Vol.4 Ch.48 – Memory Dive I
Chapter 48: Memory Dive I
Jeanne was stunned into horrified silence as they beheld the power inside Abigail going haywire.
Rachel had known this was a possibility, had known that the ritual could go horribly wrong, but she'd still gone for it. But kicking herself for not questioning Abigail's sudden resolve wouldn't help.
Normally, nothing could help Abigail anymore now. The ritual either worked immediately or it failed and caused the mortal to turn into a Havoc. But now there was at least a chance to fix this.
And so Rachel rushed out of the room, hastily twisting her fingers in a complicated pattern to cloak herself in shifting shadows that coalesced into a black silk bathrobe as she ran. Honestly, this was just for the benefit of the mortals. She didn't much care if they saw her naked. She had bigger things to worry about.
She nearly collided with the mousy brunette Jordan was fucking but twisted out of the way at the last second, no doubt contorting her body in a way humans couldn't do but, again, she didn't care. Even if everyone in this damn base saw her as the body-shifting abomination she was, it would be worth it so long as she managed to save Abigail.
Finally she reached Elaine's door. She didn't even bother knocking. Arch Fiends like her were obscenely strong when they wanted to be, and it usually took an inordinate amount of restraint for her to not break things. Right now she didn't really care. The door handle twisted under her hand and the material of the door cracked as she flung it open only to find Ophelia kneeling over Elaine, holding a used pocket pussy and licking an entire facial's worth of cum off of Elaine's face.
Under any other circumstance she would have thought that incredibly intriguing but not right now.
“Elaine,” she barked before the two of them even had a chance to freak out about the sudden intrusion, “I need your help. Right now.”
**
Elaine's heart leapt into her throat as Rachel almost literally crashed into her room. She'd forgotten that the sexy little succubus was as strong as her underneath all the come hither.
Anyone else, with any other request, she would have told to go piss up a rope but from the tone alone she knew this was serious.
“What's wrong?” she asked, sitting up only just slow enough to not headbutt Ophelia by accident.
“Abigail just swore the Oath,” Rachel said, almost stumbling over her words. “It went wrong.”
“She what?!” Elaine demanded, anger and horror warring in her mind. Abigail had tried to swear the Oath? Why would the girl not come and talk to her about it? Why would Rachel allow this? And if it went wrong, then... But none of that mattered right now. “What can I do?”
“You're her Awakener,” Rachel said. “If anyone can still save her it's you.”
She supposed that made sense. From what the Professor had said failure with the Oath was irreversible but maybe there was a chance her powers could fix it. But even then...
“Your room or Jeanne's?” she asked.
“Jeanne's,” Rachel said.
“Ophelia?” Elaine asked, turning to the vampire.
“Yes?”
“Can you find Mare? I think I need her there, too.”
Ophelia blinked once, twice, then she rushed off, grabbing a dirty shirt from Elaine's laundry basket and her own panties off the ground and putting them on as she went.
“Let's go,” Elaine told Rachel, then rushed off.
Only when she was out the room did she even realize that she was still butt naked, hanging full dong in Base 15's hallway. Shit. A moment later black mist swirled around her and a black bathrobe like the one Rachel was wearing materialized around her. She pulled it closed as best she could and kept on running. It would have to do.
**
Ophelia was pretty sure that if she flexed her supernatural strength she was nearly as strong physically as Rachel was but even so she managed to knock on Mare's door without immediately punching through it.
“Mariana?” she asked. “Mare? It's me, Ophelia. Elaine needs you. It's urgent.”
There was a startled yelp from inside the room. No, wait, scratch that. There were two startled yelps coming from the room. Huh. Who had she...
The door opened a crack and Mare's beet-red face came into view. “What's wrong?”
“Abigail swore the Oath of Crystal Tears but it went wrong,” Ophelia rushed to explain.
“That's the ritual Elaine performed, right?” Mare asked. Ophelia had thought Mare's slow speech was kind of endearing but in this situation, with this urgency, she found it supremely aggravating.
“Yes,” she said. “But it's gone wrong for Abigail. Rachel seems to think Elaine can help and Elaine asked me to fetch you. I think it's because of your memory powers.”
And suddenly the most profound shift came over Mariana. From one moment to the next, the blush fell from her face and the slightly dream-like expression went away. “Understood,” she said, then rushed back into the room to put some clothes on. Ophelia opened the door a crack, ostensibly because she was worried about how long Mare would take but in truth desperately curious to see who Mare had spent the night with, only to find... Oh my.
Well, Mare and the butterfly girl had really hit it off, huh?
“What's wrong?” Aurora asked, getting up off the bed, apparently without a hint of modesty.
“Have you ever heard of the Oath of Crystal Tears?” Ophelia asked as Mare was getting dressed.
“I've heard the m— Caulder talking about it once or twice. It's something Stollos came up with, right?”
“Exactly,” Ophelia said. “A ritual to give humans powers similar to Jeanne and Rachel. If it works.”
“And if it doesn't?”
“You turn into a horrifying monster.”
Aurora's eyes widened but before she could say anything Mare was fully dressed. “Let's go,” she said and rushed out of the room.
Aurora paused, then jumped out of bed, threw on her sundress and followed Mare. Ophelia rushed after them.
“Are they in Jeanne's room or Rachel's?” Mare asked, her tone business-like and her cadence far faster than normal.
“Jeanne's,” Ophelia said as she hurried after Mare. Apparently the dreamy little memory mage could haul ass if need be.
**
When Mariana opened the door Aurora saw Elaine hunched over Abigail. Aurora had never even spoken to the woman, didn't know her at all, but she was certain the woman didn't usually glow white with black lightning arcing across her body.
Elaine was clad in nothing but a black bathrobe hastily put on, so hastily that, hunched over Abigail, it didn't hide anything. And so Aurora had a great view of... oh my. Oh dear. She had not expected that at all. Wait, was that why Mariana had been so fascinated with the idea of filling her up? Did she know? Had they... no, Mariana had said she was a virgin, so... oh, the memory dive.
Aurora shook herself out of it, this wasn't relevant at all. Elaine was shaking, almost in a panic as nothing she tried worked.
“Elaine,” Mariana said.
Elaine's head snapped up to meet Mariana's gaze. “Mare,” she said. “I need you. Use your memory power on both of us. I need to dive into her mind.”
“I've never...” Mariana began, then shook her head. “Understood.”
And so Mariana placed a hand over her chest, reaching deep inside herself, and pulled out the same magic she'd used to dive into Aurora's mind. Except, this time she pulled it out even further, then placed it inside Abigail and then connected the threads to Elaine. Like a marionette with its strings cut, Elaine collapsed on top of Abigail.
“And now it's up to her,” Mariana said quietly.
“Will she be able to help her?” Aurora asked.
“This is Abigail's only hope,” Rachel said. “Normally a bad outcome with the Oath is irreversible but the bond between Awakener and Shard Bearer has surprised us before. Fuck, I shouldn't have let her go through with it.”
“Don't beat yourself up,” Ophelia said. “Abigail is a grown woman, she made her own decision. I doubt you didn't tell her of the risks involved.”
“Of course, and she said she'd talked it through with Elaine, but from Elaine's reaction...”
“Ah fuck,” Ophelia said.
“Yeah,” Rachel said. “Wormwood, I hope she makes it.”
**
Elaine had been called into the center of her own mind several times before. And while it had never looked quite the same, it had always been the same theme. A featureless dark void where she could talk to Typhon. She was therefore entirely unprepared to find Abigail's mind completely different.
Abigail's mind was a stage.
An enormous stage at a concert hall, the audience full of faceless onlookers. And at the center of the stage was Abigail. And she was crucified. Not on a proper cross like Jesus, mind. The symbolism wasn't that thick. Instead she was tied to a Saint Andrew's cross, thorny vines wrapped all over her body.
One set of vines was white as snow, the other black as pitch. Both originated from glowing spheres, clearly the two soul slivers Jeanne and Rachel had placed inside her. The white vines were crawling up Abigail's right leg and the black vines went up her left leg, then they tied together and crisscrossed as they reached her waist.
The girl was unconscious, her head hung low and her brown hair covered her gorgeous face.
“Fool girl,” a sad male voice said and Elaine turned around to see a man standing next to her on the stage.
She knew in an instant that the man was Apollo. He looked nearly like a male version of Abigail, similarly to how Typhon always appeared to Elaine as a male version of herself. Although with Apollo and Abigail the differences were more distinct. His jawline was much stronger and his upper body looked chiseled from marble. But the biggest difference was the hair. Where Abigail's hair was brown, Apollo's hair looked to be made of golden light. No, that wasn't a flowery description of blond hair. His hair glowed, so brightly it was as if a halo was following around, not the tiny circle of solid light above Jeanne's head but the corona of light some renaissance artists painted behind saints. He was just as beautiful as Abigail and, just like Abigail, he wore his sadness well.
“Did Rachel put her up to this?” Elaine asked. She should have asked Rachel that but she hadn't even thought of it before she'd come in here.
“No,” Apollo said. “Rachel even asked if she had talked it through with you and Abigail told her she had.”
“Abigail, you damn idiot,” Elaine growled out.
“Indeed,” Apollo said. “May I request that, once she turns, you will end her? Spare us both the suffering.”
“Fuck that,” Elaine said, then walked up to Abigail, grabbed two fistfuls of brambles, and started pulling.
They didn't budge.
“If it were that easy I would have done it already,” Apollo said.
Elaine grit her teeth. There had to be something. She refused to let Abigail die. Part of her, a small part she didn't like thinking of much, thought that she should just leave, that Abigail deserved precisely this after this latest stunt, but no. That wasn't who she was. Even if Abigail didn't care for her, even if they would never truly see eye to eye, she couldn't just let the idiot die.
But if brute force didn't work...
Well, she'd come in here with memory magic, hadn't she? She felt for the tether back to Mare and, sure enough, that memory magic was still there. Only, where would she even...
She took another look at Abigail, then noticed something. The brambles had pierced Abigail's skin in several places but it wasn't blood coming out of her wounds. Instead, they were little silvery bubbles and Elaine could see the outlines of people in them. Were these... They were, weren't they?
Elaine grabbed that memory magic tighter and willed herself to delve into one of the bubbles. And she sank.