Disclaimer: I own neither the WITCH cartoon-show nor Jackie Chan Adventures; they are the property of their respective creators, writers, and producers.
A/N: Greetings, readers. Yes, it is I! I have returned! After another long pause (it seems this has sadly become my new updating pace) here it comes. Here begins the three-part finale to this season, which is supposed to (finally!) wrap everything regarding the meridianite civil war. I really hope I can stand up to the challenge I have set myself up to. Having said that, enjoy the ride because it's time for the biggest brawl I have written. And of course, as I always do for these chapters, warning for violence, blood, yada, yada, yada. Okay? Ready? Here… we… go.
Guardians, Wizards and Kung-Fu Fighters
Episode Thirty-One
The Battle of the Meridian Plains
Within the Ben-Shui Chosen One's shared soul
Jade floated within the multi-colored endless dreamscape the shared soul of the Chosen One manifested as, one leg crossed over the other, arms crossed over her chest too. In front of her, legs crossed in Lotus position, hands clasped in front of his chest as if he was meditating, floated old and blind Ben-Shui, the man with whom their reincarnation cycle had begun. It had been several minutes since the teenage girl had come here, and none of them had exchanged a word.
"Why are you here?" the blind elder inquired of Jade, making the 'opening move' of their conversation. "You have quite an important battle ahead of you. It would do you better to rest as much as you can."
For the next several seconds, Jade kept her mouth shut. She stared first at her feet and next into the foggy, milky white eyes of Ben-Shui.
"Have we done the right thing?" Jade asked. "My friends and I, I mean."
It was the blind elder's turn now to keep his words to himself for a few moments. Then he separated his hands, putting them over his knees. "If you are seeking validation..." he muttered.
"If I wanted validation," Jade cut him off, "I'd go to Báthory or Rasputin, 'cause they'd tell me that it's what needs to be done. Or to Vlad, who'd say that war and violence are cool and the true nature of man, or some crap like that. Murasaki would tell me that destroying evil's always right, and I don't think I can have a normal talk with Norton. Tch;" Jade paused, uncrossing her legs and arms and drumming her hands against her thighs.
"Is comfort what you seek, then?" the blind elder inquired.
"No! I... I don't know! Maybe?" Jade babbled. "I just... I just asked you a question. Aren't you a super-wise spiritual guide that's supposed to help me when I've doubts? Because I kinda need that now."
"Very well. But the one you ask is a difficult question to answer." Ben-Shui said as he tilted his head first to the left, then to the right. "The nature of righteousness becomes clouded in war, after all. But you already know that. Uhm..." Ben-Shui muttered, taking a hand to his long beard. "What do you think? Do you believe that you and your companions have done the right thing?"
"I... Oh... Ugh!" Jade said, rolling her eyes and clenching her fists in annoyance. "You can't answer my question with another question! Why would've I asked you if I already thought...?!"
"I disagree, my latest reincarnation," Ben-Shui interrupted her. "I believe that you must be the one to answer that question. That you must be the one to judge your own actions." The blind elder paused, scratching his forehead.
"If I told you 'You did the right thing' or 'You did the wrong thing'," he continued; "you can either agree or disagree depending on what you want to think of yourself and your companions. But... in the end, my latest reincarnation, I would be the one making that judgment for you. So, once again I ask, do you believe you have done the right thing?"
Jade crossed her arms again and snorted as she looked to her side. "Maybe?" she asked more to herself than to Ben-Shui. "I don't know… I…" Did she not know, or did she not want to know? Was Ben-Shui right? Had she come here and asked him that question not because she wanted advice but because she wanted the man to solve her doubts for her?
As if sensing the Chinese girl's turmoil, the old man chuckled. "Perhaps it is too soon to answer this question. You have yet to reach the end of the road you have chosen to walk through, after all. When you do, and you find yourself at the end of that path, take a look at your back and ask yourself if your actions were truly righteous. And then you shall have your answer. What lesson you learn from it, it is up to you. Until then, I believe it is better to focus in the now."
Jade looked down at her feet once again. Then she lifted her gaze and stared back at the blind elder, who had clasped his hands again.
"Thanks," was everything she mastered to say; not sure if she was being sincere or not.
Heatherfield
Vandom Residence; Will's bedroom
When the day came, Wilhelmina Vandom found herself awake before dawn had even arrived. She didn't look at her phone or her clock. She didn't care about what hour it was. Knowing would change nothing, anyway. Her alarm would ring when she needed to get up. She knew that she should go back to sleep, let her body rest for another couple of hours. But she couldn't. She was too nervous. For today was the day. So she lied there over her bed; looking at nothing.
Today was the day.
Today was the day in which the Rebellion faced the nobility over the Meridian Planes. Today was the day in which, if everything went as planned, the war on Meridian would end. This nightmare would finally end. And when all this madness was over then her literal nightmares would be over too. Certainly. Possibly. Hopefully.
The redhead rolled to her left. Then to her right. Then she buried her face into her pillow. And then she found herself into the same position she had awoken in.
Ugh! Why was she so nervous?! Everything would turn out fine! She and the girls had left nothing to chance regarding the battle! The only thing that had any chance of being unsuccessful was their operation within the Royal Palace, and even that was minimal! They would win!
But people will die, she reminded herself. Rebels would die, the nobles' soldiers would die. Yes, she knew that. She knew it better than anyone. And all because of her (and Jade's) plan. She knew that people would die because of it. Because of her. The same that soldier at Torus Filney had done. The same that Count Cornelius' old mother had done. But they would win. The war would end. And the fact that she had tried to minimize loses as much as she could was as true as the sky was blue. It wasn't as if bloodshed had been her default option in order to deal with their enemies. But now she found herself with no other paths to take, no other options to choose. Not now, at least.
She wondered if all the people that had done terrible things through history in the name of a greater good had felt like this. She wondered how many had just simply used the greater good as an excuse to commit atrocities, and how many had truly believed that theirs was the righteous path. She wondered how many had reached the conclusion that it hadn't been worth it. She wondered how many had reached the conclusion that it had. And she reached the conclusion that, considering everything that had gone through her mind in just the last couple of minutes; she was very justified into being so nervous.
But none of those questions and 'what-ifs' mattered now. Because today was the day. Today was the day in which they would win.
So she tried to get some more rest. And there, drifting between sleep and wakefulness; Wilhelmina Vandom waited for the first rays of sunshine. They appeared around an hour later, and the sound of her alarm clock joined them seconds after. She turned it off, and breathed deeply as she rose from her bed.
Today was the day.
The kitchen
"Do you have everything you need packed?" Susan Vandom asked of her daughter as they both had breakfast.
Will made an affirmative sound as she shoved a spoon full of milk and cereals into her mouth. The girls (minus Jade) had told their families that they would be spending the morning and most of the day's afternoon on a small trip through the woods, promising to take care of themselves and to be at home when it got dark, in time to have dinner. Nothing would go wrong, no one would get hurt. And if someone did, they would contact their parents immediately.
But this was nothing but a lie. There wouldn't be any trip through the woods. The Guardians, Chan Clan and both Alborn and Miriael would depart to Meridian via a Portal that the rebels would open from the other side of the Veil using the Seal of Phobos, and that would connect the Browns' house with the Infinite City. And, of course, the girls wouldn't be coming back when it got dark. Their Astral Drops would. And this meant that Will had had to prepare a backpack full of things that she wouldn't use for a trip she wasn't going to take.
She finished her breakfast as quickly as she could, went to the bathroom and washed herself, then went to her room, dressed up and picked her backpack. In mere minutes, she was at her and her mom's flat's doorstep; dressed in a light-pink t-shirt and a pair of white pants.
Susan, still clad in her pajamas, slowly walked towards her daughter in order to bid her farewell, yawning all the way through. "Goodness, you are energetic today. I think it's the first time you have gotten out of your bed so soon."
"Hey, punctuality is a virtue, right?" Will told her mom.
"That phrase is mine, young lady;" Susan humorously scolded her. "Are you sure you aren't forgetting anything?"
"I don't think so," Will said, patting her backpack.
"Very well," Susan said sleepily, containing another yawn. "Take care of yourself, and have fun with your friends…" she declared as she began to make her way back to the kitchen, but then found herself stopped on her tracks as Will had pulled her into a tight hug.
"I love you, mom;" Will said sincerely, surprising Susan and also herself. Why had she done that? She didn't know. The act and words had come naturally, instinctively even. Or perhaps, deep down, Will knew that she had wanted to do this because this could be the last time she got to do it.
Susan, for her part, quickly recovered from her shock and did what came most naturally, hugging her daughter back. "I love you too, Will;" she said sweetly.
Mother and daughter separated moments later, and the redhead left the flat while dedicating a smile to Susan, who smiled back at her daughter even minutes after she had closed the door.
The Browns' residence
Around twenty minutes later
Alchemy Ethel vaguely remembered the first time she had stepped into the house of the Brown family. She had been a toddler, after all; come here to play with Elyon. She remembered that there were toys scattered through the whole place, though; and that to her younger self, accustomed to living on a flat, this house had appeared enormous.
That wasn't the case anymore, especially now. Not only due to the fact she was a teenager, but due to how crowded it was. The girls, Jade's family, Matt, herself... even old Mrs. Lin was here. And now that she took a good look around, the house had seen better days. But that was to be expected, she supposed, with the Browns' being kidnapped and taken to another world and all that.
"How much longer do we need to wait?" Viper asked from Will, to which the redhead simply shrugged.
"A few more minutes, at most;" the Keeper of the Heart told the ex-thief. "But while we're waiting…"
Will held the Heart of Kandrakar up in her hand, pointing it towards the other four girls that composed the Guardians of Kandrakar. There was a small flash of light afterwards, followed by five little balls of light coming out of the brilliant pink pendant and stopping midair, then growing until each one had become a perfect copy of the five girls.
"There won't be a time when I don't find these creepy," Taranee said as she locked eyes with her body-double, then quickly looked at the side.
Alchemy could understand that. The quintet of Astral Drops was standing perfectly still after being summoned, vacant looks on their eyes, empty smiles on their faces. Hay Lin's grandma had once defined them as 'Magical constructs that knew how to imitate the mannerisms of the person they were mimicking and that followed instructions perfectly, but that paled in comparison to the real deal'. Plus, Alchemy supposed that it was quite unnerving to stare at an exact copy of yourself.
"I find them cute," Hay Lin said happily. "Hi, other us!" she greeted the Astral Drops with a wave of her hand.
"Hello," the quintet of duplicates said in unison, each moving a hand awkwardly.
Jesus, a disturbed Alchemy thought.
After a few more moments of waiting, bluish sparks began traversing the room they were in, and with a loud, cracking sound a Portal opened in the Browns' living room. Seconds afterwards, Caleb and Vathek emerged through it, the Seal of Phobos hanging from the blue Galhot's neck.
"Is everyone ready?" the rebel leader asked after he took a good look around.
"In a moment," Will answered, holding the Heart of Kandrakar up once more. "Guardians Unite!"
A brighter flash than before, this one of an intense pink, filled the room and forced all that were gathered there and that weren't Guardians to close their eyes. As the flash died down, they opened their eyes to see the five Guardians of Kandrakar, now transformed.
"Alright, time to go;" Will declared.
The Browns were the ones to cross the Portal first, followed by old Uncle Chan and Tohru, then by Jackie and Viper. Hay Lin hugged her grandma, who wished her good luck, and afterwards she crossed the Portal alongside Taranee, Irma and Jade. Vathek followed on their steps shortly after, and so did Caleb after dedicating a polite bow to them. That left only Will and Cornelia to depart and leave Alchemy, Matt and Yan Lin alone with the Astral Drops.
"Are you sure you can handle this?" Will asked, gesturing to the five Astral drops.
"No problem," Matt told his girlfriend as he approached her. "We just need to wait till it gets dark, then send each of your clones to their original's house. And don't say the A-word, or they'll disappear." Matt smiled. "Don't worry, it'll all go well. Plus, we've got Mrs. Lin with us!" he said, gesturing to the old Chinese lady.
Will sighed tiredly, rubbing the back of her neck. "Good, that's good…"
"Will," Matt called for her once more, putting a calming hand over her shoulder. "Everything will turn out well."
"Thanks," Will said as she smiled tenderly at her boyfriend and she moved into giving him a farewell kiss.
Meanwhile, Alchemy gave Cornelia a tight hug. "I'll bring Elyon back, I promise;" the blonde told the auburn-headed girl as they separated from one another.
"I know," Alchemy told her friend. "Just… just be careful, okay?"
"Okay," the Earth Guardian answered.
Redhead and blonde left afterwards, and seconds later the Portal closed, gone as easily as it had come. For a few moments, Matt, Alchemy and Yan Lin stared in silence at the quintet of Astral Drops, who stared back at them blankly.
"So… what do we actually do until it gets dark?" the auburn haired girl asked.
As an answer, Yan Lin extracted a deck of cards from a small purse she was carrying. "I know it may be a little bit old-fashioned for you youngsters, but we could play a game."
Well, at least that will help us kill some time; Alchemy thought, and then she glanced at the Astral Drops. "Can they learn how to play?"
Across the Veil
The Infinite City
The first thing that Will did once Cornelia and her had stepped through the Portal was to close it. The last thing they needed right now was for somebody to stumble upon it and end into the Browns' house with no warning. And as soon as the swirling vortex of blue and white energy was no more, the redhead turned on her heels to take a look at the people gathered in the chamber they had arrived at.
Thomas and Elanor Brown, or Alborn and Miriael, or however they wanted to be called; were standing a bit separated from the main group. Maybe due to feeling a bit out of place, maybe due to feeling mesmerized by finding themselves inside the Infinite City of legend, maybe because they were thinking about that they would soon see their daughter again.
Next there was the Chan Clan, ready to break into the Royal Palace alongside Alborn and Miriael. Jade (who was the only one that wouldn't accompany the rest of her family) was currently hugging Jackie, with Viper standing next to the pair and Uncle and Tohru discussing something aside.
And then there was the meridianite Rebellion's leadership, with Vathek and Sephiria standing at Caleb's sides, Baroness Miriam of Fallbottom standing at the nun's left and the 'Mage' and Ludmoore standing behind them, side by side, exchanging strange glances from time to time. Near them was little Blunk, who breathed nervously as he was to accompany the Chan Clan and the Browns into the castle. The only one that was missing was...
"Where's Drake?" Will asked as she and Cornelia joined with Irma, Taranee and Hay Lin.
"He's already departed," Caleb informed them.
"With the prisoners of the Underwater Mines?" Cornelia wondered, to which her boyfriend nodded.
"How many of those guys were going to help us in the end?" Irma inquired next, stretching her arms upwards.
"Around three hundred," the scarred rebel leader answered. "I'm still not sure if they'll be enough..."
"They will," the redhead reassured him. "For what they've got to do, at least."
"And they have the magical artifacts we gave you, and the guns you bought; right?" Taranee asked, to which Caleb nodded again.
"Then it'll be alright," Hay Lin reassured the rebel leader. "Drake can take care of himself."
With a third, slower nod, Caleb accepted the girls' words.
"Vathek, what about your part?" Will asked of the bulky blue Galhot.
"All taken care of," the huge meridianite said. "Salazar has done his job well."
Will was the one to nod now. "Then we're ready."
"We are, too;" Jackie said as the Chan Clan and the Browns approached the Guardians and rebels. On cue, the 'Mage' distanced herself from Ludmoore and, searching within the sleeves of her black robe, extracted a scroll she proceeded to hand over to Jackie.
"The Snake has been nothing but helpful," the 'Mage' said as the archeologist took the scroll and opened it to reveal a map of the Escanor castle's insides, with annotations that detailed what the safest routes to move within the palace written over it.
"You shall enter the palace through the same passage Vathek once used to escape it, which shall leave you in the castle's dungeons;" the 'Mage' explained in her usual low and raspy voice. "Then it will be just a matter of following the indications written on that map. According to Lord Cedric, the Princess has been forbidden from leaving the castle, and you will have Blunk the Passling's keen sense of smell to aid you, so finding her should prove to be easy. I suggest you begin looking within her personal chambers."
"Very well," Jackie said, folding the map and handing it to Viper, who proceeded to insert it into one of the pouches of her utility belt.
"Nevertheless, I must advice caution, earthlings. Even with a map and a Passling to guide you, the Royal Palace is still Phobos' seat of power. You must be as stealthy as possible;" the 'Mage' addressed the Chan Clan once again. "Mayhaps it would be wiser for the Chi Wizards to stay in the Infinite City?" she wondered, looking at Tohru and Uncle.
"Oh, Tohru can be surprisingly stealthy," Jade defended her friend, recalling how competent he was pursuing them around the globe during the Talisman hunt and how he was able to sneak behind her when she was going through the whole 'Queen of the Shadowkhan' ordeal. "And Uncle's…"
"Aiyah! Uncle doesn't need niece to defend him!" the elderly wizard silenced the Ben-Shui reincarnation. "Uncle can take care of himself and be quieeeeeet as a shadow if he wants to!"
"God, I hope so…" Viper said while shaking her head a couple of times; which made both the archeologist and the sumo to contain a laugh.
"One more thing!" Uncle continued, either not having heard Viper's joke at his expense or choosing to ignore it. "Apprentice and Uncle can find location of Princess with a veeeery easy tracking spell due to the Heart of Meridian residing withing her, even if we already have Passling with us!"
"Excellent," the 'Mage' accepted the Chi Wizard's arguments. "Allow me to guide you to the passage, then," she sentenced as she began to walk towards one of the chamber's many exits, which gave way to one of the Infinite City's long and green halls. The Browns followed on her steps after dedicating a respectful bow to all gathered there. Meanwhile, Jackie took the chance to hug Jade once again.
"Take care," the man told his niece, tightening his arms around her. "All of you," he said next, looking at the girls and Caleb.
"The same goes for you, uncle Jackie;" Jade said, tightening her arms around Jackie too.
"Don't worry, kid;" Viper told Jade as she planted a hand over Jackie's shoulder. "I will make sure he doesn't get hurt."
"Which reminds me," Jackie said as he separated from Jade, then searched within his pocket, took something out of it and left it over Jade's palm. It was an octagonal rock the Chinese girl was all too familiar with.
"The Horse Talisman?" Jade asked, only to remember that this was the only Talisman Captain Black's bosses had allowed them to retain after the loss of the Dragon, Rooster and Pig. "Are you sure?" she asked not to Jackie but to the four adults. "I mean, we don't get hurt easily… or not as easily as you do."
"We know," Tohru spoke this time. "But we had the feeling that the ability to heal any wound instantaneously will be far more useful to the rebels. You will be the ones fighting in a battle, not us." The Chi Wizard apprentice explained.
"Thanks, Big T;" Jade said with a warm smile.
"It's nothing, Jade;" the sumo said with a polite nod. "Just… just don't… Just come back safe, alright?" he added with concern.
"We will," Jade told the mountain of a man as she looked at the girls and Caleb over her shoulder.
With that having been said, the archeologist, ex-thief, both Chi Wizard and Chi Wizard apprentice and the Passling departed after the 'Mage' and the Browns, leaving the Guardians, Jade and what had remained of the Rebellion's leadership behind. Silence took hold of the group as soon as the three men and the woman disappeared from the scene.
This was a moment all of them had been waiting for. For some, it was the opportunity to put an end to a nightmare that had begun as a dream, and regain some normalcy and peace in their lives. For others, it was the opportunity to put an end to more than a decade of meaningless suffering and bloodshed. To another, the chance to give some meaning to all the sacrifices that had been done in the name of some ideal or another. To the last one assembled, a crucial point on a scheme that had been brewing for nearly two centuries.
And the moment had finally come.
It was now or never.
It was all or nothing.
It was time for battle.
"Let's go," Caleb broke the silence at last. And step by step, the Rebellion's commanders, the Guardians of Kandrakar and the Ben-Shui Chosen One exited the chamber they had met in.
They walked and walked, without uttering a single word, under the green ceilings of the Infinite City, until they met with the bulk of the rebel army; where Sephiria left them to join with the rest of the Faithful in order to tend to those that were still wounded and prepare things for those that would be wounded in battle. Afterwards, Caleb yelled some commands and the army began to move. Men and women, old and young, human and Galhot, on foot or atop a horse or a Hoogong; nearly nine-thousand rebels left the Infinite City.
Towards the Meridian Plains.
The Infinite City
The passage towards the Royal Palace
Nerissa Crossnic, still under her magical disguise as the Mage, opened the entrance to the secret passageway that connected the Infinite City to the Royal Palace's dungeons by pressing a series of emerald bricks on a wall. Slowly, and by producing quite the noise, a rectangular portion of the wall moved and opened as if it were a big door.
"You only need to walk onward from here," the glamoured Fallen Guardian explained, pointing at the opened tunnel. "When you reach the passageway's end, press the same bricks in the wall that I have pressed here."
"Thank you, Great Mage;" Jackie said respectfully while his companions began to enter the tunnel.
"Do not thank me," the 'Mage' said. "Do your duty well. Make the seeds of doubt that her friend planted within the Princess' mind to blossom. Make her see the truth about who her brother really is and rescue her from his grasp. Triumph, so this war can end." And the true game can begin, she maliciously added on her mind.
Jackie Chan put his right fist against his open left palm, and after giving her the solemn bow that martial artists reserved for people that they thought truly deserved respect, he departed through the passageway alongside the rest of the Chan Clan, Blunk and the Browns. Nerissa, however, didn't close the entrance as soon as they left. She remained standing there, watching the Passling, humans and glamoured Galhots walk away, until they disappeared into the tunnel and she couldn't see them anymore. She breathed deeply a couple of times, in order to calm down.
"I know you are there," the 'Mage' said aloud.
The sound of footsteps rumbled through the green walls and floors of the Infinite City, louder and louder with each step, indicative of someone approaching the 'Mage'. The voice came as the footsteps grew nearer, and the person they belonged to came into sight.
"I know you would know," Julian said as he approached and stood at the side of the 'Mage', looking into the tunnel. "I doubt there is anyone in this world able to sneak around someone of the likes of you."
Nerissa kept her mouth shut for a couple of seconds, not even making eye contact with the man she loved. Ever since he had been rescued from the Underwater Mines and brought back to the Infinite City she had abstained from meeting with Julian, uncertain of how she would react upon seeing him again. Nevertheless, it seemed that now that was inevitable. Oh well, it wasn't as if she was a teenage girl scared of talking with her crush. Besides, it was clear that Julian hadn't come here, sneaking his way around the rest of the Rebellion and their son, simply to talk. So better start from there.
"Why are you here?" the 'Mage' asked, still looking into the tunnel.
"I'm going to depart to the castle, too;" Julian answered, not moving an inch.
Looking through the corner of her eye, the 'Mage' found that there was a sword attached to his belt. He really meant those words, didn't he? "I thought our son, this Rebellion's current leader, forbid you from taking part in any of the Rebellion's operations."
"Well, yes;" the former rebel leader admitted. "But not a single member of the Rebellion traveled with the group that has departed through this passageway," he pointed out.
The 'Mage' let out a chuckle, surprising herself. "Trickster," she called Julian. "But you are evading my question."
The former rebel leader returned to being silent, breathing deeply. Ah, he was doing that in order to calm down, too. Another thing they had in common, Nerissa supposed.
"I need to do something," Julian answered, at last. "I can't just simply sit here in the Infinite City during the last hours of this war. I need to… contribute. I need to do something," he repeated. "Anything. To help."
The 'Mage' nodded a couple of times. "So our son's words have had an effect on you."
"You know about our conversation?" her beloved inquired, mildly surprised.
"The walls of the Infinite City can be misleading, and not as thick as many give them credit for;" the 'Mage's explained. "Someone must have heard you two screaming at the top of your lungs and told another someone who then told another someone; until it all reached my ears."
Julian made a sound with his throat, nodding a couple of times too. "And you don't judge me?"
"The actions of this Rebellion," the 'Mage' began; "are my doing as much as they are yours. And I have lived a long time. And in all that time, I have done many things that could be considered horrible. All of them done in the name of a better tomorrow, just as you did. I don't have any right to judge you, Julian. I don't have any right to stand in your way."
"So you won't stop me," Julian said.
"I could never stop you, Julian son of Jon;" the 'Mage' said, this time a warm smile creeping to her lips. "If I could, I would never have fallen in love with you."
Woman and man turned to face each other then. God, the years on the Underwater Mines hadn't been kind to him at all. He was thinner, the beard much longer, and the almost three years of imprisonment had passed over him as if they were six. Yet the big, brown eyes full of strength… yes, those had remained the same. Her Julian was still the same.
"I believe it's time for you to go," the 'Mage' declared.
"This time," he said sweetly as he planted a kiss first on her forehead, next on her lips and finally on her hand. "I will return safe. I promise."
Her farewell were nothing more than a nod and a smile. Then, after watching Julian dart through the tunnel and disappear in the same vein the Chans, Browns and Blunk the Passling had done, she turned on her heels and left.
Things were progressing excellently. The nobility would be defeated, the Princess finally swayed to their side. Phobos would fall soon. Then Meridian would know peace… for a while, at least. Then she would be reborn as a goddess. And within the year, she would be the one ruling over a perfect congregation of the Known Worlds.
With her beloved husband and son by her side.
The Meridian Plains
The Nobility's camp; an hour later
It amazed Viscount Servantis how quiet the camp of the nobility's forces had grown now that it had become empty. No more than a few hours ago it had been bustling with life, filled to the brim with their brave soldiers. Then they had departed to battle, all of them. He and Ishol had been the only ones left behind, alongside the servants and a garrison or two for protection. Margrave Olein, Baronetess Relena and even Duke Jedah had rode at the front of the army, commanding. And, of course, Count Cornelius had marched on vanguard way ahead of them. The rest of the nobles had wanted for him to march ahead with five-hundred foot-soldiers. He had wanted a thousand. In the end, he had gone with eight-hundred. That did nothing but increase the suspicion the Viscount already held for his fellow noble. But even if the Count had truly betrayed them, it would be irrelevant.
More than eleven-thousand soldiers had left their camp. Around two-thousand archers, three-thousand cavalrymen, and six-thousand foot-soldiers… of which only a meager eight-hundred had left alongside the Count. They wouldn't make a difference, even if they joined with the Rebellion's forces. Then there were the thousand soldiers of Blackrock Island that were coming alongside the Archduchess, and the two-thousand extra cavalrymen that, alongside Viceroy Khenel, were meant to smash into the rebel host once it had weakened.
Eight-hundred foot-soldiers made no difference. The Guardians of Kandrakar and their Shapeshifter, no matter how powerful, would make no difference. They had barely done anything remarkable during the time the rebels had sacked Torus Filney, aside from using trickery to get the rebels into the city. And they were only five. Six, if you counted their Black Wolf. Even with the elements under their command, even with the ability to shapeshift, he doubted they could survive a rain of three-thousand arrows, or more than five-thousand spears.
The Rebellion would be crushed. Then the nobility would just need to turn their army to the Capital and take it with the help of the Guard. Phobos would be then deposed. And the current Princess would ascend to the throne as the rightful Queen she was destined to be. And Meridian would know peace. And yet… and yet…
"You look troubled," his wife's voice took him out of his thoughts. Ishol had appeared at his side and joined him in his little walk through the now almost deserted camp.
"I was thinking…" the Viscount trailed off; "about many things. And the irony of it all."
"Irony?" the Viscountess inquired.
"Yes," Roderick Servantis answered. "Every decision I have taken through… my whole life, actually; has been in order to fight against chaos. To minimize damage, casualties and pain. To maintain order and peace. Deposing Weira, supporting Phobos, Carhaiz, defending Torus Filney… yet all of those have ended in war, suffering and bloodshed. For the people and…" the Viscount glanced first at his missing arm, then at his wife; "the both of us."
"Roderick…" Ishol whispered, looking at her side.
"Light of Meridian, I wish I could turn back time;" Servantis said while looking at how a couple of servants tended to a tent that the wind threatened with blowing off. "I wish I could go back to that day the Prince came to us. I wish I could stand before him again. So this time I can unsheathe my blade and pierce his heart with it."
"You spend too much time thinking about the past, husband;" Ishol chastised him. "What is done, is done. It can't be changed. But we can shape the future, can we not? And build a better tomorrow."
Roderick clenched the fist that he still had. "Yes, yes…" he declared, looking at the horizon in which their army had disappeared not so long ago. But the feeling of uneasiness didn't vanish. "I suppose you are right."
The Nobility's army
Their troops had halted. Even so, there was still quite the amount of dust in the air, risen by the hooves of their cavalry and the feet of their infantry and archers. At the head of the army, Margrave Olein, Baronetess Relena and Duke Jedah awaited for a lone scout they had ordered to follow the vanguard that had departed with the Count.
"How much longer?" the Margrave asked. He was clad in a white as snow, bulky and heavy steel armor, his face covered by a thick helmet which's visor imitated the visage of a human skull; and riding atop a huge horse.
"Be patient, yes?" Duke Jedah suggested. While also clad in steel armor, his was less bulky, and tinted red. His helmet was also far more traditional, and he had his visor up to see better.
"If he doesn't come in less than five minutes, I will give the order to attack;" Baronetess Relena declared. Her armor was the thinnest, clearly stylized to allow quick movement, and her helmet, plain and old-fashioned, didn't have any visor whatsoever.
"Patience is a virtue… Ah, see?" the Duke said then, pointing onward to an approaching silhouette. "There he is."
A man on horseback appeared minutes later, sweating and breathing heavily. He barely managed to slow his mount, seeing as he rode as fast as his horse allowed him to. By the time he reached the three nobles, he breathed a couple of times before giving them the terrible news that, sadly, all of them were already expecting.
"The Count didn't engage the rebels, m'lords, m'lady;" the man said, panting. "He… joined with 'em."
"It is as we feared, then;" the Margrave said, his voice deepened by his helmet.
"No matter," the Duke retorted. "Feared, yes; but also expected. We have planned for this possibility, yes? We must have faith in the Archduchess and the Viceroy."
"Then there is no point in holding back anymore," Baronetess Relena sentenced and then unsheathed a long-sword and hoisted it up in the air. "LET'S KILL THOSE BASTARDS! FOR MERIDIAN!"
The bellow of the noblewoman was repeated by many of the soldiers of the army. And step by step, they began to move. The infantry marched first with the archers behind them, and the cavalry divided in two and positioned itself at their sides.
"FOR MERIDIAN!" many repeated. "FOR MERIDIAN! FOR MERIDIAN!"
"FOR MERIDIAN!" bellowed the Margrave.
"FOR MERIDIAN!" yelled the usually calm Duke too.
And so it marched, the nobles' mighty host. There they went the spear-men and swordsmen and archers and riders. There they went, their footsteps rising a cloud of dust as thick as the darkest of rain-clouds as they stomped their way towards their enemy. There they went, to victory… or perhaps to their doom. For loyalty. For order. For their homes. For peace.
For Meridian.
The Rebellion's army
A the same time
"They will be here soon," Count Cornelius informed the Guardians, Jade, his fellow traitor noble and the rebel commanders. "There was a scout following on our trail. I could have killed him, but I thought that could also work against us, so…"
"You made the right call," Will said, her wings flapping a couple of times in order to shake some dust that had fallen over them. "We want them coming straight at us."
Contrary to the nobles commanding their army, the Rebellion's leaders had remained at the center of theirs, alongside the Guardians, Jade and Baroness Miriam. Immobile, the host of nine-thousand rebels, with seven-thousand foot-soldiers (which now the eight-hundred of the Count had joined) and only two-thousand cavalrymen (of which five-hundred were mounted archers) awaited for their adversaries to appear over the horizon.
"Vathek, go with the Count and take command of the infantry alongside him;" Caleb told the bulky blue Galhot.
"Very well," the huge blue man said as a response, two mighty clubs tied by a long chain hanging over his shoulders.
"Ludmoore," Caleb addressed the man of the strange eyes, "you go with them and support the infantry with your sorcery," he commanded, to which the cold businessman nodded respectfully and obeyed.
"Lady Baroness," the scarred rebel leader talked to the noblewoman next. "You'll accompany me and take command of our cavalry."
"Excellent," the woman replied unnervingly happily.
"Taranee, Hay Lin;" Will addressed her teammates while Caleb gave orders to his fellow rebel commanders. "You two are in charge of aerial defense and long-range attacks until the Archduchess arrives. When the enemy shots arrows at us, I want you two to burn or deflect as many as possible. Lit the entire sky up if it's necessary, okay? And if you see a chance to counterattack against the archers, do it; but the priority's to defend, alright?"
"Alright," Taranee answered, adjusting her glasses.
"You got it!" Hay Lin said.
"Cornelia, Irma;" the redhead spoke to the blonde and the brunette. "You'll go all out against all of the enemy's forces, but especially their cavalry. Do whatever you need to do, but we need to weaken them the most so they won't flank us and get us in a pincer."
"Aye, aye, captain!" Irma said, mimicking a soldier's salute.
"Okay," Cornelia answered plainly.
"Jade..." Will told the Chinese girl.
"I stay with you at the center;" Jade said before Will could even utter any word. "I'm too valuable because the 'Rasputin Stratagem' depends on me, and we need to protect our rear from the Archduchess. I know."
"Okay," Will said with a smile. "So everyone's ready?"
"Just wait a second," Cornelia declared, then approached Caleb and, without any warning, gave him a long, passionate kiss that the other teenager eagerly joined in.
"Really?" an annoyed Irma said, rolling her eyes. "At a time like this?"
"Youngsters will be youngsters," Count Cornelius said as he and Baroness Miriam exchanged a look.
"Woah, big kiss before big battle;" Jade commented too. "Cliche! Cliche, I say!"
Meanwhile, Earth Guardian and rebel leader ended their kiss and separated from one another, smiling and looking directly at each other's eyes, his green against her blue.
"What was that for?" Caleb asked his girlfriend with a silly smile.
"Good luck," Cornelia answered her boyfriend's question, brushing one of her blond locks of hair behind her ear. "For the both of us."
"Okay, that's enough;" Will addressed her friends. "It's time to move."
And with that, Fire and Air Guardians took to the skies; while Earth and Water Guardians flew towards the frontlines. Caleb mounted over a Hoogong and rode at the side of the Baroness to take charge of their cavalry, and the Count, Vathek and Ludmoore took control of the rebel infantry. As for Will and Jade, they remained where they were.
It didn't take too long for the enemy army to appear over the horizon. Outnumbering them, and with better tools and weapons than the rebels had. But they were without magic, and they were ignorant of the scheme Will and Jade had concocted.
There was no silent standoff between the two hosts. There was no calm before the storm. No moment in which the leaders of both armies met halfway through the battlefield in order to exchange some words, maybe offer the other side a chance to surrender. In the moment they saw the rebel army, the enemy charged with everything they had. Someone, must had been Caleb, yelled "ATTACK! FOR MERIDIAN!", and the bellow echoed through the entire rebel army, repeated by many.
Both armies advanced. Arrows flew, in both directions. The sky became momentarily engulfed in flames. The soil beneath their feet shook. Then the two armies met halfway through the field. And chaos ensued. Screams and yells filled the air, mixed with the sound of metal clashing against metal. And the dark, rocky grounds of the Meridian Plains began to be painted red with the blood of the fallen combatants.
The Battle of the Meridian Plains had begun.
Meanwhile, at the Royal Palace
The Dungeons
While bloody battle began to rage over the Meridian Plains, the dungeons of the castle couldn't be quieter. It had been a long time since Phobos or the Guard had thrown any fresh meat down here.
Not that the few Lurdens that had remained in charge of it after the Prince (following the Archmage's failed coup) had taken most of them to patrol and guard the castle's main halls would complain about it. The less prisoners, the less work to do.
And it wasn't as if the Chan Clan, the Browns or Blunk the Passling would complain, either. The less jailers, the less risk of being found. In fact, when they arrived at the dungeons via the secret passageway, only a lone Lurden came in order to investigate the noise that the wall had produced while opening.
And as soon as the orc-like meridianite arrived, Jackie dashed towards him and quickly struck him in the chest, throat and forehead. The Lurden fell to his knees, hurt and confused. Jackie finished him with a swift kick to the head. And the Lurden fell flat on his face, unconscious.
"Sorry," Jackie apologized to the fallen Lurden in a whisper.
Meanwhile, his companions had wasted no time; with Viper lying the map the 'Mage' had provided them with on the ground, Uncle and Tohru had begun to cast a locator spell, and Blunk had started to sniff everything around them. Alborn and Miriael approached the fallen Lurden and took his weapons, a short spear for him, a scimitar for her.
"Strong smell of many Lurdens here. Fifteen... no, Blunk smells sixteen Lurdens. But Princess' smell very weak here," the greenish dwarf said as he sniffed the area outside the cell they had arrived at. "But Blunk can still pick trail. Blunk can find her if Blunk goes out of scary dungeons."
"I doubt a princess comes to the dungeons often..." Viper commented as she inspected the map and pointed at a section of it. "I think the best way to exit this place is through here;" she said.
"What do you think?" Jackie asked of Alborn and Miriael.
"I agree," Alborn declared. "Maybe we could take a shortcut through the kitchens?" he asked of his wife.
"No," Miriael declared, shaking her head. "It's too risky," she explained, "we could be easily spotted and ruin the whole operation."
"How's that spell going?" the ex-thief asked of Tohru and Uncle next.
"Don't rush Uncle and apprentice!" the Chinese elder protested, pouring what appeared to be some animal's toenails into a small, plastic bowl. "Locator spell takes time to cast! Hasn't thief heard about patience being a virtue?"
"I don't think it is in this case," Viper replied, but Uncle paid her no attention.
Tohru and him began to chant into the bowl, where a liquid began to brew and glow green. The glow soon separated itself from the liquid, and shot itself into the map near Viper, enveloping it.
The glow then grew smaller and smaller until it became a little green dot in the map.
"Is... is that Elyon?" Miriael asked. "Is that our daughter?"
"Yes," Tohru answered, looking at the map too, towering over the rest of them. The locator spell had revealed that Elyon was not on her chambers. In fact, if the spell was to be trusted, she was in one of the castle's main halls, and had just turned around a corner. "And she is going… towards the throne room."
The Royal Palace's main halls
At the same time
The last few days had been the epitome of routine and monotony for Elyon Escanor. Ever since she had received that letter from Miranda, it had been nothing but wake up, wash herself, have breakfast (or break her fast, as everyone said around here) spend her mornings in the royal library or in one of the castle's inner gardens, have lunch, practice some spell-casting, have dinner, go to bed. Rinse and repeat.
Mostly alone, never in the company of a servant. Or a teacher. Or her brother. Only Tristan kept her company these days, and even that had become rare as of late, since the white-haired Shapeshifter had been assigned other duties to tend to.
But today... today it was different. Today a servant had come to her early and told Elyon that her brother wished to speak with her. And so here she found herself now, walking behind Prince Phobos, staring at his back as they marched in silence through one of the castle's main halls, the one with the pristine walls, ceilings and floors that housed the many beautiful paintings of their ancestors. Walking towards the throne room, where her brother wanted to talk with her about... whatever he wished to talk about.
Elyon thought that she should be saying... something. Anything. She had a lot of things she wished to ask of him. But she couldn't find the appropriate way to phrase all that she wanted to talk about, perhaps precisely because there was so much. In the end, she decided that it was best to start with something simple.
"Why are we going to the throne room?" the Princess asked of the Prince.
"Because, dear sister, as I have already told you;" Phobos calmly explained in a sweet voice that, however, Elyon felt had sounded somehow forced; "we have important matters to discuss."
"But... can't we talk here?" Elyon asked.
"No," Phobos declared dry and abruptly, before returning to the sweet tone he was using just before. "What we need to talk about is..." Phobos stopped his steps and made a jerky movement with his neck; "for our ears and our ears only," he finished, and continued to walk, his sister following behind.
Yes, that made sense to Elyon. Or at least she could find some sense in those words. Her brother and her were royalty, after all. It was normal for them to discuss matters that concerned their realm in private (or, at much, in the company of high-ranking underlings, like Cedric or the rest of the nobles), away from maids and soldiers. Yet the questions that plagued the young Princess' head still remained. Had Phobos actually answered anything, actually? Yes, he had told her that what they needed to talk about was something they needed to talk only between themselves, but he hadn't told her what exactly that was. So, as both royal siblings advanced, she decided to continue with a much more direct question.
"Is this about my par-" the Princess cut her words short; "about Alborn and Miriael?" Elyon asked of her brother.
For a few moments, Prince Phobos kept his mouth shut. Then he stopped walking for a second time, and his sister did the same behind him. Next he turned around, approached Elyon, knelt so his face was in front of hers, put a hand over her shoulder and looked at her with a serious expression.
"Yes, amongst other matters;" he answered plain and simply. "I wanted to wait until we were in the throne room to speak about this, but I suppose there is no harm telling you here."
And in that moment… in that one tiny, little moment… all of Elyon's questions and doubts evaporated. Because in that moment in which her brother was looking directly at her with that serious face, she thought he was going to tell her exactly what she had read on Miranda's letter. That, sadly, the pair of Shapeshifters had failed to get her adopted parents out of Cavigor thanks to the interference of the rebels and the girls. That, regrettably, she couldn't meet with them. Something that Elyon knew Phobos knew, since her letter specified that Phobos had received one of his own.
Oh, do not get the wrong idea. Elyon still had her doubts about the veracity of Miranda's words. But if her brother told her, right there and then, the same thing Miranda had written, be it a lie or a harsh truth, at least he would be being coherent. At least he wouldn't be deceiving her or sugar-coating the truth (or what he was saying was the truth). At least… at least he would be being sincere.
Or perhaps it was just that Elyon was desperate to believe her brother. To have solid evidence that he was trustworthy… and that, therefore, she had made the right call trusting him. That she wasn't wrong. That she had chosen right. That she wasn't selfish. Yes, that was why she wanted to believe him. Why she needed to believe him.
But then her brother's expression changed. The seriousness disappeared, and his lips turned into a smile that shone with a kindness that his eyes lacked. When he spoke, the words that came from his mouth hurt Elyon more than any weapon or spell in all the cosmos could have done.
"But you don't need to worry, dear sister;" Phobos said calm and kindly; "Cedric and Miranda retrieved Alborn and Miriael from Cavigor with no problems. They will arrive in a few days, I assure you. Now," Phobos declared, taking his hand from Elyon's shoulder, turning his back to her and walking ahead; "we need to discuss..." another pause in his speech, followed by another jerky movement of his neck; "more things."
But Elyon didn't move. Elyon didn't say anything. Elyon didn't even blink. She stood there, motionless, staring at her brother's back. What? The Princess thought, shocked. What had he just said? No, no, no, no... he hadn't said that. Those words hadn't come out of his mouth! They couldn't have! But they had. He had... he was...
He's lying, Elyon realized. And when that truth dawned upon her, when that reality became undeniable, all the questions and all the doubts that she had thought a moment before came back, a thousand times stronger.
Elyon was breathing faster and faster with each passing second. Was she hyperventilating? She looked at the ground, and found herself having to lean against one of the hall's walls (just beneath a painting) in order to keep herself on her feet. She felt as if the world was spinning around her. Phobos had lied. He had lied to her. He had lied about… about, what? Only this? Everything? Why? The doubts came back to her mind once more, this time accompanied by the words of that woman that had screamed at her at the Capital's streets. By the words Ludmoore had uttered when she had confronted him in his manor. By the words Trill and Alchemy had hurt her with back in Lannion. And the words of Cornelia and the rest of her… friends. Telling her to not trust her brother, a man that she had met just a few months ago, and that had told her exactly what she had wanted to her her entire life. A man that, according to people she had known for her entire life, was a tyrant that had brought nothing but suffering to the people of this world. And that she now was certain had lied to her.
"Dear sister, are you alright?" she heard her brother's voice over her head. He had lied to her.
She lifted her eyes from the ground and looked at him. He must had approached her when noticing that she wasn't following him anymore. He had sounded worried. He looked worried, too. But Elyon was having a very hard time believing those emotions as genuine. He had lied to her.
"Is everything alright?" Phobos asked, but this time she didn't think he had sounded concerned, but instead annoyed. He had lied!
He! Had! Lied!
She was sweating. And she was pretty certain she was shacking. Her breath accelerating even more, the world spinning faster and faster around her, and her confusion skyrocketing, Elyon Escanor, Princess of Meridian, and wielder of the world's Heart; reacted exactly as you would expect a thirteen-year-old girl would react in this same situation.
"LIAR!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
As she let out that scream, and with it all the bottled anxiety and worries within her, Elyon's power came forth and exploded in a wave of pure Raw Magic around her body. The sudden burst of Raw Magic was strong enough to hurl Phobos across the air and make him land graceless on the floor, face against the stone; several meters away from Elyon.
Shaking her head and coming back to her senses, Elyon stared with her eyes wide open at her brother and realized what had happened. She had lost control of her powers, like she had done so many times before, when under huge amounts of stress. Instinctively, she walked a couple of steps forward in order to help her brother, but then she stopped, and took a good luck around her. Her sudden burst of Raw Magic had done far more than simply send Phobos flying. The hall they were in, it… it had changed.
The ceilings, walls and floors weren't pristine anymore. They were black, and cracked and dirty… the whole hall was gloomy, to say the least. The ornamentation around the pillars and the walls was far from the elegant and beautiful one Elyon had thought it was. Now it was twisted and chaotic, and the Princess had a hard time deciphering what exactly it was emulating. And the paintings were different too. What until then Elyon had believed to be beautiful pieces of art were now nothing but windows to grotesque imagery. Cruel monsters devouring people, armies on horseback trampling over defenseless innocents, and images that Elyon couldn't even describe, but that made her stomach turn. Any of them made the painting 'Saturn Devouring His Son' cute by comparison.
Elyon knew what this was. She knew what she had accidentally dispelled, she had read about it in the royal library. A Glamour. A spell designed to disguise something as something that it isn't. An illusion. A lie. It had ALL been a lie, hadn't it? And she had believed it, like an idiot. She had… she had thrown everything away, for this lie. Her friends, her parents… everything for something that wasn't really there.
Oh my God, Elyon thought, horrified; as she looked at her surroundings and she finally accepted what a massive mistake she had committed. Oh my God! What… What have I…?! she thought, as tears began to fall from her eyes and roll down her cheeks, product of her guilt. Cornelia, Alchemy… Oh, mom, dad…
Then she heard a groan in the distance. Looking at this direction she saw her brother rising up from the ground, and look at his surroundings too. She watched him gasp as he realized that the glamour had been dispelled, and look at her first in shock… then in fear.
Elyon's guilt quickly gave way to fury. Before she could even realize it, she was in front of her brother, and her feet weren't in the ground anymore. She was floating, high enough that she could look at Phobos in the same way a parent looks at a young child. He looked terrified, but she didn't care. She saw his mouth move, probably in the hopes of making an excuse, but she didn't care either. And neither did she care about any harm she could do the infrastructure of the palace. She wasn't going to hold back. Her entire body was now coated in energy, and her eyes and mouth were shinning with intense, bluish white light. When she spoke, her voice echoed with power.
"You!" she snarled at her brother, and her words made the whole castle tremble. "You..." she repeated, extending a hand towards Phobos while the terrified Prince walked backwards. Tears continued to flow from her eyes. Out of guilt, and anger, and frustration… but over all else, out of feeling betrayed.
"I trusted you!" she screeched, and a torrent of pure Raw Magic shot from her palm and struck her brother.
The Meridian Plains
Vathek
Vathek had never considered himself a violent person. Oh, he was no stranger to violence, he had known it through his entire life. From simple fist-fights in the streets or in a tavern or killing an enemy during a battle, to executing someone when being a spy in the Royal Palace in order to keep up appearances; Vathek knew violence all too well.
But he was not a violent person. He was not one of those madmen that, intoxicated with violence, went out of their way to search for it. To indulge in it as a glutton indulges in dishes and drinks.
He was no Rhouglar.
Yet here he was now. Amidst the chaos, fighting in the greatest and bloodiest battle the Rebellion had taken part of. Where everyone was kicking, punching, cutting, piercing, smashing, cracking, tearing. Killing. He was, too. And he was shouting. No. Roaring. And he would lie if he said he didn't feel a rush when he made each enemy soldier that stood in his way fall to the ground lifeless. Probably out of the feel that he was still standing and they weren't. Yes, yes; that must had been it. He had been told about this once or twice, hadn't he? About this… this thrill that came when you stood victorious. Triumphant. Alive. Having survived. Julian had called it… ah… 'Battle Fever', or something. Yes, yes; that was what was happening. He could feel it. Every inch in his body wasn't telling him to 'win'. They were screaming at him to 'survive'.
He had just bashed the cranium of an enemy soldier with one of the clubs of his 'flail'. He had hit him with so much force that one of his eye-balls had gone flying out of his eye-socket. Vathek paid him no attention as he fell to the ground, and roaring, he drove forward.
He felt a sting in his shoulder then. Looking at his side, he saw an enemy (or whom he thought must had been an enemy) that had stabbed his shoulder with what appeared to be the broken head of a spear. The bulky blue Galhot felt the warm feeling of blood coming from the wound and drenching his arm. Ignoring the pain with surprising ease, Vathek grabbed the enemy and headbutted him directly into the face. When they separated, the Galhot's usually blue forehead was red. He finished the man with a blow from one of his clubs.
The next enemy to cross paths with him was wielding a sword… but a rebel sneaked behind him and buried an ax into his head, all while laughing… no, howling would be a more appropriate term. Then a… an arrow? No. Too large. Spear? Javelin? Yes, Vathek was pretty sure it must had been a javelin. A javelin pierced through the rebel's chest, killing her.
Light of Meridian, everything was chaos. Everything. It felt as if neither them nor the enemy were employing tactics. Vathek could barely make sense of what was happening around him. Where was Ludmoore? Where was the Count? Sense. He needed to make sense of this, he needed…
Forward, forward; Vathek thought, roaring, and swinging his 'club-flail' around. "Forward!" he found himself yelling. Why? The rebels didn't exactly need more encouragement.
"Forward!" several voices echoed around him, and soon several rebels were around him; and they were marching around. Ah, yes! Good! That would help! At least it would allow him to not get lost in the chaos again.
He needed to find Ludmoore and the Count. One of them, at least. Losing commanders would weaken the rebels' resolve. They had to win. They had to endure, until…
He caught glimpse of a movement at his left. The rebels around him screamed, and they were no more. Then there was a little flash, as if the sun had reflected on something. And in the blink of an eye Vathek was face to face with an enemy swordsman. And his left hand hurt. It hurt a lot. He took a look at it. His hand was still there, fortunately. His pinky, ring finger and the top of his middle finger, however; were not.
With a scream, Vathek swung his 'club-flail'. His adversary tried parrying it, but he failed. The club struck him in the middle of the chest, and he fell flat on his ass. Vathek then stomped on his head as hard as he could, until he was sure he wasn't stomping anything more than broken bones and torn flesh. He then grabbed the corpse, and, with an uproarious scream, he threw it against the enemy.
Forward! He thought, and continued his march.
He was not a violent person…
The Count
One of the first lessons Count Cornelius had been taught as a child was that, as a nobleman, his duties weren't just to rule over Lannion and the villages and towns built on the area surrounding it; but to lead their soldiers into battle if it was ever needed. To protect Lannion with the blade and the shield, not to merely guide it with words and quill.
He found somehow ironic that the first time in his life he had actually led anyone into an open clash like this one was when fighting against his fellow nobles. Nevertheless, he didn't feel as if he had made the wrong decision. Everything he had done, he had done for Lannion and its people. And now, every man and woman he cut down, he did so for Lannion and its people. And every man and woman he had sent to their deaths by making them turn cloaks alongside him… he had done so for Lannion and its people too.
For Lannion and its people. Not for Meridian. Not for an ideal, or the Rebellion, or a Queen that wasn't a Queen yet. No. Only for Lannion. It had been for Lannion's sake that he hadn't objected to his late mother's decision of joining the Prince's coup, too. It had been for Lannion that he hadn't protested in fury when Phobos had demolished his city's cathedral. It had been for Lannion that he had let the redheaded Guardian poison his mother.
And it was for Lannion that now he drove his blade into the stomach of a poor fool and disemboweled him. He heard a scream to his right, and he turned on his heels to watch an enemy soldier dashing towards him, only to be run over by a rider-less horse. The ground shook. And the sky lit up aflame once again. And it was in this very moment that Count Cornelius realized… this was the very first great battle of his life. This was the very first time he had been on this kind of battlefield, engulfed by the chaos of war. And in this very moment, the Count felt fear. Fear that he would lose his life. That everything that he had done for Lannion would be for naught.
A shriek of "Traitor!" took him out of his thoughts, and he moved his arms up just in time to deflect the blow of a longsword wielded by a woman clad in light-steel armor. Baronetess Relena now stood in front of him, furiously glaring at the Count.
"How could you betray us?!" the noblewoman asked at the top of her lungs. "After everything this scum have done! How could you insult the memory of your mother like this?! Have you no shame, Count?!"
And upon hearing those words, the fear the Count was feeling vanished. He held his sword high, and he eyed his fellow noblewoman. He didn't say a single word. He didn't give any explanation. Yet, a thought formed within his mind. My heart and actions are unclouded. Everything I have done, I have done for my people; just as I was taught. I have… nothing to be ashamed for.
And in the Battle of the Meridian Plains, the blade of Count Cornelius clashed with the blade of Baronetess Relena. Both nobles danced around the other, exchanging blows; opening gashes in the other's flesh. Then Relena lunged at the Count, and instead of slashing forward she moved her blade downwards, in a piercing strike. Her sword's edge buried into the Count's left foot, and he could do nothing but scream in agony as she cut it in half.
"You never were a good fighter!" she spat as she slashed upwards.
He only dodged by sheer luck. The sudden loss of half of his foot and all its toes made him loss balance and fall to the bloody, hard ground of the Plains. Nevertheless, the Baronetess didn't relent on her assault. She delivered her next strike to his neck, which he blocked by putting his blade up.
He saw Relena's face twist in anger as she delivered blow after blow. Without finesse, without technique. She was attacking him in the same way a lumberjack hacks a piece of wood. And it was working. His strength was leaving him. He would be forced to drop his weapon. And then Relena would cut his head. Damn it all, he wouldn't…!
He saw a blue blur at his left. The blur then crashed into Relena, forcing her to stop her onslaught. More blurs joined the blue one. Why couldn't he see? Light of Meridian, how much blood had he lost, how much…? He was on his feet now. Well, he supposed it was only his foot from now on.
"Count, can you stand?!" he heard the blue blur speak. He brushed his eyes with his arm, and blinked a couple of times. Yes… yes… Vision was becoming less blurry, at least on his right eye.
"Can you fight?!" the blue blur… Vathek. It was Vathek. The rebel that had been assigned command of the infantry with him. He had saved his life. A rebel had saved his life. A man from the same Rebellion that he had joined in fear that they would destroy his home.
"I…" the Count bubbled. But then he saw Relena lunge at the bulky blue Galhot from behind. He pushed Vathek aside and defended as best as he could. He could barely stand. She managed to slash his shoulder. He doubted he had the strength to even counterattack. Fortunately, Vathek was there to attack the Baronetess in his place. And Vathek was stronger than they both were. The Baronetess could do nothing but tumble backwards.
"You are all scum!" the Baronetess screamed as a wall of her soldiers formed around her. For a second, fear grew back within Cornelius. Then an arrow whistled at his side and pierced through an enemy's throat. More rebels joined Vathek and him.
Yes… Yes! Just need to keep going! the Count thought as he parried a soldier's strike. Just keep going! Just keep going! If Relena falls, even if she doesn't die; they will scramble!
And doing his best to ignore the pain that came each time he moved the stump his missing foot had become, the Count, fighting side by side with Vathek; drove forward.
Ludmoore
In a similar way to the Count, this was the first great battle Charles Ludmoore had ever taken part in. Unlike Cornelius, however, Ludmoore wasn't feeling afraid. In fact, he found himself surprisingly at ease in this scenario. More than at ease. He felt... ecstatic. He who, barring some unpredictable situations he could count with the fingers of one hand, had always stood in the sidelines, always sitting behind a desk. Always the plotter, never the enforcer.
And here he was, enjoying battle. Maybe it was the Changeling blood in his veins, or Wong's Dark Chi creeping from his wooden arm and coursing through his body, or that, as a man of change being in the centerfold of a battle that would change the destiny of Meridian forever, he couldn't avoid feeling excited... but he was liking this. Was this how Cedric felt? Was this why his younger brother always talked about carnage with the same joy a child talks about his favorite toys?
Then again, it wasn't as if there was any real risk of him dying here. Oh yes, there were countless soldiers trying to kill him... but Ludmoore was a warlock with a lifetime of experience in the use of Raw Magic. He had Dark Chi Magic too, even if his experience with it was minimal. He had the powers of two Talismans within him. And as the enemy soldiers were painfully finding out, all of those made Ludmoore a painfully hard enemy to fight.
For example, the pair of spear-men that had decided to charge at him from opposite sides. Charles opted to simply teleport in a buzzing flash of green light, and let the pair end up impaling each other. The fools. Ludmoore finished them off by teleporting back right at their side and blowing up their heads with a burst of dark-blue Raw Magic. Most of the other enemies that he faced met similar ends.
A woman wielding an abnormally big ax swung it towards him? Use the Noble Rooster's telekinesis to stop the ax in the air and then to push the weapon out of her hands and into her chest. A man came charging at him with a blade? Discretely use the Noble Pig's heat-vision to shoot at one of his knees and watch him fall to the ground and get trampled to death by his enemies and allies alike.
A shame he couldn't unleash the Dark Chi Warriors, as he suspected that a trio of virtually indestructible, supernaturally strong, extremely skilled and magically armed fighters would be extremely useful in this situation, but he thought that would be tempting fate a bit too much. But speaking of the Dark Chi Warriors, what he could try was…
The next soldier Ludmoore came across, he didn't kill immediately. Instead, he stopped the soldier's movements with the power of the Noble Rooster and took a hold of the soldier's neck with his wooden hand. Ludmoore watched fear grow in the soldier's eyes as his Dark Chi crept from his wooden hand into the man's body. The same mark that adorned the foreheads of Gan, Ren and Chui appeared in his, and his skin began to gain a light orange pigmentation. For a second, Ludmoore thought he had succeeded.
But then the man screamed in agony, and his eyes dissolved. The skin lost the slight orange pigmentation, and the mark disappeared from the man's forehead. And Ludmoore found himself holding a lifeless corpse.
Failure, Ludmoore thought as he hurled the corpse away. I still need more practice.
Oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day. Besides, he doubted he would have any problem finding more test subjects in this environment. And even if he continued failing, that only meant less people for the rebels to deal with.
Who said you can't be a plotter while playing the enforcer?
Cornelia and Irma
As both armies collided, Cornelia Hale and Irma Lair found themselves with their feet planted firmly on the ground and going all out against the Rebellion's enemies; only taking to the skies when it was impossible to dodge an incoming attack any other way. And as the blonde lifted chunks of the Meridian Plains' very ground in order to hurl them at her enemies, and the brunette struck soldier after soldier with high-pressured water blasts; both girls shared similar thoughts.
This was a nightmare. No, this was Hell. Worse than Hell. It had to be. This was exactly what had happened at Torus Filney but… taken to the extreme. Bigger, bloodier. And chaotic. Yes, chaotic over everything else. It felt as if everyone in this place was insane. There were people screaming, crying, laughing. All while killing and getting killed. Of course, Earth and Water Guardians were screaming and killing too. Or at least they thought they were doing so. They doubted all the people they were striking with what could only be described as fist-sized water bullets and boulders were going to walk away with a simple concussion.
And yet it didn't matter how many soldiers they both killed. They kept coming.
"Why can't these guys take a hint?!" an extremely stressed Irma asked aloud as she hit a group of nearby soldiers on horseback with a miniaturized wave.
"Tell me about it!" Cornelia retorted, throwing her arms upwards and making hundreds of thick vines to sprout beneath some of the enemy's cavalrymen, which resulted in some of them getting entangled on them and others simply being thrown off-balance by their force.
Nevertheless, the soldiers kept coming.
Christ, they needed to do something! They needed to slow the nobles' army down, even if it was a little. Especially their dammed cavalry. For what the blonde and brunette could see, it was what was giving the rebels' most problems. But they were too damn fast! She could go for an earthquake or try and open a crack in the ground, but she was sure those would do more harm to their forces than anything else. There had to be a way to…!
And then Cornelia had an idea.
"Irma!" the Earth Guardian called for her friend. "Mud!"
"What?!" a confused Irma asked back.
"Mud! Mud! Mud!" Cornelia repeated the word three times, with the same excitement a child repeats a word that has just been learned.
Irma's eyes widened as she understood what her friend was trying to say. "I get it! Let's do it!"
And upon hearing those words Cornelia smashed both her fists against the ground. Her intention wasn't to create an earthquake, no… but to pulverize large amount of the ground as much as she could; to the point it was reduced to gravel. Next Irma called upon as much water as she could and shot it towards the gravel, mixing them both.
By the time any of the cavalrymen and foot-soldiers Irma and Cornelia were facing could have realized what they were doing, it was too late. Both girls thrust their hands in their direction, and in an instant the solid stone under their feet and the horses' hooves became a miniaturized quagmire, and the soldiers and their mounts were stopped in their tracks, trapped by the mud. The rebels didn't lose the opportunity the two Guardians had presented them with; and mercilessly charged against their stalled enemies, and Irma and Cornelia took the chance in order to catch their breaths.
Their triumph proved to be short-lived, though. They heard a scream, followed by a loud, wet 'CLUNK!'. Next a corpse came flying in their direction, landing between Earth and Water Guardians; its face a bloody pulp. A figure emerged from the mass of bodies trapped by the mud next. A man clad in a dirty, bulky and heavy steel armor; its helm shaped like a skull. In his right hand he carried a large, heavy and thick shield. In his left, a large, spiked mace, dripping with blood.
Although Irma and Cornelia ignored it, this was Margrave Olein, who had just been forced to abandon his mount thanks to the mud the Earth and Water Guardians had created. What they did know, even though they couldn't see his face, was that he was angry.
"If you think some wet dirt is going to to stop me…!" the Margrave bellowed as he swung his spiked mace at the pair, who dodged by flying away from the nobleman. Cornelia counterattack by rising a rock from the ground and throwing it at him. He grunted in pain as he lifted his shield and took the impact head-on, receding a couple of meters, but not losing his footing. This action must have boosted his troops' morale, for by the time Irma and Cornelia had prepared another attack, the Margrave had rallied quite the number of soldiers behind him, and they were charging towards them.
"Remember what the Viscount told us!" the Margrave screamed as he withstood a blast of water from Irma. "They're not invincible! They can bleed! They can die! Crush them! Crush them both!"
And as Irma and Cornelia dodged the incoming assault, the brunette and the blonde shared another thought without knowing it.
It was clear this was far from over.
Caleb
The rebel leader had lost his mount. He had lost sight of the Baroness of Fallbottom too. And he was sure he had been lucky to not lose consciousness.
Everything had begun perfectly, with him riding a Hoogong and leading their cavalry alongside the Baroness. Their initial clash with the enemy army had gone pretty well, all things considered. Caleb had managed to remain over his mount as he slashed and slashed enemy after enemy with a regular blade, Sword of Thanatos safely sheathed and hanging from his belt.
The second bout, while still successful, had been the moment he had lost the Baroness, the noblewoman from Fallbottom being forced to separate from him alongside a good part of their riders. At the third, his mount had been wounded at its side. Screaming, the Hoogong had reared up, and Caleb had fallen from it, flat on his back.
Then everything had lost the little amount of sense it had had to begin with. He didn't even remember getting up. He had fallen, then blinked and… and the next thing he knew was that he was back on his feet and his sword was buried in an enemy soldier's belly.
Use…
Forcing himself to quickly react and move, Caleb pulled his blade out from the soldier and, letting out a battle cry, continued to fight on foot. He cut a spear-woman's head next. He impaled a swordsman after that. Cut the limb of his next adversary, which one he didn't know. Maybe an arm. Yes, definitely an arm.
Me…
It wasn't as if he was getting out of all these clashes unscathed, either. There was an arrow buried deep into his left thigh. The spear-woman had managed to wound him on his abdomen. And the swordsman had left a nasty slash all over his chest.
Use… me…
What had happened? Had they lost their cavalry? If so, he hoped that they had at least weakened the nobility's own as much or even more. He hoped that for every man they had lost, the nobles had lost two.
Use me…
The nobility was acting recklessly, making their army attack theirs on full-force. Then again, the nobles' plan was very reliant on weakening the rebel army enough so that their reinforcements could deliver the finishing blow; so he supposed it made sense for the enemy army to go all out from the beginning. And it wasn't as if the Rebellion had left them many more options. Wasn't the Rebellion's own strategy reliant on their enemy going all out from the first second too, after all?
Use me.
"I found you!" someone yelled over the rest of the battle-cries and screams of pain, getting Caleb out of his thoughts. The next thing he knew was that he was trying to stop the head of a spear with his blade, and that while he managed to divert the blow from impaling him through the stomach, the spearhead still scratched his ribs.
Use me!
It was only then that he noticed that the spearhead was not part of a proper spear, but was instead tied to a chain that quickly was pulled back after almost piercing through Caleb. Once it did, the chain retracted inside what could only be described as a metallic, thick shaft covered in a handful of runes; with the head of the spear ending positioning itself where it usually anyone would expect it to be. What was that? An enchanted weapon, or simply a modified spear? Caleb didn't know, and he couldn't care. What he cared about, however, was the man holding the spear and the two soldiers flanking him, carrying crossbows.
Use! Me!
"The rebel leader, yes?" the man asked. A man clad in red-tinted steel-armor, the visor of his helmet down and making it impossible to discern any facial features, and deepening his voice. Of course, Caleb ignored who this man was. A nobleman, judging by the quality of his equipment. "Yes, yes; too many descriptions of your face, your eyes, your hair, to not find you; hum. If I kill you, that would demoralize your troops, yes? And leave your rebellion leaderless, hum. Loose, yes!"
"Oh, Lurden spit!" Caleb shouted as the soldiers with the crossbows fired at him. While he managed to evade one of the bolts, the other nailed into his shoulder. Next came the head of the spear again, which he parried. But then the nobleman twirled the chain, and the spear-head managed to slash Caleb over his breastbone. Then the chain retracted once again. If the rebel leader hadn't been so clouded by anger and the heat of battle, he would have praised the ingenuity of this… this chain-spear. It allowed the nobleman to fight from a distance without relinquishing the advantages of a close-combat weapon. And that meant he wasn't fighting against an average soldier, or some fool that had happened to be armed with an out of the ordinary weapon. It was time to take things seriously.
USE! ME! This is my element! This is what I was made for! This should be my hour! Use me! Use me and kill those bastards!
And so, judging that holding back any longer would only be detrimental to their victory; the rebel leader unsheathed the Sword of the Berserker.
The Baroness
Baroness Miriam had managed to remain over her horse and, armed with bow and arrows and having no problem to maintain her balance, she continued to shot soldier after soldier down. She had no problem doing so. No arrow was wasted, no movement of her mount done without reason. But how could she make any mistake in a situation like this one? Her entire life seemed to have been preparing her for this very moment. She had always had talent for archery, even before she had began formal training. Riding had been one of her favorite activities while growing up and during most of her adult life. And she had dedicated an ungodly amount of time to develop those two skills. It wasn't as if she had much more to do, anyway.
Her older sister had always chastised her for that. Always said that she eluded her duties, that as a noblewoman she had a responsibility towards the people of Fallbottom that she loved to run away from. That she didn't understand that the great city under their care was more important that their own personal pleasure. That she was selfish. Miriam had despised Mergo for that. True, they had their duties. But shouldn't those duties be tied to some rights? Shouldn't that responsibility entitle some privilege or reward in return?
How easy, for her high-and-mighty sister Mergo, to claim that the needs of their people were more important than theirs when she was the one ruling Fallbottom. When she had had her entire life solved since the moment she had first drawn breath, all because she had been born first. But Miriam had been born second. No titles for her, no privileges for her, no position of power for her. Only duty. How… unsatisfactory.
But not anymore. Because now she was the Baroness. She was the one that had the responsibility and the right to rule Fallbottom. And she had done more for them in less than a year than Mergo had done for most of her life. She had tied them to the winning side of this war! And when everything was over and the dust had settled, Fallbottom would enjoy peace and prosperity thanks to her actions! And she would enjoy the increase in power, influence and authority that came from having supported the winning side, of course. And speaking of winning the war…
She spotted the rebel leader ahead, dual-wielding swords. Fighting (no… struggling!) against someone that, judging by the red of his armor, was no other than the old Duke Jedah. Uhm… it wasn't as if the rebel leader was doing bad by himself, but the Duke seemed to be as tricky in the battlefield as he was out of it. Oh well, she had never liked the man anyway.
She drew into another arrow, tensed the bowstring, aimed and…
Taranee and Hay Lin
If there were two people that could truly appreciate how chaotic the battle over the Meridian Plains had become as it unfolded, those were Taranee and Hay Lin.
High in the sky as they were and tasked with destroying every volley of arrows the enemy was shooting, it took Fire and Air Guardians nothing more than simple glances downwards in order to see the mass of armored and armed bodies tangled in an orgy of violence and death. Both Guardians found it so… so disturbing, so nauseating, so horrible.
"Here comes another one!" Hay Lin shouted as the nobility's archers shot another volley and she unleashed a gust of air at them.
"Got it!" Taranee said as she thrust her hands forward and shot a torrent of flames that mixed with Hay Lin's gust and incinerated most of the arrows before they had any chance of falling over the rest of the combatants. Before they had any chance of firing their elements back at them, however, another volley came straight at them, and they found themselves burning most of the arrows once more. "Don't these guys ever run out of arrows?!" the Fire Guardian yelled more out of impotent anger than anything else.
"I've got an idea! And I think it'll work!" Hay Lin told her as she unleashed another gust of wind. "But you aren't going to like it!"
"What do you mean I'm not going to like it?!" Taranee asked, but Hay Lin didn't answer her. Instead, her friend had begun to gather air around herself by…
Spinning?
Jade and Will
It amazed Jade how calm she was remaining through this entire situation. Well, not calm-calm, not what a normal person would call calm; that's for sure. This was a battle, she was fighting on it, she had shapeshifted into her wolf form in the moment it had begun, she was roaring as loudly as she could and had just sunk her fangs into some poor bastard (hey, he had been the one trying to poke her with a sword first!) and tossed him around like he was a ragdoll. So… yeah, not calm by normal standards. But the wolf in her was screaming that she should be dashing to the frontlines, clawing, biting and tearing apart anyone who dared to stand in her way. And yet here she was, staying in their army's rear, playing defense side by side with Will.
And the last time I let my instincts control me, it didn't go precisely well; the young Chinese girl thought, the scars on her back and under her black fur aching momentarily.
As she slashed the next soldier that tried to attack her across the stomach, she turned her head around to take a look at Will. The redhead had currently disarmed a soldier carrying a huge ax by delivering a kick to the soldier's head while grabbing the ax by its handle and pulling in the moment her foot had made contact with the warrior's cranium. Then, instead of keeping the weapon, she threw it towards another soldier. The ax buried itself in the man's chest with enough strength to push him back several meters and knock him down. A Guardian's strength was something else, wasn't it?
A loud sound, followed by an increase in the wind's strength, took Jade's attention next. Before she had time to even ask herself what was the reason for that, a massive tornado appeared in the middle of the battlefield. The tornado then began moving until it reached the nobility's archers, tearing through their ranks as if they were made of paper.
"Is that Hay Lin?!" Jade yelled, unable to contain herself.
"Looks like it!" Will shouted too, landing at her side to Jade's increasing surprise. Maybe too much of an improvisation, but I can't say I complain about the results; the redhead thought to herself. "Careful!" she yelled at Jade as more enemy soldiers came at them with their weapons ready to strike. Both Keeper of the Heart and Shapeshifter dodged and counterattacked, cutting and tearing with fangs and claws, punching and kicking with fists and legs. For a second, both girls thought that the battle was progressing quite well.
ROOOOOOOOOR!
And then a second sound cut through the air. The sound of a horn being rung. And as Jade and Will looked at their backs and saw where the sound was coming from, it felt as if every combatant over the Meridian Plains stopped their movements for the split of a second. When they resumed fighting, every soldier under the meridianite nobility's command did so with a boost in their morale. After all, that horn had rung for them. That horn had brought them hope. For the sound of that horn signified the arrival of their allies.
"Here comes the hard part!" Will declared as a thousand elite swordsmen from Blackrock Island, with Archduchess Galiene Sebille at the head of their formation, charged at the rear of the Rebellion's army.
The Royal Palace
Prince Phobos Escanor wasn't the kind of man that easily accepted that he had made a mistake. If something didn't go according to his wishes, then it was the fault of someone else. An incompetent underling. A meddlesome enemy. Fate itself. But not him. Never him. He didn't make mistakes. He couldn't.
But now that his sister's wrathful attack had sent him crashing through one of the walls of his castle, a spell he quickly cast insignificantly lessening the impact; now that he fell to the ground hurting, wounded and bleeding; now that he painfully rose to his feet amongst the dust and the rubble… Now, even he… even Prince Phobos Escanor couldn't avoid thinking that maybe, just maybe… he had miscalculated.
"How could I be so stupid to believe everything you told me?!" his sister's furious shrieks, each of her words reverberating with sheer power, reached him through the hole in the wall his body had left behind. She appeared moments later, hovering over the ground, every inch of her body (including mouth and eyes) shinning with pure white light. "Not even how this place looked was real!" she said, gesturing to the dark halls of the castle.
"Dear sister!" Phobos called out sweetly as he walked backwards, desperately trying to play the 'kind and caring big brother' card one last time. "There must have been a misunderstanding...!"
"There's no misunderstanding!" Elyon shouted, making the ground, walls and ceiling tremble. "You lied to me! You told me my parents are being brought here, and I know that's a lie! Miranda's letter didn't say that!"
Miranda's… letter? a confused Phobos thought for a moment before his eyes bulged in realization. Miranda... Cedric, you traitors!
"Everything!" Elyon continued to rage, floating towards her brother. "Everything's been a lie, hasn't it?! And everything everyone's been saying about you it's true! You're tyrant! You're a monster!"
Elyon paused in midair, clenching her fists. Looking at her brother, her angry expression turned sorrowful. "Did you really kill our parents, Phobos?"
The Prince stopped his movements. Slowly, he regained his composure, dusted his clothes off and stared at his borderline all-powerful sister with an uncaring yet hateful gleam in his eyes. No need to hold back the truth any longer.
"And what if I did?" he asked of her.
The sorrow left the Princess' face as easily as it had come. Anger returned with the speed and strength of a lightning strike, and the straw-blond girl screamed. With the scream came a wave of magic, shooting out from every pore of her body.
Phobos lifted his hands in front of him, casting the best defensive spell he knew as quickly as he could. But his sister's attack tore through it as a hot knife cuts through butter. Impotent, the Prince could do nothing but scream in pain as the torrent of pure Raw Magic sent him flying backwards.
"How could you do that?!" Elyon screamed, brilliant tears falling from her eyes. "How could you do any of this?! How could you do this to so many people?! And to me! I'm your sister! And you lied to me! You used me! How could you?!"
"Oh, please..." Phobos gasped as he slowly and painfully rose up again. "How could I?! I am Phobos Escanor! The blood of Escanor and Leryn flows through my veins! I am the firstborn of Queen Weira! This world is mine by birthright! It belongs to me! As do all that live in it! You ask how could I?! How couldn't I?! Why couldn't I?! They are rabble and I am from a blessed bloodline! I can do with them as I see fit!"
"You're insane!" Elyon yelled, disturbed to her core by her brother's words. "You're… you're evil! Aaaaaaaaargh! I should just… I should just kill you right here and right now!"
"Then by all means, sister dearest!" Phobos mocked, spreading his arms and, despite the pain, standing tall and proud against the girl with the power of a goddess. "Be my guest! Smite me with all your power!"
Elyon pointed a hand towards her brother and concentrated her magic into her palm. She was in the verge of shooting a blast at him when doubt crept into her mind. Could… could she do this? Could she take a life, even if it was a wicked one? Could she kill her own brother? The only family she had left in the universe, for all she knew? It wasn't a doubt that could completely paralyze her, but it was enough to slow her down. And the Prince took notice of that.
"HA!" Phobos laughed triumphantly, and clapped his hands. In mere seconds, thousands of thick, thorny vines sprout from the ground and the walls, enveloping Elyon and completely filling the hall they were in. The tyrant wasted no time, and he began running as fast as he could, while he made more thorns to sprout from the ground as he ran away.
"All the power in the world!" he shouted maniacally as he ran. "And you are still nothing but a weak, little girl!"
As soon as he had finished that sentence, the thorn 'cocoon' that he had created around Elyon burst into white flames. The Princess emerged from it, her face twisted into a snarl.
"Just you wait until this weak, little girl gets her hands on you!" Elyon roared furiously, and flew in pursue of her brother.
The Chan Clan
The clash between the Escanor siblings didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the people that were currently within the Royal Palace. But how could it do so? Elyon's use of the power of the Heart of Meridian had shaken the entire castle, from the lowest dungeon cell to the highest tower.
For the Chan Clan, the Browns and Blunk the Passling, of course, this meant trouble. After all, when the tremors and loud sounds of explosions in the distance alerted the Lurdens patrolling the halls and chambers, some of them inevitably found the group trying to quietly traverse the castle. And of course, they blamed them for it. They were their enemies, after all. And so, the intruders found themselves fighting dozens of Lurdens.
"Why. Doesn't. Anything. Ever. Go. As. Planned?!" Viper asked, punctuating every word with a punch to a Lurden's face.
"Uncle!" Jackie, currently delivering an ascendant kick to a Lurden's chin, knocking him out, asked of the elder Chi Wizard. "What is happening?!"
"Aiyah! Too much Raw Magic in the air!" Uncle, who had remained standing still and impassive to the fighting around him, said while looking at their map. "And Princess is moving very, veeeeery fast!" He informed as a pair of Lurden approached him ready to kill. One of them was flung away by a timed strike from Tohru, while Uncle (without even looking at him) struck the other three times across the chest with index and middle fingers, making the Lurden to fall flat on his face, completely paralyzed. "She must be using power of the Heart of Meridian!"
"Why?!" Tohru asked as he took his blowfish out of his pocket and shot a green beam of chi energy at the nearest Lurden. Meanwhile, Blunk had found shelter between the sumo's legs.
"Is our daughter alright?!" Alborn asked as he and Miriael dodged an attack from a pair of Lurdens.
"How is Uncle supposed to know that?!" Uncle asked angrily of both men. "Map only shows Princess' location, not her condition!"
This is just a waste of time, Jackie thought as he jumped backwards in order to avoid the strike of a scimitar. "Blunk!" he called for the Passling as his companions and him formed a circle around Uncle. "Can you still pick on Elyon's trail?!"
"Blunk can smell Princess, yes!" the greenish dwarf answered.
"Then take the map, go with the Browns, find a different route, and find Elyon!" Jackie told the Passling.
"Are you insane?!" Miriael shouted as the whole group receded through the hall, covered by Tohru and Uncle's relentless rain of chi blasts. "You can't possibly win against this many Lurdens you four alone!"
"We don't need to win!" Jackie argued. "We aren't here to win! We just need to give you time! Go and find your daughter! We will hold them off!"
Husband and wife exchanged a look. Then they both looked at Jackie. "Thank you," they said at the same time.
Next they grabbed Blunk and the map and left the scene while the Chan Clan fell into formation. Uncle at its center, Jackie and Viper at the front, Tohru behind them all. The Lurdens fell intro line too, ready to strike. Even with the ones that had fallen, there were still at least nearly thirty of them.
"There's… quite a few of them," Tohru pointed out.
"We've been through worse, big guy;" Viper pointed out as she and Jackie took combat stances.
As if the universe itself wanted to prove her wrong, however, the four of them began to hear a voice amongst the dozens of Lurdens ahead of them. A voice growing nearer and nearer with every second. "Let me pass! Let me pass!" the voice said. It took only a few moments before a white-haired, thirteen-year-old boy clad in the clothes you would expect from someone richer than a peasant but not of royal or noble blood to have was standing in front of all the Lurdens.
"Oh, me and my big mouth…" Viper cursed.
"You again?" asked Tristan, son of Ban. He smirked soon after, and with a yell, he shapeshifted into his gigantic scarlet scorpion form. "No Guardians to carry you to safety this time, it seems;" he said, smashing his pincers against the ground, cracking it. "Which means that it's time I finish what I started back in Lannion. Now," he said, swing his stinger-tail back and forth; "who wants to die…?"
"TRISTAN!" a shout cut the air and the scorpion Shapeshifter's words short.
The Chan Clan glanced at their backs, and the Shapeshifter found himself staring, wide-eyed, ahead. At the man that had appeared at the end of the hall, moments after Blunk and the Browns had left.
"YOU?!" Tristan, one of the last survivors of the Carhaiz Massacre, shrieked in a mix of pure hatred and sorrow.
"Me," answered Julian, the Rebel; the architect of all his suffering.
The Meridian Plains
Ever since she had become the Keeper of the Heart and she had begun taking part in the meridianite civil war, Will Vandom had met many swordsmen. Rebels, guards, soldiers, nobles, commoners... some more skilled than others, she had met dozens (maybe hundreds) of people that used swords when fighting.
But none of them could compare with what she was seeing right now, standing over the Meridian Plains by Jade Chan's side. None could compare with these swordsmen and swordswomen from Blackrock Island. No... it would be unfair to compare them. The people Will had met until now felt like children playing with sticks compared with these people. Even the likes of Caleb and Raythor looked like amateurs compared to these guys!
And to her. Especially to her.
Archduchess Galiene Sebille. The Blade of Meridian.
Most of Blackrock Island's forces were doing extremely well against the Rebellion's army, but this woman felt as if she was on a complete different level from them. Armed with longsword and curved dagger, white cape and silvery grey hair flowing with the wind, this old woman was cutting through every rebel she crossed paths with as if they were made of tissue paper, making a straight line towards where Jade and she were.
These soldiers... they were professionals, Will realized. More than that. For every other sword-wielding meridianite Will had encountered, Will knew that swordsmanship was a means to an end. For these people, it probably was their life. Day after day, year after year... their whole existence dedicated to the sword. No wonder they were so good, and no wonder the nobility thought that a mere thousand of them could tip the scales in their favor.
"Geez, is she really in her seventies?" Jade, still in her wolf form, wondered as they both saw the Archduchess advance towards them.
"We're about to find out," Will said.
"I have found you!" the Blade of Meridian bellowed, standing before Shapeshifter and Guardian. Her blades were stained with blood and dirt, as were the edges of cape and hair. "The Rebellion's Black Wolf, and Kandrakar's Keeper of the Heart;" she said, momentarily eyeing the pink jewel hanging from Will's neck. "You two will die first!" she declared, then lunged at them.
Yeah, that's it. Focus on us; Will thought as she flew upwards in order to avoid the Archduchess first series of strikes.
Jade, for her part, decided to take the initiative, attacking the Archduchess with her claws. Surprisingly, the Blade of Meridian didn't try to dodge in any possible manner. Instead she stood her ground, with her blade up, and delivered a timely strike to Jade's claws. It didn't block the Shapeshifter's attack, but it wasn't trying to. Instead the Archduchess parried it, masterfully redirecting the weight of Jade's blow to the side. She followed with an ascendant slash from her blade before Jade's front legs even had the opportunity to touch the ground. But the blow didn't connect. Jade shapeshifted back to human form before it had any chance to do so. The Chinese girl fell on her palms, but quickly jumped to her feet.
"So you are a young girl," Archduchess Galiene said as she took a look at the now human Jade. She had heard stories, but she had had a hard time believing them until now. How old was this child? Thirteen, fourteen? Fifteen, maybe? It was hard to tell for the old noblewoman. No older than fifteen, that was for sure. And yet how much of a thorn had she been in the collective side of the nobility. Perhaps, had the circumstances of their meeting been different, the Archduchess would have congratulated her for her victories and for showing such determination and prowess at such a young age. But not now. Not to this rebel scum. No to the ones that had hurt her daughter!
The noblewoman tried to finish the girl quickly, before she had any chance to shapeshift back to her wolf form, by delivering a slash to her neck. Defying anything that the Archduchess could have expected, Jade jumped high in the air in order to avoid the strike. She landed, almost perfectly, over the Archduchess very own blade. And there the girl let out a yell, and kicked the Blade of Meridian directly in the middle of the face with as much strength as she could possibly muster. The old noblewoman wavered, but she did not fall. Jade took the opportunity to jump backwards and put some distance between the two of them.
"I'm much more than just a young girl!" Jade boasted as she took a combat stance and Will landed at her side, the redhead taking a combat stance too.
Behind the bravado, however, she was worried. Ever since she had become a Shapeshifter she was far stronger than before, even when in human form. And she had kicked this old lady in the face. She had kicked her hard. She should be unconscious, or at least she should've fallen to the ground. Yet when the Archduchess lifted her head to glare at the two girls, the only thing Jade had done to her was leave the old lady with a broken, bloody nose.
As her next move, the Archduchess nailed her longsword into the ground, then took of her cape and twirled it in front of her. The next thing the girls saw was something resembling a twinkle… and next the old noblewoman's curved dagger sunk into Will's shoulder.
"AH!" the redhead screamed in pain.
"WILL!" Jade screamed in turn, taking her eyes off the Archduchess to glance worryingly at her friend. The Blade of Meridian took this opportunity to take her blade back, rush at Jade and toss her white cape over the Chinese girl, blinding her. How did she move so…?! the Chinese girl thought as the noblewoman punched her in the gut, making her to lose her breath for a second.
As she regained her breath and she began shapeshifting again, Jade felt pain coursing through her arms, abdomen and chest. By the time she had become the great black wolf again and tore through the old noblewoman's cape, she was bleeding from deep gnashes in her fur and skin, product of the Archduchess' sword. Meanwhile, Will had taken the curved dagger out of her shoulder, wielding it with her good arm. Bleeding Guardian and Shapeshifter stood their ground, glaring at the Archduchess. Jade even growled at her. The old noblewoman, now wielding her blade with both hands and over her head, was smiling from ear to ear; blood dripping from her crushed nostrils. It hurt their pride to admit it, but in just a few moves, she had inflicted far more damage into them than they had inflicted into her. And they knew she knew that.
"Did you two honestly believe that I had never fought against experts in unarmed combat?!" she shrieked. "Against Beasts?! Against sorcerers?! That I haven't fought with and killed them in my life?! Do you think that any of you can do anything that I haven't already seen someone else do a hundred times better?! That anything you may do can take me by surprise?!" the woman spat red on the ground. "I am Galiene Sebille, Archduchess of Blackrock Island! I am the Blade of Meridian! And I have fought almost through my entire life! And it has been a long one! For more than seventy years… for far more than thrice the time any of you two have lived! In all that time only I have stood alone atop the battlements! And you think you can win?! There is no escape! No chance of victory for you! You are going to die here! Your army is going to be crushed here! Either by my army's might, or by…!"
ROOOOOOOOOR!
Another horn was rung in the distance. And although the sounds were similar, it was clear this wasn't the same horn that the forces of Blackrock Island had used to signal their arrival.
ROOOOOOOOOR!
There it was again. And with it, came the faint sound of hooves against the stony ground of the Plains. All combatants on the battlefield seemed to froze for a second time. Guardian, Shapeshifter and Archduchess found themselves staring at the sound's direction. A cloud of dust could be seen growing in the distance. And within it, they all saw them.
ROOOOOOOOOR!
Soldiers. Thousands of them. Two thousand, to be exact. Two thousand soldiers, riding on horseback. Armed with spears, swords, axes, pikes, bow and arrow. And most important of all… unharmed and fresh. And leading them was one rider, separated from the rest. His armor was of a light tone of pink, his helmet decorated with three pheasant feathers. And while few could see it, there was a falcon perched atop his shoulder. Keeping the reins in his right hand, he held a steel ax in the left, and his way of riding oozed confidence. One had to admit, Viceroy Khenel knew how to make an entrance.
"Hahahaha…" the Archduchess laughed soft and dryly. "See?" she asked the pair of girls she was facing, not without a hint of smugness in her voice. Nevertheless, she still kept her blade high over her head, ready to either defend or attack. "It is over!"
And then something the Archduchess wasn't expecting happened. The wolf, the Shapeshifter… laughed. Or at least made a sound that Galiene interpreted as laughter. The redheaded Keeper of the Heart, meanwhile, lowered the hand she was holding the Archduchess' curved dagger with and dedicated a smirk to the old noblewoman. A triumphant smirk. A proud smirk. A smirk that the Archduchess felt was the most terrifying thing she had witnessed in her entire life.
"Yeah, you're right;" Wilhelmina Vandom said. "It's over."
ROOOOOOOOOR!
"CHARGE!" Viceroy Khenel ordered, hoisting his ax on the air, and the falcon over his shoulder flying to the skies.
And his two-thousand riders obeyed, and charged; yelling. They charged, yes…
Directly against the nobility's forces.
Drake
The two-thousand cavalrymen weren't the only ones that had arrived on the battlefield. Mostly ignored due to how small their group was compared to the Viceroy's host (and how less flashy their arrival had been), more or less three-hundred rebels were marching on foot over the Meridian Plains, led by none other than Drake. While the Viceroy's cavalry clashed with the tired remnants of the nobility's army and threw them into chaos, Drake's small force marched towards the rear of the rebel army, where the Archduchess' thousand soldiers were concentrated. It was their duty to take care of them, after all.
Now, at first glance this appeared to be an impossible task. Blackrock Island's soldiers were the best of the best, and Drake's rebels were nothing but the former prisoners of the Underwater Mines that had decided to join the Rebellion. And to that difference in skill and combat experience, the difference in numbers also needed to be had in mind. Three-hundred against a thousand? Not the most favorable of premises. But this didn't trouble this little band of former prisoners much. They were certain that, even with such odds against them, they could take care of the forces from Blackrock. For they had a trick under their sleeve. After all, Drake's three-hundred rebels weren't armed with the kind of weaponry a meridianite would deem 'normal'.
"Fire!" the blond rebel commanded once they were within the appropriate distance.
And upon hearing that word, most of the rebels under the blond man's command aimed guns at the men and women under the Archduchess' command. Handguns, shotguns, machine-guns… automatic, semiautomatic… all sizes and types… And yes, even the prototype laser-weapons that the Dark Hand had given the rebels for free. Bullets and laser-beams flew across the air; killing many of the soldiers from Blackrock Island, and sending many others into a frenzy. Not all of them lost their resolve instantaneously, though, and tried to charge against the small rebel force.
"Now!" Drake yelled, seeing the swordsmen approach. "The artifacts!" he commanded his forces.
The blond rebel pleasantly watched as the blade of a Blackrock swordsman shattered upon colliding with a rebel's thick armor, which had been nothing but a lightweight tunic moments before. Another tried to pierce a rebel's chest, only for the rebel's body to acquire the properties of rubber and dodge every strike. Another rebel sent a trio of swordsmen to their knees by unleashing a powerful sonic blast from his mouth, product of the magical collar around his neck. Another froze some of the incoming swordsmen with a magical stick.
This was why Drake's little group didn't fear losing against a force that could normally simply outnumber and overpower them. As long as they maintained a distance, the Archduchess' soldiers would be killed by bullets. If some decided to get close in a desperate attempt to cut them down when it was time to reload, then it was just a matter of using the magical artifacts in order to take care of them. And of course, there were also the other rebel soldiers they were fighting with.
It's a foolproof strategy, Drake thought as he fired another laser-beam at the enemy. Those two really outdid themselves with this…
Archduchess Galiene Sebille
Madness. This was madness. This didn't make any sense at all!
The Viceroy's cavalry, which was supposed to arrive and give the finishing blow to the rebel army… had instead attacked the nobility's own forces! And not only that, but her own forces had been attacked by a small platoon of rebels on foot… wielding weapons that the Archduchess had never seen!
This… This was disastrous. This was the worst case scenario. In one fell swoop, her fellow nobles' army had been put at a complete disadvantage, and her own forces had been rendered useless. She felt all hope and strength leave her body. She had even dropped her guard, holding her blade down and in one hand.
"What's wrong, granny?" Jade Chan, back in her human form, her wounds still bleeding but already healing, taunted her. "What happened to all that 'I'm the invincible Blade of Meridian' thing you had going on?"
The Archduchess stared at the Shapeshifter and the Guardian. Both of them smiling triumphantly at her! Mocking her! Even when they were far more injured than she was! But why wouldn't they smile? It was clear the balance of power in this battlefield had shifted in the Rebellion's favor. And that was when she realized...
"You... You did this!" she accused, glaring at the pair of girls.
"Duh!" Jade said. "Of course we did."
"Did you honestly think we'd risk the final outcome of the war in an open fight with you without making sure we'd win it?" Will asked, echoing the Archduchess' own words from before. "Or that the Baroness and the Count were the only nobles we talked into an alliance with us?"
"The Count's betrayal was..." Galiene began to say, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place within her mind.
"A distraction," Will finished for her; "so you wouldn't notice the Viceroy's own betrayal. And an excuse that the Viceroy used in order to plan this." Will moved her injured shoulder a little. Then she threw the Archduchess' curved dagger into the ground. "This is when you retreat."
"What?" an incredulous Galiene Sebille asked.
"You've lost," Will told her. "It's either retreat now, or complete defeat and death. For you and everyone else."
"Look around you, granny;" Jade declared. "Your army's done for. Your soldiers are dead, too injured or too scared and confused to keep fighting."
Yes, that much was true. The betrayal of the Viceroy and the arrival of those foot-soldiers with strange weaponry had done far more than provide the rebels with a tactical advantage, it had crushed the morale of the nobility's army. It was clear, even to the biggest fool on the Meridian Plains, that the nobles had lost this battle.
The Archduchess looked down at her blade. She felt it to be heavier than it had been in any other moment of her life. She could try to attack these two, fight to the bitter end... but that would only seal the fate of her fellow nobles and the good people under their command. "This isn't over..." she said through gritted teeth.
"We'll see about that," Will declared.
The Blade of Meridian then hoisted her sword into the air and pronounced a word she had never said before.
"Retreat!"
Cornelius, of Lannion
"Retreat!" someone yelled. "Retreat!"
"Let them go!" someone else yelled in turn. "Let them go! Save our wounded! Gather the wounded, you fools!"
What is happening? Count Cornelius thought, as the fighting around him came to a halt. Has the battle ended? Have we won? Did we manage to defeat Relena? What is…?
He found himself with his arse on the ground as soon as he stopped his movements. He could see so very little… vision so blurry… Vathek was the only form he could discern amongst the others. He was… petting a bird, or something. 'Well done, Salazar'; the Count thought he heard the bulky blue Galhot say. What? Who was that? A rebel? A soldier? He wasn't fighting, though. Good. That was good.
They had won. It was over. It was all… over.
He hit his head against something. The ground? Was he lying on his back now? Curious. It didn't feel very hard. He heard noises. In the blink of an eye, Vathek was over him, lifting his head and holding him up. Saying… something. Cornelius didn't know. He wasn't in the Meridian Plains anymore.
He was on the streets of Lannion once again. Running. Talking. Drinking. Singing. He heard a sound. Many sounds. As soft as a child's laughter. As loud as a thunderstorm. Everything became brilliant and white… everything… engulfed by the light… and the sound… the sound…
"The cathedral…The bells…" the Count managed to say. "Mother…?"
The Infinite City
Sephiria
If anyone ever said that the chaos and confusion of a large battle end when the victor has been decided, they were lying. Sephiria, daughter of Sarah; knew that better than most.
It had been more than an hour and a half since the Battle of the Meridian Plains had concluded. Or, at least, since wounded rebels had begun arriving at the Infinite City. Here, in these chambers and halls that the Faithful of the Light of Meridian had prepared to tend to the Rebellion's injured soldiers, here was where the chaos and confusion of battle lived on.
Broken bones, bleeding wounds, missing limbs... or limbs that had to be removed due to how damaged they were. People that couldn't move their legs, or anything from below the neck. Soldiers that died in the moment their helmet was removed and their heads cracked open, their brains spilling out.
And the screams. Merciful Light, the screams. Screams born of pain, of sorrow, of confusion... and of madness. Those were the worst. The men and women who had come back only in body, their minds still at the battlefield. Some of them got better. Others... didn't.
With every passing moment, more and more of these wounded arrived at the Infinite City. Wave after wave, they seemed to be endless. And it fell into the hands of the priests and priestesses of the Faithful of the Light of Meridian to help them as best as they could. Which was proving to be rather...
"I need more bandages!"
"It hurts! It hurts!"
"Have ya' finished with the damn ointments already?!"
"I can't see! Why can't I see?!"
"Fetch me a saw!"
"No! No! Don't cut it! Don't cut my arm!"
Difficult. Not impossible. But difficult, yes.
At least this is being of great help, Sephiria thought, taking a glance at the Horse Talisman in her hand. Jade Chan had given it to her, arguing that it would be most useful in her hands. Considering that, as she pressed the Talisman against the chest of a wounded rebel and the image of the horse on it gleamed for a moment the four or so deep, bleeding cuts over said chest closed instantaneously and left no trace of having ever been there; Sephiria thought that Jade Chan had been correct in her assumption. As she watched the breathing of the now healed rebel grow softer, an idea grew within her head. Maybe…
"Gregor!" she called.
In less than a minute, a portly, middle-aged priest with a thick yet short beard and missing the top of his right ear came to her. "Yes?!" he asked.
"Pick a handful of the Faithful, and begin dividing the wounded in two groups!" she commanded. "One composed of the people with minor wounds, broken bones, clean-cut limbs or anything that you think can get healed quickly by washing, ointments, bandages or our healing spells! Then I want another group composed of people with serious wounds, badly damaged limbs or anything that puts their life at risk, and I want you to use this on them, even if it's one by one!" she instructed, handing Gregor the Horse Talisman. "For the love of the Light, don't lose it. And third, I want everyone that it's not of our order or wounded out of these chambers, alright?!"
"Yes, ma'am!" the portly, bearded priest answered, clenching the Horse Talisman and running off. Ma'am, he had called her. All did that, here. Even when most of them were so much older than she was.
That should make this a little easier, at least; she thought, then turned her attention to the next injured rebel. With time, her idea bore results. That artifact, that Horse Talisman, it was such a wonderful thing. In the blink of an eye, it could heal any wound, without the need for incantations or any written spells. She wasn't sure it would be able to make a man that had lost a leg regrow it (it wasn't as if she had tried, to be honest), but it could save another from losing his. This meant that they needed less people to tend to the rebels with the worst injuries, which in turn allowed the Faithful to put more people at work treating the ones with less worrying (or at least non-fatal) wounds. And the more people tending to them, the less time they would need to be treated and healed. And as the chaos and confusion decreased, Sephiria came to hold a huge, blue and scaled hand between hers. A hand that was missing its entire pinky and ring fingers, as it was missing the top of the middle one. A hand that Sephiria knew to whom it belonged to.
"Vathek?!" she asked loudly, looking up at the injure blue Galhot. Perched over his shoulder was his pet falcon Salazar, worryingly looking over its master, if that was possible for a falcon.
"Sephiria," the bulky blue Galhot greeted.
"Vathek…" the young priestess said, taking a good look at him. Injured, yes. Bleeding, yes. But nothing too worrisome. Especially considering that he was a Galhot. The worst part was… "Vathek, your hand…" she said as she cleaned it with a wet rag as best as she could, then reached for some green, smelly ointment from a small flask that hanged from her belt and rubbed it over his entire hand, just to be sure. It would keep it from infecting, stop the bleeding, and help the wound to close and heal.
"Some soldier chopped my fingers," Vathek explained casually, as if doing so would rest importance to it. Nevertheless, he grimaced when Sephiria began bandaging his hand and applying pressure.
"That much is obvious," she said, moving so she could treat his other injuries next. The worst one seemed to be the one on his shoulder. "What about the others? Caleb, the Guardians? Jade Chan? Drake? Where are they? Are they well? Did the battle go as planned?"
"The battle went as we had hoped it'd go," Vathek explained, breathing deeply and heavily. Salazar rubbed his feathery head against his. "We won, and the others went after the nobles. But… but we lost the Count."
"We did?" she asked, perhaps too insensibly judging by his expression. "Oh, I'm… sorry." Was she? Could she? Should she? He was a nobleman that had only joined their cause out of fear. Fear, that however, was not for his safety but for his people's well-being. And weren't all the children of Meridian precious to its Light? All their lives sacred? Yes, the Count deserved mourning. She would include him in her prayers, as she would with all the rest that had perished today.
"I didn't know you and the Count were close," a cold voice said at the priestess' back, startling her. As she glanced over her shoulder, she met with the bizarre gaze of Charles Ludmoore, the King Smuggler carrying a rebel with several arrows nailed on him over his shoulders. "Where can I leave him?"
"Over there," Sephiria told the man of the strange eyes and strange arm, pointing to an empty spot in the chamber with her head. As he did as told and returned towards them, she noticed that Ludmoore was completely unscathed. Dirty, but unscathed.
"We weren't," Vathek told the King Smuggler. "But we fought side by side, even if briefly, and he gave his life for us. Which is more than can be said of you. Where were you during the battle?!" he yelled, yet he grimaced afterwards. Sephiria resisted the urge to hit him in the head as if he were a child.
"Doing as I had been told," Ludmoore answered coldly. "Support the infantry with my magic. It just so happened to be a part of the infantry that you weren't in. Surely, you can't blame me for getting separated from you in that chaos."
Vathek narrowed his eyes and grumbled something, but said nothing.
"If you are done talking," Sephiria told the King Smuggler. "I was told you know some basic healing spells?"
"Yes," the man answered emotionlessly.
"Then go and help with anything you can," she ordered him, pointing to the nearest group of priests.
"Very well," he said cold but politely, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up, allowing Sephiria to see, even if momentarily, the nauseating part of his right arm where his wooden right hand merged with his flesh, just above the wrist. Now it was her turn to grimace.
She watched him go, only to return her full attention to Vathek seconds after. She finished treating the piercing wound on his shoulder, then inspected for anything more that needed to be healed, and found nothing. "You're better than most of the others, but try not to move for the next hour or so, alright? I have to go now, and heal others."
"I'll be alright, lass;" Vathek took his fellow member of the Rebellion's Small Council. "Go and do your duty."
With a smile and a nod as farewell to her friend, the young priestess moved onto treating the next rebel.
There was still much to do.
The Nobility's Camp
A couple of hours later
"What do you mean the Viceroy betrayed us?" Viscount Servantis asked aloud, to whoever answered first, pacing around.
They were in a big, red tent. Margrave Olein, bruises all over his body, his right eye purple and swollen, rested over a chair in the center of the tent, the only part of his armor he hadn't taken off being his boots. Baronetess Relena, her torso and folded arms bandaged, sat over a stool near the tent's entrance, head held down. At the end of the tent sat Archduchess Galiene Sebille, her broken and already treated nose being nonetheless inspected by her daughter, Ishol.
They had lost. They had lost abysmally. Their army was in shambles. Many of their soldiers were dead, and the ones who weren't were either too injured or too scared to keep fighting. It wasn't as if the nobles themselves were in any better shape, either.
And they had lost the Duke.
"What is so hard to understand about it?" Relena answered somberly from her stool. "The Viceroy's cavalry crushed our forces when we thought he would attack the rebels. That bastard…" she cursed.
"But…" Servantis mumbled, rubbing his forehead with his only remaining arm. That wasn't what Khenel had told them. That was not the plan! It… wasn't, right? Or perhaps… it had been the plan since the beginning. Khenel's plan, the rebels' plan, the Guardians' plan. And they had played perfectly into it. The rebels had made them dance in the palm of their hand.
"I say we escape this camp as soon as possible," the Margrave suggested. "Take as many soldiers with us as we can, and travel to the nearest great city."
Relena rose violently from her stool. "I will not run and hide behind some walls like a coward! I have done that for too many years!"
"And I won't die like a fool against an enemy that easily overpowers us!" the Margrave retorted.
"Hush, the both of you;" Galiene said, silencing the two other nobles. Her voice sounded weird, a product of her broken nose. "If they wanted us dead, we would already be."
"Are you suggesting they let us retreat on purpose?" the Margrave inquired.
"I know they let us retreat on purpose," the Archduchess answered. "It was the Keeper of the Heart who told me to retreat. I don't know why, but she did;" she sighed. "They were keeping me distracted, that Guardian and that Shapeshifter. Stalling for time until Khenel arrived. If I hadn't focused on them like a fool, and instead focused entirely in piercing through their rear, then…"
"Mother," Ishol calmed her, holding her hands and dedicating a smile to her. "Please, don't blame yourself."
The Viscount rubbed his forehead once more, eyes closed, deep in thought. Let them escape? Why? True, continuing to fight a battle that had already been won was but a waste of effort, but why wouldn't the rebels try to make sure the remnants of their army scattered, or capture one of them, or…? Then his eyes snapped open and he looked at his wife's mother. "They need us," he said darkly.
"What?" Ishol asked of her husband.
"They need us," Roderick repeated. "They let us retreat because they need us alive," he explained. "Think about it. They cannot maintain the kingdom's mid-rim under control without us," he continued. "If they killed all of us here, then even with Phobos out of the board, I doubt the great cities still under our command would fall into line. Margrave, your wife is still on Frozen Peak. Baronetess, your retainers are still in Moonlake. And Duke Jedah may had perished, but his daughter and grandchildren are still in Drakenburg. And I doubt Blackrock would follow anyone that killed you," he finished, looking at the Archduchess.
"Are you saying that they used this bloody battle in order to force us to… what?" the Baronetess asked this time. "Surrender to them? Ally with them? Parley with them?"
As soon as Relena had pronounced those words, a soldier appeared by the tent's entrance. He found himself with the eyes of all the nobles nailed into him. "I…" he hesitated. "There's been… There was… a messenger. From the rebels," he said, holding up a folded piece of paper.
The Royal Palace
The throne room
Panting and sweating, Prince Phobos came running into his palace's throne room, closing the chamber's big doors behind him. Without allowing himself any moment to rest, he rushed to his throne and, without even sitting on it, simply by putting a hand over it; he began to siphon energy from Meridian itself; like he had done a million times before.
So close! So close! he thought anxiously. The walls, ceilings and floors trembled violently. His sister approached. I'm running out of time! I just need enough to cast...
Before he even had the chance of finishing that thought, the huge doors of the throne room burst open with such strength that they were blown from their hinges. Afterwards, his sister, her body still as brilliant as a star, came floating into the throne room.
"End of the line, big brother!" almighty Princess Elyon Escanor declared (not without a hint of spite in the way she said 'big brother') as she levitated towards the terrified Phobos, her voice echoing with even more power than before.
Phobos took his hand off the throne. Slowly, he walked away from the spot from which, for almost fourteen years, he had ruled the land. Fourteen long years... and everything, everything he had done had been all for this moment! So he breathed deeply, and tried to maintain his emotions under control. He thought that he had siphoned enough energy. He hoped so.
"So it would seem, sister dearest;" he spat as spitefully as she had done; and seconds after, both siblings found themselves at the center of the throne room. One on ground, the other on the air.
Unsurprisingly, it was Elyon who made the first move. She extended her arm forward, shooting a brilliant energy ball towards her brother. A simple, crude move. A beginner's move, denoting inexperience and lack of skill. Had it been cast by any regular sorcerer, Phobos would have easily blocked it. But his sister wasn't any regular sorcerer, was she? No... she was the bearer of the Heart of Meridian. Even the most basic of spells was devastating if cast by her hand.
So Phobos dodged. The energy ball didn't hit him by the skin of his teeth, instead piercing through a wall and leaving a perfect hole behind. He counterattacked by clasping his hands and casting the same spell as before. Instead of the ground, the countless thorn vines sprouted from the walls this time, enveloping Elyon as they had done earlier.
Good, good! That should give me enough time, he thought.
Then, without losing a mere second, he dropped to his knees abruptly enough for them to hurt, and planted his palms against the ground. Immediately, he began whispering the spell. The vines were reduced to ashes moments after, and Elyon emerged from them, ready to obliterate her brother.
As soon as she reduced the thorn vines to dust, however; three pillars engraved in strange runes came out of the ground and were left levitating in the air, with a confused Elyon floating in their equidistant center. Although the Princess ignored what these things were, she deduced they were there to aid her brother, hurt her, or both. So she prepared to unleash another blast of magic with the intention of pulverizing them.
But it was too late.
"Cóntere Regula," Phobos whispered, and the runes in the pillars illuminated.
"Accipere Lumen," he said, standing up and rising his arms. His knees were bleeding, but he didn't care.
"Devorabit Anima!" Phobos yelled, and his eyes illuminated.
A series of tendrils emerged from the pillars and quickly launched themselves at Elyon, binding the Princess by her arms, her legs, and her torso. In an instant, her body ceased shinning, and her voice lost its strength. More tendrils emerged from the pillars, and this time, they sunk themselves in the Princess' chest. No blood was drawn out, yet the Princess felt the most horrible pain she had felt in her entire life.
Elyon Escanor screamed.
And Phobos Escanor laughed.
The castle's halls
The only individual that had attempted to move since Julian had appeared had been a Lurden, only for Tristan to smash him against the ground with his stinger tail, leaving him unconscious. The scorpion then glared at the rest of the Lurdens, his stinger tail menacingly swinging back and forth. The message was clear: 'The next one that tries anything before I say so will die.'
The Chan Clan didn't have any problems with that. This hall wasn't exactly the best place to fight a giant scorpion in. Tristan could crawl over the walls and the ceiling, which gave him far more range of movement that the Chan Clan had; and the only thing he needed to kill was to pierce them with his stinger tail. And he still had a full platoon of Lurdens at his back. Besides, none of them were sure about how this whole situation was going to develop.
"So you are still alive," Tristan said, his voice sounding far raspier in his scorpion form than how it did when he was human.
Julian, who had put himself between the scorpion Shapeshifter and the Chan Clan, nodded. "I am."
Tristan emitted a sound. Something akin to a mix of an ironic, scornful chuckle and a snort. "Not for long," he said. "You've made a mistake coming here. Look around you. This is the den of your enemies." Tristan clicked his pincers a couple of times. "Why? Why would you come here?"
"To help," Julian answered. An answer more for the Chan Clan than it was for Tristan. "And to… talk," he said, hesitating a little on the last word.
Tristan let out the ironic, scornful chuckle once again. "Talk?" the Shapeshifter wondered, then laughed darkly. "Talk, he says!" he uttered, gazing at the Lurdens at his back, who watched in confusion, but still not moved. "What do you want to talk about? The weather? A song? Oh!" he said, his pincers clicking again, and his stinger tail swinging faster and faster as he pronounced each word. "Perhaps you want to talk about how you killed my family."
"Do we do something?" Viper, at Jackie's side, whispered.
"No," the archeologist answered, in a whisper too. In the worst case scenario, this only gave the Browns and Blunk more time to act. In the best… well, they were about to see. "Not yet."
"I…" Julian continued, ignorant of the whispers behind his back. "I did no such thing."
"Horseshit!" Tristan shrieked, striking the floor with both tail and pincers, cracking it. "I didn't know back then, but I do now! You were the Rebellion's leader! You may not have killed my parents, but you were the leader of the scum who did! Who could've given the order, but you?!"
The Shapeshifter's words, so similar to his own son's, made Julian's body to tremble. "I…" the former rebel leader hesitated once again. He breathed deeply. "It's true," he said, and the words leaving his mouth left the same feeling as the one a man that has walked through the desert feels when he finds an oasis. "I did give the order."
"WHY?!" the scorpion cried.
"Because," Julian answered, eyes held down, shame tainting his voice; "I was afraid."
"Afraid?" an incredulous Tristan repeated. "AFRAID?! Afraid of what?! We were peasants! Lumberjacks! Farmers! Children! What could possibly be so terrifying about anyone in Carhaiz?!"
"Hope," Julian answered. "Hope made me afraid. Hope that people could... live happily, under the Prince's rule. The nobles' rule. Without sweating, or bleeding or... fighting and struggling by our side." Julian paused, looked up, shook his head and looked back down. "I was afraid that all our sacrifices, our suffering; would be in vain. That we would be forgotten, our cause nothing but... a few lines in a book." He paused again, breathing deeply. "Then one man, who's name I don't even remember if I ever knew it... He said, 'let's burn it down. No Carhaiz, no hope, no end to the Rebellion'. And like a fool I followed that idea and..."
"I know what happened then!" Tristan cut his words short with a roar. "I was there! I know what you did!" he said, then laughed a short, dark and mocking laughter. "Hahaha... You're... haha... You're so pathetic." Tristan walked until he was towering over Julian, clicking his pincers at his sides, the stinger tail menacingly held high. "Are you telling me... that my family and my friends... had to die because you were afraid of something that could happen?!"
Julian didn't answer the Shapeshifter's last question. But his silence was enough of an answer for Tristan. Enraged, he quickly grabbed the bearded man by the neck with one of his pincers.
"I should've let Raythor cut your head off!" he declared holding Julian up, tightening his pincer around his neck. "But I guess this is the perfect chance to cut it myself!"
"And what happens next?"
Startled, the scorpion turned his eyes at Jackie Chan. The archeologist had separated from his group and walked until he was standing right in front of Tristan.
"What?" the Shapeshifter asked, baffled.
"What happens next?" Jackie asked again. "You kill Julian, here and now. What happens after that?"
"I… I've avenged my family!" Tristan answered, yet his voice trembled for a second. Why had this man asked him that? Who was he to ask? To come between him and Julian?
"And then?" Jackie asked.
"Then I'll kill you if you don't…!" Tristan began to threaten.
"Alright, you kill me, you kill all of us;" Jackie cut him off in a serious tone, gesturing to the whole Chan Clan. "What will you do after that? Kill more rebels? Continue serving Phobos?" Jackie paused, then made the question he had wanted to ask since this conversation ha begun. "Do you think that's what your parents would have wanted?"
"Shut up! Shut up!" Tristan shrieked, then grabbed Jackie by the neck in the same manner he had grabbed Julian. He didn't lift him up, though. He saw Uncle and Viper began to move to aid the archeologist, only for Tohru to stop them both. He knew that he could kill him before they did anything. "You think you can lecture me?! That you know me?! You know nothing about me, nothing about what I've been through!"
"I know… what it is… to lose your parents when you are young. I lost mine too;" Jackie told the young Shapeshifter, and felt the grip around his neck loosening. Moments later, Tristan let go of his throat, allowing the archeologist to recover his breath.
"I know how impotent, angry, sad and alone it makes you feel. How much you wish that they were back, and how much you think that you could do anything if that would bring them back;" Jackie told the scorpion, then exchanged a look with Julian; the bearded rebel still suspended in the air by his neck, the Shapeshifter's grip around it still firm. "And I know the Rebellion did something horrible to you. But killing Julian, or every rebel in this planet and continue serving under a tyrant isn't going to bring them back."
"I-I…" Tristan stuttered.
"Do you know what that will accomplish?" Jackie inquired. "It will kill more innocent people. It will leave more children crying at their parents' graves. Is that what you want?"
"I don't care…" Tristan began, but the words became ash in his mouth.
"Yes, you do care. Because, if you didn't, you wouldn't have saved Julian, and you wouldn't have told us where to find him. Now let me ask you another question," the Chinese man continued. "Do I deserve to die for what the Rebellion did to you? Does my niece, who isn't older than you? Does any rebel that didn't know about Carhaiz or that wasn't there?" The archeologist paused, but the Shapeshifter didn't answer. "What about the Princess? The girl you have been acting as a bodyguard for? Because I don't think Phobos will be willing to share the throne with her. Does she deserve to suffer for your suffering?"
"N-No…" Tristan answered, after a while.
"Then stop this," Jackie pleaded. "Tristan, you can stop this. You can let Julian go, and let us through; and we can end this war today. We can put an end to all the violence. You can. You can end this chain of hatred, here and now. And prevent others from suffering as much as you have."
"I… I just…" Tristan babbled.
"Tristan, please;" Jackie begged. "Think about your parents. Don't contribute to continue this war."
The Shapeshifter looked at the archeologist. His eyes were teary. It was somehow surprising how easy one could see now that he was child, even when transformed into a giant scorpion. Then he looked back at Julian, and his eyes became full of hatred once again, only to quickly give way to sorrow, confusion and impotence. He roared in Julian's face.
And, ultimately, let the rebel go.
The Meridian Plains
"They won't come," the Baroness of Fallbottom declared.
"They will," Wilhelmina Vandom told her. "Trust me. It's their only chance."
They had chosen a small rock formation to hold their parley with the nobility, far away from both the battlefield and the nobility's own camp in the Plains.
The Baroness and Viceroy (now without any helmet) had brought their horses, but had already dismounted and left the two animals aside. The rest had come on foot. Or flying, in the Guardians' case. Taranee was currently speaking with Drake. Hay Lin and Irma were checking on Jade, who insisted again and again that the wounds that the Archduchess had inflicted on her were nothing, that they were almost completely healed by now and that they wouldn't even leave a scar; all while juggling a knife between her fingers. Cornelia and Caleb had sat together at the shadow of the rock formation. The scarred rebel leader had received what could only be defined as Meridian's equivalent of first aid, with some bandages here and there that prevented his wounds from continuously bleeding and getting worse, but that weren't enough to heal him completely. They had told him that it would do him better to stay behind, but he had insisted in coming, saying that he needed to be a part of this. As for Will, she stood near the pair of nobles, waiting.
She didn't have to wait much longer before they heard horses in the distance. Then she saw them. Five figures, each on horseback. "They're here," Will called for her companions, "get ready."
In an instant, all of them fell into formation; standing in one line. The two traitorous nobles stood far at the line's left; while Drake positioned himself at its far rightest. Left to the blond rebel went Taranee, left to her Hay Lin, then Jade (still juggling that knife), then Irma, then Cornelia, next came Caleb (using the sheathed Sword of Thanatos as an improvised cane); and finally Will.
And then the five figures on horseback stopped and dismounted. Slowly, they approached. The last remnants of the Rebellion's opposition. The Archduchess led the formation of five from its center, with her daughter and one-armed son-in-law at her sides. Flanking the group were the badly wounded Margrave and Baronetess. Some would find somehow amusing to see how, even in defeat, they tried to walk with dignity. Others would have called it inspiring.
The five nobles reached the rebels, Shapeshifter and Guardians. They stood a few meters away from them, one line of people in front of the other. For several minutes, nobody uttered a word. Then the Viscountess broke the silence.
"You lied to us," Viscountess Ishol told Viceroy Khenel, "in the Plains, when you found Roderick and me and told us about the plan you had devised. It wasn't Jedah's idea, was it? It was yours."
Khenel kept his mouth shut for a few seconds, then nodded. "Aye, it was."
"You have killed the Duke," Baronetess Relena spat suddenly, missing the short-lived smirk that Baroness Miriam's lips turned into.
"You have killed the Count," Viceroy Khenel retorted, glaring at his fellow noblewoman. A shadow crossed over Relena's face upon hearing those words. Could she be only realizing now that Cornelius would die from the wounds she and others had inflicted on him?
"Why did you do this?" Viscount Servantis asked of Khenel next. His voice didn't sound accusatory, or enraged. Just… sad. "We could have ended the war today. We could have won, had you not betrayed us. We could have had… peace. At last."
"I did toy with the idea," the Viceroy confessed in a sad tone. "Especially after encountering you. But it would have been a false peace, Viscount. A peace built in order to hide our mistakes, and that couldn't have lasted. That is why I have done… what I have done."
"And they haven't committed any mistake?" Viscountess Ishol asked, hurt. She glared at Caleb while doing so, and her husband and mother dedicated a tender look at her.
"These rebels are no different from the people that murdered your parents, boy;" Margrave Olein accused.
The Viceroy scowled furiously at the man upon hearing those words. "The people who killed my parents, old man;" he spat; "were dealt with a long time ago. What I have done, I haven't done because of personal reasons, but because it was the best course of action. I haven't joined forces with the rebels because I want more power, or because I hate any of you; but because when the Keeper of the Heart came to me," he said, gesturing to Will; "her words made sense. More sense than yours, anyway. And yes," he told Ishol in particular, and his face softened when he did so; "the Rebellion has committed many mistakes. But they are willing to be responsible. To accept and try to amend those mistakes. Cannot we do the same?"
The five nobles fell silent. Then the Archduchess, who hadn't uttered a word until now, gave a step forward, rubbing her broken and bandaged nose as she did so. "What are your terms?" she asked of Will, instead of Caleb or the Viceroy.
"You'll surrender, obviously;" Will explained, arms folded under her chest. "And when we depose Phobos and put Elyon on the throne, you'll swear… fealty to her," she said, pausing for a second, dubious if the word was the correct one to use; "and to the new regime. Then, you'll be free to go back to your cities and lands and rule them, pacify them, or whatever you need to do to maintain them under control. You won't attempt to take any action against the new regime, and will aid it in everything you can. In exchange, the new regime will put under arrest all the members of the Rebellion that have committed crimes on your lands and send them to you, and you'll judge them as you see fit. And, of course, you'll get out of here alive."
"I suppose that doesn't include him;" the Margrave remarked, pointing to Caleb with a movement of his head.
The Archduchess held up a hand, silencing the man. "What about places like Kelliwick or Lannion? Neither Earl Ghiscar nor Count Cornelius had any family left. Nobody to inherit their lands."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," the redhead answered. "What do you say?"
The Archduchess pondered what the redheaded Guardian had told her. "Your terms are… reasonable," she said. "Too reasonable, even. It cannot be so simple. There must be a trick."
Will smirked. It was the same smirk the Archduchess had witnessed upon the battlefield, and if filled her with the same dread it had done before. "Oh, there's a trick. Jade?" she asked, looking at her friend. And, impassive, Jade Chan held her knife in her right hand and stabbed her left palm, opening a wound on it; then closing her fist.
"What…?" a baffled Archduchess wondered aloud. Her shock did nothing but grow upon seeing the Shapeshifter girl's fist be surrounded by red energy.
"Funny thing about my blood, granny;" Jade said, holding her red fist up; "I can use it to do very nasty things to your blood. I just need to get a little bit of mine inside you. Doesn't matter how much. A drop's enough. And it doesn't have to be pure. It can be mixed with anything. Like," Jade shrugged; "I don't know. Food, for example. Or a drink."
The Archduchess' eyes bulged. They jumped from the girl to the Viceroy, who evaded her gaze. If his look full of shame wasn't confirmation enough, then the four screams she heard at her sides were. Turning on her heels she watched her daughter, son-in-law, and the other two nobles fall to their knees and backs, screaming in pain. In a second, she was on her knees too, missing how the Fire and Air Guardians averted their gazes from the scene. She reached for her daughter's hands and held them within hers, trying to calm her down, even if she knew there was nothing she could do. After the worst minute of her entire life, the Archduchess saw the pain leaving her daughter's and the others' bodies; leaving them panting instead of screaming.
"This is our way of making sure you won't step out of line, granny;" Jade said, forcing the Archduchess to take her eyes off her daughter and look at her. "So, every time any of you get any funny idea, remember. I can kill you. Wherever. You. Are."
"Archduchess Sebille," Caleb said with respect. "Believe me when I say, we don't want to kill you, and that nobody understands the atrocities our side has committed better than me. But this war has lasted for too long. So if you don't see reason, then we'll kill you. So please, I'm begging you;" he pleaded; "accept."
The Archduchess looked at her daughter, then back at the rebels, finally settling her eyes on the Keeper of the Heart. She would make sure that this girl's name would get written in the history books, even if only to warn future generations of Kandrakar's might. She had made them yield twice in a day.
"We accept your terms," she declared.
Twenty minutes later
"Does your Blood Magic really got so much range?" Irma asked of Jade.
The nobles had left moments before. The Viceroy and Baroness were preparing their horses too, in order to go back to the Infinite City and see how their forces were doing. Caleb and Drake had meanwhile joined the girls, and were currently discussing their next course of action. Nevertheless, the group couldn't avoid sharing a feeling of accomplishment. It was over. It was finally over. And they had won.
"No," Jade answered. "But they don't know that."
"I still don't know why we couldn't have done this from the beginning…" Taranee sighed, adjusting her glasses.
"A decapitated army is still an army, Taranee;" Will told her. "Even with the nobles out of the picture, some commander could've gotten full of himself, take control, and continue fighting. This way, they've got no other option than surrender to the Rebellion."
"I know, I know…" the Fire Guardian accepted. "At least it's all over."
"So… what do we do now?" Hay Lin voiced the question everyone was thinking.
"We should return to the Infinite City with the Viceroy and Baroness," Drake suggested.
"I agree," Will said. "Besides, with the nobility out of the way, the only things to worry about are Phobos, and maybe the Guard. The latter was basically in the nobility's side for what the Viceroy's told us, and the former won't be much of a problem if Jackie and the others succeed in bringing Elyon into our…"
As soon as the Keeper of the Heart pronounced the Princess' name, her words were cut short by a thunderous sound at her back. The Guardians, Jade Chan, Caleb and Drake found themselves staring in the sound's direction then. Over the horizon, they saw what could only be described as a mass of pure white light. Through small from this distance, it must be enormous considering how well they could see it.
"What's that?" Cornelia asked.
"It's… the Capital, I think;" Caleb answered his girlfriend's question. It had to be. It couldn't be anything else.
"It doesn't look like good news," Irma added.
Jade stared at the mass of light in the distance, worry quickly growing within her mind. Somehow, she got a hunch that this was far worse than your typical bad news.
"Jackie…"
The Royal Palace
Throne Room
Neither Alborn nor Miriael were expecting the Throne Room to look the exact same way it had done in the times of Queen Weira when they walked into it in the company of Blunk the Passling. However, they weren't expecting it to look like this.
The gates had been blown from its hinges. The floor and walls were cracked, and there was debris everywhere, including the broken remnants of what the pair of glamoured Galhots and Passling thought must had been three stone pillars. And the ceiling… the ceiling was mostly gone, an enormous hole where it once was. The only thing that had remained intact was the throne itself. And, in that throne, bound by thick, thorny vines, dress torn apart at several places, braids undone and eyes closed… was her. Their daughter.
"Elyon!" husband and wife exclaimed at the same time, ignoring everything else and running past Blunk and to their child's side.
"Elyon?" Alborn whispered as he and Miriael began tearing apart the thorny vines.
"Elyon, Elyon…" Miriael whispered too, stroking their daughter's cheek.
For a moment, they feared the worst. Then, slowly, Elyon began opening her eyes. Confused, the girl mumbled something as her parents tore apart the last thorn and freed her, embracing the Princess in their arms.
"M-mom…?" the girl finally mastered to say. "D-Dad…?"
"It's okay, Elyon, it's okay;" Alborn told her. "We got you."
"Mom… Dad… I… I…" the Princess said in a whisper.
And next came the thunder over their heads. And a light so strong that they were blinded. Little Blunk screamed and rushed to the Browns' side, while Alborn and Miriael tightened their arms around their daughter.
"I'm so sorry…"
Roberta
Roberta had learned long ago that the best way to both survive and gain power wasn't to be the most powerful person in the room, contrary to what many thought. Rather, she had found out it was much more cost-effective to be that person's second, or even third in command. That way she could enjoy a far amount of power and when someone more powerful appeared in the room, she could easily change sides and leave the formerly most powerful person to rot while she remained safe and sound. She had done so through her entire, and relatively short, life. Leaving one gang when a bigger one appeared in town. Betraying the boss of the gang when an upstart took over, and becoming that guy's trusted right-hand gal instead. Leaving said gang to serve an old wizard that had given her the power to transform into a giant bird. Backstabbing that guy in order to become the confidant of the Prince. And now… now she had finally hit the jackpot.
Flapping her wings in order to maintain herself in the air, she could see him. The Prince. Floating in the air, enveloped in light. No… it seemed as if he was made of light, or at least as if it was coming from him. It made his clothes, skin and muscles so brilliant that she could even catch glimpses of his skeleton underneath. She watched as he stared at his hands, then as he raised them to the sky. He laughed, and next spoke. His voice echoed with such strength that, for a second, it threatened to make Roberta's eardrums hurt.
"I am a God!"
To base one's plans in the fact that you think you know how your enemy is going to behave is… risky. At best. Shendu
A/N: Hello again, dear readers. I hope you enjoyed this extremely long chapter as much as I enjoyed writing and, most importantly, finishing it. So, it seems that our protagonists have scored some well-earned victories. However, the last, three-part act of this "season" is just starting. As always, I don't know when the next update will be (curse you, Covid-19 infected world and how much more complicated everything has become on you!) so… I have nothing else to do but let the chapter speak for itself and say the following: Stay safe and stay well. Until next time.
Bye, bye!
