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Theocratic-Monarchy: SunSide
23rd Day of Month 6, Year 1628 DG
Vy-Ro’s threat comes to life before Kyoko’s eyes.
It becomes evident quite quickly that he has decades of experience over her. She twirls and dodges and evades, keeping him at the tip of her blade, attempting to strike when an opening presents itself, but the Braver General is unfazed.
He’s opened a wound on her thigh, thrown a dagger through her shoulder, and knocked teeth out with spiked ore knuckles. Her exoskeleton defended her cheek, and it’s the only reason so few attacks have wounded her.
His years of experience have made him adept at recovering quickly and continuing the battle, yet she successfully knocks his blade from his hand and jabs the tanto into his side. He hollers and she tries to repeat the motion, but he quickly grabs her wrist and pulls her forward, driving his knee into her ribs and knocking her onto her back.
Before she can get up, his fingers fly to the hilt of another throwing dagger. She catches a glimmer of starlight off of the metal and realizes what he’s going for. By the time the dagger is launched, Kyoko is expecting it and picks it right out of the air.
Alba trained her how to do it; the mari would’ve easily done it herself.
As Kyoko holds the dagger and maintains steady eye contact with Vy-Ro, she realizes something. Something that could save her life.
Vy-Ro thinks he’s unbeatable, but Alba truly was. The quantity of his experiences cannot outweigh the quality of hers. He needed twelve Bravers to defeat her, because he couldn’t do it alone.
Without hesitation, Kyoko launches the dagger at his wound so hard that even part of the hilt digs into his side. He falters, but is quick to regain his footing and pull the throwing dagger out of his side, releasing it into the mud. He unsheathes another sword so quickly, Kyoko isn’t sure where he pulled it from, and charges toward her.
She tightens her grip on the tanto, still dripping with his blood. This time, she keeps Alba’s words in her mind. She remembers every lesson and brings it to the table.
Vy-Ro slashes the blade at her multiple times in quick succession, but she twists her body in a fluid motion that allows her to backhand the tanto directly into the side of Vy-Ro’s neck. It’s an evasion tactic Alba would use with her spine fins to divert the path of an opponent’s blade.
Vy-Ro stumbles back and tears the tanto from his throat. He drops his sword and tries to contain the blood flowing from the wound. It sprays out as he drops to his knees and gurgles blood through his mouth and nose.
Kyoko moves quickly to dig her thumbs into his gray, pupil-less eyeballs, pushing them deeper into his skull. His hands fly up and wrap around her wrists. He tries to scream, but nothing comes out other than the blood gushing from his neck.
Kyoko pushes harder and harder until she punctures the eyeballs and blood runs down his face from the sockets.
His hands become limp and fall to his sides. Kyoko removes her fingers and the Braver General’s corpse drops into the mud. The Librarian stumbles backward as the world spins and a lightheaded fog takes over.
She’s lost blood. A lot of it. Her thigh, hip, and side throb with the ache of the clustered wounds mangling her exoskeleton. The muck and dirt become her resting place as she grows cold and nauseous. The smells and sounds penetrate her eyes and ears and nose. She’s exhausted, physically and emotionally. This is war, and she isn’t sure if she’s going to survive it.
A vision approaches her and she accepts she must be dying. She sees Alba...nares in place of a nose, forearm and spine fins; the vision is definitely mari.
But when it speaks, it has a low-toned voice that doesn’t belong to Alba. It is familiar, though, and it brings her comfort in what she believes to be her final moments.
“Kyoko,” the mari voice says. “I’ve got you.”
Warm arms wrap around her and hoist her up, carrying her from the battle. Before the world starts to go dark, she musters out what few words she’s able to.
“Thank you, Rafa.”
***
THE FACILITATOR BLOCKS Kruga’s beam, but Symin’s makes contact. The paralysis ends and the two Mega drop to their knees as the pixie is launched backward.
Symin gathers his wits long enough to place a hand on Kruga’s shoulder and make a circle in the air with the other. He completes it and they’re teleported into a wide courtyard, surrounded by stone columns and the night sky overhead.
“Where did you bring us?” Kruga asks, catching his breath.
“Somewhere within the Castrum,” Symin pants, registering the faerie architecture.
Saith appears over Kruga’s shoulder. The nymph’s knuckles light up and he swings around, but it goes through the Facilitator’s face, as if he’s made of mist. The apparition disappears, and reappears next to Symin, who does the same.
“He’s toying with us,” Symin growls.
“I do enjoy playtime,” says the pixie, appearing again in actuality. He uses the Radiance to slam them down, face-first, into the stone ground of the courtyard. Pain rattles Symin as blood pools out of his nose and onto the ground.
He rises to his knees but his surroundings start to blur. He blinks and tries to rise, but all he sees is Saith standing over him and smiling. The pixie raises his hand and his palm lights up, ready to blast Symin’s life away.
Until something attacks him.
Symin has never seen anything like it. The creature has the head of a wolf, but stands on two legs. It’s enormous, towering over the Facilitator. A mane of thick fur rings its neck and trails down its spine. Dagger-like teeth sit in a powerful muzzle. Tight skin stretches over thick blocks of muscle.
It’s terrifying, but fascinating.
The bipedal wolf battles a startled and repulsed Saith. It dominates him until a beam from the pixie’s eyes launches it across the courtyard. The creature whines in pain and growls loudly.
Then it shrinks back into Naina.
Symin musters energy to lift the stone columns around them. He launches them at Saith, who blocks the first six with ease, but the following come at wild angles. They collapse in on him, slamming into the ground and burying him under tons of broken stone.
He finds Salessa and Kruga helping Naina to her feet. She looks healthy and strong, and a wave of relief washes over him.
“It was more than just my energy in those cuffs,” she explains. “Every ounce of Radiant energy from the abductions was injected into me.”
“You have to leave,” Symin says to her, urging her to escape.
“No,” Naina protests. “I’ve been waiting twelve years for this.”
“Naina, he could kill us all,” Kruga pleads.
“I came here knowing that was an option.”
“We can’t run now,” Salessa says, peering over Symin’s shoulder.
A cyclone of stone rubble twirls over the columns. Massive blocks rise into the air and launch to the sides of the courtyard.
Saith hovers toward them, brushing dust from his clothes, wiping away a droplet of blood from a small cut on his forehead. “You’ll suffer for that.”
Naina pushes Salessa toward the side of the courtyard. “Sit down behind one of those columns. Don’t make a sound.”
“What are you going to do?”
Naina turns back to face the Facilitator. “Get my vengeance.” The bipedal wolf erupts from her body and howls into the blanket of darkness over their heads.
The pixie grimaces. “What are you?”
She bounds at Saith, and he raises his hand to paralyze her. Successful at first, she’s immobilized, but Symin can see her struggle against it until she overpowers it. She crawls forward, teeth bared, tugging at the ground like a shark battling a current.
Saith’s eyes widen and it becomes evident he’s never experienced this before.
Symin recognizes this as the only moment Saith’s focus is lowered. He places a hand on Kruga’s shoulder to command his attention, and when their gaze meets, a silent understanding transfers through a short nod.
This is it.
Kruga’s eyes ignite purple and soar over the crawling Naina to blast the green pixie. He’s knocked backward, dropping his hand and releasing Naina, who bounds forward again, closing the gap between them.
She reaches him, jaws wide, inches from claiming his head, when he sinks into the ground below him and vanishes.
Naina spins, growling and barking wildly, searching for the pixie’s escape route. He appears again, rising out of the ground behind Kruga. The nymph doesn’t have time to react. Saith grabs hold of the back of his neck and carries him through the air, slamming him against stone walls and columns.
Within seconds, Symin has heard every bone in Kruga’s body shatter. He leaps forward and claps his hands together, releasing a blast directly at Saith, who drops Kruga’s limp body to raise his forearm and block it.
Symin slams one foot on the ground. The stone of the courtyard ripples away from him like a wave. Saith closes his eyes and drops into the ground yet again, as the wave of stone crashes into the wall behind him.
The pink nymph searches frantically until an idea strikes. He closes his eyes and casts a web of Radiant energy out around him. The web is disrupted by the sudden appearance of unfamiliar energy behind him.
I got you.
Symin turns quickly and blasts beams from his eyes again. The pixie is pushed backward, smoke rising from him, until he opens his mouth wide and allows the energy from Symin’s eyes to flow down his throat.
“Delicious,” he says, swallowing. “That doesn’t taste like any Radiance I’ve experienced before.”
“It isn’t,” Symin admits, taking the moment to catch his breath.
“It tastes powerful. Perhaps I don’t need the animals after all. Could you be the key, nymph?”
Before Symin can respond, a sharp bolt of lightning drops down into the courtyard and hits Saith, who cries out in pain and drops to his knees. Symin looks up to the skies and sees Zalona lowering down next to him.
She puts her arm around Symin’s waist to help support him, but he shakes his head and warns her, “Keep your eyes on him, not me.”
Saith hovers again. He is no longer smiling. He makes a wide sweeping motion, and a dark cloud appears in front of him. Massive daggers of ice erupt from the cloud and soar toward Symin and Zalona.
Symin slams the ground with both fists and a wall of stone pops up in front of them. The ice daggers shatter as they collide with it. Zalona steps up onto Symin’s back and launches over the stone wall, kicking yellow blasts of energy at Saith.
Saith skillfully catches the energy in his palm and shoots it back out at the stone wall. It strikes their protective barrier and explodes. Symin crosses his forearms and is able to maintain his position, but Zalona is blown backward. Her body rolls along the ground and then she slowly gets back up to her feet, bleeding from hundreds of tiny cuts all over her face.
“Are you not exhausted, nymph?” Saith asks.
Symin doesn’t respond, keeping his forearms crossed and gaze focused.
“Alright. We’ll continue.”
Saith’s arm lifts overhead. Dark clouds form in the night sky and Symin steadies himself for whatever punishment will rain down on them. The clouds sit menacingly for a moment, before raging balls of flames descend from them like blazing hailstones. They come so quickly, there’s little time to protect themselves.
Symin closes his eyes and ducks, awaiting the falling flames, but they don’t come. He looks again and finds the embers extinguishing on an invisible barrier overhead.
Ovida enters the courtyard, both fists raised, drenched in blood. Her barrier not only protects Symin and Zalona, but Salessa on the side of the courtyard.
“Let’s finish this, Sy,” she says.
Symin relaxes his exhausted muscles, breathing a sigh of relief. His energy wanes and he questions the power he has left.
“What’s the plan?” Zalona asks Ovida.
“I don’t think we need one,” the General responds.
Zalona and Symin follow her line of sight to the stone wall behind Saith. Naina crawls down toward the pixie from the top of the wall like a spider. She is slow and agile, and the ripples of her massive muscles shiver in the starlight. She keeps her growls in check, and the Facilitator remains unaware of her.
She drops down quickly from the wall and latches her jaws onto Saith’s one remaining arm. Before he can retaliate, still caught off guard, Naina jerks her head back and tears his one remaining arm right out of his shoulder.
Blood paints the ground. Bellows of agony ring out into the night sky. Naina doesn’t hesitate; she leaps forward for a second bite, this time at his head, but he’s alert now. His eyes light up and blast her in the face at point-blank range. She’s blown backward, whimpering as her body slams into multiple stone columns.
Saith’s wounded shoulder begins to glow, and Symin realizes he’s using the Radiance to contain the blood flow and heal himself.
Now armless, the pixie growls in Symin, Zalona, and Ovida’s direction. “You’ll all die.”
His mouth opens wide and releases a high-pitched shriek. The soundwaves extend out forcefully, tearing the stone floor apart and pushing the Mega backward. They all cover their ears while trying to maintain enough balance to stay upright.
The sound waves enter Symin’s ears like explosive needles and cause ruptures. Blood seeps out and down his cheeks. He clasps his hands on his ears harder to try and drown it out, to end it.
And it does end. Symin opens his eyes wearily, the courtyard spinning. Ovida and Zalona lay behind him, unconscious. Naina, back in her human form, slowly starts to stir on the other side, rubbing her head and rising to her knees.
He’s the only one left in any real shape to fight. And yet, he feels inadequate to do that, his energy depleted.
Saith closes his eyes and another copy of him appears to his left. Then to his right. Then another to his left. More copies arrive in the courtyard until there is a line of twelve. They all stand, smiling, facing Symin.
The nymph looks down at his hands and tries to sense how much of the Radiance is left in him to fight.
Next to nothing.
He has enough human energy for one final action.
The twelve Saiths’ eyes light up, and twenty-four beams of energy blast out at Symin. He closes his own eyes and uses what little Radiance is left in his body to perform his final Radiant action.
When he opens his eyes, he’s in a verdant forest. It feels alive, like it’s breathing around him. He is dressed in a white outfit made of light, airy material that covers him from the shoulders down.
An entity appears before him, startled. “No essence has ever arrived before their time. You’re here seconds early. How?”
Symin’s essence rises to its feet. “I used what little Radiant energy I had left to come. To buy time.”
“Time for what?”
“A request—one which I humbly beg you to honor, TreeKeeper.”