"Isaac. We need to talk to Isaac," Jenna said nervously, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt delicately. "He told us to summon it, he must have had a backup plan, right? He always does." Her gaze moved slowly from the ground, where she had been dejectedly looking, up to the night sky, toward Luna, looking in hope. Maybe, just maybe, someone could cast light on their situation as the benevolent Luna did each night. Felix shook his head.
"It's late. He and Mia probably went home," he commented. "He looked really tired." Garet frowned slightly.
"We could probably catch him... knowing him, he stopped at the graveyard on his way..."
"Shut up, Garet," Felix quipped harshly, not needing to hear those reminders of their past.
"Try and make me," Garet snapped back, his Mars temper in conjunction with the trials of the previous months starting to cut his patience to unheard of lows. Felix's only response was the clenching of his fist, as icy stares from Ivan and Sheba luckily managed to cool off both Adepts before a battle in the ranks was onset. Picard decided to try to pacify both of them.
"Tomorrow morning," he suggested calmly, "we'll go to Isaac's house and talk to him. Divinity is certainly a threat to us all." Ivan nodded his assent.
"Maybe we should leave someone outside the inn for the night, as well," Sheba suddenly suggested. "I don't really trust her all that much..." She rubbed her arm for warmth as a chill breeze slowly picked up. Ivan shook his head, oblivious.
"We summoned her. I don't think she can disobey that kind of order," he replied, his optimism showing again. "She knows who we are and what we've done before," he said, with a faint tinge of pride showing in his voice. "She must have respect for that, she'll wait until tomorrow," he said definitively.
I hope, he added to himself, mentally. Sheba looked at him nervously, but didn't say anything, content to teeter on the balls of her feet, silent.
"What if we have to dismiss her?" Jenna wondered softly, referring to the ritual of banishing a summoned creature back to the limbo from which it was originally summoned. "Can we dismiss her?" Garet simply looked at her with bold eyes, though there was fear hidden behind it.
"Do you think she'll let you get close enough?" he asked darkly, the lines under his eyes apparent now in the direct light of Luna. Jenna cringed at the thought of her and the others trying to dismiss the avatar without her trying to remain to punish more of the unjust. Indeed, simply trying to dismiss her might, to Divinity, seem as murder, and thus make them count as unjust all the more.
"Okay, this is the only time you'll ever hear me say this," Jenna warned them all, "but I'm scared." Felix furrowed his brow.
"Jenna admitted she's scared," he said nervously. "We're screwed."
"Shut up, Felix," Garet growled ominously. "I'm totally not in the mood right now."
"Fighting in the ranks, not recommended," Picard mumbled. "Patience, gentlemen." Felix's hard moved instinctively to his sword hilt.
"Just try me," he replied darkly to Garet, as though never hearing Picard at all, "and I'll hand you back your own ass in several slices."
"Order, here, order," Picard said, now sounding stressed.
Garet snorted, Picard's words of peace never reaching his ears. "You couldn't come close to-"
"Enough!" Picard shouted. "We aren't getting anywhere by fighting each other! The problem here is Divinity, not either of you!" he burst, with the patience and sage intelligence of one of his years. Moments passed quietly, as the Adepts avoided each other's gazes, before they barely managed to remember why they were so close in the first place. Silenced and embarrassed, Felix extended his hand and Garet shook it, neither able to look at the other, both ashamed of how deeply they had let life cut them.
"Let's rest," Sheba finally suggested. "It won't do us any good to argue and fight tonight."
"In the morning, we'll be able to think straight," Ivan said levelly, but Sheba could tell that the fighting in their ranks had shaken him a little. They had used to be so close, so tight, so together, that it seemed nothing could ever come close to separating them. Now, it just seemed like they were falling farther and farther apart with every day that passed, with every waking moment...
The Adepts retired to their respective homes, the sound of their feet heavy against the dirt pathways. With nary a word to each other, they found whatever houses they had claimed as their own (as many were now available, since so many families had fled or been slain) and entered, some together, as Ivan and Sheba, some alone, as Picard, but all tired and depressed. Garet had passed the graveyard on his way, but to his surprise he didn't see either his best friend or Mia there. Stopping for only a moment to gaze at the significantly large place of the dead, he soon walked on, arriving at his home at the same time as the others had found their way to theirs.
Isaac and Mia were already alone at their house, of course. The pair had taken to embracing each other quietly in the calm of night once the attacks ceased, content to drift off to an uneasy night's slumber fastened only in the other's arms. Sleep did not come easily to either of them, but together, it seemed a little less difficult.
The Adepts retired, one by one, a difficult sleep slowly overcoming them.
And meanwhile, she went out.
- - - - -
It was not a crashing sound, or a shriek, or scream, or even anything disturbingly frightening that awoke Felix the next morning. It was a chirp.
Rising slowly from his bed, Felix found himself gazing out the window, whereupon a tiny baby bluebird could be seen perched, preening its feathers in the morning light. Felix looked at it, a slight smile starting to edge across his features. He stared at it for a few moments, happy just to stare at it for awhile. It reminded him of peace, and of innocence. As soon as the tiny winged creature noticed him, however, it took off startlingly, with a chirp as it soared into the distance. Felix sighed heavily as he moved to dress and head downstairs to eat. It felt like another long day.
As he moved to get food from the kitchen, he heard Jenna approaching from upstairs. He turned to wish her a good morning, but found himself interrupted by a sudden violent pounding at the door.
"Hurry up!" came Ivan's muffled voice. "Open the door!" He sounded stressed, somehow. Felix moved to let them in while Jenna picked up her pace, as well. He opened the door somewhat grumpily.
"What in Venus' name are you doing, trying to tear down my door at this time of day?" he grumbled, musing over his lack of food and his obvious requirement to do something, namely moving toward and opening a door, so early. Looking outside, he found himself face to face with a pair of distraught Jupiter Adepts, as well as Picard.
"Divinity went out again," Sheba said, with an obvious note of tension in her voice. Jenna's eyes widened.
"Again?" she nearly cried. "But we told her to stay!"
"Yeah, the funny thing about that," Picard replied sardonically, "is that she didn't." Jenna frowned, more than willing to reply with a biting remark, but Felix was too quick in response.
"Have you gotten the others?" he asked.
"Isaac and Mia are on their way," Ivan answered. "Knowing Garet, we'll hear from him around noon." Jenna growled angrily at the diminutive Adept's lack of respect for her beloved, but said nothing further. "I think Isaac and Mia are going to meet us as the plaza."
"Mia will probably get Garet up on the way with a frigid Douse through his window," Picard commented dryly. Felix rubbed his temple, feeling a headache starting to come already.
"All right, then," he said. "Let's go see our so-called saviour."
- - - - -
"I don't care what they did!" Isaac cried, his voice echoing across the foothills. "You can't just go and kill them!" Divinity's eyes narrowed. Mia noticed that she no longer was content to hover in the air with an unobjective expression on her face, as her once-soft features had now hardened into a menacing scowl.
"They stole, killed and generally broke the law," she argued fiercely. "I amthe law. I choose the punishment." Isaac eyes narrowed, coldly looking at her with a fierce determination shining in them.
"I don't care about who you are, or what you think about laws and rules," he snapped bitterly, his buried rage starting to surface. "Here, in this land, we hold onto whatever we can that salvages our humanity, and whatever keeps us remotely sane!" Divinity's eyes were slits now, glaring at Isaac, but for whatever reason, she refused to argue with him.
"Very well," she relented, her eyes widening a little from the narrow slits she had been gazing at him with, but the scowl still easily visible on her face. The sound of footsteps was heard, and Isaac and Mia turned to see all the others, minus Garet, who was already nearby trying to wring the water from Douse out from his hair, approaching steadily.
"You went out again?!" Felix burst as he approached. Divinity grimaced inwardly, saying nothing. "We told you to stay inside until we could accompany you!"
"You needed to rest," she replied levelly. "I did not. It made no sense to let other criminals go by unpunished when I was perfectly able to go after them." Ivan sighed. It looked like Sheba might have been right after all; was Divinity too dangerous?
"All we wanted was for you to stay so we could make sure everything progressed smoothly when you went out," Ivan said calmly. Divinity didn't acknowledge him, instead directing her answer to his question to Isaac.
"And so, because you are fatigued, I should allow those who have committed crimes to go unpunished?" she inquired, annoyed. Her gaze remained fixed on Isaac, though the others were glaring at her, as well. Isaac sighed impatiently, his hand rubbing his arm as though it were sore.
"No," he replied. "Not unpunished, just that you wait before we punish them." Felix frowned.
"And by 'punish', he means by our methods of punishment," Felix answered, to be answered only by yet another heavy scowl from the avatar. "Now let's go. I'm sure there are more people for you to accuse that we can find," he said, looking around the deserted plaza. He and Isaac glanced each other, sorrowed that they might find their once lively town so empty. Then again, it wasn't as though that was a different sorrow than they felt every other day, seeing their town reflect their broken spirits. Infuriated by their state of affairs, and the disobedience of the creature they'd summoned, each turned on their heel in near perfect synchronization, their scarves waving behind them, the tips hovering in the air behind them, wavering up and down, as though the accessories themselves were dismissing the archangel.
She scowled at their impudence, that they might turn their back on her, the being of pure and undiluted Justice. Did they not realize who she was? Did they not realize what she represented? Maybe they just didn't understand. Maybe they were no different than the others. Maybe...
Maybe she would have to judge them.