Darkness into Light - Espresseleine

Chapter Forty Eight ~ How It All Came Crashing Down

Gingerbrave fumbled with the relic as he tried to squeeze it into the holster. A large machine stood before him, a reasonably sized glass container surrounded by an arch of magic extraction rods, the intricate aspects of the machine specifically designed for concentrating the magic within the relic and expelling it. Thus, sending the energy through the metallic wires and directly to the heart of the machine. The control panel.

Once the panel has been powered up completely, all they had to do was flick a few switches, tweak a few settings and the magic of the relic would be released in invisible radioactive waves across the entire kingdom. The cake hounds would no longer be able to chew through countless builings as easily, and would be forced to give up their efforts. Wizard sighed impatiently, standing by him and grabbing his wrist. He pried the relic from his friend's struggles and gently wedged it inside the holster with perfect precision, making it look like an effortless task.

Gingerbrave's face grew hot with embarrassment as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Heh, thanks," he chuckled nervously, making his way to the control panel and trying to settle the squirming feeling he felt in his stomach, "Alright P-V, time to activate!"

Pure Vanilla stepped towards the power source of the machine, which of course could only be switched on with light magic, as per it's safety feature of the design. The King nodded and lifted his staff, concentrating the simple spell before casting it upon the surface. A wave of bright, light blue magic washed over the machine like mist and giving off a faint sound of sparkling. Gingerbrave reached out to touch along the surface and immediately felt chills shudder across his body like electricity. That spell was cold.

The machine hummed to life, rattling slightly as the screen blinked on. Gingerbrave cracked his knuckles as he concentrated on trying not to screw up the whole procedure, chewing on the bottom of his lip nervously. With a short-paced beep that sang success, Gingerbrave lit up in surprise. He'd actually done it! He turned to his friend.

"Wizard, how do you start—"

"Well, well, what do you think you morons are doing?" A grumbling voice emerged from the shadows of the room, followed by its owner. Red Velvet dragged his saw behind him, creating an eerie scraping of metal on marble. He looked so very.. off.

He was twitching an awful lot with small zaps of red electricity escaping the noticeable large black and red horns that pierced through the matted locks of hair on his head. The horns, they looked like they were made of glazed candy, melting slightly under the harsh temperature of the magic it held. They were sharp, sharp enough to even pierce through graphene, and they held a terrifying resemblance to the menacing horns upon Dark Enchantress' head. Red Velvet snarled, showing off the sharpened rows of teeth resembling that of a shark's.

Had the claws previously blessed upon his cake arm been sharpened too? And why did it look stronger? Gingerbrave narrowed his eyes, only for his eyebrows to raise in shock. The right side of Red Velvet's face looked completely charred, covered in a slick layer of black, while his eye that was previously bluer than the ocean had completely turned a sinister shade of red that glinted in the eerie lighting of their arena.

Red Velvet stopped, a triumphant grin plastered on his corrupted face as propped his saw over his shoulder, his cake arm held in front of him as if he was practicing magic. To tamper with the cake hounds genetically and corrupt them with dark magic from the inside out was low, but to carry out the same procedure upon an actual person was something far more twisted. It now occurred to them that Dark Enchantress had moved up one step on the staircase of selfish morals.

Pure Vanilla gripped his staff, looking uncomfortably perplexed, "Red Velvet? What has she done to you..?"

"Can it old man," Red Velvet scoffed, flexing his fingers in and out of a closed fist with an arrogant look in the emptiness of his eyes, "Don't you see? This is an upgrade. Dark Enchantress only helped me grow stronger," he grinned, eyes flickering upwards to look him dead in the eye.