#so as in the prologue she was sacrificed and is doing her whole hero thing without her proper soul

[azuisreading]

Born of Scourge by S. Jean

Legends say when the skies grow dark and scourge starves the land, a star will fall in order to save humanity. Only when the star is sacrificed at the end of their journey will light return. It's a cycle—one humanity refuses to break because stars are plentiful and their sacrifices easier than learning the true nature of the scourge. When Sol finally falls, it's not because of humanity. It's because he's had enough of watching his brethren be sacrificed. He has one goal: end humanity and end the cycle. Unfortunately, he has to pretend he cares before humans get wise. It doesn't matter how soft the princess who catches him is—Celena will be dead by the time his journey ends. Nor how kind his assigned companions are—the outgoing Mira with her ballads, the brave Nebora with her axe, and the hero Loren with his soft voice and friendly smile. For centuries, humanity has lied and their kindness is a ruse to bring about Sol's own destruction at the end of his tale. He will not be fooled. No one cares about the cries of the stars they've destroyed over and over again and Sol will make sure this time, humanity is the one sacrificed. At least, that's the plan until his traitorous heart begins to care for the humans he sought to eradicate.

Review

Following S. Jean from their web novel series «The Magician and The Bard» brought me this greatness. I was able to apply to join their ARC team to read this gem, even though I was a bit unconvinced about their writing, but this ended up being an amazing decision. I’m in love with Born of Scourge and their storytelling skills, and I’m already in for whatever she wants to tell in the future (and for what I’ve already missed in the past).

So, what are you gonna encounter here? A lot of angst. And a pretty dark theme. This isn’t a light reading, everyone knows the world is ending, but all of us rather play dumb. That doesn’t stop the passing of time and we’re unfortunately aware. Which I believe makes things worse. There wasn’t a moment in which I believed the story would end in a happy or positive ending, and I’m pretty good at leaning toward this stuff.

Why read it, then? Because it’s amazing. You can feel the bond between the characters and how, even when everything has an end and sooner or later it will come, things have meaning. What you do it’s important. How you decide to act will always be the key. You can help someone to have a better or a worse journey just with a few, usually not significant to you, words. Just by staying for a moment. Just being you.

You can go through the world wanting to end it and still spread hope. The world could not deserve you, but what you do will always be more than enough.

I think that if a book can make me this philosophical and positive about our existence and the way our world is working right now, then it deserves a shot. I never expected to find a book with such dark tones on my comfort shelf. I never expected to have fun delving into such themes. The prose is magnificent, incredibly beautiful. I took out a few phrases just because it was going to be a big spoiler (and highly illegal, hahah) to take the whole book.

I’ll keep its love story, because I believe that’s what is about. Even this dark, is a beacon of light and hope. You know how it goes: you only can appreciate the beauty of life when you have seen its ugly side.

Phrases that I liked so much that I marked them while reading

«She held the star as close to her heart as possible because he would bring back the light. She was sure of it.» — Prologue.

«All of it was rote, normal, and helped her ignore the fact the world was ending around them. Sol didn’t mind helping her forget. He liked the way she smiled.» — Chapter I.

«And besides, she harbored the belief the world wouldn’t end because Sol was there. He hadn’t the heart to tell her otherwise or about the promise he’d made as he’d fallen through the skies. Let her believe he’d save the world if it made her smile so.» — Chapter I.

«Early on, Celena had told Sol the names of every single plant they grew here, but only these two stood out because Celena absolutely loved them.» — Chapter I.

«It was calm simply existing together like this, arms entwined, and Sol wouldn’t have minded staying like this the entire day.» — Chapter I.

«For some reason, when she spoke his name, it made him want to smile.» — Chapter I.

«The smiles she graced him with were bright and dazzling and made him forget what he was.» — Chapter I.

«When he opened his eyes again, Celena had returned. Still radiated a softness in the world Sol couldn’t help but want to hold.» — Chapter I.

«Celena was so resplendent when she smiled. Sol wanted to memorize it and sought to trace it with his fingers, so he’d never forget. Even when darkness claimed everything that was and ever would be, he’d hold onto this smile. This afternoon as they swept each other through the gardens, their soft laughter mixing together amongst the whispers in the wind.» — Chapter I.

«“Part of me actually hoped they wouldn’t come. So then I’d have more time with you.”» — Chapter II.

«“Are you ready?” “As long as I am with you,” Sol said.» — Chapter II.

«Sol drifted off, simply listening to her breathe and the way her blood hummed against him, and part of him hoped morning never came because deep down buried in his heart, he didn’t want to leave her.» — Chapter III.

«Gareth looked between Nebora and Loren, silent with his eyebrows high in amusement. For once, he wasn’t the one being yelled at.» — Chapter IX.

«As much as he wanted it to be true, these were not those he’d once been nestled beside in the cosmos. They were echoes of who they’d been, hardened into scourge and then left behind when the light returned. They would never again be who they once were.» — Chapter X.

[queerloquial]

me: yknow what, i dont need canon, ill use my own ideas

also me: loops said ideas back around to tie neatly into canon so that its like nothing was changed at all

[luxshine]

Moon Knight Primer Part Eleven

Moon Knight #4-5

Prologue, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X

Issues 4 and 5? Are a rollercoaster of emotions and we still haven’t left Marc’s mind! Again, this is one of the strengths of the Lemire run. We don’t have to worry about whatever is going on in the Marvel Universe at the time, whatever new crossover event is destroying the world (At the time we were just recuperating from the world-shattering event of Secret Was that sort of fused the 616-Universe, aka. The Official Marvel Universe, and the Ultimate Universe,  and was the reason why the origins of many heroes, including Moon Knight, were reshuffled and changed a bit, and just entering Civil War II which was such a mess, I am so glad the boys were busy dealing with themselves instead of with that, as THAT ruined many characters that are just now recovering)

Also, these two issues cement the main theme that we’re dealing with: how Marc is not alone in his mind, even when he thinks he is, and talking control of one’s life despite the challenges. We saw how we lost Crawley in the last issue, as he sacrificed himself to let the group escape. Seven pages into issue four? We lose Jean Paul to a cop who is really Sobek, son of Seth, in disguse. Important thing, Sobek calls Marc “Son of Khonshu” which is, again, something exclusive to this series. Before this, no one had called Marc this, not even the same priests who used to call Hawkeye (Clint Barton) “Beloved of Khonshu”.

At least in his head? Marc gets some respect.

Anyway, Sobek bites Jean Paul on the yugular, and that is not a survivable wound, so Marc kills Sobek with his bare hands, but is on time to hear Jean Paul’s last words (And, most importantly, take off the Mr. Knight mask, so that Jean Paul can see him)

Jean Paul’s last words? Are to call Marc “Mr. Knight” and tell him that yes, he sees that the cop is Sobek.

And THIS is important because before this? EVEN in Marc’s mind? Jean Paul had never acknowledged the name of Mr. Knight. Which paralleled very well the relationship Jean Paul, the real Jean Paul, had with all of Marc’s Alters. Yes, he recognized they existed, he sometimes even paid lip service to their names, but for Jean Paul? Marc was always Marc, no matter who fronted. So this moment of acceptance? Is a goodbye for Marc. The idea that, if Jean Paul ever accepted them completely? They’d lose the old friendship they had. (Which, in a way, is true. When Jean Paul finally saw that Jake and Steven weren’t just names Marc adopted? Was when he finally left the mansion and went on to have his own life)

Anyway, two down, two to go.

With Jean Paul gone, Gena starts seeing the desert too but she’s too confused to really grasp what’s going on. Marc tells her that he’s glad she also sees what he sees, because he can stop what’s going on, but he can’t do it alone. He needs her, and she tells him that well, wherever Marc is going? Can’t be worse than where they are.

Marc once again, asks her to call him Mr. Knight.

Have you noticed how pretty much the whole four issues are Marc telling people to respect his identity? His chosen identity?

AS they walk into the now desert New York, Gena spots her diner and insists that they need to make a stop, regain their bearings, and get some food into their stomachs. At first, Marc is unsure, but he finally agrees. There, Gena comes a bit back to herself, the real Gena’s personality, which once again makes sense: Marc ONLY interacted with her there. And only saw her as the worried single mother who would do anything for her kids.

Which of course is why there, Gena finally starts calling him Mr. Knight without any extra prompting from Marc, reminding him that he is a good man. To which Marc replies that he is Nothing without his friends -something that we have seen Marc express before, even way back in the original Moench run: His sense of self sometimes depends a lot on how others see him.

In any case, this peace can’t last and when he’s on the bathroom -because Marc’s mind world is… pretty realistic- Khonshu interrupts to remind him that he has a mission and he’s weak, and of course Khonshu picked up the wrong person for the job. In short: THE EXACT Opposite of how he was last time we saw him. And he is still skechty and blotched, so we know he’s not how Marc sees Khonshu. He is just… very contradictory. Marc is starting to get tired of this attitude, but just as he tries to stand up for himself Gena calls him back to the diner as Marlene is FINALLY up and speaking, saying that they have to go before the sunrise.

Ironically, it seems the closer they get to the big Pyramid? The better Marlene feels. But Marc, on the other hand, feels that something is wrong there, very wrong. But he can’t just not go. Because he knows that what needs to be fixed? Is there.

Gena, for her part, tells him that her role in this is done, as she needs to stay and wait for her boys -boys who are NOT there because, ding-ding-ding, Marc NEVER interacted with them until the 2006 run killed Ray and left Ricky as the Jean Paul replacement. And This Marc? Is not THAT Marc. That Marc was incredibly unstable due to fronting all time, and trying to keep the others down. So of course, THIS Marc wouldn’t have a mind-template for Gena’s kids.

Three down, One to go.

On the path to the pyramid, Marc realizes that the flying jackals want him to go to the top, so they don’t attack.  Marlene also tells him she remembers everything they lived together, she and Marc, she and STEPHEN Grant (yes, with a PH, and not a V, and I haven’t found a single shred of evidence that it was JUST a typo and not a clue that something was very wrong with Marlene right there), and him as Moon Knight.

No Jake though, and remember how I told you all that Jake was a non-entity for Marlene? And how it annoyed Steven and Jake? Well, here’s proof of it.

Anyway, they reach the base of the pyramid only to be stopped by Moon Knight. The ORIGINAL suit Moon Knight too, who tells Marc to stop, and that he’s insane.

And THAT’s how issue four ends. What a cliffhanger, right? (Importantly? Parts of Moon Knight look completely sketched out, as if he was done with pencils unlike the rest of, well, everything)

Issue 5 begins with Moon Knight convincing Marlene to come with him, as Mr. Knight, our Marc, is not amused and demands to know who he is. Moon Knight replies that he is Marc Spector, the one from before Marc lost his mind and the only one who can stop what is going on. Now, very importantly: He doesn’t say that he is the REAL Marc, but the SANE Marc. Even in his mind, even fractured? Marc knows he and his alters are real. Or at least, subconsciously he knows it because he’s not, at least at this moment, aware of Jake and Steven.

And he is ANGRY at being called Insane, so he stabs “sane” Marc with a moon crescent, but Moon Knight headbutts him and manages to run away with Marlene.

And here once again I remind you: This is not REAL Marlene betraying Marc for an illusion of a “normal” Marc (Not a Sane one, because as our Marc says, the System is NOT Insane), but Marc’s mental image of Marlene. Who OF COURSE was going to leave him the second she was offered an out, a man who was not a System, a man who wasn’t constantly running into danger.

Not only that, but consider how he lost his allies: Crawley sacrificed himself to help the greater good, Jean Paul got killed because Marc got sloppy. Gena choose to stay behind, but didn’t betray Marc.

Marlene? Marlene ran away with a “better” version of Marc.

Anyone else wants to hug Marc?

Marc runs after them, but when he crosses a door with a crescent on it… we’re suddenly in a completely different landscape, drawn by a completely different artist.

James Stokoe is the artist here, and we’re on the moon. Marc is wearing a space suit very similar to his black armor version, and he can see a trail of footprints and blood leading to a door with a half moon on it. But when he starts walking towards it… he’s almost ambushed by werewolves.

Interestingly, THIS section has panels, but the borders are very, very faint. As if reality was unsure of it being reality.

He manages to cross the door, and we change realities again. And AGAIN we have borders, only these are a bit more clear.  A bit more comic-booky. And the art changes again, this time by Wilfredo Torres, with a cleaner style than Stokoe who is very anime influenced. There he meets with Marlene, who is calling him Steven, with a V, and is wearing the Stained Glass Scarlet costume, as she is an actress in the Grant-produced Moon Knight movie. Before Steven -because this is Steven- can get his bearings, Marlene tells him to run as Billy and Bobby, our favorite Jackal nurses, appear in human form and are chasing Steven.

Steven runs through the door Marlene pointed to, marked with a Half moon in the oppositeside of the original he crossed, and we’re back in a borderless world, only this time is NOT Marc’s world, but the far more gritty and comic-book looking world of Jake Lockley, this time drawn by Fransesco Francavilla.

Coloring, by the way, also changes between worlds. The Moon world is washed in blues, while the Grant world is warmth and colored in a sort of animation cel style. Jake’s? Is all high contrasts, in a very seventies style.

Jake finds a last crescent door, but he’s almost stopped by Billy and Bobby who come out from a sewer and try to put him to sleep to take “Spector” back to dr. AMMUT (yep, The System’s mind is done with pretending)  

He manages to cross the last crescent door, and we’re back to Smallwood’s art, no panel borders and Mr. Knight.

Oh, and Marc is facing a chained Seth, who calls him “Khonshu’s Pup” and is very clearly not the one in charge of the madness that is going around, given that he is a) Chained, and b) ALSO part of Marc’s mindscape since he is not colored, inked or drawn differently.

Following Seth’s directions, he climbs the last set of stairs as he removes the Mr. Knight mask only to meet face to face with the bleeding Moon Knight he faced at the beginning of the chapter, who congratulates him on managing to arrive there. And as Marc demands to know who Moon Knight really is, the man takes off his mask to reveal…

Khonshu.

Khonshu, who unlike Set? Is drawn in the sketchy, blurry style of the Otherworld to point out that he? Is an outsider to Marc’s mindscape.

Which becomes even more obvious when he reveals why he was testing Marc, the real reason for all this journey. See? Khonshu’s body in the othervoid is dying. And, in order to stay alive? Khonshu wants to take over the Moon System’s human one.

In exchange? Marc will be at peace. No more pain, no more “Weakness”, no more being “broken” (as Khonshu keeps calling Marc, over and over again. There was only ONE time in this whole five issue run when he didn’t, which is quite suspicious, don’t you think? The one time when he told Marc to embrace himself, to believe in his own mind, and to follow his instincts. A very helpful little bird, unlike this one)

And Marc? Faithful Marc, who has believed every word of Khonshu so far?

Says NO.

And because he knows he can’t fight Khonshu, he can’t fight a God, even a Dying one?  He jumps off the pyramid, ready to die, as he remembers his friends smiling at Gena’s diner.

And dies before letting Khonshu have his body.

Only to wake up as Steven, in his mansion, drawn again by Wilfredo Torres and with the warm, soft color palette and the soft black panel borders,  with Marlene, who says she’s an actress, and he is a producer, that they’re shooting the pyramid scene now.

And Steven? Steven smiles at the skyline while a tear falls down his right eye.

So… Did Marc die and let Steven get the body before letting Khonshu have it? Did any of this happen?  What the hell is going on?

Well, for that, we need to go to the NEXT arc of the Lemire’s run, still written by Lemire, and MAINLY drawn by Smallwood (Although Torres, Stokoe and Francavilla will remain with us for a while), titled “Incarnations” That only lasts from issues 6 to 10 to complete the first 10 issues of the Lemire run.

But that? Is for part 12.

(I'm adding the covers because a)they're so pretty, and b) look at the symbolism! Marc letting go of the illusions, of the pain, and revealing that under all that? He's more than just Marc Spector!)

[theseerasures]

RWBY V08C14 reaction post

haven’t done something like this for this fandom yet, but the finale was so much all at once that i could not muster any level of critical thinking the first go-around. my thoughts have...settled somewhat with a second rewatch. still nothing conclusive (obviously), but at least coherent enough to be written down.

in rough chronological order:

i am very into it, of course, but i’m still not quite sure what to make of the fact that this finale very explicitly pivots around Winter Schnee, to the extent that the episode (sans prologue and coda) are bookended by her. she begins the episode charging into a fight, and ends it the same way. even putting aside that her in-universe presence has increased by magnitudes, that we end a season where she has mostly been a sparse supporting player with THIS has implications i can’t suss out for her narrative role going forward.

going into the finale i thought that Ironwood vs. Winter would turn out to be another RWBY Flagship Fight (ie long and flashy and indulgent in the best ways), but i pretty much knew that wouldn’t be the case once the fight began in earnest and they immediately started talking to each other.

for what we did get i’m happy to say that the Core Dynamic of the fight was exactly what i predicted: Winter rushing in to melee and not giving Ironwood enough time to fire, Ironwood trying to make room by shoving her away and using his cannon as a makeshift club--even down to breaking the cannon formation BACK to dual wielding to give himself an edge.

i will say that for Winter to have blocked him head-on--this is James Ironwood, who once stopped an Alpha Beowolf cold with one bionic hand, and now he’s got TWO--with her broken noodle arms is...incredibly cool. stupid! but cool.

Ironwood doing the double pistol whip while screaming about how no one is grateful has i wouldn’t have to be doing this if you just behaved all over it.

in retrospect i’m not sure why i expected a RWBY Flagship Fight when just about every fight this season has been extremely different. the camera work is always fucking frantic, we’re often cross-cutting between different simultaneous fights, and there are far fewer shots where both combatants are clearly shown and evenly matched. about the only fight we’ve had resembling that is AceOps vs Penny waaaaaaay back in Strings--even the low-stakes triumphant JNPER + Winter vs. Ironwood fight in Creation was extremely short and crosscut with BRA vs. AceOps.

case in point: the showdown in Grand Central takes up pretty much the entire episode, but combatants are continuously entering and exiting, the setting’s physical dimensions feel wonky and surreal, and the fact that half of the people fighting have flight capabilities means we’re relying on wide shots and oners to figure out what the fuck is going on. it’s a war now, and even though we follow only a handful of characters in it the fights carry that grander and more desperate tone.

Cinder relies twice this episode on just fucking nova-ing herself to overwhelm her Maiden opponents. it’s different from how she usually fights, which is still fireballs and conjured swords/projectiles--she’s learning to use her Maiden powers to wreak havoc on a larger scale, which a) reinforces what we already know of Cinder, but b) complements her recent relearning of subtlety and manipulation. still a tenuous balance of extremes that can and will shatter, though.

Weiss got to save everyone during the fight, and none of it mattered in the end.

the thing about priority one is that they all planned for this. they all went in planning for the contingency where they don’t make it out, where they have to watch others not make it out.

Weiss plucking Penny out of the air and Penny pleading to make the sacrifice play is an EXACT recreation of what happened in Enemy of Trust, down to the saved looking up at the savior while the savior is looking onward. she’s just swapped places with the Schnee in question, and...they are the priority targets this time, unfortunately.

Cinder smugly flipping her hair out of...her eyepatch...she really is living her best life and she knows it

Blake made the right choice, and it didn’t matter at all.

Qrow ending the last episode with a berserker charge at Harriet and then immediately pulling back here and trying to talk her down really got to me, as did him trying to block the bomb with his body. the man is so desperately trying to be better than he was, and it doesn’t take a lot anymore for him to realize the right path.

Elm and Vine--

the thing about Elm and Vine is that both their powers boil down to getting attached. so watching Elm hold Vine in place while Vine holds the two airships together, everyone in this little world, it’s...everything i could ever want, out of how the story of the AceOps would end.

Anairis Quinones for dark horse MVP. why can’t you just let me do my job, delivered in the way that it was, is the perfect encapsulation of Harriet Bree desperately trying to outrun her personal feelings and the grief it has given her.

Elm tells Harriet that she’s their friend, to stop her from killing a part of herself as she tries to kill others. it’s the first time this happens in the episode, but not the only time.

Penny saved Blake so they could save Ruby together, and it didn’t matter at all.

our heroes have GOT to stop falling for the “watch the thing flying in the air! OH WAIT I STILL HAVE A WEAPON IN MY HAND WALLOP WALLOP” trick. it happens multiple times in this one episode.

Harriet, who has the fastest Speed Semblance known, says there’s no time to make it out of the blast range. she doesn’t try to outrun it. she just...stays put, and admits that she brought them all here, to this. i’m sorry.

here’s the thing: they’re soldiers. they were prepared for this eventuality, where they don’t make it out. that’s why Elm let Vine go grab Harriet; because she thought they were all going to die, and if that happened she wanted Harriet close enough to reach.

but--just like with Team Hero--some of them do make it out. they just have to watch.

Vine and Hazel sacrificed themselves in the same way in the end: pulling their loved ones close wasn’t working, so they threw themselves around the thing trying to kill them instead.

Ruby was clever, and pragmatic, and brave. it didn’t matter in the end.

Cinder letting Neo fall as soon as she gets a chance proves that she still lacks patience, and that’s going to bite her in the ass.

the Penny-Blake fastball special and the fall; Penny crying tears for the first time, but not moving immediately to rage, as she had last episode, when Yang fell.

Weiss’ shaking hands around Gambol Shroud, crying berserker tears as she tries, desperately, to pull off another miracle. it’s another role reversal in a way: her sister’s the Riza Hawkeye, but she’s the one emptying useless clip after useless clip into an enemy she can’t kill, because her heart has been ripped in two.

the last time Nora Valkyrie saw Jaune Arc, they clasped hands, and their eyes met with determination, and hope.

it figures that a Schnee would be the last one standing, letting all her friends die first. she was right, but again: wrong Schnee.

Weiss diving past Cinder’s blind spot to slice the Grimm Arm, to save Penny--the same script, but the wrong player. and too late.

at Haven, Jaune went from trying to do harm to unlocking his Semblance, and realizing that he was meant to heal. here, he goes from trying to do what he is meant to do, what he has made peace with, to...

it will take a long time, i think, for him to learn to live with himself, even with Penny reassuring him that this is what she wants. to go from wanting to harm to being the one who does no harm, to being forced to acknowledge a person’s right to die, and carry out the deed himself. it’s a new variation on what he’s always had to wrestle with since Pyrrha’s sacrifice.

Weiss managed to outlast Cinder Fall without an Aura WITHOUT getting her entire body broken, Winter

the boundary between material worlds is made of darkness. the boundary between souls is made of light, and there is no danger of falling.

where...what is this? of course Winter doesn’t know. she never would have, even if she had gotten the powers, because she would have used the Transfer machine.

i thought of you, and here we are. that was all it took. the last time Penny saw Winter, Winter was still loyal to Ironwood. she’s only known abstractly, secondhand from Weiss, that Winter was on their side again and trying to help save Mantle, for about an hour. and yet: i thought of you.

and in the face of this thought that is love, Winter averts her eyes. tries in vain to hide her face, because she knows she is unworthy. she doesn’t deserve this.

but here’s the thing: no one deserves this. Penny. are you...the one? even Penny herself wasn’t sure.

you were my friend. the second time it happens this episode. friends save friends from themselves. friends transform what would have been murder into sacrifice.

remember what Penny said to Cinder, shortly before Cinder killed her? you wouldn’t know anything about friends. she’s right. it wasn’t Cinder’s choice, but she’s right. and now Cinder has learned how to use that.

i’ll be part of you. it is, of course, something that’s been brought up repeatedly this whole season. but it’s also what Winter said to Penny after Fria died: she’s a part of you now.

and i do love this yoking together of arc words. Winter is of course the firstborn Schnee, but Winter is, more broadly, The Firstborn in this new generation. so here we have something similar to the chain that begins with Winter letting her sisters go, through Penny letting Emerald go, through Emerald helping Oscar escape, to Atlas’ however ephemeral victory over Salem. what Winter begins--haltingly and with resentment--becomes transformed into radiant grace in the hands of her younger siblings. and she gets to be the direct benefactor this time. the prodigal daughter returns to her family.

during Enemy of Trust we watched from the outside as Oscar fell and Penny rose, as one set of eyes closed as another opened. during The Final Word, we watch from the inside: one set of eyes close. another opens.

Winter’s leitmotif plays on the piano for the first time since the previous season as she comes back to the world. it makes sense. the piano version is for her sisters, and she just left one of them.

here is the apotheosis of Winter Schnee: she gets back up. she falters and sways but she gets back up, and then she, the person who once managed to convince herself that so long as she could make peace with someone else’s choice it meant she too was choosing, tells the man who has been choosing for her for years: you chose nothing. and she rises.

in the end James Ironwood was finished by his petard thrice over. Atlas had defected against him. his greatest creation had become the Maiden and unshackled herself from him. and there is of course, the cannon: a literal petard, in the other words, which he fires at Winter, and Winter reflects back upon him.

Jaune Arc used the heirloom that his family has held for generations to kill a defenseless girl. he took the blade and sunk it in deep, because Penny trusted him and he had to be sure.

and then it shattered in his hands.

there’s something here in the second fight between Maidens, about Cinder having a named weapon and forsaking it for what she can make on the fly, and Winter insistent on using a weapon with no name at all, but i still can’t put my finger on it.

Winter never got to see Weiss try to Summon her Nevermore.

the thing that gets me about how it turns out is: Winter was winning. she’d managed to get her hands on the Staff, and even with Cinder’s immediate counterattack she managed to get the Staff away from Cinder. but then Cinder saw Jaune and Weiss, and she remembered a few days ago, when Penny saved Winter instead of going after Cinder, when Winter attacked Cinder to save Penny.

so Cinder attacks Weiss and Jaune instead of racing for the Staff. and Winter--

this is Winter Schnee. she saves people despite herself. she runs toward them, despite herself. and it has always, always been what saves her.

not anymore.

last time it had been Winter who was in mortal danger, and Weiss who, with Ruby’s help, drove Cinder off. same script, wrong player. and too late.

Weiss falls and for a moment, the camera makes it seem like Winter is falling too.

she wants to. no one deserves this.

the thing you have to ask when characters leap for the exit and fall just short is: is it about faith, or friendship? in Jaune’s case it’s both. his faith broke with Crocea Mors. and the portal is one-way, so he had no friends to grab him from the other side.

but Nora was still trying. they clasped hands. she promised.

the first time Winter sees her family--really sees them, after years of separation--she averts her eyes. she hides her face from them, because how can she tell them that Weiss is gone? how can she tell Penny’s friends that Penny is a part of her now, when Penny is just a part, now?

there are people all around her looking to her. there are voices within her. she has never been more alone.

(Winter Schnee has never met Pyrrha Nikos, and Pyrrha Nikos never became Maiden. because Pyrrha Nikos never became Maiden. Cinder Fall did that, too.)

this is what Winter Schnee thinks, as she screams and charges, as she kills Grimm faster than they are drawn in by her despair: in the fairy tales, eldest siblings never win.

i failed you again, master. master, but not queen.

Cinder won this. the heroes tried and tried and tried and none of it mattered, and she won this. but here’s the thing: Cinder won because she was LUCKY, and because she made her own luck. that she was able to pin things on Neo and Team Hero depended on things going exactly as planned, and some things going better than planned. and the reason she’d even made it that far was because she cheated, with the last use of a divine relic. it doesn’t take away her from her victory, but what i do know is this: this is her finest moment. she will never win as completely ever again, and she will fall farther than she has ever feared. (and that will save her, in the end.)

and that’s checkmate. i said that i wanted Atlas to fall the same way that Amity rose, but of course they did it like this. of course it would horrific yet unspectacular, with its General slumped in defeat, unable to fire a single shot from his gun. with the city in the sky falling onto Mantle, in Mantle’s palette. from the Dust from which it arose into Dust again.

as below, so above.

[kallypsowrites]

Congratulations on this milestone my friend!

I'm very happy for you.

I'm curious about the prologue of the fic or what will become of Bagra, was Alinas mother? First Aleks mother?

And if I can test my luck, the Magician is one I'm curious about since I like magic in general.

Baghra, as of now, will not be in the fic? I might come up with a place for her. Baghra is still original Aleksander's mother and then Alina has the same backstory of being an orphan since she's been alive since the canon events of the trilogy. But maybe she'll end up in the story. No plans for now though. I wanna see Aleksander sans Baghra tbh

As for the Magician ask:

The Magician is A powerful figure who has harnessed the ways of the universe to achieve key goals.

This figure is often either a godlike mentor to the hero or a villain. And I love my Magicians as VILLAINS let me tell you.

My favorite iteration of the magician, however, isn't like...explicitly magic. But he none the less holds the most power within the story and he's my favorite villain in anything ever. His name is Johan Liebert. And he is the villain of Monster.

Which most of you probably hadn't heard of because you gotta pirate it to watch this anime but it is worth it let me tell you. Johan is...well he's basically the anti-christ? He has a way with people and manipulating them. He seems to draw the worst people to him from serial killers to neo nazis who want him to be their leader. But he inevitably ends up sacrificing them because he doesn't give a fuck.

He is consistently the one in the most control through the whole series. Always several steps ahead. And you can just FEEL this guy's power even when he doesn't appear for several episodes. He's the closest thing to a devil in the mostly realistic universe of the show and. I. Love him. He's so scary

From my OCs, I gotta shout out Drake. He's a powerful creator in my universe who specializes in fucking with people's minds but basically in anything else he needs to do as well. He is a skilled liar and manipulator and leagues powerful than all of the other characters when he is introduced.

I enjoy villains that are there to have fun. They're having a grand old time. And Drake is my stock villain. A different version, iteration of this boy appears in all of my projects. He is my chaos sower. He is the evil writer in me tormenting my characters. I force him onto all of my OCs and they hate me for it.

Thanks for the ask :) The ask games for the 2k follower celebration are listed here

[kgstoryteller]

LOVE in the time of corona-possible prologue for “killing justice: the taste of knives”

Either you learn to live with paradox and ambiguity or you’ll be six years old for the rest of your life.-Anne Lamott

At 5:55 pm, on 3/30/2020 I do hereby declare, under penalty of perjury, that I am a child of chaos, and that my true name is scared kel. Strike that. May the record reflect that for the past 56 years, since my adoption in the spring of 1964 at the age of eleven months, my true name has been scared kel.

Of course I was scared. I had just been kidnapped from the only home I’d ever known, and taken away by two strangers to their little yellow house in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. I cried, and cried, and cried, from dusk until dawn, but as the sun slowly began to rise, and I had not yet been returned home, I finally stopped crying. I would have to adapt to this strange new world, it seemed.

Paradoxical New First Name

These two strangers kept calling me by this strange new name I’d never heard before: “Kelly”. I resisted this name for the longest time, and kept calling myself Toddy instead. I would later learn that my oldest half-brother, who was born shortly after I was adopted, is named Todd. Go figure.

I would also later learn that my new name, Kelly, means “brave warrior.” But wait, that can’t be right. After all, my true name is Scared Kel. Put the two together, and it would seem that my complete true name must be Scared Brave Warrior. No wonder I was confused. No wonder I am a child of chaos.It seems that I have been wrestling with paradoxes and ambiguities like these my whole life. 

Yet my adoptive parents were conservative Christians, and my mom in particular seemed especially concerned that I learn the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong. And it seemed that a lot of my childhood was spent doing what was evil and wrong, as what I heard mom say more often than anything else to me was “Your will must be broken young man.” In other words, her will must be good. My will must be evil. How else to explain the fact that I’d been given up twice in the first year of my life? I knew that because, at the age of three and a half, on a ferry boat ride to go get my baby sister, I’d asked my mom why we weren’t going to the hospital. She had gently replied, “Because we’re choosing to adopt your baby sister, just like we chose to adopt you from a foster home when you were eleven months old.” Being “chosen” was a double-edged sword, it seemed. I would have to be really, really good if I wanted to make sure that mom #3 wasn’t going to give up on me too.

We moved around a lot in the first few years after I was adopted. Three times during my first six years with them. Every time we’d move, mom would say “Look how much I’ve sacrificed for you.” If my will was evil., then all Mom’s sacrifices must be good. If I was a child of chaos, it was clear that mom’s world was a world of order. And that mom’s God was a God of order. Once again it seemed as if I was just going to have to adapt to this strange new world.

If my true name was Scared Kel, but my new name meant Brave Warrior, I would simply have to bury my chaotic true name, and adapt myself to my orderly new name.

Now as luck would have it, (and with our first of many visits to my mom’s Irish dad, my grampa Bob, and Norwegian mom, my gramma Myrtle, I would learn that my mom was half-Irish), my new mom and pops not only gave me a new first name, they were kind enough to anoint me with a new middle name as well.

Paradoxical New Middle Name

Now what sort of middle name might you expect a young conservative Christian couple to choose for their newly adopted son? Perhaps they would name me after one of the Gospel writers, and I would be Matthew, Mark, Luke or John? Maybe they would aim higher, and I would be Michael, named after the archangel? Going Old Testament was another possible option, as Joseph may have been the name they settled on. Had I been the one to choose a biblical character to be named after, I would have gone for Moses, the tragic hero who was adopted by Egyptian royalty.

Going for the obvious was never Mom and Pops’s style, however. In fact, I have a theory that my practical joker Pops chose both my names, and then convinced mom to go along for the ride. Since I never thought to ask, I grew up believing they’d named me Kelly because it was a good Irish name. Mom was half-Irish, after all. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I finally learned that my new name was inspired by them having adopted me from a foster home on Kelly Street. Go figure.

But Pops outdid himself by coming up with Darwin for my middle name. Who knows, maybe he was secretly preparing me for a lifetime of wrestling with paradoxes and ambiguities. God knows how many of their conservative Christian friends they had to patiently explain to that no, they had not abandoned their faith in a Creator God, but instead had chosen the name so that I would challenge Darwin’s theories. At least that’s why mom said they chose it. Pops’ said they chose it because he’d heard that Darwin had converted to Christianity on his deathbed. Even though that story has now been widely dismissed as an urban legend, I still like Pops’ reason for choosing the name better than mom’s. Mom’s was a world where you had to be a brave warrior in the battle for truth in order to survive. Pop’s was a world where even the most hardened materialist like Darwin could be redeemed in the end.

My way of living out this Darwinian paradox was three-fold. First, when I would later become an adopted American, I chose to add Einstein, but keep the Darwin. The cover story I told anyone who happened to ask was that was my way of honoring my parents. The real reason: I just thought the initials K-EDG sounded way cooler than KEG.

Second, rather than challenging Darwin’s theories, I chose instead to defend my namesake against the blatantly false charge that his worldview amounted to nothing more than “survival of the fittest.” Bullshit. That worldview belongs to Thomas Hobbes, a seventeenth century English philosopher. According to Hobbes, the state of nature is a "war of all against all," in which human beings constantly seek to destroy each other in an incessant pursuit for power. Life in the state of nature is "nasty, brutish and short."

The third way I chose to live out this Darwinian paradox was to adapt. For Darwin explicitly rejected the Hobbesian “survival of the fittest” when he declared that “It is not the most intellectual or the strongest species that survives, but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to or adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”

Fear and Love in the Time of Corona

As the coronavirus races madly around the world, in seemingly unstoppable fashion, from the way the mainstream media and the political establishment are chronicling its assault, it would appear that Hobbes was right. For the coronavirus appears to be primarily laying waste to the weakest members of our species, to those whose advanced age or compromised immune systems make them especially susceptible to its deadly rampage.As someone who’s been forced to wrestle with paradoxes and ambiguities his entire life, however, I have learned from painful personal experience, time, and time, and time again, that things are rarely as they seem to be on the surface of things.

My personal paradoxes and adaptations

As a terrified little eleven month old, I learned that crying would not take me back home to my mommy.

One way I adapted was by becoming a scared brave warrior, so my new mommy would see what a brave warrior I was and love me for it.

Another way I adapted was that despite mom’s best efforts to raise me as an anti-Darwinian Christian fundamentalist, after leaving home at the age of seventeen, I adapted and eventually became the Darwinian Christian mystic that I am today.

How my healing journey has helped prepare me for the Time of Corona

One of the most frightening things about the current coronavirus pandemic is that it is forcing our human species to finally begin to humbly acknowledge that WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL.It is a lesson that I have been forced to learn, and re-learn, time and time again, over the course of the past fifty six years, ten months and eight days.

When I was torn away from my birthmother Adele after nine months spent blissfully swimming in her amniotic sea, I WAS NOT IN CONTROL.

When I was torn away from my foster mom Grace, after eleven months of being pushed up and down on swing sets by her and my First Nations/Native Canadian foster sister Diane, I WAS NOT IN CONTROL.

When I told my adoptive mom Pat, when I was sixteen years old, that I’d learned in my careers class that day that I’d be a great hotel manager, and she said that I didn’t need to go to college for that, I WAS NOT IN CONTROL.

When I had a near nervous breakdown in my first semester at Pepperdine Law School at the age of twenty one, after I’d blown my scholarship, and was so driven by despair that I ended up taking three or four sleeping pills a night to get an hour or two of sleep, I WAS NOT IN CONTROL.

When my beloved adoptive dad Pops, who’d saved my life four years earlier after my near nervous breakdown, suffered a traumatic brain injury from a near-fatal car crash and was left with the cognitive capacity of a twelve year old, when I was twenty five years old and halfway around the world in London at the start of the first semester of my last year of law school, and I couldn’t come home that whole semester because I’d taken two years off to recover from my first year from hell, and once you start you must finish law school in five years, I was left with the emotional capacity of a terrified six-year old, better known as scared kel, because I WAS NOT IN CONTROL.

When I trusted a friend of twenty years and he betrayed that trust, and the life I’d tried to create for myself out of the ashes of Pops’ traumatic brain injury for those same two decades came crashing to the ground when I was forty six years old, I was left once again with the emotional capacity of a terrified six year old, whose true name is scared kel, because I WAS NOT IN CONTROL

For the past ten years, five months, and fifteen days, I have been attempting to love and parent scared kel, my terrified six year old self, back to life.And for the last eleven days that Los Angeles has been under lockdown, I’ve been wrestling with the question of why this coronavirus crisis has been so triggering for me.

And then just a few short days ago, my performance poetry instructor Rachel Kann hosted an online poetry crawl in which she performed her poetic masterpiece “Kindness/The Murmuration of Starlings”, in which a single stanza left my weeping and gasping for breath: “Behind every protective wall of defensiveness is a frightened child fearing for their very life.”

And then the masks slipped away, and it became so clear that for all those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that can understand, and turn, and be healed (Matthew 13: 15b-16) that we hold this truth to be self -evident: we are now living in a world made up entirely of terrified six year olds.

The Time of Corona has Revealed a War for the Soul of Humanity

While the fear of God may be the beginning of wisdom, the love of God is the end of wisdom, and the spiritual journey is the journey from fear to love. The coronavirus pandemic has torn away the veneer of civilization to reveal that a war is now raging for the soul of humanity. This war however, is not the war that the mainstream media and the political establishment are trying so desperately to frame it as.

The war is between fear and love, between Hobbes and Darwin, and between chaos and order. But it is not about one defeating and destroying the other. It is about learning to live in the tension of opposites between fear and love, and between chaos and order. For as Solzhenitsyn wisely wrote: “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

While the mainstream media and political establishment are painting this war in Hobbesian terms, as a winner take all duel to the death between the forces of fear and chaos, that frame is far too small, and an illusion at that, the illusion of power and control.

For in one corner, we have the hypocritical legalists on the right. They are convinced that Trump and the forces of order and goodness must destroy the Deep State, which represents all that is chaotic and evil in our world. Yet the rules the hypocritical legalists insist we all must follow, so that order and goodness might triumph over chaos and evil, they are unable to fully follow themselves. For as Jesus reminds us, there is no one who is truly good but God alone.

In the other corner, we have the amoral rebels on the left. They are equally convinced that only the Deep State can defeat and destroy Trump and his followers, in order that chaos and freedom can finally emerge victorious over order and slavery. Yet the freedom the amoral rebels proclaim as the key to victory is simply a fear of order which is the mirror image of the hypocritical legalists’ fear of chaos.

In other words, both the hypocritical legalists on the right and the amoral rebels on the left are prisoners of fear. They simply cannot see the bars of their prison. As a result, both sides believe that their only option is to engage in a Hobbesian war of all against all. If Hobbes were right, then there would truly be no hope for our survival as a species. Nor, quite frankly, would we deserve to survive.

Spoiler alert: the war has already been won

However, the hope that sustains me, which I have seen embodied by my fellow deep souls time and time again throughout the course of my life, and time and time again over the past eleven days, is that even if two thirds or more of humanity have surrendered already, or will surrender at some point during the time of corona to the forces of fear, there will always be a remnant of deep souls, who will go to our graves knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that LOVE IS STRONGER THAN FEAR.

We are the Principled Rebels, my fellow terrified six year olds of planet earth, and this is the hope that sustains us: we shall never lose our humanity, no matter how much it may look like the forces of fear are going to strip it away from us.

For as I’ve been constantly reminding my own terrified six year old self for the past eleven days in the time of corona:

“Be still, and know, that you are loved.

Be still, and know, that you bring joy.

Be still, and don’t, abandon yourself.

Is the stillness, at the heart, of your chaos.”

So be of good cheer, my fellow terrified six year old principled rebels, for greater is the love that is in you, than the fear that is in the world. So please, please, please know that YOU ARE LOVED, please, please, please FEEL YOUR FEELINGS, and hopefully you won’t have to make all the mistakes I made by so often forgetting that I was loved, and by so often being too afraid to feel my feelings. For the hope that sustains me, and the hope that will enable us to survive as a species in this terrifying time of corona is that WE ARE ALL GOD’S BELOVED CHILDREN, and God does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.(2 Peter 3:9b)

[sweet-sugar-sunsets]

We Are Deadly

a/n: the second installment!! just finished editing it so...kinda long so be warned

warning: there is a lot of violence//swearing//zombies??? idk

[prologue] [chapter 1] [chapter 2, coming soon]

❝ We are an endangered species. A species of nothing. A species of burnt out cities, of pockets of survivors, of living to your next meal. A species of dead. Mostly dead. We live this way, will live this way, will fight this way, will die this way, forever. Or, at least, until this whole damn thing is over. ❞

Chapter 1

Andie

The apocalypse, Armageddon, the end of the world. Whatever you want to call it, it's here. And it's been here for the past two years. Two years of hell. Two years of nothing. Of burnt out cities, of pockets of survivors, of maybe not living to see your next meal. Two years of the Dead. But not the dead who lay in stacks in the alleyways. Not the dead who lay in piles of ash and mass graves on the outskirts of cities and towns. Not the dead who are blackened by elements and decayed by time, their eyes staring at the nothingness of the world. Not those. Those are the Still. The Dead are the ones who get back up, who walk around, who eat us to make more of them, who make more of them and more of them and more of them. And less of us. There are no more cities. No more adults. Only children, masquerading around like grown-ups. Trying to protect their own. Playing a deadly game of hide and seek with each other. We all grew up too fast, to violently.

We are an endangered species. A species of nothing. A species of burnt out cities, of pockets of survivors, of living to your next meal. A species of dead. Mostly dead. We live this way, will live this way, will fight this way, will die this way, forever. Or, at least, until this whole damn thing is over.

My body was disgustingly sticky in the scorching Florida heat. I think that heat makes everything twice as worse. The fact that I had been hiding behind a dumpster for half an hour. The fact that the years old trash that surrounded me made me want the projectile vomit all over the alley wall. The fact that I was surrounded by reanimated rotting corpses. Yep. This heat wave made everything worse.

Frankie, squatting down next to me, was shaking like a leaf despite the sweltering heat. Sweat was dripping from her brow and formed puddles under her arms. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor kid. It was her first time on a run and it was already going to shit.

She was only thirteen, only a kid, with scruffy dark hair and skinny limbs. But, then again, I was only a couple years older than her. We were all just kids. All the adults died from disease, but not the kids. No one knows why. Anyone who was under the age of eighteen at the Beginning had a natural immunization to the disease. Our parents, unfortunately, didn't.

The effects of the Lazarus Plague are simple: at first, it can easily be mistaken for the flu. A runny nose, a sore throat, migraines, the usual. Then, the blood starts to flow to your head and you become paralyzed waist down. Next is the fun part; your brain cavity, being completely filled with unwanted blood cells, begins dispelling them in any way possible. Crying bloody tears, a constant dribble of blood from your nose and ears, blood in your spit, in your puke, your piss, your shit. Blood everywhere. Your brain goes senile, you begin muttering incoherently, then the seizures. Eventually, your heart stops. Then you come back. And, my God, do you come back violently.

You turn into one of them, one of the monsters, the immortal gods that now rule this land, feasting on the flesh of their brothers and sisters. The end of days was here. Death, Famine, War, Pestilence. Everything went to shit pretty quickly. Everyone stayed indoors, surgical masks glued to their faces, eyes glued to the TV.

Russia fell first, then Africa. Most of the Eurasian continent fell at the same time. There were rumors about Australia, but no one knew for sure. The US tried to hold on. Strict border limits. No one comes in and no one goes out. Strict curfew. No one out after dark. If anyone started to show signs of the plague, they were to be put down immediately. Their bodies burned. People started migrating away from the coasts in suspicion that it was waterborne. The cities were protected. Quarantines, rations, gas masks, government facilities.

We thought we could fight it. We thought we could get through it like every other catastrophe before.

We were so wrong.

The United States of America fell on January 17, 2019. The government retreated. Left the cities unprotected, left the borders unpatrolled, left the disease untreated. They holed up in their underground bunkers and waited. There was nothing they could do, so why not spend the end of the world in faux comfort. We were left in complete martial law. Complete anarchy.

War took the streets. Famine took the cities. Pestilence took the households. Death took the world. The cities were decimated. People retreated to the forests. Doomsday preppers took to their bunkers. Everyone else holed up in their homes, windows and doors boarded up, waiting for the virus to seep through the walls or the last sardine can to be emptied. The streets were clogged with the Dead.

"Andy, what do we do," Frankie said yanking on my coat. Tears were welling in her eyes. I think she recognized just how screwed we were. It was a narrow alley, with high walls and minimal coverage. Besides the dumpster we were hiding behind, there was an old tin trash can, knocked over and dented from a hundred undead feet and a fire escape who's ladder had been pulled up beyond reach. One end was blocked by a ten-foot chain link fence, behind that, what looked like the remains of a parking lot. The other end led back onto the main road, also clogged with Dead.

Great, we were so screwed. I kept searching the walls, looking for something, anything, that could save us.

Slowly I zipped my jacket up to the collar. Every small noise I made sounded like a thousand atomic bombs going off. The jacket would cover my bare skin from the claws and hopefully the teeth, too. I pulled my gun out of its holster on my hip. I couldn't believe I was actually doing this.

I pulled Frankie in close and whispered as softly as I could. "Make a break for the fence, I'll cover you. If I can't make it, leave me behind."

I smiled. "Don't be a hero."

She answered back shakily, "Don't be a jackass."

Our little mantra, that had started half a year ago when she tried to shield me from a rogue shooter.

Don't be a hero, I had said, My life is no more important than yours, so don't go sacrificing yourself for me or anyone else. She had answered with a snarky little comment that I can't remember now, followed by those three little words. Don't be a jackass.

"Do you remember how to hotwire a car?" I whispered. She nodded slowly. "Get out of here if you can." I pulled her into a tight hug. It was a shit plan, with an almost guaranteed failure, but it was the only option we had right now.

I slipped the supply pack from my back and handed it to her. We got into position, each of us on either side of the dumpster, crouched and ready to run. I met her gaze and began to count down.

Three.

She pulled her knife from the waistband of her faded jeans.

Two.

I gripped my gun tightly and swallowed hard.

One.

And it all went to shit.

tagging: @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold @michael-hearteyes-wheeler@mikeweezers @puzzlingsnark @dustinhendrsn

[infernorp]

name: carlotta giudicelli

age: thirty

gender and pronouns: trans female, she/her

loyalty: neutral

occupation: company member of le théâtre de nuit

criminal occupation: none

faceclaim: laverne cox

You were born with moonlight in your throat, comets scorching through your veins and stars rolling off of your back. There was a name before Carlotta, a story that came before the one you tell to strangers in dimly lit spaces, but the prologue is not what is remembered. The chapters of your existence are written across your limbs with pride, an open book for all who wish to read it, and you know no shame or fear. Your body has always contained too much for the stretch of your skin and the length of your bones, and your father promised you that you were destined for greatness — ‘Sing, Carlotta. Let your voice fly, uccellino. Don’t stop until you’ve found it.’ Exactly what he meant, you had never asked, but you still searched for it. You grew your hair out to lasso towers that were out of reach, filing your nails into points that made no surface safe from your ascent. You were a born climber, but you were also a mountain in your own right, and your father had always known that his investments into your future would pay off tenfold. Etiquette lessons had the social ladder of your Italian hometown beneath your heels, and lessons with an aged opera singer out of her prime trained you to reach notes that were higher than the heavens. ‘What is it like, Carlotta?’ your father would whisper, taking you by his calloused hands and smiling until his lips cracked from the strain. ‘When you go to heaven in those moments, what’s it like? What do you see? What secrets do you know?’ And he died knowing you would become a legend, and you held his hand knowing he gave up everything to see it become a possibility. You didn’t know what was beyond the golden gates that you visited in the moments of your performances, but you kept visiting them — you kept singing and you kept reaching and you kept trying to see those shining streets; but your father was gone in a casket lined with velvet. Ivory finishing held the tears that you could not carry on your own. You dreamt of Paris in your mourning, all the stories he’d tell you of his younger years when there were no anchors to strip a father of his youth. You packed your things and you made the journey on a whim. To find yourself and to cement your goals, or to reconnect with the man that made you who you were, you were not entirely sure. It’s a cruel tragedy when a girl never knows love truer than the man who spoiled her until there was nothing but rot left beneath her skin.

Parisian silks around your throat and shades to block out the flames of your ambitions, you were offered residence in Le Théâtre de Nuit within a week of your arrival. Extravagance went a long way for making your presence known — the flamboyance of your laughter drowning out dimmer women before singing could even come up in the auditions. They needed someone to draw in a crowd, someone to hook all eyes on the stage in the moment of her voice rising in octave, and that was destined to be you. The next week, you had your first starring role, and after the best opening of a play in the theatre’s history, it became an annual thing. You’d take your breaks, and you’d let your understudies have their own moments in the public eye, but you were a greedy thing. You latched your claws into Nuit and you claimed it as your own — and who was to challenge a dragon’s claim to her hoard? You were the pearl atop a pile of cracked shells, a beautiful thing among so much tragedy, and your life was perfect. You were everything your father had wanted you to be; you were the leading woman. You met a man who loved you for all the plainness beneath your gilded surface, and the two of you were happy. Romeo and Juliet, Marc Antony and Cleopatra — Carlotta and Piangi. The king and queen of the opera, and isn’t it tragic? That royalty is always destined to fall? Whereas skill could not be questioned, there were prettier women, and you knew the curse of being a dim creature waltzing across a sky of burning stars. You were once the sun, a shining thing that could not be threatened, but the the standing of Nuit began to change the moment Christine Daae placed herself on the chessboard. Parts reserved for you are offered to her, dresses you made famous altered to better suit her figure, and all the while you're left staring at lights that are slowly slipping away. They linger on her, making her shine in all the ways that made you whole, and it's not fair. There is nothing warm and beautiful about a fleeting sense of worth. Is this your swan song? Is this the moment you become a supernova? A dead, lovely thing in galaxy of fallen heroes? You were always meant to be eternal, always meant to have everything your heart desired. Piangi can't chase the ghosts away, and your father's too far past the gates to call for him. Keep singing, Carlotta. You have so much more to say. An empty theatre still has an audience — sing for the broken people. For once, sing for yourself.

castmates: baylen moreau, fleur renard, meg giry, odessa faust, sebastian renard, and ursula braun

enemies: erik destler and joseph buquet

employers: gabriel prideaux, madalene giry, michel lefevre, and richard firmin

CHRISTINE DAAE

You’re an aged bird, sitting on a swing in a cage of ivory — and now a younger creature has come to perch on the branches of your treasured domain. It’s almost blasphemous, the way that the audience eats out of her palms and how the theatre is placing the spotlight on her form. Her talent holds no match to yours, her abilities not nearly as trained as your own, and it’s unfair that time is such a cruel mistress. You punch vanity mirrors until the lines on the glass match the ones on your face, and you curse fate. Your father sacrificed everything to see you become something; wiser and happier and more secure than he had been. How dare a child attempt to usurp his legacy? How dare a swan pretend to know the song of a lark? Beauty is fleeting, you know that now. Your voice cements you in a way that she cannot budge — but what will hold her? Frankly, Christine’s just a pretty face, and you’re content to weather the storm until she’s no longer an annoyance.

MATHIEU REYER AND GILLE ANDRE

Either you or they are little more than a spoiled pet, and it’s never been likely for you to play a role without proper credit. Every whim of yours is met within a matter of seconds; every little frustrated cry for help and craving for a display of opulence. The prized lark is kept preened and fed and adored at all times, and the two of them have always been tasked with calming your tantrums. A secondary character stands a little too close, and you storm off. Another woman tries to sing more passionately than her part requires, and you throw your hands up in protest. And can you blame them for trying so hard to please you? ‘Don’t cry, Carlotta,’ they beg, wiping tears from your cheeks and powdering away the flush of red. ‘Don’t strain your voice!’ And you lick the salt from your lips and bat your eyelashes, and you say that you’ll be fine. When everything is as you want it to be, all is perfect within Nuit. You've never been one for giving up control.

UBALDO PIANGI

You found a man to hold you while strolling the cold streets of Italy. You were a woman in your prime and a rising star in the opera scene, and when you visited your home country in the winter months, Piangi pulled you close and gave you a warmth that you had always craved. Awe of him came after loving him, learning of his local operatic roots as a tenor of great skill. You snatched him away like a thief in the night, taking him to Paris where the two of you steadily started your ascent to the very top of Nuit’s rankings. You were the star, the grandest of all the performers, and he had a voice like warm honey. You drank of him, and he tasted of you, but what the two of you shared was the purest of relationships. How powerful is love? When someone manages to steal your heart with just a simple kiss to your cheek, no nails trailing down your back? You married him, and you forged a life with him, and now he combs your hair as your relevance slowly fades away. ‘And do you still love me?’ you whisper often, forehead pressed against his own. 'Always,’ he assures.

THIS CHARACTER HAS A FLEXIBLE FACECLAIM AND IS OPEN

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #200 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) The prologue.

This first scene of the last film does a number of things well. For one, Sméagol suddenly becomes a much more sympathetic and tragic character. We see how happy this creature was before being corrupted by the evil of the ring; before becoming Gollum. And that’s the other thing this scene does well: we understand better than ever how evil the ring is. How quickly it can turn good people bad. This sets the stakes high for the final chapter of the trilogy. Originally meant for The Two Towers, its inclusion in this film works so much better I think. Also it’s worth noting that the transformation from practical Gollum makeup to CG is seamless and visceral.

2) I love how freaking angry Gimli gets upon running into Merry & Pippin alive (after searching so desperately for them in Two Towers) before being tempted by what they’re smoking.

3) It’s worth noting that I HAVE watched the extended editions of all three films and while I usually forget about the scenes added in those versions, Saruman’s death scene (which is cut in this film) is always one I miss. It is a nice note of finality for such a major character in the trilogy.

4) Much as this film really covers Frodo’s eventual corruption by the ring, Aragorn’s journey is also complete. Over the course of the trilogy we see him go from a loner who wants nothing to do with leadership into the king of men. This film is very much about Aragorn accepting that part of himself, becoming the leader he was always meant to be, and we see it in many little ways. He takes a moment for himself to respect those fallen before celebrating a victory, he imparts wisdom onto Gandalf, he earns the trust of Théoden, later honors his promise to the ghost soldiers even though he could’ve used them as a weapon, and leads his army into battle in an effort to give Frodo the time he needs. By the time the credits role Aragorn fully embraces his duty as king and that’s a wonderful transformation to watch.

5) Have I mentioned I low-key ship Sam and Frodo?

Frodo: “I need you on my side.”

Sam: “I’m always on your side, Mr. Frodo.”

6) The last film very much covered Merry’s maturity, becoming invested in the war (which guides his actions in this film as well). In Return of the King we get to see Pippin grow more as a person. We see him go from a someone who doesn’t think before he acts (like when he looks into the orb and risks alerting Sauron about Frodo) to someone with deep sorrow who takes responsibility for his actions (such as when he pledges his allegiance to the Stewart of Gondor because he feels responsible for Boromir’s death). It’s a nice subplot for the film.

7) Can I just say: Théoden can be a real idiot.

Théoden [about Gondor]: “Tell me: why should we ride to the aid of those who did not come to ours?”

Dude, you made SUCH a big deal about not asking for Gondor’s aid in the last movie when you were heavily advised to do just that. And now you’re getting pissy because they didn’t give you something you said you didn’t want?

8) While Sam and Frodo’s kinship is wicked strong, that’s not to undersell how deeply connected Merry and Pippin are. They’re great friends and the sadness of their goodbye as Gandalf takes Pippin to Gondor speaks to that.

9) Okay, can I just say something? There are only three named female characters in these films I can think of who have lines: Arwen, Galadriel, and Éowyn. They’re all awesome, they’re all great. They never EVER interact with each other and while we understand both Arwen and Galadriel are dangerous women it’s only Éowyn who gets to fight in the war. And I get the books were published in the 50s and everything but come on. Some changes to improve on female presence wouldn’t kill the movie.

10)

Arwen [about Aragorn]: “If I leave him now, I will regret it forever.”

And that’s literal, because elves are immortal. I just wanted to point that out.

11) John Noble as Denethor.

While there is initially a bit of sympathy for the stewart of Gondor because he’s mourning his son Boromir, wow is that lost quickly. I am rooting for this guy to die harder than I am any other character in this series because he is such a raging asshole. I think he’s supposed to be and John Noble plays him in a very interesting way. Much like Imelda Staunton was great at making us hate Doloris Umbridge in Harry Potter, John Noble is great at making Denethor a selfish, arrogant, cruel bastard who I just want to punch in his fucking permanent scowl of a face. HE FUCKING ADMITS THAT HE WISHES FARAMIR WERE DEAD INSTEAD OF BOROMIR! I just…yeah, I’m glad when this jackass dies.

12) The Dead City always reminded me a little of the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz. Or is that just me?

13) I apologize for this in advance.

Frodo [when he feels the Witch King near, who stabbed him in Fellowship]: “I can feel his blade.”

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

14) At first I questioned the need to include Faramir’s skirmish with the orcs, but for one thing it shows the continued darkness which spreads across Middle Earth as well as the scale of this war. Not to mention it feeds directly into a conflict between Faramir and his jackass dad.

15) I love Éowyn, which I said as much in the last recap. But in this film she is just so freaking ready to fight for those she loves, to stand up against evil even though the sexism of Middle Earth tries to keep her off the battlefield. But she doesn’t and we get the best moment in the whole trilogy. More on that later.

16) When I was younger I never really understood why Frodo believes Sam actually stole the bread, why he sends Sam away. But now I get just how great a manipulator Gollum is and how dark the ring can be on Frodo’s soul. Gollum knows EXACTLY what the ring is doing to him, the little things it whispers to him, the greed and mistrust which is taking him. He knows because he spent (I think) five hundred years under that very same influence. He knows what Frodo is going through better than anyone which he manipulates to his advantage.

17) Sean Astin just freaking shines with his breakdown after Frodo sends him away breaks up with him (you know, after refusing to give Sam a ring). He’s come so far, sacrificing his very life, to make sure Mr. Frodo stays safe and trying to make sure the ring doesn’t take him. And he’s ALWAYS on Frodo’s side, he always trusts Frodo. But Frodo can’t do the same thing for Sam. In fact, he does the complete opposite and distrusts him so deeply he tries to get rid of him. And it’s based on NOTHING, just the manipulations of a fiend and the darkness of the ring. Astin i just so great and conveying how heavy this is on Sam, I love it.

18) Ah, the song.

First of all, Billy Boyd’s vocals are just absolutely amazing here. They infuse the song with such grand heartache which helps it set the tone for Faramir’s attack on the orc troops. This isn’t a grand action scene, this isn’t a heroic triumph, this is a heartbreaking suicide mission made because of a son wanting to earn the love of his soulless father. And that’s why the song works as well as it does. It sets a beautiful tone.

19) Honestly, a few of these notes are just going to be me acknowledging awesome Éowyn is.

Éowyn [after some troops laugh at Merry for wanting to fight]: “Why can he not fight for those he loves?”

20) The scene where Aragorn takes the sword from Elrond is a great moment. The music, Aragorn’s demeanor, the subtleties of the cinematography, the visual of Aragorn taking the sword, it all just makes it feel like a real hero’s moment.

21) While the extended edition of this film may have some more Legolas & Gimli moments (there’s this wonderful drinking competition they get into), the bromance of the entire trio is still something I love.

Gimli [after Aragorn tries going into the dead mountain alone]: “You might as well accept it: we’re going with you, laddie.”

22) Merry is told he can’t go into battle by Théoden, that no one will carry him on their horse. Meanwhile Éowyn - who was basically told to stay at home and look after things while the men fight - says, “Screw that,” and takes Merry into battle herself. I LOVE ÉOWYN!

23) The scene with the ghosts and the dead mountain is truly eerie. Peter Jackson’s roots as a horror director really shine through in this wonderfully creepy scene and place. It’s just chilling.

24) In the long running list of why Denethor is a piece of shit: he is so freaking eager for Faramir to be dead and to have some man pain he doesn’t even check his pulse! Then he bitches about not getting help from Rohan which HE DIDN’T EVEN WANT and then gives up. Thank god for Gandalf.

25) The initial battle of Gondor has a nice sense of scale and stakes to it, especially when we see it through the eyes of Pippin. There’s this constant sense of dread and hardship which builds tension nicely.

26) I’m not talking about the spider scene because I always hide behind my hands when that scene is going on. I fucking hate spiders, guys. I hate them. It’s a miracle I didn’t just straight up fast forward past all the spider stuff. AND IT JUST KEEPS COMING BACK! You think the spider is gone but then no, it comes back for one last attack! ENOUGH WITH THE SPIDER ALREADY!

27) Gollum is totally done with the manipulation, the tricks, all of it. As soon as Frodo reveals his intention is to destroy the ring, he loses it and just is going to solve his problem with brute force. This doesn’t really work for him though.

28) Awww, Sam comes back to rescue his boyfriend only to think he’s dead.

Sam: “Don’t leave me here alone. Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

29) A coincidence to get the character in trouble helps move the plot along. Such as when the orcs show up RIGHT AFTER Frodo gets paralyzed so they can easily capture him.

30) Through a strong sense of visuals there is a nice feeling of hope when Rohan shows up to participate in the battle of Gondor. The build up to that and the fact we see it via Merry and Éowyn works REALLY well because they - like the audience - are both new to this.

31) I always liked that Gandalf is willing to leave the main battle to save Faramir, because isn’t that what this is all about? Saving as much life as we can.

32) There are few film deaths which are quite as satisfying to me as Denethor’s death. I won’t include it hear but those who have seen the movie know exactly what happens. Know if you seek it out it does involve fire (so if that triggers you maybe best to stay away).

33) Once the freaking elephants show up to battle you KNOW this shit is epic. One thing this film does best out of all three is its battle sequences are amazing. They may be long, but they are choreographed interestingly and use a strong sense of action = reaction to them. They’re epic and totally amazing.

34) I do have a bit of a fear of death, so Gandalf’s words to Merry always bring me calm.

Gandalf [after Merry says he can’t believe it’s going to end like this]: “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path we must all take.”

35) THE BEST FREAKING MOMENT IN THE ENTIRE FREAKING TRILOGY! If you only watch one moment from The Lord of the Rings, make sure you watch this one. This is all you need to see. This is beautiful and I love it and it’s awesome. Watch it! Watch it now!

FUCKING ÉOWYN VERSUS THE FUCKING WITCH KING! YES! You can see she’s TOTALLY scared but that doesn’t matter at all. She works through the fear, she fights this mythical creature who is supposedly un-killable AND SHE FUCKING KILLS HIM! It’s either him or her uncle and damn it’s sure as hell not going to be her uncle! It is glorious. I cheer every time. I love it. Best moment in the trilogy. No contest. Done.

36) There is this tone shift in the battle of Gondor once Legolas and Gimli start their contest.

Gimli: “There’s plenty [of the enemy] for the both of us, may the best dwarf win.”

They bring out an intense amount of fun to the battle which just has you cheering them on. Cheering on the victory! I mean, LEGOLAS TAKES DOWN A FREAKING ELEPHANT!

Gimli: “THAT STILL COUNTS AS ONE!”

I love it.

37) Again, I apologize for this in advance.

Orc [about to kill Frodo]: “I’m going to stick you like a stuffed pig.”

Sam [killing the orc]: “Not if I stick you first.”

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

38) It is always important that characters not be passive. Them making a choice is interesting. So even when Frodo is at a point where he can easily STOP carrying the ring and let Sam carry it, but he CHOSES not to, that’s interesting. It speaks to his character.

Frodo: “You must understand: the ring is my burden.”

39) This is one of my favorite things to hit the internet in 2012. It’s so random and weird I love it.

40) The moment when Aragorn really becomes the king of men is when he rallies his troops to fight against Sauron. He takes his role as leader seriously and he’s damn good at it.

Aragorn: “I see in your eyes the same fear which would take the heart in me!”

He relates to them, he lets them know he’s afraid, but his bravery inspires bravery in others. That’s what a good leader does. They speak of hope and unity against hatred, they don’t encourage it. They don’t divide people, they bring them together.

41) Have I mentioned I love Legolas and Gimli’s bromance?

Gimli: “Who thought I’d die fighting side by side with an elf?”

Legolas: “How about side by side with a friend?”

Gimli: “Aye. I can do that.”

42) Frodo is literally pushed past his physical limits, unable to climb any further up Mount Doom to destroy the ring. But he HAS to. That’s high stakes. Forgoing physical needs for the goal is the highest stakes imaginable. And also: HELL YEAH, SAMWISE GAMGEE!

Sam: “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”

43) Can I just say: I will never truly wrap my mind around the super convenient giant eagles which show up at the last minute. Like, maybe there’s an explanation for this in the books, but wouldn’t the eagles have helped out A LOT MORE before this final battle? I mean really. What’s with this Deus Ex Machina stuff?

44) The scene where Frodo decides to keep the ring visually matches the one where Isildur did the same thing in Fellowship, meaning the seeds for this were planted in the trilogy from film one. It’s smart planning and helps make the choice all the stronger. We’ve seen the consequences of this action once, but again? Oh man, that could be disastrous.

45) You can really see the influence the ring had on Frodo when this is the first thing he says after it’s destroyed.

Frodo: “I can see the shire.”

Frodo talked about how he couldn’t remember it before, while he was carrying the ring. But now it’s gone and he can. I love that.

46) One of my favorite moments in the series is when Frodo wakes up in Rivendale with Gandalf standing at his bead. Remember, Frodo thinks Gandalf is DEAD from the first film. So not only is there the joy at his own survival but that of his friend too. And you can see it on Elijah Wood’s face.

47) This film has A LOT of endings. Like, it takes 20 minutes to end. But I like each and every one. Firstly, this massive respect the hobbits are paid.

Aragorn [king of men, to the hobbits]: “My friends. You bow to no one.”

[Aragorn bows, then so does literally EVERYONE else]

48) The Shire still brings about the same sense of peace it did in Fellowship. You know you’re really out of danger when you are in that place. The tension defuses and it feels like…home. It’s worth noting that the hobbits at first have nothing to talk about while at the bar. They just sit there in silence because…what is there to say?

49) The final goodbye.

I may not be the best to pick up on subtext, but even I get that this boat into the West is meant to represent the afterlife. That Bilbo, Gandalf, and Frodo are all going into the afterlife (even though I always forget that Gandalf leaves). This is honestly not only the most fitting ending to the story, but for Frodo’s character as a whole. There’s no way Frodo could’ve just gone home after all that evil. He couldn’t have just returned to normalcy. He’s changed too much, so he has to move on. But just because Frodo’s gone, doesn’t mean life moves on. And I think that’s one of the greatest messages this film has: even in the face of great loss, life moves on. And there is always ALWAYS hope.

50) And I think instead of analyzing the song “Into the West” I’ll just leave you all with a link to listen to it because it’s a wonderful piece.

The Return of the King is everything fans loved about the first two Lord of the Rings films dialed up all the way. The stakes are at their highest, the battles are at their most epic, the performances are incredible, and the characters finally reach the end of the journey they started at the beginning of this film. Winning Best Picture at the Oscars the year it was nominated, this film definitely deserves it and is worth the watch (even if it is a long watch).

[eyeofthewolfe]

Evil Zane Chapter 9

The ninja ask an ally a life-changing question. 

Prologue and Chapters 1-5: here

Chapter 6: here

Chapter 7: here

Chapter 8: here

The Story of Echo Zane (an Interlude Chapter): here

Chapter 9

 As Echo Zane finished his story, he turned and faced out the window. The ninja team all glanced at each other unsettled while they all sat on the top floor. After discovering Echo Zane in the basement and the harsh blame he put on the team, they had regrouped on the top floor and Echo Zane told them his story. Jay and Nya were impacted the most, for they had really gotten to know him in the other timeline, but they did not know how Echo felt about his existence.

TAI-D, who was on the side waiting, rolled over to his metal friend and placed his small hand on his leg. Echo Zane looked down and smiled, then turned to the team. “If I may ask, why have you all returned?”

Jay stood from his spot from the table. “Zane, Nya and I lived a timeline that no longer exists. But during that timeline, we escaped here and met you. You also helped me rescue her when the lighthouse was attacked.”

Echo Zane nodded. Jay folded his hands awkwardly. “You helped us then, so we are wondering if you will help us again.”

Echo scanned the room. “Before I answer, I want to ask another question.” He said. “Absolutely,” Jay replied.

The robot turned to Jay. “Where is Father?”

Jay opened then closed his mouth awkwardly. He looked around at the team nervously before reluctantly answering. “Uh….” He started while scratching his head. “Your Father…he was really old….and he…he passed away a year or so ago.”

Echo Zane took a shaky step back. “F-Father….is..g-gone?” He cried out.

Sensei Wu stood from his seated position in the corner. “Echo Zane, he was frail when we found him here. Not long after the Final Battle, he passed away from old age.”

Zane looked down at the ground in a mix of shock and sadness. The team all sat in the grieving sadness.

Nya finally broke the silence as she stood and walked over to the robot. “Zane…I’m so sorry. If we had known you were here, we would have taken you with us.”

Zane looked up at the girl. “Thank you,” he said. “But if my memory serves me correct, wasn’t there another version of me?”

“Yes,” she answered. “He is also Zane, the original Zane. Julien built him first…but a very very long time ago.”

“Before me?” Zane asked.

“Yes,” Nya responded. “When Julien saw him, well, I’ve never seen a man happier. He was finally  reunited with his son.”

Echo looked away again, hurt. Nya noticed this and caught herself. “Well- I mean, I’m sure you meant something as well. He built you to keep him company but you are also a model of Zane as a....a….”

“A replacement.” Zane said sourly.

Nya nodded slowly.

Echo Zane glanced around the room again. “And what became of the…original….Zane?” The robot said with an unnatural darker tone.”

“Well, you see..” Jay started. “He was kind of corrupted by this really evil dude that turned him into an evil Zane that wants all of us dead.” Jay spoke really quickly and finished by awkwardly smiling at the robot.

“Oh,” Zane responded.

“What happened,” Nya cleared her throat. “Was that Zane’s motive chip was corrupted and rewritten. Instead of protecting people, he now wants to enact revenge on us.”

Zane’s hand floated in front of his chest instinctively. “His motive chip?” He said carefully, as if he was echoing something he’s heard before.

“Yes,” Lloyd finally spoke as he stood. Zane’s eyes glanced at the beaten and scraped green twin casts that covered the arms of the green ninja. “Which is why we are here. Zane, we need your motive chip to save Zane.”

Zane stared at the blonde ninja. “You want to take mine and give it to the other Zane?” he said, his voice cracking.

Lloyd nodded. “Please, Echo Zane. It’s the only way to save our friend.”

Echo placed his hand over his clock “heart.” After all these years, it was still lightly ticking with life, powered by Dr. Julien’s motive chip that was connected to the technically advanced power source.

“I…” Echo Zane stuttered. “Taking that out would….” He began to speak in an alarming tone. “Removing that would end me.”

“It would deactivate you?” Cole spoke up from the shadows.

“No, not deactivate.” Zane answered. “I would still be active, but with no purpose. I would be empty. Still. Purposeless.”

The others didn’t know how to react to it. Kai stuttered out his thoughts from the table. “What if we made a copy?”

Zane shook his head. “It was designed specifically to prevent that from happening. Father never shared his secrets of this so that Artificial Intelligence was contained. I thought I was the only one with it…until the other Zane appeared.”

“And now the other Zane needs it, or else he will destroy us and then Ninjago.” Lloyd carried on. “Please, Echo Zane. Do it for Zane.”

Echo flinched and looked away. Jay noticed this and was about to say something before someone else spoke.

“Do it for your Father.”

Shocked, the whole team turned to Cole. Even Echo looked up with a puzzled look. Cole stood and approached the rusted robot.

“Zane,” he said warmly, “I don’t know you. Well, I recognize that you and the Zane that I know are two different people, even though you are built to look the same. And it turns out, robots also develop personalities based off of life experiences. And right now, you must really hold a grudge against us and the world.”

Zane sadly looked at Cole’s suit. “I just wanted a chance with the world. To help others. To be…” Zane looked up with a face full of sorrow. “To be like Zane.”

Lloyd’s eyes widened and he looked down at the casts where Nelson’s name was scratched but still visible. With certainly, Lloyd looked at Zane. “I once told someone that being one of us isn’t easy because we deal with sacrifices and loss as well as battles and victory.  But to do good things, you just need to do what’s right and to help others.”

Echo cocked his head. “Sacrifices and loss?” He asked.

Jay nodded. “Zane sacrificed himself to save us all and Ninjago when he went beyond his power source limit and exploded, taking the Overlord with him.”

The team all nodded in response. Zane noticed all the sad looks on their faces. “Zane died to save you all? That is considered a heroic move?”

Nya sniffed. “It’s the most selfless move of all.” Nya whispered. Jay grabbed her hand.

Cole watched as Zane looked down at his chest. “Zane,” Cole whispered to the robot. The robot looked up. Cole felt his throat go dry as he said, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

Cole felt all eyes on him after he said that. “Cole…” Nya gasped.

Zane stared back at the black ninja. “But what would become of the other Zane?”

Cole lifted his fists, and for the first time on command they began to glow orange. Zane’s eyes widened at the sight. “With these fists, I can break through anything. I would have to break Zane apart so he wouldn’t be able to hurt us or anyone else. Sadly, I can’t deactivate him because his body armor is shielding the button, so…”

Zane lifted his hand. “There will be none of that.”

The team all turned and looked at Echo Zane. Zane looked around at the team as he spoke. “My father might have built me as a replacement, but I am more than that. As you all are calling me, I am an echo. And the only way for me to truly become an echo is if I converge back to the original.”

“Besides, you are correct,” Zane motioned to Cole. “I may feel cheated by my older…brother… but I wouldn’t be doing this for him. I would be doing it for my Father.”

Cole smiled and his hands reverted back to normal.

“So for my Father and his love for his original son, I give you my consent to take my motive chip and to save Zane.” Zane turned and looked out the window across the gleaming sea. “It is something my Father would want me to do.”

Cole placed his hand back on Zane’s shoulder. “Thank you, Zane. We are deeply appreciative.”

Zane turned back to the team. “But before you take it and go, I have a few things that I want you to do.”

Lloyd raised an eyebrow. “And I have something to do as well.”

Zane smiled and turned to the team to give them his final wishes.

____________________________________________________ 

Nya carefully placed the glowing motive chip into a glass tube container to hold it in until they could get a hold of Zane. The team was gathered in the bridge as Misako steered the ship to lift-off.

Cole and Jay stood near the window as the ship lifted into the air.

With the sun at high noon, the lighthouse reflected the light and glowed above the waves and rocks. Cole and Jay had their eyes focused on the small window on the top floor as the ship rose and turned back to the mainland. Cole and Jay exchanged a sad glance before turning around.

Lloyd addressed the whole team. “Today Echo Zane made a choice to sacrifice his life force in order to save us and Ninjago. That action will not go unnoticed and will never be forgotten. Echo Zane will forever be a hero to us, and for Ninjago.”

“Here here,” Jay chimed in.

“But now we must focus our attention on finding and capturing Zane.” Lloyd continued.

“Which shouldn’t be hard.” Misako stepped in.

Lloyd paused, frozen in shock. “Well, I was going to say it was going to be hard, but apparently not. What’s up, mom?”

Misako pointed at the screen where a red distress signal was flickering above Ninjago City. “Ninjago City is under attack. I’m sure it’s Zane luring us into a trap.”

“But he doesn’t know that we have a cure!” Cole grinned.

“But Ninjago City is still under attack,” Lloyd added. “We still need to protect the people.” He turned to his mom. “How long until we arrive?”

Misako glances at a screen next to the wheel. “At our fastest speeds, about an hour.”

“That’s not fast enough!” Nya gasped. “Zane will get impatient and then he may start really hurting others.”

Kai grinned. “I know a faster route.” He waved his hand to the deck, and the others knew exactly what he was thinking of.

Cole turned to Sensei and Misako before he left. “Get there as fast as you can. We will do our best to hold down the fort.” Sensei nodded, and Cole followed the team as they dashed to the railing and jumped off.

Cole, feeling like hope has returned, jumped on the railing and did a triple-flip double corkscrew in the air before powering up his dragon. The six elemental ninjas emitted a cry mixed with hope and determination as they sped off to Ninjago City.

 ______________________________________________________

Screams echoed through the streets of Ninjago when the ninja circled the city from above. From their height, the ninja could see a few silver figures glinting in the sunlight as they created destruction.

“Zane’s allies!” Nya cried out. “We have to destroy them and get to Zane.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Kai grinned as he slid on his mask. Cole cracked his knuckles and pulled on his mask before dive-bombing toward a silver figure.

With an angry cry, Cole deactivated his dragon and landed on the back of a human-shaped robot that Cole was aiming for. Cole reached for places to tear, but the metal was smooth. The robot threw Cole off of his back and turned to face the ninja.

Cole saw the face and screamed.

 _________________________________________________

Nya landed softly on the ground behind a silver robot aiming what looked like a fire blaster towards a car. “Hey you!” she yelled. The robot turned to face her. Nya, shocked at what she saw, stepped back and fell down.

 ___________________________________________________

Jay with a battle cry shot himself towards a silver robot. Hearing Jay, the robot turned with a scowl. “No!” Jay suddenly screamed as he slammed into the robot. They flipped onto each other for a few feet until the robot grabbed Jay’s throat. “It can’t be-“ Jay gasped as he stared at the robot’s face.

 ___________________________________________________

Kai’s fist of fire died instantly when he stared at the face of the robot that turned to fight him.

 _____________________________________________________

Lloyd dodged the car that was thrown at him with an expert side step move mixed with a low twist in the air. When he recovered his balance, he clenched his teeth and looked up and saw a nightmare.

 ____________________________________________________

“Master of Earth identified.” The high pitched synthesized voice emitted from a titanium version of Cole’s best friend. Cole felt his jaw drop under his mask.

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“Master of Water identified.” Nya looked up at her brother, but it was him as a titanium robot. His spiked hair now seemed incredibly deadly.

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“Master of Lightning identified.” The robot spoke as it glared at the ninja. “No…” Jay spoke brokenheartedly as he stared at his titanium girlfriend.

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“Master of Fire identified.” Kai narrowed his eyes. “Titanium Green Ninja, also identified.” Kai spat back.

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“Cole?” Lloyd gasped as the gleaming robot stood in front of him. “Master of Energy identified.” Titanium Cole spoke dryly. “Order of action: destroy.”

[eliasbsyal]

Beyond Saving

Beyond Saving Yet Able To Love

Prologue

Elias walked over to his blade and pulled it out of the column. He stared at all the blood he had shed to get there. Blankly. Moments passed as he sheathed it, accepting his murderous ways, his sinister motif behind all of this. All this time he'd been going deeper, darker. He wasn't sure he wanted this for anybody. He's not sure anybody would want that. He walked up the stairs of the floating temple and stared at the gate. There she was. Waiting for the day someone would come. He let off a faint smile, the one person he'd gone through all this for, bittersweet given all that it took. As he approached the gate more, visions of his past played before him. He knew that it was all worth the damage done. The pain began to subside, fear was a fleeting memory not known to him for the first time in his many years of living. It was all over, he could bring her home.

This is a tale long told before the wars that split this fantasy realm. The tale that one who is different may change just for the one he may truly love. This man, not human or alien, sacrificing it all just for a person he couldn't see himself living without. The tale of not just one, but many people. It could even be you, or the person right next to you. For one to find out truly, they must invest their deepest amnesties to the flaws that one would find in another. It all began in a small rural area, known as Beleria. A man with a rather childish look was hard at work tending to the crops with his comrade in arms.

"So, you heard anything from Melisa today, Mark?" Elias asked of his long time ally Mark curiously. "No, not much. She hasn't really been that big a talker. Did something go down between you two?" Mark replied with equal curiosity. Elias glared as if that subtle implication of their relationship was the worst thing he'd heard since sliced bread being compatible with water. Mark grinned smugly and continued farming. Elias was a peculiar fellow. Quite short in stature, yet a lot older than he appeared. The folks of the city would always call him a leprechaun due to his size yet immense wealth. One never questioned why Elias lived in a rural area with all the money life could give him. It was obvious, it was a publicity stunt to get closer to Melisa.

Mark, his companion had always been an oddball. Walking around in this "golden" suit of armor. It wasn't really gold, he just painted it to look that way. He added glitter for effect but nobody was really sure if he knew that gold didn't blind someone every time the sun would shine directly on it. Personality wise, he was even more of an oddball. As Melisa would state, if it was in her jurisdiction she would've had him jailed for being a womanizer. Stating that he'd break every heart just as soon as he'd touch it with the tale of his "army". Mark truly was a sight to behold. One time back in Fort Schumann, he scared off a whole battalion of soldiers just by dropping his pants and doing the helicopter. Why do I know this? I was one of them. But let me make this clear. We didn't become friends because he swung his stuff in a circle, no. We became friends because literally after that he got jumped by a whole squad of my men and we just took pity on him.

Elias and Mark hit it off immediately through comical satire. He would always poke fun at Mark's brash yet bold attitude. No matter who it was, it always came down to "I'll swing when you do!" or "COME AT ME BRAH!". Oh the humanity when it comes to that guy, am I right? Well. it's not all bad. He recently quit womanizing and decided to settle down with a nice village girl. She was nice, but she was also a bit of a mute as Elias would say. When it came to Elias, being in a battalion of some of the hardest rocks Beleria had to offer, he knew soft, and that's exactly what she was. Elias wasn't as big of a womanizer, but that doesn't mean he wasn't one. That, and a troublemaker. The hands on that boy would leave you as broke as Java written by someone with a 1st Grade reading level. That's a kick in the head if I ever knew one. Womanizing, he wasn't too bad. He'd occasionally hit it off with a few village girls by showing his "Impeccable upper body strength" as if he wasn't failing to mention he's partly demon. Yeah, you heard it first here, black eyed and cold-hearted. But something is a bit more off about him than what comes to mind.

Then there's Melisa. The soft-hearted princess of Beleria. Sweetheart of our hero, Elias. But also a pretty demanding woman when it comes down to it. Whenever there's an issue, she'll ask Elias to handle it. Being the insatiable womanizer Elias is, he couldn't help but accept the task. Even if it should kill him. Nothing really threatened Beleria for the last few years. A few bandits here, a few marauders there. Sometimes whenever there was nothing to do, she'd subtly ask Elias to be the trouble for once. Just to have a laugh at watching the townsfolk try to lynch him. They never really did as she intervened before it became too big of an issue.

Though a day as solemn as this one would forever change what Elias would define as innocent fun. It was September 21st. The sun was beaming in the fields whilst Elias, and Mark farm. They continued their ambient chit-chat as they rambled on and on about random topics. From teasing one another to making small talk about the maiden that may pass by every now and then. The day would go along as usual. Though the typical call in for rest was never received from Melisa. The winds of the fields gusting the time away as they waited in the sun for her to call them in after a productive days work. But unlike every day that passed them by, this one would forever change the fates of these men. Shaping their lives, their motives. Forever an unwavering tale once told. Truly defining what is beyond saving yet somehow. You're able to still love them.

Chapter 1: Hell's Martyr

Elias had set down his hoe. He had finished his tasks for the day as a helper around in Beleria. He started towards Melisa's castle. The sun was setting on the shining bright orange horizon. The forest teeming with life. The ambient sounds of creatures reminding him of why he loved this land the way he did. As he roam the passage to Melisa's castle he was awestruck to find that he was on the very path he had met Melisa. His former blade still cast in the side of a tree. An outsider to their world, cold from the rains that had fallen upon the beautiful realm. Her words of kindness touching the disheveled boy. Only a cloak and dagger to his name, he would come to find that the very quote she uttered upon him would come to define his ideals in the life he had to now call his own. "You poor soul, all this violence as the only thing to define you. Yet you still have the soul to hold a smile on your face." She would speak calmly into his eyes. As shy as Elias was, he knew nothing but fight. He would draw his blade only to be enclosed by her embrace. He withdrew his hand from the sheath shocked by such a calm and gentle antic. Taken aback past all the death and gore that had befallen him, all he could do was stand in his idle position. Without assurance of what to do, he would reciprocate the gesture. That was the day an eternal bond between those two was born. On that very path was the day Elias could call this land home.

The dusk had fallen past Elias as he became enthralled in his thoughts. He walked slowly, reinvigorated by remembrances of his eternal bond. It was a typical Belerian night. Though something was amiss. The castle wasn't gleaming as it usually would. Elias ignored it to his naive enchanted feelings getting down on him for his absentminded ignorance. Elias approached the castle when two foreigners exited the main entrance. They were both covered in blood and clad suits of black covered their bodies. They resembled those cliche movie agents, though their tipped edge fedoras said otherwise. They did not belong here, and that was one of the few things anybody could discern. Elias noticed this swiftly and drew his sword. "Oh look, isn't that nice- Yeah the welcoming committee on the inside was a bit sucky, if you think you've got what it takes then have at you" one of the foreign intruders proclaimed to his companion and then to Elias.

A chilling elegy of silence overtook the entrance to the castle. Within the next few seconds, the sounds of swords colliding filled the air. Elias knew not what they'd done, but he known they had harmed those he held dear to him. It wouldn't take a genius to notice the dried blood upon the blades the two wielded. Elias parried their attacks with little effort as they swung erratically. "Unpredictable, strong, yet generalized on one foe." Elias muttered. They intersected between his eyes only to miss by mere millimeters. Elias nimbly hopped onto their artificial line of swords and landed a heavy blow on one of them. The intruder tumbled back a bit and started profusely emanating an ominous purple glow. Elias saddled back as the other intruder vanished into a singularity hole. "Hey, if you're going to explode could you like..shout or something" Elias mockingly asked. The intruder flashed a sinister grin. Moments later a shockwave of pure dark energy enveloped the surrounding area. Elias was knocked through two trees, unconscious and unable to flee the scene. Though in his moment of darkness, there was a glimpse of something more. A voided realm and a woman. Shackled in armor, she moved erratically as if she were striking at Elias. This was nothing but an ill omen for something more Elias was sure. But what, he could not discern.

Chapter 2: Bait O' True The Leviathan

While unconscious, the visions Elias suffered became more and more vivid. More controlled, as if he were dreaming. The woman from the void seemed to take shape even more, Ouroboros tattoos emblazoned her garment. She was a skilled fighter in the vision, yet something was off, this was no ordinary match. Even as it was a vision, Elias was able to sense the power she emitted. Her blows heavier than anything he's ever seen, and for a woman no less. Elias fought valiantly but in the darkness of the arena that was his mind, he was shown more and more of these unsettling visions. Fields of blooming peony's. All flowing in the wind with a man in a suit standing amidst them. His eyes glowing blue as if they were that of an angel. There was more to the visions than Elias would come to know, but before he could call out to the man, he was awoken to find himself in a hospital. He was wounded severely by the Newtonian Singularity blast from the intruders. The dark energy ate away at his mind and body whilst he lay unconscious amongst the affected area. Being what he was, the damage to his body was very minor, though the main concern was his mind. Elias had been out for 3 days, and nobody could wake him no matter what they tried.

The nurse had tried everything from subtle coaxing, to physical stimuli. Elias would stay in his unconscious state and not event flinch. As he awoke from his dark coma, there was a purple gleam of bringing everything to view. The effects of exposure to the pure dark energy hadn't forgone him. The visions had subsided, yet there was still a sense of weakness shrouding him. He reached for his sword from its usual location on his back satchel sheath, but to no avail. His sword, Lostvayne; was missing. Elias darted out of the hospital in angst and frustration. All he could think was retrieving his sword, it was his means of defense and sacred sanctification of his life. He cleared his mind and was reminded of the two intruders. He had completely forgotten to scour the tower to see if Melisa was inside. He fury was insatiable unto which it shook the very grounds of Beleria. He darted about the trees, reaching the castle within mere minutes. He busted down the door in one foul swoop only to find to his horror, guards laying spread across the residence. Some impaled, some killed in more gruesome ways, but the message was clear. A war was coming and Elias was caught in the middle of it.

Elias rushed to the top of the castle and as the cinder covering the hall cleared, he was found in shock to see that the room Melisa resided in had been broken into. There were slight bloodstains but nothing to indicate killing. Elias took three steps back not knowing how to react. His power was surging, and it wasn't helping that the ashes burned his scarred face. He clenched his fist tightly holding back the tears of rage. He felt he was responsible for not being able to protect Melisa, now this was the price he had to pay. The room was failing to maintain its shape. Elias was out of control when it came the power surge. He wept solemnly. He punched the walls sending energy all around. He let out a volatile scream and within half a second the entire castle was disintegrated. In the small crater, Elias was found punching. He wouldn't stop till his knuckles were bloodied and his spirits have been crushed. Mark rushed down to his side after seeing the surge only to find his ally and friend laying defeated. Already damaged after losing to the intruders of the castle, his body was covered in fissures with burns from his outburst. He wouldn't say a word, but the damage done around him said more than anything else. Mark dropped to his knees to console his friend. "You don't have to be like that man, we'll get her back. Then we'll show'em who runs Beleria. I know" he spoke calmly.

He too, holding back tears dragged his friend out of the crater and back to the infirmary. Emergency medical care was applied, and there was no time for anesthesia. The screams of agony shook the entire country. Elias, both inside and out had died that day. The operation room struggling to maintain composure and manifestation at the hectic natures of his injuries. After a long 12 hours, the dust had finally settled. Elias was covered head to toe in bandages. Both to seal the energy that had left his body, as well as to keep his injuries in check. He wasn't fit to fight but inside he battled non-stop. The fight between him and the intruders played out in his mind time and time again. He knew if he were a little bit stronger he could've gotten up and saved her. He could've prevented the onslaught of the guards or at the very least been there for them in their final hours. Elias was induced into a coma, his injuries too severe to make him functional. Mark stood at his bedside day by day praying his friend would awaken. The fates aren't as merciful as they thought unfortunately. Elias was out of play for years. What seemed like mere minutes went by like hours. Beleria shaped itself into a new war-torn kingdom as so much changed without him there. In the final duel inside his mind, Elias drew Lostvayne to block the explosion and executed both the intruders.

He proceeded to rush into Melisa's room only to find to his horror, a woman in an Ouroboros robe struggling with Melisa. Elias drew his sword to defend her. The woman stopped in her tracks and held Melisa to the wall. She stared clearly towards Elias. Her eyes were a cold dark shade of blue, almost fringing purple. She stared coldly and her chilling voice spoke these words. "You're not able to control the inevitable, she's not like you and I" her grin stretched psychotically from one end of her face and back to the base. She raised her hair to reveal a signature marking of being partly or wholly demon. Elias was in awe, yet he still tried to strike her. She didn't flinch as the sword pierced her chest. "Oh you, atleast BUY ME DINNER FIRST" she calmly, then erratically yelled. She reached into her back and pulled the sword entirely through. She held Elias in a headlock to her chest. She impaled both of her and him. With Elias' life draining away from him she whispered to him "Aeuyrial" and Elias awoke from his coma with a sharp pain in his chest.

That was no ordinary dream, that was a premonition, and he wasn't going to let that happen. But before he could react to what had just befallen him in his mind, he stopped himself in complete silence to comprehend what the world around him had come to. The hospital looked like it had been ransacked, it was old and tattered. Elias looked outside to find the grand shard of the inner Belerian city cracked. He was gone for far too long, and the world didn't wait for him. His own city, his people, had fallen before him. Yet another failure for him to mark down where he wasn't able to properly defend those he cared for. Elias slammed his fist into the wall and a feeling of pure anger filled his mind. He remembered the name whispered to him from the strange woman in the Ouroboros robe. In synchronization with the thoughts he muttered angrily, gritting his teeth in angst. "Aeuyrial...YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS" he grinned psychotically just as she did in his mind. This was the anger of a man not to be provoked. This Aeuyrial had unleashed a monster onto the world, and she surely was going to take responsibility for it.

Chapter 3: Strike The Blood

Elias walked slowly out of the hospital, his head swimming in thoughts of vengeance, the terror that had befallen his people was fueling his rage, it was palpable to him. As he walked the halls of the abandoned hospital he could hear the cries of them as they were slain one by one. His bandages became disheveled and slowly left his skin. The sound of energy seeping from his scars was eerily calming for him. He groaned heavily as he struggled to control himself. The luminescent scars became more and more defined as the energy stretched them erratically. They emitted a light shade of purple and became wisps of light in the darkness of the hospital halls. "This is a message to all those who'd dare question the voided realms" a voice echoed in Elias' mind. He kept walking and clenched his fists, not daring to even look out of the shattered windows. As he reached the exit door he stopped. He reached to his bloodied bandage covering his head. He tied it around an IV drip and left it next to the entry desk, a somber reminder that this is his home. These are the people who fell so that he could live beyond the darkness that shrouded the realm of Beleria. These were his allies and they were all diamonds even in the dark.

He pushed open the doors, and he walked out into the light. The world before him was shattered. The environment was charred from the brutality of the worlds that had fallen and cracked before him. The winds blew before him and adhered dust to the scars, covering them in a tone of ash. As the ashy dust appointed itself to his scars, they stuck. The grayed tattoo like patterns appeased Elias, he knew it would make him look a bit more humane. The glowing had subsided and he was now able to have one priority; Find Melisa. Though in the town, there was sound of conflict and a survivor was anything he could hope for. He stumbled his way towards the city praying that he would find a survivor of the massacre. He noticed a peculiar padded ground to the floor and being as curious as he was, he stepped on it. A purple light enveloped him and he was transported directly to the city. The warp pad has dispelled into a wispy particle. Elias noticed the particles would bind to his scars, though he'd only ignore it and consider it coincidence for now.

He shuffled himself over to the conflict zone to find an odd creature fighting a migrant. The creature was emitting an eerie purple glow similar to that of Elias' scars. He yelled to the migrant "Hey! If you're going to have even a shot at living, I'd suggest you get behind me and run". The migrant woman turned her head quickly and ran towards him. She ran directly into him and pleaded for her life as she stared intently at Elias' scars. Elias was highly confused but before he had a chance to protest he wasn't the one she should be afraid of; the creature let out a piercing screech and projected a slow moving large mass of dark energy. Elias knew that look from anywhere and put the migrant woman down. He raised his head revealing his scar, now glowing eerie purple. He put his hands out and shaped his fingers into a gun. He turned his hand sideways and mumbled "Counter Vanish". The projectile dispersed completely. Elias then felt a surge going through his body. The creature fell violently to the ground. Elias clenched his fist and started emanating a dark aura. The creature screeched as if it was in pain. Elias put his hand on the creature and the aura emanating from him grew more intense. He felt the spirit within him growing blacker. He lost himself to the demon within and when he had come to, the migrant woman had carried him to their home. He was bound and shackled to the walls and he had no idea why.

"I'm not into S&M, if this is your idea of repaying me at the very least give me some nude magazines and let me be on my way" Elias joked as the migrants stared blankly into his eyes. They poked and prodded him with steel rods. He looked just as confused as they were. "You, you're one of those THINGS. I saw it with my own eyes. You killed it and then tried to absorb its energy but you failed. You passed out and I brought you back here because you saved me. But then I saw your scars on your head. You're a demon, and you're not welcome here. We are going to execute you." the migrant woman stated coldly. "Well in that case, could I at the very least catch your name? I mean, I'm gonna die to a bunch of travelers with pitchforks and axes" Elias sarcastically groaned with a tone of defeat in his voice. "Dailene" the woman replied with a hiss in her tone. Elias mockingly shook his head at her tone only to be struck in the face with a blunt plank of wood. Elias' lip split but almost instantly it sewed itself back as if nothing happened. "Still hopped up on that energy from the Xero, eh? This only further proves my case that if we want to have any hope in being safe for the rest of the night, we should execute you now" Dailene coldly proclaimed. "Lady, I have never hit a woman in my life, and trust me those Danafall knights don't count because their chests were flatter than driftwood on a good day, and they definitely sounded like men. But that's besides the point, and if I get out of these shackles you and me are gonna have it." Elias taunted as the dark aura seeped out of his body. "KILL HIM!" One of the other migrants shouted violently. Dailene turned back around for a second blow but a breeze had washed over the entire hideout. Elias was out of his shackles and his body was violently quivering after forcing his energy to rise after being injured by the Xero. Elias stared at her and muttered "Would you like to have another swing at me now that I'm actually able to show you what I'm capable of?". Dailene took another swing, but Elias swiftly intervened and dissipated the plank. Dailene was in fear and tried to punch him with her fist, yet he didn't budge even an inch.

Elias grabbed her arm and lifted her up with ease. He looked into her eyes and shifted into demonized form just to scare her a little bit. She passed out cold, and all the other migrants dared not to make a move. Elias hoisted her into his arms and walked onto the execution stage. He tapped the improvised microphone twice, and joking mocked in a comedic fashion "H-Hello? Is this thing on? I remember back in the old days when I'd wake up shackled to the wall, buck naked. Only difference was, that was consensual and it usually was followed by some kick-ass sex, but I guess beggars can't be choosers." Elias poked and prodded Dailene looking for a response. "Hey, HEY. I need some gum kid, my breath smells like ass. You got any?" Elias asked to the unconscious Dailene as he shifted in her pockets. One of the migrants interrupted with "Get your damn filthy hands off of her you demon scum!". Elias wasn't phased by the ever so calm gesture and simply retorted with "Hey kid, you got any gum?. "I've got TRIDENT" he shouted intensely. Elias stepped back as the lance pierced his heart. "I prefer the ever refreshing taste of juicy fruit. Y'know 'TASTE IS GONNA MOVE YA' and all that?" he said jokingly as blood poured from his mouth. Elias grabbed the lance with his hands and broke it. The man stood back in horror. As Elias prepared to take the life of the man that dared to intervene in his charade, a gleam stood out among the migrants. Elias pulled the shards of the trident out of his chest and used the last of the energy he absorbed to close the wounds upon himself. He dropped Dailene, as she came to consciousness and flailed violently at him, and he stood awestruck as a man in a tattered golden suit of armor stood in the crowd. "-...Mark? Is that you?". His old friend from way beyond when was standing before him, soulless eyes speaking thousands of words as to what he'd been through the past few years he was without the optimistic hopes of those he cared about.

Mark stared back blankly, refusing to believe his eyes. His old friend he had watched 'die' was standing before him in the flesh, still kicking ass. He didn't utter a word yet the smile that stretched widely across his face spoke better than any action. Elias tackled Mark and the two began their 276th sparring match. The ground shook as the two collided. "If I recall correctly I've one 138 times!" Elias boldly stated as they traded playful blows. "No way, I've won the 138! You've just been out so long you can't remember!" Mark stated cheerily as the punches glanced off of his tattered suit. They fought for hours on end to rekindle the flames of the time they had lost with one another. They stopped and stumbled to the ground in joy as they both traded glance. They laughed and sighed as the reminisced in the gleaming horizon. Mark stared cheekily and spoke intently. "You should meet my wife man, she'd love to meet the big ol' scary monster that offhand tried to defend the whole kingdom". Elias laughed a bit and agreed to the proposition. As they approached the survivor hideout, a familiar face was awaiting Mark at the door. A face Elias would know even he were blinded the day of meeting them, Dailene. Elias was baffled Mark managed to get married in the first chick, but to find that this was the little village girl who always casually giggled along with him would turn into such a diva. Elias was reminded of Mark's current appearance and confided in him about it, the scars were surprisingly not from her much to Elias's roaming imagination.

Dailene grinned in a sinister fashion towards Elias as he walked through the door as if she planned to poison his food. Mark simply gave her his trademark shmuck grin and a smack on the bottom. Elias tried to play it off with a forced grin, but internally he was vomiting all over his little mind space. Elias extended his hand towards the now blushing Dailene as they both conveniently muttered "No hard feelings for trying to kill you earlier, right?" Dailene poked Elias' scars as she narrowed her eyes. She wandered off to talk to Mark in private about a matter concerning Elias. "So you mean to tell me you've never once thought he was a demon?" she inquired angrily. "The guy was crazy strong, yet he didn't decide to murder us all, I was just happy with that. I'm pretty sure it was probably the most suspect thing that he was able to take one hell of a punch..er- stabbing. But I always chalked it up to good armor and fighting prowess" Mark shrugged in disarray. They both shared glances with one another as if the very fibers of their lives with one another had come crashing down all because of a simple revelation. The couple stared at Elias as if he were the same monster responsible for bringing this world to its knees. Elias stared back in confusion, albeit he heard everything. He knew Mark wouldn't ever betray him.

The happy few shared dinner with one another, and the ambient silence of the wastes Beleria had become kept them to their own vices and provided a rather somber tune to the whole audible aspect of their meal. Elias was enjoying the irradiated cow which was now dubbed the "Yakkow" by the locals. Mark and Dailene stared in disbelief that the radiation wasn't killing him slowly and surely, yet that was to be expected of a true demon. "Nothing better than years' worth of a catnap to be treated to some fresh steaks, right Mark" Elias flamboyantly shouted. Dailene gripped the steak knife with every fiber of her being. She wasn't planning to let the man who bested her once get away with it. She moved closer and offered Elias more steak. Mark was giving all the cues of the typical get the hell out of the way signals, yet Elias was so enthralled in eating to notice. Dailene slid the knife from under her sleeve and slid it into Elias' shoulder. Elias stood paralyzed momentarily and stared Dailene in the eyes as a gaseous purple fluid emitted from his shoulder wound. "Dailene, I thought we were playing nice tonight! You're hysterical! Next time you wanna spar, at the very least use a brimstone blade!" Elias jokingly remarked as he dissipated the blade from within his shoulder, while simultaneously sealing the wound. He stood up from the table and patted Dailene with extreme force causing her to pass out yet again. Mark played dead for fear of being discovered doing nothing during the events that transpired.

Elias walked up to the guest room and sat on the bed. The first real comfort that wasn't a steel slab covered in his own blood. He got into a lotus position and proceeded to meditate. His breathing slowed as he entered a transient state, and the scars embroidered upon him began to shine brightly. This was the first time Elias found himself at peace, but unbeknownst to him; Mark and Dailene were watching him the entire time. Elias' eyes began to glow and he played back the visions he was suffering. The woman with the Ouroboros robe materialized into the home. Mark and Dailene ducked in fear as they were all too familiar with that woman. She was the one responsible for plunging Beleria into darkness. Elias cleared the room to make it a mental sparring room. A blank slate to redeem himself if not physically, then mentally. Elias drew his sword to the woman. She stayed silent and drew an unfamiliar weapon. The small house shook as Elias ascended with the hologram into the air. Dailene angrily shouted, "Elias! You're gonna pay for all that shit you damaged!". Elias snap vanished and looked her in the eye. He poked her and childishly smiled, "Boop." as he put her to sleep. He vanished back to face the holographic woman. Though something had changed from last, her movements seemed a lot more humane. Little to Elias' knowledge, this was no longer the same entity he had summoned.

Chapter 4: A House Divided

Elias was shaking visibly. Word and hope had spread around the shattered Beleria that he was still alive and kicking from his antics in the hideout. Now this woman, 'Aeuyrial' was here to crush what little hopes they had. Elias' wounds hadn't healed fully and he was on doctors orders from Dailene to take it easy, even if she didn't feel like he was supposed to be one of them. The bandages came off and descended to the house below, his scars were glowing brightly into the night sky. "You, I've seen you before.." Aeuyrial confided in Elias solemnly. Elias stayed silent with his fists clenched. Aeuyrial opened a dimensional rift to show Melisa as she was being tortured in the voided realm "You want her? Come get her. It's just a little hop into a territory you're not made for. Oh, before I forget; I've also got your nifty little toy here." the woman said as she lifted her robe to reveal she was brandishing Lostvayne. When Elias caught a glimpse of his sword he snap vanished out of reaction to it. The fight had begun and Aeuyrial had awoken the true nature of Elias. "C'mon, it's no fun if you play hide and seek. You don't think it's one of those kosher anime's where I can sense energy, do you? We're demons. Fight like one" she mocked as she stood waving the sword around. A black and purple cloud appeared above her and struck her through a plateau. It was Elias in the dimensional vanish form. Elias holstered his sword and his scars began to secede into the crest on his head. "Now we're talking. MARK, If you leave now maybe you'll make it before I leave nothing left of this...this cold cold woman."

What came next shook the nation. Aeuyrial rose back to her former position and by her looks, she was a wee bit mad. "You know, Lucifer was right about you. You really are a lost cause." she scoffed when she looked at the boy and his blade. Elias was smiling for the first time in years. "Do you wanna know why I got cast out of Hell?" Elias asked with his signature shit-eating grin. Aeuyrial was visibly curious, her grin growing more and more sadistic. "It's because I was too powerful. The kingdom was worried I'd grow to rival Lucifer and his pansy ass legion. Now are you going to fight me or are you going to try to steal my sword again?" Elias joked with a snarky disposition and took a fighting stance. The real fight was just beginning. "Well, we'll just have to see where you stand in comparison to me. But I'm going to warn you, by the end of the day you might end up being more woman than man when I'm done wi-." she rambled only to be interrupted by a kick to the gut. She flew backward and caught her breath only to be sledgehammered into the ground.

"You were wide open..." Elias said with a slight sneer. Aeuyrial reciprocated with a dark pulse blast that landed squarely on Elias' face. He stepped back to anticipate the next move, only to be kicked to the ground and thrown through a tree. She snap vanished over to him and held him up to finish him. Elias wrapped his legs around her arm and took out his sword. He spun as he cut off her arm and tail-spun back. He used it to clap with his other hand. She looked dazed as if that was defiling to her. She then smirked and let out a yell that brought the arm back. She sealed it using her demonic aura. "Dude, that's nasty. Why did I have to see that?" Elias said while still catching his breath. He held up his hand as a pause sign but was blasted into a caved lake. They both stood on the water whilst anticipating the next move, Elias was visibly straining his body since he wasn't fully recovered. His scars were leaking back onto his body and his energy was starting to come unhinged. "So how's it feel to fight a fully fledged demon? I bet you've been cheating these humans out of a true fight from square one because you're afraid of hurting them" she jokingly remarked. "I've been pulling my punches because they don't deserve to know what I am. They fear demons because of people like you. Guess the cat's out of the bag now, huh?" Elias retorted with a stern face. He clenched his fist in anger- no, in pride of being who he was. A demon capable of loving humans. They both charged one another and collided to create a large wave. The crystalline lake reflecting the lesser of two evils facing pure darkness. Their fists colliding blow after blow creating a shockwave a dark energy, it was soothing to both of them. Elias was fighting for himself, and those who believed in him; he was not allowed to falter here.

The battle would come to ensue for hours. They became bloodied but only to have their healing factors regenerate the damages almost instantly. Their feelings becoming more and more clear by the strength of their blows. Elias dive kicked Aeuyrial into a small island. She coughed up ichor, a telltale sign of a high ranking demon. No typically jester demon would have ichor for blood. She began to understand why she was so intrigued by Elias. Why she had plunged the only thing he loved into total darkness. It wasn't for chaos, or anarchy. It wasn't to see people suffer. She became enraged at this newfound revelation; because it stood against everything she would fight for. Elias approached, his sword in hand. His scars emanating an eerie purple glow, effects of his awoken Demonic powers. He stood as the victor of the duel. He prepared to cut her down and put and end to all of it; but she grabbed him and kissed him, deeply. A passion fueled by her hatred for him that turned into respect, yet lust for being against her. Her passion turning into a loathing of everything he stood for, yet feeling obligated and drawn to him at every waking moment for the things she has done to ensure he would seek her.

An Ouroboros scar formed within his demonic crest as she released him from her grasp, and he stood shocked by the drastic change in tone. Seizing the opportunity, she called it a draw and warped to the voided realms. A mindset of provincialism caused Elias to forget entirely why he was fighting. He left the cave and ran to Mark's home. Both Mark and Dailene were shocked to see Elias back in one piece. His face was blank, but his mind was in a flurry of unbridled confusion yet anger. He failed to rescue Melisa and he knew somewhere in his mind, she was holding back. He lifted his head and revealed the marking that replaced his signature crest. A black aura embodied him it began to have wisps of white embody it. His eyes lost their pupils. His wounds bled yet they sealed as quickly as they began. He fell to the floor after muttering "It's not over yet." Mark and Dailene rushed to his side and carried him to their medical center. He was breathing, he has pushed himself too far though. His wounds would heal, but the fatigue from them would only fade with rest, which he didn't get much of.

Elias awoke in the medical center, Mark had put special arrangements in for him; everyone knew he was a demon, but for saving their realm and returning the victor, accepting him was a small part of the price to pay. He had a well endowed nurse who for one, was actually a nurse. It cost him a months worth of ration cards, but he was the co-founder of the Belerian resistance. He left him a note on the bed that read "Take it easy, on yourself and on her. -Mark" Elias slapped the note down in a bashful manner. He had pulled another muscle after devolving from his powered up state. He let out a powerful yell that startled the nurse, yet she went back to a state of calmness after seeing the child-like man nearly come to tears over a basic injury. "C'mon, if these boys out here in the fields killing jester demons get these everyday and come in and out with no problem, of all people; you should be able to handle a little pulled muscle" the nurse mocked with a sarcastic tone. Elias' face turned a bright shade of red as he ceased yelling and tried to play it off. "Uh..just checking to see if I've still got my vocals." He tried to sit up, yet that made things worse as his torso hadn't completely healed. He let out a single tear and slowly descended back into his bed. He asked the nurse "Do you fear me, now that you know I'm a demon?" his voice noticeable eager yet dark. "I've been in Beleria ever since I was a little girl, I don't know if you remember or not; but you saved me when those Danafall knights came and tried to pillage us. I know you're not evil like all these things you're facing, it's just everyone else who needs a little bit of convincing." she spoke calmly as she reminisced. She laughed at the thought of how a demon could be so childish, yet caring. "Oh by the way..." she spoke in a manner similar to that of a seductress, she unzipped her top a bit. "Here's the thank you for that very day, I'll leave it like this until you're done recovering." Elias became shrouded in a purple aura. He fell back in his bed as he thought of how much Mark hadn't changed, still pulling through for his friends. He wanted to imagine how he got Dailene to be on board with the idea of leaving a nice girl like this alone with him.

In the coming days, albeit the whole nation knew of Elias' ties to the Demon Realm, they still accepted him as their savior. Mark preached of him seeing the entire fight, but Elias knew that just wasn't the case. He couldn't have saw EVERYTHING. Elias was in shambles internally, knowing he wasn't even remotely a match for Aeuyrial. She was holding back by how she easily bled. She would take every hit and shrug it off as if nothing happened. The whole event ended up eventually sealed his energy away. He wasn't a threat to anybody but that was only on the energy side. Physically, he maintained his superhuman strength. He couldn't awaken his potential anymore. Every attempt would either cause the scar to glow and knock him unconscious, or just exert him to the point it wasn't worth trying. It became a bit more of a parlor trick, so in the time before the seal was lifted; he sought sparring to keep himself able to fight. His wounds were severe, but that didn't deter him. He looked for his old friend, Lamar. Lamar was something straight out of a midnight-horror feature. He wasn't ugly or anything, he was just ever so subtly..strong! His power seemed to be demonic, yet whenever you fought him and he decided to so much as try, he didn't even seem to break a sweat. Either he was really good at hiding his aura, or there's something more to him. He befriended Elias simply on the premises of him being a worthy adversary.

Lamar had also been one of the grand founders to Beleria, yet everyone treated him like just another dude. The whole battle between Elias and Aeuyrial had left the whole nation in a bit of a mess. Lamar was tasked to clear it all out. Though instead, him and Elias saw it as a key opportunity to get some sparring done. "You really went all out in this cave? I imagined it'd be a bit more like Danafall." Lamar mocked as he took his fighting stance. That guy always did have a knack for some of the oddest poses. He put his hands out as if he was waving, one behind the other. He also wasn't too fond of sugarcoating things. He was there when Elias' wrath consumed him, causing him to obliterate Danafall as a whole. He watched in horror as his power was exceeded by Elias for a split second. That was his true capability. "They killed my men in front of me, and they butchered them mercilessly as I watched them gouge out my allies in arms." Elias said as his voice quivered from recollection of the gruesome day. His scars were sealing up, yet the emblem on his head was slowing it down a whole lot more. "Easy now, I was just there when you marked it off of the map. Now that's the kind of power you're gonna want if you have any hopes of even getting near Aeuyrial. She's a whole new ball game than you. I've seen what she can do first hand before I found Beleria; you don't wanna trifle with her in the state that you're in. Let me let you in on a little secret."

"That Ouroboros robe is hiding a sinister secret. Just like the seal on your head that's making you bitch-made, she's got power that's being sealed away behind all that. Her true form and power is just like you in Danafall, except instead of it being a momentary thing, she can sustain that and use it to the fullest." Lamar explained as his tone rose to a level of sincerity never seen by Elias before. "If you're going to destroy Beleria like this, at least do it in style. I'm going to train you not only because I want to see her get knocked into next week, but because Melisa means a lot to all of us. She is our heir to becoming the queen after all." Lamar said as his tone raised to a somber tone. He walked over to Elias and raised his hair. He saw the mark and decided he'd trust Elias to not cause as much damage this time around. He put his hands over the seal and changed it back to the signature crest Elias bore beforehand. Elias' power shot through the roof them moment the seal was lifted. Lamar took a step back in awe. "All that training really did pay off even if you couldn't use it eh?" Lamar said. "Hell, you might not even need me. You could possibly take her with that aura alone." he jokingly mocked. Elias' eyes narrowed into a chuckle and he struck Lamar square in the jaw, sending him flying into a rock. "No fair, that was a sucker-punch! I'll get you back for that one, Walker!" Lamar joked as he wiped the blood from his brow. Elias took to his fighting pose and rushed him with a flurry of blows, each one being deflected with the flick of his wrist. "Too slow!" Lamar yelled. He snap vanished behind him and knocked him into the hard soot. Elias went tumbling before he caught his balance on his legs. Elias imitated a show he watched while he was hospitalized and cupped his arms. "Hope you like my new move Lamar! I've been working on it ever since I got out of the nurses care!" Elias yelled cheerily. "You're not gonna try to fuck me, are you? Because I know you uhh, you definitely fucked the nurse." Lamar sneered quietly. Elias' eyes narrowed as his energy formed between his cupped hands. "Kaa...Meeee...HAAAA....MEEE...." Elias yelled with anger in his eyes. "Seriously? Are you seriously going to try that?" Lamar sarcastically said as his face turned into a frown. He took a 'hit me with your best shot' pose as Elias charged the wave. Before he could mock him even more, Elias snap vanished right in front of him and the energy had absorbed into his fist. He smiled and snickered a bit before yelling the name of his new attack "SIKE, Havoc Strike! (Demon Wave)".

Before his strike, Lamar's expression turned to utter shock as he expected a waved attack like out of that show that Elias mentioned. Elias struck him squarely in the chin as a wave of energy surrounded the contact point, completely obliterating whatever was caught in its path..erm- most of it anyway. A large shockwave formed around Lamar and Elias as Lamar stood barely scratched. He stared at Elias and grinned slightly as he let his arm go and stepped out of the way; letting Elias go flying into the walls of the cavern. Elias punched a direct hole through the walls of the cavern and he stepped back to marvel at his increased power. Lamar darted into the cavern and kicked him into a boulder. He began mercilessly pounding away. Elias was in a corner, and Lamar knew it. He knew that he would have to turn to the demon form to survive his attacks. The only problem was, he wasn't stupid enough to do it with the shape he was in. Elias felt the force of every hit, yet he knew this was only a fraction of his true power. Elias' hands clenched tighter and tighter. He had devised a plan to get himself out of it, but at the rate he was being beaten, it would either make or break the situation. Those were the risks he would have to be willing to take if it meant saving Melisa. Elias let his fists out of a ball and waited for Lamar to land his finishing blow. Before Lamar could land the fatal blow, Elias unholstered Lostvayne and held it to his chest. Lamar landed the blow but Elias had one last trump card. He grinned sinisterly in the gleam of light that occurred on contact. "Full Counter." the partially dead man muttered. Lamar was just as much proud as he was surprised. The force of his own blow was reflected back at him with twice the power, sending him rolling out of the cavern for miles. Elias gagged on his blood a bit and sprawled out to the floor. He planned to call that one a draw for now.

Elias stumbled out of the cavern and stared into the suns gleaming rays. His blood stained his tattered robes and his wounds that had been stitched prior had been reawoken. Elias fell to the ground after the adrenaline from his fight wore off. His crest wasn't healing him anymore and his aura was faded. This was too familiar of a scenario for him. He cursed himself for wearing out his demonic energy in one all out attack. In a foolish attempt to stress his new technique, he had temporarily rendered himself human. Mark had noticed the commotion and decided to check it out to find Elias in agony against a tree. He scoffed a bit and carried him to the Med Bay. "Sometimes I wonder if you're trying to kill yourself...as if you don't want anything to do with us, so you go fighting the most damned shit we can find. We've told you time and time again to take it easy, and each time you've failed to follow through on it. This is why at the rate we're in we'll never find Melisa." Mark melancholically sat in his chair as he berated his friend with the cold perspective of what he couldn't come to understand. What the boundaries of mortality tethered him to see when he would find his friend bleeding his life away recklessly.

Mark was torn up inside as he knew he would never be able to fully comprehend Elias' perspective. After all, what could a human know about his friend or what he felt, or if he even felt AT ALL. Mark thought to himself that if he felt, he wouldn't risk it all and Melisa would be there all the same in the morning. Elias groaned to find himself yet again wrapped in bandages. Though his friend jumped at the sight of him being awake. Elias reached for his satchel so he could immediately leave the place but Mark stopped him. He glared and that was them most powerful thing. Elias was hell bent on actually getting up to leave, yet he knew he'd only find himself here again. The vision of his Belerian IV Drip with his blood-soaked bandanna forced him to lay back in his bed. "...Elias, we can't go on like this. We want to get Mel back as fast as we can, and you think you might be able to just because you're a demon on the outside. But right now, from where we are from that little scuffle between you and that weirdo Lamar..you're still a-" "Human." Mark stated as he was briefly interrupted by Lamar visiting in his most glorious suit and tie. His face was still bruised from the full counter strike. "H-hey there Lamar, sorry about the whole thing with your face." Elias groaned as he lifted his head in pain. "Ah this old thing? That's nothing. I was just psyching you out. She isn't anywhere near my level of power, but she is strong." Lamar cheekily put his hands to his face and healed it back to the state it was before the fight, dimples and all.

"Sometimes I wonder just what I'd need to kill you, you know? Even YOU aren't capable of killing you." Elias cheekily squalled. "You'd need me to be fighting at full power for one. I'll let you in on a little secret, not to hurt your spirits or anything, but I've only used about 7% of my true power. Your full counter reflected 14% back at me. That hurt, it just didn't manage to kill me." Lamar smirked as he snapped and watched one of the nurses pass out. "She's all yours by the way, enjoy your free Pill Cosby for the good fight..oh wait, you're all- yeah. Nevermind" Lamar spoke nervously as he woke the nurse up, she kicked him in the groin and watched as he vanished out of the building in pain. Never a dull moment in this old town. Elias reached for his compress and placed it on his dislocated shoulder. "I could really use some demonic power-ups right now, too bad I'm drained bone dry" Elias groaned as he choked on a laugh a bit. "You need a break from all these demons and shit. What do you say I get you some good ol' fashion brew, and we have a day in town, eh?" Mark said as he looked to his friend who was clearly not buying into it. "Well, I'd love to do all of that but I'm all wrapped in these bandages and I don't believe there's much you guys can do for what I'm pretty sure is beyond a 3rd degree burn. High pressure lacerations, and shattered ribs." Elias said as he coughed up dried blood. "Mmm...Ribs." he said as he smiled.

"Well, we may not have demonic powers, but Lamar agreed you did well enough to be healed. Though he isn't sure how effective his healing is on wounds he inflicted on someone. Not to mention it'll probably hurt like hell." Mark said whilst he stared Lamar wearily. Lamar approached Elias and put out his hand slowly, it was emanating a bright light. "So what, do I get like a countdown or som..-OH MY SHIT" Elias yelled. "Grit your teeth" Lamar sneered. Elias could feel the surge in energy as his ribs slowly made their way back together. He could feel the bones mending and the flow of his energy stabilizing. "Next time warn me, that hurt like a bitch." Elias said as he hopped out of bed as good as new. He felt powerful. Yet this power wasn't like before, it was new. His Dalmalian Crest shined briefly and a powerful gust filled the room. Mark stood back a bit before breaking into an almost uneasy grin and ran up to start their signature handshake. Before either of them had the chance to thank Lamar, he had already left the hospital and began his trail home. Though nobody knew exactly where he lived, the two men could only imagine it was something filled with books and the finest Belerian women. Mark passed a jug to Elias and he pulled out a map. "I hope all that time comatose or fighting hasn't made you forget what the city is like, old boy. You still know how to get around there don't you?" Mark said as he nudged his friend to take a sip of the signature Beleria Ale.

Chapter 5: New Beginnings

Elias felt like it was time to give the newfound power he possessed a try, except this time he wasn't going to get himself half beaten to death. Elias remembered when he had awoken from his coma that users of demonic energy were capable of warping. He grinned at the opportunity he possessed and decided to try it out. He put his hand on Mark's helmet and got a feel for the land around him. There was a small purple flame, it was neutral however; though it burned brightly. It enveloped the two and their figures only to become a spherical formation. "Elias, what the hell are you doing?! I thought you said we weren't going to be doing this demon shit until you were one-hundred percent again!" Mark whined. "I promise this won't end up being totally demonic, just hold on tight you old sissy!" Elias cheerily said. The two were engulfed in a neutral purple aura and before they knew it, they became unified as a wisp of dark energy. They soared out of the hospital window and headed directly into the Belerian City.

The wisp soared extravagantly across the sky, brightening the horizon with all of its shining glory. All the while, the nurse that was in the hospital room was treated to her number one freaky experience. She walked out of Elias' operation room and picked up her phone. "Hey Mom, I think I can stop taking those pills now." she said. It was quite obvious she didn't believe anything that she just saw, but that was the charm she lived for. She would come to take the next few days off on a paid leave. When the wisp neared entrance of the city it came to a halt at the grand road. Mark had forcefully exited the form and destabilized the both of them. "Could you at least give me a heads up on that? I'd like a warning the next time I'm gonna be sharing ANYTHING with you." Mark said with a slight angst in his voice. Elias couldn't help but laugh at his newfound ability. It wasn't anything like smoke form, it was faster and it was even more fun. He grabbed Mark and the two strolled into the streets. A grand night had just begun for the lifelong friends. The citizens cheered and took photos as the two walked by. Elias was amazed they could accept him as one of their own given his significant damages caused.

The two shared their typical bad jokes and had stopped by a vendor on the streets to grab hotdogs. They were approached by a group of men who were clad in black suits. They resembled your cliche 80's mafioso. Their leader, a man wearing a sharp tipped fedora approached and took out a cigar. He lit it and blew the smoke in Elias' direction. Elias dispelled the cigar and gave a face of repulsion. "So, you must be Elias, huh? The big, tough guy? Y'know, it's people like you that make my life a living hell. I can't go one night without thinking my house will be up in shambles the next day." the man spoke sarcastically. Elias put his hotdog down on the stand of the vendor, and left his owed $5.50. "If it wasn't the smokes that killed you, it would probably be me. Funny, huh?" Elias said as he broke into a small laugh. "You think this is FUNNY? You think you're some kind of wiseass? Lemme tell you something Jack, you ain't shit. You're some asshole who damn well didn't come from here. You done did nothing but fuck up my day, and make me wish I could wipe that smug grin off your lips. So that's what I came to do" The man ranted on as he pulled out a .45 Pistol. He pointed it directly at Elias' head and the civilians around all shouted in protest and fear. Elias put his hands in his pockets and leaned onto the hotdog stand. He grabbed his hotdog and took a brief bite. The gunshot rang out and within a millisecond of the noise, Elias had put his hand out and caught the bullet between his thumb and index finger. He flipped it in the air like a coin and pointed at the mans lower leg. The bullet went instantaneously through the man's ankle immediately and he went flat to the floor in pain.

"Kill this motherfucker..." The man yelled as he lay in both panic, and pain. The whole posse he had accompanying him had ran toward Elias. Mark had stepped in and slam dunked both of them to the ground. The remaining man had gotten squarely in front of Elias and threw a punch. It landed directly on his forehead and sent Elias' head back as he stared the vendor in the eye. "Can I get some ketchup with this, please? Ooh, and some relish! Wait a sec- I'll get back to you" Elias cheerily said as he leaned forward and caught the second punch thrown by the man. He stared the man down blankly and smirked. "So do you want a hotdog too or...?" Elias asked sarcastically as he put his finger to the mans skull, knocking him unconscious. Elias smirked at the street vendor salesman and urged Mark to continue walking with him. The civilians put their phones away after watching the entire event go down. They couldn't believe a Belerian guard had just taken down a notorious street gang with nothing but his bare hands. Elias and Mark hit the casinos of Beleria to get wasted for a coin or two. The bartenders were more than willing to offer them a few rounds on the house as is, as they felt their life and business as a whole was indebted to them.

Elias was shooting pool when a few groupies came up to him, they urged him to sign their shirts and then some, and he was more than willing to oblige. Mark came over and wanted to do the same, but they jumped him and told him he was a dirty old womanizer. He smirked and gave Elias a small punch in the arm and handed him a flask of booze. Elias chugged it like a champ and sooner or later the two were back in business as the dynamic duo. They were singing smash-hits on the stage in a fashion similar to karaoke. "Now your life's no longer empty!" Mark sang and nudged Elias who was still sober enough to understand what was going on. "SURELY HEAVEN WAITS FOR YOU!" Elias called out back. The whole casino broke out into song as the night went on. This was the peace Elias vowed to protect with his life, and they regarded it higher than any price they would have to pay. "Carry on my wayward son! There'll be peace when you are done! Lay your weary head to rest!" The whole casino sang in unison. They stared to Elias and Mark to finish off the set. "Don't you cry no more!" the brothers replied. Lamar was standing in the crowd with a suited man who seemed to be enjoying the karaoke a bit more than everyone else. "Damn, they should've invited us, don't you think?" Lamar asked to the curious man in the suit who shot back a cup of whiskey. He smirked and looked back at Lamar, "Those boys know how to throw a party, it's just too bad that bitch is trying to ruin it. Maybe once all this is over and I don't have to handle the daddy and mommy issues downstairs, I'll actually have some time to enjoy some nights out like this." the man gruffly said. He stood up and vanished from the casino, not soon after to have Lamar follow suit. The night was still young, though Elias and Mark returned home dead drunk to Dailene. She was less than happy, yet managed to drag both the lugs to the couches for the night. They reeked of booze and sweat. Elias had another scent on him but she wasn't too particularly curious to find out what it was. She sighed and walked up the steps to her bed. "Those men are like inseparable children. Oh, boys. They never cease to amaze me." she said as she slowly walked up.

Dailene walked up to her room and sat on her bed, she thought about how times had changed so quickly for her. One day she was a quiet girl living an optimal life. The next, she was a militaristic rebellion leader. She married the head guard, yet she was the one wearing the pants in the relationship, sometimes in a literal sense. She polished her rifle and picked up her phone. She called her parents to check on them and had began talking with them to put herself to sleep. "How's that boy Mark treatin' ya? Is he still alive what with all the womanizing he does?" Dailene's father asked sarcastically. "Dad! He's a good guy, he just sometimes has problems keeping his eyes on the prize. Even with that, he told me the day we chose to make things official that I was his one and only." Dailene said in a loving contradiction to her fathers jokes. "Probably the only one that'd actually let him get in their pants, no offense." Her father and mother said in unison. "Oh, ha ha." She said mockingly as she shifted the conversation to Elias. "Right after that tall bitch came, we scuffled the hospital after she destroyed the coast. We scuffled the hospital and somehow it was still standing and the IV drip was functional long enough to keep him alive in his coma." Dailene said in a darker, serious tone. "That boy ain't right. He's got a bit of darkness in him, and I know you've seen it. Be careful around him, if he can lift a freight train with a bit of elbow grease, he ain't one of us." Dailene's father said cautiously. "I know dad, I know. He got out of the demon cuffs, and he even managed to knock out the resistances guards within a few seconds. Yet, he didn't mean no harm. He just wasn't up to date and I may or may not have tee'd him off." Dailene said curiously with a hint of narration. "What? You call him a black eyed pea?" Her father sneered.

"I'm just concerned because we don't know what he's capable of. He knocked that tall bitch through a plateau. I saw him disappear and then reappear out of smoke. One, if he can so much as touch her, he 's definitely got something going on. Two, he's just in-general too powerful. Mark told me he woke up and caused a mini-tornado in the operation room." Dailene said shifting into a rather worried tone. "Mhmm..Well, you remember what we did with Omaime. He fed into the dark that was in him, and then he forced us to have to put him down. That boy might mean more than diamonds to Mark, but if he so much as lays a hand on you, you're gonna have to put him down." her father said with no remorse in his voice. He never spoke of Omaime, unless the situation called for it. His son to a woman he never knew was partly demon. Dailene's brother. Omaime was outside one night and he was acting a bit out of order. He tried to bring him back inside but the boy struck him and he had to shoot him square in the heart. He didn't go down immediately, but he died in his father's arms, Akrabel Groban. His lifeless breaths spoke more to his soul than anything, and all he could do is cry because there's nothing he could do for him. Omaime recanted of all the times he loved playing with Akrabel and his wife, Ariel. The times they'd be superheroes and fly around together. Now he was laying there with his blood on his father's hands. They both died with tears in their eyes, but only one left Beleria that day.

Dailene kept silent, and the call between her and her parents eventually ended. Dailene was 2 years younger than Omaime. All she could remember was asking again and again where her big brother Omaime was. She never got an answer, but then when she was 14, her father let Omaime's name slip out of his mouth, sparking the burning question once more. Her father had no choice but to tell her everything, and she cried non-stop in her room, no matter who held her that day. She wanted to run away and forget anything like this existed in Beleria, but for people like Dailene Groban, that wasn't an option. Dailene lay teary eyed in her bed, and she was awoken by Elias turning on the lights to her room. He was still groggy, yet he was sober enough to discern what he was doing. He stood in the doorway and groggily asked "Hey Dailene, do we have any leftovers for din-din? That hotdog went right through me and now I'm hungry again" Elias said in a whiny tone. He was oblivious to the tears in her eyes, yet he caught on as she stood and one of them rolled down her face. He jokingly said to her, "What's up your butt? I'm gorgeous but I'm nothing to cry over. Who hurt you" he put on a shit-eating grin and then it turned to a curious squint as he gained his awareness. She pulled him closer and pulled him down to level height. She put him to her chest and the tears ran down her eyes faster. "I may have misjudged you but I don't want to totally trust you with my life. I know you'd never do anything to hurt Mark, and in extension even me. But I want to know that you won't do it." She said shakily. Her grip was turning tighter and tighter. "Where's this coming from muffin top?" Elias said curiously, his breathing steepened. "Promise me, you won't do anything to hurt us. PROMISE ME." She said with a violent increased shake to her voice. "...I won't hurt you or Mark, I'm sworn to protect you both, and everyone who calls this place home. I promise. I promise." He said. He was reminded that he swore the same oath to Melisa when he came to their world. His eyes watered, and a single tear ran down his face. That night was a showcase of humanity, the bond someone human and non-human can share.

Chapter 6: Beyond Voids And Shadows

While the antics and hysteria feats overtook Beleria, Aeuyrial had escaped to her realm through an inter-dimensional rift. She was able to instantly recover from her wounds based upon the atmosphere of the world. She made her way back to the her throne room from which Melisa was bound to the wall. She sat on her throne in a lazy, demented position. She stared psychotically at Melisa, filled with contempt and hatred for her after realizing she had feelings for the same man. She floated over to Melisa and punched her in the stomach to wake her up. "Rise and shine, lovely. I just wanted to tell you I took a little itty bitty trip to your home. Guess who I saw" she said energetically. Releasing an almost sadistic vibe. Melisa groaned and looked her down to see the post-healing scars. She recognized the signature wounds that no mere mortal could inflict. "Elias..." She said weakly. She coughed a bit and then looked Aeuyrial in the eyes, she was ecstatic. "You're so right! Ugh, I could almost wipe that bit of determination off your face! It's making you clever, and from here on you're supposed to be a mindless wench." Aeuyrial said demonically. She slapped and scratched at Melisa's face. She healed the wounds only to inflict them again. The cries bellowed outward and reached the emptiness of the void. Tears ran Melisa's face dry and she held on to a false hope that Elias would eventually save her from the living hell she was in. "So, what do you think he likes? He seems like a fighter which is sexy but annoying at the same time. He's so obsessed with these humans that he forgets we're one in the same, and he wants to be with something like YOU!" Aeuyrial said with a tinge of envy to her tone. "I mean, you're a princess and I'm a QUEEN, what could you possibly have that I don't?! I'm his own species and he doesn't want to get with me?" She said in the most whiny tone imaginable. She inspected Melisa up and down, tearing at her garments and apparel. "You're several cup sizes smaller than me, and you've really not got anything going for you in the looks department if you really wanna know, bitch." Melisa weakly retorted with a subtle metaphorical snap to her attitude. She let out a weak chuckle followed by coughing up bits of blood from her torture.

Aeuyrial stared at Melisa coldly and held her by the chest. She pulled out a small adamantium knife and put it to the side of Melisa's breast. "That can be changed just as easily, bitch. Now watch who you're talking to or so help me by the time he finds this place there'll be nothing left for him to enjoy of you. Hell, you might even pass as a man." Aeuyrial said eerily. Melisa shivered, yet she still maintained an ice cold grin of optimism. She could feel Elias coming, in her heart. Aeuyrial returned to her throne and lecherously destroyed and created subjects, as a bored deity of a voided realm, she had very little duties. The realm was prone to nothing but chaos, and whatever lives occupied it, would eventually find their way to death by the hands of its unlivable conditions. The grand temple was above the toxic voided bottoms, thus Melisa was safe for now. Flash to flash, and ash to ash; more and more lifeforms were created and scrapped. Aeuyrial came up with a grand idea to get back at Melisa. She spent hours constructing an entity that resembled Elias, once completed; she warped Melisa to watch the grand scheme. The dummy was tied to a chair and stripped. Aeuyrial drew out her knife from before and slowly began to carve her name into the dummy, not missing even a letter.

Melisa was sick to her stomach, but before she could protest she was sent back to her prior position. Aeuyrial had found herself enthralled in torturing and healing the dummy that she almost forgot about Melisa. For hours she would poke, prod, and experiment on it; testing new ways to impress Elias once he found his way to her domain. By dusk she had realized that she had completely dematerialized the dummy, and was losing what was left of her mind, just by a replica of Elias. She put a barrier to the throne and sat there to contain herself. She knew not how to approach the feelings she held, as she felt they could bring the entire deletion of a universe about.

Chapter 7: A Plea That Couldn't Be Refused

Elias continued to train in Beleria, though without Lamar since he made him a bit too strong..by force. He would bring Mark to the old peaks of the mountains and they'd use the standard issue training sword. It was only slightly unfair considering Elias made the training sword feel pretty much like a real one with the power backing his swings. "Try and keep up, huh?!" Elias said as he swung ferociously. Mark was evading his blows a bit better than usual. It may seem he has finally become used to the power of a demon. Elias felt proud he could actually take Mark even a tiny bit more seriously than he usually does, he prepped a Cero (Demon Blast) and watched Mark expertly deflect it using his fleece. Mark swung back and shattered his training sword. He immediately drew his real sword and began fighting again. His eyes were teeming with passion, yet something had been bothering him a bit. Elias could see the discomfort and angst in his eyes. He ignored it and continued to evade and block Mark's attacks. Mark went in for a killing attack and that was when Elias had noticed it. Mark was in a rage of anger. Elias grabbed his sword by the tip of it promptly, stopping Mark in his tracks. Mark proceeded to let go of the sword and draw forth his latent potential. He punched Elias and watched him step back a little bit in awe.

"What's wrong?! You had all of this power to throw at Lamar but suddenly you can't hit me! I need this if I'm ever going to get stronger! So COME ON, HIT ME!! I'm tired of being on the sidelines watching you kick ass while I'm a powerless little sheep. I can't compete with you demons but that sure as hell won't stop me from trying. If I'm going down I'd expect them to hit me with their best shot and that's what I'm here for so...COME ON AND HIT ME AGAIN, AS HARD AS YOU CAN, ELIAS. YOU CAN DISH IT OUT, AND I CAN TAKE IT! I AM THE HEAD GUARDIAN OF BELERIA, I'M WILLING TO DIE FOR YOU, Dailene, MELISA, AND ANYBODY ELSE! Mark said. He was visibly serious and he was even beginning to unlock the power he already had. His fist was scalding hot and his armor was glowing from the heat that was coming from him. He punched Elias once more and sent him flying backwards. He landed on his back and sat there mumbling. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Mark said, still visibly enraged. Elias sat upward and looked him with a sinister grin. "Well buddy, if that's what you really meant. If you think you can handle the power I have. If you want to become stronger just for the sake of Beleria, then be my guest. I've been waiting for you to wake up and smell the reality of the power gap, and now you might just make it. I promised Dailene I wouldn't do anything to ever hurt you, but if that's truly what you want; if you want me to take you seriously, then say no more.." Elias said grimly as a psychotic smile carved its way across his face. He began to laugh erratically as he took his fighting stance. The swords were abandoned and they were going to fight using nothing but their bare hands.

The ground began to shake as the two began to raise their power. High speed winds shook the surrounding mountain region. Mark had shed his tattered suit and wore nothing more than his signature combat pants. The heat that emanated from him was enough to burn the soils beneath him. Elias found that the area they were in was unfit, thus they had Lamar transport to the snow regions of Beleria. Emibrius Heights was the specific place. It was the very place that Lamar trained night and day to defend a young Beleria from the onslaught of demons. Mark was still burning through the snow and ice, though the cold stone end was enough to sustain him. Elias rushed Mark with a chest kick only to have it be cancelled out by having Mark throw him against a stone pillar. He rushed through the pillar and slammed him through the pillar. Elias wrapped his legs around his arm and broke it temporarily, followed by spiral kicking him out of the hold. Mark tumbled backwards to catch his footing and fix his arm only to have Elias knock it back into place by force. Elias attempted to punch mark with a Dalmally Cross-punch but he grabbed his hand and countered with a roundhouse kick. Elias clung to a wall and bounced back at a high speed for a piercing strike, yet it only did half as much damage as he intended. The two were bloodied and excited as the chose to decide the sparring match with one final clash. Elias prepped his arm with all the energy he could muster, as Mark did the same. "For Melisa?" Mark muttered curiously. "For Melisa." Elias said in a grinning response. They dashed toward one another and were about to make contact before a man came up to both of them yelling in a panic. Elias and Mark snapped out of their empowered forms and stared curiously at the furious man.

"Could you two like..I dunno, FUCKING NOT?" the man asked quickly. He struck both of them on the head with the sheath to his blade. They fell over exhausted as that killed their adrenaline, and it hurt nonetheless. The man dragged them inside his caved home. It was luxurious and played perfectly on the warm, crystalline interior of his sparkling, marble tile home. "Andy, we have guests. Get your fabulous ass down here and help me wake them up." The man said in a sassy tone. "You're really cramping my style here M, I was about to do some bong shots on the stuff I found in the mine earlier. I should just start calling you Mom instead of Miha, you're a little bit of both in my book." Andrew said lazily. Andrew was a tall lanky boy, fond of the penguins that inhabited the Emibrian Mountains. He was roommate and potential son to the man who owned the mountain home, Miha. Though Miha insists he tries to raise him right, there's very little that can be said for someone who does bong shots on something unidentifiable he found in a mine. Miha was a tall guy who left Beleria because of a man by the name of Fergus McLeod. A popular topic on Fergus' little runabout of Beleria was he didn't support homosexuality albeit he was a bit more inclined to than Miha knew. He found Andrew frozen nearly to death and decided he wasn't going to let nature claim the small boy. He took him in and taught him everything he knew. Which technically wasn't everything, and was based around his ideals.

"I mean I'm a guy, and I know I taught you that. You could call me father if that'd make your life any bit more easier than it already is albeit I already doubt it." Miha said boldly. Andrew scoffed and returned to work on his project, P.Robo. Miha left warm towels on Elias and Mark for them to wake up, and he left them in the lodge to settle down. Miha watched the news with Andrew and they were interrupted by Elias waking up with a loud yell. He was surprised to find out he was dragged all the way inside. He kept poking Mark and ignoring Miha and Andrew. He awoke Mark and they were enlightened of their situation and settled to talk with tea and explain the situation they're in. They dragged on until dusk came over the Emibrian Heights.

"So you're both Belerian Knights? What're you doing all the way up here in the Emibrian?" Miha asked inquisitively. "Well I'm a Knight. Currently I hold the position of Paladin. This dude is the Head Guard, just shy of the Knight ranks." Elias explained in-depth. Mark scoffed in regard to him being lower ranked than Elias despite in his own words, 'beating him like a rug'. Elias countered that he wasn't even giving his fullest. The two bickered like children until Miha laid down his mug. "Enough. I don't know why you guys had decided to train all the way out here, because it's cold as balls and none of it can handle the power you're dishing out, but you're more than welcome around here if you're friends with Melisa. A friend of hers is a friend of mine; speaking of which, how is she?" Miha rambled onward. "Shes..she's been taken by Aeuyrial. I'm training out here because we both want to get strong enough to take her back. She came to the Belerian capital, but I wasn't even doing a scratch on her." Elias stated firmly. Mark nodded in confirmation as Miha and Andrew looked in disbelief. Andrew became a bit more distant and walked up to Elias.

"This old man has been teaching me more than how to be a bum at the expense of someone else, the least I could do is give you a shot at getting her back. Hey Miha, do you think it's time we tried it?" Andrew stated as he became serious. "Do you think that's what your mother would want?" Miha asked curiously. "She wanted me to help people and that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna open the portal and give them 20 minutes to get in and get out." Andrew yelled back with his face becoming a bit more red. "Whoa, what? You can open the portal to her realm?" Elias and Mark asked in unison. "I'm not just some stoner kid, my father is a descendant of the founder of Beleria. He's the one who put Aeuyrial in there, and it's a trait everyone of his blood has. It's something I've been practicing, but nothing serious has came of it. Take it as something I like to call Andrew Ex Machina" Andrew explained. The group nodded in agreement and headed outside to the Stonehenge-like training ground. Miha wiped away the snow simply by unsheathing his blade. The portal hieroglyph was glowing a dark grey. The four stood around it and Andrew asked Elias and Mark who were geared with the best Emibrian Heights had to offer, which was a step up from Belerian gear intensively in a curious tone. "There's no guarantee what'll lie beyond this gate, and this is the only time I can do it. This rune will probably shatter itself or something. Are you sure this is what you want? There won't be time for a full fledged fight, all you can do is get in and grab her, leave, and come back. You've got twenty minutes" Andrew went on. "That's all we need" Elias and Mark said once more in unison. They stared at one another knowing this would be the test of their training.

Andrew placed his palm on the centerpiece of the Hieroglyph and a dark gray, and black beam shot into the sky. It ripped apart the reality that was occupying the Stonehenge structure whilst strong winds and chills emerged from it. This was it, this was The Void. Elias wasted no time being amazed at the sheer power the realm was emitting, he tapped Mark on the shoulder lightly and jumped through it. "Hold on Melisa, I'm coming" Elias mumbled as he was shifted through his own reality. The realm heightened his demonic energy, and his Dalmally Crest glowed to signify a member of the Demon Clan entered the realm. All the unknown creatures lined up at Aeuyrial's gate to guard it. Mark rushed in after to end up beating them all down brutally. "OUTTA MY WAY" He shouted in anger. He knew he was so close but so far from demons but that was still not a reason he couldn't help. Elias powered up a Havoc Strike and broke through the gate, the realms boost made it so it took practically no energy to do. He barely broke a sweat as he disintegrated the barrier. Beyond the gate was a small throne, and in it was a disgruntled, sloppy woman. Her Ouroboros Robe shone as the barrier containing her shattered when she spotted Elias. She stood and raised an arm to the ceiling. A blood red bolt of lightning filled the room and struck her, setting her robe ablaze yet it didn't burn off of her. The snake on the robe was now glowing a bright red, and as were her tattoos. Elias shifted into his guarding stance and spotted Melisa. He ignored the woman and proceeded to try to run off and grab her as fast as he could. He smoke vanished over to her but was interrupted by a small bolt of energy from Aeuyrial. He caught his balance as he flew backwards and stared her down. "You bastard...I'LL KILL YOU FOR THIS" Elias roared as he saw the scars and blood on Melisa. She smiled psychotically and giggled before egging him on to attack her. Elias shifted into his empowered form causing the windows of the temple to shatter. Tears rolled down his eyes and Mark was on the floor. "Mark...get her. This bitch is mine..." Elias asked shakily.

"No way man, you can't be serio-.." "SHE'LL KILL YOU." Elias interrupted as Mark refused. His aura was roaring and his face was blank. He then gritted his teeth and pointed to Melisa. "Get her, NOW" Elias said whilst his aura blaze on the last word. Mark immediately snap vanished to Melisa and untied her. She was alive, but she was hurt. Mark cried as he tried to heal her by cauterizing the wound. He was reconciling in his pit of fury. Once Melisa looked stable enough, he sealed her into a barrier that consisted of his own life force. If he died, it would go down; if not, heavens above. He ran over to Elias who was slowly walking in a crazed trance to Aeuyrial. He had mentally checked out and had given in to his inner demon for the time being. Mark was broken inside to lose both of his friends, but all he could do was watch the fight unwind. He used a whispering wisp to communicate with Andrew. They had 15 minutes left. Aeuyrial tried to blast him with another bolt but he walked right through it unscathed. His eyes narrowed as he vanished from the dimension mysteriously and reappeared right in front of her. He bellowed mysteriously and struck Aeuyrial through the throne, sending her tumbling. He let out a maniacal laughter which turned to a forced cry mixed with laughter as he let out all his energy due to the realms boost. A silhouette of a mysterious entity was out behind him, and it vanished as he contained himself once more.

Mark watched in horror and hurried back to Melisa, she was conscious, but barely. She was happy to see him, albeit he's the least favorite of the two. She associated Mark with Elias, and knew he'd been there with him. She glared at him curiously and urged him to explain the situation. "Princess, I've got you! We gotta get outta here!" Mark said regally. "What? What're you on about! Where's Elias!" She said as she was lost by the sudden change. "I..I don't know where Elias is, but that thing fighting out there, that ain't him. He hadn't been right ever since he saw you earlier. We've only got a few minutes in here, and we've got to get you out." Mark explained quickly. "I-I..I can't walk. You're gonna have to carry m-" "Way ahead of you" Mark interrupted as he hoisted her up and headed back towards the gate. He was making pace before the silhouette that had embodied Elias had taken an ulterior form and shifted into a 'Dark' version of Mark. It tried to strike him down but he drew his blade and collided with him. Melisa screamed in horror, "What the fuck is that?!" Melisa said in horror. Wow, a bit of time captive and you forget how to be ladylike, Mark thought to himself to make the situation better. He put Melisa on a reinforced pillar which both of them were incapable of breaking and Mark stared down the Doppelganger. He wanted to make things quick so he shifted to his potential unlocked state. The Copy did just as it would, and powered up with him, which infuriated Mark of how easily someone could mimic his greatest of feats. He snap-vanished and went in for a high kick, sending the copy flying back. It caught its balance and countered with a heated strike attack Mark had never seen before. He was astonished at the abilities he never knew he had, and attempted to mimic them, position and all. A red energy blade covered his hand and he began a sequence of diagonal, horizontal, and vertical flipping strikes. He put his hand to the ground and watched as flames generated in the style and direction of the swipes. "GET A LOAD OF THIS ONE, THE POWER OF A HUMAN!" Mark shouted as the Doppelganger went up in flames. He rushed to Melisa and noticed there was a marking preventing her from leaving the realm while Aeuyrial was still alive. They had no choice but to leave without her, Mark left a seal on her to prevent her from dying, but he also transported her to the outskirts of the land, she was able to tolerate the void so long as the seal wasn't erased. She found refuge in an abandoned home, it was in mint condition ever since this realm was taken by force. She locked herself in the bedroom and decided it was time to heal herself, Mark returned to Elias' raging battle and made peace with saying goodbye to Melisa for now. He felt he could now that he knew she was safe.

"We've got 5 minutes, I hope he's snapped out of it." Mark mumbled. He wandered back into the temple and saw Elias holding Aeuyrial by the neck. He had temporarily overpowered her but she was charging a smite the entire time. Mark raced as fast as he could to stop them both. Aeuyrial stared Elias psychotically, she didn't feel anything he was doing. Not while he was this disorganized. The look in his eyes spoke of nothing but death. She held the bolt of energy in her hand and put it to his back. She pulled him in and let out a psychotic grin. Elias didn't feel the pain of the energy, but he found himself being shocked second by second. She held him tightly as she felt his life draining. She kissed him passionately, and let go of him. Elias fell to the ground to Mark's horror. His eyes had gone blank and his aura dissipated. Mark had seen more than enough as he grabbed Elias as quickly as he could and darted for the exit. Aeuyrial tried to smite him, but Mark put Lostvayne in Elias' hands and shouted "FULL COUNTER" causing the bolt to dissipate and give them enough time to hop back through the portal. Aeuyrial tried to follow suit but Elias had awoken from his death. Nothing dies in the Voided Realm, not for long. Elias hopped back at Aeuyrial and impaled her with Lostvayne, still storing the energy from the smite. She held the blade closely and went in for another kiss. Elias flipped the sword and roundhouse kicked her into the throne before hopping back through the portal. "That's for last time, bite me." Elias said as he flipped her off and collapsed the portal in behind him.

Chapter 8: Not In Kansas Anymore

Elias and Mark tumbled back through the portal, they adjusted to the weaker energy fields of Beleria. They caught their breath after the portal shut with a powerful gust, sending them flying directly over Emibrian Heights. They broke their fall as they fell through the glass ceiling of Miha's auditorium. They fell over and interrupted the meeting that was being held inside and were met with the yells of those inside. "Damn hippies!" one of the councilmen yelled. Elias pulled shards of glass out of him and was laying on the grand table as he turned and smirked sluggishly. He mustered the energy after being drained of his excess power to mutter "Who you callin' a hippie?" as he fell off the table and Miha walked into the room. Miha rolled Elias onto his stomach whilst he was in the process of going unconscious and asked him inquisitively, "So, based off how there's no princess with you, I take it that you got beaten half to death. Not to mention you've got a hickey so I assume she's a bit more of a freak than I took her to be." Miha jokingly asked. He broke down into angst and dragged both of them out into the Stonehenge training ground and asked Andrew to heal them both. They were both barely awake, and Mark was getting frostbitten from the snowfall. Once they were fully awoken, Miha was standing over where the portal was.

Elias and Mark stared back at one another curiously, Miha hadn't spoken a word since they got back. But they got the feeling they were in for more than they bargained for upon their return from the Voided Realm. Miha tugged on his sword, and almost unsheathed it which made the snowfall intensify as winds raged from his immense power. Mark was in awe that a human could be this strong, just by the powers confided within one blade. He stood up, his injuries from exertion healed fully. Even then, there was a mass pressure coming from Miha, and the two knew he wasn't showing off for nothing. Miha turned to face them as he took his blade out and swiped it in the air diagonally. The weak swipe sent a shockwave of cold winds and snow their way and even caused a small combustion explosion on the moment of impact. The two were sent flying back and by instinct they powered up as much as they could. Elias felt weaker due to the power containment in Beleria, but he still managed to muster enough energy to make himself powerful enough to take a hit. "You two, you barely escaped the realms with your lives. I know it's not much of a greeting but I feel like I owe you something since you were serious about saving Melisa. I probably should've considered Aeuyrial was going to seal her in the realm, one can only be so optimistic. But I also thought you two were basket cases who just wanted to get themselves killed in the voided realm." Miha explained solemnly. "I'll take you seriously from here on, if you're wondering who I am. I'll gratify your need to know, but I want you to never forget this name." he said squarely. He hopped down from the portal pillar and landed in the air as if there was solidified ground below him. He took off his scarf and revealed the crest that was on his neck, Mark immediately turned away as he assumed it was a demon crest. No, this one was different. It wasn't Dalmalian or even an Ouroboros Crest, this was a Belerian Guardian crest. He was human, but he was one of the people who stood among Crash as he initiated the first fully fledged fight with Aeuyrial. "Elias, why do you always attract the most strong of nutcases?" Mark asked in a whiny voice. "What can I say, I just keep aspiring to get stronger and stronger. They just come to me instead." Elias said cheekily.

"That you do. But if you're going to get strong enough to take her out in a full-on fight for Melisa and for our world, you're going to need to get stronger. I want you to come at me, and you don't get to stop until you hit me" Miha said coldly. Elias willingly obliged as he charged his Havoc Strike as he drew Lostvayne from the sheath. He shot himself into the air and collided swords with Miha, it instantly deteriorated the clouds within the surrounding radius. Elias swiped at Miha furiously as he countered the blows flawlessly. He drop kicked Miha and watched as he did a total 360 in the air, it was his cue to use the Havoc Strike. He cupped his hands and absorbed the energy into his right arm. He charged and watched as Miha put out his katana out horizontally and dissipated the dark energy behind the blow. The sky lit up with a purple and black flame as Elias fell to the ground in one foul sweep kick from Miha. Mark caught Elias and had Andrew heal him as he took the more brutal approach. Miha hovered to the ground and watched Mark charge his energy. He rushed Miha with a flurry of punches and kicks, all to have them countered with his finger. Mark tried the technique he did in the Voided Realm as red streaks lit up from all the flipped strikes he did that were countered. He flipped backwards and put his hand to the ground. Miha looked confused and gasped in surprise as the flames from the slashes came at him. Miha extended his two fingers in a similar fashion to a gun and pointed it directly at the combined ball of fire, "Counter Vanish" he whispered silently. The fire dissipated as soon as it touched the tip of his fingers. Once the smoke cleared, Mark began to rush him once more, but he was getting visibly tired. Miha swung his katana through the wind and it emanated a deep blue swipe similar to Mark's flame attack. Mark was horrified as the swipe split open into a brutal wind force of ice shards and snow projectiles. The odd attack sent Mark flying backwards into Elias, causing Elias to have to catch his balance with Mark at his chest.

Elias got the idea to spiral throw him back at Miha, and once he gained motion Miha was dumbfounded to their next tactic. Elias threw Mark back and watched the air split as he spiraled back to Miha at an insane speed. Miha was surprised yet the idea wasn't good enough, as it seemed anyway. Miha split into ground-standing stance and caught Mark with both arms. Elias smoke warped over on top of Mark and low kicked towards Miha's face, the attempt was futile. Miha generated a forceful shockwave from his hands and sent Mark flying back, and Elias impaled Lostvayne into the ground and spun around it to have his kick blocked by Miha. Once he touched the ground, Miha tossed him to the ground and generated a blue energy blast from his hands. Elias grabbed Lostvayne slowly before the wave touched him and quickly swept it over his hand. "Full Counter!" Elias yelled violently. The blast imploded in his hands, yet Miha was only fazed for a mere moment. Elias took the opportunity to punch him as hard as he could in the gut, then put him into a full nelson. Mark charged his energy and rushed him for a full on punch to the face.

The two rejoiced as Miha congratulated them on the success, yet immediately reverse suplexed Elias into Mark and watched them both fall over. Andrew laughed as he healed them both after their successful attempt and they all went to the Emibrian Warp Pad. Emibrian Heights had always been a cove of demons, they just knew a bit more about how to domesticate them and make multi-use warps. Miha had gifted the two a set of Emibrian Armor and a sword to compliment Lostvayne for Elias, and Mark got his own bladed gauntlet. The two stepped onto the warp pad and waved cheerily at their ancestor turned trainer. They gave a signature departure fist-bump to Andrew, and watched as they dematerialized into particles. The two were on their way to check in on Dailene, assuming she'd be worried sick. They'd left one day to train and now they hadn't been back ever since, anybody in the right mind would find themselves even a tiny bit scared. Once they reached the Belerian countryside they saw her home from the warp pad. She was in hysterics, yet her facial expressions and body language said nothing. She was standing right outside of her house glaring as Elias and Mark in their shining suits of armor, and their slightly scratched and bruised faces. They both marched down the evening horizon of the countryside as the sun shone on their armor, and the sweat from their intense training. Dailene ran down the path to hug them both, teary eyed. She didn't know if she wanted to be mad at them or to be happy that they weren't gone for good, she embraced them tightly.

Night fell upon Beleria, though it was not as eerie as usual. Everyone was at ease, as they knew Melisa would be safe so long as Aeuyrial never finds her. Though the question of who actually resided within the abandoned void mansion was bothering Mark. The whole placed seemed to be ancient, yet the technology in there was modernistic. The warp pad wasn't functional, but that means warping used to be a part of the realm. Mark was perplexed and decided to let it go up in his mental flames so as not to worry Elias and the others. He was happy to know he could stand his own once more. He was back to being the spry young man he was before, along with all the bells and whistles. The knight that managed to disgust a group of invaders with a single trick was now holding his own against demonic forces. This was the life for Mark, not the one he imagined, but at least Elias was back and his family was happy. He was finally able to lay in his bed and sing himself to sleep like he used to every night after his duties ended.

"Once I rose above the noise and confusion. Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion-" "I was soaring ever higher-" "But I flew too high" The three sang in their small home. "Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man." "Though my mind could think I still was a madman" "I hear the voices when I'm dreaming...I can hear them say" They conjoined into a symphonic unison and came out boldly laying beside one another. "Carry on my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more." The three caroled until the night fell fully upon them and they were fast asleep. They awoke in the morning that was so foreign, but welcome to them. There were no problems, and the sun was gleaming brilliantly. They knew they would have to find and kill Aeuyrial eventually. They knew Melisa would be waiting for them, the seal was airtight and she wouldn't be dying. Though one could only wonder what truly awaited her in the near future. In the realm, she lay baffled by the display that had taken place. Aeuyrial was looking for her, but she was sealed from both voided creatures, and the toxic atmosphere. She was free to roam, and survive. Melisa wasn't the typical princess, she wasn't totally regal and a pantywaist. She was strong-willed and she knew how to fight if it came to it. She walked out into the darkness of the void, An old rusted machete was bore by her hand. She ripped the gown she once brandished and shaped it into clothes she could run in. Her wounds were closed by Mark, so walking was always optional. She took a deep breath and stared back at the curious mansion. She closed the door and went to take one last look inside, she knew something was inside that would help her, she just didn't know where to look.

She came upon the bones of a man, his robe complimented the Ouroboros robe Aeuyrial wore. She picked up the holotape that was beside him and she played it on the lowest volume possible. "Come now, Uriel. Leave the dogs alone!" A young man said as a child ran happily outside the mansion. She was wearing a familiar robe, but she was so happy it just seemed uncanny, she was also apparently known as Uriel. She cheered as she hugged the man and then everything took a sudden turn. She began to experience a mood swing. Instead of being the previous happy little girl, she started seeping out a sinister energy. "Uriel...just focus on me honey. Look at the snake." The young man coached her through her agonizing yells. She grew slowly, yet she was now an adolescent. She stared with grim intent as she walked over to the man. "It's okay Cochin, I'm all better...I've just come to realize something" She said calmly, almost in a darker tone. The young man began to sweat bullets, yet he embraced her out of his fear. "What would that be dear?" he said in a spooked tone. "You've been keeping me here, raising me like a human child. I...I hate humans. You're human, and thus I must hate you too. I'll give you a head start out of the love I feel for you." She said with a stern, cold tone. Cochin tried to satiate her unbridled rage, yet she pushed him away. He ran into the mansion and dropped the holotape on his robe. All that followed was a series of screams and loud booms. Melisa was shocked at how quickly she became the way she was. The bones she found were that of Cochin. She read the insignia on his tattered, aged robe. It was a Precursor, a being similar to Miha but with sealing properties. Instead of using combative dimensional warps for combat, they are used to seal dark energy and fight with whatever they obtain. Melisa was sick to her stomach of how she knew he died and rotted there.

Melisa saw Cochin's blade, and grabbed it off of the desk. When she unsheathed it, a mysterious dark energy emitted. She remembered that she felt that energy when Elias and Aeuyrial fought. She recognized it as Aeuyrial's energy, though it didn't seem driven by as much hatred. It seemed driven by fear. She holstered the blade to her back and ripped the gown skirt into pant legs. She ran out of the mansion and into the void to combat the animals surrounding the mansion. As she drew the blade they all backed away. There was a path lit with purple wisps. She ran, as they dissipated on contact with them. Deeper, and deeper into the abyss she went, as she saw civilization after civilization torn by Aeuyrial devastating them without prejudice. Something was amiss however. The bodies of these lands had not yet rotted. She drew her blade, as the bodies actually looked rather fresh. The bodies of the dead were anointed with the same seal as Melisa. These were the people of the void, the ones who could handle the toxicity of the lands. They were slaughtered like animals and strewn throughout the streets like ragdolls. Some hung from their power lines, and others impaled through flagpoles. A deep pressure enveloped the surrounding area, and suddenly the bodies skipped to life. The screams of agony pierced Melisa's ears, and she covered them in reflex; but to no avail. Once the bodies had died once more, she was met with a sinister wisp formation. A woman in casual attire strolled down the street, whispering an omen in homage to Death. "O' Death. Won't you spare me over another year.' the creepy woman mumbled. The pressure increased as she neared Melisa. The woman stared at her and tilted her neck as blood ran down her eye. She lifted her arm into the sky and dematerialized all of the bodies, almost as if they were nothing but souls of the void. The woman started to glow a sinister blue as she instantly warped over to Melisa. "When god is gone, and the devil takes hold...who'll have mercy on your soul?" She asked in tune to her lore driven song. Melisa shuddered as her cold hands touched her, and she was driven instantly from the sight, instantaneously to a temple that was glowing in hieroglyphs. "No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold. Nothing satisfies me but your soul" "O' I am Death, none can excel. I'll open the doors to Heaven or Hell. My name is Death, and the end is near." She said as she vanished, leaving Melisa stunned out in front of the Mansion once more. She felt like she'd just had the worst acid trip ever since the water contamination.

She stood up quickly and reached for the sword she holstered to her back. "Still there.." She mumbled. She assumed the energy wasn't felt by just her and attracted one of the few creatures who doesn't exactly bow to Aeuyrial. As she reached to unsheathe the blade, visions of the hieroglyphs flashed before her. They were Enochian sigils. She was the princess because she knew how to read Enochian. She was a little rusty, but the rough translation was 'A blade meant only for those who held it before you'. Poetic and annoying. She'd just have to bat the hell out of anything that came her way. She took the little warping back to mansion as a sign she'd be better off holding it down. She went in and noticed that the power had been restored to it. It was a brilliant little family home, yet there's not exactly a lot that can be said for old dust'n bones over there. She shuddered a bit as she looked over at the skeleton. She headed up to the room she was in when Mark left, and saw that it was not half as shabby as she thought it to be. She went to go wash her face off from the dust that collected over the weeks she was in the temple, she looked into the slightly cracked mirror at a face she thought to once be a delicate young woman, turned into a cold lone wolf. She shed a single tear for the life she'd have to leave behind. The seals from earlier had dispelled from the blade, and she drew it. The warm, yet abrasive energy embodied her. It almost spoke to her in a way, as if it tried to tell her there was nothing wrong with the path she was going to be taking. It almost felt ominous, as it endorsed the one thing she couldn't ever bring herself to do. "Kill." a voice too familiar spoke out. Melisa turned as quickly as she could and pointed the blade. Nothing. She was sweating profusely, and then caught her breath. She sheathed the sword once more, causing the aura that embodied her to disappear.

As she walked out of the washroom, she started having hallucinations, the energy from earlier was too much for a body that had been tortured for years. It didn't help that Aeuyrial isn't human either. It's a common knowledge that a human is incapable of wielding demonic power. There's not much that can be said for Melisa other than she had nothing more to go for. She walked around the mansion and was greeted to an ominous presence, she knew it was only a hallucination of Aeuyrial, because she was a child. She taunted rigorously and encouraged Melisa to unsheathe the blade and let her in. Being drained and tired, Melisa was foolish enough to drop the sword and tried to swing at the child out of anger. She quickly sheathed the blade once more to avoid any further damage, but she was given an even more grim reality once she made contact with the child. She found that she wasn't ever inside the mansion, she had been out in the void the entire time. She was still locked in place with the odd woman, and she finally came to her senses and escaped the illusion she was cast into. The woman was trying to take her soul, just like any creature of darkness would. She slid the sword out of its sheathe and tried to impale the woman, yet she vanished when she came in contact with it. Melisa felt differently than in the illusion, she had embraced the death messages and was shrouded in the dark energy. She knew the burst of power would only be momentary, but she knew if she wanted to get out of that neighborhood alive, she'd have to make the most of it.

She ran at the woman who reappeared on top of a destroyed car, blade held into the sheathe. She drew it as she leaped into the air, propelled by the dark energy stored into the blade. She drew it and flipped forwards. Swiping in a T-Shape. The blade shot out a dense projectile of energy, shattering the landscape around the woman. She evaded it instead of trying to take it head on, knowing it would surely be more than enough to kill her. Melisa landed and was met with a slew of dead guardians. She cut them all down and focused on the woman, She pointed the sword at the woman and a flaming spire shot out of it at lightning speed. It exploded into 7 different cluster energy explosions. Melisa covered herself to shield from the unyielding horror. The woman yelled as the energy seared her into disintegration. Melisa sheathed the blade and began to violently vomit blood. She'd kept it out too long and now the effects were taking a toll on her body. She could only afford one more fight like that, but now all she could do was rest. She took refuge in one of the abandoned homes and swore off of the fighting nonsense. She rested, and took a kneel with the sword in her hand. She wasn't cut out for a life like this, but this was all she had left to go to when the going became rougher than what rough is defined as. She rested on the torn sofa, and shut her eyes knowing everything around her was dead. She was safe for now, and the voided version of dusk had set upon them. The outside land was pitch black, but the soot and sky glowed eerily. She prayed time and time again Elias would come and end this madness. She never imagined she'd be tossed into the fray.

Chapter 9: Gods Don't Bleed.

Elias was back at training, adjusting to the shift in power between realms. His Havoc Strike had unlimited use in the voided realm, which could only mean that Aeuyrial would be able to generate an unquantifiable amount of energy in a small amount of time. Using just one Havoc Strike in Beleria would leave him with almost no energy left. He was working on his energy control by constantly adjusting the amount of power in each attack. Lamar watched in curiosity of how he'd try to salvage an untameable power; that of a demon nonetheless. Miha volunteered to leave the Emibrian Mountains to come and help, considering he could take such a hit. Elias charged his attack and rushed Miha. A single punch was thrown, but blocked instantly. It sent dust and leaves spiraling violently around the training ground. Elias grinned as his hands were covered in a purple flame-like particle. He started a flurry of blow that began to emanate flames as they touched. Miha was surprised, but once he unsheathed his sword the real fight began. Elias thought of a new technique to counteract such a power. He slammed his hands together and put them to the ground; creating a sigil around Miha. The sigil extracted every ounce of energy from Miha and he fell to the ground in shock. Elias stood up invigorated by the rush of the energy of a Precursor. He clenched his hands, fully capable of executing a plethora of strikes, but Miha wasn't done. He unsheathed his blade and smirked, his energy began overflowing and Elias didn't care. He rushed Miha once more with Lostvayne, Miha swiped and created a vortex of singularity, sending Elias flying backwards. He propelled off of a boulder and cut through the dark mass and destroyed the dimensional rift. He drop-kicked Miha and yelled "Absolute Zero!" as he extended his hand while a cluster of red and purple energy balls surrounded Miha. Lamar yelled "That's enough!" as he dispelled both of their Aura's. They called off the training for the day, and Elias went home to Dailene and Mark who had been anticipating him all day

They couldn't financially support him being a guest, what with his eating habits. Technically Beleria was indebted to him, and the short and narrow of their convoluted escapade was that they thought it'd be best if he had his own home. Elias typically slept in the Queen's quarters, for whatever reasons. He never had any interest in Lady Marie, yet she was nice enough to let him use the guest bed in times of peril or when he simple didn't have anywhere to sleep once he wasn't up all night on duty. Elias shrugged the idea off as he realized in his fit of rage over Melisa, he had completely decimated the castle. That was years ago, but they never told him what'd become of the Ground Zero of the strikes. It had been toxic to anybody who wasn't a demon, but the land eventually cleared up and it was a crater along with the bodies of anybody on site at the time of the attack. Lady Marie was still alive, well into her early 30's. King Du' Rial was killed in the act of defending his kingdom. It was a gruesome tale to tell, but it was one Elias needed to hear if he was ever going to come to cope with the feelings bore by those of Beleria, and of himself. Du' Rial had tried to reason with Aeuyrial, he pleaded with her to spare the people and take his life instead. She wasn't planning on accepting his gesture in full. She complimented his nobility, but they found it to be quite annoying how he would consistently stand in her way. She gave him a grave period of 2 minutes to prepare the best shot they've got. Lamar was under orders from those beyond him not to intervene, it could cause a Time Paradox. She was already sent to another dimension that she enslaved as a whole while being but only a child. She couldn't be shoved away anymore, there wasn't an opportunity to strike anyway, she hadn't an intent of keeping the dimension whole. If Lamar tried to fight her, she would definitely destroy the world. He wouldn't be able to guarantee that use of his power wouldn't do the same either.

The Belerian Knights all congregated under the orders of Mark, they would stand until the day they died. Which was unfortunately their end today. Aeuyrial grabbed Du' Rial by the neck and threw him through the wall that surrounded Beleria. The Knights took it as an act of war, and as a sit-in Paladin; Mark was under orders to tell them to fight. Tears would fill his eyes as he would send his men to their tombs. Every point contact sign would be another blast that would incinerate them as a whole, ending their existence. Their numbers went down as they were forced to do all they could to defend. Aeuyrial stood face-to-face with Mark and against her better judgement, she let him live as a token of awaiting Elias' return. She beat him down, but she didn't kill him. He had to report to Lady Marie that her husband was inevitably dead along with his multiple platoons. Marie wept somberly as she was left with no daughter, and no husband. A large explosion shook the foundations of the Belerian wall, and a bright purple light emanated from the edge, the very spot Elias was at the day Melisa was taken. A dark energy hemisphere was surrounding the zone, and dissipated into nothing. The forces of Beleria were completely gone. All but Mark remained, that and his wife. She was under his orders, against her better judgement to stay away from the fight. Mark knew what he was getting into, and he couldn't risk losing her too. Mark fell to his knees in the throne room before Lady Marie. She consoled him albeit she was in the same state of mind as he was. It was a miracle that years after this incident, they could look back on the very days explosions plagued the land, and offer the man who they thought sold the world away for them a spot of what they would've been calling an absolute hell. Mark and Dailene only mentioned Lady Marie as they wanted to make it known that she forgave Elias. She looked forward to seeing him inside of The Shard, the reformed Belerian capital Elias briefly visited with Mark.

Elias was okay with departing from their home, and he was offered a small apartment in The Shard. It overlooked the entire Belerian capital and he moved into it in an instant. It was a white steel tile room, with tinted glass windows overlooking the entirety of the city. It was rather small, as a chiseled steel tile, with a red bed sat in the corner. A small computer sat next to it, with the kitchen being a direct left from the door entrance. Elias was amazed at the progress they would make without him. He had been fighting to preserve their lives, but he always imagined they'd never reach such a level of luxury. He stared out over the city and saw visions of the events as they were told. He could see the hemispheric explosion, and the tears streaming down Lady Marie's eyes. He knew he didn't have to call her Lady, so he stuck to Marie. He sat on his bed and thought about his life, how he could become a better Knight. He was already a Paladin, but he didn't feel like he was worthy of the title. He may be the only one capable of saving them, but that doesn't mean he will. He knew the weight on his shoulders would eventually come to strike him. He'd just have to wait for the day it does, and hopefully he'll do whatever it takes to strike back. A Knight of Beleria never gives up. Even in the face of death. Those men went into battle KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT WOULD HAPPEN! They were fearing for their lives as Aeuyrial would stare down at them like insects, waving her hand and ending thousands of lives without a single regret. Elias knew now what it meant to be a Knight. It's living past the consequences that will come for recklessness in the cost of selflessness. He unholstered Lostvayne and practiced his 32-Strike combo again and again in the center of his room, until it would look like a blur for him to do it to the naked eye. He was training rigorously and heard a knock on the door. It slid open and in walked Marie. She was surprised to see Elias covered in sweat, and for once not wearing a suit of armor. He was in The Shard's signature white attire, white T-Shirt, and white sweatpants. He stopped flipping around his room in surprise. He sheathed Lostvayne and put it on its rack and stared curiously at Marie. She embraced him tightly, and after what he knew; it was the first time she'd show such a gesture into the future of a wartorn world.

Elias smiled and said, "It's good to see you too, Marie. I just wouldn't say I'd hug you this tight, could you lighten up a bit. I kinda can't breath, heh." as she clenched his chest tightly. She didn't seem like herself, and she reeked of this strange smell. "Hey M, you wouldn't happen to be drunk right now, would you?" Elias asked curiously. "What?! No, why would I be? Everything is peachy right now and the boys in the rec center were giving out mojitos. I had just one, but when they began toasting to all the events, I had to have just another...okay maybe I am a little bit tipsy, but I can still visit you, Soldier." she drunkenly rambled on. Elias was cracking up despite being out of breath from his training. "Y'know, I appreciate everything you're doing for us Elias. You may be a demon, a damn sexy one at that, but you're not evil and you've sworn your life to protecting these people. My people. My daughter." Marie said somberly as she lightened her grip on him by his bedside. "Everytime I look out one of these windows, all I can see is those days. The day Du' Rial gave his life for Melisa and I. The day you were put out of commission. You've come a long way, and I think you deserve a reward." she said in a flirtatious manner. "Ma'am, you know I could nev-" Elias said before being interrupted by Marie pulling him in for a kiss. He was taken aback, but he didn't protest. After all, it's the first time he was actually okay with it. It may've been a few years but aging has been merciful to her. You couldn't tell with other than the long salt and pepper hair on her head that she was over 30. With just one child, she still managed to maintain a curvaceous figure, with bucksome features. Elias snapped out of his brief moment of heat, and realized that this was the mother of the woman he loved. Elias pulled her away and protested, sending Marie out of the room smiling in disbelief. "A few mojitos and she's able to kiss her daughters boyfriend, some things never change, huh?" Elias said to himself. Elias put on a Shard Brand hoodie and walked out to the atrium.

Elias roamed around while all the tourists stared on at the odd man dressed in all white. A little boy recognized him from all the posters in the shops, and ran up to him nonchalantly. "You're Elias! Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod" The young boy spazzed out as he ran around him imitating his full counter. "C'mon, please do the Full Counter for me, just once! Pleeeeeease!" he asked lovingly with his beady eyes. Elias was too charmed to protest. He handed the little boy a pebble from the fountain and asked him to throw it as hard as he could at him. The young boys mother was having a riot over by herself. The young boy was having his moments of fangirling over his hero when Elias reached over and grabbed a plastic version of Lostvayne the boy had given him. The boy chucked the pebble as hard as he could and Elias arced his entire body then swept it diagonally. The pebble disintegrated which sent a strong gust of powerful winds toward the boy. He jumped up and down at a lightning pace, clapping his hands in excitement. Elias grinned, but his mother wasn't amused anymore. She assumed all of the stuff she heard was just fiction, but when she say Elias disintegrate a pebble with a plastic toy, that was enough. She ran over to her sun and gave a false smile of acceptance to Elias. She sped off as fast as she could afterwards, leaving a plastic Lostvayne behind in her wake.

Elias noticed Marie had left behind an odd device in his pocket, he felt around on it to get a feel for the shape. It was a jagged torous object, with a glass center. He took a wild guess and was correct when he checked, a holo-device. He took it out and activated it only to be greeted to a Shard ID login. It scanned his face and brought up his profile. He was labeled as a Paladin as well as front linemen for Belerian Knights. He saw a small phone icon, and tried to call Lamar. He was greeted to Lamar who was also drunk, just like Marie. It seemed everyone was just throwing a few back because they know Aeuyrial won't come here unless she's going to kill everyone. "Heyo Elias, HIC...I got-eh..er-someone I want'chu to meet." He said sloppily as he passed his cellphone over to a bearded man who wore a black trenchcoat. He looked gruff, yet a cheeky smile was across his face. He recognized that face from the Dalmalian meetings. It was one of the councilmen from the higher tiers of demons, the ones that could fight Aeuyrial, but are told never to intervene in mortal folly. It was Crowley, King of Hell...in his timeline anyway. He waved his fingers and asked boldly, "You seem to be in a good mood, got any action up there in that shiny tower of yours?" Elias scoffed and turned his head. "You and your friend are some pretty good singers, you ever thought about going pro if all this knight nonsense doesn't pan out for you boys?" Crowley asked in a nonchalant tone as he shot a glass of whiskey. "Fucks sake, is there ever a time you guys aren't tailing me?" Elias questioned angrily. "Nah man! We see err-thin'! When you take a wee, when you drop a _Deuce_-" Lamar said drunkenly before being interrupted by Crowley. "We're only making sure you stay in control, and if push come to shove..we don't have to kill you" he said cheerily. Elias was dying internally at how much of a lightweight Lamar was. He watched in hilarious horror as he summoned muffins and mozzarella sticks for people at the bar. Crowley had to drag him out of the bar and into the street to hail a cab.

Elias hung up on them and left them to their own vices before the P.A system started up with a brief announcement. "All Shard employee's, there's a party in the main lobby and atrium! All tourists, and guests, however. The curfew is now in effect for rooms 501 and above." Damn. That meant Elias' moment of tranquility was over. He jumped up onto the atrium tree column and sat there as all the drained employees came in with their rave music. The once clear hall turned into a social gathering for the most simple jobs for the most convoluted of people. There were employees hitting on each other, and tossing back drinks with no regard to how drunk they could possibly get. Elias wanted part of it, but knowing him..he'd end up punching the soul out of one of those poor guys just because they didn't watch which way they were going. He saw a peculiar sight as one of the employees walked out, his pupils a gleaming red. Elias put his hand to his sheath but remembered he left his sword in his room. Out of fear that the employee was a disguised demon, Elias risked everything by demonizing and standing vertically on the upward facing pillar. All the employees cheered in a drunken surprise, thinking nothing of his demonic showcase. He darted up the column and backflipped onto the floor his room was on. The maid paid enough attention to see him do the backflip, and stood in horror as he asked her for the room key. "Who the fuck're you?!" she asked out of fear. "Geez lady, I'm Elias..flesh and bone? Just gimme my key, I gotta grab something" he said quickly. She handed him a key and he darted into the room.

He grabbed the sword from the rack and darted back out with his hands on it the entire time. He side flipped onto the pillar and began speeding down the column at top speed. He tackled the unsuspecting worker and by instinct he tried to stab him. The worker snap vanished and punched Elias in the back, sending him through a floor. Concrete tile and bricks slathered all over him, leaving Elias bruised barely. He stood up and the worker fixed the floor with his access pass thinking it'd trap him down there. Elias backflipped on the pillar back to the floor which was now clear, all but that mysterious worker. He sealed off all the exits and rushed Elias once more. He swung at an afterimage that was left behind, and Elias smoke warped behind him and kicked him into a demon barrier. The worker caught his balance on the barrier and tried to blade spin himself back at Elias. He was caught in Elias' hand and dragged along the ground, eventually to be thrown into a statuette. Elias impaled him with Lostvayne, but to his surprise..there was no blood. The worker smiled as his eyes glowed and he slid right off of Lostvayne. Elias sheathed his blade and went to relying on a brute-force beatdown to put him out of commission. The worker kicked him in the stomach and made him tumble backwards into his powered up form. He remembered what Lamar said about rationing his energy so that he doesn't pass out mid-fight. He took a pose with one hand extended into a 2 finger grab, and one hand lowered into a balled joined fist. His body emanated a purple aura and he rushed the worker once more, he punched relentlessly, but the man just fell over and got right back up. Elias had finally had enough and decided to go all out. He clapped his hands and tried to sigil energy drain the odd man, but the power that flowed into him was foreign, and odd. It made him strong enough for a Double Havoc Strike. Elias punched him in the face full force, and the man wouldn't budge. Elias rotated mid-air and kicked him in the jaw which sent him flying out the building and beyond the glass.

Elias grabbed his nametag and read it, "Vikman." it read. He crumbled it in his hand and ran back to his room to completely forget the whole ordeal, once he returned he was greeted to the maid cleaning his room. She avoided saying even a word to him, but when he stared up at the TV, the whole fight was on camera broadcast. It looked like he was just beating on an innocent worker, but it took a turn when the worker fought back. The whole police force was at Elias' door and he only had one way out. He opened the door slowly and smoke vanished to the bottom of the Shard. The maid was left and cavity searched for her non-compliance, insisting there was a demon amongst them. Elias had snuck back out of the front and escaped into the Belerian city. He knew he wasn't alone, and that there was no remote way that man he fought was Human. He knew a human when he saw one, the way he moved and matched almost all of his abilities didn't exactly do him any parting favors. Elias returned later that night and the whole place looked like nothing had happened. He went to his room and found out he was locked out, he pulled out the holodevice to dial Marie. She unlocked it but warned that he should be more careful in his escapades around The Shard. She could only vouch for him for so long before people had had enough of him and decided to take matters into their own hands and kick him out. Elias sat in his bed and firmly apologized for his actions, but once he mentioned Vikman things started to take a change. She checked her logs of employees and found that there wasn't anybody registered under the name of Vikman in The Shard. She told Elias to stay weary and figure out who he was for himself. Elias swapped out of his torn and tattered hoodie into his casual armored clothing. He headed to the roof of The Shard to where he sensed Vikman. It was an oddity for sure, Elias was positive he had knocked the poor guy out of the building. Once the elevator opened, he was treated to a brand new sight.

Vikman was standing psychotically at the top, emanating a villainous aura. His body was shredded from the immense power he was exerting yet barely able to control. Elias drew out Lostvayne immediately as he approached him. He questioned firmly, "Who are you?!". Vikman stared cheerily and let out a hysterical laugh. He spoke back in a demonic tone similar to that of Lucifer. Too similar. "I am the BEGINNING! I am the END! I am what this world was truly made for, none of these petty humans. Come now Brother, we are the superior race. Hell has been lonely without you and I've heard you and Aeuyrial are having a bit of a lovers quarrel. This man, this poor poor man from a long little village just so happened to possess a hatred powerful enough to contain me. It seems like he's not doing too well right now though. I might just have to skip town and come back later." Lucifer rambled on from the man named 'Vikman'"s body. Elias scoffed. "Possession? Now that's a new low for you Lucy." he remarked sarcastically. Vikman as he was now known under Lucifer's control lunged forward at him to attack. Elias swiftly countered the blow and sent the hollow vessel flying backwards. "You will speak to your TRUE King with respect you insolent brat!" Lucifer exclaimed proudly as he sealed his power back into Vikmans body. The vessel glowed eerily as all that demonic power tore at the body and healed it simultaneously. Elias retched a bit at the sight of the blood that left Vikmans body turning a deep black, and then into a mist. Lucifer was planning to make that his transferrable vessel. The only body he would be in while in this realm. "This poor sap was known as Joel before. A family man who was tending to his crops, cursing the demons that harmed Beleria when I simply told him the truth, which oddly enough was what he wanted to hear." Lucifer rambled. "You know, I wasn't always the big man with the horns and pitchforks. I used to be but a humble Angel. It's why I can do this" Lucifer explained as he snapped and caused a bright yellow Smiting bolt to come from the sky and strike Elias square in the face. Elias winced in agony and sealed the wound quickly before he had time to do anything else. Lucifer burst into hysterical laughter as Elias writhed in pain at the smiting.

Elias ran up onto him and kneed the man in the face. No effect. He tried punching away at Vikman but the power he possessed outweighed him by far. The only ones who could help him now is himself. Lamar was warded from The Shard for particular reasons, but Elias had no time to be concerned with that, his opponent was outmatching him at every turn and even the power he possessed after vigorously training wasn't enough. Elias tailspun back as Lucifer baited him playfully. Elias dashed forward and let loose blow after blow, but to no avail. Lucifer swept his hand across the boys face and watched him go flying into the elevator. Elias gasped in pain as he attempted to catch his breath. He punched the ground in fury and let out a yell as the top floors of The Shard grew enveloped in a sinister aura. Elias' power began to leak from him, he was losing control in a rather peculiar fashion. Lucifer is the whole reason he was here, and he couldn't help but think that he could repay him and thank him for giving him this opportunity to be the savior of this world in the only way he knew how. Elias staggered and finally caught a stable stance and for the first time in centuries he'd lifted his power inhibition. Elias stared at the ground blankly, his hair waving and covering his face. Lucifer grinned excitedly and taunted, "Come now Brother, that's surely not all you've got! Have another shot at me and this immensely powerful vessel!" he said psychotically. Elias lifted his head and his crest was in a small purple flame. Elias' power was lifted to unsafe levels, even to himself. He stared blankly and waved Lostvayne nonchalantly with a blank gaze upon his face only to have a piercing shockwave impact Lucifer and send him soaring into the Belerian coastline. Elias vanished into wisp form and instantaneously darted over to him, shifting back to his normal form. Lucifer was giddy with power, he inspected the gaping scar the shockwave left on him and wiped away the blood effortlessly.

"Still playing around with those old toys your daddy gave you, huh?" Lucifer exclaimed mockingly. Elias wasn't phased and created an energy barrier between him and Lucifer so he could go all out. "Oh please, which one of those morons is gonna come watch two demons duke it out. You care way too much for a species that isn't worth the souls they're carved in-" Lucifer said as he was interrupted by Elias striking him in the chin once more, this time it actually did damage like he intended. Lucifer went flying into the barrier and fell back down. Elias flipped forward in place and stomped Lucifer into the ground. Blood went flying everywhere as Lucifer whined in agony. He began to take the fight a bit more seriously as he noticed Elias was no longer amused by his horseplay. Elias wasn't the only high-ranking demon to have his own special blade. Lucifer's hand became enveloped in an ominous aura as he swiped vertically through the air, splitting a dimensional rift. He put his hand through the rift and pulled out a misshapen pole of energy which took form on a hilt that materialized of dark energy created by him. This was his personal blade, Merzial. He waved it around to test how easily it swept through the air. Once he was satisfied he dashed toward Elias and the two blades collided. The power emitted from the collision shook the foundation of the barrier. The two blocked and countered their attacks nonstop. Elias saw an opening when Lucifer had failed to recover from his Full Counter on a strike that landed a cut on his face. Lucifer was shocked, yet amazed that his little brother was capable of such amazing feats, yet he wasn't done. He shattered the barrier Elias had put up in one sweep.

Lucifer was aware to the danger this world would face if Elias would run rampant with his power restraints off. All he wanted was a bit of a family reunion, but there's not much for him and Elias to speak of considering he cast him out. He wasn't going to do what he did to become a good guy, but he did it because he'd become attached to the beauty of this world. Lucifer took on his pure form for a brief moment and sealed Elias' power immediately, knocking him unconscious. He escaped into Hell by reverse exorcising himself. The fight was finally over, but the war was not yet won. Lucifer was now apart of Beleria, and his intents weren't known. Obviously, and thankfully; they had nothing to do with coinciding with Aeuyrial. She wasn't his concern and the same could be said for him. With all the commotion and small damages, the coast guard of Beleria was alerted to the scene of the grand scuffle. There they would find Elias unconscious with Lostvayne in his hand. They knew not what it was, but they were wary when it came to approaching him for fear that he would be hostile. Elias awoke to find himself in a blanket being transported to the ER in The Shard. He looked around for Lucifer, but there was nothing to be found. The medics were unsure of his liability in being completely awake so they put him under once more. His power surge had left him vulnerable to the most minor of things and he awoke in an operating room surrounded by Mark and Marie. He snickered a little bit and stared weakly at Mark. They pounded their fists together and Elias whispered "...I got'em." as he rested for the remainder of the day.

Chapter 10: A World Best Left Forgotten

When Elias was finally in good enough shape to be deployed on reconnaissance, he and Mark decided to take Dailene along. Lucifer had escaped and he'd manage to infiltrate The Shard. Elias spared them the details that he himself didn't truly know. He told them how things went down in a short and narrow version. They found hilarity in how every fight Elias initiates, he always seems to wind up the one who ends up injured. Elias disregarded their jokes and they stood guard on the edge of Beleria. Every now and then there'd be Cambions trying to infiltrate, but Elias wiped them out effortlessly. While the night dragged on, Mark and Dailene were actually curious to Elias' newfound power. His resolve also seemed to change. He held back less and seemed to be okay with killing these demons. Sometimes, he seemed to be finding joy in it. Mark and Dailene worried at these shocking displays, and as they found the time they finally decided to confront Elias on his odd actions and boost in power.

"Elias, you know we're always there for you buddy, but you gotta meet us halfway. You've been pretty chill towards us and all, but that fight with Lucifer knocked a few screws loose upstairs. You're normally this loving, caring guy. You wouldn't hurt a fly unless that fly had a nuke strapped to its abdomen and was Godzilla on roids." Mark ranted carefully so as not to upset Elias and unsettle the demon that'd awoken in him. "Mark, there's nothi-" Elias said before being interrupted quickly by Mark. "Don't you tell me there's nothing wrong! I saw you kill those Cambions. You wiped them out and you SMILED." Mark said firmly. Elias' face sunk slightly as he clenched his fist. "Oh what, you're gonna wipe me out too? I don't know what that guy did to you, but you're not the guy who grew up protecting Beleria and you know it. WAKE UP!" Mark asserted. "He showed me that people are so willing to open themselves up to total darkness. It's sad. A man not too far from here is now his vessel, and he ain't fightin' back!" Elias retorted shakily at first and his tone rose a bit setting fire to a nearby shrub. "Look at you man, you're not even in control of your power. I wasn't watching that fight, but did he really undo all of that training you did with a little bit of rocking?!" Mark said angrily as he slammed his fist into the wall. "She wouldn't want it this way! You're losing yourself!" "DON'T YOU TRY TO LECTURE ME ABOUT WHAT SHE WOULD WANT, MARK!" The two roared at one another. Elias charged at him and Dailene pulled out her Devil's Trap Five-Seven. She shot one bullet into his leg and sent him tumbling to the ground instantly. Elias groaned out in pain. Mark stared at Elias in disbelief, and then to Dailene in surprise. She had her gun trained on his skull and she had very little intent of lowering it. "Babe, you don't have t-" Mark said before she shushed him with her cold declaration. "He broke his promise. I intend to keep mine." Dailene said breathing heavily. Her vision clouded with tears and she gritted her teeth as she approached Elias. He stared back at her and kept panting heavily as the bullet held him to his position. He started laughing erratically and gripped his face tightly. He began to scream loudly and pounded the ground, his screaming was ear-piercing and it eventually turned to grieving. He cried loudly as he struggled to control his heightened powers, his increased connection to the demon within him. He began to struggle between both crying and laughter as his power shook the foundations of his body. His scar lines began to glow as he gripped the wound the bullet resided in. He tugged tightly and pulled it out and along with it he released a howl of pain and laughter.

Dailene shot three more rounds at him but to no avail. His demonic energy created a pressurized field that rendered their force inert. They bounced away as if they hit a wall. Elias staggered to a sloppy upright position. His power was now fully unleashed with the Devils Trap round out of his body. "You know what, you're right. Lucifer made me realize something." Elias said followed by an eerie giggle. "I'm no savior, the people fear me. They only fake their personas of loving me to suit their own agenda and egotistical BULLSHIT" Elias yelled. A tree snapped in two right before them. Dailene was fearing for her life, and Mark had already stepped in front of her. "I was born to KILL" Elias said as his giggling subsided. He drew Lostvayne slowly and waved it about sloppily. "So I must say again, you're right. But you're also wrong about me. This IS my nature, my normal..." He said slowly as he wiped the dried blood from his sword. His aura grew more and more violent. He slowly approached the couple and he held Lostvayne confidently. He gripped Mark by the throat and punched him in the side once, rendering him unconscious. "The least I could do for you *'friend'* is not let you see what I'm going to do to your 'dearly beloved'" Elias said cheekily. "You wanna know how many times he's cheated on you? I'd have to say lots." Elias taunted as he threw Mark aside into a tree. The wind picked up violently and Elias swung Lostvayne diagonally to Dailene's hair. A shockwave of compressed winds cut off a portion of her bangs. She attempted to fire off more rounds at him but in almost a flash he had cut them in half. "Ma-Mark would never do that to me...He loves me." She said shakily trying to imagine all of this wasn't happening. "Oh, but love is so complicated. I love Melisa, but I hate her species. The conniving, ignorant, self-righteous pricks called humans. OH BOY, DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED" Elias rambled psychotically. Elias darted towards her and she shrieked as he lifted her up by her shirt. "You know, I just don't see eye-to-eye with him. You know, a fine woman like you could do so much better than someone like him" Elias grinned eerily. "He's the only guy who has somewhat unique friends like you. Then again, you seemed too close to be one of his friends, so I guess it's assholes like you that just could never find someone like me" Dailene retorted wittingly. "Oh, don't flatter yourself. Gehenna's women of the brothel make you look like childsplay. _"I bet, but then again they're all whores now, aren't they" Dailene said condescendingly. "Oh, but then again that's not much of a far fall from you now, is it? At least, not until I'm through with you" Elias said darkly. Dailene shrieked as Elias amassed a dark energy blast in his hand, she couldn't tell if it was a Havoc Strike, but took this opportunity to shoot Elias point blank in the chest cavity. He stuttered for a little bit and lowered his head. Stunned.

Dailene assumed she was safe, but she was still in his iron-clad grip. Elias lifted his head and smiled creepily. "Did you really think something so primitive could stop me?" He tightened his grip even more, almost to the point of choking her. He placed his hand to her lower abdomen and the blast disintegrated the armor and clothing she bore. She shrieked as Elias ran his hand down her chest. He stopped midway when going lower only to be interrupted by a piercing sound in his head. "I knew you were an animal brother, but this isn't what we demons do! Kill her!" the disembodied voice screeched. Elias dropped Dailene and placed his hands on his head and shook to and fro. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Elias yelled. He reached for Dailene's gun but was stopped dead in her tracks by her. She covered herself and ran to the gun, pointing it at Elias with intent to kill him. Elias reached out to her, begging for her to shoot him. "Oh, now you're turning to her after you attempted to assault her. I doubt she'll be all that lenient. You did try to subtly rape her." the disembodied voice taunted. Elias howled in agony before Dailene as he was attempting to amass enough energy to destroy himself with his own power. She was baffled, and in shock. She fired off but the bullets disintegrated before even coming close to being able to make contact. She threw aside her gun and ran over to Mark who was coming to. "Ugh, fucks sake. Eh- What the fuck?! Babe, what happened?! Why're yo-" Mark stammered. Dailene shushed him quickly and reassured him that Elias wasn't in control anymore. "I see. He's planning to take himself out, huh? I've known that bastard for years and this is the most selfish thing he's done." Mark said angrily, grinning smugly. He knew that Elias had a reason for wanting to out himself. Something beyond fighting whatever was eating away at his mind. "All we can do now is watch, there's no stopping him with this amount of energy on him" Mark declared.

The two cautiously walked in front of Elias who was still amassing a tremendous amount of dark energy. He was roaring with the power surging through his very being. This was his recourse for all the sins he had committed. His final goodbye. Mark planted his sword in the ground, something for him to come back to should he ever revisit this realm in the near future. He was sure Elias would be gone this time, but not for good. It's not his way to up and leave his friends behind forever. If there's one thing Elias is good at, it's fighting. He wouldn't dare fight his way, but he will fight the darkness. Mark raised his fist in front of Elias. "We've got you old friend, I knew you were in there. I know this is something you've gotta do, and I want you to know...no hard feelings. I'll see you on the other side you crazy old bastard." Mark said cheekily. Elias teared up a bit as he finally reached enough power to take himself and whatever it was with him. It was time Elias returned to the Earth. To home. To Gehenna. Elias began to glow an ominous shade of purple. He walked towards Mark and they pounded their fists together. He glared at Dailene and he put his hand to his chest and walked back to the edge of Beleria. Mark stood in front of Dailene so that he could protect her from what was about to happen. Elias jumped into the air and hung there for a minute. The night sky was shining brilliantly and the moon was illuminating the forest with an utmost beauty. The wind blew strongly and Elias crossed his hands together and released. An immense power washed over the forests of Outer Beleria as Elias let out all of the power to end his suffering and send him home to Gehenna on unfinished business. The shockwave flared towards Mark and a single tear rolled down his eye. The supernova of energy Elias had created shined extravagantly through the moonlight sky and was able to be seen even from the top of Beleria's Shard. Elias vanished from their view and all when the supernova of dark energy vanished with him, his sword tumbled down to the ground and planted itself into a fallen tree-stump.

"He's really gone? Mark?" Dailene said shakily. "Yeah, but he'll be back. He's still got a job to do." Mark replied reassuringly. "You weren't lying all those years ago when you married me. He really is a selfless yet selfish guy, huh?" Dailene said inquisitively. "That's Elias, always risking his skin or getting dibs on first fight because if he doesn't-" Mark stopped to sigh and turned around to walk Dailene home. "Who will." He finished. "Oh, and I guess we need to get you some clothes, huh?" Mark chuckled under his breath. Dailene smacked him roughly and laughed alongside him. Lostvayne shone a deep purple aura, and a silhouette of Elias stood before it. The silhouette walked over to Mark's sword and dissolved into smoke. All the while, Elias fell into the pits of Purgatory. He was greeted to the darkness he'd fought to escape when it came to Gehenna, the capital to Hell. Purgatory was a dark, dank place where everything primordial and probably with more than one set of teeth dwelled. Elias found himself greeted by the welcoming commitee and reached for Lostvayne. He found it wasn't there, but that wasn't going to stop him. He grabbed a branch from one of the thorned trees and utilizing what was left of his energy he carved the branch into a makeshift sword. Sheating it, the darkness of Purgatory began to set in on him. "Leviathan, huh? Oh well. Daddy's home. COME AND GET IT ASSHOLES!" He chuckled and then turned into a grim, stern face. Drawing his blade he could hear the beasts approaching him slowly. "Damn, I miss Beleria" Elias groaned as they all attacked him at once. Waving his blade at speeds unforseeable by the human eye, he cut them all down in a mere second. "Looks like Gehenna will just have to wait." he mumbled.

End Arc 1 - Lives Worth Protecting

Begin Arc 2 - Promises Worth Keeping

Chapter 11: Burning Low

Elias had slain countless Leviathan in his time in Purgatory, the hell rip-off it was and it still lacked even a minutely interesting populace. Every now and then, another demon would get thrown in here because this is where all the dogs go when they die. Elias had finally found the stream that led to Gehenna and he ripped through the dimensional rift into it to enter. The guards to Gehenna were alerted immediately to his entrance and moved to intercept him. Elias grinned slightly as he waved to his most favorite guard, the "DUFF or Disgusting Ugly Fat Friend" of the troupe. "Aw, you guys shouldn't have. I know I've been away from home for so long but if you're here to wish me a happy birthday, it's all the same!" Elias rambled on. The guards assembled into a defensive formation and each of them was visibly trembling. Elias was renowned in Gehenna for his prowess in combat. He was given many names ranging from Jack The Ripper to Black Devil. Elias raised his branch blade to show them he was essentially unarmed in comparison to them, but they still watched cautiously as he strolled out of the grand temple. Gehenna was a beautiful world, built for those known as 'sinners'. Known as the place where you're encouraged to do your worse, it is how you would get in there anyway. Gehenna was the capital of hell where lost, yet defiant souls would fight until they either dematerialize into something between the lines of a ghoul and a chained sinner, or they would evolve with their hatred and loathing of their sins and become a demon. Those who became ghouls, or chained sinners were the workmen of Gehenna. People like Elias were demons. They were given free rein to traverse hell as they wished. Those who weren't seen as strong enough were left to burn in the torturous outer regions of hell. The streets of Gehenna were quiet as Elias strolled down them. Word had spread ever since he was cast out of hell by Lucifer. Elias' attempts to expel Lucifer's telepathic connection to him were good, but they only satiated the control he had over him.

"What brings you back to town, devil boy" one of the civilians walking by asked. "Your mother said she was ready for round two, I told her I had to be punctual." Elias retorted wittingly. The civilian flashed his demonic eyes, and Elias flashed back. The civilian could sense the power radiating from Elias, but he was naive to it and took it as a cheap trick. He swung at Elias who still had his back turned. Elias detected the incoming blow and without moving so much as a muscle he had struck the civilian in the stomach and cheek, sending him rolling into a street pole. He reached for a dagger but Elias had already locked onto him. The authorities took out their serrated baton blades. Elias looked around him and squared his chances at surviving a violent encounter with them. He snap vanished over to one of the officers and grabbed the baton out of their hands, they swung violently only to have his hand caught by Elias. He grinned morbidly as he broke the mans hand. The sounds of his bones cracking was audible and gut-wrenching. The civilian from before managed to get his bearings and attempted to stab Elias when he wasn't looking. The blade narrowly missed Elias' ear and he threw the officer directly into him. The two tumbled to the ground in pain. The situation escalated when lethal force was authorized now that an officer had been assaulted. The two remaining officers pulled out bull-pup rifles. Elias smirked as he ran directly towards the first one, cutting each individual bullet coming towards him in a glorious fashion. He cut the rifle in half and watched as the officer lost all will to fight as he casually backed away.

The final officer managed to shoot Elias in the arm, making him stumble slightly. Elias wiped the blood from his mouth and let out a yell that almost instantly healed the wound. The officer got too confident in his marksmanship as Elias snap vanished directly on top of him. Elias impaled the man with Lostvayne and walked away from the crime scene immediately after, brandishing his coat in the blood of his foes. After about twenty minutes of walking, Elias had finally reached The Cage. Lucifer's holding ground, and his known re-spawn point for dying on the surface world. Even if in material form, the damage he would've received from the blast would've been substantial enough to take him with Elias in person. As Elias approached the cage, he could be found whistling and rattling the bones of an unknown person along the bars of his cell. Elias threw Lostvayne at the cell bar and stuck it midway through. Lucifer stopped cold in his tracks as he recognized the signature blade. He walked over and looked down at Elias coldly. "Enjoy being bunk buddies for a little bit?" He asked sarcastically. "That was a dirty trick, but I'm the king of trickery. You know this, Lucifer." Elias retorted. "I mean, you did go out of your way to repulse me with that THING you'd call a human. I know you saw it. She isn't human." Lucifer inquired. Elias lowered his head in shame. "It was the only way you'd let go. I had no intentions of doing anything brash with her" Elias said boldly. "Nah, I'm pretty sure you were about to get some for the first time in a millennia" Lucifer joked. He tossed the blade back at Elias, to have him catch it between the tips of his fingers. "Is that why you came to me? Or did you come to gloat that we both lost our vessels?" Lucifer asked wearily. "I still have this body as a vessel. It's the only body I can materially keep. I'm not like you, y'know. Everyone knows you're an Angel gone baddie." Elias said.

"So what DOES bring you here, I'm stuck here for another hundred years so I couldn't possibly be your target of interest." Lucifer said boringly. Elias held up his holo-device and revealed the crest on the underside of Dailene's breast. She herself probably didn't know why Elias' blast didn't destroy her. It's common knowledge that only weapons forged specifically for killing demons have the power to completely destroy them. Even the most powerful of energy sources can't dematerialize a Demon. "She hasn't unlocked her latent potential, it appears." Lucifer said curiously. "Yeah, but the only problem here is her crest isn't Dalmalian or even Ouroboros. She's a Nephilim" Elias said deeply. "You sure she ISN'T yours?" Lucifer said as he broke out into a fit of laughter. "I haven't fucked anybody in the Over-world, Lucifer. This is serious. If she finds out her purpose, and she EMBRACES what her purpose is..she could rival the both of us two times over." Elias explained. "Well I don't have anything to be worried about, I didn't try to rape her." Lucifer said selfishly. "That means her mother is an Angel and her father is a demon." He went on to explain. "You told me there were no more Angels." Elias said angrily. "I did, I did. I should've been more specific. She's an Archangel" Lucifer said, trying to cool Elias off. "So you're telling me they knowingly settled down with one another and had a kid? You sure they didn't have any sort of ulterior motive. The two dots are still bright blue and red. That means they're both alive!" Elias stated. "Hell if I know, maybe they just wanted to fuck and they didn't know how humans reproduce via vessel." Lucifer said clueless. Elias stormed out of Lucifer's Cage Room and headed out into the streets of Gehenna. He warped over the ascension point and knocked out the guards as he went towards the portal back to the over-world. He rang Lucifer before he left "Oh, and before I forget" Elias said. He swung his arm in a forward motion and Lostvayne tore right out of his cage and came flying towards Elias. He turned around and caught it by the handle as it boomeranged towards him at a sonic speed. "Can't leave you in charge of my toys, especially not when you're in time-out" Elias said cheekily as he hung up the holodevice. He ascended back into the world of the living, right at the very spot he killed himself. The forest was burnt to a crisp, but there was a beacon of light shot into the sky when Elias entered the realm.

Chapter 12: Coming Home

Within mere minutes, Belerian troops had stormed the suspicious light and found Elias on the border of Beleria. He sat upon a burnt stump, sword in hand and deer leg in the other. They surrounded him with all of their affectionate welcomes as they had thought to have lost them forever. Gehenna had taught Elias that no being would truly sympathize with what he had done, but these people weren't demons. They had learned to accept that he was, and had come to truly love him. He led them back into the inner city, and dismissed them after thanking them for the swift response and recovery. Elias headed towards The Shard to work on the data he had gathered. As he checked into his room, he saw a brilliant streak of light soar across the sky. A light he knew all too well from his former days in Gehenna. When an Archangel chooses to warp around, their vessel is transported instantly, but their grace is still slower than the vessel. Thus resulting in milliseconds of light being shot from point A to point B. Humans are typically oblivious to the streaks, some are even incapable of seeing them. But demons see their every move in real-time. Elias sat down and reviewed the photos of Dailene before banging on his door ensued. "You better be the damn pizza guy if you're knocking that hard, I'm not hard to find y'know" Elias shouted as he unlocked his door.

"Hate to disturb you and all that good stuff, but we gotta talk man." Lamar said as he barged into his room, Crowley behind him. "Is it about the Nephilim?" Elias said. "How the hell'd you know?" Lamar said curiously. "We're supernatural entities, we can all feel it." Elias said smugly as he walked over to his window. He stared at his reflection intently, seeing his eyes glow in the darkness of the Belerian night. Crowley stood beside him, resting his arm on his shoulder. "Now I know you may have some strong feelings towards this Nephili-" He said as Elias interrupted him, "Strong? That's my best friends wife. She isn't going to hurt anybody. She's harmless" Elias retorted. "We can never be too sure, Nephilim are a Demon and Angel crossbreed anyway. They harbor the properties of both of us and that makes them a double threat should they awaken. She'll be stronger than you if we don't put her down now. I know you can't stand being inferior to anybody, and to think that you thought her to be a human woman! Doesn't that...IRK you?" Crowley said as he attempted to manipulate Elias. Elias turned and swung at Crowley but he teleported behind him. "Woah now, you're not really planning to go toe to toe with me now are you?" Crowley said nervously. Lamar stepped forward, planning to interfere. "I don't need this!" Elias said as he punched his punching bag, causing a huge dent in it. "Your emotions are controlling your power, Elias. You go out of control and as do they." Lamar said as he approached him. "I can't be some fucking deity like you guys and just go around killing people because they have the potential to be strong. The fuck is wrong with her being a Nephilim?! She doesn't even know it!" Elias said angrily. "I can't just kill her...".

Crowley took out an angel blade and held it up voluntarily. "If you can't then I'll be more than happy to oblige. Always wanted a Nephilim head for my mantle." he taunted. "Crowley.." Lamar pleaded. "You will do no such thing" Elias said as his energy branched out in a violent shockwave. He snap vanished in front of Crowley and stole the Angel blade. Improvising his best, he put two fingers to his head and smoke vanished through the window, taking the blade with him. Crowley tried to give chase, but he banged his head on the glass. "Bollocks, that boy and his feelings, they'll be the death of me." Crowley said furiously. A beam of dark light chased after the trail of the Archangel, spacing from Inner Beleria out into the countryside. Crowley smoked out of Elias' room furiously, giving chase as he knew a situation he wanted no part of was about to unravel. Lamar wafted his hand to clear the smoke as he walked out of Elias' room. He stood against the outer wall and took a breather. If there really was a Nephilim, Elias would be expected to kill it. If he couldn't come through with it, it'd be time for him to step in. He walked down the halls of The Shard slowly with his hands in his pockets. Life would never be simple with monsters like them around.

As the chase for the Archangel came to an end, Elias stood outside of Dailene's home. Her mother was standing outside her door, expecting Elias. Elias jogged towards her in anticipating as her eyes glowed a shade of light blue. She extended her hand and sent him tumbling backwards violently. The middle-aged woman strutted towards him slowly, frowning. "I know what you are, Demon." She said blankly. "It's Elias, but I'll give you credit for trying" Elias said as he stood up and shook off the dust. "I sensed your power that night, what's it like to be back in the land of the living, Lucifer" the woman said angrily. "Woah, woah. I'm not Lucifer, girly. I'm a demon, sure. But that was a one-stop shop, okay?" Elias tried to explain anxiously before the woman pulled out her Archangel blade and swung at him. Elias side-stepped quickly and held onto the edge of the blade as it burned the tips of his fingers. "Whew, that's a bit toasty." Elias said jokingly. "Don't toy with me!" the woman yelled as she increased the force between her and Elias. She gained leverage over him and was clashing with him, blade to hand. He knelt under the pressure, as the ground began to give way. Elias parried the blades inevitable strike and struck the woman square in the jaw. "Now, I believe in gender equality. But if you're not gonna listen to reasoning, we gotta get a little bit more violent" Elias said shakily. He stood up and dusted himself off as the woman grinned and withdrew her blade. "I'd be happy to oblige." she said eerily as she wiped the blood from her mouth. "We know what Dailene is, and I'm not like every other demon and their mother who's trying to kill her, I swear." Elias pleaded. "You wouldn't have brought a blade if that were the case." The woman said with a snarky disposition. Elias held up Lostvayne and stared at it, he glanced over at the woman and shrugged as he threw the blade at her quickly. She caught it between the tips of her two fingers. "Good boy." the woman said as she put the blade into her back satchel. She walked towards the house with Elias following closely behind.

As they approached the house the woman revealed herself to be Ariel. The rumors of Archangels dying was false. They lived on, but they were living on their own terms away from heaven. Elias joked as they approached Dailene's doorstep, "So I guess you made old Akrabel see heaven, huh?" Elias said as provokingly to Ariel. She elbowed him in his ribs causing him to stagger back a little bit. The two knocked on the door once, then twice. Dailene opened the door in shock, she hugged her mother tightly and hid the Archangel blade behind her. She invited the two in but glared at Elias without saying a word. They sat at their table and had coffee. The room was drowned in a sense of tension. Ariel and Dailene staring intently at Elias. Elias struggled to hold his mug but he put it down and decided he could use all the help he could get. Dailene had always considered herself to be a normal girl. She grew up with no supernatural situations occurring. Elias interrupted to finally let her know. "I know you've always seen yourself as human, that's probably why you're so...weak. You don't know what you are, and you don't know the power that dwells within you. Your mother is..well, you're a Nephilim. Your mother here, she's an Archangel." Elias explained. Dailene nearly choked on her coffee as she stared at her mother and Elias. She lowered her head and stared at her hands in disbelief. "That's not funny, I'm not like all those things you're out here killing!" Dailene said with a tone of denial. Elias put a bible on the table and forced Dailene to touch it. The handprint was embodied in a blue flame and the book had burst into flames. Tears fell slowly from her eyes as she removed her hand from the bible. The burns slowly regenerated while Dailene held her other hand over her mouth.

Chapter 13: Unholy Incarnate

Ariel walked over to Dailene and asked her to stand up. She stood up slowly, fearfully. Ariel tried to raise her shirt, but Dailene protested insistently with Elias watching. Elias covered his eyes to provoke her to do it, but he was still peeking through the slits. Elias giggled internally as Dailene made a habit of never sleeping with a bra. Ariel lifted her shirt and ran her hand in a circle over her stomach, revealing a spiral symbol with two sigils. They were both bright, but the blue sigil was a bright blue with Ariel near it. This was the telltale sign of a Nephilim and those who created it. When both of their creators or parents died, they would be unleashed upon the world, free to choose whichever race they pleased. Angel or Demon. They could even remain a Nephilim if they so chose. The only complication would be that they would find themselves having a harder time controlling the power that swelled within them. Dailene tugged at her shirt in confusion and threw coffee on Elias, he yelled as it spilled in his eyes and he regenerated them. Ariel stepped back and consoled her daughter who was at a complete loss for words. "You never told me what I was. Why?" Dailene confided within her mother. "We didn't want you to grow up feeling like you had to live a life that wasn't yours. Killing monsters, hunting things, it's the family business but you were such a late bloomer we just accepted that you could very well be human." Ariel said quietly. "But, I could've saved Omai-" "There was nothing we could've done for him." "Mom, you were an Angel, we could've gotten what we needed, we could've cured him" the two bickered. "Curing demons is just a pipe dream. It's who we are, it's carved into our nature. You might weaken them, you might even stop them from using their demonic abilities. You could even get rid of their eyes, but that's who we are on the inside. You can't cure this sickness, it's what we are." Elias said coldly. Dailene went over there and slapped him hard. "How can you say that! You're a prime example of what a demon could be." Dailene said emotionally. "I was exiled for Gehenna because I went against everything Lucifer wanted for this world. They deemed me broken" he retorted angrily. "Well you managed to hold your own against me, your damn well not broken." Ariel said reassuringly.

Dailene was in shock at this grim revelation. Mark had just awoken out of his sleep and had been eavesdropping when he heard Elias. He stumbled into the room with Dailene shirtless, he took three steps back and shook his head in confusion. "Eh..You guys gonna have a threesome without me? I'm hurt." Mark said as he began to undress. "It's not that kind of party Mark" Dailene and Ariel said in unison. Mark pulled his shirt back down quickly as he feared both of the women. "So, this some kind of late-night tattoo party?" he asked curiously. "Babe, I-" Dailene said before her mother stepped in front of her. Her eyes started glowing a bright blue and a shadow of wings embodied her, a holy white light gathered around her body and she placed her hand on Mark's head. "Mom no!" Dailene yelled in protest. She feared for the worst that her mother was going to kill Mark for finding out, but once the glowing subsided it was clear that she had but merely informed him without overwhelming his mind with all of the delicate details. She stepped back and watched as Mark embraced his wife tightly. "Y'know, I might be the only damn human left on this Earth as far as I know, but I wouldn't rather have it any other way." Mark said as he gripped onto her shoulder. "I know you think I'm some sort of freak, Mark." Dailene said shakily. Ariel patted her on the back to reassure her that Mark didn't feel that way. "Now you listen here, I didn't marry you just because you looked the way you did. Hell, even with this new Nephilim shit going down, you don't look a day over 20. But I married you because what we have is special. I care about you more than anything, and I jumped in that portal with Elias not only because I want to get Melisa back, but I want to make sure you're safe for the future. You and I, I'm not even sure if we can reproduce. If we can, I promise you that when this is all over, we'll be a family." Mark said calmly, holding his wife who was breaking down into tears. Even Ariel, the all-mighty Archangel shed a tear and wiped it away immediately as to avoid detection.

Ariel turned to Elias who was headed for the door and she yelled his name to catch his attention. Elias stood in place and put two fingers into the air, he pointed them forward and returned his hand to his side. Ariel laughed as she threw Lostvayne at his shoulder and watched as he caught it before it made contact with him. He placed it into its scabbard and was still standing motionless at the door. "You, you're not like other demons. You're capable of showing compassion for these beings who're so much more different than you." Ariel said quietly. Elias shrugged in place and let out a deep sigh. "Sometimes, when you've seen just how low you can get in the world, what it truly means to be tossed out and disregarded, you'll be able to empathize with even the worst of things." Elias said calmly as he cracked the doorway slightly. "So you see humans as lesser? A lost cause?" Ariel said curiously. "I'm beyond saving, they still have a chance to get their lives together. If I can't do anything to help myself, the least I could do is see them out on this ride that they're calling human life." Elias said coldly. He stepped out into the night that was cast over Beleria. In the field of the countryside stood Crowley, Lamar in suit. They quickly approached Elias and pressed him for answers. "She won't be bothering anybody anymore." Elias said calmly. "So you did kill her?" Crowley said with a grin on his face. "No, I let her know what she was. She came to terms with it and her family will love her for it irregardless." Elias said sternly. Crowley's face quickly turned to a cold glare and he attempted to push past Elias into the house. Elias stood stationary at the doorway and quickly interjected. Crowley flicked his hand and sent Elias through the door. He writhed around on the ground pulling foreign rods of wood out of himself. Crowley strutted in and immediately drew out his Angel blade. Ariel stood in front of Dailene and tasked Mark with tending to Elias' wounds.

"So, I take it you must be the bitch." Crowley said cruelly. "Oh Fergus, you know damn well who I am. I know why you're here" Ariel retorted. Crowley waved his hand and sent out a pulse of dark energy. Ariel dispelled it all by Counter Vanishing it through the roof. Crowley stared intently and gave a smug grin as he took his hands out of his pockets and baited her to attack him. Ariel charged inward, blade in hand and struck ferociously at him. Crowley effortlessly dodged every attack and grabbed a hold of the Archangel blade, he shucked it into the air sending Ariel flying with it. He wiped a little bit of dust and debris off of his coat and continued strutting towards Dailene. "You're literally the one thing that I never guessed would happen. If it wasn't for tall, dark, and gruesome over there going haywire; I'd probably not have found you. You even knew people were coming for you yet you still stayed. You truly are a pitiful case, and I'll be sure to end your life slowly." Crowley said as he began twiddling with his Angel blade. Dailene backed away slowly, eventually colliding with a wall. She pleaded for her life but more, and more she could feel her fate resonating on the end of that blade. Her abdomen sigil became more and more illuminated and mere seconds before Crowley impaled her he was caught by his face and thrown through the wall. Ariel stood there, bloodied and worn out. "That's what you get for trying to perv on my daughter, you sick fuck." she said as she collapsed to the ground in a pool of her own blood. Elias returned once all the rods of wood were removed from him. There he was greeted by the sight of Ariel laying face down in her blood and Crowley in the backyard with splinters for eyebrows.

Mark urged Dailene to run away with him, but she knew that for once she'd have to stop running. She's no longer human and she'd have to get used to seeing these things through now. This would be her life, whether she liked it or not. She turned to Crowley and grabbed her mothers Archangel blade. The blue sigil overpowered the red sigil on her stomach and a gleaming gray field of energy shrouded around her. Her eyes began to glow a mystic silver. She marched out past the hole in the wall towards Crowley, still fumbling to his feet from being thrown around. As he gaze into the eyes of Dailene, he saw her form a pair of silhouetted wings. Though unlike an angel, these wings were broken, losing feathers. In the place of all the feathers were spines. "What in the name of hell are you doing" Crowley asked mockingly. "Something that should've been done a long time ago." Dailene said in a deepened, merged voice. She grinned as she swipe the Archangel blade in Crowley's direction. The power behind the sweep was enough to destabilize him, sending him to his knees. Crowley's eyes turned a deep shade of blood red. He stood up effortlessly and marched towards the girl. "You may be a monster, but I've been in this game longer than anybody and I am not a monster. You might look around and call Elias a demon, Lucifer a demon. No. They are monsters. Me? No, I am a whole new ballgame, I am the King of Hell" Crowley said as he plunged the Archangel blade into Dailene.

She let out a groan of pain that subsided quickly. The aura that embodied her had faded away. Crowley held her propped on his shoulder, laying her down in the grass. He pulled out a gun that resembled the ancient colt, but it was darker and had a pentagram carved into the grip. Crowley planted his foot firmly on her stab wound on her abdomen and watched as she stared into her last few minutes of life. "If you're really what they say you are, which is evident enough. Then I'll finally be doing this world a favor by being rid of you." Crowley said coldly as he put his finger to the hammer of the gun. In a blazing inferno came Mark, rushing to his wives side. Crowley waved his hand and sent him flying backwards into the house which rendered him incapacitated. Dailene was furious, but the blood loss was slowly creeping in on her. "Humans, such pathetic creatures. Your dolt of a husband coming to save something he doesn't even have a chance of comprehending." Crowley said condescendingly. "You don't know him! You're nothing but some shit-stain who soul his soul to make it on the map of average." Dailene retorted back smugly as she coughed up blood. Crowley increased the pressure on the wound, making her cry out in pain. Crowley leaned down to whisper to her. "You weren't born for family. You weren't meant to be born at all. Everything you love in this world will vanish, I will see to that. Nobody will remember your existence" he said quietly.

Dailene burst into tears, furious and devastated. She grabbed Crowley by the collar and pulled him down face-to-face. "You. BASTARD." Dailene said as she pounded her fist into the ground weakly. Again, and again. The pounding became more and more intense, her knuckles began to bleed yet she wouldn't stop. She gave the ground one more smash, sending a grand shockwave throughout the backyard. "I...I can't give up here. I'm going to have a family." she said before abruptly bursting into tears. The crying ensued until it turned into laughter. Psychotic laughter. She grinned more and more while still maintaining a grip on Crowley. Her eyes began to glow once more and her aura crept back around her body. Crowley attempted to pin her hand with the Angel blade, but it broke upon contact. "You hurt my husband." Dailene said furiously. She grabbed Crowley's arm and sent a pulse of power through it causing him to roar out in agony. "Bollocks." Crowley mumbled. "You hurt Elias." She said as punched him square in the face followed by a downward strike to the ground. She kicked him violently in the stomach causing him to cough up Ichor. He rolled over onto his back sorely. Dailene straddled him and began punching him in the face non-stop until she pulled out the Archangel blade. "Most importantly. You hurt my mother." Dailene said with murderous intent in her eye. She reached into the sky and brought the blade down with intent to finally kill Crowley. In a blinding flash, Lamar appeared interjecting between the two. "That's enough!" he yelled. He briefly threw Dailene off of Crowley and placed his hand on his chest, vanishing with him immediately afterwards. Dailene staggered to get her footing correct, still emanating an ominous grey glow. She fell backwards onto the ground where she sat unconscious for the rest of the night. She awoke to the sun gleaming in her eyes, and Elias and Mark sitting side-by-side on the porch.

Chapter 14: Recollection

"Rise and shine sleepyhead." Elias said cheekily. Mark sat there wordless, simply glaring in awe. Dailene rose to her feet and looked at herself in the sliding door window. Her aura and energy faded away into a cloudy wisp, dissipating quickly. Her hair lowered into a shaggy mess unto her shoulders, returning her to her human-like appearance. Her eyes turned back to a deep shade of blue, now tinted with a blue and a red dot on the opposing side of her pupils. "So...I'm one of those things now?" Dailene said shakily with a hint of curiosity to her voice. "You're you. You just happen to have a little bit of extra go-go juice in you. Don't let anybody make you think otherwise." Mark said reassuringly. Dailene stared at him and grinned slightly. She walked over to him and held him in her embrace. The first time in years they shared a tender hug like that. "I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to protec-" Mark said before Dailene interjected. "No..no. Don't be sorry. That man managed to make short work of even Elias. You did what you could and that shows more than anything you could possibly do to him. I know you tried. Think of it as woman's intuition." she said cheekily. "You know, I used to look down on humans." a voice from inside the house said. Out walked Ariel from the hole in the wall. "But every now and then I realize just how much better they are than having to deal with things like these. They might not be a perfect creation like god made them out to be, but they don't have powers which is good enough for me." she said with a gruff laugh. She spat out dried blood onto the ground and proceeded to heal her wounds.

"You, Demon-er..I mean Elias. You just stood up to the King of Hell. What're you going to do?" Ariel said inquisitively. Elias hopped up quickly. "Like I said, I got exiled from Hell. He isn't my king." he said grimly. He took out Lostvayne and threw it up into the air. He took three steps forward and caught it before it hit the ground. He let out a sly grin and said confidently "If he shows up again, I'll just have to kill him. I might not be able to take him as is, but that just means I have to train more.". "You're truly a specimen to behold. If I ever disobeyed God, I'd have my wings taken from me and he'd end me in an instant" Ariel said enviously. Elias shuttered really quickly, "There's a god?" he said curiously. "Yeah, about 5'8", beard, curly hair, don't call him Shurley?" Ariel said with high praise in the pitch of her voice. "But I'm right here." Elias said narcissistically. Ariel quickly poked him in the sides. "Okay, okay." Elias said as he groaned in pain. Dailene approached her mother curiously. "So, if you came alone to get me, where's dad?" she said in a low tone. "No sense in hiding it from you anymore. You're already aware that you're not human. But me and your father, we're inter-species. I'm an Archangel, and he's a human. In lore, typically one would need to have the blessing of an Archangel to conceive a child of inter-species. But when I'm the one bearing it, I immediately accepted the repercussions. They couldn't take me, but they came for your father. They took him..." Ariel said solemnly. "Now that I'm all juiced up we can just go and get him right?" Dailene said energetically. "Honey, no. I don't want to risk losing you too. This is something I needed to do on my own. I just came to say goodbye. I know that the forces of Heaven are going to give all they've got in killing me. I just thought I'd come say goodbye to you. Let you know what you are, what you're capable of." Ariel said in an earnest tone.

"But we wouldn't be alone! We have friends, my husband, we have the power we need to take the fight to them." Dailene said in an optimistic tone. "Yeah, if it means getting ol' crabby Akrabel back, I'm in." Mark stood up and said boldly. The group congregated outside in the fields. The sun was beaming as the four of them stood gallantly together. "If we get him back, I promise you I'll give you whatever support I can in getting your friend back." Ariel said. "It'd mean a lot to me, I'll be sure we get him back." Elias said in calm resolve. A glowing blue pentagram was cast on the ground, almost instantaneously beaming the four out of existence. The brilliant beam of bluish white light scattered as it descended onto the sky lands of Heaven, sending the four of them into multiple sectors of the island. Elias was sent flying into an unaware Angel, sending them both rolling around on the concrete. The Angel brushed himself off as he stood up slowly to assess the situation. "Intruder, what business do you have here!" the Angel said angrily. Elias stood up and wiped off excess dirt. He stared at the Angel and started emanating an ominous aura. "A demon..what in the-" The Angel said as Elias rushed him quickly with a blow to the chest. He staggered back and unsheathed his Angel blade to parry the next attempted shoulder blow. Elias spun backwards and drop-kicked the Angel to the ground, stealing his Angel blade and impaling him as his rib-cage hit the floor, causing a shockwave of holy light. Elias stood up and began walking towards the grand castle. He'd never been in Heaven, at least not literally.

Angels guarded the bridge entryway to the castle and began shooting bolts of holy light at Elias, he simply raised his hand to negate them using his massive dark energy supply. "Scuffle the bridge!" one of the Angels yelled. They bridge was struck by a Karmatic Smite and shattered sending Elias into a descent. He calmly jumped from one piece of rubble to another, quicker than the naked eye could conceive. He stood directly in front of one of the guarding Angels. "You unholy swine!" the Angel yelled. He swung at Elias who dodged it simply by moving his neck. He grabbed the Angel blade with his bare hand and shattered it. The Angel began to try to blast Elias at point-blank range. Elias stood unscathed and grabbed the shoulder of the attacking Angel. The fear in his eyes was all Elias needed to see to know he hadn't seen a day of real combat. Elias leaned in and whispered, "Hakai (Destruction)" and watched as the Angel dissipated into a shroud of dark energy. Elias absorbed all of it and walked right past the rest of the guards who were too afraid to fight. Elias lifted his hand and snapped once, all of the Angels in the surrounding region imploded. By the time the other three had reached the center, they found Elias making a tower out of Angel blades. "You've been busy, huh?" Mark said cheekily. "These guys haven't really been trained to deal with real demons, no?" Elias asked to Ariel. "Well, that's not exactly true. They can handle basic demons, but you're up against a Nephilim, a human with the powers of a precursor, an Archangel which frankly made my job all the more easier, and a high ranking demon." Ariel said while trying her hardest not to break out into laughter.

"Well whadd'ya say we go get Akrabel, I'm getting a little bit tired of waiting around." Elias asked. Ariel nodded and the 4 approached the sealed warp and entered the chapel where Akrabel was being held. Ariel charged in and saw the unthinkable. Akrabel was nailed to a cross and put on display above a pedestal, barely breathing. "Akrabel!" Ariel cried out. He slowly lifted his head and gave off a slight grin. He stared deeply at Ariel and Dailene and lowered his head to conserve what little energy he had left. His body was covered in contusions and deep cuts, sealed repeatedly using Enochian energy. A dark silhouetted figure emerged from below Akrabel. It walked over to a book stand and revealed its true form. Elias immediately unholstered Lostvayne by reflex. "Oh, welcome back Elias. I'm so pleased that you could finally join us. Even though you probably won't make it to see the reception." the mysterious man said energetically. He was robed in an Ouroboros robe, similar to Aeuyrial. Though he was old, and his hair had grayed significantly. The man resembled the older fellow Melisa found on the holotape, but something was different.

"You've caused quite the stir in our little Angelic community." the man explained. "Who are you..?" Elias said as he approached carefully with Lostvayne in hand. "We've never met, little demon. I am Cochin. Elder of the voids." the man carried on. "That robe, you're not human, are you?" Elias pressed. "My my. You are quite the observant one. I am not a demon, but I am also not an Angel. You must be thinking of the little girl I raised, or attempted to anyway." Cochin rambled. "Little girl?" Elias said, shocked by the revelation. "Yes, she couldn't have been more than eight years old. Her name was Uriel and she was precious to me ever since she came to that world. Sometimes people cast away the most odd of things." Cochin said, taken aback by the thought of the young girl. "You're some kind of special, y'know that?" Mark said, insinuating he was a pedophile. "I assure you, I'm not an unsavory character. How do you think I ended up here, in Heaven" Cochin assured Mark's thoughts. Mark backed away slowly. "Elias, he's reading minds." Mark yelled. "That's preposterous Mark." "So, she's going by Aeuyrial now? I'm glad she hasn't left the roots of what I originally named her." Cochin said, interrupting Elias. Elias turned on his heels and assumed a fighting position. "This is going nowhere, give me back my husband, Cochin!" Ariel yelled out to the old man. "This...piece of work. He's something, he truly is. Isn't that your vile offspring with you?" Cochin asked, disgusted by Dailene. "Yeah, fuck you too pal." Dailene said, angered by the mans rambling. Cochin fiddled with his hands and waved his palm weakly, sending Akrabel flying off of his cross. His screams filled the room as he tumbled to the ground in front of Ariel. She scurried to his side and immediately began trying to tend to his wounds.

"Now, I only let you off easy because I saw your past, present, and I can see a fragment of your future. I want something from you." Cochin rambled. He vanished and appeared instantly in front of Elias. "I need my blade. It's the only thing keeping me in this accursed world." Cochin explained. He put his hand firmly upon Elias' head and showed him visions of the events that occurred in the realm. The vast expanse of power contained in that blade. He also showed him Melisa, fighting with the blade. Elias staggered backwards and held onto his chest. The knowledge of her still being alive, it made him realize the depths he was getting himself into. "What the hell are you, old man!" Elias said sternly. "Something even you will never come to understand." Cochin said as pushed his hand out and formed a fist. Mike yelled as he rolled across the floor. Cochin put his hand into a fist, compacting all five of them tightly. "If you don't bring me my blade, I'll know. Consider this the only freebie you'll get from me. Also, Demon, bring her back to me..." Cochin continued to ramble. He slammed his hand down and a familiar blue pentagram warped them out of Heaven, sending them all flying into Emibrian Heights. The group smashed into the Stonehenge Warp and out came Miha and Andrew. They hurried over to tend to their new, unwelcome guests. Albeit, against their better judgement.

Chapter 15: Bleed Me Dry

"H-hey there Miha. How're things hanging up here?" Elias said in a low tone, almost unconscious from the impact of the landing. Miha stared down angrily, not uttering a single word. He reached for his sheathed Masamune blade, immediately sending Elias to his feet. The other three scurried inside with Andrew. "You, you've got a lot of nerve to come back here empty-handed." Miha said furiously. "Aww, c'mon. This wasn't my choice! This old guy named Cochin warped us back here, and we didn't really have anywhere else to land." Elias pleaded. "Cochin, you say..?" Miha asked as he re-sheathed his blade slowly. "Yeah, he claimed he was neither Demon, nor Angel. I knew the guy wasn't a Nephilim either." Elias explained, trying to catch his breath. "Cochin, Red Death of The East." Miha said absentmindedly. He started to gaze into the sky, as if he was lost in his thoughts. Miha thought of the days he and Cochin defended Emibrian Heights from the invasion of the non-domesticated demons. They were a dynamic duo of the Red (Flame) Death of The East, and the Cold (Blue) Death of The West, the deadliest force to grace the realm of Beleria beyond Lamar himself. Together, they would come to purge the world of evils not made for simple people of their time. Hunting monsters, killing things. It brought them closer and closer, almost becoming family, and establishing family business. The day came when Cochin was taken from him, a mysterious shockwave grazed the easternmost coast of Beleria, and within mere seconds, he was shot out of existence bit by bit. His body sucked away into an ominous aura. Miha was powerless to save him, but he dedicated the following years researching the events of that day. Hoping he would eventually find a way to bring him back, if he managed to live that long. "So you're still alive and kicking you old bastard? After all these years, you still haven't visited me. What's your game?" Miha rambled on. He regained his consciousness and stared back at Elias, still gazing directly at him.

"Seems like something's got you taken aback, you know the old geezer?" Elias asked curiously. Miha turned to Elias and nodded lightly. He urged him to walk into the cave-home, it was time he learned a little more following the events that transpired that fateful day when his world was changed for good. He spoke quietly, almost in an eerie tone "See, it wasn't just the explosion of the demonic minions occurring at the time. Once your little skirmish had ended just as quickly as it had started, Aeuyrial was spotted trying to exit Beleria, but that was additionally the day she struck back. No one is entirely sure why she lashed out at the city, but the blasts that annihilated the squadrons sent to face her shook the nation. Her presence was running thin as she had already done and said too much for what she had in store in the years to come. How in the coming years would be trying times. The voided realm would come to wreak havoc upon the normal world. Cochin was one of the few entities that was marked both K.I.A and M.I.A. They suddenly were disintegrated without any pretext to why. Their ties to the world they originally inhabited were suddenly dropped and their presence was erased. Null and void. In villages outside of Emibrian Heights, people suffered as demons slowly lost their domestication. They went back to being ruthless, violent creatures. I was left on the verge of what seemed like the worlds end to clean the colossal mess that someone had to leave uncleaned."

"Well that's all good and well, but when I was out..why did everything go straight to hell?" Elias asked as he slammed his fist down on the cold marble table. "Things weren't the same after she attacked. The Queen fell into a downward spiral of depression, and there was grief for the day that wiped out millions of soldiers, you included." Miha spoke, tears slowly filling his eyes. "But, I thought the kingdom didn't put up with demons, that you'd all be better off without me." Elias retorted boldly. "We- they didn't come to terms with you being a demon immediately. Some were more shocked than others, and for good reason. You were known to get in some pants, yet never left a single soul pregnant. That friend of yours, Mark. Even when the Belerian troops decided it was the end for you, and scuffled the hospital, that boy visited every day almost religiously to see if you had finally woken up. Now, I know pain. I've seen it, felt it, tasted it, pissed it out because of that one time I went in the city and made some mistakes. That boys face when he had to see you there all wrapped up and out like a light, that was the embodiment of pain. Omissions of guilt for not being able to be there with you. " Miha said as he smiled through the tears. "You didn't seem to know who I was. How do you suddenly know all this about me?" Elias asked, embarrassed. "Well, I knew all of what transpired. But it was only when you managed to actually come back from the voided realm that I knew I was truly facing the genuine article. It's why I trained you. I knew, and know that you're the only hope we'll have at living to see the light of day for the next few years to come." Miha replied, breaking into a full smile, he quickly sat up and leaned back in his chair. "Now if that isn't enough to put some weight on those shoulders of yours and not half-ass it so we don't all end up killed, I don't know what is. How's dinner sound?" he said jokingly. Elias got up and walked to go find Mark. He wandered the house looking for him to tell him they were staying for dinner.

Elias roamed the halls, lit by dim lights, he saw blades impaled upon the walls, ancient blades. Names inscribed on them in Enochian, the language of the Angels. But on the opposing wall were blades of reinforced obsidian. All inscribed with unknown names of many demons. Elias disregarded all of the blades and he saw Mark standing in a room speaking to a figure. Elias approached at a brisk pace, yet the door slammed shut as he approached it. He banged on it and yelled Mark's name, but there was no response. The hall became almost pitch black as Enochian sigils lit the walls. A dark silhouette strolled down the hall in Elias' direction, sending him into an immediate defensive stance. The Silhouette grabbed a hold of one of the blades and absorbed it, using it as its own hand. "What the hell?" Elias mumbled. He was quickly cut off by the dark figure dashing towards him at a lightning quick pace, swinging its bladed hand erratically. Elias parried the blows fiercely, sending the figure flying backwards. It slid across the floor, quickly getting its bearings. To Elias' surprise, the figure swiped open a dimensional rift and leaped through it. The hall was silent for a whole minute. Elias lowered Lostvayne slowly, trying to sense and guess where the figure would attack from next. He put his upward pointing finger to his nose, getting a feel for the entity's energy. A breeze flew by Elias' left cheek as the rift split open and out came the silhouette trying to pierce-stab him. Elias barely dodged it, and again the silhouette went into the dimensional rift. Elias took to an offensive stance, getting a feel for the room. A split second before the silhouette would come spiraling out of the rift, Elias yelled "I've got you!". He deflected the incoming blow with Full Counter, sending it spiraling out of the rift and into a door. It slithered back to an upright position and stuck its opposing hand onto a wall, absorbing an Angel blade. Elias' heart began beating a bit quicker as the Silhouette began glowing a dark shade of blue. It began to multiply itself, slowly. First just two, then three. Elias sheathed Lostvayne so things could get serious. He took off his The Shard hoodie and darted into the group of shadows. They all swung quickly, and with seemingly the same amount of force. This was no petty illusion.

One of them managed to scratch Elias on the shoulder only to be hit by Elias' Havoc Strike. It dissipated as the energy tore it apart, and all that was left was the blade it absorbed. The others backed away slowly, slowly circling Elias. He grinned slightly as he grabbed the hands of another one of the silhouettes and began absorbing their energy. It faded away slowly, leaving all but the original. It staggered about erratically, waving its blade in fear of Elias. He approached slowly and held the figure by its neck against the dimly lit hall walls. With a hoarse breath it spoke, "But only a reflection of what you are to become..". Elias was shocked and snapped its neck quickly, causing it to dissipate and absolve onto his hand. Elias lowered his hand slowly, breathing heavily. He slammed his fist against the locked door, sending it flying open to his surprise. Mark jumped at the noise, and stared closely at Elias. "Woa-oh shit. Hey Elias, how's it going dude?" His eyes had gone black, with slight tints of red in them. "We're staying for dinner." Elias said in a ghastly tone. Elias collapsed to the ground, sending Mark immediately over to his side. "Damnit. Elias!....Miha?!" Mark yelled, he hoisted Elias up onto his shoulders and began darting back down the hall. The lights slowly came back on, as he sprinted quickly. He was making good pace, for time was of the essence. He found Miha in the kitchen, preparing the meal for later tonight. He turned to find Mark gasping for air with Elias hoisted on his shoulder. He laid him out on the kitchen floor, leaving Miha in awe. He shoved Mark out of the way and immediately placed his hand on Elias' neck, feeling for a pulse. He removed it once he found one and immediately pulled out a small knife from his boot, running it across his hand to draw blood. He let his blood drip into Elias' mouth, and lifted him up to have him swallow it. Stabilizing his blank eyes, yet he still wasn't conscious. Mark was dumbfounded at the sight, he leaned in and asked, "What the hell is going on?!". "You guys made a dumb move to make enemies with Crowley. Didn't anybody ever tell you the only reason he's the King is because he can utilize demonic power and magic?" Miha replied quickly, trying to jump-start Elias' heart. "That shit's real?!" Mark said in a naive tone. "He IS the King, no? This is a Hex, he probably had time to cast it whenever he beat your asses" Miha replied totally nonchalant about the situation. He clenched his open hand with his other hand and sent a slight shockwave through Elias. He jumped back into consciousness and sat up immediately. "We've gotta move." He said quickly. "Are you out of your mind? You said we were staying for dinner!" Miha replied angrily. "You know it yourself, Crowley has our number. Where's Dailene and Ariel?!" Elias said boldly. Mark stepped forward, "What the fuck do you mean he has our number?!" he said as he knelt down. "I fought some silhouettes and there's only deity level people who can cast that kind of shit. Sentient beings? Even Miha doesn't have that much power." Elias said, shifting to a mocking tone. "I'll have you know that I'm more than capable of learning it, I just haven't." Miha said, embarrassed at the revelation.

"I think Ariel and Dailene went back to their home, they said something about cleaning up?" Andrew intervened. The sound of glass shattering came from the den of the home. Elias and Miha rushed down to assess the noise, and were greeted by more silhouettes. They were wielding dual Angel blades. A foreign site to someone like Elias, yet all too familiar for Miha. He stepped forward and said confidently. "Step back.." as he unsheathed his Masamune Blade. A gentle breeze washed over the room, and Miha swept his blade through the air. A shining blue highlight followed behind the blade as he waved it in a circle, then slowly into a foreign symbol. Miha whispered "Boriama, Seal....", pinning the Silhouettes to the wall. They squirmed while trying to strike at Miha, who promptly cut off their heads. A slight grin came across his face as more leaped in through the shattered windows. Elias pulled out Lostvayne but Miha yelled. "NO!...They're mine...". causing Elias to instantly sheathe his blade in obedience. The silhouettes screeched as they rushed Miha who promptly swept around, putting his blade through one of their skulls. He slid the body across the floor and pulled the head right off the dissipating body. He flicked it into the other Silhouette, stunning it. He followed up by pinning it with Boriama, then pulling out a dagger. He ran it down the side of the Silhouettes body, causing it to hiss out an unknown dust. He licked the dust from his blade and plunged it into where the heart of the body would be. Elias looked on in horror. Miha narrowly missed the kill spot, leaving the silhouette bleeding out. He abstained from killing it because he could feel himself returning to his old ways. The moment he turned away, he unpinned the silhouette. It attempted to attack him from behind, but Miha stabbed it in the jugular, instantly dissipating it. He clenched the dagger tightly and tossed it over to Elias. He mumbled under his breath, "You forget you saw that,,", as he pointed over to Elias. Elias turned over to the front door and to his horror stood a whole horde of them. "I'd rather see that than our entrails everywhere, so I'm gonna pass on forgetting it." he said sheepishly. The sight was peculiar, the more of them gathered in one area, the more uncivil they became. The Silhouettes began to fight with one another lazily, as if they were drunken men fighting over something absolutely trivial, yet the moment Elias opened the door they all gathered and looked directly at them.

A red mist filled the skies, and atop a platform of energy stood Crowley. He looked down at Elias with hatred filling his eyes. "Long time no see, you ignorant FUCK!" Crowley yelled. Thunder split the skies and it began to rain. This wasn't normal rain, it was tinted darker. Almost like blood. Elias wiped the blood-like rain from his brow and began to walk towards Crowley. Crowley waved his hand in objection, signaling all the silhouettes to go after him, but Dailene walked ahead of him and immediately smote whatever came his way. Mark covered his back while Ariel watched in awe at their impeccable coordination. The two lovers cleared as the Stonehenge portal was cleared of all the monstrosities. Elias stood in the middle, seething in fury. Crowley descended to him, and strutted towards him with anger filling his eyes. "You've made a disgrace of the King of Hell! You, a worthless demon who's so bloody broken he's convinced these things are worth saving" Crowley yelled. Elias shrugged with a sly grin and walked backwards with his hands branching out. "You know, Lucifer told me the same thing. You saw how that ended. You gonna try to have a swing at me too?" Elias retorted with a grin splitting his face.

He reached for Lostvayne, but Crowley immediately warped over to him and grabbed his hand. "Not this time.". Elias amassed a Havoc Strike in his left hand and tried to punch Crowley in the side, but he dissipated the blow and sent Elias flying backwards. Mark and Dailene stepped forward but Crowley interjected, raising his hand in a snapping position. "One move and you're both dead. This doesn't work on Demons but it'll make quick work of you." Crowley shouted. Elias struggled to gain his footing. Crowley turned him over onto his back and put his foot on his stomach. He began to apply more and more force until Elias was coughing up blood. Elias couldn't access his demonic power, or any of his abilities for that matter. Except for one. "That all you've got?" Elias said as blood amassed in his mouth. Mark stared on in confidence when he figured out what Elias had planned. Dailene was still dumbfounded at the site and tried to get Mark to stop his odd smiling. "Do you not see this Mark, he's gonna kill him!" Dailene yelled. Mark reached his palm into the sky and a golden sigil appeared above his hand. Thunder struck the sigil and his reinforced golden blade came crashing into his hand. "Looks like you could use a hand, friend" Mark whispered as he began to walk towards the two at battle. Crowley was too distracted to notice. Crowley lifted Elias to his feet and began punching him repeatedly with brute force. "Elias!, catch!" Mark yelled as he threw his sword as a spear, directly into the center of Elias' body. Crowley was confused, but he applauded Mark briefly. "Is that enough?" Mark questioned from afar. "Yeah..." Elias said menacingly, with a wide smile. He pulled the sword out of his stomach and healed himself, putting it into his left hand, pulling Lostvayne out and wielding it with the right.

"Revenge Counter..." Elias said with an evil giddy tone. A whirlwind of pure energy amassed around him. Glowing red wisps and droplets of blood began emanating from him. His hair floated in a stasis of ominous energy. This was the true power of a demon. He strutted towards Crowley who was still confused. "So you can teach an old dog new tricks." Crowley mumbled with slight concern in his voice. He backed away slowly, almost with fear, yet visibly with caution. He watched Elias' every move and waited for him to become distracted. He lifted his hand and shot out red bolts of energy, all of which dissipated before making contact with Elias. "What in the hell?!" Crowley asked, shocked at the power, his own power. A cloaked man stood atop Miha's house, watching the duel. He grinned through his cloak and teleported away in a flash of light. "This is Elias' trump card really. Revenge Counter. All the damage done to him is stored in his strength, and when the ability is released, he can reflect it all back at the person in one dashing blow. The only drawback is he can't store the damage while using his powers." Mark explained smugly. "Remind me to never attack him for any reason ever again, you're telling me he's always storing damage?!" Dailene asked curiously. "You're half-right. Elias always has his powers on hand, there's only key moments when there's no reason for him to be using them that he'll turn them off. This technically renders him out to be a really strong human. Like that time he couldn't enter his demonic state." He answered. "Is that even possible, a demon learning these incomprehensible abilities I mean." Ariel asked surprised. "Elias is no ordinary demon. He was originally a member of the highest ranking demons of Gehenna. A Knight of Hell." Mark said proudly. "Then the only thing that could kill him for good is-" "The First Blade" the three said in unison. They all stared on at Elias' Revenge Counter form. His eyes had gone completely black, with hints of red emanating from them. His demon crest was now a bright neon shade of glowing purple. First, Crowley rushed him with his bare hands, hoping to get off a few free hits. Elias deflected every blow with Mark's blade, followed by a barrage of swipes from his blade. He then pulled out a demon blade and swung it at Elias, who with just raising two fingers utilizing his demonic telekinesis, grabbed Crowley's arm. He waved his hand towards a boulder and sent Crowley flying into it. He brought his arm in towards him, bringing Crowley directly in front of him. He powered up a Havoc Strike and put his hand directly in Crowley's face. "You wouldn't." Crowley baited. "Try me." Elias said as he placed his energy infused palm on Crowley's head. Golden Ichor went flying like bullets as every pore of Crowley's body was ripped apart, sending him and his destroyed vessel back to Hell for regeneration.

The wisps of energy and blood droplets receded back into Elias' body and his hair fell down over his eyes. He stood over the golden mess of ethereal blood. He dropped both of the blades he wielded and amassed a small trace of the blood in his hands. He marked the Dalmally sign over the right side of his chest. Mark ran towards him and retrieved his sword, sealing it back in his sigil. He glanced at Elias and gave a light smirk, Elias reciprocated. They gave one another a strong embrace of arms, and closed it with their signature handshake. Ariel and her mother shared a warm hug as well. They could finally be at rest, no matter their species. Now the looming threat was Crowley's retaliation now that he'd been sent back to Gehenna. Along with Lucifer's pending plan, albeit he is imprisoned within the cage. Aeuyrial, still on the search for Melisa. Melisa, still wandering the realms of the void with the Blade of Cochin, Saynir. Truly there is no rest, irregardless of the sacrifice you're willing to make. Elias intended to keep Cochin's promise, and now was the time to get Melisa back. While there was nothing else keeping him stalled. Elias walked out of Emibrian Heights, bloodied with his clothes tattered and torn. He felt his head, the impression of his crest. He hadn't needed to use that much of his power, and it truly made him realize that he'll never be human. He'll never be normal to those around him. But that was what made him unique. It was way of being normal. It was all he'd ever known, from the day he was cast away from Hell. No road to redemption, and a future bleak for one who couldn't cope with the differences between him and a feeble, inferior race. He'd come to feel like he was human, even if he knew that it was nothing more than a pipe dream for him to become one. Not at a cost anyway.

Chapter 16: Behind The Shadows

Melisa had been out in the Voided Realm for weeks. The cold winds that blew through kept her on her feet, but she's faced worse and knew she could face worse. Cochin's Blade began wearing less and less on her. She'd come to terms that she'd go insane either way. Her body had become used to the pressure and could draw out the latent power longer. She wasn't aware of the side-effects of the blade were beginning to set in. Small bits of demonic power were beginning to seep through her. She couldn't control them, but they became something more of a nuisance than a convenience in a world like that. She'd become familiar with the demons she encountered in the realm, knowing which ones she was to avoid, and which ones could be killed with ease. There were many demons who flat out avoided her, the power in Cochin's blade was evidence enough to stay away from Melisa. She had become accustomed to taking refuge in Cochin's old mansion, but Aeuyrial hadn't stopped looking for her. The blade and the biological makeup of being a Belerian Heir as well as a human temporarily wielding the powers Cochin possessed acted as warding against her. Aeuyrial would decimate small former settlements with a mere blast, and the shockwave would zoom through the voided lands as a harsh wind, a loud omen of the world lost to ones selfish desire. Melisa was scavenging an old camp when she was approached by a humanoid figure from behind. "Cochin..is that you lad?" the figure spoke. Melisa turned around on her heels and drew the sword instinctively. The humanoid quickly grabbed the blade by the tip with its two fingers. "Who the hell are you!" Melisa said shakily. clenching the blade tightly. "I could ask you the very same thing little girl. You're not of this realm, and you're not a sage. Yet you wield Cochin's blade and haven't been consumed by the darkness that lies within it. I sense it pulsing in your veins. You wouldn't happen to be Uriel? I haven't seen that child in years, how is old Cochin" the curious man rambled on.

Melisa took this as an opportunity to see if she could find a way out of this realm. But she knew she looked nothing like Aeuyrial. "Cochin's dead. Uriel killed him. I'm Melisa, I'm a noble from the parallel world to this.." Melisa explained. "Ah, where're my manners dear. I am simply what you may call Zero. I know my appearance is rather unsettling but I assure you I have very good reasoning for this." the man explained as he released the blade from his hands. Melisa calmly sheathed the blade to her back and lowered her guard as the man continued to explain. "I am from a time more prosperous for this world. Before it was toxic dusts and this creature so ill-willed." Zero said sadly. "We used to all visit Cochin and this girl he claimed to be his young daughter. It was such a foreign sight to us, as we all know that Cochin had no wife." Zero continued. He let out a brief chuckle, followed by destabilizing coughs. Melisa rushed to his side and sat him down. "You alright? You don't look too well." Melisa inquired. "I'm an old soul, love. I've been alive longer than half of these fools out here. The toxins from all those years over might just be setting in is all." Zero said hardily. "Woah, no no no no. We can get you fixed up. See this? Enochian. I know it. Just stay put and I can get you a seal like this." Melisa said as she revealed her toxin seal. "You don't have to-" "I have to." Melisa said, interrupting Zero's polite decline. She pulled Zero into a tent, lit a fire hole and left out to gather the ingredients she'd need for the seal. As Melisa ran, she encountered the formally dressed woman again. More blood was splattered across her suit. Melisa instinctively drew the blade, but this time the dark energy had other plans. It down and shrouded over her body instead of resonating within the blade. The woman chuckled as she began mumbling. "You can't even tell what's happening to you, can you? The blood you carry is going to turn as dark as the aura that embodies you" the woman said cheekily. "That's enough out of you!" Melisa yelled, she rushed the woman with a foreign speed, nearly falling over as she finished swiping the blade. The woman went flying backwards and tumbling on the ground. She stood right back up as if nothing happened. "You know, if you could control that power, that would've hurt a hell of a lot more than it already did. It wasn't anything too major though, dislocated this, broken that. You know, the basic stuff I can fix." She said as she walked off all of her injuries, just tapping them and causing them to disappear. Melisa clenched the blade tightly and small amounts of dark energy began to collect in it. "Now THAT'S more like it." the woman said creepily. "You're a real prodigy" she continued. Melisa charged once again, but this time the woman blocked the blow with her palm. Melisa began swinging precisely, aiming for vital kill spots. She steadily put more power behind the blade until the woman grabbed her by the throat.

"Get it over with or leave me alone, I'm trying to help out Zero!" Melisa yelled violently. The woman was taken aback by the name and briefly dropped Melisa, she took it as an opportunity to strike while the iron was hot. She managed to land a direct cut on the woman's face. She howled in pain and instantly dissipated into dust. Melisa sheathed the blade instinctively to cut off the flow of power to her body before it overtook her as foretold. She hurried back to Zero with the ingredients she needed to detoxify his body. She returned to find him slumped over, staring into the fire. "Ah, you're back dear. Not without a fight it would seem though." Zero said weakly, coughing slightly. "Hey, don't even worry about it. It's always nice to have allies in a world like this. If I have to get my little prissy hands dirty, so be it. I'm a tough girl, I can handle myself in a fight." Melisa said as she began drawing the seal on Zero's face. Zero grinned dimly as he began to breathe clearly, the toxins that had been plaguing his body had been expelled. When Melisa finished, she helped stand him up and told him of the woman she encountered. "Oh dear, that's not good. Okay...how do I put this? There's beings in this world that sort of oversee any unwanted guests on the lower parts. They don't work for Aeuyrial, but anything down here should be dead. Me being the exception, especially as of now." Zero said nervously. Melisa stared curiously at him. "What do you mean 'beings'? " she asked curiously. Zero clapped his hands together, bringing forth an electromagnetic pulse that generated a staff from his hands. Melisa gazed on in awe, questioning the identity of Zero. He brought the staff to the ground and placed his hand on Melisa, sending them both back to Cochin's mansion. "She's a reaper, and if she hadn't killed you yet, it's probably because of that blade you're carrying around with you." Zero said quietly. A storm began to brew outside the mansion. An ominous power began to fill the surrounding area. Both Zero and Melisa brandished their weapons.

"That thing doubles as a weapon?" Melisa asked Zero in disbelief. "All precursor relics double as weapons. It also allows us to teleport to other precursor locations." Zero said confidently. He spun the staff around and the light green crystal in the center turned into a jagged dagger. Zero released the staff and sent it into a controlled stasis. He could control the staff without having to physically hold it, but only up to a certain range it would seem. This was the precursor relic named Dialis. The front door of the mansion swung open with a violent wind following it, in walked the Reaper. "Casey, how wonderful of you to join us. What're you up to?" Zero asked to the woman. "You know this bitch?" Melisa said with a pitch of sass. Casey waved her hand, sending Melisa into the staircase. She fell over, still grasping Cochin's blade, still in its sheathe. "C'mon now Cas, you didn't have to do that to her." Zero said remorsefully. "She's not welcome here, and you know it Zero. That seal on her neck is keeping her from dying like she should." Casey said grimly. Melisa staggered to her feet and unsheathed the blade immediately. The energy soared from the blade and directly end to her, sending her to the ground quickly. "How many times have you used that thing, human? Since you're a friend of Zero's I'm going to give you a quick explanation before I'm obligated to kill you. That thing right there? That's all of Aeuyrial's sealed energy. You might think momentarily, or in short bursts you'd be able to handle it, but you're wrong. Her energy is corrosive to anything that ain't human. Your body in the state that it's in is a miracle of its own." Casey explained condescendingly. She waved her hand and the blade flew out of Melisa's hand. Casey sheathed it, releasing the pressure from Melisa. She threw it back to her and Melisa inspected the seal on it. "That should keep you from killing yourself using that thing, that is only if you've got a pretty damn good reason for why you're here. If not, I'll just have to kill you myself." Casey said coldly. "Oh, now you give me a chance to explain myself. Last time you were trying to outright kill me." Melisa joked. "Likewise. Difference is that it's my job to keep the things that should be dead, well..dead." Casey retorted. Zero stared at Melisa curiously. "I'm Melisa, I'm a Princess from the parallel dimension to this one, Beleria. That thing that from what I can tell, used to be a sane little girl, she kidnapped me and I'm hiding from her down here." Melisa quickly explained, she flashed the earring on her right ear to show she was of royalty. Casey clenched her hand and brought Melisa to her. "Why didn't you just do that before, it'd make catching her a whole lot more easy" Zero said cheekily. "If what you said is true Melisa, then where you're looking is right in the hornets nest. The only way out of here is through portals, and the only one out has to be activated by either that blade maxing itself out, or the Seal of Elysium being passed from Aeuyrial to whoever manages to kill her." Casey said as she released her.

"Seal of Elysium? What the hell do you mean?" Melisa inquired. "Aeuyrial is a Demon, but she also possesses the power of a Precursor. This is why she's overpowered as fuck, alright? That seal is just tons of go-go juice for her to be able to pump out nuclear blasts with the flick of a wrist. You need that much power to be traveling through dimensions, especially carrying people with you. Some of her power is invested in that blade, meaning we'd have to sacrifice it while inside the temple, and possibly the user along with it, because it doesn't draw power on its own. You'd tear yourself apart trying to use that blade to get out of here in essence." Casey theorized. "I don't suppose you're planning on any cavalry coming for you, huh?" Zero asked jokingly. "Well, I don't know if you felt it, but two energies came into this world not too long ago. One demon, one demi-human." Zero said. "A demi-human, what do you mean?" Melisa asked. "When you're a human, and you're either in your case tainted by a foreign energy, or given a Precursor relic at birth, you're not human anymore. That item has supernatural aspects to it that at the least increase your life expectancy." the two beings explained. A large explosion was heard in the distance, sending the three of them into an alert. "Well, it seems that our little get-together is over. I bit you ladies adieu." Zero said as he tapped his staff on the ground, warping away. "Isn't he just a gentlemen. Well now, if you want to have a chance at living to see the next day princess, I highly advise you come with me. I have a place I can keep you, but there's almost a guarantee she'll find you here if you're planning to stick around any longer." Casey offered.

Chapter 17: The Looming Threat

Elias sat in the hills of the countryside, dreaming. He hadn't fully gotten over the nightmares. Every time he shuts his eyes, he knew that he'd see that faithful day once more. Every day it'd be something different he'd have to try. It was always the same result. Blood spilled, and Melisa would be taken from him. He awoke from his daydream and was sweating vigorously. He checked his hand to see if Lostvayne was still there, as always, it was. The grass was blowing from the soft winds on the hills. He stood up and stared over the countryside. He knew that this world wasn't always something he knew could be safe, but he never knew he'd be the one eventually fighting for all of it. A breeze went by his face, and an arrow was at the end of it. Elias dodged the arrow, and almost instantly a volley of arrows came his way. He did multiple backflips to avoid the barrage, but one of them managed to graze his arm. It was coated in holy water. Elias winced a bit and looked around for the shooter, still brandishing Lostvayne. A fireball came his way and he knew he had angered a magic user, a powerful magic user. Elias caught the ball and was trying to hold it back, he knew the damage in countering it and flat out destroying it. The grass around him became shriveled and scorched as Elias, now demonized, was holding back the projectile. Elias yelled, "Counter Vanish!" and dissipated the ball in his hand. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, not before he was hit in the leg by one of the arrows. He yelled a bit as he pulled it out and stared at the cauterized wound. There was a cloaked figure sitting atop a tree, focused intently on Elias. Elias rushed them by reflex and tackled them to the ground. He began punching repeatedly, but all he could hear through his strikes was laughter, it seemed the person wasn't feeling the blows. Eventually Elias looked down and saw that it was a decoy. A second, larger fireball came his way. Elias was hit directly by it, sending him into an emergency demonized state. When the smoke cleared, all that was left was Elias and the burned countryside. He stood there, his body was emanating a violent heat and was badly scorched. "Alright, I don't know who you are but I was considering sparing you. Now, I'm just gonna kill you because that hurt like a motherfucker" he said boldly to the figure who remained where it was before. It emanated a white light and a bolt of pure energy shot from the persons hand, sending the hood of the cloak flying off. "Lamar..shit." Elias mumbled under his breath. He swept Lostvayne at the bolt and yelled, "Full Counter!" but to no avail. The bolt pierced him and Elias was sent flying into a boulder. He was held in place, with pure energy coursing through his body. He couldn't heal the wound, and he was losing way too much blood to attempt a Revenge Counter.

Lamar walked over to him and checked to see if he was still alive. "You had a job" he said professionally. "You have a mole, what's new?" Elias retorted with a bit of snark. He began to practically vomit blood. "You always did have a thing for joking in the face of death. Don't attempt to fight back and I'll make your death painless, I've already won." Lamar said as he drew out his long-sword. "One, you're a bit too late on the painful bit, this hurts like hell. Two, you might be a little punch drunk because I'm the one who's winning." Elias said with a slight grin on his face. He gave into his last resort, his emergency demonized state was still up, and the critical form hadn't activated. He let himself pass out from the pain. Lamar turned around and raised the blade to Elias' neck. He pulled the sword back and swung at his neck, mere moments before the blade made contact, a powerful aura rose from Elias. He awoke, with his eyes fully black. An odd fluid seemed to be leaking from them. Devils very well may cry. "You made me do this" Elias said coldly. He grasped the bolt of energy and broke it using his bare hands. Lamar backed away and let out a slight laugh. "No matter how much you power up, you already know you're never going to be a match for m-" He said, before being interrupted by a blow to the gut from Elias. He clenched his abdomen in agony and looked up at Elias. Milliseconds from him scissor kicking him across a field. Lamar jumped up and healed himself immediately. It seemed Elias was capable of doing damage after all. He snapped once and what appeared to be a dark sinkhole appeared between both of them. It filled with blue energy and shot them into another dimension, Elysium.

Elias looked around and felt that it was significantly harder to move. He clenched his fists, no response from his body. There he saw Lamar. Moving about freely. He'd taken them from the countryside to an unknown place. Elias sensed it was something...heavenly. No matter how much power Elias put behind his movements, he wasn't able to keep up. "Has my training taught you nothing at all, or is it that your demonic instincts have finally taken over. I'd hope not, that'd mean you're now more of a threat to everyone else then you are yourself." Lamar said as he appeared before Elias, putting his blade to his throat. "Meaning, I'd have to kill you where you stand" he said darkly. Elias gritted his teeth angrily, he mustered an unknown power, emanating as a blue flame. He was able to move for just a moment, long enough to strike Lamar in the face, sending him shooting backwards. Elias went from gritting his teeth to grinning sinisterly. Slowly, his inhibition came undone. His aura turned from an ominous purple to a shining blue. He pulled out Lostvayne from behind him and twirled the blade around. Lamar for the first time in awhile, let out a sincere smile. A fight worth having, here in Elysium. Star-of-Bethlehem shone brilliantly amongst the snow white field. Petals flourishing around in the sky from the raging powers. Elias and Lamar stood in silence, eyeing one another. Elias' premonition had come to light. Lamar ripped the cloak from his body, revealing a clean white suit. Typical of him. He staggered towards Elias slowly, keeping him wary. He began to rant. "Life's end, isn't it beautiful? It's almost tragic. When life ends, it gives off a final lingering aroma. Light is but a farewell gift from the darkness to those on their way to die. I've been waiting, Elias, for a long time. Waiting for your birth, your growth, and the finality of today." he said with almost a tinge of excitement to his voice. "You don't expect me to kill you Lamar. You can walk away from this, and we don't have to fight." Elias pleaded. "It's already set in stone. I've been given my orders from people you wouldn't even begin to comprehend. Either I die here, or you die here. One of us isn't leaving Elysium Fields." Lamar retorted solemnly. "So it has to be like that, huh? Well, you know I can't die here. I still have a job to do." Elias said shadily. "I'm not moving." Lamar said boldly. "Then in that case, you're standing in the way of something that I love." Elias said, growing in intensity. "So I am." Lamar said coldly. Elias rushed him in the blink of an eye. Petals flew in a whirlwind shockwave, as the powers of nearly unfathomable proportions collided. Lamar blocked the blow with his wrist, but the landscape took the full force. He looked up at Elias, still demonized and seemingly with no plan to stop. His power was fluctuating at an alarming rate as they exchanged blow. Lamar kicked Elias through the field, yet it didn't seem to phase him. "It seems you've grown, what gives? Did you finally grow some balls and learn to take a hit?" Lamar said before being promptly interrupted by a kick to the gut from Elias

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Cassie Clare and the Canon-Sue Debate

by Dan H

Thursday, 19 February 2009 

Dan talks around the subject of Cassandra Clare's City of Ashes.

Ferretbrain readers should remember from my last review, I hated Cassandra Cla(i)re's City of Bones so much that I could barely express myself. It went around the “Bad/Funny” wheel so many times it gave me motion sickness. It also read rather a lot like Harry Potter fanfic.

So as you can imagine, I was overjoyed when our illustrious editor presented me with a copy of the second book in the trilogy (carefully informing me that since she had bought two other books on a three-for-two offer at Waterstones she had not, in fact, paid money for it).

It's still bad. It's bad in pretty much all the ways it was bad the last time.

Thanks for reading. 'Night.

Okay, there's more. Once again, this is going into disjointed subheadings, because Cassie Cla(i)re just does that to me.

Chapter Headings

Just in case you were in any doubt what kind of book this was, I thought I'd start off by giving you a full list of the chapter headings:

Prologe: Smoke and Diamonds, Part One: A Season in Hell, Valentine's Arrow, The Hunter's Moon, The Hogwarts High Inquisitor, The Cuckoo in the Nest, Sins of the Fathers (do you see, it's a biblical reference), City of Ashes, The Mortal Sword, Part Two: The Gates of Hell, The Seelie Court, And Death Shall Have No Dominion (yes, that's right “And Death Shall Have No Dominion”), A Fine and Private Place, Smoke and Steel (supposed to echo the prologue maybe?), The Hostility of Dreams (okay, seriously Cassie, you're taking the piss), A Host of Rebel Angels (because Valentine is a bit like Lucifer), Part Three: Day of Wrath, Fearless, The Serpent's Tooth, A Stone of the Heart (no, I don't know what that means either), East of Eden, Darkness Visible, Dies Irae.

I should probably add that these self-aggrandising, portentous titles pretty much exclusively come in front of chapters in which very little actually ... y'know ... happens.

Basic synopsis of City of Ashes: Valentine is back, zomg. Referring to the Ministry of Magic Guide To Resurgent Psychopaths, the Clave (the international organization of Shadowhunters in charge of stopping the world going to shit in a shoebox) decide that the most sensible thing to do is to (a) victimize his son and (b) sit around with their collective thumbs up their collective asses.

The Pesky Kids from the first book return. Cassie Claire “Clary” is slowly discovering more about her precious Mary-Sue powers, and is now dating Everygeek Simon, Draco Jace has been locked up by “The Inquisitor” because they think he's spying for his father (spying, presumably, on the Clave's secret plans to do nothing the fuck about Valentine), Alec is still being tokenistically gay and Isabel is ... not in it much actually, having been relegated to the place where girls who are hotter than the protagonist get sent in the second book. It's the pesky kids who work out that Valentine is planning on taking the Mortal Sword and performing the Ritual of Infernal Conversion to turn it into an evil sword that will allow him to summon Demons.

The Ritual of Infernal Conversion

Okay, so here's how it goes. Valentine has stolen the Mortal Sword, one of the titular (is it titular if it's the title of the trilogy, rather than the book?) Mortal Instruments. He steals this in chapter – like – six and the Clave pays no attention whatsoever because after all, it's not like the powerful psychopathic genius would have stolen the awesomely powerful mystical artefact for a reason is it?

In order to complete the Ritual of Infernal Conversion Valentine must drain the blood of a child of each of the “Downworlder” races. “Child,” by the way is defined as “anybody under the age of eighteen”. Clary objects to this definition later on on the book, on the grounds that sixteen year olds aren't children but teenagers, and somebody corrects her by pointing out that “teenagers are a modern concept” whereas of course the RoIC is deep and ancient magic.

Now ... you probably know where I'm going with this, but yes, I know that the idea of “teenagers” is a modern concept but that isn't because in ancient times you were considered a “child” until the age of twenty, it's because you were considered an adult from pretty much the moment you hit puberty. I would have been just about okay with the fact that the “children” Valentine was targeting were actually people who were all old enough to hunt demons for a living, had Cla(i)re not pulled the infuriating “aaaah do you see ... it's a modern concept” thing. If you're going to play the sub-Gaiman “ah, but in the old tales” card, at least get your old tales right. Idiot.

Anyway, Valentine attacks a couple of Downworlder kids and drains their blood (right there and then in the street, this will become important-slash-infuriating later), it comes right down to the wire and he needs only Vampire and a Werewolf.

Shockingly,

Cassie

Classie

Clary's best-friend-slash-pity-fuck Simon gets turned into a Vampire just as Valentine is looking for a Vampire Child to kill for his ritual. Not only that, but he winds up being sorta-romantically-involved with a werewolf who is also conveniently old-enough-to-be-sexy-while-falling-under-the-arbitrary-sacrificing-age.

Side note: how do you even define a Vampire “child” anyway? Is it vamp age, total age, pre-vamp age?

Anyway, Valentine captures Simon and the Werewolf who fancies him (oh, by the way, in a shockingly original twist, Vampires and werewolves in Cla(i)re's mythos don't get on with each other) and locks them up in a cage without doing anything. Because, y'know, you can't rush evil rituals. Except that he did the last two times. And now he knows the Clave are onto him. He really shouldn't be beating around the bush with the whole “army of demons” thing is what I'm saying.

So Valentine prevaricates, meaning he only has enough power to raise half an army of demons, because his sword isn't fully evillified yet (so presumably at close of play he has a terrifying sword of Neutrality ... what makes a sword turn neutral?). He drains Simon of blood (which doesn't kill him, because he's a named character) but leaves the Werewolf girl untouched (named character also). This gives our heroes the opportunity to totally brock his shit ap.

Did I say “our heroes”? I of course meant “Clary”. And Jace, a bit.

But I'm a Creep

I'm going to quote something now.

“I think the Queen meant I can draw new runes that are more powerful than ordinary runes, and maybe even create new ones.” Jace shook his head. “No one can create new runes-” “Maybe she can, Jace.” Alec sounded thoughtful. “It's true, none of us have ever seen that Mark on her arm before.”

And something else:

A soft voice spoke inside her head: Who are you, to think you can speak the language of heaven? The pencil moved. She was almost sure that she hadn't moved it but it slid across the paper, describing a single line. She felt her heart skip. She thought of her mother sitting dreamily before her canvas, creating her own vision of the world in ink and oil paint. She thought, Who am I? I am Jocelyn Fray's daughter.

And now something else:

She smiled slightly as she sat down on the stool, placing her left leg across her right and then placed the sorting hat on her head. 'This should be interesting' she thought. The whole hall was silenced in anticipation of which house she would be put in, each person wishing that it were his or her house. 'Strange’ said a voice in her head, 'there are parts of your brain I cannot get into.' 'For good reason' 'Care to tell me those reasons, and where and how you learned such control over your mind?' 'Lets just say there’s more to me than there seems and all will be revealed later.'

And finally:

Kuro chuckled 'kids are so funny now a days. Have to remember I’m supposed to be sixteen so I have to act like them. Damn.' Kuro then waved her had and a small section of table appeared between the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables at the opposite end of the hall from the head table. She waived her hand again and a black throne like chair appeared there. Kuro then turned to face Dumbledore. "Is that acceptable kocho?" "Yes it seems to work." "As you can all see I don't use a wand,” said Kuro as she turned to face her classmates. "I hope that won't be a problem. Now I bet you all wish to eat after that long train ride so I will take my seat." With a final wave of her hand Kuro transported herself to her chair.

Okay, I know it's a cheap shot to compare published novels to PotterSues featured fics but there is, in fact, a similarity of type there. In fact, having read the last section aloud to our esteemed editor, I'd go so far as to say that you'd be hard pressed to tell which was the published work of original fiction, and which was the bad HP fic if it weren't for the specific references to canon.

Cassie Claire's protagonists are some of the biggest sues I have ever encountered. Clary has what seems to be unlimited power, constrained only by the demands of the plot and the author's wishes. If she had been a character in HP fanfic who had the ability to “cast new spells that are more powerful than ordinary spells, and perhaps create new ones” she'd be laughed off of fanfiction.net. But of course it's okay here because she's the “main character” of this totally “original” work of fiction.

I'm going to go off on a sideline here, because I find this rather interesting. Fanfiction is a strange beast, with a lot of peculiar ideas and conventions attached to it. One of the most interesting and abiding rules of Fanfiction (in my limited experience) seems to be “thou shalt not attempt to upstage thy source material”. No HP villains who are more evil than Voldemort or heroes more powerful than Dumbledore. No Lord of the Rings characters who are immune to the power of the ring. No House characters who are better at diagnosing stuff than House.

The interesting thing about this rule is that actually it can be applied pretty readily to original fiction. It's a bit more fluid, because the same person who sets up the rules gets to set up the exceptions to those rules. On the other hand, a writer who breaks the rules which they explicitly and personally created is one of the most infuriating things in the world. Cheap examples of this include Harry Potter's Magic Love Powers and Wand That Acts By Itself, Tom Bombadil's immunity to the ring, Auraya's ability to keep her powers even after the gods have abandoned her (much as I love Trudy Canavan, that one went a bit too far).

Put simply, here's a piece of advice for people writing original fiction: if you couldn't get away with it in fanfic, it probably sucks hard.

I've done the “Clary” / “Claire” / “Clare” joke to death by now, but I'm going to have one more crack at it: Clary Fray, whose first name sounds suspiciously similar to Cassandra Cla(i)re's adopted surname, is a horrible, horrible sue. Leaving aside the “name that sounds a bit like your name” thing, she gets the ability to make up new runes. This is, in fact, functionally equivalent to a Harry Potter character being able to make up new spells (indeed the runes in the Mortal Instruments trilogy – hey! I've just realised that the acronym for that is “TMI” - function rather a lot like potter spells. There's the shielding one, the fast-healing one, the one that opens doors that conveniently fails to work half the time...) it just screams “speshul” at the top of its lungs.

Of course the “defence” of all this stupid speshulness is that there are totally plot reasons for it (which is the defence that people trot out after “it's my story!” and before “if you don't like it don't read it!”). Clary and Jace (who gets awesome jumping powers I shit you not) have apparently been experimented on by Voldemort Valentine, because he wanted to ... well actually we haven't been given a reason yet (it will presumably come out in the final volume City of Glass). Either way I just plain don't care. If you make your protagonist teh super speshul it doesn't matter what half-arsed justification you give for it. You made the decision to write about a character like that. You. Not your muse. Not the harsh necessities of your secondary creation. You.

“I can create new runes that are more powerful than normal runes”. For fuck's sake.

Comments:

http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/ at 16:51 on 2009-02-19Hee! Those chapter headings almost deserve their own article. At first, I was a little impressed by the literary references ('A Season in Hell' seems like an allusion to Rimbaud, for example), but then it just became too much. Also, whiel naming the first chapter of the second part 'The Gates of Hell' is sort of repetitive, it's nothing in comparison to naming one chapter 'Day of Wrath' and another 'Dies Irae', which means EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Love this site!permalink - go to topDan H at 17:07 on 2009-02-19Hiya! Literary references in this sort of book always annoy me. It always feels like a cheap attempt to legitimize your work by saying "look! I've read famous stuff! That means I must be an intelligent person with interesting things to say!" It's sort of like a chef plastering his restaurant with pictures of other people cooking him dinner...permalink - go to topViorica at 17:12 on 2009-02-19On the one hand, I like titles that allude to the classics. On the other . . . she's writing YA urban fantasy. She might as well just title each chapter "This is Deep and Meaningful and Intelligent!"permalink - go to topRami at 17:59 on 2009-02-19naming one chapter 'Day of Wrath' and another 'Dies Irae', which means EXACTLY THE SAME THING Ah, but the second one is in Latin which means it is super-speshul, because everyone knows Latin is the language of the Catholic Church All Magic Evar.permalink - go to tophttp://miss-morland.livejournal.com/ at 23:13 on 2009-02-19Yeah, I agree. She's making it more difficult for herself, too, because evoking the classics just serves to remind people that her own work isn't all that great... (Which I'm saying without even having read the book, but this is a case where I think some amount of prejudice can be justified.) Haha, yes, Latin makes everything more super-speshul. Especially when it's obvious that it's only there to impress the reader (as long as said reader doesn't know/care about what the title actually *means*, that is).permalink - go to topWardog at 12:31 on 2009-02-20(Catherine Morland was always one of my favourite Austen heroines - she is so terribly sweet) I would like to put forward a vote for "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" has the best-worst chapter title ever.permalink - go to topWardog at 12:36 on 2009-02-20At first, I was a little impressed by the literary references ... but then it just became too much. I think you're right, it's excess of desperate literariness that completely sinks this. I mean, I'm all for a few relevant chosen references but this looks like nothing so much as an indiscriminate spree in wiki-quote. Let's see ... let's play the reference spotting game... off the top of my head .. Rimbaud, as you say, The Bible, Dylan Thomas, Milton, Marvell, Steinbeck ... oh pulease, give me a break! permalink - go to tophttp://descrime.livejournal.com/ at 22:19 on 2009-02-20I'm okay with breaking world rules as long as breaking them results in at least some negative consequence for the exception. The protagonist who has powers no one has ever seen before/in centuries is a common trope in YA stories; the good stories just balance that out with something that gets taken away in exchange for that power. The second problem I see from the two sections you quoted is that Clary's new power isn't the result of hard work or persistence in studying this magic or even an innate understanding of the nature of runes or just natural brilliance. She doesn't even seem to be aware of what she's doing. In that passage, they just come to her without thought because she's someone's daughter, and that's just ridiculously cheap in my books.permalink - go to tophttp://miss-morland.livejournal.com/ at 13:23 on 2009-02-21I would like to put forward a vote for "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" has the best-worst chapter title ever. I think you're right. *g* Although now I'm sort of curious as to what chapter headings she'll invent for her next novel...permalink - go to topWardog at 14:42 on 2009-02-21I'm not sure Dan will survive her next novel...permalink - go to tophttp://rudecyrus.livejournal.com/ at 04:02 on 2009-02-22When did books for young adults and children become so damn mediocre?permalink - go to tophttp://katsullivan.insanejournal.com/ at 09:53 on 2009-02-22Isabel is ... not in it much actually, having been relegated to the place where girls who are hotter than the protagonist get sent in the second book" Ha ha! That's funny. But don't forget that according to Jace, Clary is more beeyootiful than Isabelle and Isabelle is jeluz of her. Clary's Sue-nature gets even better in Book 3 when a 3rd character - a hot dude called Sebastian - also falls in love with her. You will be interested to know that the chapter titles from the 3rd book - City of Glass are just as pretentious of the other books. This is from her Livejournal, with explanations from where she got the titles from: Chapter One: The Portal Self-explanatory, especially if you've read the first chapter. Chapter Two: The Demon Towers of Alicante “Those are the demon towers,” Jace said, in response to Simon’s unasked question. “They control the wards that protect the city. Because of them, no demon can enter Alicante.” Chapter Three: Amatis In which we meet Amatis, a character mentioned once, briefly, in Ashes. Chapter Four: Daylighter Well, what else are you going to call a vampire who can walk around during the day? Chapter Five: A Problem of Memory In which the Inquisitor would like Simon to remember something that never actually happened. Chapter Six: One of the Living “A true vampire knows he is dead. He accepts his death. But you, you think you are still one of the living," said Raphael. Chapter Seven: Bad Blood "“Everyone seemed to blanch when your name came up earlier," said Sebastian. "I gathered there was some bad blood between your brother and you.” Chapter Eight: Where Angels Fear to Tread “Fools rush in/Where angels fear to tread” — Alexander Pope Chapter Nine: This Guilty Blood “I am ashamed/of these foul deeds;/Nor with this guilty blood/Sprinkled, would I pollute the innocent.” —Euripedes, Hercules Chapter Ten: Fire and Sword “Their state The noblest-born must abdicate; The fairest, while with fire and sword Come Spoilers--horde impelling horde.” — William Wordsworth Chapter Eleven: All the Host of Hell Milton. “the hollow abyss Heard far and wide, and all the host of hell With deafening shout returned them loud acclaim." Chapter Twelve: De Profundis De profundis: In Latin, "out of the depths.” Psalm 130 is known as "De Profundis;" it begins "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." Chapter Thirteen: Where There is Sorrow Oscar Wilde. “Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.” Chapter Fourteen: In the Dark Forest Reference to the beginning of Dante’s Inferno. “I found myself within a forest dark” — the narrator, Dante, wanders in a dark forest of confusion and grief. Chapter Fifteen: Things Fall Apart Yeats’s famous poem “The Second Coming” : “Things fall apart/The center cannot hold” Chapter Sixteen: Articles of Faith Articles of faith is a general expression for statements of faith-belief all across Christianity and other religions. The Nicene Creed ("Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorum coeli et terrae") is an article of faith. Chapter Seventeen: The Shadowhunter's Tale This mirrors The Werewolf’s Tale in book one. Chapter Eighteen: Hail and Farewell From a poem by Catullus. Ave Atque Vale, means hail and farewell. Shadowhunters say it when someone dies in battle. Chapter Nineteen: Peniel Peniel is where Jacob wrestled the angel in the Bible. Chapter Twenty: Weighed in the Balance “Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin” : “You are weighed in the balance, and found wanting.” From the book of Daniel. Epilogue: Across the Sky in Stars TE Lawrence: “Because I loved you, I took these tides of men into my hands, and wrote my will across the sky in stars.” permalink - go to tophttp://athread.livejournal.com/ at 14:15 on 2009-02-22A group of girls in my school have become obsessed with Cassie Claire (the new Twilight? I live in hope.) and read/analyse her books over and over again. If I hear CC called "a modern genius" in French class one more time, SOMEBODY WILL DIE, seriously. I flicked through the first book in Easons a few weeks ago and could tell from the one page I read that it was crap. I'm also a bit shocked that she actually named one of the chapters A Season in Hell, since, you know, one of her most famous H/D fanfics is called that. She's not even trying to get away from the whole fandom thing.permalink - go to topViorica at 18:19 on 2009-02-22Of course she isn't. That's why she got a three-book contract; it's why she had a built-in fanbase. Moving away from it would be bad for her career. When did books for young adults and children become so damn mediocre? Since authors decided that kids and teens were too dumb to appreciate quality, so they could churn out pages of crap, an it's be eaten up by the target audience. Sadly, they aren't wrong. It irritates me, since I'm a part of the target audience, and I'm sick of getting lumped in with people who think Cassie Clare's or Anna Godberson's stuff is the height of literary genius.permalink - go to topDan H at 20:06 on 2009-02-22Yeats’s famous poem “The Second Coming” : “Things fall apart/The center cannot hold” Hooray! One of the many things I would absolutely *love* to see in a modern fantasy novel somebody quoting the *first* line of the second coming. "Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre" or possibly "The Falcon Cannot Hear the Falconer" would make excellent pretentious chapter titles. Also, I'd like to add that I actually scrolled *up* to your post from below, so I looked at it, laughed, then read it again and went "wait, those are the *actual* chapter titles, I thought she was making this up". permalink - go to topWardog at 20:14 on 2009-02-22When did books for young adults and children become so damn mediocre To be fair, YA is *also* producing some of the most exciting authors my jaded heart has encountered for many a cold year. For every Cassie Clare, there's a Melinda Marchetta, for every Anna Godberson a Catherine Fisher.permalink - go to topSonia Mitchell at 22:05 on 2009-02-22Theresa Breslin, Stewart and Riddell, Charlotte Hatpie, Philip Reeve... there's a lot of decent stuff out there. But like other genres, when authors start imitating each other things spiral into crap. I think on the whole YA is doing better than thrillers and fantasy in that respect - it's a genre I'm more willing to take risks in because the chance of a pleasant surprise seems a lot higher. (As an aside - is YA a genre as such? Or something else? Marketing category maybe? I'm hazy on the boundaries)permalink - go to topWardog at 11:26 on 2009-02-23Oh my God, the chapters for book 3 are even worse - thank you for, err, sharing the pain =Ppermalink - go to topWardog at 16:34 on 2009-02-26Also am I the only person who finds the tagline a little bit amusing? The Shadowhunter war rages on ... shouldn't it just be "the shadowhunter war rages". The addition of the "on" makes it sound like its tediously extended. You might as well say "the shadowhunter war drags on" (and on).permalink - go to tophttp://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/ at 04:40 on 2009-02-28Hi! I can comment at last! About Cassandra Clare: I have refused to buy or read these books because I discovered she had plagiarized Pamela Dean. That was enough for me. But, Dan, I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and I actually think Tom Bombadil's power over the ring works. It works because it's made quite clear that Bombadil's powers are constrained by space - he is the ruler of a tiny kingdom - and because it's also clear that, as Gandalf says, he would be a most unsafe guardian. He cannot remember the ring exists *because* it has no hold on his mind. And if he can't remember it, he can't guard it. Which is like something descrime said above. If someone has a superpower, it should have constraints. Bombadil is constrained, and Clary apparently isn't. Just my two cents-permalink - go to tophttp://disdainful-soul.livejournal.com/ at 10:16 on 2009-03-16I'm also a bit shocked that she actually named one of the chapters A Season in Hell, since, you know, one of her most famous H/D fanfics is called that. She's not even trying to get away from the whole fandom thing. If you think that's bad, the trilogy takes its name from a Ginny/Ron incest fic. If she was trying to get away from fandom she would publish it under a name that wasn't so close to her fandom one (removing the "i" does not make the change clever, Cla(i)re) and stop putting in references to fandom and fandom people all throughout the book. Other fic authors have gone on to be published and don't ride on the coattails of fandom to get there.permalink - go to topWardog at 09:32 on 2009-03-18I think the point is that once you've made a claim to having read Rimbaud you want to make that claim as often as possible :)permalink - go to topWordless at 07:58 on 2009-11-10From a poem by Catullus. Ave Atque Vale, means hail and farewell. Shadowhunters say it when someone dies in battle. sorry but i had to know, do they do it in a funeral procession afterwards or do they do it in battle? does every one stop fighting and do the whole latin tellytubby "BYYYE bubye byee!!!!" thing. if so that totally rocks.permalink - go to topWordless at 08:03 on 2009-11-10Also I noticed that half the titles have absolutely no relevance to what happens in the chapter....is there a rule somewhere that says quoting original literature somehow makes you original??? Bah!