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ammonitetheseaserpent · 1 year

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PENULTIMATE CHAPTER TIME! PENU-

Ahem

*whispers into mic* Penultimate chapter time. Also second TOTM Wednesday.

This one is a doozy. Easily the longest - and most emotionally intense/possibly darkest - chapter in this fic! No, seriously, this is gonna be heavy. There’s a moment in here you probably shouldn’t read if you’re squeamish.

It’s pretty much the climax of this fic, I’d say, and I am ecstatic to share it w/ you all!

Tide of Tide Minds

Chapter 5: Cosmically Opposed

Summary: The Titan Trappers finally make their way to what they call the carcass kingdom. Chaos ensues.

Chapter Word Count: 2,350

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping (seriously there’s one scene that’s. kinda creepy when I reread it), character injury, character death, graphic (a bit)

The army drifts steadily across the Boiling Sea. An army with a single destination, a single goal, in mind.

They’re going to the carcass kingdom, to finish what they started.

A roiling breeze strokes the brine around them in the opposite direction - almost as if some force is trying to deter them, get them to turn back. But the army paddles forward, driven by solemn determination, a flame burning within each of them.

Before long, a series of barely audible thuds punctuate the night as each boat is gently jostled to a stop. A small, scruffy figure clambers out of one of the vessels, briefly scanning his surroundings, before motioning to the others to step out onto land. As the army gathers their weapons and makes their way onto the shoreline, the small figure gives a toothy grin.

Soon, their prey will be within reach.

“…aaaand that’s everything!”

The Collector waves their hands with a gleeful flourish, stepping away from the large mat, pot, and colorful winks they’d created per King’s instructions.

“Now we just need to set it all up!” the cosmic being declares.

King nods, rolling some stray winks back onto the mat. “Got someplace in mind?”

“Hmmm…” the Collector muses. His eyes shift over to a gulf a little ways from their current spot near the lower knee. “How abooouuut… there?”

King blinks, baffled. “The- you wanna play tiddlywinks- down there? I mean… do you want the shock rays to give us their complaints?”

“Maybe I do; you don’t know everything about me,” the Collector retorts light-heartedly.

King stifles a laugh. “Hey, just an idea - maybe we could… both look for a spot? Together?” King suggests, hoping to delay the notion of gulf-tiddlywinks as long as possible.

The Collector gives a drawn-out shrug. “Mm’kay.” They scoop up King and rise into the evening air, far enough so that they both have a full view of the Isles.

As King’s eyes drift across his father’s landmass form, he spots something that makes his heart skip a beat.

After a moment, he shakes his head irritably. Great - the sunlight’s playing tricks on me.

But he could swear he’d seen…

He looks in that direction again, more tentatively.

And there they are.

No.

No, not them.

How? How are they here??

The Collector seems to notice King’s stunned silence and frowns in a bit of concern, waving a hand in front of his face. “King? You there?”

King doesn’t respond. After a long moment, they follow his gaze, eyes glowing as he uses his powers to zoom in their vision. As soon as he does, the Collector gives a start, eyes widening. “Whoa- I know those guys!” Then their eyes narrow as he adds, “They’re weird.”

A shudder runs down King’s spine, making his fur stand on end. “We have to go back. Back to the Archives.”

“What? Why?” The Collector asks, baffled. “We haven’t even started the game yet!”

“If they find me…” King chooses his words carefully, trying to find some way to phrase them in a way that’ll help the Collector understand the urgency of the situation.

“They’ll take me away from you. Permanently.”

During the afternoon, Bill had sent out three search parties of four Trappers each. Their orders: search the kingdom for their quarry, making sure to lie low. As soon as the Titan child was reported found, they would all return, taking it to their rudimentary base in order to complete the ritual sacrifice.

Bill himself had taken three Trappers along for a fourth group, and they’re trudging along the ribcage toward the head. The youngest one of the group holds the task of clambering up each rib they come across and using that vantage point to scout for any sign of the Titan’s son.

Navigating the Isles has proven more difficult than they bargained for, as the entire place is glitter-ized with a cosmic pastel aesthetic, part of which being massive, floating blue star structures with menacing red eyes that turn anyone they zap into dolled-up, vacant-eyed versions of themselves. To top it all off, there’s some sort of structure balancing on the tip of the Isles’s horn, one shaped like a massive crown.

It’s well into the night before they finally spot what they’re looking for.

The young Trapper is peering through his sin-oculars when he lets out a shout from his perch. When the others approach, he says, “I saw something - some sort of… flat star? But the Titan child was definitely on there.”

Bill gives a start of surprise. “Wha-? Let me see!” he orders, snatching up the sin-oculars and using them himself. Zooming in, he sees the star the young Trapper described, and following it, he realizes it’s heading for the crown-like structure on the tip of the Titan’s horn. He grins.

That’s where we’re going.

Through some trial and error, the group is able to enter the structure. Bill commands them to split up and search every nook and cranny of this place until their prey is found.

Soon enough, he reaches a hole leading to a floating bedroom in the shape of a small moon.

From the bed on the right comes the unmistakable glint of horns.

There he is.

Bill feels almost lightheaded with delight.

Ducking his head out of the hole, he scrambles several paces back, then pulls out a contact crow. “Get everyone back to the base,” he whispers gruffly. “I found it.”

He returns to the bedroom almost at a run, aiming for the moon - overshooting and promptly crashing into it. Shaking his head, Bill clambers up the right side until the bed is in view.

Slowly, carefully, he creeps up to the bed to peer at his soundly sleeping quarry. After a moment, King flinches in his sleep, as if sensing something looming over him - then sits bolt upright in bed, leveling a startled look at Bill.

He opens his mouth, presumably either to call for help or blast the Titan Trapper away with one of his raucous shrieks.

Oh, no you don’t.

Quick as lightning, Bill lashes a hand forward to clamp the young Titan’s mouth shut. His now-muffled cries won’t be heard by anyone. Bill scoops him up.

“No one’ll be around to help you this time,” he growls, narrowing his eyes.

The Collector had been sleeping nice and cozy, until shadows had come and poisoned his dreams, turning them sour.

Pictures that they instinctively knew came from King - the small Titan being dragged off by a short, scruffy guy wearing a Titan-like skull thing, looking terrified. A whole room of what looked like Titan skulls that came with a vague but intense feeling of horror and finality. The whole thing was punctuated by King’s throat-gripping fear and despair.

It’s these that jerk the Collector rudely awake, panic prickling along their spine. Part of them hopes it had been a dream, though he knows that’s not likely.

That hope goes out the window when they glance over at King’s bed and find it empty.

Their core leaps into their throat.

He doesn’t completely understand everything he’d seen, or what they’re supposed to imply, or the feelings around them - he just knows it’s bad, and that King is in more danger than even they could know.

He suddenly remembers, too, that King had warned them something like this would happen. What had his friend said…?

“If they find me, they’ll take me away from you. Permanently.”

The line is punctuated in the Collector’s mind with another flash of the room full of Titan skulls - ones that are all close to the same size as King’s - and the overwhelming sense of foreboding that had come with it.

No. No.

They vault off their bed and through the hole to the rest of the Archives.

I have to find King right now.

The Collector searches the building, his panic growing by the second, but finds nothing. When they finally blast out of the building, they decide they need to narrow down the search and tap into his powers.

As he looks around with zoomed-in sight, it isn’t long before something catches their eye.

A group of people.

When the Collector looks at the Titan skulls - ones that are close to the size of King’s - the group are wearing, that sends many unwelcome thoughts his way.

They’ve been acting weird lately, talking about something bigger and better they could do against Titans.

They took King away.

They might have done something awful (permanent) to him.

They may have done something awful (permanent) to a lot of the little Titans I used to know.

Something finally snaps.

The Collector screeches, a pained cry of rage, and falls upon the Titan Trappers like a storm.

They barely notice the roar of the earth quaking and splitting around them, barely make out the words in the Trappers’ cries to one another. All he can process is a chaotic din of overlapping noise and a mass of swirling figures wearing (King-sized) Titan skulls.

He’s consumed and driven by a single, primal need, a need that burns in every fiber of their being, to blast, tear, hurt something, hurt anything, take all the pain they felt from King and all the pain they themselves feel and let it all out on something, make them feel it all tenfold. He needs to shake the figures around him to their core, cause them all such fear as to make sure they get and stay as far away from everyone he holds dear as possible.

He’s able to focus through the haze around his mind just enough to pin down a Titan Trapper at random, just enough to form his agonized screams into three words.

“WHERE IS HE?”

King doesn’t know how long it takes Bill to reach the Titan Trappers’ base on the Isles - not that he wants to know. Every second that ticks by is torture when he knows it’s a second closer to his own execution. He’s beyond the point of panic; his most overpowering emotion right now is sickening despair.

Suddenly, they both hear something - something faint but unmistakably chaotic. Bill hears it too; he stops and raises a clawed hand to where his ear is underneath the skull he wears. “What the …?” he mutters, starting forward again with more measured steps.

It doesn’t take them much longer to reach a close view of the base. Bill stops again, and King tilts his head forward to have a clear view himself.

The sounds almost aren’t enough to prepare King for the sight.

The base is in complete shambles, the earth cracked and jutting all around it as if a massive fist had collided with it. The Titan Trappers themselves are sprawled and scattered all over, some running away. At the center of it all, floating in the sky, is a familiar figure, intense and moving wildly.

Bill buckles forward upon seeing them. “He’s… free.” His voice is hushed with awe.

King feels the grip on him suddenly jerk tight as Bill rushes down to his camp, the Titan Trapper leader practically radiating manic jubilation. A few of the Trappers see Bill on his way down and their eyes light up, but he pays them no mind as he dashes to the top of the tallest piece of jutting land.

“At last!” He cries out, exulting. “Fortunate smiles upon me, for the day of reckoning has finally come!”

King sees the Collector turn in the air at Bill’s shout, their face blank for a brief second - before it twists into all-consuming rage, his teeth bared and gritted, his eyes blazing. With a shrill, wordless shout, they rocket down toward the Titan Trapper.

Bill looks up at the star child arrowing in his direction; he must be too wrapped up in his euphoria to notice their anger, because he tosses King roughly to the ground and raises his arms to the sky in glee, as if waiting for some sort of reward.

He gets one, but not the one he expects.

The moment the Collector collides with Bill, a sickening crack blasts King’s eardrums.

…

Several moments pass. If there’s not much noise, or if he just can’t hear it over the fading ringing in his ears, King can’t tell.

When he finally opens his eyes, the Titan Trappers are retreating - hurrying back to get their boats together and leave, making sure their wounded are set securely onto the vessels. Tarak in particular carefully takes Bill with him. King only flicks one glance at him and immediately wishes he hadn’t, as the scruffy Trapper’s head is at an angle it definitely shouldn’t be. They seem to be in some sort of daze, not completely knowing what to do with themselves without their leader, but clearly intent on getting out of the Isles as fast as they can - which is just fine with King.

He glances over at the Collector. There are stains of red on their right hand, as well as a few flecks on their face. They’re curled into themselves, shaking - King can’t say if it’s more from shock or their dissipating rage.

Upon realizing that he’d instinctively sent the cosmic child a mental cry for help, King didn’t know what to expect. He certainly didn’t expect to hear them rain calamity down on the Trappers the moment he got close to the base. He’d had a sense that the Collector may genuinely care about him, and what happened to him, but it would appear he’d underestimated just how much.

Tentatively, King approaches his friend and sits by him, wrapping his tail around his hind limbs and resting his chin on his knees. He feels a slight weight as the Collector leans onto him a bit, and looking up, sees their face crinkled with an internal knot of emotion.

Two godlike children sit silently over a shore. One looks at nothing, the other carefully observes everything.