aching neck and imagines what it would be like to be one of the good guys.

[Next Chapter]

#virgil sanders #Orange Side #sanders sides #Virgil is a water mage #fairy tail au #Dubious physical/chemical science #TW:death threats #Hey look the actual bad guy made an appearance #how nice of him #Remus is going to show up in the next chapter I swear guys

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