Compare and Contrast

But do be glad baby when you've found

That's the power makes the world go 'round

~ Huey Lewis

Chapter 4

No revenge is so heroic than that which torments envy by doing good. ~ Author Unknown

Night.

Darkness.

Alan felt water on his face, like the rain on the day his mother was buried. What sort of mage hates his own element?

The room they had charged into was awash with tendrils of darkness, the same that he'd seen ensnaring Keith.

There were guards inside, but they were rather distracted by the rat-like creature in their midst. From the way clothes and armour had been torn apart, Alan suspected that it had once been a guard.

Moving through the magic was like wading through a river, if the water was up past your head and you somehow had no buoyancy. Tendrils of dark magic tried to snare at his limbs and Alan slashed at them with his sword, which cut through them without any effect.

"Stop them!" a nobleman called, his tricorn hat almost falling off as he grabbed the nearest guard.

Distracted, the guardsman took his eye off the monster, a critical mistake. It turned, faster than Alan would have expected, and gored the man with its tusks.

The chamber was long and dark, the extent impossible to tell in the darkness. But Alan could see the circle that was the source of the dark magic. A circle, several yards across, from which the darkness radiated like a spider's web or perhaps an octopus' tentacles.

Within the shadows, the woman danced. Her feet were bare, her face ecstatic.

Alan stumbled as his leg was caught in the magic. His sword was too short to reach and likely useless anyway. He lashed out with his magic, a dart of frozen water tearing through it. The tendril wasn't destroyed, but it was loosened enough for him to push further.

Another guard fell, caught by the rat-monster's tail and dragged around for the beast to chew upon.

"Must I do everything myself?" The nobleman drew his light fencing sword and frost formed along it, extending the blade until it was a heavier, jagged rapier of ice.

Gerald met the man, his own blade surrounded by flames.

Leaving the duel to his brother, Alan saw one of the guards swept off his feet as he buried the head of a glaive in the monster, trying to hold it in place. Lunging, the young musician grabbed the man and pulled him clear before one clawed foot could pin him to the ground.

"Th-thanks," the man exclaimed, and then his eyes widened as he saw who had saved him.

"One thing at a time!" Alan shouted, lunging in and trying to stab the monster. It yanked its way back, but as it twisted away he was able to grab the shaft of the glaive.

Lashing out with water, forming a web of strands linking himself, the weapon and the floor, the silver-haired boy barely managed to restrain the much larger monster. It wrenched away again, but right as he found his strength reaching its limit, the man with him grabbed hold as well.

Razor winds tore through the monster's fur, spraying blood from superficial wounds. But it was Chris who took the final step, lunging in while the monster was still pinned in place. His sword cut through its throat, spraying the floor with its blood.

The glaive was forced out of the corpse as it shrunk back into the shape of a man.

"You fools!" the nobleman called. "Kill them, that's an order!"

Alan turned to the man next to him, the pair of them both holding the same glaive. "Are you really going to die for this scumbag?"

The guard's face twisted in disdain. "I'm oathsworn to Count Garrett," he said reluctantly and tried to pull the glaive away from Alan.

So his brother was fighting the leader of the entire invasion? Better and better! "He's a traitor to your crown," the boy pointed out, wrenching the glaive back and wishing he hadn't dropped his sword.

Garrett jumped back to avoid a cut from Gerald's flaming sword. "Liar!"

"We know you are," Nicol confirmed, moving like a shadow through the dark magic. "We heard it from Princess Hertrude!"

"The princess is a captive?!" Alan's opponent exclaimed in horror.

"No… she's our ally. Better Holfort than a dark mage," he replied, wrestling the glaive away from the distracted man, just in time to deflect an attack from one of the other guards.

The disarmed guard looked disgusted. "Allying with the kingdom? After they killed her father?!"

"No, allying with the kingdom against the man who killed her father." Alan swept the glaive around and disarmed the guard who'd attacked him, and then kicked him in the groin. He didn't take any pride in that, but when you're fighting for your life, you do what you must.

"Lies! All lies!" shouted Garrett, barely holding off both Nicol and Gerald - and only doing so by frantic retreating.

"We just heard you condemn your own sailors to be turned into monsters," Julius pointed out and then his arm flashed forwards and Alan's lost shortsword flashed across the distance between himself and the Count.

The throw was good and several inches of steel embedded themselves point-first in Garrett's throat.

The man fell to the floor, spine likely severed. He tried to choke out words, but blood was gushing from both his mouth and the rent in his neck. Dark tendrils rushed into him eagerly, muscle bulging and bones twisting obscenely beneath.

And then Gerald's blade drove into the man's chest, flames brought to a near white-heat engulfing the guard. The blaze cast Alan's brother in a brilliant light as Nicol fed air frantically into them.

The blackened husk of a dead body died, human once more. And Gerald discarded the sword, blowing on his hand as it had apparently been too hot for even him to hold onto.

Alan stared at the disarmed soldier in front of him. "Are you going to die for a dead man, a man who betrayed you along with everyone else?"

"...no."

Keith picked up an axe. "You," he demanded, pointing it at the still dancing woman. "Stop. Now."

She obeyed, swaying to a halt facing him. "My experiment." The woman caught hold of her skirts and curtseyed as she crooned to Keith. "It's as if you never left."

The boy shivered visibly. "My sister would want to give you a second chance. End this spell now. Because I think even she'd forgive me for not offering you a third."

Her eyes peered back at them. "Oh? Oh well. Alright then."

"Really?" asked Alan sceptically.

"It's not perfect," she admitted, not sounding particularly bothered. "But it'll do."

She raised her hands and the tendrils of darkness began to pulse and swell, drawing themselves slowly back to her.

Alan swallowed. "What are you doing?"

Mad eyes gleamed with absurd innocence. "I'll do as I'm bid. I'll end it. I'll end it all!"

"Stop! Kill her!" Gerald shouted.

A hurricane of wind crashed into the girl - or rather, into the swelling darkness around her. It did about as much as the water that Alan wasted in the same way a moment later.

"Always be yourself," the dark mage declared in a sing-song voice. The darkness was swallowing her - Alan couldn't see her bare feet any more.

Then he saw a glimpse of the stone floor and realised with horror that her feet weren't there at all.

"Unless," she added, "you can be the dragon."

Keith swore and raised a two metre-lance of stone from the floor, driving it into the cocoon of darkness. It broke apart under the expanding whirl of near-liquid malice.

"In that case, become the dragon."

"What in god's name is that?" someone shrieked.

Hertrude Sera Fanoss didn't have to ask what the question was about. The black mass of dark magic had shrunk away, leaving only the natural clouds to obscure the light of the sun and that reflected from the barrier of light that the three light mages atop the royal skyship continued to project.

But the dark magic hadn't vanished. No, it had taken a new form. One that might be more deadly yet.

She needed no spyglass to see that the mass it had formed around the citadel topping the mountain-sized island Garrett had ordered towed with the Fanoss fleet was almost the size of the entire island. Whatever it contained was going to be vast, almost beyond imagining.

The monsters that had broken loose amongst Garrett's fleet were mostly gone and the rest had been drawn back towards the source of the darkness. As a result, the battle had slowed to a near-halt as all eyes went to the cocoon of magic. The warring fleets had become intermixed and scattered: some skyships were entangled with each other so their crews could fight each other, others descending to the city below as a result of their damage. One unlucky battleship was on fire and Hertrude could see at least three wrecks where ships had crashed down out of the sky without heed for what was beneath them.

Knights had also fallen, but others remained, having taken their battles down into the streets. Hunting down those maniacs had drawn off a considerable number of the knights assigned to Count Roseblade's division and when a red and black knight flew up alongside her flagship, Hertrude at first thought it was one of her escort of loyalist Principality knights returning. A moment later she recognised it as Leon's knight-armour - the Big Charznable - battered but clutching a familiar sword in one hand.

"Sir Vandel," she murmured.

The knight-armour reversed the great black sword and carefully placed it on the deck next to Hertrude. "I can hardly pledge you my own sword," Leon's voice called. "But this one is a legacy of your household, I believe. Or perhaps there's a Zenden heir?"

"My grandfather granted it to him for his lifetime," she replied absently. "Sir Leon, do you have any idea what that is over the island?"

"A million petty hatreds all piled into one place," the young knight replied grimly. "As… here it comes!"

The blackness expanded, contracted and then burst open like an egg hatching. The outer layers dissolved as they fell away, leaving behind them a black dragon that was easily the size of the Dreadnought - perhaps longer.

Spreading its wings wide, the great beast roared… and Hertrude shivered. She could feel the malice of that scream.

"You may need the sword!" she called out to Leon.

"...I don't know if that'll be enough, but I appreciate the loan." His knight-armour reached out and lifted the weapon again. "Do you think you can convince your countrymen to change sides now? Because we might all have a larger problem."

Hertrude looked around. "I can try. I think their flagship's been captured - Viscount Darian's ship looked like it was being boarded. That might help."

Leon landed his knight-armour on the deck and opened the hatch. "Here, I've got a device here that'll let you address all the ships."

Hertrude ran to it and a sailor cupped his hands to give her a foothold. When she stood facing the bottom of the hatch, Leon tossed her a small device around the size of a pen. "Twist the top, push the ends towards each other and then speak into the top," he instructed her. "It'll shut down automatically if you don't say anything for a while."

The princess lowered herself back to the deck and thanked the sailor. "Isn't this much like what Katarina used to summon a knight-armour?"

"Same basic principle," the boy confirmed. He closed the hatch. "Now if you'll excuse me…"

Her hair was whipped around by the wind generated as the knight-armour took off and she clutched the device. "I hope this works," the dark-haired girl murmured and twisted the top. Before she could finish the activation programme, there was another roar from the dragon, this one perhaps as much frustrated as angered.

Staring over the side of the ship, Hertrude saw that the flying island itself was changing shape, great hands of stone reaching up to seize hold of the dragon. Arms followed the hands, unthinkable amounts of earth and stone shifting to reveal a head and shoulders…

An earth golem in the form of a young woman almost half the size of the dragon tackled the dark magic construct, which flapped ferociously as it tried to get free. The monster, the golem and the island - which was tearing itself apart as the golem formed from its substance - all lurched towards Holfort's port island.

"I've never seen earth magic on that scale!" someone exclaimed.

Hertrude saw the face of the golem and her jaw dropped. She could only think of one earth-mage who would give his golem the face of Katarina Rafa Claes - and she'd not imagined Keith Rafa Claes was so strong. It was a terrifying thought.

She jabbed the top of the lost item down and heard a click. "Warriors of Fanoss!"

Her voice boomed out from the Dreadnought, behind and above her as the flagship and its deceptively sleek escort ascended.

"And all who fight today:" she continued. "I am Hertrude Sera Fanoss. Yet today I stand with Holfort against a common foe! I stand for the light and against the darkness that we see before us! See how the Saintess fights for us!" Katarina would probably whine a great deal about being called the Saintess, but that golem was too good a rallying point to ignore. "Stand with us, stand for the light and against the darkness!"

Lowering the device, Hertrude stopped speaking and wondered how long it would be before she could speak again without the words being repeated to everyone within miles.

Over in the distance, the dragon finally tore itself away from the golem only to crash directly into the port island, flattening the docks along one side of it almost instantly. Warehouses collapsed, quays broke off and tumbled to the water below. Houses and shops shattered, supplies and goods disintegrating under the impact.

For a moment, Hertrude thought that that might be the extent of the destruction, but the dragon clambered up upon the ruined side of the island, feet stamping deeper into the ruins, wings furling as it turned, head raised to face the golem.

What remained of the flying island broke apart and the entire golem - Katarina Rafa Claes, hundreds of feet tall, carved of stone and earth - stepped onto the port, which tipped entirely over and spilled the dragon back into the giant work of earth-magic.

Both fell, the golem's hands closing around the dragon, and they crashed into the ocean below. Water fountained up to obscure them and waves began to spread from their location as the port island swung wildly back upright, over-correcting and causing more damage before rolling back and splitting in two under the colossal forces applied.

Finally, the fountaining water settled enough to reveal the head of Katarina still above the water. The golem wasn't moving, but its arms were still holding onto the dragon, keeping it from ascending again.

"All ships!" Hertrude cried out. Her words weren't repeated. She worked the device again, reactivating it. "All ships! Go after that dragon. Don't let it go up!"

There was a sharp crack and shots ranged down, the Dreadnought lowering its nose to bring its guns to bear.

The royal skyship followed the larger ship, its own weapons firing at the dragon.

Hertrude's flagship began to descend and she looked around. For a moment there were just the three of them, before another of the kingdom's ships followed - a small cruiser with its hull so battered it was hard to believe it could still fight - there were visible vines holding it together!

Leon's knight-armour skimmed past the little ship and Hertrude fumbled for a spyglass. There was a small boy gesticulating violently at the knight from the quarterdeck. A green-haired woman knelt behind him, her hands on the wooden boards, which were coming to life again.

Then more ships began to dive, their forward guns opening up.

Temple-ships, Holfort royal ships. Levies of the Redgraves, Roseblades, Bartfords… She recognised the Ades' banner, now flying not only from the little Revenge but also the larger and half-wrecked battleship that had been Viscount Darian's.

And finally, Fanossian warships joined the attack, the blunt ugly gunhouses spitting fire at the dragon. Not just those that had followed her earlier. Ship after ship that had served Count Garrett were streaming behind their princess and their ancient enemies, for once joining a common cause.

With a scream of hatred, the black dragon broke free of the earthen limbs and managed through frantic beating of its wings to take off, rising to meet them.

A fusillade of fire hammered relentlessly at the dragon from every direction as the ships circled it, firing their cannon as fast as they could reload. Not a moment went by that cannonballs weren't hammering it…

The sound and sight of the fury of over a hundred warships' full might unleashed at once would have been awe-inspiring - if it had seemed to do more than pain the black behemoth. Shot after shot hit it, but there were no visible wounds and to Katarina's eye, it seemed as if the cannonballs simply vanished into the shadowy mass rather than piercing any flesh.

And the black dragon was hitting back. Its wings swatted knight-armours from the sky, while its claws had smashed open two skyships that she'd seen. And its breath was dark magic. No one wanted to be touched by those streamers of darkness, so it was fortunate that the light magic barrier that Olivia was maintaining with Angelica and Katarina's help had thus far kept it from hitting any ships.

"This isn't working," Angelica worried between shots from the Unicorn's guns. Like before, the cannon had sent the dragon shrieking away from the skyship it had been trying to seize hold of, but the respite was brief for it recovered from the pain almost immediately.

"It's not exactly a monster is it?" Katarina agreed, still gripping the hands of the other two girls. "Maybe it's an illusion… no, in that case it couldn't hit anything."

"I think it's mostly dark magic." Olivia was pale-faced. "But the barrier isn't doing anything to it - I don't think I'm even touching it with light magic."

That was a problem, thought Katarina. She wasn't dumb, she knew light magic was the best thing against dark magic. It had shielded the city… well, mostly. But…

Oh wait. She was being silly. You don't hit people with a shield… well, except under certain particular circumstances and only if they really deserved it… Where was she going with that? Oh, okay, so think of it as a monster. Hitting a monster, you didn't want to use a shield - they were heavy and blocked your line of sight. It was better to use a pick or a sword.

Ha, this must be how Gerald felt, figuring something out!

Thinking of her technical fiance, Katarina turned to Angelica. "We need to use a blazing sword!"

"A what?"

"We need to use light magic like it's a sword, not a shield."

The red-eyed blonde frowned in thought. "We tried doing that at the ministry, but it didn't work."

Olivia made an apologetic noise.

'That's actually brilliant,' Ann declared in Katarina's head, apparently realising what she had in mind. Was she reading Katarina's mind? 'How else would I communicate with you?' the saintess (still wearing a maid's outfit in Katarina's imagination) asked perplexedly.

"But I think I know what we did wrong!" the brunette exclaimed to the others.

Larna cleared her throat. "Normally I wouldn't say that this is a good time for experimentation," the researcher observed. "But we need some options. Even the black knight's sword didn't hurt the dragon."

"Oh, is he fighting for us too?"

"No, Katarina. Leon has that sword now," Angelica explained.

She nodded. "Well we need to use our own."

"What sword do you mean, Lady Katarina?"

"Angie is our sword," she explained to Olivia. "Do you remember what Larna told her to do to help us focus the shield?"

"Ah!" Larna exclaimed. "I see. That could work." She pursed her lips. "Or possibly set you on fire."

"I'm sure I'll be fine, right Ann?"

'Probably,' the Saintess declared calmly. 'I admit I've not tried this myself.'

Well, they had to do something! "Drop the barrier," she directed.

Olivia obeyed and Angelica stopped directing her own magic through Katarina to support it.

Katarina tried to envisage the magic flowing through her the other way, and then gave up and let go of the other girls, turning around and then grabbing their hands again so that now her right hand was holding Angelica's right hand, and her left holding Olivia's left hand. It also meant that Katarina didn't have to look at the giant stone golem with her own face that was under the battle, which was a relief. That was so embarrassing!

This admittedly left her looking away from the dragon and towards Larna Smith, who looked amused. "Alright, Katarina. Are you ready?" the Director asked.

"Uh huh!"

Olivia began to glow with her magic and then focused it into the hand linking her to Katarina. The brunette could feel the hairs on the back of her hand and arm prickle as her friend's light flowed into her, the Saintess' Bracelet visibly glowing as the power surged into her.

Then it wasn't just the hair on her arm, she felt her mane of silky brown hair rising up and a warm, strong, comforting light flowed through her.

(Unknown to Katarina, her eyes were visibly glowing.)

With a gasp, the girl repeated what she'd been doing before, taking the magic - so much magic, far more than what she'd felt when Angelica was helping to empower the barrier - and channelling it through to the braided girl.

Angelica swallowed audibly as the tide of magic reached her. She clutched at the Saintess' Sceptre and an aura of white flames began to form around her.

"Amazing," murmured Larna, eyes fixed upon the three of them as the flames around Angelica rose higher and higher, so intense that Katarina thought she could almost feel them. Pressure was building within the brunette, as if the magic was backed up and flowing into her faster than Angelica could accept it.

"Oh god," the daughter of the Duke Redgrave murmured. "It's too much. I can't take it!"

"Let it go!" Katarina shouted, craning her head around to look at the other girl. "Don't hold it in, use it!"

Angelica Rafa Redgrave adjusted her grip upon the sceptre, holding it like a sword's hilt, and then she pointed it out over the edge of the deck. "HOLY SWORD!" the girl cried out, and swung the relic as if she was cutting at something.

There was a flash of white light.

A sound so fierce that it was as if thunder was rolling right upon them.

Katarina felt the pressure ebb to something sustainable. Olivia sidestepped around, helping her to turn and see what they were doing, her left hand still in the taller girl's, her right arm half-embracing her.

A line of silver-white fire blazed down from the Unicorn's deck, from the Saintess' Sceptre, a foot across as it left the relic, a haloed by a scattershot of flames almost like a sword's hilt. When it reached the dragon it seemed barely needle-thick - though Katarina wasn't sure if it was diminishing in width or simply so far away that it looked like that.

For a moment she thought that it was doing nothing more than the cannonfire. Angelica was trembling and if she'd had a free hand, Katarina would have given her a hug. The dragon wasn't moving though - or rather, it was struggling as if the beam had skewered it and pinned in place - it wasn't moving around, was what she meant!

"It's not enough," Olivia gasped.

"It's doing something," Larna disagreed. "Girls, I hate to say this… but you need to give it more oomf."

"I'm trying!" Angelica protested. "I can't handle more."

"You're stronger than you think," Katarina told her. "We can do this."

"Lady Katarina, I'm not sure you can," warned Olivia. "You're glowing."

"I can do this all day! At this point I practically have."

'You can't,' Ann corrected her quietly. 'But the director is correct. I think a little more will be enough. Focus on happy memories. Positive emotions will help.'

"We need to think happy thoughts," she told the others. "Just a little more should do it."

Olivia leant against Katarina, perhaps strained by the impact, the taller girl thought worriedly. But then with a surge of joyous energy, more magic flowed through the bond between them. Unfortunately, there was the same pressure as before.

"I… I can't…" Angelica cried out.

"Think of something happy, Angie!" Katarina demanded again, leaning forwards to speak into Angelica's ear and whispering as discreetly as she could: "Is there someone you like?"

The other duke's daughter eeped slightly and the line of silver fire wobbled slightly… And then the pressure faded and the beam of light magic widened visibly.

The black dragon threw back its head once more and roared, almost like Gojira.

And then it exploded, wisps of blackness hurled across the sky and fading out. The clouds above parted, sunlight streaming down upon the golem and the massed skyships.

For a moment, Katarina thought she saw a girl in a dark dress falling out of the midst of that but then she was unable to watch as she, Angelica and Olivia all fell over in a heap. It was hard to say which was on top and who was on the bottom, with how tangled they were. Angelica even dropped the Saintess' Sceptre and only quick action by Larna stopped the ancient relic from rolling off the deck and falling off the Unicorn.

"Did it work?" Katarina asked, not even trying to stand. Her limbs all felt tingly.

"It worked," Larna assured them, resting the sceptre against her shoulder. "The dragon's gone and I don't see anything left of it. Or anything else appearing."

Olivia managed to work a hand free. "I should be able to heal any injury you took."

"No!" exclaimed the older woman, taking Olivia's hand and then helping her to get out from under Katarina and Angelica. "If there was any injury due to overuse of light magic then more light magic is the last thing to do."

The scholarship student gulped. "Oh no, I'm sorry!"

"It's okay."

'You'll be alright with some rest,' Ann told her. 'I can't tell about the other two, but my many-times-removed niece may find she's developed some small ability with light magic the way you did. Or maybe not. I've never tried this before so it's unexplored territory.'

Katarina relayed this as she and Angelica untangled themselves slowly, staying flat on the deck.

"Don't experiment," Larna warned Angelica. "Not now, anyway. Take time to recover and then we can try a few tests at the Ministry."

"I'll be careful." The girl reached over and put her hand around Katarina's. "How bad are the casualties?"

"That'll be a while working out. Quite a few ships made it to the water and are still afloat, so not as bad as it could be." Larna looked out over the side, then raised her spyglass. "Well… I'll be deuced." Her shoulders lost some of their tension. "Look who's clinging to the side of that giant statue of you."

Katarina tried to sit up but her limbs still felt more like limps. "I'm not sure I can get up."

"Ah, well the good news is that unless my eyes deceive me, your brother is alive, not that I had much doubt. Only a very powerful earth mage could have created a golem that size. He must have exhausted himself, but… yes, it's got to be him - he's with my twin brothers-in-law."

"Your brothers-in-law?" asked Olivia.

Larna unpinned her hair and combed it loose with her fingers. "I'm married to Gerald and Alan's older brother. I prefer to keep it a secret because duchesses aren't supposed to have jobs, and people start thinking that I got my job due to influence rather than being good at it."

"They're alright then," Angelica sighed. "That's a relief. Where are they?"

"Clinging to the statue," Larna told her. "I see your former fiancee with them - I think I see Lord Ascart and Lord Arclight as well but I can't tell. There's a skyship headed down to recover them, so they should all be fine."

"That's a relief," Katarina repeated the blonde's words.

Angelica giggled from next to Katarina. "I just realised, the temple will be completely convinced you're the Saintess reborn now. You've got a giant statue of you right in view of the capital. Everyone will take that as a sign."

"Oh no!"

Larna also chuckled. "Well, you two won't get off scot free. What was it that you said Katarina. Sword and shield? So you'll be the Saintess' sword and shield or something like that, when the temple writes down their account of this."

Olivia cringed slightly, kneeling next to Katarina. She'd taken hold of one of her hands and was holding it on her lap.

"Perhaps we could destroy the statue?" asked Katarina hopefully. "Not another fiery sword attack, but we could ask Ian to shoot at it with the Unicorn."

"No, Katarina."

"Or Leon could use the Dreadnought!"

Angelica squeezed her hand lightly. "It would just get him into trouble for defacing it."

She would have hung her head, if it wasn't already resting on the deck. "What was Keith thinking?!" Her villainous face wasn't just going to be in the history books, it was going to be on view to everyone forever!

"Probably about you?" Larna suggested. "He is in love with you, after all."

Katarina groaned. And she still had no idea what to do about that! Would rejecting him be a death flag? She might as well discard all her notes about the game because right now, her life had nothing in common with it.