I feel horribly cruel for writting and posting this, as I've taken to roleplaying as Duke...
But the plot wouldn't leave me alone.
Don't read this while listening to Nylen. Just don't.
"I know you do not care for the taste, but I have bought some Lemon-" Duke looked up then, and managed not to drop the pack of food and healing gels. Elucifer was where he had left him, but the dozen odd humans were new. They had all frozen at the sight of him, but he could see their weapons, the red that stained Elucifer further and shone on them. The great Entelexeia lay still.
"I thought you said Pantarei wouldn't be here!" One of the bloodied humans demanded from another. That snapped him from his shock. His blade was too far away. Fine.
"Elucifer!" His sight flickered over with the same color as his eyes and his soreness and exhaustion from the battle, flight, and tending his friend's wounds, vanished. "Holy Rain!" The rain his spell summoned glowed brightly, and the humans cried out. They turned from Elucifer to him, their blades running with the holy-charged waters and cleaned slowly of his friend's blood. "Guilty Resolver!" A flick of his hand enveloped half of them in violent light, startling the other ones into stumbling. "Flame dragon!" the ground was lit up by a light he couldn't see, and the flame spell ripped through most of them, the magic carrying one up in its jaws. The last man looked panicked, and turned to try to stab into Elucifer. "Stop Flow!" A quick hit knocked the man down, the blade away and Duke bound his mouth and hands with the man's clothes, turning quickly to Elucifer. The adrenaline, or whatever it was, was fading.
"Elucifer!" Duke knelt by his friends head, dwarfed by the Entelexeia's size. One black-opal like eye opened weakly to blink at him, the normally bright, fiery colors dull. "Hold on! Healing Circle!" The lights formed and sank into his friend. Elucifer gave a great heavy sigh. It did nothing that he could tell; the great many wounds continued bleeding.
"T-turn into a Kritya!" Duke told his friend, removing his coat and pressing it against one of the larger slashes, leaning against it with his shoulder. "My Artes work better that way!"
"Duke..." Elucifer sighed, remaining as he was.
"Healing Circle!" Duke cast again. "Please, Elucifer! I can help you if you shift! I-I can't right now!" How that hurt inside as he applied more pressure to the wound, ignoring a half a dozen other visible wounds further along his friend's long body. "Healing Circle!" His coat was soaking through, staining his pale hair and skin red.
"Duke..." Elucifer rumbled, shifting.
"I can stop the bleeding – carry you to an Aer krene. Healing Circle! Please! I could-" Duke stopped talking as one of Elucifer's wings rested on his head.
"You're not listening." Elucifer told him, lifting his wing and half folding it against his side. "I cannot heal from this." Duke stared at him.
"You can!" Duke insisted. "You just need an Aer Krene, right? The-
"-Duke.-"
"re's one, not too far from here." Duke looked up at the sky, trying to remember where it had been. "I can carry-"
"-Duke. I am a dead Entelexeia." The albino swordsman froze at Elucifer's words, turning red eyes to his friend. "It is only a matter of time." Elucifer had turned his head, put his jaw on the ground and watched him with one dull eye.
"No!" But the fact that he was steadily staining more and more red from a wound he had tried to heal over and over again gave truth to the Entelexeia's words. "No! Healing Circle! Healing Circle! Healing Circle!" Duke struggled to keep casting the arte as his throat closed and the Aer he could call on dwindled. One of Elucifer's smaller claws grasped his hands, which he had pressed against the Entelexeia in effort to somehow, somehow get the healing from his Artes into his friend's body, and tugged him closer to his friend's face.
"Duke, nothing can be done." The hand shifted its grasp so that it held him about the shoulders and Duke sank against the side of his friend's face. He tried to swallow the burning that rose in his throat and pressed his face against the side of Elucifer's.
"I-is this how they repay you?" Duke demanded. "You practically won the war for the humans, and then they kill you!"
"Duke... Do not be consumed by anger to the whole of humanity..."
"Why shouldn't I? You save them, and they thank you by assaulting – murdering you!" Duke didn't quite shout, his throat was closing up too much for that, but his voice did rise. "We were allied with the Empire!" The men on the ground could have come from nowhere else.
"Duke." The small claw pushed his face toward the dulling eye. "Remember. Protect this world, our Terca Lumireis. Peace, for all living things." Elucifer's dull opal eye got some of its fire back, fragments of orange and violet catching the light. "Not just those monsters you manage to speak to, the Kritya and the Entelexeia. All living things."
"Y-yes." Duke felt tears now, and didn't bother stopping them now. The light to Elucifer's eyes dwindled.
"Promise me? To do your best?" It was strange to hear such a soft voice from such a large being.
"Yes." He promised. Elucifer sighed, closed his eye. "I promise, Elucifer." The Entelexeia leader didn't reply. "... Elucifer?" Duke pushed himself off his friends face, and the claw that had rested on his shoulder slid off.
Limp.
He whirled, eyes widening, to stare down his friends side.
The bleeding had stopped. A step back, and Elucifer's form shone slightly, then flashed bright.
When he opened his eyes again, all there was left of his friend was stained ground, shorn off feathers and scales, his soaked coat, and a crystal.
"Elucifer..." It came out choked, and a half step brought him over to the Apatheia. Elucifer had explained this, hadn't he? It was a mass of Aer.
It was all that was left but for memories.
Duke stared at the crystal, which lay serenely on the stained ground, glowing inside.
Humans had done this.
The man on the ground had been slowly inching away once the Stop Flow had worn off, watching, unable to make a noise as the war hero tried to heal his friend. Truth be told, he didn't want to make any noise. When the albino swordsman turned, his long white hair stained the same color as his eyes by his friend's blood, red smears on the side of his face and staining his red uniform-like clothes darker, he tried to move further away when those red eyes fixed on him. The man bent while slowly walking towards him, a blood gummed hand picking a blade from the ground – not his.
"...You... are going to tell me who ordered this." The last Pantarei's low voice was cold, deader than the Entelexeia behind him. "Whether you like it or not."
*hums.* Yes. Angry Duke is Angry. Elucifer ended up seeming a lot like Nylen. Not sure if that's a good thing or not... but...
I personally think that Duke had a little bit of trouble with emotions BEFORE Elucifer died, and after, he shut all of them away. It's not healthy of him, but...