ptahrrific | Fake News: Castle Down, chapter 5

Title: Castle Down (5/6)
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Jon/c!Stephen, Rob, Ed, Larry/John-O, O'Reilly, Kristen
Warnings: More violence; magical abuse; excess sparkles.
Disclaimer: Two.

For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. (Alas.)

And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.

Pay no attention to the slapdash derivative nature of the warfare in this part. (Hopefully you weren't reading this for the military strategy in the first place.)

Decorative capitals, as ever, come from Daily Drop Cap. List of chapters here.

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istory does not have much to say about the stage that came next.

For Captain Stewart and the Army, there is admittedly not a lot to say. The march was long and monotonous, punctuated by a couple of interchangeable skirmishes. Well, there was that one really cool thing Ed did with a flaming sword and a dire bear, but that incident has been rehashed ad nauseam elsewhere. (Mostly, it must be said, by Ed himself.)

Nor does history mention how exactly it was that Stewart managed to get past the guard at what was, for a secret base, an awfully ostentatious fortress. The popular joke is that, once he had been knocked off his unicorn in the battle outside, he was so small that nobody bothered to attack him.

Another version of the story has it that Stewart landed beside a hole in the ground, too large to be that of an animal. While spells flew and swords clashed over his head, a hissing, gravelly voice whispered something from beneath him, and he crawled after the sound.

History does not speculate as to what that whisper might have been. History doesn't like to deal in guesswork.

But, off the record, it might have been "Allons-y!"

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t would, Jon reflected, have been much easier to get around this place if every single corridor hadn't been gently spinning.

There was no question that the crystal, containing the spell which would now and forever be known as Fred, was somewhere in this building. For one thing, the wizards had more or less stopped sleeping the closer they got to it. For another, the sapphire on his ring had settled into a soft but constant glow.

Trying not to make himself a blindingly obvious target, Jon had dropped the ring into a dark pocket, where it clinked gently against the string of rubies that had been lying there since Stephen left them on his floor.

He ran into two guards along the way (one with a faintly ridiculous-looking bow tie, another with strikingly narrow eyes), and dispatched each one with a few rapid strokes.

Instead of boosting his confidence, this only set him thinking about Stephen again. How had a slave gotten better combat training than actual soldiers? Had he been indentured as a punishment for some military infraction? Or, more plausibly, it was just a built-in defense against theft. A person made an expensive possession; it was nice if you didn't have to pay for a guard dog too.

Jon stepped through another gateway, and found himself bathed in soft blue light.

The massive crystal of saffer jutted out of the ground to twice Jon's height. It wasn't so much a jewel as a column, a towering spire whose facets threw rich blues all around the slowly turning room of stone and iron.

So central was the crystal that for a moment Jon forgot to check whether there was anyone else in the room.

There was. But only one man. And, yeah, he was the face on the ace in every soldier's deck of cards, but that didn't mean Jon couldn't take him in a fair fight.

Who was he kidding? That was exactly what it meant.

Jon was all set to backtrack, and find a sneakier way to do this, when the other man turned away from the crystal. Only a brief jump of the eyebrows betrayed his surprise as his gaze fell on Jon.

Well, there was nothing to do now but go all in. Stepping forward, Jon kicked the door closed behind him and unsheathed his sword. "I know what you're doing," he declared. "And I'm here to stop you."

"Oh, I doubt it," said the other man, with a precise if somewhat scratchy accent. "But, just in case...pet?" He gave the order in Vulpin: "My sword."

A second figure appeared from the other side of the crystal, carrying a long blade, and Jon gaped as several things fell rapidly into place.

"O'Reilly? You're Papa Bear?"

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p on the plain that hugged the base of the fortress, the Vulpine troops were starting to fall back, when the bellow of a horn rang over the hills.

"Oh, come on!" exclaimed Corddry. He was back-to-back with Helms, and had to shout over the clashing of their respective swords. "When did we say they were allowed to bring reinforcements?"

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omething was very, very wrong.

This close to Fred, even Jon's head was buzzing a little, so it took him a second to pinpoint what else was going on. Then it hit like another surprise knee to the gut.

Stephen wasn't there.

Oh, his body was standing next to Commander O'Reilly, unmistakeably his from the toes to the tips of his mismatched ears. It even knew how to fetch and carry. But Stephen, with all the radiant waves and surges of emotion that poured forth from him at every step, was nowhere to be found.

The empty shell handed O'Reilly his sword, then stood obediently at his side, head down.

"So you're the one who found him!" exclaimed the Commander, with what could almost have been good cheer. "I should thank you. From what he told me, you kept him in great working order, and hardly used him at all!"

Jon hissed a particularly virulent curse. "What did you do to him?"

O'Reilly snorted. "Come on, Jon, I thought you said you knew what we were doing! Isn't it obvious? We used this little wonder," and here he waved broadly at the crystal, "to take out his soul!"

All the time Jon had spent trying to psych himself up for this possibility, and he might as well not have given it a second thought for all the good it did. He stared in shock and terror at the column, the bluntness of the Commander's dismissal ringing in his ears.

Over the slope of one of the facets appeared the head and shoulders of John Oliver.

While Jon was still frozen with surprize, the wizard waved his hand in an easily recognizable gesture. Keep him talking.

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istory is pretty clear on how John Oliver — sorry, Featherwick — got inside. (There was an invisibility cloak involved.)

He had neglected to explain the plan to his partner, which led to the other wizard suffering inordinate amounts of distress while he was out of contact. History is much too classy give the details of the argument they had over this, much less the makeup sex that came afterwards.

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o you have any idea what you've done?"

"Do you?" countered O'Reilly. "Come on, Stewart, even a military man like yourself should know basic magical theory. Spells go in gems, and the crystalline structure keeps them stable and efficient. Souls are theoretically much more powerful, but they come in people, human heart is fickle, blah blah blah. All we're doing is cutting out the middleman."

"I'm not talking about magical theory," snapped Jon. "I'm talking about Stephen."

"What kind of soldier are you?" exclaimed the commander. "This is a matter of national security! Vulpis is harnessing the kind of power that you'll never even touch, and all because you're afraid of getting your hands a little dirty. You should be worried for your country, not getting your panties in a knot because somebody else's pet had to be sacrificed along the way."

"He's not just a 'pet'!" Jon's hand massaged the hilt of his sword. "Do you realize how much he trusted you? That man followed a complete stranger into a foreign town because he thought you had sent me. He tried to do everything I asked him, even when it was completely impossible — did you even know he needs glasses? Did he lose them on the way, or did you take them? Every time something good happened, he gave the credit to your good judgment. Every time he smiled at me, it was you he was really impressed with. And the second he found out he wasn't following your orders, he risked his life to get back to you. How do you have the balls to betray someone after that?"

O'Reilly's eyebrows flew towards the remnants of his hairline. "I don't believe it. You got attached to him. In fact, it almost sounds like you're jeal—"

"NOW!" shouted Oliver.

With a deafening crack, a split appeared in the heavy stone of the ceiling — Jon yanked the string of rubies from his pocket and snapped it across the room — the shell of Stephen, reflexes still intact, leaped to deflect the missile — O'Reilly stared in horror at the ceiling before starting to run — a fine granite powder interspersed with flakes and chips began to shower down — the first chunk of rock fell, smashing into the saffer crystal with a terrific ring — and as boulder-sized pieces of ceiling tumbled down with shattering force, Jon dropped his sword and ran.

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on dashed around the corridor outside the still-turning room, finding Oliver just in time to duck under the spreading cover of his shield spell. The destruction radiated outwards around them, alarm stones flashing frantically as the walls they were set in crumbled.

In spite of himself, Jon hoped some of the guards had brought their own shields.

The disorienting buzzing in the back of his head skipped a few beats before fizzling out entirely, but he kept his attention on Oliver. Only when the wizard's unconscious cringe had started to ease up did they start inching forward, Oliver shifting the remains of the wall aside as they struggled through it.

Stephen lay on the floor, the string of protection spells hooked around one finger, every slab and chip and grain of rock that fell towards him deflected by a dome of flickering ruby light.

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risten Schaal had seen a sight that made her heart leap, dark shapes small but majestic as they burst from the earth.

She shouted the news as loudly as she could, waving her arms; if the others couldn't see her, they could hear, and took up the cry. It echoed across the plain, bringing hope to every ear that had been on the verge of giving up the battle for lost:

"The mole-men are coming!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

southerngaelic.livejournal.com

.....Doctor?! 8D

STEPHEN!!! D8

Awesome!!

ptahrrific

Mole-men! =3

Thank you!

elincubus.livejournal.com

You combined a Tolkien reference with a John Hodgman reference. I think I might love you.

Also this chapter made for a great break in my studying schedule. Now back to work!

:D

Oh, studying. Good luck with that!

sarcasticsra

Grrr, Billo.

I think the parts about history have to be my favorites. I laughed out loud at History is much too classy give the details of the argument they had over this, much less the makeup sex that came afterwards.

This story is such fun.