AN: I didn't get any reviews that requested one decision or another, so I've gone and made the decision for you guys. You'll see where it goes by the end of the chapter, but this one is a branch point - there will be alternate writes of this chapter released down the road, which lead Raven in different directions. As always, enjoy!
Chapter Eleven: Battles Won
Raven and Oscar were a blur of motion as they chopped through skeleton after skeleton, trying to fight their way to the central keep of the city, which, if not the location of Pinwheel himself, was at least a decent vantage to figure out where the self-multiplying monstrosity of a necromancer actually was located. Raven had used an hour of her four hour time limit, before she was royally screwed over - her symptoms flaring up before Pinwheel was dead would almost certainly result in Raven finding herself in a similar state of existence. They had covered almost half of the distance, but the frequency of skeletons had more than tripled in the distance - they had reached the point at which there was no way to even progress at all without hacking through hordes of skeletons, and the occasional giant. Oscar's shield was a massive help, covering for both of them, since Raven didn't have a shield of her own. Raven's own style was more focused on dispatching an individual opponent as quickly as possible in order to move on to the next one - something that her training with a katana was designed for - whilst Oscar was fighting with wider sweeps, attempting to cut through more skeletons at once and sometimes having to hit each multiple times. Even so, their progress was too slow - they wouldn't even make it to the tower before Raven's time ran out if they had to keep trudging forwards at this pace.
"Oscar! We're never going to make it like this!" Raven shouted, over the clamor of the battle in which they were engaged.
"I agree," Oscar yelled back, despite his incredibly close proximity to Raven, "But we don't really have a choice. You don't have the Zweihander, or access to Chaos or Dark Pyromancies... wait. Remember what happened in the Parish? Before we really got into this mess?" Oscar twisted to block a strike headed for Raven on his shield, while Raven herself spun to cleave in two a skeleton who was about to take advantage of Oscar's sudden opening.
"When? When I got you, Havel, and Solaire all killed?" Raven asked, still shouting over the chaos. Oscar winced visibly at the memory that her words had unearthed, even as he lopped the heads off of three more skeletons. Raven cleaved two more in half with alternate vertical strokes, even as Oscar began to reply.
"Well... yes, then. When you suddenly created a pyromancy flame out of nowhere. You reckon you could do that again? Not with a flame, but with the pyromancy itself. Something that won't eat you alive as badly as the stuff you used against Pinwheel?" Oscar parried and riposted another skeleton. Raven sheathed the katana, snapping it out of it's sheath in a lunge in one of the only multi-target attacks she had performed - incredibly effective, as it cut four different skeletons clean in two. Raven ignited the flame in her off hand, and glanced at it as she fought.
Could I? I reckon that the ability is probably there, if I can just focus... Raven concentrated hard, something that was immensely difficult given all of the noise that she was surrounded by. However, her concentration yielded nothing - she couldn't think of a specific spell she wanted to perform.
"I'm not sure what sort of spell to make! Any ideas?" Raven desperately slashed through several more skeletons, feeling her hope fading as her mind failed again and again to generate ideas for a spell. It was clear, based on Oscar's silence, that he had none either. They kept fighting, slowly, far too slowly, towards the keep. They were progressing at a rate of only a few inches each minute, and they still had almost half a mile to traverse. Raven felt the energy of her pyromancy flame burning into her hand, asking, begging her to use it, to unleash the dark flames that came so easily to her, but she resisted. There had to be a better way. Then, she saw something: a skeleton that was entwined on a wheel, spinning through the crowd towards them. Oscar sliced the wheel in half easily, timing it with masterful perfection, but an idea took root in her mind. As she slashed through another two skeletons, it took on a different aspect in her mind. It became concrete, useable. Raven channeled energy, and gave it life.
"Oscar! Duck!" Raven shouted as she realized just how destructive the spell she was casting was going to be. Oscar looked at her in confusion, before realization sparked and he dropped to the ground. Seeing him out of harm's way, Raven let the spell explode outwards. A massive disc of flame formed under her hand, which she snapped outwards, sending the disc flying through the skeletal crowd, slicing through hundreds of the fleshless monsters at a time. Unfortunately, it was in completely the wrong direction, and left a smoldering path of destruction, perfectly traversable, that led clear away from the central keep. Raven stumbled as she blocked a swipe from another skeleton, weakly slashing through him.
"Raven? Can you manage another one of those?" Oscar asked worryingly, noticing that the one that she fired hadn't been of much use, but also how much it had taken out of her. Oscar hacked off the head of a skeleton who slipped past Raven's guard, looking at her worriedly. Raven nodded hesitantly, charging up another spell and taking careful aim. She had fired the spell towards the keep the first time, but because of a massive spin it had veered sharply off to the side and wound up traveling away from their goal instead of towards it. With the second spell, Raven adjusted accordingly, firing the spell off to the side and watching it curve straight towards the cathedral. The range was shockingly impressive - it traversed the full half mile between them and the keep, only fizzling out when it slammed into the wall and could burn no longer. Oscar immediately sprinted down the opened path, Raven close behind. Normally, her exhaustion would have resulted in her collapsing, but due to the handy ring of a Havel knight, she was able to function at her best, despite her knowledge that she was thoroughly exhausted. It was a good thing that the spell had reached all the way to the keep, because she knew she wouldn't be casting any more for a while.
However, it quickly became clear that they wouldn't make it. Though they had covered almost a quarter mile, the skeletons ahead of them and behind them were gaining courage, starting to wander back into the scorched trail and close Raven and Oscar's path. Another hundred meters, and they were back in the situation with which they started, but this time Raven was too exhausted to fire another spell. Oscar and Raven spun back to back, analyzing the situation. Even pushing as hard as they could, they would never make it the remaining distance; there were way too many skeletons in the way Raven and Oscar slashed rapidly at the skeletons, pushing through the skeletons, but only managing to make a few steps forwards each minute. Oscar and Raven were both getting exhausted, and the skeletons just didn't stop coming.
Then, suddenly, they did. As Raven ducked under a blow, she came up to realize that there was no skeleton there to swing at her. She and Oscar watched, shocked, as the entire army crumbled into bones. The pair grinned madly, sprinting towards the keep as fast as they could. Something, or someone, had just won the battle on their behalf. As they burst into the keep, though, they saw that it wasn't that simple. A paladin, dressed in polished gold and white armor and wielding a massive great hammer, held a blood-red sprite aloft in his hand, chuckling. Raven saw Pinwheel's corpse fading away into souls beside the paladin, who sighed as he absorbed the massive sum coming off of the necromancer.
"At last, my master will have this back," the paladin said, satisfied, pocketing the red sprite. "Oh? What's this? Two more challengers, come to try and steal the rite away? I won't let you have it!" The paladin charged at them, not even giving them an opportunity to say that they weren't. He swung the massive hammer at Raven first, and she deflected it with her katana, only for it to shatter under the massive force. Raven was left safe from being crushed, at least for the moment, but completely unarmed. The paladin grunted his approval at her maneuver.
"Not terribly bad. A shame that your blade didn't hold up to the strain," the paladin grunted, raising his club again. Oscar, trying to preempt him, jumped into a shoulder bash, interrupting the paladin's swing and saving Raven from being squished again. Then, Raven saw something on the floor that would allow her to get back in the fight. A glint of orange-silver steel, the signature coloration of her chaos-infused Zweihander. Raven sprinted for it, hearing the sounds of Oscar and the paladin's clash in the background.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" a voice sounded in Raven's mind as she reached for the handle of the blade.
"What do you mean?" Raven asked, looking around. She knew that the voice was coming from something inside her own mind.
"You could leave. Walk away, right now. You could live a happy, full life free of the curse. Without Oscar, of course, but you could find something else to make you happy. You pick up that sword, and you save him, you're putting yourself on a path right back to Lordran, right back into the middle of the mess that you wanted for so long to avoid. Choose wisely..." The voice trailed off, leaving Raven horrified. But she knew very well that there was only one choice that she could really live with herself making. She steeled herself, determined, and snatched the Zweihander off of the ground. Immediately, she felt a darksign flare to life on her left breast, exploding with soul energy through her. Raven spun, sprinting towards the paladin and Oscar. She was too late. She saw Oscar's stroke be batted aside by a golden sun-patterned Sanctus shield, leaving him wide open. The paladin slammed his massive great hammer into Oscar's chest, launching him across the room. She heard bones crack both with the impact of the hammer and upon him landing, and screamed in rage.
"You bastard!" She shouted at the paladin, charging him. The paladin prepared to swing his great hammer once again, but Raven was faster, raising her hand to fling an explosion of pitch-black flames at him. The sudden conflagration caused the paladin to stumble, and Raven followed up with an overhead slam with the Zweihander. The paladin rolled away just in the nick of time, and Raven's blade slammed harmlessly into the ground. The paladin came up swinging, but once again, Raven was faster. She grabbed the Zweihander with both hands once again, slamming it up to block the paladin's club. While her katana had shattered using the same maneuver, she knew that the much sturdier blade of the Zweihander would hold up. However, her rage had a side effect she wasn't expecting; the Zweihander's flame was amplified, exploding in a wave of heat as Raven slashed her blade upwards. When the great hammer approached her own blade, the massive amount of flame coming off of the blade solidified and sheared the head clean off of the hammer, causing it to drop harmlessly to the ground. Raven followed up with an overhead slam, which the paladin desperately blocked with his Sanctus. The blow didn't cut clean through, but it did leave a nasty dent in the holy shield. Raven shouted in anger, slamming the Zweihander down again and again, denting and battering the paladin's Sanctus until it finally snapped in two, releasing a massive burst of energy that blew the Zweihander out of Raven's hands, sending it clattering to the floor and leaving both combatants unarmed.
Raven's anger didn't cease, however. It boiled up inside her, a burning sensation that quickly became a physical pain. Raven grabbed the paladin by the throat, her hand glowing with a sickly off-white hue. The paladin coughed and choked, squirming in a vain attempt to get free as Raven sucked his very life force away. Within seconds, the paladin's struggling faded into nothing, and Raven dropped the hollow corpse that remained, panting with exertion. Oscar coughed weakly, and Raven rushes to his side, kneeling down next to where his limp form was lying, slumped against a wall.
"Well, here we are again, at the end of my life..." Oscar wheezed, "At least I had a while longer to spend than I thought. And what better way to have spent it, eh?" Raven choked out a sob. She couldn't do this, not again. Especially not now, with her Darksign back - if Oscar died, she doubted she'd make it a single hour before going hollow.
"No!" Raven sobbed, grasping Oscar's hand, "I won't lose you. I can't!"
"I'm done for, I'm afraid," Oscar wheezed, just as he had back at the asylum, "Thank you for... for everything." Raven screamed in rage as the light in Oscar's eyes faded. There was no dissolution of body into souls, indicating an undead's impending revival. Oscar simply ceased to exist. Raven sobbed again, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"YOU PROMISED!" she screamed, raging at the unseen voice which had advised her when she had taken up the Zweihander, "You promised I could save him!"
"What makes you think it's too late?" the voice asked with a smug tone. Raven saw a flash of a vision - the red sprite that she had seen the now-dead paladin tuck away. Somehow, Raven realized what it was. The rite of kindling. A powerful artifact sought after by the Way of White, able to massively increase the amount of Estus that a bonfire could provide - or theoretically, powerful enough to bring back the dead. Raven sprinted back to the corpse of the paladin, searching it desperately for the rite that he had hidden away on his body. Raven could barely see through her tear-filled eyes, but eventually she managed to find it, rushing back to Oscar. She held the rite in front of him, and crushed it, willing it forwards into his body. The red mist drifted into Oscar promisingly, and Raven waited for him to open his eyes, to draw breath again. Nothing happened. The red mist was absorbed by him, and then it was gone. Raven screamed, pulling Oscar's body to her chest in desperation. If nothing could save him, there wasn't anything that could be done to save her, either. Already she felt calm, distant from the world. Raven was dimly aware of sitting down next to Oscar, waiting for the end.
"Raven?" a voice asked, cutting through her stupor. Oscar's voice. Raven blinked away the haze from her eyes, and saw him kneeling beside her, just as she had knelt beside him before he had died. Immediately, she jumped up and hugged him. Their lips met, and this time, they didn't regret where their desires led them.
AN: Wow, that was a hard chapter to write. Leave a review about anything, questions, comments, plot holes that you'd like to point out, etc. This branch is set and I'm going to carry it out to the end, but feel free to tell me what sort of branch you'd like to see next - complete in-Lordran from chapter 5, Oscar death here, whatever. I have plenty of interesting ideas for plenty of different stuff using this character, and I'm going to publish it all at one point or another. Stay tuned for a potential Tarkus vs. Kirk in the next chapter.