Who: Lina Inverse, Naga the Serpent & Commander Shepard What: Finding the Frozen King of the North and contributing to climate change, woops When: Today Where: THE ARCTIC~ Rating/Warnings: S for sass Status: Complete!
“I feel cold just by looking outside,” whine-mumbled the shortest one of the bunch, dressed in fleece-lined clothing and sturdy boots able to withstand the wonders of nature. Curled up in one of the seats in the cockpit (where someone named EDI used to sit, apparently), Lina was staring out the enforced glass and out into the sheets of white, a wintry canvas with towering glaciers and a hint of frosty blue underneath ice. They had gear specifically for temperatures in the negatives, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. Nuh-uh. Nope. “Think we’ll get accused of participating in global warming?”
The Frozen King of the North. That was their destination - probably one of the strangest bleed overs to ever happen aside the Giga Slave’s complete unraveling. Spending some ‘quality time’ with the Lord of Nightmares had revealed its existence here, and the talismans had been used to hone the exact location. Lei Magnus had created them, and it was technically Lei Magnus that they were searching for. One of the greatest sages of her and Naga’s world, born with one of the seven pieces of Shabranigdo, woken up during the War of Monster’s Fall, sealed in ice by the Aqualord, blahblahblah. “He’s not able to attack us, but he’ll know we’re here - we just wanna make sure we bury the bastard, where no one can find him.” In the depths of the deep dark ocean, where not even sunlight could penetrate.
“I don’t see why we can’t just shoot him out a torpedo tube into the sun,” Shepard offered. She had the Normandy on cruise control, which was generally for their safety. The ship started to slow as they got to their destination. The Kodiak was already warmed up in the launch bay, waiting for them. Shepard had stowed some weapons in the landing craft, but she was just wearing her armor. It was temperature controlled. And damn sexy.
Naga was bundled up about as much as Lina was. She towered over both of them (over Shepard less so), with her arms folded. She wasn’t saying much. She wasn’t even making any digs at Lina.
Silence was odd, from Naga. Usually she was oooooooooh-ho-ho-hoing about something, like a drunk Santa Claus in stripper clothes or whatever. “A possibility, depending on how big of a magical ice cub he’s in,” Lina sighed. All four talismans were equipped and were lit a bright crimson - resonating with Shabranigdo’s energy, with a variation of a tracking spell she conjured up for this purpose alone. So far, so good.
Stirring from the chair, she uncurled herself and climbed out with a little stumble (pins and needles foot, ow). “I’m gonna bundle up,” she announced, nudging Naga. “We’re better off finding him on foot when we’re in general vicinity anyway.”
It was too cold for stripper clothing, even if she’d briefly entertained pulling on her dream outfit. She glanced at Lina and nodded. “You’re going to look like a little kid bundled up to go sledding.”
Shepard laughed. “Come on, lets go down to the bay, we’ll go the rest of the way in the Kodiak. It’ll be less obvious that way.” She didn’t completely know what they were dealing with, and she didn’t want to risk the ship.
Bundled up like a - “Oh, shut up,” Lina snarled, pinching the sorceress-in-arms. She was well into her mid-twenties, about a digit shy of entering that late-twenties phase, that peaches n’ cream complexion was a thing of envy for those who seemed to age quick but what the fuck. Can the kiddy jokes stop??
Nah. They never did. Really, she was convinced it was one of those things that carried over from the dreams. Everyone’s relentless comments about her chest, or height. Grrrrrr.
Anyway, she pulled out the gear they brought on the ship and started pulling it on. Gloves, a thick coat that swallowed her up. “Sounds good to me! Pretty cool, being on a spaceship. It’s like the genres of sci-fi and fantasy are mixing into one really weird moment.”
Lina was still short. Especially compared to Naga and honestly, Naga was never going to let her get over it. It was one of the few things (the others being Susan and Sara) that she could lord over Lina with. She reached over and ruffled Lina’s hair, grinning like an innocent woman, which Naga? Not innocent in the slightest. At least whatever cloud had been over her head had dissipated.
“To counter that, my space-girlfriend was basically a blue space wizard, one of my friends was a blue space paladin. We had … I guess a Krogan would be some kind of orc or something.” She rubbed her shoulder and then rolled her arm, before leading them to the elevator and down to the Kodiak. Once they were safely inside, Shepard said. “I hope you took those anti-nausea pills I gave you.”
Commander Shepard, looking out for her victims. Er. The other people riding with her when she drove anything.
Something of a keep that up and I’ma kick you grumble was directed to Naga, all while she fixed that newly disheveled hair but not like it’d matter. It was gonna be tucked away under the hood, and now she looked like some sort of hilarious midget-eskimo but fuck the cold.
“Anti nausea meds,” Lina blinked at the token balloon-breasted woman, stepping into the mini-spaceship thing (she wanted one of these!) and sat. “You think she’s serious about that?” Clearly, no one had prepped her on Shepard’s sterling driving capabilities. Garrus probably left that part out on purpose for his own amusement.
Trolls. Trolls everywhere.
The Kodiak dropped out of the Normandy like rock in a pond, and really they should be glad Shepard hadn’t loaded up the Mako, because then there would be ground impact and bouncing and driving up snowdrifts and no one wants that. Still, the Kodiak flight was anything but gentle, and there appeared to be a snowstorm blowing in right into their path.
Naga gripped her seatbelt. “Tell me the tracking spell is not going to lead us into that?”
Oh, what the everloving fuck. This was why Shepard piped up with the pills, didn’t she? The bitch was serious. She was actually serious! Lina hadn’t buckled in but she felt it appropriate to do so now, especially at the sight of what looked like a tsunami of snow headed their way. Or technically, them heading into it, because that’s exactly where the talismans were vibrating towards - she felt that pull, the lull of darkness, a siren of the blackest kind of magic hailing from their world.
So that look she had given Naga was absolutely dreadful. “Yeah,” she winced, grabbing something to cling to, and peeked over at Shepard. “But, hey - look at it this way. We’re more likely to die from the ride there than Shabranigdo attacking us himself, so…”
Basically, if they survived this (plus Shepard’s navigating), they had this in the bag.
“Pummel through it, Shep.” A brief glance at the amplifiers shining red; they were beginning to pulsate, just a smidge. “I’ll let you know when to drop.”
"Of course we're going that way." Naga muttered under her breath, casting a spell to ease both of their stomachs as Shepard punched it and the Kodiak blasted into the storm.
"Steve would have enjoyed this," she mused. "He always liked a flying challenge." She'd had the two best pilots in the galaxy on her ship.
“Bet Steve knew how to fly this baby pretty well, too,” she laughed. Nervously, mind you, even gave Naga one of those oh my god what the hell did I get us into looks. Sometimes they could make the edges and angles of glaciers but for the most part, she couldn’t tell what was up or down. It caused a fuckton of turbulence, but the faster they flew and neared their target, the more the talismans pulsed. Like a heartbeat, thumpthump.
It wasn’t until they reached the tail end of the blizzard they’d endured (if it weren’t for Naga, she would have barfed every color of the rainbow all over the interior of this thing) that they stopped. It was misty, a swirl of snowflakes whipping about, the absence of heat sharp against any exposed skin once they stepped out.
They had settled between a canyon of ice that went straight for miles and miles - and even sky high for just as much. A blanket of snow was a cushion from the frozen water beneath them. Lina’s nose became rosy pink the moment the doors of the Kodiak hissed open.
“Soooo...can we discuss an alternate route on our way back? Maybe? A little bit??”
Once, maybe twice, the Kodiak clipped some ice, but the damage was minimal. Shepard was having a harder and harder time trying to control the shuttle, even with heavy computer assistance. The landing was rough, and Shepard leaned back in her seat. She needed to find a pilot… She really, really needed to find a pilot.
She secured her helmet before lowering the hatch, and jumped out first. Armed with a heavy shotgun and her favorite pulse rifle, she surveyed the area before signaling the others.
The hatch closed behind Naga and she ignited a ball of flame in her hand in a futile attempt to warm up. “I second that.”
“We’ll take a nice long auto-piloted route back to the Normandy,” Shepard assured them, her voice modulated by her helmet. She was the warmest of them - the armor was designed for space exposure, after all.
She kicked one heel down on the ice, as though it wasn’t thick enough to cover a tall building. “Which way, Lina?”
Auto-piloted route to the Normandy sounded fan-fucking-tastic, and Lina snorted a chuckle (with a bit of an amused side-eye at Shep’s direction). “I think this is as close as the talismans are gonna take us,” she sighed, pulling up part of the hood over her mouth to keep some of the chill at bay. The spell was at its peak, and she whispered break under her breath to cancel it out. “He’s somewhere, around here. We can look the old fashioned way, or…”
Scarlet irises flickered with an idea. Or...
“Lei Magnus wasn’t sealed by just regular ice. The Aqualord has him trapped for good; it’s not going to melt by natural fire or magical fire. I’m guessing it’s the kind of thing that either repels magic or absorbs it.” This particular sliver of Ruby Eye was bound for a thousand years in an icy stasis. Not even a demonlord like Hellmaster could free him.
The thought was, at the very least, comforting.
Lina brrrred a bit, rocking on her heels of her feet to her toes. “Basically, what I’m saying is this: we rip this place apart with flames, and the ice that stands is the ice that he’s in. But try not to go too crazy. I wanna see him for myself, before we do bury him somewhere.”
Dangerous curiosity, perhaps, but it was part of their history, hers and Naga’s. Not to mention her particular background in sorcery was steeped in monster lore; the dark lords, the demons, the source of black magic. It was a chance of a lifetime to actually see one of the biggest players of a war that set the tone for the next millennia before they, you know, dropped him to the bottom of this Earth.
Shepard could get that. Wanting to see a thing before burying it. She sometimes wished she'd been the one to put down the Illusive Man. But if she ever found a Reaper. Or Collectors. She'd want to make sure they were wiped out, every last trace.
Her hand glowed blue. "What about concussive force? Any chance of shattering the ice and freeing him?"
Naga, for her part, rubbed her hands together. "Finally. Something worth doing." That didn't burn down bars. She was even sober for this, which was pretty impressive all things considered.
“Not a chance,” Lina responded, nodding confidently. “He’s stuck where he is. It’d take something beyond him to free him.” A power beyond his, the only power that was said to eradicate even just a piece of this dark lord from the world. A chill ran down her spine but it wasn’t from the arctic cold. “Just be careful, and keep a close eye. Whatever you throw at him is either going to do nothing, or -”
Gloved hands opened, palm facing the sky, wisps of orange-red energy gathered from the ether and took form into this physical plane. “Or it sucks it up and throws it back at us. Nothing’s ever as easy as they seem, so expect that kind of backlash.” Caution was necessary. They’d make this entire area of ice rumble, crash, break apart and crack - things had the potentially of getting a bit messy. Be destructive, but be smart about it.
If such a method even existed, and Lina really wasn’t the best person to preach that, either. Neither was Naga. And neither was Shepard, probably, but it was what it was.
"Lets bury the fucker. Before something beyond him decides to show up and wake him up." Shepard shuddered to think about how bad a god indoctrinated by a Reaper could be. It was a possibility she had to entertain. She punched her fist into her hand then punched a block of ice. A crack ran up it for a hundred meters, and then it cracked in half.
"Flare lance!" A bolt of fire shot past Shepard's head. Naga's spell disappeared into the newly created crack. The ice shifted and groaned, and both sides of the chasm started to collapse violently.
And so it begins. Lina lobbed the ball of fiery energy up, and it split into arrow-like flames, a good dozen. The collapse brought gust and fallen snow, and she made sure to unleash the projectile fire into several different directions before the onslaught of physical coldness turning a bit mushy became a problem. “Flare Arrow!”
The temperature was harsh on her lungs. Harsh in general, despite the thermal gear and the heated spells flying about. The chaos crashing down made her conjure levitation, lifting her body from the ground and hovering above to survey what was damaged and what wasn’t - a challenging thing to do, with terrain like this. Her eyes squinted through the snow, and her feet settled on a new jagged ledge created by Shepard’s fist.
“Another round,” she called out. “Maybe--”
“You don’t need to look too hard,” chuckled a voice, smooth and taunting. "I’m right behind you.”
If she could literally shit bricks at this very moment, it would have happened. It wasn’t a voice that boomed and echoed through the frozen walls, it wasn’t a sound that bounced off its frigid surroundings. It was something the three of them heard, in their heads. Lina whipped around, face to face with nothing but cloudy ice. “Welp,” she swallowed, as if that’d do away with the nerves. “That’s a plot twist. Hey, guys? Come up here.”
Shepard uttered a curse though would have made Aria T'lok blush. She turned slowly, unslinging her rifle and pointing it at, well nothing in particular.
"Easy enough for you," she quipped.
Naga rolled her eyes, and levitated both of them into the air. Outwardly, she looked calm, inwardly... well she wasn't calm but she was feeling suicidal enough to not particularly mind dying right now. "Is that what I think it was?"
Hah. Oh, yeah, sorry, Shep! Naga had brought her in tow, and she spared them a glance before using her sleeve to kind of just…clean the surface of crystallized water, to get a clearer view of what was inside. It was after several swipes she could make the form of a silhouette; a man with well-tailored robes, the garbs of a sage, lengthy hair, and -
Eyes, red, glowing as bright as her talismans had been. It was the clearest thing they could make out, and Lina felt her stomach sink. Her dreamself had faced Shabranigdo, dormant inside the blind, closed eyes of Rezo the Red Priest - she’d seen him destroy the sage, take form to something gargantuan and demonic, and after pulling an idea right from her ass, he was destroyed and they all survived.
Lei Magnus - Shabranigdo, whoever - couldn’t hurt them, not from his prison, but the fact that he could communicate was…
Curious.
“It’s exactly it,” she confirmed Naga. “Telepathy isn’t a very common skill from where we come from, but combine one of the legendary sages with a piece of our dark lord and the strangest things tend to happen.” Still, she had to take a minute to actually appreciate the sight before her. A piece of history from a world she dreamt made flesh in this reality, though after the appearance of the Lord of Nightmares into this world, it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibilities.
A stray thought occurred to Naga. What if they could learn from him? What kind of power could he give them. Enough to save people in the future? So that Lina wouldn't have to sacrifice herself again? So that no one had to sacrifice themselves, and no one had to grieve and be angry and sad all at the same time. She pressed her palm against the ice.
"I could remotely fire the Normandy's main cannon," Shepard offered.
“Maybe,” she whispered, finally peeling her eyes from the man trapped in ice to the tallest of the three. Naga had been eerily silent, even before they ventured out of the Normandy. Something was up. “What do you think? You and I blast this place like old times, or we let an alien spaceship do it?”
It wasn’t often they cut loose to full power. Full power meant destruction, mayhem, both specialized in the offensive type of sorcery. Definitions of battlemages. Lina had only cast a Dragon Slave once before and admittedly it was something she’d been easy to do - it was a force, not fire, and it was almost poetic to sink a part of Shabranigdo with his own energy.
”It was easy to determine this world isn’t ours, and I’ve not a clue what a Normandy is.” His voice echoed in the walls of their minds, and he sounded like a man. Almost normal, but she could detect that underlying passenger - a second voice, quiet, behind his words. Only because she’d experienced it for herself once upon a time. ”You know who I am. You must know I’m no harm to you, like this.”
"Why not both?" Naga suggested, seeming to visibly shake herself. "I've never gone full throttle here." She wasn't even sure what her power level even was - unlike Ms. Destructo she didn't leave whole towns leveled in her wake, but by that same measure she'd never really done the magical equivalent of a nuclear bomb. She didn't know the spell, but she knew one or two that might help.
"That cannon could probably take out the US Pacific Fleet in one shot." There wasn't much Shepard could compare to a cruiser from her dreams, in terms of armor. But that would probably be an effective description. "Between the three of us we should be able to level this whole area."
”So quick, to get rid of me,” hummed the Frozen King of the North, a sound close to a gravelly sort of chuckle. Lina thought it a tad condescending, but what to expect, from a seventh of Ruby Eye Shabranigdo? The real thing. Not the human she’d done away with almost a year ago. ”You’ve a well of knowledge within me, from a world you are just beginning to understand. But you’re willing to throw the potential all away, even knowing I can do you no harm. Seems like a waste, but I won’t stop you. I cannot, even if I wanted to.”
Seeing him through the layers of iced water was blurry, but if he could move, even tilt that mouth the slightest, Lina knew he’d look as smug as he sounded. Those ruby-colored eyes stared back at them, unblinking, and she sandwiched herself between the vertically gifted ladies. “Smooth talker, hm?” A cocky sneer of her own. His presence was unnerving, but she’d made jokes in his face before. She’d do it again. “As tempting as your ‘knowledge is power’ speech is, we’ll pass.”
Their methods of doing away with him sounded good. She eyed Naga, a wordless right? to translate.
But what if he’s right, Naga wanted to ask. She caught Lina’s eye and couldn’t quite hide the conflict on hers. She nodded her head, and sighed. “This world has a saying. Power corrupts. We’ll pass.”
“I want a nuke.” Shepard said, suddenly. “I just really want one. It could be handy against Reapers, or things like you. They’re the most powerful weapons we have. One could make a dragon slave look like a pop gun. I really, really want one. But they have side effects. They make survivors sick. They poison the land and water and air for centuries. They’re a weapon of last resort. So I’m never going to have a nuke, because it’s not worth it. And ice cube here is a nuke.”
Oh, Lina noticed the odd glint in Naga’s baby blues but had then been mildly distracted by Shepard’s interesting use of the nuke metaphor. Well, alriiiiiiighty, then. Not that they technically needed brainstorm on this decision; it was made long before they discovered his hiding spot.
“That was very flattering,” he replied. Sarcasm wasn’t above some kind of otherworldly being of utter darkness, how fucking quaint. ”I wish you the best of like finding me, should you ever need the assistance. If I’ve crossed over, who knows what else from our world. But I’m sure you two are more than capable of handling it.” He knew the tallest and the shortest were cut from the same kind of magic he was familiar with. If his words would hit anyone, it’d be them.
Instead, the bittiest one shrugged. “We’ll wing it.” An elbow nudge to both women, sniffling (the cold was bothering her nose), and she glanced up to the pale sky. “Naga and I can go airborne. Shep, you wanna get to the ship and ready the guns? I wanna make sure when this thing sinks, it sinks hard.”
"Either Garrus is going to be pissed he missed this, or he's going to be really happy that the guns will need calibrating." Shepard waved a hand, then slid down the slope and ran for the Kodiak.
"Now would be a good time to teach me the Dragon Slave," Naga suggested. And that hadn't even come from an entirely selfish part of her.
Oh, geez. That was a thought. “Your sister asked me the exact thing once upon a dream,” Lina smirked. It’d be hilarious to put her through the same ringer; a hysterical set of unrelated activities for the shits and giggles. Amelia somehow fell for it - would Naga?
Probably.
“It’s not something you can learn on a whim, I’ll tell you that. It’d be poetic to blast him with his own energy, but…” Lina blinked those impish eyes up at her, lashes batted even through the fierce arctic winds. “We’ve combined spells before. Made them bigger. We’ll summon up damn good fireballs, take our time to mold ‘em - and we can shoot ‘em off. Even more than that. It seems like you’ve got something to vent about. You’ve botched your liver enough, so…”
Levitation was murmured under her breath, and up she went. “Better take this to your advantage, balloon tits. It’s not often we get to cut loose together. Old time’s sake?”
Naga would be too stubborn to give up, so she'd probably fall for it. She'd also probably be a lot more destructively pissed if she didn't get to learn it, though.
She balled her right hand into a fist, following Lina up into the air. "I've just been..." Energy flared angrily around her. Useless. Pointless. Her dreams had fizzled out into a hell of being trapped in a suit and it had left her so bitterly disappointed that she didn't have the words for it. Having her arch-nemesis as one of her only friends, and then Lina dying.
It hadn't really helped. Useless, pointless. She laughed, but even her trademarked 'Ohhohohoho!' lacked it's usually flair. "Angry."
But maybe this was making her feel better. “So lets, hah, blow our loads together.”
Blow our lo-- Lina’s brows flared in disbelief, amusement, and then from just being plain grossed out she’d worded it that way. Naga had been tense - it was something she noticed ever since the Lord of Nightmares so kindly kicked her out of the Sea of Chaos and back into this world, and she...wasn’t entirely sure what the cause was.
Though to dissect the woes and feelings of Naga the White Serpent was something she needed to do probably intoxicated. The pain in the ass was one of her people, though. She didn’t have Gourry, or Amelia, or Zelgadis, but she had someone to relate to from this other world. It was better than being alone.
From up above, they could still make out those beady dots of bright red. His eyes, so noticeable even through the sheets of cold. He was watching them. Still smug as ever, she could feel it.
“Alrighty, partner.” Lina cleared her throat and shut her eyes calmly for a second. Winds picked up, but the lacked the feeling cutting icicles - it was hot, burning, the summoning of shamanistic fire from the other plane. It brewed, swirled, orange and red, flames licking the cold. It took from between her hands as she nurtured it, gave it that extra boost of power. “Let’s do this before Shepard beats us to the first shot. Ready?”
"We'd never hear the end of it," Naga agreed. She brought her hands together. Mold a fireball, build it's strength, draw upon most of her magic to make the most perfect, precise and hot fireball she's ever made. It actually made her sweat. "Okay tater tot."
Ugh, really? “Can’t promise the next one won’t be aimed at you, blimp tits,” she retorted, mostly in good humor. The peak was reached - even given a boost by the Demon Blood Talismans created by the sage himself - and after a signaled nod, Lina let the hell in her hands run free. Like loose cannons these two, and soon everything around them shifted, collapsed, melted and quaked from the impact.
Sorry, climate change.
The sound was terrifying. A sheet of ice the size of Manhattan shifted and groaned. The heat was so great that some of the ice turned straight to vapor, miles of mist filling the air.
And then a thrumming rippled through the air. A blue beam struck from the heavens, the sound ringing in Naga’s ears. The sound was wrong, bringing to mind images of monsters and demons, running up her spine and digging into her mind like worms.
The shockwave sent her spinning. The ice collapsed in on itself, millions of tons of it crashing and quaking. When her vision cleared, she searched for ruby eyes.
Lina went into an automatic defense mode, summoning a ray wing spell to wrap herself in a windy bubble that did the trick of shielding her from most of the snowy debris flying around. It kept her mostly stationary (the spell had shielded her from a city-wide explsion in the dreams), and Naga slipped from her sight.
And away from her in general.
“Awww, crap,” she muttered after the light show and drastic shift in the environment settled - where there was merely water, hissing with steam, and the prison that held the dark lord sunk into the deep blue sea. Goodnight, Ruby Eye. “Naaaaaga! You better not be dead yet!”
Naga punched her hand through the snow, and then let off a small flare arrow. The snow covering her melted, and she climbed out of her little hole. “I’m down here!”
Like a zombie rising from her icy grave, much? Lina breathed a sigh of relief and lowered herself - the protective bubble disappearing - and she helped Naga rise to her feet with a bit more stability. “There ya go. I was gonna give Shepard some shit if she accidentally killed you in the process,” she scoffed, smiling through it. “Mission accomplished, looks like. I’m ready to not be as cold as balls.”
Home sounded good about now, where there were familiar faces and snow was (usually) scarce. “Feeling less crabby, by any chance?”
“Aw. You really do care.” Naga ruffled Lina’s hair. “Honestly, that was better than sex!”
She planted her hands on her hips and surveyed the devastation. “I feel like we did something good. Even if he was really tempting.” She threw back her head and laughed.
Somewhere nearby, an avalanche happened.
Not like her hair was neat right now anyway, so she’d let the ruffling pass. Just this once. And she’d also give Naga the chance to exercise those vocal chords at the cost of her eardrums and, perhaps, some environmental damage caused by grotesque sonic waves. Lina didn’t miss her cackling a bit either; even covered her swollen-cold ears with her hands until the damn woman got her fill.
Though the look on her face must be the reason why the word ugh was ever invented.
“For a split second, it looked like joining the dark forces was a tempting thing for you,” she remarked, casting her gaze up into the sky to see if she could catch the colors of the Normandy. “Can we not ever come to blows because you think it’s a good idea to get chummy with a dark lord? Because that’d be great.”
Naga stared down into the abyss, as the last of the ocean and ice began to calm down. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”