#another hero

“Another scrape!? You’re falling to pieces! Kiddo, please, I’m worried about you. You keep doing this. We can’t lose you, Thomas needs you!!”

“Okay, I’ll be more careful next time. But don’t worry about me, Patton, that foul creature could never defeat me!” He replied grandly, throwing his arms up with dramatic flair, but sucking in a breath as he moved his injured wrist.

“Sure, Princy,” drawled a voice from the stairs. Virgil was sitting there, with his sleeves pulled over his hands.

“How long have you been there,” Roman asked, exasperated, he didn’t want to be seen like this.

Virgil shrugged, “I came when I heard you get back, I wanted to see the state you were in.”

“I will defeat her!” Roman cried. “You’ll see! It was just the snow!”

“What is this racket, I was trying to work- good lord, Roman, what happened?” Logan had just come down the stairs, stepping carefully around Virgil.

“Dragonwitch,” replied Patton. Logan nodded.

“Its bloody freezing in here,” Virgil moaned, pulling his hoodie tighter around him. “Did someone turn the heating down?”

Logan froze, a look of pure terror etched onto his face. “You mentioned snow in imagination, right, Roman.” Roman shrugged, looking bemused. “You did close the door, didn’t you? And wipe away your tracks.”

“Oh,” Roman gasped. “I’ll go and lock it now!”

“There’s no point now!” Virgil shouted, suddenly animated. “You led her right to us, you complete idio-” but he froze when he heard it. They all did. Footsteps. Loud, booming footsteps.

They ran to the open door to imagination and stared into the snow. With each thud, the white powder was falling from the tree’s spindaly branches. Roman’s footsteps where still clear it the thick layer of white that coated the ground.

“I love you guys, I love you all so much,” Patton whimpered into his sleeves. Virgil put a protective arm around his shoulders, although he was about to faint himself.

“Should someone sink out and tell Thomas what’s happening?” Roman ventured to Logan.

“No.” Virgil said, surprisingly firmly. “Him panicking is no use now.”

So they stood there. Waiting. Frozen. Listening to the thuds that shook the mindscape. Virgil’s entire body was trembling, as was Patton’s. Logan put a hand on each of their shoulders. Roman stood in front of them, sword out, battle ready.

“You idiot, Roman,” Virgil whispered, sounding about ready to cry. “You complete idiot.”

The footsteps were getting louder. The sounds of trees being snapped added to the thuds, and the shrill shriek of birds rose above.

——————————–

An enormous, clawed foot, covered in maroon scales, appeared behind the door. Virgil emmited a little squeak, and Roman’s fingers tensed around his sword. A second paw appeared, the talons glinting in the cold sunlight. Then, a snout.

If there was any colour on their faces by then, when the snout appeared in the doorway, it was consumed by the creature standing before them.

The face of the dragonwitch took up the whole of the frame. Her teeth were so large that they hung down over her chin, dripping saliva onto the floor. She could only poke the end of her snout through the door, but you could still see her yellow eyes, gleaming at the sight of them.

“So,” she purred silkily, chillingly calm. “This is your precious mindscape? You’ve done well to hide it from me all these years.”

“Be gone, foul beast,” Roman retorted, trying to sound grand as normal, but there was a tremour sneaking into his voice. “You have no business here.”

“Oh, I think I do. This is where your friends reside. You have wronged me far too many times to be left alive. And it might be fun to watch Thomas try to struggle through with none of his precious sides left. If I don’t get to him first.”

“You will not lay a finger on Thomas!” Logan shouted, pushing past Roman to stand at the front, filled with bravery that he knew bordered on stupidity.

The dragonwitch strained forwards, her fangs only feet away from Logan, the doorframe cracking under the pressure. “And how, exactly, do you plan to stop me.”

Without another word, the Dragonwitch pounced, smashing through the wall, sending rubble everywhere and filling the air with dust. They all darted backwards, but she landed with one paw on top of Patton and one on top of Virgil. She was so enormous that her claws covered their entire chests. Patton let out a high pitched squeak as he was pinned to the floor, and Virgil’s shivers grew to the point of convulsions.

Logan stood completely still, as if paralyzed, with his fingers on his temples, his face twitching with the effort of thinking up desperate plans for escape. Finally his eyes sprang open, tears glistening within them. He looked defeated, yet he refused to be. He strode forward and started throwing punch after punch at the dragonwitch’s side. The beast winced at every strike of his fists, but the decent of her jaws towards Patton’s face did not stop, its continued, slow and teasing.

Roman stood stock still, his mind racing. This was all his fault! He shouldn’t have created her in the first place. He should have been able to beat her. He should have remembered to wipe away his stupid tracks. He should have gotten rid of the snow. He controlled the damn imagination, how could this be happening!?

Patton looked over at Virgil, who was now unconscious, either from the force of being knocked down or from sheer terror, he didn’t know. He felt faint himself as he stared into the gaping jaw of the dragonwitch. He wanted to cry out to his family, one last goodbye, but the words got trapped in his throat as he felt the beasts hot breath on his face.

“Roman!! Help!!” Logan screamed, as the dragon witches tail swung out from behind her and knocked him against the wall. As he slid down to the floor, a trail of crimson was left behind. Roman snapped out of his daze. He raised his sword and ran at the dragonwitch.

Roman’s blade was fast, but the dragonwitch was faster. She blocked every one of his blows and landed many of her own, but at least her attention was finally diverted from Patton, who was screaming every time she landed a blow.

“You really think that you can take me on?!” The beast boomed, her silkiness dissolved into folds of malace. “You couldn’t before, and you can’t now! I’ve waited so long, searched high and low for your precious mindscape, and now I have found it. It! Is! Mine!” She let out a screeching laugh which turned into a scream as the used her teeth to pull out the knife that was embedded in her flank.

While she was distracted, Logan had run to the kitchen and grabbed a blade, then he plunged it deep into her hind leg. He tried to pull it out to swing again, but she had swung her tail round yet again and pushed him to the floor next to where Patton was still being held under her claws. Patton screamed and struggled harder as he saw the trickle of blood pooling on the floor from Logan’s unstirring head.

Roman took the opportunity while she was destracted to slash his sword across her unprotected underside. She reared up, roaring in anger and grabbed him with the claw that was covering Virgil. Roman struggled and twisted, but the dragonwitch held him fast.

“Roman!!” Patton cried up from the floor, also struggling.

“Release me, foul creature!” Roman cried, his mask of bravery rapidly disintegrating. “Release me now and I may let you escape the full force of my wrath!”

“What wrath? You are powerless.” Her putrid breath blew his hair back from his face as she let out a booming laugh. “Youre lying to yourself, 'Princy’!”

——————————–

Deciets head snapped up. He had been doodling while listening to show tunes on his headphones, big enough to rival Virgil’s.

Each of the sides had certain words that they would always hear if they were said in Thomas’s head or in his real life. Deciet’s word was of course 'lie’. And he hated it. But he had to do his job.

He sighed and slid off his headphones and leapt immediately to his feet at what he heard. He cursed at himself, why hadn’t he been listening?! He ran over to the umbrella holder that stood next to his door and grabbed two swords from it. He liked the idea when he first conjured them, a facard, just like him. But he had never used them, they were just for show.

Nevertheless, he steadied himself, gripping the handles tightly. He felt power surge through him, he knew that any new skill would come to him in Thomas’s time of need.

A scream came from outside his room. Louder than Patton’s, which was still ringing, and higher pitched. The two mingled together and wrenched Deciet’s heart from his body. Thomas needed them, and he protected Thomas.

He wrenched the door open and almost screamed himself. Virgil was lying limp on the floor, pale as a ghost. Logan was also unconscious, and bleeding, next to a screaming, struggling, trapped Patton. And Roman was being held in the dragonwitch’,s claw, yelling as he was being lowered into her gaping fangs.

He felt the power surging through him. As a defense mechanism, Deciet suddenly gained whatever skills he needed to protect Thomas’s mindscape at the exact moment that he needed them. Deciet ran forward at the dragon witch.

——————————–

His hands and feet were a blur. Whirling around, coming in to strike then dancing away from her blows. As feirce as a gryffin, as hypnotizing as a python. Roman and Patton huddled together, entranced. Deceit’s swords clashed against the dragonwitches scales with enough force to crack them. He span away from her claws and twirled away from her teeth. If he was tiring, he wasn’t showing it, unlike her. Her blows became slow and sluggish, so he took the opportunity to charge right through her front legs and plunge both of his blades right into her chest. And, with a final bellow of agony and defeat, the dragon which burned into dust.

——————————–

Deciet stood, his two swords dangling in his limp arms, their bloody tips trailing on the floor as he walked over to where the others were.

“Wha?? What was that??” Roman gasped. “How can you fight like that, even I couldn’t defeat her?”

“I’m totally not just a defense mechanism. I never have been. Defense, Roman. My only job totally isn’t protection. You think I’m the bad guy, but this really is all I am.”

Patton was over by Logan and Virgil, crouching between them. Silent tears were creeping down his cheeks as he smoothed down the hair of the other two sides. Virgil’s eyes slowly flicked open. Patton let out a sob and hugged him tight to his chest.

“Relax, Pat! I’m fine.” Came a slightly raspy voice from between Patton’s arms. The two huddled over Logan, trying to wake him, Patton whimpering when his eyes fixed on the stain on the wall.

“If you’re so 'good’ now, why did you kidnap Patton before.” Roman asked accusingly.

“Wait, what? Kidnap, when?” Patton had run over from Logan, who was just sitting up, looking bleary.

“When he was trying to convince us to lie to Joan,” Roman replied, jabbing a finger at Deceit’s chest.

“He never kidnapped me,” Patton said, incredulous. “He just said he needed some help putting together furniture in his room. So I went to help, and he said he was going to get cookies. Now I come to think of it, he did take a while.”

Roman looked aghast. “Patton, we literally told you what happened.”

“But I didn’t know that the two events were at the same time, did I?”

“Listen,” Deceit inturupted. “I really wanted to lose Joan as a friend, they really matter to meway less than they matter to you. I only saw one way, now I realize there may not have been more.” Deceit looked down at his gloves, pushing whatever feelings these were deep down inside.

——————————–

Roman continued to stare at Deciet. “Anyway, I’ll go back to my room now, if you don’t mind,” he said, turning his back so that they didn’t see the tears that will pooling in his eyes. No, he told himself. I am not going to cry, I’m tough, I’m Deciet, I’m the villain.

“Kiddo,” called a voice from behind him. “You- You saved us. If you want to chat, any time, that’s fine. Don’t feel like you can’t hang out with us or anything.”

Deceit’s eyes softened, as he turned around to face them. Logan had gotten up and they were standing together, like friends. Like family. “Really?”

“Of course!”