Ragenarok (Part 2) is the twentieth episode of Fantasy High: Junior Year.
Intro[]
"Folks, last we left off, our Intrepid Heroes were in the skies over Elmville, flying directly into the mouth of the Nightmare King-slash-Cassandra, protecting a nascent, pupating divine realm within, taking over the skies and soil of the home of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, Elmville, Solace."
"Our heroes landed, got to the campaign headquarters of the Applebees student body presidential campaign; it's always happy hour at Applebees. Consumed a quick ice feast, which made them immune to both fire damage and to stunning, and kicked down the doors of the gymnasium just as the world started to come apart and the realm of Ankarna, her massive body suffused with rage crystals and shatter-stars, began to pull apart. Jace Stardiamond, Porter Cliffbreaker, the Rat Grinders all faced them down and battle commenced as the floor splintered apart."
"We left off mid-combat. Riz Gukgak, spy versus spy in the bowels of the broken gymnasium, trying to isolate Kipperlilly Copperkettle. Kristen and, blimey, K2, support casting from a greater invisibility and from underneath the gymnasium. Adaine Abernant, just having had concentration on a flesh to stone broken, along with a half dozen other spells, by a fireball from Figueroth Faeth, swan-diving into the lava. Also, not only broke the restraint on Adaine Abernant, but also the banishment that Buddy Dawn had on the ballot box in the back as Mazey Phaedra, the current student body class president, at least for another minute or less, holds onto the bag of votes from Seacaster Manor. And above it all, Porter Cliffbreaker, with an unconscious Gorgug Thistlespring in his hands."
"Fabian Aramais Seacaster, contending with an arcane fist behind him, looks out. Half of the Rat Grinders are dropped. Ruben, Oisin, and Ivy are out of this fight. Kipperlilly, Buddy, and Mary Ann Skuttle remain. With that, we return to combat."
Synopsis[]
Round Three, continued[]
After Fig releases her fireball, she sends a bardic inspiration to Fabian, who pulls out Bakur's soul gem, urges him to help the Bad Kids, and tosses the gem into the lava near Fig. Bakur is not immediately released, but the gem's seal begins to weaken as its facets show images of both Bakur's pit fiend self and his former self as the high elf Athenriel. The light from the gem opens mirrors around the gymnasium that reflect areas around Elmville where the Bad Kids' allies may be able to join them. Fabian casts kinetic jaunt and flees from Porter's range to engage with the Jaces, destroying a mirror image and then shoving one of the real Jaces over the edge of the gym floor into the lava.
Various shatter-stars abandon the corpses of the fallen Oisin, Ivy, and Ruben to seek out new hosts. Kristen resists one, but another burrows into Mazey and corrupts her. Kristen brings Gorgug back to consciousness with her aura of vitality, and the invisible K2 casts banishment to make Buddy vanish from the battlefield. Kristen then moves near Adaine, takes an attack of opportunity from a shatter-star, and casts cure wounds on the Hangman. Porter knocks out Fabian and Gorgug with two more swings, then stomps on Gorgug to give him two death saving throws. Porter then taunts the other Bad Kids, then downs a vial of devil's honey and lies to Ankarna, telling her to enter the world as they are ready to revere her.
Kipperlilly approaches Riz to attack, but with his blindsight, he detects her as she jumps across a gap in the floor and is able to trigger his readied action to cast hold person to stop her movement, trapping her in a net and sending her falling into the lava. As she burns, Riz sees that she has no scar on her chest, but instead a symbol, because the ritual is different when one asks willingly to be corrupted with rage instead of being forcibly revived with it.
Mary Ann, angry that Fig burned her strawberry stuffie with her fireball, leaps to attack Fig in the lava, accepting the heavy damage from the magma as she knocks Fig unconscious with one hit and deals two failed death saving throws with another. As Fig is downed, she casts hellish rebuke in return.
Adaine moves to the center point between Fig, Fabian and Gorgug's unconscious bodies and casts scatter to rearrange them, resisting a counterspell attempt by the last Jace with a reaction left. Adaine places Mazey near K2, Gorgug and Fabian near Kristen, and Fig near Riz. Angered at being denied the chance to end Gorgug's life, Porter grabs a chunk of debris and hurls it at Adaine, hitting despite her silvery barbs and wiping out one of her mirror image duplicates. As the last person with her scatter, Adaine moves one of the Jaces from near the ballot box to a point far outside the disintegrating gym.
Porter orders the possessed Mazey to disband the school. She attempts to do so, but a klaxon rings and the voice of Arthur Aguefort announces that it cannot be done via compelling magic. Porter orders her to throw the bag of votes in the lava, but Jace interjects that Kipperlilly has died, and in the confusion as the two teachers argue about what to do, Mazey is unable to do anything but kick the bag of votes over to Porter.
The distant Jace casts fly and closes half the distance to return. One of the two remaining Jaces casts detect thoughts to locate K2, while the other, unaware that the Bad Kids are all immune to fire, casts a Bigby's hand to try and fail to shove Adaine into the lava.
With advantage and bless, Gorgug rolls a natural 20 on his death saving throw, reviving himself. Confused at where he wakes up, he flies toward one of the Jaces and shoves him into the lava, killing him, then throws his axe to knock the bag of votes out of Porter's hand and into Adaine's. With his bonus action, Gorgug scans Porter, finding resistance to all damage types and immunity to fire and non-magical physical attacks. Porter uses a legendary action to leap into a spot where his attack reach threatens Adaine.
Round Four[]
Riz heals Fig with the Gizzard of the Vulture King, returning her to consciousness. He then moves closer to Porter, hides, and takes a sneak attack shot that noticeably damages Porter. On his last legendary action, Porter attempts and fails to strike Adaine. Fig strikes a chord on her bass to cast a powerful shatter that destroys the gym floor beneath the second-to-last Jace, dumping him into lava and killing him. Fig then skateboards over to the Hangman.
At the start of Fabian's turn, Bakur is freed from his gem, but Porter with the devil's honey tries to persuade Bakur to join his side. The unconscious Fabian's mind reaches out through the mirrors and calls Squeem into the gymnasium, holding six cortados. Squeem cries out his own name in a high pitch, calling Balthazar out of Porter's shadow. Squeem casts mass healing word in the form of tossed cortados to bring Fabian back and also heal the Hangman, Kristen, Fig and Riz. Fabian flies up to Mazey and casts dispel magic to destroy the shatter-star within her, then orders the Hangman to hold Mary Ann under the lava, which succeeds thanks to Fig's cutting words. Mazey thanks Fabian with a charged kiss, and the power of their embrace and positive, protective anger repels more shatter-stars that try to target them.
Kristen pulls out the twilight shards of Cassandra and moves toward Fig, reaching out together with her toward their goddesses to warn them of Porter's deception. Kristen tries and fails to dispel the devil's honey, and K2 farts and says "blimey", crits, and successfully dispels it. On the crit, Cassandra grants K2 true life, making her no longer a simulacrum and no longer unable to regain spells. As Kristen's and K2's magic intertwines, the smoke from the lava becomes a purple hand that reaches out to Bakur, her face from the storm clouds suggesting to Bakur that he should doubt Porter's sincerity. Bakur immediately draws his whip and sword and declares Porter an enemy of Ankarna.
Porter raises his maul and disintegrates Balthazar. Porter downs both Gorgug and Adaine in an area-of-effect maelstrom of blows, the bag of votes falling onto a platform of rock just above the lava. The gym floor continues to fragment, and Gorgug fails a death saving throw as his body falls onto the rock. K2 also falls onto the rock but retains her banishment. At the beginning of her turn, Mary Ann is killed by the lava, and the Hangman resurfaces. Adaine fails a death saving throw. At the end of her turn, Porter swings at Bakur with a legendary action.
Mazey lands a crit and another hit on a shatter-star, destroying it, and uses healing word to bring Gorgug back to consciousness. The final Jace arrives back in the gymnasium and hits Fabian and Mazey with a lightning spell, downing Fabian. Gorgug goes into a rage and lands two frenzied attacks on Porter, who uses a legendary action to attack Bakur again.
Round Five[]
Riz hides and shoots Porter. On Riz's successful ally roll, Sandra Lynn, Jawbone, Ragh, and Lydia burst through a mirror into the gym. Fig skateboards over to Porter and hits him with a booming blade smite, delivering a mighty injury. On Fig's ally check, Balthazar reappears.
Fabian succeeds a death saving throw and crits on his ally check, summoning Agent Cuspin Clark, who shoots the last Jace looming over Fabian. Bakur lands three attacks on Porter, while the Hangman goes to Fig's side to provide the help action. A shatter-star knocks Mazey out. Sandra Lynn, on Fig's urging, swoops in on Baxter toward Adaine to cast cure wounds and bring her back up. Lydia, Ragh, and Jawbone navigate the platforms to get further into the gym.
Adaine uses the earworm Fabian gifted her on Moonar Yulenear to cast detect thoughts, aided by a flashbang from Gorgug. This sends Porter's deep thoughts, no longer protected by the devil's honey, directly to Ankarna: a thought-image in which he fantasizes of slitting Ankarna's throat, holding up her head, and ascending to deityhood. All of the Bad Kids (and K2) reach out in the effort to pull Ankarna back into the world to destroy Porter, and the dying Fabian's wish not to lose his chance with Mazey reaches the goddess in her domain deep in the Bottomless Pit. The uncorrupted Ankarna, outraged at the injustice, slices Porter in twain with a sword bigger than the gym.
With Jace the only living bad guy on the premises, the Bad Kids convince Agent Clark that he is Hilda Hilda, and Clark arrests him. At the last minute, though, Fig decides she doesn't want Jace getting credit, and she shouts "I'm Hilda Hilda!" and runs. Clark tosses Jace into the lava and chases after Fig.
After the battle[]
Everyone is enveloped in the light of dawn and twilight, which fades to find them scattered and in the astral dimension of Ankarna's rotting body. The crystals around them show images of the thin line between justice and anger in their memories, images of unfair moments and missed opportunities.
Gorgug thinks back to Porter rejecting his MCAT and wishes he had rejected Porter's authority to limit his choices. Ankarna watches this memory and how Gorgug wishes it had gone, and she fully heals him, offering him words of comfort before fading away. Kristen sees a crystallized montage of her Helionic upbringing with her parents, and Ankarna heals her and offers her strength, looking sorrowful as Kristen says she only wants to accept what she cannot change. Kristen and Gorgug are able to reunite.
Ankarna continues to appear to each of the Bad Kids, healing them as they face their injustices and are then able to rejoin the group. Adaine sees the unfairness in how her parents Angwyn and Arianwen had pitted her and her sister Aelwyn against each other, robbing them of a sisterly bond for sixteen years. Riz sees the difficulty in making friends before high school and the injustice in himself in how he has tread a road sometimes close to Kipperlilly's. Fig feels a desire to be mad at her mom, but actually sees her own unfair treatment of herself, letting herself suffer in the curse of pride without asking for help.
Each of the Bad Kids turn down Ankarna's offers of aid in violently destroying the injustices against them, and Ankarna tearfully tells Fig that she may die if she does not get the chance to help. Fig offers her to just owe Fig instead.
Fabian thinks of Bill's expectations of him, his shame at getting Bill's followers slaughtered, and the weight of expectation of being a "Maximum Legend" this year. Fabian sees Bakur, Lydia, and Gorthalax appear, who open a seam through which Bill steps out. Fabian tells Ankarna he doesn't want to cause Bill harm, he just wants Bill to understand. With a touch of twilight, Bill reassures Fabian that he would love him regardless of his fame, that Fabian is worth more than all the etching of his name across the world.
As the Bad Kids reunite in a twilight forest, they are joined by Cassandra holding a badly injured Ankarna alongside all the rest of their allies. Cassandra takes K2 in her hand and tells her to "go away forever," blowing her away into the wind. A feeble Ankarna begins to fade away, saying she doesn't know if anyone needs her. Kristen urges her to let go of the residue of violence from Porter's following and to take a fresh start. Ankarna, however, says she fears she is more useful to wrathful and conquering followers than just ones, and that she is thus always doomed to be corrupted again.
Fig urges her to direct her own potentiality, telling her that the promise of dawn is the only thing that makes Fig's domain of rebellion have any meaning. Ankarna weeps as she realizes all the Bad Kids believe in her, and agrees to tread a new, more humble path with them. Fig also reassures her that even if the Bad Kids did not accept her offers, the extending of the offer itself had helped them make peace. Kristen speaks of the importance of gray areas in the times of dusk and dawn, the blending of light and darnkess.
Cassandra and Ankarna kiss and are about to retire to rest, but Kristen asks about Kalina. Ankarna angrily agrees with Kristen that Kalina is bad and urges the Bad Kids to pray for Kalina to be located. The group offers up Squeem, whom Ankarna sends along with Balthazar to track down Kalina.
Adaine brings up the injustice of people being killed in Ankarna's name who didn't deserve to be killed. Ankarna removes her name from the bones of Lucy Frostblade and Yolanda Badgood, permitting their revival, and Fig casts atonement on Mary Ann. Cassandra takes a selfie with Kristen and Ankarna and texts it to Craig, telling him to post it online to promote Kristen's church and saying, "Take that, Wolfsong." As the goddesses are leaving, Ankarna summons a station wagon with Arthur and Ayda Aguefort, who greet the group, including a reunitement between paramours Ayda and Fig.
Back in Elmville[]
Arthur brings everyone back to the Aguefort Adventuring Academy and urges Mazey to count the votes for president, as it has been hours without an acting principal. Adaine asks Arthur about the questionable bylaws and Arthur is surprised, calling it "narc shit". Henry Hopclap repairs Grix, and Arthur regrets making Grix follow the narc bylaws but ultimately chalks it up as "another W for Arthur Aguefort" that things were not even worse.
When the votes are counted (in which it turns out Mary Ann voted for herself instead of Kipperlilly), Kristen Applebees is elected president, and Riz apologizes if she felt like he pressured her. At the morgue, Yolanda is revived and gives Kristen a great grade as Bobby Dawn skids out of town in an RV. Lucy also comes back and thanks Kristen for letting her stay in her afterlife. She reassures the Bad Kids that her adventuring party used to be really good before they were corrupted.
Ankarna revives the Rat Grinders, the shatter-stars ejected from them. Ruben remembers little of his enraged times, while Oisin and Ivy are bashful at the memory of what they did. Mary Ann asks about her strawberry but is easily appeased with a mango soda and bonds with Fig over her game, Quokki Pets. The Bad Kids push Gorgug to make peace with Mary Ann, and they awkwardly flirt as Gorgug finally admits he's attracted to her. She mentions her father makes benches and leaves her number for him "where you get Quokki Pets".
Epilogue[]
Yolanda encourages Kristen to be the cleric of a pantheon of the joining of Cassandra and Ankarna, which she does. Craig's post about "shipping gods" goes viral.
Riz switches from coffee to tea. Trying to be open to new experiences, he looks into pamphlets from rogue schools. Sklonda reassures him that whatever he chooses to do is fine, because he'll try his best at whatever it is. They agree to a movie night, dessert, and a good night's sleep.
Adaine and Aelwyn trade loving, sisterly jabs, including about how Adaine didn't take prestidigitation. Over a sundae at Basrar's, they open an ominous letter from the Court of Stars about strange goings-on in the forest of Sylvaire and a powerful wizard there. The sisters agree to track down their mother there, but first, they bond over ice cream.
Fabian cracks the coin to summon The Tornado, "Uncle Ray", to pick up Seacaster Manor and deposit it back where it belongs. He and Mazey have their first time together, then are startled by the return of Hallariel, Gilear, and Telemaine, who has given over Kei Lumennura to Wolfsong and has decided to join the family in Elmville. Cathilda also returns, alarmed to hear Fabian had the house to himself. Hallariel announces with glee that they are getting a new dog... which Gilear says is to protect the new baby. Fabian's phone pings with a new nemesis alert: his unborn sibling.
Kristen is excited to be involved and excelling at school. She taps Riz for help regularly, prompting him to switch back from tea to coffee, and eventually persuades Arthur to retroactively install Riz as her vice president. Kristen tells Tracker about the new pantheon, while Tracker admits she's on a break with Nara and Wolfsong is struggling without her family's money. Tracker agrees to consider potentially folding Wolfsong into Kristen's pantheon to join Galicaea and Ruvina with Cassandra and Ankarna. Kristen gently breaks up with Gertie, who declares Kristen her nemesis. Back at Mordred Manor, the dawn and twilight goddesses look on fondly as Kristen gets word Tracker will be on her way back into town soon.
Gorgug takes some time to relax, work on the Hangvan, and spend time with his parents. He gifts Fig with a bass effects pedal he made as thanks for her helping him with barbarian classes, as well as a bench. Wilma and Digby talk about how proud they are of his flashbang and other accomplishments. Arthur asks if Gorgug would consider teaching after graduation, and is impressed at how he sealed the Night Yorb. Arthur rambles about his and Ayda's adventures before the dawn of time on a jet ski bigger than galaxies in order to undo the Time Quangle. Arthur teases about whether "maybe next year I'll be" the villain, then turns into birds.
At Mordred Manor, Ayda gives Fig and Sandra Lynn a moment of privacy. Sandra Lynn talks about the "Complicated Women" podcast and Fig's song "Dawn of Justice", about how every day is about being better than you were the day before, and segues into how much she loves and respects Fig, and offers to be there for her more. Fig reciprocates, then mentions maybe setting up a room at Seacaster Manor so she can help out with the baby. They embrace, and Sandra Lynn places a special hunter's mark on Fig to let her reach out to her anytime.
While reflecting in Hell on her album track "Straight A Dropout", Fig considers that the Bad Kids can still be friends even if she drops out and they aren't all in school together. Arthur, who has downloaded the album onto his Zune, tells her he would be honored to count her not among the school's alumni but among its dropoutniks, or "li'l dropout daddies". However, he says, he cannot stop the inevitable automatons that are now hunting her across the multiverse for dropping out. Ayda casts a gate spell to connect the Bottomless Pit with the Compass Points Library in Leviathan, reassuring Fig that dropping out of school doesn't mean she will stop learning. In passing, Rip mentions that Baby and Baby Baby have multiplied, producing Baby Baby Baby and Baby Baby Baby Baby.
Back in the Aguefort gymnasium, unbeknownst to everyone, the banishment ends and Buddy Dawn reappears. He calls out in confusion to "Bakarath", and a nascent divinity appears, declaring itself "Bakarath, god of rage". Buddy tells Bakarath it needs a champion, and it summons Kalina. She says, "we gotta get the fuck out of here," and they vanish in shadow.
Locations[]
Characters[]
The Bad Kids[]
New[]
Returning[]
- Porter Cliffbreaker
- Mary Ann Skuttle
- Kipperlilly Copperkettle
- K2
- Bakur
- Mazey Phaedra
- Jace Stardiamond
- Squeem
- Balthazar
- Agent Cuspin Clark
- Sandra Lynn Faeth
- Baxter
- Ragh Barkrock
- Lydia Barkrock
- Cassandra
- Jawbone O'Shaughnessey
- Bill Seacaster
- Yolanda Badgood
- Lucy Frostblade
- Ruben Hopclap
- Ivy Embra
- Oisin Hakinvar
- Arthur Aguefort
- Ayda Aguefort
- Sklonda Gukgak
- Aelwyn Abernant
- The Tornado
- Hallariel Seacaster
- Gilear Faeth
- Cathilda Ceíli
- Telemaine Lomenelda
- Alston Hughes
- Tracker O'Shaughnessey
- Gertie Bladeshield
- Buddy Dawn
- Kalina