Chapter Text
If you’d asked Kristen about Kipperlilly during the first few weeks of the school year, right after she met her, you’d have gotten a campaign answer.
“I disagree with her platform and her views on the school, which is why I’m running against her,” Kristen had said to any student who cared to ask, just like she and Riz had practiced. “But she’s a great student and candidate, so I look forward to a fair race.” If it was someone cool, one of Max’s friends, or someone on the Bloodrush team, she might lean forward and whisper, “Plus, we can’t have a president who’s no fun,” which always got a laugh.
Once it happened, she found herself giving tight-lipped, nervous smiles. “I don’t like to speak about my opponents,” she’d say calmly, and then she wouldn’t feel her shoulders relax until the person turned the corner and disappeared. She was always feeling like she should check over one shoulder, just in case someone was listening, somehow, just in case everything inside her was obvious anytime Kristen so much as said her name.
If you asked Kristen about Kipperlilly now, she’d say she hates her.
Hates her perfectly clean clothes. Hates her impossibly tight ponytails. Hates her face smiling down from the campaign posters on the walls, the little checkbox next to the K. Hates seeing Oisin or Buddy walking down the halls. She hates especially when Kipperlilly’s there, at school, standing on a bench to give one of her little presentations, her honey-sweet voice going on and on about fairness under the rules. It puts a pit in Kristen’s stomach, which she also hates, cause it’s over, and it wasn’t anything in the first place, and Kipperlilly’s evil, probably.
Kristen avoids her like the plague. It’s not like Kipperlilly ever makes any attempt to talk to her, to even look at her if they pass in the halls. Her friends make it easy, stepping around the subject like broken glass, murmuring out of Kristen’s earshot or steering her in another direction if there’s so much of a whisper of Kipperlilly. Kristen’s never quite sure if she should feel offended by that or not.
If her friends just asked her, she’d say it: that there’s a pit in her stomach whenever she thinks of her. There’s a hot blush that comes to her cheeks, a roiling something burning in her chest everytime she gets ignored (A voice: you were so stupid, Kristen ). She hates her. She hates her.
The thing is, nobody asks her.
No one seems to be talking about Kipperlilly that much at all these days. Her campaign appearances decrease dramatically in scale and number as the weeks slip by, her posters slowly disappearing from the walls. Kristen sees the other Ratgrinders less and less at school, and they look more and more tired when she does. It doesn’t change anything, though, the conviction certain in Kristen’s chest. There’s only one option, the only option there ever was.
In Fallinel, she hates her. In Hell, she hates her. When Jawbone wrings his fingers and tells her Bobby Dawn is coming to teach cleric classes, she hates her. Kristen lets it fuel her, the little thing burning at the center of her chest as she works herself down to the bone at everything: schoolwork, the mystery, her campaign.
And the thing is, it works– Kristen’s never been more popular.
She’s ahead in every poll. Kids come up to her constantly to shake her hand, to tell her they’re rooting for her, or just to say hi. People sport the buttons they hand out at Seacaster Manor all over school, and sometimes Fig or Fabian or just somebody starts a chant of one of her slogans that quickly spreads and echoes out across the entire cafeteria. (And it’s surprising, actually. How good it makes her feel. For how quickly she jumped into the decision to run, it occurs to Kristen, standing in the auditorium as students laugh raucously, that she might actually be good at this).
It’s someone else who starts the chant during Kipperlilly’s presentation.
Kristen sees Riz grit his teeth as the shouts begin, a rallying cry of kiss and drugs rapidly drowning out Kipperlilly from where she stands halfway across the cafeteria. Kristen isn’t really looking, but. She turns her head and barely catches the set of Kipperlilly’s jaw as her words get ignored. The way her eyes flash.
Riz groans into his lunch. “She’s gonna think we’re antagonizing her.”
Kristen stomach flips. Let her. Beside her Adaine hums, and she has a feeling she’s thinking the same thing.
Fig rolls her eyes, stabbing her fork into her food. “She’s not gonna do anything. They never do anything.”
And then Fig’s eyes widen, and over her shoulder, Kristen hears Kipperlilly’s shoes clicking in perfect time, striding right up to their lunch table. Kristen spins around, her heart rate kicking up, and Kipperlilly is walking towards her for the first time in months. Her shirt is perfectly pressed, and her little pleated skirt swishes around her knees, and she’s looking directly at Riz.
The Bad Kids go silent. Each of them stare at Kipperlilly as she pauses in front of them. She smiles at Riz, so tight it looks like something in her face might snap, and when she speaks it’s with her usual honey-sweetness.
“I just wanna say congratulations on your sloganeering. It seems like it’s really working.”
Riz blinks, looking momentarily stunned, and Kristen fucking seethes. Kipperlilly’s standing right beside her and she won’t even look over at her. Before Riz can say anything, Kristen is leaning forward instead.
“Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that, Kipperlilly.”
Kipperlilly tenses as Kristen rolls over the syllables of her name. Finally, she turns her head so she’s looking directly at Kristen. Kristen inhales– it’s been a long time.
Kipperlilly’s expression changes, just slightly– it’s subtle, but Kristen sees it all, as her eyes narrow and her jaw sets and she goes from ice to fire.
Kristen holds that gaze, even as her head motions over to Riz. “My friend’s doing a bunch of stuff with the apiary club. Seems cool.”
Kipperlilly stays cool, turning to Riz again as soon as she can. Kristen glances at the others and sees Fabian’s nervous expression, the blatant disdain written all over Adaine. Fig is looking right at Kristen, with her eyes wide.
Kipperlilly keeps smiling. “I know you’re involved with a lot of the extracurriculars. That’s really exciting.”
She flips her ponytail over her shoulder, and Kristen smells it, the familiar scent of lilacs, and for a second she’s back in the kitchen of a house party, and she’s in the backseat of a car, she’s telling her her brother’s names, and she hates her, she does. Riz is saying something about devil’s honey, and Kipperlilly glances back at Kristen, just out of the corner of her eye, and Kristen is leaning forward, and she remembers–
“What are you trying to forget, Kipperlilly?”
The table goes silent. There’s this moment where she and Kristen are looking at each other and Kristen wonders if she’s going to attack her right now, in front of everyone. Kristen raises her eyebrows, goading. Fig gasps a little, her mouth falling open involuntarily as she looks between the two of them, and Kipperlilly catches it, her head turning towards Fig in time to catch her expression. Kipperlilly’s eyes go wide. When she darts back to Kristen, it feels for a moment exactly like it used to, because Kipperlilly looks at her, and Kristen knows exactly what she’s thinking.
They know.
For once, Kipperlilly’s polite expression drops. She leans forward, eyes flashing, and Kristen realizes how bad it is.
“It’s really nice how charmed everyone is by how little you fucking care. I guess egg on my face, for wanting something.”
Fabian sucks in a breath, and she can feel Adaine shoot her a look, but Kristen isn’t paying attention. She’s leaning forward, her eyes locked on Kipperlilly, blood rushing into her face and ears.
“What do you want?”
Kipperlilly smiles. Wide, bitter, lopsided. “I want you to go fuck yourself.”
And then Adaine’s hand is closing around her wrist as Kristen’s mouth falls open, Fig rising to her feet immediately. The other Ratgrinders step to surround Kipperlilly, hands toying at hilts and light flickering at their palms, squared up in the cafeteria on a Tuesday morning. The twelve of them stare each other down, tense and uncomfortable until Buddy pleads with everyone to take a step back. Finally, with a final disdainful glance, Kipperlilly turns to slink away, and her friends glance around at each other as they watch them walk away, and Kristen hates her.
—
Like every spring, the world starts to end.
Bobby Dawn looks her in the eyes and says she’s expelled from school, and Kristen fucking weeps in his office. She holds his hands as she pretends to pray to Helio, and in reality, behind her closed eyes, she’s wishing with all of her might that Cassandra would appear in a blaze of twilight and strike him down to bones and dust right where he sits.
When she opens her eyes, he’s still sitting there. So instead, they take the Last Stand.
There's not a doubt in Kristen’s mind that they’ll do it. They can probably do anything, she thinks as she brings Gorgug up again and again, as she shouts out the answers to biology questions to Riz. She just wishes they’d stop having to prove it.
When Kipperlilly looks her right in the eyes and slits Buddy’s throat, Kristen hates her then, more than maybe she ever has.
—
She’s quiet as Riz steals Kipperlilly’s case file. Quiet as his face drops when he reads it.
“I just don’t get why,” Fabian says softly in the graveyard, and Kristen blinks for a moment, looking up in slight confusion. She doesn’t like it, but. She’s pretty sure she does.
—
When she finds out about Porter– when Fig is holding her hand in a vice grip, Adaine levitating slightly off the floor of the Temple of the Fallen Sun, Gorgug’s eyes wide as her blue glow reflects off his axe and his irises, when Fabian is picking up the papers Riz is tossing around as he digs through his briefcase frantically, when the name Cliffbreaker echoes through the temple walls and Riz finally, finally puts it all together– Kristen pictures it.
The jagged red shards, pushed down a child’s throat. The taste of rage and blood on Kipperlilly’s lips, on all of them, teenage bodies laid beside each other on the soil of the Fairhaven woods. Kristen can close her eyes and almost see it, the exact look on Kipperlilly’s face when she finally, finally got what she wanted.
And then the look on her face when Lucy didn’t get back up.
And then the look on Porter’s, when he must have realized exactly what he had in his hands. Her friends gape at each other, their eyes wide in shock and horror as reality settles down.
Kristen doesn’t hate her. She doesn’t know how.
“We have to get out of here,” Fig murmurs. “We have to get to Porter. We can give him a fake name– We can stop them–” Ruined arches tower behind her, her mother’s shadow appearing on the temple walls as Sandra Lynn urges them to leave. Behind Adaine, Cassandra’s pale image flickers in the candlelight, holding tight to a hand of war.
Kristen doesn’t know what she feels. The world is ending. There’s not much time for any of that. Never is anymore.
—
They don’t separate that night: her, Adaine, and Fig all coil together in the dim light of Fig’s bed. Adaine’s head is against Kristen’s chest, gently moving up and down with her breaths, and Fig’s arm lays loosely across both their rib cages.
“I knew it,” Fig breathes, so soft Kristen wouldn’t hear it if she wasn’t so close. “I knew about Porter.” Kristen hums, her hand coming up to land in Fig’s hair comfortingly. “But I convinced myself I didn’t. And the whole time, he was…”
Fig practically shudders, her brow knitted together.
“If I lost one of you,” Adaine begins, sharp and sudden.
“Don’t,” Fig interrupts. “Don’t.”
“If I lost one of you,” Adaine continues firmly. “I don’t know what I would do,” is all she says, hanging into the night around them, and Kristen focuses on her skin around hers, keeping them both close. It’s quiet but for their breathing, each of them imagining, in their own way.
Fig shifts beside Kristen, lifting her head. “Kris—” she starts and hesitates, and Kristen hums, turning to look at her.
Fig exhales, looking nervous. “I was just— I’m wondering– what kinda stuff did you like about her?”
Kristen’s breath catches a little in surprise.
“I thought you didn’t wanna hear that.”
Fig shrugs against her, and between them Adaine lifts her head as well. Kristen’s mind is spinning, there in the dark.
“I have a couple pretty good reasons to hate her,” Fig says, carefully. “And now I have a bad feeling about how good they are.”
Kristen blinks, there in the dark. It’s the kind of question she’s spent a semester trying not to answer. She closes her eyes gently, and it’s easier than it should be, to think back to the long nights when she fell asleep thinking about her. And she can admit it here, at the beginning of an end of the world, when she couldn’t before– how Kristen would fall asleep and then wake up thinking about her. Would have butterflies in her stomach when she thought of her. Wanted to talk to her, wanted to hear her laugh— wanted her to be okay. It's the simplest thing in the world. It sucks so bad.
“Well. She’s funny, actually,” Kristen begins haltingly. “Usually without really trying to be,” and Fig snorts softly. “She’s smart. She’s intense. She makes you feel really, um… seen.”
She trails off, and Fig nods, humming. Adaine stays quiet, but her ears twitch sympathetically.
“Cool,” Fig says softly, and then they’re quiet, and Kristen hears their breathing into the late hours of the night, no one really sleeping. Nothing about this is gonna be pretty, she’s thinking. It’s not gonna be easy.
—
On Fabian’s birthday, Kristen gets him a bag of sour gummy worms and a potion of healing. She shoves them into his hands unceremoniously, unwrapped, on the back porch of Seacaster Manor. It’s the early evening, and yellow light streams down over the banners and posters they’re setting up for the party.
“You have to have them together, or else it doesn’t work.”
Fabian snorts, already reaching into the bag. “Yeah. Right.” He grins radiantly, tearing a gummy tail off with his teeth, and then he pushes his shoulder against hers, leaning his weight against her. “Thanks, Kristen.”
Kristen grins, shrugging against him. “Stay alive.”
Fabian checks over his shoulder before wiggling his eyebrows dramatically.
“Between you and K2? I think I’m good.”
Kristen buries her face in her hands, shaking her head as he snorts. (Wherever that particular addition to the chaos of her recent life is, she doesn’t wanna think about it).
Out in the yard, Adaine sits cross legged on the edge of Fabian’s pool. She’s still, staring down into the blue water like there’s something she can read at the bottom. Kristen picks her way down the walkway to stand by her side. Adaine shoots a quick glance up over her shoulder at Kristen’s arrival, barely acknowledging her before turning to gaze back down into the pool, worrying her lip between her teeth.
Kristen pushes her sleeves up and squats down beside her, so they’re shoulder to shoulder staring at the water. She waits for a beat.
“Hey. You okay?”
Adaine squints. “It’s happening tonight.” She shakes her head a little, coming out of the daze and turning to look at Kristen with a sheepish look. “Sorry. I know that’s creepy."
Kristen swallows, her breath catching a little in her chest, but she shrugs, going for nonchalant. “Then we’ll do it tonight.”
Adaine exhales heavily, blowing some of her bangs off her face. “Yeah. We will. I just feel bad for Fabian.”
Kristen glances out across the yard, strewn with streamers and banners pointing towards the voting booth. “Either way, it’ll be one hell of a birthday.”
Adaine eyes her, her lips coming together in a half-smile. She’s already dressed for the party, in her denim jacket and a pale green blouse. Despite her nervousness, for a second, Kristen is reminded of how beautiful she is. They all are– capable and foolhardy and brimming with it, with each other. It hurts her eyes sometimes, how bright they all burn.
“Are you ready?” Adaine’s eyes narrow conspiratorially. “You know- to be president?”
Kristen snorts, shaking her head, as Adaine smiles mischievously, rising to her feet at the edge of the pool.
“Yeah.” Adaine offers her a hand and she takes it, letting herself be pulled up to standing. “I think I am, actually.”
Adaine grins, holding tight to Kristen’s hand for a second. Then, for a second, something serious flashes across her face.
“She’s not gonna let it go without a fight, you know,” Adaine murmurs.
Kristen’s throat tightens. “Yeah. I know.”
—
Adaine, later that night, the wind whipping her hair around as Seacaster Manor rises into the air, glancing at Kristen with her jaw set and her eyes huge–
Gorgug, looking strangely peaceful as he pilots the house through the sea of fog and lightning– do you remember when we died?
Fig, plummeting through the air thick with crackling electricity–
Riz, barrelling below decks towards the cannons bigger than he is, barely pausing to call out her name as they careen towards a yawning mouth in the clouds–
K2, gone before she was even really there–
Fabian, stepping out of his smoking house, half-crashed into the Bloodrush field, half-silhouetted in red light as sirens sound around them–
Kristen, running into the gym with a nearly-spent magical staff, the shards of her goddess in her pocket, and her heart in her throat. Adaine was right– she always is. It’s happening tonight.
—
Kristen Applebees is underneath the broken floorboards of her high school gymnasium. She’s hovering above molten lava, spell energy coursing through her as she listens to the thud of arrows above her, the clanking of swords against metal. Hot air blasts across her face, and she can feel her skin and lips cracking in the heat as she ducks between chunks of jagged floor, darting back and forth between her friends, listening desperately for the sound of one of them dropping to the floor. She can hear Porter’s crazed laughter, Gorgug yelling in rage, Mazey calling out to Fabian from somewhere above. She pokes her head above the floorboards again, as high as she dares, and has to duck again as Ivy sends a buffet of arrows towards her friends.
It’s bad. It’s so bad. Porter knocks his weapon into Fig, again and again, and it’s all Kristen can do to try to send out enough heals to keep all of her friends alive, let alone fighting.
Cassandra, she’s praying without even realizing it, as she’s sending K2 to Fig, as she darts above to heal as many of her friends as she can, holding onto bless by the skin of her teeth.
Cass, I need you, right now. Really really really need you.
Adaine is frozen in the air, her body rapidly solidifying–
I know… you’re not yourself. You miss her.
Ruben wails on his guitar, the noise cutting through her brain like a knife–
You think this is the only way.
There’s no time to think, no time for anything but to run and cast spells and pray.
And Kipperlilly’s nowhere to be seen. In the back of Kristen’s head, as she ducks and dodges and aims and hopes, the thought stays, running like a litany– where the fuck is she?
But you can do this. I know you can. Or I believe you can. Or I want you to– I don’t know.
Fabian’s sword slashes into Ivy, and Kristen’s stomach turns, even as she averts her eyes and ducks into hiding again. The Ratgrinders, armed to the teeth, slash and swing with fire behind their eyes, but they’re not precise, just powerful. Buddy seems frozen in place, and Kristen almost wants to yell at him, almost wants to spit, what is your god good for, then? They’re the enemy. They’re too far gone. The feeling of the rage is all around them, so intense it almost hurts, like standing too close to a fire. The Ratgrinders take sloppy swings with the force of a thousand suns behind them, and they can’t dodge them all.
The world is ending, again, and someone has to stop it, and maybe after– maybe when they do– she doesn’t know what. If they would just stop– but they don’t. So it’s up to them, again. It’s up to them, but it doesn’t feel like much of a choice. Ivy crashes to the floor, and it doesn’t feel good. It feels fucking terrifying.
Through the smoke and flames, her friends press forward, but they’re flagging, each of them burned and bloodied. Kristen bites all the way through her lip when Porter cracks hit after hit against Fig’s skull, clearly barely hanging onto her consciousness. Porter and the four Jaces throw swing after swing, and Mazey bellows in rage, her eyes glazing over red, and she watches Fabian scramble backwards, and Kipperlilly is still fucking missing, and Kristen has a bad, bad feeling.
Cass, just– please, Kristen finishes desperately. I have faith in you.
Gasping, Kristen ducks back beneath the floorboards, watching as Riz pops out of hiding to fire his gun–
and then, all of a sudden, a flash of blonde runs across her peripheral vision.
Kristen snaps her head towards it. She can hardly see anything through the shadows and flames, and she curses, breathing heavily and looking around– and then she catches it, among the blood and sulfur: a trace scent of lilac, coming from the same direction.
Kristen doesn’t know what she’s doing. She lowers her feet so instead of hovering, she’s darting across the small islands of rock, her footsteps heavy and uneven as she runs towards the general direction she thinks Kipperlilly could be in. She’s making no attempt to hide. Kristen stumbles forward, guideless into the darkness, trying to stop her from getting to Riz–
“Don’t come any closer,” says a voice out of the darkness.
Kristen’s breath catches as a small hand holding a dagger materializes a few feet away from her– and then as the rest of Kipperlilly Copperkettle steps out of the shadows.
Kipperlilly’s face is drenched in sweat and soot. Kristen swallows hard as she takes her in. Her button-up is covered in burn marks and blood stains, and her sweater vest has a huge, jagged tear down the middle. Most of her hair has fallen out of her ponytail, sticking to her face with sweat and blood as she breathes quick and shallow, brandishing her dagger at Kristen. Her eyes are like Kristen’s never seen before: wide and livid and desperate . Kristen blinks at her, clutching her staff in both hands out in front of her. For a moment, all she can think is that she looks in way over her head.
“Kipperlilly,” Kristen croaks, her throat raw from the smoke and heat. Kristen coughs, forcing her voice louder. “Kipperlilly!” she repeats, and watches her almost wince at the sound of her own name. Kristen chokes on smoke, looking desperately into her eyes for any sign of anything.
“What are you doing?” Kristen gasps. “Why do you want this?”
Kipperlilly’s nose flares. Even in the dim light, her eyes burn, flicking in the direction Riz ran. “Of course you don’t get it,” she spits.
“I don’t! What do you get if everybody dies?”
Kipperlilly screws her eyes shut in frustration. She’s swaying on her feet, her dagger still drawn as she practically pulses with rage.
“Why do you care, Kristen! There’s no need to start now! It’s not like you’ve ever cared about this school– about anything !”
Kristen feels her throat tighten in anger. “What the fuck do you mean?” Kipperlilly’s mouth opens, and Kristen presses forward, her voice high and insistent. “No, Kipperlilly, what do you mean? What do you think all of this is? Of course I care! I care so fucking much!” Kristen’s certain her eyes are wide, are distraught, as she screams into Kipperlilly’s face. It’s all coming together for her.
“I care about my friends! I care about my goddess! I care about this school, even though it’s screwed us over a million times!” Her heart itself feels raw as she sees flashes of her friends throughout the year, everything they’ve done just to get here. She hadn’t let herself admit, before: how mad it all made her. Here, as the world ends around her, she can admit. She’s pretty fucking mad. And yet– she thinks of them working every day of the summer, trying to save a world that never seemed to thank them for it– she thinks of Gorgug, bent over his textbooks. She thinks of Adaine sneaking in from her night shifts, Riz and his binders full of hundreds of pages trying to keep them together. She thinks Fig and Fabian greeting every single person at Seacaster Manor– Kristen thinks of herself, poring over ancient texts and smiling for pictures. Kristen blinks, and she can’t help it. She thinks of Kipperlilly. Her campaign posters and her presentations. Her research and her calendars and the sleepless nights that go into planning someone else’s apocalypse. Somehow, they all keep doing it, putting their heads down and going.
Destruction rages around them. Kristen thinks of Kipperlilly, giving Kristen butterflies every day for a month. Thinks of her burning with barely suppressed rage when Kristen signed up to run against her. Kipperlilly, teasing Kristen and then smiling up at her with her teeth. “And despite it all, even though I shouldn’t– I care about you, ” Kristen gasps. “I care about you, Kipperlilly. I care.”
Kipperlilly’s eyes are oceans, are drinking in smoke and flame and Kristen’s gaze. She takes a small, shuddering breath in. She seems stunned into silence, stuck with her dagger out in front of her.
In Kristen’s hands, her staff, completely spent of magic, glows with a soft purple, and she feels it all flood out of her. The fear. The rage. The regret. For a moment, all Kristen’s left with is exhaustion and a small, persistent doubt.
When Kristen speaks again, she’s not yelling. She can’t. “You think we’re not mad? Of course I’m mad,” she whispers. “I’m mad at you– at everything– but we’re not trying to destroy the world.”
Kipperlilly looks up at Kristen, and her eyes are pleading. “What else am I supposed to do?” Her voice is small against the chaos. “What do I with all this–”
Suddenly, Kipperlilly screams, scrubbing her own hands hard against her eyes. “I’m so angry! ” she spits, and Kristen watches, her eyes wide in horror, as her face screws up in pain, red light searing out from her closed eyes. “This is– I worked for this– it’s mine! ”
“This isn't fairness! Destroying everything isn't winning. It's just destruction." Kristen closes her eyes, the sounds of combat deafening. “You don’t have to do this."
Kipperlilly shivers, her eyes wild. “You don’t get– I can’t– I can’t stop it now!” Kristen makes a hesitant movement towards her, and Kipperlilly shakes her head back and forth, and Kristen sees it– the absolute panic in her eyes.
For a second, a flash of memory comes unbidden to Kristen’s mind: that very first day of school. She remembers fighting for their lives in the cafeteria, snarling gremlins made of creamed corn, the feeling of life slipping away from her– but that’s not what she’s thinking of. Instead, her mind replays a few moments before, when Gorgug went limp on the floor of the cafeteria. When everything had gone wrong, and it felt like there was absolutely nothing she could do.
“We can’t stop it,” Kipperlilly repeats, and her chest pulses with red light.
Slowly, Kristen lowers her staff to her side.
“You can.” Kristen feels tears spring up in her eyes. “You just need help.” Heart in her throat, Kristen takes a small step forward, and Kipperlilly trembles, but she doesn't back up. “Use it on him instead,” Kristen pleads, and she talks to the girl who held her hand in the dark in a parking lot. The girl who kissed her first, strange and hopeful on a kitchen counter. “I know you. I know you can,” Kristen whispers.
With a shuddering breath, the hand holding Kipperlilly’s dagger falls to her side. Then her face crumples.
“I chose it,” Kipperlilly whispers.
Suddenly, someone cries out in pain from above as a wave of energy ripples through the room. The entire gym shifts and buckles as it breaks down further. The jagged piece of floor they’re balancing on careens to one side, and Kristen reaches her hand out automatically, grabbing Kipperlilly’s wrist tightly as they both tumble to their hands and knees. Kipperlilly throws her other hand out to steady herself. She glances up towards the scene above them. There’s a flash of light as Oisin falls to his knees, blood spilling from his head and nose.
Kipperlilly gasps, Kristen’s hand still wrapped tightly around her wrist. Their eyes meet, crouched in the middle of the end of the world.
Kipperlilly blinks up at her, her mouth open in soft shock and panic, and then she shakes her head, her eyes screwing shut. “He said... I was wrong,” she chokes out, barely audible. “About everything . Kristen, I’m– I–” she seems to choke on her words, panic and shame welling up all over.
Kristen squeezes her hand hard, fire raining down from above. “Tell me later, okay? When we survive this.”
Kipperlilly nods, slowly, and Kristen bites her own tongue.
“You messed up, okay? This is– this is bad, Kipperlilly.” She grips her hand tightly between her own, and familiar brown eyes blink back at here. “But this doesn’t have to be the end. You deserve more than just anger.”
“I can’t control it anymore,” Kipperlilly whispers, and it seems like that’s the hardest part for her, as the world ends.
“You don’t have to,” Kristen breathes, and she’s guessing, she’s praying, she’s closing her eyes and running straight ahead. “Just…” Just what? Trust me? Fight it? Kristen exhales, focuses on the place where their skin connects. She doesn’t have the spell slots– Fuck it. She closes her eyes and tries to cast greater restoration .
It hits her as soon as she does: Cassandra’s presence is strong here, bubbling through the floorboards, the echo of her intertwined with every flame. Kristen feels it around her now, around the both of them, and Kipperlilly gasps as magic floods into her. The place where Kristen grips her wrist glows cool and purple. For a second, Kipperlilly’s chest flares bright red– and then it fades, mixing with the healing aura into a soft sunset orange.
Her eyes fly open, staring at Kristen.
Kristen swallows. “Uh. How do you feel?”
Kipperlilly blinks. She also seems to come to herself again, glancing around at the carnage and destruction. She looks back to Kristen.
“Mad,” she murmurs. Kipperlilly starts to stumble to her feet, her stupid little Mary Janes slipping against the rubble of the gym floor, and Kristen scrambles to climb after her, out from their partial cover up to the main floor of the gym.
Pausing as they reach the surface, fire raining from above, Kipperlilly turns to look at Kristen again, her eyes huge. She bites at her lip.
Thanks, Kipperlilly mouths.
“Yeah,” Kristen breathes.
And then Kipperlilly Copperkettle rises to her full height, all not-quite four feet of her, and pulls a dagger from her hip. She turns directly to Porter, who isn’t even looking at her as he winds back for another swing at Gorgug.
Kipperlilly’s face screws up. “Hey, ASSHOLE!” she yells at the top of her lungs.
Kristen watches as everyone, in that exact moment, turns their head to look at her, and they all see a blonde halfling girl in a pleated skirt and a ponytail hurl a dagger directly into a demigod’s eye. A shiver runs down Kristen’s spine.
“You did this to me!” Kipperlilly screams, incandescent. “FUCK YOU!”
For exactly a millisecond, it’s impressive how still it gets at the end of the world.
On the other side of the gym, Ruben’s mouth falls wide open, and Buddy looks impossibly confused. Kristen sees Fabian blink in astonishment. From her knees, spitting blood, Fig’s eyes go wide.
Porter’s hands fly to his face, bellowing out in pain as he wrenches the dagger from his eye, and thick, golden blood streams from the wound. His shoulders shake, heavy and erratic, and as he turns his attention away from Gorgug, it takes Kristen a second to realize that he’s laughing. Porter opens his mouth wide and laughs, a booming, throaty chuckle that seems to come from everywhere at once, the very pits opening up around them to echo it. Kristen watches Kipperlilly’s eyes fill with fear as Porter trains his gaze on her from twenty feet above.
“It’s a shame,” Porter croons in his deep, gravely voice. “But plans can change.”
As fast as a flash, his massive fist swings out and slams hard into Kipperlilly’s skull, a sickening crack resounding as she’s knocked to her knees. Kristen cries out, her hand flying to her mouth.
Porter snorts, his massive teeth gnashing. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
Kipperlilly’s mouth drips with blood. Slowly, she lifts her head again, and she turns not to Porter, but to the other side of the room. Heart pounding, Kristen watches as she locks eyes with Oisin, frozen in shock with his hands outstretched.
Something moves across Oisin’s face, mixed in with all the horror and the rage. Something else. He stares at Kipperlilly, and then at Porter, and back to Kipperlilly, all confusion and revelation, but he seems rendered helpless in fear, blinking back at her. All of the Ratgrinders do, momentarily unbreathing as the world shifts a few degrees to one side.
Kristen runs forward, digging frantically through her pockets. “Buddy!” She yells. Instinctively, he glances up, and then she tosses the bag full of revivify diamonds as hard as she can. Buddy looks stunned, but his hand flies up to snatch it out of the air. “Help her!” Kristen calls, motioning to where Ivy lays motionless on the floor.
From the corner of the eye, she sees Riz, half hidden across the gym. His eyes go huge .
Buddy blinks as he realizes what she’s saying, what she means. He glances back at Porter, at the gems in his hand– and then something must click for him, because he drops to his knees beside Ivy, his khakis getting soaked in soot and blood, and starts casting a spell.
Porter cries out in a deafening holler, and as he stomps forward, the whole building shakes. His eyes are pits, no longer laughing, as he reaches out a single long finger to point at Ruben. He flicks his head towards where Kipperlilly is crouched.
“Kill her,” he commands.
Something like a pulse passes through the gymnasium. Kipperlilly’s head jerks up in panic. For a second, nobody moves.
And then in almost the exact same moment, Gorgug winds back and slams his axe down into Porter’s side, Buddy finishes his spell, and Ivy jerks into consciousness, gasping hard, just in time to watch as Ruben throws his hand up, and out of his hands rockets a massive wave of spell energy, headed directly for Porter.
The pulsing wave collides with him, and Porter lets out a guttural cry, snarling in pain.
“Idiots!” he roars. “I’ll do it myself, then!” Crushing everything in his path, he advances again on Kipperlilly. Kristen’s heart slams against her ribs as Kipperlilly raises her head to see him begin to swing.
Like a flash of magic, Fig is there, running forward as fast as she can. Kristen chokes as Fig dives and crashes with her whole weight into Kipperlilly– and then, in the blink of an eye, they both vanish, as Fig dimension doors away, and Porter's fist slams into absolutely nothing.
Fig and Kipperlilly materialize beside Kristen, bloody and out of breath, and Kristen gasps in relief. Her eyes lock with Fig’s, gratitude and apology and hope flowing through them.
“Thank you,” she shouts, and Fig nods, her hair everywhere. Beside her, Kipperlilly pants for air, crawling to her feet.
“You’re so crazy!” Fig yells back, already climbing onto Gerard Neigh. “But I trust you.” With a final, frantic smile, she rushes back into the fray.
In the corner of her eye, Kristen can see Fabian laughing incredulously, and Gorgug shaking his head in disbelief. Ivy is running across the battlefield over to where Kipperlilly pants, and Buddy looks back to Kristen, his eyes crazy but certain. For a moment, adrenaline coursing through her, a stupid, massive grin comes over Kristen.
It all goes very quickly from there.
—
Four clones of a powerful sorcerer and a barbarian-paladin ascending to godhood make a formidable threat– almost impossible to beat, in the best of circumstances.
They’re no match for 12 adventurers working in tandem, though.
Everything starts to happen at once. The gymnasium is a blur of limbs and blade and spell energy flying around the battlefield as, all around Kristen, the tide begins to turn dramatically. Everywhere she looks, some new impossible thing is occurring.
From one side of the gym, Ruben slams on his guitar, knocking a Jace clone to his knees, and as he glances up and grins, Kristen immediately feels a rush of his inspiration flooding into her like cool water. Another Jace targets Mazey with a spell attack, whose wounds knit together almost instantly as Buddy reaches out and heals her, and in a matter of seconds Fabian is destroying the clone’s nose with a roundhouse to the face. Arrows entangled with vines soar from Ivy’s bow to Porter, ensnaring one of his hands and locking it into place, and Gorgug runs up from that side, digging hit after hit into him while Porter bellows. In the corner of Kristen’s eye, she watches as Mary Ann turns to face the Jace who’s shirt she was tugging on. With more expression than Kristen’s ever seen from her, she looks up at him in pure annoyance. And then she drops him in two swings of her greataxe.
"Yes! ” Fig cries, shooting a wink at Mary Anne, who turns to give her the tiniest grin.
From opposite sides of the gym, Adaine and Oisin are each surrounded by crackling blue energy, lightning and thunder pouring from their hands as they hurl spell after spell. One of the Jaces appears suddenly behind Oisin, brandishing his weapon, and Kristen throws her hand up in warning. But before she can even say anything, Adaine vanishes, reappearing beside Oisin in a perfect steelwind strike with the Sword of Sight directly through the sorcerer's gut. Just as fast, she teleports back to where she was, leaving Oisin blinking and blushing.
“Nice one,” Kristen yells as she rushes over to heal Fig.
“We’re so talking about this later!” She barely hears Adaine retort before she’s swallowed in wind and thunder again.
Porter is bellowing in rage, swinging his fists around almost erratically as the gym continues to come apart underneath him. He curses, trying desperately to land a hit on the blur of blades around his ankles. And there, ducking between his legs and behind his back, appearing from the shadows to pierce a knife or a bullet into him and then darting back into hiding, granting each other sneak attack every time, Kipperlilly and Riz are a tornado at Porter’s feet.
Kristen isn’t even sure exactly how it happens. The votes, someone is yelling.
Adaine’s eyes go wide, and she raises a hand to her forehead, and then Kristen feels a colossal wave of energy, pulsing up from all of them. She’s not sure what’s happening, but Porter’s face crumples as the temperature of the gym suddenly increases– there’s a whisper, a voice in the back of her head– Cassandra? She thinks. She’s reaching– She’s reaching–
—
After everything, the sprinklers come on.
Kristen comes to again in the rubble, halfway between the visiting bleachers and whatever’s left of the halfcourt line. She sits up, blinking, and as she rubs the back of her neck, her vision swims away from goddesses and justice and domains, to take in exactly where she is: the smoking ruins of her high school gymnasium.
The enchanted automatic sprinklers erupt in an absolutely unceremonious flood. Water flows over Kristen’s face, her head, her hair. A soft alarm whines, red lights that weren’t shattered flashing in time. It runs into her eyes and mouth, and she laughs aloud. Of course.
From her side, Adaine’s blonde head pops up from the rubble. Gasping, she stumbles to Kristen’s side and then throws her arms around her, warm and solid against Kristen. They’re laughing together, clothes starting to soak and cling to their bodies.
“We did it,” Adaine murmurs into her shoulder. “We did it.”
“Course we did,” Kristen whispers back. She can’t seem to stop laughing.
In her peripheral vision, she sees Mazey helping Fabian to his feet, Fig picking Riz up and spinning him around, Gorgug checking his goggles for cracks. Kristen’s heart swells to bursting, briefly overwhelmed by the cacophony of her friends running up to each other, distant sirens in the backyard, hugs and shouts and yells, the sound of having lived, again.
Something’s missing, Kristen’s thinking, and she cranes her neck around to look across the gym.
There, wiping water from their faces, the Ratgrinders are slowly helping each other up.
Ivy and Oisin have their arms around each other in a tight hug, and Ruben is softly touching his chest, looking up incredulously as he meets no crystal shard. Kristen barely has time to notice. She’s barreling through the debris, picking through rubble and fire as fast as she can, towards where a tiny blonde halfling is helping Mary Ann to her feet. Kristen’s heart pounds in her throat. They did it. Kipperlilly turns around just in time to see Kristen heading towards her. Her eyes go wide in surprise, face streaked with blood and soot.
And then Kristen’s arms are around her, and Kipperlilly melts into her, and her arms around Kristen’s neck, and they’re laughing, they’re laughing, she holds her and she smells like lilacs and she’s laughing–
From somewhere behind them, Fig clears her throat.
Kristen barely flushes. She sees Oisin and Ivy sharing a knowing look over her shoulder, as Kipperlilly’s hands slide down from around Kristen’s neck, back to her feet. When Kristen looks back, Fig has a soft smile on her face, Adaine’s eyes wide as she glances over at the Ratgrinders. Riz rubs the back of his neck, eyeing them like he doesn’t know whether to thank or fight them, and on the other side, the Ratgrinders don’t look so certain either.
Kristen swallows. There’s this moment where the twelve teenagers who barely saved the world are looking at each other, getting soaked in sprinkler water, and no one knows exactly where to look or what to say.
Finally, Kipperlilly clears her throat. She glances around, back towards her party, back to Kristen and then at the rest of the Bad Kids. There’s a full singed chunk missing from her hair as she glances down at her hands.
“We…” Kipperlilly pauses, chewing her lip like every word is painful. “I guess we owe you an apology,” she admits. Behind her, Oisin is flushed purple, and Buddy nods. Kristen watches Adaine’s eyes soften slightly, an amused smile start to form on Gorgug.
Then the Elmville police break down the door.
—
Kipperlilly’s on the bleachers, wrapped in one of those silver emergency blankets when Kristen finally walks up to her.
They’ve scrubbed the blood from her face and shut the sprinklers down, but she’s still soaking wet. They all are– the police had tried to do clean up and questioning, but once the Mordred Manor crew had arrived, and then Aguefort himself, Hawaiian shirt and all, they’d pretty much lost all authority.
Through the hugs and questions and chaos, she’d spotted Kipperlilly, sitting on the broken bleachers, giving a thousand yard stare into the cracked floor below. It hadn’t been hard for Kristen to slip away.
Kipperlilly jerks up as she sees Kristen approaching, straightening up and wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. For a second, they look at each other.
“Hey,” is how Kristen opens.
Ever so softly, Kipperlilly smiles.
“Hey.”
Kristen nudges the bleachers with her foot. It’s well past three in the morning at that point, pale moonlight filtering in through the holes in the ceiling. Kristen doesn’t know what she came here to say, exactly. “Some election night, huh?”
Kipperlilly scoffs lightly under her breath, shaking her head. Then she bites her lip, looking pensive. “I guess we never found out who won.”
Kristen feels herself flush. “Oh. We did, actually. Mazey counted.”
Kipperlilly’s eyes widen for half a second, and then she scoffs lightly, glancing down at her feet.
“Should I even ask?”
Kristen grins. “Probably not.”
Kipperlilly sighs, looking down into the gym again. It seems like something complicated is passing through her, hot and cold at once.
“Sorry,” Kristen says, just to say something.
Kipperlilly’s eyes narrow, and even here, pale and soaking wet in the weak morning light, she looks a little bit terrifying.
“No way.” She stares at Kristen again, shaking her head. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to win, and save the day, and be the hero. Too much. Tell me to fuck off, or something.” She stutters, glancing out at the gym. “I- I was awful, Kristen. So either say that, or– or I don’t know.”
Kristen blinks, rubbing the back of her neck. “No, yeah, I know. I’m just saying… sorry that your big plan to use me for information didn’t work.”
Kipperlilly furrows her brow. “I was never using you.”
Kristen swallows, her words suddenly failing her. They look at each other for a second, and Kristen remembers what she’s known the whole time, that she’s beautiful. That she’s formidable. That they’re the same age. Kipperlilly cracks a small grin, leaning forward. “If I was using you, maybe I would’ve actually won the election.”
The snort hits Kristen unexpectedly, and then she’s laughing for real. Both of them are, as Kipperlilly giggles, looking Kristen right in the eye, and Kristen grins back.
“I’m gonna be honest, Kipperlilly. I’m glad you didn’t win.”
Kipperlilly sniffs, rolling her eyes. “Yeah,” she sighs, like maybe, even after everything, there’s a part of her that doesn’t agree. She nods, though. “I guess. ”
Kristen grins, and she catches Kipperlilly’s eye again, her smile softening. “I’m still sorry, though,” she says, quieter. And she is. Sorry I was scared, she’s thinking. Sorry we were a secret. Sorry I didn’t talk to you, and said I hated you. Maybe Kipperlilly doesn’t deserve it, sharp and bitter and violent as she is. She almost definitely doesn’t. That’s okay. Kristen can give it anyway.
Kipperlilly’s lip trembles, glancing down at her hands. “Me too,” she breathes.
Kristen swallows. She extends her right hand out in front of her. Kipperlilly blinks back for a second, big and uncertain. Then she reaches out and takes Kristen’s hand, her grip hard as they shake on it. She looks up at Kristen, whose mouth is dry, and raises her eyebrows slightly.
“It was a good fight,” Kipperlilly whispers, their hands still connected between them.
A grin spreads over Kristen, small and then mountain-wide, and Kipperlilly mirrors it, smiling softly over the bleachers. “Yeah,” Kristen sighs. “It really was.”
The election. The end of the year. Graduation. There’s a flicker forming in the back of Kristen’s mind, and she’s pretty sure it’s a good one, but maybe it’s the near-death adrenaline talking.
Kristen stands up, facing where Kipperlilly sits on the bleachers. She’s still covered in bloodstains and soaking wet, trying unsuccessfully to wipe her hands off on her jeans, and Kipperlilly’s brow furrows, eyeing her suspiciously. Kristen clears her throat, trying semi-successfully to keep a straight face.
“Ahem. Kipperlilly Copperkettle,” she begins, in her best formal request voice. She blinks, steeling herself. “Do you want to go to prom with me?”
Kipperlilly’s mouth fully falls open. Her eyes are wide and disbelieving, looking up at Kristen like she’s fucking crazy.
“As friends,” Kristen adds halfheartedly.
Kipperlilly starts laughing. She’s fully doubled over for a second, shaking her head and snickering. She resurfaces, shaking her head, and she bites her lip, but it doesn’t hide the way she’s smiling, big and soft and genuine. Kristen just grins back, giddy like a kid, and Kipperlilly shakes her head slowly, narrowing her eyes at her.
“Kristen,” she says, pityingly. “Do you seriously think they’re still having prom after all this?”
Kristen can’t help it; she cracks up. She’s laughing doubled over in the ruins of the gym, and Kipperlilly laughs with her, at the absolute ridiculousness of it all, of the way that it went.
“It would’ve been fun, though,” Kristen says softly.
Kipperlilly smiles, and she nods twice. “Yeah. It would’ve been fun.
—
(It’s Aguefort. They hold prom that year in the ruined gym).
“Are you sure you don’t want to skip out?” Kristen leans over to whisper into Kipperlilly’s ear as a camera shutter flashes on the two of them. She poses in her suit jacket and tie, her arm positioned lightly around Kipperlilly’s back, who gains an extra couple of inches from a pair of chunky heels as she glances up at Kristen. Her deep blue dress and gold earrings flash in the fading sun.
To their left, Fig is pressing her lips against Ayda’s cheek, whose hair flares bright red as she giggles, and on the other side, Gorgug and Mary Ann stand, barely touching, in the most awkward prom pose of all time.
“No shot,” Kipperlilly murmurs back, smiling into the camera. “That fucker’s not taking this, too.”
Kristen raises her eyebrows, nodding. Fair enough.
“OK, now everyone together!” Wilma and Digby call in unison, overjoyed smiles on both of their faces partially obscured by the massive camera in front of them. Beside them, an older kobold couple coo and smile.
Sheepish grins on their faces and rolling their eyes a little, the others step up around them– Fabian looks on top of the world, guiding a beaming Mazey by the hand, and Riz grins in a slightly too-large suit jacket. Adaine, radiant in her pale blue dress, glances back at a blushing, awkward Oisin, who follows her into the frame, placing his hand gently on her shoulder.
“Smile!” Digby exclaims. He looks close to tears, and a small army of parents and guardians gather with their own crystals, trying to get a photo.
Kipperlilly glances over at Kristen, her cheeks dark red. “Is this what it’s always like?” she whispers.
Kristen glances out at where Gilear and Gorthalax clap each other on the back, Lydia and Ragh hoot and holler, and Aelwyn, over in one corner, tries to look nonchalant, though Kristen can tell she’s struggling to hold back tears of her own. She sighs. “Yeah, pretty much.”
Kipperlilly winces. She glances up at Kristen and smiles, a hint of mischief in her eyes. She reaches up, her hands settling on Kristen’s tie as she adjusts it slightly, fingers pulling the knot tight and even. Kristen swallows, her throat going dry. Kipperlilly hums. “There. Perfect.”
Kristen grins. “Thanks. Do you want to be my presidential tie coordinator? I think there’s a spot open in my cabinet.”
Kipperlilly narrows her eyes at her. “Too soon, Applebees,” she mutters, but the corner of her mouth betrays her as it curves up in a slight grin, sweet and lopside. Kristen snorts. Her heart is racing as she looks out into the camera, all her friends around her, alive and smiling– plus a few others.
It’s hard to believe, for a second. And then, after she thinks about it for a moment, it’s not so ridiculous after all. They saved the world. Again. Why wouldn’t this be the way it goes?
-
As the kids start to pile into vehicles to head out, Kristen overhears Sandra Lynn lean over to whisper in Jawbone’s ear, her eyes narrowed slightly.
“Don’t get me wrong– this is all very sweet, but weren’t like, half of these people actively trying to kill our kids a couple of weeks ago?”
Jawbone smiles, placing a comforting arm around Sandra Lynn’s shoulders. “It’s called a redemption arc, sweetie!”