Broken Wings
N.W. 2488
The City of Thor
It was still early in the morning when Lloyd dropped out of the upper atmosphere, the simple denim trousers and tank top he'd been wearing now replaced by brown boots, black pants, and a thigh-length, dark red coat.
No scarftails.
He hadn't worn scarftails since the Meltokio mana cannon just after Colette had given up.
Letting go of the mana keeping him hidden, Lloyd landed in the middle of the city. He was hoping the dramatics would keep this from blowing up too horribly even as he strode up toward the castle, wings condensed and tucked against his back but still on full display.
It had been a long time since last he'd been forced to do this. Meltokio, and Terce, and then a city called Vanaheim, which had been built roughly where Altamira had once been. And now... Now Thor would get the same display of dramatics that had failed in Meltokio and Terce... but succeeded in Vanaheim.
He had a feeling that this would be another round of Meltokio, though. Truly, there was only so much he and Zelos could do, especially with the news Zelos had brought.
The City of Thor had a mana cannon. However, its operational status was another story altogether... and a story he would rather not have to find out the hard way.
He reached the doors to the castle and was unsurprised when he passed the guards without interference. He and Zelos may have been the last angels on Aselia (he'd get ahold of Kratos yet, dammit), but their presences were still felt heavily to this day, as they were the symbols of order and peace... and the harbingers of death for those who would not listen to reason. The result of so many years spent protecting their world with everything they had?
Where the angels flew, the humans usually paid attention. They'd kept the knowledge of their capabilities easily accessible, after all... In fact, one of Lloyd's journals was in a library in this very city.
He'd have to retrieve it on his way out, he mused as he strode through the halls of the castle, making a beeline for the throne room. Normally, he'd take enough time to allow a steward to announce his arrival... But these weren't normal circumstances, and if Zelos' contacts were to be believed, he didn't have the time for pleasantries.
However, the guards and soldiers within the castle had less sense of mind than the guards outside, who had simply stepped aside and allowed him passage. Even a warning flare of blue-green mana feathers didn't always work on those within the castle.
He didn't want to hurt them, truly, and they were all frightened enough as it was. The closer he got to the throne room, the more who simply looked on in terror and fled.
He hated intimidation tactics.
He was just reaching out to the doors that would lead to the throne room when the woman raced up to him, out of breath, frantic, and clearly intent on stopping him, as she grabbed him and yanked him away from the door with every ounce of strength she had in her... Which, for a half-elven woman of her build, was a rather impressive amount.
He managed to shake her off, taking note of silver-white hair and green eyes. He'd have to deal with her later...
He'd just placed his hands on the doors again when the woman slipped between him and them, fear in her eyes... but not of him.
"Sir, the king isn't here!"
Lloyd paused and felt, the mana at his fingertips reaching out for hers even as his eyes narrowed. "Where is he, then, and why do you insist on barring my path?"
A harsh swallow, but the faintest traces of relief in her eyes and mana. "His Majesty is hidden away below the castle. His guards saw you coming... They've been expecting you for days now. If you step through these doors they will kill you."
"You little traitor!" Clanking armor behind him had Lloyd looking over his shoulder, even as the mana of his wings reacted to the threat, his wings becoming a shield between him and the half-elf and the guards who'd caught up to them.
Every word that had fallen from her mouth had been the truth.
Lloyd shifted, one wing deflecting a crossbow bolt even as his eyes sought an escape route... There! "On my back," he ordered the woman, turning so that she may comply even as his wings shifted, wrapping around him as if to form a shield. "And be prepared to shield your face," he added as his wings whipped open, a volley of blue-green feathers, sharp as knives, soaring through the air.
The dozen or so guards fell under the attack, his own personal variation of Angel Feathers, and the next attack was aimed directly at the window he was already running towards.
The shattering window had drawn the attention of many bystanders already. To see an angel jumping out of it with a half-elf upon his back? If he'd been looking for attention, he'd certainly gotten it. And...maybe, just maybe, it would serve as a warning.
"Is there anything else you'd like to share with me while we've got the chance?" Lloyd asked as they rose into the sky, his wings easily carrying them well above the range of the current weapons Thor was using.
"Anything in particular that you want to know?" the woman asked. "I knew when I moved to stop you that I wouldn't be welcome back... might as well make my betrayal as complete as possible."
Lloyd grimaced. "The mana cannon. How close is it to completion?"
"It was completed months ago, and is ready to be fired at any time. The king hasn't found anything to fire it at yet, but I have no doubt that he will, soon," she replied, the weariness in her voice saying that she wasn't happy to be sharing this information... and not because of the act, but because of the very information being conveyed.
And just as she hadn't wanted to say it, it was the last thing Lloyd had wanted to hear.
"There's... there's also a summon spirit locked in cryofreeze," she added after a moment. "Aska, I think. I don't know what they wanted with him... But I know that there was some kind of experimentation going on."
Oh, no... While that explained why Luna had been asking after Aska again, it was very bad news if they managed to fire off the mana cannon. So close to it, and without another summon spirit or two to support him, Aska would quite simply be absorbed by the cannon, and would effectively die.
"Great. So we've got a fully functional mana cannon on our hands, a summon spirit in danger of dying if they fire that thing, and a king who's tried to effectively assassinate me. This just gets worse and worse the longer I'm involved... Ugh... Damn, damn, damn..." He really didn't want to have to do another coordinated Judgment with Zelos, but...
The woman's giggles distracted him.
Mostly because they were so very unexpected in the current circumstances.
"Good joke?" he asked, somewhat more sharply than he'd meant to.
"Angel. Holy being of light. Cursing."
...Yeah. That would do it. And, to be frank, it was just amusing enough to get him out of the near-panic he'd worked himself into.
"There's only two of us left, it tends to happen a lot," he admitted. She'd been so helpful already, he might as well offer her knowledge in exchange. "This... isn't the first time we've had to deal with a mana cannon."
"You... really don't like that they've built one... do you?"
They were over land again, flying almost directly south toward the Yggdrasill. "Roughly sixty-five hundred years ago, a mana cannon killed the Giant Kharlan Tree that supplied the world's mana. Back then, every living being in the world required mana to live," he explained. "That was before my time, even. When I was a teenager, I was part of a journey to recombine the world that had been torn apart to preserve the remaining mana. We used a mana cannon then to destroy a rampaging, mutated version of the tree. It was dismantled immediately after, however. This... this is the fifth mana cannon to be built in my twenty-five thousand years of life."
"What happened to the other four? You said the one was dismantled..."
"The second and third, Zelos and I destroyed. The fourth, Vanaheim dismantled on their own after I gave them a bit of an ultimatum. Destroy it, or Zelos and I would do it for them. Now... If the king of Thor won't allow me an audience, then he's chosen his city's fate."
"There's not going to be much left of Thor when you're done, is there?" the half-elf asked softly.
But Lloyd snorted. "How much damage do you think two angels by themselves can do?" he asked.
"My father told me an old elven legend when I was a child, that claims an angel rent the world in two. And you said yourself a moment ago that you put it back together."
...Oh.
Lloyd couldn't bring himself to speak more on that subject. Not when the half-elf was right, so very, very right...
An angel with the power of the Eternal Sword had, indeed, torn the very world asunder and spent four thousand years trying to resurrect his dead sister.
Lloyd could have taken Mithos' path, but he hadn't. He wouldn't.
"Is there anywhere in particular where you'd like to be let down?" he asked. "I've taken you from your home, and Zelos and are about to attack it... The least I can do is leave you someplace of your choosing, rather than my own."
The woman was silent for a while, watching as the world below them went by. "That forest is rather large..." she said absently.
"It is. It was known as the Gaoracchia Forest, once. Though my friend and I still refer to it as such..." Lloyd paused, then shot a wry smirk over his shoulder. "Don't go telling anyone, now, but the oldest trees in this forest are sentient. And if the mood so strikes them, they will uproot themselves and move. They've done so in the past... hell, there are trees still scarred by the Ozette massacre that have moved hundreds of miles from where Ozette was when I was a teen to the grove closest the mana tree, Yggdrasill."
"You're kidding!"
Lloyd shifted carefully, looking the woman in the eye. "Nope. I can show you."
Curiosity alight in her expression, it seemed for a second that she would accept. Except, then the solemnity set in again. "I'd love to, but... I think... You have better things to do than bother with little old me and my curiosity."
Lloyd fought hard to keep the disappointment from his face. Especially since she was right, and he did have things to do. But that wasn't going to stop him from giving her a good aerial view of the Yggdrasill. And they were so close already...
"I really hate to do this, especially as we're already past it, but... There was a village back there, near the coast. You asked me where I wanted to go..."
"It's perfectly fine," Lloyd told her. "And... it gives me an excuse to mimic a vulture for a few minutes."
"...Mimic a vulture...?"
Lloyd chuckled and shot into a thick fog, the mana around him giving him more than enough warning of potential obstacles. He knew it would clear rather quickly, and the view of the Yggdrasill's valley...
The woman's gasp, the unadulterated wonder in her voice, told Lloyd that this had been worth it.
"My goodness... I've never seen a tree so large..."
Lloyd smiled. "That... is the Yggdrasill, the source of all mana in the world. I'm its last mortal guardian... Which is why Thor cannot be allowed to fire the mana cannon. The sheer amount of mana that a single shot would require could very well kill the tree outright."
"I see..." A pause as they flew another wide arc over the valley, and then, as Lloyd shifted and headed back north toward the village she'd pointed out, she spoke again. "Thank you."
"You're quite welcome."