THEY REALLY ARE A worthless bunch of sacks of meat. Not to mention the angels. They left Tasia with a single made angel? I know they had more protection surrounding her before, I suppose it’s possible an angel is waiting on the sidelines, but there’s far too much demonic aura filling this place now for me to tell.
I’ve been waiting patiently, and the made angel has been fighting decently against the made demons, but he’s hurt and exhausted, and now he has a natural demon to deal with. He isn’t going to survive unless backup comes for him right now. Tasia isn’t going to survive unless—
My beast steps in and takes over my agency. I slip in through one of the entrances the demons made into the base. Then I emerge into the hall, undetected, where I proceed to slice off the heads of each of the made demons there as I allow my beast’s claws to envelop my fingernails. It’s only when the heads start dropping to the ground that my presence is noticed.
The made angel has just taken a fatal blow from Solanis, but she hasn’t touched Tasia yet. She turns around slowly to face me. Her lips twitch at the corners of her mouth. “Well, well, well,” she says, “if it isn’t the cursed son, Arsen.”
“Solanis,” I regard her with a slight nod of my head.
“I would ask you if you’re here to join in the fun but,” she gestures to the headless bodies around her, some limp, others attempting to reattach their heads, “I think it’s fairly obvious you’re not.”
“What about you? Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Didn’t you know, Arsen? I’m doing this for my brother. They killed him.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here. It’s not like the two of you got along.”
“I never skip out on the chance for revenge, and despite our differences, he was still my brother.”
“How sentimental.”
I glance at Tasia again, even though I know I should only be focusing on Solanis. She isn’t weak despite never having seen or been to Ilenima. Fighting her won’t be anything like fighting made demons. Still, she has them for backup while I have only myself to depend on. My beast shuts down my logician and lets rage flow through my body. All of that stuff is just useless extra information. I have to kill Solanis, so I will. To protect her. To protect Tasia.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Solanis asks as she lets her beast manifest partway, revealing lunar moth-like wings and deadly poison barbs on her hands. The fuzzy antennas on her head twitch violently, taking in every square inch of this area. “Why are you fighting against me? We’re on the same side.”
“No, we’re not,” I say through clenched teeth. My fangs elongate, and my horns push through the skin on my forehead. I stop my beast from transforming my body any further after my tail, large draconic wings, and scales have manifested. “Everyone in this base belongs to me. You’re threatening what’s mine.”
“You think just because you’re older than me that you can boss me around,” Solanis says coolly. “But any way I look at this, it just doesn’t make sense. Why won’t you join me in destroying them? What’s really going on?”
I’m done talking. I leap forward, ready to land the first strike, but I fall back at the last second, as fire starts enveloping Solanis. I look at the previous burning piles of rubble to see that the fire is gone from them and is now surrounding her like a protective shield.
“I’ll burn you alive,” she promises. “You’ll pay for underestimating me.”
She spreads out her hands and pieces of the flames ball themselves up into bullets as they fly forward. I can feel made demons from behind, about to grab me and hold me in place, so I wait until the fire is just about to sear through my flesh before leaping up to the ceiling and holding myself up by a light fixture. Shrieks of pain echo through the halls as made demons are pierced with fire bullets.
I just drop down from the light fixture I’m holding on to when Solanis sends more fire spiraling in my direction. I send out my awareness, desperate to find a water source. I’ve heard some demons are so in tune with the planet they can pull moisture from the air itself, but I’ve never seen anyone accomplish such power in Terra. Terra dampens our abilities to control the elements, no matter how in tune we may be, and I don’t want to try gathering the snow and ice outside.
It seems I’m in luck. There’s a large water pipe located just below. I bring my claws to the ground and hit the glazed concrete floor. The earth hears me and parts slightly, but it isn’t enough. I don’t create a big enough hole in the ground to avoid the next barrage of fire bullets. My jaw locks down as the flames bite through my imperfect draconic armor, but I ignore the pain and hit the ground one more time before another stream of fire can burn me again. This breaks the earth down to the water pipe below. All it takes now is a slash of my claws to break through the pipe.
Water bursts up from the hole I created. I take control of the unruly liquid and will the spray in front of me as I hop out of the hole in the ground. The water coalesces in front of me to create a transparent wall. Solanis shrieks as her fire extinguishes piece by piece as it hits my water wall. Unless she or one of the made demons starts another fire, she won’t be able to use that element for much longer. She’s almost used every last bit of fire surrounding us. Even if she had more available, it doesn’t look like she’s going to last much longer. The immense strain Terra puts on us when using the elements is showing on her face, in her body. She’s trembling and sweating.
She tries hitting me a few more times, testing whose will is stronger, but my water wall holds and her fire withers away into nothing. Using the planet can make us strong, but it can also leave us weak. Now’s my chance.
While Solanis tries to recover from the strain, breathing heavily and backing away from me, I command the water in front of me to rearrange around her head. Water floats and bubbles into a solid orb encompassing her head like a helmet. She starts choking and drowning, but I hold my hand firm, willing the water to stay. My willpower is stronger than hers. The made demons around me can see that for themselves, and most of them flee. Loyalty isn’t a quality we creatures of darkness usually possess, so I’m grateful when that statement holds true, because my body is starting to give out. I just need to hold on for a little longer. I just need to drown her a few more times.
I keep the water under my control for a couple more minutes, and then I can’t hold it anymore. I lose all control of the element, and the water encasing Solanis’s head like a solid glass orb falls away and splatters onto the ground. She is still alive, but she’s too weak to call upon the planet again. So am I at the moment, but I still have all of my life essence while she’s died many times already. I pull her up by her hair as she coughs and tries to recover from the grueling torture I put her through. She never gets the chance. I slip my claws into her chest, remove her heart, and devour it.
The burning sensation of her heart clawing its way down into my stomach lasts for only a moment, and then what was left of her life essence becomes mine. I wipe the blood from my mouth as I drop her limp body onto the ground. Then I say, to any of the made demons still hanging around, “Unless you want to die as well, I suggest you leave.” They do. Like the cowards they are.
Now I can finally let my eyes rest on my prize: Tasia. She’s holding her left arm, blood slick on her skin and clothes. She’s hurt worse than I thought. I don’t think. My beast wills my body toward her. My logician tries to make itself heard, reminding me that I’m forgetting something.
I breathe in a sharp breath of air just to get it knocked out of my lungs in the next instant as I’m slammed into a broken wall. I feel cracked ribs as I lie there dazed for a few seconds. When my vision clears, the first thing I see is the made angel rushing toward me in the skin of a polar bear. I’m ready for him this time. I ease myself off the ground and catch the almost-dead angel’s swinging paws with my claws, and then I twist around him, giving myself leverage and the upper hand as I slam his face into the ground.
“I’ll kill you next,” I whisper into his ear.
“Please, let him go!” Tasia cries from behind me. “I’m the one you want. Let him go.”
My logician demands I kill the angel, but it’s once again eclipsed by my beast, who obeys Tasia’s request without question. I release the unconscious polar-bear and step away from him. My beast walks me up to Tasia, and then it recedes from my appearance, sensing her unrest with my current body. I watch her eyes intently, looking for cues. Even looking as human as I can, she’s terrified of me.
Unable to maintain eye contact, I turn my attention to her wounds. Her arm is bruised badly, possibly broken. “You’re hurt,” I state, though it’s obvious.
I rip off my tattered jacket and fix her arm up in a makeshift sling.
She asks, “What are you doing?”
I say nothing.
“Why are you helping me after you killed my parents? Why didn’t you kill Rynne when I begged you not to?”
There it is again: “You killed my parents.”
Seeing the way she looks at me, the things she’s accusing me of, why do I care so much? I don’t know her. None of this matters, and yet she has absolute control over my beast, over me.
I say, “I’ve killed many in my lifetime, but your parents aren’t among them.”
“You lia—”
“It’s the truth. I don’t know what the angels have done to you, precious girl, but they’re using you.”
“I don’t even know any angels.” She shakes. I bring my eyes back up to her face to see tears streaming down her cheeks. “Or, at least, I thought I didn’t. But Rynne, he… he’s an angel, isn’t he? Nothing makes sense. What were you doing there, then? At my house? You were going to kill me! You killed them!”
I bring my left hand to her face and wipe away her tears. This time she doesn’t flinch when my skin touches hers. The fear she has of me seems to fall away in place of something else. I can look into her eyes now, really look into them. There’s something familiar in those eyes, something I know I’ve seen before, but I don’t…
Instinct takes over. My beast takes complete control of my thoughts, my feelings, my actions, and I lean in close to this human I’ve never met. My lips brush against hers, hanging slightly open, and I kiss her. Her lips are soft under mine, accepting my kiss like she’s been waiting her whole life for it, like she wants it more than anything. Everything makes sense in this kiss, and yet nothing could be more confusing.
Despite her body’s obvious willingness, she draws back from me. The look in her eyes has turned into utter disgust. “Don’t touch me,” she half orders, half begs. “I have to help Rynne. I have to…”
She tries to peek over my shoulder to see her polar bear angel. I shouldn’t care about how she reacted. I shouldn’t care about the way she just looked at me, but my beast is crushed. It’s whining in my chest, begging her to see me again. To really see me.
“Why won’t you just kill me?” She sobs. “Why are you torturing me like this? Stop making me feel things that aren’t real! I love Rynne, and I hate you. I hate you more than anything!”
I’m not sure what she’s talking about. She’s the one torturing me. She’s the one making me feel things I shouldn’t. She’s… feeling things she shouldn’t. Is she suffering as much as I am?
I catch her face in my hands and force her to look at me. “You’re in pain,” I say. “Being near me is agonizing. You think about me even when I’m not there.”
Her eyelids flutter rapidly. Her mouth quivers, but no words come out. Then she nods.
This is something. We’re talking. Sort of. Maybe I’ll get answers this way. Maybe I can ju—
I jump away from the girl, but I don’t do it soon enough. Something smashes into my side and burns through my flesh as I’m pinned to a wall with a silver sword. The curly strawberry-blond hair of the angel wielding the sword falls around her, gravity finally catching up with the speed of her movements. I’ve seen this angel before, a long time ago. She was a master in the Servant Program. And not just any master. She was the master of the elite team, the team my grandfather was a part of.
She slightly retracts her blade from my stomach just to twist it upward and farther into my flesh, until it’s poking up into my rib cage. Blood gushes out of my mouth, stifling a cry from escaping my lips. The sound comes out as a garbled mess instead, as I spit up more blood. Black is flashing across my vision, but my beast manages to manifest itself into my physical appearance again. I slice the angel holding me captive with my claws. She’s wearing silver armor, but my claws pierce through. I don’t care if I have to get a few more cuts by silver if I can just reach her heart. She can tell that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, so she retreats from me. I grab the silver sword and pull it out of my flesh. Blood pours out of the gaping wound as I toss the burning weapon to the floor. I’m losing so much life essence over what would be an inconsequential wound had this been caused by a sword made of anything but silver.
The angel rushes at me again. She’s moving faster than I thought possible with her logician in full control of her physical appearance. I can’t risk my beast taking complete control of my physical appearance. I can feel angels all around. They must be clearing out the base. The presence of so many angels in Terra in one location… I’ve never heard of such a thing. I guess they’re finally getting serious. My best bet is to hide my beast and to run. It’s either that or die.
The lithe angel has her sword again. She swings at me, but only manages a shallow cut this time. I glance back at Tasia, wanting nothing more than to take her with me, but she’ll only slow me down. And she wouldn’t come willingly. I have to leave right now.
“Your fight is with me,” the angel shouts as she swings her sword again.
I allow the tail of my beast to manifest. Then I smack the angel with the end of my tail, sharp and deadly like a knife. She flies back into a wall. I use the opportunity to escape through one of the demon-made entrances into the base. I quiet my beast and let my logician resume control over my appearance, hiding my demonic presence as well as I can as I run far away from the base. I do it just in time, because the light of angels consumes the base moments later. I stick to the shadows, to the areas where I can fade into darkness.
The wound inside of my body has healed enough to stop the constant gushing of blood, but each step I take is painful. Fucking silver and angels. Both are deadly, and when combined, they’re hell. I bring my hand to my stomach as I stumble forward, farther away from the light. I grunt as the wound continues to burn, but I don’t let it stop me.
I failed. I couldn’t bring Tasia with me. My logician assures I did the right thing. There’s probably at least one angel who knows Tasia’s unique aura. That means, if I had her with me right now, they would have already come after us—probably. She’s a death trap for me any way I look at it. Anywhere near her is dangerous. There was no way I was going to get any answers out of her because she doesn’t understand any more of what’s going on than I do. Whatever the angels did, it’s working both ways it seems, but she has more power in this relationship than I do. She stopped me from killing a damn angel. I obey her words, and I don’t even think twice. She’s dangerous, and I should have let Solanis kill her, just like Yuki said. So why does my beast fight so vehemently against the thought of killing her?
It’s because being away from her is painful. I want to be near her. My beast wants to be near her. If she’s dead, I’ll never be near her again. I didn’t think it was possible to die again, but now I think it is. I died the day Emma died, and that fact will never change. But Tasia has brought a flicker of what I was with Emma back to life. My beast acted erratically around Emma too. I gave everything I am to Emma. I gave up everything for Emma. And now it’s starting over again, except this time it’s a perversion of something that was once so beautiful. It’s as the girl said: I’m feeling things I shouldn’t feel because the angels have found a way to do the impossible. There is indeed a connection to mine and Tasia’s souls, but it isn’t of our own doing. The angels made this connection, and since a connection between two souls is something between those two souls alone, this angel-made connection is tainted.
Unless I can break it, it’ll destroy me and her. Helena is the only one who might know how to stop this. If she’ll see me soon, I might still have a chance. Otherwise, my life is over. Because I can’t even carry through with the simplest solution. I can’t kill the girl.