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lunarsands · 1 year

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ALSMP Fanfic: Hellbent Ch 2

Characters: Scott Major, MythicalSausage

Tags: Canon divergent, We’re way off the canon origin list now, featuring derivatives such as werewolf!Scott, guardian!Sausage, enderian!Scott, vampire!Sausage, wither!Scott, merling!Sausage, floran!Scott and including the return of blazeborn!Myth and gravital!Smajor

WARNINGS: Blood, Violence, Injury, Body Horror, Character Death, So Much Death that I’ll be here for days listing warnings for them all. We got water, we got fire, we got neuro-toxins, we got stabbing. Nothing is portrayed in graphic detail, but consider yourself warned! No Fluff Only Murder

Summary: The cycle that started with a hungry vampire and an imprisoned angel comes full circle.

Scott and Sausage – now going by Smajor and Myth – have broken the cosmic respawn system with their continuous murder of each other, and more than ten lives later they are still at it. Even an encounter with peaceful versions of themselves in a limbo dimension doesn't deter them for long, but Myth at long last gains the upper hand. He has a choice: end the feud, or… Well, that’s it, that’s his only choice. But he’ll do it one way or another…

Sequel to Bloodfall, Witherrise, Fatemirrored, and Heavensent, with references to (and later picking up after) the crossover Mirror Mirror Break Our Fall.

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ]

Chapter Two

By three or four deaths later – between the poisonous flowers and toxic pollen, among other tricks – Myth had thought he had learned enough during his previous aquatic-based lives to be able to better avoid his nemesis when Smajor couldn’t easily pursue in water, but it turned out that a merling couldn’t escape someone with a connection through the very earth. The already existing sea grass was an obvious threat, but other roots punched their way up through the ocean floor or out of the side of underwater ravines to grab at him. Going anywhere with any kind of plant life had become a nightmare.

He was making his best effort to swim toward deeper and colder waters, weaving around dragging bubble streams from exposed magma and steering clear of those treacherous patches of sea grass. Trying to lure Smajor toward another monument had already failed, since the fatigue from an Elder Guardian didn’t change his effect on plants, and sunlight cured anything ailing the floran.

It was a sudden burst of growth from kelp strands that finally snagged Myth, tangling around his limbs faster than he could cut them away, with one even snatching the knife from his hand before more of them formed a net, and the whole lot was hauled upward as if by a winch on a fisherman’s boat. There was no boat on the surface, only a large, hooked root that Smajor had caused to grow from the nearest tree over to the sand, and after pulling the net back over to the grassy area, it held the captured merling aloft.

“It’s so tempting to just leave you in there. I was thinking of dragging you somewhere far from water and leaving you to dry out, but I believe you did that one before by yourself. Kind of boring.” Smajor grinned in at him between the strings of kelp. His green hair was crowned with deep purple and black flowers of varying degrees of toxicity, along with a new cluster of small, neon blue buds above one ear. Myth didn’t want to know what they were, but he suspected he would find out.

Painfully.

“Don’t try to hold your breath for too long,” the floran taunted, then grasped the entire cluster of blue buds and pulled them off, then crushed them in his hand.

No, not flower buds. Tiny mushrooms. And from between his fingers came a puff of spores which he blew into Myth’s face after opening his hand.

Oh, this was going to be like the pollen all over again. Myth barely got a single breath in and expected to start choking, but a wave of confusion struck him instead. He wasn’t out of watery lung support yet, so he now took a few shallow breaths as the view of the world beyond the net as well as Smajor’s smirking face began to stop making linear sense in his brain.

“I don’t have a name for those yet, but I call the effect unraveling your brain cells. Who knew you could grow plants that do something like that?” Smajor threw his arms up in the air to mime incredible disbelief. “But I suppose no one was looking for more creative ways to kill someone to try it.” He grinned and walked a few steps away, rocking on his heels as he looked out toward the ocean. There was a long moment of silence, and he was fine with not hearing any kind of struggle from the merling.

“This. Is this. This… you see,” came some words from within the net that sounded forced out. “Your. The view. To you.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say. I guess it makes sense in your head right now. Trying to insult me?”

“You… World. No s-sense. To you.”

“Mm-hmm, do go on.”

There was another long pause, then silence from the net, so Smajor figured Myth’s synapses were at the stage of forgetting how lungs worked. He didn’t bother to check and simply waited a few more minutes. Then he heard Myth make a sort of low huffing sound. That was kind of odd. It sounded a little familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

But then, he hadn’t been in the Nether for quite some time.

There were a few more huffs, then he heard Myth grate out the words, “You’re completely insane.”

The net burst into flames and a blackened form hovered where it had been, yellow light flaring along his fingers and the tips of his ears, his eyes glowing orange. Smoke and embers swirled around his now burnt clothing, and a rain of soot fell from his face, revealing Myth’s features again. Without hesitation he swooped to grasp Smajor by the throat, lifting him off the ground. He directed a gout of flame downward from his free hand, scorching the grass and setting the tree on fire, leaving the floran nothing to manipulate that could have restrained the new blazeborn.

He ignited flames all along his body, increasing the heat. The poisonous flowers in Smajor’s hair wilted, then the rapidly drying petals fell away. The floran’s skin became drawn as the water that his body’s plantlike cells contained began to evaporate. Myth’s expression contorted into a snarl. “See how you like being without water, you dried-up husk.”

Smajor attempted to grow a vine off his arm that almost reached to Myth’s neck. It shriveled and caught fire, falling away as ashes. The floran then tried to pull at Myth’s hand, but his fingertips were fast becoming stiff from drying out. With the tables very much turned, he was now the one gasping, and it wasn’t long before Myth tossed him to the ground, curled up on himself and unmoving.

Myth remained hovering over the spot, glaring down and regularly emitting the low huffing sounds. He would wait to see what Smajor revived as, and maybe burn him to a crisp again.

This whole charade was, in all honesty, getting really old. Myth would have prayed for something to give, even if it meant a final death for both of them, but he was certain no one would be listening.

He watched the shimmer pass along Smajor’s body as he regenerated into something new. He… looked unremarkable. He wasn’t green anymore, although his hair appeared tinted blue – well, more like blue on one side, reddish on the other, but aside from that he could have been just a normal human. Myth didn’t let his guard down; he wasn’t going to fall for that helpless act ever again. He conjured a fireball in one hand to imply a threat.

Smajor muttered under his breath as he got up on his hands and knees, crawling away from the heat before even lifting his head. He staggered upright and tugged at his own slightly singed clothes as if composing himself, and only then did he turn toward Myth. “Why do you keep waiting? You could incinerate me right now. Are you trying to play with me? Giving me ‘hope’ of escaping with my life? You should know that I don’t care either way.”

“I don’t know why. Call me foolish for thinking there’s a chance you’ll stop this. But if it is death you want…” Myth raised his hand and directed more power into the fireball, causing it to flare up even hotter. He made a motion to throw it – but hooked his wrist at the last second, preventing it from leaving his grasp.

In turn, Smajor showed his hand – by raising both hands in front of himself. There was a sort of rippling of air, then a startled look as Smajor was suddenly flung backward by his own powers. He sailed a few meters out over the water, then was angling down until he hit the surface with a splash. He popped back up a second later, shaking the salt water from his face.

“Heh! Let me guess!” Myth called out. “Not sure how the new abilities work? Well, I can’t go in there, so I guess I’ll be on my way!” He turned, confident that Smajor would have to swim back to shore the normal way since he needed to figure out what his powers even were. The blazeborn did, however, direct a blast of fire downward, igniting the grass all around as a warning that he was very much capable of scorching the earth to keep Smajor at bay.

~*~

By the time they encountered each other again, Smajor had taken a few precautions like getting some fire-resistant leather armor, and had learned how to control opposite polarities, but it had not occurred to him that someone who already defied gravity couldn’t be easily affected by changes to it. He first tried to catch Myth by surprise, intending to yank him toward him so he could throw a bucket of water on him, but all Myth felt was a small tug on the air around him, alerting him to the gravital’s presence.

Smajor then tried to yeet Myth farther away to mess up the retaliatory fireball throw. He did manage to send the projectile sailing back at Myth, but the next one landed perfectly to set Smajor’s arm on fire.

As he slapped at the flames to extinguish them, Myth laughed. “If I was a poor excuse for a vampire, you’re a poor excuse for a gravital!” He threw several more fireballs, setting Smajor’s hair and one leg alight, then he quickly swooped around to encircle the other in a ring of flames. He watched from outside of it, allowing himself a smug look as Smajor danced around trying to put out the fires still on him.

To Myth this was a good test. If Smajor had better skill at this point he could have just bounced out of the ring with enough force to extinguish himself by air pressure, but he was clearly still learning. The blazeborn created a second, larger ring, then left without taunting Smajor again. Maybe if they did this enough times, the gravital would realize they were at a tenuous stalemate by Myth’s choice alone.

~*~

Smajor continued to be persistent, however. When he came across Myth again, in the ruins of what had once been a temple to the godlike thunderborn of the past – he vaguely remembered destroying it out of spite – he used a new tactic; if he couldn’t throw Myth, he would throw things at Myth. He had figured out how to alter the amount of gravity around heavy objects and simultaneously lift them from afar, and so he chased Myth while hurling large chunks of the available collapsed marble walls at him.

Myth dodged each one, his semi-flight enabling him to swoop above and under them, and in one case, where Smajor flung a tall and jagged but thin statue at him – the irony of a stone lightning bolt flying through the air – he weaved around it to avoid the multiple protruding edges.

Smajor cursed but kept at it, varying the size of the debris he was throwing until he drained his store of gravi and could only stand, panting, as the blazeborn hovered outside the range of where the last stone chunk had landed.

“Such a shame!” Myth called out. “Unlike you, I don’t run out of flames! Are you done for today, and we pick this up again somewhere else?”

“Do you think this is a joke?! Do you really think you’re invincible now?! Are you really just going to keep running off every time?!”

“Yeah, I think I will, actually! It’s entertaining watching you struggle with futility for a change. No matter which tricks you learn, they’re not enough!”

“I’ll still keep finding you! Just because I can’t squash you yet doesn’t mean I’ll stop!” Smajor dramatically raised one hand and swiped it down through the air as if in frustration.

Myth swung his body sideways, neatly avoiding the rectangular slab Smajor had attempted to drop on him. “Puh-lease. You think I don’t know to how read every gesture you make? I remember how those powers work.”

“Except for that time you forgot all about your personal gravi and slammed into the bottom of that ravine right along with me,” Smajor sneered.

“Logically, kangaroos shouldn’t be able to jump that high,” Myth commented casually, ignoring Smajor’s bait trying to remind him of falling.

“And fires don’t burn forever,” Smajor warned. His eyes darted around, searching for the next best piece of debris to lob at the blazeborn. If only he could affect liquid… His gaze landed on the well sitting to Myth’s left.

In his head it seemed worth a shot. With a burst of renewed gravi, he propelled himself directly at Myth while turning one hand to pick up a smaller piece of wall to the blazeborn’s right. Myth put his hands up, wreathed in flames, already looking down in contempt. Smajor stopped himself just shy of the fire’s reach and pulled on the piece of wall, jumping backward at the same time.

With Myth’s attention directed to the front, he only had a split second to notice the flying debris. It rammed into him, sending him toward the well. Smajor tried to manipulate it onto an angle to push Myth downward, into the well itself. For a moment Myth was pinned between the top edge and the piece of wall, then he tumbled over the side.

Smajor was eager to hear the sound of sizzling from a fire being put out, but he wanted to ensure Myth couldn’t escape. He slammed the slab from earlier over the top of the well, destroying the wooden cover and cutting off all access to the outside.

It was a shame he wouldn’t be able to see Myth regenerate into something weaker – but hopefully also something water-soluble. Even if he could survive in water on the next round, he was still trapped.

Smajor went over to give a listen. He was disappointed to not hear any desperate splashing or cursing. Perhaps he had hit Myth hard enough that he went straight into the water and was extinguished in one go. He wasn’t going to lift the slab to find out, but he did put a hand on it, patting it with satisfaction. Finally, something had worked to silence that pompous overgrown matchstick.

He then noticed that the slab felt warm, and was growing warmer. Searing, even. He yanked his hand away and clutched at it, steam rising off of his palm. The surface of the slab was steaming, too, then it started to glow red, becoming molten and then pouring off to either side of a widening hole that appeared in the middle.

Myth flew out of the hole, his entire body lit up like an inferno. There was not a hint of water damage on him. As his fires died down with a fresh shower of soot and swirls of smoke, he regarded Smajor with amusement. “That well is dry. Nice try, though.”

Smajor stared. And stared. And stared, his mouth pressing into an ever-tighter line, eyes becoming wider – or pupils unnaturally getting smaller.

Myth could practically hear something in his nemesis’ brain snap.

Smajor let out a screech and began using gravi to pick up one piece of stone after another, flinging them haphazardly at the blazeborn. Myth mostly just bobbed a little to either side. There was zero accuracy going on now. He didn’t want to be at this all day, though, so he combined two fireballs into one and sent the whole conflagration flying to land on the ground, bursting into a rush of flames that knocked the gravital off his feet.

Myth then fled the ruins, feeling certain there would be no reasoning with Smajor from that day onward.

~*~

The blazeborn continuously scouted around for places that could serve as temporary shelter for himself or a good place to trap Smajor. That was his goal now above all else; if he couldn’t defeat the mad gravital, he could at least keep him someplace where neither of them would endanger anyone else – a thought that wouldn’t stop coming back to him.

He considered asking for help, but who would trust him at this point, either? He had to think outside the box. There were creatures in the world that even the people with supernatural abilities couldn’t fight. Combining the two ideas, Myth headed underground, leaving some crumbs for Smajor to follow. He would let his nemesis think he was trying to hide, all the while leading him down to what would hopefully be his final doom.

Or well, if the legends were true, then it was doom for both of them. Either way, it wasn’t too long before he found the trail of turquoise and blue-black that soon led him to exactly what he was looking for. He could hear that Smajor wasn’t far behind. Myth smiled grimly; something else would soon hear him, too, when he entered the ancient, abandoned city.

“Ohhh, Myth! Myytthhhh! Did you think you could hide from me down here? I can see that orange light from miles away in all this blue!”

Something rattled beyond the glow of the soul lanterns hanging all around the city, and nearby something else issued a breathy shriek. The lanterns then guttered briefly.

“All that burning and smoke – you stink like a campfire that can’t catch!”

Another rattle, another shriek.

“I could track you anywhere, you fool. You’re no safer in these depths than you are anywhere on the surface. Were you that desperate for a Nether portal, or were you just looking for a quick snack?”

Several of the lanterns were knocked loose from their chains by a blast of gravi following the question. Then there was a third rattle, and a third shriek.

The ground crackled and split.

“Smajor, there is something down here even worse than you, and now it’s coming for you because you just can’t shut up.”

There was a roar, then a chilling heartbeat echoed through the city. The soul lanterns went out, washing the area in further darkness. But the fiery glow Myth gave off couldn’t be suppressed as easily. Smajor glared across the gap at him, and as soon as the ambient light returned he began to bounce along bridges and rooftops toward him, ignoring the stomping footsteps below.

The Warden roared and released a sonically-charged attack in Smajor’s direction, sending the mad gravital off course. He crashed into a wall but immediately got up, his personal field of gravi protecting him. He looked for Myth and launched himself up a tier as he saw an orange glow making its way up along the palace toward the giant portal.

“No escaping, Myth! I’ll hunt you down no matter which dimension you run to!”

His yelling caused another series of rattles and breathy shrieks, with more waves of darkness, and the ground crackling a second time. The sound of another Warden charging through the street followed. This one was close enough that it skipped the sonic charge and went right to trying to slam its fists down on Smajor. He put his hands up and yeeted the creature away, only to be hit by a sonic attack from the first Warden. He was sent flying into the side of a building.

Myth’s laughter drifted down to mock him.

Smajor seethed, but was right back on his feet and made his way upward as fast as he could before either of the Wardens locked onto him again. He arrived in time to see Myth’s form get whisked away in a flurry of the blue-black particles emanating from the portal. Without hesitating he leapt in after him, never once caring what secrets it might hold.

---

[A/N: If you haven’t read Mirror Mirror Break Our Fall, now is a good time! Chapter Three picks up after those events, and some things will make more sense.]

[ Chapter Three ]

#alsmp #alsmp fanfic #mythicalsausage #scott smajor #dangthatsalongname #soul liminality #lunar yarns #dead dove do not eat #early release bc tomorrow is big vid day #plus extra time to read Mirror Mirror

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