Chapter 27: Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
After their attempts to play at being the hero the three Aurians were now spectators to the real star of the show. And it was a little girl of all things. Barely able to stand up to their guts, didn't look like she was good at reading. This was their savior? Really?
But yet there she was. Standing and staring down the enemy without looking back. And to taunt him, with politeness? She was attracting looks of awe, spiced up a bit with envy, as her audience wondered: "What is she thinking?"
"Brrrr...!" Venus shivered gently and little bumps dotted her arms, "Its chilly up here. I shoulda asked Ms. Catherine to gimme a coat."
Her enemy paused. No fear. No worry. Nothing at all? Not even a word? That's mean.
And their fuzzy mist looked dangerous. It should be avoided at all cost. Not cause of what instincts said. This just felt like common sense.
Venus tilted her head back and looked at the man who had lost his foot, giving him a pitying head shake.
"H-Huh?" That person muttered back.
She looked at her enemy again and asked, "Umm mister...this is supposed to be the part where you say your name."
The mummy gurgled for a few good seconds. So they aren't just mean, they're rude. But as Catherine would say: "Bad guys' don't have manners". At least, when summarized in a way that normal people speak.
"Ok then." Venus shrugged and lowered her gas fist by her side. Suddenly she felt someone grip her shoulder hard and start tugging.
"C-Come on kid! This isn't the time to be a hero! Run!"
Venus gave the guy a flat expression and then gently brushed them aside with one of her gas hands. The mummy began to stir and raised its crusty hands into the air, causing that icky mist to move.
That same Aurian tried to pull Venus away, so she stood her ground in a hunched out and held her arms down pretending she was readying the toy pistols she wish she still had.
The gas formed into a giant pistol gripped in the other fist. Venus then flicked her pointer fingers out while whispering "Pow!", dislodging a giant bullet of gas from the gun.
The bullet spiraled through the mist and struck the mummy square in the chest. And with a satisfying "Pop!", the bullet shoved the bad guy back.
The man's grip slid off down her back and she heard him gawk like one of them cornered space rats. She turned with a tiny smile and whispered, "You should go now."
"Y-Yeah I think so too..." He hastily replied, returning to help pick up his footless friend. But before Venus could engage the enemy once more, that guy had one last thing to say.
"Just one question...Who are you?"
And she wasn't prepared to have to answer that. She looked to an abridged version of Catherine's words for guidance, "If you're nervous, just sound brave!"
"I'm...Venus," She started off meek as a mouse and then the moment her smile lit up on its own she was happy to hear her own voice get louder too, "A hero-in-training!"
"...Venus?" The man murmured, like the recognition of her was on the tip of his tongue. He gave a polite, respectful nod and remarked, "You can do it! Fight on!"
And then finally, he ran outta there and left no other obstacles in the way. It was just down to herself, and the scoundrel wrapped in dirty paper. Two lone wolves, staring down in a quiet, dusty road. Just like in the stories her papa used to tell.
The mummy had shaken off the first bullet with little fanfare and gathered his ugly mist to his side. The way his eyes glowed was a little creepy, and she could feel her body trembling.
She slapped the sides of her face a couple times and told herself, "I gotta prove myself."
She then laid her hands out and summoned her gas fists to her side, "Mama...papa...I'll do ya proud, watch me."
There was some distance between her and it and she wanted to keep it that way. Her own body wasn't used to fighting directly yet, as diagnosed by Catherine.
Thank goodness for the old reliable fists then. One quick punch to the face would show the enemy that she meant business.
As that fist went flying down the way the last thing Venus expected was for the enemy's mist to gather in front of him, and catch the fist against some kinda distorted mitt.
"Hmmm?" It might have just been a fluke or bad timing. So for the follow-up, she would hammer the mummy's head with the other fist.
The mist spread above and caught that attack too. Venus felt her eyes widen on their own and called her fists back immediately.
"He can control his stuff, like me..." She breathed slowly in and giggled out. This was a little exhilarating. Which for her young heart, was like the equivalent of drinking three sodas.
"Then...I just gotta be faster!" She thus commanded her fist to become a sword and swing down with very little resistance. The mummy converted some of his mist into a sword and clashed blades in mid-air.
The two's thoughts were equal and the blades grinding up against each other only made them smaller. Venus snuck her other fist below the blades and thrust it into the mummy's body.
But at the very last second, her foe had blocked the attack, forcing her to restart and mutter "Darn!" She then tried the old reliable "Shoot them" strategy and unloaded a few bullets from a gas gun.
The mummy threw mist orbs into the bullets to cancel each other out. And with what little mass that took, he sent the rest of his mist across the floor rather fast.
Venus hopped onto her other fist and hovered away to safety. The mummy slowly raised its other hand and it was so obvious what they'd try next. Venus shaped her fist like a solid egg so the rising mist couldn't reach her.
It was now unnaturally chilly. Not like winter, more like...well, she didn't really know. It just felt bad. And then the mist started shoving through as thin spikes trying to find her.
Her poor little heart slapped against the back of her chest and she crawled back against the wall trying to avoid the spikes. She couldn't feel her face, or her arms. This feeling of helplessness, was this what they call fear?
Something had to be done. Fast. Fear wasn't fun at all. She still had gas working on the outside, and if all this mist was focused on her...
"G-Go!" She hollered out as she thrust her hand up and commanded the lone fist to give that darn mummy what-for.
A right clobbering set that meanie straight and gave her some breathing room. She poked a hole in the surrounding mist with gas and slipped outside protected by a smaller bubble. Then she pulled a reversal on the mist and wrapped it up in her gas.
Then she dropped to the ground and wound up her fist, which her gas bubble mimicked with vigorous force.
"Here you go!" She cheerfully lobbed the mist back at the mummy's face. He caught it inches from his body without moving.
"Awww..." Venus stood up and pulled her fists back. The mummy groaned like a rusty hinge and started parting its mists to its sides.
"What's he up to now?" She squinted and wiggled her fingers by her hips.
The moment the mist moved she flung them up and made two guns from the gas fire at the mummy. Each bullet knocked that scoundrel back a couple feet.
But the mist kept coming and it wouldn't stop coming. Venus fortunately had the element of time on her side and used it to slap the mist against the nearby houses to prevent further advance.
Buuuut then all it had do was move around the gas. Oh goodie. She then realized it probably would've been wiser to make a wall from the start.
The mist was advancing fast now and dove towards her feet. She hopped back as far as her tiny legs could take her and rallied her gas to erect that much needed wall in the nick of time.
"Ms. Catherine makes quick thinking seem easy." Make the wall a little taller than Gabriel, and the mist couldn't climb over it. Thank goodness.
"This is getting nowhere fast." She lamented with a puzzled sigh. She hit the bad guy a few times but it didn't feel like they'd been damaged. And the threat they posed didn't leave much room for playing around, sadly.
"Think think think...!" While she still had breathing room she tried to recall what Catherine had been telling her over the last couple of days.
"Womp womp womp, womp womp womp." There was a whole lotta fluff and big words about nothing important. She could sorta recall sitting down on a bench while Catherine flailed about in front of a big board full of big numbers and other incomprehensible gibberish.
Every time it looked like she was dozing off Catherine snapped her awake. It got to the point where she started using her gas to force her eyelids open and pretend to be awake. Curse her head for wanting to bob down and rat her out though.
"Also!" But there was one thing she thought was kinda cool. It was around the time Catherine stopped boring her with "science" and talked about rounding up bad guys.
"One thing you should always remember Venus!" Catherine tapped a stick against the board and popped up a bunch of different gases, "You got a wide variety of gases at your disposal, so learning which ones are the best to combat your enemy is an important aspect of achieving victory!"
"Like for example, if pounding an enemy into the dirt ain't doing nothing, try giving them a little acid gas to weaken their defenses!" Catherine crossed her arms and proclaimed, "But don't do it if they got skin! We're the good guys, not torture freaks!"
"That's it!" And the best part about that advice is that her enemy is a big mean monster. So it'd be ok to go crazy with the acid!
"Hehehe!" Venus was delighted at the thought, except...Just one problem. That mummy jerk was matching her move for move. If she wanted to get the acid by him, she'd have to be tricky.
"Oh." Actually, maybe it'd be a lot simpler than she thought.
She took her wall of gas and shoved the mist right along towards the mummy, who caught it on his hands. She then quickly pulled her gas away and formed them into fists, pretending to give them a crack.
"Gotta do it like mister Mew does, and meet 'em blow for blow until I get an opening!" She went swinging with her tiny fists and her gas ones followed suit.
The mummy tanked a few blows before fighting back with his own mist fists. The pressure of blows was being matched exactly, and that meant the mummy didn't have a chance to break any mist off to target her.
And that was the way she wanted it. Cause she wasn't using all of her gas to fight. An amount as big as she was floated over the clashing fists like a harmless cloud and hovered above the mummy.
Treat it like a lemon and give it a squeeze, and all the juices come raining down. But this, was one acidic lemon. The moment the drops touched the mummy he pulled his mist back and his groans grew louder. The bandages that kept him together were sizzling away.
"I did it!" Venus whispered proudly and, enamored by this feeling, almost forgot she was still in a battle.
"Oops!" She gasped and then whipped her gas back into one giant fist. The mummy looked about as weak as an old piece of paper now.
"This'll finish ya off!" She wound up her fist then thrust it out with all her might, tripping over in the process. Still, the fist went flying to turn the bad guy into dust.
The lights in the mummy's eyes faded out. At least he was going down accepting his-
"SHRIPPP!"
The center of the mummy was torn open by the pitch black blade of a scythe, which cleaved down to the bottom of the bandages and split the whole thing wide open.
A horrifying shriek ripped her fist asunder, and forced the covers off the mummy's insides, where they draped around their neck like a tattered, hooded cloak.
A tall, lanky form, made entirely out of that mist, only black. He had a head, arms, and legs, but what were they supposed to look like? Its eyes lit back up over its body. Looking at them gave this thing a voice.
"DIE!" "DIE!" "DIE!" "DIE!" A rupture of gasps inside her head overlapped with one another.
"Hhhh...hhhhnn!" Her pupils shrank and her knees clacked against one another. She summoned another pair of gas fists and threw them forward without thinking.
That thing lashed its scythe into the air and its body pulled apart forward, a torrent of black mist rising to reduce the gas to nothingness.
They swung their scythe into the ground in a hunched pose and the mist descended upon her. And the closer it got, the more it felt like her heart would burst out of her chest to greet it.
Her body had no will to scream. Her voice had been ripped from her lungs. She threw her shaky hands into the air and tried pounding the black mist with a multitude of gas fists. Only for her defenses to come crumbling down...
A wave of black rushed towards her like the final scream of a dying girl. And she could not look away...
"This child...is not yours to take!" A voice called out, belonging to a figure who dropped down in front of the black mist and shielded it away with a bubble of aura.
They were tall, with the stature of a warrior, and a pleasant warmth surrounding them. That's all she could see before the black mist collapsed around the barrier. Venus finally collapsed on her knees and gasped for air, as her eyes watered.
No matter how hard the black mist tried, it couldn't break these defenses. So soon, it went into retreat, and the black monstrosity let out an aggressive hiss.
That attack had left its mark on the houses surrounding them, reducing half of them to nothing. It was fortunate that there had been no one inside, or at least, close to where the mist touched.
The warrior lady swung her short sword down and dispelled the barrier, lowering her rounded shield beside her hip. By this description, Venus knew who her savior was.
"Y-You're...Kairi's mama." She barely managed to say.
With a soft smile, Auris looked over her shoulder and spoke, "You fought bravely tonight Venus."
She turned her narrowing eyes upon the black monstrosity with a fire lit inside them and lifted her blade towards them, "But this one's too much for you."
The monster cracked its head towards the left and its body jerked every few seconds. This woeful thing did not even look like it could hold onto the weapon it wielded.
"Immooooortal...!" Its voice whispered scornfully inside her head.
"That's right..." Auris smiled a little wider, "It seems we share similar curses."
The beast hissed and lobbed a wave of black miasma her way. She cut through it with a quick slash of aura, but something felt off afterwards. She looked at her sword hand, and saw that there were a few wrinkles on the back of it.
Her smile became a little more enthused at that point. Her smooth, youthful skin returned in moments, and she shook her head at her enemy.
"Oh, that's unfortunate for you..." She took one step forward and the beast didn't flinch. Auris licked her upper lip and twirled her blade in place, firmly grasping it.
"I have longed to remember what it was like to feel threatened," As "Thump! Thump! Thump!" went her heart like a drum, "Blade thrust upon blade, a heartbeat of steel ringing across the battlefield. As blood is cut from flesh, and adrenaline pumped through the heart..."
Her body quivered, and she bit her lower lip with a soft moan. The beast, then took a step back, staring into Auris' wild, unblinking eyes.
"You, my friend, have awakened a long dormant warrior..."
She ran before the beast with her sword swung behind her back, then cleaved into the beast's chest with an upward arc. This threw them quite a ways away into a more open space, and left a brief gash of light in their body.
As the creature hissed, Auris ran up closer and swung her sword outward, summoning a large dome of aura to enclose them both.
"You've terrorized my home enough, feral corpse," Auris clanged her sword loudly against her shield and then held it up towards her foe, "Just this once, shall my curse be a blessing...That'll return you to the grave!"
The beast lurched back with a shriek and black limbs tore from his body to spread their cancerous mass against the barrier. Auris shook her head and clicked her tongue, "Don't bother trying to escape."
He instead thrust his hands out and the gangly limbs turned upon Auris. She smiled and murmured, "That's right...Keep all eyes on me."
Her blade shined as she cleaved the oncoming miasma in half and took one step forward after a spin. Her shield, loosened from her hand, was pressed upon her left elbow as she barreled out of the gap towards the beast.
The brief contact with miasma decayed with its touch, but her curse kept her muscles spry. She rammed the beast in gut and it lurched around her shield.
A step back put her in proper kicking distance of her shield, throwing the beast against the barrier. It then pulled its miasma back like a violent dust storm. Auris merely rolled her eyes and stabbed her blade into the ground to summon another dome around her, allowing the miasma to speed on by.
The moment it was gone Auris stood up and recalled her shield back to her arm, carrying some of the miasma back with it. Her arm wrinkled like a prune, bringing the withering hand of age upon her bones.
Auris gave it the moment's glance it deserved and then gripped her sword backhanded, slashing at the ground to send a wave of aura at the beast.
They responded by slashing it with the tip of their scythe and then leaping through the air at her. It came down flailing its weapon in hard arcs against her shield, whose arm had regained its vigor.
She bent at the knees, offering better defense, and a prime opportunity to attack. She coated her sword and delivered a hard slash to the beast's legs. Though the mass responded, the beast stayed undeterred.
"Hmmm..." She repelled back off a pulse from her shield and the beast stabbed its scythe into the ground. Its head lurched out, dragging its miasma forth in droves.
She rolled to the right and stood up, whipping her sword around amidst summoning three blades on each side. She hopped back and fired the blades through the miasma as it grazed the front of her body.
She felt her beauty wither away, her hair follicles turn a muted gray, and her mouth losing its strength. But she could not stop smiling. This was beautiful in its own way.
Her blades hit their mark and forced the creature upright. It fought with a groan, twisting its head a hard ninety degrees downward.
The miasma swept around Auris' body like a ring of death, edging closer and closer. And the touch of time dried out her eyelids and forced them shut.
"This would be a fine death..." She murmured like an old hag. She forced her shield up and hammered the air, creating a cylinder between her and the miasma.
This gave her body room to breathe and heal her youth back nice and slow. She thrust her eyes open and remarked, "But there is still a life I wish to lead. And it shall not be the dead that'll lay me to rest!"
The beast proved a little less mindless than anticipated, for when faced with this obstacle it guided its miasma over it. But its mind was still a dullard thing, for that was just what she wanted.
When the gathered fog of death took a dove into her cage, Auris split the way in front of her wide open and rushed forth with one incredible leap.
She threw her shield at the beast like a discus and hit one of the implanted blades. It, and the others, burst with blue light, throwing the beast's body into a variety of poses.
The shield bounced back into her arm so she could clock the beast in the head, then ram it against his chest while slipping her blade underneath to stab its gut.
The beast exploded with a shriek that threw her back. It tugged its body back, laying its arms limp down at its sides and dragging the miasma towards Auris' back.
Auris looked back with a smile and flipped away. The beast lunged upright with such force that it flew into the air after her.
Auris clocked the beast's gut against her shield but it clung on tight by grabbing her face with its mangled fingers. It gripped her right wrist and the decay acted faster than it did on her face.
She fired one pulse, then a second, stronger one to force the beast off. It ripped off her hand as its prize, and crushed it to dust upon landing, leaving the sword clanging upon the ground behind it.
The hand had to regrow from scratch, starting with the bone. It worked fast, but not fast enough. The beast sent out a small glob of miasma to stick to the wrist and keep the rest of the hand from reforming.
Auris winced with a smirk, "Clever move..."
She then dropped her shield and called her sword back into that hand, thrusting the tip towards her enemy, "Unfortunately for you, I am not just right-handed."
The beast shrieked, being just as frustrated that she couldn't die as she was. He whipped his miasma up into a three-pronged claw and drove the tips straight down.
Auris slipped her foot into the brace of her shield and hopped back, letting it slide off before landing. She then smiled and whispered, "Let me show you a fun parlor trick."
She took the dull edge of her blade along the stub of her arm and pushed on the pores, forcing sweat onto the steel. She then wrapped her blade in aura and stamped the back of her shield to kick it up.
Right as the shield lined up with her chest she dug her sword across it. All she needed was the proper spark, and the oil in her sweat would become a beautiful flame. Then she gripped the sword tighter and whipped the blade out with one hard tug, lashing out a massive wave of fire and aura.
The beast was swept up inside and dragged towards the barrier, his cloak burning away to ash. While her foe laid at the mercy of flames, she nonchalantly stuck her blade down at the bottom of her stump and cut the miasma off.
"Best I deal with this now..." She shook her head with a playful smile, "Riku wouldn't let me hear the end of it if he ever saw me like this."
When the flames were gone the beast's body was sizzling like an overcooked slab of meat. He twitched and jerked upright with a shriek, flailing its arms up and down, bashing its scythe against the ground.
"Still not done yet?" She said with a mild look of surprise as she picked up her shield.
The beast stabbed the ground as far as he could reach and the miasma flew forth like a tidal wave. Auris braced her shield before her face and leaped through like a blue comet.
She then gathered the aura in her blade and slashed down during her descent. The beast evaded the attack with spastic movements forward and then leaped up to greet her.
It flailed its scythe around, the limp arm making it like a whip. Auris swung her shield to parry the first strike and push her to the ground to evade the rest.
The miasma turned around and drilled straight for her side. She summoned a barrier to intercept it, during which the beast could safely slip its scythe into her hip.
The moment she was stabbed, she stabbed her blade right into the beast's chin and that wrenched the scythe out before it dug too deep to matter.
Auris jumped away against the momentum of the miasma and took a deep breath as the beast came lunging towards her shield, flailing wildly to try and break through.
The miasma swept around the sides of the barrier, forcing her to expand its reach. The beast in turn stabbed its fingers into the barrier, pulling a wide gap open in a few, excruciating seconds.
"Hmmm, just what are you hiding?" Auris closed her eyes. At this close of range she could see past the black death to reveal the beast's biggest secret – A sarcophagus stuck to its back, through which the curse manifested as her enemy.
"Ah," Her eyes lit up and a smile creased her lips, "I should have known."
She called her sword back into her hand and gave it a light twirl, "Then this battle is already over."
She slammed her shield against the beast's face as it tried inviting itself into her cage and then shoved forth with all her might. Though the miasma slowed her with age, she pressed on until she had the beast pinned against the barrier.
It shrieked violently and drove its scythe towards her neck. She ducked under it, sacrificing a few needless hairs to dust and slashing away at the beast's legs with quick movements.
Then she backed away as the beast lunged forward and sliced towards her shoulder. She danced along with the beast, hopping away from its underhanded attempt at hitting her with miasma.
When she landed the beast lunged forward. Auris closed her eyes and heard the quiet dripping of water in her head. With her blade looking bright, she thrust forward and delivered a cleaving slash to the beast's right hand, depriving it of its weapon.
The beast didn't hesitate to turn around and try flailing away with its claw. So easily was it blocked with her shield, that she almost felt insulted that it was even trying.
"I don't need clairvoyance to return you to your slumber, fallen prince of sand." Auris arched her brows and jammed her shield against the beast's claw, forcing it into its chest.
She then instantly pulled away and got behind the creature's back to impale her glowing blade into the sarcophagus without looking.
When the beast turned around it hand delivered the shield into the perfect position for her to grab it and uppercut her foe high into the air. The blade's gathered energy grew, trembling the atmosphere. The beast gave one last desperate flail, and then...
"May you rest in peace..." Auris squeezed her hand and the energy exploded out of the sword like a flashy grenade, filling the black mass with cracks, and exploding it into a hundred pieces.
The rusted gold of the sarcophagus and the rotten corpse inside were tossed everywhere within the barrier, with the hollowed out skull rolling up to Auris' feet.
She crushed it under heel, causing it to let out a dry, fading breath. The black miasma fell to the ground, fading away to nothingness.
"Whew...That should make things a little easier for the others." She freed up her hands to swipe some sweat off her brow, then dispelled the barrier around her.
She headed back to Venus, who was still in the same spot as before. The poor girl was on her knees and trembling with a terrible fright.
Auris curled her lips in a frown and knelt down in front of her. And immediately something felt...off.
"...Thank you for your help Venus." And she couldn't quite put her finger on it until Venus opened her mouth.
"W-Was I really brave, Mrs. Auris?" Her voice, now sounded a little bit deeper.
There was a sinking feel in Auris' gut as she responded, "Yes...yes you were."
The little girl lowered her head and wrapped her arms around her body, "Mrs. Auris...? Why...why do my clothes feel tight?"
It was as she had feared. The worst had been avoided but a cost...still had been paid. It wasn't a major difference in appearance but Venus did look a couple years older than she had before. A couple years...that could never be reclaimed.
"Oh, my poor child..." Auris leaned in and held Venus against her chest in a soft embrace, then began to sob internally, "I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry..."
Next Time: Fear of a Loss of Control