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The palace is frighteningly empty.
Anne isn’t entirely sure what she had been expecting. Andrias, maybe? Though they had pointedly avoided the throne room once Joe had flown them here– he wasn’t what they were after, not yet. She had definitely expected more newts and robots around… but the few they saw were easily knocked out, Sasha slamming the butt of her sword into each other with a careful precision.
It’s empty, and maybe that would be a little bit more worrying if this wasn’t a stealth mission, like they hadn’t purposefully planned this to be as quick as possible. No taking on Andrias, no stealing back the music box.
No, this is a rescue mission, first and foremost.
“Where do you think Andrias is keeping her?” Sasha asks. She has one of her swords unsheathed and ready to take on any foes, but her other hand is firmly locked in Anne’s own, clammy and tight. “I didn’t really get the chance to explore… last time I was here.”
When I invaded, goes unsaid, though Anne understands it nonetheless.
“Well, I wasn’t here for that long either,” she says, wrinkling her nose as an idea comes to her, “but he might…”
Sasha glances at her expectantly.
“Her room,” Anne explains, though she highly doubts Marcy’s actually kept inside her own bedroom. Instead, her mind flashes to a hidden crypt, a secret garden, a hallway of mirrors. If I was keeping a prisoner away from prying eyes, I’d put her in the place that’s strictly off limits. “Luckily for us, I do know where that is. Follow me.”
Marcy’s room is pristine.
Everything looks the exact same as Anne remembers. There are plants withering in the windowsill, a bed neatly made, diagrams tacked to the wall. The only change - the only visible change, that is - is a pile of belongings on top of her otherwise neat desk, disrupting the cleanliness.
Marcy had always been a neat person by habit, stress cleaning when her thoughts grew too overbearing, making sure there was nothing she could trip over or lose. This pile of mess, then, is out of place, and from the desk, something green glitters in the low lighting.
“Is that…?” Sasha breathes, the green catching her eye. Before Anne can react, she’s stepping over to pull out a hairclip, perfectly intact and fragile in its familiarity.
“You should take it,” Anne swallows, and her hands are shaking now. Shaking, because that is Marcy’s clip, and despite how much she’s pushed away thoughts of her oldest friend, she is beginning to believe she can’t actually hide how much she just misses her. Something as small as a hairclip holds an importance, memories that Anne hadn’t actually wanted to think about because remembering them being so small and innocent and happy just makes her feel… guilty, and sad, and she hasn’t had the time to be sad, and she still doesn’t want to be sad, and-
“-Anne,” Sasha cuts off her thoughts, frowning at her. The hairclip is now nearly clipped into her own hair, brushing back some of Sasha’s bangs, and there is a cape, too, held outstretched in Sasha’s arms.
Anne just stares at her.
“I thought… she’d probably want this when we rescue her, right? Who knows how badly Andrias has kept her,” Sasha explains, and there’s something forlorn and far away on her face. “But I already have a cape, it’d look goofy. Do you…?”
Anne takes the cape, hesitates, and then clips it around her shoulders. It’s soft and warm, the fur cozy, and though Anne herself hasn’t been wearing a cape, she could see why Marcy had so many of these laying around, why she had worn it everywhere.
“Yeah, you’re right,” she manages to smile, tugging the hood over her head. “Now come on; let’s go save our Marcy.”
“And how were you planning on doing that?” Sasha gestures to the room, “there’s nothing here.”
“That’s what you think.” Anne kneels, pulling away the carpet to reveal the familiar trapdoor. For a moment, she’s seized with fear - after all, those monstrous creatures had come from here too, right? - but she pushes it away with a bitter determination. It doesn’t matter what’s behind this door, not if Marcy’s down there too. “This leads to the basement. Come on.”
The stairs are as dark as Anne remembers them being. There’s a few sporadic mushroom lights, but otherwise it’s totally obscured, and even as she takes the lead, she can feel Sasha nudging against her side once again, taking her hand so tightly. “We should’ve brought a torch,” she whispers, but it’s too late to turn around now, right?
“This place is hella creepy,” Sasha says, her tone light and airy like she’s trying to poke fun. “How did you guys find it, anyways?”
“Sure you won’t get jealous?” Anne teases, snickering as Sasha snatches her hand away. “Fine, fine, okay, I’ll stop teasing. It… actually was about you.”
There’s a long pause, and then Sasha tentatively says, “it was?”
It’s a strange memory looking back on it, one that has Anne blinking rapidly in shame. “We tried doing a sleepover… but it just didn’t feel right without you,” she admits. “So for the scare dare challenge, I dared Marcy and Sprig and Polly to come into the basement. It was… an experience.”
“Sounds like something I’d do,” Sasha agrees with a snort. If she’s upset about it, she doesn’t say so, just obediently follows Anne as they finally approach the bottom of the staircase leading directly into a familiar hallway. “Glad that info is coming in handy; which way should we go?”
“Well, one way is a really pretty underground garden, and the other is a super creepy crypt.” Anne frowns. “There’s also some real weird, kinda evil looking creatures down here, but mirrors turn them physical if we need to escape from them. I… don’t know what they are.”
“Sounds fun,” Sasha deadpans. “Let’s try the gardens first.”
And there’s something unspoken in there. A quiet recognition, a guilty silence. Lets not check the crypt, is what Sasha doesn’t say, because despite the way they are both so determined to find Marcy alive, there is always that lingering fear that they’re wrong.
But the gardens are pretty. Anne could see why Marcy had been entranced coming here the first time, enough for it to pull her out of her fear stupor. The plants glow in the dim lighting, and they almost look like they’re winking at her, waving both of them forwards. Go on, they seem to say, and Anne swallows as she keeps walking through the paths, your destiny awaits.
Eventually, though, the gardens lead to another door. It’s already open, and attached to a hallway. The crypt that Anne remembers must be down a different way, because this hallway doesn’t look familiar at all.
“Should we…?”
“Can’t hurt to look,” Sasha shrugs, and she pushes forwards before Anne can warn her to not. “Besides, if we… don’t find Marcy down here, maybe we can find something that will help us defeat Andrias.”
And when put like that, Anne has no choice but to concede, following Sasha down the large hallway. Here is all torchlit just enough to create a strange atmosphere, and the back of Anne’s neck tingles.
“Do you get the sense we’re being watched?” she tentatively voices aloud, rubbing at the back of her neck with a grimace.
“Yeah,” Sasha admits, but if it bothers her, she doesn’t show it. “I think it’s just nerves. Come on, Anne– we’re so close.”
And they are close. The end of the hallway is another giant circular door, one that’s already mostly rolled back. There’s a glowing green light emitting from inside, and Anne reaches for Sasha’s hand once again– Sasha takes it without hesitation.
“This is it,” she says, and she means it, despite having no evidence to suggest that this room is any different from the other basement rooms. “No going back now.”
Sasha swallows, and they both step into the room.
It’s not what Anne had been expecting at all. There’s a giant tank all the way in the back glowing green - the source of the light, she realizes - but empty nonetheless. Machines beep around them, and somewhere overhead she thinks she can see wires, like this is some random engine room straight out of a movie.
“Anne, look-!” Sasha releases Anne’s hand to dart forward, and Anne helplessly follows all the way to the tank. Underneath it, there’s some sort of desk, scattered with bits of machinery, computer parts, and…
…Marcy’s phone.
It’s broken, completely so. Anne can’t help but feel a sudden sense of mourning as she picks it up delicately, the marshmallow charm - one of a giant matching set that herself and Sasha had teamed up to get her for her last birthday - swinging despite the missing parts. The battery is gone, the screen looks like it was taken off and then replaced, and when she presses the power button, it just flickers for a moment before going dead again.
“What an asshole,” Sasha grumbles, staring at the charm. “I can’t believe he took apart Marcy’s phone like that. What was the point?”
“Well, we can just send her pictures when she gets a new one on Earth,” Anne says, though it feels hollow. “This just confirms she was here… right?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Sasha nods, and she’s staring at the tank now, eyes narrowed, “this… could be the rejuvenation tank I heard King Andrias talk about. But then why is it empty?”
“You don’t think he had her moved somewhere else, do you?” Anne sniffs, her shoulders shaking. “Dang it… we were so close…”
“Wait, there’s writing up there, see?” Sasha points upwards, and Anne follows her gaze skeptically. Sure enough, there’s a word written in the Newtopian print on the tank. “Anne, what’s it say?”
Anne hadn’t brought Marcy’s journal with her, but she doesn’t need to– she’s learned the Newtopian writing by heart, has it memorized and inked into her soul, the one way she had felt close to Marcy when she was on Earth. So she reads each letter, and her heart sinks.
“Host,” she says, something fizzly like soda inside her stomach. “It says host.”
And the room shakes for a moment.
“What the hell?” Sasha complains, jumping as the room quivers. The floors don’t move, but it feels like something’s shifted nonetheless– or maybe that’s just the way Anne feels, the intense feeling of being watched only growing.
It stops as soon as it started, and Anne tugs the cape around her even closer, the fur tickling her cheeks. “Okay,” she says, “we should get out of here now, she’s not here, something feels… wrong.”
“ Awe, leaving so soon? ”
The voice comes from above them, impossibly familiar and yet wrong in so many ways. It’s high-pitched, giggly, layered with something darkly sinister that echoes after each word.
Sasha’s sword is out again, and she scowls into the darkness. “Who’s there?”
Anne just feels hollow.
“ What, don’t you recognize us ?” The voice sings, and above them, the wires shift around, creaking. “ What a shame. We’ve wanted you guys to visit us for so long. ”
“Marcy?” Anne tries, but it’s weak, because it might be Marcy’s voice but there’s something horrifying underneath it, something icky and wrong.
The voice laughs, high-pitched and maniacal. It reminds Anne of a time when they were younger, playing knights. Marcy had taken the role of evil wizard in that one, and she had given her best evil laugh impression– but coming from her, it had just sounded goofy, because Marcy never had the heart to fully play evil.
It doesn’t sound goofy now.
“Wrong answer, guess again !” It sings, and the wires at the top of the room shift again. Eleven eyes blink at them, now visible through the darkness, and then a figure leaps downwards, out of the wires, landing nimbly. “ Pretty close, though. ”
“What the hell,” Sasha breathes, and she’s standing so defensive, though her eyes are wide and full of shock.
“ Oh, it’s so good to see you guys again! ” The being that is not Marcy, though perhaps it might have been at some point, smiles, and there’s a wild, giddy delight in its voice, one that should be gushing about the latest game they played, not this. “I was beginning to think you’d never show up. ”
“What are you?” Anne demands, leaning forwards on the balls of her feet as she stares down this being and its eleven eyes and the way it reminds her too much of that mural they had seen in the cave of Mother Olm, the unnatural being that maybe, just maybe, Anne should’ve been paying more attention to. “ What have you done to her?”
“ We like calling ourselves Darcy, ” they say, smiling all the while, a big cheesy grin that feels horribly out of place. “ As for what we’ve done to her… you can say we borrowed her for a little bit. Marcy Wu has served her purpose; she has given most of the power of the stones back to the box, and now we keep her as a reminder of our true destiny. ”
“She’s not yours to steal,” Sasha growls, and she lunges forwards with both swords out, eyes flaring with rage.
Anne should be angry too. She is angry; she’s barely kept herself afloat with the thoughts of rescuing Marcy, getting to be her knight in shining armor once again. She couldn’t think about leaving Marcy behind, or Marcy’s betrayal, or seeing her fall to the ground with a flaming sword through her chest, or anything else, because it just hurt too much. This wasn’t like Sasha’s betrayal and the way she had fallen from the tower; this was different, because Anne didn’t know if anyone had caught Marcy, and until she knew for certain, she couldn’t let herself think about it.
And now Marcy’s gone, stolen by some creature that wears her face like some sort of fucked up trophy, that parades her body around like it hadn’t taken it in the first place.
In front of her, Sasha and the creature - Darcy, though Anne really doesn’t want to call them that - are fighting now– Sasha charging with her swords but not aiming to hurt, Darcy deflecting with wires and tubing and cackling all the while.
“ We haven’t been in a physical fight before ,” they coo, twirling around Sasha as she lunges. “ This is fascinating! Having a body really changes things, doesn’t it? There’s so much more one can do! ”
“Give her back, you monster!” Sasha shrieks, and she’s enraged, far more than Anne had expected of her friend. She charges again, but Darcy just smirks, and flicks their wrist, sending one of the many hanging wires smacking into Sasha. Sasha flies across the room, slams into a wall, and crumples– she doesn’t get up again.
Anne blinks, and then she’s seeing blue.
She blinks again, and she’s flying across the room, launching straight at Darcy, her fist tinged with her power just like she knows her eyes are. She blinks again, and she’s cut straight through the wires that Darcy had sent to knock her down, mouth open in a silent scream. Blinks again, and she has Darcy by the horns, pinning them to the nearest wall, her other hand at their neck.
And yet, she can’t bring herself to actually do anything.
Darcy is still smiling, there’s no fear in their many, many eyes. They know this, Anne realizes, and she holds her fist up threateningly with no fire behind it, gritting her teeth. They know what she can’t do.
“ Go on, Anne ,” they say, quietly, hovering over her name, and for a moment the echoing undercut of voices melts away so it’s just Marcy’s, maybe it was always just Marcy’s voice. “ You can end it here, I won’t be mad. I deserve it.”
Anne trembles with all the weight of her suppressed emotions. All the fear, the anger, the terror, the desperation, the intense love and forgiveness she wants to have a chance at wielding once again, everything hits her all at once, and tears spring to her eyes as her powers dissipate.
“I could never,” she whispers, and her voice trembles too, shaking as she steps away. A hand touches her shoulder, and she nearly flinches– but it’s just Sasha, looking beaten but not broken, a fire still burning in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what she’s done– I could never hurt her.”
Darcy blinks at her, and then grins again, slowly. They stand, stretching arms up over their head, and there’s a cracking noise as they move, like Marcy’s body is fully responding to them and they have to force it. “ Pathetic, ” they sneer, glancing from Anne and then back to Sasha. “ Don’t you know that your friendships will only make you weak ? ”
“If that’s weakness, than so be it,” Sasha retorts, and her hand squeezes Anne’s shoulder, clenching into the fabric of her shirt. “Marcy, if you’re in there, don’t listen to that thing– you deserve forgiveness too, I promise.”
“ Marcy’s not here, you sillies, ” Darcy laughs again, and they swing forwards, a wire coming down and poising like a weapon. “ We have her locked away where you will never reach her. We’ve seen her memories, you know. We know how much she cherished you two, how adoring she was of you two. And we know how much she suffered for it; at least now she can be at peace– we’ve given her everything you could not. ”
Sasha’s hand moves off of Anne’s shoulder, but Anne grabs it before she can pull away. We do this together, she tries to say telepathically, and somehow she thinks that Sasha understands.
If this is the end, what a way to go. The wire poises in front of them, and then shoots forward, and Sasha squeezes her hand because if one’s going down, so is the other one, that’s how this was always meant to work, right?
But the wire never hits them. Instead, it lurches to a stop right in front of Anne’s face, sharp and ready to maim if given the chance.
“ Pathetic, ” Darcy mutters, and when Anne glances up at them, they’re staring at their hands, eyes narrowed in confusion. “ Appears we misjudged the full effects of this body’s… unique quirks. ”
They blink again, and then look up with a sneer. “ It is simply not your time to fall now ,” they say, head tilted, the sneer melting into something that could’ve been a fond smile outside of these circumstances. “ It will be far more fun to obliterate you two with the rest of your pathetic species. Run away now; before we change our minds. ”
It’s an opening if they’ve ever seen one, and though Anne wants desperately to reach out, to yank that helmet off of Marcy herself, to save her… she understands. They have to retreat before Andrias finds them and surely tries to kill them, they gotta leave, they’re not strong enough for this.
By the frogs above, why weren’t they strong enough for this?
~~
Later, when they’re back in the resistance, Anne goes to Sasha’s room.
She’s been here numerous times, discussing plans for the rebellion and seeking comfort both. This time is no different– she pulls Marcy’s cape around her shoulders, a newly familiar weight, and she steps through the threshold of the room, closing the door behind her.
Sasha had clearly been expecting her. She’s still wearing Marcy’s hairclip, and she has her knees pulled into her chest, her expression stormy and far away. “Hey,” she says weakly as Anne goes to sit on the mat on the floor that has become Sasha’s bed, directly next to her.
Anne doesn’t say anything. She can’t. She hasn’t been able to say anything since their fight– she doesn’t know what would come out of her mouth if she tried.
“I’m sorry.”
Sasha’s crying.
There are tears in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks. It’s a strange look on her, because she doesn’t cry, she’s never cried in front of Anne before, it’s uncharacteristic. She never cries, but here she is, sniffling, her shoulders hitching with muffled sobs, and she looks so distressed Anne goes to clutch at her hands in silent comfort.
“I… I was there, and I know there was nothing I could’ve done, but… fuck. We should’ve saved her sooner, I should’ve been fast enough, Anne… I was supposed to protect her like you do, and I failed, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”
Anne grabs her by the shoulders, causing Sasha to snap out of her stupor, staring up at Anne with wide, teary eyes.
“It’s my fault too,” Anne says, and it feels like an admittance of something far darker. “I… I…” and then she, too, bursts into tears, the emotions she’s been bottling up, everything she’s felt spilling out in one fluid motion.
Sasha pulls her into a hug, and Anne sobs into her chest.
It’s so much. It’s so much, and too much, and maybe they weren’t built to handle this much emotional duress, because Anne feels like she’s been thrown into a washing machine and left to dry, wrung out and aching and her insides all twisted up, and she can’t say any of that so she just cries. She just cries, and cries, and Sasha’s still crying too, and they’re both holding each other desperately even as something is missing.
Marcy’s missing.
“I miss her so much,” Anne sobs, “what if that thing was right? What if… what if she’s gone for good, what if we never see her again?”
“It’s wrong, ” Sasha insists, her voice wet and hoarse. “We… we’re gonna get her back, no matter what it takes.”
“How? What can we do?” Anne sniffs, wiping at her eyes as she sinks into Sasha’s chest, face burning. “How do we fix this?”
“Together,” Sasha tells her, and it feels final, determined. “We’ll do it together.”
“Good,” Anne sniffs again, and she sits more upright, leaning against Sasha’s shoulder. It still feels wrong, still feels like there’s someone missing, but what can they do now? One day, she vows to herself, we will be complete again.
She promised me I wouldn’t lose her, she can’t bail out of that promise now.
“Now come on, I know you have more stories of what you two got up to when I wasn’t there,” Sasha jokes, and it mostly falls flat with how wet her voice sounds, but she scoots upwards anyways, eyes shining. “I promise I won’t even be a little angry that you two were having fun without me.”
Anne snorts. She feels… a little better, getting that out of her system. “Okay, okay. Hang on, I have pictures– I can show you the time Marcy flooded Wartwood?”
“Weak, Maddie already told me about that.”
“Wait, is that why you called the resistance HQ ‘New Wartwood’?”
“Yeah. Wanted it to be in the name. A memory of her, you know?” Sasha sniffs again, but she’s smiling, looking fondly into the distance. “Plus, it was a funny story. She really did sink the town, didn’t she?”
“But she did everything she could to fix her mistakes,” Anne points out, pulling herself out of Sasha’s embrace to sit next to her instead, leaning against her shoulder.
“That’s our Marmar,” Sasha laughs.
And Anne still misses her, and the encounter earlier has left her shaken to her core, but if it had done one thing… it had fueled the sparks of determination. They could get Marcy back, they can save her.
We’re coming for you, Marbles, she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut in prayer. I promise.
~~
“I deserve it.”
She doesn’t know where this comes from. One second, she’s fine, sitting on her bed with the tv on, her best friends at her side. The next, there’s an intense, swelling guilt rising in her, one that she can’t place.
“Hm?” Anne glances up at her– Sasha too focused on whatever she’s doing on her phone to notice Marcy’s sudden self doubt. “What was that, Marmar?”
“I… don’t know,” Marcy admits, and she smiles weakly. “I guess I was thinking about you two. Telling myself I deserve this?”
“Well duh,” Anne laughs, and now Sasha’s finally glancing upwards, eyes curious. “If anything, we don’t deserve you. Right, Sash?”
“Yeah, what Anne said,” Sasha agrees, and they both come to the bed, flanking Marcy on either side. Sasha wraps an arm around Marcy’s waist, and Anne’s leaning against her side, and Marcy’s heart swells with affection, the feeling almost too intense to bear.
“Thanks, guys,” she whispers, “I love you both so much.”
“We love you too, Marcy,” they chant back.
The room, for a moment, glows orange. Marcy blinks, though, and then it’s back to normal, like nothing’s wrong, and nothing is wrong. Everything is perfect. She’s perfect, and with her best friends at her side forever and ever, what could ever go wrong?
THE END