You've Got To Be Kitten Me - Prinxiety + OC [COMPLETED]

Chapter Twenty-Six

Namor moved across to the quivering anxious Side, kneeling down to his level. "Virgil, I need you to tell me where you went after our walk earlier," he said, trying to make sure he didn't freak out but understood this was urgent.

"I just walked back inside!" he said, looking at Roman fearfully. 

The dark prince winced at his actions, knowing that it would hurt the creative Side to see him do this. He reached out, cupping his face. "Hey, focus on me," he instructed him. "He's... he's not going to hurt you. I promise, but you have to tell me what happened."

"I don't know! I went back inside, and I heard a laugh, and then there was this yellow eye, and then everything went dark!" Virgil cried. "I can't remember much after that! Something about... a jar or something... I can't remember."

"Wait, a jar?" Roman interrupted, eyes widening as the vision flashed through his mind. The anxious Side look at him and nodded without meeting his eyes. "Was it glowing purple?"

He shook his head and flinched when the creative Side approached him. "Are you sure? I need to know if it was purple!" he said, making him back away fearfully. Namor quickly inserted himself between them.

"Roman, calm down, I think I know what he's talking about," he told him, looking down at Virgil on the stairs. He took a deep breath and began to explain. "You know how sometimes when you fall asleep in the Imagination, artifacts from your subconscious just, make themselves? Well, that's not exclusive to you if you remember correctly. I'm pretty sure Deceit found a way into my artifact room. There's a jar in there that removes a being's conscious from their body and traps it inside. Once their conscious has been removed, however used it can feed them whatever lies they want and they'll have no reason not to believe them. Deceit must have used it on him and told him to be scared of you as a way of hurting you."

The prince looked horrified but less freaked out about the situation. It made sense; he figured Deceit and Virgil had a history from his appearance in the Can Lying Be Good? video. Perhaps he was jealous of him for growing close to him and this was his way of punishing him. 

"How do we return his conscious to him?" he asked the dark prince.

"We have to break it," Namor said, offering Virgil a hand and pulling him to his feet. "Come on, we've got to go somewhere."

The anxious Side tilted his head curiously. "Where?"

He then remembered that part of the magic made him object to the idea of returning to normal; it was part of what made the jar a sinister object. He'd have to convince him that what they were doing wasn't about the jar. 

Namor smiled sweetly at him, lacing their fingers together as he brushed his cheek. "We're going to go on a little adventure," he told him excitedly. "Like earlier, when we walked through the garden? I'm going to show you around the castle! And then we're going to dance in the ballroom together, okay?"

"Okay!" Virgil gasped, grinning at the dark prince as they began walking at a quick pace, hand-in-hand.

Roman was right behind them, feeling strange. On one hand, seeing them like this made his chest feel oddly warm. On the other, jealousy and sadness coursed through him to see the anxious Side acting to lovingly toward someone else. 

The prince shook out his head. This wasn't the time to worry about that.

They followed Namor quickly to the artifact room, finding it empty with no trace of Deceit anywhere. "Where is that snake?" the creative Side muttered, looking around for him. He'd known better than to trust him, but that didn't mean he didn't still want to kick his ass for trying to trick him.

"It doesn't matter where he is, we need to get the jar," the dark prince said, moving around quickly around the room. His eyes landed on a cabinet that had a purple glow coming from within it. "There!"

Roman hurried over, opening the cabinet and grabbing the jar. It was pulsing with a purple glow. "It's Virgil's conscious," Namor breathed as he stared at the object in his hands. "Break it, you have to break it to let him out. I'll hold him still."

"What? No!" the anxious Side yelled as he grabbed his arms and forced him to stand still. "I don't trust him! It's going to hurt me!! Don't do it!"

There was hesitation in the prince's eyes. He looked unnerved by the response the idea of breaking the jar had brought from him. Namor met his eyes. "Don't listen to him," he said calmly. "It's not going to hurt him. The jar just makes the victim behave strangely so the spell is harder to break. It's okay, do it."

With determination, Roman took a deep breath and smashed the jar on the ground.