JAILBREAK

By MargaritaDaemonelix

Chapter 1

Born in a town that reeks of gasoline, closed off by high walls, we have yet to see as little as the colour of a field

TW: blood and violence. Proceed with caution.

In the winter of Altera, thirteen thousand years ago, a queen laid herself down to sleep, hoping she would wake up to peace and prosperity.

She woke up to war and fighting and the pressing invasion of eldritch creatures from the void. Alone, she cried, because the successor she'd appointed no longer took commands from her. Alone, she cried, for he had destroyed her people in their prime.

With no way to destroy his regime from the inside, she trained herself to become stronger. She took on the help of two of her kind, ancient and virtually lost to time, and became a queen in her own right. She became a goddess of vengeance, and she returned to her home to avenge her lost people.

And she succeeded. She now sits upon her iron throne, with her empire around her and her best friends at her side. She is a queen of an empire once lost, but now reborn in cold steel. Altera is a strong island empire once more, even if it no longer flies above the rest of the world.

They fortify her iron fortress every day, in preparation for the impending attacks. She builds her army, and they give it their all, whether it is with magic or coding or new armor plating. This is their only way to save this island from doom, after all, with the demons at their doorstep.

The queen may not look like a fighter, but under her dainty, perfect posture and sleek black dress, there lies a steely heart, ready to go down fighting. Once, she was made to be an example to her people. Now, she is their angel of death, protecting them from the harmful influence of the outside world. She is a machine built to kill, and she is proud of it.

Her best friend of all is a boy not unlike her. Considered a prince by his people, he was cast out to sea when the demons attacked his homeland, and has sworn to become stronger to save them once more. She has seen him cry, and she has held him through his tears. Similarly, he has seen her at her weakest, unable to fight or even to move. They are inseparable, and she wouldn't trade him away for the world.

Their two friends are what they call soulmates, the one who they will spend their lives with after years of searching. One is a former noblewoman, whose brother fell from grace and tore their family apart from the inside out. The other is a scientist, a former slave of Altera's merciless past ruler and a man who barely escaped the wrath of the law. They sometimes wander outside in the cold so she can summon the spirits of their predecessors and they can commune with those long gone. They are perfect for each other in every way, and even if no rings bind their fingers together (yet), they are connected at the heart with a vow to protect the other through every life they live.

And yet they are all tired. Fortifying the mechanical soldiers of the empire is one thing, but fighting constant wars against enemies they can't see is starting to take a toll on them. Chung is tired. Ara is tired. Add is tired.

Eve is tired of war.

She stands in her workroom, scraps of metal and nuts and bolts falling from her hands like grains of sand. A bolt slips from her fingers, then a chunk of some random machine she stripped down, but she doesn't notice. She is unmoving, unknowing, unfeeling.

Eve is tired of all the fighting.

The metal bits clink against her boots as she drops them, but the noise escapes her ears. She wants the demons to stop, if only just for a minute, so she can walk among her people, tell them she has news of peace for the future. She wants there to be peace, like the peace she'd hoped for when she let herself power the future of her empire, thirteen thousand years ago.

Eve is tired, not of being queen, but of being cooped up in her iron fortress.

She used to leave in the night to kill, slipping into armor strong enough to protect her from even the strongest sword and magically enchanted to wave off the most terrific incantations. She doesn't have the time to do it anymore, not with an army of her own to raise and fortify. They need her guidance, because she is their queen and their mother and the mother of all Nasod.

Eve is tired.

A washer settles snugly on her pinky finger, like a silvery ring signifying her queendom. She does not remove it, but reaches down into the pile of metal scraps at her feet, fills her hands with the shards and bits and pieces, and throws them in the air.

Eve knows the scraps will be suspended in midair due to her (un)natural magnetism. Unless she tells them to go, they will stay floating, unmoving just like her.

"Miss Eve-"

Her concentration shatters instantly. Eve winces as Chung slams the door shut once again, barely managing to shield himself from the explosion of scrap metal. A particularly large piece impales itself in the wall by the door, and one ricochets off her workbench, kicking off a corner, and sticks in the ceiling.

Chung opens the door experimentally. "I'm sorry, miss Eve," he says, eyes wide at the damage. "I should have knocked before I came in."

She shakes her head. "It is not your fault, Chung," she tells him. "I should not have attempted to suspend so much material all at once."

He whistles as he looks over the chunk of metal in the wall. "You should consider harnessing your magnetism for battle," he suggests, reaching over to yank it out in one fluid motion. The wall stands firm, thankfully, as he extracts the fragment. "You could destroy armies with a strategy like what you just did. Oh god, you could even create Nasods on the spot with something like this!"

"Maybe a machine for battle," Eve amends, "but not a Nasod. There is a lot of necessary coding that must be done for the creation of a true Nasod. However, it may be useful on the battlefield as a protective shield, or a weapon in an emergency."

She frowns at the little iron filings that now litter her floor and cover her walls, and the handful that are starting to rain down from the ceiling. "Cleanup will be messy," she admits, wincing. "Please stand by, Chung."

He leaves the room again, closing the door behind him, as she reactivates her magnetism and brings the scraps together into a pile before dropping them all on the ground. "Better to be safe than sorry," he murmurs. "Miss Eve, you don't have to beat yourself up over things like this, y'know."

"My people could be at risk," she reminds him, steely and cold. "Without control over my abilities, how can protect them? It will only result in them being harmed."

Chung steps forwards. She knows what he's about to do, but even if she doesn't understand why he does it, she drops her guard and lets him wrap his arms around her. "I know the feeling," he mumbles. "It was the same during the fall of Hamel. The sense of hopelessness, that you can't do anything to help."

Eve doesn't quite understand "hopelessness". There is always a way for her to help. That way is not always clear, however; the current situation is a perfect example. Instead of pushing Chung away, she sighs, reaching up to awkwardly pat his back.

"I wish there could be peace, Chung."

Nearly five hundred kilometres away, across the ocean strait, Hamel is not at peace.

Three years ago, when the demons opened the huge portal in the sky above the capital of Senace, Chung was cast out to sea after failing to save his father from the demons. The city was overrun by demons, and Sasha, the resident priestess of the Water El, was forced to run. She almost made it to safety, too, when her entourage was caught by a demon commander, and since then she has not been seen.

Once upon a time, Hamel was beautiful, just like Altera. Where Altera was thriving with exotic plant life and clockwork magic, Hamel was dappled in shining white marble and flowing blue waters. Its people lived under the rule of just leaders for most of its thousand-year history.

What most don't understand that Hamel is known as the City by the Sea for a reason. There are multiple islands off its main coast that contain complex living quarters. Mainland Hamel hosts its military and its palaces, along with its once-beautiful canals and shops. The rest of the islands form an archipelago, one that once housed thousands. There are multiple temples scattered across this archipelago, some that belong to the Elrian faith and some that don't. Hamel had a lot of religious freedom, after all, back before the demons attacked.

Somewhere in the Hamel archipelago, two young people lie in silence in a ditch. No, they're not dead, but they will be if they speak. Their names are Elsword Sieghart and Aisha Landar, and they are hunting down a demon overlord.

Unlike Eve, who is tired of war, Elsword is just tired. He hasn't eaten in a day, hasn't slept in two. The only water they've been able to find lately has been salt water, which, thanks to Aisha's magic, has mostly been a refresher, but she's tired too, and she needs to reserve her magic to fight.

"Can you see the temple?" She whispers, turning her head to face Elsword. "It should be white and blue. Probably has some soot, too."

Elsword winces. "Do you really want me to risk getting my head getting blown off by demons?"

She glares at him. Elsword can feel the exasperation rolling off her in waves. It wouldn't be Aisha without her stern glare, after all. "Look, this entire place is a bloody mess. They see red, they think blood. They see purple, they think "oh wow, let's shoot!" So no, your chances of getting your head blown off by a demon are a little lower than they are for me."

As much as he hates to admit it, she's right, and no amount of whining will change that. Elsword grunts in understanding as he forces himself onto his elbows, keeping his head down as he pushes his way up the side of the ditch.

It's dirty and dumb and Elsword hates it, but Aisha knows what she's doing. He gets to the top, runs a hand over his hair to smooth it down, and peers over the edge.

At first, there's nothing notable in sight. Rocks are strewn all about, bloodied in red and the foul black that Elsword has grown all too used to. The sight and scent used to make him retch, but four years of fighting has desensitized him to the sight and scent of demon innards. The splayed bodies of glitters and demons don't bother him anymore.

He forces himself to focus, and spots the blackened temple in the distance. The Hall of Water, they'd called this temple in particular. It was home to the priestess of Water El in the past before it was overrun. Back then, it had been just as beautiful as the rest of the city. Now, it remains a symbol of the destruction that the demons carry; their blue flags fly in the wind around the temple.

Elsword drops back down into the ditch, skidding down the side and feeling dirt ride up his shirt. "It's about a hundred metres away," he reports. "Pretty beat up, but still intact. Lots of demon flags around it. No sign of any demons, though."

Aish stares at him incredulously, like she can't believe her ears. "It's still intact?" She says, eyes wide. "But the priestess is dead! The energy of the Water El keeping it together should have died off a long time ago. That temple should not be standing."

A little bit of heat rises at the back of Elsword's neck. "Oh, so you sent me up there anyways?" He snorts. "Thanks, Aisha."

She crosses her arms. "Hey, I already told you why I couldn't go," she says. "I couldn't risk sending Angkor up, because they could have recognized him, and you couldn't risk sending Conwell up, because Conwell is a scabbard!"

I heard that, Conwell hums softly at Elsword's side. But yes, Elsword. You should listen to her. She seems to have more sense than you when it comes to potentially risky situations like this.

"Thank you for backing me up, Conwell," Aisha says. "As I was saying, the temple should have collapsed long ago, when the priestess was killed. Her energy being dissipated would have caused huge tidal waves to rise up and destroy the temple. It would have flooded the island too."

She pauses, her words suddenly catching up to her. "Wait… How are we even on this island to begin with?"

That doesn't matter. The vibrations from Conwell at Elsword's side travel up his back, but he's gotten used to them. Something in that temple is keeping it standing, and you have to track it down and destroy it before it comes to destroy you.

Elsword cracks his neck from side to side, working out the sore bits if only for a moment. "Should we serve the dish now, or do you want to add some garnishes?" He snarks, turning to face his companion. "Or should we let them have their dessert early?"

Aisha rolls her eyes at him. "Just attack the fucking temple."

Elsword is not a hitman, as much as they call him one. He is a freedom fighter, having allied with Aisha in the camps of Feita when the demon invasion truly began. Both of them are social outcasts, having found power in seemingly demonic forces - Elsword started following the path of Conwell a year before they reached Feita, and Aisha made her contract with Angkor not long afterwards.

They're really just kids with weapons and more power than they know what do with, in a sense. Elsword is barely eighteen, and Aisha twenty. They were in their teenage years when the invasion began and they were forced to learn to fight for their lives, and for the lives of others.

Back when they were young and full of life and travelling the world, they had a companion with many years of wisdom. She used to get fed up with all their bickering and snap at them when they had their childish arguments. Somewhere out there, she's fighting the same battle on a different battlefield. Neither Elsword nor Aisha have seen or heard from her in five years. She could be dead, and they wouldn't know.

Even though Elsword and Aisha have grown up, they're still kids. Five years of nonstop fighting against the demons has done nothing to change the fact that Elsword called Aisha an old lady when they first met, and that Aisha smacked him over the head with her staff afterwards. They still bicker like kids, and when they bicker, they attract unwanted attention, from demons and townspeople alike.

(A lot of people ask if they're a couple when they bicker. Elsword usually sighs and says "the world would probably end if we were".)

As they climb up the side of the ditch, Elsword hears rustling behind them. "Archers," he announces out loud, hand slinking towards his sword. "Come at us, fuckers."

There's a feral growl that makes the hairs on his skin stand on end, and then a volley of arrows flies through the air. Elsword swings his sword through the air, channeling the energy of Dark El, and grins as a fan of glowing, ethereal blades emerges from the tip to knock the arrows away.

"That's a new one," Aisha comments, thrusting her staff into the air. Immediately, an orb of energy gathers. "Care to share the incantation sometime?"

"Maybe when we're not trying to smoke out the demons," he supplies, watching as her black hole pulls the hidden archers towards their doom. "And remember, we've got to take down at least one of their generals today, otherwise we won't have met our goal for the year."

Aisha finally lets go of the black hole, and it explodes overhead, raining black demon blood and thick, leathery skin over them. A claw drops to the ground, bouncing off rocks with a pop and rolling into the pit. Elsword blinks a bit of blood out of his eyes. "Yikes. Alright, let's get out of the pan and into the fire."

Maybe he's making food jokes because he's tired and hungry, but just the feeling of fighting energizes Elsword. The adrenaline pumping through his blood keeps him on his feet, on the run from demons, and closer to the fallen temple.

As soon as he climbs out of the ditch, there's a war cry in the distance. Elsword has heard enough of these to know that this one means kill. He draws his swords and rushes at the incoming demons, a scream on his own tongue.

The moment his own blade connects with a moving body, Elsword whirls into action. It's what he's trained for, after all. He cuts the head off a glitter, mows down another, and stabs the blade of Conwell into the ground. A clear ring of runes surrounds him, each emitting its own smaller blade of Conwell and shooting them skywards. The glitters fall in a wave around him, each pierced through to the tip of its head.

Not far away, Aisha spins around in a wide circle, barely touching her staff as she recites incantations at spitfire speed. She reaches her free hand outwards, fingers glowing, and releases three streams of plasma, twisting and turning with her hand movements to slice the demons around her to pieces. Horrible screeches are emitted from their lips with each searing cut, and Elsword enjoys every moment of the macabre music.

They reconvene at the doors of the temple, which have been knocked down and burned. A large demon flag dangles over the entrance in their stead. "Here's the plan," Aisha whispers. "You go to the altar room. It's the only place large enough for a war council. Hold down the fort until I secure the rest of the building. We'll rendezvous there, and take out the demon generals."

"Why do you always get first pick?" Elsword almost whines. It's too late to argue, though - Aisha has already teleported into the temple, leaving no trace. He sighs and lifts up the flag. As expected, there are demon guards situated inside at every doorway.

Elsword flexes his fingers and gets to work.

After the guards by the door have all been turned to a finely ground demon paste, Elsword steps into the once-beautiful hallway of the Hall of Water. It still is a chilling place, with high ceilings sparkling in blue-tinted marble and an almost eerie sense of danger lurking around the corner.

He closes his eyes and listens. Occasionally the sound of a spell popping rings through the corridor, followed by the death grunt of a demon. That's just Aisha at work, though, so he tunes that out and heads for the soft murmurs coming from what must be the altar room.

There were once six priestesses of El, each a representative of one of the functions of the Holy El. Now, only two are known to be living - the Earth El priestess, Artea Braun, who fled to Velder after the demon invasion, and the Wind El priestess, Anduran Caluso, who sought refuge with her family in Sander. The sisters Darkmoon and Gloria Grimaldi, priestesses of the Moon and Sun El respectively, were killed when Lanox's Mount Flame erupted just the year before. Ignia Mavros, the priestess of the Fire El, has been missing for three years.

The final priestess lies at the bottom of the shallow pool in the altar room. Elsword has seen enough dead bodies in rivers to know that bodies are supposed to float. Aisha says it's because bacteria in their stomachs cause bloating and a buildup of carbon dioxide, which makes them float. As someone who associates the word bacteria with infection, he's not too comfortable with this information.

Elsword thinks that Sasha Vasilev, the priestess of the Water El and once resident of this very temple, must have been torn apart for her to sink. As he nears the door of the altar room, the huge gashes across her abdomen only confirm this. The water she is entombed in is red with her blood, and there are chunks of El knows what floating at the top.

It's enough to make any man sick, but Elsword has seen enough of this kind of stuff for a lifetime. Blood doesn't bother him anymore.

There doesn't seem to be any demons around, but to be safe, Elsword opens his palm, letting five little Conwell blades emerge to dance in a circle around him. They won't keep him any safer than he is, but they'll alert him to any danger, which is useful.

He presses his ear to the wall and listens.

"The nuisances outside are starting to get on my nerves," says a young woman, her voice high and full of false sweetness. "Maybe I'll go take them out their misery, don't you think, darling?"

A grunt, this time from someone else. That means there's at least two of them. "Mmm. Maybe I'll stay for a while, let them come to us," the woman muses. "It's much more fun baiting the stupid ones. I think we'll have a grand time grinding their bones to dust."

"Let them come," her companion says, and Elsword freezes. The other person is undeniably feminine, but her voice is rough, like she's been through a lot of vocal wear and tear. "I know exactly who's out there, and when they come, I'm going to make them wish they'd never come to Hamel."

This voice is every bit soothing as it is grating to his ears. The last time he'd heard it was ten years ago, in a small cottage house in Ruben. There's a certain coarseness to this woman's words quite unlike in her youth, a warning signal to those who approach, and for good reason. Elsword knows firsthand how powerful she is.

And yet there's a pit of uncertainty that rests at the bottom of his stomach. If she really is who he thinks she is, then whatever forces standing up against the demons are doomed.

"How goes the planning for our little attack on Altera?" The familiar woman asks, her voice rich but lax. "Are the troops ready to go at our command?"

"Of course, darling," says the other, and Elsword realizes in awe and shock that they must be lovers. A tone like that can only be accompanied by bedroom eyes. "Two million glitters and one million true demons are on standby. The necromancers are preparing their portals as we speak. The island of Altera falls tomorrow, and soon, Velder and Sander and Bethma and Feita will be ours, too."

This is it. This is Elsword's chance to absolutely destroy the demon generals that he's been hunting for two years. Something in him hesitates, though, because that voice is all too familiar and Elsword has missed it for too long.

The looming threat of an attack on Altera, and subsequently the rest of Elrios, is too much of a risk to give up hope on.

Elsword grips his swords and rushes into the room, incantation on his lips, pointing his weapons directly at his sister.

Elsewhere in the Hall of Water, Aisha steps on what remains of a demon's face, using it as leverage to wrench her staff out, and hefts it back over her shoulder. The demon falls to the ground, head cleaved neatly in half and leaking dark blood all over the blue floors. "That's what you get for getting my way," she spits, turning away from the damage.

A lot of the towns she and Elsword visit tell tall tales about her staff, because usually the staff of a mage doesn't involve a large axe blade in the shape of a bat wing. Aisha thinks it's a perfectly good weapon, though sometimes it hurts deep in her heart when people ask if she licks the blood off afterwards.

Angkor often reminds her that the appearance of her clothes, her staff, even her hair, are all for her own good. "You gotta stay fresh," he says. "Besides, with less weighing you down, you'll be more aerodynamic and you won't have to worry about your abysmally sad running speed as much."

Aisha isn't too sure why she puts up with the batty old demon deity, but hey, it gets her some pretty fireworks when she blows stuff up and a boost in her powers, so she's not complaining. She drops her staff against the wall for a moment to reach up and tighten her pigtails, brushing a tuft of hair out of her face along the way. "Now which way?" She mutters.

Her voice echoes through the corridor, carrying over into the void. Something calls back from far away, like a response to her question. It sounds like shrill crying, like that of a small child, but is then joined by soft singing, lilting and free. The crying stops shortly.

She picks her staff back up, hefts it over her shoulder, and shakes her head. The tuft of hair she'd brushed away drops back into her face, and she rolls her eyes. "Time to go," she says out loud, listening intently for the echoes that will bring her to the source of the sounds.

Bats are masters of echolocation, after all. Aisha's patron took a bat as his primary form millennia ago, and after completing her contract with him, she has turned to a lot of his mannerisms on the battlefield. Once, she was squeamish and unable to get her hands dirty. It's why she relied on her magic so much as a young girl.

Years of combat, and a few more as the chosen of Angkor, have given her the same resilience that haunts Elsword. They plow through armies of demons without batting an eye, and simply wash the blood off afterwards. It doesn't matter that they leave fields stained dark with the blood of demons afterwards. They have to keep doing it, just to keep surviving.

It's quite unfair that they had to grow up so quickly. She had wanted to travel the world with her friends, once upon a blissful time.

Aisha sticks close to the wall, staff at the ready, when she finally locates the source of the singing. It has to be a sprite singing, that much is clear, but the crying voice remains unidentified. The two voices melt together, song eventually drowning out scream, when she nears the room they're coming from.

She peers through a crack between the (still intact!) wooden doors. As expected, a Laguz sits singing, eyes closed as she pours out the haunting music of her people.

What really surprises Aisha is what the Laguz is doing aside from her singing. Her chair is next to a strange box-like contraption, which she rocks lightly as she sings. The box is decorated in blue like every other thing in the temple, but a little train of starfish and seashells garnishes its side, and what seems like fabric pokes over the edge.

Aisha realizes with a start that it's not a box, it's a cradle, and there is a baby inside. She backs away from the door for a moment, hand over her chest, and allows herself to exhale.

There are two possibilities. One, the child is human, in which case why would the demons be caring for a human child? Maybe they're trying to raise a spy? It doesn't make sense that they'd save a child of the people they're trying to destroy, anyways.

The second possibility is that the child is a demon, which is almost just as unlikely. Demons rear their young in their homeland, another dimension yet to be located. There's very little chance that the demon generals could have had a child either, since none of them have been absent for long periods of time.

(It could be an elf child, or a Ponggo child, she thinks, and fails to take to heart.)

In either case, the baby cannot stay here, in the hands of the demons. The temple is slowly collapsing, there are demons everywhere, and even she is separating this demon from its parents, she's really doing it a favour, right?

Aisha takes a deep breath, raises her staff, and swings it at the door like a baseball bat.

The wing blade smashes right through the wood, which - like she'd been expecting - is rotten and disintegrating. The Laguz's song is cut brutally short with a shriek of surprise as she barrels through, globes of dark energy flowing out of her staff. "Step away from the child," she snarls, letting her weapon crash to the ground.

A shockwave rises from beneath the impact point, headed directly under the Laguz. As she blows out a train of freezing bubbles, Aisha finishes her incantation. From deep beneath the island, a jagged stone emerges, piercing through the Laguz and sending her shredded body up in every which direction. She lets out a final scream, her dying curse, and bursts into a bubble of water.

Aisha has been hit by enough sprite curses to know not to get near a sprite while they're dying, but it's still too close to the cradle. She lunges for the cradle and shields it with her body just as the bubble reaches it.

She opens her eyes experimentally. The bubble of water around her, holding her down, seems to have just missed the baby, who is most certainly human. Tiny tufts of dark blue hair line her forehead, and her skin is pale and peachy, just like a human baby should be. Her grey eyes are open and filled with tears and terror.

Aisha waits for the Laguz's bubble to fade in patience. She's gotten good at holding her breath, after all, and she can wait it out for a while. After half a minute, though, the bubble doesn't pop. She can feel her lungs burning, her skin turning blue from the cold and lack of oxygen. She clenches her eyes shut, presses her lips together, and lets go of the cradle.

Just as she gives up and prepares to take in water, the bubble bursts, and Aisha is left freezing in the cold of the temple. She's not wet, since the waters of Laguz bubbles are only magical constructs, but how did that one last so long? Unless that was a particularly strong Laguz, the bubble shouldn't have lasted more than twenty seconds.

Yes, Aisha tells herself as she turns to face the cradle once more, that must have been a very strong Laguz if the demon generals trusted her to take care of a human infant. The baby is starting to cry again, and very loudly. If this keeps up, they'll attract the attention of the guards, and Aisha doesn't know if she can destroy a battalion of demons while defending the cradle.

Aisha is not good with children. She reaches out to Angkor, who is also not good with children, and finds no answers. In the end, she digs through her grimoire, finding a spell she's never used, and lets her words wash over the baby. Slowly, the crying stops, replaced by soft breathing as the baby falls asleep.

The presence of this child worries her. Why on earth would the demons be interested in keeping a human child around? Who are the parents? Were they killed in the onslaught? Are there more children like this?

She shakes the thought out of her head. There's no time to waste, after all. She dips her hands into the cradle, lifting out the baby, blankets and all. She's never swaddled a child, but she manages to wrap the baby into some sort of soft cocoon, and tucks an arm around the package as she raises her staff with the other.

There are sounds of fighting coming from elsewhere in the temple. Aisha is pretty sure she can hear Elsword screaming, and she smirks. "Let's go see what your redheaded uncle is up to," she tells the baby, even though neither she nor Elsword are anything close to familial figures to this child.

She raises her wand and teleports deeper into the temple, right into the battle.

Elsword doesn't know how hungry he really is until his stomach growls right in the middle of battle.

He's literally standing on the altar, dangling Ignia a foot off the ground by the ponytail, when it happens, and it's just so sudden that Elesis starts laughing. "How long have you gone without eating?" She taunts. "A few more days, and you'll have wasted away into nothingness. Or we could just put you out of your misery and turn you to mincemeat now."

"Who or what are you, and what have you done to my sister?" He demands, clenching the ponytail higher. Ignia yelps in pain and swings an arm at him, but he steps aside easily.

Elesis laughs, and it's such a familiar sound that it's painful. Her voice is harsher than it was before. "What sister?" She says. "I only know pain."

Bursting into the altar room has given Elsword multiple world-shattering revelations:

One, Ignia Mavros, former priestess of the Fire El, has not been missing for years but simply hiding. Not only is she alive, but also a new demon general - the large demon insignias on her shoulders tell him that much. Her eyes are fiery and alive, more so than they were when she was a priestess. The altar room now crackling in flame tells him that she's been refining her powers.

Two, his sister Elesis Sieghart, who he hasn't seen in ten years, is also alive and well. The clunky claymore that she set out from home with has been replaced with what seems to be a red cutlass, and the bright smile on her face with an emotionless frown. Her voice is jagged and lifeless, but it's still her.

And three, it seems that she's abandoned the side of justice and joined the demons as well.

There's a certain grace in her step as she walks towards the altar, trailing her blade behind her. The same demon insignia that Ignia wears with pride is a little more hidden in her outfit, skillfully integrated into the patterns on her gloves and shoes.

The biggest change that Elsword sees is in her eyes. Something must have happened to Elesis that changed her catastrophically, because her eyes are no longer the same bright red as her brother's. They bleed into gold, like blood splattered on rich honey. They burn with a sense of madness that Elsword would never have found in his sister, ten years ago.

"You are no brother of mine," she states, eyebrows furrowing together, "only a pest for me to dispose of."

Elsword barely has time to raise his sword to protect himself when she lashes out with hers, neatly slicing through Ignia's hair and allowing her to drop out of Elsword's grip. "How dare you lay a hand on her," she hisses, standing over Ignia protectively. "I'm going to destroy you and everything you care for."

Elesis's sword comes flying out at him before he can think, and he vaults over it, rolling to a stop a few metres away. Coughing, he realizes too late that his own sword has skidded across the room, into a pool of flame.

There's no time to think. His sister is rushing at him, Ignia is rising to her feet and summoning fire again, and his sword is too far away to reach.

Elsword closes his eyes, and calls out to Conwell.

The scabbard at his side hums, and Elsword feels cold steel materialize in his hands. "Thanks," he mutters, raising his dual blades just in time to block off Elesis's onslaught. He ducks and weaves under her arms, knowing fully well that he should be fighting back, but this is his sister, the only blood relative he still has, and he can't bring himself to inflict damage on her.

Elesis, on the other hand, is going all-out in this fight. She flicks her wrist and suddenly Elsword is sprawled across the floor, with only one blade left to protect himself with.

"Take it easy, babe," Ignia cackles from over by the altar. "You don't want to make the kid piss himself."

She's headed towards his sword, Elsword realizes with a start. He pushes himself back to his feet, screaming, and lunges at her, knocking her aside. His sword is too strong to melt, but the fires are too hot to handle.

Regardless, Elsword reaches into the fire and pulls his sword out. The leather grip on the handle is still smouldering, but he doesn't feel it against his hand. There's too much adrenaline in his blood, too much confusion eating away at him, too much emotion tearing him to pieces.

There's a pop and a flash of darkness, and Elsword is left blinking away the dark spots in his vision as Conwell's power fades out of his hands and back into the scabbard. His sword continues burning in his hand, the pain finally starting to set in.

Someone roughly shoves a mess of cloth into his arms. Elsword realizes a few seconds later that the someone is Aisha, and whatever she gave him is warm and very much alive.

"I didn't think you demons would have it in you to kidnap a child," she snaps, knocking the tip of Elesis's sword aside with her staff. "Have you no shame?"

Ignia's eyes go wide. "No-"

Aisha finishes her incantation before she can finish her sentence, a cloud of gloomy purple and green gases whooshing into existence around them in a clear ring. Elesis coughs loudly, immersed entirely into the foul-smelling gas, as Ignia doubles over. Aisha grabs Elsword's arm, waving her staff. "Hang on!"

Elsword watches in horror as the poison gas hits Ignia's flame and ignites, just as Aisha's teleportation spell turns the world upside down and drops them on the other side of nowhere.

"Where are we?" Aisha mutters, looking around as Elsword stumbles to his feet. "I think we've jumped pretty far this time…"

She squints at their surroundings. "That's Altera," she says, pointing into the distance at some island. "You can tell because of the fortress rising out of the middle. They call it the Core."

Elsword follows her finger towards the island, registering that yes, the island does in fact have a fortress towering over it. "Altera," he remembers, almost vaguely. "Elesis and Ignia said the the demons have plans to invade Altera."

Aisha stares at him incredulously. "That was your sister?" She gapes.

Before Elsword can reply with something sarcastic, the package of blankets in his arms moves and starts to cry. "This is a baby," he realizes in shock. "Holy fuck, Aisha, you abducted a kid?"

"In my defense, this is a human baby that was being raised by demons," she says, arms crossed over her chest. "I couldn't just leave them behind!"

"This could be my biological nephew or niece, for all we know," Elsword says, a little queasy. His sister is slim, almost too slim, and doesn't look like she's had a kid. "Now Elsa and her new girlfriend are going to come hounding after us."

"Then it's a good thing that we're going to stop them," Aisha says firmly. "Right now, we have three priorities. We've got to keep the baby safe, warn Altera of the incoming demon invasion, and also find food."

She turns around to point at the island in the distance. "And that island is where we're going to solve all three problems all at once."

"Isn't Altera inhabited by robots?" Elsword snarks. "Do you think they'll have food? Or child care services?"

"There are a handful of human guests of the Queen living on Altera," Aisha supplies. "Rumour has it she's been holing up the lost Prince Seiker of Hamel, and everyone kind of knows how the Yama Raja and the Lunatic Psyker went to live with her after Velder granted them a reprieve. Besides, Altera is home to the native population of Ponggos, and it's pretty well known how good they are at cooking."

Elsword shrugs, which is kind of hard when he has a sword in one hand and a baby in the other. "I'm sold."

Truthfully, he doesn't think the kid is his sister's. The gene that gives them their red hair and eyes is definitely dominant enough to have been passed down in their family for six generations, so if this is her biological child, he'd see red wisps of hair and curious red eyes. Instead, he sees dark hair in faded blue, and startling grey eyes. The baby babbles and reaches up to touch his face, pudgy little hand soft against his chapped skin and lips.

"That's your uncle Elsword," Aisha cooes, leaning over to see the child. "Are you a good baby? Yes you are, yes you are!"

"I think you're supposed to do that with dogs, not children," Elsword says wryly. "What are you then, grandma Aisha?"

She shoots him a glare, and goes right back to entertaining the baby. "Your uncle Elsword is a terrible person," she says. "Should we leave him here while we go to Altera?"

"Uh, no," Elsword says, "we're all going to go to Altera and tell the Queen that her empire is going to be invaded by demons, ASAP, so her island isn't destroyed in the onslaught."

"Sounds good to me," Aisha tells him. "Hang on."

She grabs his arm, and they disappear off to the other side of the ocean.

A/N: happy nanowrimo 2017! I've been planning this fic since December of last year, and I promise it'll be explosive and definitely worth a read!

My other recent fics - snow or ashes? and Staraway - have been practice fics, since I'm trying to figure out how much I can reasonably write in a day. Realistically, for nanowrimo I only need to write about 2k a day, but my record was about 5.5k. Staraway was about 8k and written over the course of three days.

The other thing I needed to practice was getting back into writing in third person. Due to Blink, I'm too used to writing in second person, and I really need to be more fluent in third person. I told myself when I first started working on Blink that I would keep it in second person, and the Inferno universe (now the Infernal Jukebox series) in third person.

This fic is dedicated to my wonderful readers, and a special shoutout goes to guest user Minerva Venus, who requested some IS/VP in this universe.

I love y'all, chem sucks, listen to Mafumafu's cover of Jailbreak, peace out.

~Marg