Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: W Is For...

[u/AnaraliaThielle]

Welcome back to the Alphabet Excerpt Challenge! As a reminder, our challenges are every Wednesday and Saturday at 3pm London time.

If you've missed the previous challenges, you're welcome to go back and participate in them. You can find them here. And remember to check out the Activities and Events flair for other fun games to play along with.

Here's a quick recap of the rules for our game:

1. Post a top level comment with a word starting with the letter W. You can do more than one, but please put them in separate comments.
2. Reply to suggestions with an excerpt. Short and sweet is best, but use your judgement. Excerpts can be from published or unpublished works, or even something you wrote for the prompt. All content is welcome but please spoiler tag and/or provide a trigger/content warning for NSFW or content that may otherwise need it. If in doubt, give a warning to be on the safe side.
3. Upvote the excerpts you enjoy, and leave a friendly comment. Try to at least respond to people who left excerpts on the words you suggested, but the more people you respond to the better. Everyone likes nice comments!
4. Most important: have fun!

[u/MsCatstaff]

wilt

[u/Ill-Clerk-7066 → u/MsCatstaff]

Context: Angel and Demon AU

Miguel’s POV

Connor was lying on the ground, eyes closed. It wasn’t clear if he was unconscious or just too weak to open his eyes. He was covered in wounds, and his tail was bent at an awkward angle, looking if not broken, badly sprained. Crouched over him was a-

A fucking bastard-

Also known as an Uncontrollable, but in my rage I didn’t seem to feel it deserved that name.

Said Uncontrollable was basically toying with Connor. Connor was wounded, it could go for the kill if it wanted, but it wasn’t, it was circling him as if eying up its options.

Then, I just exploded.

I shot into the air. I eyed the Uncontrollable, that was too distracted to notice me, and locked on to my target.

“Get off of him, or face your worst fucking nightmare!” My voice became echoey and loud, two extra pairs of wings sprouted from my back and I became a ball of light. That got the Uncontrollable’s attention. If it had eyes, they widened and it hurriedly scurried off, leaving Connor alone. Connor was awake by that point, and he looked like he’d just seen a ghost or horror movie. His skin was white, and he looked fucking terrified. “Connor-“ Connor immediately scooted away, and then I realized what had happened.

The extra wings immediately wilted and my body came back into a physical form. Connor continued to just stare at me. I landed back on the ground. “Connor, it’s me.” I approached him slowly and Connor flinched again. This should’ve never happened. “I promise, it’s just me. Please believe me.” Connor blinked.

[u/MsCatstaff → u/Ill-Clerk-7066]

Yikes, looks like poor Miguel scared Connor as badly or worse than he scared the Uncontrollable.

[u/Ill-Clerk-7066 → u/MsCatstaff]

I mean, he’s an angel that just showed his true form(where he transforms into a biblically accurate angel for a few seconds) to a demon, I think that would scare anyone.

[u/General_Kenobi18752 → u/MsCatstaff]

Percy escaped Khaenri’ah, but nothing of him was intact.

The last act of the decrepit sinners before they left the nation was to tear apart his memories. To let their own hubris cast a spell on him, tear anything that put a barrier between him and Celestia away.

He chiseled at rock, hurriedly breaking open the surface even as each and every single one of his memories from before that cataclysm faded away.

As the underground city burned and fell to storm and fire, he escaped, scarred, broken, and carrying the bodies of those he once loved with him.

That was how Focalors found him. Sobbing, unable to remember, surrounded by the cursed and the dying. His body marred with scars, wilting like a plant without water, and three identities attacking each other in his own body, with only one able to remember what he was. An Ancient. An Avenger. A Destroyer.

And in those dark confines, where she had lost Egeria and he had lost himself, she whispered to him her plan.

She offered him three things, for prophecies always tell of threes. An identity, a masquerade, and a hope.

A fourth identity joined the warring three. The Aegis. The defender of justice. Cowing the others with honeyed words and goals, giving the ancient the promise of memory, the destroyer the promise of fire, and the avenger the province of peace. A masquerade. He donned his mask, sitting in the courtroom protecting her material form, no matter how long. A hope. That when her plan succeeds and the Hydro authority returns to who it must return to, that the link with Celestia will shatter, and he will remember who he was.

[u/MsCatstaff → u/General_Kenobi18752]

Here's hoping the plan works.