Dear Gamma,
Due to the machinations of our enemies, and the actions I must take to counter them I will be unable to return in short order. The exact specifics cannot be entrusted to a letter even in code, although the specifics will become clear to you soon.
Thus it is that I must entrust upon you a solemn duty in our endless crusade against the forces of the Cult of Diabolos. That the coffers of Mitsugoshi must for a time be invested in our cause to avert catastrophe.
But in all such burdens there is also opportunity, and you will find they are diamonds in the rough just waiting for your gaze to take advantage of them. That though their loyalty is not as great as those of us who are truly devoted to the cause of righteousness, they can still be turned towards our goals in time.
For all hearts and minds can be aligned with our desires if only you use the right incentives. Soon you will be able to turn their efforts towards minor things allowing you to free up your true employees for more complicated tasks befitting their loyalty and status.
In this way my actions here shall only be a temporary burden upon Mitsugoshi's growth, and I expect by the time I return that you will have begun to harvest the dividends of such an expansion.
I have high expectations of you.
Lord Shadow.
She set the letter down in front of her and considered it. A population to fill the empty city of Alexandria, and to sift through for those capable of working her Lords will. For it was natural that Shadow Garden had been enough with six hundred members to run Mitsugoshi itself.
But nowhere near enough to run Midgar as a whole. Midgar had long raised all its nobility together, and naturally they each in turn trained their most loyal servants to be loyal to the group. As an outsider while none would dare challenge Beta directly, not every problem should be dealt with by the blade.
Orianna had always prized learning and intellect, and so he wanted her to sift through them to find those willing to aid their benefactors, without any ties to Midgars elite and loyal only to Beta who had installed them. They could free up Shadow Gardens core once again to take matters further afield in hand.
It was a masterful ploy, and it was only natural Cid had been working on it before she had even had the chance to realise. But now that it was laid out in front of her she could do her best to carry the rest forward.
Now all that was left was how to arrange food, Alexandria hadn't needed to feed more than a thousand for centuries. Mitsugoshi had the reserves of wealth to manage something of course. Money solved almost all problems.
But to buy all at once would cause food prices to soar, the other nations would look on and panic and hoard their resources even more harshly and the results would only be panic throughout Midgar as everyone predicted the shortage.
She could try and hide the amount surely, but fifty thousand people for months on end was not some accounting error, and even if she siphoned it off slowly prices would keep on rising until something broke. And if she tried to fix the price… no one tried to fix the price unless they were expecting a problem, and it would be an invitation to a frenzy.
To not do anything was unacceptable though, for Shadow had handed her this task as she poked the numbers around in her mind. Noone could pull a surplus from thin air and make it real.
But she could fake one nonetheless. An idea forming, it was a reversal of a training exercise Cid had run her through long ago. For price was not something that existed as an absolute but as a reference to what the last person had paid for it. And while to the rest of the world Mitsugoshi and Midgar were two separate entities.
Both of them were part of Shadow Garden behind the scenes and making a show of it was easily in order.
Midgar would divest itself of a large quantity of grain at below market price to Mitsugoshi, in recognition of the excessively bountiful harvest that had been pulled in. Because of course you would get merchants involved if you needed to sell in bulk.
Under the table Mitsugoshi would give the grain all back, because she wasn't really buying but only trading with herself. The nobles would question it, whether it was a mistake and all Beta would have to do is show the granaries still overflowing and word would get out.
The price of grain was about to collapse due to such a glut coming to market.
Grain wasn't something you could keep for years on end. Any insiders with a surplus would see the crash coming and race to sell ahead of the market downturn. And she would have agents incognito waiting to buy in bulk. Her fellow merchants would feel they were cheating her out of money through their better knowledge even as she fleeced them.
There would be more to do of course but surely it would be a good start.
The Order of the Silver Dragon. A terrible name but he'd left it to them, and he'd worked with worse in his time.
Eliza was absent from the podium, so perhaps she was smarter than he'd first given her credit for. Perhaps even enough to throw her a bone, let her feel she'd pulled back a glimpse of the truth.
For a lie you told yourself in the paths to power was always more convincing than one that was given to you.
A boy with green hair and a righteous demeanour had stepped up, draped in the imagery of the dragon as he took the lead. A revelation of the answer he had been given, to plot a course through these treacherous times that they might stand on the side of the victorious.
He drummed out the words and watched the audience in his head. For it was a boring script, for boring nobles. The new queen believed in fairytales it seemed and while such things were a tool to motivate the weak she had not yet been hardened enough by the world to know the truth that lay beneath.
For while the nobility would always cling to Noblesse Oblige, it was not because they wished to do right by their people. But only because they wished to be told they were better than the peasants, that their wisdom was greater and their strength unconquerable.
But that made it all the more potent point to drum up discontent. To use her own words and drive home that they should give up the time and effort, their wealth and power to do better by the filthy who were only fit to rut around in the muck.
The ones who wanted to pretend they believed in favour of getting accolades. The ones who were discontented with all they would lose in the name of her dreams. The true believers who he could pick off and isolate, that all their words would fall on deaf ears as reality disillusioned them of everything they stood for.
Here amongst the crowd he was free to pick them up as he wished, to watch and observe every crack in the society she built for when it came time to rip them open. And right now, as the blessed stood watching from comfort it was time for him to approach the lonely. To guide them like the lost lambs they were.
He adjusted his uniform, made to order by Isaac in the blue and silver of the dragon, which marked him as carrying out an official function. It was not ornate like the important nobles, but just to have the right colours would give him some respect.
He settled in next to a young Suzuki, the boy watching in nervous glances across the room. "We put it forward for you, but she was insistent that she wanted to sit with her peers during this meeting."
Suzuki looked away, one last fleeting glance at his cousin Christina before he turned to him. "I know I guess I was still holding out for the fact that family meant something to her."
Maybe it had, but alas they would never know. Because those with no future wouldn't live long enough to see the ending. "My friend true family is something you find." He hooked an arm around the boys shoulder. "If she won't appreciate you then come and sit with us."
He only got a nervous grin in response. But the boy did not resist as he led him to a seat. This Cid hadn't inspired any confidence in his classmates at all. And it was only a short walk to a table, not the best table of course but a quiet little alcove with some friends of his own.
Two of his old agents he'd planted long ago to spy on Fenrir in Midgar. Who knew their orders well greeted them as they approached. Even as Po lit up as he returned and whispered conspiratorially back. "Eliza was looking over here a while ago, you were right she really must have fallen for me."
He whispered back. "See she gave you this chance to represent an up-and-coming society because you'll need some achievements if she wants to show you off to her family. Just make sure not to forget me once you start moving up in the world."
The child really was the dumbest idiot he'd met in Midgar, truly Cid must have been an idiot to be amused by him at all. "
Later on he'd have Isaac stop by their table as well. To thank them for their attendance, to ask for their assistance in the future as well. The kind of thing a high ranking noble would never need to ask of a minor third son or a baron's kid.
The kind of thing that would make them feel important to hear it even as it cost him nothing.
All the while his hooks bit deeper into their hearts.
"Little bro." He let the conversation in front of him fade and turned to the girl who spoke. Rebellious, infectiously positive or perhaps ignorantly uncaring to the extreme, tanned skin and red hair the kind of girl he'd dispose of in his own territory.
The better to use them against the status quo in this one.
And behind her his 'sister' walked on easily in. Claire was staring down at him in his seat, and he grinned back at her. "I thought about your advice and you were right Claire. I've started taking things a bit more seriously this time."
Claire's eyes swept across the rest of the table as though caught between praising and admonishing him. "You never got half this motivated for me." A bitter undercurrent to her words coming forth at the disappointment her brother had been.
Loki shrugged because he didn't want to truly be that boy in the first place. Had chosen a failure with an impressive sister just so that he could say he'd just been disinterested before.
That people could pass it off as talent uncovering itself from a boy who had barely tried. "After how things went down for me in Orianna I realised that perhaps there should be more to life than just being content going with the flow. I am done being another's dog and for that I need to make something of myself."
Two tables down he heard someone coughing into their drink.
"You could have come to me, and I would have introduced you to my friends." She glared dismissively at Po as she said those words.
Who could blame her when Po was such a piece of filth. But still there was meaning to his choice, because he wanted the stragglers and their broken lives that could be made into jagged edges to drive into society itself should the opportunity arise. The blessed and the fortunate had no meaning for him at this time. "I have chosen these people, I want to stand by my friends." He gestured grandly to the table.
Violence flashed through the girl's eyes, and he could see her advance coming a mile away. To be dragged on or to resist. But the choice was taken from him as Nina interspersed herself between them. "Ah let him have his fun, sometimes guys need a bit of space and they'll grow up all on their own."
Claire glared at her friend locking eyes with her, hand crashing down on her shoulder. "I am helping him I can invite him to talk to the right people."
He drummed his fingers lightly on the tabletop and thrust himself back into the conversation. "But look here Suzuki is from the Hope family, with the backing of one of the few Dukes that are in good standing with our new overlords and as smart and thoughtful as he is who better to help me find my path through the trials ahead." He turned to Suzuki. "My sister Claire, who came second in the academy's dark knight tournament."
The boy himself barely had a glimpse of confidence at being in the spotlight. But still managed to squeal out a few words. But he gave him a pat on the back as a well done anyway, because it was more about letting him feel accomplished than actually helping the boy.
He went around the table even as Claire stared back in disapproval. But that was even better, the feeling of rejection they felt as she judged them not good enough would all wash away in a moment.
"But it is not actual status that grants you a chance in these trying times, for the fact that you have come and listened shows that you share our goals to make a better Midgar in the future." Isaac strode up from the far end, a slow clap of his hands punctuating his statement. "And I see the ones here are truly the best of company. Young Po I hear Eliza speaks so well of you, Suzuki Hope your family are held in high regards as well and I see you live up to their teachings in wanting to make a better world."
Claire bristled back and if looks could kill Isaac would be a dead man, but she was no Fenrir. And her harshness only served to make him look more the hero, kind and welcoming to all even the unworthy. "You see that much in them?"
"Of course, for they are so full of potential. And standing near to the levers of power doesn't seem to do many any favours right now, for they keep ending up hanged as it goes on. It is time for a new crop to rise up and take their place, and I am glad to see so many new faces taking the chance to step out of their comfort zone alongside me."
"The world will be different once we are done, of that I can assure you."
At the end he'd slipped out into the corridors. A moment of silence to plot in his place even as he searched for a brief respite. From having to be nice to people who were inferior to him.
"Stop." As though she were still a princess Alexia commanded him.
He'd heard the rumours of course, had an ear to the ground in Fenrir's territory for months beforehand to look for an advantage he could use. For she had used little Cid when one of Fenrir's named firsts had gone after her.
And once the turmoil had died down she'd thrown him aside easily enough. But now the princess had lost her power, and even some random noble who might not even inherit anything had the same worth as she did. "To what do I owe the honour oh princess." He let an almost mocking end to the words, even as they both knew she was no longer one.
She raised her nose in response, not even deigning to look at him. "You're still a wretched person not even willing to accept my kindness in this matter. But still even if you won't accept it I'll tell you for your own good to stay away from the Order of the Silver Dragon."
He let a small chuckle escape his lips. She really thought she could intimidate him with such paltry words. "They were incredibly welcoming towards me when I decided to come, so I think I'll ignore your kindness today and keep going."
If nothing else she had fire as she marched towards him. "I'm telling you to leave and you should listen to me. This isn't the right place for you at all." She bit her lip and then pulled out a gold coin flipping it in the air towards him. "Go take that coin as your reward and be gone with you."
To dare pretend he could be moved by a single coin, ah but how best to mess with such a stuck-up little girl as he ignored it.
He slammed his own hand into the wall beside her head leaning in. "Perhaps I'm just worried about you. You've lost all your power and fallen from grace and so I've decided that I'll need some of my own in case you need someone still in your corner."
She stuttered swinging an arm against his own as she broke free, looking away from him. "I don't need your help I'm fully capable of looking after myself." The haughty words could never hide how it had upset her.
He raised an eyebrow in response and watched her for a moment. Nothing hurt the powerful more than the moment you made them feel weak. Nothing amused him more than to watch those born into power torn down until they had nothing.
Finally unable to contain her anger she stormed off down the hallway.
Had he managed to hurt her pride? Well, no one in this world had any right to look down upon him so it was fine. At the door she turned eyeing him one more time. "I'm telling you this for your own good, stay away from the Order, if you get involved with them you'll regret it."
He waved lightly back in return. "Bye bye."
Little did she know it was far too late to try and drive him away. For he controlled them from the shadows and soon it would be time for him to make a real ruckus.
Alone.
In private.
Alexia slammed her own fist into the wall.
Natsume had asked her to attend. And while she hadn't quite said what she was supposed to look out for… Natsume was the kind of person who only ever asked you to confirm things she already knew.
Even if she hadn't known that the whole thing looked suspicious, it was the most basic part of court life. That people only came to fawn for you when they wanted something for themselves. That all relationships were built upon give and take.
And while at least part of it for those nobles who had family members taken away might be a bribe, we shall speak well of you so that you don't murder us and perhaps return some of our family members. Natsume was entirely rotten to the core and wouldn't care for such sentiments in the first place.
Their families were probably dead already without trial in the first place. For Natsume had styled herself as judge, jury and executioner to the masses and the lists seemed almost more excuses than truth sometimes.
If the dragon hadn't been there she would have been courting a rebellion long ago.
Pooch was going to get himself killed.
Even telling him wasn't an option, Natsume had been abundantly clear that letting anyone know they were under investigation was going to draw her ire. And while she trusted Pooch… Natsume was unlikely to see it her way.
And Pooch wasn't suited at all to the kind of skullduggery she was involved in right now. He hadn't even been able to pull off a convincing take of being her boyfriend in front of Zenon.
So she would just have to make arrangements herself, when the time came she'd drag him out of it one way or another.
They had been left to guard Freya the human hero, to stand as a line of defence should the need arise. It rankled at something deep within her, because Zeta wanted to be strong enough to cross the gap and walk into the fray beside him.
She watched Delta perk up slightly, a single long breath as she nodded to herself. "Not boss."
Zeta frowned for she couldn't quite smell anything at this distance. It was the one place she could only come second against her and yet for now they both had the same purpose. "How many."
Delta paused bobbing her head up and down as she thought. "Lots and lots."
Somewhere between ten and ten thousand then. She twirled the scythe in her arms to readiness even as the others readied their own weapons. It was like the one that Cid had used, that even if she had not yet reached that level she could imitate him whatever weapon he used, and like that as she held it she felt closer.
The weapon an extension of herself as she spun. Herself an extension of the weapon, an existence to be wielded in her lord's name that she would be death to all his enemies. Extending from a single moment into an eternity as she lost herself in the moment of the swing and the ease of the slaughter.
"."
Remembering to focus on the mission in front of her eyes. To not get lost in her daydreams and instead remember her place in the world, just as Shadow would have done. She returned her gaze to the others who had all been staring at her waiting for the order even as she had been lost.
She cleared her throat staring back. "They come to us now for they are afraid to face our lord himself. That all they might do is skulk in the shadows and fear that his light will fall upon them. But the shadows are our homes, let us show them there is no safety in the darkness here, that only death awaits any who stand against us."
Was it as good as one of his speeches? It would have to be enough.
And hopefully the others would think she had spent those precious moments thinking of it rather than realise she had been lost in a daydream.
A moment later the scent caught her notice as well. One that was almost human in its entirety, the rest a mixture of rotting flesh and decay, like her own state had been as the possession had taken her. "One hundred."
Which at least stood on the lower end of what she had been expecting.
A single armoured figure stepped free of the shadows. A black helm with six red eyes emblazoned on it staring back at them across the clearing. An almost jovial tone as the figure announced himself. "Knight of twelve, Sir Gaunt. You appear to have one of our members, the hero Freya captive at the moment and I have come to take her back. Would you be interested in a peaceful solution?"
Not a single one of those at her back wavered. She herself was already running her magic at its fullest as she met his gaze. "A peaceful solution? The only peace you will ever know is that of the grave and I will gladly send you there."
"You are so unlike your master, such a pity." The mask inclined his head. "Why if he were here I would be greeted with open arms and yet you are all so cold. Does my friendship with him mean nothing to you all?"
A lie so obvious it wasn't even worth considering. The real question was the monsters moving in the shadows behind him. The smell of rotting flesh and a glimpse of a nightmare. More of the monsters from the city the other day? "Are words all you have, or will you run now that you have been refused."
Sir Gaunt chuckled in response at her words. "I guess you would see it that way, and I suppose we can no longer be considered friends either. For he has been locked away beyond the gate never to return, and you all are trapped here with me."
A pulse erupted as a light red tinge grew over the world as the Eye of Avarice activated. Life itself pulled from the forest around them as the world flowed in towards the knight. Carving a sphere of death and decay around him in every direction for a hundred meters.
But the web she'd crafted out of her suit would not be moved by such a light breeze. Still, she let it waver in front of her for a moment. As though she was having trouble forcing it to maintain its shape. And even as monsters began to surge from the shadows behind him Gaunt charged looking for his advantage.
The wavering blade becoming a spear as she let it extend, physical form racing after the pull of magic as it drove towards Gaunt without fail. Whichever way she swung the moment it entered his orbit it was pulled straight towards his heart and every blow forced him further back.
She grinned beneath her own mask, because it was so obvious. The longer he used it the more magic around it was pulled in yes. But her slime was tied in physical mass to the magic flowing through it. As she split her blade into ten smaller knives and tossed them all towards him in a light spread.
Every single one of them found it's mark as they raced towards his chest. "How truly amazing you've created a technique that means no matter what my blades will always bury themselves in your chest, truly a work of genius like no other."
She dragged out the suit around her, forming countless more blades for she no longer needed to aim at him. Merely to let them fire forward and find their mark regardless.
Gaunt at least seemed to realise his mistake. The pull of magic drawing back in towards him as he realised the peril. All six eyes fixating their gaze on her as the sword glowed red and its blade pulled free as it extended outwards again.
It was the wrong cue to take as a demon crashed down on him from behind. For even if she was stupid Delta still had her uses, a fake salute as she grinned back. "Delta hit him."
The absorption field returned, devouring the demon into itself in moments even as the man chuckled. "How delightful you are, Vafthrudnir are you just going to watch or are you taking part given this was your idea?"
Behind them the temporary base they'd constructed was torn apart. A pitch-black shadow in the shape of a man unfolding out into the world, maniacal laughter spilling from it as the darkness writhed around it.
Even as something else expanded out around Nu, the slime bubbling up into a second form standing to face it.
The limb that had been eaten by the slime had trembled in his mind for a moment, a lost kinship amidst the familiarity even as it bubbled up and began to take form.
Vafthrudnir knew who was coming. The only possible person and thus he waited to meet the girl he'd raised in the lab all those centuries once more.
The mass of slime and filth fluttered in a way that tugged at his heartstrings. The remnant of Diabolos corpse beating in time in kinship as his daughter stepped forth before him. As treacherously rebellious as the day she'd broken free.
He met Aurora's gaze, and grinned as she broke it first. The magic swirling in around her and trembling with power as though she might strike in any direction at once. It was the way she had always been when she was afraid.
"If you were whole." He let the words hang between them casually standing before her. "If I was still injured." He tugged at his shadow letting it grow to envelop the whole clearing. "Perhaps you might be able to steal the qualification to talk back to me once again."
Hesitation, a moment to erase the stutter before she dared speak. "Ah it seems I managed to do so without your permission anyway. I've had time to grow past you, so I'll choose when I speak."
She hadn't, the false bravado barely a glimmer of an illusion in front of the little girl she had been before his eyes.
Freya was watching so there was at least some benefit to a pretence. "If you will return to your seal willingly then I will do my best to make it less painful, and in my great benevolence I will even spare some of these girls who you seem attached to." For he was a hero who had helped seal away the worst catastrophe the world had ever seen once upon a time.
He could act the part easily enough once again.
Calculating and considering. A gaze she hadn't turned on him in a long time, and here he'd thought she would swing from the start and give him an excuse. She must care more than he'd guessed and that was always the greatest weakness anyone could have. Spare one today and then kill them tomorrow. Their mortal lives were so short anyway so what was the difference?
He could promise anything, for what was given today could be taken back tomorrow.
A smile crossed over her face. "Then could I escort them away and then return? Surely you would not object to me seeing for myself that they are fine, and then I can return in my own time."
How brazen, because if he let her leave there was no way she would return.
"I cannot I'm afraid." A smile crept over his face. "You are perhaps lucid now it is true, but that will fade, and you will become a monster once again. We have learned much over the centuries and I can promise it will not be as bitter as it was last time. If you go in willingly amenities can be made and you will not suffer inside your cage as you had to last time."
He stepped forward, and she stepped back stalling a moment that could not be changed. The distance between them remaining even as he bit down on his frustration. "They are making you worse, though not through any fault of their own. For they do not understand the chaos that runs through your blood, if you stay with them you will tear them all asunder. Only by returning with me can you keep them safe."
She seemed to ponder his words. Nodding her head up and down as she thought it over. "You're lying." She met his eyes without blinking with a blank stare. "For you raised me as you said, and I managed to figure out your greatest tell."
"That is all in your head, you are unwell and it will be easier if you would stop making this harder on everyone than it needs to be." If she would just go back to being a crying little girl locked in his lab he wouldn't have to humour anyone else ever again.
"You see when you lie." She let her gaze become hollow, power drawing into herself. "You open your mouth."
A blade of blood and power rocketed free of her finger towards him, a spinning nail that he let tear through his flesh even as he smiled.
She'd struck first. "If you're like this it seems I have no choice, what you will not learn from kindness I will just have to teach you by force." A whirring ring of blades grew from his shadow, a glimpse of the truth of his existence bared before the world. "Let me remind you of the consequences of your actions then."
She answered with her own blades of blood pouring out in a torrent, a rain of blades crashing down towards him. Tearing and ripping into his flesh even as he laughed as the body turned into blood and guts strewn across the arena.
She looked almost surprised that it had worked. He let her keep that expression for a full second.
Even as the head of the corpse extended a hand and turned its head, mouth opening like a gaping maw as it unravelled. "Die."
The first blade came from behind her, stretching out of the shadows to pierce an arm. A fraction of a second later there were hundreds of them crashing out from every edge of his shadow, from his true body as he surged inwards.
Unfolding from its presence as a two-dimensional space and wrapping up around her from all sides even as he tore her to pieces.
Drowning out the last vestige of light as he enclosed off the space around them, trapping her in his own lightless world. Even as he let his body reform within it unharmed as he smiled down at her.
The shattered fragments of a memory trying to flee, even as he let the heart in his chest beat with it in time. The memory of when they were whole crashing against the echo of her form and dragging her back into substance. "Let there be no salvation in cowardice."
To the young he would be quoting scripture, but then he'd written that as well. "No mercy for the wicked, and no hope for the damned." He slammed her back down into the muck breaking her against the earth itself.
She buried herself there, even as he felt the tendrils entwined with his own power grow more solid. Embracing him like a vice as they tried to bite and tear at his flesh and held him in place. He let his heart beat in response meshing it with his own power.
Turning the thorns binding him into chains tying her here, a cage inside her own mind long enough for him to break her will once again. "It seems you wish to learn this lesson the hard way once again, but do not worry I am a patient teacher if nothing else."
Once there would have only been fear in her eyes. A pitiful little girl crying before his eyes. Today there was still a glimmer of rebellion even though it was obvious she'd lost. Like a joke still carrying on at his own expense.
Even though he didn't feel like he was missing anything.
Was he?
A glimpse appeared in his mind as he connected with a bird flying high above in the sky. The light still hung in the sky, there was no abnormal cloud movements, and Albion was not flying towards him. It was just a normal day as the wind blew through the trees and the birds took flight.
A straight line of birds taking flight in the distance. Evermore rising from the trees and fleeing left and right even as the starting disturbance. The line of movement from which they came made a straight line pointed towards him.
He could guess to make them flee it must be large.
To cause so many at once it must be moving fast.
To not cause the underbrush to move or the trees to be torn asunder it must know restraint.
But really there was no point lying to himself and guessing when he already knew the answer. For Albion was here and soon he would be right on top of him.
He tugged at the hundred, no there were only eighty demons left surrounding him, Even if they were minor creatures they had still been his once. A dozen normal knights wouldn't have killed even one of them.
Eighty demons, one dragon.
They may as well have been eighty flies to fight one dragon for all the good it would do him. He tugged at his flesh still caught in Aurora's embrace, that the two of them could still both be stuck here when the flame descended and turned everything to ash.
He opened a hole in his shadow, letting the light of the world back in. "Freya here now." From across the clearing, she sprinted back to his side, even as the area around him turned into a mass of spikes. Impaling through Freya's legs to try and halt her advance. But the distance was close enough for what he needed.
His shadow drew forth a tendril of darkness that he plunged straight into her mind. For Freya's new body had been made from a piece of Diabolos.
Millenia of screaming and violence and pain kept locked up inside. The remnants of a sanctum caught up in the body of a hero for so long with just a twist of his wrist he ripped it out. It was the first fragment they had managed to tear loose of Aurora and kept in a half broken sanctum it was perhaps also the most volatile.
The next he drove the fragment into Aurora's mind, all of the pain and anguish clicking into place like the memories they were. Whole, so very wholly broken as she always had been. Like fine glass even if the pieces were made to fit they could never truly go back together.
Her embrace went slack, a gap as he pulled himself free.
A crack as he found himself sailing through a tree on the other side of the clearing. The pain a welcome price in exchange for a chance at freedom.
The bubbling mass of slime in the centre of the clearing had burst free of its human form. Wrapping itself around a pair of legs as it devoured them into itself as blood sprayed out staining the ground around them.
But they weren't his legs, so it was fine.
And even if Freya was screaming beside him it was enough to hoist her up on his shoulder. Her legs could be regrown with help from Hel, So he wrapped his hand around her throat, stifling the screams.
Vafthrudnir ran.
For a moment his mind flickered back between the demons he'd left behind. A mass of scythe like arms spinning like a whirlwind as it bit into the dragons hide. Even as the claws flashed back and tore it in half.
A moment later the dragon was whole again, and his demon was still dead.
A monstrous gorilla reaching out to grasp and pin it in place. Even as a blast of pure magic fired back and obliterated its head, his mind abruptly appearing elsewhere as he watched its final death throes.
Corpses upon corpse piling themselves high in the only way that mattered. A wall of decaying flesh strewn across the forest and drenching it in the stench of death. A stench so thick that even Albion would not be able to sniff out which way he'd gone.
Fighting dragons wasn't worth it in the end. As each wound he inflicted on it passed out of existence merely a moment later, its fractured grasp on eternity unbowed by such a thing as simple mortal acts of violence.
Epsilon stared as Violet continued to change.
The smell of rot overwhelmed her senses, even as the thing in the clearing grew. What had once been Violet growing far faster than any of the possessed ever had. More powerful, blood pouring from it in waves until it seemed to drench the clearing itself.
Far larger than any of the possessed she'd ever tried to cure in the past. The changes more pronounced and the speed of the transformation only growing faster by the second.
The extra rotting limbs they often produced more pronounced as they became real blades and tentacles swinging in the wind and tearing into the clearing.
One swung seeking to latch on to her even as she felt her blade in hand. The spectral edge emanating from it reaching out and cutting it down before it ever had the chance to reach her. It was learning, grasping more energetically as it took form.
She stepped forward past another scything limb, dancing around a third as she reached the main mass. Hand plunging into the rotten flesh as she poured magic into it as a force of will, the change touching its form and causing the flesh to ripple for a brief moment.
Pushing the line back between monster and human as she changed her just as Cid had taught her.
Watching it fail a moment later as the rotting flesh clamped down on her arms, as an unstoppable wave of magic pushed back through the link between them and rather than Violet turning back.
She felt herself begin to rot. The flesh on her arms being eaten away even as the mass of flesh around it coalesced and rose above her.
"Violet?" She raised her voice even as she was afraid to whisper.
The mass in the centre of it turned even as it lacked eyes. Staring back at her across the void even as magic surged around it. A maw opening as it loomed in front of her eyes.
Snatched from the air as the Mist Dragon held it lightly with one claw. "To compare a dragon to a lizard perhaps is an apt way to describe it, the difference in power means you cannot treat her like one of those little girls you are used to."
A second claw plucked her form free of the mass, the bleeding stumps where her arms had been hanging limply in the air. "Be grateful you only lost this much, and I hope you can heal yourself to some extent."
She melded slime over them for an instant, blocking and sealing the wounds. It was bad, but not unsalvageable even if it hurt. "I should be able to fix it in time."
"Good." Gently it set her down outside of the range of the tentacles still helpless slamming against its hide. "Then for now treat those others here who have also begun to rot, for I think they will not enjoy the process if it continues much longer. I will deal with this one."
"It's Violet, do you think you can help her turn back."
The Dragon turned back towards the mass even as it recoiled away. "For now the most I can do is grant her mercy. Fear not in this diminished state I can guarantee it shall be almost painless at least."
Sherry paused over the console she was looking at once again.
The sanctum shifted in front of her in Alexandria, the normally white mist flowing into it seeming to shift as it was dyed blood red, as the entire thing seemed to press against its confines.
She dialled into it because Violet had always had the answer, had led her through its functions from the beginning.
From the other side an unholy wail echoed back. A scream that echoed in her mind and raced around her skull, thudding into her head again and again.
Writing appearing in front of her eyes just like the first time the gate had begun forming. Slowly carving itself into reality as the sanctum began to open from the other side.
It wasn't supposed to do this, as she turned to the other girls who were armed and waiting for a command. A gaze filled with fear met her back, as the other girls flesh was slowly rotting away, flesh sloughing off under the scream.
She trembled because she was afraid. She settled her hands back onto the console regardless because there were still things she needed to do. The first thing that Violet had ever taught her upon taking control of the system.
Before she was locked out again, she logged herself into the command codes. Before they had taken it, before it had been used as a trial by the Goddess, Violet had said it had been a seal. A cage meant to lock away a great evil.
She spun up the locks once more. The barrier between the inner and outer world of the sanctum becoming more solid as whatever had gone wrong was locked away.
The half-formed door faded away, the mist outside separated from the madness within.
The scream passed from her mind until she could barely remember it. Even as the other girls around her were still incoherently rotting on the ground around her.
That was fine it wasn't still getting worse. So now, now she could have a panic attack and collapse like she wanted to do. And hopefully find someone else who knew how to fix them.
Outside the window the dragon itself was missing. And while he did not have his full power, Vafthrudnir had given him instructions on how to free Lilli. The one weapon in this city that could harvest the living like the goddess of death she was and see an end to their delusions of freedom.
He tapped his fingers lightly on the rest next to him. His cards were not all in place, a little more time and he could pull more nobles into his orbit. A few days, or even weeks and he would have found the most isolated lone wolves to push into position to cause a big a ruckus as possible.
But this chance might never come again. For making men stand against other men was easy, while telling them to fight a dragon would leave them trembling in fear.
Perfection was an admirable goal, but good enough would have to do in this case.
And in the end he didn't truly need the Order of the Silver Dragon to survive, just for them to be a distraction. Once the Sanctum had opened he would have won.
It was time to seize the day.
Alpha had learned her lessons well.
It would come soon. The dragon had mentioned it was leaving for a while, and whether that was due to a planned diversion or a fluke of chance…
Always strike when the enemy was unguarded. It was perhaps the first lesson she'd learned that to achieve victory was to look for a weakness and then exploit it ruthlessly.
The loss of their greatest protector from the vicinity was the greatest weakness they could have, the perfect time to strike. And thus it was like telegraphing your attack openly and blatantly that they would be ready with the executioners blade waiting to fall.
"The pretender?"
Beta glanced through her notes calmly from the throne. "He hasn't left the usual haunts Cid would be expected to attend. The noble families of the most prominent members don't seem to have been contacted."
She nodded. "Then we can accept that his target is the school itself."
Beta grinned back. "We have the entire building surrounded, the prominent members are being watched and instructions to follow any groups that head off site and keep them identified. Now all we have to do is wait for them to give us an excuse."
AN: Cid's true motivations in the letter unveiled. Gamma if you charge me for this I will remain in debt forever slaving away to pay it back. So please just call it an opportunity so I don't have to go bankrupt.
Beta has had an eventful rule I suppose it can be said. In homage to perhaps Mary Tudor. For I have been hinting for a while but yes, much of Midgar's nobility are outright corrupt what with the Night Swords being the biggest pre takeover faction in the country. And other such factions backing people like Zenon.
Well a truly courageous and virtuous reformer would have been killed by Fenrir long ago.
Beta considers it her duty to bring them up to the standards Cid would approve of on Noblesse Oblige, in spite of Cid never once having exhibited such gallantry himself.
Normally in a feudal system you would try them before a court of their peers, and because their peers will side with them they will get off for many things.
Beta has been conducting trials before herself and her dragon, and Midgar isn't quite sure how to react to that. As such she might be considered somewhat unpopular among large parts of the nobility behind closed doors, although pretty popular with the peasantry given the way her verdicts tend to run.
Aniisomeone: Best girl is certainly best girl. Japan arc has plenty planned for it with my characters chosen well.
Eta gets to see a high tech civ that resembles her dreams cast in reality rather than just shadows.
A dead man from the day the gates first broke returning having seemingly given up his humanity.
Aurora finding fragments of magic that still resembles the first realm from which her power hails.
For I have planned the Earth side to be expanded in scope in much the same way that I have done for the cult.
One more chapter of this side, and then we shall be full on Japan arc. I hope to get back to a better writing speed soon but currently it eludes me.
Fateful Twilight: Thou art correct they were flirting. The reference to the Sanctum in canon was utterly intentional, as was the dancing, catching her as she fell and plenty of other bits. I ship CidxAurora as much as I ship CidxSeven Shades.
I intend for them to dwell on it in productive ways at least for the moment. For Cid has left them great clues to his intentions, or at least things they can mistake for being great clues.
Loki does many things. For he has a cunning plan indeed.
BetweenIandGirl: For he is named for a mythological Trickster God, and fully intended to try and have him live up to that role in how he is portrayed.