WHAT: He-Man and Sabrina (with Maze and Battle Cat) vs. The Necromancer (and his undead hoard) WHERE: The forest WHEN: During the darkness plot WARNINGS: Adam maybe dies for a hot second there STATUS: Complete
Days of endless night weren’t the craziest thing that Sabrina had ever experienced in Vallo. Back when she’d first arrived and Vallo had decided to pull her loved ones from her, she’d caused that to happen once or twice, blanketing the forest in a never ending darkness until she realized what she’d done. There hadn’t been any monsters when she’d done it and it had lasted a few hours, not days, dropping more nastiness into the world and making her working hours longer than normal.
Part of her wanted to curl back up in bed and shirk all of her responsibility. There were plenty in Vallo who could handle what was happening and she didn’t necessarily need to go out into the fray as well, could help from the safety of the DOA’s magic department. But then she’d gotten the call from some old school friends whose family farm was under attack and Sabrina hadn’t been able to say no to that.
Plus it was giving Maze a chance to get out of Hell and tear apart some monsters. The hellhound deserved the chance to shine after being cooped up with puppies for so long. “Pace yourself,” Sabrina said, glancing over at the hellhound who stuck to her side.
That earned her an annoyed glance as the two continued through the forest, tracking the creature that had destroyed most of the farm they’d come from.
Adam liked the sunshine, liked its glow and its warmth and liked lying in sunbeams to take naps. That didn’t mean he was unaccustomed to the dark. After all, Snake Mountain was shrouded by night most of the time (Adam didn’t spend much time at Snake Mountain as a general rule, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t go there often enough when Skeletor was causing problems to be used to the whole ‘perpetual night’ thing.
Going after the necromancer with only Battle-Cat as his backup had been his own choice. The necromancer was strong, and he hadn’t wanted to put any of his friends in danger. But the necromancer had proven to be stronger than He-Man expected. No matter how many of its undead minions he and Battle-Cat managed to cut through, the necromancer still stood firm, and what He-Man had thought would be a quick fight had been going on for a long time now.
Lucky for He-Man, he was indefatigable. At least, that’s what he’d thought, until the necromancer had grabbed him. He’d felt his lifeforce draining away almost immediately, and if Battle-Cat hadn’t attacked then, clinging to the necromancers back until it was forced to throw He-Man clear, through the trees, then he was sure he would have been a goner.
He laid there, feeling the leaves and underbrush under his bare back, catching his breath, and then looked up to see Sabrina standing above him. He shot her a smile. “Hey Sabs. Hey Maze. Not a great day for a walk, huh?”
Maze huffed, clearly unimpressed with everything she was seeing while Sabrina extended her hand to him. “I’ve definitely seen the forest a lot friendlier than now.” Though this was nowhere near as bad as when magic was being depleted from the world around them. Monsters she could handle. Feeling the fabric of everything being stripped away was another.
She glanced over to where the necromancer had continued heading, the destruction of the forest in his wake a very obvious path. At least his minions had eased off a little bit, but they would probably be in full force again once she got closer. “Any idea what this thing is or can do?”
Sabrina hadn’t fought it one on one yet, only been following the trail that it led.
“No idea what it is,” Adam said, cracking his neck first to one side, then the other. “But I’m pretty sure he’s controlling these undead things.” He cut an approaching one in half with a powerful upswing, as if to demonstrate which of these undead things he was talking about, and then turned back to Sabrina as if he’d done nothing more than wave at it. “And he’s got a killer grip. Literally, I think.”
Adam was still feeling a little off from it, but He-Man recovered quickly and he didn’t think it would affect him for much longer.
Killer touches were the worst. But undead things? Those Sabrina could work with. She might not have been the one to bring them up from the ground or wherever they had come from to be in Vallo, but necromantic magic was a specialty of hers. “Try not to get touched,” she said, looking down at Maze.
The hellhound happily bounded forward, tearing into the undead in quick bursts that belied her size. Sabrina concentrated on the magic that flowed between the necromancer and the undead, fingers gliding through the air to tug at it, wanting to see if she could rip those bindings apart and what would happen if she did. She could always call forth a sword if that didn’t work.
Adam took a moment to appreciate Battle Cat jumping in to help keep some of the undead creatures off of Maze. Gone was all of his anxious energies: Cringer, when he had the Power of Greyskull within him was fearless and bold and willing to take on the world without a second thought.
Sabrina’s magic was clearly doing something though, because the necromancer’s attention snapped toward her when Adam felt the magic begin to emanate from her. Adam stopped paying attention to his fearless companion and focused all his attention on the necromancer.
“Hey, don’t forget about me,” he said, sounding almost offended. “I’m still here.” And as if to prove his point, he drove his fist into the necromancer’s face. It didn’t do as much as it normally would have. The necromancer was forced back a couple of steps, but regained his balance quickly – more quickly than Adam would have expected – and wrapped its spindly fingers around his neck again. Adam wrapped both hands around the creature's forearms, struggling to break free, but the necromancer was prepared this time, and Adam weaker, and in a matter of moments Adam had stopped struggling and was tossed limply aside.
Fuck.
Adam didn’t look like he was getting up and that needed to be rectified. Sabrina stopped bothering with pulling apart the magical threads that were woven between the necromancer and its undead minions. She had no clue what exactly could take down the thing in front of her but most beings could only take so much of an increase or decrease in temperature.
She blew out air toward the necromancer, freezing everything in the pathway between her and it before enclosing the being in a block of ice. It seemed to do the trick, the undead minions all stopped moving as well, falling down to the ground as she shattered the creature inside of it into a billion small pieces.
Sabrina headed straight for Adam once the creatures were dealt with, skidding to a stop in front of him. “Can you hear me?” she asked, hands hovering over his chest.
Battle Cat had been doing a decent job at keeping the undead at bay, but it was probably just as well that Sabrina had managed to put a definitive stop to them: He-Man had hit barely hit the ground before the Power had left both of them, leaving Adam, still as the grave, and Cringer suddenly standing in a pile of corpses.
He balked, lifting his feet as if scared to touch them, before he realized that something was very wrong – he shouldn’t have been Cringer just yet. The last time this had happened…
“Adam?” he called, looking around, panicked, and managed to spot him just as Sabrina kneeled down beside him. Cringer took off at a run, pointedly not thinking about the things that went crunch under his paws – they were branches, not bones, don’t think about it – and went skidding to Adam’s side.
“Adam?” he asked again. Adam wasn’t moving, and he nudged his face with his nose before looking up at Sabrina, eyes pleading. “Can you do something?” he demanded.
She could, but it was always up to Vallo’s whims whether or not her healing power would work on someone else or how well it might work. Sometimes she could perform miracles, bring people back from near death or even straight from death’s grasp. Other times nothing happened or healing only went so far, leaving others alive but still limping along.
Whatever power the creature had was deadly, Sabrina had been able to sense it through the magic she’d pulled apart. It was a kind of darkness she was all too used to dealing with in Hell and back home as a necromancer in her own world. Thankfully they seemed to have very different meanings.
She breathed in slowly and closed her eyes, willing her inner power to come forward as she laid her hands on Adam’s chest. She’d done something similar for her cousin once, healing his body from the inside out. She’d healed Roz’s sight. Taken away Constantine’s ailments too.
Please work. She pushed her magic into Adam, waiting for the rise and fall of his chest, the signs of him coming back from the brink.
For a long moment all Cringer could do was furrow at the ground, shredding the forest leaves under claw, but then suddenly Adam took in a sharp gasp of air and shot up, coughing.
Cringer couldn’t help himself. He threw himself bodily onto Adam, knocking him down again, and Adam let out a shaky laugh, lifting his hands to scratch behind the tiger’s ears.
“Anyone get the name of that bionatops?” he groaned.
Maze’s attention was on the feast of bodies for her to devour, but she spared a brief glance to make sure Sabrina was alright before turning back to the dead. Emotions were not something she could or wanted to handle.
“Does anything still hurt?” Sabrina looked him over. He didn’t look like he had any internal injuries and she couldn’t feel anything coming off of him but that didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting. “We should get you to the clinic.”
Get a second opinion. Get the heaven out of the forest.
Adam rolled his shoulders. “No, not really. Just a little sore.” Or, more accurately, he felt the kind of fatigue in his muscles that came after running for a long time. If he stood up, he expected his legs would be jelly. It was then that he noticed his hand: his normal sized hand peaking out from the sleeve of his hoodie, just barely visible in the dim light.
“Did I…” he started, and then stopped. Maybe it was better if he didn’t know. He glanced around. “Did you take care of the necromancer?” he asked, trying not to feel too disappointed that he’d missed it.
No one ever wanted to know how close they’d been to Death’s door. As someone who’d died multiple times and returned--willing and not so willingly--Sabrina couldn’t blame Adam for not finishing that sentence. Some things were just better left unsaid.
“He and his little minions won’t be bothering anyone else.” Hopefully there wasn’t another one of those somewhere in the forest. It was someone else’s responsibility to deal with though.
Sabrina pushed herself up and extended a hand. “I still say we head to the clinic and get you checked out. It’s usually a good idea after…” She shrugged her shoulders, not really wanting to elaborate.
Adam wanted to protest that he felt fine. He’d even managed to climb to his feet, with Sabrina’s assistance, and while he probably wouldn’t be good for another fight in the next couple hours, he didn’t think he was in any real danger.
But she had a point, and Adam tried to live by the maxim that it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to this sort of thing, so he nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Thanks, Sabrina.” He debated, for a moment, asking Sabrina to keep this quiet. It would only stress Adora out if she found out what a close call he’d had, and he was used to keeping secrets.
But then, secrets had a way of coming out. When Teela had learned his, well… he wasn’t sure if he’d ever have a chance to make that right with her again.
So he didn’t ask.
“I think Cringer and I can manage if you and Maze were headed somewhere.” Adam said. Not that he wouldn’t appreciate the company.
There was very little chance that Sabrina was going to let the two of them head off on their own to the clinic. Especially not when she could easily teleport the lot of them over to the building. She had access as one of the healers on reserve and from when Dan had used to work there. It had been a staple for where she’d head to do her homework her first year in Vallo.
Mostly she wanted to make sure he really was alright and didn’t come up against something else on the way. The forest was entirely too riddled with monsters to go anywhere alone.
“I think Maze is going to be busy eating this lot for the next few hours so I can help get you there. You good with teleporting?” It’d only take a few seconds and they’d be at the clinic and then she was going to head to Callum’s to shower and try to forget about the last half hour.
Cringer didn’t look entirely enthused about the idea of teleporting, but he didn’t raise any protests. He didn’t even cringe away; he only hunched his shoulders as if bracing himself for some unpleasant but necessary task.
Adam glanced at him, and then nodded back at Sabrina. “Yeah, teleportation sounds great,” he said, shooting her a cheery smile, a bit of brightness in the dark. “And Sabrina? Thanks. I mean it.”