25: Balance
.
_oOo_
.
They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die.
It turned out to be a terrible lie. Shock made it hard to see anything; Karol's view was a cacophony of feathers, rock and sky all blurred together, a snapshot of free-fall that seemed to loop on forever. He wished the view had have been better. He wished he didn't have to share it.
Jerard swore the whole way down, furious and spitting and thrashing. He wasn't strong enough to free himself of the grapple-hold Karol had him in, so he just cursed instead, only breaking his stream of profanities to shriek out his brother's name.
Izuna, just as frantic, was all around them. His wingtips carving through their vision like scythes, claws hovering nearby before dipping away again. With the mountain screaming by on their right, the few seconds it took the entelexeia to align himself were the longest, most chaotic seconds of Karol's life. But then the claws sheared in and squeezed.
They bit in uncomfortably around his ribs and thighs, just shy of hurting because Jerard was there too, mashed up against Karol's front. With an ear-popping thwump, they went from free-fall to tumble as the entelexeia struggled desperately to pull up. It wasn't a graceful rescue. The entelexeia fought gravity every inch they plummeted, and every beat of his wings simply forced them to twist against the wind as they fell.
Karol watched the attempt through the black bars of his enemy's claws. He watched as each desperate twist made the rushing landscape slow, counted every snap of feathers as if they marked the remaining seconds of his life. It wasn't until the sixth crack of wings that gravity finally snapped in half and Izuna burst free from the plummet. The colossal beast swung upright erratically, treading the shifting air like an exhausted hummingbird.
Jerard was heartily sick over Karol's shoulder. The guild-master wasn't much better; dizzy and dazed, he turned his eyes down and realised that they had only been seconds from hitting the plateau below.
And while he hung there like a ragdoll in the entelexeia's grip, he watched as something moved across the hard-packed earth below. It was hard keeping his vision clear when everything swayed and bobbed like a cork on the ocean... But then the shifting blob scattered and spread out. Karol's heart skipped when he recognised what it was he was looking at.
Soldiers, and a lot of them.
Izuna hadn't seen them. The creature was so busy shifting and flexing his talons over the bundle of friend and foe in his claws that he left himself completely undefended. He didn't see the wink of light on metal until it was too late.
The beast reared with a shocked snap, arrow lodged neatly in its scaled jugular and claws spread wide for purchase. Karol barely felt anything as he dropped away again. He saw the entelexeia whip its neck reflexively to the side just as Tison vaulted up from the surrounding rock and landed directly the beast's flat head, claws out and grin white and carnivorous. The image was brief; the free-fall quickly stole it all from view.
Karol stared at the receding sky past his trailing hands, numbed and battered by the gathering speed and, strangely enough, just too tired to care.
But then the air exploded from his lungs. Something softer than rock had struck his ribs and for one serene, surreal moment, Karol thought he was dead. It didn't occur to him until he was almost deafened by the tumble that it was too noisy to be death. There was a grunt in his ear and, beyond that, the sound of wind and rock and voices and flesh bouncing off rock. It thundered for a cluster of painful seconds, then suddenly everything went still.
Time made a shy return. It took a while for Karol's racing thoughts to do the same. The first thing to reach his senses was that the wind had been replaced with dust. Lots of dust. It clogged his nostrils and crusted his lips. That much dust could only mean one thing... He was on solid ground.
Karol didn't even mind when that ground moved with a feeble shift and gave a heartfelt groan.
"... I'm gettin' too old fer this," the dusty earth wheezed. It moved once more under him with a strained quake, then gave up moving entirely. Karol laid there, lungs burning until enough neurons fired off to put two and two together.
"R-Raven?" he croaked at the sky.
"Th'one and only," came his friend's voice from underneath him. A hand gave his chest a reassuring pat and then dropped away to land on the ground with a defeated whump.
"I-I'm alive," Karol said dumbly.
"Speak fer yerself," was the weak reply. Belatedly, Karol rolled off of the familiar lump and moved just far enough away to try and stand. His knees threatened to give out and he managed a feeble wobble.
There was a pattering of soldiers around them looking utterly shocked. LeBlanc was among them, eyes darting between the entelexeia above and the prone shape of his commander laid out on the broken earth below. Eventually the lieutenant lumbered forward to help his Captain up, but Raven waved the man away with a weak flap of the hand.
He heaved himself up as if every joint hurt.
"Fallin' from the sky... I tells ya, that just about took ten years off my life," he said to Karol with a wry grin. "And I ain't got that many years ta spare. Don't make a habit of it, will ya?"
There was nothing to say to that. Even if he had the words, the sudden surge of relief and gratitude was so powerful that it lodged in Karol's throat and squeezed the ability to speak away. His eyes began to prickle.
As Raven gingerly dusted himself off, the guild master rubbed furiously at his face until the sensation went away.
He was trying to make his knees stop quivering like shaken jelly when the sound of furious coughing reached his ears. The dirty, dusty bundle not so far away swung suddenly onto its feet. Jerard wobbled in the same unstable way that Karol had, but he hadn't had a friend around to catch him; his face was locked in a pasty, furious scowl and there was blood spattered over his left temple.
The pompous krityan looked like a different man altogether with his slicked hair all mussed up and his expensive jacket torn and dirty. The wild look in his eyes had transformed his face into something chilling.
"You... You bastard," the record keeper snarled at him. "You filthy, stupid, insane little heathen."
Somewhere up above, Izuna gave an earsplitting screech of fury. Tison was probably enjoying himself.
"You think this has changed anything?" Jerard said next as if he hadn't heard it. He was so livid that he spat with each word. "That brainless little stunt did nothing! Do you think you're clever?"
The malice was like a hot, cutting wind. Karol wobbled backwards as if blown over, and he'd have lost his footing entirely if a hand hadn't dropped to his shoulder and pegged him soundly in place.
Raven gave him a brief, steeling look before turning his eyes back to the spitting krityan.
Jerard was winching himself up by the rock face in measures, blood dripping from his chin and raging hatefully to himself.
"You've just left them undefended, you disgusting little cur! You think I was the only one up there? Hah! At least I'd have been quick about taking them out! He's going to have a freaking field day on their corpses! And where are you? Down here, you stupid little bastard. Who's going to protect your precious little princess and mage now?"
The hand on Karol's shoulder tightened suddenly.
"No," Karol wheezed, exhausted and at his wits end.
"T-That's what your martyrdom gets," Jerard croaked back, voice thin and stretched from raging himself hoarse. "You- You just... You just brought this on yourself."
"Leave them alone," Karol rasped back desperately. He winced when Jerard's spiteful laugh was echoed by another of his brother's deafening roars.
And then, as inexorably as the shift of continents, Karol felt himself guided firmly backwards.
"Sounds like your brother is havin' a hard time keepin' an eye on ya," Raven said conversationally as he slid himself in front of Karol, eyes closed and free hand rubbing at his neck lazily. He gave a lopsided shrug, way too casual, much too complacent considering that the entelexeia in question wasn't so far away.
Despite that untroubled air, Karol gratefully shrunk behind his older friend's silhouette to try and get his breath back.
Jerard wiped the blood from his brow and shifted his glare.
"You look like a clever guy ta me," Raven continued nonchalantly. "Here ya are – all beat-up and on your own – with a platoon of armed and angry soldiers all around. Half of the battle is knowin' when ta quit, am I right? Maybe it's time ta think real hard about your allegiances."
"H-How dare you-" Jerard snapped instantly.
"Think about it," Raven interrupted in a voice Karol hadn't heard before. He'd finally opened his eyes. And although Karol couldn't quite see, Jerard balked under the pinning gaze and fell back a step.
With the mountainside at his shoulder-blades, there was nowhere to run. His eyes darted in both directions nervously; Izuna gave a startled screech as if only just realising his brother's dilemma, but the sound was distant. The record keeper licked his lips.
"Threats are pointless," he managed. "You can't stop Elis! Your friends are as good as dead!"
Raven lowered one hand to the folded transform bow at his belt. Jerard flattened himself against the rock behind him. Just as slowly, almost timidly, the krityan slid a hand into his jacket.
"Use yer head," Raven warned harshly. "You're out-numbered."
"I'll just have to rectify that," Jerard hissed back.
The record keeper shot a hand back and lit a match against the stone behind him. It sputtered in the dust, more like fireworks than flame for one unstable moment, but the fire clung tenaciously to life when he touched it to the dark shape pulled from his jacket.
The sound of fizzing filled the arid air.
"So let's try this again," Jerard managed, holding the bomb before him like a gift. It was a bundle of tubes bound by tape, and compared to the elaborate mechanisms Karol had seen him use, this one appeared archaic. Old-fashioned or not, the flame at the end of the wick sparked and spat threateningly. The soldiers all retracted as one.
"... Not clever, kid," Raven said softly, sounding a little disappointed.
"Shut up," Jerard snapped, edging his way along the rock face. "You have approximately as long as this wick burns to make your damn soldiers fall back. Down the mountainside, all of them. I mean it, back off."
"I'm not sure I can do that-"
"I said back off!" Jerard shrieked, unhinged.
There was a small pause where the only sound was the fizzing of the burning bomb.
When Raven lifted a hand and flapped it vaguely backwards, every single soldier retreated in a grateful rush of clanking armour and creaking leather. Karol didn't know if he should be retreating as well because LeBlanc just stood there, puffing up vaguely in righteous fury. Raven was unmoved, grimly regarding the beaten krityan not so far away.
Jerard swallowed thickly under their scrutiny and, balancing the bomb in one palm, shuffled along the mountainside as fast as his wobbling legs would allow. His crabwalk eventually took him to one of the broad paths leading out of the plateau. With a boneless stumble, he gratefully fell back into the open air and shot a look over his shoulder.
Izuna landed awkwardly on the forking road a little distance behind him, feet slipping awkwardly in his haste. Tison was nowhere to be seen, but the entelexeia favoured his right wing when he attempted to fold it in the confined space. He was rumbling constantly now, a low and throaty snarl that made the air quiver.
The sound of it made Jerard's face crack into a lopsided smirk.
Karol could only watch the wick burn.
"There," Jerard sneered when he turned back, perfectly at ease with the meagre two inches of string left. "That's... That's more like it."
Raven didn't say a word.
Despite the limited seconds slipping away, Jerard took the time to eyeball Karol with an expression of pure malice. It was hard not to cringe. It was equally hard not to see the grudge there morph gradually into cold intent.
Watching the record keeper retreat one casual step was like watching chaos slip back into order; the man straightened once in his own brother's shadow, once more the pompous announcer from the halls of Zaudé. With a conceited, smoothing brush of his hand over his hair, his attention slid back to Raven. He leered insolently as the wick began to spit its final sparks.
"Seems the tables have turned," Jerard said snidely. A little of that childish rage returned when he added, "Now you tell me, wise-ass… was it clever to stay within throwing distance?"
And he pulled back his arm.
The bomb was big and ungainly, but it didn't need to be a fantastic throw. Karol was too busy staring at the explosive in utter horror as it left Jerard's hand that he barely noticed the pair of shapes rise up from the mountainside.
They split the second they neared level ground; one skipped over the rocks strewn along the path like iced lightening, darting from one crag to another until it skidded to a halt on the path in the krityan's shadow.
Repede turned his head and seized the grip of his kunai with his teeth. He was gone again in an electric shift of blue.
The dog shot past Jerard low and too fast to follow, shearing to a halt and darting back again before the first burst of blood had erupted from the krityan's leg. In the half second it took for Jerard's ruined knee to give way, three more slashes had cut in over his arms and chest. The man dropped to the earth in a belated shower of injury. And as he knelt there completely stunned, Repede dropped from his slicing leap and landed squarely on the man's chest.
They stared at one another, nose to nose.
Repede leapt free in a somersault that was more sawmill than spin. Jerard's head snapped back in one final spray of blood, then his body hit the ground with puff of loose dust. It had taken just under two seconds. Karol gave a belated yelp when the canine landed neatly in front of him.
Repede spun his blade expertly over his muzzle, then sheathed it with a final shak.
The bomb landed just behind him, wick cut cleanly through.
Down the distant path, Izuna shouldered into the rock with am agonised shriek. Karol hadn't even seen the second figure in blue until the entelexeia had snapped a wing out defensively. Judith landed on the thick curve of feathers with her heel, kicking off and flipping to safety even as Izuna cut his spiked tail through the airspace she'd been in moments before.
Drunkenly, as if every joint and muscle worked against him, Izuna scrabbled up from the rockface and spread his wings. He was clearly disoriented. Judith was clearly merciless when she launched herself at him again, but Izuna drove both wings down in a deafening whump. She caught the air gust head-on and her leap was buffered flat.
There was nothing graceful about the laboured take-off. Judith had carved a sizable wedge out of the beast's spread feathers and it showed; with violent, wobbling strokes, the entelexeia was airborne like a puppet dangling from tangled strings.
Karol fell to his backside just as Izuna lifted up and away, giving them all one last vengeful screech before doggedly heading up the mountain. The rock and wispy clouds stole him from view, but his voice remained as a chilling echo.
Judith picked herself up from her forced landing and spun her spear around in a glinting pattern. She didn't even cast her friends a single glance before launching herself after the beast, scaling the rock-face in an impossible series of leaps.
And as suddenly as it had all happened, it was over. The clearing was eerily calm in that shocked handful of seconds, the only sound being LeBlanc's frantic scuffing as he worried at the defused bomb with one plated boot, kicking it away from the detached wick. Repede, meanwhile, watched the sheer-rock face that Judith had just disappeared up speculatively.
He gave a resigned huff and sat back on his haunches.
Karol clutched at his chest as his heart pounded against every one of his aching ribs.
"… too old fer this," was all Raven could say. With a beleaguered look at the canine by their feet, he added, "You were cuttin' it kinda close there, Pooch... Uh, not that I'm complainin', mind."
Repede huffed dismissively and turned his head aside.
The soldiers had edged back into the clearing slowly, a medic advancing on Jerard's still form by the exit. Karol watched him do it, jaw slack and every bone trembling. His knees stubbornly refused to work even when LeBlanc heaved him awkwardly upright, so he was forced to hang from the lieutenant's shoulder like an oversized bag. His own kit bag slid from his arm and hit the dirt heavily; for the first time in many, many years, it was simply too heavy to carry.
The silence was so thick that it almost felt guilty.
"That's one down," Raven muttered with no small amount of resignation. He glanced around the scene with a harried look. "Is everyone ok? We're all good? No injuries?" The cluster of guildsmen and soldiers all stared back blankly, too overwhelmed to answer. The First Captain then turned to LeBlanc. "How 'bout you?"
"Sir! Yessir! Fit as a fiddle, sir!" LeBlanc barked, snapping a salute that Karol had to duck from. Satisfied with that, Raven reached out and gripped Karol's shoulder for the second time.
"How 'bout you, kid? You hurt?"
"I-I'm fine. I think," Karol managed. "Uh, thanks for catching me. I-I fell pretty far... I... I thought I was a goner for sure."
Raven nodded grimly, sympathetically.
"Good, good," was all he murmured.
And then, with his fingers tightening almost painfully over Karol's collarbone, the archer leant in and pinned him with a severe look.
"... Now what," he said in a low, anxious voice, "was that guy sayin' about Rita n' Estelle?"
.
_oOo_
.
Estelle shivered in the darkness.
It was the place of spirits, the extra layer over the world that only she knew about... She had never realised just how much she'd come to rely on her friends until she found herself back in that void, alone.
Her companions had been lighthouses in the dark. Beacons in the blackness to remind her where the real world was under that skin of darkness. They weren't here now, so Estelle was forced to dig her toe into the hard-packed earth and remind herself that the world existed. Gnome pressed his shoulder against her knee silently, another earthy reminder. The dirt under her feet echoed out gently, painting in more of Temza's mountain top than she could rightly know about. He helped ground her. She gratefully dropped her fingertips to the spirit's head.
The spirits were reconvening. Estelle shyly stood among them in the darkness, a bland and forgetful waif amongst the divine.
This is very dangerous, Undine was saying curtly.
Not even we know what will happen if it goes wrong! Sylph chirped, her smile at odds with her words.
Yes, that does sound dangerous, Ragnus' voice replied in that vague way of his.
Estelle winced.
What do you expect will be left of you if the Child of the Full Moon perishes half way through your conversion? Ifrit demanded hotly. He sounded angrier than usual to Estelle, and she leaned away from the steadily building waves of heat emanating from the spirit. There was a thoughtful pause.
I don't suppose much would be left at all, Ragnus decided calmly.
There was a surge of vengeful heat. Estelle leaned further back. Ifrit expanded like an unbanked forest fire, but Undine raised a hand and her companion let out one short burst of flame to vent out his frustrations. It was a curious display. Ragnus' apathy had initially confused her, but it was clearly insulting and infuriating the Spirit of Fire. Undine had more grace and patience. Gently, as if speaking to a child, the spirit said,
We're asking you for an alternative. Both you and the Child of the Full Moon are precious to us. The less put in jeopardy the better.
I have no alternative, Ragnus replied. It was the closest to a decision they were able to drag from him. Ifrit let out a growl that promised combustion, and Sylph giggled at the whole conversation with an impish shrug.
Estelle gnawed her lip and turned her eyes to Undine.
"H-He's been like this since we patched through," she whispered apologetically. Undine smiled tightly at that, eyes far too knowing.
An eternity is a long time to have spent alone with ones thoughts, she replied darkly. I suppose we must consider ourselves lucky the damage is minimal. I confess I was expecting a madman. Estelle heard bitterness in the spirit's voice, and for the umpteenth time that morning, she had to fight down the wave of guilt. Ragnus hadn't deserved this fate.
If he does not care, then the decision is made, Ifrit suddenly decided, impatient. He swung around to face Estelle and she had to fight the urge to back away. Are you prepared? We cannot help you with this. I have my doubts that you are strong enough to withstand the process... But you have to be! Everything rests on your ability to reconstruct this wretch!
Perhaps he had meant it to be encouraging. Estelle swallowed past the leaden weight lodged in her throat and nodded, terrified. Sylph swung playfully by her ear and blew a fresh wind through her hair.
I'll be cheering for you! she offered brightly.
We need your power to use our own, Undine said suddenly, grimly. You won't be in a position to give us any, so our influence here will be limited. Minor miracles at best. We'll... do what little we can.
"Thank you," Estelle replied earnestly. "You've all been so kind to me."
Ifrit scoffed, but he gave her an awkward and curt nod before leaving in a pulse of fire. The other spirits were just as silent when they left one after another. Eventually the only light left in the void was a blue one, and Undine lingered with a gentle smile at her lips. She spoke for all of them when she said,
Be safe.
And then she burst like a bubble of sea-foam, taking the blackness of the spirit realm with her.
Estelle found herself back on the mountaintop once more. Rita was waiting, on her feet with her research panel reopened before her.
"Did they have anything useful to say?" the mage asked shortly.
"Um, I hope so," Estelle replied honestly, nervously pressing both hands to her stomach to quell the butterflies there. They fluttered against the pressure, not settling in the least.
"Figures," Rita muttered.
The mage began typing. Estelle listened nervously until she felt the first familiar pull on her senses. Her internal formula stirred when it was accessed. A moment later, and Estelle shivered when she felt the dull tug at her core as Ragnus was keyed in as well.
It was a new take on an old experience. She and her distant companion were like paper-cups attached by string, slowly pulled apart just to make their connection taut. And when the tension was just right, Ragnus looked down the length of that line and, seemingly for the first time, truly saw her.
"Ready?" Rita suddenly asked.
No, Estelle's stomach said.
"Yes," her heart corrected.
I... I'm ready, Ragnus managed, voice laced with emotion for the first time.
He sounded shocked.
If Estelle had have been expecting a warning or a count-down, she didn't get it. Abruptly, catching her completely off guard, Rita started the conversion with a tap of her thumb.
Violence happened. Time shattered along with the mountaintop, digging their jagged shards in deep and cutting.
It tore at her. It clawed at the cavity in her chest where the formula resided, turning her heart and ribs and memories and feelings into ragged, bloody streamers in its bid to get at it. Shreds of her flapped at the edges of the vacuum, slapping painfully against it. Her spine screamed as it arched towards the suction, her thoughts had long since been snatched up and torn away... And still it sucked and heaved and pulled.
The violence gave way as abruptly as it started. Ragnus had pulled back on his end, drawing the line taut again and winching the whirring conversion steadily down their connection and away from her. The momentary relief felt hollow. As her pain lessened, his increased.
Estelle could feel it. She could feel him. She was aware of every numb, frozen, static inch of the entelexeia's heart and, as he determinedly pulled the violence away from her, suddenly Undine's words made sense. Estelle had never seen anything like it. Here was a mind that, to save itself, had simply stopped. Ragnus was as still and unmoving as an iceberg.
But there was no mistaking the fear and concern that sprung from the emotionless haze. Fear and concern for her. Seeing those shy emotions was like watching new spring buds rise from a layer of melting snow. Estelle watched on in awe as Ragnus woke up.
Without meaning to, she let him pull on the formula too much and then all she could sense from him was agony.
Instinctively, she tugged back.
The core of the conversion was a maelstrom between them, ravaging whatever it drew closer to. Shaking in fear of it, Estelle focused entirely on giving just enough of herself to keep it directly between them. Past the chewing formula, Ragnus came to the same understanding and did the same.
They spent miniature eternities balancing their connection.
"That... that was close," came a familiar voice.
The mountaintop returned then, barely an afterthought, and Estelle tried very hard to divide her attention.
"L-Let's not do that again," Rita added, and at some point in the chaos, she had split her research panel into three. They hovered around her like shields and made the sweat on her brow glint orange. "H-how are you holding up? Both of you?"
Estelle felt a small spark of humour from Ragnus – the concern delighted and amused him – and she pieced together the concentration required to nod. She was just beginning to get used to the push-pull on her heart, but even a minor dip in concentration made the conversion swing erratically between them. It occurred to her that this had been her friends' job. They had been the balance, the taut framework to keep the conversion precisely where it should be.
She'd never appreciated them more than she did in that moment.
"Good," Rita muttered. "This is good, just... just keep that up. I don't have the power output to go any faster than this, so you'll have to hang in there."
Another nod.
And then Estelle felt a prickling by her ear.
Ragnus curiously peered past her to see. She read the surprise from him and, making sure the conversion was perfectly secure, she shifted her attention to the side to see what had caught his attention.
Volt was like an echo, almost there but not quite. His fierce eyes met hers.
Move, he whispered.
A sharp jolt raced down one leg, and Estelle's body lurched to the side without her consent. Something too quick to see whistled through the space she'd just occupied. Wrenching her knee back into her own control was harder than it should have been; Estelle shifted like a poorly orchestrated marionette when she straightened, infinitely aware that Volt's fingers were plucking at her nerves like a puppeteer.
She blinked her buzzing eyes.
Someone had barrelled into Rita. The mage stared down at the figure, one hand still hovering over her keys and eyes wide in pure shock. Her lips parted slowly.
"Huh," she managed softly.
It wasn't until the figure tossed an acidic look over his shoulder that Estelle recognised him... Waylin snarled at her hatefully.
"Nice dodge," was all he said. He straightened suddenly and gave Rita a dismissive shove with a gauntlet that glistened red; the mage fell away from him awkwardly, eyes still wide, heels scuffing and tripping over the rocks.
She couldn't right herself. Her stagger only stopped when her back struck one of ruined buildings. She slumped against the wall with one hand pressed to her side.
Blood bloomed between her fingers in a sudden flood, burgundy against her red clothes, black against her white skin. She eased herself down the wall with a disgusted grimace and a great swatch of red was left in her wake.
Ragnus reeled under the wave of horror that surged down the connection; the conversion was struck from his grip and it tore like a tempest between them, unchecked.
Somewhere past the careening chaos, Waylin drank in every tortured line of Estelle's expression and grinned maliciously.
"Now you're paying attention," he murmured. "Come."
.
_oOo_
.
A/N: One villain down, three to go!
So me and Plot Hole got into a cage match over this chapter and it was a messy, agonising battle. I think I won, but only just. I expect the scars from the scuffle are still present, but shh. Just let it happen. I promise to be more careful with my planning in the future.
Thanks to my old readers and new ones alike. I'm glad there's a space in this section for overly complex epics like mine, and I hope I can finish this fic to everyone's satisfaction! We're nearing the finish line! Thank you very, very much for all your reviews, and here's to Repede being a ninja.