Chapter Text
It was the end of long days and nights, and Pearl had closed her eyes to sleep for the night, and do her best to recover from being pushed off the roof by Owen.
It was the day where it all started, and Pearl opened her eyes to a monument into whose bowels she jumped without a second thought.
It was not the first time this had happened. And in Oakhurst, the days and nights repeated endlessly…
Wake up, grab the book, say hi to Pyro and Owen, investigate the beacon. A routine she had perfected a long many repeats ago. Go to town, meet the people, room up with Cleo. Over and over and over again. Go out grab resources, miss the happenings. Somehow, that was always the same. It was a bit annoying, just how this was the sole constant. Oh, she would eventually trip into the horrors, but rarely before the time when Cleo had revealed their secret, the first time around.
It still happened, sometimes.
Sometimes Cleo was a vampire. Sometimes it was Martyn. But never Pearl. No, never Pearl. There was even one time where Avid was the vampire and tried to turn her, but–
She put her sword through his throat, and he never tried again.
Pearl looked up from her thoughts, and sighed as she once more returned to a ghost town. “I wonder who it’ll be this time.” She wondered out loud, entering her house to dump her spoils into the chest, with a quick scratch to Oscar’s fluffy ghostly head. Last loop it had been Ren and Sausage; Sausage had actually gone for her first, for some reason. She lopped his head off and promptly returned to searching for that Pale Oak she wanted.
“Oh well.” Not that it mattered. It’d end up repeating after the fifth week regardless. “Hmmm… Maybe I should build my house in a different spot? Or take over Scott’s castle. That’d be funny.”
If he complained, she could always pick him up and throw him into the river until he stopped. If the other vampires went there and complained, she’d throw them as well.
She eyed the roof critically. Last loop’s design had been the same as her old house, back in Sunnyside Cliffs. Maybe this time she’d do a sloped design?
Her ears pricked as the noise of footsteps approached her house, accompanied by voices. Oh, everyone had returned. Let’s hear what they have to say this time…
It was Drift and Avid. Surprising, for them. As a pattern, they were on the rarer side.
“You pushed me off the bridge!” Pearl screeched, heaving herself over the cliffside as she glared at an unrepentant Pyro. The vampire stuck out his tongue, and she swore she heard Scott’s laughter coming off the castle. Which only made her glare harder.
“It was funny.” Pyro countered, to which she slowly pulled out her sword. “Oh wait, I’m sorry please don’t attack me–”
His screams echoed into the air as she enacted bloody and wet vengeance.
When she returned to town, drier than before but still soaked to the bone like a wet cat, the town was full of nervous energy, like a powder barrel had been set off inside. “Pearl, you’re back! Why are you wet?” Martyn frowned as he asked.
“Pyro pushed me off the bridge.” She grumbled, stomping her way through.
“Are you… Alright?” The doctor asked carefully, probably trying to gauge if she had been turned or not. Which, yeah, a valid concern.
“I’m fine, didn’t hit anything on the way down.” She replied, fishing out the bottle of crimson from within the folds of her dress. “Here, I think you should have this.”
Pearl came to awareness due to her arm suddenly lashing out during her sleep. Over the course of the loops, she had gotten good enough at fending off vampires that she could do it on instinct. And asleep, as it turned out.
She opened her eyes to see her roommate standing over her, fangs grinding against Pearl’s sword as she desperately tried to keep it from cleaving their head in half.
“Cleo?” Pearl blinked, a bit shocked. This was a first, Cleo trying to turn her this early in the second week. “What are you doing?”
“I’m hungry.” The vampire stressed through the sword, a wild look in their eyes. “I can’t hold it–”
Pearl put away the sword, before dragging Cleo down into the bed with her. “Just don’t drink too much and don’t turn me.” She grumbled, turning away and adjusting her head on the pillow. “Oh, and don’t make a mess.”
A few seconds passed, before Cleo hesitantly put their fangs to Pearl’s shoulder and started drinking.
The next morning, Apo paused as she noticed Pearl’s more sluggish movements. “Pearl, is everything alright?”
“Oh yeah,” She replied, giving Cleo a half-lidded smirk. “We just had… a wild night.”
Cleo’s face burning up and turning away was all the answer Apo needed to know.
“...Oh.”
One loop, Owen snapped and set the entire town ablaze while Pearl was off in the mines. She came back to a town of ashes, burnt corpses strewn around, and Owen breathing heavily amidst the carnage, stake buried into Scott’s heart.
He didn’t get a chance to turn around before she plunged her own into his heart.
The loop didn’t last much longer than she took to bury her friends.
After that, she started seeing changes. People would act more consistently. Somehow, Owen got even more suspicious, so she also started keeping an eye on him. Never anything overt. But always keeping him in her line of sight whenever she knew he was around.
Until one day, she managed to overhear a conversation.
“How many times does this make it?”
“Since I’ve started, twenty.”
The doctor and Owen. Pearl was underneath them, climbing up the cliffside near the bridge. Twenty loops? That would be about right, give or take a few, since she began noticing Owen’s behavior changes. Since he snapped.
Huh. Maybe he snapped because he started looping?
Did that mean Legundo was looping as well?
“I see…” The doctor hummed. “I won’t stop. I’m sure that, even if I don’t remember, I won’t stop.”
A pregnant pause. Okay, dash that thought, just her and Owen for now. Maybe. Who knows about the others. Eventually, Owen whispered. “You haven’t stopped in twenty cycles.”
“And may I never do. Is it just you?”
“Apo and Avid are also cycling, as far as I know. Though I started first.”
Okay, that cleared things up. Pearl privately wondered how that’d change things. Maybe Owen would stop threatening people? Hopefully? Fighting him was annoying, he was very tenacious. Hm, maybe…
Playing a prank would be fun.
Now, what would the prank be…? Oh, that’s a good one. But she’d need to confirm Owen was a vampire before she could enact it.
Owen rushed to the nearest beacon, the alarming lack of power making itself known by the way his insides burned and his skin itched. All the beacons had been consecrated, subtly enough that he hadn’t noticed it until the last one had been dealt with. Shelby couldn’t even make an excuse to go desecrate one, deep as she was within Oakhurst’s walls and surrounded by people, so the task fell to him and him alone.
However, as he arrived… He saw that he wasn’t alone.
Pearl crouched in front of a lit beacon, squinting at it with a deadly seriousness. “Hi, Owen.” She greeted, not even turning to face him.
“Hi, Pearl.” He replied slowly. Had she… Started cycling? “What are you doing here?”
“Thinking if I should lick the beacon or not.”
…What?
“What?”
“I mean, it looks like cheese, doesn’t it?” She spoke, inching closer to the beacon. “So I’ve been wondering what it tastes like.”
“...Not good, I’d bet. Say, how about we… Go back to town, yeah?” He was starting to sweat a little. Was Pearl on to him? Was this an act to get him to drop his defenses and reveal himself? He was starting to suspect that Pearl had always clocked him as suspicious since the start.
The werewolf hunter glanced at him with half-lidded eyes. Owen did his best to keep his breathing and expression even. He didn’t want her to get suspicious. He still remembered the realization that he had missed her right before the sharp pain of a stake to his heart from behind. He still remembered the way she had fought him the first few cycles, where he still thought he had gone mad and was much more overt about his existence.
He didn’t want to fight her.
After a stand-off that took way too long for his comfort, she stood up, rolling her shoulders. “Sure thing, let’s go back.”
“Ladies first.” He said, gesturing at the staircase.
“Ohh, didn’t think you’d be a gentleman.” Pearl remarked, but still went down first.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She just flashed him a smirk in response that made what little blood he still had run colder than it usually was.
“Right, let’s get everything straight.” Apo clapped once while taking a deep breath, looking around at everyone sitting at the makeshift table.
“But I’m not straight.”
“Shut up, Scott.” She replied without missing a beat, before taking a seat herself. “We’ll go clockwise, and when it is your turn, just say how many loops you’ve been through and what happened when you started looping. Is everyone okay with that?”
There was a chorus of agreements, and some grumbling from Scott, who wasn’t seated at the table and was just an audience as a non-looper. He spoke up. “Okay, but first could you tell me why you are doing this at my castle?”
“Because it’s far enough away from the town that the chances of being eavesdropped are close to zero.” Owen answered, leaning back on his chair. “Now, who’s going to start?”
“I’ll do it.” Avid volunteered. He took a deep breath, doing his best to ignore the way Scott was staring at him from across the room. “I’ve been through twenty-five loops, and in my first loop, I woke up to Drift turning me into a vampire.”
“I remember that one.” Owen muttered. “Biggest dissonance ever.”
“I haven’t been able to look her straight in the eye since…” The vampire hunter shuddered, before turning to the person next to him. “Your turn.”
“Five loops.” Abolish stated bluntly. “In my first one, I woke up to being pushed off a bridge.”
“Sorry about that.” Shelby spoke up, rubbing the back of her head with a sheepish expression. “I was panicking.”
“Just don’t do it again and we’re fine.” The butler sighed.
“Guess I’m next, then.” Owen grumbled. “Thirty-nine cycles, I’ve been doing this longer than everyone. And my first loop… I woke up to myself and Scott turning Pyro, but didn’t really notice since I blanked out.”
“Reliving the trauma?” Cleo asked, Scott making a noise of curiosity from behind Owen.
“And more.” Owen huffed. “But if I were to point out a moment where I really woke up, it would be Pearl staking my heart after I went on a rampage.”
“Is that why you’re scared of her?”
“I’m not scared of her!” He bared his teeth at Cleo, who just gave him a lazy smile.
“Wait, I think I’m seeing her approaching.” Shelby pointed out, looking off somewhere.
“Where!?” Owen instantly scrambled to hide behind a mildly amused Scott, hissing and looking around with wide eyes.
Apo closed her eyes, counted to ten, and sighed. “Shelby, Cleo, stop provoking Owen. Owen, Pearl is not here, Shelby was just messing with you. Sit down.”
The currently-not-a-vampire glared at the two as he slowly sat down. Shelby looked apologetic, while Cleo did not.
“Right, my turn now.” Cleo cracked their neck. “I’ve been around for nine loops, and I woke up to Pearl licking a beacon and saying that it tasted like disappointment.”
Scott made a strangled noise that almost sounded like a laugh, followed by Shelby actually laughing and Owen smacking his forehead on the table. “Of all things to wake up to–” Scott breathed. “That has to be the funniest yet. And I don’t think it’s getting beaten.”
“I have to agree with Scott.” Shelby nodded. “Well, since it’s my turn… I think this is my twenty-fifth loop? Give or take one.”
“Twenty-fifth–” Owen snapped his head up to stare at her. “How did I notice Apo and Avid before I noticed you? When did you become so good at hiding!?”
“I thought I was dreaming.” The cryptid enthusiast admitted with a frown. “So I just… Stayed silent and went through the motions. Not too different from what I was doing in Sunnyside Cliffs before I got fed up…”
The mood around the table went down a bit as everyone digested that. Eventually, Abolish spoke up. “You can talk with us. We’ll listen.”
“Yeah!” Avid quickly jumped in with an awkward grin. “You don’t need to worry about that now!”
Shelby smiled. “Thank you. As for when I woke up, it would be watching Sausage try to interview Pearl and laughing so hard my sides hurt as she became more and more fed up with his questions.”
“And that leaves me for last.” Apo pointed out, running a hand through her hair. “This is my twentieth loop, and I woke up to kicking Pyro off a bridge.”
“The dejà vu hit just at the right time, huh?” Avid commented.
“Actually, speaking of that.” Abolish frowned. “Avid, you’ve been… Remarkably calm this time, compared to the other two times Scott has been a vampire while I’ve been around.”
“Oh, we worked out a deal.” The vampire interrupted cheerfully as he walked around the table, making the vampire hunter smile nervously. “It’s why I let you all do this little meeting of yours here without much complaint. He promised to let me turn him after you were done with it.”
The silence was loud enough you could hear a pin drop. Apo slowly brought her hands to her face as she felt a headache build up behind her eyes. The aftermath of this was not something she wanted to deal with, not while the loose cannons of Martyn and Sausage were still not in the know.
“Anyways,” Avid stressed, trying to forestall any questions from the others. “Do we know who the other vampire is this loop?”
Scott frowned. “Well, I don’t know.”
Owen swore under his breath. “Right, making that priority one. Okay, I think we’re done here?”
A chorus of agreements rose, and they began standing up to prepare themselves to leave as a group while Scot dragged Avid to the side.
“I’ll have to check on Pearl, she mentioned heading off to the Pale Garden to get some wood for our house.” Cleo spoke up, to which Abolish looked at her.
“I’ll come with you.” He offered.
“Appreciated.”
Apo looked around at everyone. Somehow, she had become their unofficial leader, probably by dint of her ability to organize meetings like this one. Despite both Owen, Shelby, and Avid being at it longer than she had. She hoped she really didn’t continue like this, it was stressful to manage this group of people with more impulse than sense. At least Martyn wasn’t looping… Yet.
“And done.” Scott grinned as he and Avid walked back to the group, the new vampire rubbing his neck nervously yet feeling the most at ease anyone had ever seen him. “Do make it custom to keep me in the loop through the cycles until I join, will you? This is very entertaining.”
Shelby squinted. “Was that on purpose?”
Scott’s grin just widened.
Apo sighed, and was about to speak up when a voice no one expected to hear interrupted her thoughts.
“Hello everyone! What are you guys doing here?”
Owen screeched as Pearl suddenly popped up behind him.