Story: Dawning Radiance

Genre: Dark Fantasy/Action/Romance

Rating: T

Claimer: I own each and every one of the characters in this story, so please do not use them as they are my babies...enjoy!

Though we really had other places we needed to be, Malachi insisted that we find a place to rest for a little while, especially after everything we'd just endured in the past half hour or so.

So we all sat in a messy sort of formation as Malachi passed out the food he'd for some reason decided to pack with him "This isn't supposed to be a picnic, Angel" Damien grumbled in exasperation, but ate nonetheless.

Valshe however, stood up and announced that she wasn't hungry, before walking over to sit in the shade of the walls of the Gate with her knees pulled up to her chest.

At first, whenever either Nate or myself made a move to go ask her what was wrong, Malachi would simply motion for us to sit back down and tell us that she had just been through a lot, and that she probably needed a little time to herself.

Later on though, when she was still over there, and we were just about ready to head out again, I jogged over to her, despite Malachi's slight protests as I did so.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, sliding down the wall beside her, my hand moving to rest on her shoulder. Her face was buried in her arms, which almost made me think she was asleep, until I noticed that her shoulders were shaking just the slightest little bit. "Valshe? What's wrong?" I leaned closer to her and moved to put my arm around her shoulders to steady her, when she looked up at me, looking as if she were about to cry her heart out and threw her arms around me before resting her head on my shoulder.

She took a long steadying breath, and her hands tightened their grip on my shirt before she seemed to calm down a little. "I just…I think everything just hit me. Look at me; I ran away from home with two boys I didn't even know who claimed to be demons, got involved in the big war between the Angels and Demons, found out that I'm not even human, and am about to go fight some big battle with this big nasty foe just to turn back around and do what? What comes after this? I can't just go back to my regular life after what's happened! But I couldn't handle staying here forever either! And I'm still half expecting to just jolt up in my bed and realize this was just all some insanely elaborate dream I was somehow able to come up with!" she shook her head and her arms went slack around me.

"I just don't know what to do. I messed up, and I feel so alone now because of it."

My eyes widened as words continued to spill out of her lips, and I started to trail my fingers up and down her back in soothing patterns "Do you regret coming with us?" I questioned quietly, and for a while, she didn't respond.

Finally, she nodded slightly "It was stupid of me…and now I can't just go back, and I…I'm scared. Scared of what's going to happen after this. What am I supposed to do now? I'm all by myself now." she murmured, and I stiffened, looking down at her in surprise.

In retrospect, I don't know why I did this; I guess you could just say that instinct took over, but I grabbed her chin and forced it upwards before pressing my lips against hers tenderly.

Now it was Valshe's turn to stiffen, but I didn't really pay much mind to that. Her lips were soft and warm, and trembled against mine as I eagerly wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her closer, and that sweet, rain-and-rose smell that seemed to cling to her filled my nose.

When I pulled away after a few seconds and looked into the golden eyes of a still shocked Valshe, I smiled reassuringly at her "You're not by yourself," I whispered to her breathily "I'll always be right there when you need me. All of us will"

At this, she smiled too, and nodded with a contented little sigh "Why did I not see this coming?" she giggled quietly, her arms moving to rest around my shoulders before she very lightly kissed me again and stood back up, offering me her hand to help me to my feet. "You said it yourself; you've had a lot going on lately" I teased, standing up beside her, but not letting go of her hand.

It was still the same way it was that first night I'd met her; small and warm and gentle in my own calloused hand, and I smirked a little at the memory. "I think we should get going while all of their jaws are still on the floor" Valshe laughed, and I looked up, just remembering where we were and what we were supposed to be doing.

Indeed, all of their mouths were slightly open; probably shocked by the sudden scene in front of them, though their expressions all changed when they noticed us looking at them, before they all turned around completely, as if caught doing something wrong.

'Now', I thought to myself with satisfaction 'I'm ready to head out'; and with a small smile, and Valshe's hand in mine, our group headed off to finally finish the journey we'd already started what seemed like ages ago.

Sneaking into the expansive facility that the Rogues had built up wasn't exactly an easy feat. Guards were lined up at each of the entrances, and surveillance of all different sorts was hidden expertly in every nook and cranny you could think of.

Of course, they obviously didn't count on having someone as high up in the Demi Eras class as Damien to be scouting around their little base camp, calculating flaws in the systems and plotting the best way to go about breaking in with the smallest scene as possible.

Finally, he raised a brow at me and sighed "I can use an illusionary Arte to get us past the guards, but then they'd know something was up when they killed the illusion and it faded, otherwise, there seems to be a old entrance around the other side of the building and hidden off by a bunch of stone. It has surveillance around it, but it looks like it's hardly used, so if I could black those out for a while, it might be a little while before they notice it." He paused and bit his lip, obviously deep in his plans.

"And even when they do notice, they might just think that because it's older, that it might've just gone off like that on it's own…I don't know how heavily guarded the inside of there would be, but it's quite a ways farther away from our target. If there are a lot of guards in there, we could be in trouble before we even get anywhere near Kari." He grumbled, and Malachi nodded to himself. "So at this point" he began, chin in one hand "It'll be based upon how lucky each of us are feeling" he shook his head, but smiled mysteriously.

Having been silent for a while, Valshe tapped her foot thoughtfully "We might as well risk going that unused route. I mean, really; if we just bust down their front door, we're not going to have much of a chance either! If things get hard, we can just back out, right?" she piped in, and Damien nodded "Nobody else seems to care either way, so why not?" he said, looking from Valshe to me with a barely there smirk on his face.

So from there, we made our way around the building, where, as Damien had said, was an entrance hidden behind some large stones, just barely far enough away from the door to squeeze past. It took Damien a little bit of time to get the surveillance offline, but after he'd gotten those taken care of, we made it into the virtually empty halls of what looked to be an abandoned infirmary of some sort.

There were cabinets and examination tables, trays where rusty utensils lay unused by anyone, and the sounds of feet quietly clacking down the chipped linoleum floors. "Oh, I hate hospitals…" Valshe murmured with a shudder as she looked around in dismay. Hesitantly, I linked my fingers with hers, and squeezed gently "What, you aren't afraid of a few needles, are you?" I teased, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

"For your information, yes I am terrified of needles. I can't do shots at all. I don't know why I don't like hospitals though; they've just always creeped me out…" she replied, glancing around in a few of the small, empty rooms with a grimace.

We made our way down the halls without much cause for worry, though it looked like once we stepped out of the doors we'd be in the main area of their base, though Malachi said he wasn't able to sense anybody on the other side of the door.

Carefully, Damien poked his head out the door and glanced around, before moving to look around the corner and then back the other way down the hall. He turned and nodded at us, but brought his fingers to his lips to suggest that we be completely silent from here on out.

As we continued through the dirty grey, seemingly endless hallways, Damien would stop every now and again and pull out his Oni, in the portable form, and draw an Arte symbol quickly on the wall, where it shone brightly before it faded into the wall, unnoticeable. The longer this went on, the more curious the looks both Valshe and Nate gave him each time he'd stop us. Finally, while Damien was making another, Nate turned to me and pointed to Damien, looking confused "It's an Arte" I whispered, though we were pretty sure at this point that this wing of the facility was deserted as well.

The face he made suggested that he was not impressed by my response, and he shook his head with a sigh "Well I know that; I'm not stupid. What is it supposed to do? I don't recognize the rune" he questioned, following Damien again as he continued down the hall in the serious way he carried out all of the important missions he was sent on.

Before I could even open my mouth to reply, Damien stole a glance over his shoulder at Nate "It's to tell me which way we're going. They automatically connect to the other Artes of the same kind and can tell me if anyone has passed by one after I've made it. A pretty useful trick I've picked up over the years" he explained with a sly grin, leading us towards another door leading into a particularly noisy room.

Malachi stopped dead in his tracks as soon as Damien made to grab the handle, and reached out a hand to pull him back. "What's your problem Angel? You could've given us away!" Damien growled, but Malachi didn't seem to hear him.

Instead, he glanced around the hall with narrowed eyes "I sense…something strong. I can't make out who, or what it is because it's too far away, but we're getting closer, so we should watch ourselves. A group this large is sure to attract attention in a large room like this one, and because there are bound to be Rogues in the room ahead, it would be foolish to risk detection at this point. We should split into smaller units." He suggested, but Damien shook his head. "If anything, that would be even more stupid than staying in a large group; if we split up and one group gets spotted, it's more likely that one of us will get injured, or taken out completely. If you guys just follow exactly what I tell you to do, we should be able to get through easily enough. Got it?" Damien ordered, though Malachi didn't look one bit convinced.

Honestly, I wasn't sure what we should do at this point either; splitting up would make it easier for them to pick us off, but if we stayed in the big group and we were found, we'd probably be swarmed with twice as many demons anyways. But…Damien knew what he was doing when it came to situations like these, so maybe it would just be best to listen to him.

"We might as well just listen to Damien; he's probably better at this sort of thing that any of us are. Besides, strength in numbers and all that" I said, glancing around to gauge everyone's reactions.

There was no out-right disapproval, but you could tell Malachi and Nate were nervous at best; typically Holy Ethereals opted into working in smaller groups, but that had always made them easy to take out once you found them. But we couldn't really chance it in a place this big, with this many potential threats around.

Damien smirked at me before nodding to everyone "I guess that's that then, isn't it? Let's get moving!" he ordered, pushing the door open a crack and quickly surveyed the room as he slipped silently through the small opening, the rest of us following behind him.

Even though the outside of the building and that hospital wing had looked trashy at best, it was like walking into a completely different place. The lights hung from the high ceiling were bright, and there was a set of stairs leading up about three flights to a hallway that spanned the whole back wall with three or four doors along it.

The Rogues bustling through the room made it seem like they were too busy to really notice us, though they would probably all sense Malachi and Nate right away if they hadn't started to already.

"Can't you guys hide yourselves or something? They could probably smell you from a mile away…" I grumbled at them, and they looked at each other and shrugged "You will not be able to see us at all either then, Little Demon. Are you sure that is a wise choice?" Malachi replied, though instead of looking at me while he talked like he usually did, his gaze was fixed on the Demons in the room ahead of us. "Just do what he says Angel! If you get us spotted while we're trying to get through the first room, I'll kill you myself!" Damien hissed, turning around to glare at Malachi before peeking out of the door again.

Malachi smiled and nodded, before muttering his spell and disappearing completely, though when I looked back over at Nate, he was leaning close to Valshe, whispering something to her, before she gave a tiny smile and nodded. A small, but intense wave of jealousy washed over me at how close the two were, and at the fact that I had absolutely no idea what he had said to her in the first place. Nate grinned back at her "That way you won't lose us. You really won't have to worry though; we'll be right behind you, okay?" he said as he straightened, before the spell passed over his lips as well and he was gone from sight.

Catching my staring, Valshe looked up at me, and tilted her head to the side a little bit "Something wrong?" she asked me, and I smirked at her "I just don't like the fact that you're do far away is all" I teased, and she rolled her eyes and laughed "I'll be right behind you. You shouldn't be jealous of your own little brother, Xander" she taunted back, and quickly spun around and moved towards the door "I'm not jealous of the Nephilim!" I retorted, causing her to giggle again.

Looking over my shoulder at her one last time before I moved into the room with Damien, I noticed that her hand was curled oddly, as if holding something. But it appeared empty. As she started to follow me, her arm trailed a bit behind her and I realized that she must have been holding his hand. So she wouldn't lose track of where he was.

Even if it was for something as seemingly innocent as that, I was still irritated as I exited the room and made my way smoothly over to Damien, who upon seeing both Valshe and myself following him, slipped into the crowd of Rogues wandering through the building, blending in as best he could.

We weaved through the crowd toward the stairs, since we assumed that Kari would probably be on one of the higher floors. We reached them fairly quickly, and took them two at a time to get to the next floor as fast as we could. "I thought the Holy Ethereals were supposed to be able to tell if a particularly strong Demon was close by" Damien complained quietly, and we heard a low chuckle from beside us "We can" Malachi whispered, so I had to strain to hear him "It is just…proving to be rather difficult at this time. She must be hiding somewhere deeper in the facility." He explained, before he fell to silence once more, and it was again as if he wasn't even there.

We climbed another flight of stairs, since Malachi couldn't yet sense her; she had to be higher up, down the corridor with those doors all along it. Upon reaching the hallway, we again realized that the area around us was deserted; none of the Rogues came this far up the stairs, but stayed on the two floors below us. Ignoring it, we made our way down the hallway, looking around for anything that might have at least given us a clue as to where Kari might be.

The further we got, the more I got the feeling that we had been found, or were close to it, but Damien seemed to think nothing of it, and pressed on nonetheless. Of course, with our luck being as wonderful as it was, a door swung open, and a man in combat wear stepped out, noticing the three of us immediately, his gruff, stubble shadowed face obviously showing his distaste and scrunching into a firm scowl.

"What do you three think you're doing up here?" he barked, circling us like a hell hound would it's prey "Everyone knows that nobody's allowed on this floor without a good excuse!"

Always one to think on his feet during a mission, Damien nodded, changing his expression to one of nervousness and mock fear. "Yes sir, of course! It's just that…Kari…she sent us up here to tell you that she thinks there's a group of Faction members that managed to get in!" he stammered, though the man still looked suspicious.

He appeared to think about it for a moment or two, his face set, and he'd stopped circling us to look the three of us in the eyes "Kari said that she didn't want to see anyone for a while. Why would she tell you newbies to come get me instead of one of her footmen?" he questioned, and I stepped up "How should we know? Kari asked us to do something and we did it! We're not stupid enough to stick around and question her!" I replied, and he nodded "I see. I'll go see her immediately. You three wait in that room there; I'll be right back." He said before running off down the hallway, and down the stairs again.

"She's downstairs?" Damien groaned, running a hand through his hair, his violet eyes exasperated, but he turned to look at the door the man had come out of "Maybe we should wait in there anyways. He could bring her back up…" Damien thought aloud, wandering over to the door and muttering more plans of action to himself. When I glanced at Valshe, I noticed that she no longer appeared to be holding onto Nate's hand, but she looked worried, so I held my own out to her "It'll be fine" I assured her as she put her hand in mine and I squeezed it gently. "Nothing to worry about" I murmured to her, and she took a deep breath, meeting my eyes only briefly before casting them at the floor again.

It took a minute or so of him pacing up and down a short stretch of the hallway, grumbling to himself in determination, before Damien clicked his tongue once and slid open the door to the room the Rogue had told us to wait in. "You four go in here, and I'll keep watch for when he comes back. If things don't look good, we'll have to hide out again for a little while and try again once we have a new plan. Got it?" he told us confidently, and we all obeyed, entering the room one by one, but I was stopped by Damien before I could get in. He shut the door silently and looked at me for a moment "This isn't going as well as I'd originally hoped it would. Stay on your toes in case anything happens, okay Xander? If all else fails, I'll have to distract them while you all finish up the mission without me…" he tailed off, face contorting into a small grimace of sorts as he talked.

I shook my head immediately "No way I'm going to leave you to deal with this many Rogues by yourself, Damien. That's suicide! We can think of something else, some other way to finish up the mission, or-" I fell silent when I noticed the immovable look he was giving me, his violet eyes darker set than usual; he was completely serious about this. "I said, if all else fails. And it's either that, or we all die. I'd rather keep it at just one and below if I can help it. Don't be stubborn about this, Xander; my mind is set." He stated calmly, practically daring me to argue with him.

"Let's just hope it doesn't have to come to that then…" I somehow managed to reply, and Damien gave a smile and held out his hand "C'mon, don't let it bother you too much. We're still a team, you and me, so we gotta make sure we can live long enough to get something enjoyable out of all this; don't forget that. This is just my way of making sure you get something better out of this life than you did in your last." He explained, and my eyes narrowed a bit "Well, Heaven…I can't exactly say no to that, can I?" I shot back, grasping his hand in my own and giving it a firm shake, before letting it drop back to my side.

"Let's take 'em down, okay?" he prompted, grinning at me as I opened the door.

"Just like always" I confirmed with a determined smile of my own.

Leaving it at that, I stepped into the room and slid the door shut behind me, allowing my eyes to adjust to the sudden dim lighting of the space I was now in.

Valshe sat on the floor next to the door, and she looked up quickly when I entered "Xander…is he really…?" she murmured when I turned to her, and I assumed they'd heard everything that had been said between Damien and I right before. I simply shook my head and sat down beside her "I don't want to thin about that now…" I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

She pushed herself up and leaned against the wall, holding her hand out to pull me up as well. "Can I tell you something?" she asked quietly, her hand lingering for a few seconds before slipping out of mine again "Anything" I say honestly, though her request worried me slightly.

"I'm really scared. Not because of the situation, but…ever since we got here I've just gotten this horrible feeling. Like something bad is going to happen to one of us. So, especially now that Damien…I don't want anything to happen to anyone. I want everyone who came in here to leave with us too. You guys might be used to losing friends and everything, but…I dunno how I could handle it…" she sighed, biting her lip nervously. Glancing over to the door, and then back to her, I put my hand gently on her shoulder and let it run up and down her arm a few times "Don't worry; we'll figure something out. No matter what happens, things will turn out okay" I assured her with a smile, and I heard one of the other two sigh.

"I'm here to watch over you if anything happens, too. Remember?" Nate said, and she turned to him, looking concerned before nodding nervously. "I remember…" she replied hesitantly, before clenching her fists and tensing up.

Then, she jumped up in the air, spreading her arms above her head and landing with a determined expression "You guys won't be the only ones trying though! I'm not going to let myself be a burden here! I'll do my best for all of you!" she told us, before pacing the room restlessly.

I couldn't quite tell whether her enthusiasm was something I should be worried about or not.

To the reviewers: indescribable music: Thanks! This chapter took me forever to put up, but I really hope you'll like this one as well!

A/N: Yeah. Well. I know this took forever to put up, and that I've been on hiatus for however many months now, and I apologize a ton for that. A lot has been happening with just...ugh, life in general lately, and I haven't been able to write anything up until tonight. Hopefully there are still people reading this! I know this chapter is a bit rocky, but I tried my best to smooth it out a bit as I went on. The next chapter will hopefully go better, and will actually be in Rey's POV! I'm kind of excited to write in his perspective actually; it's going to be a lot different that what I usually do. And as usual, there's always a surprise in the other character POV chapters, so...look forward to it! Until next time, please review, and try not to let yourself go on month long hiatus' like I did! I'll try really hard not to let it happen again!