A/N: Getting close, folks. About four to six more chapters to go. I put some more fanart up on my website, to please go to my profile and check it out. At any rate, this chapter should make things clear to you. I can finally get to the climax of this thing, something I've been planning to get to for what, two years? Huh.... Maybe I need a life.... Hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think.
Xellos groaned and stretched, hating the rigidity in his limbs as he awoke. It had taken him a full week to recover from his teleportation stunt, and although he was nearly back to normal, he still felt the vestiges of that exhaustion when he woke up in the morning. Lina was already up, busying herself at the campfire, skewered fish set close to the flame to cook. "You're making breakfast?" he asked groggily, sitting up and scratching his head.
"I can cook, I just prefer to do it on the road instead of at home," she muttered, intent on the food.
Xellos didn't reply, just folded back the blankets and began tidying up. They had been on the road three weeks, slowly heading toward the ocean. Being careful not to stray toward populated areas unless absolutely necessary, they had kept alert for any danger, but there was no sign of an impending attack. If he didn't know better, Xellos would have thought that they were just being paranoid, but he bore too many scars on his soul to think that they weren't in danger. Rolling up the blankets, he stuffed them into his magic satchel and pulled out some pots and pans instead, huddling over the fire next to his wife and mixing up some porridge.
"I miss them," Lina sighed, sitting on her heels and staring into the flames. "It's hard having them both away from home so much and now this."
Xellos put an arm around her shoulders. "It's all right, beloved. We'll see this through to the end. When there are no more Monsters left we'll be safe."
"I suppose so," she murmured. "But what if we don't make it?"
Xellos chuckled, waving a hand. "Of course we'll survive! It would take unimaginable power to snuff your flame out, my dearest."
"Glad one of us is so sure," she growled, but snuggled a little more closely into his side.
They ate breakfast, packed up, and were back on the road in no time. It wasn't difficult to figure out which way the ocean was, and Xellos found himself musing on how they would make their entrance on Wolfpack Island. Occasionally he and Lina would chat about the past, or talk about different magic techniques, but mostly they were silent as they walked along, minds focused on the task before them.
Lina plowed along and Xellos followed quietly behind. "You know they're trying to find us," she said, pushing a low branch out of the way.
He caught the branch before it could smack him in the face, sighing as he looked about. They were going through a particularly overgrown portion of an ancient highway, and the vegetation, while not unusual for a temperate region forest, was definitely thick on either side of them. "I do," he replied, pushing away the images of his children that appeared inside his mind. "I can only hope they don't find us."
"If we're up against Xellas, they'd be pretty useful," Lina sighed.
"Lina!" he gasped. "You can't mean that."
She turned and scowled at him, red lips set in a hard line. "Of course I don't want them here. They'd only be put in harm's way. You have to admit, though, that it'd be nice to have someone as strong as those kids watching our backs. All Xellas has to do is take a single swipe at your astral form and you're history, and you know it."
Xellos shuddered as he met his wife's eyes, despising the truth in her words. "But I will be more careful than to let her get me," he protested.
"What makes you think she's the one after you?" a different voice said from behind him, and as he whipped around he heard a gurgle rise from Lina's throat. His head swiveled back toward her so quickly he almost hurt his neck, and he clenched his jaw as he saw slender fingers closing around her pale throat.
"Let her go," Xellos growled, readying his staff.
"No," the creature said, slowly appearing from the shadows of the trees. "She's the more unpredictable of the two of you."
Xellos' eyes widened in shock as he took in the person in front of them. It was a head shorter than he was, although not quite so short as Lina, and it was handsome and beautiful at the same time, with shoulder-length hair in gradiated shades of blue. One eye twinkled with the green light of the sea, while the other eye was a pale blue, the color of glaciers. He recognized pieces of the thing in front of him, but the implications were so terrible that his mortal mind could barely conceive of them. "What did you do to yourself?" he whispered, tongue feeling numb and slow in his mouth.
"You destroyed our minions," it replied softly, perfectly calm, and he realized it was speaking with two voices: one voice was high and muscial, the other low and toneless. The sound drilled into his head and made it difficult to think. "All the ones that mattered, anyway. We couldn't kill you, no matter how we tried, and so we did something that Monsters have never done: we have decided to cooperate."
Lina's face was turning blue as she struggled against the grip on her throat, short gasping noises the only product of her struggle for air. Xellos felt the uncomfortable buzz of adrenaline in his fingers. Arguing or pleading with the creature before him would do nothing, and so he acted in the same instant that Lina moved to defend herself. She touched the hands at her throat and mouthed some words, the flesh erupting into flame just as Xellos darted in with his staff glowing. Sparks flew and a shrill cry was heard as Lina crumpled in Xellos' arms, gasping for air. "Are you all right, beloved?" he asked, dragging her away from her captor.
"Fine," she croaked. "What the hell is that thing?"
"That's Dynast," he said quietly, smoothing the hair away from her face and looking into her eyes. It was worse than he feared. "And it's Dolphin."
"What?" she cried. "There's only one of them!"
"True, but it's both of them."
Her ruby eyes went wide, her lips parting as she stared at him in abject horror. "They merged? But that means they're far more powerful than any of the Monster lords!"
"That's right," he replied, gripping her hand and pressing it to his lips.
"I beat a piece of Shabranidgo," Lina growled. "I can take out this sorry garbage."
The smoke from their previous casting cleared a bit, showing the creature inside a faintly glowing blue barrier, its face expressionless as it watched them. "You're not going to do this the easy way, are you?" the strange voice asked.
"Why should we?" Lina spat. "You're the ones that have been after us for so long. We should end you once and for all!"
"Lina," Xellos hissed, panic rising within him. Dynast was capable of unspeakble cruelty, even for a Monster, and Dolphin had been extremely unstable the last time he had seen her. He was absolutely certain the thing in front of him was completely sadistic and utterly insane.
As if to prove his point, the creature moved so quickly he couldn't even see it, seizing Lina by the shoulders and squeezing. Her eyes bulged slightly with shock, as wide open as they would go, and she didn't even have time to scream before there was a sickening pop. Xellos ground his teeth, readying a spell, and wondering how he was going to cast it without killing Lina. If there was one thing he had learned from being mortal it was that it did not pay to play around. He had to end this quickly. Beads of sweat rolled down his temple, and his stomach lurched as Lina whimpered, her shoulders sticking out at strange angles. His insides churned as he realized she was nearly unconscious with pain, her eyes rolling back in her head. What could he do? The Monster had acted so quickly they hadn't even had a chance to do anything!
"You're outclassed, Trickster," the creature said.
"Not as much as you think," he replied from between clenched teeth, the muscles in his forearms trembling from trying to control and contain the spell he had cast. He didn't dare blink, his eyes burning as sweat dripped into them. Damn it, he would do anything to save Lina at that moment, anything at all. "I'm just barely human, you monstrosity."
The creature's slightly slanted eyes widened, the sea-colored one flashing. "You dare?" it hissed, the higher pitch of its voice louder than the other as it dropped Lina's limp form. He narrowed his eyes as it tossed a spell at him, a bolt of crackling energy ripping through the air. Grunting, he threw his own spell at it, rolling toward Lina as the world exploded around him. The fabric of his cape snapped through the air as he moved, and he was almost to where he thought his beloved had falled when he was jerked backwards, landing on his back as a clawed hand gripped his throat. Sharp nails punctured his skin, rivulets of blood leaving warm trails along his flesh and saturating the collar of his cloak. He bared his teeth, gripping the thing's wrists and channeling his strongest spell directly into the Monster's body, but its effects were minimal. His attacker twitched slightly, then showed him an icy grin. "I'm going to take a long while with you," it whispered.
"Too bad you're already out of time," he heard someone croak, and saw Lina standing just a few feet away, her body glowing with power.
"Lina!" he tried to scream, but his voice turned into a gurgle as bloody foam coated his lips.
Her eyes softened, and the purest look of love crossed her face as she gazed at him. He had never seen her countenance so open, so adoring. In that moment she surpassed his understanding of beauty, radiant with the power of her feelings for him. "You're my soul mate," she said softly.
"No," he gasped, struggling harder as the ruby glow intensified around her. Lina couldn't use her hands, and so the only thing she could do was to make bodily contact as she released her spell. He knew that she would be incinerated by her own power, and yet it still wouldn't be enough to defeat the thing that held him to the ground. The creature's face was a mask of ice, only the eyes alive and glittering with malice. She marched toward his captor slowly, expression free of the arrogance he knew so well. Tears welled up in his eyes and he clawed at the hands that held him, desperately trying to do something, anything. He couldn't bear it, this resignation of hers, was unwilling to believe that everything they had fought so hard for was about to be undone. Even if she succeeded in killing the amalgam of Dynast and Dolphin, she would no longer be alive. A world without Lina Inverse in it was worth nothing to him, nothing at all.
"It's all right, love," she whispered, and he let loose a sob as he felt her through the rings, sending waves of intense adoration at him. "All those things I could never show the world, I show to you now."
"Interesting," the creature said, and its voice resembled Dynast's.
"Run," Xellos croaked to Lina, madly pushing emotions at her through their wedding bands. "Run!"
Her smile was sad as she looked down at him, her eyes brimming with moisture. "You know I can't," she murmured, and twisted her torso so that her dislocated, useless arm rested on the shoulder of the fiend trapping him. "Hey, you," she hissed. "You piece of trash, do you think you're so strong you can just stand there and watch us attack you? Don't you know who I am?"
Xellos choked on a sob and his own blood as he looked at his wife, tears freely flowing down his face. He cried out as the claws were removed from his neck, rolling to the side as his shirt became damp with his own blood. Sitting up, his hands clamped to his throat, he turned just in time to see the power around Lina flare, the smile of their enemy cold as she snarled and began to chant. "No! Beloved!" he wheezed, trying to crawl across the few feet that separated them. Time slowed and the distance between them became miles as she locked eyes with his, the light around her snapping with energy. He wanted to memorize her face, he wanted to remember every single tiny detail of her so he could take it to the grave. His only consolation was that his children were at home, perfectly safe. They didn't need to see their parents die; it was better that Lecia and Gorran remember them as healthy, vibrant people. Still staring at Lina, time still dragging along, he nodded once. "Goodbye," he mouthed.
"Goodbye, my love," she replied, and the world exploded into light.