War of the kingdom of Peaches: A Royesland spin off [Completed]

[CelticSol]

"Do you? I have yet to see it, sweetie. And no, the neon yellow carriage was not taste."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"You wouldn't know taste if I ran you over with it."

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Rolling her eyes, Nicola went to follow Jackie into the tower, but jumped out of the doorway when she came flying back down the stairs and past her into the courtyard. "What the- Jackie?" This was extremely worrying, as Jackie seemed genuinely scared. Up to this point Nicola honestly hadn't thought her teammate physically capable of that emotion. "...Are you okay?"

Tom, on the other hand, wasn't having it. Despite how bad Jackie appeared, he bodily scooped her up and dragged her ass into the tower. Nicola followed, casting her senses out for what could possibly have sent Jackie into such a fit. Yet she found nothing.

The dynamic duo had headed straight up the stairs. By the time Nicola was sure there were no wards, glyphs, traps or otherwise down here- at least none that would have caused that reaction- the screeching had stopped, and she hurried to catch up as she often did with this group.

Besides perhaps a slightly haunted pallor to Jackie's expression that Nicola could very well have been imagining, she and Tom were bickering normally as if nothing had happened. She hesitated, feeling like she should do something more, but- she had no idea what, and Tom seemed to have it under control anyway. They'd known one another longer than she'd known them, and all the stars in the sky knew that Nicola was complete rubbish at dealing with other people.

She let her eye be caught by the abandoned war room, tiptoeing over to the maps on the walls and paperwork on the table. Her brain was switching into information mode, scanning for intel that could at least help them undo some of the madness Xanthielex had caused; or, at best, give them an edge on kicking his ass. Periodically she still glanced over at Jackie, the question "are you all right?" sitting on the tip of her tongue. Each time, though, Nicola bit it back and went back to her search.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

At first she didn't find anything she wasn't expecting. She memorized all information she came across regarding the rat generals' supply chains: that would certainly be useful later on.

Next, not necessarily surprising but certainly unwelcome, were plans to extend the time dilation barrier that had already wreaked havoc on so many lives. These Nicola rolled up everything she could find and tucked them into the trans-dimensionally deep pockets of her robes. Best case scenario, they were the only copies and no one could put the plans in motion without them. More likely, if they made it out of this alive, she could track down any other copies and destroy them later.

While she was stuffing papers in her pockets, Nicola glanced over some documents she almost ignored. A warning signal went off in the back of her mind, however, and she stopped to read them more closely.

Puzzled, she read them again. And again. And then looked over at her teammates, face twisted in confusion. "This is… hey, can someone come look at this and make sure I'm reading it right?" She held up the papers. "Because if someone had told me Xanthielex and the Princess of Peaches were getting married, I might've, you know, sent them a card or something."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn had also been poking around the tower, though with rather less luck than Nicola. He turned and stared at her question. "The Princess?" he repeated, and went over to pull the pages out of her hands and and shuffle through them. "That...she's been dead for seven years! I was at her funeral." He'd been head of her personal guard, before her death, which had been the most stressful job in the palace, including being the king, but Finn had loved her like an obnoxious little sister. "This is a sick joke." The pages stubbornly insisted that Xanthielex was indeed marrying Princess Vidya though, which was as infuriating as it was impossible. Finn flung the papers down on the table. "I'm gonna fuckin' kill him," he spat.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Oh, I don't like that," tom said to himself. He knew full well the difference between a fairy and a ghost was debatable at the best of times and if the princess had moved on from the mortal realm to become a Fae- a feat quiet possible and common among witches and the reason why "killing" was often considered so hard- then Finn was going to loose it. He shot Nicola and then Jackie a look. It was also possible to become part fae from spending too much time in the court of the fair folk- which was much more common. he thought of Truffle, Tuesdays right hand knight back home in Royesland, and how she was just as fickle and single minded as a fairy but tended to have only slightly more sense. For a moment, he missed them both, despite knowing that Tuesday had recently gotten into his tower- that was to be expected he had turned him into a man, expecting no retaliation would be foolish.
"If- the princess is still alive Finn- and I feel we shouldn't rule that out, we will find her and get to the bottom of it."

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Seeing how upset Finn was and catching the look Tom gave her, Nicola cringed at her own dumb joke. Maybe someday she'd get a sense for comedic timing- or keep up with foreign affairs like who was dead or getting married or both. But this wasn't the time to worry about that; if Tom was on the wavelength she thought he was, there were a number of things that could've happened to the Princess (or, according to the papers, the Queen of Cats) and none of them all that great. Somehow what waited for them in the tower above had actually managed to become even more concerning than before, and would require all of them to be at their best.

"Well…" she glanced over the wedding plans again, committing those to memory as well in case any of it became relevant later on. "I think we've found everything we can here. If we're going to go kill this guy and possibly rescue a princess, shall we be on our way?"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn gave Tom a long look, because it didn't make any sense for Vidya to be alive, and it worried him when Tom said things like that. He didn't have a good reply though, and was saved from having to come up with one by Nicola. "Yes. Let's," he said, and started for the stairs further up.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

"Hey," Nicola called after Finn, louder than she meant to, and flushed. She followed him to the tower stairs.

"Uh, sorry. I just wanted to say, um… he knows we're coming. So I'm sure he's gonna throw all kinds of tricks and nonsense at us, to put us off our guard. So just be careful, okay? We don't know what's waiting up there. Take everything with a grain of salt."

She fussed with the hem of her robe. "Not that I thought you didn't know that already. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job." Her eyes wandered, looking everywhere besides making eye contact with him. "I just thought it was worth reminding, I guess. You know. ...Anyway. Lead the way."

 

[CelticSol]

There's a lot of thoughts spinning around in Jacqueline Sapienti's head as she hears the tale of the Princess of Peaches. But the most important to their mission must be asked.

Jackie looks at Finn, and asks, "Is she hot?" He runs up the stairs instead - another hell-fuck narrow staircase - and she calls up the stairway at him, "Finn! Is she hot?! I need to know!"

Again, she gets no answer. She sighs, looking to Tom in complete defeat, "I need you to physically drag me up the stairs. I have to know if she's hot but I don't have the strength to do it alone."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn stopped on the stairs at Nicola's shout and frowned down at her. "Nicola," he said when she stopped babbling. "You have to stop apologizing to me. I don't know what to do about it." And then he turned and said, "I cannot handle you asking me this about my dead childhood friend, Jackie. Absolutely the fuck not." And then he headed up the stairs again.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Never met her Myself-" tom said, taking Jackie by the waist and covering her eyes with his free hand and forcing her through the claustrophobic stairway of hell. His mind was full of other thoughts- like if Xanthiel could create a time dilusion feild as big as a kingdom, steal the soul of a dead princess and secure her a fairy title, then what kind of fight was he going to have to have at the top. He had for the past several years of his time inside the time dilution bubble of war thought of Xanthiel as a rather more impressive Tuesday. And the issue was that he was too far way to throttle him properly and end the war in a timely matter. now, he felt this would end, how most wizards duels ended, with one Wizard dead and his confidence had just been body checked.

 

[CelticSol]

Thomas pulls Jackie uncermoniously up the stairs, and it's less unbearable this time, with Thomas' hand covering most of her face so she can't conceptualize the stairway, "Finn. I cannot stress this enough; don't be a fucking coward. Was she gay? Because, if she is hot, and if she is still alive - fuck it, even if she exists in a degree of suspended animation where she can like... I dunno, consent? She could like... get it."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Jackie. I will make you swallow all of you teeth. It's not funny."

 

[CelticSol]

She puts her hands up in surrender, but her tone is hardly apologetic, "Save the deep, unbridled rage of your unresolved grief to fight the Rat King. You can fight me once we kill him. I won't even fight cheap. Scout's honour."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Wait is Xantheilex a fucking rat man, a man, or a man-rat??"

 

[CelticSol]

"I would answer that for you, but I'm afraid Finn's 'bout ready to choke me with my own guts."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Please would you both just shut up?" Finn asked in despair.

 

[TrashRabbit]

It was obvious as they ascended that the tower had once been full of ratman soldiers ready to kill them, and traces of them- a stray boot, a collection of weapons, traps left un-primed. until they came to a room of foul smelling vats that were obviously where the rat men were born. there was a massive glass sphere in the center of the room that swirled with color and smoke and the walls were lined with cages and cages full of rats.

"Oh," Said tom. "I was right. they are Man-Rats. They are manish-rats. Its...its a miracle that spell worked at all."

 

[CelticSol]

"Hm. Half of me would like to ask. But... Please keep my eyes covered. The smell is enough that I don't want to fucking know."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"If I have to look at it so do you," He said letting her go in order to poke around.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"...Should we...do something? About this?" Finn asked, looking suspiciously at the sphere.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Something distinctly like a face, ghosted around the sphere and vanished when fin glanced at it.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Oh, I hate that," Finn said.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Her face went an even deeper shade of pink as she stepped back to allow Tom and his Jackie bundle to go up the stairs ahead of her. "Just trying to help," she mumbled to herself.

Jackie's audacity once more astonished Nicola as she brought up the end of the party. She rolled her eyes, the heat in her cheeks fading some. "I really don't think it matters, Tom," she spoke up after Finn told them to shut up, but any additional admonishments were forgotten as they entered the laboratory.

The purple handkerchief reappeared and remained pressed over Nicola's nose and mouth. She drifted over to one of the walls of cages, not touching anything but peering in to check on the condition of the animals. "Oh, you poor babies," she whispered, stepping back before she could be too heartbroken over the fate they were intended for.

To Tom, she grumbled, "I can't believe you were kind of right. This place is an insult to science and magic both."