AN://Yall had enough fluff recently. So, choo choo! ;)
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He sobs.
Two of them are gone.

There was nothing he could do, he had only caught one when they all went tumbling-

Well, that wasn't exactly true, technically he caught two of them, just not the two that fell down below.

Choking on another sob, he looks up.

Remus is holding them up on the the sheer cliff face, his morning star is the only thing really preventing them from following the other two. That and six of his black and green tentacles. The two of said apendages--the ones that weren't
curling around any jutting rocks they could grip--were wrapped firmly around the waist of an unconscious Roman.

Blood trickled down steadily from his brow where he was hit. A deep enough wound and a sure fire sign that the Prince would not be waking anytime soon.

Dangling from beneath Remus like that, Roman's blood would occasionally drip onto him, another thing that made this entire situation all the more dangerous, Roman could bleed out before they even reached the top-if they ever did.

CRRK!

The edge of the mountian cliff cracked, splintering and shaking them until they slid down.

Rocks, dirt and debris tumbling around them and falling down below-
...two...three... five... seven...
seven entire seconds of silence before the crunching sound of impact; a testament to the height they were at.

He couldn't help the startled cry from escaping his mouth.

Somehow, past the full beating of his heart in his ears, he could hear Remus cursing as he adjusted his grip.
On instinct he did the same. He clenched his left hand tighter as he held onto the Prince. With Roman unconscious as he was and dangling over him, he really hoped that he wouldn't dislocate the royal's arm.

He personally didn't care if he dislocated his own right arm, so long as he could maintain a grip on Logan. The Secondary Personality was just as unconscious as Roman, but he could see no visible injuries on the Teacher.

He couldn't tell which was worse, holding himself up by the forearm of the unconscious side above him or holding on to the other unconscious side dangling below him.

He always hated heights and this scenario only solidified it-
his heartbeat stopped for a moment and everything went quiet as his eyes zeroed in on his only point of contact with his fellow Personality.
...his hand was slipping.

Eyes wide, he shouts up.
"Remus!"

The Duke only grit his teeth and attempted to climb back up to where they once were.

"Remus!" He shouts again.

"Shut up!"

The Duke's answering outburst shocked him for a moment but he could see the other fighting back tears. The exertion on his body had him shaking but who was to say what affect it had on his mind? If the embodiment of Anxiety had anxiety what did that say about the embodiment of Intrusive thoughts?

"...Remus...", his voice came out lower than he intended, a tone more laced with strife and pity than anything else.

Remus shook his head.
"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up Anxiety! And don't you fucking let go...of either of them!", he adds for good measure.

"But Remus-"

"No! We already lost that goody two shoes and Jan! We can't afford to lose anyone else. And if you go then we'll need a new Prominent and it sure as hell ain't gonna be me"

Anxiety grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut.
"Fuck, my hand is slipping!"

"Fucking hold onto him!" Bites the Duke. He continues the climb up, gritting his teeth until they creak. "Remy is up there with Thomas and you and I both know he's running out of Sand. And right now he's the only thing keeping Thomas alive.
Morality and Deciet will come back...not the same...it won't even be them but they'll come back, along as Thomas is alive-"

The Youngest Personality could now see the tears, or the streaks of them atleast. That in of itself made everything all the worse. He's never seen Remus cry.

"I can make it", rasped the Duke as he continued the shaky acent. "Its harder with the three of you on me but I can. Our Host needs a Prominent that will keep him safe until this all blows over. I'm getting you to Thomas, even if it fucking kills me"

Before Anxiety could even formulate a response to that, the cliff shudders and more rocks and dirt fall off. This time the motion jerks them, hard enough for a particular grip to slip further.

"Fuck! Logan!" Shouted Anxiety desperately, "Logan!"
His breath hitched and new tears ran down his face. His hand had already slipped past the wrist.

The Secondary Personality remained unconscious.

"Logan wake up! Please!"
Past the thumb.

"No! ...no, no, no! Logan!"

Anxiety squeezed tightly, a futile attempt since he was now holding the other by only the second knuckles of his fingers.There was nothing more to grip on to...the slip was inevitable.

He looked up at Remus as he sobs-- not wanting to see the result of his failure-- but the Duke closed his eyes and looked away, pressing his head against the face of the wall.

Torn, the Youngest Personality looks back down. His eyes, as watery as they were, hyperfocused on the fingers slowly slipping out of his grip.
"Fuck, I'm so sorry L-"

"...ngh..."

Anxiety's eye widened.
"Holy shit, Logan!"

Logan, to his credit, upon waking did not panic; instead, he looked down at the drop and then quickly up at Anxiety, who was barley holding him.

Immediately, the Secondary bent his fingers, curling them, so that the Younger personality would be able to grip onto his first knuckles. Still a very precarious hold but one that would give them atleast enough time.

Anxiety held fast, and Logic, with no doubt adrenaline fuelled strength, surged up and used his other arm to firmly grip the younger by the forearm. In that same beat, Anxiety let go of Logan's other hand to lock in the forearm hold.

The moment that they were 'secure', a sob with a tinge of manic laughter bubbled out before Anxiety could even think to stop it.
"Fucking hell Logan, we almost lost you-"

"Like the other two, I presume?"

Whatever breath Anxiety managed to catch died immediately in his throat. With a shaky inhale, the Emo nods contritley, his eye shadow dripping down in tearfully rivulets.

Remus above them both, held the same expression.

"...yeah...", Anxiety says hoarsley, "when we got hit the only two I could reach were you and Roman. Remy and Thomas are still up there"

"...I see...", Logan says numbly as he looks down.
A drop from this height was undoubtedly fatal.
He looks back up at Anxiety, "that makes you the new Prominent. Congratulations, have you evaluated your options?"

"Tch, don't give him that unemotional robotic shit Teach!", seethes Remus. The outburst had both Anxiety and Logic looking up at him. His face was flushed with uncharacteristic anger. "You can't stop feeling because Morality went splat, you bastard. And we don't need other options, just shut the fuck up and hold on, I'll fucking make it!" With that, he continued the perilous ascent.

The Emo and the Teacher look at each other. Neither of them entirely believed the darker half of Creativity. His and Roman's abilities had been greatly hindered since they left Fairy Godmother's Cottage. Currently, he was shaking as he moved and his entire form still had evidence of the battle that sent them over the edge in the first place. The wounds on his tentacles were deep and leaking a thick, sticky, green ooze; no doubt a painful issue as each movement seemed closer to the appendages ripping apart.

"Anxiety", started Logan again, "it would be easier for him to climb if-"

"I'm not letting you go Logan", hisses Anxiety resolutley.
'I almost did already' remained unspoken.

The Secondary Personality exhales, "that's one option-"

"What's the next option?"

"Throw me-"

"Oh sure Logan!" Gripes Remus from above, "the fucker doesn't want to drop you so you tell him to throw you instead, that sure fuckin' helps!"

Logic rolls his eyes and points with his free hand to the left, "I meant for him to throw me as close as he can to the ledge of that flat rock, from there I can climb to the top. It'll be easier for you to climb up without my weight and Anxiety can use momentum to get me closer; seeing as he obviously has some hidden upper body strength to be able to hold both me and himself up like this"

Anxiety bites his lip, "we can try that but there's so much that can go wrong. First being that you might not even make it to the ledge.

Logan nods, "I'm aware of that, and it's a risk I'm willing to take"

"Second, swinging you can cause the rest of us to fall-"

"So long as Remus is ready and bracing, that shouldn't be a problem-"

"I might slip after throwing you and Roman can't catch me-"

"Welp! Fuck that then!" Pipes Remus with a grunt, still acending as he speaks, "we can't exactly risk the Emo dying after you Teach, besides we're almost there, we can make it"

True enough, Remus was roughly his own body length away from the top. Invigorated by the fact that they were so close, the Duke actually managed to make it where the top was only half his body length away.
He would have likely made it to the top, with all of them, if they had more time that is.

The cliff shook violently, enough so that Remus' Morning star dislodged. They were sliding down rapidly, still attached to the mountain side by the pure will of the Duke's tearing tentacles. He lost two completely in the, thankfully succeful, effort to stop their decent; and they all knew that Remus wouldn't be able to carry all four of them back up-

Logan looked to Anxiety; the younger looked up at Remus.
"Do it!" They chorused.

Anxiety swung-
and let Logan go.

Logan managed to grip onto the edge of the rock.
His right arm slipped, but he managed to pull himself up enough to roll and flop onto his back. Panting, he gave Anxiety and Remus a shaky thumbs up.

The shaky laughter of both disbelief and relief were enough to get Logan to stand up and Remus to start climbing.
While it was easier to climb without Logan, Remus was still down two tentacles, which made his pace far slower than he would have liked; especially given that he was now two of his body lengths away from where he was before.

Logan on his own managed to climb past them, good, that meant he could help Remus over the ledge.

By the time Logan's hand met the top, Remus was back to half his body length from the ledge.

Gingerly the Teacher climbed up, it was more of dragging himself up and rolling forward really, but he made it nonetheless.

The moment Logan stood up to go over to the Duke; The Emo and the Royal cheered. They were actually going to make it-

CRRAACKH!

The entire ledge under Logan collapsed.
Anxiety and Remus only had a split second to see the fear in the Teacher's eyes before he sunk and all the rocks and debris covered their veiw of him.

Anxiety shouted wordlessly, but nothing could be done.

Seven seconds of silence...
then...

Impact.

Gritting his teeth, Remus continued his climb up. He moved at a reckless speed that did far more damage to his tentacles than he would like to admit. He ended up losing another but he couldn't afford to slow down; Logan's edge broke, theirs was next.

Anxiety was silent, if it weren't for the fact that he could feel the weight of the other, Remus would have thought he let go.
"Hey! We're almost there, I'll need you to brace on Roman so I can pull you two up!"

A hoarse "ok", was all the reply he got.

Grunting, he lifted himself over the ledge and gasped ruggedly onto his knees. He had lost all but two tentacles on the way up-
The very last two, the ones holding both Anxiety and his brother, began to tear and both of them were still dangling.

With a speed he didn't know he was capable of, Remus turned around and grabbed his the apendages from where they connected and pulled.
The sheer force of it lifted Roman and Anxiety onto the edge and sent the three of them rolling forward a good distance away from the overhang.

Just in time too, as the entire ledge they were on fell away.

Remus screamed, as he lay curled up and writhing.
Anxiety was quick to stand, he went closer to the Duke to inspect...he then winced in sympathy.

It was one thing to have an apendage torn off, it was another to have it tear in your hands from where it was once connected. The remaining torn peices of the other six, writhed and wriggled until they disintegrated into the very same green ooze they were leaking.

This time, however, the moment the tentacles were all melted, the ooze evaporated into thin air, leaving no evidence behind.

Startled, the Emo looked over to Remus to ask him what that was about, but the Duke had fallen unconscious.
Both of the Twins were down.

Before he could tend to Roman's head wound, a familiar scream wrung out.

His core clenched and siezed- Thomas!

Ripping Roman's sash from off of his tunic, Anxiety quickly wrapped around the Prince's head like a bandage. Adrenaline was pumping full throttle through his veins and with it he somehow picked up both Roman and Remus, tossing each over a shoulder and absolutely booked it towards Thomas.

It really didn't take long for him to find his Host.
He was only about eight minutes away from the cliff.

Anxiety quickly set the Twins down.
In front of him was a flat area with some bushes Thomas, who was being protected by Remy, was surrounded by Ink creatures.

The Aspect was obviously at his limits with his Sand, what looked like half of it was surrounding Thomas in a dome, while the other half was spinning like a tornado around them. What the Dream Sand didn't have in quantity, it made up with speed and ferocity.

The Sand shredded every bit of Ink it could touch, but with each spin the amount of Sand became less and less.
Until there was nothing left except the dome surrounding Thomas and an exhausted Sleep on his knees with no Sand left to spare in order to protect himself.

Thankfully, it seemed like Remy got them all.

Anxiety sighed in relief, he was about to shout to get the other's attention when the snapping of a branch echoed. The Emo turned just in time to see an Ink creature jump out of the brush and shoot an ink pike, aimed directly for Remy's heart.
Alarmed he casts his hand out, eyes glowing purple-

Suddenly everything went black...and then gold...a flash of pink and then...white.

SQUELCH!
Drip...
Drip...

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AN:// Hey guys!
Hope y'all enjoyed this one. Finals are coming up so I'm trying my best to balance things. Not an easy task considering I did get sick last time from pushing the vehicle in the rain lol.

Also, I no longer have a laptop? The charging port may have been busted so I'm here struggling on my phone :/
Updates will still happen every second Sunday per usual, just expect them a lil late, yeah?

COMMENT OF THE WEEK:
By 1_Virgil_Sanders_1
"I have so many questions lol. like why were they all sick? Why was Remy and Virgil connected to the dragon witch even though they weren't 'born' at that time? Like ahhhhhhhhh"

All very good questions! I guess we just have to wait and see, no? >;)

PUN OF THE WEEK:
BY Frozen Mist
Logan: Explains a plan to Roman
Roman: Surely you can't be serious.
Logan: I am serious and don't call me Shirley.

Lol

See y'all in the comments and on Discord!!