Chapter Text
“Thank you for your service!”
Dark Enchantress Cookie hovered in the air, a triumphant smile on her face. Red light crackled from the twin horns of her staff, lightning-like bursts of energy striking the ground.
Floating above her outstretched hand, encased in red lightning, were two gems. They bore a striking blue, as vibrant as the sky yet as fathomless as the ocean. One upright, the other upside down. The Soul Jams of Truth and Deceit, reunited in the hands of a single wielder. And yet, that wielder was neither the original, nor the replacement.
Shadow Milk Cookie snarled. It was the biggest movement he could make at the moment. His body was frozen in place, limbs locked up in the half standing half kneeling position he’d been in when she showed up.
Dark Enchantress Cookie! He wanted to scream at her, but that woman’s paralysis spell, one that had been apparently kneaded into the dough making up his current body, didn’t let him do that either. Traitorous gnat!
“Ah, to think even the Beast of Deceit could be deceived,” Dark Enchantress sneered. “Did you really think I wouldn't have countermeasures for you all? Too arrogant to consider that there would be Dark Moon Magic not even you knew of? How do you like it, by the way? It's one of the witches’.”
“Shadow milk…” a soft voice wheezed. “Let go…”
Shadow Milk’s eyes darted downwards. Pure Vanilla was pulling desperately at the claws locked around his neck. His unseeing pair of eyes fluttered, each pained blink lasting longer than the last.
“Please… I can… help…”
Fool! Does it look like I can let go? Shadow Milk glared at the slowly suffocating cookie trapped between his frozen hands. Not that Pure Vanilla could actually see him. The creepy staff the blind healer used as a substitute for his vision had fallen to the ground a ways away. There it lay facing the sky, wide eyed and shivering.
How ironic. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. The two of them had clashed once again, on yet another stage that Shadow Milk had specifically designed for Pure Vanilla. It wasn’t all that hard to goad Pure Vanilla into another game. The cookie had very obvious weaknesses, after all. Most notably being his little friends. With how wonderfully fragile Gingerbrave and his crew were, establishing a threat was of no big issue.
What was supposed to happen, was that Pure Vanilla would fall into another wonderful bout of self-inflicted despair, and Shadow Milk would have a grand old time laughing at how the high and mighty Hero of Truth had fallen into doubt not once, but twice. And with or without the other half of his soul jam, he’d retreat feeling absolutely peachy.
And yet that hadn’t happened. Pure Vanilla ( Liar! Traitor! ) had brought up that absurd, slanderous claim that Shadow Milk was lonely! That he , that self-righteous fool, was the only one that understood him? That as long as Shadow Milk turned back on his ways, he was willing to be his friend?
Pathetic!
As a result… Shadow Milk may or may not have let his temper get the better of him. They may or may not have devolved into a disgraceful fight off a cliff that would put Burning Spice to shame. He may or may not have initiated a fistfight once his magic reserves had run dry.
Not his most glamorous moment. Moving on.
And right at this moment, when Shadow Milk, completely drained of both magical and physical strength. Right when he put his hands on Pure Vanilla’s scrawny little neck, did Dark Enchantress Cookie appear.
The timing was impeccable! It was like she’d been watching. Waiting for this very moment. Shadow Milk might have been impressed if he weren’t so angry .
To face two traitorous gnats in one day, hah! What a travesty! He’d have thought he’d be allowed the kindness of a one-day grace period at the least. (What was she thinking? This was the worst timing for her inevitable betrayal. Her ultimate cookie wasn’t even close to done yet! He was supposed to have more time !)
And just like that, Dark Enchantress Cookie had swooped in to claim the fruits of his labour. Two birds with one stone. Or rather, two Soul Jams with one spell.
A chuckle from Dark Enchantress swept his attention back.
“Truly, thank you both,” Dark Enchantress pointed her staff at them. The lightning crackled more fiercely. “With this, my plans for Earthbread’s rebirth take another step towards fruition. And now…”
With a flourish, she brought her staff arcing down. In its path came a tear in space. It looked out onto a dark abyss, a bottomless void, and it grew wider and wider with each second.
“I believe you may find the other realm much less welcoming without your Soul Jam, Beast of Deceit,” Dark Enchantress’s face was illuminated in crimson. “And with that… farewell. For good this time.”
In a whirl of crackling lightning, Shadow Milk found himself tossed in through the gaping portal with Pure Vanilla in tow. Just as he passed through the portal, he felt the paralysis spell over his dough loosen.
His claws released Pure Vanilla, turning to grip the edges of the portal with all his strength. To tear it open. Pull the space back apart just as he had done so many times in the past. Yet his strength failed him. The edges of the portal pushed back even more strongly. The distortion of spacetime tore into his palms. Trails of jam flowed from the open wound and into the abyss, but he couldn’t feel the pain beyond the mind numbing rage that had consumed him ever since Dark Enchantress crashed his finale. The other realm glowed red and black. It refused to heed his command.
As the opening narrowed to a sliver, Shadow Milk finally lost his nerve.
“Curse you, Dark Enchantress Cookie!” he shrieked through the rapidly closing portal. “Filthy cheating witch! I’ll be back to finish you! Mark my words! Run while you still can. There is not a single place on Earthbread where you can hide from me once I’m back!”
Dark Enchantress Cookie’s nasty laugh cut off as the portal fully closed. All of a sudden, there was silence. The other realm, that had once felt like home to him, pressed in like roiling chains. He tried to open a portal, but the essence of the other realm slipped through his fingers like water. Out of his grasp. Out of his control. The horsehair crack he had managed to spell up sparked with volatile instability, before collapsing on itself.
He could still sense Earthbread. But the connection was growing fainter. Each second he spent in this other realm that was no longer his, his perception of the reality he belonged to faded in chunks. Oh how wonderfully ironic! To be doomed to wander his own other realm forever lost! Together with his Soul Jam thief! ( He absolutely hated it. )
“Oh…” a bitter chuckle came bursting out of him. “Oh, Vanilly, I hate to break it to you, but we are crumbled!”
He glanced to his side. Pure Vanilla Cookie had, at the most inconvenient moment, passed out. His limp body was drifting, very slowly, off into the abyss.
No. This wouldn’t do. He scowled. Him? The great Shadow Milk Cookie? Losing to a cookie just fresh out of the oven? Impossible. Nobody could shackle him forever. Not Dark Enchantress Cookie, not Pure Vanilla Cookie, not even the witches themselves!
He still had an ace up his sleeve. Many aces ( he only had one left ). The likes of Dark Enchantress Cookie weren’t enough to bring him to his knees. He would return to teach her a lesson.
But the window of opportunity was rapidly closing. His ace wouldn’t be an ace for much longer. He had to act quickly.
Reaching out, he grabbed Pure Vanilla’s ankle and pulled him back towards him.
“Yoink! You’re my battery now!” with one hand, he held Pure Vanilla’s wrist, with the other wrapped around his waist to prevent him from drifting off mid-spell. Despite the theft of their Soul Jams, their magic still resonated with each other, having shared a source for longer than they had lacked it. Like threading the needle, he pulled the magic out of Pure Vanilla’s dough and up into the point of his index finger, before sending his own meagre reserves to join it.
Holding him by the wrist, Shadow Milk directed Pure Vanilla’s finger in a series of complex gestures. Their magic flowed, taking shape around them. It tugged on the other world and tugged on that quickly fading presence of Earthbread. Distorting it, shaping it.
Shadow Milk opened his mouth, mumbling the finishing chant to the spell as fast as he could.
“Double double toil and trouble, Earthbread burn and dark moon bubble. Draw the dark and shape the light, bridge the world beyond the psyche.”
Space shattered. Reality flickered with each blink of the glyphs in the other realm. One moment it showed the other realm, the other, the real world. Varying, speeding renditions of it, glimpses of reality that would quickly be blown away like grains of sand and replaced by another scene. The storm of spaces whirled around them, shaping, twisting the space in the other realm.
Shadow Milk watched the flickering images, all the while closely monitoring the quickly fading connection to reality.
It wasn’t stable enough. ( Vanilly’s reserves were even worse than his. ) He wouldn’t be able to control the space (The connection was fading .) He had to wait a bit longer. ( There was no more time left. )
Whatever!
“Break!” he shrieked.
And the abyss imploded.
Shadow Milk Cookie collapsed onto solid ground. The sugar bricks felt cold at his back. He raised his head, watching as familiar sets of staircases wound nonsensically upon each other, doors slamming themselves shut into the walls. The Spire of Deceit manifested itself inside a bubble of space, anchoring their position in the other realm and preventing them from drifting off.
“Ugh!” he exclaimed and flopped over. His magic was completely drained. He didn’t even have the strength to support floating anymore. Far above him, the endlessly turning stairs spiralled up into the heavens. Dark Moon Magic hummed throughout the walls, pulsing and throbbing with an unnatural air.
This particular spell borrowed power from the other world itself, only requiring enough magic from the caster to form a scaffolding for reference. And even then, the dregs of his and Vanilly’s power had barely been enough. This bubble would pop eventually, sending them both careening back into the abyss, the lingering connection vanishing for good. But for now, it was safe. Enough to buy him time to return.
“Ha… haha… hahaha!” his giggles came bursting out of his chest, tainted with gleeful exhaustion. He jabbed a pointed finger upwards, imagining it was Dark Enchantress Cookie’s shocked expression staring down at him.
“You…!” he jeered. “Are not… the only one… who knows… witch spells!”
And with that declaration, Shadow Milk Cookie passed out.