In the Footprints of Father Time

by Ikrani

"Time is like a river: you cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again." Ur enjoys her life, watching her two students grow into men. But one night, a stranger appears, bringing with him a gift from beyond the grave. Just like that, the river begins to cut a new course. (slow burn; Nali, Gruvia, so many ships, we'll have a navy)

3. Bitterness Abounds

Chapter 3: Bitterness Abounds

The lowest level of hell was a cold place. The furthest from the sun, it was reserved for only the worst of the absolute worst: traitors and oathbreakers. Down here, the inmates had all frozen over, those betraying their lords having been completely entombed in ice.

The people of Brago weren't about to join them.

Instead, they faced their damnation at the fiery roars of a demon, lumbering its way through their city, shouldering buildings aside with its sheer bulk. Fires burned across the skyline, immolating the dead and dying as their homes collapsed on top of them. Even from this hill, Gray could hear the screaming.

An awful, gut-churning sound, one that the boy had only ever heard once before. Scattered fragments of memories long suppressed and yet clutched close resurfaced, snippets of a rampage seen first-hand from within a dying town, his hometown. Familiar voices that had only ever laughed, jeered and cried to Gray's ears had been twisted into the unholy screeching, that could only be wrought by something as evil and monstrous as Deliora.

Truthfully, he didn't care about these people. Gray had never been to Brago, he did not know Brago, what even was Brago to him? A name, and a point on a map, nothing more. At that moment, and for every moment that preceded it, all the way back to the words "Did you hear? They say Deliora's on its way towards Brago," Gray had only thought about one thing. It was a memory that hadn't fractured with the rest, one he'd re-lived every night. It was a visage that had gnawed at him for the past two years, filling him with a grim resolve that Ur thought she could just teach out of him. It was something that no boy his age should ever have had to bear.

It was the sound of his mother's voice, dropping from a full-volume wail to a deathly silence, in the time it took for Deliora's molten roar to incinerate her.

"Deliora..." He could see its black silhouette among the carnage, as fell as the day he'd last set eyes on it. Even now, he felt his knees wobbling, trying to cop out and run back home to Ur and Lyon and Ultear. He knew the real reason: they thought Ur was hiding something from him, something that he could use to definitely beat this thing. "One more lesson," they said, "just one more and the demon's as good as dead."

Ur made it clear, though: this level of training was the best she could do, and anything else was on him to develop. Well, he'd spent years preparing for this day, and Ur knew that.

So why did he get the feeling that she hadn't? That her magic wasn't for devil-slaying?

"Doesn't matter," he muttered to himself. He was here now, and the point of no return was rampaging below him. He lifted one foot and ran full-tilt towards it, the clouds parting above and the moonlight tinting the snow a faint red.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Damn that stupid kid!"

Ur had to conjure a ice-made block, just so her fist had something to slam against. There was no snowfall tonight, and it had taken a good five hours' walk through the trails, but those footprints leading down into Brago could only have come from a child, foolishly running towards their own death.

"He..." Ultear was afraid to pry, the subject always a touchy one during her time home. "He's not serious, is he?"

Lyon looked at her, shocked. "You think he'd run all this way as a joke? How stupid can you get?!"

"Lyon..." Ur was uncharacteristically muttery about Lyon's discourtesy, a hand on her face further muffling her scolding.

The boy sighed. "I know..." He raised his head to the tiny Ur lookalike. "I'm sorry, Ultear."

Being sorry won't help things. But, Ur withheld her comment.

"Well," Ultear said, sucking in a lung-full of cold mountain air and striding forward, "let's go get him."

"The demon," Lyon inquired, "or Gray?"

"Both," Ultear told him, stopping to turn and smile at her foster brother. "Though, not in the same way."

Lyon laughed. "Yeah, for sure!"

Ur chuckled as well, then redirected her gaze towards the black shape standing among the ruined blocks and crumbling flats.

We're all gonna die.

"Ultear!" called her mother. "Leave your things up here! We'll come back for them once we find Gray!"

Below, Lyon obeyed, tossing his rucksack behind a nearby boulder, but Ultear did not. Sighing, with her long legs, Ur easily overtook the children.

At the edge of the city, when one of their feet met the ground at the right moment, they began to feel small tremors, washing over them from the center of Brago.

As they ran through the suburbs, where the squat, pointed-roof houses seldom reached taller than the trees beside Ur's cabin, they realized that all was silent. The crackle of flames raging, yes, and the repeated thump of those tremors, but not a single sound of human life. With two nervous, waist-high glances directed at her, Ur steeled her grit and pressed on.

It was at the main road, once filled with heavy traffic, that they discovered huge divots smashed into the smooth stonework. Each was as long as Ur was tall, in the shape of an edge-toed foot.

"How big is it?" Ultear asked. "Have either of you ever seen it before?"

"I saw these prints when we found Gray," Ur told her, electing to not mention-

"But they were smaller last time."

"Lyon!"

"What? They were! You remember, Ur!"

Meanwhile, Ultear touched her hairband, double-checking its security. It wouldn't do to have her hair come loose while fighting a demon, she told herself. The small girl wared another look at those frightening prints, each one in front of a different house, so far apart were they. What kind of monster waited at the end of them? All she could see ahead was smoke, ash and embers of a Brago's funeral pyre.

Ice wouldn't do against fire. Seizing the moment while her mother and Lyon sniped at each other, the young wizard slung her sack off her back and removed the reason she'd kept it: her precious tome. Flipping to the second entry, there was no time for her warm-up.

Ahead, she spied a small well, eerily untouched by the havoc that surrounded it, ignored like an ant beside a boot.

"Arc of Time," she whispered, thrusting her hand at the snow atop its roofing, "Continuum."

After a moment, the snow melted.

It took more effort than she would have liked, given her record for performing this magic, not to utter a "colorful metaphor", as her mother called them.

"Ultear, what did you do?"

The girl froze. Her rucksack was behind her.

Ur watched her daughter wrestle with her parka for a moment, then turn around. Ultear had a rectangular bulge on her front, that her hands being behind her back only served to

"I did nothing, Mother."

Damn, if that kid didn't have a natural-born talent for lying through her teeth. Where the hell did she get that from? Such thoughts of levity were quickly dispelled, as the tremors, which had ceased briefly while the trio had stood by, were not growing stronger.

Now through the smoke that settled at the other end of the plaza came a small shape. Running as fast as his legs could carry him, Lyon appeared with Gray on his back, the black-haired boy clinging to his foster brother while his eyes fluttered in and out of reality. He was covered in ash and soot, and pink burn marks pocked the side of his arm and face.

What emerged next was a nightmare incarnate.

The haze drifted up quite a ways, the slanted-top houses on either side of the street keeping it confined until it ascended past the roofing. Even then, the demon still stood head, shoulders and chest over everything in sight. Black were its eyes, so much so one might mistake the sockets for being empty. Bone plating lined its forehead and jaw, the upper curling away from its face as it ended in two horns. It had no lips, just two rows of jagged teeth sprouting directly from its face, the hole between them serving as a suggestion for a mouth. Hair like a lion's mane jostled along its back with every thunderous step it took, smoke clinging to its mammoth hands and titanic armored legs as it finished wading through the haze. More spiked bone adorned the backs of those hands, and along where its ribs would be, if this abominable titan could ever be likened to mankind.

From that maw that hung open, Ur caught a glimmer of jade light.

"Lyon! Move!"

Fist slamming into her palm, she didn't have time for a full incantation. As the hellish green light grew brighter in the demon's maw, it suddenly found itself gorging on an ice rose. One snap of its jaws and the rose was shattered, and its attack resumed. Having ducked into nearby ruins, Ur, Ultear, Lyon and however much of Gray's mind remained cognizant were witness to Deliora's awful power.

The green energy shot from its maw, carving a trench in the ground from the plaza to the rear horizon, twinkling out of sight as its release died down. A moment later, as if Hell itself had been unearthed, fire and brimstone rose forth and spewed a perfectly vertical curtain, momentarily out-dyeing the red sky. From their hiding place at on the opposite side to the boys, in the roofless wreckage of a toymaker's shop, Ur and her daughter could still feel the heat.

When the curtain fell, the hellfire was swallowed back up by the chasm that had spawned it. Ur let go of her daughter, and with a wave of her hand dispelled the shell of ice that enveloped them.

"Lyon? Gray?" She bolted out of cover, leaping across the street, over the deep trench, which still glowed from the melted rock that pooled within.

"...Ur?" Gray's voice was soft, weak, a far cry from its usual subdued bite. Ur found him leaning on a charred post, with Lyon passed out in front of him.

Gray's jaw clenched, tears beginning to freeze on his face, and back came that bite. "It's too strong..." he muttered, distraught and frustrated. "I didn't stand a chance."

Ur squatted down to examine him, but with a growl, the boy pushed her hand away and faced the demon again. "Deliora!" he shouted. It continued to ignore him.

"Gray," Ur said, snapping her fingers a few times to draw his attention. "What happened to Lyon?"

"When the lava hit, he was in front of me," Gray said. "I think he got too much heat."

"What about you? Are you hurt?"

The boy bit his lip, saying, "I'm fine..." like it was a bad thing.

Ur stood, smiling. "Of course you are. Ultear!"

Her daughter came running. "Yes, Mother?"

"Stay with these two, and make sure they don't get into any more trouble."

Her daughter nodded, then watched as her mother ran down the street to confront the demon. It looked down at her, and Ur felt like a small pebble, about to be kicked by a half-aware street-stroller.

Deliora's clawed fingers clenched, which was all the warning Ur had. She dove to the side as its fist moved at blinding speed, cratering the stones beneath her before sweeping towards her. It stopped just short of the wizard, fused to the ground in a poinsettia of ice.

"Come on, you bastard!" Ur yelled, willing briars to form on the inside. "I'll make cheese out of you!"

The ice shattered, Deliora's claw rising.

"Ice-Make Rose Vine!"

Tendrils coiled around its body, like an octopus strangling its prey. Deliora's raised paw was stalled, its body trembling as it began to exert its awesome might. The tendrils carried thorns, which began to grow as the crystalline vines wound tighter. With a last-gasp effort, Ur abandoned the vines and forced all of her magic into the thorns. As the vines shattered, the thorns remained a moment longer, lancing into Deliora's hide.

Or would have. Most of them broke as easily as the rest of the ice, Deliora's armor too tough.

Opening its mouth again, no light came, only the thunderous bellow of its rage. Its talons left deep wounds in the ground as it careened through the burning buildings. Ur leapt back and quickly froze the ground around herself, sliding away from Deliora even as its foot crashed down on where she'd stood. So much for that plan.

"Alright, big guy," she muttered, "try stepping on this. Ice-Make Rosen Decke!"

Dozens of thick brambles began crawling out of the white-blue circle of Etherano, carpeting the streets around Ur. They quickly enveloped the ice wizard like a blanket, giving her an opening to skirt away while the demon trod all over the thorns.

Peering through the gaps in the ice-made brush, the wheels in Ur's head began turning, a hell of a lot faster than Deliora's simian mind. Mist blowing from her mouth with each heavy breath, she slapped her fist against her palm, the demon still swiveling around, searching for her.

"Mother!" called a petite voice. "I'm coming!"

Right away, Ur burst from her hiding place.

"Ultear! No!"

It was too late. The demon spied the little girl and twisted its bulk towards her, cold, dead eye sockets scrutinizing her. Sucking in the smoke with its enormous breath, the demon opened its mouth to roar.

Then a hint of green glowed at the back of its throat.

"NO!"

Ultear had never heard her mother's voice crack before, but that scream took its toll. A man-sized, pointed bud sprouted in front of the ice wizard, then a cart-sized one after that; the one that struck Deliora was easily the size of a house.

"NO!"

Another speared at the demon, icy petals slamming into its chest.

"NO!"

And another.

"YOU STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!"

This one was smashed to pieces before it could even bloom. Ultear's eyes glowed and the fragmented ice quickly pieced itself back together, growing and smashing into Deliora a fourth time. The creature's mouth opened again.

An unholy star twinkled in the demon's maw, Ultear too terrified to move. She could only manage one thing.

"Mother!"

The infernal heat was dizzying, and for a moment, Ultear thought she'd died and gone down below. When she opened her eyes, she was still in Brago, though she couldn't imagine Hell being much worse. Her mother's imprint was in the snow in front of her, where Ur had snatched her out of harm's way. Of her mother, there was only a set of footprints leading away. One foot's shape looked jagged, as if it were chiseled out of rock.

Did I lose consciousness? It occurred to her that the snow was no longer pink, meaning the eclipse had ended. The horizon was now stained jade. Ultear shakily put her hands on the crumbling wall behind her and climbed to her feet, her vision blurring slightly as she tracked her mother's trail with her eyes.

It led towards Deliora; the monster still towered above its ruinous work.

Ultear pushed herself off the wall, stumbled forward a few steps, but her legs refused to cooperate and she toppled into the snow. Thinking quickly, she stripped herself of her parka and a cloud of steam burst free from her bare skin. Her loose-fitting cyan dress was all that separated her body from the cold, yet she felt none of it. Quickly the child checked herself for blisters, pink skin, any sign of burns.

She'd been spared, for now.

Ultear had no intention of testing this newfound luck on her mother, and so dropped her tight wool pants and flopped down in the snow. More steam rose from her legs, the excess heat quickly leaving her in a puddle; thanks to her foresight, she wouldn't suffer hypothermia via damp drawers.

Springing back to her feet, and re-clothing herself, Ultear took off alongside the tracks: glancing around, silently watching for her mother and foster brothers. Closer and closer she strayed toward the bone-faced behemoth, finding the crumbling remnants of a tall ice-chute her mother appeared to have conjured above the ruins. A speedy way back to Gray and Lyon, to be sure.

Ultear stopped dead when she heard a faint shout of, "Ice-Make Rose Garden!"

Looking up at the demon, no more than fifty yards away, she saw it was ready to fire another blast from its mouth. A glacier zoomed in from the right (its front) and Deliora was suddenly encased, jagged chunks of ice crawling over its form and forcefully tilting its head back. Green energy obliterated the glacier, evaporating it instantly, before digging into the ground and erupting into that hellish wall.

Quickly Ultear ran parallel to the orange harbor wave, not even watching her path, her head fixed left as she passed empty street after empty street. "Street" was hardly the word, as by now, little more than bricks and crumbling foundations remained of this area. The curtain fell, and at last, Ultear spied her mother, standing amidst the rubble with Gray behind her an Lyon still unconscious.

Deliora, meanwhile, had turned away. What need had it to verify? A mere fly on its back was worth no more of its attention. It was off to destroy more cities, kill more people, ruin more lives as demons did.

"Ultear, you finally made it back," Ur remarked warmly as her daughter raced into her arms. The woman felt a fist pound her ribs as her daughter began bawling.

"Why did you leave me?!" Ultear wailed. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

Ur smiled at that, laying a hand on her daughter's head and stroking her black hair.

"You came back to me once already, and that was before I made you a wizard," she said, kissing her on the forehead. "Besides, I had to make sure Gray didn't pick another fight with Deliora."

"Rgh, really?" Gray complained, Lyon's limp body hoisted on his shoulders. "You think I'd go after it like this?"

Ur stood, wiping away her daughter's tears with her finger before looking to Gray. "Take Lyon and go, all three of you."

Without another word, the Ice-Make wizard began walking away, back towards Deliora's departing form.

"Why'd you come after me, huh?" Gray furiously called. "I thought I wasn't your student anymore!"

Ur stopped, her back still turned to her three children.

"A friend said something recently," she told them softly, audible even over the rumble of Deliora's steps. "She said I deserved to be happy. It shocked me, because I've never thought of myself as un-happy."

Silence stood for a moment.

"She just doesn't understand."

The look in Ur's eyes as she turned her head to gaze at them was devoid of all fear, all fury, all sorrow, everything Deliora had brought from her. It was tearful, joyful: the look of a woman with absolutely no regret.

"I have three adorable little students, that I spend each day with." Her voice began shaking. "And I watch them grow into strong young wizards."

At that moment, Ur took her first and only step back. "What more could I want?"

Gray was dumbstruck, glancing to Lyon's unconscious head as if it would offer him something to say. Ultear was just as speechless, until she noticed...

"Mother, your leg."

Ur chuckled a bit, clinking the roughshod, leg-shaped sculpture of ice that protruded from the half-roasted sleeve of her right pant leg. "You noticed. My Maker Magic's not so lame after all, huh?"

Now Gray was crying, too; rather suddenly, from how well Ultear knew him.

"I vowed I'd free you from the darkness inside you," Ur assured him, returning her gaze to the creature's bulk, "and if that means fighting this demon, then so be it."

Gray sniffled. "Ur..."

"Now get out of here and let me do this."

"No!" piped the children.

Gray was the first to speak up. "It's my fault this happened! I'm not leaving you!"

"Neither will I!" Ultear added defiantly. "I-... I have my own magic, mother! I taught myself using a book Father Time gave me! I-I can help you fight it, and we can defeat it-"

"No one's at fault, except Deliora," Ur interrupted. "And I wouldn't dream of endangering my precious daughter." She resumed walking. "This is just something I have to do for us to be happy again."

"Wait. Ur..."

Two shoes hit the stonework on the ground, standing next to the surprised Gray.

"I thought you were out of it!" he cried. "Listen, we need to get out of here and let Ur-"

"You're going to defeat it, right?" Lyon asked his master, his eyes unnervingly wide. "You're talking like you're..."

Ur could see something in Lyon's eyes: straining, reeling, about to break.

"...not gonna make it," he finished.

"Lyon, come on," Gray urged him, grabbing his sleeve, "we gotta go!"

"Get off me!" snapped the boy, tearing his arm away. All the while, his gaze remained on Ur, looking into her orbs like a condemned man staring at the gallows. "Y-you can beat that thing no problem! You're the strongest wizard alive; that demon's as good as history!"

Ur couldn't bear to see that look anymore, but masterfully disguised her nausea. Turning away, she spoke in a soft voice, "Lyon... How many times do I have to tell you? There's always someone better."

"But that can't be true..."

"In the western countries," Ur continued, "there are dozens of wizards. Fiore alone has a network of guilds, with guildmasters easily more powerfu than me."

"No, that's not true."

"Beyond that, a council of mages who govern those guild masters, and regulate the use of the country's magic."

"It's not!"

"And above them, even some they call 'saints'."

"If you're not the strongest, then why did I spend so much time training with you?!"

Ur held in a sigh; it was as she feared.

"Someday you'll surpass me," she quietly spoke. "When that happens, I hope you'll move on to loftier goals."

At this, Lyon was speechless. Not silent, for the jittery, half-crazed sobs were audible even with Deliora's rumbling walk. Ur gave him all the time she was willing, then sucked in a breath, and prepared to do battle again.

Then Lyon ran past her.

"Lyon!"

"If you're not gonna give it your all, then I will!" He skidded to a stop, then crossed his arms out in front of him, forming an "X". His hands were open, the top palm facing down, the bottom palm facing up.

"Lyon, that stance!"

The dread Ur felt only grew as a massive white circle sprung to life on the ground, Lyon at its center.

"Since you didn't wanna teach us the really powerful stuff," he said, his mania rising with every word, "I went to the storehouse and read all your magic books!"

Northern winds began to howl; misty tendrils whirled.

"You hid magic like the Iced Shell from me," he shouted, "because you were scared!"

The gales were whipping about them now, a hurricane pregnant with magic. Ur had to shield her eyes in order to see.

"Did you even read the whole passage?" she shouted. "You know what'll happen if you cast that spell?!"

"Lyon, stop this!" Ultear called.

"I asked you a question, Lyon!"

Lightning began to crackle as more and more ethernano gathered around the crazed boy. "Yeah, I know what will happen: Deliora will be frozen forever." He grinned as the demon halted in the distance. "It can stand here, to commemorate my magic!"

"Lyon, man, you're crazy!" Gray barked.

Ultear ran to the hurricane's edge. "Stop this right now!"

Now Deliora was turning around; its eyeless head stared straight at them. Ur cursed her student's obsession: it was coming back.

"If magic's too weak to kill Deliora," Lyon declared, "then I'll seal it in ice for eternity!"

There was a blinding flash from behind him, and the only one sealed in ice was Lyon.

"Sorry, but that's not happening!" Ur stood from her knee and retracted her arm, watching her daughter collapse in surprise.

"Why?" Gray asked, watching Deliora approach. "What's gonna happen?"

"When Iced Shell is cast, the caster's body becomes the Iced Shell itself." Ur relaxed, then strolled past her frozen student. "Damn if he didn't hit the nail on the head, though."

A frozen aura flared to life around Ur; even from here, with their lack of experience, Gray and Ultear could feel its power.

"Hey, wait! Where are you going?" Gray called.

"I must've taught him better than I thought," Ur murmured as she continued to walk.

"Mother!" Ultear exclaimed, making a run for her beloved parent, only to be stopped by a thick wall of glass-like ice.

"Stay back!" Ur lowered her hand, then mirrored the position Lyon had taken up. The aura flared brighter and chunks of rock began to tear themselves from the very ground around here. "It's a sacrifice...!"

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "-that I have to make for the three of you."

Arcane circles, each as large as Deliora was tall, boxed the demon in. Behind her, Ur heard ice breaking ice. No doubt Gray and Ultear were trying to tear down the wall; some heartwarming attempt to help her.

"Gray," she said, her words carried through her magic, "tell Lyon I died. If he found out I became the ice, he'd probably waste his whole life trying to undo the spell."

"No!"

"Mother, please! Stop!"

"I want Lyon to see the world," said Ur, watching as the demon curiously eyed the things which would... seal its fate. The ice master chuckled; she'd always hated puns, and now look at herself... "I want him to live a full, happy life."

She could feel it: the wall cracking, and her final spell reaching the peak of its crescendo.

"And I want the same for you two, as well."

Deliora was starting to grow impatient; it resumed its lumber forward, nearing the circle in front of it.

"END OF THE LINE, YOU MONSTER!" Ur screamed. "ABSOLUTE FREEZE..."

Her whole body tensed; those first four words applied to her, as well.

"ICED..."

"DELIORAAAAAA!"

A bright orange blur dragged a howling gale behind it as it zoomed past: through Ur's magical tempest, through a gap in the massive arcane circles, and likely through Deliora if not for its armored hide. The blur glanced off the side of the thing, leaving a molten scar on the plating and sending the demon stumbling back. It crashed through the circle behind it, and all of that magic exploded back into Ur.

Through the haze on her vision and the roar of the monster, Ur heard a thousand hard objects strike her ice wall, shattering it.

That wind...

She struggled to her feet, but her limbs wouldn't obey. She'd forgotten: on instinct, that energy had gone into her ice leg, vaporizing it instead of her. She knew she got lucky. Well, since standing was out of the question, she might still have enough strength to roll to her back and lift her head.

What she saw when she did so was a truly spectacular sight, one that made her motherly heart swell with pride.

There stood her daughter, hood down, mitted hands raised, with dozens upon dozens of stones, shingles and beams hanging in the air around her. It looked like a magical painting, where everything wobbled slightly, and that included Ultear's hands. Gray lay off to the side, against the fractured foundation of the ice wall.

She had no idea what kind of magic Ultear was using, but she was damn proud that her little girl had learned to do it all on her own.

"Ultear-" Ur's voice seized. She had no words; nothing she said could do her daughter justice.

Although, speaking of would-be fate, there still remained Deliora.

Feeling began to return to her upper arms and thighs. Rolling back on to her fe- foot, she went from one awesome sight to another.

Deliora's fist was careening through buildings, a glowing orange smear on the front as its knuckles slammed into the ground. From the cloud of rubble, an orange beam flashed and speared Deliora between the eyes. With its other paw, the demon appeared to itch at the spot.

That smear became an ooze, corkscrewing up and around Deliora's outstretched arm before jumping off its bicep towards its face. The demon caught the ooze with its itching-hand, but the ooze flowed between its fingers and took on a vaguely humanoid shape.

From the humanoid's back sprouted a pair of large, bat-like wings.

The webbing on the wings quickly receded as the humanoid collided with Deliora's face. Its feet stood on the spiked armor of Deliora's jaw. This orange destroyer's forearms extended into mantis-like blades, its elbow joints reversing as it plunged those blades into the beast's eye sockets. Deliora screamed and clawed at itself, but its fingers passed through the figure like water.

Those feet that rested on the armored jaw began to force it open. Digging deeper, the orange assailant's wings dropped lower on its back, losing their webbing completely and becoming another pair of mantis-blades. Ur couldn't make out what it did next, aside from sending those blades into Deliora's mouth. There was a moment where nothing occured, aside from the monster's continual flailing. Then, the sides of its mouth began to glow red, then orange, and finally its whole lower mouth dropped limp like a puppet on a string. The creature pulled its blades from Deliora's eyes, put its newly-formed hands on its victim's face, and pushed.

Ichor and fluids spattered the nearby buildings as Deliora's jaw was torn off.

"Kids, don't look!" Ur found her stamina again, and quickly ran to shield her children from the gruesome sight. The surroundings flashed green, and a massive blast of heat washed over them, but no fire came.

But one of them saw, and voiced his opinion with a meek utterance of, "Whoa."

Quickly turning them around, Ur ordered her students not to turn back unless she gave the word. Facing the demons once more, the ice wizard was greeted with an almost comical sight.

The smaller, orange demon, its winged unfurled once again, was sucking up the magmatic column rising from the ground. From the tip of the flow, this newcomer's mouth was far larger than a human's, at almost half the height of its face. Its body showed no signs of fullness as it continued to gorge on the fell power.

Once satiated, it resumed its flight, Deliora already swinging at it.

"Come on..." Ur never thought she'd be cheering on a demon.

Said "friendly" demon once again caught the closed hand head-on. However, it appeared to steer the punch away, light firing from the webbing of its wings. Its legs morphed into stiletto-like appendages along with its arms, latching on to the fist like a tick.

Then, unlike a tick, it fired its wings again. Lifting the humongous monster clear off its feet, it swung Deliora over itself to bring it slamming back down to Earth. The shockwave was so strong that Ur almost lost her balance; she heard a hairline crack appear in her ice-leg.

"Ice-Make Pillar!"

Ur spun to see Gray ascending to the skies on a wide, ice-made column.

"Yeah!" Gray was boxing the air with his hands. "Give that bastard-!"

"Gray, watch your language!" barked his teacher.

Deliora's torturer wasn't done. As the destroyer (well, the initial destroyer) of Brago fired one last, desperate, unfocused beam from the hole in its throat, its attacker responded in kind.

The concentrated supernova that burst from the orange gargoyle's maw literally hurt to look at. Ur shielded her eyes, Ultear doing the same by her side. They, and Gray, watched as the silhouette of Deliora's head began to disintegrate at the neck. The orange demon flew forward, still spewing its white-hot death, keeping its target focused as it set about hollowing out the roof Deliora's mouth. The behemoth lay prone, helpless, as molten-hot fractures began to appear about its skull, glowing brighter and brighter, until with a final wail, Deliora's head exploded.

The winged scourge's beam widened, sweeping back over Deliora's corpse and the buildings beyond. There was nothing left in its wake: a semi-circular valley had been bored into the rock, and the rock was on fire.

The glowing gargoyle flew low, hovering to inspect its handiwork. Its wings didn't flap; it anything, they now seemed purely decorative. Seeing nothing left of the other monster, this smaller demon leaned forward and was gone in an instant, the air of its wake blowing out the fires it created.

All of which Ur had a hard time making out, thanks to the cone-shaped spot left on her vision.

"What the hell was that?" she mused aloud.

"The winged demon," said Ultear simply. She looked up at her mother, reciting those words from the night of her return. "'Through fire and to fire, destiny awaits'."

Ur looked at her daughter, then at the glowing cocoon-shaped valley left by that thing's last attack.

"How 'bout we go around the fire instead?"

"Not too far," Ultear suggested, as her mother went back to tend to Gray. "It's cold out here."

"Think of it as extra conditioning," Ur called, kneeling before her other student. "Gray?"

The boy sat in a pile of crushed ice, his clothing littered around him. "What?"

Ur smiled. "How do you feel?"

He crossed his arms, and looked away from her. "Okay, I guess."

"That's good to hear." A pair of pants swatted him in the face. "Now put your clothes back on!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm doing it," he muttered. He then remembered Lyon, still frozen in that giant rose, and nodded towards him. "Shouldn't we get him out?"

"We should," Ur agreed, standing up.

"But," Ultear interjected, "must we?"

All three looked at their icicle of a companion. That crazed, wild-eyed look was still plastered on his face.

"Why not let the heated rocks thaw him?" Ultear suggested.

"That'll take a while, Ultear," Gray countered, slipping his shirt over his head. "Magical ice takes a while to melt."

Ultear beamed at him innocently. "Precisely."

"Ha!" Ur couldn't help herself, even as she looked up at the starry sky. "So that's north..."

Using her arms like compass hands, she oriented a rough heading based on the melting crevice. "West-southwest..." A tap of her foot shattered Lyon's rosey imprisonment. "Looks like we'll all be seeing the world."

"Why?" Gray asked, standing over Lyon as the boy started to come around. "What's in that direction?"

"Well, once we're through Stella," Ur began, "there's Bosco after that, with Seven to the north-"

"Seven?" Ultear piped up. "Merely 'Seven'?"

"M-hm," Ur nodded. "Beyond that, the only thing between Bosco and the ocean is Fiore."