There is this pain inside of me as I start this chapter because as much as I love Rupert and as far as I've come to get to this part of the story and as much as I know that there isn't any more room for it and it doesn't even really need more room, I want to write more about Raptin and Jkonna anyways... ahhh -sigh-

Rupert: but... you are not writing more of—

Me: yeah but I want to like I want to

Rupert: ...but you will not

Me: yeah

Rupert:

Mier: well how about you take a break from them and write more about me, that's always a solution

Me: almost always a solution

Mier: well that's better than I was expecting

Me: then again do you even show up in this chapter

The Aloft Champion

Chapter 36: Power Outage

Rupert

With what part of me so dumbfounded that I manage to swallow this entire ordeal whole, I glance over at my cousin and rasp to her, voice hardly lacing my words, "W-Well, what should we—"

"Because I know," she snaps, her harsh whisper as soft as mine. Ah. My eyes wander from ancient to ancient to the man in the midst of them. Even if I ever did think of a suitable question for Dinu, my mouth has gone dry, so it would stay locked up inside of me for some time anyways. I gently wrest a sleeve back from my hand, my chapped and ruddy hand, and I search in one of my pants pockets for a handful of medals, any medals.

The lanky creature up ahead notes this and watches me with a new coat of interest. I step back. He lurches forward and I duck back again, leafing out two, three, four cold discs and clenching them in my hand. I sift through the other pocket and manage three and, well, seven is better than what we had going for us.

A voice suddenly sparks from somewhere within me. Well we still can't fight that load of ancients. I'm not sure what you're looking up toward. Gruff, unforgiving, his little list of critiques.

It is nice to hear you again, Gyntis. He huffs and turns in his medal, and I cannot tell whether he wants me to see him as a big deal or nothing of the sort. But it is a little nice. If nothing else.

We don't have all day, Rupert, he mutters, might as well get it over with now.

Dina sidles up near me. Her eye catches the other medals, the one in my left hand, and she points gingerly at the glossy figures embossed upon them. While I cannot make out any features upon her face, I can still imagine: big, bright eyes, nodding a little furiously and whispering the name of her so dear dimetro, and of course the others as well.

But Torn is... not in the group there. In fact, he has remained as curiously quiet as he was earlier. I do wonder if more than the ancients have kept him at bay. The way Dina stiffens when she notices this too—there is Nyra, there is Aladee, and there is Trikko, but no Torn, or Reyna, for that matter—suggests, almost, an air of guilt. If... only I could ask her what transpired between them.

Ohhh, Rupert... is that—?

I cannot ward off a small grin. Yes. It is. Nyra lets out a great caw of joy and Dina grows nervous and twitchy again at the sound of her nycto ace. Like she wants to see her, desperately so, wants to say her name in turn... oh, Dina. So close you are and yet so far from... where you were.

Pippy stirs, then. Dina! It is very... um, very greatly n-nice to meet you! Rupert told us very... very... very many good things of you! A whoooooooole lot, lassie, so very much!

A hand presses by my face. This bothersome tinge of blush... Pippy, you have no need to—

"Oh, what a sorry picture. Won't even bother to say hello, for old time's sake? I'm certain I raised you better than such, Son." For a moment all I feel is my heart beating, no, slamming into my chest, my nerves on fire. His voice, his ugly, metallic, apathetic voice picks at small imperfections upon me: the scar on my jawline, the marks about my neck, the tangled hair, the homespun and somewhat lumpy sweater, the broken foot. His eye travels and silently intakes all of these things; his head tips and takes in, almost hungrily, what pieces of me that have chipped and cracked since he last saw of me.

A grin twitches up the side of his lip. "Look at you." My gaze lies to the snowy ground, to the footprints I left behind, only ever far enough to reach Dinu, who stands not feet away. "Look at what you've done to yourself, you poor thing." I screw my eyes shut. Try to breathe. Softly, quietly. His voice is in my bloodstream and I feel what little warmth I'd managed sapping away. "Made yourself into a disgrace, have you?"

The cold, hard clomps of his pacing in his boots. Those thick-soled books, stitched in silver. Hard enough to smart if he kicked you in them. A bruise that wouldn't leave for days, continuing to throb relentlessly sometimes for weeks if he planted it well enough, if he doubled up on it enough.

"What a shame, what a shame." Soft tittering in his tone.

I would know. I would... I-I would know.

"Rupert, do tell me your life hasn't been all this bad since you left my side, would you?

In that sly, simpering whisper, so silky, so soft, so biased.

His voice comes to a quick, timed halt before proceeding. To let me think of my discourteous actions, to reconsider my faults and beg of forgiveness. "Come now, my son. Do not let yourself lie wastrel to the elements of this world any longer. Surely you have learned by now that there is a reason I raised you how I did, that I only wished for the very best of you." He crunches the word under his teeth. "Please do understand, this little adventure of yours has surely revealed to you by now what an ugly, unseemly place this world of ours is.

"Now you must return to where you truly belong, Son, to where you always have been and always shall be again. Let us reunite."

He... Well.

He speaks to me like I'm one of the bloody trophies I won in a tournament.

One of many pretty ornaments hanging on the shelves in his mansion.

I believe at this point it would be an insult not only to myself but to his blatant idiocy if I accepted this preposterous little offer.

And then I stop and... I wonder, quickly sifting through old memories: was it always this way? Did he always refer to me in such a tone? Did he always sound so... confused? Something about the way he hisses these words comes out very wrong on some base level...

Dinu glances over to me and I look up. She mutters, "You're not—"

"I know." Weak smile on my face, I nod. "I-I know, Dinu."

"Don't get that way with me. You're the one who gave in that last time." A condescending lilt snatches at me but for some second I cannot remember what she is talking abou—Oh, oh... Oh, that is right... That is... very right. The last time we saw him—the both of us together—he commanded my obedience and I... and I played into his hand so easily. Because it... oh, it was so much easier to pretend none of it had ever happened, that Dina was not real but a folly of my starved heart, my desperate imaginings... so much easier to lose my heart than to change myself.

Dina... was the one who saved...

My eye wanders over to her side. She stares back at me, head tilted... Pff—she does not remember it. A moment so crucial to me has completely bypassed her memory. Oh, Dina...

Well... My father lies in waiting. I may as well give him my answer. As I raise my head and gently search of him, both looking and avoiding at the same time, I drop the medals to the ground. They stay quiet, sifting among the piles of snow for small burrows to keep themselves in before any crucial moment strikes. Because it—it will, though it has yet to. We feel the bombs setting in the air. So... thick, and heavy. Viscous, like a stew of... disgust.

In a fast moment, it all sparks so quickly: I force my gaze into his presence, the sunglasses, thick coat, the crude smile, and I strengthen my voice and I take a breath and I tell him: "No. Not again. Not any longer." No more shall... shall you control me. No more shall you conquer me.

The little spark ignites with a twist of his lip, a knife plunging into flesh. "What was that?" His hand slides the sunglasses off of his face and great, gouging gaps of a gaze stare back at me. "What did you say, Son?"

"I-I said no." My words curdle quickly. "I-I... No. No more. You cannot... You cannot... feed me your lies any more. I will not... l-let you." Those wretched pupils dilate, flicker, and bleed deep inside of me. Shadows stretching beneath his cheeks only begin to guess at the last time he slept. Long, jagged fingernails toil with a strand of his disheveled hair, white, like mine.

His grin is fake. He presses it and forces a step forward, snow crashing to his wake.

Clawed nails of hands go rushing toward me and he cries, spit gleaming from his lips, "I knew it! I knew you would never leave my side, Son! I knew you cared! You must know how terribly I love you, Son! Ohhhhhhh, how you mussssst knowwww..." Even after he finishes and after he rushes and after he trips and falls and gets up and continues I still feel the words beating down on my skull. My stark face twists and I stare at Dinu and she must see me crumbling and she must feel some form of the... of the... I cannot even say it, it... crawls up my throat and disfigures what I say, I... I...

With a shrug, she mumbles, "You said no," her eyes glassy, her lips stretched thin. "You said... no." A flinch crosses over her body and her hand slaps over mine and she pulls and moments after a snarling mass crumples where I just stood.

Where, like seeds, the seven vivosaurs I planted spring. Pippy is quick to stand guard over the man and Tessa desires mere seconds to slam a foot over his arm. Nyra takes flight, her eyes flinching over the cloudy mass of ancients, some rushing, some falling, some standing perfectly still as if no action has occurred whatsoever, and perhaps to them this is all some funny game... some... funny game...

Mistress, remaining in my pocket, titters softly. I clench her medal before starting again.

Seconds pass before Trikko butts his horned face into the first ancient that shreds by—solid—and sends it spiraling off into the snowy earth. Aladee stands by him, as of yet ready though unresponsive. After ducking her head into the snow, Sunny mingles within it and scours the ground for any unsuspecting ancients and Gyntis trots beyond her in a bout of half-frenzied stomping.

To my side, Dinu carelessly tosses her three white-rimmed medals out into the open and latches her free hand upon Zoazoa after releasing me. The orange-haired girl screams and twists and jumps and tries to kick at my stubborn cousin without luck until she eventually tells the ancient, "This is up we're up against, and it's all your fault. Don't even think of getting out of it." Her face tells a harsher story: stony and shadowed, lips tight and eyes narrowed. We'll die if you do.

She almost appears happy to announce this. A grim smile has upturned her lips.

It is... too much for the ancient. "Let go!" Ripping back from her. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO, LET ME GO, LET ME GOOOOOOOOOOooooo!" Coughing is all that stops her, and when she swallows it she starts again, howling, weeping, shrieking.

Dinu has yet to bat an eye. "Uh huh." The grin drags up a little more, growing snide ."You can't simply—"

There is more, but whatever it is she says I miss. A paw slaps me forward and I tumble and fall and it is all too quickly, it all happens so fast. He already broke free from my vivosaurs, Pippy's paw torn and wet and I glimpse my hand, now throbbing, and wince. Thick, rugged fingers, coated in little streaks of blood and all matters of scars, stuff themselves about my shoulders and hold me there. His breaths floats down about me in a cloud of rancid heat.

While he busies himself in containing me I call to Tessa. She steps over, she tilts her muddy gaze at my father, she raises a black foot, she waits, she looks again, she kicks. He crumbles over again, but it is seconds before he jumps back up again. With a cry, my pachy kicks again and falls on her side, frantically kicking, and with her distraction I slip back again.

Small punctures have gouged themselves into each of my shoulders, from when he was... I wince. Pippy, are you alright? and with his nod I ask him to come forward. He takes care in stepping near me, his colossal, caramel legs so stout they could certainly crush anyone he may have accidentally come across. And it is easy to keep watch in one direction as he surveys most of the rest and warn him as a multicolored threat springs. His tail swings and down they fly, a feathery mass slamming with a thuukkkk back behind us. When I stray in the shadow of the seismo, it is much more difficult for those dastard ancients to see me but... but there are others too.

H-How will this... possibly...

Ahhh, already I feel my limbs on the cusp of tiring... and what is... what is that sensation of—

Rupert! There are a great many ancients o-over there! Ohhh, I wish we had Iggy right now, I-Iggy would... Iggy would know what to do!

What are you—ahhh... That throbbing aroused in my left arm would certainly explain what has happened. I-I forgot... My attention must... divide between seven vivosaurs. And if there is any proof from what happened with Pippy, and with what is happening now, the more hits any of them take, the more I suffer, the easier it is for me to... Truly, how do we plan on... how do we... Ah, my head is pounding, I can hardly see out of these bloody eyes...

Gently I swerve around the seismo and pull back. What weight that already took place on my skull has begun pounding ever harder until I swear there must be some creature attached to my neck, banging—banging rocks into the back of my head where I cannot see it, oh, what in the world is going on ove—

Hands. Pale pink hands. I roll back and stumble on a pile of snow and the blue ball of spines in front of me registers. As does the—the squat form perched atop its head and I cry, Trikko! Trikko, do watch out! With a final shove of his shoulders, the small fiend goes flying and we do not find where it lands. The tricera reigns as another mottled shadow makes up from behind him, which I point out and he swerves again and I turn back only to hit a wall of scales.

Staggering. Shaking my bleary head... ah, stars, stars, no... I force myself upward again and turn out of the way for Tessa to come stomping. She slams into the unruly black mass currently entangled with Trikko and as her skinny tail flickers off, it whips against a thin maw. Just beneath her trembles Zoazoa, her arms wrapped amongst herself and eyes freezing up and spinning wildly from sparking ancient to sparking ancient.

We live inside of a storm. A clouding storm full of monstrous color, and noises, and screams and hisses and burning and I catch sight of something sparking just as I fear it. The fire broils, burning thickly beneath a tongue and glinting along mucky blue scales around the jaw and I take off and grab that thin, sickly girl by her tiny wrist and yank her out of the way. A thin veil of flame hisses and fizzles as the snow beneath contains what so nearly became a searing burn.

I am thanked with a snarl. The ancient girl rips her grip out of mine and her dark eyes cast shadows over me by stare alone. Her lip curls, the under overlapping the upper, and a small bite of tooth gleams dully. "Don't touch me. Leave me alone." That is all she has to say to me before turning, her matted hair sending small cascades of orange rippling against me.

But seconds after, she steps on the fire.

"Aaahhh...aaaAAAAHhhhhh...AHAHHHHHhHHHHHHHHH!"

Her shriek burns like flame to my ears. I duck my head as a hand lashes out near me and her fingers—quickly, horrifyingly quickly—unsheathe these gleaming knives of claws. A snout pours out of where a mouth was once held and the maw curls with a hiss in the direction of the fire. Hair retreats into thin, orange spines. Dark, dark pupils flicker toward me before darting off again.

The first ancient she runs through severs into sparkling, glistening pieces on the spot. I need to step back and I—and I run into someone and duck and fall and trip over someone else and a toe shreds a pant leg and a heel digs into my back for agonizing seconds and I trip and get up and swerve around again and it—and it—and I pause for breaths and it—and there are so... many of them.

Where is my father? Did he—Did he disappear? Oh—Ohhh, no, I've lost sight of him.. oh, no, what in the bloody world is he doing right now? I-I... Where is Dinu? Dinu—Was she—Was she hurt? Was she—was I—where are—

A weight seeps into my temple. Before I know it I feel my head fall and my weakened body with it. Lucid, chilling fangs of pain suck through my mind. Water shatters as it crosses from the maw of some beast high above me; the earth sighs and cracks spill open beneath the feet of boulder-gray vivosaurs. Breath in the air halts and is halted and starts up again in gasps, in flurries, in these horrible squelches suggesting loss and—and—and sometimes then I cannot breathe either, and I catch little snippets, sometimes, of Pippy again, and his massive bulk, or the tiniest flicker of a yellow sea creature hopping from snow pile to snow pile, and every so often Nyra's caw splits the horizon.

Not enough, though. Not... h-hardly enough. Little gasps leave my throat slick, my skin coloring before my eyes, my head throbbing, swooning, and then composing itself seemingly on its own... There are so many noises overpowering my mind that I cannot hardly focus on even one of them, not all this at once, no... A hand flutters for one of my pockets only to remember that at some point it shredded, that at some point Camri and Mistress were set loose as well.

A wry smile cracks my dry lips when I note that a certain peculiarly blue dimetro has also dispersed. He was not even held in the pocket that ripped, that tramp... All that remains now is a cynical krypto, her blind gaze unseeing to the tension outside and unhearing of the terrible racket they all have caused.

In the midst of so many things, I miss the warm presence on my sleeve, tugging, for I cannot say how long. When I glance back, my heart squeezes and I scoot over next to the silver stain about the snow, partially curled up, greatly shaking. "Dina?" I manage. My voice is weak. Wet. Hurt in some form by the careless vivosaur whose throat was hacked at in the recent past.

She hears it. A shimmer dies over her figure for a petrifying second before she wrenches herself back and—and a... tail, a red tail, perhaps somewhat solid, passes outside of her. The ancients... The ancients—she has no protection against the ancients. Small gaps in her otherwise glowing form, little twitches, little missing pieces, oh, my heart... my sweet girl, I cannot protect you in this state... Oh, why can I never protect you...

Swallowing, I turn my head aside. "Dina." She turns to my voice. "Dina... You—You cannot be here." Yes—Yes, I can... I can... "You should not. It hurts you and... you are helpless against it." How I can imagine those big, amethyst eyes pulling into my sight, tugging my heartstrings... "Let me create an... opening."

Then, at least—at least for a little while, she may be a little more safe. Her figure grows still, reluctant, thinking, until there is an eventual nod. So soon as it comes I rip back off into the crash of reality again, like that of diving into a crowded ocean, and I let the rampant waters consume me.

Now, if... if I close my eyes and focus... focus rather hard—there—there are sparks I catch. Somewhere off to the side lies a very certain dimetro, whom I call immediately and tell him to clear some sort of path. Of course, he must initially digress and call me a fool—until he catches that I am not the only one he speaks to—and then he attempts to recover and tear open a hole in the wall of voices. As I let Dina in closer to me, my eyes flickering along the flow of monsters and voices and scales, words burn through my head: Ouch, the hell did I step on and There's that Zoazoa and I hate this I hate this I hate this and beneath all of that lies a trembling wail... an ever-flowing waterfall of tears.

H-How many ancients are there? Yes, there was Zongazonga and his daughter, some of the greatest sorcerers to ever exist, and there are smaller, less defined presences that tend to take on a single color and go off from there. As if... condensed, over time, time and time and time crumbling by their weakening emotional states, their once-grand entities now pathetic shells of what was.

Not all... were so lucky to be so powerful. What... What is it, that bound them here? Was it a... spell? Some sort of power too great for them to control themselves? What moves the will of ancients, still far more enchanting and influential, their intensity far more potent than that of... say, Gyntis, or Camri, or Reyna or any of them for that matter.

Hah. And to think I figured that I understood that power, when I was possessed by one of their kind. What a... frightening lifestyle, that of an ancient. I swallow, turning back, searching for little kernels of consciousness in this haze. Ah—There—There lies—

Sunny, I beg of you. Do you see the small row of ancients back here? Could you trip them under their feet and—

Clear a path? I mean, okay, but why?

Then she detects Dina's presence, just as Torn had, and she must sense a wariness in her that my eye alone cannot trifle with, for she goes deadly silent and disperses. With the dimetro and the marple clearing out the area, it is not long before I can lead my darling out of the chaos. A wavering hand continues to reach up to her head...

O-Oh. She must—She must hear it too. The voices, the noise, the cacophony unending on all sides of us. I... I have begun to grow used to it, I admit. The voices have quickly morphed into a heightened sense of background sound but... but my poor girl, she... oh, I wish I knew what sort of storm was going through her...

But I simply do not. But—But I can do this. I am not... not powerless. Not right here, not now, not in this instance... Not anymore. She pulls up toward me on slow, wavering legs and remains just at my side. When she pauses she phases into me and when she presses near her shoulder disappears into mine. Naught but a particular warmth gives her away, her silvery presence. I still feel it, and I feel her, whispering to duck as tails and claws and talons and feet of all sizes crash down around us.

Sunny took care in leading other ancients astray, and I cannot begin to wonder what havoc Torn caused for the sake of his fighter—too much, surely. There it is, a well-rounded gap in the onslaught, a puddle of white in an otherwise mess of jumbled color. As I lead her, my gaze darts along all sides of the roaring mass, turning backward some number of times, just to be sure. There are moments where a head will hang over the gap, but usually this is solved by a quick, blue-scaled paw reaching out and yanking it back in.

Once we reach the outskirts, I ease back and let Dina trot ahead. Her... Oh, her weak movements are not reassuring... I can almost see her little pinched face, cheeks a pale green, nauseated. So much as I want her to escape I fear that leaving her off on her own like this will result in a worse condition... not to mention that if Zoazoa finds her in this state... she will stand no chance, then, wi-will she. And Dina always had such a weak will as it was... H-How long can she keep this up? How long can—

Speckled sparks gently cup my cheek. Little silvery bits of light gleam beneath my chin, a powerful warmth seeping into me from where her hand lies. Her little... silvery hand. Her body... Her body is weak like mine was when... Zongazonga—and I—and I remember this but... but still I... still I... ahh...

The world tips and spills over as a crack ignites somewhere high above me and I—and I feel a sharp stabbing sensation at the top of my head. My knees... buckle and I crumple to the snow-stained earth, my legs frigid beneath me, head burning above, eyes... eyes—I—I squint—o-or I try to and—and what are those... spinning flashes of... red? I cannot... cannot tell. A sudden spurt of cerulean shreds the sky above and melds into the background somewhere off I cannot quite tell and it... oh—silver—silver—I beckon her on—go, go—as my hands squeeze under my head and cup it and I...

When I glance up again, meekly, barely, head spinning on my shoulders, there is no speck of silver to be seen. So she... she is...

Oh, thank... goodness...

This hard ringing in my ear, hidden behind this obnoxious part of my head ever-slipping out of reach, drills into me for I cannot say how long but I... feel it and I see it and I taste a heavy, metallic coating in my mouth and why is... the world so blurry... There goes another shimmering figure and one other passing along it and in seconds one maw snaps upon the other and this high-pitched squeal joins the fray of never-ending screams.

And then another—and another and bodies smearing all amongst me, like paint on Mier's old palette in his old room in the room that was destroyed by an ancient and all of these problems an ancient here caused that caused us to leave to leave us stranded here... all alone...

Pip... pip... plip... pip...

Smeared tearstains of scarlet seep out of my head and cry upon the earth. Such tiny sounds. Such tiny things. I feel some of them sticking to my back, to my hair, to my skin. My mouth has gone dry again and when I wet it again the rough, metallic tang returns. My lips... feel rough, uneven—oh, bloo—

We-Well. To stay here would be not very much of a liable conclusion.

So I raise. So I raise and I wipe back what blood I can from my face, from my head, shedding visceral marks into the slush far below. My fingers grew numb some time ago. My forehead, however, burns mightily. When I press a hand to my temple it practically melts off what chill I had accumulated, and for some time the heel bites with the cold until it eventually grows numb again, unfeeling to the cold, too much to carry otherwise.

This is not... so different from... when I broke my foot. Ye-Yes, certainly. I will tell myself so and this will make it that much easier. So I swallow and I raise and I continue shouldering the weight I put upon myself. And when a new wound freshly sluices seemingly out of thin air and another sting adds to the unending sting passing through my entire body at all times I... well, I shoulder that too, and I continue on.

Seven vivosaurs... No—No, wait, it is ten now, that is right, and it would be eleven but for the single medal that remains nestled in my one functional pocket. In a bout of lightheadedness I scoop her ivory pendant out and I tightly grasp it, and it gives me something to hold onto, and... and that is nice, that is very nice for me. Very... nice.

Reyna must feel my agony. Whether or not she cares I cannot tell. So I continue to shoulder the weight and I search, heedfully, carefully, tirelessly, for someone, for Dinu, for anyone, really. For the people I so often distanced myself from. There are moments where I cease and I wonder if they have already left, if I will even see Luk or Mier or any of them ever again, if the first was right when he said that things were about to change on a level entirely outside of our understanding.

I simply do not know any of these things, but at this point I am left at a loss, at a bloodied and beaten and battered loss and I am sure if my father saw me now he would find me unrecognizable.

Ha-Hah. Haha... Good, good...

Unrestrained tears seep out of the corners of my eyes and I cannot tell whether they come from my laughter or the pain that resonates from deep down inside of me when the laughter comes.

When I glimpse back around the area again, I... I swear there is a definitive lack of ancients now. While my pain has not lessened, it has yet to worsen further in some time, and... I can see the sky again, and the snow. There are stars, little dots, ferociously bright, and I cannot shake off this ridiculous feeling that they shine so greatly if only to prove their existence, that they are very much real and very much alive and very much waiting. For what, I cannot say.

Wait... it's morning. Where did the stars come from...

I must be delirious. It should frighten me more than it does when I find the truth in these words.

I never thought I would go delirious in my life. It was just my father, a pedestal, and myself strapped on top of it, and that was it. Ha-Haha, I never thought any of this was real until it all began to fall apart...

And falling apart—as this circle of demented monsters is—it does not take long to spot her. Dinu, I try to cry but it seems I have lost my voice. There is... so much blood encrusted there that I doubt I will be able to speak anytime soon at all. Perhaps it is instinct alone or perhaps it is a sense of recognition that causes her to turn and glance over me, but when she does her pale face completely disregards any sense of color outside of the ghastly white that sucks out all other tones within. She launches herself at me and a thin hand snaps over my arm.

"RUPERT, WHAT THE F—FU...Hhhhh... I... I... h-holy shit, Rupert...

Her ordinarily pinched and narrowed eyes, a condescending sort of golden, have widened. Great circles of white encase her frantic irises and she tugs at me a little harder, like this changes anything. "Rupert... Rupert, you... you look so, you look... I, uhh, you... ffffffff..." So in shock she suddenly bites her lip and yelps. "FFUCK!" She darts back and then she glances forward again, her blonde hair a swirling mop around her.

Minor wounds cut along her arms, her cheek, her stomach, where a swatch of thick fabric has been accosted. Blood does not linger anywhere upon her exterior.

You look so fuck indeed, Reyna mutters dreamily. So she was alert, then.

Dinu sputters, falls, jumps back up and latches herself back to my arm. She brushes her short, choppy hair over a shoulder and it returns to shrouding her face in seconds. "We need to... You... I—we—uhhhhgggg"—her gaze spinning all around us as she spits words—"DAMMMMIT, WHERE DID ZOAZOA GO OFF TO THIS TIME? SHHHIT, SHIT SHIT..." She slams back and leaps forward and almost runs through me.

When a rather worrisome trail of blood streams by with her, I begin to wonder just what situation I... lie in. Oh, dear.

"Dinu." Ah. So it does still work, if but... slightly. Very weak, very... painful. A rasping cut in my throat every word I try—every word a trial. "Di-Dinu. Di...nu. Dinu." And enough tries and her frenzied gaze cuts out upon me, her mouth still agape. "I think... I know." Oh, no...

Big, frantic eyes watch me try to explain. "Dina... Dina... left. The ancients"—pointing vaguely in one's direction—"hurt... her. So... Zo-Zoa-Zo—Zoa... went aft—"

Another loud curse slams out of her mouth before she cups her face with a hand, cheeks burning. After a few seconds, Dinu dares remove her palm and glances back about the area. "Well... be—behind us we have a particularly gigantic... thing." In front of me, behind her, lies a slope, carefully winding upward and upward and disappearing into a cloudy mist. The peak. "They... probably went up there, huh. Not... much else to go to." Her thin, pale lip curls into a snarl, fingernails clenching over my wrist.

She releases soon after, her body rapidly losing what tension it held. "Well you're... f-fine I guess..." And she jolts after that. "I'll go make an opening. Ye-Yeah. Yeah. There's less ancients but they're still very real and... and... and your damn father's around her somewhere to, huh... hhhgh..."

"Di-Din—?"

"Shut up. Let me do this." Like that, there my cousin goes. She tosses her head back once to yell, "And you can't stop me! This is something I'm doing for you! You... bastard!"

I am afraid I have nothing to say to that. My mind goes... blank.

Reyna snorts, curling up around herself. Dinu's funny. She gets so defensive when she tries to do anything for anyone else.

Well, you... A weak smile touches my lips. You are not wrong. What a... strange girl, my cousin...

Clomp, clomp, clomp, clom—

I whip back around at the sound of those telltale boots and steel myself for... for the worst, whatever that is. At this point I cannot even tell if there is a worse still when over in his hand I—I see—there is... another hand. Worn, and cut, and then cut again, a soft brown coloration.

"Fa-Father, what are you d—"

"Whatever it takes." Voice weak, a sly, bitter rumble. "Whatever it takes to show my son why he must return to me. Where he belongs." H-He already said that earlier... What in the world does he have that he thinks would... would... "Therefore I'm removing the idle fancy it was that broke your eyes away from me."

With a flourish, he yanks the person behind him forward and I—and I—I cannot say what overcomes me when a brown-skinned woman, her waist-length pink hair tumbling all about her, spills onto the snow. Cuts after cuts after cuts seep through her and enough dried crimson lies upon her poor, trembling figure that almost more red than brown dyes her skin.

I-It takes me a moment to recognize her, it is so s-strange to see her in such a weak... state... Pauleen... I've lost all the breath in my lungs and I just stand there, an idiot with my mouth open, and I cannot think of a single thing to say, of a single thing to do I just go... empty.

"Ha-Hahahaha." My gaze snaps up to the sunglasses concealing lifeless voids for eyes. "I thought you would react so. How does it feel, seeing your precious Dina like this? And how about her... her monstrous little pet?"

When it is rather evidently Pauleen trembling at my feet and rather evidently not Torn but Sivan who is kicked up near me by one of the viscous ancients I-I think I am allowed my bewildered silence.

Swallowing, I make a last meager glance in the direction of my father and go to my knees, leaning close to the girl. "Di...na." One emerald eye dares flash into my face. "You... poor girl."

I try to mask my confusion but of course I have already torn down the barriers that let me hide so freely and it seems I have fo-forgotten how to... Pauleen, mouthing some assortment of words, eventually ducks her head and mutters, "Yep, it's me," in this soft, self-deprecating tone, a grin twitching on her lips.

What... happened here?

She sees the lie in her eyes and she swallows it whole and I cannot begin to question where all of those vulgar wounds originated and I cannot even come up with what to do here before a voice pierces the frozen air:

"RUUUUUUPEEERTT! GET OVER HERE!"

Dinu. So much as I turn, my heart squeezes like a fist has wrapped tightly round it and there is no way I can look away from Pauleen, not completely. My mind runs through these diverse scenarios that all end in her... her... in my father... he... he harming her and leaving her and I feel this hot, heavy whisper in my head asking, asking what I should do.

Because behind all of that there is still my girlfriend, my beloved, my darling, my—Dina... her very existence at stake.

Footsteps pommel the snow, flakes crushed and kicked aside as my cousin strides toward us. Her hand cups my shoulder and she pushes me back, and then her golden gaze lands upon the scene in front of me. A few choice morsels of words run over her lips, all silent, at a breakneck pace, until she exhales loudly and shoulders me aside. A hand points back to where she came from. "Go. Now."

"But... But Di—"

She rolls her eyes, thrusts me back again. "We all know you're gonna run away eventually."

"Di—"

"This is the easy side of things, you know that? I just have to wipe up the mess your dad made with him and then get all the ancients out of the way and..." She pauses. A slight hiccup interrupts her flow and she starts. "Be-Besides. If you made it this far, I mean..." Is she blushing? Dinu? "You're... practically unstoppable at this point. R-Right? Just...

The smile she plastered so surely upon her face begins to wobble. "Go... Go easy on... her. She's not... a monster. She's just... hurt and stuff, like—like all of us." Before she loses whatever mask she made up, her lip screws into a scowl again. Same Dinu, unchanging.

But we all know that is not true.

When I feel my fingers trembling I—I know I need to... I need to go. "Th-Thank you," I whisper and then that is over and I take off to the slope where the ancients no longer lie like majestic, surreal guards. Snow falls in a tizzy about me and I see my breaths frantically emptying into the air with each gasp and release and I do not stop there, I cannot stop, and it astounds me that I have this much strength left inside of me until Reyna coughs and I blush and... still not alone, huh.

Shut up, you. Get over it. Get over something, would you.

She must hear my laughter, the tears streaming from my eyes, down my filthy cheeks and down again, dipping into the frothy ice below somewhere, or perhaps freezing to my clothes before they ever get that far.

Somehow... it... like, it... reminds me of someplace, somewhere else...

It reminds me of... of when... when I was...

My head rickets forward. I catch a breath. Stone and colors of muted gray swim in front of me; I thrash forward and land gracelessly with my head on the stone, a cracking whisper twisted into the air.

And I swerve then as I catch myself from falling. I—Yes, that is... that is right... this is just like then, back when I woke on that first day knowing fully well that the girl I so loved would no longer be with me. H-Hah... so far I have come and yet so little, too... So far, and yet... and yet I... ah, this throbbing pain in my chest...

Whether or not my father follows, I... I cannot be sure. But perhaps he will not this time. H-He should stop... He should stop chasing after me... I-I am... I cannot last around him any longer, I have already... I am already so...

Well, it... matters not now. What matters is... she. Finding her, saving her, protection and warmth and... seeing her smile. Caring... A warm hand... Tears... Oh, Dina...

No longer... will I let these creatures, these chains, hold me down.

S-So what if I must run away in order to defeat them...

Mistress

So far as we come, so far as we go, so many of the ancients that topple over, I am afraid to admit that there's too many to claim defeat over. Too many for us alone to stop. Yes, they use that strange power of theirs to turn solid, and yes, when they turn solid it is invariably simple to crush them with our claws, our teeth, our spiny tails... but they crush us back. And there are too many of them.

Camri, the dear thing, he's convinced himself otherwise. Mistress! No long face! I will handle this and thus we shall send the enemy to another world entirely, one dripping of loss and pain! And he thinks, sometimes, that he's convinced me otherwise too.

Such a sweet soul... Yes, of course, dearie. I understand. Heh... yes, I understand...

So he glimpses back toward me again. You do, yes? Of course you do. To lose this battle... why, that shall not happen on my behalf! And the krona speaks so highly, in such a strong, flagrant tone, his chest out, his tail swaggering about him. And his eyes are so full, and his snout so perfectly tilted, the shadows falling in the right spots around him... and he's terrified, isn't he. He doesn't say it, perhaps doesn't even think it, the poor dearie, but anyone who watches him long enough can see it.

Why else would he force himself into Rupert's face every time the chance arises? Because if Rupert doesn't love him, doesn't love him so much as he wishes, someone who I may have mentioned aside has won countless awards, then that's it, no?

Failure's faces come in different shades. Dear, dear thing...

From somewhere beneath the snow, Sunny's figure wriggles uncomfortably. Guys! Stop talking, more... doing things! And even as she cries it she trips some poor sauropod to the ground with a thummph. To which the marple replies to herself, Get over here and do things!

She wants to believe Camri, so much as she dislikes him. She wants to somewhere deep inside of her, but she knows otherwise, she knows what sort of situation we have formulating around us and she's scared of something else entirely, of admitting that... this is it. We're powerless to cease the fire burning on all ends.

So Sunny yells and we slash at the petty ancients she manages to trip. She screeches in fury when it doesn't go down after some few number of hitting and bashing and she screeches evermore when its form goes light, airy, smoking into nothingness.

Not very far off lie the seismo, the pachy. They make quick work: one swings and the other ducks around his legs and attacks on the other side. Not all that mobile, and a rift is beginning to open up between the area here to avoid the impact entirely, slowly but surely. And then of course one could beg to differ that that means Gyntis now has an opening to thread though, to stab where the flow grows fat and edge them into a corner, but he is not all that large, all that powerful on his own.

Nyra, above, cries softer, and softer, as she watches the rift continue to split. Trembling wings block out swaths of the sky at a time, this bleak, snowy, murky sky. There's supposed to be a sun around here somewhere, but I can't say I've caught a glimpse of it.

Those dear vivosaurs, the one Dina put so much love into, surely thus put their greatest efforts into their work, and I would be lying if I said they were useless and made not a single dent in the ranks of the ancients... but I would also be lying if I said they had overpowered the flow in any way, shape or form. Close, but... no. I'm not sure it's very close at all.

We all saw him disappear, our Rupert. He darted off in the midst of one of these fluctuations, before ancients fattened up their line and blotted out the vast majority of the world around us.

While he spoke not a word to us, to any of us—save Reyna, who remained with him for some reason only known to she—we all watched him dart off... bathed in blood. A disturbing sight at first glance, yes, and I hate to say that nigh all of the blood upon him originated from him, not some nearby wound in a vivosaur; but there is something else about it.

He took that weight up, he took all of those little wounds and cuts and kicks and punches and pains and he carried them. Himself. All himself. Shared them... with us, and let us keep going again, and again and again, half or so of our strength returned.

Ten vivosaurs, Rupert. Do you remember, my dear boy, do you remember the tournaments you took place in so long ago as your heart lost its soul? Do you recollect those little trifles of things? You were only allowed to use three, what with the collateral damage it caused the whole lot of you. You take their wounds and they keep going and sure... it helps.

But you're only supposed to use three at a time.

Look at you, Rupert... you precious boy, oh...

I sit here and I take hits and I let them claim me without a care, for I have long lost my will to fight. But I still sit here and I smile, I smile for a boy that so long since held nothing inside of him but soulless suffering. A pit of grief, where things came and things died.

Will you dig out that little hole, and will you set your pain free?

Oh, you dear thing... I do trust you find inside of yourself what you lacked before.

MISTRESS! Mistress makes me so pumped, but we haven't seen her in awhile so I forgot about that, sadface

Mistress... makes me so pumped xD She's just! I dunno! She's Mistress! I love the whole dearie thing and she's just blatantly not fighting and all xD She's got her reasons and I love her for that, hahaha... Mistress is great. At least, I think she is, eheh. Mapo queen pride!

Then there's the insane that is Rupert xD Oh my gosh... Mier was right when he asked Rupert if he was gonna be impossible, huh xD haha... That's not it, I'm joking.

Isn't it funny? One of Rupert's greatest flaws is now his greatest strength, right here. For so long it's been an emotional barrier and a trust issue and it's seriously messed him up that Dina's not here, since he put so much of himself into her... but only her. And while that has started to clear up over time, there's still this lull in him, and it makes you wonder how... stable he is. And it's like no wonder he keeps running away, huh, heh.

And now! And now it's most likely the one thing that's kept him from falling over and giving up already! XD this is insane! Heck I paused in the middle of writing this and I just needed to stop, I was like, haha, Rupert, you're too much for me...

It's funny, huh. Haha...