A Curse Upon Thee 2-38

Water crawled higher from the growing depths around the geyser, long trails of water spreading further and farther. Foot by encroaching foot, fluid ate up the space of the cracked bowl; the lakebed with a lot more lake in it than just five minutes ago.

At the very center right in front of the geyser was the portal they were all after — a swiling blue mouth in the world that smelled like the strongest storm. It was home.

Just right there in front of them.

Fifty yards of mud and two witches away.

Emma rushed ahead of him to stand behind Snow, leaving Finn to trudge forward as he tried to catch a second wind. Maybe a third by this point, I dunno… The back of his hand dragged itself over his lips, blood and mud still thick in his mouth. I just need a wind. Every breath hurt a little less than the last but that didn’t mean much when the starting point felt like broken glass already.

Just a few feet to his left, Mulan wasn’t doing all that much better — the Chinese warrior woman halfway to her knees and coated in more mud than Finn and Emma combined. She hacked up a lungful of the stuff, leaning heavily on her sword as she stared forward at the fairy that had spent the last few minutes toying with her life.

Mal stood perfectly immaculate, untouched and unbothered by the filth that clung to most of the team or even the sweat beginning to form on the brow of the old witch. If anything, she looked like she was having a nice relaxing time as she stood there in her pristine purple leathers. “And here I thought you warrior types were supposed to have all this stamina.” From the way she was talking, she certainly sounded like it at least. “I’m not really seeing it.”

“I will…” Mulan’s head snapped up, raw fury on a face in desperate need of a bath and a nap. “I will take your head, fae!” 

Maybe more a sleep than a nap. Finn couldn’t help his frown as Mulan forced herself to stand tall. Yeah, definitely a solid sleep.

“Do not make promises you lack the power to keep, daughter of the Empire.” The voice that cut through the clearing wasn’t Mal’s at all, too old and too proper for it to belong to the purple-haired fairy. 

At the same time, it wasn’t the velvet-rasped calm that Finn was used to either; far too frayed and strained for that.

The Queen of Hearts stood near the edge of the water, dark gown scorched from the remaining bite of Snow White’s lightning arrows. “You…” Fingers curled into trembling claws. “You miserable little pests…”

“You’re shaking, granny.” Finn leaned onto his back leg, a smile on his face to hide the weakness in his still-unsteady knees. “Might wanna sit down before your heart gives out… if you still got one.”

“Give it up, Cora!” Snow yelled loud as she stepped forward, the young queen readying her bow once more as lightning crackling a bright gold on the arrow. “This battle is long over!”

Finn’s eyes went wide staring at Snow, not because of her words; more because of what made them more than just words. “You’re spent.” Brass shone in her hand, the compass they’d all been after held tight in her grip as she held the bow aimed at the old witch. “You have been for some time now.”

“Spent.” The witch spat the word back, voice thin and icy. “You presume to lecture me on the ways of magic? Fool girl you are, Snow White. Still as rosy-cheeked as you were on the day you nearly fell off that horse. Still blessed with as much knowledge.”

“I know enough, Cora.” Snow smiled back, something actually glittering in her eyes. “I know you.”

“You? Know me?” Cora’s hand trembled as she pointed a finger at the other queen. “You, of all th—”

The old woman’s hand shook again and Finn couldn’t deny what was clear in front of his eyes now. An actual twitch, fingers jumping against her silks. Oh… It made sense, of course. Cursed Energy wasn’t infinite, so why would magic be?

Considering the old lady had been throwing magic by the fistfuls all fight, there had to be a point where the account got overdrawn. 

And, right now, everyone could see Cora wasn’t exactly flush with power.

“You really think it that simple?” Clearly, that wasn’t going to stop her from saying her piece as she rasped with the same soft condescendion. “So short-sighted.” She raised a hand, purple smoke gathering around her ring-laden fingers. Thin, wispy smoke — the dense clouds that had thrown Finn off his feet and sent Emma flying nowhere to be seen. “Simple squabbling children with no idea of what victory even is. I’ll be damned befo-”

“Then go to hell or we’ll send you there first.” Finn rolled his shoulder, fists clenched as he readied for another fight. “New material, grandma. Please.”

“Yeah, nobody cares.” Emma didn’t even wait for Cora to start another sentence, broadsword rising in a brutal baseball swing.

Cora’s eyes widened as a blade of light lanced out, a crescent of power cutting right for her—

—only to cleave clean through empty fog as the witch came apart into a purple mist.

“The hell did she…” Nothing but a cloud of violet mist was left behind, Finn’s head snapping around as he searched for her. “There!”

The smoke reformed barely a half-dozen yards away, Finn already rushing after Cora with his Lapse flaring and ready to go. The Queen of Hearts barely had a moment to breathe before Finn slammed his fist down into the ground right where she was. The ground shattered under flame and force, the basin cracking under Finn’s strike as fire gutted out.

Unfortunately, Cora had already vanished again.

Another six yards and the smoke reformed, only for Cora to nearly take an arrow to the face courtesy of Snow.

“Good job, Mom!” Emma’s shout came with another swing, another crescent blade tearing across the basin. “Keep her off the portal.”

“Got it, sweetie!” Another arrow was already gone off Snow’s string, a second and a third right behind it as the queen walked sideways with the compass fisted tight against the grip of her bow. 

Cora batted the shafts down with hands drenched in smoke, yet the magic was undeniably slower than before; purple so thin you could see through it.

My turn. Two fists slammed together, the red fighting him as his tank dropped low enough Finn was halfway to worrying. Still, he crushed it down anyway, power condensed between his knuckles until it held a shape.

“ANGRY—” He swung out at empty air again, the punch a release of power. “EMBER!”

The fist of fire crossed the lakebed and Cora had to move — not shield, move. Smoke took her sideways, the queen forced into the shallow water as his flame blew a wall of steam into the air as it touched down.

“What’s wrong, queenie?” His fists came together again, compression forced with a grunt. “What happened to the whole untouchable queen thing? Throw some more shadows, Cora!”

“Insolent littl-!”

“ANGRY EMBER!”

She moved again, the distance between jumps almost a third shorter than the last as she dodged an arrow and his flame. The looks she threw at him as she stood in the water, slowly getting more wet as the seconds passed, was worth almost every single bit of hell from the last two weeks.

Four.

A solid four Angry Embers thrown across a refilling lake, and his fists were already coming together for the fifth with a red flare. “ANGRY EMBER!"

The fist of fire ripped off his knuckles and howled across the shallows, and the old witch did the thing she'd been doing for the last two minutes instead of the thing she did before.

She ran.

Well — smoked. Purple bloomed where the silks had been standing, and the Ember tore through empty vapor and burst against the vapor in another spray of steam.

“Νὴ τὴν Στύγα! This is an embarassment.” Mal’s voice floated in from somewhere to the right, bright and sweet as it cut through the violence. “For you, I mean. Are we just doing cardio now?”

"Mulan!" He threw a hand up. "Get over here. Just let it go!"

"I am Hua Mulan! Daughter of Hua Zhou! Warrior of the Empire! I do not—!" Mulan's sword came up in both hands, arms shaking under it as her back straightened for the words. "—require rescue. Kill the witch."

"Which one!"

"Either!"

"How rude!" Mal's fingers snapped and Finn’s eyes darted right as her hand flared green.

By the time Finn’s head came around, the green light widened and lengthened into a green rope that came out of nowhere — out of nothing, a glowing braided cord. All at one, the thing snapped across the clearing with all the speed of a bullwhip and twice the length.

Before anyone could blink, it wrapped Mulan three times around before the snap finished echoing. Sword arm pinned to ribs, the cord biting tight into armor as bright as any glowstick Finn had ever seen, Mulan hit her knees in the shallows with a noise between a shout and a curse in a language Finn didn't have.

"There we go. Isn’t that better?" Loose end wound around her own fist, Mal didn’t waste a moment before she started pulling. Mulan didn’t waste a moment in thrashing either, the warrior shouting in sudden surprise. It didn’t do much as the magical tether tightened, Mal reeling the older woman in one-handed through the mud like a prize catch.

Soon enough, Mulan was hauled up to her feet like she weighed nothing, Mal tucking her up against her body as she started making her way backward toward the portal; her human shield giving her zero hurry.

Finn’s fists came up, something Mal didn’t miss as she pointed one purple nail his way. “Careful there, cutie.” 

The fairy girl leaned her chin over Mulan’s busted pauldron, smile bright and sweet. “You throw those tantrum balls of yours real fast. Wouldn’t try that right now unless you wanna hurt your little friend here.”

“Fight me with honor, witch!” Mulan was still doing her best to struggle, not that it was getting her anywhere. “Or do you have none?”

“I don’t. Seriously, what part of dark fairy do you people not get?” A laugh spilled out of her, still somehow just as bright and delighted as before as she pulled Mulan tighter. “Never heard of the Unseelie before, have you?”

“Then kill me!”

“I would but…” A tongue flicked out and ran up Mulan’s cheek, the warrior flinching as Mal licked one of the few clean spots on her face. “You taste like dra~gon. I’d be heartless if I killed a cousin.”

Underneath all that mud, Mulan seemed to pale, Finn blinking in confusion as she froze at the other girl’s words. “Just because I can’t kill you…” The rope around Mulan tightened the toxic green light flaring brighter and forcing a scream out of the trapped Hua Mulan. “It doesn’t mean I can’t make you hurt until they give me that com~pass.”

“Mal!” Snow’s bow swept from Cora, the witch still running from Emma’s blades of light as her power flagged, to Mal; nowhere to put the arrow that wouldn’t take the screaming Mulan with her. “Whatever Cora promised you, she will not honor it. You know what she is!”

“Obvi.” Mal inched backward, the portal roaring behind her closer now. “I’ve known the whole time.”

Finn stood half-frozen, unsure what move to make with Mulan belly-out toward him. Shit! Angry Ember didn't do surgical and he was no sniper, especially when his fire didn't know friend from fairy. "Shit. Shit — Emma!"

"I see her!" Emma broke off Cora and cut toward the bank, and that was the mistake, because the moment Emma's sword turned away—

“Preparation, my dear, comes with power!” Purple erupted at the edge of the portal and, all of a sudden, the old witch stood in front of the swirling blue, hands folded and breathing heavy but the smile she wore was still triumphant. “Both I have and both you lack!” 

One fist clenched, she stared right past Finn to glare at Emma and Snow. “Surely, you understand that now. You have the compass, but we have the door. Give us what we want or your… friend here suffers for it.”

Goddamnit. Finn’s muscles tensed tight, Cursed Energy coiling inside him ready to make a move. To his right, Emma held her sword high with the edge flaring bright. 

“I will not allow you passage, Cora!” On the other side of him, Snow raised her own weapon, dark gray fletching pulled back to her ear as gold sparks threatened to fly free again. “Step away from the portal!”

“Or what, Snow?” Cora’s voice was the epitome of patronizing, even as a hand rested on Mal’s shoulder just for the witch to keep herself upright. “Will you kill your own warrior merely to scratch me?”

The twitch on Snow’s face was something Finn didn’t miss, the woman armed with the bow nearly loosening her grip as she stared daggers at Cora.

"There we go." The smile said it all. "I confess, you have made this far more tiresome than it needed to be. That is a compliment, of a kind. Do treasure it."

“Kill the witch, Queen Snow! Kill he-!”

A hand wrapped itself over Mulan’s mouth, quieting the order as Mal shook her head. “Quiet, cousin.”

"Cora!" Snow stepped forward, the arrow crackling brighter. "Step away from the portal. I will not ask again."

"You will not ask at all, dear, because asking implies I might grant it." Even with her other hand doing a little dance at her side, the witch still kept her words strong. “You will forgive a mother her impertinence."

Cora paused for a moment, smile widening. "Or you won't. It costs me nothing either w-!”

The green hit her like a car crash.

Green. 

A wall of it, wide as a door and moving like water off a broken dam off Mal’s free hand, caught Cora clean across the side and threw the witch. Silks and rings and everything esle went a full ten feet along the bank until the ground brought her down. That smoke tried to catch her, but little coughs of purple vapor might as well have done nothing at all as she came to a hard landing against a shelf of clay. 

Nobody moved.

Even Finn stood there with his fists still half-raised.

What.

“...you?” Cora pushed herself up on one arm, elbow under her body as her eyes swam around the lakebed, blood trailing from one side of her head. It didn’t take her long to find who she was looking for, though. “You!”

A tongue flicked out. “Me!”

“You foolish little girl!” 

“Come on, Cora.” One hand still smoking green and the other tight around Mulan’s leash, Mal shifted her human shield half a step as she forced a pout at the old witch. "You had to have seen this coming, right?”

“I promised you your mother!”

“And my mother is Maleficent.” Mal tilted her head. “You know? The Mistress of All Evil that thinks you’re the biggest bitch that’s ever been?”

The next words that left Cora’s mouth weren’t even words at all, a scream of rage that came from somewhere deep and primal in the old woman.

“Alright, I’m bored now.” Mal’s hand turned over again.

The second wave of green took Cora even further away — a bundle of dark silk rolling, tumbling and skidding another car-length down the bank through wet clay until she met a dead stump and stopped, one ringed hand twitching at nothing.

"Double double-cross." Mal shook her fingers out, laughing at her own work with her head back as she held Mulan like luggage. "You’re all welcome, by the way. Do you know how hard it was to get her to believe me? She was going to be so annoying in Storybrooke, too. Honestly, the amount of—"

She was gloating.

"Did you see her face? Please tell me one of you saw her—"

A window.

She was gloating at the mouth of the portal with a stolen door at her back and a tied-up warrior in one fist, running her mouth to an audience, exactly like the old bat she'd just laid out. He was already moving too, his legs already having made the decision before any of the rest of him got a vote.

The clay blurred beneath him. Twenty feet. Ten.

Green eyes came around. "wait, wh—"

He hit her at the waist.

Every pound of him, every busted rib and reopened burn and the whole gravy-thick dregs of his reinforcement, a full-body tackle that took them both clean off the bank. The fairy’s fist sprang open on impact — green rope dissolving off Mulan and gone like it never was.

Before Finn could get his bearings, there was no more bank, no more clay, no more anything under either of them as they tipped all the way over the edge with nothing to stand on.

Just the churn.

The blue throat of it yawned up around him, spray and wind and the smell of Mal's leather twisted in both his fists as she screamed something high and furious against his ear — “I’m trying to help, you idiiiiiiiiiiot!” 

And above him — shrinking and spinning off into the distance — two faces hit the edge of the light, their voices braided into one behind him.

"FIIIIIIIINNNN—!"

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

You Sly Dog – 50 GP
Catch someone monologuing.

Friendly Fire – 100 GP
Attack someone on your side.

(Not) Thinking With Portals – 200 GP
Jump through a random rift in space and time.

Sorcerer – 100 GP
Generic Dungeon Crawler | Source
You have a larger-than-average pool of magical energy to draw on, and you can channel larger amounts of destructive energy with a greater degree of safety. You begin with knowledge of a low-damage but reliable offensive spell.

Not A Puppet – 400 GP
Final Fantasy VII | Benevolence
There are a lot of things in this world that can put your very body and soul in chains. Whether its the oppressive lifestyle Shinra forces on both its customers and its victims or the corruption of all things involving Jenova souls, there are plenty of invasive forces that seek to control you. They're going to find it very difficult to get past you. Your willpower is iron, able to withstand a ridiculous amount of stress and trauma while still carrying on. What's more, this willpower translates to being able to resist involuntary mutations or corruption to your physical body, letting you hold onto your original form so long as you continue to resist it with your mind. Even a deadly infection like Geostigma will find you difficult to bring down or even inconvenience so long as you remain focused. You're not anyone's puppet and you're going to show that to the world.

Badass Bombshell – 100 GP
Chainsaw Man | Illusion
Not only are you attractive and interesting-looking enough to give the average person pause, your actions are infused with a layer of coolness and efficiency that mesmerizes the common folk especially so if you’re in the process of saving them. Comes with the level of training and conditioning required to fight the more common devils as well as the skill and patience to deal with all the related paperwork and mental stressors.

Grimoire Points: 400