#so as far as I'm concerned she's barefoot whenever possible

[softquietsteadylove]

Hiiiii could I ask a fic of a ghost face fic with the eternals I loved Scream and I would die to read Thena and Gil in a situation or a storyline like that!🥹😍🖤🖤🖤

(Happy birthday my dear, sweet @dalhia28! You have been such a supporter of mine from the beginning and I am always happy to see you around)

"Sersi," Thena hissed at her, gripping the Elemental Eternal's shoulders as she cried, "there's no time for that."

"Thena," Sersi sniffled, reeling from the idea that not only was their reunion with their family a stage for Ikaris' betrayal of them, but now he was picking them off one by one. "I-I can't-"

"You can," Thena said more resolutely than she could really feel at this time. But they didn't have the luxury of time--not to grieve for Ajak, or Sprite, or Kingo. "We have to."

Thena pulled Sersi to her feet. The statue of Arishem was too open an area. Ikaris could be silently floating around anywhere in the labyrinthine ship. They were at a disadvantage being split up from one another.

She had to find Gilgamesh.

They were all scattered around the ship while they were conceiving their plan. Thinking about it now, perhaps that too was part of Ikaris' plan. Maybe all this time he had been watching them like a predator, thinking to himself how weak his family was and how easy it would be to hunt them just like Deviants.

Thena kept Sersi close to her, her shield in front of them and her blade in her hand. It would be held aloft, ready to be swung. But Sersi was clinging to her hand like a trembling child.

She couldn't be angry with her--the poor thing had watched the man she loved - her ex-husband - shoot down their own right in front of them. He had told them himself of the murder of their leader and 'mother' by his own hand.

No one would blame Sersi for her tears.

Thena stopped, pressing Sersi's back to the wall with her. The corridors of the Domo were narrow, barely wide enough for two people.

Ikaris passed by.

He never was the best hunter of them. His vision was good, but he was too arrogant to make full use of his hearing, the way they were all able to feel the air bend around them.

Thena squeezed her eyes shut as the air compression and sound of Ikaris firing his lasers sounded one hallway away. The wall he was aiming at clearly relented against the force. Sersi flinched.

"Come on out," his accent drawled as he floated through the new door he had made for himself. He was moving away from them, but it was undeniable that the echo of his sinister tone felt right on top of them. "I'll make it quick, love. For old time's sake."

What a wretched man he was. The Soldier Eternal no longer, nor even an Eternal brother, now he was just Arishem's little murderer.

Thena brought Sersi with her by the hand, although she was highly aware of the sounds Sersi made when she moved. Her clothes made sound, her shoes did (Thena was still barefoot), she wore a pendant that dangled loosely around her.

She still had to find Gilgamesh.

He was somewhere deeper in the ship, healing from the fight in the Amazon. She had to get to him before Ikaris did. If he was able to be woken from his healing, perhaps he could even help them try to move the rest of them to the healing bay. At the very least, their bodies.

Thena paused at every corner, listening for every wisp of air, every moan of the Domo's metal body, every possible sign of movement. She nodded to Sersi.

Sersi's tears were dried, which was already admirable. Sersi was always the one with the most human heart, but it couldn't be said that she was weak in any way. If anything, how human she could be at times was something that made her stronger than most, Thena would say.

Thena nodded her head, telling Sersi to find refuge in Phastos' lab, just outside the healing bay with his equipment. She might find refuge in the greentank, which could offer organic material for her to connect to (it might calm her to be around material she couldn't transmute).

The healing pods were humming, one in particular engaged and glowing gently. Thena dispelled her Cosmic Energy into the air, walking over to it.

Her sweet Gilgamesh.

He had nearly given his life to save her in the rain forest. She would have done the same for him, of course, but it didn't make watching it any easier. And here they thought their worries were over after killing that monstrosity.

The monstrosity they had thought killed Ajak.

Thena knelt down to the pod, tilting her head at the image of him. His face was so still. The lights blaring on his face in the echochamber gave distinct lines and bends to his face. She raised her hand slowly, her fingers nearly trembling at the tips.

Her hand went right through him.

"Thena!"

"Gil!"

Of course. Of course he hadn't been able to kill them all going so undetected. Not even Ikaris could be in two places at once. They had seen him shoot Kingo, and then found Sprite's body, seeing the blood. But seeing meant little when it came to the Illusionist Eternal.

"Easy, Thena," Ikaris muttered, his arms locked around her head and his elbow driven into her. "You know very well not even your thick skull can withstand me at point blank range."

Gilgamesh knew it too, revealed from under Sprite's shroud with a knife to his throat. They were each other's insurance policy--Gil and Thena would never do anything to endanger one another.

Ikaris had always been behind Thena, his eyes focused on her. Sprite had rushed right to the healing bay and woken Gilgamesh with the knife ready, telling him that if he made one wrong move, they would toss Thena's body at his feet.

The perfect hostages.

"Gil," Thena managed to squeak out as Ikaris held her head. If she were human her neck would have already snapped. She could feel the heat building in his eyes against her hair.

"Please," Gil whimpered. He was softer than she was--he had no problem begging and pleading with their assailants for her life. "Let her go. I'll help you."

"Shut up," Sprite's once light and lyrical voice barked at him. "We don't need your help--we don't need anyone!"

Oh, Sprite, of course. Kingo had been right, in his oddly perceptive way of seeing the world through his own lens. Sprite, the unseen and even worse the unacknowledged.

"Tell us where the point of emergence is," Ikaris directed Thena, his eyes both on the back of her head and on Gil and Sprite by the door. "I don't care who. You tell us, we'll spare the other one."

"Thena!"

"Don't move!"

Thena's ear was ringing after Ikaris shouting in it. But Ikaris' lasers were far too deadly, and even with too many targets to look at, it would take a fraction of a second for him to kill all of them.

"Not a muscle," Ikaris glared at Sersi, completing the triangle between Ikaris holding Thena and Sprite blocking off Gilgamesh. She held her hands out, having skidded to a halt at the sight of that familiar and menacing glow. "Or I'll fire straight through both of 'em in one shot."

He could, and they all knew he was capable of it.

Thena's mind raced. They were limited on options. Ikaris wanted the point of emergence, and killing them was merely...a series of steps for him. She could tell him, doom humanity, and for all she knew, still not see Gilgamesh's life spared. The same could be said if he bent first.

"Please," Sersi whispered. Her tears returned. "Please don't do this."

She looked at Ikaris, who had far too many balls in the air. His stance kept shifting as he held Thena's head tight. His eyes cooled slightly, "just tell us, Sersi. Just...you could come with us."

Sersi shook her head faintly, baffled and probably disgusted that he would ask that.

"No, she can't!"

Thena moved her eyes from Gil's teary ones to Sprite's suddenly enraged expression. This could work.

"You said it was just gonna be us!" the small Eternal spat, although rather than point at Ikaris in her rage her hand twitched, jabbing Gil in the neck just a little harder.

Thena flinched but Ikaris' grip held strong as well.

"Sprite," he growled at her.

"No! No, you said Sersi wasn't coming with us!" Sprite continued in her accusations. She glared at her sister, "you're ruining this!"

Sprite was just as old as the rest of them, and yet she really could embody that youth that kept her mind tireless and which Ajak had adored so.

"Sprite!" Ikaris repeated. Things were unravelling, "keep it together!"

"No, you said-!" Sprite whirled around at her partner in crime--the love she had who convinced her to turn on their family. She pointed the knife at him.

Thena let her knees go, dropping from Ikari's hold rather than wrestling free. She slipped away. Gil launched forward knocking Sprite's hand out of his way.

Ikaris fired but Gil called his exoskeleton over him, the same way Thena could hold a shield. He landed a punch to his face, shattering bone the way a bullet would.

"Sersi!" Thena called out, but Sprite was already lunging at her.

Sersi moved instinctively. Her body was designed to recognise the makeup of any material it touched--to react and reformat it. Her hand came up to block the knife, but all it did was fade to water and splash onto the floor around them and into their clothes.

"You bitch!" Sprite raged at her. She'd had enough.

Sersi pressed her palm to Sprite's soaked shirt. She could turn steel to water, why not water back into steel?

Sprite's body jerked as the water collected and, while not much, reformed a blade within her skin. She choked on the air in her throat, "S-Ser..."

The Alchemist scrambled back from what she had done. She looked from the bloodied body of their sister to Ikaris, whose head was half caved in from taking a direct hit from the Strongest Eternal. She looked away.

Thena and Sersi helped each other stand. Gilgamesh came over, bending over their smaller frames and placing his hands gently on their shoulders. The night was over.

"I-I can't-" Sersi shook her head, looking at the body of Sprite splayed on the floor, eerily similar to the staging of earlier. "I didn't-"

"No one did," Thena finished for her, pulling her sister's head closer to her. No one saw their betrayal coming, and no one wanted things to turn out like this, either. No one thought they could kill their own family.

Sprite sprang up.

Gilgamesh pulled them back, Sersi held her hands up and Thena materialised her shield. It happened in two seconds. But a glow of gold flew through the air, clean through the smallest Eternal's body from behind.

Kingo gripped the door frame, his shooting hand dropping heavily as his side continued to bleed from Ikaris' earlier inflicted wound. He looked at what remained of his family, "rough night, huh?"

#Thenamesh AU #I hope you like it my darling I have done my best! #tw graphic violence #more graphic than usual anyway so just in case #at first I thought about a modern au #but then I thought what if...canon...but horror? #in the art of eternals there's a bit where they say that the scene in the rainforest has some very horror coded tones to it #which I love for us #so I thought why not go with it #also I just saw it's your birthday so this works out #Ikaris being ghostface because he's so bitter and full of rage #he doesn't have any problem killing his family #for the mission and all that #Sprite of course is happy to go with him #I thought about it being Kingo because that would be more like the original movie but y'know #also Thena should be barefoot and I really think she wasn't for filming reasons or whatever #but it makes sense with her vibe and her wardrobe and her character #so as far as I'm concerned she's barefoot whenever possible #I wanted to keep that element of horror #that moment when you realise it's not just one hunter but two #I liked the idea of Sprite using her illusions more practically #a shot of Thena's face and there's nothing behind her #but you could slowly swing around and then from behind you see Ikaris looming over her and Sprite's illusion between them #I wanted to keep the stabbing from the movie and Sersi turning it to water #the little tidbit about her being more relaxed around materials she can't transmute #being a little foreshadowing to how she reacts reflexively #and Sprite would have known that if she weren't totally off the deep end #sorry Druig I gave your 'rock' moment to Kingo #what a night indeed