4.3 - Acquisition (Patreon)

4.3 - Acquisition

Sophia

“Shit girl-” Sophia let a smile tug along the corner of her lips “-finally decided to start moving around again sleepin beauty?”

Emma, for the first time since everything started, answered with a smile. The jagged scar along the side of her neck stretched and seemed to jump with every small movement. Her hair wasn’t as shiny or perfect, she was still pale, and that circlet, the magic circlet that had apparently pulled her out of her own head glinted in the sun as it rested atop her head.

The picture was… off… wrong. But Emma was awake, she was back- so that was good enough.

“Sorry about that.” The red head answered, as though what they were talking about was a missed lunch, or running late for a hang out, not her being damn near catatonic for a week. 

Again, the picture was off, it was wrong but… it was good enough. 

It had to be. 

“Miss Barnes”

Mullet’s voice drew their attention, the Wizard was standing beside Clements, who was looking at the two of them with naked worry. Sophia couldn’t read the nature of that worry but it was there.

“Come along.” Mullet demanded. “We have a very short window for lessons and we must make the most of it.”

“Of course!” Emma smiled, that same smile she used when she was buttering up Gladly, or Blackwell, that same smile that told the whole world she was the sheep they wanted her to be, but told Sophia otherwise.

It was reassuring to see, comforting. A knot of anxiety she hadn’t even realized was coiled in her chest unwound and the relief of it made her breathing stop for a moment.

Emma was here, she was back. 

And even if the picture was off, even if it was wrong… it was good enough. 

Emma began walking towards Gale when she stopped, turning her gaze to the right for a moment. Sophia followed the trail of her eyes and found Hebert, standing across from a smiling Karlach and an irritated looking Lae’zel. Or well… just Lae’zel. Bitch always looked like Piggot on a bad day.

Sophia growled, the anger coming naturally, but felt her stomach twist, something uncomfortable pooling along her insides that she didn’t bother to try and identify. “Hey.” She called to Emma. “Forget the bitch.” She said under her breath so that none of the others could hear. “Go and learn to throw a fucking fireball or some shit.”

And Emma smiled, that smile Sophia had seen a million times, but had never seen it directed at her.

“You’re right.” The red-head said, turning and walking away and though Sophia was glad she was back, a sliver of worry wriggled in her chest like a thorn. 

“Hess!” The Lizard’s sudden shout made Sophia turn, looking towards him as he sat by the fireplace alongside the Twink, Healer hands and Boy-scout, the map spread out on the floor infront of them. 

She cast one more look towards Emma, barely listening as Mullet started going on with his lesson, Madison and Emma looking like two students taking notes, like it was Winslow… heh, even with the monsters, tadpoles and all the other bullshit, this place was a fucking step up.

God Winslow was a fucking shit hole.

She pushed the stray thoughts to the side, making her way over. “Yeah?” She demanded, crossing her arms as she stood at the edge of the semi-circle. 

“We need eyes before we move.” Durge said. “You’re the best on hand”

“Eyes?” She blinked. “Why?”

“That scouting band was larger than it had a right to be, with three Ogres.” Shadowheart explained. 

“A magical Ogre.” Boy-scout reminded. “Not exactly an asset one sends on a scouting mission without purpose.”

Durge nodded. “That tells us the Goblins are moving. We need to see if their numbers have swelled or they’ve discovered the Grove and are making a move to attack.” He reached down, tapping the spot on the map Sophia recognized as the fucked up village the Druids had pointed out. “We need to know if the village is some sort of stronghold or forward base now, and if the riverside path to return is even clear. The full group, given the overall pace is about half a day’s hard travel away from the village. With your phasing ability, I expect you can make better time.”

“Honestly should we not simply use the walking insect plague over there?” Astarion said. “Barely even needs to get in visual range to tell us their bloody shoe size it seems.”

Sophia felt her anger spike at the implication that Hebert was more useful than her. It rankled and spilled acid across her veins.  “Fuck you!” She spat. “I’d get there and double back three times over before Hebert would.”

The twink smiled at her. “But will you tell us their shoe size?”

She snarled and the urge to punch that smile off the fucker’s face was nearly overwhelming.

“Hebert’s nascent abilities need to be studied; and you need to be more useful in ways that aren’t just standing around and looking pretty.”

“Whinging does take a bit of effort but not enough to justify what we feed you.” Shadowheart smirked, following up on the joke.

Astarion scoffed. “If you people actually fed me, perhaps I’d put in more effort, as it is maintaining the best hair in the camp is a full time job.”

“Focus.” Durge rumbled, whether it was amusement or impatience hiding in his tone Sophia wasn’t sure. Her own ire still sizzled under her skin at the comment. He looked at her. “You’ll be going with Wyll towards the village. Shadowheart and Astarion will check the riverside path.”

The boy-scout? Sophia tossed a look in his direction, and tried to equate him to the others she’d worked with in the past.

Maybe he was like Militia, or Dauntless. Sure they got on her ass about stupid shit like the fucking regulations but at least they were good what what they did. 

And hey, this place didn’t have regulations. So, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

—

She’d been wrong.

“I just wish to understand.”

“Piss off!” She demanded navigating her way up the side of a steep, brambled hillside, she was half tempted to just phase through and over the obstacles but to be honest, she wanted the exercise. 

That, and her pride was rankling at the fact that the Boyscout was frequently outpacing her.

As if to prove exactly that point, a hand was suddenly in her face, held up from above as Wyll offered to help her climb the last few feet.

She phased, jumping in the gaseous, smoky form to rise up, feet planted on solid ground atop the hill a second later. 

“Look.” She sneered looking at the Boy-scout  “Just because Hebert had a fuckin hissy fit doesn’t mean I need to justify myself to you or anyone!”

He met her gaze and the sadness there made her want to roll her eyes. 

Then the tadpole pulsed and she winced, the echo, the memory of that pain coming back like a kick to the jaw before Wyll shut the connection. 

“You know what she felt was no small matter.

She lunged, shoving him as hard as he could but he was stronger than he looked, rock solid muscle hiding under the coat and armored vest meant he barely even budged. “Stop fucking with my head!” She snapped, glaring. “We put the bitch in her place! It’s exactly what she deserved!”

“Why?” Wyll pressed. “She’s gotten to tell her side, after a fashion. Why don’t you tell me yours.”

She sucked down the reflexive ‘Fuck you’ because… well because that was actually a good point.

“She was weak.” Sophia said after a long moment. “In this world there are predators and prey, and that’s all she was. Prey.”

“And that gave you the right to do as you did?”

She shrugged, the question with an answer that should have been so obvious now roiling queasily in her gut. 

She looked at Wyll, frowning. “Don’t pretend it’s not the same. You try to dress it up but those Goblins at the Grove. You killed them, straight up, because you’re stronger, just like they were about to kill the others because they were about to kill the tieflings because they were stronger than them. Plain and simple.

Wyll rubbed at his chin, seemingly considering her explanation. “By that Logic, why did you wish to help Miss Barnes from her curse? Ethel is stronger than her. She had every right to hurt her. So why should we have interfered?”

A muscle in Sophia’s jaw jumped, teeth clenching together. 

“Emma’s a fighter.” She answered. “She already proved herself.”

“All prey fights.” Wyll shot back with an infuriating calm. “It’s in every being’s nature to fight for survival Deer have antlers to try and gore the cats with. Even rabbits can bite or kick a serpent to death when cornered.”

Sophia scoffed. “Hebert didn’t fight-”

“Didn’t she?” The Boy-scout’s calm was unflappable and the fucker actually was convincing at sounding curious. 

Sophia opened her mouth the words ‘No’ on the tip of her tongue before they died a stillbirth there.

The Lockers bang with a rattling of metal Sophia can feel Taylor’s body trying to curl in on itself under her hands but she pushes down harder, not letting her go, pressing the weak bitch’s face into the metal. 

She’d had the fucking nerve to try and take a swing - Looks like she needed to be put in her fucking place.

She twisted the arm, pushing until she knew it hurt, until she knew moving that fucking arm again was gonna hurt for at least a week.

Taylor never took a swing again.

That, and a half dozen more memories passed in an instant behind her eyes and Sophia’s inside twisted into nauseous knots and jagged thorns.

She shut her mouth, glaring at Wyll before she pushed the thoughts, the memories aside, snarling. “Fucking hell just move!” She demanded. “We have a fucking job to do and you aint my goddamn therapist!”

She brushed past him, and faded into her shadow state to gain some distance, telling herself she wasn’t running away.

—

Taylor

“That’s it!”

In spite of myself, Karlach’s voice, filled with what sounded like genuine pride made me want to smile before I controlled it, pushing the reaction into my swarm. But the feeling in my chest didn’t disappear.

I went through the motions of the kata, my hands wreathed in harmful energies. The same ones that had killed Ethel as I moved with a foreign sort of confidence in my own steps and body.

Lae’zel watched me with a frown over her features, but it seemed more contemplative than angry, but honestly, it might have been both, the Gith seemed perpetually irritated at everything. 

I sensed Durge making his way over before he stepped into my line of sight, Karlach turning to look with a smile.

“Lookit!” The red woman gushed. “We unlocked glowing hands now!”

“They are called ‘Ch’kish’kal’. Hands of Harm in your tongue.” Lae’zel corrected. 

“Lookit, we unlocked Chiki-Chiki hands!” Karlach’s amendment now did make me smile.

“We’re not calling it that.” I made sure to say before the large woman went spreading that ridiculous name around the camp. 

“So it seems.” Durge nodded, the hint of his own smile hidden there before he crossed his arms and looked towards Lae’zel. “I take it that confirms that it is the Githzerai’s influence.”

“Yes.” She answered. “As far as we can tell, whatever she did to expel him, granted some of his memories. Memories she can use to learn his skills… I do not trust it.”

“Hey! It’s good news innit?” Karlach’s joyful tone now almost sounded indignant. 

“Chk. Only on the surface level. Things like these do not happen out of luck. Not to mention the psionic storm before that Hsharlak’s death.” She growled. “We do not have enough information.”

The woman was right, and the concerns now percolating along the back of my mind made me lose focus, my hands beginning to flicker, the harmful fires dimming and guttering like candle flames in a storm.

Durge seemed to notice. Glancing at me out of the corner of my eye before he turned towards Lae’zel. “And no means of acquiring such. So for now, until proven otherwise, we’ll take it as a boon. Taylor.” He called. “A word.”

I let the energies fully fade from my hands, Durge marching over the slightly wet and muddied ground as he drew closer, Karlach and Lae’zel beginning to walk back towards the fireplace that designated the ‘center’ of camp. 

“Yeah?” I asked the massive Dragonborn, looking up at him before he squatted infront of me, his tail curling around his legs so its spiked tip lay between us. 

“You’re aware of the situation with Barnes?”

I frowned. “That Gale’s teaching her magic you mean”

I tried not to look in her direction. Tried not to let the ire and hate bubble up from the cauldron of my guts. Ethel’s attack was still fresh in my mind, the illusion making my anger smoulder in my chest like a burning coal. 

What’s the matter Taylor? Gonna cry yourself to sleep for a week?

That hadn’t been a memory. Emma had never said that to me.

So why did it feel more real than any of the others. Like she’d actually said it.

I wanted to think even Emma even this horrid twisted, hateful, detestable creature that had once been my best friend would never say that, that she’d never stoop so low as to tear at the wound that was my mother, the woman that she had once called ‘Auntie’ 

But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to.

After the locker… there was nothing I really thought Emma was incapable of. 

“Gale is teaching her how to defend herself.” Durge corrected, blood red eyes meeting my angry stare. “He likely believes it’s more pragmatic to give her some degree of self sufficiency, if only to avoid another divergence like this.”

“You agree with him.” I wanted it to be a question. It came out more like an accusation. 

Durge didn’t avoid it. 

He just nodded.

I could feel my expression hardening. Because of course he agreed. Of course the world just had to work out in her favor.

There she was. Getting rewarded for basically doing fuck all.

“If it’s any consolation-” I barely heard Durge’s voice, I didn’t care to hear whatever platitudes he wanted to say to get me to ‘be reasonable.

At least, that’s what I thought.

“-If she tries anything, you have my permission to kill her.”

I had to do a double take. “What!?”

“You can kill her…” He repeated without a shred of hesitation. “Should she give you cause.”

I gaped at the man.

“H-hold on.” I spluttered. “We literally went through all of this to save her.”

“We did, and would again.” He shot back. “What I said still holds. Saving her, ensured the groups stability. But if she conversely threatens that stability with say, the skills Gale is imparting by trying to attack you, or others then-” He trailed off, but the silence carried the message all the same.

I stared at him and in spite of myself turned to look at Emma and Madison clear across the way, where I could already see Emma trying to form sparks along her fingertips. A cantrip. That circlet glinted on her brow even from this distance. 

“You really think she’ll attack me? Try to kill me?” I ammended quickly. Emma had already done so much worse than attack me already.

“She is unstable.” Durge answered. “Unstable people are unpredictable… impossible to reason with or control… Sometimes… best to be put down.”

In the future, I’d look back at this conversation, this moment and realize that there was something here, something in his voice.

I should have caught it. Should have heard it.

But I didn’t.

—

Sophia

As much as Sophia tried to hurry up along the trail, her memories chased her. Distracted her.

For years she’d told herself exactly as she told Wyll. That the world worked on a very simple concept of Prey and Predators. That was how it fit how it all made sense.

And in that paradigm Taylor was prey, always had been always would be, because Prey didn’t fight back. Emma had fought back. Taylor never had.

And now, now somehow the memories that had never once bothered her, never once made her second guess her opinion or rethink any of what she knew was right… somehow they were all coming up… wrong.

She phased climbing another brambled path as she wondered if it was the tadpole at work, some fucked up perversion of her memories and thoughts.

But the creature was silent as far as she could detect.

In fact, for the first time in years it felt like Sophia could feel the silence in her own mind.

And she did not like the thoughts that came to fill that silence.

Hebert had fought back. Not well, not at all effectively, but she had.

So what made her different from Emma? Why had Sophia never acknowledged that fact?

The answer hung over her mind like a headsman’s axe and Sophia shoved the thoughts away, focusing on just putting one foot infront of the other, keeping her eyes on the path, taking note of how the ground was soft but dry, how the trees were tall enough to make actual shade above them. She turned to look and find Wyll, only to see that he was keeping up with her just fine, barely even winded and -the only reason it was different is because Emma wasn’t fighting you.

Shut up

“Sophia?”

“How far are we!” She snapped! “Where’s the-” She cut herself off, phasing before leaping atop the nearby tree to try and get a lay of the land.

Phasing back into corporeality her body rustled and shook the leaves above, a branch poking uncomfortably at her side as she grabbed hold of the wood and hung there for a moment.

-Only difference between you and those Thugs is that you didn’t wanna take an ear nose or eye-

“What do you see!?” Wyll called.

Sophia remembered then that, yeah, she came up here to see better, not fucking think.

She looked around, the queasy nausea churning uncomfortably in her guts as she didn’t really see shit before-

She paused, squinting into the distance, doing a bit of a double take before her eyes widened in realization.

Her churning thoughts were pushed aside, far more firmly now as urgency took over.

“Oh fuck.”

(X)(X)(X)

I apologize for the delay but Patreon was being strange, giving me a "timed out" error when I tried to upload.The problem seems to have been tied to a script update I gave my computer to run some scripts on Roll-20. Once I deleted it it worked like a charm. But again, sorry for the delay.Anywho.Here we see Sophia beginning to grapple with the hypocrisy and myopic nature of her world view

And absolutely no foreshadowing whatsoever regarding anyone else... at all.......

See you all in the next one :D

Oh and Three houses will be updated tomorrow night!P.S.: also we have a TV tropes page now! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/OfWormsAndTadpolesPls contribute if possible :)

P.S.S.:We also have a discord where you can all discuss the very fun things you've seen in the Patreon early access with fellow readers and you can find me, horrible as I am at social media. :Dhttps://discord.gg/4Y5EKBVayOnce more, apology for the delay.