A/N: I live! Well... kind of. Anyway- God knows I've probably tested the patience of people well beyond the limits of what I should have, so I thought I probably ought to update. Granted, this chapter isn't complete yet (hence the shortness), but I figured I was due to post something... so yea. Eheheh. Yes, I know; I'm horridly lazy.
Anathema
chapter 2
Billowing up in choking black plumes, the ashen smoke invaded the sky and littered the sea-scented breezes with the oppressive odor of dead, smoldering earth. It almost looked as though a storm was brewing, dark clouds of torched, earthen debris spilling ever-higher and blotting out the gentle starlight. The air itself looked as if it were burning, roping ribbons of steam hissing as they rose up off the boiling waves crashing against the continental cliff. Countless fish floated belly up amongst the volatile, churning waters, sloshed in the bubbling foam and scalded a bright pink.
Just inland, thousands of hotly glowing embers carried on the stale winds and blew over the towering rock face, tinting the sky an even deeper shade of red. Each was like a tiny wisp of fire, polluting the air with its thick, asphyxiating malodor and sapping away whatever moisture might have been carrying up from off the ocean, leaving behind only an arid desolace. The dusty clouds of brown and crimson hovered over the ground like a sooty fog of dry heat, cooking the very earth like an oven.
Charred black from the raging fires, the Tiberoan coast laid in ruin, the scorched and crusty soil strewn with pairs of massive, clawed impressions.
It looked like a scene straight out of a nightmare, dug up from the farthest depths of hell itself. Sliding a more than troubled look to his fiancé, Guaraha barely managed to raise his voice over the roar of the flames. "The... the entire shoreline is ablaze!"
"The ocean, too!" Meru shouted back, reaching to her breast and closing her fingers around the cerulean stone that rested there. "It looks like the earth is... dying..."
A muffled, yet still trembling crash from farther down the seaside ledge stole their attention away from the inferno, another thundering only a couple of moments after. The tremors only added to the infinitely noisy growl of the widespread flames, and they were followed by another, and another, the quakes seeming to echo more loudly with each. Though even from their lofty vantage point, the two winglies couldn't make much out below the rancorous oranges and reds that were devouring the coastline and masking it from sight.
Meru thought she might have spotted a few, faint shadows shifting in and out, but wasn't certain if they were really there, or if her eyes were just playing tricks on her due to the constant wavering of the wildfire. It wasn't until the screeching hiss that pierced its way up from the blurry mass of grey amidst the pyrestorm that they caught their first glimpse.
Breath catching in her throat, Meru could only stare as the sickeningly familiar shape moved within the flickering wreathes of heat, her fist subconsciously clenching tighter around her dragon stone. "It- it can't be..."
"Meru!" Guaraha yelled, grabbing her by the arm and pointing in a direction just to the right of where she'd been staring.
The silhouette of another hulking form was stalking forward through the sea of flame, and another not far behind it. They seemed to be wandering without any real direction, looking almost as if they were searching for something. The echoing crashes hastened as the leather-hided giants lumbered toward the ledge, pieces of the cliff crumbling beneath the shock of the seismic footsteps and careening down into the tumultuous waters below. Even the fires seemed to shudder and part at their approach, licking harmlessly at their stone-hued skin.
Less than a minute later a fourth emerged, dragging itself along on three limbs, an entire leg missing from the colossal creature. So rapt were the winglies with the first of the creatures they'd seen that the last went almost unnoticed, until it, too, screamed at them with that awful shriek. No matter how many times Meru heard the cry of the demons, it still chilled her blood and pricked at her heart, loosing that feeling of worry all over again.
"...Virage." she whispered shakily, just about curling into a ball in mid-air. For the briefest of moments, she was reminded of the sight of them swarming over the Divine Tree, harbingers to the world's end.
Guaraha shot her an urgent look, taking her hand and trying to pull her higher into the sky with him. "Come on, Meru!"
"It- it's Virage!" she repeated frantically, meeting his gaze for only a second before pulling her arm away and turning her eyes back upon the ancient beasts. "This can't be right! He's dead! We saw the Moon explode!"
"What's going on?" the other wingly shouted again, more so confused now than anything. "I thought you said that without the Virage Embryo, they couldn't survive?"
"I... I don't know! Maybe they-" Her face paled as a realization struck her, her head promptly snapping down the shore to the left. "Oh my God! Donau! If they go any farther east they'll find Donau! We have to-"
"But wait a minute! What about Shana? Isn't that why we're-"
"Guaraha watch out!"
The air itself split as a blistering column of screaming energy surged past, the sky steaming and sizzling with magic in its wake. A shrill cry hissing up from another of the monsters below, a second blast of crackling power ripped its way skyward toward the couple, missing by mere inches and searing the edges of their clothing as they threw themselves from its path. Even several moments after the dissipation of the supercharged beams, the air still smoked, burnt to a crisp just as easily as the still-growing flames were torching the coastline.
The fiery light splaying across the dull, grey hides of the mammoth creatures gave them an even more hellish appearance, bathed in the heated, angry glow. Though the next flash to illuminate the smoking crimson sky was that of a brilliant aqua blue, already the threads of arctic magic weaving together as the wingly shot herself downward.
"Meru!" Guaraha cried as he dove down after her. "What do you think you're doing?!"
"It's too late!" Loosing the frigid energies, the dragoon watched as the spell slammed right into the face of the nearest Virage. As the cold, glittering mist lingered behind and smothered its grotesque visage, several body-length icicles suddenly froze into being and gouged into three of its six eyes, earning an ear-piercing wail that caused Meru's head to pound.
She twirled back up into the sky not a second later, whipping a frightened look across the hazy air to her fiancé. "They'll only follow us if we try to run!"
Helplessly the man hovered higher up, grasping for words. He couldn't just let her take all of them on by herself, but there wasn't much he believed he could actually do, either. Nervously biting his lip as he watched the girl barely twist out of the clawed reach of the beast she'd injured, he swallowed the lump in his throat and threw himself into the fray as well. "I'm coming, Meru!"
Frosty energies swirled and coalesced about the dragoon's hands as she worked her fingers in a looping pattern, the magics emanating a fluorescent turquoise glow as they solidified into a huge icy javelin. Rearing back her arm, she pitched herself forward again and aimed her weapon for the Virage's face, but had to change direction at the last moment to wrench herself away from the pulsing pillar of light that came from another of the monsters. The scalding waves of heat that remained in its passing scorched the air dry, leaving a bright red burn on Meru's arm as she plummeted sharply to escape another blind swipe of razor claws.
A grimace twisting its way onto her paled face, she forced herself forward and spiraled between the Virage's legs, shooting through the hungry flames and turning to level herself out behind the colossus. Sucking in a quick breath, she re-aimed the frozen shard with a narrow glare, and then hurriedly thrust it forward.
The icy point sunk cleanly in with a sickening crack of the Virage's husk, slickly piercing straight through and emerging out from its face at an angle. Gelatinous green spurted from both puncture wounds as it howled in a maddening cry, stumbling forward only a few paces- the giant shard still lodged in its body- before toppling over as it tried to turn around and crashing to the ground in a quaking, thunderous boom. The next thing the dragoon knew, she was grabbed from behind and swallowed in a blink of illumination, a shrill squeal of surprise leaping from her throat.
"Meru! Meru, it's okay!" Guaraha yelled, promptly letting her go. "It's just me!"
"Wh- what just-?"
A couple hundred meters below their feet one of the behemoths raged at them with a terrible roar. And it wasn't until she took a good look that Meru saw a gaping, steaming hole burned into the body of the Virage she'd attacked, the other's pulse magic having blasted right through before the first could even fall completely to the ash-littered ground. It took only a second after to realize that if Guaraha hadn't warped them when he did, she would have been incinerated.
"Oh Divine Tree, that was close!"
"This is crazy, Meru!" he blurted out. "There are too many of them! I was lucky I was able to grab you in time, but we might not get so lucky agai- Meru, are you okay?"
The adrenaline rush subsiding, the dragoon now felt the intense sting consuming her arm, eyes wincing shut as she clasped a gauntleted hand over the burn. Her skin was a shade of scarlet to rival her eyes, and already was beginning to peel. "It... it's nothing. I can-"
"Don't be ridiculous! You're hurt! You have to-"
A sudden gasp tore from his lips as he had to throw himself into action as yet another searing attack barreled its way toward them, both winglies swooping low to get underneath the crackling beam. Biting down on her lip, Meru forced herself away once regaining her balance, crystalline wings shooting off a burst of aqua illumination and propelling her back down toward the creatures.
"Don't-!" Guaraha screamed after her, but unable to follow as he had to, again, shunt himself out of the way as the Virage stubbornly continued their attacks.
In an almost entrancing display, Meru shot past the crippled Virage like a bullet, the frigid, glowing trail of energy left behind in her wake leaving a strange sort of gap bored through the hazy heat of the flames. Its clumsy attack missed her by a long shot, leaving only a stream of smoking air that criss-crossed with the dragoon's flight trail, the energies sparking erratically as they came into contact with one another.
Coming upon the other two, the girl swept to the side to evade the massive claw coming for her, then set to corkscrewing up and around the pair. She zipped this way and that to keep out of the reach of the heavy swings of tree trunk arms, her heart beating faster, knowing the dangerous risk she took by daring to come so close to the monsters. In and out she weaved, succeeding in drawing the Virage's attacks in such a manner that the two actually landed blows on one another as they missed the tiny blue firefly flashing across their vision.
The first lost balance and tumbled to the ground in a heavy rumble, the second nearly tripping over its boulder-sized feet as it stumbled backward. Screeching again with that horrid, grating hiss, both stared pointedly at the dragoon as she rocketed straight up and leveled off a few hundred feet above.
Twirling her wrist over her head, freezing, sparkling magics began spiraling in around her outstretched arm, siphoning into a rapidly growing pool of brightly glowing cold. Watching Meru from his place higher up, Guaraha caught sight of the legless Virage propping itself up and staring decisively at her. In a moment's realization and panic, he warped himself in, bursting into the monster's vision in a flash of emerald green. He pressed both hands to the squishy tissue of its face, quickly powering up and blasting a burning sphere of flame at point blank range.
The scream of the Virage was more out of surprise than pain, only mildly blinded by the fiery surprise attack. Lashing out with one clawed appendage as it fell backward under its own weight, it caught the wingly square across the back, knocking him wildly through the air.
A gurgled cry bubbled up from Guaraha's throat as he tumbled downward, feeling something warm and slick welling up over his skin. Wings of light flickered out of being a couple of meters above the steaming ground, the man landing with a grunt and collapsing into a semi-conscious heap, beginning to choke on the thickly contaminated air. Craning his neck, he could just barely make out Meru through the suffocating smoke, the swirling magic over her head now even brighter than the ocean of fire crackling around him.
Aiming at the Virage that had fallen over after having been struck by its own, Meru pointed her free palm at its stony form, twin pools of crimson hardening as her brow knitted tighter in concentration. A vapory mist began materializing around the giant, ice crystals and feathery snowflakes condensing upon both the ground and the titanic monster, keeping it from moving just for the moment as it continued to spread into a miniature glacier. Jaw tightening, her hand clasped around her wrist, her arm tensing and then whipping down at the Virage as the words of the spell snaked off her tongue.
"Diamond Dust!"
All the magic she'd been collecting throbbed with a howl, exploding into brilliance and surging down in a freezing wave, the spell leaving behind a comet-like tail of fluorescent icy glitter. The temperature of the air sunk dramatically as the wave of subzero energies flooded forward, and as the magic impacted, it flared wildly in a cold, echoing hiss, everything below instantly frozen solid. The abrupt, severe difference in temperatures caused the air to steam all the more, already the edges of the ice beginning to melt away from the hungry licking of the flames. The arctic spell coming to completion, the glacier began to crack, along with the lower half of the Virage that had been caught and frozen with it... and then shattered like glass.
Its legs, forearms, torso, and even one side of its head simply broke away like a crumbling piece of pottery as the ice from the magic burst, the beast falling hard onto its side- or what was left of it- and leaking its remaining blood profusely from the missing part of its skull. A weak, almost whimpering sound whistled from the dying creature's face, its eyes wiggling on their stalks and staring at the dragoon until it fell limp, its last breath like a giant mass of air collapsing.
The Virage that had been only footsteps away caught but the edges of the spell, run through the side with a stray shard from when the magic erupted, and an arm dismembered from where it was flash frozen and shattered along with the ice. Its blazing attack, accompanied by a scream of anger, just barely missed Meru's wings, the girl reciprocating with a scream of her own as she shot herself backward and down to avoid the blast of the Virage that Guaraha had attacked, which had by now managed to right itself up again.
Out of control from the reeling spin she'd thrown herself into, there was nothing the wingly could do to escape the arm crashing down at her. In the next moment a crushing weight slammed against her, burning, acute pain racking her body and sending her hurtling toward the earth.
"Meru!"
She hit the ground like a stone, an ashen plume of dust spraying up from her impact. Almost immediately she felt the oppressive heat of the fires now surrounding and towering over her- an angry wall of heat that felt to her as if it was sapping away her strength. The dragoon armor did little to cushion the force of the fall, and for the first several seconds after hitting, her body stung so badly she couldn't move. It was as though the pain numbed her body to her commands, even despite her desperate will for it to obey as she saw the Virage looming over her and lifting one massive foot, moving to literally crush her like a bug.
She tensed and squeezed her eyes shut, cried out in a fearful squeal, and prepared for what would make the pain she was feeling now seem like nothing at all, her blood running ice cold even amidst the ocean of flame she was trapped within. But- it never came. She waited... waited... and waited for several moments more before, confused, she peeked one eye open and dared a look, expecting to already have been flattened.
What she saw caught her both by surprise, and by disbelieving relief. The monster's massive foot had come down, but it was not the wingly it had ended up stepping on. At first all Meru could make out was the fiery glint off of golden alloy, in which she could nearly see her own reflection, platinum hair smudged filthy with dirt and ash. The aqua hue of twin wings snatched her attention next, and finally the realization that it was, in fact, holding off the Virage.
"K- Kongol!"
With a deep, guttural roar, the giganto- strength enhanced more than tenfold through the raw power of the Golden Dragoon Spirit- threw the Virage off to the point that it lurched several meters in reverse and crashed to the ground, just about doubling over backwards and landing with a thundering boom. The sea of flames itself seemed to tremble beneath the quake, several cracks breaking through the burnt and brittle earth beneath the Virage's colossal weight.
"Is Meru okay?"
"Y- yea!" she stuttered, still a little taken aback by Kongol's sudden appearance. "Boy do I owe ya one! Where'd you come from?"
His attention refocusing on the Virage as it started moving again, beginning to get up, he offered Meru a curt, "Fight now, talk later. You help friend." before taking his deadly axe into hand and rushing at the beast with another war cry.
"Be careful!" Meru called after him, taking to the sky herself a second later, though be it in the opposite direction.
Quickly glancing around, concern immediately took hold again as she caught a glimpse of Guaraha pulling himself along the ground, hacking on the soot floating in the air. But what's more was that the cripple Virage was moving toward him. A burst of cerulean light from her wings as she shot down and she was soon beside him, dragging him out of the flames and toward the cliff edge.
"Guaraha! Guaraha please be okay!"
"I- I think I'm fine..." he coughed out, face contorting into a grimace as Meru's hand moved over his back.
Frowning at the scarlet liquid on her fingertips, her eyes widened, her face blanching a hue almost paler than her hair. "You don't look fine! I've gotta get you outta here."
"But- the Virage?"
"No buts!" she scolded. "Kongol's got it covered. Now c'mon, try'n'get up!"
A fair distance from where Meru had been pulling Guaraha to safety, the golden dragoon was practically picking the Virage apart piece by piece, dismembering the creature by cleaving it repeatedly with his massive weapon. Its remaining arm had already been lost, and it had resorted to trying to blast its enemy from the sky, several dry vapor trails skewing the air in every which direction. Its eyes squirmed on their stalks, following the giganto in flight and trying to focus long enough to aim a blast that would actually hit.
As Kongol moved for its leg next, the behemoth managed a kick that connected, sending the giganto sprawling over the flame-cooked ground much the same way it had Meru, razor talons groaning with a grating scrape against the golden armor. At first it didn't look as though the dragoon would get up, but the widening fissure that suddenly opened up in the expanse between himself and the Virage revealed otherwise. One of its pillar-like legs losing balance from the minor quake and sinking into the growing chasm, the Virage toppled over onto its knees, and then onto its side as it had nothing left with which to brace itself.
The clumsy shot of the legless Virage was swiftly avoided as Kongol flew at the one straining to get up. A rising arc brought him directly above the monster, and- gripping the axe's shaft in both hands- he threw himself straight down with a roar. The blow landed to the Virage's head was so intense it was split like a log, all the way down through its face, severing one side entirely from the other. The added force slammed it flat to the ground, breaking open the sundered halves even further. To say that the amount of green that oozed from the fatal wound was sickening would have been an understatement.
Kongol, having passed through the Virage with his weapon, was coated in it now, spitting a good deal from his lips and choking out a disapproving, "Yuck. Kongol not do that again."
The originally cripple, and only remaining Virage could be seen charging up its attack from where it'd dragged itself nearer, staring straight at the giganto. Hefting his axe, he threw himself forward, flying just a foot or so above ground level, dust and ash spitting up in a trail behind him as he raced for the giant. Though at the last second, the Virage changed its aim, releasing the blistering energies straight for the two winglies at the cliff's edge.
Meru still helping her fiancé along, her back to the battle, it was only Guaraha who saw the attack surging their way, barely having the time to scream out a panicked, "Meru watch out!"
The earth in front of them exploded in a fury of fire and broken stone as the Virage's searing beam tore forward to engulf them. The couple was blown clear off the cliff, tumbling down along with the surrounding debris of charred and molten rock, all falling into the ocean with a horrible splash. The foaming ripples that plowed against the shore washed over the rocks with a steaming hiss, a red tint diluting into the turbulent waters. A few lesser boulders dislodged themselves from the gaping half-crater embedded into the side of the cliff as the aftershock of thunder from the attack shook the air, plowing into both the still-steaming seafoam and rocky shore.
Guaraha broke surface first, gasping loud and hard from both the need for air and the insufferable stinging of the salt water into the gash on his back. Hand clamped around the stem of her wing, he pulled Meru onto the boulder-strewn beach beside him, propping her up against him and wiping away the dripping strands of silvery blue matted across her face. Anxious and hurriedly he tried to shake the girl back into coherence, gaze pointedly fixed on the monster heading their way from above.
"Come on, Meru! Come on!"
"...ooogghh."
"Meru!" he tried again, giving her another shake. "We've got to-!"
The sudden upheaval of the sea in front of them warranted their immediate attention, eyes snapping toward the violently boiling spray. Slowly but surely a massive grey head emerged from beneath the raging waters, the unwelcome visage of yet a fifth demon manifesting and wading toward the coast. With another Virage now closing in on them, Guaraha had just about lost hope, gaze quite more than wide and trembling.
"Meru, please!" he pleaded desperately. "If you don't snap out of it, we're finished!"
Eyelids fluttering, the bruised and battered wingly tried to steady herself, vision blurred and ears ringing. "Guaraha... I can't..."
Helping to keep her upright, he spared a quick look over his shoulder to the other Virage that had reached the cliff's edge, though for the moment- thank the gods- it seemed occupied with Kongol. "Please try, Meru! You have to! Just focus!"
"I... I..."
A brief flicker of magic and her eyes fell shut, a blinding radiance of aqua blue engulfing her. Going limp in Guaraha's arms as she fell unconscious, she exhaled a faint whimper, the now dull dragon stone returning to its place hanging lifelessly from her necklace.
"Meru?" Frozen and staring at the monster approaching from the ocean, he struggled to give the girl another jostle, heartbeat quickening. "Meru? Meru!"
No response... except for the seismic sloshing of the ocean as yet another Virage penetrated the surface, lumbering along behind the one that'd risen up first, its arms lashing as if to sweep the sea away and render the journey to shore less difficult. It bellowed in that bone-chilling cry that sounded like both a wail and a hiss in unison, the sweeping of its massive arms causing the shore to be dashed in wild, foaming waves.
"Oh Soa save us..."
A shrieking scream tore the wingly's eyes over, his quivering gaze falling upon the nearer of the two ancient creatures that was staring directly at them, magic swarming into pearly brilliance in front of its wriggling eye-stalks. A glance to the cliff told him that Kongol still had his hands tied, the faint din of sharp, stony claws clattering against hardened steel echoing down from the top of the wasted rock face's edge. The ledge still seemed to be cracking, threatening to buckle under the weight of the beast and drop it all on top of them.
Again came that cry from in front of him, and all Guaraha could do was stare back at the Virage about to blast them into nothingness. That is- until the blinding flash from the firing of its pulse magic caused him to squeeze his eyes shut, the energies splitting the air with a quaking thundercrack to follow.
"Hang on, you two!"
In the next moment, everything was swallowed in light.
A/N: To be continued in part II. I feel so ashamed...
