ixis | No Way Home

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No Way Home

He seeps in through the imperceptible seams around the crystal window. The oily purple smoke he currently inhabits the form of swirling in agitation around the second floor of his tower, unable to bring himself into cohesive physical form from sheer anger.

That anger manifests outwards when the form of air changes to that of fire. Ixis Naugus screams his fury and frustration, flames flowing over his room in waves, consuming everything in the room that isn't stone. Books, parchment, blankets all catch fire, collateral damage in the mage's supreme outrage.

But the flames soon weaken, gutter, die. Everything is scorched black all around him but he couldn't care less. He is left defeated, falling to his knees, his staff slipping from his hand and clattering to the ground.

There is no way home. His Mobius is gone. He doesn't know how, but the doctor's done it. Reality is rewritten and he is locked out of it. Trapped. Exiled.

His anger has dissipated with the flames and Ixis Naugus just slumps further to the floor in despair.

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It's times like these when Verity's really glad she has a fire extinguisher. (It's times like these she regrets living a life that has times like these.) The smell of the smoke upstairs didn't immediately rouse her to action; Naugus performs all kinds of experiments and she knows she's not welcome to investigate.

But the actual fire lighting up the stairwell gets her into gear, and she makes it upstairs just in time to be too late. She's keeping hold of the extinguisher just in case some spark flickers back into life, but mostly she's staring at the ruins. And Naugus.

Oh, gods. Please don't let him be hurt.

"Naugus...? What happened?"

Things are still burning, but the flames are at least self-contained. They can't spread far when so much surface area is made from stone and crystal. The smoke might get a little oppressive, however, given that there is no place for it to travel out of the room.

The mage himself seems unharmed, no sign of being singed or burnt. But his posture is still one of abject defeat.

"He's done it, Verity." He doesn't look up when he speaks, instead staring at the blackened floor in front of him. "He destroyed everything to be rid of me and everything and everyone else standing in his way."

She has a special hatred of seeing her friends on fire, so she is going to deal with those flames in short order. (She really needs to stop making friends with people who come home on fire. This is going on her to-do list.)

Then she kneels down next to him, looking him over more carefully this time. This buys her a little time to process what he's saying. His whole world is gone? Is that why he couldn't get home? She just manages to put the extinguisher down before she drops it.

"I'm so sorry." She holds out a hand to him. Now is not the time to upset him further with assumptions gone amiss. "Oh, Naugus, I'm sorry."

"I had...so much. I'd finally repaired my mind. I'd finally had my rightful throne within my grasp, democratically and lawfully. Everything was restored! I was free from the Zone of Silence! My ambitions, my home..."

His hand shakily takes hers.

"He erased it. He rewrote it. All that to be rid of me, the Quickster, everyone else who stood in his way. I-...I am in exile once more, Verity..."

She holds his hand in both of hers, listening sympathetically. She's had time to prepare for her loss, but him... it's so unfair. He doesn't deserve this.

"You're not alone, Naugus. I know that isn't much, but. I'm here."

She won't even abandon him for the him with a cool hat.

He laughs weakly, though he doesn't smile. "I suppose we're the same now, you and I. Jettisoned from lost worlds. Refugees.

"I'd begun to suspect. Too much was going wrong, trying to go back. Nothing but white, nothing at all. And the I had Viatorus enter the portal, after that woman, that Eiko, said that I may have been written out of my reality..."

Naugus finally turns his head to look at Verity properly, sadness and horror written plain on his face. "But it's gone. All of it undone. The madman, the absolute madman!" And coming from someone like Naugus, that's saying a lot.

There's a lot to worry about there. Too much to take in all at once. The death of a world, even one she barely knew about... and seeing him suffer the same fate. No wonder he set everything on fire.

"Viatorus? Is he okay?!" She'll get right back to comforting Naugus once she's sure nobody she knows has died today. Please let him be okay too.

"He's fine. Unharmed. I left him in the Nexus. He said he found nothing, absolutely nothing. Just the primordial stuff of a world reborn. Completely redone! Even I would not go so far as to-...!"

Naugus laughs again, the sound a little strained now, his claw lightly gripping his head.

It's a small comfort to know their friend is safe. And there's a small part of her that wonders what could be done in the shaping of that primordial stuff, but... better not to mention that idea to anyone.

"No, you wouldn't." She's certain of that. "Which is why you'll be able to survive this. You're right that we're both going through the same thing, and I'm right that we'll both make it through--together. You will survive this."

He closes his eyes.

"It was there. I had it. All of my greatest ambitions, right in my grasp. I only had to defeat the doctor, defend the city of New Mobotropolis and I would finally-..."

He slumps again.

"Where do I even go from here. The same, singular goal for years, and for what? For it to all culminate to this? I am to waste away in the Nexus for the rest of my natural days?"

Verity scoots forward, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and drawing him against her. Why slump when you've got someone to lean on?

"Waste away? Don't be absurd. You're going to thrive here, Naugus. It won't be the life you always wanted, no, but it can be a good one. A happy one. It won't be easy, and it's going to hurt like hell sometimes, but you're stronger than the grief and you're not alone."

"Forgive me if it takes some time for me to believe that. If you understood the years, the energy, the effort put into what I was trying to do back in Mobius, and knowing now that it's all gone..."

Flump. He's pretty big and heavy for being such a bulky, stocky guy, so brace yourself for leaning, Verity. He's gonna allow this in his moment of weakness.

"I don't think I ever took the full scope of what you are facing until this very moment. The magnitude never sunk in."

She's used to it. Loki was, shall we say, solidly built. The flop might knock out her breath, but she's neither unprepared nor complaining.

"It'll take time. That's okay." Please don't make any sudden movements, because that horn is awful close to her face now. She makes a small almost-laughing sound before she admits, "I don't think it's really sunk in for me yet either. I don't want to believe it. It's the first stage of grief. Shock and denial."

"I can't even swear that I'll do him in for this, because he's apparently undone himself along with everything else. What madness, what hubris...

"How did I end up here? Ejected to the Nexus when everything else was wiped clean? It doesn't make sense..."

"Maybe that's for the best. He's gone. You won't waste your life on him." She'll try rubbing his shoulder. Maybe he'll like that.

"I don't know. Sometimes things don't make sense. Maybe something wanted to save you. Maybe other Mobians will come later. Time here is funny."

He sighs. The rubbing feels nice.

"...I hope the flames didn't make it downstairs." Maybe he's changing the subject to give his mind a break from running over this gravity of his situation. Might as well worry about more immediate things, even if just for a moment.

Shock and denial. She's not going to push. "No, some of the stairwell is singed but nothing downstairs caught fire. There would have been a lot more swearing before I got up here if it had."

She never thought all those psych courses she took in college would prove to be so useful.

"You're going to have to get up first dear, you're too heavy for me to pick you up. And please don't tell Samus that, if she makes me wear any more weights during our workouts I think my arms will fall off."

"I wouldn't expect you to. I'm pure muscle and I'd like to see this Samus pull off picking me up herself." He chuckles weakly as he sits up, picking up his staff once more to use as leverage into standing. He still feels pretty ill. Maybe it's the smoke? A halfhearted wave of his staff and slats open high up on one wall, letting it escape outside.

"I'll be sure to tell her that." Verity'll be amused whatever happens, and obviously all her friends exist solely for her amusement. Aside from all these pesky taking care of them things she keeps doing.

Once he's up she stands as well, offering an arm. "You'll feel better downstairs. I'll make you some tea. And when you're feeling better, maybe we could go visit the Chao? They always cheer me up."

"Tea? Yes, tea sounds fine. And the fresh air should do me good, shouldn't it?" He'll pretend like he still doesn't care for the chao, even though he's grown a bit warmer than indifferent since they've shown up. And now they're one of his only reminders of home, that the world he came from existed at some point.

Once downstairs, Naugus sits heavily in the kitchen, his tail curling tightly around one of the legs of his seat.

"Fresh air would do us both good, after the smoke." Had she thought the chao might be a comforting reminder? Maybe she's sneakier than people give her credit for. Surely she's just trying to get him out of the smoke.

She puts the kettle on once he's sitting, then comes over with one of those muffins he likes so much. If he ends up pulling it all the crumbs, she won't say anything. This time. She's much too busy making tea to notice.

He does pick at it gingerly, just tearing off small chunks and nibbling. It all tastes like clay. Not for any reason indicating Verity is a bad cook, of course. Food just has lost its luster in the wake of this outrage and shock.

"I must seem so pathetic. I've never-...The last time anything like this happened, it was when I learned the doctor blocked my way home from the Zone of Silence. And when I heard Uma was dead."

If his magic is anything like Loki's, he's going to need the fuel even if it really were clay. She's trying her best to take care of him, but she'd readily admit to not really knowing what he needs.

"Grief is never pathetic." She brings her teacup over and wraps her arms around his shoulders. "You're not pathetic. And whatever you're feeling is safe with me. We're friends, I'm not going to bail on you."

"You are too kind to me." He gives her a small, sad smile, the expression seeming almost out of place on the normally manically grinning mage. "Do keep this all to yourself. At least my-...my outburst. And this." He waves indicating, well, his current state? No one needs to know the sorcerer supreme got so sad over his world being inaccessible to him probably forever.

"I don't think there's such a thing as 'too kind'." Her smile is warmer and accompanied by a squeeze. "Your secrets are safe with me. Don't worry." If he were really worried about that he would never have let her in his tower, but sometimes it's nice to be reassured.

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HAHA Nertz to Hat!Naugus.

And his sister too!

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