The Paradox of Balance
Chapter 2: The traitors of Poitreene?
"Your Majesty, we would ask you to reconsider our proposition."
Queen Crepine and Princess Eclair had both received a strange visitor. Claiming to be from "The Church of the Goddess Poitreene", he came bearing what he called important information about the Church of the Holy Maiden.
"My good sir, you are excepting me to believe that our beliefs are false? That after all this time, followers of darkness using the cover of Poitreene have ridiculed this country? And worse, you expect me to believe you, a person who speaks on the behalf of an unheard organization, while you bring no proof or no real arguments of some sort?"
"Your Majesty, the belief of Poitreene is strong in this country, but it comes from your own heart. The teachings of these traitors didn't get the time to affect you…"
"Enough!" cried out Eclair, who had all the reasons in the world not to believe this stranger. He had no right to say all these things about Prier and the others. For half an hour, that man had been telling them how the Church of the Holy Maiden was only used to worship the power of darkness and how they where waging war against Poitreene. This pained Eclair deeply, as she had fought alongside the Church and knew that those allegations were false.
"Your Majesty," he said using a darker tone, "I didn't want to be the one to inform you of the dire situation that we are all in. Your Majesty, the Dark Prince lives! And it all thanks to the Church of the Holy Maiden."
That caught the Queen's attention. In fact, the entire room went silent of shock. But nothing could compare to Eclair's reaction. Her face turned white and a small gasp escaped her. Fortunately, the messenger mistook her reaction as shock.
How could anyone know about the Dark Prince? In fact, the only person outside of their group who knew the entire truth about him was Sister Olive. Most of the church knew that he had returned, but none knew about Croix. For everybody's sake, the return of Calamity's servant had remained under wraps, only small details had been released to the public.
But how could he know about Croix? No one knew about him? "Or maybe," thought Eclair, "he only knows about the Prince and not Croix." Although he had hurt countless people, he wasn't completely responsible, and, after living through what he had to endure on that day, how could one only feel resentment towards him?
"Princess Eclair?" asked her mother. She trusted her daughter, but she knew that she had aided La Pucelle in that fight against the Church of the Divine Mother. Eclair simply gave her a "Please just trust me on this one" look, though sadly, Crepine couldn't completely accept it that point.
"I have complete faith in Sister Olive and in the institution our previous Father had installed in this country," she concluded, "I will ask you to leave."
As he left, the Queen turned to Eclair, who must have implored the divine patience in order to keep her more or less cool attitude. "Eclair," Crepine asked, "what exactly happened while you were out?"
"I beg you mother, please do not ask anything now, and please put your faith in me. You do not know the entire story surrounding these events."
The Queen didn't have time to answer her daughter as one of her guards came running into the throne room.
"Your majesty, it's an emergency. In Pot au Feu, the Church of the Holy Maiden has been reduced to rubbles."
Both of them let out a sharp, "What?"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Culotte always wanted to experience the feeling of flight, but if it included the sensation of being hurled into the air and crashing on concrete, back first, he thought it would be wise to never wish it again. Desperately trying to get up after the explosion, he realized that the pain that shot through his lower back paralyzed him. He was grounded.
Presently, the only thing his mind was telling him to do was to watch as debris of the Church fell near him. This prevented him to notice the enemy nun raising her arm over his head, knife in hand. He spotted her too late as the knife came too close to be stopped. Fortunately, a strong wind blew her away before she got hit by a twirling baton that knocked her out.
"Culotte! Get up!" Prier cried.
Using all his strenght to conjure a blessing miracle to heal him, he jumped to his feet seconds before the other nun, seeing the feeble Culotte and her wounded partner, decided to extract revenge. Culotte spun around and managed to summon the giant cat to block the enemy's way. She crashed into the giant rocket powered plushie, both frustrated and confused at the situation.
Prier decided to multi-task as she ran towards her brother, punching the confused nun in the face, while trying to pass her nun clothing over her head.
"Pr-Prier! Not in public!" cried out a shocked Culotte, later realizing that she had kept her demon hunting gear under her robe.
"Culotte! Your mind, out of the gutter, now!"
A shot of energy radiated near them, but thanks to their reflexes, it only managed to create another hole in the ground. Nevertheless, the Priestess Corail simply grinned, "You are fast, I'll give you that. But what can you do? I clearly have the advantage here; you have no weapons, no power, while I do! Your power cannot win against the will of the Goddess. Give up, and I will erase your sins."
Although Culotte didn't understand what Corail had said about her power, he knew that this women was clearly ignorant about them. He came to the conclusion that she knew nothing about what she was fighting against. Either, like Noir and his followers, they worshipped a Goddess other then Poitreene, or that this woman clearly knew nothing about this church.
And while it was true that Prier's Holy Wind technique left her weaponless, it had been a fatal assumption to say that she was now feeble as Prier was at her deadliest when unarmed.
Prier lunged at the Priestess, who clearly didn't expect the demon hunter's reaction. Corail's hand glowed white and shot a ray of holy energy at Prier who simply jumped over it and landed, foot first, right in Corail's face, sending her to the ground.
"The woman has great power", she thought, "but she clearly has no fighting experience."
But, a beam of energy hit her right in the stomach, sending Prier into the air. Getting up, she came face to face with her enemy. That woman was physically weak, but her recuperating abilities were amazing. Even Prier was a bit jealous to the fact that someone managed to heal so fast after her famous kick.
Using her amazing speed, Prier jumped to the side before Corail could notice. Corail's hand glowed again and she rotated her entire arm in an uppercut, creating an energy ark. Prier jumped again, cursing at the fact that although the attack didn't hit her, it had prevented her from getting close. In fact, Corail noticed Prier hesitation in her attacks and continued with her energy arks, understanding that as long as she did this, no attacks would be launched.
The two other nuns, having recuperated from before, decided to attack Prier's younger brother. Understanding that he was the weakest, they both launched their attacks against Culotte, who was still tired from his wounds. Both of them launched a simultaneous holy spell at him. To their dismay, although the spell did hit the target, the child was still alive. Using the last of his strenght, Culotte chanted. Bolts of lightning fell from the sky, directly on the two nuns. Unable to battle, they collapsed on the ground, followed by Culotte himself, having depleted his energy.
"CULOTTE!" cried Prier, who was still jumping and dodging Corail's attacks. Sadly, that split-second of inattention permitted Corail to connect her beam to Prier. She cried out in pain as it hit her directly in her chest area, sending her crashing into the concrete and cutting off her air supply.
Corail approached Prier, her hand beaming. "Goddess Poitreene, grant me the strenght to vanquish your enemies. Forgive me," she said, addressing herself to Prier now, "but you are beyond salvation now. Die for your sins!"
Prier, lying on her back, swished her leg at the Priestess ankles, making her trip and giving herself time to get back up. She managed to jump back, away from her, but due to her labored breaths, she couldn't attack. She just stood there, desperately trying to fill her lungs with oxygen. Corail got up and fired another shot of energy at Prier. But she simply stepped to the right, avoiding the beam completely.
"Don't tell me," she managed to say, "that this is the only attack you have."
"What are you saying?"
"You've been attacking me non-stop with this attack. Its becoming easy to dodge it," she said mockingly. "You have no other attacks…"
Prier ran forwards and jumped into the air, launching her foot. Sadly, Corail slid under her as Prier was airborne. As she landed, Corail started to cast her spell, knowing that Prier couldn't easily dodge if her opponent was directly behind her.
Prier blindly flung her arm backward, her fist connecting with Corail's face. Losing no time, she spun around, shoving her elbow into her stomach. Not losing her momentum, as she came to a stop in her spin, she high kicked the Priestess right in the nose.
As she fell to the ground, Corail's body shone blue. She barely touched it before she was up again, completely healed.
"How the heck am I supposed to beat that bitch?" thought Prier without really thinking. Prier, having no healing abilities useful for the battle, was getting more tired and hurt by the second, and the Priestess just kept on accepting her beating, only to heal herself. "This isn't good… I can't go on like this for much longer," she said as she ran forwards her enemy once again.
"Who's the one with the predictable attacks?" Corail asked mockingly.
But unlike Corail expected, Prier's dash ended as the girl plunged at Corail's feet. The beam passed right over her head, harming only some stray hairs. She propelled herself upwards, delivering one of her famous uppercuts right in her jaw.
"You…" Prier concluded.
Once again, Corail managed to heal herself before she even hit the ground, which send Prier into a series of swears not fit to come out of a member of the clergy. Anticipating her attack, Prier moved out of the way of the holy beam. Except, this time, the beam wasn't aimed at the girl, it was aimed at the ground. The force of the impact send bits of concrete and dirt flying into the air, and right at Culotte.
"Culotte!" she yelled. Expecting the worse, Prier closed her eyes and rushed forwards, only to bounce off face first on an invisible barrier.
"Mha Yjahw," she said looking up, rubbing her face. Sister Olive was standing behind the force field, Culotte, awake but shaken, standing next to her.
Corail looked at the situation. Even though the three of them were tired and hurt, she didn't feel like facing three elite members of La Pucelle all at once. Plus, she was rather shaken to the fact that a child could keep up so easily with a High Priestess of Poitreene.
Using the cover of the commotion, Corail escaped the church's ruins and hid herself into the crowd, incognito.
"Sister Prier, are you alright?" Sister Olive asked.
"Where is she? I'll kick her butt! I'll wipe the floor with her face!"
"Prier… calm down…" tried Culotte, knowing far too well that Prier couldn't be calmed this easily after what had happened.
"This is horrible…" started Sister Olive, knowing deep in her heart that most members of the church probably didn't survive the blast. "Why would anyone do such a thing?"
"I've heard them call us traitors…"
"Traitors? Prier… have you started taking money out of the collection plate again?"
"Ix-nay on the oney-may," cried out Prier, "and no, I haven't! In fact I have no clue why…"
"Well, they seemed pretty mad at us… and they attacked a lot of innocent people just to get to the church…"
And at that moment, the three of them came to the same conclusion.
"Father Salade!"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"And then, I punched her in the face, just like that!"
If Prier and the others were expecting the worst at the orphanage, they were pleasantly surprised as they entered the building. Three nuns were lying unconscious on the floor, and three young pre-adolescents were happily retelling the events.
"It was amazing!"
"It was so fun!"
"One more step towards becoming a demon hunter."
"But… they are human…"
"Details!"
It appeared that as soon as the church exploded, three nuns showed up at the orphanage. The nuns started an attack directed at Salade, but it seemed that he had his own plan…
The kids, having been trained by Mister Salade, who was actually bored in his retirement, launched their own counterattack at the invaders. They took one down, as Salade managed to subdue the two others on his own.
"Prier, Prier, I might become stronger then you one day!" cried out one of them.
"Good luck kid…" she said, still dumbstruck at the situation.
Salade, on the other hand, was talking with Sister Olive. After a few minutes, she left the orphanage, heading towards the remains of the church. Salade made a quick nod to his wife, and she led the overexcited children out of the room. When he was sure that they were alone, he turned one of the nuns around. "What do you see?" he asked.
"They… they are from our church!" said a rather surprised Culotte.
"So… we've been infiltrated…"
"Not just that Prier… but these three have been members of our church for a while now…" said Salade softly.
This hit them hard. This meant that this entire thing had been planned out a long time ago. Who knows what they had learned while spying?
"But how can they consider us traitors then?" asked Culotte. "What did we do that has been so bad for the world?"
Silence reign over the room for a few minutes, each in deep thoughts, although Prier was half thinking about the situation, half thinking about how she would kill "the bitch" as she had now dubbed her.
"What if…" started Culotte, "they know…"
"Know about what Culotte?"
"You know… about… him?" he said hesitatingly.
It hit Prier harder then any attack that woman had cast on her. Her face turned to white and she simply stood there dumbstruck. "Croix," she finally gasped before she pushed Culotte aside and dashed out of the door.
"Prier! Wait!" he called out before running after her.
Salade and the director, who hearing the commotion, came back, just stood in the doorway.
She smirked. "You know Salade, although I don't know exactly what has happened, I must say that I'm surprised."
"And why is that?"
"Well," she said grinning, "if a few years ago you would have told me that Prier would run off like that for a guy, I would have told you that you were off your gourd."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"What has your oracle told you?"
"That soon, it will be our time to strike."
"Are you sure, the human world reeks of light… It gives me shivers…"
"Do not worry Petrol, distortion will arrive soon, as a matter of fact…"