Eclipse

 As Talia’s group prepared to leave, however, the ground began to shake. Millie muttered under her breath, hoping this didn’t mean that another giant monster to fight. She was ready to start swinging Final Draft again, though.

A hole began to open in the ground in front of them, a beam of orange light erupting from it. And when the light faded, there stood a tall, muscular young man, his face rather at odds with the rest of him. His body looked like it could take anyone in a fight, but his face? The skin looked thin, stretched over a skeletal framework. His light brown hair was slicked back, one of his bright blue eyes covered with a patch. He had a few scars on his face, and wore ornate metal armor with that sickening yellowish glow around it.

The whole group stared at him in shock, all having their own reasons.

“How in the hell is he able to wear that?” Millie whispered, glancing at Amaia.

“I was wondering the same thing,” they replied.

Sara looked at him, like they’d met before but she couldn’t quite place it.

Talia took a moment to find her words, eventually stammering out: “N-niles…?”

He smirked, stepping toward them with arms outstretched. “Queen Talia. It’s been a bit. How’ve you been?”

But she didn’t drop her guard, and instead eyed him with suspicion. “...Why does your armor look like that?”

He tilted his head, and then chuckled. “Oh, this? I found out how to command that menace you were so concerned about.”

A long pause.

“And how the hell did you accomplish that?” Amaia asked, their eyes narrowed.

That smirk spread into a full grin. “You just need to step into the future.”

Millie let out a groan. She’d heard that rhetoric before, and it definitely pissed her off.

“Your ‘future’? It kind of destroys everything it touches,” she said. “I mean…” She jerked a thumb back to the wrecked cottage and trees before it, and broken body of a dullahan.

He held out a hand, conjuring a bottle of water for himself and taking a long swig.

“When you work with this technology rather than fight it, amazing things can happen,” he said. “I found Daylight and helped out with their city, giving them a magnificent library.”

“A deathtrap,” Millie scoffed.

“And while it is possible to manipulate the sky with magic, it’s time-consuming. Uses a lot of energy. But after learning how to wield the tech for myself, it only takes moments, and costs nothing of consequence.”

He snapped his fingers, an orange glow appearing from his hand…

Two things happened as he did this: first off, he coughed up a bit of blood from the effort, and secondly, an odd shadow began to fall over the full moon. What had been a bright white orb in the sky was steadily starting to turn red.

A blood moon eclipse.

Talia stared at him with horror, as both Nibbles and Lia began to convulse, snarling. Millie, having been preparing to attack Niles, instead rushed to her canine companion’s side, wondering how she could possibly help right now.

Nibbles’ eyes were squeezed shut as she snarled, with a whimper drawn into the mix, and she was twitching.

“Please be okay…” Millie whispered, before the werewolf’s eyes snapped open.

They were at a full red glow, as Nibbles growled right at her witch. Millie looked her in the eye, pointing at her.

“Nibbles, no,” she said, voice firm as could be.

But Nibbles didn’t back up, instead growling louder and pouncing at Millie. The witch dodged the attack, holding up her scythe in a defensive position. She REALLY didn’t want to hurt the werewolf, keeping on the defensive this whole time and pleading with her to stop.

Lia sprang upright with a howl and rushed right at Shay, who took to the air to avoid her.

“Calm the hell down!” she called to the fellow member of the polycule, as Anton started trying to throw a shield around the werewolf.

Millie also attempted to will such a shield into existence, but it was hard to concentrate when Nibbles was trying to live up to an extreme version of her name. She couldn’t bring herself to hit her, either, despite the attacks because deep down inside, this was still her dog.

Talia and Amaia were facing off against Niles, the dullahan ready to attack him.

“Get rid of that. Now,” they said, pointing to the eclipse.

“Hm...nah, I don’t think I will,” he said, soon putting a magic shield around himself. “You see, I’ve had my eye on you for a while, and you keep trying to destroy my work, so...why would I listen to you now? And the eclipse will fade in a few hours.”

He teleported out of there just as Vertiwhip came at his head. With him gone, the only thing left to do right now was to deal with the double werewolf problem.

Sara would have tried to use some webbing to contain either Lia or Nibbles, but had exhausted her supply on the giant creature earlier. The best she could do right now was hold onto Valentina’s head while Anton tried to help get his werewolf wife under control.

Millie, meanwhile, was trying to dodge Nibbles’ teeth, having seen Talia and Amaia rushing toward them.

“Just—just don’t hurt her!” she called, before the werewolf’s teeth clamped down on her arm.

She screamed in pain, as the other two tried to figure out how to handle this without trying to kill the werewolf.

“Crap...how to get her under control until this fades…” Talia muttered.

“Sleep spell?” Amaia asked, unsure if those were just an urban legend, but desperate enough to suggest it. “Those are real, right?”

The vampire nodded. “But it’s not one a vampire royal can do. Just a witch.”

“Millie!” Amaia called. “Try a sleep spell on her!”

Millie thought for a moment. If she could visualize this well enough, that could help Nibbles sleep off her newfound blood moon psychosis. She dodged the claws that came at her, but just barely. Visualizing Nibbles sleeping shouldn’t be difficult at all; she always looked so cute when she slept.

The werewolf clawed at her again, and this time she wrapped her arms around Nibbles’ arm and held tightly, pushing her face into the fur and focusing on the sleep spell in question. She visualized her as both her normal canine form and the lupine form, curling up in a little ball of fur, snoring away, barking a little in her sleep…There was a brief rush of stabbing pain in her back, and the vague sound of someone yelling her name, but she kept up that mental image.

And soon enough, both Nibbles and Millie landed on the ground, Millie having lost her grip, and Nibbles curling up to sleep. The witch had landed on her side, bleeding profusely from both where she’d been bitten earlier and where Nibbles had clawed her in the back.

Talia was the first to her side, checking for a pulse. But it was weak. She cursed under her breath. It was one thing to be unaware of what happened to one of her champions, but she was right there this time. On the one hand, they’d have some idea of how to stop the threat, but numbers always helped.

Amaia looked down at the body, unsure what to do, now. They’d gotten to like having the human around, and when her werewolf companion found out about what happened, that promised to be deeply unpleasant.

Sara made her way over, noticing that the human was dying. “...What?” she asked.

“Nibbles lost control,” was all Talia had said, before looking to the others. “So, what do we do?”

Amaia tapped their thigh, groaning in frustration. “Hell if I know…”

It was quiet for a moment, before Sara spoke up. “Wait...what happens when someone dies?” she asked.

Talia wasn’t quite sure on that, but Amaia’s eyes lit up. “They get sent to the Underworld, face judgement there, and things go from there…”

“Is there any way to get there?” the drider asked.

The dullahan stood, head tucked under an arm. “Well...my family’s worked with some of the darker fae courts,” they said. “And that gives us a connection to Death in general…”

They weren’t entirely enthused about heading down there to retrieve their friend, having wanted to avoid anything having to do with the family business. But if they brought up some of their family while down there, that might enable them to pull a few strings.

They pulled a few coins from their boot, their “just in case” stash, placing them on the ground and muttering an incantation.

A portal opened up where the coins once stood, and they looked back to the others. “I should probably tackle this alone, but we’ll catch up,” they said, hopping into the portal.