Layers
Chapter Six
By: Brenli and Jael
"I fricking hate that kid!"
"Watch your mouth, Chiyo."
"Well I do! He won't leave me alone!"
Serissa laughed as she finished braiding Chiyo's long white hair, fastening it with a single black tie. "You know that means he must like you. That's how little boys show it."
Chiyo scoffed. "You've got to be kidding me. He's a terror."
"He's just bored. Five years old and cooped up in a big mansion with no friends? You can't really hold it against him, baby."
"I can, and I will." Chiyo crossed her arms as Serissa took her by the shoulders and turned her to face her. "Do you really have to go to work tonight?"
"You know how Judas is. He can't do anything on his own."
"I fricking hate him, too."
"Stop saying that." Serissa said sternly, gently. "Things might be a bit rough under his thumb, but he still provides us with a good life."
"Yeah, but at what cost?"
Serissa sighed. Try as she might to hide the abuse that Judas inflicted upon her, Chiyo was far too smart to not notice. "Listen. Life is hard. It will always be hard. Happiness is not something that will ever be handed to you... You just have to try and find it in whatever nooks and crannies it may be hiding in. And endure the rest."
Chiyo looked at her feet and nodded. "So you'll be back tomorrow?"
"Yes. And Chiyo, I need you to do me a favor. I want you to keep yourself locked in your room when I'm not here, okay? And make sure Aaron and June do the same. If you need anything from the kitchen, make sure you keep your pistol with you. And don't talk to anybody for any reason. Okay?"
Chiyo didn't argue. She only nodded her head. Serissa kissed her forehead and shooed her off. She slipped on her jacket and picked up the key to her SUV. As she turned to leave, she let out a cry of surprise.
Standing in the doorway was Uriel. He stood watching her with narrowed green eyes, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the jamb. Serissa swallowed and took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough for my faith in your skills as a guardian to be restored." Uriel said with a barely-there smile.
"Well thank you for your approval." Serissa arched a brow and headed for him. Uriel stepped out of the way to allow her to pass through the door he had previously been blocking.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Do you believe in what you told her? Or are you just telling her what she needs to hear?"
Serissa paused and looked over her shoulder at him. "Why do you ask?"
"Just curious, is all."
Sweeping a hand through her brunette hair, Serissa chewed her lip. "A part of me wants to believe in what I said. I want to believe that happiness really is something anybody can attain, despite any circumstance. But I honestly have no idea if I really believe it, or if I just want to."
Uriel opened his mouth to reply, but his words fell flat. So he changed the subject. "Where are you going?"
"To work. Among my many duties, running one of Judas' various Night-Club-slash-Safe-Houses is one of them. I won't be back until tomorrow."
"Just so you know, your children have nothing to fear from us."
"I think you'll have to forgive me for not trusting you. I don't know you. So if you truly mean no harm, as you say you do... prove it to me by your actions. Because words don't mean anything to me, anymore."
Without another word, Serissa left Uriel alone with his thoughts.
xXxXxXx
The Dragonmaster was as peeved as ever, pulling a comb through the pale blonde strands of her hair a little harder than she should have been.
"Gently, gently."
"Shut up, Amber..." Lilith worked more olive oil through the wad of gum in her hair.
Amber of the Shinryu shrugged and twirled a lock of her auburn hair. "Well you don't want to give yourself a bald spot, do you?"
"Seriously, Amber. Shut up! And you can quit laughing, Agate!" Lilith finally pulled the last of the gum out of her hair and threw it at the little dark-haired Shinryu who laughed behind her long, wide sleeve.
"So where is this little bunny boy who's so brave, putting gum in your hair? I want to meet him!" Agate spoke with green cat-eyes shining in mischief.
"Agate, he's like, five."
"But he won't always be five, and just you wait...!" Agate was giggling all over again.
Lilith pressed a hand to her temple. "Why are you a fucking dragon; I don't even understand..."
"Mmm, I don't know, that Vampy boy that lives here is going to be more dishy. Wait till he's 20." Amber commented.
"Yeah, but... he's Assiahbound; it's so unfair...!" Agate whined.
Lilith angrily threw the comb down on the floor. "Jade...!" She whined miserably. She just wanted get this check in over with...
Amber and Agate only laughed all over again, but the much calmer, pale-haired Shinryu gently smiled and spoke sweetly. "Now, now, sisters. It has been three whole days since we sent our little Dragonmaster out to gather all the Elementals."
"Yeah, well I got them. Fuck if I know what to do about Judas, though." Lilith grumbled and crossed her arms over her flat chest.
"Don't you worry about Judas." Jade said soothingly.
It didn't soothe Lilith in the slightest. "... You told me I needed Judas. He threw his fucking lackey at me; is that supposed to count?"
A soft smile curled on the pale-haired Shinryu's lips. "Things are going according to schedule. Why don't you let us worry about that part and talk to us about the other things."
"What other things?" She asked flatly.
Amber and Agate had a way of laughing like they were keeping secrets from their Dragonmaster, but Jade simply spoke over them. "It has been three days since you gathered up everyone needed and have since found yourself living here in Assiah with all of them. Has it been going well?"
Lilith let out a loud, rude laugh. "I just peeled gum out of my hair and you're asking me if it's been going well? I hate this place! Please tell me that we're going to get the prophecy resolved fucking tomorrow so I can go home and forget all these stupid people!" Lilith listened to Amber and Agate laugh all over again. "It's not fucking funny! This whole thing is a joke!"
"Oh, come on, you're not that stupid." Amber scoffed. "We're the Shinryu; we don't make joke prophecies!"
"You may as well." Lilith grumbled, crossing her arms on her desk and burying her round face in them.
The two younger, sassier Shinryu buttoned their lips, though their smiles remained and went unnoticed by the grumpy little Evil. She felt the strange whisper of a touch that came from Jade's thin, wispy hand, and looked up to see her blindfolded face in the vanity mirror. "I ask you again, dear Dragonmaster... Has it been going well?"
Such questions, however silly they felt... Lilith knew the Shinryu well enough to know they were asked for a reason. After all, hadn't she been consulting them... for so much longer than was natural? "... Nobody wants to be here."
"You must make them see how vital the prophecy is, Lilith..." Jade offered quietly.
"As if any of them even really care..." Lilith tried to hide the tightness in her voice. "They probably think I just got high one day and dreamed all this up, and now I'm stringing them along for laughs." She paused, feeling the frown on her face begin to quiver. "They hate me, Jade."
"Well it's not like you're nice to them." Agate commented from behind her sleeve.
"Shut the fuck up, Agate, I'm not talking to you!" The Dragonmaster suddenly snapped.
"Agate..." Jade gently reached out to shush the youngest of the Shinryu, before continuing to speak. "Your culture is not their own. Of course things will be difficult for them to understand... But you must be patient. There will be time. You can teach them, and they can see..." The whisper of a touch brushed across Lilith's cheek, and the little Evil slapped at a tear that threatened to drip from her dark, deep red eyes.
"Isn't the Messiah who your mother had the hots for down here with the Water Angel?" Amber asked as she perched on Lilith's messy bed.
A long pause pierced the air. "... What? Excuse me, what?" Lilith looked at Amber with wide eyes, but the Shinryu, including Jade, only laughed. "There is no way my mother had the hots for that guy! You're all lying!"
"Amber makes an excellent point. The Messiah knew your mother very well..." Jade reasoned.
"He's one of the ones who doesn't buy any of this!" Lilith snapped at the blind Shinryu. "Says I'm not being serious enough. Well fuck him, then!"
"What about the Gehenna Vamp from Seoul?" Agate asked, her head tilting.
"Sheol." Amber corrected.
"Oh come on, he's from both places." Her green eyes flashed in annoyance.
"Jinho?" Lilith hissed.
Jade gave her a gentle nod. "He may have been raised in Assiah and he may work in Sheol, but the fact remains that he is a Vampire of Gehenna. He is familiar with the culture of Evils in a way none of the rest are. And he is still here, is he not?"
"Don't remind me..." Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose.
Amber leaned forward as she stretched out on Lilith's bed. "You should consider yourself lucky he's still here. The man doesn't exactly have any reason to stick around."
"He will be of great use to you in all of this, Lilith. Already he has proved so." Jade pointed out softly.
"I guess, but..." The little Evil paused, beginning to slouch in her wooden chair. "Jade, what if the Elders find out he's just... here? Two rooms down? They've been aching for a chance to get us in the same place, and now..."
"Well you're not gonna get married here, if that's what you're so worried about." Amber let out a great big laugh.
"I'm not getting married, period. Especially not to a lecher like him!" She snapped, her pupils thinning into little slits. "Six. Wives... Six of them! Why would the Elders think making me the seventh is fine? I guess they hate me that much, too? They just figure he'll pencil me in every Sunday?"
"Listen to yourself!" Amber and Agate both seemed to hiss back, but Jade held out her wispy hand again, quieting them.
"I am listening to myself! I'm not going to be gift-wrapped and dumped into the lap of some man with six wives because the Elders say so!"
"No, you're just going to keep taking your stupid youth potions and keep pestering us for another several years past your expiration date." Agate muttered behind her sleeve.
Lilith gave the youngest Shinryu a sharp, mean glare. "You have a problem with the fact that you're stuck with me past my expiration date? Take it up with the group of stuffy men who wanted to marry me off as soon as puberty hit!" She hissed and grumbled. "Expiration date... I'm so fucking disgusted with everything."
"Maybe Jinho can just shrink himself down to the age you insist on staying at." Agate commented.
"... You didn't listen to a single thing I said, did you?" Lilith grumbled, her hand rubbing across her throat.
"It's so weird that he does that." Amber replied.
"It's genetic; his father can do it, too."
"Weird..."
"Guys..." Lilith said miserably.
Agate's shoulders lifted in a shrug. "I'm just saying. He does it for espionage missions so why can't he do it for his seventh marriage?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't really fix anything. She wouldn't pop out a new little Dragonmaster-"
"Guys!" Lilith screamed, gasping slightly when she noted the change in the tone of her voice, the way the Shinryu seemed to... blur, just a bit. She immediately stood and begin fishing through her bags.
"It's that time..." Amber rolled her eyes.
Lilith pulled out a sack made of crushed blue velvet, pulling it open... pausing.
"It is that time, dear sisters." Jade said gently, that soft smile curling her lips just slightly as she held out her hands, Amber and Agate each taking one.
Lilith looked up with wide, unsure maroon eyes. "... Jade?"
"Take care of yourself and your pretty body." Agate said with a giggle.
"And for crying out loud, dress it right!" Amber agreed.
"Wait, guys... wait!" Lilith turned her velvet bag inside out... nothing. How could there be nothing in this bag? She triple checked before she even stepped out of the palace...!
"Be strong." Jade said softly... and they were gone, blurring into nothing.
Lilith's blood ran slow and cold in her veins. "... Jade!" She screamed, immediately standing and looking at her form in the vanity mirror. Still short... still thin, knobby-kneed, child-like. There was time, then, wasn't there? Her little golden hands grasped at the Dragonmaster earrings that dripped from her earlobes, shutting her eyes, murmuring the summoning incantation between worried breaths... Nothing.
The little Evil let out an unhappy scream as she angrily threw her empty blue bag against the floor. Where were her accursed potions? She knew she'd brought them! She wouldn't have left without them! She'd packed up her entire stash! And the worst part of all... it would take years before the next batch would be ready for her. Just in time for the current stash to be depleted... But not in time for something like this!
Where were her potions?
Lilith thought she was about to just start sobbing... and then she saw the wad of gum sitting on the floor, a few strands of her champagne blonde hair sticking to it.
… Of course. That horrible little boy, son of the Fire Angel. In the past few days alone that brat had pulled on her hair, stuck gum in it, thrown little rubber balls and paper airplanes at her. Why wouldn't he have tried breaking into her room, rifling through things... pilfering the glowing blue vials because he likely thought they looked cool? That had to be it...!
She wasted no time in stomping out of her room, leaving the door thrown wide open as she yelled out the young boy's name. "Nathan...! Nathan, you piece of shit, where are you?" She felt the ping of yet another rubber ball ricocheting off the top of her head.
"Who you callin' a piece of shit?" Nathan snapped, Serissa's two Vampire children standing beside him with wide eyes.
"Come here!" Lilith screeched, and it was enough to send Aaron and June running for some safe corner of the mansion. But brave, foolish Nathan only stood his ground as the little Evil grabbed him by his shirt. "Give me my fucking potions!"
"Your fucking what?" The five-year-old swore like a sailor, spurred on by Lilith's own filthy mouth.
"Don't give me that shit! You know exactly what fucking potions I'm talking about!"
"No I don't!" Nathan yelled as he felt himself being lifted off the ground.
"Yes you fucking do!" Lilith shoved him into the nearest wall, her pupils thinning into angry little slits. "Give them back, right now!"
"Hey!"
Lilith didn't have the time to register what had happened before she'd already been tossed down the hallway like an unwanted ragdoll. She looked up and blinked the stars out of her eyes, seeing Michael looking down at his son, one hand ruffling through Nathan's white hair.
"You okay?" His voice was rough around the edges, but soft in the middle, his blue eyes sharp but worried.
Nathan dusted off his shirt, his firm frown mirroring his father's. "Yeah."
"Good." Suddenly Michael's fiery gaze turned to Lilith. Odd, how his eyes suddenly seemed much more green... and much more mean. The stomping of his boots rang loud in Lilith's ears, and suddenly her vision swam all over again. Michael had picked up her effortlessly and smashed her into the wall. Pictures were knocked crooked as they hung from the wall at either side of her head. "See how that shit feels?" He slammed her into the wall, again. This time a picture fell. "Feels fucking fantastic, doesn't it, you fucking bitch?"
"Stop it!" Lilith screeched, realizing that she could touch the ground if she pointed her toes. Her legs were already longer than they usually were... "I need my potions!"
"Fuck your potions! What does that have to do with this?" Michael slammed her into the wall again. He'd slam her into walls all day long; it was what she deserved!
"Your son stole my fucking potions! I want them back! Now!" Lilith desperately clawed at Michael's biker-gloved hands as they curled into the shoulders of her shirt.
The War Angel turned a stern gaze to his son and slammed Lilith into the wall all over again. "You steal from her?" Again, she went into the wall. This time she cried out in pain.
Nathan's brows were pinching together, but he insisted on the truth. "I didn't steal anything!"
Green eyes burned into Lilith, again. "Pretty sure he would've 'fessed up by this point, Princess!"
"You just don't wanna admit that your son is a fucking dick like you!" The Dragonmaster hissed.
That was clearly the wrong thing to say. Suddenly Michael was pulling her along by her shirt, and she had to scramble to keep up. "Nathan, get back in the room!" He commanded over his shoulder, and then Lilith had the misfortune of receiving all of his fiery, violent attention. "You think you know my kid better than I do? Let me guess, your fucking dragons that you get stoned with told you everything you need to know, right? I am I fucking right?"
"You don't know anything!" Lilith screamed at him.
"And you fucking do?" Michael hissed and tossed her into her room like she weighed nothing to him. "My son's a piece of work, but guess what, Princess? He answers to me!"
"Get the fuck out of my room!" Like she wanted a man as violent as him inside of her room?
"Not until I fucking watch you turn your damn room over for these fucking potions you miss so much!" Michael threw a bag onto her. "And when you find them – because you're gonna fucking find them – you're going to apologize to my son for what you did to him!" He seethed. "Now start looking!"
"Fuck you!" Lilith angrily threw the bag at Michael, hitting him square in the face. "I know exactly where I kept my potions, and they're gone!"
A livid roar left Michael's lips, and he pounced on the little Evil, green eyes burning into maroon ones. "Is this a fucking Dragonmaster thing? Got your head so far up your ass you think you can't do a damn thing wrong?"
"Get off of me..." Lilith grumbled, her voice low, her tone changing more and more...
Michael began to shake her by her shoulders. "Not till I knock some fucking sense into your entitled fucking brain!"
"Get off of me!"
Too late. The next thing that Fire Angel saw was an expanse of golden flesh, torn cotton from her shirt...
Michael immediately pulled away from Lilith's... suddenly very generous cleavage, scrambling to a stand, his eyes wide and frightened. "... What the fuck?"
Lilith struggled to hold her shirt over her bosom, no longer flat. To hold the ripped fabric of her pants over the curves of her hips and thighs, the band of her underwear straining and digging into her skin. "Get out...!"
Michael stumbled backwards out of Lilith's room, a bewildered, "The fuck...?" escaping his gaping mouth. He shut the door before the not-so-little Evil could begin throwing all her bags at him.
Even as the latch clicked, Lilith let out a wild, unhappy, livid scream. "Get! Out!"
xXxXxXx
"Why do you still do that...?"
"Old habit," Jinho answered easily as he poured a bit of blood into his teacup, already half-full of tea.
"Isn't it... less filling or something?" Nema sipped from her own cup of tea, with only a single cube of sugar added.
"I suppose so...? I'm used to it, now. Drinking undiluted blood is almost..." Jinho paused as he soundlessly twirled a small spoon in his cup, mixing his special ingredient into the tea, "... too strong. I might feel differently if I decided to switch back, but..." A thousand dinners flashed through his mind, dinners with women he would never have dinner with, again.
Nema allowed him to refrain from elaborating, merely supplying her own end to his sentence. "Old habit?"
Jinho gave her a charming, but distant smile. "Old habit."
She watched him as he took a quiet sip of blood-laced tea. "... Lilith doesn't know about them, does she?"
The changes were subtle, but there, nonetheless. A sudden tenseness in his broad shoulders, his lids falling over his ink-black eyes. "What gave that away?"
"She likes to call you a lecher. You're anything but one..."
Jinho's smile only emphasized the way his jaw was firmly set. "She jumped to a conclusion. I see no need to rectify it..."
The teacup clinked lightly against its saucer as Nema set it down on the table. "It can't feel good, being accused of being some massive pervert when all you've ever done is honor them. You deserve better..."
"Lilith will think of as many negative things about every single would-be suitor the Elder Council of Gehenna has chosen for her. Telling her the truth won't change much of anything..."
"So what?"
Red eyes met black as a soft, long sigh slipped out of the Vampire's lips. "So I have always fared well enough steering clear of her. Maybe other suitors who had been betrothed to her enjoyed her cruelty." He busied himself with taking another sip of tea. "... But I have lost six women over all my years, and I loved each and every one of them. I'm not sure if I have enough heart left to give to a seventh... however much I like to joke about it."
"... I wasn't really suggesting trying to court her or anything. She's very... young. Even if it's only by her own hand."
Jinho gave her a rare, crooked kind of smile, still every bit as charming as his other smiles. "If the Elders had their way, she'd never take those potions of hers again... and then she'd have no choice but to be married."
He watched her snowy brows pinch together, watched her open her mouth to speak, but whatever words Nema might have had for him were lost when the door to the room Nema had chosen to stay in flew open and promptly slammed shut.
Michael was wide-eyed, a bit red in the face, as he muttered to several curse words to himself and stomped further into the room. "Nathan get here?"
"Mom and Dad scooped him up, along with Isobelle." Nema stood, her head tilted as she crossed the room and reached out for him. "You okay...?" She traced the line of his tattoo with her snowy-pale finger, an old habit that had never disappeared. "You're kind of freaking out a little bit..."
The blue began to override the green in his eyes, and he glanced at Jinho before answering his wife, "Lilith kind of..."
A pause. Jinho's chair gently scraped across the floor as he stood. "Has something happened to her?" He asked the Fire Angel quietly, his cane tapping on the ground as he stepped closer to the pair.
Michael couldn't even begin to pick the right words to say. Seriously, how the fuck was he supposed to explain this? "She um..." Her body blew up. His face had ended up between breasts that magically appeared. "... Fuck!" He stomped over to the table and stole a chair, collapsing into it with a frustrated groan.
Nema and Jinho both glanced at each other before looking at him. "Michael-sama, is she okay?" Jinho tried again.
"I guess she's okay; I don't know!" How the fuck was he supposed to know the answer to that? She wasn't dead, but she...!
Jinho's cane tapped against the ground a few times more, until Nema laid her hand over his to stop him and laughed. "Come on, whatever happened, it couldn't have been that bad..."
Michael's hands tore through his hair as he simultaneously tried to explain what happened and block the memory out of his mind. "She... uh..." His hands waved in front of him.
Nema and Jinho glanced at each other again. "... What is this?" Nema mimicked him, hands waving.
The mighty War Angel gave her a troubled, angry glare and moved again, this time with his hands cupped, seeming to bounce just in front of his chest.
Nema let out a loud laugh. "Oh my God, what?"
He threw his hands up and snapped, "It's not funny!"
But Nema couldn't have stopped laughing, even if she tried. "What did she do, flash her little girl chest at you?"
"No!" Michael knew she'd get a kick out of this. It would have been funny if it hadn't happened to him. "And they weren't little!"
"Michael I'm bigger than her; I have actual breasts!"
Michael's eyes grew wide and round. "No, she has you beat. She has everyone here beat."
"Lilith's... body... grew?" Jinho tried to find the most polite way to voice his question, but it was drowned out in all of Nema's laughter.
"What, are they like, bigger than my head or something?"
"I don't know! I wasn't fucking committing that shit to memory! But they were..." Jesus... Michael gestured helplessly and realized too late that his hands were up by his face.
Nema thought she was going to run out of breath, soon. "Your face was in them?"
He gave up and grumbled, "I'm glad you think this is great, Nema. Why the Hell aren't you jealous or whatever, like normal people?"
"Why should I be jealous? You clearly did not have a good time!"
The table shook when he angrily propped his elbow against it and pinched the bridge of his nose. "God dammit..."
Nema strode toward him, and Jinho suddenly averted his impossibly dark eyes when she crawled into his lap, straddling him, even as she giggled away. "I'm sorry..." She kissed his tattooed cheek.
"You should be." He grumbled, his palms resting on her knees. The soft layers of her skirt and petticoat covered his fingers, and Jinho cleared his throat. As Nema draped her arms around her moody husband, Michael looked up at Jinho and spoke in a rough mumble. "If you tell anyone about this, I might have to kill you."
Jinho spoke to the carpet. "If... if what you're saying is true, everyone is going to find out... about her body, I mean!" He quickly corrected himself. "So she...?"
"... Has tits? … Yeah." Michael said between strange pauses.
A frown curled upon Jinho's face. "... Then she has run out of potions." He looked up at the pair, quickly looked down again when he noticed that the Fire Angel had shamelessly begun dotting kisses on Nema's shoulder. Hiking up her skirt, his fingers caressed ivory thighs, the right one seeming to bare some blue and black markings... a tattoo Jinho vaguely remembered Nema telling him about several years ago, though he'd forgotten all about it, and it really... really did not seem right to look at it, now. "I believe I should go."
"Yeah, you should." Michael said with a snicker.
Nema teasingly prodded his dragon-covered cheek and looked over her shoulder at the Vampire. "See you later, oppa."
He couldn't resist a joke, despite himself. "Much later, I suspect." He moved out of the way of a napkin she threw at him, shaking his head when shut the door and heard some animal growl leave the War Angel's mouth, a squeal leave hers.
At least they were happy, despite being uprooted from their home in Heaven and forced to stay here on Assiah... In some ways, Jinho wished he could say the same. A break away from the heavy air of Sheol... to be extempt from whatever mission the Dark Lord might have in mind for him... to be away from the Hatter's prying eyes. Hadn't that been the whole reason he'd stayed here, the past few days...?
And yet he couldn't exactly say that his time in Assiah was happy. No, it had been full of Lilith berating him for sticking around and everyone else offering pieces of advice even though he didn't ask for any. At least they meant well... Except for Lilith.
But here he was, knocking on her door. He told himself it was important. That much was the absolute truth. If she had run out of youth potions... she couldn't contact the Shinryu. She would no longer be considered the Dragonmaster... And the Elders would want a Dragonmaster. A new one...
"Go away!"
Jinho sighed. "Princess, it's only me."
"All the more reason to tell you to go away!"
"I have heard that you have no potions." He spoke over her.
The door rattled as something slammed against it with a jarring thump. "Michael's stupid kid stole them! I know it! I know he did! I made damn sure I brought enough with me! So I'm gonna find them, and then I'm going to fucking...!"
"Lilith," Jinho cut into her ranting, "You aren't expecting to hide from everyone until you find your potions, are you?"
"Watch me."
"Lilith, please. Open the door so we can talk face to face..."
"No! You can fuck right the Hell off and go back to your fabulous life in Seoul!"
"Sheol."
"Same thing!"
Despite her anger, Jinho couldn't help but chuckle. "I often get them mixed up in conversation, too..."
"Oh! We have so much in common, then!"
"Please, Lilith. Open the door."
"No."
"It can't be as bad as you're making it up to be..." Frustration rarely made him act on impulse, but in that moment, it did. He pushed right through the wood of the door, realizing he hadn't used even a tiny bit of magic since the day he'd come, here...
He saw, briefly, a taller version of Lilith, swallowed up in dark bedsheets, hair mussed. Bleary-eyed. He saw the palm of her hand quickly connect with his face, and he pulled back, stumbling in the hall. His cheek stung and her words were a screeching tirade that he could only barely understand. Why did he do that...?
As soon as he realized that the force of her strike had knocked his top hat off his head, Lilith opened the door just enough to throw it out onto the floor. Jinho immediately whipped out his cane and jabbed it into the doorway, preventing her from shutting it.
"You're a piece of shit, Jinho! Get your stupid cane out of my door!" Lilith snapped.
"I'm sorry." Jinho immediately apologized. "We need to talk..."
"No! No we don't! There is nothing that needs to be said!"
"Lilith, if you can't find your potions-"
"Fuck you, I'm going to find them!"
"If you don't... then we need to talk about this."
Lilith was finally silent, shrugging the forest green bedsheets tighter around her taller frame, disguising the curves she likely developed.
As Jinho looked at her through the crack in her door, he frowned and murmured, "... Your clothes don't fit you anymore, do they?"
The former Dragonmaster didn't speak, didn't even look at him... but she slowly shook her head.
"... What size do you think you are, now?"
"Fuck you, Jinho. I'm not giving you my measurements!"
"I only mean to help-"
"I don't want your help! A lecher like you is just gonna buy me fucking scandalous lingerie and harem fantasy costumes!"
The words were cold water splashed into his face, and he immediately frowned. Ink-black eyes clashed against angry, maroon ones with cat-eye pupils. They said nothing...
Until their sensitive ears picked up the sounds of many thuds on the roof of the mansion. "... The fuck is that?" Lilith asked in a grumble.
"I don't know..." Jinho replied quietly, looking up at the ceiling, then through the tall windows at the far end of the hall.
… Rabbits. Rabbits all in black and looking mean.
'Uprising' was the first word to pop into Jinho's head, and he forgot his anger. "Are you armed?"
Lilith blinked rapidly and shook her head. Why would she be armed?
Jinho saw her eyes widen as he twisted the ornate handle of his cane and pulled out the long, sharp, thin blade of a sword from the cane itself, "Now you are." He held the sword to her, and she grabbed it with unsure, golden hands. "Keep your door locked."
He quickly grabbed his top hat and ran down the hall in the direction he came, pounding his fist into the doors of occupied rooms at he went, shouting a warning that they were under attack...
Before he could even reach the door to the room Michael and Nema shared, windows were shattering and Rabbits were pouring in. This had to be the Uprising... "Michael-sama!" Jinho yelled in alarm as several wild men closed in on him. He could only hope that was enough as instinct took over. Reaching for a cane that he no longer had... an elbow into the face of one man, turning, sending a white-gloved fist into the stomach of another once, twice, three times. A third man tried to grab him, but missed as Jinho slipped right through the floor... Pausing, confused, the third man faltered.
He had no way of preparing for white-gloved hands that reached down from the ceiling and had a surprisingly graceful way of gripping onto his head and twisting, snapping his neck.
Jinho wore an unhappy frown and dropped back down through the ceiling, closing the distance to the door and pounding on it. "Michael-sama! Nemaelle!"
xXxXxXx
A pleased, purr-tinged squeal left Nema's pale throat as her Fiery Angel took her to the floor, the chair tumbling over. Funny how the chair seemed to clatter so loudly in their ears, like the pounding of footsteps... Michael's mouth nipped along the rise of her breast, and they excused it all for heated desire. They never liked wasting time... so much of their lives were spent dealing with military and politics and two children, it only made them ache for these moments more. Maybe, if their lives were a little more calm, they'd be more leisurely about this... or maybe it only would have meant more torn dresses and petticoats for Nema to mend. She didn't mind it, not at all... all that the sound of ripping fabric ever did was make her tingle with need. Just like the way Michael pulling her thighs wide open made her tingle... The way he allowed himself only a short moment to rake a possessive gaze down her already-ravaged body, the way he caressed the ink wrapped around her thigh, her own blue dragon that marked her like she was his. The way a devilish smirk played over his features when her hands grabbed at his belt and pulled it open...
They jumped when they heard Jinho pounding on their and yelling out their names. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Michael hissed.
He'd had more words prepared, but several shadows and the sudden smashing of their windows knocked them right out of his frustrated head. Michael was on his feet in a flash, pulling Nema up along with him as she immediately slipped her treasured Angel Crystal earring out of her ear, the crystal shifting into the katana she always used.
"Look what we have here..." A surly and tough I-Child sneered. "We've caught Her Highness whoring herself out...!"
The warning lick of flames shot only an inch past the group that had crashed into their room, straight from the hand of the War Angel as they stood there, hair mussed, some of the seams on Nema's dress torn, Michael's belt undone. "Wanna repeat that?" He sneered right back.
Their initial bravado was already shaken... and despite herself, Nema frowned and muttered to her Angel, "Go get the others. I've got this."
Even as still more bodies slipped in through their ruined window, Michael knew she was right. There were very few things Nema couldn't handle... Even so, he made sure to take hold of her arm and hiss out a quick, angry whisper before he left, "They don't deserve your mercy."
Michael was sure that was the truth. He'd been sure that was the truth. Some people these were... She won their freedom, their right to fucking live, before she'd even reached age eighteen. There was nothing that said she needed to do that for them. She could have waited in Hades for him and then he could've done all the damn work for her because she deserved it. But no, she took it upon herself, and she succeeded... and this was the gratitude they gave her for it? Michael had no idea how she'd managed to spend these years trying to talk things out with these fucking people. If it were him, he would've lashed out a long time ago...
When Michael grabbed his enormous and deadly sword, throwing open the door, he was shocked to see that there were several bodies already littering the hallway. All black-clad Rabbits... most of them knocked unconscious, but some killed, necks purpling already from being twisted and broken. He couldn't think of anyone who would be fighting like this, all bare-handed, as he followed the bodies like a trail of bruising bread crumbs. Setsuna, maybe...
Jesus Christ, Setsuna was with his fucking kids...
The Fire Angel ran along the trail of bodies with a fresh sense of urgency. "Setsuna! Where the fuck are you?"
But the Messiah never heard him yelling out his name... instead, Michael saw a pair of arms slip through a wall, grabbing an I-Child by the shoulders and pulling him back against the wall with a rough jerk that made him dizzy. He was unable to fight the gloved hands that grabbed onto his head and delivered the fatal twist, the snap of his neck. Jinho stepped back through the wall wearing a deep frown, and his ink-black eyes turned over to the Fire Angel.
The tip of Michael's broad Fire Sword hit the floor with a thud. "... I didn't know you were a man, Jinho!" A rough ripple of laughter rumbled in his throat.
The humor was lost on the Gehenna Vampire. He didn't want to do this... but what else could he do? They were being blatantly attacked, and there were children living here...!
The War Angel was already back to business before Jinho could think of a reply to his crude joke. "You find Setsuna?"
"He's guarding your children. Jibril and Raphael are looking for you. Have you seen Ur-"
"That giant bastard'll show up sooner or later." Michael waved it off with his hand. "Go make sure Nema isn't arranging some peace talk; these assholes can't be reasoned with."
"And I need you to see that Lilith is okay." Jinho watched as the Fire Angel's already-green eyes narrowed into unhappy slits, and immediately reasoned with him. "Lilith is hiding alone and has absolutely no fighting experience, Michael-sama..."
"Of course she fucking doesn't." He scoffed and stomped past, "I'll check on the brat."
"I'll see to it that Nema is well," Jinho promised in return, hurrying back to her room.
xXxXxXx
Uriel had realized a little too late that he had left his scythe in Hades. Perhaps he shouldn't have had that last scotch before he packed his things...
Oh, well. The Rabbits who had poured into Serissa's mansion didn't seem interested in him, at all. They were looking for Nema; he'd heard them shouting and could pick out her name through all the garbled syllables.
There was no way they could be this stupid. Attacking a house full of Elementals... Something else had to have been going on. So instead of trying to find the others, Uriel retreated further into the mansion, ducking around corners when he heard approaching voices. Being weaponless certainly didn't make him helpless, but he still didn't want to fight these people. Nema had already explained to him that most of the Rabbits following Azrael were starving in the slums and driven to the point of complete and total desperation.
They didn't deserve death. As annoyed as Uriel was that these invading Rabbits had interrupted his time with his favorite book, he would leave them unharmed.
Only one thing could have changed his mind.
The sound of screaming made him abandon his shadowy corners and charge forward towards the screams. The sound was so high pitched, he knew it could have only been one of three little girls living in that house...
He barrelled around a corner in time to see a pair of Rabbit men, one grabbing a thrashing June and the other struggling to pull a pistol out of Chiyo's hands.
"Let me go! Aaron!"
A boy of twelve was beating the first Rabbit with his fists, yelling and swearing as he tried to free June. Uriel had never met the boy, but he knew it had to have been Serissa's adopted son, Aaron.
"Hey!" Uriel's false voice boomed through the hallway and all five of them froze.
"Mind your own business, Earth Angel!" One of the Rabbit men yelled back, wrenching Chiyo's pistol out of her hands. "You don't even have a weapon."
"I don't need one." Uriel said darkly. With a quick wave of his hand, his trusty vines burst from the floor of the mansion and grabbed both Rabbits, yanking them away from the children and binding them, one to the floor, one to the wall. "Are you okay?" He asked the children, hurrying up to them and paying no mind to the immobilized men.
June was sobbing and Aaron wrapped the girl into his arms, staring at Uriel with wide and frightened eyes.
Chiyo answered Uriel, "What's going on?"
"No time to explain. Why are you out of your rooms?"
"Serissa has a panic room. We were headed there." Chiyo explained, her pale face whiter than normal.
"Where is it?" Uriel reached out and scooped June into his arms.
Chiyo grabbed her gun off the floor and took Aaron's hand. "Just down the hall! In the guest bedroom on the left!"
"Stay close behind me, kids."
Uriel hurried down the hallway to the guest bedroom on the left. Two more Rabbits attempted to stop them, and he quickly took care of them with another wave of his hand and a fresh set of roots. He kicked the bedroom door right off its hinges, splintering the wood in his urgency. He ushered the kids inside. "Get inside the panic room, lock it down."
Chiyo took June from Uriel and gazed up at him with bewildered red eyes. "You're not coming in, too?"
"No. I'm going to go help get rid of them."
Uriel didn't leave the room until he saw that all three children were safe behind the bookshelf, barricaded by a steel door that could only be opened from the inside. He slid the bookshelf back into place, and hurried out of the room to find the others.
xXxXxXx
"Care to tell us why you're on vacation while the rest of us are still starving, Your Highness?" The surly I-Child regained her bravery as soon as the Fire Angel left, it seemed.
Nema's ruby eyes narrowed, her lips pursing into an moody frown. "This is no vacation."
"Having sex in a fancy mansion in London sounds exactly like a vacation to me...! Don't you think?" Several voices snarled in agreement. A few stepped closer to the Rabbit Queen, but paused as soon as she lifted her Angel Crystal katana.
Nema stood firmly, her eyes sharp as they passed over every face. "... Go home. All of you. You're in no position to fight me, and I don't want to hurt any of you. So go home."
"And do what? Starve?" Nema's mouth dropped open, but the Rabbit cut her off, mocking her, "'Oh, I'm doing what I can, I'm doing what I can! Be strong!' This is us being strong, dear Queen."
"How many of you are here? A bunch of fumbling angry people against myself and all the Elementals? This is you being stupid. I know the difference!"
"You ought to know how far you can get on anger alone!" If the surly Rabbit had any more words to say, they were lost when more members of the Uprising ran through the doorway behind Nema, reaching for her, ready to... to tear her apart, to destroy their Queen... somehow, anyway they could.
Nema felt the pulling of hands grabbing her arms, and frenzied instinct took the reigns. Rabbits that suddenly doubted their actions couldn't move away from the Angel Crystal blade as it cut through them like soft, pale butter. A ragged, unhappy breath of despair left her... God, these weren't people she should be killing, these weren't people she should be killing...!
The surly Rabbit led the ring of Rabbits that suddenly closed in on her, letting out a, "Show her how far anger gets!" like it was their war cry...
How... why had it come to this? Would they really rather have just kept having more and more Revolution battles? More White Wing POWs they couldn't hope to care for? Another Battle at the Fields? Did they want that so badly they'd kill her for forming an olive branch...?
In that moment, Nema's heart felt like it shattered, and she screamed it out... sweeping her sword in a wide arc through the bellies of foes who she didn't want to have as foes. Blood bursting everywhere as she ruptured them all, heads and torsos popping wide open. She shut her eyes against the thick wave of red that splashed all over her, hearing the sick squishing and thumping of limbs and ribcages and organs hitting the floor.
How long had it been since she'd last done this to a living person...? Years. But in that moment she remembered all of this much too clearly. Always screams first, and then the sounds of bodies being blown apart. Then the sounds of remains dropping, and then... nothing. A very disturbing silence, even for her. Her eyes slid back open, and the blood felt heavy on her lashes. She looked down at herself... coated. Literally soaking wet with blood... dripping with it. Every strand of her long hair and every ruffle of her dress and every tip of her little fingers... dribbling with the stuff. Her katana looked more like rubies than Angel Crystal.
"Nemaelle...!"
She half-turned to look at Jinho with shocked, upset, angry... yet oddly unreadable eyes that were every bit as red as the blood that covered her. Surrounded with... parts of people. Limbs and cracked open rib cages and entrails and parts of skulls that looked more like bowls, holding wrinkled gray slabs of brain...
It took a while for Jinho to find the words to speak. He wasn't sure that he'd ever seen her use her power on people in real time, before. It was one thing to say to oneself that a dear friend can make anything she wanted – even people – explode. It was quite another to actually see it... "Nemaelle, are you okay?" Jinho frowned and stepped into the blood-spattered room, but Nema suddenly pushed past him, leaving a handprint of blood just barely seen on his dark coat.
"You better hope to God you find Azrael before I do." Nema's voice was a low, threatening hiss as she left Jinho in her bloody room, the high heels of her knee-high boots leaving red prints on the floor of the hall as she ran down it, oblivious to Jinho's cries as they faded in the distance behind her. She knew her friend was only worried. Maybe he should've been... but there wasn't any time for him to offer her comfort. Not when people like this – reckless people who weren't ready to fight like this, but fought anyway; people who she didn't want to fight – were crawling all over the mansion, tearing it apart, trying to hurt all the people she cared for...
Oh God, her children...
She became even angrier than before, and she hadn't been sure that was possible. The frightened, frenzied mother in her took over, grabbing the first living, conscious member of the Uprising she saw and smashing him against the railing over a set of stairs, holding him over it. The blade of her katana rested threateningly under his chin. "I know Azrael is here. There's no way any of you reckless idiots would be doing this if he wasn't here!" She spoke louder over the young man's nervous whimpering. "Call him. Now. I want him right here, right now!" Blood dripped off Nema's chin and onto the man's cheek as he flailed and struggled to pull out a cell phone, and he let out a despairing cry when it slipped from his sweaty, pale fingers.
"Why don't you fight me, instead?"
Nema's bloodsoaked tendrils of hair left an arc of droplets on the floor as she turned to stare at a woman in a strange, elaborate rabbit mask... A woman Nema had never seen before, and yet she remembered well enough all the rumors of the masked woman Azrael had on his side...
The masked woman's head tilted just slightly. "It says a lot about you, that you kill all these innocents, Rabbit Queen."
Those were just the words needed to make Nema shove the frightened man away from her bloody grip and begin approaching her, her katana brandished and ready...
xXxXxXx
Lilith had tried her best to tie her dark bedsheets in secure knots, hoping this would hold as Jinho's cane sword quivered in her unsure hands. She leaned against her vanity, staring at her locked door as she heard the sounds of a wild scuffle. Yelling... crying... thumping... What was going on out there?
Very rarely did Lilith ever really enjoy talking with the Shinryu, but now, more than ever, she wanted them with her. She wasn't even sure why. They weren't of this world; they couldn't have done a single thing to project her... But she really needed them with her, right now. Something familiar in the midst of all this madness going on just outside her door...
Her pupils narrowed into cat-eyed slits when the doorknob to her room began twisting, jiggling, fighting against the lock. The cane blade shook even more badly in her golden hands... Was she even holding the thing correctly?
She felt stupid, sending up a prayer to the Shinryu, but in that moment, she really needed it. She wanted this to be over. She wanted to find her potions and go back to Gehenna and not have anything to do with this horrible shit! Things had gone from horrible to outright frightening and she hadn't been aware things would happen this way...!
Her door burst open with a mighty kick, and a gasp tore out of her throat. Shaky as she was, she pointed the cane blade right at the man who'd broken in, a Rabbit with empty, cold garnet eyes. "Stay the fuck away from me." She snarled, her lips pulled back in a sneer.
Her attempt to be threatening was unsuccessful. "Of course, they locked away their treasure. Their little oracle." Azrael stepped further into the room. "Well... not anymore, it seems."
Lilith could see the blade shivering as if it were cold, but she kept it pointed, anyway. "If you take one step closer I will fucking kill you!"
A low, bemused chuckle left him. "It's strange that they've locked you up when you can't even see or hear those pesky lizards your people love so much. What is it they still see in you?"
The former Dragonmaster didn't answer, trying hard to steel herself. This man was cold and calm and that only made her even more sure that he knew he could kill her.
And then he confirmed it. "No matter... You'll be dead soon enough, and we won't have to worry about you and your potions and your lizards ever again."
"One step...!" She warned him, hating the way her voice quivered. She could do this, couldn't she...? She had to do this...!
A corner of Azrael's mouth lifted as he took another step forward. "One."
He was teasing her, but it set the Evil off in a way that was foreign to her. She didn't even know what she was doing... Running. Swiping at him with this long, thin blade. Jabbing when he dodged her... Another bemused chuckle left his lips, even as she finally managed to brush the tip of the cane blade against his cheek and leave an angry, red line.
She understood his laughter as soon as she hit the floor. He'd stepped on the long train of her bedsheet dress and let her take care of the rest. How could she be so horrible at this...?
Before Lilith could roll onto her back, Azrael had one boot firmly planted on the hand that held the thin sword. "I don't think so, Dragonmaster..." She cried out when he pulled her head back by her pale blonde hair, and found herself whimpering when she felt the blade of a long knife against her throat. So much for being brave... "If you have any last words or requests, now is the time for them."
"Fuck that!"
The next thing Lilith saw was shades of red and orange and gold, the blade at her throat gone and the man who wielded it scrambling away from the arc of fire that followed hot on his heels.
"Pretty shitty, picking off idiots who can't wield swords to save their lives. Idiots who literally can't!" Michael scoffed.
Empty, dark red eyes seemed chilling against the angry green of Michael's own. "That's rich, coming from a former Rabbit Hunter."
The War Angel sent another quick burst of flame in Azrael's direction, sending him right out of Lilith's room. "It's funny; I thought you were gunning to pick off my wife, Azrael! But I guess you're blind if you think Nema's some busty tan chick with cat eyes!" He scoffed. "'Course he ran off..." He dropped to a crouch, the tip of his giant sword stabbed into the ground. "Hey." He started snapping his fingers in front of the former Dragonmaster's eyes.
Lilith was wide-eyed and taking short, quick breaths. Only seconds ago she'd been close enough to taste death...
"Fuck... Hey!" Michael's hand delivered a sharp slap to her golden cheek. "You okay?"
"I..." Lilith just... stared at the violent, Fiery Angel and his moody eyes and the blue dragon on his face and wondered what had even compelled him to go into her room, after everything that had happened... "I..."
"Kid, I don't have time for this!" Michael grabbed her roughly by her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye. "Are. You. Okay?"
Lilith had to blink twice and take three more breaths before she could finally answer him. "I... yeah... yeah, I am..."
She sounded incredibly disoriented, but at least she was responding, now... "Good." He hauled her to her feet and immediately pointed to the newcomer in Lilith's room. "You take her, I've got a man I need to beat the living shit out of!"
Lilith found herself being tossed away from the arms of the Fire Angel and into the arms of the Gehenna Vampire. Even when he was worried, his voice flowed smoothly. "She is unharmed?"
"She's fine."
"Michael-sama-" But he'd already left. Jinho sighed and immediately scooped the adult Lilith into his arms, setting her down on her messy bed. "Lilith..."
The more she realized that she was staring up at ink-black eyes, the more she struggled to cover herself with more blankets.
Jinho frowned and walked over to his cane sword, and it was only then when Lilith began speaking again.
"Your sword..."
"I have it. I have it right here. See?" Jinho's voice was nothing but gentleness despite the situation, showing her the blade.
She stared at the gleaming metal with a frown. "Your cane is... a sword."
Yes, the girl was definitely out of sorts... between losing her potions and reverting to her true, adult form and nearly being murdered, the rowdy former Dragonmaster had been through too much, today. But Jinho welcomed the conversation, even as he stood near the foot of her bed, staring at the open doorway. "There is much to be cautious of, in Sheol. It's important to carry a weapon at all times."
"Then you've... used it, before."
Jinho didn't answer her.
Lilith sat up and gripped onto one of the Dragonmaster earrings dripping from her earlobes, fruitless as that action was. "Am I the only one here who hasn't killed someone?"
"It is something to be proud of." The Vampire insisted. "No one should be forced into a position that makes them take a life. Especially the Dragonmaster."
"I'm not the Dragonmaster, anymore." Lilith grumbled, and Jinho didn't reply, once again. "... How bad is it, out there?"
His shoulders tensed, just barely. "There is a lot of... cleaning up, to do."
"Over me...?"
Jinho blinked wide black eyes at her, and she blinked, in return. "This is an attack initiated by the Uprising, Lilith. It doesn't involve-"
"It does! The man who nearly killed me said they wouldn't have to worry about me! Fuck, I wish this wasn't about me, but...!" Lilith felt herself getting her bearings back, though it meant little more than anger and swearing.
"They said that." Jinho's voice became a silky kind of whisper.
"Yes. I don't know why they care, but that's what the man said. That if he offed me, they wouldn't have to worry about me or my so-called lizards anymore!"
Jinho frowned as she gave him a troubled sort of glare. The Uprising wanted Lilith gone...? But why would they-
They realized it simultaneously, spoke in unison. "The Prophecy..."
"Nema must be told immediately."
"But how the Hell would these angry Rabbits destroy all three worlds?" Lilith grumbled with narrowed eyes.
The dark waves of hair pulled into a tail at the nape of his neck, only slightly frizzy from his fighting, swayed across his upper back as he shook his head. "I don't know, but I'd rather not take my chances-"
Lilith's eyes shifted just over his shoulder and widened, and that was all the cue Jinho needed, after seeing and doing all that he'd seen and done since this attack had started. He wasted no time in spinning to face the newcomers – three of them, slightly bloodied members of the Uprising – and slashing the shirt covering the nearest one right open with a surprisingly graceful, easy flip of his wrist.
How was it that when that cane sword had been in her possession, it had felt clumsy and wobbly and ineffective, but in his, the sword became a deadly natural extension of his arm? She watched as the three Rabbits stumbled away from the Gehenna Vampire, getting their bearings before rushing in on him... but he slipped right through the floor, and they stumbled to a halt all over again. White gloves rose up from the floor and closed around one man's ankles, pulling him down to join him... There were screams in the room below them, and then silence.
The two remaining men looked at each other. "... Fuck, kill this fucking Evil now!" One hissed and pounced, and an unarmed Lilith mentally scrambled, grabbing her bedside lamp and throwing it at him. The assaulted man dropped and slipped off the foot of her bed, but there was one left...
This time, Jinho dropped down through her ceiling, silent and graceful like Vampires were often rumored to be... drops of blood dotting his white cravat and the side of his face. He didn't even speak, which only made him that much more frightening in a way that was nothing like all these Uprising members or Michael or any other person who was here and fighting. He merely moved swiftly after the man who ran back out of Lilith's room, reaching right through the wall, pulling the man back in by the back of his sweater and then pinning him to the paint and plaster, the thin, bloody blade piercing right through the man's back.
Lilith watched with wide eyes as Jinho left the man there, as the life drained out of the Rabbit's eyes. "I'm sorry..." His voice was as smooth as his murderous actions, but tinged in sorrow.
Lilith didn't even know how to respond. "... For... what?"
Jinho's mouth opened and closed, unsure of what to say. So, so unlike him... but he'd been having moments like these ever since he'd come here.
He walked over the pinned man and unpinned him with a graceful flip of his wrist, the body crumpling to the floor. "Hopefully this will be over, soon..."
xXxXxXx
"Tell me where he is, and I won't hurt you." Nema's grip on her bloody sword wobbled in rage as she stared at the woman before her. The mask she wore was an eerie thing. A mask that looked like a stylized white rabbit's face with red markings. Nema couldn't see any of the woman's skin, only the pale flesh that surrounded her cold and penetrating eyes through the eyeholes in the mask. Her body was wrapped entirely in black fabric; even her hands were covered by gloves. White dreadlocks protruded from the back of her mask and cascaded to her waist, making the woman's only identifying feature.
Nema couldn't truly see hardly any of this strange new enemy... Edgy and uneasy, her red eyes quickly looked over the masked woman's body. Two weapons... a tomahawk and some intricately designed long knife. Not in her hands. Simply hanging from her belt... She stood with a calm and relaxed posture, like she didn't even notice, or care, that Nema was covered in blood and brandishing her sword.
"Do you really think you can hurt me?" The woman said, opening her arms in invitation. "Go ahead. Try. Get it out of your system, Rabbit Queen."
Her calm, mocking tone made an unhappy scowl pull on Nema's lips, and her left boot itched to take a step forward... No. No, she wouldn't take the bait... But perhaps she could frighten the woman. Knock her down a peg or two. Ruby eyes became thin slits as Nema concentrated her power onto the woman's chest. Not too much... just enough pressure to show this masked woman that she meant business, that she didn't have the time for these horrible, bloody games.
Seconds lengthened into a strange and eerie silence. The masked woman stood there, staring calmly and evenly at Nema.
Nema's lips parted, a few quiet and frustrated words dancing on her tongue, but not quite leaving. She wasn't even flinching, not even tensing in the pain she surely had to have felt... The brandished blade of Nema's crystal katana dropped just slightly, and she tried harder, amplifying her power enough to surely rupture her from the inside out...
… And still. Nothing.
Nema took two quick steps backwards, staring at her with wide and surprised eyes. "... How?"
"Ah, now you get it, don't you?
"Who are you?" Her voice quaked in bewildered aggression.
"I am called many things. Monster. Freedom Fighter. Savior... Today, I will be known as the one who ends your life," She slowly removed her tomahawk and knife from her belt. "But between now and then, you may call me Celestiel."
Celestiel stepped closer and Nema felt a sudden and unexplainable swell of panic. Before she could even think to steel herself, the high heel of one boot tapped backwards.
"You look scared, Nema. Good. Now you know what all your victims have felt in your presence. Fear. Helplessness. The crippling weight of knowing you can't do a thing to stop death."
Nema scowled, swallowing the fear, allowing only anger to seep into her words. "What, do you think I can't handle a sword? I don't need my powers to beat you."
Celestiel chuckled, "You just keep telling yourself that. It's better to die with hope than with none."
When Celestiel struck for the first time, Nema was staggered by the sheer power in her blow. She raised her katana to block Celestiel's tomahawk from hacking into her neck, and her sword vibrated so hard, it made Nema's bones cry out in pain. A strange feeling that she only felt when sparring with her Fiery Angel, never with anyone else... until now. A warmth burned in her side, and suddenly Celestiel was gone, vanished in the blink of an eye. The sharp warmth spread, and Nema looked down to see blood blossoming over her white corset, spreading around a slash in her side.
The Rabbit Queen's red eyes grew wide in her stunned face. How... how did she...? Nema hadn't even seen her move! She pressed a pale, blood-smeared hand to her wound. It was shallow, superficial. "You don't seem like the type to toy with your victims." Nema said darkly, all of her senses straining to stay acutely aware of this woman...
"Maybe I want to hear you beg for mercy."
Celestiel's voice was warm and murmuring Nema's ear, like a lover's whisper. The closeness of the sound made Nema's blood run cold and sent every nerve screaming with the need to attack, to preserve herself. An angry yell tore from her throat, and she slashed blindly with her katana, arching the blow behind her with a wide wild shot.
Celestiel bent back and the blade nicked one of her pearly white dreadlocks, sending a few pale hairs up into the tense air. She spun away, unharmed.
As apprehensive as Nema was, as much as fear kept beating on the back of her head screaming warnings, she ignored it. She had to do something about this woman, this Celestiel. Another yell came out of her like a warcry, and she charged forward on her knee-high boots. Her bloody, torn, ruffled skirt billowed behind her as she leapt recklessly at Celestiel with all the ferocity of a desperate and raging lion, her Angel Crystal katana blood-drenched and glinting in the light as it slashed at her enemy...
But the curved blade of Celestiel's tomahawk caught her blade and forced it away. Nema took a leap backward at the last moment, as the masked woman's long knife caught and tore at more of Nema's blood-stained corset, kissing her snowy pale skin just slightly, baring one of the steel bones that gave her torso a firm embrace. She didn't allow herself to be a sitting duck, immediately running in a wide arc and thinking hard. Quickly shuffling through years of sparring with Michael, battles fought during the Revolution. God, it'd been so long since she'd felt the need to think that far back... but she had to, now.
It was then that she realized that she'd never gone up against a person wielding dual weapons. Not like these ones... No matter how many blows she dealt, Celestiel somehow managed to turn her offensive blows into defensive ones. Torn between frustration urging her to be reckless, and fear warning her to be careful, Nema would close in only to quickly leap away all over again. Nema lost track of how many times Celestiel's blade only nicked her flesh. How many times Celestiel had a chance to land a killing blow, but didn't. She had to concede that she was in trouble... overwhelmed and outmatched by this woman who didn't even seem like a Rabbit.
She was far too strong to just be an ordinary I-Child.
Another angry scream ripped out of Nema's throat as she tried again to run Celestiel through with her katana, a reckless jab right for the masked woman's stomach. Celestiel tucked her tomahawk into her belt, forced the blade aside with her knife and caught Nema once, twice, three times in the face with the hard edge of her elbow. Dazed, she felt blood flow from her broken nose, her mind reeling from the hard blows to her head.
It had been literally years since anyone had been able to land a blow like this, right to her face... Nema could hardly see, her hazy vision doubled. She tried to push through the pain, to clear her head as she swung her sword, once more. The action came out sluggish. Celestiel caught the blade in her gloved hand, her blood dribbling down the sharp edges of the katana.
"Enough, Nema. You are beaten. It's time to let go."
God, she hadn't even gotten a very great hit on her, yet... as if minor scratches and a frayed dreadlock even counted as damage? Not to Nema. "Never..."
"Very well."
Nema felt her katana grow hot under hands and suddenly... it was gone. Her fingers feebly grasped at air, and bewildered, bleary ruby eyes tried to make sense of what had just happened.
"Death really isn't so bad." Celestiel shoved Nema so hard against the wall, the plaster cracked and caved. "Now... any last words?"
The Rabbit Queen was weaponless, powerless and dazed. Even now the need to destroy this woman made her body shake. If only she could... she would have killed this woman. Ruptured the very core of her body so slowly it would look like she were being peeled open. Cut her head off with her Angel Crystal blade... beat a crater into her head with her own fists... something. Anything.
She hated to admit it, and yet she knew she had to, as her body sank into the ruined wall at her back... This woman, Celestiel, had bested her. She steeled herself, even as her vision blurred between each blink. She said the only thing she could think of. "My children..."
"What about them?" Celestiel said coldly.
"Don't hurt them." Nema took a breath in through her broken, bleeding nose, hearing a soft an uncomfortable hiss as she did. She wasn't even sure if Celestiel would uphold her request... No matter. She took another breath and willed herself to look into the holes of Celestiel's mask, into the cold voids, there. "Please... Kill me, if you have to. But don't... don't hurt my children."
And suddenly, Celestiel hesitated. One hand gripped Nema's throat and the other positioned her knife over her stomach and... she hesitated. Like...
She couldn't do it.
"Nema!"
Celestiel jerked and yanked Nema away from the wall, pinning her against her chest with an arm around her shoulders, pointing the knife straight at Nema's throat.
Michael let out a strangled yell of rage upon seeing his wife, battered, face bruised and bleeding, wounded and weaponless, and in the clutches of the enemy. How... How had she even ended up in this bitch's arms? He'd ask later. He'd ask after he'd burned this woman alive! Eyes blazing green, he screamed at Celestiel. "Let her go! Let her go now!"
"Or what, Fire Angel?" Celestiel hissed. "You'll set me on fire? Careful. I'd hate for your pretty wife to get caught in the crossfire, wouldn't you?"
A wild roar left Michael's throat, fire flaring about his clenched, shaking fists."You fucking bitch; I'll kill you!"
Azrael rushed up behind Celestiel. "Do it! Kill her now, Celestiel!"
"All in good time, oh Impatient One." Celestiel murmured, eyes fixed on Michael. She felt something tugging at the ankles of her boots. She broke eye contact with the Fire Angel only to look down, watching thick green vines tangling around her feet. "Ah."
"Let her go." The Angel of Earth stepped up behind the angry Michael, glaring calmly at Celestiel. "Let her go now, and you will be treated fairly."
"Oh, I doubt that, very much."
Uriel's jaw dropped in horror as the vines he summoned to trap her legs suddenly withered and died. They broke apart when Celestiel stepped back, dragging Nema along with her.
"The Dragonmaster?"
"Alive, unfortunately." Azrael said angrily.
"No matter. She's useless, by this point. That only leaves one loose end to tie up." Celestiel tucked her knife away again. "Listen to me, my little Rabbit Queen. This will not be the last time you see me... that I can promise." Still holding Nema tightly against her chest, Celestiel placed one hand over Nema's forehead, and the other over her heart.
Nema's eyes suddenly shot wide and horrified, and she screamed. Her body tensed and quivered uselessly as she cried out, feeling like someone, or something, was thrashing inside of her, hurting her, tearing her apart from the inside out. Every inch of her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes... God, even when the terrible Angel Cheriour had cut off her wings, years ago... even that could not compare to this!
Michael snarled and ran forward, only to be pulled back by Uriel. They looked on in total helplessness as Celestiel's gloved hands glowed with a subtle red light.
Almost as soon as it began, Celestiel released Nema and she collapsed in a horrible heap at the masked woman's feet. Nema gasped and cried and cradled her stomach, crippled by searing pain that continued on in agonizing, sharp waves.
"I have taken the only thing that makes you special, Rabbit Queen." Celestiel dropped Nema's crystal earring onto the floor and it bounced harmlessly away, no longer the sword it had been minutes before. "When we do meet again... stay out of my way."
"What have you done?" Michael roared, his eyes wide and angry, blue-green and conflicted with the need to pull his battered wife to safety, the need to tear this masked woman into pieces.
"I have taken away her powers. She is no longer an Aion. She will no longer use her abilities to hurt or intimidate anyone, ever again."
"That wasn't the plan, Celestiel!" Azrael said, frowning.
"I know. Call the retreat. We're done here."
The need to save his wife won out over violence, one of the only things that could trump the need to destroy his enemies. Michael rushed to her side, fighting to calm himself enough to make the flickering little flames die between his fingers. Broad white wings stretched from his back and immediately formed a shell over her, protecting her far too late. "Nema." Aggression made his voice rough and grating, and his hands shook against Nema's snowy-pale shoulder blades...
No. No, the shaking was all Nema's own, so violent it made his hold on her slip. "... Nema, what-" Michael started over again, this time apprehensive, and he was right to be. The disgraced Rabbit Queen heaved once, twice, and the third time, a thick stream of blood poured from her mouth and splattered all over the floor.
The Fire Angel didn't waste another second. "Raphael!" He looked over his shoulder to see his fellow Elemental running toward him, but worry kept pushing his name out of his mouth. "Raphael, hurry! Now! Now! Raphael!"
All Uriel had to do was blink, and Celestiel and Azrael were gone, taking the rest of the Rabbits with them...
