A Path to a Different Happy Ending (Flower Husbands Empires Fic)

Chapter Ten: Fallout

Lizzie and Joel stepped out onto the balcony of the Prisma Palace and knew something was wrong.

"Joel. The far out edges of the ocean. It looks... It's orange. Why is it orange?" Lizzie was gripping her husband's hand very tightly.

Joel shaded his eyes with his hand. "It looks like lava. Why would it be lava? Is someone pranking you? Did you bother someone recently?"

"No... But someone took the crystal... Do you think someone broke it and this is Xornoth's doing?" Lizzie glanced at her husband, panic in her eyes.

"Lizzie. Xornoth's not real. It can't be him." Joel said.

Lizzie's fear was replaced by annoyance. "Joel. I - I can't. He's real. He probably did this."

"I really don't know why everyone believes-"

Lizzie groaned, interrupting Joel.

~*~

Where was it?

Sausage rifled through every drawer in his tower. He knew he put it here... But where was it? Did someone take it? After searching the entirety of the dark tower, Sausage had to admit it. The Xornoth crystal was gone. Joey had probably taken it. He had been in love with Xornoth, and was possessed again. Sausage had seen him wearing the dark crown.

He took off towards the edge of Mythland, in the direction of the Lost Empire. As he was running (His elytra was missing, probably in a random barrel somewhere), he tripped on something. He looked back at it, and his stomach dropped. It was a corruption tentacle. A small one, sure, but it was still there, meaning Xornoth was out of the crystal, and out of his control.

Crud.

~*~

Rarran was watching the sunrise, hoping things were going well for the rest of those who could prove their innocence in the crystal thing. The sun tinted the sand red, and it was beautiful.

Rarran found the sunrise over the sand dunes to be calming. It always happened, and was always the same, except maybe the position of the clouds, in such tumultuous time for him. His king's disappearance, the crystal's disappearance... It was enough to have to deal with searching for Pix, and now he had to deal with someone stealing the crystal that contained one of the other emperors' demon brother? Not fair. As soon as Pix was back, he was going to get a job as a normal librarian. Nothing more. Just a librarian. That would be nice.

The sand was still red. He'd been there awhile, just thinking, and the sand was still red. It wasn't usually red at this point... He knelt down and picked up some of the sand. It was red. He tilted it in his hand so the sunrise wouldn't make it look any different. It was still red...

More chaos? Why did Pix have to choose now to leave?

~*~

Jimmy had had another dream. Last Life... Lizzie trapped his house, and he went red. And Grian killed him. That was how he died.

He got up and stepped outside of his house and did not like what he saw. His cod statue - the one Pix made him, first as a salmon as a joke - was wrapped in a tentacle made of corruption.

"Are you having a bubble bath?"

~*~

"Count fWhip."

fWhip pulled the goggles off his face and turned away from his current project in the forge. "Yeah?"

The salmon messenger that had entered the room pulled out a piece of paper and read the message off of it. "There is a strange red growth on the edges of town. Would you like to investigate?"

"Yeah, sure. I'm not too busy here."

fWhip cleaned up and headed to the edge of Eastvale, where he found something he had never wanted to see again.

He crushed the red-with-orange-spots mushroom in his hand, staring at the patch of red on the grass. "Corruption." He growled.

~*~

Katherine liked to visit the Spring as often as possible, just in case something crazy came up that it could warn her about. That was what she was doing today. She headed to the book and barrel in the corner to check for messages. Surprisingly, there was one.

Guardian,

It's beginning. He's back. The dark Stag God's champion. The demon.

Xornoth.

~*~

Pearl watched as the corruption slowly spread around Xornoth's feet in a red, blood-like stain.

"Oh, this was too easy. The moment I managed to force a little crack in that weak little prison, I was able to manipulate the world. A little extra violence in Rivendell, a touch of temptation to get Joey to take the crown back, and I had you, dear brother, distracted enough that Sausage could be manipulated into grabbing the crystal, and I could get Joey to take it from him. Hm." Xornoth turned to Gem, addressing her instead of Scott. "I don't know why you thought that prison could really contain me, little wizard. It was weak, breakable. And now, your world is mine." He smiled, mouth stretching unnaturally wide. "You should run now."

Joey lunged to attack them, and Pearl stepped forward to black him as Gem started yelling.

"We have a dragon! You are weak! We can beat you!" She cried.

"That little child? It won't be a threat to me for at least a year, and by then, I'll have killed it."

Joey was attacking furiously, and Pearl didn't want to hurt him, so she ran, the others following her lead.

~*~

The soil was dead. Pearl was kneeling in a patch, rubbing bone meal into the soil, but it wasn't doing anything. Nothing was going to grow here, even though she had diligently scrubbed away the red corruption.

It was slowly spreading, too. Her fields were going to die. This was bad.

~*~

Gem flew back to the Crystal Cliffs and immediately saw what was wrong. One of her towers had been corrupted, red fungus crawling up its sides. She did a thorough search of her empire to make sure nothing else had happened, and took check on the little ender dragon.

"Hey there, little guy." She said, picking up the dragon and putting it on her hat for safekeeping. "You're gonna stay here for a while, okay? Just till this is all over, one way or another."

~*~

Scott landed on the top of his grand hall. He shaded his eyes and looked for any corruption. Ah. The aesthetic bits around his Nether portal had expanded. Love that for him. He really shouldn't have left that there after Xornoth's first defeat, but it looked nice and he didn't think Xornoth would come back...

He sighed and went to the church to ask Aeor for whatever help he could give. 

Post Writing (like the day before this posts): ooo big things happened, didn't realise we were this far already. 

Anyways! I've just finished the outline for the story after the next one (like, I'm posting my stories in order of A Path to a Different Happy Ending, something that you don't know much about called Not My Pyre, and then the Watcher and the Wizard and I'm talking about the Watcher and the Wizard). Originally, I was thinking  twenty chapters, maybe more if need be. It's thirty. And usually when I write my stories out, they end up even longer! Just wanted to share that. Thanks for reading my story!