Wizard's Wish - (Kinda) Yandere SGE x reader

Chapter 73: Spies in the Stymph Forest

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By the time they made it to the outskirts of the Stymph Forest, the sun's shrinking glow was firmly in the east.
"Only a few hours until the sun sets," Tedros said nervously, his hand moving to Excalibur as if to make sure it was there. "Even Lance keeps looking at the sun like he knows we're doomed."
"You're on a nickname bias now?" Y/n teased. "I thought he was an 'ogre'."
Tedros looked at the other two who both smiled at him.
"It's not funny," he said, seeing the entrance to the Stymph Forest ahead. "There is no escape this time. The dark is coming, Y/n. This is The End for us. The real End–"
"I know." She squeezed his and Agatha's hands, still affected by Cinderella's story. "So let's try to hold on to every last bit of light we can."
He stared at her. "No you decided to be romantic? Now?"
Agatha smacked him behind the head. "Oh calm down," she said. "Look, Merlin has a plan, all right? He has to have a plan."

In front of them, the other pairs began to slow down as they approached the gates of the Stymph Forest. At the entrance stood two colossal elm trees, as tall as castle towers, with their trunks bowed towards each other and dead branches whittled into the shape of a bristling black swan, beak open, feathers beating, so lifelike in its impending attack that Y/n felt herself clutch Tedros and Agatha tighter as they crossed beneath it.
She shook off her fear. "I mean, it's Merlin we're talking about, the Merlin of legend and myth, who never fails Good in times of crisis–"
"Except when he deserts us for six days, forgets to recruit a real army, drags us straight into the School Master territory without weapons, and doesn't teach us a single fire spell to kill any of the two hundred zombies about to eat us."
Y/n swallowed.
"You shouldn't worry so much," Agatha said, trying to calm her girlfriend down. "I'm sure everything will be fine. Merlin will have some sort of ace up his sleeve and we'll win."

They couldn't see anything now, for the Stymph Forest was so dense with sky-high elms that it scrubbed out the last pinprick of sun. Y/n waited for someone to light a torch or a finger glow, but no one took the initiative, as it was less frightening to be in the dark than to see what was lurking in the dark. With no other light source, the twenty heroes folded in a tight hive behind the wizard, whose hat led the way with its glowing white stars.

The deeper they drew into the Stymph Forest, the more they began to smell the acrid smoke seeping from the bonfire in Gavaldon beyond the Woods. Instinctively, the younger members shielded their old mentors, remembering their duty to protect them and keep the shield over the Reader World intact. Anadil's rats spread out across Anadil's, Jack's, and Briar Rose's shoulders like bodyguards; Hester and Lancelot wheeled Hansel and Gretel through the pebbly dirt; Yuba stuck by the White Rabbit, whose night vision was quite acute; Dot and Red Ridning Hood hewed to Princess Uma, insisting a teacher of Animal Communication should know how to manage stymphs ("Stymphs aren't animals; they're beasts," Uma moaned); and Hort held out a rusty training sword, guarding Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.
Slowly their eyes drifted upwards, pinned to the trees and as they adjusted to the darkness, they began to make them out... bony, vulturous shadows, eerily still on the elm branches, not making a sound.
"They're watching us," Lancelot murmured.

Merlin stopped suddenly, causing a pileup behind him and an array of hissed curses and crushed toes. The wizard peered ahead.
"Gretel, why is wizard stopping–" Hansel started.
"Shhh!" Gretel retorted. "Listen..."
That's when Y/n heard it too. The low thunder of marching reverberating through the Forest.
Far away, pulses of bright green glow pierced the blackness like blinking stars... first a few... then a dozen... then hundreds, lighting up all at once before vanishing back to dark. With every second, the pulsing lights grew closer, marching the crescendo of footsteps– left, right, left, right– until Y/n wasn't sure whether it was the light following the march or the march following the light. As the flashes grew bigger, brighter, she honed in on the green detonations, like mini-fireworks, holding just long enough to illuminate the trees in the distance...
And the bodies coming towards them.