The approaching Underworld forces took her attention as Viridi stood at the crest of the hill, her staff in hand as she looked down across the plains, waiting. While they were yet some distance away, Viridi's eye had immediately taken note of the solid sea of black that drew towards her. Her gaze was sharp, and she recognised them as the same manner of being she and Phosphora had first seen in the reflecting pool; the approaching army was made up completely of them.
A small frown had creased Viridi's brow when she acknowledged this detail. Phosphora had reported to her after returning to Skyworld that these soldiers in particular had caught her eye; they fought with a sense of cohesion and precisely guided aggression that far surpassed that of the other Underworld creatures.
Their numbers had been small within the force that had attacked the city, and Phosphora had concluded that Medusa had either been testing her new brand of soldier, or that she simply did not possess enough numbers of them. If the forces had been made up entirely of them, she admitted, her attack upon the Underworld army would most likely not have had the same degree of success.
The composition of the force that approached indicated clearly to Viridi the Underworld Queen's intentions, and the swiftness with which she had sent them more than underpinned her desire to see the Goddess of Nature fall. She had not expected Medusa to be leading these forces towards her now, though it took her a moment to recognise the being that walked at the head of the army in her stead. She arched her brow as she was finally able to recall his name and position.
Feeling a presence at her shoulder, she turned her head to find Phosphora taking her place at her right hand. The nymph clutched her silver helm in the crook of her arm, aside from it fully armoured.
Viridi heard at her back the footfalls of her gathered children coming up the hill; she cast a quick glance over her shoulder and swiftly gauged their numbers. Before she turned back to the oncoming Underworld forces, Viridi's eyes were drawn upwards as she heard the distinctive beat of wings pumping through the air. Ivorie alighted gently behind her, tucking her vast wings behind her back as other angels alighted in her wake as she stepped forwards.
"Lady Viridi, with your permission, I would pledge the strength of Skyworld's angels to your cause", Ivorie said as she lowered herself to one knee before the Goddess.
Viridi looked up at the angels gathered behind her. "You are all able?"
"Yes. Not all angels take it upon themselves to learn how to fight, but I assure you that we who are gathered here are all capable".
Viridi nodded. "Then I accept your strength", she said. "Though I hope that you speak the truth; my children will not hesitate to overtake you if you prove worthless on the battlefield".
Ivorie blinked at that and hesitated a moment as she rose; Viridi did not have time for soft words when faced with the reality of battle.
"I see Medusa has enough of those soldiers now to compose her army solely of them", Phosphora noted. "What will you do, Lady Viridi?"
"First, I want to ask why the God of Death is leading them", she replied over the loudening footfalls of the marching army as they drew closer.
"The God of Death?" Phosphora said as her eyes raked over the army. "I can assume that is him, there. Pardon me, Lady Viridi, but he looks…peculiar".
"That he does", Viridi agreed. "But he and I were among the first of the Gods".
Phosphora frowned. "Then…but, I assumed this army was sent by Medusa. She, as I understand it, is the ruler of the Underworld…and the God of Death is at her beck and call?"
"Precisely", Viridi said. "That domain should not belong to her".
The Underworld forces came to a stop some way off from the foot of the hill the Goddess of Nature stood upon. The bulky form of the God of Death seemed to waddle forward as he moved away from the ranks of soldiers at his back, though a number of them broke away in unison from the front line and followed in his wake, reforming themselves into four columns three deep that stood to either side of the God's shoulders.
"Seems like he wants to talk too", Phosphora said.
"Come", the Goddess said, beckoning also the angels at her back. Ivorie walked behind her left shoulder, though she allowed a respectable distance between herself and the Goddess, her fellow angels following in her wake. Phosphora tucked herself behind Viridi's right, lifting her silver helm to her head as they walked down the hill.
It was a strange notion to her, but the Goddess felt empowered with Phosphora at her side. It had been a long time since they had walked towards a battle together in this fashion. The nymph's presence served as an anchor for Viridi, reminding her of the things she had fought for in the past. Phosphora's life; her own life, and for the preservation of the Forest, her home. Several times, she had come close to losing one of them; the Gods of old had fought fiercely, but she had held on when it mattered the most.
"Thanatos", Viridi called as she came to a stop at the foot of the hill. The exuberantly garbed God gave a bow, though the girth of his stomach made the motion look clumsy and threatened to unbalance him.
"Viridi, such a pleasure to meet you again", the God returned. "We have not graced each other's company in years, decades, centuries!"
"I find myself grateful for such a thing".
"Oh, you do wound me", Thanatos said, folding thick, stubby arms to his chest as though to cradle himself.
"Why are you here, Thanatos?" Viridi drove the question home without pause.
"Are the formalities out of the way already?" the God gasped. "It has been so long since I entertained one of our number; I do hope my manners are of a respectable standard…"
Viridi waited; Thanatos chuckled after a long moment of silence was drawn between them.
"Why, Viridi, I am sent at the request of my mistress", he said.
"Your mistress?" Viridi repeated, her eyes narrowing. "You are as old as I, Thanatos. Medusa should not be your master".
"Ah, but I'm afraid that is truly the case", the God said emphatically, nodding his head. "Her power and ambition is something which I could not help but pledge myself to".
"What is at work here, Thanatos?"
The God cringed. "Oh, Viridi, please do not glare at me so fiercely", he whined. "I speak nothing but truth, my dear!"
Viridi opened her mouth to speak once more and Phosphora narrowed her eyes. Her attention had been caught so completely by the manner of the God of Death that she had not taken stock of the circumstances at hand. Her gaze had merely grazed over the armoured soldiers that stood at Thanatos' back, drawn wholly to the strange being himself. His manner of appearance and behaviour certainly did not to her eyes warrant his position; what he was contradicted so garishly the nature of the power he was called to govern. So completely fascinated by him was Phosphora that she had not noticed the shape of his shadow.
Her eyes fell to it now, however; her brow creased as her sharp gaze fell upon it and she noticed slowly that it did not entirely match his features. Where he was notably thick of gut, the shadow was slimmer and built of a shape that Phosphora would associate with an armoured being. Atop the God's head sat a lopsided skull, from its sides extending two small horns that curved upwards to its pale crown. But the shadow…Phosphora looked closely; twin horns protruded directly from the shadow's head, thick and relatively straight. As Viridi spoke, the shadow turned.
But Thanatos had not moved.
Before any of them could react, the shadow contorted and suddenly burst upwards from the ground as molten darkness. The darkness rapidly took shape, the bulky form of a metallic torso rising up into being as its limbs grew from its shoulders even before they had properly solidified. Phosphora's astute eye was able to capture the event better than anyone else's in the vicinity and she saw hands sheathed in dark metal grip the body of a huge bow that formed along with it. She had barely formed the intention to move as a black arrow was loosed from the weapon.
The bolt tore through the air and punched straight into Viridi's stomach. Time seemed to move sluggishly for Phosphora as she turned with parted lips to see her Goddess lifted off her feet and thrown backwards.
xXx
The pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced; she felt as though someone had brutally torn a chunk of her torso away. The passage of Time lost its meaning for her as she dimly remembered soaring through the sky, a flash of blinding light, and then she had felt the impact of the ground tearing through her shoulders and surging down her back. She couldn't feel her fingers, couldn't feel her toes, and there was a thick, acrid taste upon her tongue.
"Phosphora!"
She barely heard it, her name being called. She didn't know who it was that called to her and couldn't think to tell where it had originated from; it puzzled her that the voice called her name with such desperation.
"Phosphora!"
It was a little clearer this time; a young girl's voice. Perhaps it was one of her sisters who called to her…but that couldn't be. Her sisters were dead.
"Phosphora!"
She heard the voice again, ever clearer, and found her own lips moving without her full intention.
"Vir…idi?" she croaked.
The sound of feet pounding across the ground came to her hearing, and she heard the song of metal as broken armour was kicked aside, bouncing and skittering to a place unknown as the Goddess sped towards her.
She managed to push the name past her lips once more, though her voice was barely a whisper. "Viridi?"
The Goddess fell to her knees at her side, grabbing hold of her limp hands. Phosphora looked up and saw that the Goddess' young face was lined with worry, her eyes wide with shock as she squeezed the hands between hers.
"Phosphora, don't you dare die", she told her fiercely. "Everything is going to be okay, I promise you".
Phosphora watched Viridi's eyes as they darted repeatedly from her face to her torso, a dull, throbbing pain beginning to spread from somewhere just above her waist. She gasped softly and the Goddess' eyes immediately rose to her face.
"Don't you dare die", Viridi told her as she leaned forward and with a shaking hand clumsily stroked her cheek. "Do you hear me, Phosphora? Don't you even think about it!"
Phosphora tried to smile, but the shape of her mouth was twisted as the sensation of pain intensified and began to burn through her. She coughed and tasted the blood that bubbled past her lips.
"I think…I think it's time", she said thickly. "I hope…fought well…Viridi".
"Shut up!" Viridi snapped at Phosphora, and then she turned to the battle being waged in the distance. "SHUT UP!"
Phosphora did not see it, but she felt the earth torn asunder by the Goddess' power. She heard the shouts of men as they met a sudden, brutal demise. And then Viridi was cradling her head in her lap, commanding her to stay focused and listen to every word she spoke.
She was aware of her body being lifted a few moments later, though it did not appear to be the Goddess' arms that carried her. She tried her hardest to obey the Goddess' command as a column of golden light formed about her. She finally blacked out as she felt herself drawn upwards.
"Phosphora!"
xXx
She had learned later on that it had been an arrow that had felled her from the skies above the warring armies of Viridi and Man. An arrow fashioned by the Goddess Palutena with the express purpose of bringing her to within an inch of her life. She would have died a painful death and finally been reunited with the stars of her sisters' souls, but Viridi had saved her. The Goddess had sacrificed her great pride to keep Phosphora by her side; she had turned her hand of destruction away from Man to preserve Phosphora's life.
From this moment, you will hold me accountable to every word I speak concerning you…
Phosphora remembered; she knew the depths of Viridi's hatred for humankind, but after that day and since then, Viridi had not raised her hand against them. At times, when Phosphora grew still and pondered it, she could not fathom why the Goddess had given up so much simply to have her at her side. It was something deep and complex, she knew; it had to be, though neither of them had ever put a name to it.
As she watched the Goddess fall, she felt the grip upon her heart, tight and unyielding, drawing from her the purest of anger. It blazed white with heat, and its knife edge cut her skin as she took hold of it.
The daughter of the wind lifted her voice to the heavens.
xXx
Ivorie stared in utter shock at the form of the Goddess upon the ground in their midst. The dark shaft of the arrow jutted out from her stomach, and a rasping gasp was drawn from the Goddess' lips as she tried to draw breath. There was silence, a perfect stillness that overtook them all for a moment as all eyes turned to the fallen Goddess. And then the plains before her and the hill upon which she stood darkened. Overhead, thick black clouds rolled across the sky, forebodingly pregnant. Ivorie's eyes looked up from the form of the Goddess as she caught movement at the corner of her vision.
Fear sliced through her then as she saw Phosphora draw herself up to her full height; the young woman blinked once, and when her lids lifted her amethyst eyes were shining white with power. She turned her gaze on Ivorie and it was all the angel could do not to shy away from her.
"Protect the Goddess. Get her back to the Temple, now!"
As though her voice were the signal, the roar of battle was lifted to the darkened sky and Ivorie was deafened by the multitude of footfalls as the Underworld army surged forward. She watched as Phosphora leapt forwards, faster than thought, soaring in an arc directly towards the God of Death and the half formed being that had been born of his shadow. Lightning blasted down from the heavens and struck Phosphora mid-flight, shrouding her in its power.
Ivorie threw a hand across her eyes as the ground exploded, throwing earth and stone every which way. With a collective bellow, the Forces of Nature surged past her. When she moved her hand away, she saw a protective line forming between the fallen Goddess and the approaching Underworld soldiers, foes she had never laid eyes upon.
She snapped into action then, quickly identifying four angels and directing them to carry the Goddess, the rest she called to her side as the Underworld smashed into the Forces of Nature. Motes of light were drawn rapidly to her outstretched hand, and within a few moments she held her weapon at the ready, a wide broadsword with a fearsome edge. Her right hand slipped through the straps of a broad silver shield as she summoned it into being, and she shouted out to the angels at her back as she lowered her weight.
One of the armoured soldiers punctured the line of Blader that stood before Ivorie and headed straight for the Goddess in the angels' arms. Ivorie intercepted its path, smashing her shield into its body and as it staggered backwards with arms flailing, drove her sword into the joint of armour at its thigh. The creature's scream of pain was lost in the din of battle and the blade of another angel cut it down as Ivorie turned away.
The deafening clap of thunder and the blinding light of a jagged tongue of lightning drew her attention as she saw the blazing star Phosphora had become clash fiercely with the glowing form of a wingless green dragon. She saw no sign of the black creature that had fired the arrow into Viridi's stomach, but nevertheless, Phosphora attacked the God of Death with fury, dashing through the sky at dizzying speed.
Lightning tore across the heavens as the nymph and the God rose higher, the latter forced to twist and turn away from the hungry tongues of sizzling power as Phosphora carved the sky. The God narrowly avoided a blast of lightning that instead tore through the edge of a floating islet, raining down smoking chunks upon the army below.
An angel fell at her shoulder with a shout of pain as a Reaver drove its spear into his chest. It drew a blade as it turned on Ivorie, who parried its upward slice, turning the creature aside with its own momentum before smashing her shield across its face. Her scarlet hair fanned out wildly behind her as she thrust her sword into the Reaver's gorget, the strength in her arm enough to pierce and drive through the yielding flesh of the neck beneath.
She pondered briefly for a moment the feel of the creature's flesh against her sword, but as another Reaver burst through the line established by the Forces of Nature with several of its brethren in tow, Ivorie cast her curiosity aside. She gave yet another shout to the angels as they retreated up the incline of the hill, the Goddess hissing painfully in their midst.
Overhead, Phosphora's eyes burned white hot as she wrestled with Thanatos. The God had sheathed himself in a potent energy that enabled him to survive clashing with her electric aura. She had gathered pure lightning about herself and wielded it with a fury she had never known herself to possess. She did not ponder it, however, she simply chased after the God of Death with the sole intention of ripping the beast that hid within his shadow from his being.
The dragon Thanatos had fashioned about himself opened its jaws to consume her as she lanced towards him. She altered her path a fraction and slipped by its teeth, lashing out with the edge of her palm at his gut. Thanatos took the brunt of her strike and the energy sheathing his form flared intensely, fizzling out entirely for the smallest moment before spluttering back to life.
She arced through the air as Thanatos flicked the dragon's tail at her passing form, drawing down a lance of electricity from the heavens above. She vividly heard the God shriek as he tucked his head to his chest and the bolt of lightning sheared through the neck of the dragon, parting its head cleanly from its thick body.
The God's manner served to incense her further, and Phosphora rose high and then plummeted towards him as he pushed energy to the front of his aura and reformed the dragon's head, larger and wider than before. She rolled easily through the air as he threw the dragon's gaping maw towards her, her hand piercing through the resistance of his shining aura and her fingers finding their grip amongst the wrinkled folds of his garb.
She heard him cry out as she whirled and then rose through the air at speed, pulling the God forwards as she worked the strength of her shoulder and slammed him into the body of a lone, empty islet.
The islet splintered down its centre and then broke apart, the two irregular halves sent spinning haphazardly through the air. Not yet finished with him, Phosphora endured the heavy shock that surged up the length of her arm from the impact and kept her grip tight upon Thanatos.
Calling to the heavens, lightning forked down and hit her. She channelled its power straight through from the crown of her head to the digits wrapped in the God's garb. Thanatos screamed and chattered nonsensically as electricity flooded his flailing body.
She cast him from her then with a grunt of disgust, watching him plummet rapidly to the ground below swarming with the Underworld forces with narrowed, glowing eyes. A snarl left her lips as she blasted down after him, becoming a bolt of lightning herself.
She lanced into the God mere moments after he hit the ground, the force of his impact splintering its surface. She glimpsed a shapeless black form peel away from him just before she struck him, driving the sole of her boot to the visage that had irked her so with the speed and power of her blindingly fast descent behind it.
The skull attached to the top of his head exploded. Phosphora heard a wet crunch as Thanatos' body jerked upwards into the air. The force of her impact sent ripples along his flesh and Phosphora channelled electricity through herself – a moment later, the God's body suddenly burst apart at the seams.
A purple glint flashed by Phosphora's eyes and her hand whipped out before the thought had risen to the forefront of her mind. She did not look at it immediately, her eyes rising to follow the path of the smoky black substance that fled from the battle with all haste.
She would have launched herself upwards in pursuit of it if she had not heard the rumbling drone of several Belunka behind her.
Lifting her foot away from the ruin of the God of Death's corpse and turning, Phosphora's eyes receded to their original amethyst hue and narrowed as she watched the vast creatures manoeuvre themselves from behind the floating islets afar off, their great mouths opening and spewing purple mist into the air. Even as she turned away to look towards the hill, a vast number of the Underworld army's typical creatures were spawning from the mouths of the Belunka, soaring down to join the battle.
Upon the hill, her eyes were immediately drawn to the white of the angels' garb and the flying scarlet hair of the one who stood at their centre, valiantly pressing back the persistent Reavers. The angels who carried Viridi between them had almost reached the crest of the hill, but the Reavers were bearing down upon them, threatening to encircle them as the line of the angels was stretched thin and the Forces of Nature fell before their spears and swords.
Phosphora's jaw tightened; it would haunt her forever to abandon Viridi in the pursuit of the one who had struck her down. She would remember its face. With all haste, she sped towards the hill.
It would only occur to her much later that she had slain a God.
Ivorie hissed as the burn of fatigue spread through her limbs, but they were far from in the clear; the Reavers were closing in on them and threatening to overtake them entirely, cutting off their path down the other side of the hill and into the city beyond. She heard the pained moans of the Goddess held in the trembling arms of the angels at her back as she was forced backwards by the seeking thrusts of a Reaver's spear.
"Ivorie, we won't make it!"
"We have no choice!" she snapped at the angel at her shoulder, a young man with bloodied fingers as he drew the tight string of his bow back once more and let fly a golden arrow. "If we must, then our lives will be spent to protect Lady Viridi".
"She is not our Goddess to protect", the angel reminded her.
"Were it not for her, there wouldn't be a Skyworld to protect!"
A spear tip grazed over the edge of her shield as she lifted it just in time, though she heard a gasp at her back as it sliced into the shoulder of the angel behind her. She cried out as she batted the Reaver's arm aside and drove her sword into its gut, kicking it away a moment later to tumble limply into its brethren.
Lightning suddenly arced down from overhead as she hefted her shield once more, cutting a swath through their darkly armoured foe. Ivorie yelped as Phosphora landed suddenly before her, crushing a Reaver beneath her in the process as she straightened her back and blasted electricity into the Underworld ranks.
"Get going!" Phosphora shouted over her shoulder. "Move!"
Like Viridi, Phosphora had gauged the numbers of their forces and upon seeing that which the Underworld first presented, frowned with concern. They were outnumbered by almost three to one, and they were not faced with a scrappy, poorly coordinated force.
The Reavers were trained well and their sense of cohesion impeccable; they made quick work of the creatures of the Forces of Nature when they set upon them. On top of that, the reinforcements spawned from the Belunka high above the battlefield were beginning to make their presence felt. Phosphora knew that even to make it to the Temple to get Viridi to safety was not enough; their forces were being spread thin before the face of the enemy.
Sensing the angels moving clear of her, she cried out to the heavens and a flurry of lightning answered to her call. The hill exploded around her, scorched earth and the flailing bodies of the Reavers cast into the air. Her chest burned with fatigue and she lamented even as she drew deep and lifted her voice once more to the sky. However, this time it was not lightning that answered her.
A beam of focused golden light split the dark clouds and lanced into the plains beyond the hill, unlike her lightning lingering for a long moment as it swept east before fizzling out. Phosphora spared the smallest moment to pause in shock.
Another beam of light punched through the clouds, and then another almost immediately, both sweeping across the battlefield and vaporising all they touched, armoured or otherwise.
Phosphora heard a strange, deep drone high above as several more beams of light lanced down from on high and cut huge swaths through the Underworld ranks, gouging smoking lines into the ground. The lines flared red with heat even as the beams of light fizzled out.
As she lifted her face, she saw strange, thick grey arrows fall through the clouds, though they were not angled appropriately. Suddenly, flames burst from their ends and they surged forward through the air at great speed, disappearing into the giant mouths of the Belunka.
The clouds rolled aside as the shrill cry of the Belunka reached Phosphora's ear, along with the deafening thunder of an explosion. She looked up to see rolling flames and black smoke pouring from the mouths of the creatures as they fell to the ground far below.
Her eyes widened as the moon itself parted the clouds above her, its smooth surface golden and lined with black trenches. The focused beams of light lanced out from their depths, and Phosphora leapt backwards in fear as a crimson pillar sliced down the hill, reducing the armoured Reavers to nothing more than scorched dust upon the air in a mere moment.
Several more of the fire propelled arrows dropped from the dark recesses of the trenches and sped towards the remaining Belunka, a trio of them somehow altering their paths around the floating islets in the sky and striking the creatures' vast jaws.
Phosphora stared open-mouthed at the destruction wrought before her. In merely seconds, the moon reduced the Underworld army to ash.
A/N: Well now, what do we have here? Who is this mysterious saviour, I wonder? : )
If you couldn't tell by virtue of how violently I killed him off, I really don't have a liking for Thanatos. Personally, I think he was an irritating pain in the ass from start to finish in Uprising, and I was quite pleased when Phosphora did away with him. Gaol should have officially acted as Medusa's right hand, in my opinion, but alas that was not to be.
Still, I'm sure Phosphora enjoyed stomping on his face as much as I enjoyed writing it ^^