STA: Posting this a day early... or 9 days late. I got a bit behind schedule.
On the morning of the eighth day that the curse had been in place, the people of Mildea lined up before the Demon Card headquarters.
The only thing stalling the attack was one Etherion wielder who had nearly destroyed the planet they day before. Elie seemed emotionally stable that morning, but no one wanted to risk freaking her out again. Especially not if their only means of stopping her was letting Lucia control her body. That being said, no one wanted her to get her way either.
"I can help!" Elie insisted. "If we fail today, we have to beg Lucia to let us save Haru. If I used my magic… I'm getting better at controlling it! Let me come along!"
Sieg shook his head. "We're about to invade the headquarters of an organization that would be happy to either kill you or see you in their leader's… Their leader's…" Bed. "Arms. The only person I'd be less willing to let come along is the leader himself."
With the sort of timing that only happened in stories, Lucia passed by Sieg just then and said, "Incidentally, I'm helping with the break in."
"No you're not," Sieg told him. "I don't trust you not to turn on us. And even if you manage not to switch back to helping Demon Card, using Haru's body makes you the biggest target. If you damage him—"
"Then I've lost my bartering chip and I'm out a good host. I won't let his body take any damage." Lucia rolled his eyes. "Besides," he added, gesturing to his left, "Haru's with me. He can let me know if someone is sneaking up on me."
Haru, who was standing on Lucia's right, couldn't deny that it was hilarious to watch Sieg talk to the empty spot on the other side of Lucia as he gave orders on how to restrain the blond. As a token effort to keep Lucia from feeling like he could do whatever he pleased, Haru scolded him for messing with Sieg while Lucia found an idea place among a group of sorcerers to slip into.
In his own body, Lucia could have easily strolled through the front gates on his own and taken out any opposition, but Haru's body was just different enough to throw him off. Even if he was getting better with his footing, he didn't want to discover what the slight change in arm length might do if he got in a serious fight. At least against most of the small fry Demon Card admitted, he wouldn't have too much trouble. He hoped.
Everyone did their best to ignore that the leader of Demon Card was joining the raid on Demon Card, save for one girl who thought to give Lucia her hat in an attempt to hide his hair. That made sense. The less obviously he looked like Haru, the less likely he was to face one of his demons.
"You remember my directions, right?" Haru asked.
"Didn't bother to try. I thought the point of you coming was to lead me."
Haru stuttered some sort of exasperated response. Lucia wasn't paying too much attention to it, but he thought he caught the word 'chimp' in there somewhere.
Whatever petty idealism Haru was pushing on him, it almost prevented Lucia from hearing the orders to move. He hadn't known what a sorcerers' charge would look like and, in hindsight, he still didn't. The first thing everyone had done, being specialized in long range attacks, was fired at the walls around the castle. Someone grabbed Lucia and pulled him forward, and rather than try and make out anything in the dizzying array of magic attacks firing off everywhere, he focused on not tripping as someone who had experience moving through such an attack led him forward.
He broke away from their grip once they were past the walls. People were splitting into smaller groups as they fanned out between the buildings, trying to draw as much attention as they could away from the main group that would infiltrate the castle. At Haru's insistence, Lucia pulled the hat he'd been given tight over his head, and made sure no telltale silver hair stuck out, then joined the group charging towards the castle.
To Lucia's disappointment and relief, he had to do little more than run to get inside. Sieg had been part of the main group breaking in to get his body, and it had taken nothing more than basic wind magic to knock any opposition out of the way.
While most of the group started following the directions Lucia had given several days earlier to find his room, Lucia split off, half listening to Haru's directions, half figuring out the shortest route to their destination using his own knowledge of the castle layout. Even if he didn't know all of it well enough to map, he was still able to recognize most of the hallways when he saw them. And with one of Mildea's best sorcerers, the silver claimer held responsible for Reina's death, and a former Demon Card general turned resistance member—Lucia hadn't bothered to ask their name, but he didn't recognize the man from appearance—the unfamiliar boy in the odd hat didn't warrant a high ranking official come and stop him. Using Haru's Eisenmeteor, it was easy to hack through anyone who stood in his way.
Haru grimaced after the fourth man fell. "You can't…" He didn't even know what to say. Would a simple 'no killing' order get the sentiment across? Should he be more specific? Don't kill your own men. Don't use my sword for murder. Lucia had been little more than a brat since losing his body. Haru had forgotten what happened when the brat was given a weapon and potential stabbing victims. And without his body, and Lucia distracted with having opponents, Haru couldn't stop him or even make him listen.
Maybe it would have been a better idea to have Lucia give Sieg the directions, and let him find Let and Julia.
Lucia took a bit more time than he needed to locate them, largely thanks to him stopping when they were almost there. Apparently he couldn't wait two days to return to normal and confirm that there was a pool somewhere in the castle.
Haru tapped his foot impatiently as Lucia surveyed the room.
"Do you plan of going for a dip before we get my friends out too?"
Lucia put his finger to his chin as if he were considering it, and said, "That doesn't sound like a bad idea." What he didn't say was that he couldn't swim. Admitting that was a lot less funny than listening to Haru freak out over his betrayal to the mission. He wasn't really that interested in the pool. He'd only stopped to see how Haru would react to it.
Haru decided to react by taking advantage of the action to take a deep breath and begin explaining why Lucia could not kill. After Haru's lecture got tiresome, which happened about fifteen seconds in, Lucia left the pool room. By this time the halls were largely empty. Most of the soldiers had gone down to face the main group of invaders, and only a single man stayed behind to inspect the bodies of Lucia's victims.
His back was to Lucia, and Haru was still nagging, so Lucia reasoned that Let and Julia could take the man out when he left with them and went towards the hiding spot Haru had positioned himself before.
As he was reaching down to expose the two, Haru's head snapped up. His eyes went wide, looking at something behind Lucia. Seeing this, Lucia was already ducking out of the way by the time Haru yelled "Look out!"
Lucia dodged to the left, grunting when he came down hard on his injured ankle and fell over. The man he'd ignored clipped his shoulder as he lunged past.
Lucia rolled into a battle stance, ignoring the burning sensation where he'd been hit and drawing Haru's sword. From the front, he could see the attacker had a Dark Bring on him. "What a waste," he muttered.
"Hey, there's a hole burning through my shirt," Haru pointed out. "Please try to keep him off my skin."
"Naturally. If your friends fail, I'm going to need this body if I want to accomplish my mission."
Lucia got as good a look as he could before his opponent charged again. He didn't recognize the man, which was a statement he could make for the vast majority of his followers. Seeing the incoming attack from the front, though, he was able to easily guess the power it granted his opponent. Long claws extended from the man's fingers, which glowed in the dark brings' telltale purple hue as he lunged forward. Those weren't acidic, but they would still dissolve whatever the touched.
The claws were a bit longer than Lucia had expected. He didn't jump back far enough to escape the man's swing, and only avoided harm because his foot gave out on him just then. Since he had determined that this man, whoever he was, would die, Lucia elected not to be too embarrassed by that.
With his good foot, he kicked the man in the cheapest place Haru's legs could reach, then sprung back up. For an opponent who liked fast, close combat, the best sword to use would be… "Silfarion!"
Lucia, Haru, and the man from Demon Card all waited, but the Ten Powers didn't change forms. Huffing, Lucia called the blade's name again, and tried to will it out the same way he would with his Decaforce. No dice. He shook the sword, wondering if it had somehow gotten stuck, then looked to Haru in confusion.
"It… can tell you aren't the Rave Master?"
"Your loser friends had better grab my sword too, then," Lucia grumbled. "Fine. Fuck Silfarion!"
The man lunged a third time, and Lucia danced around him, taking several stepped away before stretching his arms back, then tossing the Ten Powers with all his might. The hilt connected with the man's head, which might have sounded ineffective, but all of Lucia's might was a lot. Lucia couldn't tell if the head injury was fatal, but whatever the case, the immediate threat was gone. The man crumpled to the floor and made no attempt to get up again.
He took the Dark Bring, then turned back to the niche where Let and Julia had been hiding, ready to drag them out. Julia emerged from hiding before he had the chance.
"There was no point where you couldn't have come out and taken care of him yourself."
"It looked like you had it under control," Julia said. "Besides, we weren't sure if it was you or Haru until you started cussing. If it was you, we couldn't trust that you wouldn't turn around and help him stop us."
It was a fair point, but Lucia gave Julia the finger anyway. "Come on, then. The exit's this way."
"Wait!" Let grabbed Lucia's shoulder. "Aren't you forgetting something important?"
Lucia looked to Haru, who shrugged. Neither of them could think of any other companions of Haru's who might be missing.
"Don't bother with him," Julia said. "I'll get it."
So it was settled. Lucia went on ahead with Let following close behind and Julia taking care of something or rather. It wasn't until he'd gone down two flights of stairs and looked back to make sure they were following him that Lucia saw what that was.
"You didn't need to grab that."
"Most of us would consider it an issue if Haru's sword was left behind in your castle," Julia told him.
Lucia shrugged. "Alright. Hand it over."
Julia scowled.
"We need to get out. I figured this would do," he flashed the Dark Bring, "But if you want to spare Haru's body whatever taint a Dark Bring leaves, then I can make do with a plain metal sword."
Haru erupted into protest while Julia scoffed and passed the sword to Lucia.
"You'd better not turn it on us," Let added.
Lucia, who couldn't hear what Let had said over Haru's insistence that his body was not to be corrupted by Dark Bring, shrugged and gave an apathetic nod. He already had Let and Julia. All that mattered now was not losing them on the way out, and it didn't matter much to him how they felt about his methods. All he really cared about then was finding a good time to let Haru know that only Dark Bring that were designed to corrupt bodies could do so. Most only messed with a person's head.
He missed his Sinclaire stone…
-o-
Only seventeen people had to die on the way back to the ship. Lucia thought that was incredibly conservative, though Haru and his dragon friends disagreed. He didn't see why the objected so strongly. It's not like he was killing their allies.
Let and Julia were quick to split with him after they reached Mildea's ship. They went over to their other friends and reassured everyone that they were alight and all (loudly) discussed the strangeness of someone who looked and sounded like Haru but acted like a soulless monster. Rather than point out how this whole fiasco proved he did have a soul, Lucia went to see if the others had managed to secure his body.
He arrived at the point of interest to find Sieg, Musica, Shuda, and Miltz hovering over his body, which lay in the bed where Haru's body had been before Lucia hijacked it. Sieg and Miltz were busy discussing which path to the Mystic Realm would get them where they needed to go the fastest. They couldn't agree on whether it would be better to take a first route into the realm even if it meant a longer trip, or fly in territory that Demon Card would easily follow over and have a shorter trip, although they both insisted that the other needed to see their point before Demon Card mobilized and came after them. Shuda listened in, occasionally, giving input. Musica, who had no contributions to make, focused his attention on Lucia.
"You don't know how to smile, do you?"
Haru smothered a laugh, which made Lucia scowl. "What makes you think that?"
Musica gestured to Lucia's body. "That look you're giving me right now, it seems you make it in your sleep, too."
Lucia took the rare opportunity to view his own sleeping face. Sure enough, it bore the same unattractive scowl. Good. He'd have hated to look like some happy dork in his sleep.
"By the way, you're freaking heavy," Musica added.
"If you'd taken my armor off, you might have found me lighter," Lucia pointed out. Although as a spirit he'd shed his armor almost immediately, no one had removed is from his body. Had the Demon Card doctors even tried to diagnose him? Or were they too afraid to of what might happen if they moved him around to get him undressed?
Unable to help himself, Lucia leaned over and inspected the black metal. The parts on his arms were better aligned that he'd been able to get them dressing himself, while the breast plate was crooked. Someone had stripped him down and redressed him. When he had his body back, he would be having a word with whoever thought it was a good idea to put armor on someone in a coma.
"We probably shouldn't let you wear that," Shuda said, noticing Lucia's attention to the armor. "If we have to fight you when this is over, I'd rather not give you any sort of advantage."
"So… take it off, then?" Musica asked.
Shuda nodded, and looked to Sieg for support. Sieg, seeing Shuda's look, shifted uncomfortably and devoted his full focus to his discussion with Miltz. Shuda turned to Musica instead, and the two started at one another, waiting for the other person to offer to undertake the task.
"Look," Lucia said, "I'm wearing something under that, but if the thought really bothers you three so much, then I can undress myself."
"I'll go get the camera," Musica declared.
Lucia got to work fast, not wanting any photos to exist where anyone could mistake him for being taken advantage of by Haru Glory. Haru watched Lucia hurry to unclasp and remove the pieces of his armor, and as the point that Lucia was rolling his body over to reach the backside, he said, "You really don't want Musica getting a picture of this, do you?"
"Do you?"
"Not really. Answer my question."
Lucia ignored Haru and continued to undo the armor.
"Answer my question of I shall say the words 'do you' over and over until you do what I want."
"It would be a pain. I already have a lot of things on my to do list, and a lot of them are thanks to this stupid curse," Lucia explained. "I have to hurt Julia, get the last piece of the Sinclaire if I have to pry it from the sorcerer's cold, dead hands, kill you sister, separate you and Elie, break all the clocks in the sorcerer's room…" Had Let done anything to earn himself special targeting? Lucia paused to try and remember anything the dragon man had done.
When Lucia stopped rattling of his plans, Haru shook his head and said, "I'm not even going to get mad. At this point, I just wish you could put that list in a coherent order."
"Wait," Sieg cut in, not realizing how close he came to talking over Haru, "All the clocks in my room?"
