CHAPTER XXX
Against the Dying of the Light
Fiona watched as Perseus continued to stand guard. With his sword and shield in hand, he reminded her of an old knight from fantasy stories. But this knight was plagued with turmoil she could not see.
"Hey, sis," Hanuman said as he sat next to her. "You think he's okay?"
"Perseus?" she replied.
He nodded. "He's been really quiet since we got here. Actually, since we left the docks."
"He's probably really focused since we're so close to Parliament."
"Hmm. I think you're right. I guess professional Huntsmen really are that cool in the middle of a battle, huh?"
"Yup. It's what we're all training to be."
She couldn't very well give her younger brother any reason to worry more than he already was, so she kept her concerns to herself for the time being.
"It's really quiet around here," Ilia said as she rejoined the group, returning her outward appearance to her usual skin tone. Her camouflaging abilities permitted her to get around without being seen, even in this world filled with horrific creatures.
"No monsters?" Hanuman said.
"None. There are still those crowds of people, though."
"The ones acting like everything's normal?"
She nodded. "Even though this is all anything but normal."
Fiona turned her attention back to Perseus, who had a fierce look on his face as he continued to stand guard. She got up to join him at his side, to try anything to ease his mind, but what was there for her to do? He hadn't shared anything with her or the others, which told her that this was a completely internal battle for him. Still, she didn't want to allow him to feel that he was alone in the world.
"Hey," she said, standing next to him.
He glanced at her before returning his gaze to their surroundings. "Hey," he said.
"So, uh, this place, it's pretty crazy, huh? The Labyrinth, I mean."
That was a mild way of putting it. "Yeah. Pretty crazy."
"So, like, for other Labyrinths, you said that it was a matter of destroying the physical manifestation of the person's inner demons, right?"
He nodded.
"I'm wondering what it might be for a whole country's worth of a single, collective Labyrinth. Maybe that Malphas is exactly it. We defeat her and my people are freed from this, right?"
"I don't really know."
She sighed. "Right. I forgot this is the first time you guys have been through anything like this—"
There was a scream from the Parliament building. Even at this distance, Perseus recognized the voice of his combat partner.
"Xanthus!" he cried out before running to the building. He crashed into an invisible barrier and was flung back to the rest of his group.
"What the heck was that?" Hanuman yelled.
"Damn it!" Perseus cursed as he smashed into the barrier repeatedly. Even his strengthening Semblance was no help against this powerful magic.
"Is Xanthus fighting in there all by himself?" Ilia said.
Fiona pondered if he was doing battle at all. For all they knew, he was completely at that monster's mercy. "We have to figure out how to get in there and help him somehow," she said. "I know we're probably way outclassed right now, but—"
"No, this isn't your fight," Perseus said.
She watched him. Sweat dripped down his face, which was masked with desperation.
"And Ilia was right. You're too important to put your life on the line so recklessly."
"And you're not?" she demanded.
He looked at her in shock.
"Don't think I haven't noticed, Perseus! Ever since we got to this place, it's like you're on some kind of suicide mission! Every group of monsters we've come across, you've torn into even when the odds were stacked entirely against you! Are you trying to kill yourself?"
He looked to the side. He was like an open book to her.
"P-Perseus, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"No, you're right," he said. "It's just..." He balled his fists. "I just...I'm the reason...I'm why Lilly..."
"Look out!" Hanuman said, tackling Perseus out of the way.
The Huntsman-in-training watched in horror as his savior was set ablaze by a fireball that had come out of nowhere. "No! Han!"
"Whew!" Hanuman said, joining Fiona and Ilia as they grabbed Perseus to flee. "Man, that burns!"
"What the..." Perseus said.
"He can clone himself, remember?" Ilia said.
"Right. His Semblance." He wondered if Fiona's Semblance allowed her to peer into his soul or if he was just that easy for her to read.
Fiona looked all over the place for somewhere to hide, but there was no safe haven in the Labyrinth. "I don't think any of the Corrupted until now have used magic attacks that powerful."
"It must be because we're so close to Malphas," Ilia said.
The quartet stopped dead in their tracks as a monstrous thing barred their escape.
"That's no Corrupted," Perseus said.
"Have you fought anything like this before?" Fiona said.
"Only as a final boss in a Labyrinth, and never without Yuan or Xanthus on our side."
The behemoth was about twenty feet in height, covered from head to toe in makeshift armor that appeared to have been forged in Hell itself. It donned a massive cleaver in one hand, a meat hook in the other.
"Meat!" it roared as it charged at the group. "Fresh meat!"
The quartet scattered in all directions.
"That thing moves way too fast for its size!" Fiona yelled.
Ilia was its first target, but before it could properly engage her, Perseus intercepted it, activating his strength Semblance to withstand the strike from its giant meat cleaver. His shield rang out, threatening to give way. If it weren't for his super strength, he might have crumpled underneath such a powerful blow.
He tried countering, aided by his comrades, but the gigantic beast was far too strong for even the four of them to take down. Once again, it came down to a face off between the monster and Perseus, who held up both sword and shield, though he had little confidence in his ability to hold his own against something so large.
If only my teammates were here.
He found his vision dominated by a bright flash of light, his ears ringing after a powerful explosion rocked the area. After regaining his balance, he gawked at what was left of the monster he and his charges had been fighting. Its lower body was still intact, but the upper half was a gory mess. Strewn all around were bloody segments of armor with flesh still attached. The giant's head was somewhere off in the distance and what Perseus figured were its arms were off to the sides.
What the hell just happened?
He found Fiona. She was stunned, but not by the destroyed carcass of their enemy. Perseus followed her gaze to the top of a nearby building, where a girl stood with her bow held down to the side. He knew the girl, but something about her was different. Her clothes were black in appearance from head to foot, with deep purple details here and there.
"Wait a minute," he said aloud.
"Oh, good, you're not dead yet," Athena said as she approached the group.
"Athena!" Fiona and Hanuman yelled at the same time.
"Then," Perseus said, "that's gotta be..."
Echo vanished from her perch, reappearing with the rest of the group.
"Something seems different about you," Ilia said. "Yes, it's just like with Xanthus."
Echo allowed her power to show in the form of those golden flame-like halos that replaced her irises' natural hazel-green color.
"Y-Y-You're..." Hanuman began.
"A Wraith-Knight," Perseus finished. "When did this happen?"
"A while back," Athena said. "We were gonna try and figure a way out of this Labyrinth, but then her Semblance started going crazy and it pointed all the way here, and now here we are."
"It's not just Perseus and Xanthus," Echo said. "I sense danger all over the place, but this has never happened before."
"What's that?" Perseus said.
"I can sense Leon in danger, and Yuan, and Penny, and Ingrid. Ingrid was in a lot of danger just a short time ago, but it's died down a bit since then."
"Hold up," Fiona said, "you can sense danger from across the continent?"
"Not until lately."
"Probably the Wraith-Knight," Athena said. "Honestly, we don't know anything about it, so it's impossible to be sure—"
"Wait a minute," Echo said, turning around as a flash of purple light briefly erupted from her body. She aimed her bow at an army of approaching Corrupted. The others readied themselves for battle, but she ended it before it ever began. A single pull of her bowstring sent more arrows than they could count, impaling every single monster threatening them.
"Dude!" Hanuman said. "She just massacred, like, hundreds of Corrupted in, like, two seconds!"
Fiona gawked at their companion. Until now, Echo had been accompanying them from the shadows, taking the high ground to give them support from afar. She was now at the front of the group formation, wielding enough firepower to level an entire battlefield. Just what were these Wraith-Knights? And how could they grant so much power to a single person?
"Xanthus is over that way," Echo said, pointing at the parliament building. "And he's in trouble."
"There's a barrier protecting the place," Ilia said.
"Okay, then," Athena said. "Echo?"
"Do the thing?" she said.
"Do the thing."
She stepped forward, aiming her bow and drawing its string. A bright light began to shine from where she grasped her bowstring and when she released it, an arrow made of pure energy blasted forward, impacting the barrier with a brilliant flash. The dome of energy flickered for a moment before collapsing.
"Holy cow," Fiona said.
"Let's get a move on!" Athena said, leading the way.
—
"Are you sure you're okay?" Francine asked Ingrid.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "What about you?"
"I mean, we all just got tortured and shit, but I'll manage." They turned to their parents and sisters. "Mom and dad look like hell, though. And Justine hasn't said a word since we got here."
They looked around. Yuan was helping with some of the other injured around the camp while Penny and Leon worked with White Fang soldiers to secure a perimeter. This outpost had been established some time ago to counter the invasion from Atlas, but it had been a nearly one-sided battle. They had been preparing to fight against robotic weaponry and human soldiers, not an army of otherworldly monsters.
"Is Atlas really using creatures from the Labyrinth?" Francine said. "And how the heck are they even controlling them?"
"I don't know," Ingrid said. "I don't know if it's even Atlas's doing. It could very well be a feint. We haven't been able to piece everything together just yet."
"Hey," Yuan said, joining the two sisters.
"Hi," Ingrid said, wrapping her arms around him. "Thank you. For healing my people, I mean."
"They're my people, too."
She smiled.
"How are you holding up, Francine?"
"I'm fine, thanks for asking," she said.
Ingrid looked to the distance.
"What's up?" Yuan asked her.
"I don't know. I'm just getting this weird feeling."
"You, too, huh?"
She looked up at him. "What's with you and your sixth sense matching mine every time, huh? Are you secretly a Faunus, too?"
He chuckled. "Nah, my dad just taught me to be in-tune with everything around me."
They both looked westward.
"What are you sensing?" Francine asked.
"I can't quite put my finger on it," Ingrid said.
"Guys!" Leon said as he and Penny ran to them. "Something's up!"
"I just got word from a contact back in District 2," Penny said. "They haven't heard from Team APEX or Ilia. They missed three check-ins in a row."
Yuan and Ingrid exchanged glances.
"What?" Leon said.
"How far away are we?" Yuan asked.
"Well," Francine began, "that mining town we hit early on with all the monsters and freaky stuff was less than a day's march from the wall, but somehow we got thrown all the way to this outpost, which is across the continent, so I'd say, maybe two days by vehicle? And that's if the roads are intact."
"There's no time for that," Ingrid said. She began pacing.
"Hey," Yuan said.
"Hmm?"
"Haven't you noticed something strange?"
"About?"
"The Labyrinth. Up until now, most of our experiences with the Labyrinth have been pretty stable. Like, we'd enter from the Rift Generator room at the Forge and exit the same way, or from a random rift somewhere out in the city. This is the first time we entered in one town, didn't move very much, and then re-emerged into the real world hundreds of miles away."
"What are you getting at?" Leon said.
"You're trying to do something with that, aren't you?" Penny said.
Yuan put a hand to his chin. "I don't know if we'd actually be able to do anything to take advantage of such a fluid spatial condition, but with two Wraith-Knights here, we might be able to teleport all the way to the capital."
"We'd have to enter the Labyrinth first, though, because there's no using your magic out here."
"Fortunately, we're surrounded by rifts," Ingrid said.
Leon looked over at Penny.
"Yes, my scanners have picked up on them, too. Good thing none of them are inside the base, though. Not sure if I'm in any mood to deal with anymore mass disappearances, to be honest."
"What do you think?" Yuan asked the group.
"I don't like the thought of leaving this place undefended," Penny said, "especially now that we know we're dealing with powerful magic backing Adam and his cohorts."
"We can take care of ourselves," Francine said, joined by her triplet sisters.
"Y-Yeah," Justine said, still clutching herself out of anxiety. "We'll m-manage through another attack if we have to."
Ingrid looked at her sisters. She still seethed with rage at the thought of what that bastard Adam had put them through. All the more reason to bring the fight to the enemy, though.
"I think we can do something about this base," Yuan said. "As in, keeping it soundly anchored in the real world."
"How do you figure?" Penny said.
"I've been wanting to try something."
They watched in awe as his clothes began to billow, stirred by his power burgeoning up to the surface from within.
"Wait, but, how?" Leon said. "I thought you can't use your power in the real world."
Yuan's jade eyes gave way to that golden flame as he brought his magical power to the surface. Unlike the Labyrinth, however, his clothes remained the same. In accord, Ingrid, too, allowed her magical power to emerge, her amber eyes glowing like golden halos of fire.
Leon looked over at Penny, who was scanning the duo. "Anything?" he asked.
"There's no doubt about it," she said. "This is the same as in the Labyrinth. Although, I have to say, your EP output isn't as high as in the other world."
"EP? You mean that Ershomething Particle?"
"Yeah, Erscheinung Particles. Every time they exert magical force, that's what their bodies are releasing into the environment. It's the thing that actually enacts all of the magical stuff they do."
"There," Yuan said.
"I see it, too," Ingrid said.
"That's cute," Leon said. "They're doing the couple thing."
Ingrid growled at him and Penny couldn't help but chuckle.
"What are you guys seeing?" Francine asked.
"We can inscribe these runes at the perimeter of the town," Yuan said. "As long as you can keep them powered with some kind of energy, whether electrical, fire, or I think even Dust, they should keep this base and everyone in it from being dragged into the Labyrinth."
"Consequently," Ingrid began, "it should securely anchor this place to the real world, which will make it impossible to invade it from the Labyrinth."
"How the heck do you guys know all this?" Leon said.
"I don't know," Yuan said. "We just do."
"Okay, then," Francine said. "We'll be safe. Go and help the others. Sis and Han are with them, too, right?"
"Yeah," Ingrid said. She marched to her sisters and embraced all three of them at the same time. "I love you guys."
"We love you, too," Nadine said.
"Let's go see your parents, too," Yuan said. "Before we head out."
Ingrid smiled as she joined him.
—
Team APEX and their three companions were heading to the parliament building when Echo spun around, sensing danger headed their way. She readied her bladed longbow for action, but lowered her guard when four familiar faces faded into existence right in front of her.
"Ingrid?" she said.
"Leon!" Athena said before marching to her twin brother and gripping him in a tight embrace. "Echo said you guys were in danger, but—"
"No time, sis," he said. "We were in danger, but not anymore. What's going on? Ingrid and Yuan sensed something funny happening here so—"
"Ingrid? Wait, what are you..."
Echo walked up to Ingrid, sizing her up and down. The latter did the same.
"Your clothes," they said at the same time.
"A Wraith-Knight has awakened inside of you, hasn't it?" Yuan asked her.
Echo nodded. "You, too?" she asked Ingrid.
"Yeah," she said. "Let's talk about it later. What's going on? Why is my hair standing on end?"
Xanthus let out another piercing scream.
"Damn it!" Perseus yelled. "C'mon! We don't have time for any of this!"
—
Xanthus grunted as he was thrown across the room, smashing through several objects along the way before he slammed against the stone wall. He looked up at Malphas, who floated at the center of the Parliament Chamber, right above the podium beneath a distorted version of Menagerie's banner.
"Boy," Malphas's voice echoed as she folded her arms across her chest. "I already told you. Your resistance is an utter waste of your time. You are a fellow being of the World of Shadow. Why you fight against me rather than alongside me makes no sense whatsoever. Your allegiance ought to be the same as mine."
"I fight for Remnant!" he declared. "I am her shield!"
"And yet the being awakened inside you is not of your world. His allegiance is to Ecumene."
Ecumene?
"But I suppose there is more than one way to get the job done. I'm sure Ashtaroth will come up with some method of extracting that Wraith-Knight from you and give him a proper vessel."
Xanthus charged at her again, but a single motion of her hand was enough to overpower him and send him flying in another direction, but before he impacted the wall, something managed to catch him in midair.
"I gotchu, partner!" Perseus yelled.
"Xanthus!" Athena said as she stood beside her companions. She turned to the Greater Daemon floating at the center of the room. Power radiated from her body like a glowing mist.
Without a word, Echo aimed her bow and fired a single arrow made of pure lightning. The arrow failed to hit its mark, however. Malphas was holding out a hand, projecting a barrier the arrow could not pierce.
"Whoa!" Hanuman said. "She totally crushed that barrier outside, but this one's tougher?"
"What even the heck is that Greater Daemon?" Fiona said. "Do we stand a chance against her?"
"You may have been able to force Moloch to retreat," Malphas began, "but there's something you fail to understand." The power emanating from her began to intensify, forcing the group to their knees with its immense pressure. Only the Wraith-Knights remained standing. "You are trespassing on my territory, children. In this place, you are under my Dominion."
"The hell does she mean by that?" Leon said, struggling to keep from being pressed flat into the ground.
"Guys!" Xanthus yelled, running to each of his friends. "What's happening?"
"Can't...stand..." Athena managed.
"Senpai?"
"Xan-chan..." Penny grunted. "It's...unbelievable. I've never seen so much EP flow out of anyone. The only other time...was Bedivere...when he nearly swallowed the world..."
He rejoined his fellow Wraith-Knights, who were beginning to allow their own power to manifest in the form of waves of light that flowed from their bodies like a mist. Each one matched the auras of their owners, indigo for Ingrid, cyan for Yuan, yellow for Xanthus, and deep purple for Echo.
"You mortals would rebel against my power and authority?" Malphas demanded, her distorted voice echoing throughout the chamber. A pulse of energy exploded from her body, forcing the rest of the group into the ground, but the four Wraith-Knights remained on their feet.
"We're here to end you!" Xanthus yelled.
"You can't keep my people on their knees," Ingrid said. "We'll free this entire country from your grip!"
"I already told you, child," Malphas said. "I merely amplify what already exists in your hearts. I do nothing to plant those seeds of indolence."
"Yeah, well, that's enough of that," Yuan said.
Echo stepped to the front of the group, readying her bow for action. "You messed with the wrong children, Malphas," she declared. "We're taking you down!"
