A/N: Thanks to every single person who was a part of this story from start to finish. I'm sad to see it go but, at the same time, completely jazzed about the threequel.

Sophie: Got your two reviews, thanks for them, they're both wonderful. As was your name entry. There's no laughing at something like it. Sorry, but there's no replying to anonymous reviews. Except for this way.

Thanks so much to Mysil, crowned_tiger and Sophie for entering the name contest. Somehow, some way, you all understood the premise of the threequel without any hints. I commend you for it. We got some great choices:

-OTE: Across Universal Bindings

-OTE: Unto the Darkness

-OTE: Dawn of a New Day

For participating, you all get spoilers. PM me to get them.

Results: In the author's note at the bottom.

Sorry for any mistakes/historical inaccuracies in this chapter. My historically sound better half was flying today and couldn't do her job properly, but that didn't stop us from rolling out the last chapter in a great sequal. Thanks again!

Somehow, the rebels knew.

Somehow, by some strange twist of fate, they were standing in three offensive lines, ten warriors long, their leader in front. They faced the forest, weapons in the warriors' hands, mages' bodies lit with magical fire, ready for Sara and her group when they arrived.

Watching.

Waiting.

Sara cleared the ridge first, at the point of her now defensive formation. As warrior after warrior came up behind her, she heard them all falter. They stumbled or gasped or swore, but they were all taken by surprise. Over the past months, they had lost warriors, trust, safety and confidence. Now, they had lost the only thing they had going for them: the element of surprise.

"Fall back." Warrick whispered in Sara's ear. "We can't..."

"We stay." Sara's steely eyes were narrowed, her attention caught on the smug rebel leader. "We fight. We win."

"We can't."

"We can. We will." Sara squared her shoulders and heard the rustle of clothing, the clank of weapons and the static burn of magical fire igniting as her warriors prepared themselves.

The rebel leader smiled at Sara, each facial movement crystal clear in Sara's flawless vision. Then he winked.

She growled.

He wiggled his finger at her, clearly saying Come and get me. Sara opened her eyes the whole way, fixing the rebel leader with a smouldering, fierce stare, her eyes snapping blue and green angrily. Magic seeped from her pores, fluidly pooling at her feet and crackling around her body furiously.

"Keep your cool. You're only giving him what he wants." Rhea whispered, drawing closer to Sara, but keeping her place as second-in-command. The battle would be lost without an opportunity to fight if Sara was undermined and disrespected within her own ranks.

"Oh don't worry," Sara growled. "I've got my eye on the prize."

Then she opened her mouth and released the shrillest, most deafening, cacophonous scream they had ever heard. It pierced through every fear or misgiving they had about the battle or their chances, stopping their weaknesses dead in their tracks. In everybody's mind, there was now only strength; only ability; only a clear, guided agenda that ended with their weapons piercing the rebels the same way Sara's scream had pierced them.

They poured forth over the mountain, letting out their own enraged cries as they brandished their weapons. Metal glittered colourfully in magical light, bathing the scene in colours. The rebels rushed to meet them, their cries bouncing off the mouths of the tunnels that were still teeming with diggers. Through the white noise of battle cries, Sara's call still rung true. Everybody steeled themselves, ready to fight, their minds echoing with the sound of Sara's war voice. Every single one of them, mortal or magical, knew what it was. While they were calling out cries for battle and victory, she was screeching out a different type of message:

A Call for Blood.

Hours into the battle, it still raged in full swing. Despite the terrible odds, and despite being heinously overwhelmed by power, skill and the sheer number of rebels, Sara's warriors were holding their own. From her position on the battle-field, Sara could almost see all of them. She was proud to call them her own; proud of herself for swearing to protect them. And she had been doing just that. Her side had seen no fatalities because of her watchful eye and the healers' skill and speed. Greg, though he would always be the youngest member of their CSI team and the most carefree, was doing a remarkable job. With Rain by his side, they were healing wounds faster than the rebels could dish them out. Sara smiled to herself as she saw the frantic look in the rebel leader's eyes. He had no healer. He had started out with many, many skilled warriors, but things had gone very badly, very quickly. For him at least.

When the rebels had realized that Sara's group was skilled, they had all, of course, started fighting to the death. That was their problem - they had died. It hadn't taken them too long to realize that they were, in the eyes of their leader, expendable. And when a warrior realized that he or she was expendable, being protected by no-one but themselves, the fight or flight instinct took over. No matter how much training they had had, and no matter how many hours of tactics they had been beaten over the heads with, flight still ruled over fight.

They had all run away very quickly after that.

Now, the odds were an almost-even two-to-one. The rebels' tactics seemed to consist solely of rushing Sara's warriors - overwhelming them with as many warriors and weapons they could manage - in an attempt to confuse them. Sara was the one who was confused. The rebel leader, while he wasn't particularly devious, was still rather bright. She had been locked in a one-on-one battle with him, almost exclusively, since the moment the two groups had collided. Though the other rebels had attempted to confuse and overcome her, Sara regarded them the same way most humans regard flies. She cut them down with a sword in one hand or with the constant stream of magic that was flowing around her body, but regardless of how she did it, they fell easily.

The sun had fully set and they were now fighting by firelight alone. The large bonfire didn't do much to help them, since it contributed more to deceptive shadows than it did to vision. There looked to be hundreds of warriors scattered around the fire, dancing with their weapons in the air, when there were really only thirty-five. The shadows were, in fact, the main contributor to the first serious injury sustained by one of Sara's warriors that night. The first, but certainly not the last.

Warrick had picked up the Khopesh rather quickly in practice, and was wielding it like a pro in battle. True to Sara's word, it was certainly a surprise to the rebels. Warrick had been moving rapidly around the clearing, exhibiting a clear preference for one single move. He rarely strayed, and he rarely lost.

Rarely, but not Never.

He used the hooked end of the blade to pull down the rebel warriors' shields, which they used as crutches in battle. They all hid behind their thick obsidian shields like the cowards they were and exhibited very few skills that didn't involve using the sharpened edge of the obsidian - three times sharper than surgical steel - to slit throats and remove limbs. Though the use of a shield as an offensive weapon was an impressive skill, it came nowhere near to rivalling Warrick's favourite move. As he hooked his blade over the shields, he wrenched them down just far enough to expose the warriors' necks - the only parts of their bodies not protected by the medieval armour they were wearing. He used his speed to augment the precision of the blade, unhooked it in a tenth of a second, and had his opponents on the ground in the time it took him to blind their blood out of his eyes.

His mistake came when he was trying this manoeuvre with two rebels at the same time. The two who confronted him were two who he hadn't noticed. They had been covertly watching his progress in the battle since he had started fighting, and knew his moves as well as he did. As he went in for the kill, the two warriors slid their shields out from his blade and used them in tandem. Though the cutting edge of the obsidian didn't catch on his skin, the blunt force of the shields crashed down on him hard enough to force him to the ground, which his head and chest hit with audible cracks. He gasped once before his muscles relaxed. He didn't get up.

Sara had been watching the exchange out of the corner of her eye, ready and willing to keep her oath at moment's notice. The minute she saw him go down, a stream shot out from her hands and connected firmly with his body. Before the hard, obsidian edges sliced through him, he was encased in a sheet of blue-green that deflected everything heavier than air. Her concentration on her battle with the rebel leader - and his sycophantic flies - broke for only a moment while she willed Warrick's body to travel to Greg. It was only a moment - and a short one - but it was enough.

"Bind her!" The rebel leader yelled, his command directed to one of the largest tunnels that had been dug. Sara's mind vaguely registered the static buzz of magic, and then she found her limbs paralyzed. Her magic ran in her veins, but she found that she couldn't do anything with it. It was as if she were stuck in a block of ice, alive inside, frozen everywhere else.

A laugh came then, from the tunnels that Sara hadn't thought to close off. She had gotten cocky, overconfident and preoccupied with everything else. Now it was going to cost her.

From the depths of the tunnel, a dark shape stepped forwards. His skin was a strange shade of dark gray with the texture of tree bark and reptile scales. His hair was slicked back, jet black as she knew it would be. His eyes - red, black and glowing - fixed on her. His thin, black lips curved into a menacing, evil smile that fit him like nothing else. A black cape flowed behind him in a wind of his own making, the crest sewn on to it glinting in the firelight. He glowed red and black with the force of his magic and the power it took to contain her.

"You thought you could finish me that easily?" He laughed darkly, circling her. He had bound everybody in the clearing, even his own. Now, every single warrior, demon and non-demon alike, was forced to watch the exchange. "A simple spell cannot contain me, as long as I have loyal followers." He slashed a hand at his "loyal followers" and they all dropped. "However, they took too long in their task; allowed you to get too close. I have others to continue this quest." He waved a hand, a magically charged tornado whirling around him, his form turning translucent underneath the veil of red and black.

"I will leave you alive, for now," he continued, his voice half-insubstantial, like his body. "The fallout of your death would not do me well, nor would the magical lash-back because of your..." And he shuddered primly at this, "substantial power. No, you shall remain alive for now, but you shall never never take my throne from me."

In his hand, as he disappeared, Sara saw a darkly glowing piece of rolled up paper. A scroll. The scroll.

She had known from the start that he wasn't the Demon King, but he was not an improvement. She felt her body return to her as his magical influence dwindled in his absence, but she did not move. She stood, unmoving, staring at the spot he had just stood. He, the man she had forsaken to a life of darkness and torture; he, the man she had sworn never to let return; he, the man who had driven her first quest. He had returned, and he now had the words to bring the Demon King to life. If time, his power would grow and, in time, he would use it to bring back the Master of his king. For a moment, she could almost picture his face. Dark and sadistic, standing in front of her, the evil smile still plastered on his terrifying visage.

Him, the man she wished never to see again.

Him, The Ruler.

Sara sank down on the grass, slick and red with the blood of the dead. She could only stare, sapped of all energy, her eyes wide in horror as she took in the scene in front of her. There were bodies littering the ground, and her eyes could vaguely pick up the retreating forms of their enemies as they ran towards the capital. The remaining members of her group fell in behind her, their faces masks of horror as well. The CSIs had seen some grotesque things in their days, but none quite so gruesome as this. The gore was only worse now that they had been a part of it.

Before she encased her group -all of them - in a small veil of her magic to transport them back to the mortal realms, she heard herself whisper the two words that would rule her actions until the Ruler was vanquished once more.

"We lost."

A/N: What an way to end, I know. Don't worry, that's why there's a threequel.

The results to the threequel naming: As I said, great entries. I was dancing around the idea of combining everything I got (OTE: Eternally Bound: The Dawn of Darkness, the Dawn of Light). As I said earlier, you all get spoilers for entering, so PM me and I'll hand them over with a smile on my face.

The threequel, which is up now, is called OTE: Eternal.

Thanks for staying along for a great ride!

~Twilight-Flame337