Chapter 29: Setting Sun

They are two siblings who were born under the stars. Far from either friend or foe, they shall set their battle under the glow of the full moon.

The ferocious sun. The gentle moon. Both tremble with their emotions at a high.

Solaris lined his fingers along his sword's grip one at a time and pulled it from the charred, cracked ground. Never had his eyes looked as red as a dying star, and like one, his rage would wipe everything out until not even her remained.

"You've always been weaker than me, sister..." He said over the sound of flames spurting from his sword.

This was no time for doubts, for tears. Shed the last drop of sorrow and fight with all your heart. That's all she could do to save her brother.

Lunis closed her eyes in view of her brother beginning to swing his blade. One last breath, so she could not even hear her heartbeat as a distraction. No anxiety. No thoughts. Let pure instinct take control.

Her eyes thrust open and she flung her knives straight towards his face. He shot a shocked look and blocked them with the blade's blunt edge.

She created a clone to run and jump his head with a kick while rushing forth herself. She snatched her knives on the rebound and stabbed them between his toes. A bit of silver frost on them would then keep him down.

She flipped away from the backside of his blade right into the grip of a clone. It spun her around quickly then fired her off as a torpedo. Solaris started to take a swing so she shifted course and punched him directly in the hip.

And with just enough time to turn and land on her palms. She then hopped onto her feet and shook her sore hand. Solaris tried to turn around but his lower half didn't budge. He grunted a few times before his eyes darted for the ground.

A feral smirk was her only warning to back off before he exploded with flames, and cratered the ground at his feet to free himself.

Lunis rested at the edge of the crater and blocked the incoming debris. She had to be more careful of that, or this destruction would run the risk of exposing the others.

"GRAH!" Her brother's roar turned her upward as he dove down, spinning both body and blade diagonally.

She short hopped away as he tore through the ground on his way towards her. He ripped through feet of solid stone like paper and threw explosive ash throughout the sky.

She soon found herself against a flat mountain face and forced to draw her knives in a feeble defense. He soon hammered her heels against the stone and cracks rapidly ascended towards the top.

"Two seconds..." She calculated as the time between swings. As the next one threatened to shatter her last line of defense, she sacrificed a clone to the wrath of flames, and a headbutt to his gut stopped him.

She then leaped up the mountain, kicking off the loose rocks on her way to the top. Once at the peak she kicked off with a twirl, looking dazzling under the moon.

And because Solaris was distracted by this, he failed to notice the mountain coming down on top of him.

If only that could be enough to knock him out.

Lunis cautiously stared at the pile of rocks, waiting for his next move. It wasn't surprising when he countered with another explosive outburst, carrying all these rocks skyward on a pillar of fire.

And then he shot out of the flames with such startling speed she didn't have time to escape. He grabbed the top of her head and shunted her down to where he was.

She had a clone catch her, for as little that'd help. For right away he closed his fist tight and rained all those burning rocks across the battlefield.

She bolted out towards the other side, flinging a couple knives up his way as a distraction. A rock fell in her path and the explosion tossed her back, where a few more of them battered her around.

Her final destination got her where she had wanted, unorthodox though it may have been. But now her brother had gained the advantage, robbing her of her speed.

But not her reflexes.

She rolled left as he came crashing down, and continued rolling as he brought his sword towards her head. The rising plume of ash knocked her up, but she quickly landed on her feet.

Her eyes bulged as she darted forward and rammed him in the chest, where the unsteady ground made it possible to knock him down.

The two stopped to catch their breath, and the battle resumed with her kicking his sword out of his hand as he tried to swing.

She then grabbed his neck and pulled away to lift him up. Her firm grip had staggered his breathing, giving her time and opportunity to lay her palms on his chest. Her silver frost slowly spread over the armor.

Fire spurted out from his body and repelled both her and the frost. He then lunged out and struck her neck with his right biceps.

Heavy loss of air, vision blurring, muscles limping. Despite these ills, she dug her heels deep into the ground and stayed upright, tearing through enough ground to rip the material off her suit and deeply redden the heels.

Solaris leaped through the air like a pouncing beast, his arms pulled back as far as they'd go. Lunis tossed out a couple clones to stall for time while she caught her breath. They grabbed his arms and dragged him to the ground.

He wasted no time bashing them together in front of him, releasing a fiery burst that bowled her over. He then charged ahead with a reeled back fist.

She pushed her feet out and scissored one of his legs between hers, then pulled him down. She then pulled herself back on top of him and slammed her palms on his chest.

But she had made a slight error in judgment, allowing him to force his hands around her neck. And he wasn't looking for a brief scuffle...

"Gck...! Gck!" She felt her life being choked out with every breath.

But she couldn't move, not until his armor was full of frost. Yet even if she was successful, there was only one way to free herself...

"I'm...sorry...!" She summoned her knives and stabbed them into Solaris' armpits, devoid of any armor.

He let go with a restrained grunt that lasted quite a while. That wouldn't hold him back for long. Her mind was hazy as she leaped high into the air with a series of flips. She was uncertain of success, but she had to try.

She extended one leg out and dropped down. Her vision tried to deceive her. No. There was only one destination. A bone shattering kick, delivered squarely to Solaris' brittler armor.

Her knee stung as she flipped away, and the pain felt even worse on landing. Solaris stood up and laid an arm over the bare space in his armor. He curled his fist inside of it and jerked his head up at her.

"All that...to break part of my armor?" His lips stretched for his cocksure grin. Lunis looked him in the eyes, eve after he swung his arm out and called his sword back.

"Stop this brother, I don't want to hurt you." She said with a small frown.

"Stop? Stop?!" He spat back in her face with laughter, "You're always acting like you're the older sibling and it pisses me off!"

"Do this? Don't do that?! I'm done listening to that crap!" He swung at his chest while hunched over, "I will live my life my way! To hell with the rest of you!"

"This won't make you happy." She said in return.

"And your 'friends' will, you pampered princess?" His sharp tongued growl made her look away timidly, "Daddy's little girl...You make me sick."

She thrust her glare out with quivering eyes and whispered, "You mean that, don't you?" Not disappointed just...sad.

She summoned her knives with a downward flick of the wrists and Solaris sneered in turn, "Yeah. Come on 'White Shroud'. We both know this won't stop unless I drop dead."

Fire rose around his body and lashed out at his surroundings, "If you can even bring yourself to kill your 'dear brother'."

A sharp jolt of aggression in the air stunned her and allowed him to close the gap with a single swing. She slipped around to his back and he turned around, aiming for her head.

She ducked under it and then quickly flipped into a handstand, kicking him up via his chin. She leaped after him and spun around, driving a flurry of kicks into his face.

Once past him she flipped upright and tried one last kick atop his head. He blocked with his blade's blunt edge and shoved her off, going straight into a fiery slash.

She used a clone to grab her leg and pull her down just in time, then leaped away as he aimed another slash at the ground. Her clone fired a few knives towards his face, then vanished.

He squeezed the knives down to liquid metal in an instant, boasting a smirk. He then came crashing straight down like a white hot arrowhead. His impact threw a large lava plume her way.

She put frost on her knife and sliced cleanly up through the middle, then tackled through the gap. Solaris tried to snag her out of the sky, but she had time to hop off his palm and fly over.

He raised his arm back and threw a fireball as she tossed a knife, canceling the two out, then repeated this two more times. When she landed she gathered a knife in each hand above her head and filled them with silver frost, while he raised his blade overhead and it howled with crimson fire.

The two dragged their weapons down in a slash of equal might, dividing their battle with wings of frozen flames and red mist.

She vaulted forward and took a dive between his legs as he swung down again, picking up right at his back. She jabbed him with twenty rapid-fire punches as he slowly turned around with a sinister glow in his eyes.

He whipped around his whole body and lashed the air with multiple waves of fire. She hopped back, narrowly grazing between two of them, then diving to the ground to escape the next wave.

She attempted to spin around and trip him up, but his stance was too solid and her bones paid the price. She clicked her tongue and pulled away, staying hunch flat against the ground on one hand.

He pounded the ground with the tip of his blade and sent flame pillars erupting in a straight line after her. She slid over to the right, then back to the left for the next wave. When he tried going for three, she narrowed her gaze and dashed ahead, zigzagging between each pillar until she was directly below him.

She raised a fist straight at his chest and, as expected, he was deceived into only moving back just as far as to avoid the knuckles. So she called her knife out midway through and cut him across the nose. He wasn't smug after that.

She backed away before facing harsh retaliation. His flame slash tore through part of the mountain behind her and made her wince. But she forced herself to not look back.

She flipped away, masterfully avoiding two of his slashes. His third one went for an upward swing, requiring the use of a clone to pull herself away. She tossed herself at another mountainside and noticed a fallen tree trunk at the ground.

She summoned another clone to pick up the tree and toss it at Solaris while she bent down and launched herself forward with incredible force. He let the wood splinter against the blunt edge of his blade and then fired off a blast of explosive ash when Lunis got close.

She forced herself towards the ground and rammed her shoulder along the dirt to slide underneath him. She pulled out her knives and took a swing at his legs, but couldn't break through the armor.

She stuck her feet to the back of his legs and propelled herself further back with a kick, giving her space and time to stand. She then flung two knives in anticipation for him exposing his chest.

She surprised her by leaving his armor out and blasting the knives to ash with a large fireball. She swerved to the right and ran straight at him. He tossed another fireball to swerve her to the left, where he was preparing to swing his sword into her path.

She leaped and rolled over the blade and the ensuing explosion. He dug his blade into the ground and started tearing through the space around him in a jagged circle. And, unfortunately, caught her against the blunt edge.

The burning pain didn't last long as she was thrown out after the first rotation and sent rolling across the ground. She got right up and breathed somewhat more heavily than before. Her eyes slowly widened as she saw his flames roar out of the cracks into a gigantic wall.

She called out a few clones and they all drew knives covered in silver frost. Solaris lashed his blade out hard enough to shake the air, and the fire wall was spread out quickly.

Her and her clones stabbed their knives into the wall and the ensuing combined chill was more than enough to freeze the whole wall solid before it could spread its inferno through the far away trees.

She hung her head up and panted, a brief calm before the storm, as it were. The wall cracked all around, and then shattered against the force of Solaris' fiery burst. She stayed still, but her clones were flung back.

He dropped his sword to the ground and started a slow march towards her. The intense heat surrounding him added a demonic sense of menace to his body.

"You. Can't. BEAT ME!" He roared, the flames spewing from his body dispelling most of the heat. He then dragged his sword up with a heavy swing to send a wave of fire her way.

She leaped to the right and waited. He sent out another wave, so she leaped to the right. No. The left. He was getting closer, this was no time to second guess things.

She needed an opening. Any opening. Her eyes remained wide open against the dry air as she charged forward, summoning a clone and zipping back and forth to hide which one was her.

They both attacked him from different sides but he slowly craned his head back to lock eyes only on her. He raised his sword high and brought it down. She gasped, falling on one knee and using her knives to block his aggressive assault.

"I know its you...!" He sneered with pride. The clone attempted to attack his chest but he grabbed it by the face without looking and slammed it into her. Her defenses were thrown off-balance, and the blade started coming down...

She dug her slanted feet into the ground and hopped away, the only harm being the bottom of her feet scraped by the blade.

She had to stand on her hands until her feet stopped flaring in pain. He was more than glad to start swinging at her in the meantime.

She carefully planned each flip to keep landing on her palms and he seemed hyper focused on attacking her like this. That was the opportunity she needed.

She flared her eyes open and summoned a clone directly next to him that ran right in and clocked him hard in the wrist, forcing the blade out of his grasp.

So attuned to his berserker state, he immediately grabbed the clone in the back of the head and slammed it against the ground.

Her feet, now feeling fine, freed up her mind to focus entirely on her target. She suspended briefly in the air and dove straight for Solaris' chest, tackling him down into dozens of feet of ground.

He responded in kind with a fiery burst that blew her away and shatter his surroundings. He dragged the burning rock up with one hand and flung it out as a hellish hailstorm.

She created two clones and hunched behind them so they could act as a shield. Then, the moment the brimstone had fallen, she dispelled them and darted in a zigzag towards him.

He was making the hand gesture to call his sword back. Desperation clung to her mind like an iron weight and forced a knife out in her hand, which she used to slice him quickly across the wrist.

While he reeled in pain she summoned frost in both knives and forced them against the bare spot of his armor. Not stabbing, just laying them there, and letting the frost spread out across his skin.

He grit his teeth and lunged out as quick as she made her retreat. But his reach was just a little quicker and longer, allowing him to grab her face and blast her with a couple explosions.

He then slammed her against the ground and threw her through the surface until she hit up the slope of the nearest mountainside.

Mind spinning. Thoughts scattered. Was...was that blood trickling down below her eye? She slowly pushed herself up and her arm limped for a moment, forcing her to brace it with her hand. Her ponytail had become undone, and the long locks of hair stuck to the smear of blood on her right cheek.

But she remained as sure as her ability to stand. Not even her knees wanted to tremble in the face of her brother's overwhelming tenacity.

He dragged his blade off the ground and tried to summon flames around it. But then, he hunched over, and started coughing hard and rough, like rock was being dragged up his throat.

The flames spurted out then faded away in short bursts. He immediately reached for his chest and scraped his sharp fingertips over the ice.

Lunis' chest heaved with each heavy breath and she narrowly glared at her brother, "You need oxygen for your flames to work...That's always been your biggest weakness, brother."

She pulled herself upright as the pain in her arm dulled with her cold touch, then calmly took a slower breath in, "I'm sorry I had to do this..."

"Grrrr...! GRRRRR!" Solaris desperately clawed away at the ice but it refused to go away. He lashed his arm out and flashed a wild look her way.

She puckered her lips and her eyes sagged, "Stop this now brother. Please, before you hurt yourself anymore."

"Shut up...SHUT UP!" He lashed his head out and madly swung his hand through the air, "I'm stronger than you! Tougher than you! Better than you in every way!"

He wheezed out a bitter cold fog and clutched the faded flames on his hand against his chest, "Y-You...don't get to look down on me...!"

"What would father think if he saw this?!" Lunis screamed from the tired, pained depths of her heart.

"Like he'd give a shit!" Solaris viciously grit his teeth and threw his head up in a scowl, "Daddy's little girl...always acting like you knew what he wanted...!"

"He didn't want us to kill each other, or give in to revenge...!" She laid a hand over her chest and squeezed it into a trembling fist, "Your anger is out of control...It'll consume you eventually."

"I am the GODDAMN SUN! I'm stronger than my anger!"

"...But are you stronger than your fear?" Lunis turned aside and could barely face her brother's frenzied look without feeling like she'd cry, "That's what this has really been about...You're not angry that father's dead. Your scared because without him, you don't know what to do..."

Solaris clasped his teeth shut with a hiss. Lunis closed her eyes and murmured, "Do you remember when we were young?"

We spent a lot of time at father's hip. But you were the louder of us. Always talking to him, listening closely to his stories. You loved him a lot.

I remember one night when father took us stargazing. The moon was big and blue, and it made the stars sparkle like emeralds. We learned about the five Aurian constellations.

And you...you were so eager to find out which one was the Sun. Father told you it was the only star visible in the day time. And it took you forever to realize that the big ball of fire was what you were looking for.

We always enjoyed stargazing with father. It was the one time he seemed to be at peace. He used to let us sit on his legs, even when we got too big for him.

"Yeah I remember that...!" Solaris said not in fond remembrance, but sheer disgust, "But of course you'd sugarcoat things..."

"That one night you mentioned? Did you remember how you thought I left ahead of you and dad?" He slanted his eyes and scowled, "I heard you two talking."

Lunis flinched as he began explaining what he had heard.

I was standing behind a nearby house, wondering what was taking you two so long. You were gripping father's hand extra tight and helping him stand up. God, you were so clingy...

Then you pointed up at the sky and asked, "Father, is that the moon?"

He answered your dumb question and you stared up at the moon to say, "Its the prettiest object in the sky."

And then father lifted you up and said, "No, you are, my dear sweet daughter..."

Only his scowl could be seen when he hunched over and trembled violently, "You were always father's favorite...!"

He raised and stabbed his sword into the ground, "I worked hard, got stronger and stronger, but he never looked at me the same way he did you! Everything I did wasn't good enough for him!"

He lashed his head up and his eyes were dry with redness, "But none of that matters now because he's DEAD!"

The roar of his emotions burned louder than his flames, but it was born from only half the truth.

"That's...what you think he felt about you?" Lunis looked him in the eyes and bit her teeth in a tearful scowl, "You're wrong! Father loved us equally!"

That night, after father lifted me up into the sky, I looked at his eyes...And they were crying. Like it hurt him to hold me.

I was too young to understand that he was looking at the future...our futures. But I'll never forget what he told me that night.

"You two are my shining stars...My salvation. I want you to grow big and strong...and be happy. So that one day, I will gaze down at your smiles, and see a light brighter than any star, any moon...any sun."

Lunis bit and quivered her lower lip with a sniffle, "We were young and foolish and thought we knew what it'd take to make father happy."

She swung her tearful face up and screamed from the pits of her soul, "While every mistake we made tore him apart inside!"

Solaris' face froze with mouth agape, and she eased up slightly, even though this was the hardest thing to admit, "And even then...he never stopped loving us."

He gasped, jerking forward with his hand clutched over his chest. His body began to glow with a terrifying crimson light, and he slowly raised his head to eye her. His pupils shrank, and he was heaving quietly.

The tense, quiet atmosphere was broken by the fall of his sword, as he tightly grasped the sides of his head and his trembling affected the ground at his feet.

"Nnnrrrrghh...! Nrgghhh...!" He threw his head back and roared with an ear-shattering scream, "STOP CONFUSING MEEEEEEEEE!"

His body exploded outward with a pale white and red blast that she was quickly swept up inside. His power was out of control, threatening to wipe out everything that surrounded him, including her.

"H-He can't sustain this...! This'll kill him!" In a panic, she pushed against the force of the explosion as it ripped away her suit.

When she tried to leap in close he backhanded her away with a weak flail of his arm. She hunched down on the ground and forced her eyes open as the heat of a thousand suns assailed them.

"You've always been stronger than me...But not today!" She dug her fingertips into the ground and pulled herself forward, "I have something worth fighting for...And people who are counting on me to win!"

She dragged herself up and summoned two clones to her sides. She grit her teeth hard and commanded those clones to run in closer, and force themselves onto Solaris' hands to pull them down to his hips.

"Mew, Riku, father..." She widened her eyes as far as they'd go and leaped against the immense pressure to get behind her brother's back, "And you too!"

She clasped her hand over her brother's mouth and braced the other arm under his arm. He flailed and squirmed to break free. His tenacity was as unmatched as his flames.

But his godly strength was still bound by human limitations. Left with no way to breathe, his immense explosion whittled away into his body, and she could sense his eyelids closing. His string of grunts ended with a wet whimper, and a lone tear trickled down onto her hand.

There was nothing around them but black ash and rock, filled with glowing white cracks.

Her heart pounded against her chest. Slowly, her arm slid down to his neck, and lowered him to the ground. She wrapped his upper body in a hug, and cried her eyes out, broken up with the occasional hiccup.

He still breathed. A slow breath, fainter than a whisper, but a breath nonetheless.

Her nerves burned. Her skin blistered.

"Why?" She begged, "Why did this have to happen?"

One man, one monster, was burned into her retinas.

"Him...!" She grit her shaking teeth and raised her head. A streak of crimson climbed down her hair, and a glint of bright red flickered around her body.

Dracula, the Lord of Monsters. Her brother had been motivated by rage, but it was by that beast's hand that he was guided back here.

Hate him. Hate him! HATE HIM!

Meanwhile, the Lord of Monsters enjoyed the view of battle from the comfort of the air. He twitched with a meager smile, and whispered in delight, "Two gods fade, as is the fate of all stars in the sky..."

"...Mrrr?" He perked his brows up and craned his head towards the mountain ahead.

Mew, Grimmley, Joe Dark, Alura...they all stopped what they were doing, their eyes drawn to where he looked with a dew of cold sweat trickling down the side of their faces.

"This feeling...its cold...but hot, with rage..." Mew murmured.

A red glow scaled the peak of that mountain ahead of its owner. With every step they took, the mountain melted at their feet.

Standing in view of all was a woman with long silvery hair clad in streaks of blood red. Her pupils at a paper thin slit, saw nothing but their enemy in their sights. A thick set of nine fox tails swung around at her back, tipped with a blue, ghostly flame. Her fingernails had grown longer and more pointed, while her knives now looked more like sickles.

There was not a shred of mercy visible in that posture, and even Mew was nervous to acknowledge their name.

"L-Lunis?"

The Lord of Monsters stirred, rising from his comfort to stretch his arms in greeting of this changed lunar goddess.

"You BASTARD!" She screamed with the echoing ferocity of her bestial name, "Thinking you could manipulate my brother...AND FEED OFF HIS FEARS AND RAGE...?!"

Her aura exploded like wildfire and took off the top of her perch, "I'LL NEVER...FORGIVE YOU!"

"Come to me my child, so I may fe-"

His neck was sliced through in the blink of an eye, and Lunis landed on all fours on the mountain behind him. The grotesque splitting of the beast's tendons as his head started rolling back drew the eye of all back towards him.

"L-Lord Dracula!" Grimmley exclaimed in a panic.

Alura gasped, her face turning even paler than the norm.

"No way..." Joe Dark couldn't believe it.

Lunis turned around, her eyes flaring open as she let out a surprised grunt. The Lord of Monster grabbed his head and pushed it back into place. The visceral sounds of his skin sealing back up made Mew sick to his stomach.

"Wh...what?" Grimmley muttered.

Dracula turned towards Lunis, who didn't hesitate to leap at him and stab her sickle through his chest and into his mouth...And found her other hand being clenched tightly in his grasp.

As blood dripped down his jaw, it mixed with a growing salivation, and a hungered glaze filled his eyes, "Give me all that you have. The rage, the hatred...the fear...I shall devour it all."

Next Time: One Last Germ