Link Fangirl01: I was actually naming it out of sheer rage and frustration, but if it gave you a good laugh then hey, I'm all for it. I was wanting to devote more time to the other characters but I think that it was better to just devote the story mostly to the brothers, that's really what that story was about. The brothers have to be friends after all, how else will they defeat the bad guys? Also I was feeling the feels as I wrote so I'm really glad they came through for the readers
Author's note: Now that the brothers have made up, we can move towards the real plot: reigning some doom down upon the filthy heads of our doomed enemies! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Chapter 18: A Brief Reprieve
Percedal rose from his place on the bed, how long had he been out? Evangelyne slept beside his bed, her head resting on his mattress. The iop smiled, he could never be upset when she was around. He put his hand on her head and pet her hair, she stirred slightly but otherwise remained still. He wondered how Flopin and Elely were doing, Elely had made him so proud when she had helped Yugo after his fight with Adamai, the Eliatrope had been very down hearted.
Evangelyne stirred again, this time waking up.
"Hey my beautiful cra." Percedal said quietly
"Dally!" Eva replied happily "You're awake."
"Yeah, I'm awake," He said "But I can't help feeling that I missed something important."
Lucian watched intently as Yugo trained with Cra, Seraphin had insisted the God-king learned more ranged spells, something about not lasting against other people like Seraphin, he didn't quite catch it all. He munched absent mindedly on a loaf of bread that Echo had given him.
Now outside the ecaflip dimension the gods had taken a more active role in protecting their world, if the golden knight was right, there was going to be a terrible reckoning soon, one that even the gods could not end on their own, worse than Ogrest's chaos.
"Mind if we join you?" A feminine voice said from behind, Lucian turned to see Cleophee and Amalia standing there.
"Sure," The eliatrope said scooting a bit to the side to let the girls sit down. The little ledge of earth proved a perfect chair for watching the Eliatrope king battle with cra. Yugo seemed to be getting frustrated, cra was an expert marksman and easily avoided Yugo's blos while retaliateing from beyond the eliatrope's reach.
"You need to visualize something other than your sword and shield," Cra said "Try a spear perhaps."
Yugo seemed to ponder that a moment "Do you have one?"
"One what?" Cra asked
"A spear," Yugo said "I need to see a real one before I can visualize it."
"Uh, hold that thought," Cra disappeared and the reappeared holding a spear "From Goultard." He said tossing the spear to the Eliatrope king
Yugo caught it expertly and studied it closely it was much larger and more unwieldy than a sword. "Why would I want to visualize this?" he asked
"Because you can throw it," Cra said "Quite a distance in fact, if you're good."
Amalia giggled "I never imagined he'd be so clutsy about a battle technique." She said
Cleo smiled "Well he's no Percedal." She said
"No he's not…" Amalia said trailing off, as she stared all googly eyed at yugo, the God-king seemed to notice and he waved putting a big dorky smile on his face.
Cleo laughed "Now that's funny!" she said "Savior of the world, and awkward teenage crush at the same time."
"He's not awkward!" amalia huffed "He's gentle and kind, and has a heart bigger than, than, Than an alpha boowolf!"
"He's not awkward at all." Cleo said evilly "But you certainly are."
Amalia's face turned red with embarrassment "What, I'm not-"
"Oh, yes you are," Cleo said "You're perfectly cool when it's just the two of you, but around the rest of us you get so self-concious. Is because he still looks like a tween?"
"tha – That has nothing to do with it!" Amalia' uncertain retort came
"What's a tween?" Lucian asked
"Someone who's not quite a teen." Cleophee answered
"What's a teen?" Lucian asked again.
Amalia laughed "It's hard sometimes to remember that you're only four moths old."
Lucian looked at her quizzically, not understanding.
"People's lives are measured in years," Cleophee explained "From thirteen to nineteen they're called teens because their age ends in 'teen'."
"But you say I'm four month's old," Lucian said "What does that mean?"
Amalia took this one "For the first year of your life your age is measured in months, after you reach a year it'll be measured in years. And before you ask you have eight months left."
Lucian counted his fingers quietly while the girls watched "So twelve months in a year?" he asked.
"Yep," Cleo said with smile
"So a tween is…" Lucian reached
"Someone who's eleven or twelve years old," Cleophee explained "But acts like they're at least thirteen."
"So Yugo is twelve years old?" Lucian asked
Amalia and Cleophee laughed "No!" Amalia said between giggle fits "He's eighteen!"
"But he looks like he's twelve." Cleophee explained "He hasn't aged since he was twelve anyway."
"We don't know why," Amalia said calming down "Alibert says he grew up normally until he hit twelve."
"Amalia thinks something must've happened when he fought with Nox," Cleophee said.
"Nox?" Lucian asked "Who's Nox?"
Amalia's face turned quickly from smiles to darker emotions as she recalled the mad Xelor. "Nox almost destroyed my people so he could go back time." She explained "He thought he could undo all the pain and suffering he brought on the world, but he failed, Yugo stopped him."
"Amalia thinks Nox's Time magic maybe did something to him." Cleo explained.
Lucian didn't quite understand all that, he was quite young and his people were as well, no one had ever tried to destroy them before. He wasn't sure if he could imagine having all the Yugolites wiped out by someone who thought he could bring them back.
"That sounds really bad." Lucian uttered aloud
"It was," Amalia said with uncharacteristic short bluntness, she mustv'e really been upset over it.
Yugo was throwing spears fairly well now, Cra put up a hand motioning for the eliatrope to stop.
"That's enough for one day Yugo," Cra said "I'll bring Goultard tomorrow."
"Okay!" Yugo said, a happy smile still decorationg his face. He seemed to be in much better spirits after reconciling with Adamai. He summoned a portal and another appeared beside Amalia. The eliatrope bounced out of the latter and looked at the sadida.
"Hey Amalia," He said "Hey Lucian, hey Cleo!" Cleo high fived the eliatrope boy and Amalia hugged him.
"You're really happy Yugo," Lucian said "I – I don't think I've ever seen you this happy."
"Of course I'm happy!" Yugo said "Things are getting better now!"
"Let's go see Dally!" Amalia said "Eva told me he just woke up!"
"Really!" Yugo had stars in his eyes Amalia kissed him on the cheek and the two walked off together talking about something or other. Cleo stared at them, only Yugo could get away with being so close to the snooty princess when he was sweaty after training, anyone else would've been scolded severely, she shook her head.
"So how old are you?" Lucian asked innocently.
Cleo sighed "Because you're so innocently cute I'll answer that." She said "I'm twenty-one."
"And Amalia?" Lucian asked
"Nineteen."
"All of you are so old…" Lucian said in a depressed tone just depressed enough to keep Cleo from getting upset at that last statement, she sighed instead. "I have so far to go."
"You'll get there." Cleo said "We were all four months old at some point."
Lucian didn't really respond to that, he just sat there lost in thought, he had no business being with all of these people, he wasn;t really old enough to be doing all this, something in him told him he was not that strong or skilled compared to them either.
He felt Cleophee put her arm around his shoulders he naturally leaned his head against her shoulder, he felt similar to how he had earlier when she had called him cute, but without all the embarrassing feelings that had come with it. He wondered if this is what love or romance felt like, he still wasn't sure, maybe he was thinking of her more as a mom? After a few minutes he smiled, no, this was definitely something else.
Percedal welcomed his children with open arms, Evangelyne smiled as she saw her husband ruffle their hair and play with them. It was good to have him back. Otomai and Ogrest walked through the room momentarily, but Ogrest claimed he was tired from all the studying his dad was making him do. He had shown little interest in alchemy, eva though he was trying to make it up to his dad for all he had done.
"We went to the Ecaflip dimension daddy!" Flopin said proudly
"Really?" Percedal said "And what did you do there?"
"Well mostly we went to see if Yugo was okay," Flopin replied "Adamai almost killed him."
"I knew I missed something important!" Percedal said half angry "Damn that Seraphin, taking all the fun and leaving me out of it."
"Seraphin didn't do anything," Elely said "He just healed Yugo when they were done, then Eneripsa finished."
"All the gods are here now aren't they?" Percedal aske Eva more than anyone else.
"Yep all of 'em." Yugo's voice sounded from the door as he and Amalia walked in to see Yugo's best friend.
"I get to train with Goultard tomorrow!" Yugo said with a smile, there was something Percedal hadn't seen in some time, the boy had been brooding ever since he beat Ogrest and Adamai had left the brotherhood.
"Things with Adamai went well then huh?" Percedal said
"He did almost kill me," Yugo said "but he's back to being my brother, and hopefully a little less moody."
"Less moody?" Eva said "You hardly have the right to ask for that."
Yugo laughed nervously "I guess you're right" he said scratching the back of his head with his free hand. "Where's Ruel?"
"Off pilfering coin somewhere," Evangalyne said "The rotten moneygrubber."
"uncle Ruel's fun to play with!" Elely said
"Did you see what happened to Seraphin?" Amalia asked
"He went up to the sky," Elely answered "He was really mad, but also kind of sad."
"He said he had to go fight a bee-tay-ur" Flopin said "Whatever that is."
"Betrayer?" Yugo asked
"Yeah that." Flopin replied
"He called one of the scouts his enemy sent 'Betrayer'," Yugo said "Maybe he and this 'betrayer' guy have a history."
"Maybe," Percedal said "But that doesn't interest me right now, Where's Master Goultard? It's High time he took these powers back!"
Yugo shrugged "Cra said he would bring him to the training field tomorrow, until then I don't know."
"You met Cra himself!" Eva said in disbelief
"Yeah," Yugo said " he's training me how to use ranged magic, he's pretty cool, actually all gods are, except maybe Enutrof and Pandawa, They're always arguing over something or other."
"No surprise there," Amalia said "The two worst and most disgusting classes. Is it really that hard to bathe!"
Eva seemed starry eyed "Do you think you can introduce me?" She asked all over Yugo, which made the young Eliatrope quite uncomfortable.
"Uh, maybe…" he said
"Hey, wait a minute!" Percedal said "What's so important about meeting him?"
"He is Cra," Eva said "The father of my whole race! Why wouldn't I want to meet him?"
Raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak, but chose to remain silent as Eva babbled on about the importance of cra to her and her sister and her whole race.
"Bleh," Amalia said "Cleo wasn't this bad when we met him."
"Cleo Met him!?" Eva said
"Yeah," Yugo said "Right before we started training."
Eva turned red and stomped off towards the training grounds
"Heym where are you going?" Percedal asked "I just got back and all!"
"I have to take care of something." Eva said in a dead serious tone "I'll be right back."
"I don't envy Cleo right now," Amalia said
Jack pulled two oddly shaped pistol from his belt, he pointed them at Mortis while the latter was distracted by Rip and The Great Dragon, the former having sped the latter up to light speeds with his electric powers.
"I'm going to go gung ho on this guy." Jack said "I want you to open a few portals and catch all the strays, then open a whole bunch of 'em all arounf Mortis and hit him from every direction, think you can do that."
"There's not much a goddess can't do." Eliatrope replied.
"Good!" Jack rushed forward to catch the death bringer's attention, then opened fire with all he had. The dark aetherian was getting angry, he it was getting hard to concentrate on everything at once. And he was just barely dodging the shots as it was. They kept coming, along with lightning bolts and fire balls in a barrage of deadly forces.
Mortis warped downward than back behind Jack, one nuisance at a time, Jack flashed a smirk and as Mortis swung his blade through the Immortal's neck he hit nothing but a smokey outline of the crimson haired man.
"What?" he asked to the empty void.
Suddenly a large volume of blue portals surrounded him, overlapping and closing him in a sphere of blue energy. The damn goddess's magic, she never got close enough to kill, she stayed in the distance moving pieces around like a chess master, it was getting annoying.
Without warning the portals erupted into a barrage of elecreic blasts that he had dodges from Jack's guns, no dodging this time, even becoming dust would do him no good, there was nowhere to run.
The bolts collided with Mortis and the sphere collapsed inward closing the dark Aetherian into a tighter and tighter box. Jack nodded his approval, the goddess had taken his instructions and expanded on it making the move even deadlier.
As the orb collapsed several portal opened elsewhere depositing Mortis' body parts across space.
Jack took a moment to see how Seraphin was doing, he was glad that the Aetherian lord had taken Kain, the betrayer was quite a bit more powerful than the death bringer, despite his name. Seraphin seemed to be doing well, the king of the gilded realm was a formidable force after all. Seraphin looked back towards where he had come from and smiled.
"Jack," He said "Rosaline has deployed the fleet, we no longer need to distract."
Jack smiled, a half happy half maddened smile "About damn time!" he said. He holstered his gun and reached into the back of his cloak pulling an even larger than usual knife from it, one edge was straight like a regular blade, the other was serrated and jagged.
Mortis' body parts were beginning to come back together, forming a body out of dust and flesh.
"Meet Bone Render," Jack said in a sinister voice licking his knife's straight blade "My favorite toy."
Eliatrope was taken aback by Jack's behavior, he had never displayed such aggression and madness, had he been holding it back all this time, if so his will was an indomitable force to be reckoned with in it's own right.
Rip appeared behind her with The Great Dragon "We don't want to be anywhere near this fight." Rip explained "Jack is one of the oldest immortals, before he called himself Jack the immortal, He was called Jack the ripper, he was elevated by Xero, one of the original Aetherians."
"He wasn't always a good guy was he?" Eliatrope asked.
"No," Rip answered "Apparently he did a great many horrific evils before truly finding himself, he serves Seraphin to pay the debt he feels he owes to the victims whose lives he destroyed."
Jack apparated before Mortis, his form slowly changing, his cloak became sleaker and his clothes became leather, his form became more slender and his hair changed from red to brown, he removed his sunglasses revealing yellow eyes.
"So the ripper returns," Mortis said "Too little too late!" he swung his scythe which Jack deftly dodged landing both feet on it's large blade
"You missed." Jack said in a mocking tone disappearing from the scythe blade and reappearing above his victim and throwing the knife he held, Mortis felt the approaching weapon just fast enough to dodge, but not fast enough to grab it, Jack accomplished that swinging it up like a madman to graze Mortis' arm.
"First blood." Jack uttered, Mortis stared him down and charged using golems made of dust and ashes to attack him indirectly. Yet Jack still got through the defenss and placed the knife's tip at the back of Mortis' neck. "Here I am." Jack said tracing a line of blood down the neck with his knife
Mortis yelled, swinging his hand back and firing a dark blast of energy at the immortal, again jack was not there, having arrived at his next destination to slash a deep cut in Mortis right arm.
About this time Eliatrope noticed that the Aetherian wasn't healing.
"Mortis' wounds…" she said
"Yes," Rip replied "Bone Render is a primordial knife, made from the materials on the aetherian's homeworld, they cannot regenerate from wounds inflicted by such weapons."
"Why not?" The Great dragon asked intrigued
"No one knows," Rip said "Save the aetherians themselves, but even Seraphin dodges the question when I ask."
Mortis wan now quite bloody, though at this point Jack had a few gashes of his own, regenerating slower because of the poison Mortis used.
A thunderclap was heard and Eliatrope turned to see Seraphin standing in an intense golden glow with his hands clapped together and his eyes shut Chanting in his patron language.
"Mortis!" Kain yelled "We're done here, this is no longer worth it!"
"I couldn't agree more," The death bringer said darkly before disappearing to join Kain.
"We will be back Guardian!" Kain yelled angrily "And this time we will bring the master with us!"
The two disappeared into nothins as the tears in the krosmos were closed behind them. Seraphin relaxed and the golden glow faded.
"What was that?" Eliatrope asked in amazement "How could anything be so powerful as to scare such beings away?"
"What I was about to unleash would have been a finisher," Seraphin said, "It would not have stopped until Kain was dead in my hands. He knew that."
"He said he'd bring his master." The Great Dragon said
"Yes," Seraphin replied "Achron is far too close for comfort."
"And Changing back into ripper mode won't help in that fight." Jack said "Achron is a whole nother league than these rejects."
"How are we supposed to defeat such a beast?" Eliatrope asked
"With a little help from your eldest my dear," Seraphin said reassuringly
"Yugo?" Eliatrope asked quizzically
"Yes," Serphin replied "I think it's high time he met his mother."
Author's note: So my brother and I were discussing the mythos of the Krozmos when we came upon the fact that Eliatrope is a goddess and The Great Dragon a god, yet The Great Dragon is the one giving birth more or less. We then came to a terrifying conclusion The Great Dragon is… The Great Seahorse! (I'm not explaining this if you don't get it, go look up seahorses)