Welcome to Gaia! ::

The moment the woman disappeared, Dionysia was in motion.

There was nothing sophisticated about his movements. Teleportation was, always had been, the greatest tool in the Negaverse arsenal and the most difficult to counter. They could disappear at a thought and reappear just as quickly, and there was nothing a stationary person could do to fully get around that -- but for the rest of them that couldn't teleport, they'd learned a few basic rules that could save your life if you followed them.

1) Teleporters needed a few fractions of a second to reorient their brains after moving; even after envisioning a destination, the eye still had to take in the new angle of view and communicate to the body where its parts were and where they needed to go -- it wasn't instantaneous. There wasn't time to get in an amazing roundhouse kick or anything, but there was time for:

2) Staying in motion. No matter where your opponent was going, the odds were good that if you stood stupidly in place, it wasn't going to do much in your favor. Literally anywhere you could move, even if you shifted just slightly in that fraction of time, was potentially going to help you. Especially because:

3) About eighty-five percent of the time, they were going to teleport in right behind you. It was the best move, hard to defend properly from the receiving end -- but it meant that if your one attempt to move assumed your opponent was going to be somewhere behind you, you were probably going to get it right.

So when the woman disappeared, Dionysia immediately ducked forward and into a twist -- which in this case meant taking a knife in the upper arm rather than in one of his squishier, less irreplaceable parts. The knife dug through skin agonizingly, then caught slightly in the gold cuff he wore around his bicep, dragging.

She had two knives. He brought his staff back around to try to knock the one that had cut him loose from her hand and his arm cuff, winding his magic up and around it for the strike. If he could manage to hit the knife, she'd be down to just the one for the next minute or so, and he'd be in better shape, even injured. If not, he at least stood a chance of blocking a second strike and hitting the other knife instead.

"Ah!" he said in a tight voice, still stubbornly upbeat. "I see the lady has a discerning eye. You're correct, over there behind me me is a rather interesting landmark. That's the clearing where the kids all hold the Christmas pageant every year. We build a stage -- it's great work for the teenagers, too, gets them learning carpentry. Do you have children, sister?"

Light and shadows flickered beyond his eyelids. He could almost have pretended they were laying along the bank of the little stream, leaves overhead fluttering the reds of sunlight beyond closed eyes. Almost, but didn't need to.

They will come. For me, and you will be hard by. I wish I could take on so many at once. I would be a knight, indeed. I would spare her eyes so much more blood. Oh shooting star beside me, I would have liked to raise you up if I were tall enough and set you to sky in happiness again. Instead you've been stuck and stained on this poor Earth. Poor Earth and her people. We will give them at least a little more time to finish, escape, regroup.

I miss the fjord. The fresh air and the water reflecting the mountainsides. There was never enough time to know it well.
I miss Ida's humming when she was lost in thought.
I miss Ladon's cooking, even if cookies weren't the best use of some supplies.
...
I miss the dampness of Xanthus' hair, feathered against his cheeks when his helmet was off.
I miss your gentle hands on my face- they were words and sighs enough.


The light faded and he opened his eyes even as the sounds of hooves came near. Height was a great vantage to find all he sought around their broken homes and flames. What he couldn't tag right then, as they road would do. The voice of Næryofjord of Earth called their focus away to face him in Honor, even if only for too few breaths.

The press on their allies would lessen. The Evacuation might be finished. It was a good plan. Trade two knights for how many others? He would pay it. He pointed and called them. Then took his place behind Hvergelmir on proud Eikþyrnir.

Sure, the Transcended Princess was off handling other things - but she wasn't his real target, and Kerberos was content to let her go. He had yet to catch sight of Avalon, and he was beginning to wonder, frustratedly, if she was even here - it would be just his luck that the day they attacked, she was out on a mission or in the city or God knew what else.

And then he felt a tug - dissimilar to the pull of his fellow Ascendeds, but a draw to a battle, and he followed it, and he chased with a teleport and a snarl. His snarl turned into a delighted laugh when he relaized who he had followed, because while the Earth Knight wasn't familiar he was an Earth Knight and those had always been Kerberos's favorite toys, and...

"Hvergelmir!" There was no forgetting her face, or her distaff, and she was known enough that her name fell off his lips with ease. "I didn't realize you were so eager to play again..."

CW: Explicit gore

The blistering burn spread across his body with all the tar that once protected him, feeding on the black detritus to heat to intolerable levels. He gasped and choked for air, though too little came - the flames burnt up most oxygen before he could draw much in. Bischofite himself tried not to look toward the skin that now peeled away in pools of pus and water, drawn straight out of the flesh beneath, tried to close eyes knowing that the lids would soon sear to his corneas and he would never know this world again.

And his last sights... Thraen, there, encroaching from the fallen body of Penthesilea. Were he able to stomach the pain, he might've noted something about their progress here, but now all that remained to draw his attentions were the snakes of fire coiling tighter about his body.

Another howling groan escaped him as a means to translate the pain to air - much like, he knew, he himself would become. Ash and charred meat - what little would remain of his form.

The trek felt too long, stumbling about until a brilliant flash seared his eyes alongside the flames, blotting out the lot of his vision to enthrall him with the harrowing thought that he already died. Yet, the agony remained, still strong as even in his bones and flesh and what nerve endings hadn't yet melted away with the oppressive heat. Even his optic nerves burned, and for a moment he sought to cover his lids with blistered palms to ward away at least one of many pains. It did little good but it offered a moment of temporary piece for him to discern his next movements.

It wouldn't be long now, he knew. No existence lasted an eternity - not even the stars.

When his vision returned to him, he reached the edge of the grasses. There stood enemy of old, already weary, with a black cat coiled about his neck. Limp. Familiar. He knew the grey striping almost immediately, and the star marking his forehead confirmed his old cat's existence as a Mauvian. You certainly didn't awaken for me, you old fleabag. Was it Quenton then? How did Thraen come about this cat?

Who is Thraen? No time for predicting - murder is quicker than deduction.

No words came from the creature when he soughed a flamed strike against Thraen, a set of searing claws to scrape across face and take the other eye. If we both fight in darkness, I will win. There's no other choice. I'm out of time. His body could only afford a constant offensive, so he followed up any attack he could manage with a second, a third. The tar wholly dissipated from his bone wings allowed movement enough to attempt spearing, if Thraen managed to hold his ground against claws.

There's no time left, he reminded himself.

Disce pati.



The bone spires erupting from the tar have receded! However, all tar pools are now on fire!

His physical wounds had been healed by the senshi of prayer, something he was thankful for, but the emotional and mental were far from healed and he doubted they ever would heal. He knew he had to accept it all, and he did, and move on. Zach wouldn't have wanted him to dwel on it and let it eat away at him till nothing was left, the other would have had something to shout at him about it, and so he was working his way through it while he recovered physically. Acrucis had, much to his surprise, been able to fix all the damage Kazenite had done to him - in one go! He hadn't exactly been in good shape when he'd been rescued. The General Queen was a cruel women, not that he hadn't known that previous to his capture and subsequent torture by her, but now he was physically better and wandering around the cabin deep in the woods.

The cabin had been Zach's idea more than his own, a safe place for Acrucis to hide if the need ever arose. He'd funded it and hired a crew outside of the city to build it, he didn't want anyone within the Negaverse to find out about the cabin after all. Riley and Cadha lay on the floor even as he heard the girls phone go off. Glancing up from where he'd been reading, a book Acrucis had bought him, he tilted his head. "It would seem someone needs your attention - you should go. I'll be fine." He wasn't alone, not with the two dogs here, even if he still felt empty with Zach no longer there. At that thought he felt one hand tightening it's hold on the book he had. Kazenite...he'd find her one night and kill her - slowly and painfully. His position in the Negaverse, as a traitor, was likely wide known by now and so hunting her down inside the city would be most difficult and yet he wished for little more than to hunt her down and feel her blood over his hands, spattered on his face, as he tore into her and ripped the life from her. To hell with taking her starseed, he might rip it from her cold dead body, he wanted to see her bleed and feel the hot red fluid on his skin.

Shuddering at the thought, pleasure flooding his system, he closed his eyes for a moment and pushed such thoughts aside. Tonight certainly wasn't the night he would find Kazenite and kill her. He knew he might never find her and be able to kill her but the idea, the hope, would keep him going and so he held onto the pleasurable thoughts of her death.

Slowly slate colored eyes opened and looked to the senshi of prayer. He could never tell her his thoughts, she would be horrified, it wasn't something she should know. She wasn't the same innocent and gentle person he'd once known, once sworn himself to protect, but she was still the senshi of prayer who could heal people. She would not know of his thoughts and desires, morbid as they were. They
were thoughts which he would share only with the two dogs in the dark of night as they lay together in the cabins single bed, the dogs lending him their warmth.

"What's the message say?" Maybe he shouldn't be so curious but he couldn't help it, he worried for her.

"******** you," Leto cursed at the Ascended Senshi, glaring at her with every bit of hatred she had inside. The Princess stumbled backwards slightly when Lellouch released her and she found her footing surprisingly easily- after years of knowing her Eternal attack well, she was able to maintain her balance.

When Lellouch started talking, Leto's temper flared to heights she didn't know were possible. Her upper lip curled in a snarl and she was milliseconds away from throwing herself at her to rip her apart at her very seams. Until Persephone was mentioned. "Shut up," Leto said through clenched teeth.

Except Lellouch most definitely did not shut up.

"Shut up!!" She screamed at her and shook her head. No no no... Panic.

No, she's lying.

Her heart sank.

Don't listen to her.

She wanted to throw up.

She's right.

Persephone wasn't there. Ares abandoned her. No one was there to protect her. No one trusted her. No one loved her. The Princess of Camoflage was alone.

A choked sob escaped her lips as she collapsed to her knees for seemingly no reason at all. She felt like she couldn't breathe. Suddenly, Leto was gasping desperately for air and trembling all over, her chest heaving with every breath.

Was this what a panic attack felt like?

Hot tears prickled at dark red eyes and the tiny Princess dropped to her side and curled in on herself with her hands clamped tightly over her ears.

No more voices. No more. Block them all out.

When she felt a pull against her leg, her eyes snapped back open and while she tried to struggle she had mentally lost the will to fight back. Sitting up, Leto reached out to Lellouch to try and grasp at the prosthetic, until the metal was swung and cracked against the side of her head and her body crumbled with a thud.

Then there was only black.

Hugbell looked up when Chariklo addressed her she smiled, "Sure." Despite having come with nothing left to the camp she was needed and that was nice.

"It'll be like traveling with my Cousin." She said softly as she would be happy to follow Chariklo through the mirror. "Let me know when everyone is on the other side I'll call my princess attack, and try to get everyone some relief from any pain they have." She looked towards the other princess hoping that would be helpful.

CW: Explicit gore

The heat cooked away the lining of his lungs, every breath wheezing out with smoke and cauterized tissue. Portions of his body - the carapace, the talons, the wings themselves - slowly grew ashen and gave way their own slow trail of dust while he moved. Every muscle in his body threatened to curl inward, fetal, to shy away from the unyielding flames. For a breath he wondered how many of his organs still functioned to some capacity - how many existed beyond the state of an overcooked slab of steak.

Lyonesse's taunts earned nothing more than a tortured cry in response. He was beyond words, now - beyond want of them.

Vines sprouted from the ground that sought to take him, and for a moment, he considered it Thraen's magic. He held his breath as practiced, yet no blooms grew at his feet, and even the vines themselves shriveled away in charred husks only moments after adhering to sickeningly overcooked skin. It no longer hurt.

A last teleportation traded him the distance to the one marked by Lyonesse's tender touch, a man he himself never recognized, but it never mattered anymore. He would never know the story between these two beyond a simple touch - a universal sign of care, of intrinsic devotion to this man. That's all he needed for reason, and all he could ever want.

Shortly before he seized the man's face, anchoring it backward before running a bone finger through his brain stem, he realized how impossibly simple the world became when one was slowly burning to death. All the extraneous stripped away with the flames - the care about the Negaverse, Metallia, the senshi, the hunt for Quenton, the need to prove himself - into smoke they ascended. Now, in these last moments, he knew only loyalty to true Chaos, to spreading about as much violence and pain and anarchy as he could manage with his dying bones.

And this man, this nameless man, would not be the last.

The gout of blood and brain matter helped to douse some of the flames, though it would matter little in the end - he knew all too well that no amount of youma grafts in the world would save him now.

But it never really mattered.

Rancor mattered.

A hand now bloodied reached out for Lyonesse's face, swiping for his vision before a followup came to grip his skull. The pressure should prove distracting enough to run a bone finger upward from abdomen to heart. And afterward, Thraen would come, if the man would not stop him in that moment.