Blood Red Shadows II: The Crimson Shade
Chapter 35: Chapter 35: Prelude
Previous Chapter Next Chapter*SCP Foundation; Geo Vector 0-1 HQ; October 18, 2019; 1:55 PM*
"Hey, is Kat Anderson nearby? I need to give her something.." Vanoss told the person at the front desk.
"Are you turning in an SCP?" The man at the front desk asked.
"Well, yeah.. So should I wait here, or..?" Vanoss continued.
Kat had walked out of a nearby office.
"Okay, fine. But just this once. Got it, Dr. Bright?" Kat asked.
"Hey, Kat!" Vanoss waved.
Kat looked towards Vanoss' direction with a smile.
"Just don't do anything stupid.. Hey, Evan!" Kat greeted with a shake of her hand.
"Hey, so listen.. I read up exactly what one of those SPC thingamajigs are, so I wanted to turn this in, finally." Vanoss told her.
"Really? What are you handing in?" Kat wondered.
Vanoss reached into his bag and pulled out a small, golden sphere adorned with glowing blue symbols on the sides.
"Is that..?" Kat gaped.
"The Summoning Key. I found it in my closet along with a bunch of old VidCon shit. I figured it's best to hand in something this crazy-looking to you while I still have a chance." Vanoss told her.
Kat grabbed the orb, letting it float in her hand with golden light.
"This thing's extremely dangerous, Evan! You don't just leave it sitting in the damn closet.!!" Kat chided.
"That's why I'm handing it in!" Vanoss defended.
Kat face-palmed.
"Be more careful with this kind of stuff when you find it, capisce?" Kat demanded.
"Aright!!" Vanoss promised.
"Anything else you want to tell me?" Kat asked.
"Actually, yeah. Apparently Alex went and invited us to Fiore for some kinda thing.. Let me try and remember what it was.." Vanoss figured.
"Oh, god. I think I know.." Kat mumbled.
"Wait, really?" Vanoss gaped.
"You Blockhead! Alex and Yang are getting married tomorrow for chrissake!!" Kat yelled.
Vanoss' face instantly drained of color.
"Come on! We gotta go!!" Vanoss yelled.
"Hughes, cancel my all appointments for the next three days!!" Kat ordered, shoving the Summoning Key into her bag as she ran off.
*Alex and Yang's 2nd Apartment; Outside Magnolia Town, Fiore; October 18, 2019; 1:57 PM*
"YOU DID WHAT?!"
Natsu, Happy, Gray, and Erza had been in Alex and Yang's small apartment, with three carrying a look of horror as Alex looked through his Scroll.
"Come on! You two already have a kid and you're not gettin' hitched?!" Natsu retorted.
"You morons! If you're going to plan a goddamn wedding, you don't invite people a day before!!" Alex screamed.e
"We didn't invite everyone, I just invited this guy named 'Al Contacts'!" Happy defended.
"That's ALL CONTACTS!" Yang screamed, her eyes already a darkening shade of red.
"Look, Cade, Oreonna, and Auburn are going to be back from their mission with Shadow Gear tomorrow, and we had this planned behind your back for at least a month." Gray added.
"But still!! F**kin' hell, even I don't know how many people Natsu and Happy invited!!" Alex screamed.
"It does explain a few things." Yang recalled, remembering Erza asking for her and Alex's measurements.
"Will all of you be quiet?! You're agitating the child!" Erza yelled from across the apartment.
Alex sat down on the couch with his head in his hands.
"F**king shit. Everyone and their mother's gonna be scrambling to make it here.. Do you guys have any idea how long it took for us to get from Crocus to here on foot?!" Alex groaned.
Natsu, Happy, and Gray screamed in panic.
"YOU GUYS WALKED FROM CROCUS TO MAGNOLIA ON FOOT?!"
*Ponyville, Equestria; October 18, 2019; 2:25 PM*
Twilight scrambled for her teleportation spells while Spike worked overtime to find someone who could get them fitted within two hours.
"Come on, come on..! Who invites wedding guests the day before?! I'll have to reschedule my plans.. Or miss.!!" Twilight worriedly mumbled as she dug through her books.
"The pony who bought the Carousel Boutique is interested! They need all of us over in 15 minutes!" Spike yelled as he ran out the door.
Twilight suddenly heard a magic communicator ringing in the other room.
"Skirmish.!!" She called.
"On it!!" Skirmish yelled, running back from the front door towards the communications room.
Twilight dug and flipped through almost every spell book at her disposal, growing more desperate by the minute.
"It's from Alex again!" She yelled.
Twilight levitated the communicator over to her, reading the message carefully.
Alex:
Sorry about the fuss I might've caused. My guild-mates were planning a wedding behind our backs and got to my scroll after one of them forgot to message you guys a week ago. We've talked to all the venues and asked to reschedule, but the soonest they could get was the 22nd.
Again, really sorry about what happened.
Twilight blinked in surprise.
"Everything okay..?" Skirmish asked.
Twilight's horn immediately started glowing a bright magenta as her eyes twitched. The horn exploded pure magic energy as everything around the room was blown aside.
"Holy shit.." Skirmish gasped.
Twilight took a second to regain her composure.
"They rescheduled it for the 22nd. It's still going to take a while to get everything ready.." Twilight told her.
"Rescheduled..?" Skirmish wondered.
"Alex's friends scheduled the wedding behind their backs." Twilight explained.
"Sounds like the type, all right." Skirmish joked.
"Very funny. Now I need to get to the boutique, I need you to bookmark any important teleportation spells." Twilight ordered.
"You got it!" Skirmish promised as Twilight ran out the door.
Skirmish sat down and started thumbing through the books slowly and calculatingly, looking for any teleportation spells that would help them.
*Patch, Remnant; October 19, 2019; 2:30 PM*
Ruby fell onto her bed in exhaustion, hundreds of combat-styled dresses and red cloaks strewn across her room.
She reached for her scroll, and texted a close friend of her's since the battle that took the life of her two teammates.
Ruby:
Hey, Sun! I got an invite for my sister's wedding on the 22nd, you wanna come?
Sun:
Sure! Where's it at?
Ruby:
It's in Earthland, my sis sent a map to the area, too!
Sun:
I'll go! Mind if I bring a couple friends?
Ruby:
More the merrier, I guess!
"Ruby! Did you know about this?!" Taiyang yelled from across the house.
So obviously he got the memo..
*The House, Location Unknown; October 20, 2019; 2:30 PM*
Dr. Monty fiddled around his controls nervously, as though searching for something.
"Dammit! Several Summoning Keys have gone missing, the Apothicons are gone, and numerous other versions of those four idiots are dead!" Monty slammed his fist against the table in a rage.
"How... How did this happen?" Monty seethed.. His perfect world was at risk! This and every other universe could be in complete danger!
A monitor to his side started beeping, as Monty ran over to check. The machine was meant to search every dimension and find each version of the Summoning Key.
Monty found that, strangely enough, the red dots on his screen seemed... Clumped together..
"Strange.. It's almost as if they... Oh, f**k!" Monty realized.
Whoever had been screwing around with those damned artifacts had combined them!
"Let's see... Geo Vector 0-1... Bollocks! Where did it..?" Monty scowled. This person was traveling dimensions!
Monty traced the energies on the wormhole between that dimension and searched for the other end.
According to the path the Summoning Keys had been heading, they were traveling to..
"Mashima 10-22; Earthland..." Monty noticed.
Monty grabbed his journals, shoved them into his side-bag, and headed off.
He instantly ran back to his microphone, trying to find the only crew that had still been standing.
"See, I've run into a small problem. You know how you dumbasses have been messing with forces beyond your control? Yeah.. Believe it or not, some other dumbass one-upped each and every one of you!
That Summoning Key Richtofen's been lugging around, imagine that combined with about ten other Summoning Keys. Yeah, it's that bad.
I'll set up a portal over there as soon as I can. What I need you to do is help me find whoevers' been f**king everything up and get that key before something else rears it's ugly head!" Monty ordered.
Next Chapter: Chapter 36: Birds of a Feather Estimated time remaining: 9 Hours, 11 Minutes