The Tainted
See disclaimer in part 1
There, five or so yards away from where Hector was ordering his personal guards to attack Celina as she cut down line after line of attackers, hung three loops of metal—one a stationary circle suspended a foot or so off the ground, the other two fixed at the middle axis and constantly revolving around it, like some of the magical globes and meters Ein had seen some of the Magi keep during his childhood in Asgard. And hanging within that circle was the unmistakable figure of Serene.
The last of the Arcs was a lithe and athletic girl around Ein's age, with swept-back cobalt-blue hair and eyes of nearly the same color. She had fair skin, a friendly, open face, a crooked smile, and an often-wry sense of humor that had covered her guilt at being the only one of her race to survive the massacre of her people for the sake of collecting souls to resurrect Seth. Her wings—the black gargoyle's wings of her race—were still small, and their span didn't even stretch all the way from fingertip to fingertip if she spread her arms; when Ein had asked, she'd explained that her wings wouldn't reach their full growth for many years yet. She wore dark, clinging clothes beneath her sleeveless white jacket, which displayed a few stains and tears at the moment.
She was unconscious—at least Ein hoped so, and that it wasn't something worse—and hung in the circle with glowing rings tight around each wrist and ankle like bracelets, one around her waist like a belt, and one around her throat as if it were a collar. Connected to each of these were slim, silvery, very corporeal chains that connected to the innermost circle. Even if Serene had been aware, she wouldn't have been able to move.
"Oh, gods…" Ein shook his head numbly. "I thought… but why wouldn't Hector have…?"
Malice shrugged helplessly. "I guess… maybe he thought he needed her soul, but he already had enough? I can't think of any other reason he would've kept a prisoner alive for this long."
"We've got to do something. I can't—I can't just leave her there…"
"Hold on," Malice said suddenly, grabbing his shoulder to prevent him from running off. "This could be some kind of trick Hector set up just in case we showed up here. You stay put and work on getting Seth out. I'll go investigate. If it's some kind of trap, the two of you will be there to back me up, and if it's not, well…"
Ein's throat clutched. "Malice—if you—don't you do this to me. Please. If anything… were to happen to you, on top of everyone else I've lost—"
"Relax," she told him, turning him to look into her eyes. "I've got more sense than that. And the last thing we need is you incapable. If you go, you might attract Hector's attention or give yourself away getting too emotional. He doesn't think I'm a threat, remember? So I can go and save your friend more easily than you could. And, besides… weren't you the one who told me that I had to start making up for the things I've done while I still followed him?"
Ein shook his head numbly. "I… I know. But…" He bit his lip for a moment, then reached out and pulled Malice close to him. "Just… just come back safe, that's all I ask."
"…Don't worry. I won't leave you." Very gently, Malice pushed Ein back. "Now… I'm off. Stay here, keep your head on your shoulders. Think about Seth. She's the one who needs you the most right now."
She took a few steps away, then shot into the sky in a whirl of black wings.
"…………" Ein stared after her for a few moments, closing his eyes in brief prayer.
"…EiN."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know." With a sigh, he turned back towards Seth, raising Einherjar. "Now let's get you out of here, fast."
---
"You haven't had your fill yet?" Hector asked, folding his arms and looking at Celina with an almost quizzical expression. "My goodness. Aren't we a glutton for punishment?"
"Pfft. I think maybe that's what I should be asking you," Celina retorted, pushing her hair out of her face and pointing the Holy Sword at him.
"Face it—you're tiring. You're breathing with difficulty, you're sweating, and your attacks are getting slower. You won't last," Hector said dismissively. "Guards! Finish her off, so that we may get back to creating our utopia!"
As yet another rank of angels and demons rushed her, Celina shook her head sadly. "Cheap. Sloppy. Shoddy. Then again, what should I expect out of you? You've never been one to bother dirtying your hands with any real work, unlike the rest of us. I'm getting sick of your infantile tactics!"
She jumped backwards and raised her sword to the sky.
"O Valkyrie of the Doomed Rebellion… From the depths of despair, sing us to victory!"
Celina curled down to the ground, then flung the Holy Sword into the air. The huge blade rotated end over end in a graceful circle as the clouds split briefly and allowed a single ray of light to hit the magnificent weapon. It glimmered in the sunset's argent reds and golds, then crackled with electricity as it doubled in size. As its arc began to curve back towards the ground, Celina leaped up to catch it, and hung poised in the sky for a moment, her wings straining against the air.
"Revolution!"
Celina's strike sent a shockwave through the earth, and energy rippled up from around her in waves, instantly killing every guard near her. As their bodies crumpled, Celina whirled around to glare at Hector.
"Taste Nessiah's pain!"
Hector glared at her from beneath the cowl of his robe. "So theatrical."
"I don't care what you think of me! I'll never, ever forgive you as long as I live! Never!!"
"…I suppose that this has gone beyond the bounds of what my guards can handle," Hector said. "Very well—let's settle this your way, then." He raised his staff high, holding out his other hand before him. "Come at me!"
---
Malice landed a short distance from the Arc girl Ein had called Serene and looked around, clutching Skadi tightly. Hector didn't seem to have taken any notice—he and Celina were squaring off at long last, with Hector's few remaining guards hovering at the fringes of their battle. Ein's friend Lina seemed to be keeping the demons at bay; she'd said before they'd all arrived that she'd brought some backup weapons for when she ran out of arrows, and as yet she didn't seem to have emptied her seemingly bottomless quiver. Ein and Seth were watching her again—so typical. Irritably, Malice waved a hand at them, and catching the motion, the two of them turned away, apparently conversing.
Shaking her head at the two of them, Malice slowly walked closer to Serene. The Sprite girl was definitely breathing, which was a good sign—though she still wasn't what you could call a Sprite lover, Malice would've hated to tell Ein that it was already too late for his former companion. The device that held her was a magical creation, but the chains that trapped her in it seemed ordinary. If Malice could sever them, maybe she'd be able to wake this girl up so that they'd have an extra hand in dealing with the demons.
Looking the device up and down one more time, Malice raised Skadi and slashed at it experimentally. The chain she'd aimed at snapped cleanly where she'd hit, and Serene's arm dropped to her side, her body sagging in the circle, which groaned in protest.
"Alright, then…" Glaring at the circle, Malice thrust Skadi into its side and twisted, shattering its framework and causing the rotating rings to drop to the ground, throwing off sparks. Shifting her grip on her Diviner, Malice swung it in a wide arc with a yell of exertion, severing every remaining chain that kept Serene hanging stationary. Without support, Serene hit the ground in an unwieldy sprawl, protesting with a mute groan.
Malice knelt down beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking her. "Hey—are you conscious? Can you hear me?"
"Ugh… huh?" Slowly, the last Arc opened her eyes and pushed herself into a sitting position, rubbing her head. "Owww…"
"Doesn't look like there's any lasting damage… you'll just have to live with it for now, I guess," Malice commented, folding her arms. "Now get up. You haven't got the time to waste."
Finally recognizing Malice's voice, Serene whipped around with a look of mingled disgust and disbelief, then let out a yell and took a swing at the Grim Angel.
Malice caught Serene's fist easily and scowled. "Is that any damn kind of way to treat the person who just saved your sorry ass? I swear, you Sprites are just unbelievable."
"What do you mean, 'saved'?" Serene demanded. "What's going on here? If you think you're gonna get any of our souls, then you're gonna have to go through me first!"
"Oh, boy." Malice rolled her eyes. "You sure are dense. Either that or Hector's kept you unconscious this entire time. I'm not your enemy here—he is. You need to get your ass over there and help Lina so she'll be able to keep the demons away so the rest of us can stop him, you understand?"
"What are you talking about? Since when did you turn on Hector?" Serene demanded, slowly standing up. "How long've I been out for? Where's Ein?"
"Look—it's a long story, and there's no time right now, we're in the middle of a battle here," Malice pointed out. Spotting a scythe-wielding demon in the ring of Hector's guards, Malice ran over to him, kicked him in the small of the back, and wrenched his weapon out of his grip, returning to Serene and holding it out to her. "Here. Take this, and get back over to your little archer friend. You've got work to do."
Hesitantly, Serene reached out and accepted the scythe. "This is so messed-up," she said under her breath, shaking her head.
"You're telling me. Just take that damn thing and fight."
The two of them were so caught up in their mutual distrust that neither of them noticed as Hector stretched out a hand in Serene's direction and spoke a whispered spell towards her.
---
"Hey, I'm over here, you stupid bastard," Celina yelled, infuriated, and rushed Hector.
He turned back towards her with a smirk and blocked the Gran Centurio with his staff. "Getting a bit hasty, aren't we?"
"Fine thing for you to say," Celina retorted, her whole body straining to push her blade through the twisted blue manalith of his staff's pole. "Taking your eyes off your opponent like that!"
Hector shoved her back with a yell, sending Celina in a graceful backwards arc to land with barely so much as a puff of dust to show the force of the impact.
"And strike!" Hector called, tracing a rune in the air and holding up his staff. "Strike down the weak with the force of ages!"
As the glyph appeared in the air before him and magical energy rushed towards her, Celina thrust the tip of the Gran Centurio into the earth next to her and held up her arms in an X shape. "Lightning and flame… wreath my body, and dispel all harm. Let the retribution of heat fall upon he who seeks to usurp my judgment… and ashes shall rain from the sky like Brongaa's tears."
Fire roared up in a shell around Celina, with blue and gold sparks pulsing along its length. The shield of energy blunted the burst of Hector's spell, sending little shoots of energy off in all directions, and unraveled into little flickers of flame that haloed Celina's body as she pulled the Gran Centurio up again.
"Brongaa's tears?" Hector repeated, amused. "How poetic. I wasn't aware that dragons cried."
Celina pointed her sword at him, and her eyes smoldered. "My strength is the fury of every heart that ever grieved for Nessiah's fate. You will bear the consequences of your actions towards him and everyone else you wronged!"
She flew at him. Hector stepped out of the way in time, but only just. As Celina wrenched her body around and brought the Gran Centurio up again, she saw blood cascading down Hector's face from a cut that reached all the way along his cheekbone.
With a bitter, annoyed-looking smile, Hector palmed the blood away, then touched two fingers to the wound. It closed over almost instantly, weeping only a few more angry drops.
"Why'd you do it, you bastard?!" Celina demanded in a mad snarl. "Nessiah worshipped you, the same way he adored every one of us! He never harmed a single soul in his life! Why the hell did you do that to him, you sick son of a bitch?!"
Hector laughed.
"What in the hell is so funny?!"
"The mind is an amazing thing," Hector replied, wearing a dark and ugly smile. "So many defense mechanisms, so many ways it devises to protect itself. And yet it's so fragile, like the wings of a butterfly. Press just a little too hard in just the right place, and snap, it's ruined, never to be rebuilt. A simply fascinating process, and a highly satisfactory experiment, even if I do say so myself. Cliché as the saying may be, in just two tries your precious little Nessiah's mind collapsed like a house of cards."
"You…" Celina stared at him, disbelieving, vibrating out of sheer hatred. "You sick bastard…"
"And it certainly wasn't hard convincing him to my way of thinking after that," Hector went on cruelly. "From there on, it was simple. Plant the ideas. Let them stew a while. And then, head to the authorities. I was his confidant, you see. The one he told every one of his plans of genocide to. And I was believed, absolutely. Not even the gods suspected. Nessiah was the perfect stepping stone."
"You did this… you did all of this, just to get more power? Are you insane?" Celina demanded.
"Quite the contrary. It takes a great deal of rationality to sit and bide my time this long before acting. Something that, I'm afraid, you never seemed to grasp."
"Fuck you," Celina yelled, flared her wings, and charged.
---
Only yards away, the magical bonds around Serene's wrists, ankles, waist, and throat suddenly began to glow, and as the Arc looked at them, puzzled, her body suddenly swung into a coiled ready position, brandishing her newly acquired scythe viciously.
"Uh, I hate to point this out, but the demons are that way, dumbass," Malice told her dryly, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.
The cuffs glowed even brighter, and as Serene let out a yelp of surprise, she lunged at Malice with a powerful downward slash.
Malice jerked back out of the way with a yell, flapping her wings to regain her balance. "Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?! In case you've somehow forgotten in the past minute, I'm on your side!"
Serene looked at Malice with a panicky expression. "I'm not doing this! You think I'm dumb enough to jump on you without knowing what's going—whoa!!"
Malice raised Skadi to catch the blow, sending blue-white sparks shooting off in every direction. She'd barely opened her mouth to start yelling again when Serene whipped forward again, hacking at the Diviner's haft over and over again in lightning-fast strikes.
"Damn it…" Malice leaped backwards again and backed away. Serene, dragging her scythe behind her in a one-handed grip no self-respecting scythe-wielder would ever take while on foot, gave chase.
Something was definitely wrong here. From their past fights, Malice knew that Serene was definitely the all-out, gung-ho fighter, but she was not this fast, and she had been trained—she took care of her weapons. And she was definitely not this strong. Even a fully-grown Arc trying moves like those would wrench muscles or slip up somewhere.
The rings of light, still trailing the ends of the chains that'd trapped Serene before, were glowing brighter than ever, so much so that it was blinding.
Shit. Malice felt dread settle into her stomach as she continued her dodge-and-parry routine. This was definitely a trap, and we just walked straight into it! Unless I do something, I'm gonna lose… but I can't fight back, this is Ein's friend! If I hurt her, he's never going to forgive me… damn it!!
Because there was nothing more she could do, Malice continued to retreat, her mind racing as she blocked Serene's mad strikes.
One thing was definitely clear.
Celina's nice, neat, insanely dangerous little plan had just gone straight to Hel.
They were all screwed.
:TBC: