oh darling i hate you, i have other things to be writing/editing, but god damn if this isn’t a good concept. so here’s some stuff….inspired by that.
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“Where’d he go?” Magnus asks, staring at the space above Captain Captain Bane’s corpse.
“No fuckin’ idea, my man,” Taako’s mouth says, and nobody but Taako knows that it’s not Taako talking, but the Red Robe. Taako really wishes he could tell them, that uh, hey guys, it’s the Red Robe right here, taking over cha’boy’s whole just everything, but Spooky McSpookerson here is awful good at imitating Taako’s cadence, at keeping an iron grip on Taako’s whole mental thing.
Sorry Taako, Asshole Ghostface thinks. S’just for a bit, I just gotta get on the moonbase.
Get out of here! Taako thinks. This body is! One! Boy! Only!
I’ll be out of here in a bit, Jerkwad Bodysnatcher promises. Just gotta pick something up.
Taako ain’t no fool, he knows you can’t trust liches.
Su-ure he thinks, all sarcastic as the Red Robe makes Taako follow his boys back to their transport back to the base. Su-ure I can trust you.
#
Dickweed Fuckrobe makes Taako drink the weird juice from the tank on the Director’s desk and oh fuck, Taako really can trust liches.
Hey Barry what the fuck, Taako thinks, staring at the baby voidfish that’s materialized (what the fuck, Fisher had a kid? Fisher could reproduce?!) on the table, thoughts all banana blitzed blenderized, because that’s a hundred years of history, that’s his sister, that’s a mission and a life and a—
Don’t push yourself, Barry thinks, and now Taako remembers that Barry Bluejeans and the Red Robe are one and the same, that Barry Bluejeans is his brother-in-law-best-friend, You’ll scramble your neurons if you push it.
Fuck my neurons, Taako thinks savagely, because there’s Magnus-Merle-Davenport-Lucretia, there’s Lup like a staccato hammerfall in his brain, how dare Luce get rid of his sister, oh gods its like a whole gaping hole that he never noticed now filled, he always had her, and he’s so angry that his hands are shaking, the umbrella in his grip getting hot.
Okay, Barry thinks, all careful. Okay, well, I don’t have a spare body for you, bud, so maybe don’t do that? Also, I’m gonna get us out of here, okay?
Whatever, Taako thinks, cause he’s all preoccupied with losing his mind, and out of all the people he knows who are fond of possession, he trusts Barry the most. Lup would always draw on his face.
#
They run into Lucretia on the way out.
She doesn’t stand a chance against the two of them, and they blast their way out of the moonbase.
“I’ll explain everything later!” Taako yells on the way out to Maggie and Merle. “Maybe!”
#
“So this is Lup’s umbrella,” Barry says.
“And it was on her skeleton,” Taako confirms.
“And it’s supposed to vore magic…”
Taako looks at Barry’s skull. Presumably Barry’s skull looks back. He shrugs his red-clad shoulders. Taako rolls his eyes.
“Only one way to find out,” he says, and breaks the umbra staff over his knee.
“WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!” Lup yells, coalescing out of the crack, phantasmal and resplendent.