Yuuki noticed three things as he woke up: the ground was cold, the wind was blowing, and he had a massive headache.
Mostly he noticed the headache. Not a concussion, luckily; fighting monsters all the time, Yuuki had long since learned the difference between a concussion and a headache, and this was definitely a headache. So that was good. Well, maybe; a concussion might have been more pleasant.
The cold ground was the second thing he noticed. His brain pounded as he recalled the poor decisions that had led to him lying on some cold stone slab in the middle of the night. Confronting one of the Black Mage's commanders head on...honestly, he was lucky he hadn't died. Come to think of it, did he die? Was this hell? Certainly wasn't heaven, but he always thought hell would have more…fire, and spikes, and spikes covered in fire, and other things that were generally very pointy and painful.
The last thing he noticed was the wind whipping around him from a direction he couldn't quite identify. Hell wouldn't have wind; hell, he figured, would have that kind of annoyingly stagnate air that makes you feel like your entire face is being pressed by a layer of plastic wrap, the kind that makes you sick to your stomach if you sit in it too long. So, if there was wind, this must therefore not be hell. Bully for him.
His eyes finally refocused, and it took a moment for him to realize what was happening.
The clocktower had exploded, for lack of a better term. The clock itself had shattered into fragments seemingly too large to fit together, the glass still faintly illuminated by some invisible magic. Yuuki himself had been thrown onto one of the stones of the tower ledge, his sword lying limply next to him. The debris hovered in the air around the tower.
No, not hovered, fell. They fell, but…didn't move. Yuuki could make out the tower itself rushing past the debris, but when he looked up the top of the tower never moved. Nor did the ground, for that matter. The debris was paradoxically falling and floating at the same time, the way an Escher painting might look both up and down depending on how long you stared at it.
Yuuki's headache intensified and he felt sick to his stomach, so he decided to focus on something else. Like the clash of Aran's polearm against a wave of Lucid's magic as the two fought several yards above him.
Oh. Oh dear. That is…not good.
Battle instincts snapping him to attention, he grabbed his sword.
"You're tiring out," Lucid hummed as she sent several crescents of energy towards Aran, "I wonder…will you dream when you're dead?"
Aran slammed Maha into the platform beneath her to summon a wall of ice, narrowly avoiding a direct hit from Lucid's attack. The ice wall itself shattered and crumbled away. When the dream—and the clocktower—shattered, Lucid had sprouted a pair of semi-transparent, multicolored butterfly wings, and had spent much of the rest of the battle hovering just out of reach of Aran's polearm.
Sometimes, much like right now, Aran cursed her lack of ranged attacks.
"I wonder how Mercedes will feel when I tell her about you," Aran quipped (or tried to quip), "is she even gonna know who you are?"
"Not quite as effective the tenth time around, I'm afraid." Lucid smirked. "Try again."
Lucid waved a hand and summoned several balls of energy appeared, only for them to explode when several missiles collided with them. She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes followed Xenon as he flew up to a higher platform.
"And you," she frowned as she spoke, "such an annoying little pest. The laser was at least interesting, can you do the laser again? Or is once your limit?"
Lances of energy erupted from Lucid and spread out in all directions, forcing Aran and Xenon to dodge in various directions.
Aran slid to a halt on one of the platforms. She might be one of the heroes, but she was still human; humans had their limits, and this battle was rapidly pushing her towards them. Xenon's laser may have caught Lucid off-guard in her dream, but the pair were running out of options and playing defense against one of the Black Mage's commanders was not, in simple terms, easy.
Lucid raised her hand again. Aran could tell by the smirk on her face that she was planning on summoning the dragon again.
They needed a distraction. They needed something to keep Lucid occupied. They needed—
A ball of energy flew towards Lucid and wrapped itself around her, freezing her in place. She strained somewhat at the ethereal bindings.
"What is this?" She hissed. "Another trick?"
"One I learned recently!" Came Yuuki's voice. "You like it?"
The warrior launched himself from one of the platforms below, coming up just behind Lucid. He twisted himself in midair and landed upside-down on some of the debris, pushing off against it and bringing his sword down on the girl.
Lucid forced the bindings apart and dashed forward, but wasn't quite fast enough to avoid Yuuki's sword clipping one of her wings. She hissed in pain and floated erratically for a moment.
Yuuki himself managed to aim for one of the platforms beneath her, rolling in a somersault as he landed and immediately leaping to the next one, keeping his distance from his opponent.
"You." Lucid glared at him. "You should have remained in your dream."
"I'd rather not," Yuuki said as he parkoured off of a stone onto one of the glass fragments, "seeing as I have something important to do right here."
Before Lucid could retort, a loud bang sounded off from her side as Liuva launched herself into the air, aiming her gauntlet with her palm out. There was a soft whir like a CD starting up, before a large blast erupted from the arm cannon, forcing Lucid back as she blocked the attack. Liuva herself was launched backwards and came to a skidding halt.
This onslaught was quickly followed with the addition of several dark purple spheres hurling themselves towards Lucid, one them nailing the elf between the shoulder blades. And before she could hiss in pain again, a light-blue blur cleaved itself through her left wing.
Tear swung herself up onto a nearby platform with her chainshot and a small giggle, while Hayato bounced lightly on his feet as he landed.
"Now that we're all here…" Yuuki smirked as his sword glowed vibrant scarlet and bright gold. "Let's start the main event, shall we?"
Lucid scowled and clenched her fists. She glowed a deep red that was more akin to wine than it was to blood, and let loose a scream of frustration. Dozens of energy beams shot outward from the girl, bending and twisting in the air in long arcs. The beams soon turned themselves inward, aiming themselves at the party.
The group scattered as best they could on the floating platforms. Liuva managed to keep herself airborne with intricate midair twists. Hayato zipped from platform to platform far faster than any of the attacks could ever hope to be. Yuuki managed to skillfully (and perhaps quite luckily) deflect one of the beams by holding his sword over his head. Xenon held his own in the air, much like Liuva, though he was noticeably slower than he had been. Tear had a near-miss when she almost ran into one head-on.
Aran would swear she hadn't been exhausted and that it was just plain bad luck, but that wouldn't change the fact that one of the beams singed her fur cloak.
The battle raged on for some time, each of the four new participants landing the occasional blow, in such a manner that one might do it injustice should it be described improperly. The group chipped away at Lucid the way she had chipped away at Aran and Xenon, attack after attack after attack after attack.
A katana cut on her left wing, a sizzling hole through her right, a sweeping gash across her shoulder, and to finish things off was a large hammer—surprisingly far less comical than one might expect—applied frontwise, sending Lucid careening into one of the larger pieces of floating debris.
The elf strained to get up as her wings crumbled like glass turned back into sand. A shadow loomed over her, and she chuckled mirthlessly.
"You think you've won?" She leaned forward on her knees, with one arm pressed to the ground for balance. "You barely beat me. You'll never be powerful enough to take Him on."
Aran glared down at the girl.
"You're wrong." She said.
"Oh, am I?" Lucid smirked at the ground. "There are those who are far stronger than me in his ranks. What makes you think—"
"I mean," Aran interrupted, "you're wrong that we've won."
Lucid pursed her lips, confusion registering on her face but not overtaking her emotions.
"I don't think we've 'won'." Aran growled. "I know we haven't 'won' the war just by beating you. What I think is that we beat you. And yeah, maybe that won't cut it later down the road, maybe there are people and things out there that are stronger than you, stronger than us. But you know what?"
Aran leaned in until the two were inches apart.
"Right now? Beating you? That's all that matters. We beat you. We beat you. And if we need to, we'll get stronger and we'll beat the ones that are stronger than you. And we'll keep going and going and going until there's no one left to beat but the Black Mage himself. And then?"
Aran leaned back, shifting Maha in her hand. The polearm gave off a glow like the winter sun through a frosted window. Behind Aran, one could almost see an image—a brilliant wolf white like snow and blue like ice.
"And then…" Aran raised Maha over her head. The wolf reared back to attack. Lucid looked up and gave the woman a bitter glare.
"Then we'll beat him too."
Aran swung her blade down, and the whole world turned as white as snow.