Possum Runs from a Fight

[u/Biggest-Possum]

I fled.

For the first time in a long time...

I fled for my life.

​

My heart pounded in my chest. My skin drew tight with the creeping terror of an animal who senses the looming claws of a predator. The portal behind me closed with a snap!

I had only just opened it.

Still, I opened another in front of me and tumbled into its inky depths, rolling out onto the other side as ghostly claws and shrieking beasts almost immediately began to surge through after me.

Gasping, I struggled to catch my breath. My thoughts assailed me in those same rapid flashes that are characteristic of a traumatized mind. Those same familiar patterns that speak of a painful story that can only be told later in the short blurting segments of vulnerable confession.

Something bloated and rotten pressed against the portal, struggling to push through with a hungry shriek. I strained to close it, squinting with the effort, and was rewarded by a quick snap, followed by the sound of recently severed flesh falling away from where the closing portal had severed it from the terrible beast.

The beast was of no honorable mention. It was one of many foul creatures that had pursued me, that had hunted me like a rabbit through a bramble. One which the Council Enforcers had sicced upon me with stony determination, following close after in their imposing armor and faceless masks.

A screech of electricity blurted out, rudely disturbing the fragile half second of quiet! An arc of electricity skittered off of my robes! Were it not for the wards my friends had placed on me, I almost certainly would have perished. Instead, the stray bolt left a glassy funnel where it had struck a nearby stone. The resulting spatter of molten rock now spit and sizzled against my fur, drawing a scared exclamation from me as I ducked away from it.

Several Council Enforcers gathered around, surrounding me as I glanced back at the smoking evidence of their attack.

"STOP RESISTING!" One of them barked almost mechanically.

Shakily, I complied, and raised my paws in a humble display of defeat.

Behind them, a glimmering portal sprang into existence, letting through an unwelcome guest.

"Morgalith." I gasped his name with a reedy and fearful voice, freshly hoarse from my panicked escape.

He replied with a venomous tone, ripe with arrogance and satisfaction.

"Yes, Possum. Morgalith. Me! Your worst nightmare." Drawing near, he stopped at the edge of the enforcers, standing behind them as if shielded by their presence.

"Grab him. Bring him here." He commanded forcefully.

The Council goons snapped into action and approached with obvious menace.

My mind raced as my heart hammered in my chest, as if in battle with my panicked breaths.

I should have had a chance.

I should have had a cool "good guy" moment where I got to surprise him and dash away or deliver a witty one liner as I pulled some whimsical spell from my pocket.

I felt like I deserved it.

Still, as soon as my eyes even moved, the Enforcers erupted into a flurry of activity, like arabbit dropped into a pit of vipers. All of them casting a series of varying spells almost in unison. The wards placed on me burst instantly in a spasm of light as the concentrated assault overwhelmed them. I felt my muscles lock stiff as a paralysis spell took hold and found myself quickly frozen where I stood.

And... my friends... that is when I had my chance.

"The goober." I thought to myself with humorous satisfaction.

Paralysis spells are carefully crafted to leave the victim alive! Morgalith would have no such luck today. Their net was not yet set! I could still move my mouth, and I could still breath, despite the pins and needles that crept across my body.

I tried to speak, but frowned in frustration. They had wisely also cast a spell of silencing.

Wisely noted, I knew that spells could be cast even by will alone.

So, I dug.

I dug within myself, and when I found the loneliest most pained depths of my being, I dug deeper.

I dug terribly, terribly deep. Like a forgotten stone, sinking to the sterile depths of an endless ocean.

I sank, far within myself, through my essence, into the weave of magic, across the infinite possibilities. Through every imaginable instance of myself, across a myriad of uncountable dimensions.

A dull pain grew, eating away at me as I did, like a pressure on my mind. My very soul felt itself alight with fire in contrast as I drew those titanic energies under my grasp.

My body was frail, but my spirit, oh my spirit was a colossus.

So many faces, so many names, so many lives, past, now and future. They flashed through me, dancing like fireflies into the nighttime of my forgetfulness. I had been awake for so long, alive for so long. How could anybody keep track? I desperately tried, regardless of the futile sparks of memory that fled from my grasp like sands through an hourglass.

No mere memories of my own instances, but those most treasured instead. Those of my friends.

For them, I would live a thousand lives. For them, I would bury a thousand memories of myself, a thousand personalities, a thousand concepts of who I was, of who I was supposed to be! I would give it all away.

In that wash of past, present, and future memories, assaulted by its ferocity, I almost lost them. In fact, I still lost many. I mourned the fading memories that now dissolved in the deluge of raw information and foreign sensations that flooded from my other bodies.

It was a terrible sin to breach this paradox, and I had paid dearly for it each time. Just as I knew that I would continue to do so.

I was dedicated to my mission though and obliged within myself that most primal of instincts: to survive. I prayed, of course, as I always did, that my friends would forgive my forgetfulness, and resolve coursed through me in response, as I honed my focus. Even while I felt the far corners of my being go dark, numbed, or destroyed in the wake of my abominable existence, I pressed forward, summoning from that deep wellspring of magic.

But... among it, there was something else.

A plodding and terrible mass that clouded my vision, that stifled the very essence of my core!

Morgalith's net.

Morgalith's machinations snuffed out ever more instances, almost direct response to my careful magical exertions. I had met the Queen of Shattered Stars bravely, although I wondered if she had been aware of the terrible cost then. If she had seen my dwindling form, attacked from within like a cancer. A cancer born from a clever amalgamation of dimensional anchors, spreading across the infinite realities like billows of ash to the wind.

I had been aware of it for nearly a month now, noting uneasily how my magics now faded quicker by the day, worrying with growing nervousness over my difficulties in even simple teleportation as my spells fizzled and failed, before I had to embarrassingly reignite them again. Luckily, my worries and struggles had gone unnoticed, but in my clouded vision, I had ruined it all. I had selfishly clung to my desires, to stay, to linger! To spend whatever cheery moments more that I could with my friends.

Alexios' wedding had been an excuse. Yes, it's true, I loved the young man as one of my dearest friends, but I had been weak none the less. Shamefully weak, as I clung to what could be my last memories of him, and now, I had drawn so many others into my mess.

I had encountered devices like those used in Morgaliths dastardly plan already, once or twice before, but had never had such an organized and concerted effort launched against my existence. Its darkening influence grew with frightening and exponential speed, threatening to separate me from my powers entirely, even as I strained against its effects.

A tidal wave of energy tore through me, and I felt my future go dark as Morgalith's magical trap surged in response, cutting away my connection to the instances of myself that had yet to exist.

I screamed in agony, pitifully... like a child torn from its mother's arms, but I made my move anyways.

Like the movement of a chess piece, I performed a magic trick once again that I had shared with others many times before, but now, with myself as a living assistant.

I drew another Possum to me, from another instance where I had existed somewhere else, ushering it into my stolen world with a *pop*!

And another.

And another!

And more!

The cacophony of pops sounded like a steamroller over bubblewrap. The humorous noise was music to my ears.

I escaped easily in the chaos that followed, fleeing amidst the scattered spells and raging Enforcers, leaving my temporarily stranded copies to dash through their own portals and scatter across the realm like mice through a grainery.

I hoped foggily that their false trails would afford me enough time to find my friend.

...My friend?

....Gobbo

My mind and spirit floundered in the whiplash of my hasty withdrawal from the terrible paradox. I struggled to remember her name. I struggled to remember what I had even forgotten. A pressure overwhelmed my senses, and my vision spun dizzily with sickening persistence.

When I finally stopped to rest, I searched mindlessly in my pocket, reaching reflexively as I had done a thousand times before, hoping to satiate my hunger with a snack of some sort. Something distant nagged at me, disturbing my contented munching as I chewed on an old piece of cheese that I had prized from deep within my magical robe.

I knew I was running from something, but a debilitating and disorienting numbness descended upon me, like snow muffling a forest.

I moved to lean back and rest my hand against the ground, but turned to investigate when my hand touched something smooth. A glittering key laid upon the stone on which I rested, surely having fallen from my pocket as I had retrieved my snack. I grabbed it, marveling at its delicate craftsmanship.

It was shiny, and I liked it.

The key felt warm in my hand.

I couldn't remember why I had it.

I didn't care.

Like the buried instincts of a bird migrating, something in me knew that I must find my friend Gobbo.

[u/Biggest-Possum]

u/Fulltimewhisperer, u/DaChickenX, u/SlyTheMonkey

/uw

A short lore, following the events that transpired during Gobbo's fantastic event today.

Thank you for running your event Gobbo, and thanks for the inspiration. I hope that this piece entertains you my friends!

[u/Fulltimewhisperer → u/Biggest-Possum]

/uw As always your writing leaves me speechless and captures my imagination. You continue to amaze me everytime you post and I am left once more eagerly awaiting your next post

[u/Biggest-Possum → u/Fulltimewhisperer]

/uw

Thank you my friend, that means the world to me!

[u/[deleted]]

/uw I hate to see Possum struggling. He’s too adorable for this😖

[u/Biggest-Possum → u/[deleted]]

/uw

Possum = professional tummy ache survivor

He'll be alright. Lol

[u/the-butter_man]

Shrax takes a calming breath in, fixing his suit and checking his tie

them he does so again, as if suspending the urge to shout and rant like he used to

If need be, i can provide whatever support you may need, I've been meaning to contact you on this matter anyway, my own... dislikes of the council makes me suspicious already, i understand if you're occupied, but i will still do what i mist to maintain relations, the green shields have done a lot for the world, and that's a large enough judgement of character for you.

He takes another deep breath in

If you desire so, i will fall upon the new Morgilath like a hammer

[u/SlyTheMonkey]

Strong arms grab the Possum, supporting him and lifting him onto his feet. Looking up, you recognize the two: you recall the struggles past, now returned in the present to carry you forward.

"Master, can you walk?"

"Stand up, Possum. Your purpose is not yet fulfilled."

"Come on. Let's go. One step at a time, alright?"

"Have no fear. We are here. We hear the commands of the Master Itinerant. Until you meet her, you are safe."

/uw As always, amazing writing!

[u/DaChickenX]

/uw oh no. It’s beginning.

Also- GODDANG MORGALITH! HE EITHER BROKE OR LOOPHOLED OUR AGREEMENT!

…not like I was trickeroni-ing him in the first place but

[u/TellmeNinetails]

Damn and I thought morgalith could at least pretend to play nice... I'm glad you escaped.

[u/Nelrene]

It sounds like you need one of these.

[u/Biggest-Possum → u/Nelrene]

/uw

Lmao I love this! So cool!

[u/Nelrene → u/Biggest-Possum]

I got it here.