Chapter -9: One Life
Gabriel stood close to Zeno and waited for Solaris to make the first move.
Reckless. Relentless. This boy didn't care how much his wildfire spread through the city.
The houses were vacant, but not what they represented. Gabriel thus carefully swung his sword to divert the flames between the houses.
The Rite kept Vermilion from jumping Zeno so long as he remained as a shield, and his young ward did not let his courage falter.
He was braver than most older than him, but still ultimately a child. So eager to help, yet unable to do so without parental guidance.
Gabriel held his breath through the searing flames that Solaris rammed against his body.
His Drive proved ineffectual here against the sun's wrath. The boy was spewing flames out of the sides of his mouth like they were his fangs, and his eyes were devoured by crimson battlelust.
"You think you can stop me?! Huh?! Put me out...like a stupid ember?!" Solaris grabbed his sword in both hands and held it over Gabriel's head to plunge it down "RAAAAHH!"
Gabriel ignored the danger and thrust his sword into Solaris' chest in a flash. The sun god's attack faltered and the sharp pain made him stagger.
Solaris squeezed his palm against his wound and then tightened the fingers into a fist before charging again.
Gabriel waited to confirm either vertical or horizontal movement and mirrored the movement with a faster draw to cut the sun god through the armor.
The moment he saw himself one step out of alignment, Vermilion jumped at Zeno. Gabriel performed a hard pivot and pointed his aura-covered blade at her.
She stopped and fell to the ground with a tense scowl. His eyes were illuminated, revealing disbelief at how wicked her face looked now.
He remembered a shy young girl with red hair. If only he knew what happened to her...
Reflection could only serve to delay his movements. He swiftly turned around and stabbed his blade out into Solaris' palm before his sword crashed into Zeno.
Zeno started panting through a worsening fear overcoming him. Gabriel felt his soul already signaling to retreat.
He stood between the boy and the hunter before him and whispered, "Do you know why we hold a sword, young Zeno?"
Zeno became a little calmer to hear him out.
Solaris blitzed into Gabriel with his entire body and though the man's knees cracked, he grit his teeth and defied the sun god's sword to face off with his ferocity.
"Because there are times...when it's difficult for others to find the strength to fight. So it becomes our duty to wield that strength for them."
"Not in anger...not for sport...But to show our love for our fellow man." Gabriel managed to slide his sword away from Solaris and then let his shoulder burden the might of the burning blade so he could edge in closer and cut Solaris across the knee.
He then quickly pulled back and saw the sun god stagger, his rage and fire only growing with every cut, "You won't stop me with those shitty cuts...! You don't get how much this means to me!"
Gabriel sheathed his sword and swerved his foot back to take a stance, "I see you becoming a true hero someday. So take a deep breath...Let your heart hold strong, to give you every precious second of courage you need to see tomorrow."
Up over the moon, Auris is mere millimeters away from touching her Drive bracelet, her body floating within a constantly dissolving and reforming blood cloud, and her glare forced upon the planet's surface even if her eyes weren't there to act half the time.
"That is always how your parents have fought."
"And how I..." Gabriel closed his eyes and anticipated Solaris' relentless charge.
Solaris became an inferno without a distinguishable silhouette that rapidly expanded in size until impact.
In a second's time, the fire was cleaved into nothingness and Gabriel stood with sword thrust forward through Solaris' midsection.
Gabriel then opened his eyes and spoke calmly, "Will hold out against this foe, no matter how outmatched I am."
Gabriel pulled his sword out and with it, made Solaris cough up a few drops of blood.
Vermilion growled, "Come on brat, what're ya doin'? Yer making me look bad...!"
Solaris growled louder in turn while covering his wound, "H-He's not that tough...! So how...?!"
Gabriel put a little intensity into his stare and held his sword beside his face, "If you don't understand now, then you never will."
Solaris' eyes widened and he unleashed a burst of fire from his blade, flinging it straight into Gabriel's eyes to temporarily blind him.
Then that same swing launched him into the air, allowing him to slash around with all his might repeatedly to unleash deadly flame waves.
"Never liked it here...! But I kept coming back because dad seemed fine with it! Now that he's not...TO HELL WITH THIS CITY...!" Solaris grabbed his sword in both hands and plummeted straight into where Gabriel was hiding within the flames, "AND TO HELL WITH YOU!"
"Gahh...!" He choked on more blood and was sent crashing across the ground without his flames doing anything but weakly sputtering off his body.
Gabriel's armor weathered most of the fire from those attacks, and now he was aiming his cuts closer to the young sun god's neck.
He cautiously stepped around Zeno, unaware of his growing awe at the courageous stature he took amidst a chaotic battlefield.
Then, looking at Solaris struggling to stand up, constantly pounding his fist into the ground in a tantrum, Gabriel thought of something.
He remembered an energetic young boy with red hair. If only he knew what happened to him…
Outside these walls, Brine and Carmine faced the other child of their friend.
Her body was stronger and more nimble than the last encounter, allowing her to mow her way through all the vines in her path.
Carmine held his ground and created large tree trunks to force her back.
She grabbed on and climbed around, running down the side faster than it grew.
Brine flung high pressure water blasts, aiming for her mask. It tanked through his attacks.
He ran in front of his friend and blocked her knives between his trident prongs. She hooked in and swung down, punting him hard in the gut.
He gagged and lost his grip, where Lunis went in for his shoulders.
With a rising growl he tackled Lunis to the ground through the cuts to his back and immediately tossed a punch at her mask.
She rolled out of the way and rose into a hunch with her knives laid across the ground.
Carmine managed to snare her by the wrists and ankles and Brine stumbled forward, kicking her square in the mask.
His foot throbbed and he hopped back without having made a dent.
Lunis snapped free with brute strength and lunged right after Carmine.
Plants rose to fire seeds to slow her down until he could summon more vines to try and capture her.
Everything in front of him became a tangled mess that his target slipped out of to attack overhead.
Carmine bent down and planted his hands on the ground to create a large trunk that pounded Lunis and suspended her in place.
Her body stiffened and tanked a few more hits before she stabbed her knives into the wood to carry herself down and slash Carmine across the chest.
Carmine convulsed from the sudden drop of blood and lost focus, forcing Brine to jump through the sinking vines and clobber Lunis on the back of her skull.
This disoriented her and Brine grappled his arms and legs across her body, gripping the mask and trying to tear it off that way.
Lunis dropped her knives to her toes then grabbed Brine and easily threw him forward. She immediately backflipped and kicked the knives across Brine's chest.
"Gcckkk!" He gagged.
"Brine!" Carmine shouted.
Brine crashed hard on the ground then pounded his elbows in, rising with a tough smile, "I-It's alright chum…"
He did stand up. The cuts weren't too deep.
Carmine spared a vine to give him back his trident, but began to worry, "This won't be as easy as last time."
Brine had a hard time breathing without hurting, "I-If only we could just flush the pollen out of her system."
Carmine winced with inspiration, "Maybe we could…"
Lunis darted straight at them, leaving a silver trail in her wake.
The two hopped their separate ways and pincered the girl with bullet seeds and water streams respectively.
She twirled her knives at blinding speeds to deflect them and then threw a knife at Carmine when the volley ended.
A vine rose to catch the knife an inch from his nose. She darted forward, continuing to twirl off Brine's attack.
Then she grabbed her knife and cut down the vine and hit Carmine together. Carmine stumbled, where she leaped and kicked him in the nose to topple him.
She slipped right into a follow up attack until Brine summoned a geyser to get in her way.
Upon her flipping back, Brine ambushed her from behind with a few water blasts to the head, then used his trident to disarm one of her knives.
She gracefully took the falling knife into her toes and swept it around at his chest, following up with a parallel slash from her hand.
He caught that between his trident prongs and reached out to grab her cloak.
"Gotcha…" He grinned, until she slipped out from under the cloak in a form fitting silver suit complete with straps and grieves.
She then kicked her knife through the cloak to cut his wrist and make him drop his weapon.
She then tried to flip over and bisect him, only for Carmine's vines to entangle her and bring her crashing down to the ground.
Carmine was straining himself to hold her down on top of shouting, "W-When we get the mask off…Gh! Force water through her nose. That will wash the pollen out!"
"I-I don't think I can be that precise, chum!" Brine worryingly cried out.
"You can. I've always believed in you, friend." Carmine said with sincerity.
The two relaxed for the moment until the sound of snapping vines forced them back into the fight.
Lunis flicked her knife back into her hand and then somersaulted forward at Brine.
Brine crossed her path with his trident and then gathered pressure in all the prongs to hit her mask with one mega burst of water.
The mask cracked across the bridge of the nose, which deepened when Brine jabbed the trident straight in.
Lunis scissors her legs around his arm and dragged the ground before attempting to stab him in the face.
Carmine intercepted her attack with a thrust of wood from the ground, dragging the knife far away.
Brine then started punching her legs to break free. She retreated, then hunched down and sprang straight for his gut.
Brine sidestepped and then grappled her around the waist, shouting, "I've wrestled with sharks slipperier than ya!"
He shook her a bit then spun around while Carmine raised vines loosely away from them.
Brine threw her towards the vines but she flipped and created a platform of light beyond the vibes for her to spring off of.
She was just not quick enough, and got snagged by the feet.
The vines then quickly climbed her body and forced her upright before she regained focus.
She tried to slice herself free, but soon even her wrist was caught up too tight to move.
This was the tightest bind Carmine could manage with his friend's help, and even now they heard the fibers snap and twist to her squirming.
Brine grabbed his trident and started blasting the mask with high pressure. The blood loss kept decreasing the power of every attack until Carmine forced him to stop.
"Save…your energy. It's loose enough now, even I should be able to take it off."
Carmine strolled over to the girl fully cognizant of his friend's worries.
He grabbed hold of the cracked mask and with a light tug, it crumbled off her face.
Behind it were eyes that wanted to cry, but had no light to gleam. Lunis jerked her head around and kept trying to break free.
Carmine forced her hands over her cheeks to keep her steady. She was growling in pain, unable to express herself.
"Fight this," Carmine's heart reached out to her softly, "You are my friend's child, and if he has remained strong all this time then I KNOW it rubbed off on you."
Brine pushed water up from below her nostrils and wiggled them in against the walls.
A silent expression protested with the innocence within. A heart cried out, plunged into darkness.
The two who wished to see this purity destroyed were being washed away from her pupils by the second.
"...Justek hasn't become evil," Carmine deduced with a feeling of relief inside, "You wouldn't have any light to salvage if he did."
In a way, Carmine was jealous. Justek had wound up becoming a better father than he ended up being.
Yet now, it did not make him sad. He spoke, as though the right ears were nearby to hear it, "I'm sorry Acai…For being too protective of you."
Water and a little bit of blood dripped out of Lunis' nose, with Brine declaring, "Can't get any cleaner than that!"
Carmine had a clear look at Lunis' eyes and smiled, his heart at ease…
The last strings of malicious intent pulled at the girl's arm and snapped free from the vines, guiding the knife towards its predetermined location.
At that very moment Justek squeezed his hand tighter around his staff and a tremble went down his spine.
He glared at the city of liars with tears swelling in his ducts.
Lunis gasped heavily, the taste of freedom poisoned by the thick smell of blood.
Carmine hung towards her, her knife…deep in his heart.
He continued to smile, holding his fingers together to rub her cheek with fading warmth.
"I saved…one…life…"
He looked her in the eyes as they began to close, and hers began to cry, "Now…live. However…you…wa-…"
He fell to the ground as she withdrew her knife and staggered.
Tanglefae would become unsettled by a rattling cry manifesting throughout all the trees.
Lunis' chest heaved as she looked at the blood-dripping blade in her hands.
Her brain was covered in fog, she couldn't think.
Someone was yelling at her, crying out in anger.
"Why…?! Why Carmine…?!"
It was that other man she was fighting…Brine, was his name…?
He marched towards her with tears falling down his cheeks and his body tight with anguish, "He did everything he could ta save ya…HE WAS A GOOD MAN!"
Lunis choked on vague syllables, her mouth dry.
"Say something…" He begged, dead set on punching the words out of her.
"Why did it hafta be HIM?!"
The punch was thrown, her body moved on instinct with a scream.
A visceral sound. More blood, more choking…
Lunis opened her eyes to see her knife deep into Brine's neck. Blood was now cascading out of his mouth.
She finally let go, watching as he choked the last bit of life out of his lungs.
He fell to the ground and drowned without another word.
And she fell too, dipping her knees in the blood of her victims.
Her pupils shrank, her mind penetrated with the whispers of that horrid, horrid woman.
She gripped her fingers tightly against her head but the voices wouldn't stop, and the blood stained her pristine hair to deepen the trauma.
She has no answers. She had no guidance.
She was alone, with two good men dead at her feet.
So…she screamed.
Deep within Sancturia, Solaris was left staggering in the shadow of Gabriel's presence, barely managing to land a scratch on him.
His sword was half gone, and his armor had seen better days.
He was about to pull himself up and continue to fight, when that scream penetrated its way into the city and made everyone go silent.
However, Solaris turned towards it and grit his teeth, wincing in sympathetic pain, "Lunis…?"
He growled, grit his teeth harder, and then rocketed away from this fight towards the noise.
He smashed right through Sancturia's barrier and kept flying until he saw his sister lying in the middle of the wasteland with two bleeding out bodies next to her.
"Lunis…! Damn it, what the hell?" He landed next to her and saw her coiled up against her knees, crying profusely in agony.
Her voice was an unending wail that begged for death.
Solaris bent down, dropped his sword, and forced her to look at him by grabbing her shoulders. He then stared deep into her lifeless eyes and shouted, "Who did this to you? Huh? Hey!"
Shaking her did nothing, holding harder got no response.
She smiled back, stretching out her cheeks and letting the tears roll off them.
Her tears mirrored that of her father's, a flow without end…
He pinched his glasses and took them off, taking a moment to dry his face, and consolidate his painful whimpers to the comfort of solitude.
His heart ached with every gasp.
And when his face was clean, his arm withdrawn, he glared at Sancturia with even more disgust than could be comprehended.
"No compromise…" He uttered in a foul tone.
He then stamped his staff upon the ground and projected his sorrows across the lands, "Even you…cannot ignore the noise that penetrated your walls, Borealis Aurora!"
"There was a pure soul…!" He choked up too early for him to be fond of, "One I struggled to raise in the strict confines of your sanctuary…!"
"But devils were born into your walls…! And beneath your eyes they grew!"
"They took their hands and molded MY CHILDREN…into MURDERERS!"
"And now…because of YOUR CONCEITED…NEGLIGENCE, two good men had to pay the price to save just one of them WITH THEIR LIVES…!"
In Aquamoria and Tanglefae, those closest to the departed could read the meaning behind Justek's heartfelt outrage. And together, Acai and Torren fell to their knees in disbelief and despair…
Justek's rage was yet to cease, and the inner walls of Sancturia quaked in fear.
"They did not hesitate…They believed…That I was still a rational man."
"They did not want you and your rotten lot to perish. 'Savages', you label them, showed more respect for the safety of your people in one day…THEN YOU HAVE IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFETIME!"
Borealis felt this anguish deep inside of his heart, and could no longer ignore the truth of those words after all that his eyes had been opened to…
But it was too late.
Justek still had yet to cease his rage.
"I AM rational…My only fault was to be born into an insane and cruel world."
Justek bit his lower lip and grunted to the pain of his heart, as a few more tears shed themselves down his cheeks.
"Now…" He pointed his staff at the city, "I inflict that cruelty back unto you, Borealis Aurora."
Borealis and Stonestein turned around and heard screams coming from within the nearby church, followed by the disappearance of five Aurians.
"For every minute henceforth that you do not surrender…I will take five lives. By the fall of the sun, you will live to see the extinction of your species."
"A fitting end…for the legacy your ancestors built."
"Enough!" Borealis swung his fist down and shouted to the sky, before his eyes grew tender and his shoulders limp, "I…shall…surrender myself to you. It is…only right…"
"Borealis…!" Uttered Stonestein.
"No," Borealis extended his hand and shook his head, "Let me make…one thing right."
"It will NEVER wash away all the harm you've done. You will come immediately to the north side of the city. Or I will suspect you of plotting."
Back with Solaris, he was getting nowhere with his sister. She was practically comatose with that smile on her face.
"Grhh…" He was about to pick her up and drag her back to their dad by force when Rot Walkers began to surround them.
"Gotta be kidding me…" He summoned his sword in one hand and propped Lunis onto her feet with the other.
Then…the air felt much colder, not out of a drop in temperature, no no no.
On the beasts' faces, grins grew…
Solaris was left staring at his own breath as a floating phantom with dissolving arms and legs floated towards them.
That same grin grew on it, wider and more pronounced.
"Well well…" Spoke a haunting, raspy voice from the phantom, "More unfinished business."
Solaris thrust his sword out at them and found himself increasingly unhinged with fear, "W-Who are you?!"
"Whatever your darkest feelings want me to be…I can be your despair. I can be your death. I am all that is right, that the world has decried wrong."
"But you know me by another name. You reduced me to this wretched state after all."
Solaris winced in his right eye, "I-I've never met you before…!"
"Ah, so the memories became fragmented alongside your bodies. Heh heh, it makes no difference to me one way or the other."
"D-Darkness…!" Lunis stirred with a high-pitched shriek of panic, "Eternal…darkness…! Go away…go away…!"
"Lunis…!" Solaris growled, pointing his sword back at the phantom, just to find they had vanished.
Only for them to crawl up his back and slide their arms around both their heads.
"You once stood for absolute, incorruptible good…But now…I smell the blood on you." His sniffs hissed and put goosebumps on the back of their necks.
Solaris turned around, and the phantom was back in its original spot.
"That I would live to see your incorruptible nature break under bloodshed has made this unexpected detour… worth it. Props to that woman, Lilith, she truly is a one of a kind demon."
Solaris swung fire out through the phantom, but it didn't make any movements.
It grinned thicker, laughing in a mocking fashion, "You have embraced violence. Doesn't it feel so…liberating?"
"But the other one…" The phantom appeared to be looking at Lunis, "You deny your heart its purpose."
"No…no!" She uttered in a traumatized trance.
"YesyesYES!" The phantom cried out, "There is no putting back the blood you've spilled!"
"Get out of our heads…!" Lunis cried.
"How rude. You invited me in after all. Heh heh heh…!" And as the phantom laughed, the Rot Walkers did so as well.
"ENOUGH!" Solaris roared, setting his body aflame, "DIE!"
"Oooooh…By all means. Burnout…little lights in the sky…and let the darkness cradle you." The phantom floated higher as the Rot Walkers advanced on his command.
Solaris squeezed Lunis closed against his body and prepared to fight.
And Justek was left impatiently tapping his fingers during the grip of his staff, staring at the barrier for the silhouettes of the Sages to arrive.
Borealis would come in due time, with Stonestein at his side.
Borealis stood at the edge of the barrier worn down mentally already, "He insisted he come with."
Justek replied coldly, "I predicted he would. Makes little difference to me."
"..." Borealis stared at him for a short while and then remarked, "The Anti-Genesis Theorem…It is responsible for all that you've done today, isn't it?"
"...If you refer to my abilities, then yes. If you are presuming that it has warped my morality into doing this, then you are an even more deluded and heartless man than I could have possibly gauged."
Justek glared at him and swiftly avoided any further delays, "Now enough prattling. You know what it is I want from you."
"...Yes." Borealis nodded and then raised his right gauntlet through the barrier. With but a snap of his fingers, Justek felt less of a tightness around his soul.
Justek looked down at his chest, then raised his head to glare at the man again.
Borealis tucked his hand back and murmured, "I have removed the mark of enslavement. What else do you want from me?"
Justek gripped his staff so tight it hurt his knuckles, "Do you think I care…about some mark you burnt unto my soul with your irons?"
The wind howled as he stamped his staff onto the ground, "Do not make a mockery of me, Borealis Aurora. Negotiations begin and end with your head!"
Stonestein intervened, "Can we not bargain for the others?"
"No." Justek scowled.
Borealis then looked at him and raised a point of contention with his plan, "Then why are you waiting? You have clearly shown the capacity to kill without hesitation."
"You made me suffer for years, I had no intention of taking the easy way out…No. I wanted to break down the arrogance that you lived by."
"Your people, you could not protect. Your walls, made unsecure. The devils that hung in your shadows, brought to light. And last but not least…"
He pointed his staff directly at the man's heart, "With the heart in tatters, I will break the body that holds it with my own hands."
"Death…at the hands of a mere 'Savage', the most fitting and triumphant way…to cap off my freedom."
"Mrrr…" Borealis' brows began to slant.
Stonestein held a hand atop his shoulder and whispered, "There's a chance he's not bragging…"
"...Indeed," Borealis whispered with a momentary lapse into acceptance. And to the powerless surprise of his friend, the man pushed his body through the barrier to advance upon the threat to his lands, "The chances are high that he can mete out his justice upon me."
Borealis unfolded his hands from behind his back and every footstep he made broke the ground, yet did so without a violent sound. As the ground unraveled in his wake, his aura flared like the bright, burning cosmos.
"And perhaps…I have earned the right to die. But not at your hands. Not after you filled countless graves with innocent lives!"
Justek's eyes began to flare, his pupils becoming increasingly draconic, "What I've offered as tribute is but a mere drop in the lake your people's legacy has left behind."
"You have marched towards your destiny, Borealis Aurora. Now take the first step…into your gra-"
There was a burning, rainbow light coming from high above that burnt shadows across both their bodies and stretched for miles out.
If anyone had the chance, they'd look up towards space and see sonic booms splitting across the skies, creating a multi-layered aurora borealis.
And through the center of them burned the brightest comet, narrowing in one Justek's location wreathed in intense, white apocalyptic fire.
In the split second he had, Stonestein rushed out of the city and raised his shield against the astronomic pressure barreling towards them, quickly moving to push his friend back through the barrier.
Justek widened his eyes in stunned silence as the dome of the comet pushed apart, bringing him face-to-face with Auris with most of her robes burnt up and her sword swung so far over her head it looked like she was stabbing her back.
And in the last fleeting moment before impact, she was thrown into disarray over the face of her enemy…The face…of a friend.
The white flames smashed into the ground and warped the immediate half-mile around it into a twister that disintegrated into nothingness.
Then a flash of rainbow colors pushed out of the exploding light, expanding the range of impact for miles out and enveloping all of Sancturia's barrier. The winds pierced inside and swept the roofs off the closest houses and pushed Stonestein and Borealis back into the city.
The rest of the planet would still be feeling this impact minutes after.
In the aftermath, there was a massive crater burning white hot inside.
Auris was on her knees with her sword stabbed into the ground, and gesturing her other hand out to summon her shield back.
The effigy of the Dragoon on her back had shattered in twine, and she was presently suffocating on the burning air.
But at least it was air. At least she could breathe…
She rose with half her robe burnt off and her hair a mess, with blood covering most of her face and limbs.
She grit her teeth in a scowl and glared up at the edge of the crater, where Justek stood as the wind pushed the smoke away. He was hurt across the front side of his body.
With a heavy sigh he hovered into the crater to greet her, the edge worn off of his brows, and his overall demeanor sullen.
"You weren't supposed to be here…" He uttered in disappointment.
As she armed herself with an increasingly furious scowl of betrayal, he looked at her straight on with acceptance of this fact, "But I suppose…nothing can ever go the way I want it."
Next Time: Unpainted