Aaron Luxian stared at the unstoppable armies of darkness that stood before him and shivered. Beasts and creatures out of myth and his darkest nightmares stood before him. But he couldn't let his men see his weakness, and silently cursed himself.
I can't afford to seem weak to them.
He grimaced and felt a gentle hand across his armored shoulder. Aaron turned to his left and looked at a woman with silvery white hair and a cheerful smile, his long time friend whom he fell in love with all those years ago, Mary Luxian smiled at him reassuringly almost as if she was reading his mind.
The hair pin he gave her all those years ago tucked into her hair bouncing in the breeze. He chuckled to himself
I never could hide what I'm thinking to her
. She nodded once then went to her platoon.
Aaron couldn't help but feel a ping of concern for her, but she wasn't one to sit out a battle after all. Aaron looked at all of the soldiers under his command and felt a tinge of coldness inside the pit of his stomach. How could he command these people to march to their deaths? He knew many of his troops and knew their families and friends, what would happen if any of them died?
Aaron closed his eyes, he had commanded troops before and this was no different. He couldn't afford to get cold feet, if he and his armies fell. A mighty blast of a trumpet sounded from far off into the distance, and roaring and cheering went off through the dark soldiers and beasts of the shadow army standing before him and Aaron felt something he hasn't felt in all the years he had been a divine knight. The army began screaming and calling for human blood, then, he came. An armored human shaped creature standing a head above the average shadow cloaked hellspawn stood at around 9 feet tall and the dark ones kneeled as he walked through the ranks.
He must be the leader.
Aaron figured that if his forces could take out that armored one they might at least be able to prevent the demons from gathering in the future. But how could he risk the safety of hundreds of lives who depended on him. He lowered his helmet over his eyes and felt sadness in the pit of his stomach. The sky seeming to sense the bloodshed and gore that would occur and began to release a torrent of rain down unto the two armies readied for battle.
Even between the thousands of soldiers and the sudden downpour of rain Aaron could still sense the smile under that dark armored creatures helmet. Aaron felt tears come down his face and suddenly felt glad for the rain. The Demons surged forward roaring and cheering at the thought of deaths of humans. Aaron roared in response, he would not let this be his resting place and ran far ahead of his still standing firm army. He slashed and cut his way into the wall of bloodthirsty demons. As Aaron slashed and cut through the demons he felt his worry and fear ebb away.
He was a warrior at heart, years of experience guided his blade as he cut down the dark creatures one after the other. In between the demons he began seeing flashes of metal from swords and axes. He turned just in time to see a massive demon raise its axe and bring it down. The crushing blow would have killed him if not for a knight tackling him out of the way.
The knight raised up the plated facemask revealing the face of Mary. He smiled to himself, he felt worried for her of course but this was do or die time. He couldn't afford to feel fear for her in combat, besides, he remembered that in combat training Mary would always beat him up easily. Reading Mary's moves on the battlefield was easy for him after training with her for so long, and after she knocked the demons axe out of the way he jumped at the opportunity and struck violently into the demons abdomen and slashed horizontally cutting easily through the demons putrid blackened flesh. After a few moments of combat, Aaron felt hopeful, the demons were being slaughtered by his men who had all rallied behind him.
Mary slashed and cut down demons like it was childsplay as well as some of the other knights Aaron knew took the battle to the demons cutting down any that stood in their path. One Demon swatted at a knight who had been hit by the butt of the demons giant meaty fist, but another knight wielding a massive shield stepped up and blocked the Demons death strike, effectively knocking the giant off balance giving his ally time to recover. The injured knight grabbed his sword and the shielded knight bent down using holding his shield up as his comrade jumped on the shield and used it as a springboard launching into the air to stab the giant right in its large gruesome face. The blade cut through the giant spilling it's blackened blood on the battlefield. Aaron smiled to himself. He felt a mighty roar welling up in his chest and released it into the combat around him. His knights, no his friends, roared in return each feeling his courage coursing through all of them. Aaron then suddenly felt something shift in the air.
A cold dark breeze blew through the bloodied field and tendrils of energy coursed through the battle. The armored creature walked through the battle energy flowing from his body. Every knight who came near him was sawed in half by the dark power flowing through his body. The dark knight raised his hand and the shielded knight Aaron had seen earlier fell on his knees at the Armored ones feet. The dark helmet moved down almost as if the creature inside was regarding the human before him. The demon raised his foot and stomped the knights head into the ground with such force, that the very earth cracked and groaned beneath his mighty now stained red armored foot.
Aaron stepped forward. This was his duty as a Holy knight, he drew his sword and slashed at the dark knight with a mighty arc of his own divine energy, sending the dark beast reeling. Horrifyingly the creature simply turned toward Aaron looking more annoyed than in pain. "Tell me something," the armored monsters voice shook through Aarons core sending shivers down his spine, "Why do humans look at us as evil?" Aaron saw through the holes into the eyes of this dark creature and saw something he couldn't understand, fear, hate, but almost at the same time a kind of dark peacefulness. The demons eyes suddenly hardened and at once he slashed his hand through Aarons armor. Everything went blurry and Aarons vision clouded with the color red. He fell over feeling something sticky going down his chest. Looking down at his white armor now stained crimson and black, a mix of his and demons blood. The demon moved to him and kneeled, "If darkness and death are so bad, why do we exist?" The demon chuckled.
Aaron cringed at the noise, as it was even worse than his regular speech. "Think about all the other species here, all they represent. All of your races argue and bicker like children." The demon lifted off his helmet revealing his grotesque and twisted face. "Maybe I am the punishment to your evil, and I was sent to show you how dark hell really is." The demon grabbed Aarons face and held it to him, then the demon smiled, and for an instant Aaron felt peace, then the creature snapped Aarons neck. Aaron fell to the ground motionless as the demon stood up smiling. The rain poured harder as the Demons began to get the upper hand. The knights losing courage from their fallen leader began to falter as the demons began to become more encouraged, using their leader as a rally. The armored demon released an arc of pure energy at the fallen knights body, but a wave of divine energy blocked his strike.
The demon looked up just in time to see a massive blue creature flowing from the ground. "A dragon" one of the demon knights breathed stunned. The massive blue dragon roared and as the armored demon looked closer, he could almost see a form inside the dragon. A form that almost looked like a human and the armored demon laughed cruelly. Why are you fools scared? It's a dragon-spirit, simply kill the human inside and the dragons energy will vanish."
The demons nodded in assent and began aiming arrows to pierce the dragons energy flowing around the form of the female, but the energy cut through all of it. The woman screamed and the dragon echoed the scream breathing dark energy and wiping out platoons of demons with a single destructive blast of pure energy. The armored demon lunged forward and concentrated all his energy into a single pinpoint strike, cutting through the energy slowly until the blade cut into the woman. The female fell down and the dragons energy dispersed.
The woman, bleeding profusely crawled to Aarons dead body and began to weep. Her helmet now gone revealing her silver hair and, a single hairpin, now bloodied. She grabbed Aarons lifeless face and kissed him, tears streaming down her cheeks. She smiled "I'll see you soon Aaron," She smiled to herself and caressed his face. "I love you," and with that Mary Luxian closed her eyes, and never opened then again. The demon lord walked over to her and kicked her face until he saw blood pouring from her lifeless corpse.
"Pathetic that they thought they could attack us," The demon lord smiled. He had what he wanted though, a dragon-spirit female human. He laughed loudly causing a few of the smaller demons to run away in fear. One demon moved forward meekly, "What now my lord?" The demon lord simply smiled, "The other demon lords won't wish me to proceed just yet" He turned to his soldiers, "Back to our borders, there is nothing left to do here" The demons turned and began marching back to their land, but the demon lord turned back to the city. "I can smell another one, I hope this one will be more fun"