Chapter Text
In the heat of the battle, Chip can't help but recall the words Gillion said to them before leaving the ship.
"If this doesn't end well… if we… or I don't make it out of this… I just want you both to know –"
"No." Chip had firmly interrupted, startling the paladin out of his words. He put his hand on his shoulder and shook him once, gripping him with a fierceness he hadn't been anticipating from himself. "Not like this. We're not talking like that."
"Chip, I–"
"Chip’s right," Jay cut in. "We're going to make it out of this. This isn't a goodbye, okay? We're not going to treat this like a goodbye."
Gillion had looked at them with wide eyes, an emotion toiling within them that Chip couldn't fully comprehend, but it was one that made his stomach flip in ways he couldn't understand. There was a moment of silence as the uncommunicated hangs in the air before Gillion finally relented and dipped his head in acceptance.
"You're right," He says. There's still the unspoken word on the tip of his tongue. "It is our destiny to prevail."
Destiny is a funny thing though, isn't it?
Black ichor aberrations lurch from the ground in the shapes of claws to strike at Chip, but he manages to cut them down before they can touch him. Was it a desperate, wishful kind of person that created the concept of destiny in an effort to have something to believe in?
More of the black magic spikes from the sides to strike him, and he's too slow to dodge it in full, shouting in pain when his thigh is punctured. Was destiny perhaps created out of cruelty, the promise that everything has a final set ending that one is incapable of changing or controlling no matter what you do?
Chip slices the aberration and crawls away, feeling his pants bloom with blood. Jay spots him, letting an arrow fly before rushing to drag Chip up and away from the nearby creations and fiends of sludge.
"There's too many!" Jay shouts over the chaos, trying to find a safe place to deposit Chip, ducking her head just barely in time before a scythe-like shape swipes towards her neck. "Put pressure on that, stop the bleeding, I'll try to patch you up in a second!"
Chip listens, trying not to let the panic overtake him. They all knew this wasn't going to be an easy fight. They'd run this plan a hundred times over, contingencies and back ups all lined up, but this… this wasn't looking good anymore.
Jay stands over him, firing as many arrows as he could at these aberrations, watching over Chip protectively as he tries to manage his wound. There's a fierce determination in her that he's had the honor of watching grow from the small flicker of candlelight to a roaring fire, all encompassing, and yet, warm. When he first saw her at her tavern, her eyes here dull and near dead, an exhaustion beyond anything he could relate to. The Jay back then would have never stood the way she does now, would have never been willing to kill or die for her crew.
They cannot lose.
There's a shout from across the room, and Chip looks up to see Gillion struggling with his own fight. The obsidian tiefling towers over him, a stark contrast to the armored triton. Whereas Gillion is built like a tank, a warrior, a broad and built paladin armed to the teeth, Niklaus Hendrix stands tall and lithe, unarmed and unarmored, extravagant clothing adorned in a display of wealth and fashion above all else, hair well kept and expression calm. Even as Gillion crackles and bursts with lightning, sword drawn and hair flared and teeth bared, he cannot seem to make a dent in Niklaus' defenses. The shout was of primal frustration as Gillion swings his sword in a large arc, and Niklaus, unmoving, hands prim behind his back, casts a black sludge shield in time to stop the blade inches from his face.
"A deal is a deal, Tidestrider," Niklaus sighs, practically ignoring Gillion’s attacks. "We discussed this already. Loffinlot's freedom for a favor. I don't see what the big fuss is about."
"I will not let you win this!"
"A simple favor. Why, you weren't opposed to it at the time. Why the change of heart? If you value your friends' lives, I would take the call, and we can walk away from this like nothing happened."
"Not if I can kill you first!"
Gillion swings the sword once more, and this time, Niklaus actually moves, clapping his hands on the flat parts of the blade before it can cleave through his head. Though he remains poised and his voice calm, even Chip can see the crinkle of his nose in a half-formed snarl.
"I would take advantage of my generosity if I were you," Niklaus warns, his voice laced with venom. "Ordinarily, I would never spare the lives of those trying to kill me. I will let your friends go, if you only uphold your deal."
As Gillion struggles to overpower the tiefling, his gaze flickers over to Chip, and then to Jay, as if considering the idea. Chip shakes his head at him, forcing himself to stand, only to crumple back to the floor.
"Don't you dare, Gillion!" Chip shouts.
The moment of distraction is enough for Niklaus to take advantage, and in a flash of movement, Gillion is flung across the room, shattering various antiques and trinkets hung on the walls. Chip screams, watching as the black ooze that leaks out of the floorboards rise up and form sharp pikes aimed towards Gillion. Niklaus takes a step forward, then another, and another, like a lion stalking its prey. Even though the three of them had become stronger, they were still unable to match his power. They were fools to think they had any chance in this.
Was this destiny?
Have they always been bound to lose?
The three of them have nothing left but each other. They are pirates forged of the scraps of metal from their broken homes, they are the stories of those who rose from loss to become something greater, but was that all a sick game? Just a motif, a running gag to carry to the grave?
Niklaus flicks a hand forth, and Gillion suddenly rises to his feet in an unnatural way, limbs moving straight and strict. The tiefling commands for Gillion's arm to be raised, and he observes the tattoo on the wrist, gliding a manicured hand to melt the armor away. The tattoo was sunken deep into the skin by now, black veins discoloring the area and traveling up his fingers and down his arm. The light of the room seems to falter around the area, and it sends a shiver down Chip’s spine.
"How fascinating," Niklaus says, gently turning over Gillion’s arm. "Your mind truly has changed much since we last met."
Gillion holds himself defiant, eyes piercing, chin up. "I alone do not need to carry all of these burdens. This will be my last."
Niklaus ponders this for a moment. "You're right. It will."
Suddenly, all of the black sludge in the room siphons towards Niklaus, all of the aberrations Jay held off condensing into the magic as it swirls around him. Paintings, posters, lights, trinkets and all of the knick knacks in the room rattle and shake as the sludge creates a whirlwind around. Chip and Jay scream over the wind, calling out for Gillion, but the triton doesn't move. Perhaps he can't move. Perhaps this is really over.
And Gillion must feel the same too.
As Niklaus charges his magic, Gillion looks to the other two, a sadness in his eyes as they start to darken in hue. "Chip… Jay…"
"Gill! We can still win this!" Chip shouts, clinging to Jay as she tries to hobble with him to Niklaus against the wind. "Fight back, we can still fight!"
"I'm sorry I couldn't do more –"
"We haven't lost!"
"But whatever happens…"
Through the sphere of sludge, Niklaus grins.
"I love you."
The room is silent, but not for lack of movement. The sludge still whips and howls, Niklaus still grips Gillion’s arm, and Jay is still shouting, but Chip suddenly can't hear any of it. Muffled, ringing, there is only what may be these final words, those unspoken words that Gillion had wanted to say before, but Chip couldn't hear.
Not like this.
Never like this.
There could be time. To talk about this. To exchange those words, for Chip to say it back, for them to celebrate it and repeat it and explore it. Not in a room where hope is lost and death or worse is imminent. These words were not meant for a goodbye; those are words spoken for a future. To show it. To prove it. To experience it.
The black magic coagulates and forms into a dense spear-like shape, hovering ominously above Gillion. Of course Chip loves his crew, of course Chip loves him, but how can he show it? Is this what destiny is? To lose all that you love?
Dark storm, heartless aberrations, the kraken's hold over the ship – Chip remembers the broken rosewood planks floating in the ocean and the jolly Roger flag succumbing to the depths, how Chip realized then that there was nothing in this world he could love without losing it.
This is not a fate he can aaccept.
Jay must have the same idea, because she's on the move, realizing just as he that the sludge has left Niklaus exposed, and his attention was trained solely on Gillion now, whose eyes were slowly glazing over to complete void. Jay nocks three arrows in one, and with a burst of energy emitting from her forearms, they suddenly ignite into flames, a display he had never quite seen before in that fashion. Chip follows through, unholstering the pistol at Jay’s hip, and in the synchronization the two had learned in their time together, they fired at once, straight into Niklaus.
The arrows make their hit, flames allowing them to melt through any remaining ooze and embedding deep into Niklaus' back and shoulder. The bullets make their home in his back and to his chest as well, and the black spear hovering melts into complete useless slime, spilling onto the floor. Gillion drops to his knees, freed from the spell that held him, dizzy and distraught, but free nonetheless.
This is it. This is it.
Slowly, Niklaus sinks to his own knees, and for a moment, the room around him flickers, threatening to cease to exist altogether. When the walls glitch, they can see a vibrant marsh around them and smell the swamp waters, reality leaking through this crafted fantasy.
His power is fading.
Chip and Jay quickly circle back to Gillion, backing him away from Niklaus just in case. The tiefling's wounds bleed black, dripping to the floor. It's almost strange, seeing such an elegant man hunched over this way, but in a sick way, it's… satisfying.
This is it.
Before the three of them could say anything, Niklaus wheezes, then softly, begins to laugh. It sounds painful, rattling in a chest punctured by arrows and bullets, but as it increases in intensity, his whole body shaking with a cackle that screams haughtiness and victory, Chip has that sinking feeling once again.
"You want to know what all of this is?" Niklaus says, barely rolling his head up enough to look at Chip. Only Chip. "Whether this is destiny, or a sick joke?"
"How did you–"
"It's neither," Niklaus interrupts, lips curling into a grin. His sharpened teeth are slick with black blood. "This world operates on desire, and desire alone. Destiny doesn't make the world go round, fate doesn't pick up a hammer and start working. People do. People who want things. Who desire things."
"You know nothing of destiny," Gillion growls.
"Oh, don't I, Champion of the Undersea? Tell me, when you made this deal with me, was it out of a true and pure desire to help those people, or an obligation drilled into your skull since you were a child? Did it come from you , or was it learned behavior enforced by a whip?"
Gillion reels back as if he's been struck, and Jay rests a hand on his shoulder. "Just drop it already," Jay says. "You've lost."
"If destiny truly existed, then I would have never seen the three of you here." His head lulls to look at Jay. "You would have stayed in the Navy. Become a shining soldier, adhered to the path offered to you, and become Vice Admiral. Perhaps even further. The seas could have feared your name more than your father's."
He looks to Gillion. "And you would have no business being here on the surface. This should be most obvious to you of all people. You have a prophecy to fulfill and a people to protect. You're not above sea because of destiny, Gillion, you're here out of desire. Else, why be the Chosen One at all?"
And finally, those hollow black eyes land on Chip. No irises, no pupils, just empty darkness that sees all too much of him, and yet, nothing at all. "And you, Chip… you simply would have never existed at all."
Rosewood planks in the ocean, bodies all around him, a name that didn't belong to him, a darkness that overtook him until he awoke somewhere dry–
"That's enough!" Chip shouts. "You don't know anything about us."
"I am not your enemy, and I never have been. All I have done is grant desires. They know the price to pay for it. All Gillion here owed was a favor…" Niklaus takes a breath, and the room flickers once more, struggling for a moment to uphold the magic. "A simple, simple favor to undo the mistake of a foul hearted man that did not deserve the mercy. What a shame… I would have hoped for a little more… nuance."
The room shudders and darkens, and slowly, their surroundings fade into complete nothingness, endless black that stretches for miles on. Endless void. Like nothing ever existed here.
The three of them are on the defensive, and Niklaus looks only disappointed. "You have a severe misunderstanding of what I do, and what I am capable of. But I like you three, so I'll humor you."
Niklaus closes his eyes and falls backwards, but instead of hitting solid ground, he sinks into the floor like water, disappearing entirely from sight. The three of them rush to where he sank, scratching and striking where he fell, only to meet solid ground. When he speaks again, it reverberates in their skulls like an omnipresent spirit.
"I am not a cruel man. I am honest, and I am just. Killing me will not quell the darkness in this world and that which lurks in people's hearts – it will only make it harder to find. You can call this fate if you wish, but I'm afraid it's all a little more complicated than that."
Black ooze lurches from the floors and wraps around the three of them, tearing them away from each other. Chip yells and tries to reach out for them, but the sludge snatches his arm back, the disgusting slimy texture crawling up his body and restricting all movement. He watches as Jay and Gillion are enveloped in the sludge, covering every inch of them and pulling them closer underground. Chip tries to cry out, to say something, anything, or perhaps to even repeat back the sentiment offered earlier, the promise of a future, a warm one, a bright one, the acceptance of who they are and what they mean to each other. In their eyes, he can see it too, words trapped at the tips of their tongues as the sludge covers their mouths.
As Chip sinks into the ground, breath stolen and vision fading, he hears the voice one last time.
"Tell me if you can spot the difference between destiny and desire."
And his world turns to black.