Grimalkin Saga: Ursula (PalePinkPacket/Sister Ivy Continued) (Patreon)

Okay, Ya'll - so it's finally starting. The showdown with Green and the continuation of the Grimalkin Saga\

Enjoy this first part, written from the POV of Ursula - Aiden's Mom from the Pale Pink Packet

Grimalkin Saga: Ursula

Ghosts.

We’re just ghosts from a long-forgotten time and a destitute, broken world.

My Grimalkin instincts blaze within me, raging with that twing of excitement that I used to cherish to make me feel alive. Fighting is in my blood. I am a warrior and the best of my kind!

But am I even that person anymore, or is all this just the ghosts that still haunt me?

Green stands before me for the first time in years. This time, I shall not run. Wanting to bare my lost grimalkin fangs, I grit my human teeth and glance to the left. There’s A girl. A human girl.

I glance to my right and my Son, now daughter, Aiden, barely standing as his knees shake with fear. Behind me, Phoebe, my youngest and the one I’m going to have to rely on the most.

If I still had my tail, it would be flicking wildly as I glare over due reckoning at Green, who stares back at me through the dull, lifeless eyes of that female body they’ve stolen.

However, cowering at Green’s feet is yet another human girl, utterly terrified.

What does it want with her? How has she drawn Green here? Does she have a shard?

That can’t be! As far as I know, there’s only mine, the one Dr Elm possesses, and the one in the hands of the royal family. There’s no way there could be a fourth in the hands of a human girl.

“Give me back my sister!” the child to my left yells, her emotions flaring up, with no idea what Green has become or what he is now capbabile off.

Green looks at the screaming girl, and I can see the disdain clearly in his eyes.

Whatever’s happened to my lover, this thing in front of me, it’s no longer the man I fell in love with all those years ago. I have to remember that. I can’t let my lingering love for him cloud my judgements anylonger.

But can I really bring myself to strike him down?

Ghosts or not, my past life is what I dream of. Each night the same. Each night, torture of the happiness that could have been.

It’s all just… ghosts now and it will forever haunt me.

***

The valley wind rushes through my fur, and for the first time, I just enjoy the feeling of the suns gently melting through the façade of strength I’m forced to put on, melting away my worries.

“Ursula?” Green trudges up behind me, carrying all our camping equipment the entire way up the ridge. I look back at him; his face is bright red, and even with that incredible strength, he must be getting tired.

“You really didn’t need to offer to carry…everything,” I say to him, my hand falling to my side to clutch at my sword hilt through habit, but I’m left grabbing air.

“Ah, I did.” He looks up, panting but smiling. “Where I’m from, Earth, the beautify lady would never be seen carrying any of this. It’s a man's job.”

My tail flicks, and I give him a look.

“Y’know…” I say as he comes to a stop just in front of me, his body almost hissing with steam as he drops our packs to the floor. “I really can’t imagine it. So, women in your world are like pampered princesses?”

He takes a step forward and stands at the edge of the ridge, looking down at the valley below. I watch his face change to a look of contentment as he takes it in.

“I guess some are, yeah.” He softly laughs before taking a long, deep breath.

I can’t help but look in the same direction he’s facing. Beyond us, in the far distance, is the glow of Vastin, the Royal capital of Yibixus, but before that, pastures green, nearly ready for harvest.

“Ursula?” Green takes in yet another deep breath. “This was a good idea.” He looks at me with a smile, a smile I haven’t seen for some time. “This place, it almost reminds me of Earth and the green rolling hills of my hometown.”

“It does?” I ask, hoping that would be the case.

“Yeah.” He takes in another breath. “If I close my eyes, hold my tail still so it doesn’t flick against my legs, and really think hard, I could almost imagine I’m back there.”

“Well, good.” I reach for his hand with my paw.

As his hand grasps, my heart thuds. I’ve been in countless battles. I’ve been in endless life-or-death situations, but none of those moments feel like this. It’s like all my life I’ve been waiting. Waiting for someone to remind me that I’m just a grimalkin.

Not a warrior, told where and what I must do

Not the captain of the royal guard, always judged.

Just me with my own thoughts, feelings, and dreams.

“Green,” I say as our eyes meet and my tail almost wags with nerves. “Would I be a princess?” I ask, then clarify, as his face twists with curiosity. “O-On Earth?”

His tail also flicks out, making it easier to read his emotions, just as mine gives me away.

“Y-Yes, of course you would be. I-I’d make sure of it!” he replies. “W-Why do you ask? Y-You’ve never spoken about going back to Earth before.”

My eyes fall to my paw, entwined with his finger, and I already know I’m not strong enough to tell him the truth. I’m pregnant with his baby, our baby, growing inside me.

He’s been so troubled lately, ever since that last off-world retrieval operation. This would only add to those stresses, and the last thing I need is for it to get out and cause a young upstart Grimalkin, like that Lina woman, to challenge me for the role of captain, knowing I’m pregnant and vulnerable.

“Ursula?” Green’s tone is worried as his hand gently guides my face and my gaze back to his. “What’s wrong? You’ve been so distant recently.”

I look into his eyes, and the words form in my mind, but I can’t say them. “I love you,” I say instead to avoid suspicion.

He gently smiles, but there’s trouble written across his expression. “I love you too.”

Before I can question if he’s okay, he lets go of me, stands arrow straight and stares off towards Vastin. His loving smile, shared only with me, soon fades into the grimace he’s been holding within himself in recent times.

“We can’t go back to Earth.” He says as I watch tears well in his eyes. “Ursula…?” he glances at me, a single tear running down his face. “Difficult decisions need to be made. Billions of lives count on it.”

“Green?” I look at him, worried, hoping he’s about to share what’s been haunting him so.

For a moment, he just stares.

“Ah, nothing.” He waves it off with one hand, his smile quickly returning. “Let’s not worry about that right now.” He reaches back for our camping gear, jerking awkwardly as he brings the straps back over his shoulders.

“Let’s just enjoy each other tonight!” he exclaims, giving me a wink. “I wanna know just how far those cat-like reflexes of yours can bend…”

“Oh my…” my tail excitedly flicks like crazy. “Greeeen,” I whine at him, embarrassed, my eyes blinking rapidly. “Stop. I’m the captain of the royal guard!”

He laughs before snatching a kiss. “Not tonight, because tonight, you’re my princess…”

***

Decisions need to be made. Descisions. Do I use the two humans here with us as distractions, or do I attempt to save them?

“Jordan! Run away!” One screeches.

“No, Ivy! I have to talk to you! Please!” The other screeches back.

Green’s gaze falls to the girl on the floor at his feet. He almost smiles, like he’s already won.

“You.” His voice sounds like many tortured voices speaking as one. “Give it to me! You have it. We shall have it.”

The girl squirms away as fast as her arms and legs will carry her across the floor. She’s pathetic, not at all like girls from Yibixus. It almost makes me feel sorry for her.

“I-I…I don’t know what you're t-talking about!” she screams, fearing for her life, and that’s when the other girl, the one to my side wearing the leather jacket, looks like she’s about to recklessly charge in and swiftly lose her life.

“Phoebe!” I throw a command, like my ghosts of old, pointing at the girl wearing a leather jacket. “Restrain her, NOW!”

At first, my youngest daughter hesitates, and the girl in the leather jacket does indeed rush Green stupidly. Just as I accept that she’s going to die, Phoebe draws a portal with her sword, just as I’d show her while Aiden slept.

Seconds later, Phoebe moves across the space through a portal and clutches at the leather jacket girl, restraining her. That’s my girl!

“Stop!” my daughter cries out, wrestling them to the floor.

“My sister!” the girl in the leather jacket yells, fighting my daughter with everything she has. “THAT’S MY SISTER! I NEED TO SAVE HER!”

“RUN, JORDAN!” the girl screams, Green, reaching down to her, a wicked smile across his face.

“I want what you have hidden,” Green says. “Where is it? We shall have it.”

The Orb begins to shine with his impatience. A soft glow of an impending attack that I’m all too familiar with through use of my own orb shard.

“I-I…don’t know what your—” The girl, scurrying away from him on the floor, screams.

“I feel it on you.” Green’s voice becomes angry, interrupting her. “WE SHALL BE WHOLE AGAIN! GIVE IT TO US!”

A blade of energy whips out from the Orb, like a bolt of electricity from a Tesla coil, in the direction of the girl at the lightening quick speeds.

“IVY!” Jordan screams out, only just held back by my Phoebe.

Against every instinct screaming for me to attack whilst he’s distracted, I jolt into a different action.

My body feels heavy and weak, but I draw my portal in a flash, and in an instant, I’m beside them both. Green’s eyes snap towards me, furious and determined, but I pay him no heed. I scoop the girl up just as his attack lashes the ground where she lay moments before.

It cuts through the floor, leaving a line of superheated concrete glowing white-hot. For a moment, my eyes meet Green before yet another slash of light cracks and thunders in our direction.

With the girl clutched in one hand, I draw a portal beneath my feet. We drop through it, plunging through before bursting out the other side. We hit the floor hard and skid across it, carried by the momentum of our fall.

Behind us, Green’s misplaced lashes crack against the ground where we once stood.

“VERMIN!” he screams out, his voice distorted by many others.

Ivy, the girl I’ve just saved, kicks and shoves against me, panic written across her face. I fumble my sword as he kicks my hand, causing me to lose my grip on my sword as it goes skittering across the floor, out of reach.

“W-W-What the fuck are you, things?!” she kicks again at me as she pushes away along the floor, scared of me, even though I saved her from certain death.

The room begins to buzz, and my instincts flare danger as I’m left exposed on the floor, scrambling for my sword as an attack destined to cut me completely in half races across the floor, melting everything it touches.

I hear my breathing and my heart thudding as I watch Ivy, in slow motion, darting away from me, screaming in fear.

I wasn’t quick enough. I’m too old. My instincts are dull, and my body is weak, and just like that, I’m already dead.

“MOM!” Phoebe cries out, and before I even know what’s happening, I’m once again sliding across the floor, a portal having appeared directly below me, opened by my own daughter.

Phoebe rushes to my side, letting the other girl go in the process.

“Mom, g-get up!” she screams to me as the buzzing in the room gets louder and louder.

I glimpse Green as Phoebe helps me to my feet. Then I glance at my sword, fully across the room. I can’t create my own portals without it.

“We WILL have IT!” Green says as it begins to gently float from the ground. “You. Shall. Die!”

I look at Phoebe. “My sword!” I yell at her.

She nods, and in that moment I’m incredibly proud of her. A portal opens and I jump through, grabbing my sword, and then she opens another, moving me into striking range of Green’s flank.

I grit my teeth tight, aim my blade, and move as quick as this human body will allow me.

Green, only just hovering off the floor, doesn’t instantly notice me. Just as my blade is about to drive itself deep into his side, he slices an attack right across my path, stopping me in my tracks as the ground just inches from my boots burns white-hot.

Panting, catching my breath, I reset my stance. I flick my sword with the quick movement of my wrist, and a smile works its way across my face.

It’s just like old times.

However, Green floats right up to the ceiling of this old gym, his arms reaching for the Orb, which begins to glow a bright, sickly green. Much like those storms on Yibixus that still haunt my nightmares.

A soul cascade incoming.

The room buzzes with static, and before I can even think about moving, the light becomes so intense I’m blinded.

“VERMIN!” Green screeches, and seconds later, a burst of light and that ice-cold feeling of the Orb trying to reach inside to suck out all that you are for the simple use of creating Seele energy.

I fall to my hands and knees. My senses are overloaded.

“IVY!” A voice screeches loudly! “IVY! WHERE ARE YOU!?”

I try to shake off my disorientation, but I can barely see.

Screams of agony follow, echoing off the walls of this gym, causing goosebumps to appear on my furless skin.

It comes not from my Phoebe or from the still terrified Aiden, but from the Jordan girl in the leather jacket.

“She’s gone!” they cry out, tormented. “SHE’S GONE!!” Their voice directed at Green I HATE YOU! SHE NEEDED TO KNOW THAT I FORGIVE HER, YOU MONSTER!”