GoldenCat/Countdown10

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To Ashes

They ran, through the streets of Spire.

They ran, as Creation uttered the countdown to Spire's annihilation.

Moon on the ground, Alex on the sky with Kanti in hand... towards the temple of Aryan, god of cats.

And as Elizabeth comes out of the temple, as she flies a few blocks away from it, to think which temple to break first, she sees them rushing. Through the streets, jumping through rooftops, flying through air-bridges..

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth scans the group carefully, wondering if she should waste time talking to them. They look like they're just going to rush in and break things... and I doubt a one of save the agent knows a thing about Necromancy. They won't figure it out until it's too late.

She sighs, if a crow can do such a thing. Actually, it comes across as a shivering of ruffled feathers. Suddenly, a deathknight in their ranks doesn't seem like such a bad idea, though Elizabeth would never admit such a thing. She gives off a caw of frustration anf flies out in front of Alex, stopping him-- and hopefully, through him, everyone else.

...or they could just not notice, and go get into a fight with Avia without him-- she wouldn't mind that at all.

Alexander: The prince soars through the air, holding Kanti close to him... until he sees the bird, not stopping for her.... but he does not go past the bird, as bumping on it is like bumping into a person, throwing Alexander back... and the golden blade appears in his hand, pointing at the bird... remembering Avia is among his enemies. "State your bussiness now, you vile... um... bird."

Elizabeth Holysword: A flash of moonlight blinds Alex for a moment, leaving behind the form of Alex's older sister... Alex's very ticked off older sister. "Vile bird?! Who do you think you're calling a vile bird you little..." she stops herself and sighs, then sees Ainerach as if for the first time. "Ainerach? What are you doing with that? Give me that thing before you hurt yourself."

Alexander: ... Liz...

The Prince looks at her, embarassed, the sword hanging low now... "I... um, sorry, Liz... I did not mean to... and, and... I am using the sword to fight our enemies! I... I beat some of them... with help... if I give it..."

Seventh Moon: Racing across the roof-tops with his caste mark glinting on his brow, Moon kept an easy pace with Alex and Kanti, doing his best to stick in their shadow so he knew where they were in the air above. The Lunar was fired up and feeling a whole lot better after the light-show Ryshassa and Kanti had given them, but still eager to get this over with quickly.

When a second shadow suddenly darted into Alex's, Moon finished another arching leap through the air, passing prince and bird both. He landed on the lip of a small tower, squatting on the head of an ugly bird-like gargoyle and readied himself to launch onto the back of whatever else was flapping around up there. Not that it was needed.

Aw sheeyit. Still alive, huh?

With a huff, Moon settled back on his haunches and listened in on the conversation, his long ears twitching as they cut out the background noise from the royal siblings voices.

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth moves to take the sword from him, but stops... Something inside her doesn't like the sword...

No, it's not a gut feeling, something litterally inside her doesn't like Ainerach. Shards of Acheron which litter her body like raw ore. Shards of a soulsteel Daiklaive shatterd three thousand years ago by Ainerach.

A little bit of resentment was understandable.

"We don't have time for this. Avia tortures Aryan in his own temple as we speak, he must be saved, but I need Aine-- I need you to come with me. Stopping Avia won't stop this spell-- it needs to be broken in every temple in Spire. Ainerach can do that."

Alexander: "How did you..." He blinks. Idiot, she is a Lunar... they have their ways. "So, I come with you... what about Kanti? And Moon? They go to Aryan's temple on their lonesome? What if..." I do not wish to leave Kanti alone... "We split? We go together? If it is to break the temples..."

Kanti: Kanti is very still in Alex's arm as his sister reveals herself, something in the way she holds herself, something wrong about her, in a way she could not describe.

Why would a lunar feel like death?

Seventh Moon: "Then we stick tagether!" Moon shouted up, cupping a hand to his face to help his voice carry. "Least wise for now! Don't got fuckin' time ta sit 'round yappin' about it! Lets just fuckin' go!"

Alexander: "I.... but..." He looks at Kanti's face, and she was scared. He looks at Liz' face... and it was undescribable. He looks at Moon's face... and it is urgent. "... but where do we go first?"

Seventh Moon: Moon shrugged at the question. "Save the godly fucker, like she said! Where else? Said we gotta hit every temple anyway. Might as well start with that one, y'know? Bird. Bird. Stone."

Crack! He smacked a fist into his palm.

Alexander: "So... Aryan's temple first?" He asks, looking at Moon... and then at his older sister for confirmation.

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth glares at Moon, annoyed at his taking command. This is stupid, we need to stop the spell first. I-- that is Alex and Ainerach-- can do it alone.

...but she doesn't say it. Fighting would only delay things further, and there was not trust enough for anyone to back down if they did-- or so she tells herself. Her unwillinglness to speak up can't have anything to do with saving Aryan... That would imply those visions held some meaning to her. They didn't.

Not at all.

"Fine." she mumbles.

Alexander: "Very well, then. Let us go! And be sure, sister... Ainerach will cut this spell into pieces!"

And thus, he moved around his Lunar sibling, flying on towards the temple....

Narrator: The geat Circle of Temples around the city, all visible from afar. Each and every one a towering palace.... and in front of them, the temple of Aryan, God of Cats. And the dove saw it on sight... but just as the Church, it had been desecrated. The great cats standing up on their legs had their heads chopped out, and there was the writing... all over it.

The place seemed quiet.

But for one able to see spirits, they could see them. The sentries. Ghosts.

And a feeling of unease....

Something radiating from the temple, almost visible...

Seventh Moon: "Cats," Moon growled, standing on a near-by roof-top and peering over the edge at the desecrated temple. The Lunar had already drawn upon the Hound within him, wrapping it around himself in a layer of silver-gray fur, hardened muscle, and sharpened senses. Half-beast now, he leaned over the edge of the building and sniffed at the air, a throaty rumbling of disapproval escaping him. "No one said it was a fuckin' cat god. This could'a waited after all."

Alexander: "Moon! " The Zenith snaps, sighing. "Snap out of the dog thing. Cats are cute!"

"And if they need to restrain Aryan..."

Seventh Moon: "Then they ain't half-bad in my book," Moon finished for the prince. He let the matter drop though, turning his glare from the broken statues to the ghostly guardians instead. "A'ite, lets get 'bout savin' the fuckin' idiot. Just go on three?"

Alexander: "Seems like a plan." The blade in front of him. A flourish to some imagined enemy, far away from him, somewhere within the temple. Around him, white-golden hues flare. "Well... if you wished to be the agressor for a change, Moon, it is now. Kanti? Liz? All ready?" He asks tentatively... Moon had told him how his sister had cleaved a Redrum. He had seen her effortlessly bat Monev away. And yet, and yet....

Elizabeth Holysword: On three? Wha-- oh no...

"You know, the first time I went in there, no one noticed. Think we could try that again?"

Alexander: The Zenith looks at himself... covered in golden hues... at Kanti, Irises about her....

"I... do not think so, sis..."

Seventh Moon: "Ain't no one gonna notice shit when they're all fuckin' dead anyway," Moon agreed, leaning heavier onto the edge of the rooftop as he readied himself to jump. Moon himself was already shimmering with strands of silver light and the hound's eyes hovered half-open above him. He glanced back at Liz and gave her a feral, almost mocking grin. "Stealth ain't never been our strong point. Remind me later ta tell ya all 'bout the Angel'n me sneakin' inta Whiteshield the first time."

Alexander: "... we so need a Night Caste. At least we have a Waning here... but it is beneath my sister to go infiltrating things. And too dangerous... but anyway, you have reason, sis... we need to hurry. Leave them to me and Kanti while you tell Moon what to break? I heard he made whole buildings topple on the Boil."

Seventh Moon: "Hell, I'll just fuckin' break it all. Can sort the shit out later..." Moon chuckled harshly to himself. "Ain't like anyones gonna cry for one less cat god temple in the world..."

Kanti: But I like kittens

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth sighs. Amateurs.

A second flash of moonlight crawls across Elizabeth's skin and her shape elongates and hardens and her eyes never leave moon as they shift from shining amethyst to shattered ruby. "Fine then..." she says, her voice suddenly distant and cold. "Stay behind me Alex-- pretty little Dragon Aspect, Be careful... And you-- Lunar... Do whatever you want. Preferably something that gets you a little maimed."

We will kill Avia and save Aryan... and why doesn't that feel like the betrayal it should?

She looks sad for a moment, and a ruby shard from one eye fall, glistening like a tear. She catches it and an essence of scarlet moonlight covers it, transforms it into a translucent-- almost liquid ruby two-bladed sword, each one curving outwards like a scythe.

Sorry Avia... Sorry I'm not sorry.

Alexander: "Moon! " Alex snaps... before he sees what his sister does. To say he is impressed would be tame. To say he is awed would be an understatement. To say is it beautiful would be an insult to its beauty. But yet, worries come first. And he would be quite close to his sister to protect her if it was just bravado... "Waiting on you then, sister...."

Seventh Moon: "Go shit on a statue, birdy," Moon snicked back, pointedly turning his back towards Liz and looking towards the temple again. He scanned the doors, the windows, his gaze moving inexorably upwards towards... the roof. He grinned. "Worry 'bout your end'a it anyway. I got mine covered."

Kanti: Kanti watches the weapons grow with a curiousity almost unbecoming, looking at the ruby shapes she forms.

It's ..beautiful...but

...why does she still feel so wrong?

Elizabeth Holysword: "Don't look at me dog, it's your plan after all-- and if we're going to do it, let's do it. We save the cat god, kill the bird god, and pile up the corpses of anything that doesn't have one any more. If we can't do it right lets at least do it well"

...and for every scratch on Alex after this, I'll-- I'll--

She sighs.

I'll do nothing. He has to learn to make his own decisions...

...no, he's been making them for a while, and I just didn't notice.

She steps away from him a little, getting ready to jump off the building, and decides to see what he can really do, and let him do it.

"Fly!" she says simply as she jumps, and six silken wings bear her aloft to the cat god's shrine. The ability of one particular dog-lunar to enact that last command does not escape her.

Seventh Moon: "Fly!"

Easy to say, when you've got wings to spare. Some people had to improvise. Moon hung back, letting the royal siblings head on with Kanti in tow. Giving them room to clear. A sliver of light caressed the edge of Moon's castemark, like a teardrop on the edge of a knife. He huffed, arms snapping outwards to his side as his legs bent low.

Stealth! Ha!

Moon's laugh echoed through the valley of buildings that swept past bellow him as he sailed up into the sky.

Stealth this up ya ass!

High above the city, the air shimmered as Moon passed through the blanket of cloud that hung over the city. The thick fog roiled and tossed like a sea boiling in a storm. It was caught in the web of essence woven around the Lunar, pulled into the ghostly threads of silver-light that traced the outline of the Hound around him. They poured in around him, filling his anima, becoming the Hound's flesh and fur and fangs. Moon crested his leap and went plummeting downwards, smashing through the cloud cover and sending it rippling back.

There was no sign of the Lunar himself in the figure that arrowed downwards towards the temple roof, only a dog. A dog as huge as the building it lunged for, throwing a shadow as broad as the Spire's onto the earth bellow. It's eyes blazed and it's mouth opened wide to bite onto the domed rooftop, Moon finally visible as he hovered in the center of it's open jaws, body-arched and hands clasped together above his head to strike a hammer blow onto the temple roof. Moon's arms swung. The Hounds jaws snapped closed. Thunder blasted out from the snapping jaws and as the thick cloud-flesh of the canine splashed into the temple walls and threw heavy waves of fog into the streets around it. When it cleared from the roof top seconds later, there was almost no rooftop left to see. The entire upper few floors has been smashed and caved inward. There was no Lunar either, Moon lost somewhere in the temple bellow.

Alexander: He holds the Garda Bird by the waist, spreading his wings, a flying golden god as he touches down in front of the Temple of Aryan... the great, desecrated statues, each three stores high framing the open gates of the even grander ravaged temple... and all around them, the shadows. On the ground, at their feet, circles of void appear, like waves rippling on the water.... no, like circles within circles of necromancy. And there are dots within those circles, places for the necromancers to stand, and the summonned to appear. Such a configuration... and from each comes a pillar of shadow mist, raising tall as a person, taller.... as the Temple Guards appear. Ghosts, so many of them... some normal. Some darkened, like black, melted wax, covered with cobwebs. Scythes and curved daggers, all the tools of the Spider, and a red ruby in the forehead of one and all.

And it was... more. More than they could have seen before. They came from the ground...

They were waiting. A trap for those who could see spirits. A trap for Exalted.

And they stood within an army of darkness.

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth swoops towards the ghosts with hardened intent, though they don't feel as wrong to her as they would to Alex. No, the dead are as familiar to her as the gods she grew up with-- as those whose heir she was betrothed to in Great Forks. Indeed, after the last two years, they were almost more familiar to her.

That didn't mean she liked them.

She swoops directly into the mass of ghosts and spirits, and it occurs to her that she has not named her weapon. She christens it in blood and name in the same instant, lashing out at two of the shadows. Sunset Lament-- a name that speaks of partings and lost hope. It would do for Avia.

Kanti: Kanti drops from Alexs arms, and rolls a little away from him, coming up in a fighting pose, the head of the fragrant incense spear already letting off small clouds of sweet-smelling smoke, irises blooming beneath her feet as she stands there.

one

two

one

two

move

And then she does, flowing in a cloud of smoke and incense, leaving a trail of irises behind her, spear twisting and spinning in her hands, leaving her surrounded by a halo of viridian light as the five of the temple guards around her are pushed back into the cycle at the point of her spear.

Elizabeth Holysword: Surrounded by the great host of shadows, she thinks of Alex. She'd decided to let him take his own risks, but that didn't mean she didn't have to take hers. "Come, vile and rotton creatures!" she yells "All at once, if you wish, cut, tear and rend, I'll still be here when the black sun sets on your foul existence and you give in to lethe!"

Every one of you that's after me me isn't after Alex... A fair trade.

Ghosts: ... two are struck by Elizabeth's Sunset Lament, and in that one movement, two are cleaved in half, their halves vanishing into dark mist and torn cobwebs. Five are struck by Kanti, and they disappear in Viridian Light. And then.... the others move. Their eyes shining a sickly yellow. The rubies gleaming on their foreheads. Black, black, like burnt wax. They scuttle foward... like spiders approaching the fly caught in their web, soundless, soundless like the shadows they are.

And they rush foward, out of the ground like bees out of a hive....

The grand scythes, the great clawed legs of a horrifying spider move first.... five, on each of them.

Alexander: Surrounded.

By such an unsettling enemy.

He stops, touching Ainerach to the ground. And then, a flourish, starting a circle of golden light about him...

"Sun, we stand now, in front of thine enemies." He chants.
"We stand, Lights of Heaven and Earth. We stand, between worlds. We stand, three against dozens."
"We stand, the last hope of all who pray to you, of all who believe in you. We stand, for every living being in this city."
"You smile upon excellence, sun. Smile upon us. Give us your light. Give me power, my god, so I may smite thine enemies, and crush all dark things under my foot."
"For they are wretched."
"For they are dark."
"For they are unworthy."
"For they should not be allowed to hurt any of thine flock."

"For they should burn, and in your name, I shall make them into ashes!"

He shouts!
He shouts, parting the clouds!
He shouts, and the sunburst of the Unconquered Sun appears beneath their feet, pushing the enemies backwards, burning all those who step into it. He shouts, and shines! "I pray for your light to protect me, oh god! " He shouts, and the light wraps around him, forming a soft armor of the purest light, wrapped in prayer to the Sun! "I pray for your light to protect us, oh god! Protect my sister, protect my lady, protect my city! And guide my blade, so I may protect them in your name! " He shouts, and raises Ainerach high, a burning star appearing at its tip.

"Let the song of prayer be their requiem."

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth whips Sunset Lament around herself as it drinks in the essence of slain ghosts, growing and changing like a wicked thorn: it grows longer, yes, the cutting edge shines a rippling black like twisted metal and the ruby gemstone seems to flow like molten life beneath it's surface; but more than that-- is the aura of pain and loss-- feelings so deep that actually being struck by the weapon fails to hold a candle to it.

The emotions of the Sunset Lament is a feeling Elizabeth knows well, and part of the reason she fails to so much as register the great scythes that pierce her body and spill little more than moonlight as she brings the blade to bear against an entire swath of ghosts that lay in her path.

Ghosts: The scythe of Moonlight comes.

It cuts through five of them, cutting through their bodies like wheat before the scythe.... a single swath taking out five effortlessly, bodies of shadow disappearing in the purest moonlight....

Kanti: The halo of green had parted to reveal the next group of dance partners and confused as they were by the incense around her, it was easy to guide their scythes around her with the spear.

Then Alex starts to speak, and the words curl themselves around her washing over her pushed with the full power of the sun.
he wants to crush the darkness.
he wants to crush the wretched.
..I am dark..
...I am wretched...
...I am his lady?
...the sun shines on me.
...the sun can shine even on me.

Kanti flows through the next steps of the dance with a grace born of joy, spear and feet connecting with the dead, another halo of green light blowing outwards from her.

Ghosts: .... and five more, touched one by spear and feet... and exploding in viridian light in the air, without ever touching the ground.... and so fast, twelve are dead, Some still move... they jump, filling the air above the birds... filling it with scythes and knives and cobwebs. three scythes come raining down on each....

Alexander: The prince raises Ainerach high... but they fall over him.

For a moment, the prince is covered in darkness.

Elizabeth and Kanti see only the shadowy creatures, their scythes coming down again and again and again... a mountain of shadows, covering every last bit of his light... no. Not every last bit. A single dot can be seen... like a burning star, like a firefly. Then, it starts to burn... growing, growing... and then the prince comes out, with a roar! A thunder sending the burning pieces of his foes all around him, an eruption of holy light, as the prince stops mid-air... and gazes down upon them like heavenly judgement.

Ghosts: As four of the ghosts extinguish in light, the Fangs are finally over them.

They fall over Elizabeth, covering her in their forms, little knives trying to pry into her soft bits, to open her shell, to go into her eye, into her nose, into her mouth.

They come from the ground below Kanti, so knives flashing, trying to cut through her screams.

And they walk cobwebs around Alexander, walking on air to cut him....

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth fights, and the tides of shadowy ghosts only seem to wax and wax again with no chance breathe. She sees Alex momentarily ovetaken by the ghosts, and her heart skips a beat... but she resists the fear. Trust him... I have to trust him... These things aren't a danger to anyone...

Are they?

Elizabeth didn't know, she was immortal. Fucking immortal, to quote herself. How could she say what was a danger to Alex?

It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything. I may be tainted, but I'm tained for a reason. Time for Acheron to earn some rent.

Usually, Elizabeth's weapons grow of their own volition, growing, evolving to become better impliments of death... Now, she takes hold of the essence herself, feeds it through her creation, weaves it into a form of her own design...

...and it is a form more twisted than anything merely unnaturally evolved. Ruby twists and cracks around black veins of blight, straining against its own structure as Elizabeth forces it into form-- and it explodes. Shards of ruby litter the battlefield as Elizabeth weilds the monstrocity of cracked and shattered ruby shot through and held together by oily black metal. A mere blade no longer, it is a great double-ended scythe-- each blade the visage of a sunset that eclipses even those held her enemies.

She swings it, and things die.

????: Acheron

Elizabeth's monstrous scythe rises, its shards littering the front of the temple, and five fall in the span of an eyeblink.

Acheron

Kanti jumps away, feeling the shiver, the sheer wrong emanating from Liz, and sends four to Lethe.
Viridian light pours from their forms.
Barely shielding the garda bird from the wailing souls on the shards.
Their wail says its name.
The name the Prince feels seared on his soul.

Acheron

The memory of the creature with the eyes of ice. The creature with the skin of Cobalt.
The creature wielding Acheron, the dark goddess of Frozen Time.

He remembers... and Elizabeth remembers.... falling, cut by the sword. Fighting. The screams of a fox. The screams of an eagle. The screams of a Spider. The screams of a diplomat. Fighting, and losing. They remember the forge in a person's soul... the forge for Ainerach. Ainerach. Pulsing in Alexander's hand as the shards cut all symbols of the sun about them.

Enemy!

Ainerach moves towards the Princess, wrestling itself free from Alex's hand, falling like a ward in front of her.
It seems to screech.

It raises a pillar of light, burning away the memories...

As the scythes fall upon the unarmed Prince, barely out of his daze.
As the scythes, over the statues, over the walls and windows of the building, fall upon Kanti.
As the scythes rush towards the monster darker than them, shards of Acheron shining on their rubies.

Kanti: The scythes and the knives came for Kanti through the cloud of fragrance and she deflected them with casual ease, a sweep of the haft of the spear, a twist of her legs as the knives came up out of the ground.

She springs with a wash of flame and a graceful arc, spinning in the air as she leaps away from the circle around her and closer to the temple, landing with a burst of white light at her feet as irises grow, not missing a single beat of her dance as her foot pivots up while her spear pivots back, creating another halo of green, right in the heart of the mob.

She tries not to think of the monster she's fighting with.

Meanwhile, outside...

Alexander: They fall upon the prince. A swordsman without his blade, defenseless.

Well, not completely.

He holds one of the scythes as it cuts through his armor, but not flesh, kicking its wielder, and shining! Getting them off him, going through their mass, blinding all in his path towards Ainerach, kicking and punching his way with sun's strength.... and picking his blade from the ground, wrestling control, teeth gritted as he makes an arc with the blade, cutting all those who dared to try to hurt his sister. His Sister. Enemy. Dark. Monster.

They burn at Ainerach's touch, but they are not even close to the darkness within blood of his own blood.

"What is going on?!? "

Ghosts: The prince had barely finished his swip when they came from his sides, wielding fang-like daggers, cutting the air towards his neck... like a scissor. Unlike those who grab hold of Elizabeth's arms... trying to pry the scythe from her. Knives going between her fingers, wishing the dark weapon.... wishing a weapon to use against the holy prince and the saintly dragoness.

The dragoness who has the ghosts jump from far as the feline statues, webs like puppeteer's strings on their back, almost gliding down as they fall upon her with their knives...

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth shakes her head to clear away the images of people she doesn't know, trying to focus on the here and now where ghosts try to pry and cut her weapon free. It'll take far more than that to pry this thing from my hands. Cut my fingers to the bone, I won't see Alex-- or anyone-- hurt with it! With the strength of an immortal, Elizabeth throws her attackers off, and swings Sunset Lament to make more back off or be split in two like so many of the others. Then-- with great heaving swings at everything in her path-- she fights her way next to her brother, to see if he is allright.

Alexander: They fall as she moves, so many cleaved corpses with their insides and the cut strings of web falling everywhere, as Alexander turns... whole, barely scratched by the things, covered in his armor of light, to gaze upon his sister... "What happened to you...?"

Kanti: And the ghosts fell about the saint.
And the scythes fell about the saint.
And the shadows fell about the saint.
And the saint rose up to meet them, spear in hand and flashing in defence, sparks and scents fall around her as she warded knives and scythes.
There was a brief pause, as she momentarily assumed one of the many fighting postures of the saint, and then she flowed through another series of steps and blows, spear tip blazing red and green, more souls sent on.

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth sweeps Sunset Lament in a protective arc around Alex, not hitting anything, just warning them back. "Wha-- I-- nng-- don't know what you're talking about!"

Alexander: "You... you don't?"

Was that an hallucionation, then?
Was it an enemy playing with their minds?
What was it?

Anything but his sister!

She looks at him, and sees that he believes every word - whatever it is, it is not in her!

Ghosts: The saint sent even more of them on. Her touch was blasphemy. Blasphemy!

And thus, they took to the air... all around the Dragon-Blooded! Flying, as it were... floating unnaturally in the air! Pulling on the strings, on the many infinite webs around them all... and sending knives, a rain of them over Kanti! Staying away, staying away from the Saint!

Much as the others are forced to stay away from Alexander and Elizabeth... their arcs keeping all of the opponents at arm's length!

And so, their arms widen, giant arms wielding giant scythes coming upon them!

Alexander: His arcs continue. He deflects the giant scythes.

They are at arm's length, and there they remain.... as he finishes his arc by swinging his blade down, burning with white fire, cutting through the giant scythes, cutting the metal into burning white shards, and sending them all back at their wielders, impaling them on their own weapons, filled with holy fire, burning each and every one!

It was a risky proposition, and it missed many of them... but some did fall, burning from their own weapon's shards.

And Alexander looked up at his older sister, at her avian features, wondering...

"... then just what was that...?"

Elizabeth Holysword: Why is he asking now? What did he see? That vision?

"This isn't the time for this Alex... Uhh, ask me again later?" Later... when I'm not here...

Liz cuts the 'conversation' short by darting off into the mass of ghosts which have decided to "keep their distance"

????: Atop the temple, appears a blindfolded figure, clad in a full white-gray cloak.

The figure takes its blindfold off, and its eyes are like stars. Blazing, shining...
Exploding in unearthly, ghostly light. A light of sheer power.
And it is all that can be seen within the cloak. Shadows and twin burning stars.
And the twin gems, shining on each side of its hood.
One Gem to empower the one who dresses.
One Gem to power the one who wields.

And then the cloak opens, and it is full of shadow. And in the shadow, there are eyes. The eyes begin to burn with the same light.

And then, from each and every one, rains spiteful essence, burning through the air, over the Holysword siblings!

It goes through statues, and they explode.
It strikes the ground, killing other shadowy creatures, lifting pillars of smoke.
And it comes to the Holyswords....

Elizabeth Holysword: Elizabeth looks up halfway through cutting appart some ghosts and sees the sky burn with essence, a rain of death and ruin, and she was too far away from Alex... She'd left his side so she wouldn't have to answer a few difficult questions and now, it might be moot.

Her mind goes back to the moment she heard her parents were dead. No, I won't lose another one...

She hefts up the monstrocity that is the Sunset Lament, but it's too heavy, it will slow her down-- she drops it and dashes for Alex, bowling him over as she tries desperately to protect him, hoping her body stays together enough to protect him-- willing it to.

Alexander: It goes through her neck. It goes through her chest. Through her heart and through her lungs.

But none of the force goes through, only the blood... Alexander is unharmed.

And in his own mind, he sees his parents dying... unable to do anything to stop it...

And he lost another one... like Fiona...

Kanti: Alex...!

Kanti watches with terror as the the essence rains down, scouring out the dead, towards the prince and his sister, cutting out arcs of smoke.

She whispered a prayer to Alex, a prayer to unlock the essence of his heart, and then she started to run, leaving a trail of flames and irises behind her. When she reached the building, she didn't stop, just changed direction, flying up the immense side of the temple.

Where her feet touched, the temple wall glowed white, melting away, and in the trail of melted footprints she left irises growing.

When she reached the top she did not stop, flying up into the air and then flipping, coming down speartip first and blazing with her love on the being who would attack her prince.
You will not hurt him!
You WILL NOT hurt him!
She lands on the roof before him and then pirouettes around him, leaving a pefect circle of glowing footprints and blooming irises, spear shining as it weaves through the centre.

????: She strikes at the man... and each of her strikes are white-hot.

She strikes at the man.... and breaks him.

And he sees the glass armor on his chest, and she shatters it.

And then, he takes her place, And she is left only in shards of glass....

And he steps back, falling from the roof, looking upward, running from her...

Elizabeth Holysword: Liz smiles, seeing Alex unhurt. She brushes his hair back-- bleeds on him a bit-- and gives him a kiss on the forehead. "Don't worry about me--" she winks "--I'm immortal."

Alexander: ... and his sister falls at his feet.

The blood over him...

And he screams!

He does not believe... she was hurt... she was....
His sister...
Her blood... so much... of her blood....
"Liz... sis..."
"You are going to die! "

He lifts off the ground like a rocket, his armor shining at its brightest... he is caught in the web, but he does not care.

So many of the enemies fall on his way, but he does not care.

Their scythes cut all but flesh, and they let their rubies explode... exploding all around Alex....

Shredding his clothes, leaving him clad only in the light... not white-golden anymore. But a dark, fiery, almost red gold. A gold so dark it obscures his body, making him like a walking shadow with a golden caste mark... clad only in the light and vengeance, as he keeps killing those in his way... he had barely heard his sister's words. Would much change if he did, covered as he was in her blood....?

And at the same time, more of them glide atop the temple, striking at Kanti, trying to keep her away from their Ghostly captain as he falls....

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