Big Bang Editing Story [Day 125]
I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story years ago, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag ‘proofread stories.’ I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.
My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50 Part 51 Part 52 Part 53 Part 54 Part 55 Part 56 Part 57
I have been sick and I'm very tired, but I will work on the epilogue today for a bit at least!
Chapter 58 (Patton)
If Patton hadn’t already been looking, he probably wouldn’t have had any idea what happened.
Everything had been fine. Virgil had been sitting cross legged, idly watching the conclusion of the game they’d been playing when his posture had suddenly changed. Patton had looked over at him only to see an expression on his face he didn’t recognize, but it didn’t seem good.
“What?” Patton had asked, but the question didn’t seem to register to Virgil.
Logan had glanced up confused and also noticed Virgil’s face. He’d just opened his mouth to also ask what was going on when chaos descended.
Virgil was suddenly moving, crashing into King Thomas who hadn’t even looked up to see something was wrong at that point. Patton realized after the fact that Virgil had swiped up the board of the game they’d been playing as he jumped over it, the pieces previously stacked on it scattering all over the blanket. There were three thumps as some things hit the thick board, imbedding themselves into the surface.
When Virgil discarded the board in favor of the picnic basket, Patton saw there were small darts in it oozing a dark black liquid. The parts of the board they touched were dissolving, the grass under the new holes beginning to wilt rapidly.
Logan seemed to notice the oozing liquid the same moment Patton did and was quicker to realize what it was. He grabbed Patton’s arm and yanked him away from the board so hard he almost dislocated Patton’s shoulder, not that Patton was too worried about that. He scrambled away from it when he realized what it must be himself.
He could hear the sound of glassware smashing above them. Logan and Patton had rolled off the blanket in their quest to get away from the smoldering, melting board and apparently Virgil had pulled the picnic blanket fully over the king at some point.
Virgil himself was now gone from where he’d been the last time Patton had looked and it took him a moment to figure out where the boy had gone. The person who had been shooting poisoned darts at them had been drawn out of the wooded area they’d been hiding in by Virgil’s attacks.
They were cloaked in dark green from head to toe, explaining why they’d been difficult to spot when they were in the woods. Whoever they were, they were significantly larger than Virgil, possibly an actual adult or almost adult assassin, but they were also clearly a long distant fighter. They had not been expecting resistance let alone resistance in the form of a so quick he was almost a blur fellow assassin.
They had a bow strapped to their back, but they hadn’t had a chance to get it. Instead, they were trying to fight Virgil off with an arrow they’d managed to draw from their quiver. Virgil, meanwhile was lunging at them with a broken piece of plate in one hand and the picnic basket in the other.
Virgil dodged out of the way of the arrow striking towards his arm, though Patton didn’t think it was because he was afraid of getting scratched by an arrow, but because it may also be poisoned tipped.
Virgil was distracted by dodging for long enough that the older assassin managed to hit him in the face with the arm not holding the arrow.
He went down, but he took the older assassin with him, sweeping their legs out from under them. Patton hadn’t noticed (his mind working too slow for how fast they were moving) but they were on a slight incline. They went rolling in a tangle of arms and legs towards the edge of the cliff and skidded to a stop only a few feet away.
Virgil ended up on top, his piece of broken plate in his hands. He moved to slash it across the other assassin’s throat and managed to draw blood, but the assassin’s fist came out to shove at Virgil’s chest at just the right moment, causing the strike to veer off course and slice across the assassin’s cheek instead.
Virgil jerked to the side to avoid a second strike to the chest and went back for another slash. The other assassin rolled to the side as he did and the plate only managed to nick their ear. The point of the motion hadn’t been to dodge, however. They were lunging for the arrow they’d dropped a few feet away while they’d rolled. They grabbed it with their right hand and in the same motion stabbed back behind them towards Virgil.
Virgil rolled to avoid the hit, already slashing up with his plate as the assassin turned back towards him.
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He didn’t hit them this time but his swipe managed to stop them from stabbing him when they tried again. They shoved themselves back to avoid Virgil’s swing, putting a bit of distance between them. Both of them managed to make it to their feet during the momentary reprieve, but both also stayed crouched, eyeing each other.
They both lunged towards each other at the same time. The assassin went for a stab to Virgil’s neck with the arrow, but Virgil was already ducking down. This time, he wasn’t going for a kill shot. He grabbed the assassin’s wrist and at the same time drove his piece of plate into the assassin’s arm, slicing down from the elbow to wrist. The assassin spoke for the first time, cursing in a language Patton didn’t recognize as they were forced to drop their arrow.
Virgil took a moment to kick the arrow away from the assassin and it ended up falling off the cliff.
However, this pause gave the assassin enough time to regroup. Despite their arm bleeding profusely, they still decided to use it to backhand Virgil across the face viciously, leaving a long line of their own blood across his face.
Virgil lunged back forward, but the assassin was able to get a leg between them, kicking Virgil squarely in the chest and sending him flying back a few feet parallel to the cliff’s edge.
The assassin went to grab their bow and another arrow from the quiver still strapped to their shoulder.
Virgil, however, apparently went for another weapon too and he was much faster with a knife than any archer. A knife appeared in his hand, having been strapped to his ankle and was embedded into the assassin’s chest before they could even full remove an arrow from their quiver.
The assassin promptly burst into flames, fire catching their clothes (and from the smell of it their skin) ablaze. Panicked and dying, they stumbled two steps to the side. They stepped directly off the cliff.
There was a second of silence. They heard the sound of the body hitting the ground far below and then the flap of wings and screeching as birds below fled from the startling sound (and possible soon to be forest fire).
…
“Uh, Virgil?” King Thomas said. He had managed to get the blanket off his head at some point. When, Patton didn’t know, but seeing any of it was probably enough.
Oopsie.
Chapter 59 (Logan)
Logan and Patton had been useless during the fight, but that may have been for the best. Considering the skill differential when it came to fighting (and that differential had never been as clear as it was in this moment), that was probably for the best. They likely would have just gotten in the way.
The moment Logan’s father spoke, however, they both jumped into action.
They both knew their jobs in a situation like this. Patton pushed himself up to his feet ungracefully and all but sprinted over towards Virgil. Logan, on the other hand stood to face his father, putting himself very purposefully between the man who had no idea what was going on yet and the boy who was two seconds away from remembering what was going on.
“I can explain,” Logan said.
His father was still sitting on the ground. “You can explain,” he said slowly, “how Virgil just threw an assassin off a cliff.”
Logan thought pointing out that Virgil hadn’t thrown anyone off a cliff and instead had set them on fire with a magical knife causing them to walk off a cliff, would not be useful in this moment. He glanced back briefly towards where Virgil and Patton were standing and then turned back to his father. “Yes.”
“And what would that explanation be?”
Before even starting to speak, Logan found himself making large dramatic ‘explaining hand gestures’ that he’d thought he’d long since trained himself out of. When he was younger and in trouble, he always used to give himself away as guilty by being overly expressive with his hands (and arms).
“So,” Logan said. He was still not able to stop the hand motions. “Virgil was an assassin. He came here to kill you last fall, but he accidently went to the wrong room in the royal wing. Patton and I were having a slumber party and caught him in the act. Then we reformed him and now he doesn’t kill people anymore.” He paused and glanced back, remembering the body that had just toppled off the cliff. “Er, uh, he doesn’t kill people who haven’t shot poisoned darts at people recently anymore?”
“What?”
“Look,” Logan said. “You’re going to have to tell him you’re not going to execute him soon. Patton can only keep him from bolting for so long.”
“Execute him?” his father asked.
“Well, he was a Mocnejsi assassin sent to kill you,” Logan said.
“Virgil is a Mocnejsi assassin,” his father repeated as though to confirm he’d heard him right.
Logan had thought the Mocnejsi was implied. “He was,” Logan confirmed.
“Why does that make more sense than any other explanation I’ve come up with for him?” his father asked while pinching his brow. Logan took that as rhetorical. Then, his father looked at him again. “He’s 14.”
“Yes,” Logan said, “I’m also pretty sure this is the first person he’s actually killed while not under a blood compulsion, so you really need to tell him he’s not going to be executed.”
His father seemed to actually absorb Logan’s request this time. He finally looked over Logan’s shoulder at Virgil, concern crossing his face at what he saw. “Right.”
He moved to step around Logan then, and Logan let him. Logan turned to watch him slowly approach Patton and Virgil, his hands out in a placating manner. He stopped a few feet away.
“Hey,” his father said. “That was a bit scary, huh?” Virgil looked at him, eyes wide and darting around like they did when he was looking for an escape. There wasn’t much of one being so close to the edge of the cliff.
Logan would worry he’d contemplate throwing himself off of it in a bid to escape if Patton wasn’t clutching him to prevent that. “You did a good job.”
That seemed to give Virgil pause, his eyes focusing on father. “Good job?” he asked.
“Yes, well,” father said with a small smile, “judging by what those darts are doing to the grass and how far we are from any supplies for counter potions, I think you blocking them probably saved my life. So, I think a good job is in order.”
Virgil did not respond verbally, though he tilted his head like he did when he was thinking through the steps of a potion.
His posture changed enough that Patton released him cautiously, taking a step away.
“But,” Virgil said. “I’m an assassin.”
“Yes,” Father said. “I could tell by how that fight just went.”
Virgil shifted his weight. “I came here to kill you.”
His father spread his arms wide. “Yet, here I am,” he pointed out. “You’ve had me alone multiple times including once in a secret room possibly no one would have ever found. Plus, you saved me today. I think that more than makes up for the intentions you had months ago.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to send me to prison?” Virgil asked. “Or execute me?”
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“No, of course not,” his father said.
Virgil eyed him, still slightly warry.
“I promise, Virgil, you’re fine.”
“Dad wouldn’t lie,” Logan interjected. Virgil looked over at him and then back at Father. He nodded slowly.
“Good,” Father said. “Now can we get a bit further back from the edge?” He glanced at Patton. “You too, Patton.”
Virgil and Patton both stepped towards him, and he herded them far away from the edge until they were at the edge of the surrounding forest. Logan followed as well.
“Can I touch your face?” Father asked once they were sufficiently away from the cliffs.
Virgil nodded and father pulled out a handkerchief. He carefully wiped the blood off Virgil’s face the best he could (most of it was not Virgil’s) and inspected the boy’s split lip and already bruising eye.
“Is your chest alright?” Father asked.
Virgil nodded. “Yeah.”
Father considered him. “Enough to ride back to the castle.”
“It wasn’t that bad of a hit,” Virgil insisted.
Father studied him for a moment longer. “I’ll choose to believe you for now,” he said. “We should get back to the castle as soon as possible just in case this is not an isolated attack.”
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“We don’t work in teams,” Virgil informed them. “They worry we’d get emotionally attached and not complete our missions.”
“I can understand why they would say something like that,” Father said, letting just a bit of his scorn come through, “but still, we should be on our way.”
With that, he put an arm on Virgil’s back to guide him back towards where they’d left the horses.
“Huh,” Logan said to Patton as they began to walk behind them. “I thought we’d be in more trouble for all of this.”
His father paused at overhearing that, turning to look at them over his shoulder briefly.
“Ah,” said Logan with a grimace. “I see.”
“It’s been nice being your friend all these years Logan,” Patton said solemnly. “Too bad we’re both going to be locked in our rooms for the rest of our lives.”
“Until your 50s with good behavior,” Father informed them blandly.
That was… probably fair. They did allow an assassin to freely roam the castle for months without telling anyone. The fact that his father was now watching that assassin like a hawk to make sure he wasn’t more injured than he was saying, did not change that fact.
Logan couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.
Epilogue
“Do you think they’ll light your trees on fire this year?” an amused (but slightly concerned) voice asked from behind Jeffers. Jeffers ran a finger over the empty thumb of his slightly dirty gardening gloves while watching the two boys. They were currently leaning over an unlit lantern and various “supplies.” In truth, he’d stopped his own work to watch the two boys out of that very concern.
“Virgil helped me fertilize that tree a week ago,” Jeffers replied. “So, I’d hope he has some caution.”
“Virgil likes fire though,” Thomas pointed out.
Jeffers sighed. “That he does.” He tilted his head towards Thomas. “You did confiscate the fire knife again after last week, yes?”
“I did,” Thomas confirmed, “but that means very little. Even burying that thing with a corpse did not dissuade him.”
As he spoke, a sudden spark of light flew from where the boys were working. A whining sound and then pop sounded as the spark exploded into 10 pieces, raining down colorful light. Luckily, they burned up before hitting the ground (or the tree).
“Boys, if you set anything on fire, you will be grounded from the festival,” Thomas called in a booming voice. Both boys jumped. Jeffers imagined Logan hadn’t even known he was there. (Virgil certainly did, but he still jumped. “For the second year in a row in Logan’s case.”
“They’re not flammable!” was the claim from Logan.
“I don’t believe you,” Thomas called back.
The boys ignored this, turning back to their experiment.
“We should have kept them grounded,” Thomas muttered. Despite Thomas’s original decision to ground Patton and Logan until their 50s (and Helen’s push to keep them grounded until Thomas, Helen, and Jeffers himself were all dead and couldn’t enforce it anymore), the boys had only been grounded for two months after Thomas had found out the truth of Virgil’s origins. That did, however, mean that Patton and Logan had been grounded from most of the lantern festival the year before.
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Logan, at least, seemed to be trying to make up for lost time this year (explosively). Jeffers did worry about where Patton was slightly, but honestly Patton without Logan or Virgil tended to be much less destructive in his hijinx. The worst he was probably doing was stealing sweets out from under Helen’s nose. Which was why both Jeffers and Thomas were currently here watching these two.
There were more sparks from the boy’s experiment. The grass caught fire at their feet. Virgil hastily stomped it out.
“I’ll watch them if you want to get food to bribe Virgil away,” Jeffers offered.