Chapter 11: The Lady of Chaos
"Magia Erebea", finishing the nearly silent incantation, Evangeline exploded with darkness, throwing the golden woman backwards. A streak of black lightning shot into the air, and resolved back into the shape of the tiny vampire. But now her golden was pure silver, her skin darkened, glowing magical designs up her arms and legs. "I congratulate you, for you are the very first person to ever witness this form." The golden woman had floated up before her, a sneer on her face at the boastful pronouncement. "But you won't live long enough to see any more!" Evangeline's voice resounded behind the woman, an instant before a bloody arm shot out of her chest. "Far too simple, I'd hoped you would have been more of a challenge."
"Fool!" The golden woman spat the word out, as if its very taste offended her. "Do you not know who I am?" In an instant she was no longer impaled on Evangeline's arm, now a few paces in front of the bloody armed vampire. The gaping hole the woman's chest knitted back together, her armor sealing itself back into place. "I am the Soldier of Destruction Sailor Galaxia! I am the very embodiment of Chaos. All the multiverse belongs to me!" She raised her hands over her head, with a gesture as if too encompass all the world around her. And as she finished her boast, she laughed a booming, maniacal laugh.
"Such bad taste you have. You are even worse than That Person. I shall do the universe a favor and put you down for good." Evangeline regarded the laughing demi-goddess with the scorn one heaps on a particularly loathsome insect. "Though I must say", licking Galaxia's blood off her hand, "while your taste may be terrible, your taste is delectable." Barring her fangs, Evangeline gathered darkness around her, "Now for the main dish!"
Galaxia's golden aura met Evangeline's cloak of darkness, and the world exploded.
The sudden appearance of the floating island startled all the girls for a few moments, the sudden silence broken by an alarm from Bardiche. "Warning. Dimensional distortion detected." Almost before the passionless voice faded, purple bubbles appeared, bursting almost instantly. In their wake was over a dozen…creatures, completely unlike the dragon monsters from before. These looked like nothing so much as armored plants, green vines in the rough shape of a human, with purple armor covering the 'head' and 'chest'. Within the 'helmet' armor was a single huge, glowing red orb. The creatures were well over two meters tall and over a dozen of them completely surrounded the ten girls.
"Einst!" Shine's scream broke the rest out of the momentary shock. "I recognize these! They fire beams from their heads!" The creatures 'eyes' had started glowing bright and brighter red, as if they were charging up.
Fate and Iczer-1's eyes met for a moment and they nodded, Iczer-1 shot vertically into the sky, followed a moment later by Astraea who'd realized what was going on. "Everyone else, close to me!" Fate barked the command to the younger girls, who all scrambled closer to the mage. "Defensor Advanced!" Fate held Bardiche vertically as she said the brief incantation.
"Defensor Advanced" Bardiche echoed emotionlessly, three golden domes appeared around the remaining girls, but before the final outer dome fully formed, the creatures unleashed their attack. Over a dozen ruby-red beams struck the domes, the outer half-formed dome shattered immediately, while the second seemed to hold for a moment. It gave way after a second of concentrated bombardment, but the beams had started to weaken. The final dome took the remaining assault, and held…almost. Two of the beams still had some power and blasted through the barrier. An explosion of dust marked where they impacted.
"No!" Fate's yell cut through the sudden silence, but even as she started to move, the dust began to clear, and a blue light shone through. Perrine was on her knees, triangular black ears poking out of her blonde hair, a lithe black tail swishing behind her. A blue shield made up of interlocking magic circles that Fate didn't recognize floated before her. Her breathing was hard and heavy, but she seemed ok, as did everyone else. She saw Mami dropping down next to the cat-eared girl and decided to let the gunner take care of it, the creatures were still out there after all.
"Th…that's hard to do…without a…Striker Unit…" Perrine panted as the drill-haired gunner knelt next to her. "I barely got it up in time, and if they'd been any stronger they'd have gone right through." She smiled at Mami, but now I'll have a good story for the Major when I get back. A red shape suddenly moved in front of them.
"Iczer and Astraea have cleared the way to your equipment, hurry up and get it on, there may be more of them coming soon." Satellizer's voice was clipped and harsh, at some point she'd taken her glasses back off and her dress had fixed itself completely. Perrine and Mami looked towards the Fairlion, and realized that when they'd escaped before the barrier went up, Iczer-1 and Astraea had concentrated on the Einst nearest where they'd left their equipment. As they scrambled to their feet, one of the remaining creatures reached Satellizer. "Both of you, go. I can handle this one. Mami, you help protect them as they get suited up. Not all of us can summon our weapons after all." Mami nodded, spinning around and running down the beach with Perrine. They were quickly joined by Elise and Shine; along with Yami, who seemed to have also been detailed to guard duty.
"Well, it's not all bad," Shine faintly smiled as she ran towards her robot. "The Einst from my world are much bigger." The other girls (except Yami) blanched a bit as they realized how big the Einst must have been to be comparable to Shine's Fairlion. But even as they approached where the Fairlion, Perrine's Striker Units and Bachastelze had been left, more purple bubbles materialized. Three new Einst, looking for all the world like animate dinosaur skeletons, confronted the five girls.
The girls skidded to a halt, "Shine, on my signal, make a break for it with the others" Mami turned to Yami, "Yami-chan, we're going for the middle one, ignore the others for now." Yami nodded her assent, but before she even finished, Mami had already dropped a field of rifles. "Yami-chan, go!" Mami opened fire as a black and gold blur shot forward. A multitude of blades scored deep into the creature, yellow bolts of magical energy striking into the gashes. Explosions rocked the creature, one of its arms blown off, but it wasn't enough. "Yami-chan, MOVE!" Mami screamed at the top of her lungs, even as she used her ribbons to gather all her rifles together. The ribbon twisted around the bundle of riffles, moments later a three barreled cannon emerged.
Yami hearing Mami's yell, wrapped a length of her hair around the head of the center monster, and then hurled herself into the air. Even as she did, she heard Mami's voice once again. "SCOPPIO FINALE!" A massive blast of yellow energy struck the creature, which exploded violently. The shock buffeted Yami as she descended back toward the ground, she could see Perrine had put up that blue magical shield once again to protect herself and the others from the backlash on the ground. "Shine, go!" As the explosion faded away, the four girls on the ground rushed through the smoke, quickly emerging on the other side. Mami skidded to a stop on the loose sand, a rifle in each hand. A thump next to her indicated Yami finally landing from her leap. A quick glance showed the small girl in a three point pose, one her arms morphed into a blade already. Out of the smoke the remaining two monsters emerged, damaged by the destruction of their companion, but advancing forward relentlessly.
Shine leapt for the ascension cable, her foot hitting the stirrup started its ascent upwards. The usually somewhat thrilling ride up now felt painfully slow, she felt every microsecond of the trip, finally she reached the top and threw herself into the cockpit. Flipping open a recessed panel on her right armrest, she looked at the small red button within, remembering what Latooni had told her.
"Never use the emergency start. Even if it's an emergency, there will be time for at least the abbreviated checklist."
"So why is it here?"
"Because there are things worse than emergencies" Shine repeated the words Latooni told her that day, as her thumb pressed down on the button. The cockpit exploded with light and noise, as every console activated simultaneously. A 15 minute checklist covered in 30 seconds. As the cockpit door shut, Shine activated the tactical view, and was horrified at what she saw. While her group was only dealing with the two remaining skeleton creatures (she noted that Perrine was already assisting, and Elise seemed to be getting started up as fast as Shine did), the other five were locked in a pitched battle against dozens of the creatures. Not just the skeletons and the cannon-plants, but also ones that looked like suits of armor. Dozens of the creatures surrounded the five girls. Fate, Iczer-1, Astraea and Sattelizer were on the ground in the center, while Cecilia was in the air, but having to dodge fire directed upwards from the cannon-plants. Flipping the comm switch, she connected to the others "Cecilia-san, Fate-san, get everyone into the air, now!" even as she spoke she tapped at the weapon selection screen.
Cecilia heard the clipped, slightly accented voice over her communicator, looking down towards the raging battle, she saw Fate nodding towards Iczer-1 and the others. Fate and Iczer-1 leapt into the sky, while Astraea grabbed Satellizer by the armpits and joined the already airborne trio. The five girls climbed higher into the sky, even as the voice returned to the radio "VOSTOCK LASER!" Cecilia turned just in time to see a massive golden beam burst from the Fairlion's chest, scouring into the sandy beach in an instant. The creatures were vaporized, and all that was left behind was a glassed over trench several hundred meters long. As the blast faded away, Mami's group finished off the last two creatures beneath the Fairlion. Perrine and Elise took to the air, while Mami and Yami jumped up to the Fairlion's shoulder. Astraea dropped Satellizer onto the opposite shoulder, and Shine activated her Tesla Drive, rising to meet the others.
The girls zoomed upwards, heading towards the floating fortress island, but their brief respite was interrupted by the return of the flying dragon monsters from before. They fought through the wave, not pausing in their ascent at all. "Everyone! Get to the island, we'll fight them off there." Fate's command was acknowledged by the rest, and they redoubled their efforts to cut through the creatures. Astraea and Iczer-1 led the rest, but as they approached the island they smashed into a barrier. The two were thrown backwards by a repelling force. A brief sheen showed the island surrounded by a sphere of force.
"Iczer Beam!" Iczer-1 shot a blue beam of energy out of her clasped hands, but it harmlessly skipped over the barrier's surface. Shots from Mami's rifles, Elise and Cecilia's beam cannons, all had the same effect. "Dammit. How are we going to break through this?" Iczer-1 continued firing at the barrier, but it seemed unaffected by the barrage. She almost offhanded sliced a monster in half with her sword after giving up on shooting the barrier.
"I think," Fate spun Bardiche's Riot Zanber form around her, destroying half a dozen of the creatures in a single slice, "that I can break the barrier. But it will take me a few minutes to do so. Can you guys keep these things off of me while I do that?" Iczer, Astraea and Cecilia all nodded their assent. "Shine, you, Perrine and Elise take care of that side, watch for the barrier to go down so you can drop off the others." Shine's acknowledgement was brief, but assured. "Bardiche! Sealing form!"
Bardiche's blade vanished, its shaft extending from the short sword form to full staff mode. A golden magic circle formed beneath Fate's feet while a trio of wings of the same color sprouted from Bardiche. Fate concentrated, feeling the spent magic around her, there was more than she expected, hopefully it would be enough. "Cartridge Load!" Bardiche discharged all six magic cartridges in its revolver magazine, filling Fate with their power. Fate extended Bardiche outwards, a second magic circle forming at the tip of its extended blade. "I summon the light of destruction down on my prisoners." The chant was quiet, no one else could hear the words. All the magic power Fate had, plus all the energy from the cartridges, flowed towards the new circle, where a golden orb of magical energy formed. "Stars, gather, and become the light that pierces everything." Magic began to visibly coalesce out of the air, flowing into the orb, its golden color changing, becoming stripped with pink. Each bit of magic from the aether accelerating the color change. "Tear through everything in a blaze of light." The orb was now a brilliant pink, and had grown to nearly as wide as Fate was tall. Something felt wrong though, as if she wasn't doing it right, something important..."of course." With a slight smile, Fate adjusted her grip on Bardiche, moving her right hand down, taking a left-handed stance. She closed her eyes for a moment, "thank you, Nanoha." Her eyes flew open, locked onto the fortress before her. All was set.
"STARLIGHT BREAKER!"
The massive discharge, far too large to call a simple "beam", impacted the shield, which for a moment seemed to hold, but only a moment. The barrier visibly shattered, as if it became glass in its final second. The Starlight Breaker was not finished, continuing straight through and impacting the fortress itself. One entire corner tower was vaporized, as was a good portion of the wall on the front and side. By the time the dust settled, a quarter of the outer portion of the fortress was simply gone, and even the inner keep was badly scorched and scarred. "Dammit Testarossa." The voice and choice of address caused Fate to spin around in shock, but it was just Iczer-1, of course it was. The attack had just exhausted her and she wasn't thinking straight. "I've never seen Midchildan magic used that way." Fate realized that at some point the sky had been cleared of the monsters. She could see the Fairlion dropping down towards the surface of the island, Mami and the others hopping off and going to go check the entrance.
Still trying to catch her breath, Fate took the moment to replace Bardiche's cartridges from her speedloader. "It's a custom spell. Designed to use spent and ambient magic to amplify its power. I'm not really suited to casting it though." She gave a wan smile at that. "The barrier busting properties were a surprise side-effect."
"So you didn't make it?" Iczer had gently led Fate down to surface of the island, Fate's feet touched down and she wobbled a bit, but she stayed up. "How do you know a spell like that then?"
"My wife made it." Iczer didn't bat an eye at that. "Though you should try getting hit with it sometime!"
"I thought you said your wife made it?" Iczer's voice actually had a bit of confusion and curiosity in it now.
"We...had a rough first date." Iczer's looked like she wanted to respond to that, but right then Mami ran up to the two.
"There don't seem to be any monsters, of either type, left on the island. We found the door to the inner keep, Yami and Satellizer are keeping an eye on it. She looked up at the two older women, somewhat expectantly. Fate idly noticed that the golden gem on Mami's hairpiece had turned dark, as if it were stained with oil. Shaking the thought away, she turned to Iczer.
"Well, we're going to have to go inside." Iczer nodded her agreement. "I think we should divide into two groups. Not everyone is suited for indoor combat anyway."
The rest of the group, except for Yami and Sattelizer, had gathered for the impromptu strategy session. "I agree with Fate-san." Cecilia chimed in, floating just a bit over the ground. "We'll keep an eye on things out here while you go in and find Evangeline-san."
Fate looked around and saw general agreement. "Alright then. Cecilia, Shine, Perrine, Elise and Astraea will stay out here and keep watch. Iczer, Mami, Satellizer, Yami and I will enter the fortress and try to find Evangeline." The decision reached, Fate, Iczer and Mami all took off towards the fortress, leaving the other five hovering near the edge of the island.
"I hope everything goes well. I wish we could help them in there." Elise sounded worried.
Perrine lightly gripped the smaller girl's shoulder. "They'll be fine. They're the strongest of us, really. Besides they're right. We aren't equipped for fighting in there. Though I guess Astraea would do fine." She looked over to the pretty-faced angeloid, who was absently rubbing her stomach.
"Astraea's fine with staying outside. I prefer the sky anyway." She looked around. "It would be useful to have Ikaros though, or even Nymph. I'm not too good at anything but fighting." Right then, alarms began to wail on the Fairlion, Bachastelze and Blue Tears. At the same time, a sound like cracking glass rang through the air. The quintet watched in shock as the area before the castle, the very fabric of reality itself, shattered. Out of the newly born hole in the world, stepped an enormous creature. It looked much like the dragon's they'd been fighting; only this was a true dragon. It towered over them, at least seventy meters in height. Its roar shook the very stones of the castle.
"Mein Gott." Elise cursed under her breath. "How do we fight something like that?" Perrine, Cecilia and Astraea formed up with her, the Fairlion floating behind them.
"We just do." Astraea looked at the others. "We fight, and we win. No?"
Satellizer and Yami led the group into the castle, alert for enemy attack. The quintet slowly made their way down the stone corridor, their path clear; there were no doors, no intersections, just a winding hallway. "This isn't right…" Mami, in the middle with a rifle at the ready, stated aloud what they all had figured out. "We're being led somewhere."
"Indeed." Iczer, bringing up the rear with Fate, "but we have no other choice. Even if it is a trap, we must press onwards. There is something we must do. Whatever it is, it's ahead." As she spoke, the corridor began to widen, opening up to a large archway. Beyond lay an enormous throne room. The room was nearly empty, except for the throne, and what hung behind the throne. Someone gasped as they realized what they were seeing. Hanging from the ceiling, chains connected to each wrist, was Evangeline. Naked and bloody, she was displayed above the throne as if a trophy.
"Evangeline-san!" Mami's exclamation broke the shocked silence. "What did you do to her!" Those words caused the rest to finally take notice of the figure sitting on the throne. Propping her chin up on one fist, legs crossed in a casual manner, faintly smiling as if she was waiting for some friends to arrive.
"Welcome! I see you all appreciate my new trophy. I admit she gave me more trouble than I expected. Much more trouble than I expect from any of you, or your friends outside." She looked over the five girls arrayed before her. Her amber eyes seemed to take in everything about them at a glance. "You all are truly unfortunate. None of you were supposed to be here. But she had to interfere. Instead of the keys, I received eleven meddling children. Well, perhaps your vampire friend was not a child, but the rest of you? Children." Her tone shifted from its earlier casual friendliness, turning harsh and cold by the end. She nearly spat the final word. "So unlike her, to involve innocent bystanders, she must have known that you had no chance against me." Her tone lightened again, but was filled with unmistakable malice.
Something about the woman inspired fear, a wave of terror flooded over Fate and the others, as if they looked death itself in the face. Iczer stepped forward, brushing away the feeling, "Who are you? What do you want?" Her tone was confrontational and confident.
"I guess I should introduce myself. For all the good it will do you." The woman moved for the first time, standing from the throne. "I am Sailor Galaxia! The embodiment of Chaos! The Ending and the Beginning, all that is, all that was, and all that shall be!"
"Impossible." Yami's soft voice broke the silence that Galaxia's preposterous pronouncement produced. "Chaos is a concept. It is not something someone can be." Yami's right arm transformed into a blade, "but whatever or whoever you are, you hurt a friend. You are keeping us here." The small assassin launched herself towards Galaxia.
"Fool." A whip appeared in Galaxia's hand, in an instant it lashed out, striking Yami. Yami flew across the room and crashed into the wall. The others had moved moments after Yami. Fate, Iczer and Satellizer moving in close, Mami opening fire with her rifles, the three swordswoman struck as one. The whip cracked again. Once. Twice. Thrice. With each strike an assailant was flung away. Fate to the wall opposite Yami, Satellizer nearly landing on top of shapeshifter, while Iczer smashed through the throne itself, sliding to a halt beneath Evangeline's apparently lifeless body. "Less than children. Babies." Shaking her head, "I grow tired of this." She raised her right arm, the crystal on her bracelet glowing brightly.
A beam shot from the bracelet, striking Mami in the chest…
Apologies for the extended delay, but stuff comes up. This chapter was also essentially written from scratch, all the previous ones were re-writes of an existing story I had.
If you are familiar with Sailor Moon Sailor Stars, you may have an idea of what Galaxia is doing to Mami there at the end~
One more chapter and an epilogue to go! Hopefully it won't take a month this time.