"I will not let you win so easily. I will use my full strength, as is just and proper."
Like the watching, beady eyes of an eagle he gazed, sharp and hard on the weary group that stared with tense jaws and aching forms. Velvet, who still knelt before them all with the concerned Laphicet aside, held the look of an entire conflagration inside the golden sheen of her vacant orbs; wincing at the many panging wounds to seal into scars across her figure, helped only by the young malak's caring hand and soothing artes. Just behind, the pair of frontline warriors stood, teeth gritted with grips firm on each armament.
Artorias's chilling irises gleamed.
"Aid me, Innomniat!"
The gilded cloak of white, gold and azure had its bristling back to the throne itself, and with this rallying shout did the Shepherd raise his valiant blade skyward; aligned with the mysterious sigil hanging above the decored chair below. And in the sword's piercing thrust aloft, did the tip burst into a manifesting swirl of golden energy, akin to summoning the blazing sun itself. Its auric tendrils flailed about like lapping waves across the engraved chamber, and in its celestial wake, did every bruise - every deadly incision enacted across this royal figure - disappear.
"His wounds have vanished!" the Samurai yelled out with widened eyes beneath his waving bangs. To his side, the Reaper dashed forth, disbelief present in his own pair of icy blues at the godlike display.
"Such power... is it really...?!"
"That is CHEATING!" And so came the shout of a disgruntled Witch, who had similar leapt ahead adjacent to the sighing half-malak that stared with lidded eyes of exhaustion.
"Why did I go along with this..."
Laphicet's verdant pearls were bewitched by something above, even as his palms remained hued by the comforting teal for the seething daemoness, a particular tether jerked his attention - his very soul - to the mysterious sigil that was emblazoned to the chamber's wall, and the twisting orb of light settled at the Saviour's sword. It pulsed with invisible waves of a heavenly mana, a pair in tandem. "Wh-Why do... I...?!"
Badum... badum...
"I remember you... that night..." Velvet's boiling gaze convulsed within the widened sclera, ears blotting out all meaningless sound, as the war-drum of a heart that smashed against ribcage thudded again and again. Her knuckles clenched to a trembling ferocity. "...That terrible night!"
And all of a sudden, with a blinding flash, came an aggressive gust of sheering winds, booming throughout the Throne. It lashed past in seconds, slamming against each member of the group with an unstoppable force. Even in their desperate defense to defy this auric storm, one by one, the grip steadily slipped from their squeaking boots. Magilou was first, suddenly soaring back with a cry as a hand instantly attempted to catch her foot. Nevertheless, it was useless, as the ornate claw soon clutched air, and Sarid was carried away next after passing a gritted curse. Rokurou's attempt to grasp the half-malak was fruitless, as both him and the grunting Eizen were soon swept away in the aureate wake.
Velvet's hold on the young Laphicet was deadly, but even she could not stay embedded in the face of this rushing wave, and the pair was blasted back too. The golden light faded, and each member crashed hard upon the ground; the Witch slamming rough to the marble and the Hunter following suit, and the Samurai's rolling landing still leaving a pulsing pain to pair with the Pirate's hurried realignment. The boy crashed into the arms of a steadily standing Sarid, sending both back to the stone, while the snarling Therion dug her veiled limb harsh into the earth to a still.
With heaving breaths and trembling forms, the group painfully pushed to try and stand up straight once more, with only the groaning half-breed remaining flat upon the worn and battered marble below.
"More... More healing..." Velvet ruggedly panted out, the first to wrench herself to a stand, yet every limb screamed against her brazen will, and the girl could barely move. Laphicet crawled to her side, the unfaltering strength she displayed willing him to push out his artes once more, and soothing the searing discomfort still pumping across the daemon's flesh.
But, even he could see the useless energy they would expend trying to defeat this unbeatable foe. "It's impossible! We have to run!"
Lungs burned, beating tirelessly with exertion, and as the band finally pulled themselves up to bear once more; a stone-cold statement - devoid of emotion - seemingly cemented their fate.
"You won't escape this time!"
Eyes snapped to the Throne entrance, and much to the group's dreadful dismay, there they stood. Uniforms fastened in gilded white, and prideful expressions with zero weighted emotion. Praetors: Oscar, Teresa, Eleanor, and the elder Legate: Melchior. The eyes of this great exorcist met with the narrowed ones of the Witch, an unsuspecting clash of contempt between the two devastating arte-wielders.
"Great... here come the all-powerful preachers..."
The lazed remark of a fatigued and fed up Hunter was the first to oppose the new arrivals, and the defenseless Eleanor stomped forward with a twitch in her verdant eyes; brandishing a new yet unrefined spear to the side of her brethren. She jutted the shining tip towards the hunched half-malak, and spat out words of distaste. "That's 'Praetors' to you, Barloc-"
"-I don't care..."
Sarid's weary gaze fell away with a roll of violet and a flick of his hand, and at the name brashly stated, the lone silver eye of Melchior flicked to the crest adorned on the man's coat, and huffed with a stroke of his long, grey beard.
Finally, did this infamous yet ever-so mysterious Legate step forth from the illusory shadows. And each expression and miniscule mannerism bespoke of the composure and arcane knowledge held within the confines of his mind.
He was an elderly man, with fair skin and well-maintained grey facial hair: a full beard and large moustache. The attire he adorned was befitting of his status, and the grand Abbey; a long beige coat flecked with gilded ornaments, black trousers leading to charcoal boots with a similar auric embroidery and a large, widely brimmed hat tilted slightly aside. Beige at the bottom, and teal atop it, the colour was also mirrored upon a sash bound about the waist. Lastly, only his right sly and silver eye that seemed to analyse all, was apparent, the other having been veiled with a stringless eyepatch.
Oscar, who marched to the forefront of this group, eyed the young and unruly red-headed Praetor to his right carefully, before the single green orb snapped forward to gaze with stern brows at the still tensed Shepherd. The other half of the man's face beneath coiling strands of blonde, was wrapped in bandages, a reminder of his humiliating defeat at the hands of an uncaged Velvet.
"I beg your pardon, Lord Artorias." The young man approached with a formal salute at his chest; an enclosed fist firmly planted against his heart. "I had assumed Master Shigure was attending you. The failure is mine."
Rokurou's attention snapped up with a gasp.
"Shigure is out training," the Shepherd stated with a twinge of distaste, the longsword pronounced at his palm still humming with an iridescent gold. "Besides, that man would like to see my blood spilled more than anyone."
Each unruly member of the group pulled themselves together with the final trickles of pumping breath beginning to fade, and gazed deep into the new arrivals. And yet, the battered daemoness still remained stunned and weak upon the marbled stonework. Equipment rustled with a gritted huff, and the Samurai's sharp stare narrowed at the statement. "Same as ever..." he growled lowly.
"Bah," the mysterious Melchior spat with a disappointed frown. "He thinks only of himself. Look what happened with Aifread."
"So YOU are Melchior," the Reaper grunted out with hostile icy eyes, the stare stabbing down at the elderly Legate bespoke of chilling intention.
Tension raised high akin to the waves of a swirling, stormy sea; the vivid gleam of poised steel glinting in the brazen torch flame. But below, in the silence of halted breath and waiting words, the current of air rushed faster with every dreadful moment.
Badum-badum-badum-badum
Her blood boiled beneath the scarred and beaten skin, the anticipating pound of the drum trapped by bones was almost painful. Pounding against the weak walls of flesh, clawing like a ravenous beast. Velvet's very fingers tore into the ground itself as they coiled into a wrathful fist.
Pupils snaked to the daemon that seethed on her knees, while the once assisting Laphicet crept away with an expression of bewildered caution, and worry. Instinctual, was his minute retreat, as the dark fingers of an unsettling force trickle upon the ground she wreathed.
Artorias gripped the gilded blade tight to his form. It's newly arcane aura that surrounded the steel was sparking with an unsettling auric.
Velvet's breaths ran sharp, and blazed hot. She lifted up the tensed limb...
Crack!
Launched it into the marble she knelt upon. The planted fist racked the stone with crumbling webs all around, a great crack surrounding the angry epicentre. It splintered the harrowing reflection to shards. Silence. Screeching upon ruinous rock did her boots grind, as trembling legs shrieked and pushed: forcing this abused body that rumbled with rage to a stand. Parched lips parted slow, with the wisps of cold words on a river of fire.
"I... would tear you limb... from limb, splay the gore... of your heartless body all over this throne. Devour... the very flesh that remains, for what you have done." Velvet's gaze was vacant, empty and void, as the golden pearls sat trained upon the Shepherd ahead. No other sound registered in the vast abyss that clouded her mind. "And you think... another has any right, to despise you more than me...?" The Therion's beastly appendage rumbled beneath veiling cloth, harmed, yet hungry. The nails poised like dripping fangs, and her boots steadily scraped across the wounded rubble below. "No, Artorias... he isn't the one to kill you." All the woman saw - this wronged and tortured sister - was red. And even the great and unshakeable Saviour Artorias, was caught off-guard by the monstrosity he had created.
"I am."
Stomp!
The steel footwear crashed into the ground, leg muscles tensed with her feral snarl. Until suddenly, a noble staff - emblazoned with gold and a royal sigil atop it - was thrust betwixt the daemon's sights and the Saviour.
"Master Artorias! Allow me to quiet this daemon."
The Praetor Teresa planted herself between the wrathful beast and her target, the confidence of reason against this feral foe empowering her will. With a flick of her hand and a shine of pristeen teal light, out forth was her malakhim summoned; Number One, all that remained of her once powerful pair.
"Out... of my way!" The bitter roar of the daemoness came with a visceral leap, who pounced with a bristle of wind and shake of stone. Even with the vengeful strength that blazed within, the wounds she bore weighed heavy; and Velvet's lunge was uncoordinated, and reckless.
"Learn your place, you abominable daemon!"
The staff twirled behind eloquently, with biting winds of a rushing cold uprooted from the rune of blue below, brushing the woman's long blonde hair and extravagant dress. The cold, calculating and despondent Number One followed the exorcist's example up front, and out before them came a barrage of twinkling icicles that stabbed out from the ether.
Velvet made no effort to evade this grand spell, and with arms splayed before herself, the assaulting ice lashed against her front. And yet, the taste of vengeance fanned the flames of an unreasonable and unstoppable heart.
The malakhim's lifeless orbs widened, and a merely half-awakened claw - encircled by twisting bandages with its abyssal shape of black and crimson - came ripping through the shards of azure. Blood streaked, both through the heavy air and between lips as Velvet struck upwards, the meek flesh of this manipulated soul torn through like butter. And so he soared above, a gnarly claw wound lacerated deep across his arm. The body fell, clacking to the ground, alive yet injured with the boy's sharp gasps. The daemoness made to pounce once more through the hail of trickling shards, but her body did not adhere.
Velvet's cry rung loud and dire, as a shockwave of scorching flame sent the Therion flailing back earthward, unmoving at the side of Laphicet's frightened eyes.
His blonde strands hung low, as his widened verdant irises shifted across the marred body; decorated with scratches, bruises, cuts and gouges. Attire somehow torn even moreso, and the wristblade unreactive; worn and broken. Crimson trickled from between the once rosy and young lips, and immediately the boy's palms darted outwards with the twinkle of a comforting green showering the woman's body once more. Already the manifesting claw had slunk back within its veil, barely holding the strength to feast upon the blood it had carved. Moments passed, and Velvet's fingers twitched to life again.
"I'm not... finished..."
The comforting aura faded, the seeping hue of a calming viridescent vanishing from the young malak's hands. The injuries had barely mended.
"Why?"
A golden eye twitched open, it's slight glint seen beneath the long black eyelashes. It struggled to remain.
"Doesn't it hurt? Aren't you in pain?"
The boy was in distress.
"Why, Velvet? Why do you go on fighting?"
The auric glow in the woman's eyes had faded, an almost dead and empty beige in its place as she gazed on.
"Because... Laphicet knew so much more pain than I ever will... And still, I... I couldn't do anything for him..."
His vision glazed over with a wetness, dotted and blurred as the green pearls trembled. Tears welled up, and as the weakened daemon spoke, each word seeped from the dark heart that kept what humanity remained locked away. Emotion willed one last movement, and Velvet's hand fell to the boy's, vision flashing with the two Laphicet's her life relied on.
"I'm sorry..." she whimpered, "I'm sorry..."
"Velvet..."
Far behind, the look of a red-headed exorcist grew conflicted and soft, a grimace born in eyes of verdant.
Click, click...
Heels stomped their way, until the young Laphicet found the tip of a staff pointed to him from above; with the holder bearing a disappointed and contemptuous expression as she glared down her nose. "Colluding with daemons... Number Two, your punishment should be severe."
Eyes narrowed, the boy poised himself before the staff: defiant as he matched the glowering stare. However, as she made to speak once more, orbs flicked, and the young malak shrank back with a motion of surprise. Teresa could catch the shout of warning from her brother, but lacked the swiftness to turn in time.
Crack!
The Praetor was abruptly flung aside with a searing pulse of discomfort across her body. A lash of wind, whipping fast and true to rip away the danger from the child and the defenseless daemon.
Crisp white swayed, and landed in place of the manipulative woman; tufts of flowing snow and the glimmer of gold came with his comforting smile. The crested crown of stars bristled at his back and peck. Sarid landed with a grunt, immediately stilling to a kneel over the heavily wounded Velvet as Laphicet watched: tentative. Sword planted aside, the half-malak hummed in thought as he scoured, before turning to the remaining band that watched. His smile twisted, and the man frowned with a nod.
"Get out of here. I'll be right behind you!"
Far off the flank, Eizen aptly shook his head in return, a knowing look present in his deflated expression.
"I know that look, half-breed, don't do anything stupid!"
Before tensing with a clench of fists and steel armaments of the Samurai at his left; they suddenly took off towards the entrance with the shouting Magilou at their heels. Escape would not be easy, but a brute-force retreat was all they had left.
Sighting this desperate escapade, Oscar scowled with a shout as they dashed right past the encroaching Praetor; braced and ready in the face of Legate Melchior Mayvin, and the malak-less Eleanor that stepped behind with a grimace. The elder's lone eye flicked to the young Praetor's, completely calm and composed.
Oscar's arm raised, as did the still downed Teresa, and a trio of teal glimmers flashed across the grand chamber, landing with a blinding shine before the retreating group. Out from the midst of azure, came a duo of swordsman malakhim to oppose and a lone spellcaster; two of Oscar Dragonia and one of Teresa Dragonia. And to strengthen this deadly opposition, the watching Melchior behind flicked a casual arm, and a great glimmer of bellowing crimson runes hued these malakhim, raising their power.
The infamous Reaper merely huffed in his sprint, and as Rokurou dashed past with the carving glint of his blades, Eizen sprung above and snatched the neck of a foolish swordsman in one fell swoop. He pulled back the struggling body with a grunt, and from the earth below: an amber chain ripped out and coiled about the Pirate's arm. A fierce roar, and he yanked the chain to pull himself earthward, smashing the malakhim right into the marble with a thundering crash!
Near the front of the Empyrean's Throne, the half-breed and young malak watched this violent counter-attack with tense figures.
"It's the only one I got..."
Laphicet gazed at Sarid in concern, confusion dotting the innocent features as his verdant pearls snapped between the stern Hunter and the barely shifting Therion. The boy gazed in silence, as the half-breed tried futily to lift the woman, her gasps of agony while crimson dripped from the cloth she bore bringing a grimace to his face. Low and numerous curses wisped from Sarid's lips, before he sighed weary. His now stained hands - matted red - slipped from beneath Velvet's body, and he looked up to the panicking boy; the softest look he could garner present on his face.
"Laphicet," the half-malak firmly addressed, "I know this will be hard, but do as I say." Before the young malakhim could even speak, his hand settled onto the boy's shoulder with a comforting pat. "Not as an order, but as a friend."
Laphicet hesitated briefly, until he nodded confidently, bringing a smirk to the Hunter's lips.
"I will!"
"Attaboy. Now, Velvet can barely even speak, much less run. While the others try and make an opening, I need you to heal her up best you can." Digging into the leather sachel still present at his right thigh, Sarid brought out a small pouch from within. "Use any Apple Gels you need, cover up those wounds, try and get her moving." Dropping the light bag full of small wrapped gel spheres into the palm of the boy's hand, the half-malak immediately gripped the hilt of his weapon plunged into the stone.
"But, Sarid..." Laphicet began, even as he took one of the lime orbs from inside the bag and began to slather the gel across each wound, his worried irises stayed trained on the Hunter that prepared to buy them time. The sharp tinge of a sour yet sweet apple fragrance filled the air. "What about you?"
The man's serious look was doused with confidence, a final smirk breaking the tension as he winked. "I'll be all right, just gotta deal with some third-rate Praetors."
Laphicet felt a small smile grow himself, yet as the beautiful green glimmer trailed from his palms once more with the boy's sharp face of concentration, a sudden movement snatched Sarid's wrist.
Violet flicked downwards, and the lone feminine fingers of a pale human hand - trembling with exertion - gripped his arm like a vice. Velvet's faded auric orbs had pried open the hefty eyelids, casting an almost pleading look across to the bewildered Hunter.
Sarid's stern look faded once more, as he relented with a great, fatigued sigh. Ornate hand creeping to the daemon's own, he spared a grin that shone as the sun one final time. "It's nothing, really."
The scent of crackling mana whisked the air, and his grip tightened, and pulled. Pulling Velvet's hand away, and snatching up the resting blade aside. It sung its deadly song as it swung.
Crackle, bwoom!
With a twirling strike, the faithful steel batted away the incoming arte of darting lightning into the wall, cratering its pious insignia. Even as the chaotic battle for escape waged behind, exorcist Praetor: Oscar Dragonia strolled stalwart from the line, valiant blade brought to bear where he encroached. And, from the left, did at last the exorcist Praetor: Teresa Dragonia saunter, the still injured yet unfaltering Number One briskly walking at her side.
And from before the throne itself, Artorias Collbrande gazed with evaluating icy eyes, longsword still wreathed in its mysterious gilded glow. The reverent sigil above hummed with pulpisating power.
"Said your goodbyes, traitor?" Teresa spat from the flank, stalking down the Hunter that now stepped away from the glistening healing star, trekking to the centre between these two Praetors. He made no comment, idly rolling his shoulder as his blade slung to screech into his scabbard. "Your death will not be swift for your transgressions against humanity."
"Sister," Oscar warned from the other side, wary of this heightened emotion she displayed. Faceless, and calculating did the boy appear as he walked, unreadable as he stilled upon a place; bearing his longsword before himself in a cross as he calmly inhaled. "You are a strong warrior, and yet you fight for evil. What wills you Barlocs to side yourselves with monsters-"
However, even despite this side compliment, the single accusation that insulted an entire lineage sparked a twinge of tension to grip Sarid's jaw. "The Barlocs fought monsters, son," the half-malak snidefully remarked, both to the truth and the young Praetor's age.
Oscar's lone eye of verdant narrowed slightly, almost glaring at the crest proudly flared upon Sarid's coat.
The half-breed's fingers trailed across his belt, finding the notches of four remaining kunai for the upcoming battle. It will have to do.
Whoosh!
A gilded staff twirled, and a proud longsword cried, to the calling sound of a flailing breeze; bindings of roping wind snaking betwixt dual-kunai. The Praetor's felt the boney fingers of nervous hesitance begin to crawl as the Barloc brought out his signature - and abnormal - weapon to bear. As the gales of anticipation sailed through the air, Sarid's violet pearls flicked once back to what he raised his blade for, and against no more: calamity. And, the young, innocent malakhim she so carefully and deeply cared for. The spitting image of a brother she lost.
Two pairs of hopeful green, and a voided vulnerable gold clung to his pair of lavender. He turned away.
"Let's get this over with..." Sarid dryly stated with a fed-up narrow of brows, holding the bundle close to the kunai-hilt with his middle finger. The connecting wind was firmly pulled taut, and the brisk chill of ice came swift.