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“You do realize we will move faster if I carry you, right?”

Erytheia and Tama were patrolling the area near their new apartment for the first time and the cat was leaving no area unchecked. But even in his determined pace, the cat, being small as he was, did not move quickly. At least, not as quickly as a knight could.

“I know that! I’m…” And Tama began to feel uneasy as if admitting something he hadn’t wanted to. “… just so used to patrolling on my own, is all.”

While it was true that, before they had left for Japan and stopped powering up for a time while the boy finished his studies, Tama had always traveled alone… that wasn’t the main reason he objected to being carried.

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t allow Erytheia to do so either. Their two years together had strengthened their bond and the two had gotten quite close. It was that Tama didn’t want to feel like he could not be useful as he was.

“It’s okay. I didn’t mind.”

Tama relented and the knight picked him up gently in his arms.

Erytheia jumped from rooftop to rooftop, the Mauvian tucked into his arms and held close to his chest. Tama would never admit it, but he liked this. The boy’s aura of Cosmos felt so warm and pleasant.

Erytheia felt it first. A pinprick of Chaos at first, but it grew larger as he approached, filling up to be equivalent to his own in power.

✪ / ☆

Tama felt it next and he was most ill at ease.

Erytheia may be less inclined to wish for a fight or even expect one, but Tama knew Destiny City. It was not like where they had been. It could be dangerous powering up here.

He felt Erytheia stop. Felt his hesitation. Felt his grip remain on him and not to reach for his weapon.

“You may be hoping for some late night chats, but this ain’t it, kid.” Tama mewed, annoyed. Sometimes the young man acted as the knight he had grown to be. Other times, well…

Tama dropped from his grip as Erytheia drew his weapon. The bow he had first seen those years ago was still the perfect weapon for the knight of Cosmos. The young man knew how to handle it. Now if only he were a bit more ready to aim first than wait, but the cat knew he’d wait. He’d wait for a sign the enemy really was that — the enemy.

Tama, while not one to go looking for a fight, was much more ready to than his companion.

And there it was, coming to meet them, the aura they had both felt.

Tama was the first to react to seeing Faustite. He hissed at the feeling of the unnatural heat that came from the general. But he stood by the knight, knowing which of the two of them held the weapon.

But Erytheia didn’t fire his bow, but only stood ready to draw.

“Please don’t go collecting any energy this evening.” The knight of Cosmos said in a voice that was not unkind yet also not threatening. It was a warning.

Tama growled ready to pounce. He’d give the general one sentence, if only to appease Erytheia. Then he was attacking.

✪ / ☆

There it was again, the cat noticed. The knight hesitated, was going to let the man leave. Would likely have taken his eyes off him too had he walked away entirely. But instead he had teleported next to him, hand on the bow.

Didn’t I tell you…

Perhaps it was the youma parts that made the cat’s fur stand on end or maybe it was his own feline intuition, but he had a bad feeling about this one.

“Do you expect me to believe that one such as yourself managed to attain their rank in Metallia’s service without stealing any energy?” The words came from the cat and were much more unfriendly than the knight’s.

Tama was sometimes dense, but he wasn’t an idiot. The aura he sensed was strong and you don’t grow stronger in Metallia’s service without doing far worse than draining a few civilians.

The cat eyed the man’s hand on the knight’s weapon. How dare he touch it?

Sometime seethed in Tama. Perhaps it was because he knew Erytheia never struck first, but it was more likely possessiveness that made him move more than anything. He pounced, attempting to give the general’s errant hand a fierce bite.

✪ / ☆

Tama watched as Erytheia recoiled at the heat just as much as at the general’s words.

The knight was out of practice, the cat noted. But at least he remember that he was quite flammable in that outfit!

“Don’t take your eyes off me!” Tama replied as he readied his star beam, letting it loose and bracing himself for the recoil. Using the beam could be such a pain for him, but he needed to give the knight a chance to break the distance and draw his bow… if he would.

Erytheia, though out of practice being a knight, was not so similarly out of practice with the bow. He had practiced many times with earthen bows just the same. As if in reply to both the cat and the general, he hopped back, drew his bow and fired.

✪ / ☆

The explosive firestorm licked at the cat’s fur, singeing it and leaving the tell-tale smell of burning keratin behind.

The Mauvian couldn’t avoid it and would have been entirely engulfed had his form not been as it was — a cat. Small and unable to withstand the gusts, the whorl pushed his body like it was nothing and sent him flying before dropping him. Even his feline grace couldn’t keep him righted as he tumbled into a heap of smoking fur.

Part of his cape was hanging limp on his shoulders, half destroyed from heat.

Erytheia was not close having gotten some distance between himself and the flame general. But that much sacrificed for gain was soon lost as Faustite closed the gap again with his teleport.

Luckily, Erytheia had seen that trick the first time and knew it was no use drawing an arrow at such close range. Had he not looked to the spot where the man had left, the knight may have done something other than just stand there.

The general reached. Said words. Snarled something.

Erytheia registered none of it.

All he saw was Tama.

“Tama!”

The cat heard the boy cry.

The rest is up to you now. Tama thought as he tried to stand, but found he was unable to. His left haunch was burned down to the flesh.

Erytheia’s emotions flared, activating his aspect of Cosmos. A fire shone in his amber eyes that was not there before. His expression said he wanted to say. He wanted the general to burn.

He extended his hand to grab the general’s outstreathed one.

Let him burn.

✪ / ☆

Erytheia grasped the man’s hand tightly and let the power of his aspect of Cosmos flow. The burning sensation of chemical starlight should make the general regret closing in so soon. Still, the knight knew it would only give him a small opportunity to break away.

Erytheia had to make physical contact to use his aspect to injure the general, but his opponent only need to be near to active his magic.

He had seen what the attack had done to Tama and knew he had to keep his distance. But it wasn’t just that. Tama wasn’t moving. He had to get to him.

Hoping the feeling his aspect was enough to make Faustite recoil, he did what he could to break away and get to the Mauvian.

✪ / ☆

Erytheia moved to Tama with speed he didn’t realize he was capable of in his knight form. His first reaction to the cat’s wounds was to cringe. He’d never healed a wound that great before and it would take all of his power to even see if he could.

The knight didn’t have that kind of time. Once contact was made and lost, the effects of his aspect didn’t last long. Hopefully, it was just enough time… and a deterrent from trying to grab him again.

A swift getaway was the best option. He’d need both time and space to heal such a wound as Tama’s and, with an enemy with Faustite’s abilities still so close, he’d need a way to create that distance.

He did know of one way.

And she wouldn’t like it.

“P’rue!”

Erytheia grasped the small gilded bird cage on his waist and called out to his summons, channeling his magic through the artifact. A large cream colored bird appeared next to him. It dipped its long neck towards the ground where Erytheia picked up the cat.

She snapped with her beak once in protest — she didn’t like the Mauvian one bit — but she relented when her starlit eyes met the desperation in Erytheia’s own.

P’rue bent a wing as the knight of Cosmos climbed on her back holding the unconscious Mauvian.

Now, to get off the ground…

✪ / ☆

P’rue flapped her wings in one giant gust of wind.

Getting off the ground proved to be not as difficult as imagined. The summons could easily fly with one passenger, but would struggle with two. Luckily, Tama, in his cat form, hardly counted as a second.

Avoiding Faustite was another matter entirely.

Erytheia hadn’t seen anything like it before but he would not soon forget it. The general’s body became one with the flame in his chest. No longer appearing even slightly human, the living fire threatening to engulf them all.

The flame began to work around the knight’s leg as P’rue began to fly higher. He could feel it burning at the white cloth of his uniform licking at his flesh as it burning the cloth away.

Erytheia let this first instinct die in that flame. To try and put out the fire was not his goal. Instead he channeled his aspect of Cosmos even more.

Let whatever was left of the general in that living flame burn.

✪ / ☆