Chapter 133: Towns-end

Byleth was barely aware of the teleportation as it was in progress, as with all times she had been moved, but she was aware of when it all came to a crashing halt.

Her face cracked against something solid and she recoiled away from it, blinking in a mixture of shock and surprise as she tumbled down. Whatever was under her - the ground, she would have assumed - was a rolled and smooth surface as she fell forwards, twisting around and blinking to see what was going on.

She was rolling, was a fact she was quickly coming to grips with, and she was tumbling down right the way until she spied the blue sky above her head and the greenery of the world around her. All of which collided with the muddy brown which she rolled across, her hands clawed out and dug in to try and slow her momentum.

Fingers curled and her nails tore into what lay under her.

Then her arms went taut as she slid to a halt.

For a few simple blinks, there was a sense of bewildering silence that greeted her as she tried to wrap her head around what had just happened. Looking left and right revealed very little for the time being.

And then shapes started to fly right the way past her, she jolted and stared at the rather loud shape until she realised it was a person. A knight rolled past her and screamed in panic all the while, soon to be followed by another dozen or so of the same people to her left and right.

They were on some sort of steep incline, or approaching the final curve of what she thought might have been a hill except it was smooth. Almost too smooth, her mind told her, and she twisted about and threw herself onto her front, turning her eyes up to the sky and spotting the remainder of their fighting force which included the students, tumbling head over heels towards her.

Which she paid less attention to than the tower knight who looked more like a falling mass of metal echoing a cry.

She pushed out of the way, her legs struggled to find purchase on anything so she whipped her hand across to the knife on her belt and drew it, spinning it about and thrusting it down as hard as she could-

It bounced off.

Confusion was felt and then swiftly followed by the impact of the mass of metal slamming into her. It didn't hurt so much as it was deeply uncomfortable and rather unpleasant to be bowled over, flipping over the top of the man as her legs were swept out from underneath her and her face pressed against incline.

Then she was tumbling again, back and forth for what might have been a good three or four seconds.

Sothis would know.

Before what was probably one of the most unpleasant experiences of her life came to a rather sudden and abrupt end, crashing onto her back and laying there in the grass and looking up. She blinked and sat up swiftly, thuds and pained groans echoed all around her as she spied the last of the force come tumbling off…

What looked like a large hill.

A large hill that was impossibly smooth, like an upturned bowl.

Her eyes snapped to the flash of green which had been the final arrival and she was on her feet, holding herself in a crouch before kicking off the earth and into a leap. Except it turned out to be rather unnecessary, before she was even halfway towards the loud presence of Flayn, there was already a second figure who dropped down upon her and snatched her out of the air.

Byleth caught the single moment in which Rhea crouched at an awkward angle, Flayn held in her arms, before she leaped away from the dome, soaring through the sky for a second or two before making a rather smooth landing.

Now rather determined not to make her jump a waste, she spotted another tumbling figure and changed course for them, hitting the incline she thrust her fingernails down and somehow managed to secure a grip, clambering up in something like a frog, she cleared the distance and caught Catherine as she fell into her, wrapping her arms around the woman and pushing backwards into a flip.

It was a rather smooth motion, Catherine making a noise all the while, and then she hit the ground with straight legs.

Neither of them said anything as she stared to Catherine held in her arms and Catherine stared back at her with something like a mixture of shock and growing mortification?

Byleth didn't quite understand why she was being stared at like that.

"Are you alright?" Opting to ignore it, she tilted her head and asked the more pressing question.

Catherine just stared at her, then gave a single and rather curt nod of the head.

She did not appear injured, so that was fortunate.

Flipping her over, she set Catherines feet on the ground first and then stepped away from her, letting the knight find her balance as she rather swiftly stepped back and looked at her with a raised brow. For a few moments it appeared to Byleth as if Catherine was going to say something, but then decided against it.

Raising a fist, she coughed into it and then glanced away.

"Thanks for…uh…the catch."

Byleth nodded. "You're welcome."

"Wwwwooooaaaaa-huh?"

She turned to the sound, watching the final knight roll the length of the incline before he somehow - through what she could only describe as a turn of luck - shifted at just the right moment so that he landed on his feet. He appeared about as shocked of this as one would have expected, stepping away from the dome for a couple steps, then turned his head and looked up.

"...That's definitely Goetia's fault." He said with such certainty and…and did she know him?

He sounded familiar.

The thought was swiftly dismissed as she turned from Catherine and the knight, raising her voice.

"Injuries?"

Some groans met her ears and some muffled calls but she couldn't quite see anyone who was in pain, yet it had only been a few seconds and everyone was still likely to be dazed. Making her way to the centre of the mass - where a majority of the students were - she leaned down and started to pull them apart from one another, throwing her hands into the mess of tangled limbs.

"I did not have the time to cancel the barrier to prevent further teleportation."

Byleth did not need to turn as a tiny weight fell on her shoulders, barely even glancing the way of Flauros as the words tumbled from their beak.

It was hard to think of it as Goetia speaking through the bird as much as the bird was just talking to her.

"Though I have prevented fatalities. I am using Flauros to dictate the fuelling of spells beyond the barrier at the moment."

Opening her mouth to speak-

"An advanced form of multi-tasking."

And her mouth promptly closed.

"Do not inquire further at this time, I do not have the necessary time to explain it. Reform your numbers and heal any minor ailments before you even consider trying to achieve anything. Once you have control of yourselves, Flauros will direct you as is needed. Until then, I shall return to-"

He went silent.

That was rather concerning for her, she turned to the bird at the same time she yanked Raphael to his feet with a rather shocked grunt escaping him as she lifted him off the ground with ease. Though she wasn't quite sure what he was so shocked about, nor why he was staring at her with such clear surprise.

Flauros was no longer looking at her, instead their head was turned to the dome and the smalls of their pupils contracted into pinpricks.

She did not even get the chance to ask what was going on before there was a sudden flash of light right in her face, stumbling backwards as though she had received a rough shove and from the gasps and shouts of surprise, she was not alone. Lifted off her feet and dropped back down, she stumbled back a couple steps before looking up towards the dome once more.

Only to find that a thin wall had formed between them, like bronze glass it settled there and she stared with only a tilted head at it.

"Wait…"

Sothis appeared somewhere behind her, a sudden edge in her voice.

It was all the warning Byleth got before the outer face of the dome turned a brilliant shade of yellow, burning so bright it was almost like the sun. It was about shoulder length wide and erupted outwards with a splash of burning gold, spilling to the ground and setting it alight the moment it touched grass.

Byleth stepped away from it but that alone was not the sole focus, that went to the stream of light which burst forth and slammed into the bronze tinted barrier. Screeching as it lashed against it only for the direction to change rapidly, swinging upwards without warning and then spinning back and forth, zig-zagging wildly and in all directions before finally pointing straight up and thinning out.

The moment it did so, the stone which had been split open knitted back together like soft clay, reforming and looking as though it had never been damaged.

It lasted no more than mere seconds, yet something about the movement struck her as alarming.

If she were to compare it to anything…

It would have been to the head of a spear if someone else had grabbed it and the two grappled.

Her eyes swung to Flauros, the bird let out a soft exhale and glanced at her.

That told her everything she needed to know.

"...How bad?"

"It is problematic." Flauros said, which she figured what Goetia's way of saying that it was downright terrible. "The reaction speeds of the demonic beast - no, the Phantasmal creature - have increased exponentially. I believe it is slowly adapting to my own enhanced reflexes. I can outpace it at times, but those require prior distractions."

There was a hesitant pause, then further words tumbled out.

"The citizens have been driven into a frenzy and someone else has commandeered my bounded field, preventing me from employing debilitating tactics to slow them down. They are distractions to me at best, but ample enough to obstruct me against the phantasmal beast."

Byleth nodded her head slowly. "So if the villagers were subdued first?"

"If they were distracted, I could focus on the Phantasmal entirely." Flauros agreed, then ruffled his feathers in a rather displeased manner. "Though that option would lead to a considerable loss of life on both parties, according to my own estimations."

Byleth tilted her head. "What are the chances of you winning without it?"

It was incredible, she thought, that his signature scowl could somehow transfer the bounds of different races and he could manage it even with a bird that did not even have lips.

It must have been something with the eyes.

"I said only that it was problematic, not that I was incapable of securing victory."

With a shake of the head, she cast one final look at the dome before she turned around and marched to their combined forces, leaning down and gripping the closest person to her by their shoulder and yanking them to their feet.

"Get everyone else up." She ordered and did not wait to see if they would carry it out, instead she looked to where Catherine had run too - because that would be where everyone else was gathering - and quickly spotted her in a small gathering which included a rather strained looking Rhea and an obstinate looking Flayn.

"...It is unwise to bring Flayn here." Flauros remarked into her ear. "They have enough intellect to prioritise her as a vulnerable target and the quality of her magical energy is far beyond most others. In comparison to either yourself or Rhea, they would prioritise her first."

So they were smart but in a sense of being like some sort of wolf pack?

That was how Goetia alluded to them as being intelligent, so she would figure there was something to work with there, however.

"She is part of my class." Byleth replied instead, "She wanted to come."

"I have no doubt she did." Flauros snapped. "That does not make it-"

"It's done now." She cut him short, then raised a brow. "Unless you're going to send her back?"

Far from doubting that he was capable of that, he met her gaze for a few moments then sharply turned away with that ever present scowl in his little birdy eyes. She was struck with the odd temptation to pat his little head just to see what he would do, or if he was even Flauros or Goetia at the moment.

Maybe he was both?

Maybe she could ask later.

Raising her head, she looked to the others and came to a stop, most were still picking themselves up, Catherine made a half turn towards her and then eyed the little bird and grunted with a jerk of the chin.

"Tweeting anything useful?" It was hard not to notice the way her eyes were drawn over Byleth's shoulder and towards the direction where the spear of light had sliced through the dome and reached upwards. Not that she blamed Catherine for being uneasy about that display.

She was uneasy about it as well.

Byleth nodded slowly. "He's having problems."

She received a singularly blank look.

Elaborating, Byleth gestured over her shoulder. "The big monster he's fighting is getting better at fighting him and he's splitting his attention between it and the villagers. He's trying not to kill any of them at the moment, but someone keeps interfering."

"Someone?" Catherine narrowed her eyes, "What someone?"

Byleth could only shrug because she doubted Goetia knew either.

"There is more."

Flauros declared, which was enough to draw eyes.

"Efforts to override the bounded field are being met with no success." He spoke further, but his tone made that seem like quite a big deal.

More as though he never even thought someone could do something like that.

"By my current estimations, I could override the external influence if I was able to use my full power. However, that would require me to shift my attention away from the Phantasmal Beast for a long enough period of time to counter efforts to obstruct my work."

Flauros turned his head, looking at her directly.

"I cannot achieve such things in the current conditions."

To her it sounded like he was making a few problems for himself just so he could avoid killing the villagers. Which was very nice and she wasn't going to criticise or point that out to him. Quite where this determination to keep them alive had come from was not something she knew about, but she was hardly going to complain.

"So you need a distraction then." She remarked with a tilt of the head, jerking her chin towards the dome. "So open it up for us."

"So that you would-"

"If I might interject for a moment." Sothis interrupted, not that anyone would have heard her. Flauros gave a brief twitch. "Do I not recall some conversation in the past about non-lethal traps?"

Byleth blinked very slowly, then looked down at Flauros.

They both, in turn, looked across and found their eyes sweeping over the mass of students and knights before they finally landed on a couple of individuals in particular. Eyes narrowing very slightly.

Yes, she did very much recall the conversation.

And now she had a very good plan.

"You're welcome." Sothis huffed.

Swiftly turning to Catherine, she raised her hand. "Get everyone to get into formation around the dome. The students are going to lay down some traps for when the villagers come rushing out. We're going to need to find a way to stop them from floating away into the sky…and probably knock them out."

"I can establish counter forces from above them and keep them contained in the sky." Flauros intoned. "So long as they remain out of my path, it is no concern of mine. I will then be able to divert my complete focus onto the Phantasmal beast."

Catherine looked more than a little confused, admittedly she probably had no idea what they were talking about, then gave a single sharp nod of the head before she broke away from them and ran across, raising her voice loud enough that everyone would have been able to hear them.

Probably everyone in the neighbouring town as well.

She had a very strong set of lungs.

"Kid."

Byleth turned, father was striding towards her with a passing glance at Catherine before looking at her.

"Sounds like you have a plan?"

She nodded.

He gave a grunt. "Alright, tell me what needs to be done."

The diamond shield shattered under the weight of the fist.

Air splintered and rushed forth, gaping wounds tore through the body of the creature and came rather close to tearing its head clean off its shoulders. Yet, irritably enough, that did not seem to end its life quickly enough for him.

Blasted back and stomping down, the wounds were undone swiftly, eyes flared and his next spell shattered from the overload against it. Goetia clicked his tongue and imagined holding out his hand to the side, a palm shape formed as the spikes of Tomas struck and once again, proved little more than a hindrance to him.

Perhaps not even that.

He was running out of patience for that one.

The earth toiled and obeyed, ripping itself open at the barest nudge from him and launching spikes directly for the former librarian. Goetia did not bother to see if they landed or not, he heard the grunt of alarm and knew their attention had shifted from himself. So instead he expanded his senses across and into the grass below him.

He took hold of the strands and pulled, the moisture - the water in the plant life - was wrenched completely from it, turning to pale yellow in a single moment. He twisted and drew the water in close, spinning it around himself as a ring, turning again and facing the beast, he froze the water solid in a wall around him.

Without even the twitch of an eye, inch wide chunks of his wall were freed and hurtled towards the beast, striking it with thunderclaps. The reverberation of sound almost tempted him to shut down his hearing, but he endured it with lower volume instead. Watching the scales and armour plates shatter under the continued bombardment.

At least until the beast stomped down, digging their clawed feet into the ground, and raising their hands above their head. It was a sharp intake of breath and the sudden pull on magical energy - not just from himself but from all things around them - that caused him to feel some minor element of disquiet as he saw the muscles flex and bulge.

Melting the water once more, he ducked down and hunkered himself on one knee, the water spread over him and coated his body completely. In the next instant, the warms swung down like hammers right into the earth. A terrible crack rang loud, the ground splintered and tore open in every direction from the epicentre.

It was an instant thing, spreading out and forming gaping chasms which ran nearly the length of the village, shoulder width apart and nearly the depth of the average height of a human male. The lack of control, fortunately enough, worked to his own benefit as the villagers were either sent sprawling through the air or dropped down into the holes and became caught.

A minor moment of relief where his one foe was the Phantasmal.

Shedding his hydro-based armour, he gathered it up and applied super concentrated pressure before holding the orb before him. The image of a fist formed at he forefront of his mind, the sphere of water reflected as the indentations of fingers started to press into it, disturbing the otherwise perfect surface.

With a hold that grew tighter and tighter, the water sphere steamed and boiled, turning from crystal clear into one of deep clouds. The imaginary fist closed over the water and gripped tight. Such a pressure exuded that the water was ejected from the few gaps he allowed in the invisible barrier.

A pressure that far exceeded anything else propelled the water at the speed of sound.

It was a deadly silence.

The distance between them, well over a dozen metres, was nothing.

The phantasmal roared and staggered back, the beams of water tore clean holds through its body in mere moments. Dissipating them the moment they entered the bloodstream and dispersing them about. It was a rapid process and keeping the water at boiling temperatures proved an additional hindrance to the creature, it snarled and clawed at its own body, steam rising away.

He dropped the temperature of the water instantly, freezing it solid and yanking out.

Spikes erupted from every angle of the body, pushing their way out and to the surface, blood poured out as they fell backwards with a sputtering gasp, not quite falling to their knees just yet. He felt through the body until he happened upon the heart, and yet there was something that was different.

Alarming.

He pushed further in an effort to grasp the core and…found his efforts repulsed.

There was a barrier around the core, preventing it from suffering damage.

Goetia narrowed his eyes and applied more power to breach the-

A weight slammed into him, he shunted it away but too late he felt the familiar bite against the area of his missing limb. They took barely an ounce - not even a single percent - of his magical energy. In the grand scheme of things, it would have been nothing worth even considering a loss.

But it was a loss.

It was his magical energy being stolen by creatures that were not even true bloodsuckers.

Failed experiments at best.

They were not even useful failures, just mindless creatures that had once been people.

That…was unacceptable.

His eyes swung down to the one responsible for this sudden surge of emotion, face still dirty with his blood.

So he ignited it in the few seconds of control he had left over the blood, flames burst into existence right across their chin and climbed up their nose. He extinguished them just as swiftly but in the time it had taken, half their face had been reduced to nothing more than a mass of scorched bone and blackened dusty flesh.

They were tossed from him by an invisible force and struck the ground far from him.

But that was fine.

Whatever magical energy they stole from him would now be used to repair the damage he had inflicted and keep them alive.

Their wounds were not fatal.

Just incapacitating.

His other thoughts caught up with him, the split conversation he had flooded back into his head, turning sharply to the direction of the dome and narrowing his eyes. An intriguing plan, he supposed, and it would rid him of the annoyance of the villagers, allowing him to utilise more devastating attacks upon the phantasmal.

Acceptable.

His approval was broadcast back and he demanded to be informed when the plan would be ready.

In the meantime.

Dirt gathered and rose up, hardening and forming a shield as the shockwave of a blast rang loud and true. Turning his head, he shifted the state of the shield to a liquid and launched it forth, wrapping it around the head and shoulders of the beast and cutting off the air supply. Stepping forwards and sweeping around, he delivered a sharp kick to their gut and removed what air might have been left in their lungs.

The phantasmal flew, he froze them in place with a look and then launched them straight up until they collided with the dome. Igniting his defensive measures and sending thousands - tens of thousands - of volts worth of electricity through their body until they burned bright enough to form a makeshift sun.

Upon which point he diverted their path straight towards the ground like a meteor.

He carted himself away with teleportation, landing beside the still remaining presence of Solon and staring at the back of their head. Evidently their senses were not so great as to even register his presence.

Goetia found his lip curling.

Even Kronya would have had the wherewithal to understand the danger she was in, but she had long since lost whatever trait of arrogance her people had.

Solon, it seemed, would need an education.

"I was content in ignoring you."

The pale skin man whirled around, Goetia twitched his eyes, a rapid expansion of the ground under him sent roots catapulting upwards. Ensnaring the man before he could even complete his turn, leaving him in a rather discomforting position for all of three seconds. Another twitch dragged him face first into the dirt, Goetia looked down his nose at the man, tilting his head.

"But it seems as though you, like all humans, have a penchant for testing boundaries. I made it little secret of my capabilities within the Monastery and still, after my many displays, you felt as though you could somehow challenge me?"

He was not even angry or annoyed.

It was a profound sense of true confusion and perhaps disappointment.

Kronya confronted him only when her cover was blown, both times.

She had made no effort to reveal herself until prompted.

He could not conceive of a single logical reason for Solon to shed his guise of Tomas and come here. Without their presence, he would have never really seen reason to connect the two of them. Yet the arrogance of humans, and their desire to make things personal, seemed to be a universal trait.

Whether of the original race or those remade by Sothis, they acted one in the same.

"Remain there." Goetia glanced up and stepped over the writhing man, their muffled grunts of protest, and presumed insults, fading away to mere background noises as he strode forth for where the phantasmal had made landfall. "I will deal with you when I have the energy to consider you worth my attention."

He would need to consider what would become of Kronya at this point.

Hmph.

Perhaps later.

Flaring his magical energy, an electrified barrier formed around him with a sharp crackle, light burst and rebounded away the first of the bloodsuckers who scrambled to their feet to give chase. He did not so much as spare them a glance as he strode forth, his own magical energy dealing with them as an afterthought.

He would have extended a hand, except he was conserving as much of his energy as possible.

And limbs were, at current, not worth rebuilding.

Mana exploding and ripping asunder what was the town hall had him lean back, the force washed over him before it shifted. As swiftly as the mana had been expelled it was suddenly recalled. Goetia felt his own spells start to shift and change direction, the pull to disperse them was almost as great as his current force keeping them together.

More of his focus when in to maintaining the spell.

The pulling increased as more and more magical energy fuelled the phantasmal.

So he simply expanded the spell rapidly before shutting it down, the single burst movement freed him of any bloodsuckers in the immediate vicinity before he launched himself into the air. Eyes spotting the phantasmal swiftly as it stood in amongst the rubble and ruins of the houses.

It spotted him swiftly, giving a single bellowing snarl before crouching down.

Then it pressed off and threw itself towards him, briefly he saw the shockwave of its powerful jump and the aftermath of flying debris, but he focused more on the beast as it cleared the distance. Accelerating his reaction speeds, he tracked the movement with more ease and brought about a spatial distortion before it.

Proceeding such a thing had been yet another flash of light as a distraction.

Which worked rather easily, passing through the rift, he glanced over his shoulder as a matching one appeared and sent it flying at full speed directly into the wall, blinded and confused, it crashed face first into solid - and enchanted - electrified rock and burst into a crackle of electricity once more, howling in rage.

Except it did not let go.

Goetia frowned at the lack of an effort to free itself, instead it slammed both hands into the wall and held itself, enduring the barrage for what amounted to several seconds longer than he would have expected it to-

The drainage on his field suddenly climbed higher than he anticipated or accounted for.

He grit his teeth, reached out with his mind and yanked it away from him.

The phantasmal was adopting a method which was not far removed from some manner of galvanism.

Except it was converting magical energy, in whatever form it took, into fuel for itself.

He could not begin to contemplate whether this was a biological function or something owing to the nanomachines coursing through its body. Perhaps there had even been further enhancements done to it, or it had done to itself, which allowed this startling development.

With a swift pull from the wall and towards himself, he readied his own-

The mana in the air all but vanished, his spell under him collapsed and he found himself dropping.

It was a transfer that lasted no more than a millionth of a second but had a rate which equaled a dragon.

He saw the build up of light in the back of the phantasmals maw, the surging golden red before it burst forth not as flames, but as pure concentrated magical energy.

…The same sort which he had done.

Had it copied his simple movements?

Without concerning himself further, he drew upon his own reserves and shielded his body, the blinding light slammed into him and he dropped faster towards the ground. Reinforcing his body to endure the impact, the world devolved into nothing more than bright white light and a roaring of churning earth and falling debris.

The smell of flames struck him next.

The dried plant life had evidently ignited.

A crackle met his ears, then a loud popping sound.

His shield collapsed and in a single moment, his vision was whited out by heat and light as the beam surged over him.

Lysithea was working as swiftly as she could, understanding that time was of the essence.

By her side, Leonie was moving at a much slower pace and though it might have annoyed her in some capacity, she understood that there was a lot that could go wrong here and it was of vital importance that nothing did go wrong.

So she stomached the slower pace of her direct peer and focused more on what she was doing.

Another carving in the grass and she pulled her hand back, an inversion of the gravity runes she had been taught. Though she had not used it in this capacity before, and even if she had then she had certainly never used as many as this. Finishing the next once, she moved across to the next point and got down to her knees, carving her finger through the ground and trailing magical energy behind the tip.

"Think he could always do something like that?"

Barely paying attention to the words until she realised they were directed to her, she made a small noise of confusion without turning her head.

Leonie sighed, there was a faint rustle of clothes as Lysithea assumed she was making some sort of gesture that she did not see. Unwilling to turn her head away from her work for fear of making a mistake.

"The big dirt bowl."

Dirt bowl was probably an apt phrase and as for the question itself, there was little that Lysithea could say.

Instead she offered a faint shrug of her shoulders. "It is not as though Teacher has done unimpressive things before today."

"This covers the whole village." Leonie replied back rather swiftly, "He could…he could do the same to my village."

Well, yes, he probably could.

Where was she going with this?

"Do not take your eyes off the runes." She remarked with a stern tone of voice, "We cannot afford to make mistakes."

She finished the next one as she said that and if they had more time to spare, and if she was perhaps more diligent at the moment, she would have inspected what Leonie had achieved and perfected any issues. Though she would have to take her word for it that they had been done properly.

Turning her head, she nodded back to the line behind her before glancing down at Leonie.

Who was still, annoyingly enough, more interested in staring at the large dome of earth than she was at actually doing her job.

Was it impressive? Yes, it was a rather astounding display of power.

But there was a time and a place for such things and being shocked by what Goetia could do at this point would be rather silly. At least as far as she was concerned, with narrowed eyes she reached down and poked the shoulder of the girl hard, earning a jolt and a sharp turn of the head towards her.

"Come on." Lysithea hurried her, "We have to be ready."

"Alright…" The girl breathed a reply, nodding and then speaking louder. "Alright. I'm nearly done here."

Good.

Though she felt some trepidation, mostly at the mere fact she was apparently being called upon to help her Teacher. Though it might not have been in any meaningful capacity - as she understood it, they were putting the villagers in a safe place so he didn't need to do anything about them - it was still something which confirmed in her mind that she was now good enough he could rely on her.

Which was…

…It was a pleasant feeling, she supposed.

It might not have been a reliance upon her by name, but he would have surely known she would be leading the efforts in-

"Hey."

She whirled around at the sudden voice, eyes wide as the brunette from the Black Eagles - Dorothea - placed a hand on her shoulder and started to push her away, eyes flicking to and from the dome. "We should probably get moving so that Gotie can open that thing up for us, you got all your funny symbols down, yes?"

Lysithea would have argued that Dorothea was also using those 'funny symbols' as she called them.

But again, time and place.

With a nod of the head, she glanced as Dorothea ushered the now finished Leonie to her feet with a few choice pulls of the shirt. Something the latter complained about rather loudly as to how she could move on her own. Not that Lysithea would doubt her, but clearly she could not move without gawking every few seconds.

With their group finished, Lysithea moved as fast as she could - which trailed her behind everyone else - until they were upon the front lines which had formed a large semi-circle around the dome. It parted just wide enough that they could all move through before it closed back up.

Lystihea turned back around and stepped back, only pausing when she felt a hand on her shoulder and knew there would be few who were as intruding into her personal space as this one.

"Get your hand off me, Von Riegan." She demanded with cold words.

The hand was lifted away with a chuckle. "Well, I was going to say good luck."

Aiming a side-eye his way, she huffed and folded her arms, turning back to the dome and narrowing her eyes in preparation. Knowing she had done a good job and seeing the fruits of her labour were two entirely different things. Though she now just had to wait until Goetia opened up a gap for the crazed villagers to flood out.

It was…eerily similar to Lonato's uprising.

Her hand drifted towards her chest, fingers trembling before she pulled them away rather swiftly.

Feeling the gaze of someone on the side of her head, she snapped a glare towards Claude and looked him dead in the eyes.

He met her glare without even so much as a flinch, instead it was this long unbroken stare which was wholly unusual for him. Far used to some sort of grin or smirk on his face but this was just nothing.

A complete and total lack of expression.

Then he turned away, breaking the contest first, and edged just a bit closer.

"Sparkles knows what he's doing here." Claude stated the obvious. "And we know what we're getting into this time. So there's going to be no unpleasant surprises."

"I know that." She huffed, looking to the walls of mud.

Why did he have to go and state the obvious like that?

What was he doing?

"You put in a lot of training since then." He continued on, voice almost casual. "So you're a lot tougher now than you were back then."

"I know!" She grumbled back with a bit of heat, fidgeting on the spot.

The wait was getting more irritating as time went on.

Couldn't he just open it up and get it over with?

"Spri-" Von Riegan cut himself off. "Lysithea. You're gonna be fine this time. Everyone worked together here, it's not a mad free for all."

"Will you be quiet already?" Growling, she rubbed her palm against her forehead. "I cannot hear myself think…"

He went silent after that, which was good.

That was good.

It was what she wanted, just for him to not speak at the moment.

When did it get so warm?

"We're ready."

Byleth informed the others after the message was passed along to her, hand resting upon the hilt of her sword and preparing to draw it, but if all went well, there would be no need to do so.

Flauros was silent, her eyes narrowed and she turned to the bird.

It was sitting on her shoulder, a lack of acknowledgement which did not go unnoticed if the slight turning of heads towards her was any indication.

Reaching to her shoulder, the small bird hopped onto her finger, bringing it around to the front, she stared at it and tilted her head ever so slightly. Keeping her narrowed eyes on the bird and speaking again.

"Goetia. We're ready."

Flauros just stared at her blankly.

Would shaking the bird work?

Flauros breathed suddenly and deeply, feathers ruffled and head whirling around to face the outer layer of the dome.

"My focus was distracted for a moment. The preparations appear adequate. I shall-"

"Goetia." Rhea interrupted him, he turned his little birdy head towards her and managed to scowl once again using only his eyes. Something the Archbishop remained unphased by as she stared down at the small bird, if Byleth were to guess what sort of face she was making, it looked a mixture between concern and worry.

"Speak honestly." She said. "How great a threat is this creature to you at current?"

"It is defeatable." He protested, seeing something else in the question. Perhaps the implication of a slight against his abilities. "And without the bloodsuckers and the mage to obstruct my focus, I can divert my attention towards it. All current injuries to this point have been a result of distractions and restrictions laid upon by my own hand."

The feathers smoothed out.

"I could be rid of them all and turn this village into little more than a memory, if you believe my wellbeing is so much more important than the lives of the villagers. Though even if you were to come out and say such-"

Rhea frowned. "Which I would not."

"I am aware." He said. "But I have already made it clear I will make efforts to cure the villagers of their ailments. Such a cure is not found in reducing them to dust in the wind and turning this landscape into molten fire."

Sharply, Flauros turned away and to the dome.

"Now if you are finished with wasting time, we can move on to-"

"Mage." Byleth interrupted, turning to him and frowning at the back of his head. "You said a mage. Is there a mage there?"

"Currently, yes." Flauros replied with a note of exasperation. "Though he is incapacitated and can be interrogated at a later date, if you are so inclined. I can eject him once the villagers have been secured to-"

He went silent.

"...I will open the dome now."

He said, but his tone was more hurried than it had been earlier.

Byleth would have inquired as to why that was, except for the fact she heard something echo rather loudly. It was a sound that was almost like a falling tree, except with a greater intensity. Her head whipped towards the origin of the noise and she spotted it swiftly enough, likely at the same time everyone else did.

A hairline fracture right across the dome, curving up from the base of it to perhaps the halfway point.

It was about as wide as her forearm.

Even as she saw the fracture smooth over, she heard the splintering sound of others forming, like the rumble of a thunderstorm. Some closer than others, she could only assume they were forming right the way across the dome. Suddenly the urgency of Goetia made quite a bit of sense and she wasted little time now.

"Open the dome."

She doubted she needed to give the order, as already the mud was parting as though someone had placed their arm into a waterfall. A gap opened up that was about the width of a door, showing a darkness within. There were sounds, flashes of light, and a deep guttural roar.

It echoed long and loud, a surge of wind from within which she could feel.

As though stood out in a storm, the howl of the animal - it took her some seconds to realise it was an animal - faded away with a sudden flash of light and another cry of what she assumed was pain. At least until it looped over again and again, she understood it was some sort of earth trembling laughter.

Flauros turned to them.

"...I will maintain my connection, but a majority of my resources will be-"

"Do not explain it to us." Rhea interrupted him, "Simply do as you need to."

If Goetia was offended at being told what to do, he said nothing and instead turned his head towards the newly opened door and stared at it.

"...They are attracted to tremendous sources of magical energy." He said, turning his head and looking right into her eyes.

Byleth blinked only once, then nodded her head and glanced across subtly towards Sothis.

The Goddess materialised beside her at that point, arms folded and nodding her head slowly.

"Though I am rather dubious about serving only as some manner of bait." She proclaimed, though it was a rather sarcastic comment, it lacked the same wit she imagined it would have normally. Instead there was a deathly serious tone about her now. "I can agree to this case if it means removing them from harm's way."

Sothis glanced down at her.

"We shall have to maintain it long enough for all of the villagers to depart, from wherever they might be."

Byleth gave another subtle nod.

Then she stepped forwards, rolling her jaw and taking in a deep breath before she closed her eyes.

It was not really something she had ever done before, but it felt like tensing a muscle and then holding it in place.

Except that wasn't quite right, she supposed she had done it before.

But holding it tense for this long became uncomfortable very quickly.

Her ears strained as beyond the roars and the explosions, she heard a very different sound. The thundering of footsteps and a growling like wolves. Except she understood those were of human origin.

The comparison to Lonato's rebels seemed rather apt now, she supposed.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and fixed her sights upon the doorway to Remire.

Silhouettes drew closer and closer with each passing second, vaguely spotting them tumbling over one another as they charged towards the light. She kept herself there and unmoving, waiting until the first of them came leaping out of the entrance and into the light.

Seconds later, a man stepped upon the ground and then tripped as though slipping.

Except he never landed, instead he flailed around - frothing at the mouth - and floating upwards into the sky.

Not to be alone in his sudden prison, dozens came flooding out through the gap, scrambling over one another to get out, and each stepped on the grass before being carted upwards into the air and flailing around. True to Goetia's words, they did not fly too high into the sky and were perhaps no more than half a dozen metres off the ground.

It was a sight that might have been comical to some, she imagined, as she watched them bounce into one another in a fruitless attempt to move in the air. Although she was more struck by the age of some of them, her eyes lingered on children who looked no older than ten or twelve with savage looks in their eyes.

"Can't be many left." She said out loud, finding the tension to be a bit easier now that she was getting into a rhythm.

A small part of her privately wondered if this was what Goetia was always doing, given the way he moved, but then she imagined what he did was very different.

More came tumbling out-

She stopped and stared at the final ones, the slowest of them most likely, who came crawling out and into the air.

Elderly and exceedingly young.

Byleth did not receive much for a chance to dwell on the age of some of the afflicted, though she would have buried her disgust at it under the knowledge that they would likely be cured. Given that Goetia set his mind to it now, they would be fine.

And yet there was something burning strong in the back of her head, yet as it boiled it was also frozen.

To her, it was as if someone had taken a match and ice to her thoughts and started a bonfire, yet it took her some moments to realise that none of it was actually coming from her.

Movement to her left was the warning she received, yet it was not of an incoming attack.

Rather, it was Sothis moving past her with a slow and measured speed, perhaps the pace of a brisk walk but in the air. The Goddess said not a word and Byleth had been unable to spy her expression, yet there was something about the way she was acting now that was putting her on edge.

Sothis moved higher into the air, straining the maximum distance between them before she finally came to a stop.

Directly in front of the frothing face of a toddler.

Snarling and spitting, the child was swinging their arms around in the air with more in common with a savage beast.

"I can sense it."

Byleth twitched slightly as a sudden surge of anger and disdain flooded through her, yet she knew none of it belonged to her. It was foreign, slippery even. It shifted through her own mind and moved right towards Sothis.

The Goddess continued on in a voice that was as flat as it was quiet.

"There is something about them." Sothis continued on. "Something that I can sense so clearly and yet so distantly but…but I can sense it. There are some twisted things which I can sense now…only when there are so many…"

Her head turned and swept across the majority before it returned to the spinning child.

"...That is an infant."

Sothis voice was lacking in emotion, a coldness in her words.

"Those are infants." She said again as more joined the first, one of them looked barely old enough to crawl.

"Someone did this…to infants."

Byleth glanced to the side and stared at her, Sothis face was growing more tense by the moment.

Then it abruptly went slack, the Goddess slowly looked down at her.

"Goetia said there was a mage in there, did he not?"

It was a tone that was ever so innocent, yet the eyes were anything but.

Byleth went to answer, except she could not.

Everything went strange and numb, then she was suddenly staring at her own face before she realised what Sothis had done. Eyes widening ever so slightly, she looked down at her hands before back up, watching as her own body started to stalk forwards without a single word.