who emma & geralt what fighting glorificus! where central park when first day of the plot! warnings swearing, ultra-violence status completed doc
Grodd the Gorilla had been trouble, but the kind to which the witcher was well accustomed. Between him and the slew of others battling the out-of-control mutant, it wouldn’t be long before he could deliver a blow that would subdue it long enough for someone else to cage the beast. He wouldn’t let anyone else kill it, not when the creature was acting against its own will. The only way Geralt’s hand could be forced would be if Yen or anyone else was in grave danger, and he’d pity the gorilla more if it were because of the former.
Somehow in the battle, however, he’d gotten separated from Yen. With so much going on, he was suddenly tackled by a grey, wrinkled man in a brown robe. Geralt easily shrugged him off and rose to his feet, sword extended at the unusual being. He did not recognize this one from the Continent either, but held his ground warily.
“Oh my gods, does he look like a tiny and incredibly squashable human GIRL to you?” Came a sassy voice from behind.
Geralt turned to see a woman in red, crimped blonde locks falling around her round face. She was wearing strange heels of some kind, they looked like one of the pairs Yen had brought back on her shopping spree with Damon. He squinted at her in confusion. He’d been mistaken for a lot of things before: giving a damn, caring too much, and enjoying the company of a certain bard, but a tiny human girl? That one was new.
The minion darted toward Geralt anyway, seemingly to get to the woman in red, but Geralt impaled him without so much as turning let alone batting an eye. She sighed like a petulant child, hands on her hips as she decided to add scoffing to her repertoire.
“I don’t have a whole lot of those left you know,” she huffed, marching toward Geralt and suddenly grabbing him by the throat to lift him up in the air, much to his own surprise. She was much, much stronger than she had appeared. “So, out with it, pasty boy. Where’s my key?”
“What the fuck,” he sputtered out, sword clamoring on the cement below as he gripped her wrist in an attempt to free himself. This was no good.
Gorillas. It was new, she’d admit that much.
She had planned to stay with the wizard, although he snapped off quickly when his green curse had no effect on Emma save for the misfortune of irritating her. The gorilla had been a distraction, as something had flown past Emma’s face while she made to follow. The only reason she’d joined those in Central Park was because she spotted Yennefer, holding something back while her friends were left without magical assistance.
Emma rolled her eyes -she was starting to care too much about these people and not enough about her goal. As she stomped through the grass, water and dew sticking to her leather boots, the Dark One spotted a petite blond with her hand around Yennefer’s rogue. Huh.
Poised eyebrow raised, Emma gave it another second before she raised a hand and blasted a bolt of magic into the woman, dislodging the woman from Geralt. As she finished crossing the distance, clearing her path with a flick of her hand at one of the brown robbed goblins attempting to charge at her, she stopped closer to Geralt.
“Friend of yours?”
Bewildered as he hit the ground, Geralt instinctively reached for the blade Solona had supplied and got back to his feet. Rubbing his bruised throat, he looked more impressed at the strength the woman had displayed once the encounter had sunk in. Glory got up on her hands and knees, scowling at the both of them. His impressed expression quickly soured. The look on her face spoke volumes.
“No,” he answered, slightly amused despite the added grit to his voice. “She made mention of a key.”
“You’ve gotten… dirt on my dress,” Glory was seething as she stood up and suddenly gasped. Her stilettos were covered in mud and one of the heels had snapped off in the process. She kicked off both shoes in a fury and began marching back over to them.
“She hardly looks pleased,” he commented, sword given an expert spin as he took up a defensive stance. “Her grip is strong. Be wary. Then again…” He side-eyed Emma with a smirk. “She ought to be more afraid of you.”
With that, he turned his back on the goddess and cleaved another minion straight through its torso. Perhaps Emma could be someone he found trustworthy after all. That would be pleasing to Yen. When her name crossed his mind, Geralt became alarmed. He couldn’t see her through the rain, and she wasn’t close enough for him to sense.
Another minion suffered an end impaled by his blade as he cursed, “Fuck.”
There was some kind of power about her, something that Emma could sense but couldn’t place. It wasn’t like magic, something else. And if she was strong enough to lift Geralt from his feet and get up from a blast of her magic, they should both be wary. “Many people should.” The problem was that the more Emma relied on being the Dark One, the further in she sunk, unable to see the light of her magic anymore.
A problem for another day.
Geralt dealt a blow to another of the goblin things, Emma intersecting Glory with a puff of smoke, sending her into the sky to drop, although the woman landed less than gracefully, she still landed well. She was about to heat her hand with flame when something grabbed at her hips. Clawing hands pulling at her leather, muttering jibberish about nothing at all. A palm to their forehead and Emma pushed them down, a sleep spell cast to leave them on the grass before she cast another to leave a bubble and halt the rain on them.
It did mean she missed Glory closing in this time, a strong punch to her chest throwing Emma head over heels into the grass, her tight bun coming loose in the landing.
“Shit,” he cursed as he turned in time to see Emma go flying. Moving as quickly as he could, he caught her fall as best he could. Just as Glory came rushing in for a crushing blow, he lifted his hand in the Aard sign and forced her back several steps. Swearing under his breath, he formed a second hastily, this one, Quen, created a shield around them both that barely endured Glory’s next round of wrath, but it bought him time.
Just as the Sign shattered around him, Geralt swung a mighty blow to Glory’s side and cast her away. The strength in the woman was more than he could sustain, but he’d be damned if he let this lady in red best him. Yen would never let him live it down, especially because he wouldn’t die in the process. When that thought occurred to Geralt, he decided to get a little bit more reckless.
Not before offering a hand to Emma to help her stand, he slashed at another grey goblin and tackled Glory down as she came charging back at them. His sword was knocked meters away from him, but he had a grip on her hands and struggled to pin her down. He could feel his bones begging to break from the pressure she pushed back with, but Geralt held firm in the hopes it would give Emma a magical opening.
Regaining her bearings, feeling the charge of Geralt’s power in the air, Emma pushed the loose strands of hair aside, knocking another goblin thing down as Geralt took Glory to task.
She was beyond powerful, something not from her world, possibly not from Geralt’s either, given the complexities in battling her. It was going to take more than a blast of magic or portals to battle her, more to put her down permanently for sure. The amount of energy it would take wasn’t something Emma could afford to summon or release, since it would devastate the entire park and everyone in it.
A battle cry from a minion was cut off as Emma clenched a hand and cut off its airway, tossing him over her shoulder as she sized up Glory, realising that Geralt wasn’t going to hold her back too long. They needed a better window of time to deal with her. Casting a variation of Shattered Sight with a Mirroring spell, Emma enveloped Glory in coiling mist that worked its way around her limbs and forced itself down her throat, pulling her back and down.
“That will not hold her,” It wouldn’t hold a Dark One, and Glory seemed more powerful than at least Rumplestiltskin. “We might need to come up with something else.” Pity he couldn’t ram that sword through her throat. “Any tricks up your sleeve?”
Rolling off Glory as Emma wove her magic around the hissing goddess, he got into a crouch and observed the struggling goddess. Emma was right, that spell wouldn’t hold. He could only guess the duration, given what little he knew of this scarlet antagonist. All he knew was that he resented her for separating him from Yen. Grateful for Emma’s help, however, he could concentrate on building a Sign around the spell cast.
Columns of violet erupted from the ground as a cage to house Glory. It was the strongest form he could manage, but without his alchemy kit was not as strong as it could have been, especially if he knew what sort of oil to make to better combat her. What the fuck was this woman even supposed to be, a demoness?
“That will fortify your spell,” he offered grimly, yanking his sword up suddenly and turning on his knee to impale another gray goblin of Glory’s. “It’s better suited for wraiths and ghouls, and I fear she’s neither of those things.”
Gratefully silenced by Emma’s magic, however, Glory could only struggle against her magical bonds. She was filled with a god-like determination that sparked an idea in Geralt. He stood and moved to Emma’s side, free hand raised to cast Aard if need be. “Have you knowledge of any god-killing magic or weapons?”
She definitely wasn’t a ghoul, they would be easily disposed of with Emma’s magic, darkness destroying the dark within them. There was too much power in Glory for her to be something lesser, instead she was quite clearly more.
“It’s called a nuke, and I think others might complain if we use one.” All these terms being thrown around. Dark Lord and God, Emma barely contained her eyeroll. Feeding into the egos of these parasites wasn’t her plan, but she couldn’t deny the power the woman had either, so she didn’t try to correct Geralt on what the woman might be. “Unless we can find something particularly destructive in a spell.” She was aware of a few nasty ones that Rumple and Nimue kept whispering at her, talk of skinning and disembodiment. She wasn’t so sure they’d do much more than be disgusting though.
“Can’t run her through with your pretty sword?”
“Not sure,” he answered honestly, examining Glory as she thrashed about. Whatever she was, whether a god, some sort of mutant, or whatever else this realm had to offer, she didn’t fall easily. He’d sooner fight a dragon than tackle her again, but that was a beggar’s problem. “Hasn’t taken so much as a bruise yet. Unnerving.”
Geralt neared the writhing goddess, her eyes narrowed to slits not enough to give him a chill. Striga’s had far more intimidating eyes and mouths than this one with painted lips and lids. Lifting his Sign, he braced the sword over his head and rammed it down toward Glory’s abdomen. The blade seemed to simply tear the fabric of her dress and slide along her skin, not at all piercing her. Geralt drew it back quickly, golden eyes wide.
“Hm.” That answered that question.
Hastily, he cast his Signs three more times in an abundance of caution. Layering the violet prison in that way would significantly slow her escape. Warily, he looked at Emma. “This will hold her for some time, I think, until a new solution can be discerned. Perhaps someone else knows of this woman and her origins.”
Well that was. Anticlimactic.
That wasn’t to say she was still unkillable - Geralt doing the same to Emma, after all, would have similar effects if in a different manner. Knowledge did seem to be their weak link here, discovering what her weaknesses were would hopefully lead to an answer to destroying her. All these villains and their weaknesses, limiting their destruction to just a single being or a far known amulet or whatever. “If we need another boy wonder to kill her, I’m opening a black hole.” Suck her in there and she can stay.
But if the bindings would contain her for now, there wasn’t much else to do with her. Her minions had scattered and there were pressing matters.
“I have a… catacomb, I can keep her in.” Her catacomb, her lair, her sanctum. Putting this woman in there left her with a sour taste in her mouth, but she could cope with it. “You should go find Yennefer, before she starts portaling all over again.”
“That will do,” he nodded, accepting the plan. Not having any expertise on who or what this woman was didn’t help, but he found himself able to trust Emma. Now he understood why Yen had done so already. While he didn’t trust her taste in men, himself included, it seemed the womenfolk she befriended were specially selected.
“I will check in later,” he gestured toward Glory in her prison that seemed to only enrage the hell goddess further. “On both of you.”
As he turned, he caught a glimpse of Yen running towards him and only one word escaped her as a swirl of a portal erupted in front of him. Ciri. Before he could even get to it, she was gone and he was swearing vehemently under his breath. He knew exactly what that meant and he couldn’t waste any time. Without looking back, he ran through the rain to get to the two most important lives in his charge.
Anything that got in his way would be cut down and trampled, no questions asked.