Oeilvert Imperial Headquarters Proper, this afternoon
The stronghold was two-fold. The original structure remained, but was refitted to a refinery. Built on top of this ancient facility was the fortress. In climbing the floors of this citadel, Freya observed the machinery integrated into the building. However, it seemed as if the machinery could seperate from the concrete. Upon reaching the higher levels, she came across incomplete construction amid elaborate wall panels to hide the machinery. As a headquarters, the government apparently wanted decoration, but was unable to finish it all before her arrival.
It was within a grand chamber that Freya encountered a cloaked figure. With caution, she approached until the person spoke. "Our coup succeeded because of you." The voice was female.
"Yet you discarded me like a broken toy when you gained control of the kingdom. You threw away so many traditions in favor of a military regime. I was such a fool to buy the garbage you people preached. You never wanted to just rebuild Burmecia, you only wanted to fashion Burmecia into Falgabard as the supreme nation. I was your lap dog once, but now I bite back."
"I guess it's impossible to persuade you otherwise." She paused when her tail swished pensively. "You don't even know who I am, do you?"
"I don't remember a female with office in Burmecia."
"I thought so. Technically I shouldn't be involved, but my blood heritage beckoned me to join. As a Cleyran, my understanding of Burmecian history is only a good ten years strong. However, I am a dark knight as was my father, and his father, and so on. My lineage somehow took refuge in Cleyra, and we adopted Cleyran ways. But I was born with tremendous power. I was ashamed of my power until it grew stronger than the elements. The curse became a blessing, and allowed me to achieve status among maidens. We've met only once before, Freya, but even then I could tell you and I are similar."
"Only two maidens survived Cleyra's destruction. Which one are you?"
She pulled her hood back. Freya now recognized her as Shannon, the water maiden. "I lost more than my home, Freya. That's why I united with the other dark knights. Surely you understand the need to belong as profoundly as I have."
"I didn't come here to sympathize. I came to put an end to this travesty."
"Travesty! Damnit, Freya! Do you not realize it's you who is the enemy? Our legendary nation can finally rise again, and you wish to destroy that?"
"Look around you. Is this what a country at peace does? You wrestled control from the king, and only succeeded at forging a world war machine. If I let this abomination continue, Gaia would suffer a terrible burden of your imperialism!"
"You're such a very stubborn person!" She paused and regained her cool. "That's fine, as I am too." She raised an arm and her outer cloak burned away to reveal a red cape with blue markings. "If it weren't for Falgabard, I would have no refuge as a person. As a child, I was frightened by my powers. But when I realized what being a dark knight meant, I took pride in my identity. I became the water maiden because I was more powerful than even water. Yet water isn't my power. The winds I control can force and cut away anything. So hot are my flames that even water burns away. Such is my power that even the irrelevant, even the opposite elements must submit to my will. I am the fire that controls water!"
Freya's eyes narrowed. The second strongest of the dark knights, she was told, commanded both wind and fire even greater than eidolons. Shannon was Iron-Breath, the likeness of a true dragon's power.
Shannon quickly dropped her raised arm. As her arm fell, a thread of fire flowed from her pointed finger, and it coursed through the air above. In a split-second, the thread was curtain of flame that fell upon Freya. It was White Form that allowed the ex-dragoon to evade the fires. No sooner did she take stance when a column of fire swept against her. She took the blast head-on, and landed beyond it. Patches of her clothes broke away as ashes. The tingle in the back of mind was a memorable indicator of her defense against fire. Her spirit energy over her body, with proper willpower, insulated some of the heat. This drained her resources at a high rate, however."
"You can't escape my fire curtain!" At her command, four such threats surrounded Freya. They fell, and trapped her within a cramped prison of flame. The heat intensified, and Freya stumbled from the lack of air.
Faced with death, Freya grit her teeth with the carnal drive to live. White Form took to its maximum, the power just enough for Freya's single swipe to blow a hole in the wall of fire. She rushed to freedom, but met a terrible snag around her. A whip of flame had caught and seered into her. Shannon drew Freya in with the hellishw hip. However, Dragon Whisker was already in mid-thrust to her skull, its wielder quick to use an advantage against the opponent. Shannon released Freya before the blade completed its aggression. Once again surprised, and unable to react properly to this action, Freya fell victim to a great column of fire that Shannon hurled at her. Swallowed by the fire, Freya kept focus and used the blaze to conceal her retaliation. Dragon Whisker shot from the fire and grazed Shannon's hair. The flames diminished and allowed Freya to see her attack miss.
"That should have hit... my aim is never wrong!"
"Already you found out the hard way where the wind is my defense. I always keep a current of wind around me to ward off attacks. You made a foolish mistake, leaving yourself unarmed." She approached Freya with lowered guard. Freya had knelt rather submissively.
"I underestimated..." Shannon was nearly upon the ex-dragoon. It was a distortion of heated air that bent light enough to reveal a smirk in the corner of Freya's mouth. Shannon tried to jump away, but wasn't fast enough. In seconds, Freya had held an almost invisible wire around her neck. "Your stupidity!"
Shannon struggled for a moment, but stopped. Heat welled up around them, and fire danced upon her. Freya was forced to let go when a blaze spewed against her. Escape was fruitless, as Shannon unleashed a combination of her fiery melee techniques. In dance, she gracefully trailed fire to her movements, and with them struck Freya. She did not even need to touch Freya as the fires gently flew from her hands against Freya. It was after several dozen blasts of flame that Freya grasped Shannon's wrist. Recklessly, she tightened her grip on the fiery arm. Pain was out of mind to Freya, who focused only on victory. Anger within Freya gave her unprecedented strength. She practically whipped Shannon's wirey frame toward a wall. Recoil from forcing Shannon away aided her leap backward to the opposite wall. She regained Dragon Whisker in the precious seconds. White Form pushed her body to the limits, her speed so incredible she blurred towards Shannon, who only landed her feet upon the wall to relaunch herself. There wasn't enough time for Shannon to avoid Freya, so she instead raised an intense fire around her.
Both opponents clashed with their special abilities in a stalemate. Shannon grinned as her fire and wind increased in power as Freya could only hit her limits in White Form. With the advantage, Shannon detonated a tremendous blast of compressed fire at Freya, but held the continuing combustion around herself. This tiny explosion forced an inferno into incredible density that it violently destroyed whatever it touched. Dragon Whisker, a fragment of ancient invincibility, still held against this challenge. However, Freya felt her sinews tear and her breath stolen. The pain of the burnt skin took hold. Her vigor had burnt away. This dangerous ball of power before her had deprived most of the air, pulled her closer, and outlasted the majority of White Form. Unless the situation changed, this attack would kill her. There was one technique she reserved until now, and she hoped to not use it. Six Dragons, the gamble of dragon knights, was her only escape. In this torrent of life and death, she had to execute it perfectly lest it or the inferno destroy her.
Energy gathered about her, and her burns and wounds healed. Her body, which would have broken under current pressures, was renewed. It was the intent to live that brought success of Six Dragons. Once it healed her completely, she had enough stamina for another White Form. She returned full force against it, and pushed it back. Shannon, who observed her nasty trick, took surprise and impression. With enough momentum, Freya delivered a fierce slash at the firey globe. Not only did it cleave, but the air around it sundered with a deadly vacuum. Shannon had succumbed to its pull. Like a prey to the dragon's fangs, she was unable to defend against Freya's slash. If she wasn't so preoccupied with worry of getting struck, Shannon would've been sure she heard the roar of a dragon. The indestructible spear sliced across her collarbone, chest, and hip. By Freya's reckoning, the slash should've completely cut her in two, but that damn shield of air had buffered the cut to only graze Shannon. However, the force of the entire motion blew Shannon back a distance. Blood gently seeped from the large cut. Really, it was a mess of many cuts that only appeared as one wound. Even the shield of wind could not fully distribute the dynamics of what cut her. Continued stress would cause her defense to fail entirely.
Once she saw the blood on her hand that clutched the wound, Shannon fully realized how deadly this fight was. She regained her cool, and observed that Freya held still. "You didn't finish me off right away?"
Freya panted. Blood trickled from her nose. Six Dragons, although successful, came with a price. Surgical precision of the mind was necessary to sacrifice the appropriate material. Her clothes, which had already tattered from her earlier duels, shredded away in many places. When she began her crusade against the Tent Government, she had adopted a fashion much like that of the man she loved. Despite the greater ruggedness than her gear of long ago, half of it barely remained. Her shingaurds warped from the heat, her dragonhide greaves singed, and only her undershirt lasted. Technically less of the outfit should have remained, but Freya wasn't completely precise. There was delayed damage to her body, but she couldn't pinpoint where.
"I see... your maneuver stunned you." A flame burned within her clenched fist. "Fighting you made me realize my own mortality. I had always assumed I was ready to die, but I still felt fear just now. I've never felt this way before... maybe it's fulfillment. Now more than ever, my dark power urges me to unleash it all." With a flick of her wrist, the fire in her fist sprouted into a blade of intense fire, much like that ball of fire from before. When she lowered the blade to the ground, the steel floor glowed and dimpled. "That spear of yours... how long can it endure this blade?" She bolted forward, her blade radiant of white fire.
Instinctively, Freya parried the slash of the infernal blade. Dragon Whisker remained unscathed, its invincibility proven. Frustrated, Shannon followed with a storm of cuts. The blade length altered to mess up Freya's judgement. After dozens of clashes, the blade managed to whisk past Freya's thigh. Although the blade made no contact, the leather seered open, and a surgically precise burn cut the flesh like a true edge. Despite the pain, Freya held up. Both had matched themselves, unable to land any blow after that first one. With all the friction and fire, Dragon Whisker developed a faint glow on the edge. This gave Shannon hope, and she pressed even harder. The trade of blows faded into a pure offense on Shannon's part. Freya parried and blocked as best she could without the aid of White Form. It was still too soon to activate it again. Her skin cracked and warped. She was in the same condition as she was before Six Dragons.
When she beheld the firey sword fully, Freya understood that it was only an incredibly dense fire with a compressed tunnel of air to feed it. It wasn't solid, but was a collected force. With this intuition, she knew she had to overpower Shannon's weapon rather than best her in technique. White Form erupted in her, and she deliberately struck the infernal blade. The first clash bent the blade, which confused Shannon and loosened her aggression. The second clash caused a greater distortion in the blade, and the Shannon panicked. With all her might, Freya launched a deadly accurate thrust into the long axis of the blade. It not only pierced the column of fire, it tore through completely and grazed Shannon's shoulder. Such a blade wasn't meant to break, and all that incredible energy violently exploded.
They were blown far apart, and both suffered great damage. Freya had landed backward to Shannon, her shirt completely burned off. The dark knight suffered from a myriad of cuts and lesions. Such abuse of her power had led to her own body's destruction, and she was fated to die soon. When they struggled to their feet, Shannon saw a faint light on Freya's back. Several scars pulsed an iridescent glow.
"What... what is that on your back?"
"This? You don't... know what this is?" Freya stood, but kept her back exposed to Shannon. "Wouldn't it be obvious? This was the attempt on my life when Astos no longer had use for me." She sighed, the memory of that fateful event haunted her once more. She turned around, her eyes shot fear into the dark knight. "At this rate, I won't be the last victim with this sort of burden. This is what he wants. This is how he thinks. This is what you're fighting for."
Shannon stepped back in fright. It had dawned on her the amount of pain and sorrow Freya lived with all those years. "You... you are still alive?" Fire danced upon her dying body. Although her question went unanswered, she knew what to do. Even as her lungs slowly withered, she deeply breathed. Pain shot throughout her body. "Maybe... maybe I can... burn it all away!" No longer did the fire gather upon her, but rather emitted from her. This fire was blue, and it was her breath. The cape which flowed with all her movements before melted on her, and likewise her skin turned the same pattern of red with blue mottles. Her hair became white fire. She raised her arms, and from them she unleashed a terrible inferno.
The whole room was swallowed in the flame. All the metal melted, and the concrete pulverized. The sea of blue flames tore through the wall, and poured outside. Freya was within. Her clothes melted away, and she was carried with the current. She blinked and saw only radiance. Weightless and numb, she only felt silence. Gentle warmth came upon her. A fiery form hovered above, and took the form of a great bird. Freya closed her eyes, then found herself within a new current of flame. The color of this fire couldn't be identified, and it overwhelmed the blue inferno which once dominated the area. This new fire was not only painless, but soothing. All this fire, all this energy, flooded over Shannon. When the chaos cleared, she reclined against a hunk of molten steel and ashes. Her body glowed eerily in spite of the sunlight, her bones visible within her cooking flesh. Whisps of smoke emanated from her fallen form.
Freya stood perfectly healed and reclothed as if she never battled that day. She stood before the defeated Shannon. "I tried so hard to fight against the absence of heat... I forgot about being overwhelmed... by a flame hotter than the sun. What was that?"
"Pheonix. Before I embarked, I was given a special Rebirth Ring by Princess Eiko. It works only once, which was enough for you."
"But I was supposed to control fire better than any eidolon... why did I lose then?"
"That wasn't fire." Her stare and voice were again cold. Shannon held her head low in comprehension of what happened. "What a waste you are."
"It was useless to come here anyway. We would've died so soon with or without you."
"What do you mean?"
"We dark knights give up our very life force for power. We don't live to old age. We've only just established an empire for our people. If all of us were to die at once, there would be no one strong to lead the people. We wanted to prepare the future. That could have been you. Freya, do you honestly believe that what you are doing is right?" Freya noticed the voice echoed in her head, as if it was no longer spoken, but felt in her mind. "Astos alone has brought Burmecia back from oblivion. Now more than ever, there is pride in who we are. I know in my heart that Astos is a good man. He has found each of us, and taken us in during our darkest hours. When you remember Doyle in childhood, he was always sick from exposure to outside spiritual forces. Astos found him and taught him how to control the aura which took harm too readily. Gary competed with Fratley for learning the ways of the White Dragon Order, but lost in a duel. Fratley scored his eye out. Astos came to him in his despair, and told him of the dark power he never knew he had. When Cleyra opened its wind for the first time in a hundred years, and allowed Astos to meet me, he knew the power within me. He gave me the choice beyond dying with Cleyra, to leave and join him in rebuilding the dominion of our ancestors. All I knew then was my limited world of Cleyra, that I would never completely fit in with them. He introduced me to the others, and mentored us all as heirs to Falgabard. Tell me... what profound conviction you have that would drive you to go against such a man?"
"He knows how to destroy a person from the inside out. When you are no longer useful to him, he will discard you. He has done this one time too many. I lost my family, my home, my rank, and the man I loved because of him. All I have left is myself and my spear."
"You are a much stronger person than I ever could be. You've been abandoned by so many, even lost more than I have, yet you still stand. Take my hand." Freya did so, and found her cooked skin to disgustingly melt and adhere like a glue. It was clear the voice came metaphysically, as her mouth had been melted shut. "You will need more than your own techniques to beat him. Take what's left of my power. We dark knights are able to transfer our powers to whomever we chose. Our fathers willingly gave their powers to our master. Astos, the Iron-Mind, holds four other dark powers besides his own. Even if you defeated one power, another quickly replaces it. You would have to be five times a warrior to match him." Her flesh hardened then petrified. What seemed already statue crumbled to dust and blew away to the wind.
Glossary
Six Dragons was a move that relied on chance. Typically, it was 1/3 the chance of being healed, 1/3 of being very hurt, and 1/3 of nothing. Freya's perfected technique has a 100 success rate of healing, be it herself or others, behaving much like the white magic Curaga. However, it demands sacrifice, which Freya has almost mastered in placing the consequence on an object she holds attachment to. Failure to perfectly do so results in injury after the fact.